shaking off the sting of it and gripping her hard on the neck, forcing her against the wall. She thrashed, hissing, nails scraping at his face. He forced her head back, the bones of her neck straining, lifting her off her feet, tightening his grip to subdue her struggles.
“ You are very skilled, sister,” he observed.
A grunt of pained fury escaped her throat. Her skin felt hot against his hand.
“ Perhaps you could tell me where you learned such skills, and why you felt the need to practice them on me.”
Her eyes, shining bright amidst the flushed, red mask of her face, flicked to the rip in his shirt and the shallow scar beneath. A smile, ugly and full of malice, twisted her lips. “Feeling… well, brother?” she grated through spittle. “You don’t… have time… to save her now.”
He felt it then, the heat rising in his chest, the fresh slick of sweat washing over him, a faint greyness creeping into the corners of his eyes. Poison! Poison on the blade.
He leaned close, his face inches from hers, meeting the hatred in her eyes. “Save who?”
Her horrible smile widened into a grotesque laugh. “Once… there were… seven!” she told him, the hatred in her eyes shining like a lantern in the dark.
Suddenly she jerked her head back, forcing her mouth open, then clamping it shut with a loud clack of colliding teeth. She began to writhe in his grasp, shuddering uncontrollably, froth spouting from her mouth. He released his grip, letting her fall to the floor where she thrashed, feet slapping the tiles, before laying still, eyes wide and unblinking, lifeless.
Vaelin stared at her, sweat beading his forehead, the heat in his chest building to a fire.
Poison on the blade… You don’t have time to save her now… Once there were seven…You don’t have time to save her… Save her… SAVE HER!
The Aspect!
He went to where his sword was propped against the wall, tearing it free of the scabbard, dragging the door open, sprinting along the corridor to the stairwell.
Poison on the blade… How long did he have? He chased the thought from his mind. Long enough! he decided fiercely, leaping up the steps three at a time. I have long enough.
The Aspect’s rooms were on the top floor. He got there in seconds, running along the corridor, seeing her door ahead, finding no sign of a threat…
The blade was a sliver of light in the shadows, a half-crescent of steel, fast and skilful, it should have taken his head off at the shoulders. He ducked it, going into a roll, feeling the wind rush as the sword bit the air above him, coming to his feet, forming the parry stance in the same movement, the sword blade clashing with his own. He whirled, going down on one knee, sword arm fully extended, his arm jarring as his blade met flesh, drawing a stifled shout of pain and brief rainfall spatter of blood on floor tiles. His attacker wore cotton garments of black, a mask over his face, soot smeared on the brows and eye lids. His eyes glared up at Vaelin from the floor as he clutched at the deep gash in his thigh, not in anger but shocked surprise.
Vaelin killed him with a slash to the neck, left him writhing in a welter of arterial blood as he ran on, the fire in his chest now an inferno of pain, his vision blurring, losing focus, fixing on the Aspect’s door, no more than a few feet away now. He stumbled, colliding with the wall, pushing himself onwards with an angry grunt of self reproach.
SAVE HER!
Two more blades shimmered out of the darkness, another black clad figure, a short sword in each hand, attacking in a frenzy of slashing blades. Vaelin parried the first two slashes, moved back to let the others whistle within an inch of his face, stepped inside the reach of the man’s kick and killed him with a thrust to the sternum, guiding his sword blade up under the ribs, finding the heart. The black clad man went into a brief spasm, blood gouting from his mouth, then sagged, doll like, devoid of life, hanging on Vaelin’s blade like a rag. The weight of it dragged him down, sword buried in the body up to the hilt, blood covering his arm in a thick red slick, bathing the floor. The smell would have made him gag but for the toxin raging in his blood.
Tired… He slumped against the corpse, a weight of exhaustion greater than any he had known pressing down on him. The pain in his chest receding, displaced by this overwhelming need for sleep. So tired…
“ You don’t look well, brother.”
The voice was anonymous, without source or owner, lost amidst the shadows. A dream? he wondered. A dream before death.
“ She found you, I see,” the voice went on. There was the faintest scrape of a blade tip on stone.
No dream. Vaelin gritted his teeth, grip tightening on his sword hilt. “She’s dead!” he shouted into the dark.
“ I’m sure.” The voice was mild, devoid of accent or recognition. Neither cultured nor coarse. “Pity. I always liked her in that guise. She was so wonderfully cruel. Did you bed her first? I think she would have liked that.”
It was only a slight note of tension in the tone, but Vaelin sensed the owner of the unseen voice was about to make his move.
Shaking with the effort, he got off his knees, standing, pulling his sword free of the corpse. Waited too long, he realised. Should’ve killed me when I was vulnerable. Is he waiting for the poison to complete the task for him?
“ You’re afraid,” Vaelin grunted into the darkness. “You know you can’t beat me.”
Silence. Silence and shadows, broken only by the drip of blood from his sword ticking on the floor. No time, he thought, his vision swimming, a dreadful, icy numbness creeping into this limbs. No time to wait.
“ Once,” he said, his voice a dry rasp, making him cry it out. “Once there were seven!”
There was a clatter of locks and latches followed by the creak of hinges as the Aspect’s door opened behind him and her comely, faintly annoyed face appeared shrouded by candle light.
“ What is all this noise…”
The knife came spinning out of the dark, end over end, a precise throw, its tip certain to take the Aspect in the eye.
Vaelin’s sword arm felt like lead as he brought his blade round in an arc, the blade meeting the knife, sending it spinning into the shadows. He never saw the assassin follow up his attack, he felt it, knew it, but he never saw it. His counter was automatic, unconscious, immediate. He spun, both hands on his sword hilt, the last vestiges of his strength in the blow, he never felt it meet the man’s neck, heard rather than saw the geyser of blood painting the ceiling and walls as the headless corpse continued for a few steps before collapsing. All he knew was the inescapable, dominating need to sleep.
The floor tiles were cool against his cheek, his chest moving in a sedate rhythm, he wondered if he would dream of wolves…
“ Vaelin!” Strong hands gripped him, shook him, many feet thundered on the floor, a babble of voices like a raging river. He groaned in annoyance.
“ Vaelin! Wake up!” Something hard smacked across his face making him wince. “Wake up! Don’t sleep! Do you hear me?!”
More voices, tumbling together in a barely decipherable clamour. “Fetch Sister Sherin, now!.. Get him to the teaching room… Forget them, they’re dead… What was he infected with?… Looks like a knife wound, where’s the blade?”
“ She wanted to apologise,” Vaelin said, deciding he should be helpful. “Came to my room… Would’ve got me but for the wolf…”
“ Check his room!” Sherin’s voice, more shrill and panicked than he knew it could be. “Look for a knife, make sure you don’t touch the blade.”
There were more voices, a vague sensation of being carried, the coolness of the floor replaced by the hard smoothness of a treatment table. Vaelin groaned, his befuddled mind perceiving the pain to come.
“ Dead?” the Aspect’s voice. “What do you mean dead?”
“ Looks like poison,” Master Harin’s deep rumble responded. “A pellet hidden in one of her teeth. Haven’t seen the like for a long time…”
Vaelin decided to open his eyes, seeing only a murky collage of shadows. He blinked, his vision clearing long enough to make out Sister Sherin, nostril’s flared as she sniffed Sister Henna’s knife. “Hunter’s Arrow,” she said. “We need Joffril root.”
