Elyon's Blades, page 17
part #1 of The Daughters of Elyon Series
Ailith and her handler, Jenx, were patrolling the market district with Nox and her handler, Maeira. When the four were together, the two shivs were under orders to speak only when spoken to. The first few nights they’d patrolled together, Ailith had forgotten she wasn’t to speak, but several head slaps later, the point had been driven home.
They’d been assigned to patrol the alleys, looking for several trib runners who’d been harassing women on a nightly basis. They’d managed to catch one the previous night and had taken him to the Temple Magistrate for punishment. Maeira picked up a discarded wrapper, wadded it up, and threw it in a nearby trash box. “How long are Sábria and Shirin gone for? It’s weird having them and Terrowyn out of town at the same time. Where did they go, anyway?”
Jenx searched the rooftops, looking for any skellies or nints that might be following them. “Terro escorted healer Cori back to the Dreyuthan border, and Sábria and Shirin rode to the Temple in Yhario. I guess the High Priestess there died, and Sábria needed to go and appoint a new one.” Jenx looked at Ailith. “And how many High Priestesses serve under Sábria?”
Ailith pursed her lips as she considered the question. “Well, didn’t ya tell me there are thirty lesser Temples—”
“Subordinate Temples.”
“Aye, I can niver remember that word. Anyway, thirty of ‘em, so, I guess thirty High Priestesses?”
Jenx turned back to Maeira. “Hopefully, none of them will be gone long. I like it when everything is running just like it should be, without all the disruption and change.”
Maeira grabbed Jenx’s arm and pointed down an alley. “There they are. They’re the ones who were with that nob we took down yesterday.”
The tribs saw them and took off running with the two Blades and their shivs close on their heels. The men turned the corner, and the Blades followed, expecting them to keep running. Instead, the men had pulled up short and were waiting for them when they rounded the corner. One swung a cutlass at Maeira’s chest, and since she was completely unprepared, she reflexively ducked. The sharpened steel embedded itself in the bridge of her nose. She went down and stayed down.
The other four men had their swords drawn, and they charged with gleeful roars and bloodthirsty anticipation written across their scarred and cunning faces.
Jenx barely had time to draw her weapon before the first man was on her. She blocked his first swing, and kicked him in the stomach, shoving him back long enough to put her back to the wall and parry a cutting swipe aimed at her midsection from a second nob.
A third, hog-jowled man wielding a short-bladed hand axe took advantage of Jenx’s inattention and stepped forward. Spinning the axe handle expertly in his meaty palm, he pulled the axe across his body, intending to embed the sharpened end of his weapon in the Blade's skull with a vicious backhanded swing.
Ailith, who was in the process of blocking a half-hearted blow from the smug-looking asshole who’d seen how easily he’d killed Maeira and probably believed this young bitch would be no different from the last, chanced a glance at Jenx’s third attacker. She watched him swing and realized Jenx was preoccupied and hadn’t noticed her peril. “Jenx! Down!”
Falling to her knees, Jenx felt the flat side of the axe smash across the top of her head as the sharpened edge skimmed her hair and hit the block wall behind her. Her vision went black for an instant, but her training kicked in, and she rolled and came up with a knife in her off-hand. She drove it deep into the nob’s armpit and then, using her shoulder and body weight, shoved him into the one she’d just been fighting. The two went down in a heap, and she turned to face the third man, who was coming at her from the rear.
Ailith didn’t have time to watch Jenx, who was fighting nearly unbeatable odds. Her Dreyuthan military training kicked in, and she began swinging and blocking, fighting off Maeira’s killer. Even though her attention was focused on the man in front of her, she checked to see how Nox was faring with her attacker.
Nox ducked a swing, recovered, and then took off running.
Shocked, Ailith watched the coward round the corner and disappear out of sight. There was no time to process what she’d seen. Fighting on bloody, chaotic battlefields had taught her to always be aware of her surroundings, to watch right, left, up, down, and behind, or risk being taken out by a previously unseen attacker.
Risking a quick glance at Jenx, she saw one nob thrust his blade at her chest while the second came at her hilt first, intending to smash her head in.
Jenx jerked sideways, and instead of impaling her body, the blade sliced across the top of her sword arm at the same time the rounded end of the other nob’s hilt smashed into her Temple.
A film of red clouded Ailith’s vision. Jenx had been a harsh but fair handler, and to see her falling to two brutish thugs brought her mind, if not her sight, into a clear, sharp focus.
Just as she’d experienced when the berserker had been moments from killing her Duke, her body took on a life of its own. Her vision narrowed, and she bellowed an incoherent challenge, swinging and spinning, instantly killing one man by taking out his throat.
The other nob’s eyes bulged when he saw the bared teeth and the killing rage in her eyes. He stared at the white-knuckled, blood-spattered grip holding what had become a demonic, slaughtering puppet in her hands.
Ailith bellowed again and, ignoring his frenzied back-pedaling, chased him down.
In his panic, the nob hesitated a breath too long to lift his sword and block her demented charge.
Not realizing that her blood-spattered face had become a twisted, vulpine mask of hatred, Ailith ran her blade through his chest until the tip dug into the wall behind his back. Hearing a sickening, sucking sound as she pulled her sword free, Ailith spun around and ran to where Jenx lay on the ground, wounded and dazed from a second blow to the head. Ailith bellowed a challenge to the nob standing over her. He obviously intended to deliver a killing thrust with his curved sanguine sword.
The man spun to meet her, and she didn’t hesitate. All she knew was that a fellow warrior was lying beneath his feet, and with a feral roar, she swung and nearly decapitated the man.
The final attacker ran when he saw his comrades lying dead or dying on the blood-spattered cobblestones. He pushed through two sailors who’d been standing at the end of the alley ogling Ailith as she took on most of the men by herself.
Ailith knelt next to Jenx, who grabbed her tunic and pulled her down. Ailith could tell her handler wasn’t thinking straight, and she had to lean down to understand what Jenx was saying. “Go find Nox. Make sure she’s okay.”
“No. Ya need help.”
A hesitant, shaky voice spoke behind them. “I’ll stay with her.”
Ailith jumped when one of the sailors knelt next to her and pulled off his vest. She watched the man hold it to Jenx’s bloody arm.
Jenx repeated, “Go. That’s an or…der.”
Grabbing the sailor’s arm, Ailith asked, “Ye’ll stay with her ‘till other Blades come?”
The nob jumped when her fingers dug into his bicep. Obviously fearful after having watched Ailith slaughter three armed men, his deep voice shook when he answered, “Aye. I give ya me word. I’ll send me mate, Milo, here fer th’ Blades.”
Pursing her lips, Ailith knew she needed to obey her handler’s orders, so she sheathed her sword. She checked Maeira first. The Blade was dead. Ailith growled quietly and then took off to find Nox. She could be anywhere, and Ailith began systematically searching every street and alley for the cowardly shiv.
The two sailors stayed with Jenx, whose headwound was worse than Ailith had originally thought. She lost consciousness, and when the first Blade appeared, the men watched to make sure Jenx was well looked after before leaving for their ship. They’d been on their way back to the harbor when they’d seen the fight, and they ran now to get on board before their vessel sailed on the morning tide.
Once they’d left, Nox, who’d been hiding in the shadows of a nearby doorway, stepped out and ran over to the downed Jenx.
The Blade tending to her looked up and asked, “Are you okay?” When Nox nodded, the Blade pointed to Maeira. “Go check her.” When Nox started to rise, the Blade grabbed her arm. “Where’s the other shiv?”
Nox shrugged and got a wary look in her eye. Seeing that Jenx was unconscious, she decided to take a calculated risk that she wouldn’t remember what had happened. “She ran when they attacked us. I don’t know where she went.”
“She ran?” The unfettered anger in the Blade’s voice told Nox she’d made the right decision.
Other Blades arrived, and the first woman told everyone that the cowardly, skut-brained shiv, Ailith, had run and left the other three to die in the alley. By the time Geller arrived at the run, the Blades were all cursing Ailith and vowing to beat her to a pulp when they found her. The coward had always been trouble, they said, and should never have been allowed to join the Temple.
When Ailith returned to check on Jenx, five Blades fell on her, kicking and spitting on her until Geller plowed into the melee, throwing Blades this way and that to get them off. Geller picked up a completely confused Ailith by her tunic and slammed her against the wall. “Ya ran ya cowardly shiv. At least Nox stayed and tried to protect her handler and yers. Let’s go.”
She jerked Ailith forward, and as she was being marched out of the alley, Ailith caught sight of Nox glaring at her from among the Blades. Narrowing her eyes at the traitorous bitch, Ailith knew her life as a shiv had come to an end.
Twenty
It had been two days since Geller had thrown Ailith into her room and reported to Subcommander Calit. Whenever Shirin was away from the Temple, Calit took charge of the Blade contingent. Smart enough to realize that handling a cowardly shiv was above her grade, she decided to leave Ailith in her room until Sábria returned. She’d been grateful when Blade Khaldo had volunteered to take the shiv meals and water, and since she needed to arrange a funeral for Maeira and check in with the healers about Jenx, the coward was relegated to the back of her mind.
Ailith lay on her bed, seething. No one had asked her what had happened, and if she was honest with herself, she wouldn’t have called out Nox as a liar anyway. In the Dreyuthan army, no self-respecting warrior could hold their head up if they stooped so low as to save their own skin at the expense of another warrior, even one as low and cowardly as Nox.
Throughout the past two days, Khaldo and her band of shitheads had delighted in finding barrels of trash around the compound and emptying them in Ailith’s room. Each time the door opened and someone dumped the trash, several Blades would yell curses at her and send gobs of spit toward her bed. One of Khaldo’s friends had even taken a crap in a corner, and soon, they’d begun gathering rotten fruit from the kitchens and lobbing them onto the bed where Ailith remained curled up and facing the wall.
Ailith smoldered with pent-up rage, but she refused to acknowledge them, knowing if she reacted, things would only get worse. She’d dealt with bullies many times before, and her usual response was to confront them, but this time, she had the feeling she’d have to fight every Blade in the Temple, something she knew she wouldn’t survive.
When the moon had been shining through her window for several candlemarks, and the noise in her hallway had abated, Ailith rolled over to survey her room. Red-hot rage flowed through her veins when she realized not a single space was left uncovered. She couldn’t see the tile on her floor, and when she stood, everywhere she stood, trash reached to her knees. Broken dishes and other pottery were scattered in among filthy underwear and other stained or discarded clothing. Old pieces of broken wood and horse dung filled in any open pockets.
With the heat in her body rising, Ailith picked her way to the door, careful not to cut herself on any of the sharp, broken items no doubt collected from the Temple’s midden. She pulled the door open, only to find one of Khaldo’s lot standing guard. There hadn’t been a guard the previous times she’d left to relieve herself, and she wondered why they’d started posting one now.
“Where do you think you’re going, Coward?”
“To take a shit, Asshole.” There was no way they could force her to shit or piss in her own room.
The Blade shoved Ailith back inside or tried to anyway. “There’s plenty of shit in your room. Do what you need to do in there.” The Blade’s eyes bulged, first in surprise and then in shock, as Ailith growled, grabbed the hair on the back of the woman’s head, and slammed her face into the wall. The Blade sank to the floor without another sound.
Ailith stepped over her, went to the privy, and then stepped over her a second time to re-enter her room.
It wasn’t long before Khaldo and five others pushed the door open to give Ailith the beating of her life. They stopped when they realized just how much trash and horseshit they’d piled inside.
Ailith lay on her bed with her back to the door, so she didn’t see Khaldo’s sneer as she backed out of the room. She heard the bitch telling the others it was too filthy to risk getting themselves covered in shit, and they’d see to Ailith the next time she left her room.
The following day, Calit met Sábria and Shirin at the Temple gate. In anticipation of their arrival, she’d ordered all nonessential personnel out of the baileys. She rested her hand on the shoulder of Sábria’s horse, and before the Arch Priestess even had time to dismount, she said, “There’s been big trouble. We need to talk. Right now.”
“What happened?” Tired from a long day of riding, Sábria swung her leg over her horse’s back and lowered herself to the ground. Nodding distractedly, she handed her reins to a stable hand who’d been assigned to take their mounts to the stables.
Calit eyed the guards standing nearby and indicated the Citadel with a wave of her hand. “Maybe we should speak in your office, My Lady.”
With Sábria leading the way, the three women walked through her office door. Shirin slapped at the dust on her trews, and Sábria grumbled, “Must you do that in here?”
Shirin, who hadn’t realized what she was doing, raised her brows in a sheepish apology. “Sorry. I’m just exhausted and wasn’t thinking.” She turned to Calit. “So, what’s so important that couldn’t wait until we’ve had time to bathe and change?”
The idea of reporting her news to the Arch Priestess and the Commander had weighed on her mind the last couple of days. What Calit had concluded was there was no way to break the news easily, so she’d decided on the direct route. “Two of our handlers and shivs were ambushed. Maeira was killed outright with a blade embedded in the bridge of her nose, and Jenx is still unconscious in the infirmary.”
Both Sábria and Shirin stiffened. Sábria was the first to find her voice. “And the shivs?”
“Nox and Ailith. Nox was the hero of the day. She killed three of the attackers while Ailith turned and ran.”
Sábria’s eyes narrowed. “Ailith ran?”
“Yes, My Lady.”
That didn’t fit with what both women knew about the two shivs. Sábria continued, “How do you know?”
“Nox arrived shortly after Soirin found Jenx. Ailith was nowhere to be seen. Nox told Soirin what happened, and she relayed the same story to me when I arrived.”
“And what does Ailith have to say?”
Calit’s face hardened, and she spat out the words, “Absolutely nothing. No apology, no defense, no thanks to Nox for saving her life. Nothing.”
There was no one better at reading people and knowing their personalities than Sábria. She knew, deep in her soul, that Ailith hadn’t run from that fight. She also knew Nox was incapable of killing three men on her own. She turned to Shirin, “Get Nox in here.”
Shirin, who’d been thinking the same, left to find Nox.
Sábria turned back to Calit. “Where’s Ailith now?”
“Confined to her room.”
That made sense, and Sábria nodded distractedly. “She’s receiving meals and water, I assume?”
“Of course, My Lady. Khaldo even volunteered to take meals to her on a regular basis.”
“Khaldo?” Sábria’s eyes narrowed dangerously, “And you’ve been checking to make sure that’s been getting done, correct?”
Calit’s brows descended, and she shrugged, “To be honest, I don’t really care. The coward ran and left the others to die. She can rot for—” When she saw Sábria’s eyes light with a fire she’d only seen on a few occasions, Calit knew she’d gone too far. “I’m sorry, My Lady. That was out of order. I’m sure Khaldo has been doing what she said she’d do.”
She was spared a response when Shirin strode through the door with a sullen Nox following behind. The shiv came to attention in the middle of the room and waited while Shirin studied Sábria, wondering why the emotions in the room had changed so drastically in the short time she’d been gone.
It only took a moment for Sábria to get herself under control, but she was still short with the shiv she believed had thrown a fellow shiv to the wolves. “Report.”
Nox brought her fist to her chest and began the tale she’d told so many times over the last few days. “Handler Maeira and I and Handler Jenx and Ailith had been patrolling most of the night for some trib runners who’d been harassing women in the Market District. Close to the end of our shift, Handler Maeira spotted them in the third alley off Diamond Way if you're coming from Latchgo road. They ran when they saw us—”
Shirin interrupted, “How did they know you were looking for them?”
“Handler Jenx and Shiv Ailith brought one of their friends in for questioning the previous night.” At Shirin’s nod, Nox continued, “Well, Handler Maeira—”
This time Sábria interrupted, not quite hiding her irritation at listening to the story unfold. “We can dispense with the handler and shiv titles, Nox. We know who they are.”
