Eventide (Meratis Trilogy Book 2) (17 page)

The darkness of the room met the darkness of his mind as fatigue washed over him. His limbs floated with sleepiness and alcohol, and he burrowed deeper into the warmth of the rough mattress.

Until the edge of a cold blade touched his throat.

Chapter Ten

J
eff felt pressure on his throat, but the pain didn’t come right away. Heart hammering against his ribs, he froze against the sheets, his muscles weak and heavy with booze and exhaustion. A dark shadow beside him heaved itself onto his back to keep him still, and the force of its landing pressed the air out of Jeff’s lungs. He tried to scream, but with his face pressed into the mattress, only a muffled sound came out.

He wriggled to dislodge the shadow, refusing to give his attacker free access to his neck. The knife dug in, but the edge had turned aside, the flat of the blade now warm on his skin.

Panic danced as spots in his eyes. The shadow was strong, and he couldn’t clear his thoughts enough to fight back.

Fingers grabbed for his hair, jerking back his head. The other hand twisted the edge of the blade back into place. Jeff managed to let out one scream before the edge stroked his throat.

The feel of the blade slicing through his skin gave him the shot of adrenaline he needed, and he fought against the weight on his back.

A giggle in his ear. Female.

The blade returned and pressed harder, this swipe going for the kill. He couldn’t give her the chance. With the will to survive stronger than his lack of skill, Jeff flailed beneath her, rocked back and forth to knock her off balance and get his knees up underneath him. He kept his eyes squeezed shut in case her blade struck home in the struggle. Her hands moved around his neck to keep hold, but Jeff bucked her off, turning his body limb by limb until she straddled him.

In the dim light, her face remained only shadow, but the knife reflected the firelight. He reached up to grab her wrists—so tiny in his large hands for one so strong—as the knife came down towards him.

He saw a flash of teeth as she pulled her lip back in a sneer.

Trying to find leverage on the bed to shove her off, he shifted his focus from the blade for a single moment, but it was long enough for her to angle it so it brushed his cheek, swiping from cheekbone to jaw.

It felt like fire, and he cried out. He scrambled his feet against the sheets and was just about to try to roll them both off the bed when he heard a dull
whump
and a grunt. The blade nicked his ear as it fell, and her weight on top of him went slack, her head falling onto his chest. He gasped for breath, felt the blood ooze from the gash in his cheek and the slice on his throat.

Using what strength he had left in his shaking arms, he pushed the unconscious woman off and heard her land with a
thump
on the floor. Air flooded back into Jeff’s lungs, and he sat up, sucking in deep breaths. His saviour tore a strip off his sheet and pressed it against Jeff’s throat to stop the bleeding. Jeff blinked hard and opened his eyes to take in the form of the man in front of him.

Familiar even in the darkness.

Harold?

“I saw someone sneak in the back door of the Inn, so I thought I should follow. Sorry it took me so long to find her.”

“Thanks … for … trying,” Jeff wheezed.

Harold went to the bedside table and lit a couple of candles, lighting the room enough for Jeff to see the blood on his bed. His stomach turned, and he bent his head down to focus on staying conscious.

“Sit over here. I’ll take a look.” Harold pulled a chair closer to the candles. Jeff shuffled into it and dropped down when his legs could no longer carry him.

Harold pulled away the cloth and grimaced, causing Jeff’s shoulders to tense. The man noticed and shook his head. “It doesn’t look nice. Neither does your cheek. But it’s not too bad. Wait here. I have an injury kit in my pack.”

Jeff rolled his eyes down to the woman on the floor, her breathing obvious in the candlelight. Not dead, then.

“I’ll try and get one of the soldiers to bind her. If they’re sober enough.”

Harold gave the cloth back to Jeff, and Jeff kept his eyes glued to the assassin, expecting every moment that she’d jump up and try to finish the job.

Although he had no idea what job it was she was trying to finish. Had she been sent by Raul? Part of this mystery conspiracy?

She lay on her side, dressed head to foot in what used to be black, but had faded over time to a worn grey. The leather ankle boots were scuffed and dusty; her tunic was torn, showing another layer underneath. He caught a glimpse of a knife sheath in one boot, three on her belt, and could only imagine what bulk she was trying to hide with the extra shirt.

From here she looked young, early twenties, if that. Her skin was weathered and tanned, but far from a healthy glow. A long hooked nose stood out against the softer features on her face and created an intimidating image even while unconscious. Her black hair, chopped short around her ears, was as dusty as her clothing, plastered against her skull with grease.

Nope, he had never seen her before.

Michael appeared in the doorway. “Mercy, boy, I send you to bed and you almost get killed. You have this kinda luck all the time?”

“Yes,” Jeff managed to say, cringing against the pain of flexing muscles in his cheek.

Cassie appeared behind Michael and rushed into the room, stepping over the woman. “My god! Jeff, are you okay?”

She knelt by his chair and slid her fingers into his. He wanted to say he’d never felt better than he did at that moment, but shock had set in and he could do nothing but clench his teeth to keep them from chattering.

“Who is she?” she asked, watching as Michael used his boot to push the woman onto her back.

As the shadows shifted on her face, Jeff had a brief moment of recognition, but before he could place her, it flittered away. He shook his head in reply to Cassie’s question.

She rested her forehead against his and ran her fingers lightly over his hair.

“Better question is, what’d you want to do with her now?” Michael asked, staring down with his arms crossed. “’Spose we should turn her over to the Glenbury authorities, let them try to figure out who she is.”

“Do you think she could be one of the conspirators Harold was talking about?” Cassie asked.

“Want me to wake her up? Find out?”

Jeff stared down at her, the desire to know the truth offset by his overwhelming desire to get warm and go to sleep. Curiosity won, figuring he would be too wired to sleep anyway, and he nodded.

“All righty. I’ll get some rope.” Michael disappeared from the doorway.

“It’s all right, Jeff, we got here in time. God, you’re shaking.” Cassie wrapped her arm around his shoulder and rubbed his arms to warm him up. “How did she end up unconscious?”

“Harold,” he croaked, his mouth dry enough that his tongue didn’t feel like moving.

She met his eye to check if he was serious and then, shaking her head in wonder, reached for the pitcher of water on his bedside table and poured him a glass. “Not entirely useless, then.”

“Just because I don’t flaunt my skills, I hardly think ‘useless’ is a polite term,” Harold said, coming back into the room with his pack slung over his shoulder. In the candlelight he looked almost skeletal, the dark circles under his eyes darker, and the dips in his cheeks deeper. “I may spend most of my time at a desk, but that isn’t the extent of my abilities.”

The man pulled out a bottle of whiskey and, before Jeff could get his hopes up, blotted it on a clean cloth.

“Lean back,” he ordered. Jeff did as he was told, Cassie’s hand on the back on his head to keep him still. “Take away the cloth please, miss.”

She gasped at the mess she saw underneath. Jeff was glad there was no mirror in the room to tempt him to look.

The sting of alcohol would have had him cursing to the heavens if he’d been able to talk. He felt sweat trickle down his face, and his knuckles ached with his effort to push his fingers through the wood of the armrests. Cassie’s fingers stroked his forehead, giving him something to focus on.

Finally the pain subsided and Jeff opened his eyes, just in time to see Harold about to repeat the process with the cut on his cheek. The second cut made him cry out, every nerve ending on fire.

“I don’t think it needs to be sewn up,” he said. “They’re ugly, but not too deep. You were lucky.”

“Lucky I’m still drunk,” said Jeff. “I wouldn’t be nearly so calm right now if I wasn’t.”

The door flew open, cracking against the wall. Cassie grabbed Jeff’s hand as they both jumped, startled.

“Michael just told us what happened,” Jayden said, storming towards the bed. “Someone tried to kill you?”

“How is he?” Brady asked Cassie.

Cassie gave Jeff’s hand a squeeze and stood up. “He’ll be all right. She did a good job trying to cut him apart, but lucky Harold caught her in time.”

The expressions on both men’s faces nearly made Jeff laugh, all surprise and wonder. Even without words, Harold must have sensed their incredulity because he pressed his lips together and focused more determinedly on his pack as he put his supplies away.

“Who is she?” Jayden asked, jerking his head towards the unconscious miss.

“No idea,” said Jeff. “And I don’t really know if I care so much about the ‘who’. Not like I’m about to invite her to tea.”

Michael came back in the room with a length of rope wound over his shoulder. “Darcy’s going to stay outside in the hall, make sure there aren’t any other late night visitors. I see the whole gang is up now. Maybe you lads can give me a hand.”

Brady moved to help Michael tie the woman’s hands behind her back, while the others stayed out of their way. Jayden looked on with a frustrated frown, and Jeff guessed how useless he felt.

“What’d you use to hit her?” Michael asked, his face red from the effort of shifting her. “She’s still out cold.”

“Something I grabbed from the stable,” Harold said, looking around for where he had dropped it. He rose to his feet to search under the bed, then came up with a horseshoe. All of them let out a groan. It was only chance the woman wasn’t dead.

“Where should we put her?” Michael asked.

Harold looked to Jeff. “You all right to stand?”

Jeff considered. He found his legs and pushed himself up, teetering as the muscles in his calves trembled. Cassie moved to his side and guided him out of the way and back towards the bed. The movement made his head swim, but once it passed, some of the fogginess went with it.

Michael hauled the woman over his shoulder so her arms fell up towards her head. With a grunt he dropped her into the chair. Taking the glass of water Cassie had poured, he threw it in her face, and she woke with a gasp, sputtering to get rid of the water. Her head sank down as she groaned.

Jayden took a knee and bent forward to catch her eye.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She spat at him.

Slowly, he wiped his face and sat back on his heels, his face devoid of reaction. Then he repeated, “Your name.”

She raised her head and focused her stare first on him and then on Jeff. The firelight caught the lightness of her eyes, the darkness of her hair. Jeff felt caught by those eyes.

“Why?” he asked. The others probably had other far more important questions to ask her, but for him, that was all that mattered. Cassie’s hand tightened around his arm, the moral support just as appreciated as the physical.

The woman’s only response was a smile, one that would have looked sweet if her hair wasn’t matted with blood, her hands covered in it.

Jayden snapped his fingers in her face to bring her attention back to him. “Who sent you? Was it Raul?”

She still didn’t answer, but Jeff noticed her reaction to the name. A flicker of recognition in those pale eyes, a flash of emotion. It didn’t sound like they’d get all their answers tonight, but at least they found the most important one.

Jeff’s leading question now became
why was Raul sending assassins
?

Michael chuckled. “Looks like we got ourselves a talker. I’ve had my fair share of practice. Want me to take over?”

“I can’t say I like your suggestion,” Cassie spoke up, voicing the same thought Jeff had. Sure the woman had just tried to kill him, but the idea of torturing her twisted his conscience.

“Hard times, hard measures, miss,” said Michael. “It’s not my favourite task, but I perform my duty when it’s called for.”

Jayden rose to his feet. “I won’t have it be said that Feldallian law is unjust. For now, she can’t try again, and that will have to be enough. We’ll keep a watch on the corridor, make sure she doesn’t have any associates.”

“And tomorrow?” Michael asked.

“We’ll dump her with the Glenbury folk,” Jayden replied

Jeff shook his head. “We have to bring her with us.”

“What, cart her all the way back to the Keep? Are you insane? Never mind the extra supplies she’d use up, but think about the security risks. Piss breaks, meal times. It’s not practical.”