Victor Deus (Heritage of the Blood Book 1) (30 page)

As Ashur gave them their options Shawnrik found his thoughts drifting back to the idea that Dunnagan had laid before them earlier in the day. Those thoughts mingled with the threat of the Orcs, and it all seemed to click together in his mind. He realized then that Dunnagan had been speaking to him especially. 'We stand,' didn't simply mean facing needless odds or a futile battle with things that you could do nothing to control. That was fine for things like mountains or the planet that didn't have a choice in the paths that they followed, but it was the perfect ideal for a protector. The mountains and the planet stood protecting what they held most dear. They didn't do it out of a self possessing urge to face the inevitable stoically, they did it to allow others the time and chance to do the same.

“If we don't fight 'em they will just jump the next group to pass by.” Shawnrik looked from Ashur to Dunnagan and smiled. “We stand.”

As they began to round the bend Dunnagan pulled his axe and said. “Aye lad, I knew ye'd get it. Now, let's whittle away at the ragged edges.” He winked.

The three were laughing together when the charge came.

The Orcs never knew what hit them.

Chapter 12

Unwelcome Guests

Year 3043 AGD

Month: Preparation

Fourth Eightday

Continent of Terroval

City of Safeharbor

Nim's manor

Nim came awake suddenly, years of dangerous situations had honed his mind into warning him when something was not right. He realized that the doorway into his room was slightly ajar a moment before he sensed movement towards the foot of his bed. Pulling the dagger he kept under his pillow he was able to parry the first blow from his would-be assassin. Rolling off the bed he grabbed the hilt of his longsword and unsheathed it as he completed the roll to land on his feet. His opponent, seeing that his initial attack had failed and his prey was now armed pulled his second dagger.

Looking at the man who had tried to take his life while he was sleeping, Nim knew that the fellow was a member of the Guild of Shadows. Assassins for hire to the highest bidder. Nim had dealt with the Guild before, usually it was fighting them, but occasionally he had hired them, and considering the predicament he was in now, he rather favored being the contractor rather than the mark. Another thought then went through his mind, someone wanted him dead, and he didn't appreciate that very much.

“Your days of meddling are over Nim.” The man shrouded in black said icily.

Instead of replying verbally Nim responded with a high thrust of his longsword aimed at the man's head. The assassin tried to get in low and take advantage of the opening Nim had created in his attack. Nim's dagger had been at the ready for such a maneuver however, and deftly diverted the path of the assassin's leading dagger, throwing the man slightly off with his second attack allowing Nim the time to dodge out of the way. As he turned he used his still extended sword to bash the side of the assassin's head, he didn't have the leverage to do any damage with the blade, but it was enough of an impact to make the assassin move backwards quickly, slightly dazed.

Not allowing the assassin time to shake off the blow Nim moved in quickly with a fast series of blows, keeping the assassin on the defensive. To the man's credit he was able to block every blow as he was forced steadily backwards. His flaw however was in his limited knowledge of his surroundings. It took the man only a moment to realize that he had been run through from behind, as the man looked down at the point sticking out of his chest he saw realization flow into the assassin's eyes right before he died. The man had backed up into the statue of a unicorn that Nim had on display in his room, it's horn had broken through his armor and body like it wasn't even there, as it had been designed to do.

Taking a moment to catch his breath Nim realized he could hear fighting outside his door. Taking up a defensive posture, Nim opened his door to find Bartholomew and Jenn standing side to side holding back three other assassins. Jenn held her twin daggers out before her, ready to fend off attacks, while Bartholomew held a pair of sticks in each hand. When the door opened, showing Nim instead of their fourth companion, one of the assassins lunged in between Jenn and Bartholomew trying to strike him down.

Ever protective, Jenn plunged her dagger towards the man who dared to strike out at Nim, unconcerned about how her own opponent might use this to his advantage. He fell to the floor with a dagger sticking out of his armpit, his heart having been punctured cleanly by the blade. The look of surprise on his face nearly mirrored the one of his companion who tried to take advantage of Jenn's attack. Before he had even begun to leap for her exposed side he felt a piercing pain in his skull as Nim's dagger entered his eye and ended his life.

The final assassin, in the room, saw that the odds had quickly changed against him and decided to take out the old man as quickly as he could. As the assassin moved in one of the sticks in Bartholomew's right hand darted out and struck the man in his gut, knocking the wind from him. The assassin realized too late that the man he was facing wasn't as old or defenseless as he had initially thought. Having only heard stories about the weapons in Bartholomew's hands the assassin was not prepared to face a master of the weapon simply known as chain sticks. The assassin tried to take a swipe at the old butler while his body recovered from the first blow. Instead of backing away from the blow however, the chain of Bartholomew's wrapped around the blade of his dagger and ripped it from the assassin's grasp. His eyes went wide a moment before the end of the chain sticks in Bartholomew's other hand struck his temple, and the world went black.

The three took deep breaths, as they felt the familiar effects of adrenaline coursing through their systems.

“Did they cut either of you?” Nim asked, checking to make sure his companions had not taken even a scratch. “You can never tell what those bastards have on their blades...” With that thought, another struck him, “...where's Victor?!”

Jenn looked around, embarrassed that she hadn't thought about Nim's ward. “I don't… I don't know. Last I saw him he was headed toward his room for bed.”

Nim ran down the hall, past the stairwell, and around the corner. He barely slowed down as he turned the nob and opened the door to Victor's room. He realized several steps into the room that he may have made a mistake as he heard several weapons being unsheathed. Coming to a fast stop he flipped backwards towards the door he had just entered as four daggers flew through the air he had occupied half a second before.

Four men stood in the room, one in each corner, obviously waiting for their target to return. He heard one of them swear as one of the errant blades that had been thrown connected.
Four men for me and four for Victor? Someone wants us dead badly. Why send four for the boy though?
Nim wasn't given time to dwell on these thoughts before three assassins began to carefully move towards him. The fourth fell over, no longer able to use his legs as whatever neurotoxin that coated the blade already quickly working through his system. If the assassins had come straight for him, they might have taken him out, but their cautious approach gave Bartholomew and Jenn time to enter the fight.

“Go make sure the girls are safe Jenn, and find Victor.” Nim heard Bartholomew say to Jenn as he entered the room.

“But..” Jenn replied, obviously hesitant to leave them alone against three men.

“Just do it Jenn, if they are being attacked they are going to need your help more than we will. Besides, these men aren't nearly trained enough to take us out.” Bartholomew entered the room slipping past Nim to his right, and immediately began assaulting the nearest assassin.

Nim heard Jenn pause, and could feel her eyes on his back. “Go!” he yelled. She turned and ran, and he let out a sigh of relief. He had taken her in several years ago, and then allowed Ashur to train her when she had made it apparent that she was going to be getting into trouble one way or the other. She had quickly become overprotective of him, and had taken it upon herself to ferret out any potential dangers against him. Nim knew that she was infatuated with him, maybe even in love with him, but he also knew that she knew that he could never love her as long as Erin was out there somewhere.

Nim focused on the lights in the room and they came to life, disorienting the assassins who had been sitting in the dark. He struck out at the man on his left and scored a small gash on the man's arm. Nim ran up the wall and cartwheeled over his opponent, landing behind the assassin, severing the man's spinal column in one smooth motion. Bartholomew was losing ground to the two assassins that had decided to gang up on the older opponent, once again underestimating the old butler.

“Interesting night sir.” Bartholomew calmly held the two men back, his sticks whirling in front at blinding speed, creating an impenetrable barrier.

“Yes, quite a night. Did you take their coats as they came in?” Nim laughed as he began to move around behind the two assassins.

“Sadly no sir, they seem to have no manners.” Thinking for a moment he added, “but at least their shoes are clean.”

Nim laughed again as the two assassins involuntarily looked down at their shoes. At that moment an explosion went off over their heads. Taking advantage of the explosion Bartholomew made an attack with each hand, sending a stick heading towards the temple of each assassin. One of the assassins avoided the attack, but his companion was not so lucky, crumpling to the ground in a heap. Unfortunately for the man who avoided Bartholomew's attack he stepped right into Nim's blade, impaling himself.

“Go check on Jenn and the girls, I'll head to the roof and see who's trying to blow up my home.” Nim ran towards the stairs leading to the roof as Bartholomew took off in the direction that Jenn had run off shortly before.

Earlier, on the roof

Victor found himself unable to sleep, he and Nim were scheduled to travel the lines of power with the army in the morning. At the beginning of the month the talks about the troop transition that would begin on the first of Ragnós. If he would have been told three Eighthdays ago that he would be traveling with the Knights he wouldn't have believed it. After the month he had gone through however he no longer doubted.

Sleep eluding him Victor decided to go outside and get some air. Throwing on his clothes, and his dagger belt and the bandolier of daggers that High Commander Cantel had given him less than a Eighthday ago. When he reached the roof he realized that he had put on his weapons automatically, something he would not have done two Eighthdays ago. Nim had taken him back to each council meeting, and Victor now knew things that no one outside the council knew. His attendance had a side effect that he had not expected and he had been given attention by several of the council members over the past four Eighthdays.

The first one to come calling had been the Arch Magus himself. He had impressed upon Nim, in more than a few words, the fact that Victor would be best served by being tested and given training by the Mages. To Victor's dismay Nim had agreed on letting the Mages take him for a Eighthday. In that time he was tested, given a dozen books on Shaping that he was supposed to memorize, and taught how to safely test the limits of one's abilities. He was taught the basics on how to focus his Shaping in combat quickly, with deadly results, from Zander Halcyon; Who seemed to take especially well to the young boy. He had come back to Nim's manor after that Eighthday feeling like he was ready to collapse.

Victor was only given half a day of rest by Nim before he took him out into the caverns beneath Safeharbor for a three day excursion. During this time Nim built upon the things that Victor had learned about skulking from his time as a thief. He refined Victor's talent at manipulating shadows to make them look more natural, and how to use a cushion of air around the feet to reduce the noise made. Before the three days began Victor had thought that he knew quite a bit about how to sneak around unnoticed, at the end of the three days he realized he had a lot more too learn still. There were some things that Victor had been taught during those three days that he didn't want to think about, but he knew deep down that someday they would be useful. Victor slept very well the night they had gotten home from their excursion, more from exhaustion than anything else, he just wished he could have been given another day or two to rest before more people came to take up his time.

The next morning High Commander Cantel and High Lieutenant Commander Theromvore stopped by, telling Nim that he should have the boy train with the knights, especially if he was going to go with the army at the beginning of the month. Nim had not even told Victor that he was going to take him with them at that point, and he made the Commanders promise not to let their deduction slip into the wrong ears. They agreed, on the condition that Victor go with them until they were ready to leave. Which would have been fifteen days; they settled on eleven. For nine of those days Victor spent ten to fifteen hours a day training with High Commander Cantel, High Lieutenant Commander Theromvore, or General Theromvore. The last two days had consisted of a fourteen hour session of riding lessons from Rigel north, and a twelve hour sailing lesson on a patrol boat with Abe Swiftflow, on what seemed to Victor to be an unusually stormy day. At the end of those fifteen days he knew that he had reached the end of his energy reserves.

Each person had pushed him in a different way, the Knights and Mages had been training kids for thousands of years and knew how to safely test the limits. On the off chance that they had miscalculated, there was always a cleric nearby, just in case. The last three days Victor had done little more than sleep, eat, read, and practice his forms. Nim had him practicing his sword exercises and working with his throwing daggers, but these were things Victor enjoyed doing so it had been like heaven compared to the previous twenty six days.