Crown of Steel (Chaos Awakens) (15 page)

"Are you alright?" Haley whispered to her.

Kassa nodded. "My body knows what to do, but I really should have worked out my climbing muscles more. I'm not as fit as Xan's memories think I should be. I just need to slow down a little bit."

Haley felt a slight surge of pride. She wasn't even winded yet. Her extensive physical training really had made a difference after all. "I'll meet you at the top." She whispered as she surged up the wall and into the lead.

"Be careful at the top." Kassa whispered after her. Haley heard and heeded the warning. There could be guards along the top of the wall that weren't visible from the ground. Climbing might be the easiest part of this breeching. She climbed the rest of the way up the wall moving as quickly as her freezing fingers would allow.

Haley stopped just below the lip of the wall and forced herself to listen very carefully. She could hear the telltale tap of footsteps moving along the walkway. They were approaching her at a steady pace. It only took her a couple of seconds to determine that it was one person dressed in what sounded like chain mail. Kassa was just pulling herself up to about Haley's foot when the guardsman passed, completely oblivious to the two people climbing the wall beneath him. Haley waited until he had gone and then pulled herself over the lip of the wall and landed on the walkway in a crouch, drawing her dagger in the same motion. She fastened her eyes on the guard walking away, expecting him to have heard her arrival on the wall walk, but he kept on marching away as though nothing had happened. Haley let out a shaky breath and then reached a hand over the wall to help Kassa over. The older woman took it with a relieved look.

"Are you going to be alright to climb down?" Haley asked. Kassa was sweating heavily despite the cold and the ears of her mask had turned a brighter red. Her breathing was fast and hard.

"I just need a minute to catch my breath and rest my arms. That was harder than I thought it would be." She noted as she forced herself to draw deeper and slower breaths.

"I'm not sure we have a minute. That guard could be back at any moment." Haley said uneasily, looking down the line of the castle wall the way he'd passed. He'd vanished into the obscurity cast by the darkness.

"Alright, alright. I'm good." Kassa whispered, stretching her arms and shoulders before slipping over the other side of the wall. Haley watched her go for a few seconds before joining her on the descent.  At least they were on their way down now. That wouldn't require quite as much upper body strength though it could be hard on the joints. Haley stayed close to Kassa and watched her drop from grip to grip, her knuckles white with the effort of holding herself. Haley didn't say anything, but she was worried. She doubted Kassa would have the strength necessary to climb her way to the landing on the house. It wouldn't be as easy as scaling the rock wall. Handholds would be few and further apart.

The two women dropped to the ground soundlessly. Kassa's hair was clinging to her sweat moistened brow and her mask was indicating that her cheeks had gone from rosy to pale which was never a good sign. Haley restrained her instinct to worry. Kassa would know her own limits. At least Haley hoped that she would know her own limits.

They crossed the courtyard quickly and quietly, staying deep in the shadows as they moved. Kassa's motions were perfect, well practiced, and precise. That didn’t stop her shoulders from heaving as she caught her breath, and her arms seemed to hang too stiffly at her sides. If Haley could tell she was exhausted there was a definite problem. They crossed the open space between the wall and the house quickly enough, but it was clear that Kassa wasn't going any further. As they leaned into the wall to hide themselves, Haley noticed that Kassa was leaning entirely onto the wall. It was propping her up more than she was using it for cover.

"You're not going to make it up this wall." Haley decided it was best to state the obvious as bluntly as possible.

Kassa looked immediately offended. "I'll be fine, I just need a moment to catch my breath and let my arms recover."

Haley shook her head. "No, we both know that's a bad idea. What if we need to move quickly once we're at the top?” As she spoke Haley was keenly aware of the debt she owed the older woman. Kassa had gone far out of her way to help Haley, even going so far as to put herself in that situation with the healer. If Haley could help her here it was just one more step towards repaying that debt. "You could get killed if you can't keep up. You could get both of us killed. You're going to have to stay here." Haley went on quickly before Kassa could protest, she had no desire to be any harsher than she had to be. "I'll break in and then make my way down a few floors to where there’s a window large enough for me to sneak you through. Then I'll throw a rope down and help you in. We can look for Xandrith after that."

"And where are you going to find a rope? Do you think they'll just have one hanging around for your convenience?" Kassa asked, eyes still angry.

"Even if I can't find a rope you'll only have to climb half as far if I can open one of those windows." Haley pointed up the house about three stories to where the windows were slightly larger. "And you won't have to climb out and over the balcony."

"I'm not going to let you wander around through this place without me." Kassa insisted stubbornly.

"Instead you're going to get me killed when I have to defend you while you catch your breath?" Haley wasn't letting this go. She might not be as experienced as Kassa, but even she knew that dragging someone up a wall just to have them completely spent and useless when they needed to be battle ready was a bad idea. Kassa was the better fighter, and they needed her ready to do what she did best. "Climbing is one of the things I do really well. Let's not be stupid about this just because you think you need to protect me all the time."

Kassa sighed in exasperation. "I think it's a bad idea. We don't even know if you can get through the wards up there yet. What if you blow it and alert everyone to your presence?"

"Then I guess I'll need to move really quickly, something you wouldn't be able to do if you were gasping for breath and standing around with your arms hanging limp at your sides." With that, Haley turned and took her first hand hold on the house.

"Damn it, Haley!" Kassa called quietly. Haley looked over her shoulder. "Just be careful, will you promise me that?"

Haley smiled. "I'm always careful." With that she leapt for her next hand hold. The front of the house was easy enough to climb, though the good grips were further apart than the ones on the exterior wall. It was really only the distance that made it a challenge. By the time Haley had reached the floor with the larger windows even her well trained arms were getting a little tired. She tried the window quickly from the outside, but the shutters were barred from the other side. She couldn't even see in, though she could tell there were no lights on beyond the closed window. At least she probably wouldn't have to sneak around too much once she was inside. She steadied her current hold and launched herself upward again.

Above her the light of the balcony was like a beacon towards which she was being drawn. Every small nook and hold brought her another few inches closer to her goal. Haley had no doubt that Xan would have already made the balcony if he were making the ascent, but she knew she was doing well enough. Her pace was steady and her arms were holding out, so it seemed the months of tree climbing were really paying off. At least the wood and tile of the house wasn't as cold to climb as the pure stone of the exterior wall.

With a final lunge she got her hands over the lip of the balcony rail and pulled herself up just far enough so that she could see over it. She let her weight drop back down immediately. There was a man in robes sitting in a chair playing some kind of game at a table. Obviously he was supposed to be standing watch just beyond the wards that surrounded the entryway into the house. He was doing a poor job of it. Still, she hadn't anticipated they would both have a ward as well as somebody keeping watch. For a few moments she just allowed herself to hang and think. She didn't have a choice. She'd have to kill him. Haley had killed before, but this would be the first time she'd ever killed someone who hadn't attacked first. In a way, this would be the first time she'd ever taken a life of her own volition.

 As carefully and quietly as she could manage she circled around the rail of the balcony until she was directly behind the sitting man. She took a deep breath and pulled herself up to the top of the railing, moving as slowly and carefully as she could make herself. Every brush of her clothes rubbing together and the barest rustle of her boots hitting the railing sounded like strikes of thunder to her ears. She couldn't believe the man hadn't turned yet. She reached for her weapon, her hand brushing over her axe before going to her knife. Her axe wasn't the right weapon for this, even though it had been her first instinct to grab that one. She drew her blade and winced at the sound it made as it cleared the leather. She slipped down from the banister and landed with a whisper of her boots on the stone of the balcony. Again the man didn't notice, but it had seemed ever so loud to Haley. She stood and took a quiet step towards the mage's back as she watched the lines of his shoulders beneath his robes looking for the spot that she knew would allow her knife to slip quickly into his vitals. She raised the knife, taking a stance that would allow her to put her full force into the blow.

A bead of sweat dripped down her brow, not from the wall climbing excursion. She looked at the tip of her blade and saw it shaking slightly.
This is it. This is how we become like Xan.
Her voice spoke confidently from within, but somehow she didn't feel the confidence. She took another deep, steadying breath.
We need to do this. Strike fast, strike true.
Haley took another step forward and the man's head turned as though he'd felt the eyes penetrating his back in the exact place where Haley intended to slip in the knife. His eyes widened in terror above the top of his mask as he caught sight of Haley behind the facade of the fox.

Haley sprang forward and her knife slammed into the man's shoulder as he opened his mouth to shriek. Haley's fist smashed into his face, stifling his scream, and then she was slashing with her knife again. She couldn't let him call out for help. She tore a gouge in the side of his neck but missed his carotid artery by a wide margin. This time a strangled scream slipped between his lips and ruptured into the night like the sound of a bell clattering from the top of a tower all the way to the ground. A shiver of terror went down Haley's spine and she struck with her knife again, driving it through the side of the man's temple and into his head. His body gave a massive spasm and his throat rattled with a final exertion of breath as he died. The balcony was covered in blood. Haley was covered in blood. The body was still twitching beneath her. Haley staggered backwards and chewed back the urge to empty her stomach. That hadn't gone at all like she'd imagined it would.

She backed away from the body and tucked herself into one of the few dark corners of the balcony to wait for someone to come. Certainly the entire house must have heard what she'd done. It had all seemed too loud. She waited, quietly shaking in the corner of the balcony, forcing herself to breathe slower and to count the seconds as they passed. She needed to keep track of time. When things went wrong it was easy to let her sense of time become distorted, and that could cause her to make mistakes. Haley needed to center herself and allow for a reasonable passing of time before she moved on again.

She waited for nearly ten minutes before she broke off from the dark and moved towards the corpse she'd created. She couldn't believe that no one had come to investigate all the sounds, but everything was just as silent and still as before. The corpse had finally stopped moving, but she couldn't bring herself to look at it. She cleaned her dagger blade on the dead man's robes and put it back in its scabbard. This was what it meant to be like Xan. Death was the job.
You did fine. You'll get better.

She passed the body and walked to the open double doors leading into the house. The shimmer of magic was still present at the window, so obviously the man on the balcony hadn't been the one creating the ward. That meant she still had to deal with the ward, but how? Where could she find life to power her own magic? Had she been thinking she might have been able to tap the man at the table for his life, but that option was now quite gone. Haley forced her mind to calm and reached out with her senses, looking for someone within range. In a moment she found herself tracing the threads of the ward itself and following the path of the spell back to a woman sitting in a kitchen sipping at a glass of wine and eating a loaf of bread. She was on the bottom floor of the building, running her ward easily from a distance. The conduit of her own magic put her within Haley's range of reach, but what would she do if Haley tried to tap her power? Would she know? There was really no way to be certain, but Haley didn't have a lot of other options.

She reached for the magic and grasped at it cautiously to start, not entirely certain what she was doing. As she touched it she could sense the intricate seals that had been put in place to form the ward at the door in front of her. Haley wasn't certain what each symbol meant or what it was doing exactly, but she could feel the balance and ebb of the magic as it flowed through the seals. Each symbol was like a letter spelling out a group of words that gave the spell purpose. "Protect, pain, resist, warn." This was more than just a simple warning seal. This was designed to debilitate any who were foolish enough to try and cross it.

Haley gently worried her lower lip as she considered what to do next. The field had to come down for her to cross it. She took a deep breath and grabbed at the remote woman's magic with all of her strength, unsure of how the distance would affect her attempt. Immediately the young assassin could feel energy surging through her body as the magic flooded her with the need for a release. It was too much. Below her the female mage crumpled to the ground suddenly drained of years of life and possibly even dead.