SWORDS (The Paladin's Thief Book 3)

  SWORDS

  Benjamin K Hewett

  Copyright © 2016 by Benjamin K. Hewett

  All Rights Reserved.

  To Cami, who laughed when I said, “Here, write your own dedication. . .That’s how we do your Christmas shopping, anyway!”

  ONE

  I’m not dead yet.

  I’ve got a bruise around my neck from being hanged twice, a box full of rings that every assassin in Teuron would want, and a mark on my head so big that the entire city is placing bets on when my funeral will be. But I’m not dead yet. That’s something to be thankful for.

  Magnus says the Nightshade rings change things. He says I could be a Paladin, could join the holy-flipping-Brothers-of-Light eleven times with that many. “It’s one of the rites of passage. Proof that you’ve committed yourself to spreading hope and light.”

  “So you have to kill someone to prove this, do you?”

  “You have to kill a Nightshade,” he specifies, squirming a little bit. “And that’s not the only way to advance; It’s just the fastest.”

  I’m not arguing with one thing: I’ve committed myself for sure. Nobody kills a Nightshade and gets away with it, except maybe a Paladin.

  Killed may be an exaggeration, anyway. I’ve maimed a few. I put a dagger in Pale Tom’s collarbone. I poisoned another with his own knife when he tried to stab me. And Frank and Sanjuste died mostly on their own, with a little help from Lucinda. All I did was show her how to hold the knife. So I haven’t actually killed anyone yet. In every case somebody else has finished the job.

  Not that it matters. Stories get told their own way, in absence of fact, and that makes me Teamus Steeps, Nightshade Slayer. It says so on the sketch I swiped from my own execution.

  But I’m not about to take all the credit. People deserve to know the truth. They deserve to know that I was already awake when the kill-party came for us early in the morning, during those misty hours when honest men are already out of bed because it’s good for business.

  Of course, I haven’t been up this early in years.

  I roll over several times before realizing that I’m not going to escape reality so easily: I’ve got the shakes again. Magnus says they’ll fade soon, once the last of the poison clears. I’ve been poisoned before, but never with Lordmort, so I hope Magnus knows what he’s talking about.

  I grit my teeth to prevent them from chattering and roll over again in my straw nest, trying to get comfortable. The box of rings digs into my back and I wriggle away from it, wishing for the hundredth time I’d added just a tad more planking and straw to my small sleeping loft in the attic. There isn’t much space for stretching out here, and a long drop to the floor below.

  When the shakes subside, the pain in my cheek flares up. I put a hand to it and wince as my fingers brush across Carmen’s stitches. The skin is tight and dry, but at least the oozing has stopped. I pull some straw over my head and breathe in the smell, letting the humidity build a little around my head and hoping that the carriages aren’t far away. Or should I say “carriage?” I remember that Magnus has scheduled three, just to be sure one makes it. I’ll admit this does seem a bit devious for a guy like him. It suggests he’s been in Ector for too long.

  My last thought as I drift back to sleep: is this my last night in Ector?

  When I wake next, Tom’s ring is hot in my palm, hotter than it should be, burning hot.

  The fever’s back, I think.

  I’m about to put Tom’s ring down—my ring now, I guess—but something smells wrong. I slip it on and the attic immediately comes into focus. Rafters. Shingle Nails. Smoke.

  Smoke.

  Fire somewhere.

  The thoughts come a little more crisply with the ring in place.

  I glance around. Already there’s a thin cloud of smoke above me sneaking out a crack in my trapdoor, with tendrils coming up from the pillow straw. I sit up straight and clear some away.

  The box of rings is puffing smoke, making my nose twitch with the smell of dry pine branded with hot iron.

  Then the entire world feels wrong, like that cabinet at Pale Tom’s, and the air is humming with the stench of power and madness.

  Magic, and not the good sort.

  “Magnus,” I whisper.

  No response.

  For all his prowess, he sleeps like a dead goat. Except for the snoring.

  There is a light scratching on the rooftop and the sound of padded feet moving across wooden shingle. When it’s not me, that sound worries me, especially when I hear several sets.

  Maybe it’s just the night guard doing a few extra rounds.

  Right. When have they ever done that?

  The movement stops just above my trapdoor.

  Uh. Oh.

  “Magnus,” I say a little louder.

  He continues to snore.

  My eyes dart around for something to throw, but there is nothing but straw and crusty black rat pellets on hand. I gather up a few of the droppings. Probably time to call the rat-catcher again, I think, taking aim.

  The pellets rattle off his face, but neither he nor the twins make any effort to wake up, at least not until one falls into his open mouth.

  He wakes up spitting. “Teacup! Did you just throw rat poop in my mouth?”

  He knows what rat droppings taste like?

  I put a finger to my lips. “Visitors!” I whisper.

  His eyebrows arch. He can’t hear the humming—almost deafening to me by now—or see the shimmer of magic reaching into the house, but he’s already moving when the bedroom door explodes. Its shards whistle through the air and rebound from the plaster walls in a shower of matchsticks. From my place above the bedroom partition, I can see them driving into the plaster like tiny darts.

  In the kitchen, the window shatters and Carmen shrieks in surprise. Then I hear the same sound from down the stairway: the back door exploding.

  Lucinda is more articulate. “Magnus! They’re coming up the stairs!”

  Magnus bolts through the shattered door just as my secret trap door is ripped from its leather hinges right above me.

  The early dawn’s light frames a figure, a shadow diving toward me. There’s just enough time to rebuff the first face with a barefooted kick before a second face appears, dropping into the attic head first from a rope about her waist. She reaches immediately for the smoking, humming box.

  I lash out, knife in hand, but it glances off a black leather wrist-guard.

  “Got it,” says a feminine voice, and immediately men on the roof start lifting her.

  A surge of fear, or something, drives me forward. I dive, catching Tom’s box with one hand and driving my dagger through it with the other, trying to pin it to something. Anything.

  Instead, the box shatters, breaking apart as the assassin continues to rise by her ankles. Hot rings fountain into the air, bouncing off of rafters, singing as they dive to the floor.

  Smoke released from the box rises into the Nightshade’s face, blinding her momentarily as she dangles from her rope. She drives a long stiletto blade toward my eye, and I twist out of the way, catching her wrist to defend against the rebound. Unbidden, my arm jerks down hard, turning her thrust into an uncontrolled fall. There’s a sizzle of rope on shingle as a lift-man loses his balance and drops the rope to stop himself from falling through my trapdoor. The rope rips from his partner’s hand, and there’s a thump below as the assassin hits the floor.

  Of course, Timnus and Valery haven’t the sense to hide. They’re cowering in bed, Valery clutching at her bandaged ribs. The Nightshade lady comes to her knees, shaking off the fall.

  Another unwanted visitor drops onto the attic loft. His flashin
g daggers nearly finish me as I jump backward, missing my catch on the silk banners I use as ladders. Pan’s beard these people are fast. There’s only a moment to contemplate my error while my hands flail ineffectually.

  Crack.

  Ladyshade breaks my fall. I’ve broken her back, bending her between the bed frame and the planked floor. But there is no time for apologies as Knife-Man drops from the loft, not bothering with the hanging silk either.

  I dive forward, undercutting his feet just before they hit the deck, wrecking his cat-like landing. He smashes to his elbows and knees, and before he has a chance to recover, I throw something red and fluffy over him. Carmen’s new dress, I think. I dance away, looking for Timmy’s footstool to break over his head. I’m not big enough to go to ground with him, but maybe . . .

  Suddenly Lucinda is there, face unreadable in the heat of the moment, long left arm smashing down with the bacon skillet, crushing the knife emerging from a now-ruined dress as the Nightshade claws his way to his feet. I kick him lightly from behind, saving Lucinda from his other knife as it swipes around from the left. It slices her arm, but she’s inside his reach now and her other arm strikes up hard into the man’s ribcage with an old Ralfian Dagger held hammer-grip in her white-knuckled hand. There’s a rending sound of costal cartilage as the man sags and she tries to pull her knife free. The man gasps, still covered in Carmen’s half-finished dress, and blood begins to stain the flooring.

  Lucinda manages to jerk it free on the third try, hands awash in red. Both of the kids are sobbing.

  “Under the bed,” I shout at them.

  This time they move, Timnus dragging Val in behind him.

  In the kitchen I hear the dismantling of furniture: a body crashing onto the table—I hope it isn’t Magnus or Carmen—and then the breaking of table legs. There’s a clank of a cast-iron skillet on metal again.

  “Magnus, there are Magii!” Carmen yells.

  I glance into the kitchen and see her clutching the fire-poker, trembling at the kitchen window.

  “I know,” he yells. “Don’t let anyone else through the window!”

  I dash to the kitchen to help, but Magnus jerks his head back the way I came while pummeling a man in black to his knees using the legs from my table. The man tries to roll, but Magnus clips him hard, swinging left, and then drives him flat with a blow to the head.

  Carmen is shaking too bad to stop a third assassin who jumps to the window. Her arm swings the poker feebly. The assassin bats it aside, grinning as he starts to pull himself through. Lucinda’s skillet takes him in the face and the man falls free of the house, bouncing once off the first floor eaves before hitting the cobblestone.

  There are two dead men in the kitchen already. I thank Pan, and Lucinda’s skillet, that neither of them are Magnus.

  “More on the roof,” he yells at me as I retreat back into the bedroom, and he dashes down the risers to the back door. “Keep them out.”

  It’s comes out like a barrack captain’s command. I glance up immediately, but for the moment the trap door is clear. The bedroom is clear, too, complete with dead Nightshades as well..

  “Val?” I say.

  No response. She’s always been the brave one, but since taking Sanjuste’s dagger to the ribs yesterday, she’s been in shock.

  “It’s okay. Da’s here,” I say.

  I hear sobbing sounds under the bed. Val. I put my dagger between my teeth and reach under for her. When I find her chin, four small hands grab mine, telling me that Timmy is still there too.

  “Val! I need your help,” I say. “Hide the rings.”

  It takes a second to disentangle from their clutching hands.

  It isn’t enough to get her moving, but Timmy hears and pushes her out from under the bed, probably with his feet, and surprises me by following.

  “The rings. Hide them.”

  “I know Da’,” he says.

  I zip up the silk banners I use as a ladder and burst out onto the rooftop, spinning, hoping to see how things stand, not seeing the rear guard until it’s too late. I’m only half turned when his club smashes into the back of my head. The wooden shingles come up fast and my knife clatters off the corner of my roof as I black out.

  #

  Tom’s sitting on a black-oak throne surrounded by light, grinning that spooky grin at me. “You’re not a cat, Teacup,” he says. “You don’t have nine lives.”

  I’m floating above a white marble floor, falling but never moving. Dank winds blow up from a cavernous pit that I can’t see, tousling my hair and chilling my bones. “What am I then?” I gasp, feeling a crushing ache in the back of my head and starbursts across my vision.

  “Everything you should be,” he cackles, and waves his hand dismissively.

  The falling stops.

  #

  I bounce once on the shingles, ring hot on my finger, feeling the weight of something crash on top of me. I see two hands and a choke wire slip over my head, and I tuck my chin at the last second, ramming both feet down into the shingles. The force rips one of the wire grips from my assailant’s hand and pulls him flat on the rooftop with me. He’s too heavy to throw off, but when he tries to kneel for leverage and re-grip his wire, I suck my feet in again and leap one more time for the north edge of the roof. I don’t go very far, but it’s enough to unbalance him I jab my thumb into his eye as he comes down on top of me. This time he curses and tries to disengage, letting go of his wire completely. My mule kick takes him in the chest. It isn’t much, but on a canted roof top, it’s enough. He flails once, makes a desperate grab for the west edge of the rooftop, and misses. His head hits the cobblestone first. Yuk.

  I throw the wire from my neck down after him and look away, breathing deeply. Through the broken trap door I can hear Timmy exhorting Val. “You heard Da’! Help me hide them.”

  Dizzy, I lay back on the wooden shingles to let the world stop spinning. The wood grain bites into my exposed skin. When I open my eyes again—when did I close them?—I realize I have an audience.

  It’s the same red-haired girl who taunted me from outside my jail cell two nights ago.

  Even from two houses over, I can see her hungry look. Part of me wants her to try, but she’s got her hands wrapped in white bandages, a universal code for non-combatant. It could be a ploy, but if she planned to help, then she’s already missed her best opportunity.

  “Why are you here?” I shout. The words are hard to form, and the shouting makes my head hurt. “Waiting for the town guard to lock me up again?”

  “I’m not worried about you, Steeps,” she says, unimpressed.

  “Then why are you wearing white?”

  “You think my Lord wants me involved in your bloody house war? We’ve got bigger schemes than cleaning up your Dreadlord’s mess.”

  House war? Bigger schemes? I wipe sweat from my brow and try to make sense of her words, but nothing comes to mind, except for pounding pain. I reach back and touch my bloody scalp. Dammit. More stitches.

  She takes my silence as an invitation to talk. “Your little altar boy do all the dirty work?” she asks, grinning. “Would you consider renting him out?”

  I risk a glance to the square below. Magnus is fending off two assassins as a pair of Magii make the cobblestones fountain up, trying to bring to bear their magic on him. Magic on people is tricky, by all accounts, especially if the target is moving fast. It takes time to call energy from the bones of the earth.

  I stare at the Magii, drawn inexplicably toward them, until the edge of the roof and the body below reminds me of my one mortality. The woman’s long hair is fanned out as if she’s floating in deep water, and the man’s hair is plastered against his rictus face. Always in pairs, and generally one egg short of a clutch. I can hear Red’s voice over the tumult: “She can take the world’s pulse and they’re using her for this?” Her voice is tinged with disgust. “Such a waste of talent.”

  Magii are crazy they say, and they only get crazier the longer they�
�re paired. It’s Pan’s way of limiting their power, legend says.

  I turn back to Red. “Wasting talent? Sounds about right for your guild.”

  She smiles. “Don’t you mean ‘our guild?’ ” There is something inviting about her slightly hoarse voice, something unintended that demands my attention.

  “No,” I respond. “I don’t kill people.”

  Red eyes me, and then waves her white bandaged hands. “Whatever. I can see where this succession war is going. I’m sure Ragus will deal with East March once he’s ready.” She shrugs, watching the clankity-clankity of the town guard running down South Street, marking time in our favor. “It doesn’t really matter to me. I will say one thing, though. You know how to put on a show. Goodbye, for now, Mr. Steeps.” Her attention is partly on me and partly on Magnus as she runs away across the rooftops. It’s a miracle she doesn’t fall.

  In the street below, Magnus stuns one of the two remaining assassins with the fat end of the table leg, ducking to let the second assassin’s blade finish the job.

  Then Magnus hesitates, trying to anticipate what the last Nightshade is going to do. Traces of something grasp around one of his battered table legs—something shimmering, clear, and wavy like the heat from a campfire. The thick table leg explodes, and Magnus and his opponent disengage, covering their faces desperately.

  “Keep moving,” I yell at Magnus, and he does, inching toward the Magii in long arcs as the last assassin defends them, yelling for the Magii to “do something!”

  “Slower, yes! Slower, yes. Slow weapons!” growls the male Magii, arms flailing, pulling at the air.

  The Nightshade forces Magnus to parry overhead with the table leg just barely stopping his short sword. Almost immediately the wood explodes. But Magnus seems to have abandoned it mid-air and ducks through, spinning at the same time and kicking backward so that his heel strikes through the assassin’s chin. The man’s dagger falls to the ground, and his sword as well.