The Inquisitives [4] The Darkwood Mask (26 page)

Despite my assistant’s singularity, the Orphanage is still an engine of war. As I look upon the livid face of my superior, I realize that my accomplishment with Sverak may be construed as impudence
.

My assistant looks to me for guidance
.

“What … have you done, Erevyn?”

“My lord, Sverak has been invaluable to my work—to our work.” I turn to my assistant. “Sverak, this is Lord Charoth Arkenen d’Cannith.”

The warforged is barely three months old, but he already knows who Charoth is—the man everyone in the facility knows and respects. And in truth, fears. Many have been demoted or released from service under his unforgiving management
.

Lord Charoth looks back to me, and I wonder if I, too, will soon be released
.

He strikes the ground with his staff. “Warforged are not mere novelties, Erevyn, to be adopted as pets or homunculi for the serving.”

“I know that, my lord.” He must give me time to explain how much Sverak has accomplished for me—for us all—in three short months
.

“No, you do not,” he says with terrible calm. “You, to whom the workers of this facility look for guidance and leadership—a minister of the house, an example of what they aspire to be!—do not understand at all.”

Lord Charoth steps close to me, his tall frame more imposing in close proximity. The smile of approval that all who answer to him crave, it is gone for me. Instead, this frown of disappointment weighs upon me
.

“House Cannith produces many great things, and the warforged are our crowning achievement, yet we do not simply create walking constructs to fight a tragic war in the stead of living men. We have spent thousands upon thousands of man hours designing the training programs needed to give these living weapons the proper psychological instruction to do what they must. These programs teach strategy, the concepts of life and death, the tenets of war, but most of all they teach obedience. Obedience to their makers and to those who purchase them.”

I swallow and struggle to find my voice. “Lord, I assure you, Sverak is obedient, and he is more intelligent by far, more capable than—”

“There is a reason we make no exceptions to these rules, Erevyn. Do you recall the early experiments of sensory deprivation? Select units were buried alive. For weeks. Months.”

“Yes, lord. I know.” Denied anything to occupy their minds or explain their perceptions, they went insane. “But this place—here, at my side, there is no such risk.”

Sverak steps into the room now. He is always concerned for me. It must unsettle my sensitive assistant
.

“Esteemed director,” Sverak says to him. “Please do not concern yourself with such trivialities. I am lucid.”

Charoth whirls on Sverak, aiming a wand at him as he does. “Do not presume you can address me!”

Sverak stares back at him without a word
.

Charoth faces me again. His hand touches my shoulder, briefly, and his grip is strong. Agitated. “Keep it here with you. I must think on this. We will revisit this soon, Erevyn, I promise you. Perhaps the creation energies you have wasted can be salvaged still.”

Crossing Blades
Zol, the 10th of Sypheros, 998 YK

A
n inexplicable chill sank through Soneste as she felt more than saw shifting in the darkness of the rafters above. A shadow had separated from the rest, moving with preternatural grace. Soft as a whisper, it sprang from beam to beam, almost directly overhead.

“Above us!”

Like a creature borne on the wind, the nebulous shape floated down from the shadows, led by a long blade. Tallis turned sharply, bringing the curved head of his weapon to deflect a strike aimed directly at Haedrun. The blade was turned aside, but the figure—little more than an indistinct, humanoid shadow—had anticipated Tallis’s deflection. It kicked sideways, the force of the blow pushing him back. He stumbled, trying to keep his feet.

The fluidity of the assailant’s form unnerved her. Soneste hesitated, then steeled her will and raised her weapon against it. At the same moment, Haedrun surged forward with her own sword.

A second blade appeared in the assailant’s other hand, and it parried both attacks with ease. Aegis ran to join the fray, leading
with his shield. Nearly surrounded, the figure vaulted backward, the rapier-blades vanishing in the same motion.

Soneste’s mind raced. Was
this
was the Ebonspire assassin? Tallis had recovered himself and braced his hooked hammer again, his face twisted in loathing.

“What is this thing?” Haedrun shouted.

“Use magic!” Tallis said. Soneste saw him pull a black wand from a pocket of his coat. “The bloody thing can’t be harmed with weapons.”

Soneste focused on the shape of their enemy, who paused at a distance and appeared to study the four of them with unseen eyes. She had only one power that had ever proven effective in a fight, a mental trick that could force an opponent to repeat its previous action. She recalled the assailant’s last maneuver—a brief retreat—and willed it to effect the same action again immediately.

After a moment’s concentration, Soneste exerted her will, but she felt the invisible power disperse around the assassin’s mind as if unable to find purchase. In the same instant, the creature sprang into motion, advancing again without fear. The twin blades seemed to
unfold
from nowhere with blinding speed, appearing in its grasp again.

Aegis was there to intercept, striking out with one empty hand to accept the assassin’s attack. One blade skittered off the composite plating, while the other stabbed clear through the wood components of his arm. Entangled, the assassin was unable to move clear of Aegis’s true attack. The buckler on his left arm crashed into its body, slamming it to the ground. Soneste heard the bang of metal against metal—was the assassin armored beneath its raiment of shadow? regardless, they
could
hit it.

Tallis and Haedrun were ready, standing beside one another as in a military formation. Soneste could see that they’d fought side by side before.

The assassin gained its feet in one fluid motion, dodged another heavy swing from the warforged, then stabbed both rapier-blades through the center of Aegis’s artificial body. A dark, alchemical
fluid leaked from the exit wound at his back. The warforged dropped loudly to the floor and lay inert. Soneste cursed.

Tallis pointed his wand at the assassin and a narrow beam of fire stabbed through the air. When it struck the assassin, the fire flickered harmlessly away.

“Khyber,” Tallis cursed, abandoning the wand. He stepped in front of Haedrun, ready to engage it.

The assassin closed the distance. Tallis swung—

—and the creature danced around him with liquid grace, focusing its attack fully upon Haedrun.

The Red Watcher was ready for it, watching the flashing blades with a veteran’s eye. She countered one rapier then sent the second blade out wide. Still the assassin was too fast. It spun its body in a complete circuit, stabbing with both blades at frightening speed. She cleared the first …

Her defenses opened.

The assassin’s second blade pierced the stiff, boiled leather of Haedrun’s armor and slid deep into her body, stopping only when the creature’s shadowy hand struck the leather. The woman hissed from the pain, lacking the breath or focus to do anything else.

“Sovereigns,” Tallis gasped, taking that moment to bring the hammered end of his weapon into the assassin’s back at full force.

The loud slam of metal shook the thing’s body. It did not react to the blow, evincing no pain at all. It merely pulled its blade from Haedrun’s chest. A steady river of blood followed the length of metal out.

Soneste reached out and caught the woman in her arms. If she could have one moment of peace, perhaps she could stem the flow of blood and save Haedrun! She carried bandages, even a minor healing draught.

Dol Arrah, she prayed, let her live!

Tallis struck again, reversing the weapon and bringing the sharp pick’s head against the assassin’s back. She saw the figure
jerk as the pick caught somewhere on its body. Although she was unable to gauge its wounds—uncertain if the creature could even suffer injury—Soneste knew it was still a very real threat. Tallis had settled into a soldier’s calm, focused now that he discovered he could actually strike the enemy.

But the assassin had eluded him again. Its hand flashed out, the rapier blade stabbing forward yet again. Soneste cried out as she felt the air displaced by the blade and the spatter of warm liquid upon her face. Haedrun’s body twitched in her arms.

The assassin’s blade had punched clear through the woman’s neck.

“Oh, gods,” Soneste mouthed.

With Haedrun eliminated, the assassin changed its strategy. It pivoted and began to engage the Karrn. She could have sworn it was a feverish smile she saw upon Tallis’s face. Rage and frustration poured into his body, and she understood why he’d become the infamous man that he was. He knew how to read his opponent, even one as fast and deadly as this, and retaliate with a strategy of his own.

Soneste laid Haedrun upon the ground and backed away, trying to decided her next course of action. Tallis traded blow for blow with the assassin, accepting minor wounds from its rapier blades as he crashed his weapon again and again into the creature. The unmistakable clang of denting metal was proof of armor beneath its veil of shadow.

Feeling frustrated and impotent, Soneste drew forth her crysteel dagger. In her grasp, the exotic weapon seemed to resonate with kinetic power. Against this unnatural enemy, she would take whatever advantage she could get. It seemed impervious to both her mental powers and the wand Tallis had employed.

Though she could see no wounds in its shadowed form, Soneste believed the assassin was losing. With a half prayer to the Sovereign Host, she circled around the creature, ready for an opportunity to end it. For one fleeting moment, she met Tallis’s eyes. He nodded.

The assassin surged forward with both bloody weapons again, piercing Tallis in the leg. Soneste took that moment to strike. The crysteel disappeared into the shadow of its back and she felt it meet the resistance of a thin layer of metal then sink through. The assassin spun, sweeping its left blade low to trip her up.

But Tallis was ready. He arrested the swing, stepping hard upon the tip of the rapier with one boot, then he brought the pick’s head down in a two-handed grip. With a jarring shriek, something gave way. Soneste thought she felt a fine spray of cold liquid in the air, but it dissipated quickly.

She saw part of the assassin’s shadowed body break lose and heard it clatter to the floor. She expected to see blood, but there was none. The assassin’s left blade had vanished altogether.

The creature may have survived injuries that would have slain a mortal man, but it could only take so much punishment. Released from its brief restraint, the creature strode away. But Tallis had already sidestepped, anticipating a retreat. It halted, as if to consider its predicament. At the same time, its veil of shadow began to dissolve. She saw the glint of metal underneath.

To her surprise, the creature turned wordlessly back to face her. One rapier remained in its grip; the other gone with its missing hand. The assassin, its shadow unraveling more with each second, thrust its lone weapon toward her with supernatural celerity.

Soneste turned the blade aside, but it came in again.

Then a third time. She didn’t know how many times it struck, but she couldn’t parry fast enough against its speed. She heard Tallis call out, then a terrible fire erupted deep within her. She looked down in muted denial at the rapier blade that had somehow made its way into her body.

Her killer had become an armored knight of lissome form, a helmed dreamshape with a black-slitted visor. She wondered distantly if she had invented it in a state of delirium.

The world raced around her at a frightening pace, with clashing blades and whirling steel, but Soneste felt her part in it slowing down. Tallis shouted again, his voice sounding hushed, faraway. He
implored her quietly and urgently to stay with him. The ground collected her, the shadows in the rafters above cajoled her.

And ushered her into a vast, empty sleep.

“Host, no!”

Tallis watched for only a second in shock as the Brelish slid from the assassin’s blade and dropped to the floor. The assassin made no second attack against her to finish her off as it had Haedrun. It turned and struck back at Tallis again, but its blows were feeble. Deliberately ineffective.

The last vestiges of its shadowed form dissolved, leaving him facing the same killer he’d met at the Ebonspire. He knew it couldn’t be a man or woman at all—there was a spirit or demon housed in that slender, steel-armored frame.

The assassin sprinted away from him. It was wounded now, the metal of its body caved in and pierced in ways that would have killed a living soul. Tallis started to pursue, knowing he could keep pace with it with his enchanted boots.