The Tomni'Tai Scroll (Book 1) (23 page)

He found a hold and was able to pull himself up and out through the hole. His waist snagged a bit, but after a quick twist he was able to wriggle the rest of the way through. He quickly checked the room and saw he was alone in what looked like a prep area for food. A few racks hung from the ceiling with drying herbs and braided cloves of garlic. Pots and dishes were stacked along a sturdy, yet plain wooden table and next to that was an oven with an iron grill inside, filled with old ashes and dead embers.

Talon rolled off of the grate and put his feet on the stone floor. Water coursed out from his boots and streamed from his clothes. Talon bent down and pulled his boots free. It took a bit of doing, as the leather clung to his skin and fought against him. When he finally yanked them free, a cup’s worth of water slopped across the floor. Talon stripped his socks and wriggled his toes to give them air. He hung the socks over the grate and turned his boots upside down, letting the tops drip over the side of the well.

Then he laid his sword across the grate while he pulled his tunic up over his head and draped it next to his boots. Finally he undid his belt and untied the laces at his crotch. He pulled his pants free, tugging them off of his wet, thickly muscled legs. He then tossed the pants up over the bar where the bucket hung and grabbed his sword and dagger again.

The air inside the tower was cold against his damp, bare skin, but he preferred the nip in the air to the chaffing of wet clothes as he snuck toward the door and began to assess his surroundings.

He pressed up to the side next to the open doorway and peered through to the next room. It appeared to be a bunk area, filled with seven crude beds made of old oak beams and mattresses stuffed with straw. Heavy, fur blankets covered each bed. Three of the beds were empty. The others had sleeping elves in them.

Talon went to the balls of his feet and gently padded through the room to the first elf. He deftly opened the elf’s throat without any noise, his dagger sliding easily through the flesh. With the first down, Talon moved swiftly to take care of the other three.

After murdering the fourth, Talon picked up the red robes slung over a chair nearby and hastily put them on. The fabric was a bit snug as it struggled to fit over his muscled body, but it was no matter to Talon. He merely needed the disguise. He drew the hood up over his head and moved onward.

When he emerged from the sleeping area he found himself behind an old, silver-haired elf standing near a fireplace, pitching a small log onto the fire.

Talon quickly tip-toed up behind the elf and ran his sword through the elf’s lower back while driving his dagger deep into the left side of the guard’s neck. The elf twitched and stiffened, but barely let out more than a whispered moan before his strength left him and his body went limp. Talon skillfully guided the dead elf down quietly to the floor while glancing around.

A tightly winding spiral staircase led up from this floor, and a large wooden door stood to Talon’s left. Talon knew it was the main door that led outside. The ground floor of the tower had three rooms, and Talon had cleared each of them. Now was the time to decide whether to deal with the two door guards outside, or to first press his way up the tower.

Either choice came with a danger. If he went upstairs and the guards came in for any reason, they would discover his work and start searching for him. However, if he went outside to take on two guards, undoubtedly one of them would be able to raise the alarm, and if anyone was upstairs then Talon would lose the element of surprise.

He had counted seven beds and there were now five dead elven guards. It was possible that these were the last two guards. He didn’t discount the notion that there may very well be more guards on the second floor, but he decided to deal with that when the time came. He flipped his dagger into an upside down grip in his left hand and set his sword on the ground near the door.

He slowly reached down for the latch with his right hand and pressed his ear to the door. He heard nothing. He closed his eyes, visualizing his strike in his head. Then, he threw the latch and stepped out into the night.

He plunged his dagger deep into the elf on his left, just behind the elf’s collar bone. He spun around the elf, twisting the guard’s body to create a shield between himself and the second guard while he reached for the elf’s sword with his right hand. He yanked the sword free and then rushed the surprised elf with the sword extended under the first elf’s armpit. Talon only stopped when the sword had pierced the second elf through the heart and
pinged
off the stone wall of the tower’s exterior.

The first guard was now coming back out of shock and started to wrestle against Talon. Talon absorbed a mild punch to the body with a grimace and tugged down on his dagger, scraping the blade through the gap between the elf’s clavicle and scapula.

The elf cried out in agony and his knees buckled. Talon pulled harder on the dagger until the elf’s collar bone snapped and the blade came free with a rush of blood. The elf fell to the ground and Talon rained down with a savage punch to the elf’s left temple. The elf’s head snapped back exposing his neck for Talon’s final, deadly dagger strike.

Talon looked up to the other elf, who was still breathing faintly and holding the sword in his chest with his right hand. The elf lifted his right hand and started to mouth something as his fingers weakly wove the beginning of an incantation in the air. Talon threw his dagger to stop the elf, but it fell short of its mark, as if an invisible wall stood a few inches in front of the mortally wounded elf. Talon’s eyes went wide as he watched a spark spontaneously erupt into flame in the elf’s hand. He bent down and snatched the dead elf’s body, hefting it up in front of him just in time to stop a massive fireball from burrowing into him. The force of the attack knocked Talon to the ground. The dead elf’s body twitched and sizzled atop him. The smell of charred flesh and blood was almost overpowering, but Talon knew he had to move before the elf could strike again.

He shoved the body aside, glancing at the sizeable black hole in its back and sprang up to his feet. He was more than a little relieved when he saw the other elf’s body slumping down along the wall. The second fireball was never more than a spark before it extinguished in the dying elf’s hand. Talon exhaled and went back inside, hoping there were only seven elves in the tower.

Once inside he retrieved his sword and closed the door behind him. He listened carefully for any sign of movement. After a few moments of hearing nothing more than his own throbbing heart, he made his way for the stairs and ascended to the second floor.

The stairs were made of iron, and were very small and narrow. They were hard for his human feet to navigate, but he made it to the top without making any additional noise. Once on the next floor he waited a moment to let his eyes adjust. A single candle was the only light in the chamber. It stood in the center of an empty, wooden table that was surrounded by large, semi-circular bookshelves encasing the room about and creating shadows that danced away from the candle’s flame.

He carefully scanned the area, looking for any hint of another guard, but he found none. The staircase ended on this floor, and the stairs leading from this floor to the third were barely visible behind a bookshelf at the far end of the library.

Talon silently walked toward the stairs, his eyes darting to each flinching shadow. As he ascended the old, iron stairs he looked up, searching for any sign of movement. Judging from how tall the tower appeared from the outside, Talon guessed this would be the final floor. Therefore it should be the sage’s bedchamber. He knew that meant there were likely one or two more guards on the floor.

If there were any guards, they did not make a sound as Talon emerged at the top of the stairs and stepped forward onto newly polished wooden flooring. Immediately before him was a dining chamber, roughly fifteen feet wide and another fifteen feet across. He saw a long, rectangular table in the center with a red, silk table runner on the table, accenting the silver and gold candlesticks.

The dining chamber’s walls were also lined with bookshelves, though they were not as large as the shelves on the floor below. On the opposite side from where he stood was a wooden door. Runes were carved into the door frame, and the handle itself was a claw of iron wrapped around a crystal. Talon approached carefully, inspecting the curious door before opening it. He scrutinized the knob, assessing whether the crystal was for decoration, or perhaps was an ancient ward of some kind.

Talon’s eyes moved up to the center of the door and settled upon a peculiar knocker made of bronze and inlaid with jade. The knocker’s ring attached to a bronze man’s head, each side of the ring going into one of the man’s ears. Atop the forehead was a bronze bird pecking into the man’s skull. Talon could only guess what the symbolism could be for such a statuette. The bronze had long ago faded and a green patina had taken it over, so there was no way for him to no whether the knocker was a recent addition, or a remnant left over from the time the tower served during the wars with the Sierri’Tai. Before Talon could finish searching the door for traps the crystal knob creaked and squeaked as it turned counter clockwise. Talon recoiled into a defensive posture and then the door was opened from inside.

Long, silver hair flowed effortlessly over a thin, shapely face. Blue eyes went wide as they caught sight of Talon dressed in the tight red robes, but only for a moment before narrowing as the elf reflexively backed away. A long, silken gown draped across the elf’s body, hugging every curve. Talon’s mouth slacked when he realized this elf was female. Then he noticed the rim of her right sleeve had the same golden lettering as the other guards’ robes.

The elf said something that Talon did not understand. Her gown rippled with her every movement. Her left hand opened in front of her and a swirling blue mist formed in her palm. Talon ducked back behind the wall as the elf’s spell blasted through the doorway, sending the dining table crashing against the stone wall beyond.

A moment later the elf emerged from the room, holding a long scimitar in her hands. Talon quickly deflected two strikes and lashed out with his leg. The elf leapt back, hair and gown flowing before her as she did so. Her left hand opened again, palm facing Talon.

Talon dove to the stairwell just in time to avoid another spell. He tucked his head and used his legs and elbows to control his descent as he rolled down the tight staircase. Once at the bottom he jumped up and ran behind one of the bookshelves as he plotted his attack.

The elf glided down the stairs after him. Her bare, golden feet and legs were barely visible before another mist spell extinguished the candle in the center of the library, casting the floor into total darkness.

“Can you see, human?” the elf mocked. Talon said nothing. Wood cracked apart and pages of paper ripped through the air, some slapping against other bookshelves or the wall as the air
whooshed
through the floor. Talon held fast, not wanting to give away his position by panicking.

“I will find you,” the elf promised. Another bookshelf was ripped apart. A few large shards of wood landed near Talon and paper flitted around him. Silently, he rolled to his left, trying to circle back to the stair case in an effort to get to the elf’s back. Another bookshelf exploded somewhere across the room. Then wood scraped across the floor until the table skidded into the stairs and broke apart. The iron staircase rang out in protest, sending splintered wood in every direction. One of the table legs blasted Talon in the ribs, almost knocking the wind from his lungs.

Talon gripped the table leg in his left hand and his dagger in his right. He waited until another bookshelf exploded across the room, then he chucked the table leg through the air, letting it crash into the wall. A moment later a fireball erupted through the room and crashed into the wall exactly where the table leg had hit. Talon wasted no time, he threw his dagger straight and true, lodging it deep in the elf’s leg.

She cried out in pain and turned to launch another spell, but Talon had already rolled around to flank her by this time. He was only a few yards away when she sent another fireball to the place he had launched the dagger from. He rushed forward, scooping up a large fragment of wood as he somersaulted across to her. The elf spun around but her aim was too high. The third fireball sailed harmlessly over Talon as he stopped just before her and lashed out with a savage kick to her stomach.

The delicate elf stumbled backward, but managed to keep her feet beneath her instead of falling to her back. She sliced in front of her with her scimitar, forcing Talon to avert his direction. Then she sent him sailing into a bookshelf with one of her mist spells.

His ears rang and his head throbbed. He shook his head and realized he had been knocked through a bookshelf. A large plank of wood lay over his leg and several hunks of wood were mixed with torn parchment beneath him. His sword was no longer with him. One of the fireball spells had managed to latch onto some of the wrecked shelves, spreading orange light through the floor, the fire cackling as it consumed books and wood alike. The two locked eyes on each other again.

“One of us dies here,” the elf swore.

Talon shook his head. “I don’t kill women,” he said dryly. He rose to his feet, sweeping splinters from his arm and pulling a long plank of wood up with him.

The elf regarded him for a moment, and then began to speak in Taish, the elven language. Talon rushed forward again. He stepped left, avoiding a fireball, then dodged right as another fireball sailed by. He lifted his wooden weapon and let out a shout as he and the elf lunged for each other.