Blade Archer ~ Forty-Three

[annarti.livejournal.com]

The evening was particularly dark, the sky blanketed with clouds that had hinted at rain all day but not yet given any. Kael’s hood made it particularly difficult for him to see, but, he reasoned, he didn’t really need to see for what he was doing tonight. He slid through the shadows with practiced silence until he found himself under the window Aen had pointed out earlier that afternoon. He checked the opposing shadows as best he could in the darkness, then hoisted himself up the wall and through the narrow window.

Inside, the camel stables were silent, abandoned by their owner when he had sold the last of his stock months ago, though the musty smell of the animals remained. He surveyed the room briefly from the window, but could see nothing in the darkness, and dropped to the floor where he paused and waited for his eyes to adjust.

Aen had received a note to meet here for his next assignment. The assassin had said this was particularly unusual, since normally his assignments were given anonymously on the note left for him. This one specifically mentioned a meeting to discuss the finer details. A good deal of noise had been echoing in the organisation over the past few months, Aen said, though so far none of it had been heard on the streets, nor by the Talons. At least four factions had formed, so that Kael had to do very little to encourage individuals to take one side or another. They were doing it all on their own.

This latest development, he guessed, meant one side was going to draw Aen to their cause. They already knew of two of the faction leaders, and, though neither was the current leader of the organisation, they suspected one was the leader’s former right hand.

He could see the vague outline of two crouched figures in the abandoned stables now. One was the silent stranger Kael had encountered on the night, four months ago, when he had been captured. The other was a newer recruit to Aen’s cause, just as silent and always hooded. Kael took only a little satisfaction in the knowledge that at least he was just as mysterious to this new recruit as the recruit was to him. Aen made sure their anonymity was maintained among themselves. It was their best protection, he explained. Kael could understand the need, but at the same time, he wished he could know his comrades. He couldn’t completely trust men whose faces he had never seen, voices he had never heard.

He crept like liquid through the stables and approached the stall closest to the door. He didn’t hear the other two following, but knew they were there shadowing him. They hid at the back of the stall, lying down against the wall in the darkness. Unless someone stared for long minutes to allow their eyes to adjust, they were all but invisible.

It wasn’t long before the heavy old doors to the stable creaked open. One set of footsteps hushed into the stables, and Kael stiffened as he heard them pace slowly into the room. He could see the outline of the figure as it passed their stall, but could make out nothing about the person. He or she stared long into the stall, but eventually passed them by.

The doors creaked again and admitted a second, lighter set of footsteps.

‘You’re early.’ A woman’s voice, light but bitter. She walked back towards the doors. Kael used the sound of her movement to hide his own as he flowed to his feet, though he stayed hidden behind the stall. His hooded compatriots slid up behind him as he peered out through the door, keeping his head low.

Aen stood in the doorway, the slip of parchment held up between two fingers before he held it out to her. Kael closely watched the night behind him, but couldn’t yet see the woman’s own hidden watchmen. Aen assured him they would be there somewhere, especially if this was, as they suspected, a ploy to win Aen to their side.

‘You’ve heard the rumblings.’ The woman’s voice was just above a whisper, but Kael could hear her words easily in the silent stables. ‘Why haven’t you chosen whom you’ll support?’

Aen folded his arms and cocked his head to one side. He never liked to say much, Kael had learned, if speaking could be avoided. The less of his voice he made known, the better. ‘None have presented yet,’ he said quickly, his tone the same near-whisper as the woman’s.

‘Your loyalty to us has never been questioned, and yet you have not declared for our leader. You are a man with his own mind. You don’t want to come out with the right side, only the winning side.’ She spread her arms. ‘Mine is the winning side. We have the backing of half the organisation. You want glory in a faceless organisation; we will give you that. Positions of power will be vacated when we emerge the victors. Join with us and one of these positions will be yours.’

Aen stood motionless as she spoke, and still didn’t move when she fell silent.

Kael felt as though his eyes were physically reaching from his head as he tried to peer into the shadows behind Aen. There, a movement in the street outside, and another right behind it. They were assembling. Two, three more drew from the other side of the doors, joining the others in a silent line behind Aen. Once Kael was sure they stood still in the night, he held a hand out at ground level, displaying five fingers.

‘Who?’ Aen finally spoke, confirming that he had read Kael’s signal. They needed to know for whom this woman spoke before he could agree to anything.

‘The victor,’ the woman answered.

Aen’s hood shook in disagreement. ‘Not enough.’ See how badly they wanted him, how much they would reveal for him.

The woman was silent for a long time as she weighed up her options. ‘The victor holds a high rank with the Talons.’

Kael held his breath. A new one, then, one they didn’t yet have the name of.

‘The victor also holds the support of all the Talons in our pocket, and, with the support she already has from the queen, she will rise to lead the Talons within the year.’

Kael grinned. Of all those in the Talons that were being investigated, only five were high-ranking enough to fill that position, and only two were women. It would not take much to lure the one out into the open. He stepped smoothly out from the stall, his hooded fellows behind him.

‘She’ll be imprisoned within the week,’ Aen announced.

Kael pulled his dagger and flung it hard at the back of her head, throwing it so the pommel struck her. The shadow to his left was already running forward with a length of rope to bind her ankles.

Kael strode towards the door, bending to pick up his dagger as he went. Aen had already felled two of the woman’s henchmen and was advancing on a third. The remaining two were moving cautiously into the stable, each with two shining daggers drawn. They each moved with the trained ease of the army’s blade archers, Kael recognised, and were far better muscled than mere trainees.

He gripped his own dagger fearfully as they approached, glad they couldn’t see the fear on his face. He hoped their own faces wore some of the same fear under their hoods.

One lunged, both daggers bared as Kael brandished his single blade to combat them. He dodged the one while fending off the other. He grabbed at the other man’s wrists with his free hand, but always they were out of reach. The hood flapped around his face as he fought. He lunged forward, feinting with his dagger as he thrust out with his braced palm in a move Banok had shown him. He was satisfied to feel his hand connect with a solid oof from his opponent.

The man only staggered back a little, and not for nearly long enough for Kael to push his advantage.

A dark flash of movement distracted him. The second blade archer came at him from the side, but one of Aen’s own shadows barrelled into him, knocking him to the ground.

Kael’s own opponent was on him in a flash. Kael flung out with his dagger in a move devoid of training and fuelled simply by panic. He just barely avoided one dagger only to be caught in the shoulder by the second. He gasped at the pain. A thundering weight shoved him aside and tore the blade free.

Kael stumbled and caught himself on the mud brick wall of the stall he had been hiding in only moments ago. His heart hammered in his chest as he watched the struggle on the floor, hardly recognising which was friend and which was foe. He heard a growl, a yelp, then a sickening squelch, and the room fell silent but for his own breathing and heartbeat.

Aen was standing by the door, his hand on the silent shadow’s shoulder. He nodded and patted him once, then crossed to where Kael stood by the stall. and returned the same gesture. Kael winced at the heavy touch on his tender shoulder.

‘Ye’re hit?’ Aen asked unapologetically. He bent to peer uselessly in the darkness.

Kael shrugged and rolled his shoulder back. ‘I’m fine,’ he said in a low voice. If he couldn’t know who the other two were, they weren’t allowed to hear his voice, either.

The second shadow remained on the ground, and for the first time Kael noticed he was curled over in pain. His breaths came short and harsh, and only between long periods where he held it against the pain.

‘How bad?’ Aen asked.

The shadow shook his hood as he held himself stiffly over his stomach.

Aen nodded and beckoned the other man over. Together they threaded the shadow’s arms over their shoulders.

‘Get her tied tight,’ Aen told Kael, ‘then get to yer source.’

With a muffled cry of pain, they lifted the wounded shadow to his feet and walked him from the stables.

Kael stared after them for only a moment before he knelt down beside the unconscious captive. He tried not to think of what had just happened. Not about the stranger whose constraints he tightened, nor even the strangers who lay dead around him, but about the stranger who had just saved his life.