Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3) (46 page)

He had taken out three of them, but that was not a great comfort under the circumstances; there were still more than enough to kill both him and Brook. It seemed very likely that he was about to die.

The one comfort he did see in the situation was that this would clearly demonstrate to anyone who cared to investigate that someone—

and that someone could only be the dragons or their servants—emphatically did not want Brook's child to be born. Somehow, the baby was a serious threat to them.

Black would know what had been done, and he could speak to Lord Zaner, to Lady Rime, to the Duke of Manfort; the scheme might still succeed even if Brook and Arlian died. Black would be devastated by the loss of his wife, but he would also want revenge. He had sometimes mocked Arlian's vengefulness, but losing Brook would surely be enough to ensure a ferocious desire to retaliate, even if it did not reach the level of Arlian's own obsession. He had said as much when they fought, just two days before.

But that assumed Black would survive, and Stammer or one of the others had almost certainly slipped out to fetch him. He might well walk directly into a trap. The Dragon Society would not have sent nine men just to intimidate a few servants and kill an unguarded pregnant cripple...

The Dragon Society would not have sent nine men at all; the Duke's guards worked in pairs. And where had these other three been when he first arrived?

All this had passed through Arlian's mind in a fraction of a second, and his instincts and training had simultaneously been preparing his next move—he turned and charged the new arrivals, shouting "Now!"

as if he were leading a dozen men.

The three hesitated, as he had hoped—they presumably had no

clear grasp of the situation, did not know what had happened or how many foes they might be facing, only that they had heard fighting and come to investigate. He was able to slice one man's neck, almost decap-itating him, and then he was past them and out in the great hall.

He did not wait for them to react; instead he headed directly for the stairs.

That had to be where the three newcomers had been, and where a tenth man was, or perhaps several more men—upstairs, trying to get in the upper part of the lift as the half-dozen downstairs were trying to get in the lower. Arlian went bounding up the steps and into the corridor.

Sure enough, a soldier knelt at the lift door, thrusting a sword into the opening. Arlian did not hesitate, but charged forward and cut yet another throat. Blood sprayed across the floor and into the lift, and the man gave a ghastly croak as he crumpled.

"Damned breastplates," Arlian muttered, as he kicked the sword from the dying man's hand. Then he ducked down and peered into the lift.

It was dark, but as he had expected Brook's chair was wedged into a back corner, and Brook was crouched awkwardly upon it. She was on her knees on the seat, rather than in her usual sitting position, to keep her legs away from the sword thrusting at her from below; her swollen belly was clearly affecting her balance, and she had one hand on the wall, steadying her.

Arlian dropped his swordbreaker for a moment and grabbed up the sword he had just kicked away. He turned it, and shoved it hilt-first through the opening. "Brook, here!" he called. "Quickly!"

She looked up, startled. "Triv?" Then she saw the hilt and grabbed for it, reaching as far as she could without toppling over. Her fingers had barely closed on it when Arlian released it and withdrew again.

He would have liked to say something more to Brook, offer her encouragement, perhaps ask a question or two, but he did not have time; three soldiers had pursued him up the stairs. He snatched up his swordbreaker and rose to meet them.

They did not charge recklessly in, though; at the sight of him and their dying comrade they stopped, swords ready.

"He killed Sham," one of them said.

"He killed half the fellows downstairs, too," another agreed.

"Who is . . . Is he Lord Obsidian?"

"Of course he is, you fool!" the man in front said. "Who did you think}"

"Maybe that steward of his, the one who always wears black leather.

We were warned about him."

"That's not leather, is it?"

"So he's Lord Obsidian," the leading soldier said. "He's still just one man, and there are three of us."

"There were ten of us a minute ago."

"And half of the others are still downstairs! Yes, he's dangerous, but we have him trapped."

"Trapped? Where does this corridor go?"

"He's the warlord. He's a dragonheart and a dragonslayer." T h e soldier lowered his sword and stepped back. "I may want to live a thousand years, but I'm not going to if I get myself killed here. I'm out of this." He turned and walked away.

"Come back here!" the leader shouted.

"Rot with the dead gods," the other replied, as he started down the stairs at a trot.

"He's right," the next man said to the leader. "He can retreat down the back stairs and go to the Citadel. If we stay here we're dead."

"Filth is coming up the back stairs!" the leader shouted. "Just wait, and we'll have him . . . "

He didn't finish the sentence; Arlian knew an opportunity when he saw one, and attacked.

As he had hoped, the other soldier broke and ran, leaving his superior on his own.

The leader was a surprisingly good swordsman, though; he parried Arlian's thrusts easily, and even managed a riposte that sheared through a few links of mail before being deflected.

He had only the single blade, though; Arlian locked swords and closed, then stabbed his swordbreaker into the man's side, behind the breastplate.

The soldier's eyes went wide.

"Oh," he said. "But..."

Then he collapsed, and Arlian pulled his blade free, looking up and down the corridor.

Six dead, two fled, two still unaccounted for, he thought.

"Bitch," he heard someone say. He smiled. He headed for the back stairs.

When he opened the door and stepped into the passageway he saw the two soldiers there; one was clutching his arm, trying to stop the flow of blood from a deep cut, while the other had a comforting arm around his shoulders. The wounded man was unarmed; the other still held his sword.

They looked up at the sound of the door, and saw Arlian standing there, both his two blades covered in blood. Then they looked at each other.

Then they broke and ran.

Arlian watched them go, then stepped up to the lift. "Brook?" he called. "Are you all right?"

"I think so," she said. "Are they all gone?"

"All the ones who can still walk," Arlian replied. He looked down at die bodies on the floor. None of them were moving; he did not see anyone breathing. Here was the one he had taken down with his first attack, stabbed in the side; his eyes were closed, so he had probably not died instantly, but he appeared to be dead. There was the first one with a cut throat, who seemed to have bled to death quickly; his blood-soaked hand was still pressed uselessly to the wound, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

And there was Wolt, lying dead with stab wounds in his chest and gut, and a surprised expression on his face. He still held a kitchen knife in one hand.

"Damn," Arlian said. Then he looked at the lift. "They killed Wolt."

"I know," Brook said. "After your guards ran and the soldiers broke in, he defended me, giving me time to get the lift moving."

"Oh." Arlian looked down at Wolt. The man had been a competent servant and a pleasant fellow, but Arlian had never suspected he had the courage to do such a thing.

"I'm sorry," he said. He looked up and down the passage, trying to decide what to do next.

This assault had failed, but it was by no means certain that there would be no more. The four surviving soldiers might regroup, or there might be a second enemy out there. Arlian had survived dozens of assassination attempts, but Brook could not walk, could not fight—at eight months pregnant it sometimes seemed as if she could hardly move. If there were assassins, or more soldiers . . .

"We need to get you out of here," he said.

"Arlian," Brook said, "where are my children?"

Arlian turned, horrified. He had forgotten the children. "I don't know," he said. "Where were they?"

"I sent them to their rooms when the soldiers broke in," she said.

"Then that's almost certainly where they are. The soldiers didn't threaten them?"

"No. They probably just hadn't thought of it yet."

"Well, go on upstairs, then, and we'll check. I'll take the stairs and meet y o u . . . "

"I can't."

Arlian stopped and peered into the dim interior of the lift. "Why not?"

"Because I got out of my chair to use that sword you gave me, and I cut that man's arm with it, but now I can't get back up, and I can't reach the controls from down here."

"Oh." Arlian looked about helplessly.

The lift was a sort of open-sided box six feet on a side, and right now it was stopped about six feet up, its base four feet below the corridor's ten-foot ceiling, its roof a foot above the floor upstairs. The opening to the passage had a stone arch closing off the top portion, but that left a fair-sized gap where the soldiers had been jabbing at Brook.

"Can you fit through?" Arlian asked. "I can catch you and lift you down."

"What about my chair?"

"I don't..."

Just then he heard footsteps, and then Black's voice called, "Brook?"

Arlian could hear a note of desperation.

"Here!" Arlian answered. "She's safe!"

Black appeared in the passage, not even glancing at the bodies on the floor; Stammer was close behind him.

"Help me get her out," Arlian said, gesturing at the lift. "Then we can lift Stammer in, and she can bring the chair down."

Black hurried to assist.

A few minutes later Brook was back in her chair, her children around her—Dirinan and Amberdine were crying uncontrollably as they clung to their mother, but they were otherwise unhurt. There was a small gash on Brook's shin where a sword had reached her, but that had been bandaged.

"You needn't worry about infection, at any rate," Arlian said. "The heart of the dragon does that much good."

Then he looked down the passage, at the corpses and the blood.

"We can't stay here, though," he said. "We were lucky this time."

"Where will we go?" Brook asked, looking up from wiping Amberdine's tears.

"Someplace defensible," Arlian replied.

"Outside Manfort, perhaps?" Black suggested. ""Where they can't find us as easily?"

"They can find Brook anywhere," Arlian said. "That's another thing about the heart of the dragon."

"They can? How?"

"The dragon that provided the venom will know. It must have known when she drank the elixir, and told Rolinor or some other agent through sorcery; there's no other way this could have happened. I'm sorry, Brook; 1 hadn't thought of that. I should have."

Black frowned at this, then said, "But still, here in Manfort..."

"Look out the window, Black," Arlian interrupted.

Black blinked. He glanced out at the great hall.

"Look at the sky. Feel the air."

"A storm is coming. What of it?"

"No storm," Arlian said. "Darkness and heat. They're preparing the way."

"The dragons?" Kerzia asked, her voice hushed. "The dragons are coming?" She looked from her mother to her father to the windows, then back to her father.

Arlian nodded. "And there are no defenses outside Manfort. We can't leave the city."

"Oh," Black said. "Well, they can't come here—the whole city is ringed with obsidian spearheads. It's men we need to fear."

"The Grey House?" Brook asked. "Are we going back there?"

Arlian gestured at the shattered window on the far side of the great hall. "They couldn't do that at the Grey House. It's a fortress."

"Agreed," Black said. "That should be safe." He glanced at his wife's belly. "And it shouldn't be for very long."

Arlian glanced as well, but said nothing.

The child would be born soon, yes—but wouldn't it need to grow up? Surely a mere baby could not be a serious threat to the dragons.

Black and his family might be hiding behind those fortress walls for years.

And there was the weather to consider—dragon weather. Yes, Manfort was heavily defended, with much of the world's supply of obsidian carved into weapons and bristling from the walls and rooftops—but the dragons knew that, yet the weather had turned hot and dark.

How desperate to kill Brook's child were they?

The Blades of the Dragon Society

43

The Blades of the Dragon Society

It took three hours to move Black, Brook, and their children back to the Grey House, but three days to clean up the mess at Obsidian House and relocate the remainder of the household. On the second of those days Arlian's presence at the Citadel was required by the Duke.

That was hardly a surprise; after all, half a dozen of the Duke's soldiers had died in Arlian's house, and the Duke knew that he had not ordered them there. It was only natural to want an explanation.

The explanation began in the audience chamber, but after a few minutes the two men retired to a private room, by mutual consent.

Arlian gladly agreed to leave his weapons, and to submit to a brief search; under other circumstances he might have resented the lack of trust evident in such a request, but in this case he would have thought the Duke a fool not to want his guest disarmed. There had been altogether too many betrayals and assassins around of late.

Arlian had in fact considered the Duke to be a fool when first they met, but his opinion had moderated—or perhaps the Duke had gained a little wisdom with his years. Arlian still did not consider His Grace to be an intellectual master, but admitted the city's ruler had a modicum of common sense.

When the heavy oaken door had closed solidly behind them, the Duke turned to his guest. "Now, my lord," he said, "suppose you tell me what is happening in my city, and why you have not seen fit to keep me properly informed."