Weapon of Blood (37 page)

“Yes, I do.”

Wiggen grasped a handful of Mya’s hair
and slashed with the dagger, surprised at how easily the blade parted flesh. 
Fear flashed in Mya’s eyes as a waterfall of crimson cascaded from her neck. 
Then her eyes rolled up and Wiggen released her grip on the assassin’s hair.

Mya toppled forward into the mud.

It was over.

Wiggen dropped the dagger and turned to
Kellick.  “Now give her to me.”  She strode forward with her arms outstretched,
ready to take Lissa, but the assassin stepped back, her eyes darting to the
masters.

“Not yet, I’m afraid.”  Patrice’s
honey-sweet tone couldn’t hide the triumph in her voice.  “With Mya’s death,
Lad, you become a weapon without a master.  A blade without a hand to wield
it.  We intend to be that hand.”

Wiggen slumped.  She’d hoped against hope
that these people would uphold their end of the bargain and hand over Lissa. 
But, as Mya had aptly predicted, they’d been betrayed.

“I’m sorry, Wiggen.”

Her hand drifted toward the dagger sewn
into her dress as she turned to face her husband.  The pain in his eyes grasped
her heart like a vice.  But for the first time since Lissa had been kidnapped,
Wiggen’s fear ebbed.  She had insisted on taking her part in this, and here was
where she had to be.  A mother belonged with her family.

She smiled gently at Lad.  “It’s not your
fault.”  Steeling her singing nerves, Wiggen turned to Kellick, looked her
straight in the eye, and took a step forward.  “Give me my daughter.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Patrice snapped. 
“Another step and Kellik will slit your baby’s throat!”

“No.  She won’t.”  Wiggen ignored the
masters and locked eyes with the woman who held Lissa’s life in her hands.  One
more step forward, and she was nearly within arm’s reach of Lissa.  “Kill my
baby, and Lad will slaughter everyone here.  But
you
, Kellik,” Wiggen
punctuated her words with a thrust of her finger, “you will be the
first
to die.  Give me my baby, and you live.  Don’t, and you die. 
That’s
the
deal.”

Kellik’s eyes flicked beyond Wiggen to
Lad, then back again.  The woman’s sneer faded to a grimace of fear.  She,
apparently, knew Lad’s reputation.  The blade at Lissa’s throat wavered.

Wiggen’s hopes soared. 
So close
! 
She took a slow step forward and reached out her free hand toward Lissa.  Her
daughter caught sight of her then, and let out an insistent shriek.

“Oh, no, you don’t!”  Fast as a viper,
Horice whipped his rapier free of its scabbard and lunged.  Immediately, his
arm drooped, the elbow slack, and the sword’s tip dropped to the ground instead
of plunging into Wiggen’s chest.  Confusion twisted his face, followed quickly
by belligerence.  “What the hells?”

For a moment, every eye snapped toward
the Master Blade…except Wiggen’s.  She grasped the hilt of the dagger sewn into
her dress and lunged forward with all her strength.

The long, narrow blade sliced easily
through the material of Wiggen’s dress, barely slowing as it pierced Kellik’s
leather vest.  Wiggen felt it plunge hilt-deep into the flesh just below the
sternum, angled up, just as Lad had taught her.

Kellik’s eyes widened in surprise, and
Wiggen used the instant to snatch the blade at her daughter’s throat.  Not
until she saw the blood flowing between her fingers did she feel the pain, but
she gritted her teeth against it.  Though the dagger cut her,
Kellik
couldn’t jerk the knife, couldn’t slash
or stab at her.  The magic of the guildmaster’s ring prevented any
counterattack.  As Kellik crumpled to her knees, Wiggen released her grip on
both weapons and caught Lissa in her arms.

“Grab her!”  No honey dripped from the
Master Inquisitor’s words now as Patrice stepped back toward her bodyguard. 
“Now!”

As she turned from Kellik, Wiggen spied
Youtrin lunging for her.  His steps faltered as if he had been caught in an
invisible net.  The veins in his thick neck bulged as he tried, and failed, to
reach out and grab her.

“Hells, just kill the bitch!” Horice
shouted as he straightened from his lunge, raising the tip of his rapier out of
the mud.

Nothing happened.  Every assassin in the
courtyard tensed, but not a single crossbow fired, not a single sword lifted to
strike.

Wiggen gathered Lissa close to her body. 
The ring would protect her, and she would protect her child.  Then she caught
Horice staring at her, or rather, staring at her left hand as it clutched
Lissa’s blanket.

“The ring!  She’s wearing the godsdamned
guildmaster’s ring!”

“Wiggen, go!”

With Lad’s voice urging her on, Wiggen
raced across the courtyard as all Nine Hells broke loose behind her.

With every eye on Wiggen, Lad struck.

No mercy
…

Horice stood only three long strides
away, but the Master Blade’s reflexes had been honed by decades of murder.  The
long blade swept in a perfect arc of rune-etched steel to intercept Lad’s leap.

Lad twisted like a corkscrew around the
weapon’s path, losing only an inch of hair from his head as it swept past. 
Then his feet cracked together, snapping the assassin’s forearm like a stick of
kindling.  Horice’s nerveless fingers loosed the hilt, and the blade flipped
end over end.

Lad landed in a spinning crouch and
reached out.  The wire-wrapped hilt of the enchanted sword smacked into his
palm…and writhed in his grasp.  The hilt melded into his grip as if it had been
made for him, the ornate basket guard and crosspiece constricting into a simple
round guard.  The blade thickened and curved into that of a katana, the weapon
he knew best.

The change nearly threw Lad off, but he
recovered as he spun on the ball of one foot and swept the blade around in a
flat arc.  Enchanted steel passed through Horice’s middle with little
resistance, snicking through his spine like a scythe through a blade of grass. 
The Master Blade fell in two, his voice rising in a horrible wail of panic as
he clutched at his spilled entrails.

The other masters were slower to react,
but not by much.  Neera flung a spray of poisoned glass shards, and Youtrin
whipped a hand axe at Lad with an underhand pitch.  Patrice hastened her
retreat, shoving her bodyguard forward.

Lad flipped backward, easily evading the
twirling axe, and splashed back down after the storm of poisoned shards had
passed beneath him.  He spared a glance toward the tunnel to the street, and
breathed easier to see Wiggen ducking unhindered into the darkness.  All
attention centered on him, just as they had planned.

His concern for his family cost him,
however.  At a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, Lad twisted away,
snapping the sword up to parry, but too late.  The whirling axe scored a line
of pain across his shoulder.  The blade had apparently arced in flight like a
boomerang, then hurtled back for a second pass before the haft smacked
precisely into Youtrin’s meaty palm.  The Master Enforcer grinned as he drew a
second axe from his belt.

“No one else has to die tonight.”

Lad’s proclamation elicited derisive
laughter from Youtrin and a silent sneer from Neera as they and their
bodyguards stood their ground.  Patrice’s bodyguard looked ridiculously
vulnerable in her low-cut dress, but the snarl on her face did her more credit
than the worried look on the Master Inquisitor’s.  One other, Horice’s
bodyguard—
Sereth
—glanced at his fallen master, then at Lad, and backed
away, his face strangely blank.

“I disagree.”  Youtrin grinned and nodded
toward the assassins encircling the courtyard, their crossbows aimed at Lad. 
Some of them still looked baffled at being unable to shoot Wiggen, but they
quickly brought their weapons to bear.  “You’re quick, but not that quick. 
Kill him!”

More than a dozen crossbows began firing
a ragged volley.  In that split second, Lad despaired.  He might have been able
to evade the swarm of deadly missiles if they’d all flown at once, but the
staggered fire thwarted the effectiveness of a displacement maneuver.  He
couldn’t dodge them all.  He needed help, and there was only one place it could
come from.  He wondered if it would come too late.

But as the bolts took flight, Mya
exploded up from her brief death in a storm of blood, mud, shredded canvas, and
flashing daggers.  She deflected six bolts that would have pierced Lad, and two
more plunged into her flesh as she intercepted their flight.  The others Lad
managed to deflect or evade before he landed back to back with Mya in the
bloody mire.

Lad couldn’t suppress a feral grin at the
astonished looks on their opponent’s faces.  These assassins knew death better
than anyone, and they’d watched Mya die.  But they hadn’t known her secret.  Though
bloody, the death stroke had not immediately stopped her heart, and the wound had
healed in moments.  Mya had been right; they needed her help, but he’d been
surprised when she had readily agreed to their grisly plan.  And not only
agreed, but praised him for the scheme.

“Finally,” she’d said, “you’re thinking
like an assassin!”

He heard the snick of her dagger severing
the head of a bolt that protruded from her stomach, and the wet sound of the
shaft being pulled free.  Another snick, and the one from her leg splashed to
the muddy ground.

“How…”  Youtrin gaped in shocked
puzzlement.

All around them, assassins stared
wide-eyed.  Several looked panicked, but most had been in the guild for too
many years to be fazed by facing two foes instead of one, even if one had
seemingly risen from the dead.  But Lad kept his gaze on the masters; they were
the truly dangerous ones here.

“Neera first,” he whispered too soft for
anyone but Mya to hear.

“I need to get close,” she whispered in
return, “but I’ll need help.”

He reached back with his free hand to
grasp the belt of her trousers.  “Now!”

Lad lunged forward as he felt her leap,
and flung her straight at the alchemist with every ounce of his strength. 
Unfortunately, Mya’s flat trajectory was predictable, and Youtrin’s axes
reached her before she could put a dagger in Neera’s eye.  She parried one, but
the other struck under her the arm, the head buried in her ribcage.  The impact
deflected her, and her dagger stroke only scored Neera’s cheek.

Lad charged.

Youtrin and his bodyguard stepped in
front of Neera, whose own bodyguard inexplicably fell face-down in the mud, his
poisoned darts still in his hands.  The Master Enforcer caught the axe that Mya
had deflected, and drew a hooked dagger.  Crossbows fired, but only a few; Lad
and Mya were too close to the masters for a clean shot.  Instead, he heard the
splashing footfalls of charging assassins.  He deflected two bolts and one
shuriken, but another bolt found him, lodging deep in his thigh.  Ignoring the
pain, he slashed at Youtrin, satisfied as he felt the katana snap the hooked dagger
and cleave sinew and bone, flaying open the Master Enforcer’s massive chest. 
On his back swing, Lad sent the charging bodyguard’s head flying out into the
rain.

Beyond Neera, he saw Mya roll to her
feet, and heard the crack of ribs as she removed Youtrin’s axe from her chest. 
She would heal, he knew, but how fast?  Mya had already lost a lot of blood
when Wiggen slit her throat.  Lad knew from experience that blood loss would
weaken her, even though her wounds healed.

Bloody spittle darkened Youtrin’s chin,
his breath a ragged, wet gurgle, but still he kept coming.  As Lad dodged the
sweep of his axe, he heard two more crossbows fire.  He managed to deflect one
bolt as he swept the blade around and split Youtrin’s thick skull just above
his jutting brows, but the second bolt lodged in his shoulder.  Knocked off
balance, Lad fell to one knee in the mud.  He envied Mya her magical pain block
as agony lanced through him.  Forcing the pain aside, he sprang away to prevent
Youtrin’s corpse from falling atop him and pinning him in the mire.

Steps away, Patrice’s bodyguard fell to a
stroke of Mya’s stolen axe.  Unfortunately, the distraction gave the Master
Alchemist the opportunity to reach into her robe.  A ball of green glass
appeared in the old woman’s hand, and she flung it down at Lad’s feet.