Demonbane (Book 4) (6 page)

It wasn’t much, but it was something to work with.

“There!” Kara pointed to the curtained bed. She fell back against the fireplace, a look of terror on her face. “It was terrible! They tied him up, and threatened to kill me, and, and—”

The guard with the halberd ran to the bed.

The guard with the musket came closer to Kara. His face showed his blatant confusion. His eyes caught sight of her torn dress, then the open strongbox. “How--?” he started to ask.

The second guard pulled back the curtain on the bed. “He’s here!” he called.

The guard with the musket turned his head to look at Dutraad, unconscious and bound on the bed.

Kara made a split-second decision.

She was feeding off the guards’ confusion, but she knew they wouldn’t be confused for long. It would only take them a few moments to get their thoughts straight, and then they would realize that no one had fled through the only door to the room, the strongbox door was wide open, and Kara had locked the door from the inside.

In short, they would realize in a matter of heartbeats that Kara was the only real suspect.

She only had a few moments. And she had to make the most of them.

The guard with the musket turned his head back. He started to say something.

Kara took two steps forward and kneed him hard between the legs.

The first guard instinctively caught the smoking grenade, and almost dropped his sword in the process. It took him a moment to realize what he was holding. He froze, his eyes wide as saucers.

Maklavir hated violence in all its forms. It was so…uncivilized. In certain situations, however, he had come to the realization that even violence had its uses.

The situation he was currently in, for instance, was certainly one of them.

Maklavir grabbed a shield of arms that was set onto the hallway wall and ripped it out of its fastenings.

The second guard backed up several steps, a natural reaction from a man who saw a live grenade within twelve feet of him.

The first guard turned and swung back his arm to throw the sputtering grenade as far down the corridor as he could.

Maklavir brought the shield down with both hands on the back of the man’s head.

There was a dull
clang
, and the man collapsed to the floor like a sack of grain.

Maklavir vaguely hoped the poor fellow wasn’t dead, though more, if he was honest, out of the sheer principle of the thing.

The second guard froze, torn with indecision. His eyes were still on the grenade.

Maklavir turned, then kicked the explosive device down the hallway towards the startled man.

The grenade rolled and bounced down the hall. It stopped right at the second guard’s feet.

The man threw himself against a door. He dropped his sword and covered his face with both hands.

Maklavir swooped down and snatched the unconscious guard’s sword off the ground.

The matchcord on the grenade reached its end. It sputtered, then fizzled out.

The second guard lowered his arms. He stared in stupid awe at the dud grenade.

Maklavir stepped up to him with a shrug. “No gunpowder in that one,” he explained apologetically.

He slammed the hilt of the sword into the guard’s face.

Kendril needed a weapon, and he needed one fast. He reached for the closest thing to him, the nearest thing to a lethal object he could find.

Immediately to his left was a stand of billiard sticks.

He snatched one off the rack and snapped it in two on his knee.

Nadine was already on top of him. Her knives came at him in rapid stabs like serpent strikes.

Kendril blocked the blows, one after the other, fighting with a broken piece of the billiard stick in each hand.

The assassin gritted her teeth in rage. She whirled around the billiards table and tried to press Kendril against the wall.

Kendril grinned from the sheer heat of the combat, relishing in the sudden outburst of violence. He swung the pieces of wood as if they had been the finest steel blades in the world.

He couldn’t kill the assassin with the billiard stick pieces, or even seriously injure her. The best he could hope to do was to bruise her, maybe knock her unconscious if he could get a head hit in.

Not that he stood much chance of that with the masterful job she was doing.

She leapt, parried, struck and slashed with all the skill of a dozen swordsmen.

Joseph was still on the floor, rolling around but not yet back on his feet.

Kendril felt a flash of irritation through the exhilaration of the combat. Why didn’t the scout get back up? A cut on the arm was nothing serious.

The assassin leapt under Kendril’s attack, then kicked him hard in the stomach.

Kendril hit the billiards table and rolled back across its surface. He tumbled onto the floor on the other side. He clambered to his feet, out of breath.

It was then that he noticed that Joseph was still on the floor.

The scout was retching, rolling in agony and holding his bleeding arm.

Something was wrong. A simple slash on the arm shouldn’t—

And then the terrible truth hit Kendril.

Nadine’s knives.

They were poisoned.

Chapter 4

The guard doubled over and dropped his weapon. He didn’t even manage to mouth a curse.

Kara snatched the falling musket, then cracked the stock into the man’s face.

He crashed back to the ground, unconscious.

The second guard readied his halberd with a cry. He started towards Kara, the blade on the shaft held high to strike.

Kara didn’t have time to think or react. The guard’s intention was clear. It was him or her.

She only had one choice.

Kara swung down the musket and fired.

Maklavir brushed himself off as he hurried away from the scene of his altercation. Things were rapidly spinning out of control. And those guards…it almost seemed as if they knew why he was here.

The same uneasy feeling he had felt when he first spotted Bronwyn returned with a vengeance. Something was wrong. He had to warn the others. Where was Kara? Still upstairs? Perhaps he could bluff his way past the guards, find some way to—

A loud
bang
sounded from somewhere upstairs.

Maklavir stopped short.

He had been around Kendril and those blasted firearms of his too long not to know the sound of gunfire when he heard it.

Maklavir started again, moving so fast he was almost running.

Everything was falling apart.

Why didn’t it surprise him?

“Joseph!” Kendril glanced over at his fallen friend in concern.

The scout made no response.

Nadine stuck one of her long knives back into her belt, then reached for several throwing blades that were attached to her vest.

The table was between them. If Kendril had had one of his pistols, it would have been an easy enough shot. But he didn’t, and for all he knew the assassin’s throwing blades were poisoned too.

Nadine brought back her hand to throw the three blades she held between her fingers.

Kendril threw himself forward and smashed into the billiards table with all his weight.

The whole table lurched towards Nadine.

The female assassin leapt up on top of the table. She balanced herself perfectly.

Kendril lashed out at her exposed leg with one of the broken billiard sticks.

Nadine blocked it with the long knife in her hand.

Just as Kendril had expected.

He dropped the sticks he was holding, then grabbed the table with both hands and tilted it up.

The assassin hurled the blades.

Kendril felt one pass just over his head. The table blocked the other two as it came crashing up and over onto its side.

Nadine gave out a surprised cry as she toppled backwards.

Right out through the room’s window.

The second guard was dead before he hit the floor, his chest shattered by the musket shot.

Kara dropped the weapon, her eyes stinging from the black cloud of smoke. She turned and dashed to the broken door of the room.

She could already hear voices out in the hallway. Shouts, orders, heavy footfalls.

More guards. And they were coming her way.

Kara ran out into the hallway. Like the rest of the house, it was lit only by the flickering glow of crystal-sleeved candles.

There was a barked shout from further down the hall. A shadow loomed at the corner.

Kara grabbed for the handle of the nearest door on the other side of the hallway, then threw it open and entered the room. She closed the door quickly but softly behind her.

She pushed herself up against the door. The room she was in appeared to be a spare bedroom. It was unlit, the furniture looming up in the darkness like half-seen monsters.

Her ear pressed to the door, she heard the sounds of running out in the passageway beyond, intermixed with angry voices.

It was only a matter of time before they started searching room-to-room for her. And considering that she was just across the hall, they wouldn’t have to go far to find her.

Kara took a breath. She looked around the room she was in, her vision slowly adjusting to the darkness.

She had no weapons, so she couldn’t fight her way out. The stairs down were certainly blocked, so she couldn’t go that way either. Joseph and Kendril would come to her aid as soon as they could, but they were unarmed as well.

Basically, she was on her own.

A door slammed open somewhere. Or maybe shut. Kara couldn’t rightfully tell.

All she knew was that she had to move. Fast.

There. Across the shadows of the room, she could just make out a door in the left-hand wall. It probably connected to an adjacent room.

She raced towards the door.

Perhaps, she thought, she might just make it out of this alive after all.

Freezing air whipped into the room through the shattered window. The billiards table tottered, then lay still where leaned on its side against the wall.

Kendril leapt to the window. He looked outside onto the snow-covered lawn.

The ground sloped away from the mansion here, at the back of the house, so there was a good drop of ten or eleven feet.

Amazingly, there was no sign of Nadine. Again, it was as if she had vanished into thin air like a ghost.

Kendril didn’t know if she was gone or not.

At the moment, he didn’t really care.

He rushed back over to his wounded friend and knelt over him. “Joseph?”

Kendril turned the injured man over onto his back.

Joseph’s face was a sickly green. He was shaking, and had already vomited twice.

“Poi—poi—” he stammered.

A shout sounded from the corridor outside the room. Dutraad’s guards.

“I know,” said Kendril quickly. He grabbed Joseph’s handkerchief out of his pocket, and tied it tight around the top of his arm, just above the cut. He looked around the destroyed room. “Sorry, Joseph, but we have to move.”

He grabbed his friend, then lifted the groaning man to his feet.

Maklavir reached the end of the hall. If the gunshot had been noticed in the main hall, apparently it was just being ignored. There was no real sign that anyone was trying to flee. If it had been noticed at all, apparently it had been brushed off as harmless.

Sadly, Maklavir knew better.

He knew what he had to do. Tomas was supposed to be in the yard. If Maklavir could make it to him, then he could warn the Ghostwalker what was going on. They would need a way out of here, and the carriage was their best bet. But it would take time to hitch up the horses, and also to—

Maklavir turned a corner.

Kendril was staggering down the corridor. Joseph hung off him, his feet trailing and barely walking. He looked half-dead.

Maklavir stopped short, the sword still in his hand. “Great Eru!” he exclaimed. He glanced down at Joseph’s bleeding arm. “What happened?”

“Don’t stand there gawking, you buffoon,” Kendril roared. “Grab his other arm. Help me!”

Maklavir jumped to his friend’s side. He supported Joseph’s half-unconscious form. “Where’s Kara?”

“Eru knows,” the Ghostwalker grunted. “Hopefully she’s doing better than us.” He nodded down the corridor. “The kitchen. Let’s go.”

Kara rushed through the second room. She swore violently as she banged her shin on a jutting piece of furniture. With the curtains closed, it was hard to see.

.She pushed herself up against the door at the end of the room, and listened carefully.

There were more yells from out in the corridor. Two more doors banged open. Boots tromped loudly as men ran back and forth.

She had to move. If she stayed in one place, she was as good as dead. There had to be another way to get downstairs. A servants’ stairway, a back passage…ashes, at this point she was even considering going out the window.

Kara twisted the handle on the door and slipped out into the hall.

With the glow-globes turned off, the corridor was lit only by the golden light of candles. It was a small blessing, but at least it made things darker.

Considering that Kara was weaponless and wearing a torn white dress, she had to take her advantages where she could.

Of course, shadows didn’t help when there was a guard standing just ten feet away in the middle of the corridor.

Kara froze like a deer caught in a hunter’s sights.

The man half turned. He stared at her in astonishment.

“There!” Kara cried. She pointed back into the room she had just exited. “I saw him, he was running, and had a—a—sword—” She fell back against the hallway wall, as if ready to faint.

The man brandished his weapon, then ran into the darkened room.

Kara breathed again. She could add confusion to darkness on her short list of allies.

She turned and pattered down the hall. More shouts echoed from behind her. The guards were closing in.

There was a door at the end corridor. Kara ran up to it and tried the handle.