The twins circled to either side of Lidda in an obvious attempt to flank the rogue. Obvious, but effective, she thought. She would have to choose one to attack, and when she did, the other would stab her in the back. No subtlety needed. Lidda backed up, biting her lip, trying to buy some time. She couldn't allow one of them to get behind her.
She spun suddenly toward the assassin moving to her right. She took three quick steps forward, waving her sword arm in an obvious threat while her left hand slipped a throwing dagger from the sheath on her thigh. Instead of giving ground as she hoped, the man grinned and stepped ahead to meet her challenge, his twin daggers crossed in front of his chest defensively.
"I should have guessed that you wouldn't opt for even odds," Lidda said to the approaching twin. Before he could respond in any way, she spun and threw the dagger into the throat of his partner, who had advanced silently to within only feet of her unprotected back. Without a pause, she was again facing the first antagonist. "You should know that I have tricks of my own."
Behind her, the man gurgled and clutched at the knife hilt protruding from his throat. He would have screamed, but the blade was blocking his windpipe. Desperately, he wrenched the weapon from the wound. Blood gushed over the front of his black armor and flooded down the severed windpipe into his lungs. He stumbled backward, letting the knife clatter to the pavement. After two more steps, he fell to the street. His whole frame convulsed with the effort of fighting to get air into his drowning lungs. Lidda heard the commotion and knew that it would continue for a few minutes before the assassin finally blacked out, but he was no threat in that condition.
She grinned and asked, "What do you think of the odds now?"
The man spat,"Only that he was the lesser of us, so the odds haven't changed as much as you think."
At close range, Lidda could see that the two men definitely were twins. The man's coldness over his brother's death chilled her and brought Malthooz back to her mind. She understood that she faced a cruel and calculating killer. The man approached slowly, not rushing to within reach of Lidda's sword. He held one dagger close and near his chest as though it was a shield while he threatened Lidda's defenses with the other. Even armed only with daggers, his arms were long enough to equal Lidda's reach with her sword. With a rapid slash, he swept both knives at the halfling. He was quick as a snake, and Lidda hadn't expected him to use the left-hand dagger so deftly. She dodged one blade by lunging sideways and caught the other with the hilt of her sword. A savage twist sent the stiletto spinning harmlessly away, and she threw her boot up and into the man's ribcage.
She felt more than heard the ribs crack and winced as a streak of pain went up her own side, a reminder from her tangle at the jail. Shrugging off the pain, she tumbled to the side of the man as he spun around. Somehow he had two daggers again, and he slashed with both of them a second time. At the last moment he flipped the weapon in his left hand. The butt of the knife hit the halfling across the jaw. Lidda turned her head with the strike to lessen the effect of the blow but felt the heat of pain spread across her cheek where the pommel of the dagger connected.
She spun around in a complete circle from the force of the dagger, and she used that to feign as if she was going to go down. She fell to her knees, hoping to draw the man closer. He took the bait. As he moved in for the kill, Lidda snapped her sword around in an arc that plunged it into his side.
The assassin doubled over with the blade half buried in his body. Lidda jumpd to her feet, placed both hands on the hilt, and shoved with all her might. The sword pierced completely through his body. The assassin gasped one final time, then toppled sideways. The tip of Lidda's blade struck sparks when it hit the cobblestones.
Mialee wasn't thrilled to be heading into battle without the power of her magic. She'd had no time to prepare herself in the confusion of their arrest and escape. She didn't even know where her spellbook was anymore. At least she had recovered her most essential components, she thought, fingering the pouch hanging at her belt.
She had little time to weigh options, however. A whistling noise alerted her to danger on her left side, and she ducked just as the spiked chain lashed over her head. There was no chance to regain her balance because the weapon whirled continuously, whipping to the left and right without pause. Mialee tried to scramble away but the assassin turned the chain's axis, twirling one of the balls high at the wizard's head and the other low at her legs. The lower one struck first, slicing open her knee and knocking her feet from under her. It also saved her life, because the tumble dropped her head below the whistling arc of the second spiked ball. She rolled away desperately, trying to get beyond the chains' reach.
The wizard pulled herself up to her knees then to her feet as the assassin circled. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other experimentally, and breathed a sigh of relief that her kneecap wasn't shattered. She dodged the chain again, but winced as her weight came down on the injured leg. Blood from the wound trickled into her boot.
The assassin smiled at her, twirling the chain slowly in a double figure-eight pattern.
"I swear, if I had my magic…" Mialee cursed.
A flick of the assassin's wrist sent one of the balls straight at Mialee's head. She threw her sword up and deflected the deadly missile, but was too slow to move away from the second one that was again sweeping in at her legs. The cold steel of the chain struck against her leg and the weight of the weapon wrapped around it. Before Mialee fully realized what happened, she felt the spikes slice into her calf. The assassin yanked, pulling both handles up over his head, and Mialee tumbled to the stones in a heap.
He fell upon her at once. His spiked fist slammed the cobblestones beside the wizard's head, but she jerked from side to side rapidly to avoid the blows. She couldn't avoid his other fist, however, when it slammed down hard on her stomach. Air rushed from her lungs to be replaced by stabbing pain.
"If you had your magic, you'd what?" he sneered, raising his arm and placing one of the spikes under her chin.
Mialee gasped for breath. Spots of light flickered in her vision and tears flooded her eyes. She felt the tip of the steel spike on her flesh.
Her free hand groped into the pouch at her belt. She grabbed the first thing that her fingers fell upon and frantically tossed a handful of it into the man's face. Yellow granules of sulfur flew into his eyes and nostrils. He reeled back, coughing and wheezing. The hand around Mialee's neck loosened and the spike fell away. She kicked up, catching the assassin between his legs. He groaned and rolled to the side. The wizard pushed herself out from underneath him and scrambled crab like across the street, still gagging and struggling to refill her lungs with breath.
She nearly screamed when a huge shape burst into her vision, but instead of attacking her, it planted a massive boot heavily on the assassin's stomach. The man howled in pain, and Mialee heard a loud crack that must have been a rib. She looked at the dark shape standing over them and realized that it was Krusk. His armor, arms, hands, and even his face were drenched in blood. It dripped from the buckles of his breastplate and hung in thickening strands from his axe. It couldn't possibly all be his, Mialee realized, or he couldn't stand. He didn't even glance at her before placing the gory axe blade against the struggling assassin's neck and drawing it slowly across until metal scraped the pavement.
Lidda was at Mialee's side in seconds, tugging her to her feet.
"We've got to get back to Malthooz," she urged.
The wizard looked at the purple and black bruise on the rogue's cheek. Mialee let the rogue lift her from the ground. At least she was in good company, she thought, as the three of them limped down the street. Krusk had one hand on the halfling's shoulder and his other draped over the elf's neck. Mialee chuckled softly. She wasn't sure who was helping whom.