Assassin's Curse (16 page)

“Now, none of that,” the old woman clucked at the two, ignoring their cries.
 
“I have work to do here and there’s no time for your fussing.”
 
Her gentle chastisement seemed to have the desired effect.
 
The babies calmed down and, in turn, allowed Jeda to calm as well.
 
The old woman lifted the babies from their papooses and set them down in the crib she used for birthing.
 
She gave them each a small container of milk with a nipple attached at the end.
 
They immediately quieted as they happily drank away.
 
She had Jeda lay down on a small bed and immediately went to work on his wounds.

“You got a good start here,” Gelda said to Anna, who was hovering at her shoulder.

“I tried as best I could,” the young girl said.

“I can see that, but where are the herbs that I asked you to gather?”

“Oh, no, I dropped my basket by the roadside when I found him and the two girls.
 
I was so intent on helping him, I forgot it.”

“Anna, you can’t be a healer without herbs.
 
Best you go fetch your basket right away.”

“Yes Mistress Gelda,” Anna replied reluctantly.
 
She had been hoping to watch Gelda finish what she had started, but Gelda’s word was law to the young apprentice and she left the hut to retrieve the basket.

“Poor girl,” Gelda said.
 
“One of the brightest I’ve had around here in a while, too bad she’s not strong with the power.
 
Barely has enough to stop your bleeding, but it was good for you that she found you, else you would have bled out.”
 
Gelda began to probe the wounds to see which she had to treat first.

“Don’t you want to know what happened?” Jeda asked, grimacing at her ministrations.

Gelda looked up at Jeda, staring intently into his eyes.
 
“Plenty of time for that after I fix you up.
 
I don’t want you dying on me.
 
Besides, what would I do with that pair of young witches you brought with you, hmmm?
 
You lay back and I’ll take care of everything.”

She ambled over to her countertop and began collecting the tools of her trade: a long, curved needle and some gut string for closing wounds.
 
She also ground some leaves in a cup and poured some steaming-hot water into it to make a tea.
 
She brought the cup over to Jeda and handed it to him.
 
“Drink this; it will help with what I have to do next.”

“No, I don’t need anything for the pain,” Jeda replied, staring suspiciously at the witch.
 
He had heard too many horror stories to ever fully trust witches.

“Damn, stupid men,” she half mumbled to herself, then louder she said, “It’s not for your pain; it’s for the infection that has already begun to set in.
 
Now don’t be stupid, and drink the tea.”

Jeda took the cup with suspicion, but he had seen firsthand what an untreated infection could do when one of his brother assassins had lost half a leg to an untreated cut.
 
Former brother assassin
, he thought absently.
 
Reluctantly, he drank the cup.
 
It wasn’t a pleasant draught, but as he drank it down, he immediately began to feel its effects.

“I thought the drink was for infection,” Jeda said, watching the room spin around him.

“It is,” the witch said.
 
“It also makes you sleep so I can stitch you up without watching you
bear
your pain.
 
All you men are the same, so big and strong, until the needle pokes you.”

Jeda began to drift away.
 
He knew that he should never trust a witch; they were just too damn sneaky.
    

Gelda tied off the last stitch in Jeda’s leg and sat back to study the young man.
 
He had the look of someone who had lived a hard life.
 
Callused, working hands and a rough, sun-baked complexion, but still a handsome, young man.
 
His clothes made her pause, adding to the confusion surrounding him and his charges.
 
They were of a fine-spun, deep-black cloth that looked and felt costly.
 
The darkness and the cut of the clothing gave rise to something sinister in Gelda’s mind, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what made her jump to that conclusion.

Definitely some kind of working class, but what kind,
she was thinking when a n
oise coming from the front of her house interrupted her.
  

“What now?” she asked, aggravated, as she rose to investigate the commotion.

What she found when she opened her door momentarily shocked her.
 
Anna was struggling with a man holding a sword to her neck.
 
He was dressed in black clothing, much like Jeda, but the lower half of his face was covered in a black mask.
 
Assassin
, Gelda immediately thought.
 
Now I remember where I saw the cloth before.

This one was taller than the one inside, with black hair and deadpan-gray eyes that looked right through a person.
 
His stance reminded Gelda of a deadly snake poised to strike.
 
A slight shiver went down her spine.
 
This was an evil man.
 
She noticed that Anna was clutching her basket of herbs and a plan immediately formed in her mind.

“Bring them out and this will all be over quickly,” Mave said to the old woman facing him on the porch.
 
“No one needs to get hurt over this.
 
It’s a private matter.”

“Little late for that, don’t you think?” Gelda asked sarcastically.

“Don’t screw with me, crone, or I’ll slice this little girl’s neck while you watch.
 
Now do what I say or pay the consequences.”

“Fine, take them, take them all, but the boy is feverish and out cold.
 
I’m not sure he will live long enough to wake,” Gelda said stepping aside.

Mave’s mouth thinned into a cruel line at the news.
 
His previous attack on Jeda was having the desired outcome.
 
He walked forward with the girl to the front door of the hut.
 

“Stay out here until I come back out,” Mave threatened the old woman, shoving the girl inside ahead of him.

As he tried to follow Anna inside, he rebounded off an unseen barrier blocking the door.
 
“What’s this?” he asked, spinning around to face the old woman.

Gelda cackled at the assassin’s surprise.
 
Once she realized that Mave was a killer and threatening Anna, she had warded her door against evil and planned her next move.
 
She knew getting this one alone would be the key to defeating him.
 
She had hoped he would push the young girl ahead to cover himself against any threat from her powers and watched in satisfaction as he had done just that.
 
Just like a coward,
she thought
, using a young girl as a shield.

Of course, that still left the other assassin inside.
 
One problem at a time.
 

“Let me pass or you’ll pay with your life,” Mave threatened, raising his sword toward the old woman.

“Oh, please, you must be joking,”
Gelda
said, chuckling again.

Mave stared slack-jawed at the old woman’s reaction.
 
Most people fell away with abject terror when they met an
assassin,
someone trained to take their life without hesitation or the slightest bit of remorse.
 
He waited only a moment before snapping the wrist of his free hand.
 
A pair of throwing stars fell from a secreted pocket in his sleeve into his waiting hand.
 
He threw the stars at Gelda’s head, followed by a sweeping attack with his sword aimed at decapitating her.

Gelda raised her arms in front of her body and the stars flew off harmlessly in two different directions.
 
She countered the assassin’s attack by releasing a blast of elemental fire that caught Mave in the chest as he was swinging his sword.
 
The blast threw him back 20 feet, where he lay unmoving in the street.

She stumbled as she made her way to the door of her hut.
 
Damn, I haven’t done that in a good, long while.
 
Kind of exhilarating!
   

Gelda glanced at Mave lying in the street, his chest still smoking from her attack.
 
“You boys never learn.”

She went inside the hut to check on her charges.
 
Anna was by the door still clutching her basket, eyes wide with fright.

“I’m so sorry, Mistress,” she stammered, trying hard to hold back her tears.
 
“That man grabbed me when I bent to pick up my basket.
 
I didn’t see him waiting there and he demanded I bring him here.
 
I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It is fine, child.
 
You did well.
 
That man outside will not be bothering anyone else anymore,” Gelda said, comforting the frightened girl.

Anna looked over Gelda’s shoulder to the empty yard.
 
“Umm, Mistress, what man outside?”

“Damn,” Gelda said peeking outside.
 
“How did he survive that blast?”

“He was probably wearing a protective vest,” came the reply from the bed.
 
“We all wear them when we know we have a fight ahead.”

Gelda looked back and saw Jeda sitting up.
 
“This should prove more interesting than I originally thought.”
 
She shut the door and looked warily at the young assassin who was now her houseguest.

“Fear not, sister, I have never heard of them failing yet.”

Catherine turned from the window and looked at Elizabeth.
 
“That’s easy for you to say,” she replied, holding the cryptic missive from the guild.
 
“You’re not the one waiting for your grandchildren to be found.
 
They are all I have left.
 
They must be found.”

The latest message Catherine had received from the guild was much the same news as the message before.
 
Their best tracker was still on the trail of the deserter who had kidnapped the twins, but the guild was
confident
they would be found soon and returned to her safely.
 
As long as the assassins were looking for them, Elizabeth could sit back and receive updates through her dear sister and the coven witches located throughout the countryside.
 
The High Council wanted the twins, but Elizabeth knew it would be years before they would be old enough to fulfill their prophetic destiny.
 
As long as she could track them remotely, Elizabeth did not really care if they came back to family estates or to the coven of Constantine.
 
It would be convenient for the twins to be here, but not an absolute necessity.
 
They were a tool to be used at the proper time and Elizabeth couldn’t care less what they did in the meantime.
 
  

“Catherine, I know they are your grandchildren, but they are my grandnieces as well.
 
We’re all family and I want them back as much as you do.
 
I’m only trying to comfort you that the guild will find them.
 
They have a reputation for never failing to complete a contract.”

“I know you mean well,” Catherine replied, letting her head fall onto her chest.
 
“It’s just so hard waiting, not knowing if they are safe or even if they are alive or dead.
 
No one has seen them yet, not even this expert hunter the guild has sent.”

“Give them time,” Elizabeth told her younger sister, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders.
 
“It has only been four days since the guild reported the twins stolen.
 
I know it is difficult, but I will be here for you no matter how long it takes to find them.
 
I will never forget that those poor babies are family and they deserve much better than this.”

“I don’t understand why that bastard would have taken my granddaughters in the first place?
 
There has been no ransom note or demands of any kind.
 
What does he want?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know,” Elizabeth replied, although she did have her thoughts about why Jeda had taken the girls.
 
She knew Miriam was behind it somehow, but couldn’t quite put all the pieces together.
 
Miriam knew of the prophecy and was hell-bent on keeping the girls from fulfilling it, but how she had enlisted the assassin to help her was one of the many questions as yet unanswered.
 

“How far could he have gotten?” Catherine asked.
 
“It hasn’t been that long since they have been gone and yet there has been no sight of them.
 
I know the guild are the experts at tracking, but I need to do more.”