Assassin's Curse (37 page)

Natasha followed Jeda into the wagon and surveyed the grisly scene.
 
She turned to the men following and told them to sound the alarm throughout camp and search for any intruders.
 
“If you find anyone, do not approach them alone,” she instructed the men.
 
“Call for help.
 
You two come in here and help with poor Mathew’s body.”

“They won’t find anything,” Jeda told her, stepping aside to let the men remove Mathew.
 
“They are already gone and they have Keisha.
 
Mave left his mask for me to find so I would know where to find them.
 
They have taken her to the guild house at Constantine.”

“Why would they do that?” Natasha asked, tears streaming down her face.

“So I would follow.”

“When do we leave?”

“
We
are not going anywhere.
 
It is too dangerous for anyone else to come with me and I will not have the time or luxury to look after anyone else.
 
I will need to confront Mave alone and with no distractions.”

“Oh?
 
What about the rest of his men?
 
What will you do about them while you confront this creature Mave?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“No you won’t.
 
You’ll just get yourself killed along with my daughter and unborn grandson.”

That stopped Jeda as he finally heard what Natasha said.
 
“Grandson?
 
The baby is a boy?
 
How do you know that?”

“Foolish man, how can you be so powerful and yet so blind?
 
If you ever realize your true potential then these things will be as obvious to you as they are to me.
 
For that reason alone, I am coming with you.”

“So are we,” chimed in a pair of voices from the wagon’s door.

Jeda looked at the girls staring at him defiantly.

“Da, before you start, it won’t matter what you say.
 
If you don’t let us come with you, then we will just follow you by ourselves.
 
We have already come too close to losing you and we won’t let it happen again.
 
You need us just like we need you.”

“The danger is too great,” Jeda replied softly, knowing it did not matter what he said.
 
He knew his girls well enough to know that they would do whatever they thought was best.
 
If that meant they would storm an impenetrable fortress guarded by the most ruthless killer in the kingdom, then that is exactly what they would do.
 
He shivered at the thought of what they would be like when they were fully grown.

“Poppy, Keisha is our mother, too,” Kala said with finality.

Jeda nodded.
 
“Get ready then.
 
We leave immediately.”

***

Mirabelle watched from the window of her wagon as the four rode off.
 
Thankfully, she had been forgotten with the discovery of poor Matt and the kidnapping of Keisha.
 
Once the four of them were out of sight, she enlisted the help of a few of the men to get her team of horses hitched to her wagon.
 
Natasha had given strict orders for everyone in the troupe to continue to their next stop and set up the show, but Mirabelle had no intention of staying another moment with this cursed family.
 
She told the man that Natasha had left in charge that she was following Natasha to lend her whatever assistance she could.
 
After all, that was what sisters were for.
 
Whether anyone believed her or not, no one attempted to dissuade her from leaving.
 
Neither did anyone comment when she turned her team along the east road instead of following the north road that Jeda and the others took.
 

The feelings of being cursed went both ways.

Mave found the clearing he was looking for about halfway between the towns of Redstone and Faypond.
 
It was a perfect spot for what he planned.
 
The road curved sharply around the clearing, and the opposite side of the road was bordered by rough scrub and tall brush.
 
He directed his men to drive the wagon into the clearing and tip it over.
 
It looked like the wagon had careened out of control and tipped over trying to take the bend at top speed.
 
Jeda would recognize the setup for the ambush it was, but Mave knew it wouldn’t matter because his pregnant wife was still in the wagon.
 
Letting the tailgate of the wagon fall open, Mave took a few steps back to make sure anyone approaching from Redstone would have a clear view of the helpless, unconscious woman lying inside.
   

Satisfied with the view, Mave had one more piece of his trap to set up.
 
“Take the oil lamps and pour them out over the wagon.
 
Make sure there is an ample pool of oil beside the traitor’s bitch in the back.
 
Keep your flints and fire arrows ready, but do not fire them unless I signal you or I am somehow killed.”

When that was accomplished, he motioned for his two men to hide in the bushes across the road while he moved off into the clearing.
 
If Jeda
was
foolish enough to bring the twins, then his men would grab them while Mave took care of the traitor.
 
If Jeda was smart and left the twins behind, then Mave would capture him first, before making the short trip back to the gypsy camp to collect the twins.
 
He almost hoped that Jeda had left them back there because it would give him a reason to return and kill a few of the gypsies while grabbing the girls.
 
Those lowlifes had played a large part in hiding Jeda and the girls and they would pay too.
 
If that turned out to be the case, then Mave planned on making a captured Jeda watch the entire massacre.

Once he had the twins and Jeda secured, he planned to move immediately to the next village: Faypond.
 
It was an insignificant town, but it was located beside a large lake with a river leading to the ocean.
 
There was also a fast ship anchored there waiting for Mave to arrive.
 
Travelling by ship from Faypond to Constantine would be much faster than any of the overland routes.
 

Crouching in front of the wagon, Mave smiled.

I will finally have that bastard who has destroyed my life.

***

Jeda was pushing the horses hard, far harder than he would have under any other circumstances.
 
Mave was headed to Faypond and there were at least three different routes from there to Constantine.
 
If he did not catch Mave before Faypond, then he would lose the trail and be forced to meet Mave in Constantine on his terms.
 
But if Jeda pushed the horses hard enough, he might just get lucky and catch the cold-blooded assassin on the road.
 
While all these thoughts swirled around in his mind, he spotted a wagon on its side in a clearing by the road.
 
He pulled his horse up short and motioned for the others to stop.

Natasha came up beside Jeda.
 
“It looks as if that wagon rolled over while trying to make that turn.
 
I can barely make out someone in the back of the wagon.”

“I know.
 
I see someone as well.
 
This is a trap, though, and Mave is waiting for me somewhere up there.”

“We have to see if that is Keisha,” Natasha said earnestly.
 
“She may be hurt.”

“I know that too, but we don’t know how many men Mave has with him.
 
Rushing forward blindly to get
ourselves
killed will not help her.
 
You and the girls stay back while I go see what’s happened.”

Reluctantly, Natasha and the girls did what Jeda asked.
 
They watched him slowly approach the wagon, scouting the clearing and brush for any signs of the assassins.
 
He reached the wagon without incident and rode completely around the wagon before dismounting at its rear.
 
One quick look in the back let him know the body in the back was Keisha.
 
He signaled for Natasha and the girls to come forward as he checked to see if his pregnant wife was still alive.

“I think the bitch is still alive,” a familiar voice called from the clearing.
 
“But truthfully, I didn’t bother to check after I dumped the wagon.”

Jeda looked up from the wagon to see Mave stepping out of a deep depression into the clearing.
 
Jeda had easily missed him when he rode by.

“Didn’t smell me this time, did you?” Mave sneered contemptuously.

“I didn’t have to.
 
This has your mark all over it; the mark of a coward.”

Mave laughed.
 
“Is that the best you can do?
 
Take a good smell, traitor, and then tell your little witch girls to back off.”

Jeda inhaled deeply and then saw the oil pooled in the wagon.
 
It was a firebomb ready to explode in flames.
 
He frantically waved for Natasha and the girls to stop.
 
They stopped, but couldn’t hear what the assassin was saying to Jeda.

***

The cool breeze that Mirabelle had always wished for had finally arrived, swirling down from the north.

“You smell something funny?” Kara asked the others.

“No, I don’t smell anything,” Kala replied.
 

Natasha did not answer, but simply shook her head no.
 
She was too busy trying to spy inside the wagon to see how Keisha was doing to notice anything else.

“I smell oil,” Kara declared.

Natasha looked up and sniffed the air. “Oh no, you’re right and it’s coming from the direction of the wagon.
 
It’s probably dosed in lamp oil.
 
That’s why we can smell it so far off.
 
That’s how that bastard is controlling Jeda.
 
He has men hidden somewhere ready to burn the wagon at his signal.”

Kala looked at Natasha.
 
“Nana, he wants Poppy and us.
 
If we give ourselves up, maybe he will let you and Mama go.”

“No, he won’t.
 
I know men like him, sadistic and evil, filled with hate for all that is good in this world.
 
That man will just kill us and force you both to watch.
 
We must get him before he gets us.
 
Kara, I want you to prepare your strongest wind spell and be prepared to blow out any fire that comes near that wagon.
 
I am going to blast that devil back to the hell he came from.”

Natasha kicked her horse forward.

***

Mave looked down the road when Natasha started forward.

“I told you to control your witches,” he told Jeda through clenched teeth.
 
“Now you can watch while your precious wife burns to ashes.”

“Wait, that woman is not a witch,” Jeda said quickly.
 
“She is her mother.
 
Don’t give any signal and I will come with you peacefully.”

“Fine, but everyone off their horses.”

“Natasha, dismount before you approach.
 
Tell the girls to dismount as well,” Jeda yelled.

She nodded and dismounted.
 
She signaled back toward the girls and they dismounted as well.

Mave watched the woman carefully in case she was a witch.
 
He looked for any signs of hand-waving or concentration or anything else those damn witches did when throwing their spells and blasts.
 
But the woman kept her hands to her side and looked only at her daughter in the back of the wagon.
 
He never had any intention of releasing Jeda’s wife or anyone else involved, including this pathetic excuse of a mother.
 
He could wait a few more moments for her to get close before giving the signal to burn it down.
    

“Very well, let her attend to her daughter,” Mave replied.
 
“But keep the other two away.”
 

When Natasha neared the wagon, he signaled to his men to shoot the flame arrows.
 
Jeda looked around in horror as two flaming arrows arched from behind a covering of bushes heading directly for the oil-soaked wagon.
 

Mave jumped to cut Jeda down at the distraction.
 
He had no intention of killing him, but to cut him badly enough that he would wish he were dead.
 
It was a calculating error on Mave’s part to discount the speed and strength of the wildings of magic, especially the wise women of the great gypsy families.
 

With no preparation or thought, Natasha pointed at Mave and shot a blast of elemental fire at him that threw him back over twenty feet.
 
She then turned to meet the flaming arrows, but Kara had already blown them both out of the sky with a wind spell.
 
What she didn’t see was the stone as it came streaking out of the bush.
 
The stone hit Natasha squarely in the head and she fell to her knees, stunned.