<u>26</u>


    Below Karellon, by the great wooden image of Rictor the Ever-Hungering, Losirr rose from a crouch.  Rumbled low in his throat, more startled than humble or worried.  He’d just been contacted, and matters had changed. Significantly.  The contract remained firmly in place, but… Well, the chosen assassin was near.  A thing that he sensed, rather than saw, at first.


    Losirr controlled his own shape with an effort.  He usually shifted to beast when the prospect of blood lay twitching before him.  Now, not so much troubled as excited, aroused, the assassin-lord jammed himself back into humanoid guise.  Exerting iron control, he converted back to a tall and muscular, shaggy-haired man.  His senses stayed magically sharp, though, letting him see the figure of horror that coalesced all at once from the shadows around him.


    A final, despairing shriek given form.  The darkness of blinded eyes and a choking last spasm.  A frantic heartbeat stilled brutally; suddenly.  That’s what took shape before Losirr, by Rictor’s gaping-jawed totem.


    “Fallon,” he rumbled, “There is work for you.”


    It… she…rippled slightly, forming two pale, cat-like eyes in that miasma of frozen shock.  At this time, she did not materialize any further, for doing so took effort and was a genuine threat, besides.  She was hideously powerful.  Had mastered the thousand death-ways, but Losirr knew them all, too… plus one more.  Beyond that, he held what she needed most.  Having got her attention, the master assassin continued, saying,


    “The matter is delicate, with more hands poking the blaze than just he who sparked it.  Your marks are two young elf-lords, one a northerner, the other a landless exile.  They are newly arrived in the city, but they do not lack connections.  Their deaths must be secret.  Our employer wishes to be present, thus kidnapping the marks to a private location first, would be wise.”


    He used the command voice, with which he could drive a victim onto a spear, over a cliff or into a raging fire.  No hand, no mark on the body required. In response, Fallon clenched partly solid, her version of a bow.


    The assassin’s outline and death-wounds were briefly visible, fading quickly back into a nightmare-shock cloud.  Losirr drew a gold amulet out of his carry-pouch, spoke a name onto it, then tossed the glittering man-shape at Fallon.


    “With this, you will summon our employer, once you have drawn the marks away to a private spot and disabled them.  He may wish to dispatch them himself.  If so, allow it.  Then… kill him.  He has become a liability.  His contract will be fulfilled, and his desire granted, to the last rune and page-mark, but then he must die.  You understand and accept the task, Left Hand of Death?”


    Fallon had resumed a physical shape long enough to seize and pocket the call-charm.  Losirr forced himself not to look away.  Ever and always, among those he led, any such weakness was deadly.  First among monsters, he had to be utterly fearless, most dreaded and ruthless of all.


    The betrayed and murdered child bride shimmered before him.  She’d been tormented and viciously used, forced to watch as her wedding-guest family were killed before she was ended, herself.  She could not rest.  Could not move on.  Could never stop hunting.  Existed forever in terrible pain, a fate that Losirr could harness.


    “The usual fee,” he growled, as Fallon Death-Singer blurred back into her phantom-state.  “A descendant of Clan-master Colm, yours to feed upon, once the deed is accomplished.”


    She clenched again, whispering faintly,


    “Who are the ones to die?”


    Losirr snorted.  Scoffed,


    “A pair of elven nothings.  Valerian Tarandahl ad Keldaran, and Filimar, once Arvendahl, now meat for anyone’s jaws.  Then, Lord Falcoridan Arvendahl ob Thandurl.  Swift and silent, no mess, no clamor… bodies brought to the lair, your payment delivered immediately afterward.”


    Briefly, reflexively, Fallon took physical shape.  Denied peace by her own final curse, with all chance of vengeance long gone, those spurts of diluted Colm-blood were all that could soothe her.


    “They will die,” she said. (Magically, for her wounds made speech very difficult.)  “I swear it on those who cry out for revenge.”


    “Contract granted,” replied Losirr.  “See that the business is concluded before either brat succeeds in joining the honor guard, and before the emperor’s ride.  Our patron desires no blot on the celebration.”


    “It will be done as you say,” whispered Fallon, melting back into a shadow of terror and rage.  “They are dead, and don’t know it.”


    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


    They were dead, thought Lord Arvendahl, standing at Vancora’s taffrail.  Hands clenched tight to the polished gold railing, he stared out over moonlit storm clouds, hearing sullen thunder and wind-roar, below.


    Falcon had fallen behind, too badly damaged to keep up with Vancora, Deathstroke and Terroc.  There had been no candle mark check-in from its captain these last three watches, and the small airship was no longer even a fading dot in their wake.  ‘Claimed by the storm or else bled too much manna to remain aloft,’ mused the high lord.


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    He did not mourn the lost lives.  Officers, crew, even his own kin meant no more to his lordship than pieces on a game board; existing to be moved and sacrificed at need.  That airship, on the other hand… with the others he’d lost… would be costly and time-consuming to replace.  A matter he’d attend to once the traitor and exile were at last confirmed dead.


    Here and now, he had only to reach Milardin.  Only. Fighting high-altitude winds, sudden lightning and a violently surging hurricane the entire way.  They were too high, and he knew it.  Surely silhouetted by silver-pale moonlight to anything lying in wait, below.  Storm dragons, cloud giants, pirates… any and all might be riding the tempest like sharks, waiting their moment to strike.


    Arvendahl knew this, and so he kept watch, himself.  Refused to rest, eat or go below.  Kept Deathstroke and Terroc in close arrow-formation, having their captains check in on the candle mark.  Vancora didn’t speak to him.  Never had.  As with the Arvendahl unicorn… like Vernax, the emperor’s dragon… it took tremendous magic to bind the ship’s will and control it.  But he would not be gainsaid or argued with.


    He’d never loved anything other than the one who’d been taken from him by treachery. Everyone else was useful, or not. Thus, the airship did exactly as he commanded.  <u>That</u>, and no more.  And not even seeing his lord, hearing Sherazedan bid him stop hunting, could alter one whit of Falco’s resolve.  So, he mused… until his attention was drawn back from imagined murder to their very dangerous now.


    Something had moved down below, causing those swirling clouds to bulge upward and out in a long, sweeping line.  Not in the storm-wind’s prevailing direction, either.  Up and north, curving to follow his airships.  It hung just below and behind them, like the vaporous outline of…  nothing.  There and gone.  No more than a vague hint of sleek speed and great power.


    Arvendahl leaned dangerously far over the rail, looking past straining engines at streaming, purple-dark thunderheads.  Saw nothing else.  Whatever it was had vanished again, descending back into the storm.  Then,


    “My Lord,” said the new first mate, approaching from Arvendahl’s right, very timidly, “We need to…”


    Her words choked off abruptly off as the raven-haired lord spun to face her.  A mere three-quarter elf… pale-haired and brown-eyed… she’d been thrust to high rank by the deaths of her betters.  Sara, or some such.  She was clearly terrified of him, bowing so low that she almost toppled onto the deck.


    “Need to do what, precisely, First Officer?” snapped the high lord.  “Descend?  Into that?!”


    The sea-queen’s tempest, her fury, still raged. Time and again, lightning lashed upward, or sudden gales blew, pushing Vancora, Terroc and Deathstroke off course; driving them far from Milardin.  Even up here, that witch took control of the winds, and no sending or spell of Arvendahl’s could overcome Father Ocean’s vile pet.


    The new first officer rose from her bow and into a disciplined attention-stance.  She managed to speak, stammering,


    “P- Perhaps another port, My Lord… Or, one of the floating islands?  Manna is critically low in the main tank, and…”


    Her words trailed into a sudden and horrified scream.  Arvendahl whirled about, cursing luridly, to face the ship’s stern. Scraped magic and life-force to ready some kind of defense. Like a shark, like a blade-thrust, something sleek and black shot out of the clouds below.  With a wild, surging roar of its powerful engines, a pirate ship hurtled up to strike at the racing fleet.  Moonlight gleamed off of its sharp mithral ram and bright cannon mouths as the pirate ship broached through the storm, trailing lightning and vapor.


    It surged upward, smashing right into Deathstroke’s keel.  Kept going, splitting the airship into two halves with an awful, grinding, crunching, splintering <u>BOOM</u>.  Explosion and fire erupted, drowning the glare of lightning and moon.  Then there were two slow-twisting ship sections, surrounded by flailing small figures, all of it burning.  That black-hulled pirate ship… the Flying Cloud, it had to be… fired spirit-cannon and chain as it thundered past.  Moving incredibly fast, it magically vacuumed loot and fear-manna from the dying vessel and plunging crew.  Meanwhile, shot after powerful mage-shot struck Terroc and Vancora, causing the stricken vessels to shudder and yaw, listing wildly.  Alarms blared on Vancora.  Timbers cracked.  One of the masts toppled over, crushing the foredeck and several crewmen.


    The attack took less than five thumping heartbeats; just a few shaky breaths from first strike to last flaming wreckage, drowned in the tempest beneath.  And, just like that, moments later, Deathstroke was lost with all hands.


    The pirate ship soared even higher.  Was briefly silhouetted against the full moon.  Just a spearhead-shaped hull and sharp ram, at first. Then, at the top of its climb, the Cloud deployed masts and tanks, again. And no more than half a gasp, racing footstep, cursed-out spell later, the attacker had cut away, dropping back into the night.  Left Terroc and Vancora far behind, their crews struggling to douse fires and patch gaping holes.


    Arvendahl was crippled by previous wounds, by a shower of piercing splinters and his own power-loss.  Along with adrenaline, manna surged in a shocked or terrified elf.  Manna the pirates could harvest through sorcery… and did.


    The high lord found himself reduced to the barest of spells.  Worked as hard as the rest, though, conjuring water and voids to deal with the flames, then effecting emergency patches with sailcloth and his own fading magical strength.


    … but the Cloud was still out there, and his last two airships were terribly far from home.  A lifetime away from Milardin and safety.


    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


    They had to find shelter and safety, meaning the Constellate chapter house.  Filimar was in no condition to travel, being half-crippled by the loss of his father.  It was a terrible wound to the soul, but one that Valerian could help with, by taking in part of his heart-brother’s pain.  A psychically gutting move, and only the absolute knowledge that Keldaran… dad… was still alive, kept Val from collapsing right there on the street.


    “Come, Filno,” he murmured, helping the younger elf to keep moving.  “This way.”


    He’d conjured a floating map of the city, so was able to guide them across the Lane of Tanners, and Spell-crafter Way, over to Bogg Street.  There, by the No Holds Bar, stood the Constellate building.  More of a shack than a temple, the one-story hut seemed to radiate welcome and peace.


    Valerian got them across Bogg Street (justly named, very muddy).  Then a shower of copper confetti exploded as he and Filimar navigated a path over those badly placed steppingstones.  A cloud of tiny, dragon-shaped bits expanded over the city, floating downward like snow.  They swelled when caught in the hand, blasting sparks, then unrolling into a scroll.  Golden rune letters appeared in whatever language best suited the viewer, reading: Rejoice! By special request, a return engagement in honor of His Imperial Majesty’s ride!  Magister Serrio’s Caravan of Curios returns to Karellon!


    Val had caught one of those twirling, flickering paper dragons; snatching it out of the air with one hand.  Read the scroll’s promise, too.  Magister Serrio!  As well have said “Lord Oberyn” himself, or… nearly so.  Hastily, Val made the sign of holy obeisance.  No sense offending a god, even in thought, but… Magister Serrio was coming, and that could mean nothing but good.


    “Nearly there, Filno,” he said to his stunned, shaking friend, never sensing the shadow that followed, behind.