Raven's Hand (12 page)

The man gave up the number
seven
. I
could only assume that this number corresponded to one of the rooms
upstairs. Eye Patch motioned for his men to move off. Half a dozen
left the main tap room, heading upstairs with their weapons ready
to draw blood.

The man asked for his daughter to be
released.

“I can understand your concern, Yeager,” Eye
Patch said. “With men like me and mine roaming about, you worry
that your young daughter will fall prey—that we might abduct her
and ravish her before your eyes.”

The other men chuckled at the idea. However,
I could see the lust in their eyes. They would have approved of
that plan.

“But don’t worry yourself,” Eye Patch said in
consoling tones. “She won’t be ravished by any man ever again.”

I gasped in unison with the girl’s father as
the man said the words. A moment later, the knife was drawn across
her pale, exposed throat. Crimson splashed across the front of her
dress and onto the wooden floorboards. Her father wailed for only a
second before the same was done to him by one of the other men.

They left the bodies beside one another,
bleeding out onto the floor. Eye Patch and the few remaining rogues
followed the others up the stairs toward the guest rooms. I
remained for a moment, staring down at the bodies, lamenting the
cruelty I had just witnessed. I could not help but be reminded of
Celia’s recent death at the hands of the Cinderman leader,
Judah.

I felt the urge to follow these men up the
stairs toward room number seven. I left the bodies of the young
girl and her father and followed Eye Patch. He wiped the blood from
the girl’s throat onto a cloth found on a table as he passed and
then discarded the stained thing. He then removed his sword from
the scabbard on his back, giving him two edged weapons to work
with.

The entire band, plus me, skulked along the
lamp-lit corridor where adjacent rooms held the sleeping patrons of
the Mangy Cur. Little did they realize the dangerous pack of
villains that were stalking just outside their doors. Yet, Eye
Patch and his crew appeared to be interested in only one particular
room and its occupants.

The men ahead of the leader—assuming Eye
Patch was their leader—waited outside room number seven. The
one-eyed man gestured with a nod of his head for his men to enter.
The door apparently had no lock. They stole inside as quietly as
mice on a midnight cupboard raid.

My incorporeal body glided inside behind
them. None of the men noticed my presence. The room was sparsely
furnished; nothing fancy by any means. A single table with a chair
stood next to the wall opposite the bed. Upon the chair, I noticed
a sword and scabbard slung over the back.

The hilt was made of silver bound with a very
dark green cord. The craftsmanship was exquisite. The leather bound
scabbard complimented the design perfectly. The weapon looked so
out of place here in this upper room at the Mangy Cur that I
couldn’t help but wonder who this man was that these rogues wished
to kill. The sword could have belonged to a nobleman, or even the
king himself.

Eye Patch’s men fanned out in the room all
around the bed of the sleeping stranger. I could see from my place
standing near the table that this was a young man. The men in the
room hardly breathed as they raised their weapons in readiness. Eye
Patch licked his lips and grinned. In a moment, they would fall
upon this young man and slice his body to ribbons with their
swords. Eye Patch had both his sword and his knife hand ready for
blood.

I had no way to warn the sleeping young man.
No cry from me would do the least bit of good, nor did I have any
power to stop these men from their ruthless deed. I did not know
why they meant to do him harm, but I did feel drawn to look upon
the young man more closely.

In an instant, I came to his bedside. His
back was turned to me momentarily. Then the young man became
restless, causing Eye Patch and his band to halt upon the precipice
of action. Had he woken to their movements? No, he was simply
turning in his bed due to some dream in the night.

As he rolled in my direction, his face
happened into a shaft of moonlight coming through his window. My
heart nearly stopped at the sight of him. He was beautiful; the
child of a god dwelling among men. If my ghostly form could have
breathed, that respiration would have halted upon the instant as
recognition dawned upon my mind.

This was no stranger that Eye Patch and his
band of villains stood ready to slaughter upon his bed. He was a
vision; no more than a dream. But this was impossible. This was one
of the visions I had from time to time. They always showed me
truth; never fantasy or fancy. Still, how could it be true?

The young man upon the bed inside room number
seven at the Mangy Cur was my own love from my dreams. Killian
slept here under my gaze. He was the man these others meant to
slay.

It wasn’t until I heard the order from Eye
Patch that I snapped back to the reality of this situation. My
mouth opened and I screamed to warn the man of my dreams of his
impending doom. Yet, I knew that warning couldn’t be heard.

I started awake back at the makeshift camp
that Kane had setup before I fell asleep. I was still screaming,
and my voice was very real here. As I realized where I was again,
my cry faded away. Kane’s black stallion was still grazing nearby,
but the assassin was nowhere to be found.

Killian couldn’t help but be charmed by the
beautiful young raven-haired girl every time he found her in his
dreams. She was rapturous to his soul. If only such a girl truly
existed! He would have given all that he had to make her his own
young bride.

Another night, and she had come to him again,
beguiling him with magical eyes. They changed color, matching
whatever color gown she happened to be wearing upon her visit to
his mind. Her smile ensnared him—he was caught like a trout upon a
fisherman’s hook. There was no getting away, neither could he
muster any desire to leave her.

The touch of her skin was like silk beneath
his calloused fingers. Hands that worked at shaping wood and steel
caressed her face, but she did not recoil from his touch. Instead,
she swooned beneath his fingertips, trembling in his arms.

They danced together in a ballroom adorned by
stars and night sky. Together, they floated upon a cloud, turning
to music that had no discernible origin, yet it filled every space.
They had only one another in this place. One another was all either
of them desired.

However, something in the atmosphere between
them suddenly shifted. The music in the air became dark and
dissonant. The raven-haired girl looked suddenly distressed.
Killian held her at arm’s length, examining her face.

Her expression was puzzled and unsettled. She
looked into his eyes, just before those eyes grew wide with sudden
horror. A scream ushered from her lips, startling him from their
revelry together.

“Killian, wake up!”

Killian heard the voice in his mind, shouting
for him to come awake. There was danger around him. The girl of his
dreams was definitely trying to warn him of something.

Suddenly, he was sitting bolt upright in his
bed at the Mangy Cur. The room was dark, but another voice still
resonated. Those words conveyed an intention that forced Killian
into action.

“Kill him,” he heard that voice say in the
dark.

There came movement from every direction at
once. Killian scrambled among the covers of his bed, trying to
extricate himself from the tangled web of sheets and blankets
threatening to bind him for his enemies and make him easy prey.
Blades flashed in the dark as shafts of moonlight from the single
window glinted upon steel.

Killian’s hand stretched out unconsciously,
almost as if under its own compulsion. He felt a pull upon his arm
and then a release of that pressure, like something suddenly giving
way. He realized something—a knife perhaps—had lacerated his flesh.
A single moment later, the blade fashioned by his father for their
future king flew across the room, landing in his outstretched palm.
He pulled the weapon from its handmade scabbard. The sharp burn
upon his arm was immediately lessened greatly by the sword in his
hand.

He gripped the weapon gratefully and then
surrendered to his instincts. Killian was a fighter. He had trained
with the weapons in his father’s shop since he was old enough to
bear their weight. He had never killed a man, but he certainly knew
how it was done.

The sword moved almost of its own will, yet
his body felt connected to it. It seemed to Killian like his mind
was joined with the mind of the sword—they two had become one in
movement, one in purpose. He became aware of his own hot blood
running down his arm, across his hand, onto the sword. He panicked
inwardly at this revelation, knowing the ritual and what might
happen.

A tingle ran up his arm when his blood fell
upon the steel. The arm became suddenly numb, yet the blade was
still moving against the men in the dark room, battling them
despite Killian’s present preoccupation with his arm. A moment
later, another man was dead upon the floor, and the feeling in his
arm returned.

The burning pain of his wound was gone. His
arm felt whole again; unmarred and stronger than ever. Killian
could only attribute this to the sword’s influence.

Another man cried out in the dark and fell to
the wooden floor. Throughout the melee, no one else came into the
room. Surely, Yeager could hear all of the commotion. Considering
the fear upon the faces of the Mangy Cur’s patrons earlier this
evening, Killian was not surprised to find a lack of help from any
people staying in the other rooms. But Yeager would have been a
different matter.

Orders were shouted, and Killian wondered who
these men were. Another fell. Only seconds had passed since the
girl in his dream had screamed out a warning to wake him from his
slumber.

Steel struck steel again and again. Two more
men went down. Killian leaped over one of the bodies, heading for
the last moving shadow in the room. The floor was littered with
corpses. The man hurled his sword at Killian, but even in the dark
he batted it harmlessly away.

The man hulked in the doorway, but his face
was hidden in darkness. Killian turned his blade in the moonlight
shining through the window, casting a beam of moonshine upon the
man’s face. Besides the ugly visage, Killian was struck by the
clearly defined eye patch the man was wearing.

“You!” Killian shouted.

Eye Patch growled at him, but then turned
from the fight and crashed through the meager door to Killian’s
room, charging into the hall. Killian ran after him, but the man
was surprisingly agile. Eye Patch descended the stair in two bounds
and raced out across the taproom and through the Mangy Cur’s front
door, nearly knocking it off its hinges in the process.

Killian paused in his pursuit at the base of
the stairs. A trail of blood was clearly visible, leading back
behind the bar into the kitchen area. Killian swallowed against the
lump gathering in his throat, knowing he must investigate. He
feared what he would find.

Tenants in the rooms upstairs began to stir,
causing the floorboards above to creak and moan. They had heard
most of the noise subside and were coming now to investigate the
scene. Killian ignored them, instead following the crimson trail
before him.

Walking behind the bar and into the kitchen,
he stopped when he saw the bodies of his dear friends. Both Yeager
and Wendy lay dead upon the floor with their throats cut. Killian
sank to his knees, the sword digging into one of the floorboards.
He gripped the pommel tightly as tears welled in his eyes.

His breaths came in gasps through gritted
teeth as his fury gathered within him. Behind him, tenants appeared
behind the bar, looking into the kitchen. Exclamations were made
and then accusations.

“He killed Yeager and his daughter!”

Killian whirled round on them. “I did nothing
of the kind.” He stood to his feet, holding the sword forth. “The
blood on this blade belongs to the mercenaries who threatened
Yeager’s daughter earlier. Their bodies are upstairs, but the
leader—the one with the eye patch and one hand—has escaped.”

Nods of ascent came from a few of the patrons
who happened to be in the taproom when Killian had challenged the
mercenaries and Yeager had ordered them to back down. “I saw those
men earlier bothering Wendy,” one of the men said.

Killian walked through the half dozen men and
women gathering at the bar. “See to their bodies,” he said. He
assumed they would do as he commanded. “I’m going to make sure
their leader pays for this.”

Killian walked through the taproom in a
daze—his rage burning hot within him, tears streaking his
bloodstained cheeks. He pushed the door open and walked through
into the street beyond. There was no sign of Eye Patch. He was
probably long gone. Still, someone had to know where to find the
man.

A siren call issued forth from the Mangy Cur.
Every business and many well-to-do homes had these installed in
case of emergency. The king’s guard patrolling the streets of
Rainier would respond within minutes. It was their sworn duty to
the king and his citizens. Because of this procedure, Rainier had
one of the lowest crime rates in any of the cities of the great
houses.

Killian did not wait for the soldiers. He ran
to the horse stalls behind the inn, finding Esmeralda now awake and
agitated by the siren wailing from the top of the Mangy Cur.
Killian made haste. He still carried the leather bound scabbard in
his other hand and now sheathed the sword again. As the blade went
in, he noticed by the lamplight that the blood of the mercenaries
was now gone from the steel.