the codes he had been trying to memorize, the codes that had been stolen from his room at the inn. The Uniontown ambassador, Amyrilon, had sent his men to steal those codes, and now he was flaunting his successful theft in Kestrel’s face.
“Merilla, walk rapidly away from me,” he said urgently to the woman he cared so much about. “Go to the herald, the man in black, and tell him to send armed guards immediately!”
“What are you talking about?” Merilla asked, confused by his tone and comment, unaware of what the flowers meant, or what was happening. Kestrel glanced about and saw Moresond standing off to his right; he reached out and grabbed Merilla’s hand, as the crowd started to clap politely, believing the dance was about to begin at last.
The clapping stopped in shock, as Kestrel pulled Merilla’s arm and then propelled her towards Moresond. “Give him the message,” Kestrel said loudly as Merilla was flung away, a startled look on her face.
Three red flowers were suddenly thrown onto the floor, and Kestrel stared at them as he recollected that according to the code, a triangle of three red pansies meant that he expected he was going to die.
“I see the panic in your eyes,” the ambassador said, walking closer to Kestrel. “You recognize the meaning of these flowers, perhaps?”
He suddenly pulled a sword out of thin air, making the audience gasp.
“Your delightful young friend will be my plaything tonight, not yours,” the ambassador pointed to where one of his henchmen held the struggling Merilla in his arms.
“And no one will interfere with this short battle that will put an end to your brief life,” the ambassador added, as he raised his hand in the air and made an obscure gesture. A dome of smoky red appeared within the ballroom, separating Kestrel, the ambassador, and his henchmen from everyone else.
“My staff is an honest weapon,” Kestrel growled at the ambassador, drawing a momentary look of puzzlement on Amyrilon’s face. “As honest as the man who was my first commander, Mastrin. I name my staff Mastrin, and I call it to come to me now!” he shouted, and held out his hand as his staff came flying through the air, penetrated the ambassador’s shield without incident, and smacked against his palm.
He could protect himself against the sword now. In a moment he would use the knife to set Merilla free. But there were four other henchmen inside the red dome as well, and he needed a way to fight against them while trying to protect himself and Merilla.
“”Dewberry! Dewberry! Dewberry!” he called with his voice and his heart and his mind. “I need a squad of sprite warriors to fight against the men in red,” he shouted out instructions.
He looked over his shoulder, at the red-robed man who held Merilla in front of him, a knife pressed against her throat. She looked terrified, and the man was using her to protect himself, forcing her body to block every part of his body from view, except a small portion of his face and his neck. Kestrel would trust the goddess; his hand reached down and found the knife on his left hip, then in one motion he flipped the knife backwards, behind his back.
“There goes vengeance! I want vengeance on the people who killed Lucretia; it will be in her name I give to this blade!” he shouted, and listened to the crowd around the dome scream as the knife swerved and flipped in the air, before it landed in the throat of the man who held Merilla, showering her in a bloody red spray as the man collapsed. “Lucretia, return!” Kestrel commanded, feeling somehow automatically connected to the weapon as though he had known it all his life. He felt the handle of the knife smack against his palm, and he slid the blade back into its scabbard.
There was another scream from the crowd as a small host of blue bodies erupted into the air of the dome, and began to stab and attack the unprepared red-robed acolytes of the ambassador.
“Now, Mastrin, let’s begin,” Kestrel spoke gently to his staff, and thrust it at the astonished ambassador. The first poke, using the end with the sharpened spikes, landed firmly on the hip of Kestrel’s opponent, and Kestrel twisted the staff to slice the flesh bloodily. The pain of the contact seemed to awaken something within Amyrilon, and he swung his sword with a cool, precise manner that Kestrel barely blocked with his staff.
There were shouts around Kestrel, as other battles raged, but he couldn’t spare a moment of his attention to look away from the ambassador, whose sword suddenly sliced repeatedly at Kestrel, striking his staff with steely, clashing sounds as the man controlled his weapon with a faster stroke and recovery that Kestrel had ever faced before, much more proficiently than even Arlen had ever demonstrated against him. He was stepping backwards, giving ground, as he was continually driven by the onslaught. One stroke of the sword hit his staff then deflected downward, slicing the flesh of Kestrel’s leg deeply, and forcing him to kneel in pain and immobility.
The ambassador smiled in triumph, and stepped back to prepare to deliver a fatal blow to Kestrel. He feigned a low slice, then as Kestrel reacted to block the blow Amyrilon shifted his blade and drove the point with speed and strength directly at Kestrel’s chest.
The point of the sword struck a seemingly fatal blow, but instead of penetrating Kestrel’s flesh, it slid along the divinely tattooed surface and flew high and wide, slipping up over his shoulder as it slid away, and the ambassador stepped back in shock at the failure of his effort, while Kestrel toppled backwards. With a flick of his wrist, Kestrel reached for his new goddess-given knife, and flung it at the ambassador’s chest, where it buried itself deeply with a resounding thud.
The ambassador looked down at Kestrel and smiled, causing the elf to momentarily panic, until Amyrilon slowly collapsed to the ground, dead, and the red dome vanished as the will of the ambassador ceased to generate its existence.
Kestrel reached forward and pulled the knife from the dead Uniontown leader’s body, then turned to locate and fling his blade at another antagonist, only to see that there were no other red-robed figures left standing. All of them were dead, lying on the floor thanks to the surprisingly ferocious fighting abilities of the sprites, and one small blue body lay unmoving as well.
With a groan, Kestrel used his staff to rise to his feet, and limped over to where the sprite lay on the floor, as the other sprites floated above it, and one of them knelt next to Merilla, who had also run over to try to tend to the blue victim.
“She’s not dead!” Merilla said, looking up at Kestrel.
“Who is it?” he asked fearfully.
“It’s Reasion,” Dewberry answered, looking up at Kestrel.
“Take Merilla to her home; she has a skin of the healing water there — bring it!” he urged the sprite. Within an instant a flock of sprites enveloped Merilla and disappeared.
Kestrel looked up at the sky, and realized that the humans of Estone were tentatively approaching the battle scene. “Stay back!” he shouted. “Stay back for just a few minutes more, please,” a cry that stopped the crowd, as Merilla and her blue escort returned.
“Pour the water on her wound.” Kestrel directed, looking at the vicious stab wound in the blue stomach. “Now pour a little down her throat; just drip it into her gently,” he said a moment later.
“She should be okay,” Kestrel guessed. “Take her to Alicia and ask the doctor to check on her, please. I don’t want any of the blue people to die for me,” he said, looking at Dewberry, “although I know you’re brave enough that you would.”
“Friend Kestrel, what manner of battle was this? The opponents appeared to be humans, but the evil they brought with them was powerful beyond mortals,” Dewberry said.
“I don’t know yet, Dewberry,” Kestrel said, and he winced as he felt a twinge of pain in his sliced leg.
“Oh Kestrel,” Merilla called. “Do you want me to dose you with the healing water?” she started to turn the skin towards him.
“No!” he said firmly. “I can’t afford to be healed that way; I’ll heal the usual way. I need to keep this appearance as long as I can, so that I can head towards the Inner Seas Kingdoms. I need to carry out my mission, and I need to try to find out more about these forces from Uniontown.”
“Take your people and go to health and safety, Dewberry,” he said. He turned and waved to all the sprites. “Thank you all for your help and your bravery!” he told them all.
They descended and scooped up Reasion, then all disappeared.
