AVENGER
AN EXCERPT
Someone means to eradicate the Hulmasters this night, he realized—all of us. “Damn it,” he snarled into the darkened hallway. He whirled, trying to make sense of the chaos. To the right were the rooms of the young Hulmasters. In the opposite direction lay Harmach Grigor’s chamber. The harmach was certainly the first target of the attackers, but Geran knew what his uncle would want him to do. Grigor would want him to make sure that Natali and Kirr were safe, regardless of the cost.
A child’s scream rang out in the darkness. “Natali,” Geran murmured. Without another thought he turned to his right and sprinted down the hallway, his sword bared. The harmach probably had Shieldsworn bodyguards close to hand already; if fortune smiled just a little, they might be able to hold off the attack for a while. He turned the corner at the manor’s grand stair, and found several men and women in the harmach’s colors lying dead or unconscious at the top of the steps. Two men Geran had never seen before were crumpled on the steps by the guards. They wore no colors at all other than their well-worn leather jerkins and dark, hooded cloaks, the sort of nondescript garb that scores of sellswords in Thentia’s dockside taverns wore every day. Whoever was behind the attack had likely hired any killers he could find for the task—or wanted it to appear that way—and then reinforced the common sellswords with summoned devils.
Geran did not pause to study the scene more closely, leaping over one of the fallen guards and continuing down the hallway. He came to Natali’s chamber, found the door standing open, and burst inside.
Two more Hulmaster servants were dead on the floor before him. Over them stood three more sellswords, already turning toward the corner of the nursery, where Erna huddled with her children. One of the sellswords, a bald man with Thayan tattoos on his scalp, raised a cleaverlike blade and seized Kirr’s arm to haul him away from his mother. Natali and Kirr both wailed, but Erna glimpsed Geran past her assailants. “Geran!” she shrieked. “Help us!”
The two mercenaries between him and the Thayan holding Kirr wheeled around at her cry. “One more step and we’ll slay the lot!” the first snarled. “Drop the sword, and we’ll let the small ones go!”
He hesitated a moment before realizing that the man had to be lying. They had no intention of leaving any Hulmasters alive. Instead of releasing his blade, he fixed his eye on Kirr and the mercenary who gripped his arm, and formed a spell in his mind. “Sierollanie dir mellar,”he said in a clear voice.
An instant of utter darkness and icy cold flashed across his senses—then he was where Kirr had been standing, with the Thayan’s hand locked on his left arm, while Kirr stood dumbfounded in the doorway where Geran had been a heartbeat before. The Thayan mercenary’s eyes opened wide in astonishment, and he opened his mouth to say something before the heavy basket hilt of Geran’s backsword slammed between his eyes with a sickening crunch. The fellow staggered back and collapsed to the floor; Geran turned to engage the remaining two swordsmen. “Kirr, get out of the hallway and find a place to hide!” he cried. “Erna, get Natali into the washroom and barricade the door!” Then his blade met the hard parry of the first of the two enemies he now faced, and the fight was on in earnest.
Unlike the Thayan sellsword lying motionless on the floor, these two were now fully cognizant of his skill and magic. He had no more surprises for them, and they were good enough blades that he couldn’t simply overwhelm them with a quick assault. He tried anyway, and succeeded in driving them back two steps toward the doorway, steel crashing against steel as their swords danced with his. Behind the two mercenaries, Kirr glanced down the hallway. “More of them are coming, Geran!” he shouted. Then he darted out of sight to the left—Geran hoped Kirr was going to find some secure bolthole where the assassins couldn’t find him. He risked a peek over his shoulder and saw Natali and her mother pushing the door of the garderobe closed behind them.
“A futile gesture,” said one of the swordsmen dueling Geran. “We’ll have all of them within a quarter-hour anyway!”
“Not while I still stand here, you won’t,” Geran retorted. He resumed his attack, trying to beat down the asassin’s guard, but now his opponents were beginning to work together. Whichever he attacked gave ground and went on the defensive, while the other pressed hard and tried to catch him with his guard out of place. He grimaced, beginning to wonder if he’d been wise to transpose himself into the bedchamber after all. He’d caught the one holding Kirr off-guard, but in doing so he’d put two good swordsmen between him and the door. His quick stroke had left him pinned in the children’s chamber, unable to fight clear quickly or affect events anywhere else in the manor. The youngest Hulmaster was out in the dark hallway somewhere, all too likely in need of Geran’s help, and he could hear more fighting echoing throughout Lasparhall’s fragrant chambers.
Steel flickered and shrilled in another exchange, and Geran ground his teeth together in growing frustration. He had to get by these two and find out what else was happening! Pressing forward recklessly, he sent lightning coursing down his blade and managed to shock the sword out of one man’s hand. The man yelped and moved back, holding his sword hand, but Geran paid for it with a shallow cut to his left calf as the fellow’s comrade struck back at him. Then the doorway filled again, this time with two more assassins and the hot, sulfurous stink of another bearded devil.
“I’ve got Geran Hulmaster here!” the swordsman fighting him cried. “Two more of them are in the garderobe! Cut him down!”
“Cuillen mhariel,” Geran said. Thin streamers of silver mist appeared around him, the best defense he could summon at the moment. He might be able to escape with a spell or two, but he couldn’t abandon Erna and Natali. He settled into a fighting crouch, standing his ground in the middle of the bedchamber, teeth bared in a grimace of determination. Here he would stand and, if fate ordained it, die, but he would not give ground.
The assassins and the grinning hell-spawn rushed him all at once. For a single, impossible moment Geran stood without yielding, his elven blade a silver blur as he parried and countered as fast and furiously as he’d ever fought in his life. The assassins closed in from all sides, sword points weaving and darting like steel serpents eager for a taste of his flesh, while the bearded devil hissed and bulled straight at him, slashing wildly with its iron talons. A point grazed his ribs, another pinked him in the thick of his left thigh, and raking talons furrowed his chest. Despite himself Geran faltered a step, trying to use his foes as shields against each other, but there were simply too many to deal with at once in the close quarters. So be it, he thought grimly. He’d try to take as many with him as he could, and hope that any assassins he delayed here missed their chance to kill more of the Hulmasters.
The rearmost assassin cried out, back arching as his arms flew up in the air. He took two staggering steps forward and then pitched forward on his face. Behind him stood Kara Hulmaster in her mailed coat, her saber dripping blood from its point. Her spellscarred eyes blazed with azure light, and a snarl of rage twisted her face. “Murderers!” she snarled. “You’ll not see the sunrise, that I promise you!” She leaped into the fray, driving against the two remaining swordsmen, who turned to meet her. Kara was almost as skilled with a sword as Geran, and two more Shieldsworn followed close behind her.
Geran took advantage of the distraction Kara caused to duck beneath the slashing claws of the bearded devil and throw himself into the back of one of her opponents, driving the man into the wall. He seized the stunned assassin and threw him headlong into the face of the bearded devil rushing after him, briefly tangling the two together. While the assassin struggled to get free, the swordmage snarled a spell of strength and drove his point through the man’s torso and into the body of the devil behind him. With the power of the strength spell, Geran shoved both his impaled foes to the nearest wall and drove his sword through until it grated on stone behind them. When he yanked the blade free, the assassin groaned and slid to the floor, while the bearded devil screamed in rage before vanishing in a foul cloud of smoke like the others had. He turned back around just in time to see Kara finish her last opponent with a graceful slash across the throat. A moment’s calm settled over the room.
“Natali! Kirr! Are they safe?” Kara demanded.
“Natali’s here. Kirr ran off to hide. I don’t know where he is.” Geran found that warm blood was dripping over his brow from a cut he didn’t remember receiving. He wiped it away with the back of his left hand. “What of the harmach?”
Kara paled. “I’d hoped that you might know. I was making the rounds outside when I heard the fighting.”
A terrible suspicion dawned in Geran’s heart. He looked over to the Shieldsworn who followed Kara. “You two, stay here and guard Lady Erna and Natali,” he ordered. “Watch out for Kirr, too, if you see him. Kara and I are going to the harmach.”