Aedan backed him toward the wall of the alley. They locked blades, the alleyman with his back against the wall. As they strained against each other, Aedan dimly felt a blow to his shoulder. He raised his knee sharply into the alleyman’s groin, and as the man grunted and the breath whooshed out of him, Aedan bore down on his opponent’s sword and slammed his forehead into the alleyman’s face. Blood spurted from a broken nose as the man slumped against the wall. Aedan disarmed him easily, then threw down his own sword and started pummeling him with his fists. The nearly senseless alleyman started to slide down the wall. Aedan seized him by the throat with his left hand, holding him up, and repeatedly smashed his right fist into the man’s face, turning it into a mask of blood. Over and over, he pounded him until he felt someone grasp his shoulder from behind.
Turning quickly, he swung a hard right at the cloaked figure that came up behind him, dimly registering that the alleymen had worn no cloaks. The figure ducked beneath his punch and drove a hard jab into his stomach, directly into the solar plexus. He doubled over as the wind whistled out of him, and the figure caught him, supporting him.
“Aedan! Aedan, it’s me! Sylvanna!”
The familiar voice broke through his berserker rage. “Sylvanna?” he said, weakly, as he fought to catch his breath.
She eased him down to his knees, then left him to check on the alleyman he had been battering. She bent over him, then straightened. “This one’s dead,” she said curtly. She quickly checked the other two, but their condition was obvious. She came back to Aedan, who was just beginning to get his breath back. “What’s wrong? You didn’t have enough fighting? You had to go wandering through the alleys in the middle of the night, looking for more trouble?”
“What… what are you doing here?” he asked.
“Lady Ariel sent me,” said Sylvanna.
“Ariel?”
“She was worried about you. She thought you might have gone to the Green Basilisk, so she asked me to see if you were all right. I was just passing by the alley on my way there when I heard the commotion. Doesn’t seem as if you needed any help, though. Was that you screaming like a wounded bear?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Oh, Great Mother, you’re wounded,” she said.
Aedan glanced down and saw a knife sticking out of his shoulder. He remembered, vaguely, feeling a blow and realized the alleyman had stuck him. “Pull it out,” he said.
She grasped the knife firmly by the hilt and pulled straight back. It came out with some difficulty. It had struck bone and stuck there. As she pulled it out, the blood began to flow. Aedan winced with pain, then closed his eyes and concentrated, calling upon his blood abilities of healing and regeneration. After a few seconds, the blood flow stopped and he felt the wound starting to close. Moments later, it had healed completely, leaving behind only a mild redness of the skin. He opened his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling slightly dizzy. The fight, together with the healing, had taken a lot out of him.
“Wish I could do that,” said Sylvanna, pulling back his tunic to check on the healed wound. “It’s a handy trick.”
“Help me up, please,” he said.
She assisted him to his feet, putting his arm around her shoulder so he could lean on her for support. “Are you all right?”
“I will be, shortly,” he replied, breathing heavily. “By the gods, I need a drink. I need a lot of drinks.”
“Come on,” she said, helping him out of the alley. “Show me where this tavern is I’ve heard so much about.”
After a few moments, he was able to walk without her assistance.
“What came over you back there?” she asked. “I’ve never seen you like that before. It was like Michael’s divine wrath.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have that blood ability. I don’t know what came over me. Pure rage, I guess.” He told her about the visions he had started having on his way through the artists’ quarter, and how he had become confused and taken a wrong turn somewhere, gone down the alley to reach the right street, and encountered the three thugs. “That last one was a former soldier,” he said. “He wore the style of chain mail we use in the army. I don’t know, perhaps he bought it somewhere, but I doubt it. He had the look of a soldier about him. I thought of all the men we’d lost, fighting for the empire while that bastard remained home, preying on the citizens, and I just went mad.”
“A delayed reaction,” she said. “It happens sometimes, after a long period of combat. It’s difficult to leave all that behind.”
He nodded. “I know. I just can’t stop thinking about it,” he said. “And if it weighs on me so much, I can only wonder what Michael must be going through right now.”
“At least he’s safe back at the palace, and not wandering the streets at night, looking for another war.”
Aedan snorted. “I fear you’ve been among us humans too long,” he said. “You’re developing a sense of humor. I sometimes think I’ve lost mine. Well, this is it.”
He pointed to the entrance of the tavern, marked by a wooden sign above the door with a green basilisk painted on it. They went inside.
Aedan had not been to this place for a long time, ever since he’d assumed his duties as lord high chamberlain. He had stopped going because he did not think it fitting for the emperor’s first minister to frequent taverns and drink with the lower classes. But in the years since he’d first assumed his post, especially after so much time spent in the field with the troops, he’d lost that old rigidity of opinions. Still, he had not returned. This place had seemed like a part of his past best left behind. Even then, as Lord Tieran’s son, he had never really been accepted as one of the crowd. As lord high chamberlain, he thought he’d only make the other patrons feel awkward and uncomfortable.
Tonight, however, he simply didn’t care. Even the lord high chamberlain was entitled to a drink or two or ten, especially after the nightmare he had just survived.
The place hadn’t changed at all. He even saw a few familiar faces, though they were older now, of course. It was still the same dark, windowless rectangular room with stone walls on which the shadows danced in the flickering of candles and oil lamps. Still the same rough-hewn wooden tables and benches with rushes on the floor, the same long wooden bar stained with rings of countless goblets. Bards still sang their songs upon the tiny stage while girls passed the hat for them … and the Fatalists were still holding court.
“Well, well, look what the wind blew in.”
He recognized Vaesil at once, even though the years had not been kind to him. Or perhaps more accurately, Aedan thought, the drink had not. He had put on weight, and his once flowing, lustrous hair now hung limp and oily on his shoulders. His angular features and high cheekbones, which had once given him a dashing predatory look, had a rounded softness now, and his eyes had the glazed and red-rimmed look of a dissipated drinker.
“To your feet, my friends,” he said, lurching up, “for we are singularly honored by a most stellar presence on this night, or do you not recognize Lord Aedan Dosiere, the emperor’s high chamberlain?”