XVIII

Breathing with the exertion of her energies and the agonizing pain in her right shoulder, Dantera angled herself around her blade.

The castle guardsmen were still making their way out the window as Mai disappeared over the gable.

“Where?” Sir Cedryk asked.

With her head, Dantera motioned in the direction the killer had fled and they stomped away, making monumental efforts to climb the gabled roof and failing.

Screaming with the pain in her shoulder, Dantera ripped her sword out of the tiles in the roof using both hands. Her Breathing was heavy as she stepped up the slanted roof gingerly, lest she fall and slide off while she was still near the edge.

Once she was close enough, she crouched, jumped into the air and landed directly atop the gable, her legs landing on each side of the slant to give her enough force to stop her impact without slipping.

She glanced down at Captain Cedryk and put out her good hand.

After helping him up, she turned and slid down the slanted roof toward the chimney, using it to stop her sliding momentum.

The number of roofs here were many, as the turrets had round overhanging eves that stood atop the flat, more angular roofs of the various castle wings below them. Some were only a few paces apart, while others might be entire levels apart in their gaps.

“Of all the ways I could die,” she muttered, “falling off a roof has never been one of my thoughts!”

She slid out from where she had braced herself on the chimney and fell onto the roof of the turret bellow. It was quite steep at first but then leveled out almost completely, the overhang of the roof above protecting the tiles she was currently standing on from the elements, which meant they had no snow.

That was the only reason why she didn’t slip off.

Glancing about for the others, a bird cried from its protected nest, a raucous squawk of anger and indignation.

She ignored the stupid bird and jumped off the turret’s steep roof onto another set of roofs in the direction of Yoreno and Mai, who were ambling down the icy surface after the killer.

These roves had an incline and went a long way, the slant occasionally being interrupted by small gables where windows looked out across the inner city of Aevalin.

Had she not been wounded, cold, or chasing a killer, Dantera thought that the view from up here would have been quite lovely.

She slipped, slid across the roof, her speed and weight forcing more momentum. She screamed, putting out her hand to angle herself toward the gable in front of her and her boots met resistance against the incline, forcing snow and sleet out of her path. Dantera almost fell off, but her momentum was finally stopped.

But she didn’t take pause.

She moved aside and began to make her way down the roof. How Mai and Yoreno both managed such speed on this icy surface, Dantera didn’t know.

Yoreno was running down the incline of these icy roves far too fast. It was dangerous, but he wanted to catch the killer.

Blood boiling, he moved with alacrity.

“Come here!” Dantera snarled from behind.

The killer was quick on his feet, but he was no longer hidden as he was in the bright natural light of the moon that reflected off the surface of the snow. The killer snarled, turned and flicked another magical projectile at Yoreno. He jumped, putting his boot out to stop his sliding momentum as the projectile landed into the tiles above him.

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Mai called something out and a plume of magic landed in front of the killer and exploded.

Yoreno was well aware of Mai’s magical capabilities. Either she was using less potent magic now, or something was wrong.

Getting back up, Yoreno pursued the killer as a loud sliding sound caught up with him.

It was Dantera!

She was on her backside, dress hiked up behind her in an undignified manner as she slid down the inclined roof and using her rapier to determine how quickly she could move.

Yoreno could see that her wound was causing her trouble, as she slid with her left arm behind her, Ito Farralia’s point scraping into the tiles behind her as she held her right arm close to her body. The blood across her shoulder and over her white chest plate was also an indication as to how damaging the wound really was.

Dantera slid past the killer and stopped herself. He attempted to attack her, but she deflected the magical projectiles with two almost contemptuous sword slashes.

Yoreno came up behind him.

The killer glanced back and then he lashed out at Dantera as Yoreno swooped in to cut him down from behind.

The killer then suddenly turned and raised his stiletto. Naturally such a short blade would not be affective against a longer sword like Yoreno’s, but when he parried the blow the killer came in close, connected his stiletto blade with that of Yoreno’s sword close down by the hilt so the blade wouldn’t break. He used his arm strength to push the blade aside before backhanding Yoreno in the face.

Stunned, he stepped back, almost falling as Mai tried to grab hold of their assassin, but he quickly pushed her hands aside and brought his stiletto across her face. She cried out and went into the snow.

Before Yoreno could recover, the killer came in low with his narrow blade to get a thrust in under Yoreno’s armor plating, but he grabbed the killer’s wrist, the blade stopping just shy of puncturing all the way through his padding.

His hideous opponent, eyes glowing and face a melted rent of scarred flesh, cackled as his strength outperformed that of Yoreno’s muscles. He could feel the blade cutting through his gambeson.

A strong thrust of force and it would enter his belly.

Yoreno felt it coming.

“Yoreno!” Dantera called, rushing up to them.

The killer ground his teeth and snarled as his stiletto began to cut through Yoreno’s flesh. He screamed when suddenly Mai took hold of the killer’s shoulders and screeched, “Garrati groose!”

His shoulders and arms became a knotted growth of gnarled wood, the pressure of his blade stopping as his eyes widened in sudden alarm as the magical wood and vines twirled over him.

Suddenly his neck was pierced, a gout of blood squirting out. Yoreno flinched before realizing the thin blade was Ito Farralia.

Dantera withdrew her blade and hot blood sprayed about over Yoreno’s face as the killer fell to the snow between the three adventurers.

All of them breathed heavily with exertion and battle vigor.

“That’s it?” Yoreno asked between breaths. “It’s… it’s over now?”

Mai looked at him, a question on her bloody face as she pressed her gloved hand across the fresh wound, but Yoreno could answer her later—tell her all about what they had been up to while she and the others had enjoyed the eve of the festival.

The killer snarled at their feet, a blood-choked noise of near death. And then his evil sound changed to that of a hideous wet cackle.

“And what are you laughing at, dead man?” Dantera asked.

“The orders of the goat will—hng!—will prevail.”

“Goatwhat?” Dantera asked in contempt. She kneeled into the snow, her hand around her shoulder. “You have lost, killer. It is over.”

Cackling again, his breathing hitched and he coughed up blood onto the snow.

Yoreno bent down next to Dantera over the dying man. “He doesn’t have long.” Then he moved the man’s sleeve back, the one he was grasping at. It revealed a tattoo on his forearm. The mark was of a goat with short horns that flared outward.

Was that some kind of cult marking? he wondered.

“Good,” Dantera said. “He deserves to suffer here in this snow. Before you die, fell worshiper, tell us why you did this?”

He laughed.

“N—not finished.”

“Of course you are.”

Laughing again.

“For a dying man, you laugh a lot.”

“The king…”

“What?” Dantera asked. “What is that about the king?”

“At the stroke—agh—at the stroke of the… bell… he…”

And then the last of his breath went out of him, the green glint in his eyes—like that of an animal that can see in the night—died with him.

“Disgusting,” Mai said.

“What was he trying to say?” Dantera asked.

“The king,” Yoreno said. “Something is going to happen to the king at the stroke of the next bell.”

“I think you are right,” she said. “We need to go to His Majesty. Now!”

“Are you able?” Yoreno asked.

She nodded.

Suddenly the killer’s body started smoking, the fumes a haze of black and green. Everyone stepped back.

“What’s happening?” Mai asked with wide eyes.

“I—“ Yoreno began, but broke off as the killer’s body dissolved into black ash.

“What in the name of the dark gods is this?” Dantera asked.

And then the bell in the tower tolled, a long lazy sound. It was the lesser toll—the toll of the hour.

Yoreno gasped as he looked up.