Weapon of Flesh (12 page)

“Hold there, Lassie!” a burly guard snapped, stepping up to the wrought iron gate that was the entrance to the guildmaster’s estate.  The gate was closed and barred, as it always was after dark, which made the guard’s warning a little ridiculous in Mya’s mind.

“You expected me to crash right through, maybe?” she said with a scoff, cradling her throbbing arm, her breath coming in long ragged gasps.  The days without sleep or rest were taking their toll; she felt giddy with exhaustion and the lingering effects of Targus’ potion.  “I’m on the Grandfather’s business, Guard, and as you can see,” she held up her deformed wrist, “it’s left me a little worse for wear.  I need to speak with him immediately!  My name is Mya; I work with Master Hunter, Targus.”

“Aye, we’ve been told to expect someone from Targus, so that’ll get you through the gate.”  They worked the squeaky bolt and opened the heavy portal just enough for her to slip through.  She started for the main house, but the guard snapped, “Not so fast there!  I told you that’d get you through the gate.  You’ll not go traipsing around the estate without an escort.”  He snapped his fingers at one of the others standing the gate post.  “Hollas, you go with her.  And from the looks of that arm, you might have one of the boys call for a healer as well.”

“Aye, Sir!” Hollas said, falling in beside Mya.  “Let’s go, Girlie, but at my pace, not yours.”

“Fine.”  Mya was just about through arguing.  All she needed to do was stay on her feet long enough to tell the Grandfather what she’d found, then she could rest.  “Lead on!”

The two entered the main house and were immediately met by two more guards.  A short explanation that the Grandfather need be summoned sent one of them in search of the guildmaster’s valet. The man cared for more than the Grandfather’s clothes, Mya knew, and was a veteran of many contracts.  Nobody saw the Grandfather without going through his valet.  Mya took a moment to look around, having never been allowed to enter the estate proper.  The ceiling of the entrance hall arched two floors high, the center of that dome dominated by a single, magnificent, wrought-iron chandelier.  The lamps held in its twisting embrace were turned down, and she could see how the whole apparatus could be lowered by a huge chain set in a pulley system.  The entry hall was dominated by an immense, white marble stair that swept gracefully upward to bifurcate at its peak, extending into the two wings of the second floor.

Her mind wandered as she waited, her breath returning quickly from her short run.  Her arm throbbed at a slower rate as her heart calmed.  One of the guards offered her a drink from his water skin and she took it, the sweet clean liquid washing away the dust cloying her throat.  By the time the portly man that she knew was the Grandfather’s valet descended the broad stair from the upper floor, the combination of pain and exhaustion had her nodding sleepily on her feet.

“What’s this about then?” the man asked, eying her up and down as the guard who’d delivered him trotted off to find a healer.

“My name is Mya,” she said, trying for calm respect through the clenched teeth that kept her from crying out in pain at every throb of her badly swollen arm.  “I work for Master Hunter, Targus.  I have information that the Grandfather needs to know right away.  I
must
see him.”

“And how did you hurt your arm?”

Mya stared for a half second, wondering if she’d heard correctly.  “What the hell difference does that make?”

“The difference between seeing the Grandfather, and spending the next few days decorating the wall of a dungeon.”  His tone was mild, but his eyes were as sharp as twin daggers.  “Answer me.”

“Fine.”  Mya bit her lip against her temper.  “I broke my arm when the horse that I’d just ridden to death to get here as quickly as possible fell on me.  I was rounding the corner of Serpent Way and Ironmonger Street, riding too fast for cobblestones.  I ran the rest of the way on foot.”  She glared at him, matching stares.  She had little doubt that this man could kill her before she could clear her sword from its scabbard, but felt confident that he would find himself tacked to a wall without his skin if the Grandfather found out he’d been deprived of her message.  “Now, do I get to see him?”

“In the morning.”  He started to turn away, but her hand shot out, grabbing his sleeve at the shoulder.

“Wait just a minute!”  The rasp of steel loosened her grip even before the valet turned his evil stare upon her.  The two guards had their swords out, one pointed directly at her throat from the side, and the other behind her, ready, she felt sure, to split her skull.  She let her hand drift away from the valet’s arm, open and unthreatening.

“Just let me explain.”  She took a deep breath and glanced at the guard to her right, but he did not lower his blade.  “I’ve got a message regarding something of great value to the Grandfather.  If you won’t let me see him, just tell him that I’ve found his weapon.  He will see me.  If he doesn’t learn of it before morning,
neither
of our lives will be worth
spit
!”

The valet turned back to her, waving the guards away and squaring his round shoulders.  “I decide what is important to the Grandfather, little girl.”  He took a half step closer.  “He is entertaining this evening, and will probably keep his guest until morning.”  Another half step and his lips drew back in a feral sneer.  “I was told not to allow him to be disturbed.”  One more half step brought his nose only inches from her own, his breath hot in her face with every word.  “In comes a slip of a girl telling
me
she’s got something more important than my direct order from the Grandfather not to allow him to be disturbed!”  The sneer dissolved into a sweet, placating smile that turned her stomach with its insincerity.  “After briefly considering the consequences of disobeying a direct order from the Grandfather of Assassins, I have decided that you will see him
in... the... morning
!”

She stood there fuming as the fool turned and strode back up the sweeping stairs, his smug confidence more painful than her throbbing arm.

“Swaggering idiot!” she spat as she eased herself down to sit on the lowest step of the grand marble staircase, cradling her arm in her lap.

“You can’t stay here, Missie,” one of the guards said, his tone incredulous.

“Have me removed, then!”  She winced as she leaned back, crossing her tired legs.  “They can bury you right next to that pompous twerp who’s keeping me from delivering my message to the Grandfather.  The message that he’s
specifically
been waiting for.”

The guards looked at one another, and the one who’d escorted her across the courtyard said, “She’s your problem, Jeffer.  I gotta get back to my post.”

As the gate guard left, a tired-looking man in a long crimson robe entered the foyer from a side passage, escorted by the guard who had summoned the valet.  He walked up to the pair, eying the girl lying back with her arm cradled in her lap and the guard standing over her; the latter obviously trying to decide what to do with her.

“I presume this woman is the one who requires my attention.”  The healer raised an eyebrow at the guard, and knelt beside Mya.  “Your arm, I venture to guess?”

“Yeah.”  Mya raised the deformed member for him to see.  “Either broken or sprained, I think.”

“Are you kidding?  Broken at the least, I should think!”  The man produced a pair of gleaming silver scissors from under his robe and started to cut the embroidered cuff of her shirt.

“Hey, wait a second!  This is a new tunic!”

“Well, I’ve got to get at your arm!”  He sat back on his heels and folded his arms.  “You’ll never roll up the sleeve past that swelling.  Either you let me cut it or take it off.”

“Fine, but you’ll have to help me.”  She began pulling the hem up with her free hand.

“Hey!”  The guard’s voice was shrill, his face red.  “You can’t do that here!” 

“Let’s get this straight, Jeffer,” Mya said flatly, pulling the hem up, and with the healer’s help, over her head.  “I’m staying here until I see the Grandfather.  Unless you’ve received specific orders to not let me stay here, you’re not in any trouble and you won’t end up dead in the morning, unlike the valet and, quite probably, me.”

To the guard’s relief, she wore a shirt of light linen under the tunic.  Unfortunately, for him at least, her recent run had soaked the material through with sweat.  Her breath caught in a hiss as the healer eased her arm out of the garment. 

“Hold still,” the healer said, rotating her arm slowly and eliciting another hiss of pain.  “I’m going to have to straighten it before I heal it.”

“Jeffer!” she snapped to the guard, who was looking on in shock at the half-naked woman sitting on
his
steps, or at least the steps that he was supposed to be guarding.  “You got a kerchief?”

“Er, yeah.”  He produced one from a pocket.   “Why?”

She snatched it from his fingers.  “Because I don’t particularly feel like rattling the windows when he straightens this thing!”  She stuffed the kerchief into her mouth and nodded to the healer.  She was satisfied that she hadn’t underestimated how painful the procedure would be, nor the need for the kerchief to keep her screams from escaping.

 Chapter
IX

A
sea of yellow stars flickered before Lad, as if the night sky had fallen in liquid form to fill the broad valley in a glittering pool of brilliance.  It was a wonder he never could have imagined.  Two swaths of blackness converged in the midst of that valley of lights, two rivers merging into one, dividing the twinkling sea into thirds.  A great black wall encircled the vast sea of lighted streets and buildings; the lanterns of men walking upon that wall bobbed along in the darkness.  More light bloomed outside the walls, as if the bubbling pot of humanity had overflowed and spilled out in sparkling patches of yellow.  At the center of the brightest portion of the city, tall spires adorned a hillock where the two rivers joined.  Mighty walls surrounded that high, palatial estate on all sides, and torches flickered from the battlements.  Other tall buildings could be seen in the lower portions of the city, and huge square towers stood at each point where the rivers entered and exited, their grim countenances glaring jealously down on the dark water.  He stood there for a time absorbing the sight, and his mind slowly expanded to encompass what those many lights really meant.

“So many people...”

The thought escaped his lips without his knowing.  His destiny lay before him like an oyster open on the half-shell, but it lay among twenty thousand of its kin, and he knew not how to tell one from another.  A needle in a haystack would have been child’s play by comparison, for when one finally finds the needle, it is at least recognizable from a bit of straw.  Here lay twenty thousand people, any one of whom could hold his destiny in the palm of their hand, and he would not know them if he saw them.

The task that he had thought so straightforward had just become immensely more difficult, and, for the first time in his young life, Lad felt daunted by something.  It would take
years
to find his destiny in this mass of humanity!