The Talented (27 page)

Adrienne did not voice her
concerns that outlaws had probably found and killed the men sent
out into the countryside alone. If the scholar’s only protection
had been someone like Ilso, it was all too likely that they would
never make it back to Kessering alive.

But there was no point in
revealing such concerns, and if she told Ben or one of the other
commissioners she would no doubt receive a lecture about King
Burin’s justice, or perhaps a lecture on how the Creator protects
the faithful. She wanted neither.

“
I made meat pies for
lunch,” Louella told Adrienne and Pieter, sliding the tray out of
the brick oven and setting it on top to cool, “and I have leftover
cobbler from last night.”

“
That sounds wonderful,”
Adrienne said, redirecting her focus to her friends. She hadn’t
told her friends about her worries regarding the commission. “What
are you working on, Pieter?” She could tell from the lingering
smell of wood smoke and ore that he had been at his forge before
coming here. “More barrel hoops?”

He shrugged his massive
shoulders, tilting his head from side to side to crack his neck.
“No. I was asked to make a couple of hinges, easy work, but I’m
going to try focusing my energy and Talent on what I want them to
do, as opposed to whom I am making them for. If that works it would
be a way to use my Talent so that it benefits more than one person,
and can be passed from person to person.”

Adrienne considered this
and nodded. Despite her own developing Talent, Adrienne had trouble
fully grasping the extent or limitations of anyone else’s
abilities, and the feeling seemed mutual when the others tried to
understand hers. “I hope that works for you,” Adrienne told him
sincerely. “It would mean—”

“
Adrienne!”

Adrienne recognized the
voice and heard the underlying panic. She leapt to her feet and ran
into the front room where a flushed Ben was breathing heavily and
supporting himself against the doorpost.

“
What’s wrong?” she asked,
surprised to see Ben in such a state.

“
I-there-I—”

“
Ben!” Adrienne snapped,
infusing her voice with officer’s steel. “What
happened?”

Her command penetrated
through the fear clouding Ben’s mind. “There are men in the city,”
he gasped. “Armed men. They’re attacking the guards!”

Adrienne came to
attention. “Where? How many men are there?”

“
They came in the north
gate.” He was still struggling to bring his breathing under
control, but his mind seemed clearer. “Twelve men, but there might
have been more that I didn’t see.” Ben’s voice wavered. “They
started killing people.”

Adrienne cursed ripely.
“Louella, start gathering the other healers; we’ll need your
skills. But be careful going through the streets. Ben, Pieter, I
want you to get as many people inside, behind locked doors, as
possible.” Less victims, she thought. Less chance of hostages or
collateral damage. She was halfway out the door before she turned
back to see them all standing around uncertainly. “Go!”

She tore out of the small
shop and ran toward the north end of the city. The fact that Ben
had sought her out meant that the situation was dire, but she was
not totally surprised by that. The guards weren’t skilled enough to
fight off men armed with anything more lethal than sticks. It had
only been a matter of time before trouble cropped up that they
could not handle.

Adrienne ran down the main
thoroughfare. She could hear the clashing of swords in the
distance, the terrified screams. The cries of pain.

She turned a corner and
saw the battle, if it could be called that. Three of Kessering’s
guards were lying on the ground; three more were engaged in the
fight and losing ground quickly. The rest of the guards stood back,
paralyzed by fear and uncertainty, and Adrienne realized one of the
downed men was their captain.

“
With me!” Adrienne
shouted, drawing her blue-tinged sword from its sheath. She caught
the attention not only of the shocked guards, but of the enemy as
well.

Unlike the city guardsmen
who were dressed in their burnished armor, Adrienne wore only
her
swa’il
. But
the men who had come to Kessering were not without experience, and
they quickly recognized her as being more dangerous than any of the
men standing around wearing expressions of shock and fear along
with their armor.

Two of the marauders who
had been hanging back watching the slaughter approached Adrienne
cautiously, swords raised.

Adrienne held her sword
ready and shifted onto the balls of her feet. She waited for the
men to come closer. One part of her mind analyzed them, looking for
weaknesses, while another part was focused on her own body. It had
been awhile since she had done anything other than run through
sword forms, and it would be the first time she used the
Talent-forged sword in battle. She couldn’t afford to worry about
either thing now; all she could do was hope for the
best.

The smaller of the two men
moved quickly, striking with a sudden burst of speed that she was
sure had bled more than one opponent.

Adrienne turned his blade
back, twisting her own blade in an attempt to force the sword out
of his hand. It twisted his wrist back, and only a quick adjustment
of his grip allowed him to keep hold of the weapon.

He was no amateur. Few
soldiers could have recovered so quickly.

The bigger man, several
inches taller than his companion and as much as seventy pounds
heavier, approached Adrienne more slowly, his eyes sharply focused.
Adrienne would have preferred to be cautious, to take her time and
learn this new opponent with his careful moves and dangerous eyes,
but another of Kessering’s guards had fallen, and there was no time
to wait. She dispatched the large man with her sword, shifted her
blade to her left hand, and with a practiced movement pivoted and
threw her knife, which stuck in the smaller man’s
throat.

His hand went to the
protruding blade in his throat, and a gurgle of blood left his
mouth before he collapsed, as dead as his friend.

She had expected to hit
his chest and buy herself some time, and she took a single moment
to be pleased with her unexpected luck before turning her attention
back to the fight.

The remaining invaders
converged around her, paying little mind to the few guards still
standing, most of whom were wounded. The rest of the city guards
were staying back, well away from the fighting, no more threat than
the townspeople locked safely in their homes.

Nine against one were not
odds in Adrienne’s favor, and her mind raced with possibilities as
her opponents inched closer. They were being cautious, having seen
her in action, but they had her outnumbered, and they knew it. If
the guards had been willing to help, Adrienne thought they might be
able to dispatch two or three of the raiders, or at least provide a
useful distraction, but she knew better than to count on them to do
anything more than stand there and stare.

She swept her sword out in
front of her in a semi-circle, trying to keep the men back, but it
was futile. There were too many of them.

Adrienne sensed movement
behind her, but she did not turn fast enough and felt the white-hot
pain of a sword stabbing into her thigh.

She stumbled back and fell
to one knee as the men approached. One stepped forward, taking his
time, enjoying the moment, and Adrienne felt the heat of temper
fill her. She would not die on her knees. With all of her remaining
strength she surged to her feet and raised her sword. The
blue-tinged weapon caught the light and seemed to glow as she
brought it down.

Fire erupted. It ran down
the length of her sword and up the other man’s. It ran over his
hands and arms, catching his clothes on fire. He dropped the
weapon, and though the connection with her was lost, it didn’t
matter. The flame seemed to have a life of its own as it covered
the man’s body, consuming him.

Even as he screamed in
pain, Adrienne turned away from the human torch and brought the
fight to the other men. The pain in her leg was pushed aside, her
tiredness a thing of the past as anger and power took its
place.

Some of the men scattered,
but most stayed to fight, rage and blood lust overpowering fear and
common sense alike. Between the eager flames that ripped down her
sword and the skill that had been bred into her for most of her
life, it was only a matter of minutes until all of her enemies were
laid at her feet, some burnt until they were little more than
ash.

Adrienne stood with her
legs apart, blood forming a pool around her left boot, sword tip
resting on the ground. She breathed heavily as she took in her
surroundings.

Guards and townspeople
were on the ground, some twisting and moaning, others ominously
still. Men and women walked amongst them, and where they stopped
the fallen seemed to revive.

Healers
, Adrienne realized as her mind cleared slightly of the
post-fight haze and the mind-numbing exhaustion brought on by blood
loss.
Talented healers.

“
You’re hurt!”

It was Louella. Before
Adrienne had a chance to answer, Louella bent to examine the stab
wound on Adrienne’s thigh. A hot, tingling sensation went up and
down Adrienne’s leg, and the pain faded. She looked down and saw no
fresh blood coming through her blood soaked
swa’il
, though the damage to the
leather was irreparable. Through the wide tear in the leather and
the blood still on her skin, Adrienne saw smooth, unblemished
flesh. “Thank you,” she said, aware of how serious the wound could
have been without Louella there. “How are the others?”

Louella’s light blue eyes
were sad. “Three of the guards are dead,” she said. “Two more were
seriously injured, but they should be okay.”

Adrienne
nodded.

“
Two townswomen are dead,”
Louella added softly. “Four men. A few more people were hurt…a
child.” She shook her head and Pieter, who had been standing
silently beside her, stroked the healer’s golden hair with a large,
calloused hand. “Why did this have to happen?” Louella
asked.

“
It didn’t have to,”
Adrienne said bitterly, though she knew the question was meant to
be rhetorical. “If we had better leaders and a central army, maybe
no one would have died today. If the commission had been prepared,
this could have been prevented. Kessering is a wealthy city. A
wealthy city with fine goods that was left poorly defended, with
barely a double handful of guards all told. The raiders could have
been kings in this city, pillaging and making sport of the people
living there.”

“
Elder Rynn and the others
couldn’t have known.”

“
It’s their job to know!”
Adrienne said. “If they are going to be leaders here, it is their
job to protect their people.”

“
You protected us,” Louella
said, resting her hand lightly on Adrienne’s shoulder.

“
You did well,” Pieter
said. His face was set in grim lines as he took in the carnage that
filled the normally peaceful street. Although she knew Pieter and
Louella accepted the fact that she was a soldier, she was still
surprised by his words.

But Pieter looked serious,
and Adrienne realized he was not looking at the men she had killed,
but at the innocent people hurt and killed by the those men. “It
was the sword,” she explained.

Pieter nodded. “I could
feel it.” Surprise won through Adrienne’s exhaustion, and it must
have shown on her face, because Pieter continued without her having
to ask. “I can’t always feel what I’ve made, not without trying,
but when your fire was on it…I could feel the power.”

“
They’re connected,” she
said. “The Talents seem to amplify when brought together.” She had
felt the immense power rushing through her Talent-imbued sword when
she had run fire down the blade; it had been like nothing she had
ever felt before.

“
They’re meant to work
together,” Pieter said softly.

Louella broke into their
conversation with a gentle voice. “We’ll discuss this later,” she
said. “Adrienne, I believe you need to sit down, have something to
drink. Between the fight and your leg…”

“
Yes, that would be good.”
Adrienne couldn’t remember ever being so tired after a fight. The
first fight in which she had killed a man had been draining
emotionally, but this was different. The fight had not been long,
yet she felt as though it had taken hours. Usually after a fight
there was still adrenaline in her system, boosting her, but now all
she wanted was to lie down and sleep. It was more than blood loss.
It was using her Talent in that way.

Her leg no longer pained
her as it had, but it ached enough to remind her of the recent
injury that could have cost her leg, if not her life.

“
Come back to the shop with
me,” Louella coaxed.

“
She can’t go with you just
yet,” Ben said, appearing from nowhere. His face was ashen, and he
was avoiding looking at any of the bodies. Adrienne was surprised
to see him there at all.