The Sorcerer's Legacy (54 page)

Azerick just nodded, unconcerned with the town tough. Maude stood up from her chair and walked up to the bar next to Azerick.

“Mind if I buy you a drink?” Maude asked.

Azerick glanced her way and looked back forward. “I already have one, besides, I do not date men.”

Maude’s face turned crimson. “I was not asking you for a date nor am I a man,” Maude corrected him through clamped teeth.

Azerick turned towards the big warrior woman and grinned. “I know. I apologize; I am in an ill sort of humor lately. What can I do for you?”

Maude’s face returned to a more natural color. “My name’s Maude, those two over there are my friends. We run a small adventuring company and I think we have a place that you could fill quite well.”

Maude’s face flushed once more as Azerick smiled pointedly at what she just said.

“Sorry, bad humor again. I am not an adventurer, Maude. No thank you.”

“We are on a mission from the king. If you were to help us, I am certain you would gain considerable royal favor and a sizable reward,” Maude continued.

“I am afraid I am not much of a patriot and I have no need of more gold,” Azerick responded, flatly refusing her offer.

“Well, we’ll be here for another day or two if you change your mind. If you do change your mind and we aren’t here, King Jarvin and his advisors will likely know where to find us,” Maude told him and returned angrily to her seat.

“What did he say?” Malek asked once Maude sat back down.

“Forget him, he’s a complete ass,” Maude answered.

“He thought you were a man didn’t he?” Borik asked with a grin.

“Shut up, dwarf!” Maude snarled.

“I told you that you should let your hair grow out,” Malek said.

“And shave your mustache!” Borik howled with laughter.

Maude slapped Borik in the back of his head. “I do not have a mustache!”

“Look out!” Maude shouted.

Azerick looked up just in time to see Butch standing just inside the doorway and point a crossbow at him. Azerick muttered a word and made a gesture just as the man pulled the trigger and released its deadly bolt. The grim smile slid from Butch’s face as the broad-headed heavy quarrel stopped just inches from Azerick’s chest. Butch’s eyes opened wide in shock as the bolt reversed its direction as it hovered just in front of the sorcerer.

Azerick sent the projectile flying back at its owner with such force that the fletching was lost in Butch’s chest and pinned him to the wall. Butch’s two former friends stood just in the doorway looking on in fear and amazement before running off in a panic.

“Looks like you have a new wall hanging,” Azerick told the stunned barkeep. “I am sorry it is so ugly, I was never much of an artist.”

The tavern was silent, only Maude and her friends seemed to be unbothered by the events this evening. Several patrons suddenly found they had urgent business elsewhere, but there were still quite a few hardcore drinkers that were not going to let a little fight and death scare them off. If anything, it gave them more reason to drown their worries.

Ten minutes later, the pounding of several pairs of heavy boots sounded on the wooden walkway outside the tavern and half a dozen armed men marched in. One man stepped hesitantly forward after examining Butch’s corpse hanging on the wall near the entrance.

The man swallowed and nervously addressed the spell caster that was still sitting on a stool and calmly drinking his beer.

“Sir, as captain of the watch in the town of Sandusk, with the authority to uphold the laws of the kingdom of Valaria as set down by King Jarvin, I am placing you under arrest!”

Azerick turned and looked at the man. The captain was a young man, perhaps twenty-five years old, handsome with an honest face; the kind that probably had nearly every woman in Sandusk crooning at the sight of him in his official city watch armor and uniform.

“On what charge, Captain?” Azerick asked indifferently.

“For the murder of that man hanging on the wall over there,” the captain replied in disbelief.

Azerick turned back around in his stool and faced the bar. “It would seem you have a slight problem in that regard, Captain.”

“What problem is that?” the captain asked, his raw nerves evident in his voice.

“I do not much feel like being arrested right now, so go away and play toy soldiers somewhere else.”

“Sir, if you do not come peacefully I will be forced to arrest you by force of arms,” the captain warned, his voice breaking in fear.

“And you would die if you tried. Do you really wish to die tonight, Captain? Do your men?”

“Sir, please come along. From what I have heard and what I see here, I know that you are powerful with magic and that my men and I may have little chance of forcing an arrest upon you. But I am the law of Sandusk and I am duty bound to uphold those laws even at a risk of my own life. So please, come peacefully or I will use whatever force I can, no matter how futile that may be, to arrest you.”

Azerick felt bad for threatening the honorable man and about his own moody disposition. “Look, Captain; that man and his two friends pulled steel on me and I sent them running with a lesson and a warning. They chose not to heed that warning and Butch returned with a crossbow and attempted to kill me. In his attempt he died. It is a clear case of self-defense that I am certain will be corroborated by most everyone in this bar. I doubt there is a citizen in Sandusk that would not thank me for ridding them of that man.”

“It’s true, John, Butch come in here and fired that crossbow right him. It was Butch’s fault he chose the wrong man to try to kill and I’m glad he’s dead even if he did die with a large bar tab,” Louis told the captain.

The watch captain looked from face to face and everyone in the bar nodded his or her agreement.

“Take that man down from the wall,” the captain ordered his men. “I pray that you will not be forced to defend yourself in my town again, magus. It may be best if you left as soon as you concluded whatever business you have here.”

“Do not be concerned, Captain, I am merely passing through,” Azerick replied.

The watch captain looked at Azerick for a moment as if to say something further then thought better of it and walked away as his men Pulled Butch off the wall and carried him out, leaving behind a large red streak of blood that ran into a puddle on the floor.

Azerick finished his beer in a few quick gulps and left, suddenly eager for the silence and solitude of his room. The few citizens that walked the streets all stared at Azerick as he walked past them, the small town gossip chain having once again proved an efficient news medium. Even the woman that ran the boarding house looked askance at him as he walked through the common sitting room and up to the stairs to his room.

Azerick opened the door using the small iron key he had been given when he rented the room and stepped in, casually swinging the door shut behind him. The room was dark, but enough light came through the window to give the bed, dresser, and small table a distinct if dark silhouette. He had not taken more than two or three steps towards his bed when Azerick heard the faintest squeak of a floorboard just behind him. Azerick leapt forward and spun, just narrowly dodging the attacker’s thrust. Burning pain flared across his side as a blade skipped off his ribs.

The sorcerer’s mind raced with a burst of adrenalin and in a fraction of a second, understood several things. The shield he had erected when Butch tried to kill him had just saved his life a second time. Had the blade not skipped off the invisible armor it would have pierced his right lung instead of simply opening the large gash in his side. He could already feel the warm blood flowing freely down his side, soaking his damaged shirt and leaving large spatters all over the hardwood floor.

Azerick also saw that the attacker was about the same size as he was and with a similar build but quicker and stronger. The man wielded the blade in his hand like a trained professional and came at him relentlessly, making it impossible for Azerick to get off a spell. Azerick twisted away and once again narrowly escaped a lethal slash. A second deep cut added its own source of blood to the now thoroughly ruined silk shirt.

The sorcerer realized how severe the cuts were as he began noticeably fatiguing due to the amount blood loss. The floor was also becoming treacherously slick underfoot with the numerous puddles of blood. The man lunged with his blade, aiming for Azerick’s vulnerable throat. Luck was with him as the assassin’s lead foot slipped in a puddle of Azerick’s blood, causing him to overextend himself.

Azerick took advantage of the assassin’s momentary loss of balance and grabbed the man’s weapon hand tightly in his grip. His attacker forced Azerick back and pressed him against the far wall, trying to shove the blade against his throat. The sorcerer’s eyes widened in shock as the pale light streaming through the window revealed his attacker’s face. It was a face he knew better than any other—his own.

Azerick’s mind reeled as he tried to process the fact that a twin he never knew existed was trying to kill him. Even the clothes looked to be the same from what he could tell in the gloomy room.

The assassin took advantage of Azerick’s temporary distraction and hooked a foot behind the sorcerer’s heel, tripping him to the floor. The killer landed atop his struggling target and slowly forced the sharp blade down towards Azerick’s throat.

Azerick released his grip with his left hand in a wild gambit, hoping to keep the blade from slicing into his neck with only the strength of his right arm pitted against the stronger arms of his attacker. He only needed a second and that was about all the time he was going to get.

Azerick called his staff to his hand and grasped it in a short grip just below the arcanum sphere. He mentally forced the orb to elongate into a twelve-inch spear tip and thrust it deep into his twin’s side. The assassin’s mouth gaped open impossibly wide, letting out an inhuman screech of pain.

With a thought, one of the many runes engraved onto the staff flared brightly, releasing a massive surge of power through the spear tip. With a clap of thunder, pieces of the assassin’s entrails blew completely out if his left side making a wet, sickening slap as they struck the wall and dropped onto the floor in a reeking, smoking pile.

A hesitant knocking sounded at his door followed by the voice of the woman that ran the boarding house.

“Master Giles, I heard a commotion. Are you all right? Should I call the watch?”

Azerick rolled the very dead body off him, staggered to a chair, and sat down heavily. “No need, madam. Everything is fine.”

He reached into the special pockets sew into his cloak, plucked out a small metal vial, and drank the contents after pulled the cork out with his teeth and spitting it out onto the floor. He waited as the healing potion made his wounds itch as they knitted together. After a couple minutes, he popped a second potion and drank it down as well.

Azerick sat in the chair, forcing himself to steady his breathing and waited for his heart to quit racing. Once he felt in control once more, he conjured a bright white light and went to examine his twin. The man on the floor was his exact copy, down to the scar on the top of his head usually concealed by his hair. Even the man’s clothes were nearly identical as if he had purposely purchased them to match his own, which he almost certainly did.

Azerick lamented that he had stabbed the man in the side. He could have replaced his own ruined shirt, but the assassin’s was now in worse shape than his was. Azerick was more aggravated at the loss of one of his favorite shirt than the attempted assassination. He was getting accustomed to people trying to kill him. He only had the one black silk shirt and there was no way he was going to find another one in this backwater town.

Azerick wondered if it even counted as a backwater town since there was probably not an open source of water for fifty miles in any direction. He pulled a deep burgundy silk shirt from his travel pack and replaced the ruined black one after washing the blood off himself then returned to the mystery of the assassin.