Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (28 page)

“There are plenty of people I’ve never run into
twice,” Marik replied, then stopped.  He blinked.  Something was wrong.  He
could not say what, but something raised his neck hairs.

“But not those important to you, such as your family
and closest friends.  They, too, would be traveling different perceptionary
paths from yours, and the theory does not explain such inconsistencies.”

“Yeah.  I guess not.”  Why in the hells were his
instincts going on full alert?  He glared hard, looking for the detail
off-kilter from the others.  She reached over to reclaim her cider.

The mug.

From
the
table!

Instant reaction to the sight made him seize his sword
from the floor the same moment the alley door crashed inward.  He dove from his
seat, shouting while masked figures stormed through the splintered entrance.

“
Look out
!”

The blade failed to clear the sheath entirely.  He
swung his sword around in a rush to meet the attackers and the sheath flew from
the end, missing the first masked figure by inches.  Startled, the thug spun to
see what had nearly hit him.  It gave Marik an unobstructed opening.  Marik
dashed to take advantage of it, but the chair he’d sat on had bounced off the
wall and tumbled across the floor.  His feet struck the wooden legs.

He nearly tripped.  Four enemies were in the room. 
The first two wielded swords while the others held long daggers.  Marik
registered this as a fifth entered the doorway, also armed with a knife.

His mind quickly analyzed the situation.  He kicked
the chair, then stepped back while his opponent grappled with it.  Before the
others could slide past the lead man, he slammed his weight against the table,
ramming it against the wall.  It blocked that side of the room along with the
water barrel.  Only a narrow corridor into the kitchen remained.

Furious, his masked foe booted the chair.  It flew
into the wall where it splintered.  Both men diverted their attentions from the
furniture to each other.

Marik lashed out with his sword.  The confined room
was a severe disadvantage.  This would not remain a one-on-one beyond a few
moments.  His sword met the opposing blade.  A moment later a counterstrike
flew at his head.  He raised his hilt and caught the shorter sword below the
T-guard.  Whoever this masked foe was he had speed on his side.

They traded blows, Marik only landing one for every
two he received.  He swung wildly, wrenching his sword across the room’s
length, refusing to let any of them pass.  A wordless shout bellowed from his
lungs, a desperate call for his friends to get their miserable skins
downstairs.

One knife man climbed atop the table and crawled.  If
he got down he would be able to strike at Marik’s back while he fended off the
sword.  With no mail on, he was acutely vulnerable.

Marik forced the thug’s sword into the sacks.  Grain
puffed up in a cloud, and Marik stepped to the left.  His sword swung in a wide
arc skimming the table’s surface.  It would have seriously injured the knifeman
if he had not been watching.

He jumped backward from all fours to escape the
blade’s path.  Marik struck the mug which had fallen over when he hit the
table.  The ceramic exploded and the thug toppled off the side.  His leap had
trapped him between the table and the barrel.

The other three were still near the door trying to get
around the table.  They would clear the passage in short order.  Marik’s sword
would not hold them back much longer.

He whirled to face the swordsman…and his heart stopped
when he saw Shalla.  She stood before the intruder, arms wide.  The thug freed
his sword from the sacks.  It hovered level with Shalla’s stomach.

“You must stop!” she pleaded.  “Every time you hurt
another, you only hurt yourself!  You must understand!  Please, reconsider!”

In the past, time had slowed to a lethargic pace for
Marik, cruel in its total revelation while robbing his ability to effect
anything.  It happened again.

He pushed hard with his legs, feeling the muscles
exert their force against the floor, leaping for Shalla.  His arms fought to
raise his sword.  Flesh turned to lead, taking days to move an inch. 
Relentlessly, his mind shouted.

What is she doing?  What is she doing?  What in the
hells does she think she’s doing?

He crossed half the distance,

only a few steps, only a few, why is this taking so
long?

and watched in horror when the gleaming sword tip
burst through her back.

Red blood sprayed, sheeting off the steel as water
from glass.  Her robe, always clean, became instantly sodden.  The wetness was
a disease spreading across her back.

“NO!”

Shalla collapsed ponderously, lazily, her legs unable
to support her.  Marik wanted to cut this bastard’s head from his body but
Shalla was still between them.  He heard feet running in the hallway and knew
who it must be.

The masked man yanked back.  He pulled the sword from
her body.  Marik struck with all his strength, hitting the opposing blade hard
enough to force the murderer back.

Desperate hope fluttered within him; Marik dropped to
his knees to examine Shalla when Kerwin leapt past him to assume combat.  He
grabbed fistfuls of brown robe and hauled her across the floor to shelter
behind the table.  His fingers clawed at the knotted cord holding the robe
closed.  Marik already knew what he would see.  Beneath, her bare flesh had
torn wide.  No future remained to her without a true Healer of the utmost
skill.  The chances of finding one in the next ten seconds did not bear
thinking about.

Marik looked into her eyes.  He wanted to tell her she
would pull through.  Such a lie would not be believed…but it would also be unnecessary. 
Her eyes were wide, seeing nothing.  His words would remain unheard.  Gently,
he placed his hands on her cheeks, hoping she would at least feel him as she
died.  Perhaps she might take small comfort from that.

She faded away.  He watched her life ebb through his
magesight.  Sensitive to life energies as he had become, he could feel hers
thinning.  They left her as steam caught on the wind.  Her life joined the
mists in the etheric plane.  Shalla was gone.

He laid her head down softly.  Landon was behind him,
striking at a thug attempting to cross the table.  Shalla’s wide eyes stared at
him.  The bloody streaks left across her skin from his fingers when he closed
them belied her apparent slumber.

Marik rose.  Landon slashed at a knife wielder atop the
table.  The thug was skilled enough to deflect the longer blade.  Kerwin
engaged the bastard who had killed Shalla, his smaller sword sailing through
the air in a dance.  Neither had scored a kill.  Dietrik stood in the hall
doorway, rapier in his good hand, finding no room to join the fight.

Rage, burning, furious, all-consuming, flared inside
Marik, growing by the second, scorching like the sun. 
Perhaps mages are an
evolved form of your One Soul, Shalla.  If that’s the case, then this is for
you!

With his mental hands, he swept in the available
etheric power, avoiding the energy traces that still bore Shalla’s personal
signature.  He flooded his reservoirs and formed the one attack he was skilled
with.  After an entire winter and spring of Tollaf’s nagging he had become
quite proficient at it.

Though unnecessary, Marik raised his right hand,
fingers wide, palm facing his target.  He wanted to be certain this
son-of-a-bitch saw it coming.

In the air directly before his palm he formed his
etheric sphere.  Six inches wide, the ball was composed of raw energy.  Marik
continued pouring power into the sphere until it could be clearly seen by
non-mages.  It glowed white like a miniature star within his grasp.

The sphere flickered, emitting flashes that illuminated
the room in lightning strikes.  Enough pure energy flooded the ball that it
could be heard as crackling static sparks.  Light from the fireplace drowned
beneath the incandescence of Marik’s orb.

All fighting stopped.  With everyone’s attention
focused awestruck on him, Marik glared at the sword wielder.  “
You!
” 
Cruel satisfaction danced in his heart when the eyes behind the mask widened in
stark terror.

Before he could run, Marik released his attack.  The
etheric sphere shot from his hand faster than any arrow.  A backlash of vortex
wind gusted his hair and clothing in a hurricane frenzy when the orb parted the
air with a whip-crack.

The sphere struck the murderer squarely in the gut
before Marik angled it upward.  Its tremendous force lifted him from his feet,
only to slam him into the kitchen wall an instant later.  A louder crack
sounded, either the wall being damaged or his spine and ribcage shattering. 
Apparently he wore mail underneath his tunic.  Thousands of cherry-red sparks
hissed away in long arcs as the mail succumbed to the orb’s power.

An explosion occurred when the sparks met the air-born
grain floating from the sacks.  A brief fireball the table’s size burst across
the wall.  It engulfed the thug while a bloody tidal wave exploded from his
mouth and nose.  Most of the flames vanished with the incinerated grain.  The
body fell.  It hit the floor with wet thump.

Marik, already forming a new sphere, spun on the other
thugs by the backdoor.  They fought each other frantically to leave.  Three got
clear.  The doorway still framed the last when Marik let fly.

His orb struck the thug’s back and hurled him across
the alleyway.  The body folded in half.  With the sphere pressed against the
lower spine, head and feet bent backward until both touched.  He crashed
against the opposite building several feet up the wall, then his body also
fell, clearly dead.  A vaguely human-shaped blood smear marked the wall where
his flesh had smashed apart.

Marik stepped into the alleyway.  The thugs had
vanished faster than water over dry sand.  Spotting their auras would not be
worth the effort of running five miles to catch them.

Inside, Landon and Kerwin doused the burning grain. 
Using strength born from abrupt need, they had ripped the heavy table away from
wall.  They tipped the water-barrel over the sacks before the fire could grow.

Still angrier than ever before in his life,
realization made Marik shout, “Who the flaming shit is protecting Hilliard?”

“Relax, mate.  We shoved him into a hall closet on the
second floor with his blade.  He’s got two robed brothers keeping him company,
and orders to see to their safety.”

Which was quick thinking, Marik understood.  Given
Hilliard, he would love nothing better than to be on the frontline, yet would
take the duty of protecting those weaker than he seriously enough not to look
for trouble.

With the fire out, the kitchen resembled a war zone. 
Kerwin and Landon tossed aside the empty barrel.  While the archer bent to
examine the swordsman’s corpse, Kerwin whistled in admiration for a mess well
caused.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that side of you,” he
admitted.  “Remind me never to ‘arouse your ire’.  You tore them apart!”

Marik hung his head over Shalla’s body.  “Poor
repayment for all she’s done for us.”  He wiped his hand across his tunic,
hating the way he felt.  The idea of using pure magic to kill an opponent had
never sat well with him.  Having done so, he felt dishonorable.  His words to
Ercsilon earlier that day echoed emptily.  Rage quickly ebbed under self-recrimination,
both for what he had done, and that he had not done so soon enough to save
Shalla.

Dietrik sensed his turbulent emotions.  His friend
grasped his shoulder, saying, “I’ve been thinking you might want to carry two
swords around with you.  A shorter blade would come in handy whenever we pull
town duties such as this.”

“Maybe,” he allowed.  “For the present let’s worry
about this contract.  What are you doing?”

Landon paused in his examination.  “This event changes
my thinking.  Attacking us this persistently is out of character for a street
gang, despite the losses we dealt them.  Had we been making a concentrated
effort against them, such a response on their part would be understandable.”

“We were defending ourselves,” Marik finished.  “Maybe
we stepped on bigger toes than we realized.”

“I’m inclined to believe there is more to this story. 
I think Seneschal Locke’s fears might have had a solid foundation after all.”

Kerwin stepped outside.  Dietrik mentioned, “Locke’s
man told him the dark guilds were only just starting to consider attacking the
fosterlings.”

“Which might have been deliberate on the part of the
thieves’ inner circle.  If they have a man inside Duke Tilus’ house, they might
have deliberately passed false information to certain of their own members. 
When their inside man discovers which set of facts the seneschal has, they know
which among them is selling secrets.”

“Damn it, and double damn it to the hells,” Marik
muttered.  “Why attack us here?”

“Easy,” Kerwin answered, dragging in the second body
by an ankle.  “Once we reached our destination, we felt safe, didn’t we?  We
let our guard down.  Plus, if Hilliard fell to street thugs in Thoenar, it
could never be proved that the dark guilds in Spirratta had anything to do with
it, no matter how much Tilus knew it for the truth.”  He dropped the carcass
beside Landon’s.