Vaelin had never truly wanted to kill before, never felt a real blood lust. But now it raged in him, a song of fury blinding his reason. His fist tightened on his sword hilt as he stepped forward into a charge…
He never knew what happened, never truly understood the paralysis that seized his limbs, only that he found himself sprawled on the floor, his lungs suddenly empty of air, his sword clattering from his grasp. His hands and feet felt like ice. He tried to stand but could find no purchase on the floor, flailing like a senseless drunk as the one eyed man moved away from Frentis, his knife a blood stained yellow tooth in the fire’s glow.
“ Ho there!” Barkus shouted, charging along with the others. “Time to die One Eye!”
The one eyed man raised his hand, an almost careless gesture, and a curtain of fire rose in front of Vaelin’s brothers, sending them reeling back. The fire wall spanned the chamber, rising from floor to ceiling, an unbroken barrier of swirling flame.
“ I like fire,” the one eyed man said, turning his angular face back to Vaelin. “The way it dances, quite beautiful don’t you think?”
Vaelin tried to reach inside his cloak for his hunting knife but found all his hand would do was shake uncontrollably.
“ You’re strong,” the one eyed man observed. “Usually they can’t move at all.” He glanced over at Frentis, wide eyed, blood streaming from his cuts, his naked form straining against his bonds with all his strength.
“ You came here for him,” the one eyed man continued. “You’re the one he said would come to kill me. Al Sorna, Blackhawk fighter, assassin killer, Battle Lord spawn. I’ve heard of you. Have you heard of me?” He gave a mirthless smile.
Vaelin found to his surprise he could still spit. It landed on the one eyed man’s boots.
The smile disappeared. “I see you have. What did you hear I wonder? That I was an outlaw? An overlord of outlaws? True of course, but only in part. No doubt you had to kill several of my employees to get this far. Didn’t you wonder why they wouldn’t run? Why they were more afraid of me than you?”
The one eyed man crouched down, his face close to Vaelin’s, hissing, “You come here with your sword and your brothers and your dog, and you have no idea of your utter insignificance.”
He turned his face, displaying the black stone in his eye socket. “You would be forgiven for thinking this a curse. But it was a gift, a wondrous gift for which I should thank your young brother. Oh, the power he gave me, power enough to set myself up over all the scum of this city. I have made myself a king of thieves and cut-throats, I’ve eaten off silver plate and slaked my lust on the finest whores. I have everything a man could want, but yet I find there is one thing I can’t forget, one thing that troubles my sleep…” He rose and moved towards Frentis. “The pain of a gutter born whelp putting a knife through my eye.”
Frentis writhed in his bonds, his gagged faced distorted with rage and hate. Vaelin could hear the muffled obscenities he attempted to spit through the gag.
“ He wouldn’t talk, you know,” the one eyed man told Vaelin over his shoulder. “You should be proud of him. Refused to share your Order’s secrets, although now you’re here in person I daresay my questions will be answered in full.” He placed the knife against Frentis’s chest, pushing the point half an inch into the flesh and tracing a cut from the breast to the ribcage. Frentis’s teeth were white on his gag as he screamed.
Vaelin tried to gather his arms under him, manoeuvring the ice numb limbs beneath his chest, then trying to heave himself upright.
“ Oh don’t bother,” the one eyed man said, turning back from Frentis, bloodied knife in hand. “You’re tightly bound I assure you.”
Teeth gritted, Vaelin managed to push himself off the stone floor, his entire body shaking with the effort.
“ Strong indeed!” the one eyed man said. “But I can’t have that.”
The same icy numbness seized him again, flooding his arms and legs spreading into his chest and groin, forcing him back to the floor, exhausted.
“ You feel my power?” The one eyed man stood over him. “At first it frightened me, even one such as I can feel the chill of looking into an abyss, but fear fades.” He held up the knife stained with Frentis’s blood. “I have the secret now. The knowledge to make myself immune to all enemies.” He placed a finger on the knife blade, drawing a bead of blood from the metal and placing it in his mouth. “Who could have thought it would be so simple? To be a king amongst outlaws requires the spilling of much blood. These past years I have bathed in it as I sought victims to sate my anger against your young brother here. And as I bathed I found my power growing so that now, even one as strong as you cannot stand against my will. I was told your destiny lay elsewh-…”
Caenis leapt through the wall of fire, his sword held high in a two fisted grip. He brought it down as his feet touched the floor, the blade cleaving the one eyed man from shoulder to sternum. The look one his face as he stood impaled on the sword was one of complete astonishment.
“ Fire without heat,” Caenis said. “Isn’t fire at all.”
Vaelin’s paralysis faded as the one eyed man’s corpse slipped to the floor, the fire wall he had raised vanishing in an instant. Vaelin felt hands lifting him, his limbs still shaking with lingering numbness. Barkus and Nortah cut Frentis’s bonds and took the gag from his mouth. Free of his ties the boy went wild, screaming hate-filled curses at the one eyed man’s inert form, taking up his knife and plunging it again and again into the body.
“ You stinking bastard!” he screamed. “Think you can cut me, you fucking filth!”
Vaelin waved the others back and let Frentis abuse the corpse until he collapsed from the effort, slumped over the body, bloody and exhausted.
“ Brother,” he said, placing a hand on Frentis’s shoulder. “Your wounds need attention.”
Chapter 8
“ Sister Sherin is still in the south,” Brother Sellin told Vaelin at the gate of the Fifth Order, his eyes flicking to Frentis, hanging bloody and unconscious between Barkus and Nortah. “Master Harin has undertaken her duties. Come brothers.” He opened the gate wide, beckoning them to enter. “I will take you to him.”
Master Harin spent over an hour stitching and dressing the cuts on Frentis’s body, ordering them from the treatment room when their unasked for advice and constant questions became too irksome. Vaelin found Aspect Elera waiting in the corridor.
“ I can see your day has been hard, brothers,” she said. “There is food waiting for you in our dining hall.”
They ate in silence, their conversation stilled by the presence of so many members of the Fifth Order. The healers stared at the blue robed, grim faced interlopers, a few familiar faces offering greetings to Vaelin, receiving a only a curt nod in response. Their table was piled high with food but Vaelin found he had no appetite. His hands retained a slight tremble from whatever the one eyed man had done to him and the vision of Frentis tied and bleeding was still at the forefront of his thoughts.
Aspect Elera joined them an hour or so later. “Master Harin tells me your brother will recover. He will have to stay with us for several days whilst he heals.”
“ Is he awake, Aspect?” Vaelin asked her.
“ Master Harin gave him a sleeping draught. He should wake in the morning. You can see him then.”
“ My thanks, Aspect. May I request that word be sent to our Order? Aspect Arlyn will be expecting my report.”
She sent Brother Sellin to the house of the Sixth Order and gave them a room in the east wing. Vaelin insisted on sitting with Frentis and Caenis waited with him whilst the others slept, cleaning his weapons to pass the time, laying his sword and knives out on the floor, metal gleaming in the candle light as he ran cloth over each blade with meticulous care. Scratch had been confined to an empty pen in the stables. He ignored the food he had been given and howled continually, his plaintive cries reaching them through the walls.