The Cleric Quintet: Night Masks (Page 19)

 

Danica, following the dwarfs pointing finger to spot Ru-fo, was over the side in an instant, picking her way down into the alley and quickly falling into step some distance behind the man.

"I'd have thought that one'd be long gone from here by now," Ivan remarked to Cadderly, who sat farther from the edge, the Tome of Universal Harmony open in front of him and his eyes closed. The young priest shook his head, not at all surprised.

"Rufo would not dare the trails alone," Cadderly explained, the same argument he had used when Fredegar had told the friends Rufo intended to go back to the library.

"It is likely that he has found refuge within the city, in the temple of Ilmater perhaps."

Ivan and Pikel shrugged at each other, neither willing to dispute Cadderly's logic. Their young friend had been leading them through the continuing mysteries as if he knew all the answers, or knew where to find them. Pikel shrugged again and crossed the roof to watch over Lakeview Street, while Ivan continued his scan of Market Square. They had been on the roof for more than a day, waiting with all the patience that could be expected of dwarves.

Danica returned a few minutes later, easily scaling the back of the building.

"He is with the priests of Dmater," she reported. Cad-derly nodded silently, not opening his eyes, not breaking the trance he had spent hours attaining.

"He knew that," Ivan remarked dryly, the dwarf starting to feel like a pawn in somebody else's chess game. Under his breath Ivan muttered, "Damned cocky priest knows everything."

"Not yet," Cadderly replied, drawing another disbelieving shake of the head from Ivan. There was no way that Cadderly, twenty feet away, could have heard his remark.

Defeated, Ivan went back to watch for the escaped assassin, for Kierkan Rufo, or for anyone or anything else that might give the friends a clue.

Not that he believed Cadderly needed any.

As soon as he regained control of his giant form, %nder began to pace the barn nervously, stretching his huge arms out wide. He had nearly been caught, and, honestly, the firbolg didn't know how he had moved that weakling body fast enough to get out of the room and out of the inn.

He had spent a miserable night on the streets of Carra-doon, fearml that Ghost would never give back his true form and continually looking over his shoulder, expecting to find Cadderly, the woman, or the two fierce dwarves, bearing down on him.

But now he was back, at the farm and in his familiar body. He peeked out the door at the quiet house and empty yard, not sure whether the four remaining assassins were still around.

Four remaining assassins! At least eleven of the killers were dead, with five others missing. Ghost alone walked the streets of Carradoon, except, perhaps, for the wizard, Bogo Rath. And Cadderly, now surrounded by powerful allies, remained alive and alert.

In their last spiritual passing, though, Vander had sensed clearly that Ghost remained confident, had sensed that the little man was actually enjoying the challenge of this difficult chase.

Ghost had been in trouble before, had lost entire bands of killers only to turn the tables and bring the intended victim down. He was confident, cocksure, the quality of a true warrior.

Of course, the firbolg's admiration of the little man was tempered by the knowledge that Ghost's confidence was rooted in the fact that the weakling had a quick way out of any situation. With Vander a safe distance from the fight, Ghost always had a quick and easy escape route.

How convenient.

"What is it?" Danica posed the question just a moment after Cadderly opened his eyes for the first time in several hours. The young priest had searched the city, had reached out with detection spells to locate the particular magical emanations of the strange item the evil little assassin carried.

"A shift in the power," Cadderly explained absently, his thoughts still firmly locked on the Ghearufu.

Ivan, a few feet away but overhearing the conversation, waggled his bearded face in disbelief. "If ye know where the damn thing is - " he began.

"I do not," Cadderly interrupted, "not exactly. Our enemy is in the city, somewhere south of here - or, I should say, our enemy has just returned to the city."

Danica cocked her head curiously, pushed the stubborn lock of hair from her face.

"He departed the city while we had him cornered back in the room," Cadderly tried to explain, "magically. The man who physically ran away, or at least the spirit of the man occupying the killer's body, was not the same conniving person that captured Pikel."

Ivan waggled his face again, too confused to offer any remarks.

"Now he has returned to Carradoon," Cadderly went on.

"And we are to find him?" Danica stated as much as asked, and she was surprised when Cadderly shook his head.

"What would we gain?" the young priest asked. "Our enemy would only flee once more."

"What're ye thinking, then?" Ivan huffed, tired of Cad-derly's cryptic clues. "Are we to sit here and wait for them killers to find us?"

Again Cadderly shook his head, and this time the action was accompanied by a wide and wicked smile. "Wfe're going to catch our tricky friend from behind," he explained, thinking of the farmhouse that Bogo Rath's spirit had described to him. "Are you ready for a fight?"

Ivan's dark eyes popped wide at the unexpected invitation, and his response pleased his brother. "Hee hee hee."

"There!" Cadderly whispered harshly, pointing to a window under the spreading limbs of a wide elm tree. "Someone walked by that window, inside the house." Cadderly scanned the farmyard, wondering where Danica's stealthy progress had put her. The young monk was nowhere in sight, had disappeared into the shadows.

"Tune for going," Ivan said to Pikel as he hoisted his great axe.

Pikel grabbed his brother's shoulder and cooed, pointing plaintively to the tree.

"I'm not for going up another tree," Ivan growled, but his anger couldn't hold out against Pikel's pitiful expression. "All right," the gruff dwarf conceded. "Yerselfcanget up the tree."

Pikel hopped at the news, and his wide smile disappeared under his helmet as the cooking pot dropped over his face. Ivan roughly adjusted it, realigned his own deer-antlered helm, and pushed his brother off.

"Ivan," Cadderly said gravely before they had gone two steps. The dwarf turned a sour expression back to the young priest.

"Do not loll anyone if it can be avoided," Cadderly said firmly, "as we agreed."

"As yerself agreed," Ivan corrected.

"Ivan." The weight of Cadderfy's tone brought a frown to the dwarf.

"Damn boy's taking all the fun out of it," Ivan remarked to Pikel as the two turned and headed off once more, skittering, hopping, crawling, falling over one another, and, somehow, finally getting to the base of the wide elm.

Cadderly shook his head in disbelief that the dwarven racket hadn't alerted the whole countryside of their presence. He continued to shake his head as Pikel clambered up onto Ivan's shoulders, reaching futilely for the lowest branch. The green-bearded dwarf hopped up, dropping his dub on Ivan's head, but managed to grasp the branch. Hanging by his fingers, his feet wiggling wildly, Pikel would never have gotten up, except that Ivan promptly returned the dub, slamming it against Pikel's rump and nearly launching him over the thick branch.

"Oooo," Pikel moaned softly, rubbing his seat and taking the dub from Ivan.

Cadderly sighed deeply; the dwarven brothers were better at defense than at stealthy attack.

The one guard for the four remaining Night Masks shook his head in disbelief, too, watching the dwarven escapades. He crouched in the tight and smelly chicken coop, one leg up on the wall-to-wall perching bench, and peered through a crack in the old boards, a crack wide enough for him to level his crossbow and take aim. He figured Ivan for the tougher foe, and thought that if he could take out the dwarf on the ground, the one in the tree would be in serious trouble.

Squawk!

The startled Night Mask spun about frantically and fired, seeing a flurry of movement. The air was full of chickens-one less when the crossbow quarrel cut through - but in the dim light and close quarters, the birds seemed like one ominous, feathered foe to the man.

He got hit twice, on the face and neck, and felt the liquid oozing under his tunic. He grabbed for the wounds, hoping to stop the flow of blood.

The relieved man nearly laughed aloud when he found the blood was really eggs . . . until he realized that someone, behind the barricade of flapping chickens, must have thrown them at him. The man snarled, dropped his crossbow, and drew out a slender dagger.

The chickens quieted quickly. He saw no enemy in the small coop.

The bench, the man thought; his enemy had to be under the bench. His smile disappeared and his mouth dropped open as he started to bend.

Under the bench and, maybe, behind him.

A hand slapped across the man's mouth; another grabbed his weapon hand. His eyes opened wide, then dosed tight at the searing pain as his own knife pierced his throat, under the chin, and slid unerringly to his brain.

Danica dropped the man aside and turned to regard the dwarven brothers. Ivan was under the farmhouse window by this time, with Pikel carefully picking steps in the tree right above him. It was a recipe for disaster, Danica knew, and she figured she had better get back outside and into a new position, just in case.

She paused before stepping over the dead assassin and considered the kill. Cadderly had prompted an agreement that no man would be slain if it could be avoided, and Danica, though she, like Ivan, had thought the agreement absurd, felt some pangs of guilt for not honoring the spirit of her lover's wishes. Perhaps she could have taken this guard out without killing him.

Danica felt no sympathy for the man she had killed, though. She, above all the others in her party, understood the motives and methods of the assassin band, and she reserved no mercy for anyone who would don the silver-and-black mask of the amoral guild.

Ivan, directly under the window, looked up in frustration as Pikel sought a secure perch in the tree branch's shaky outer reaches. Finally, when Pikel seemed on solid enough footing, Ivan placed the edge of his axe against the house and ran it slowly down the wall, scraping and bumping over each shingle.

A moment later, a curious face peered out beside the curtain. The man, sword in hand, straightened, seeing nothing there, and gradually peeked over the sill,

"Ha!" he cried, spotting Ivan. Above, a branch cracked.

"Me brother," Ivan explained, pointing up.

"Oh," the confused assassin replied.

"Ooooooo!" Pikel roared, swinging down like a pendulum, his dub thick end out, like a fat lance, and securely braced. The man tried to get his sword in front of him, but got slammed in the chest and went flying away as if he had been sitting in the basket of a giant-cranked catapult.

"Come on!" Ivan cried, hopping up to the windowsill and pulling himself in beside his upside-down brother.

Pikel shrugged helplessly; things had not gone exactly as planned. The branch had snapped and Pikel's thick ankle was firmly stuck in a fork, leaving him hanging helplessly.

"Come on," Ivan, now inside the room, said again. He grabbed Pikel's free hand and tugged, dragging the dwarf halfway into the room.

"Uh-uh," Pikel tried to explain.

Thinking his brother was just being stubborn, Ivan dropped his axe, grabbed with both hands, and yanked with all his strength. Pikel came into the room, the bending, grasping branch being pulled in right behind him.

Vander held the barn door firmly, supporting it tightly against its hinges so that it would not creak so loudly as he gingerly cracked it open. He couldn't see the fight at the window from his angle, but he did see the trembling branches of the elm above the corner of the farmhouse roof. That, and the previous squawking of the chickens, told the giant beyond doubt that intruders were about.

Finder stopped, staring incredulously at a ball of fire hovering in the air a few feet above him, just outside the barn door. The firbolg tensed, sensing the danger, sensing that if he moved, the pausing magic would go off.

Why was the spellcaster waiting?

Slowly, binder leaned back into the barn.

A line of flames roared down from the fireball, scorching the ground at the firbolg's feet, Finder dove to the barn floor, pulling the door closed behind him, fearing that the magic would follow him in.

Black smoke rose from the bottom of the door.

Everything went pitch black.

The stubborn firbolg rose to his feet, knowing that he had to get out the door, out of the trap.

Everything went absolutely silent.

Vander growled and eased one foot in front of the other, toward the door. He had no way of knowing if the flames remained, but he had to find out.

He heard no sound, but it seemed as if the ground rushed up in front of him, twirling dust nipping at his eyes and forcing him to fall back. He tripped over unseen crates and crashed silently to the dirt.

The disoriented firbolg's vision returned in the blink of an eye, the magical darkness dispelled. Vander heard the snap of wood as a plank broke under his hand, and he heard, too, a whirling sound above him that alerted him a moment before he tried to rise.

The firbolg stared helplessly at the air only inches above his head, at the air that had suddenly filled with magical manifestations of whirling blades.

Vander heard the door creak open and looked across his body to see a young man in a wide-brimmed blue hat.

"The blades will cut," the young man said evenly.

The trapped Vander didn't doubt it for a minute.

"Ooooooo!"

Danica, making her way toward the far side of the farmhouse, heard Pikel's cry as the branch holding Pikel flew out of the window.

When the pliable branch reached its end and reversed direction, Pikel's ankle slipped free and the dwarf went sailing, turning a perfect two-and-a-half back somersault to land headfirst into a pile of dust.

"I telled ye not to let go!" a frustrated Ivan, holding Pikel's club, shouted from the window.

Pikel shrugged, adjusted his cooking pot, and rushed back to join his brother.

Together, the dwarves crept across the small room. It had two doors, both fortunately closed, one along the wall to their right, and the other directly across from the window, leading to one of the front rooms.

"Makes a nice rug, that one," Ivan remarked, heading for the front room and stepping over the back of the clobbered Night Mask, who was lying spread-eagle and facedown on the floor, his arms flung out wide.

Instinctively, Pikel, wearing open sandals, wiggled his gnarly toes as he crossed the man's back behind Ivan, and the green-bearded dwarf nodded, surprised at just how good a rug a clobbered human might make.

"Ye know they know we're here?" Ivan asked when he reached the door.

Pikel quickly shrugged, as though that fact hardly mattered.

Ivan nodded his agreement and looked to the wooden door, his smile widening under his yellow-haired face. "Ye remember the charge at the inn?" he asked slyly,

The door burst from its hinges, crossbows clicked, and Ivan and Pikel, behind the impromptu shield, smiled wickedly to see the two darts protruding through the wood.

"These men is so predictable!" Ivan declared, and he flung the broken door aside, showing the dwarven brothers that they had entered a kitchen.

Pikel swerved left, toward a man caught between the charge and the wall who was trying to squeeze through the room's tight window. Ivan bolted right, in chase after the other assassin, heading for the growing daylight beyond the open door.

Pikel considered the struggling man's predicament for just a moment, then slammed his heavy club at the window's top frame, collapsing it to further ensnare the man.

"Hee hee hee." Thoroughly enjoying himself, the dwarf pulled the kitchen table over, unlaced the man's boots, and retied them around one of the table legs.

The remaining man stopped abruptly and swung about, thinking to catch his dwarven pursuer off guard by the sudden change in tactics.

Ivan was too crafty for that simple trick. He skidded to a halt, lifting his huge axe to easily deflect the slicing sword blade.

The assassin twirled the weapon up above his head and came in again with it, furiously, angling it left then right to poke holes through the dwarfs defenses. He scored a hit on Ivan's side, but Ivan turned with the thrust, pressing the top of his axe against the thin blade and slamming it against the wall.

The assassin fell back, holding only the hilt and first two inches of his snapped sword.

Ivan looked to the severed strap on the side of his armored suit. A single metal plate hung out an inch, but the assassin's hit had not come close to penetrating the dwarf-forged armor.

"Was it worth it?" Ivan asked in all seriousness.

The assassin snarled and flung his broken sword at the impertinent dwarf, then turned and darted out the door.

Ivan batted the missile away and broke into a charge. He dove for the man's ankles but came up short and bumped down off the front of the porch.

The Night Mask never looked back as he rushed for the stable. He leaped atop an unsaddled horse, set the beast into a dead run, and flew over the fence rail.

Ivan groaned, angered that one had escaped, and rolled to his back - and saw Danica kneeling on the farmhouse roof, crossbow loaded and level.

"Ye ever use one of them things?" the surprised dwarf asked.

Danica fired. The fleeing assassin's head snapped forward, the quarrel entering at the base of his skull. He held his seat for a few moments longer, then drifted off the horse's side, dropping to the dust as the steed ran on.

"Yup," answered Pikel, coming to the door behind Ivan.

An Offer He Couldn't Refuse

here's the big one?" Ivan asked when he,  Danica and Pikel found Cadderly standing in the farmyard, leaning against a young tree.

Cadderly pointed to the barn. "He is occupied," the young priest explained wryly, his gray eyes turning up at their corners with his satisfied grin. "Not hurt, but not in any mood to fight back."

Danica nodded. "Then your guess was right," she remarked, her voice unmistakably revealing her distaste. "The band was led by a giant."

Cadderly recalled the images he had seen on the little assassin's shoulder back in the Dragon's Codpiece. The aurora change had revealed much to the observant young man, had told him the identity and, more importantly, the demeanor of the assassin band's gigantic leader.

"Dead giant." Ivan snickered hopefully.

"No," Cadderly answered him.

"Soon?" Ivan asked.

"I do not think so," Cadderly replied. The young priest looked around the yard, to the chicken coop, to the window by the tree, and to the corpse lying in the dust by the road. "I did not want these men killed," he remarked sharply.

Ivan looked to Danica. "Better to let that one get away," the dwarf whispered with obvious sarcasm.

Cadderly heard the comment and locked a deep frown on the yellow-bearded dwarf.