14
Both Fesulian men-at-arms were impressively large. Sporting shaved heads and the kinds of scars that only came from multiple battles, they wore the guard uniforms Joslyn had seen at Lord M’Tongliss’s manor in Paratheen, not the typical loose pants, loose shirt, and sandals of contracted Fesulian footsoldiers. Nor did they carry the double-ended spears of those contract- and honor-bound soldiers. No, these were the kind of Fesulians who probably had not succeeded in completing the twenty-four year training. Once they’d washed out, they had probably spent time in their island’s infamous gladiatorial pits, winning fights against slaves and prisoners and exotic beasts before gaining enough notoriety to get hired to do the dirty work of someone like Lord M’Tongliss.
Later, Joslyn would wonder how many fights they had won as gladiators, how many mountain leopards they’d killed bare-handed, how many down-on-their-luck Imperial veterans they’d defeated in single combat.
Joslyn would wonder because, in a matter of about three seconds, the Order of Targhan assassin rendered all of those victories moot.
In the first second, the assassin pulled free from the grip of the Fesulian guard who’d wrapped her chains around his wrist and leapt onto the back of the man slightly in front of her. She spun the end of the chain around his neck once, twice, then twisted hard, breaking his neck with an audible snap. In the second moment, before the first guard’s body had even hit the dock, she whirled back towards the Fesulian behind her, broke the iron chain between her wrists, and slammed one of the manacles into the side of his head. Either unconscious or instantly dead from the blow, the guard toppled sideways, splashing into the canal.
Neither Fesulian had even managed to draw a weapon before they met their doom, but another man had: Wise Man Jalid. He drew a black iron knife and moved forward, uttering something in the Old Tongue.
Of course. Jalid wasn’t just a Wise Man; he was also a member of the Brotherhood of Culo.
Whatever he was saying seemed to have an effect on the shadow inside of the woman. She screeched like an injured beast and clapped both hands over her ears, then charged Jalid.
Jalid had obviously been chosen to escort Darien for exactly this scenario, and he was prepared for it, but she was too fast for whatever spell he attempted to cast. Using both hands, she seized the hand that held the telltale black knife. With the sickening sound of splintering bone, the assassin broke his forearm and twisted the knife backwards, plunging it into Jalid’s own chest. His scream of pain was short lived; the knife struck true and he, too, was dead before he hit the ground.
That was the end of the third second.
Joslyn had used the three precious seconds of distraction provided by the three dead men to grab Darien and shove him towards the nearest palace guard.
“Get the Empress and the rest of them away from here!” she shouted at her guardsmen. “Run!”
But the assassin had no intention of letting anyone run. Pulling the iron knife free from the dead Wise Man-Brother, she flung it at the guardsman who’d planted himself before Darien. It sunk into his throat up to the hilt. The guard’s eyes went wide, and he staggered back a few steps before collapsing onto Darien, sending both of them tumbling to the ground.
Adela screamed. Linna wrapped one hand around the Princess’s arm, the other around Milo’s, yelling at them to follow her. Wise Man Fraden was white and frozen with panic. Two more guards grabbed Tasia, pushing her ahead of them towards the palace while Fraden’s household servants stampeded willy-nilly towards the doors leading into the palace.
The assassin cackled with glee to see the chaos she had caused in a matter of moments. Flame-filled eyes turned towards Tasia.
“You will not have her!” Joslyn bellowed.
“Ahh, good,” said the woman, but her voice was more shadow than human. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to kill you ever since you took my last body from me.”
The shadow’s voice was familiar, and at first, Joslyn thought of the undatai, but then she realized that couldn’t be. Evrart said that while the undatai might yet be inhabiting another human host somewhere on the mortal plane, Joslyn had significantly weakened it when she destroyed it in the Shadowlands. It couldn’t possess anyone new, nor could it command legions of shadows as it had before. It would be too weak to do either for years, possibly for as long as a decade, Evrart had assured them.
But the undatai wasn’t the only shadow Joslyn had done battle with.
“Ty’Tsana?” Joslyn asked, a shock of recognition coursing through her.
The creature nodded. “I rather liked that body. Now you pay.”
Hand curled like a mountain leopard’s claw, the assassin lunged at Joslyn, swiping at her sword hand. But Joslyn leapt backwards with reverse frog.
“I beat you once, shadow,” Joslyn said. “Don’t think I won’t beat you again.”
But Joslyn didn’t actually need to win this battle. She didn’t even need to survive it. She just needed to buy enough time for Tasia and the children to get away.
Joslyn feinted low with viper striking, then spun into dancer’s grace. But the monster was faster. Before Joslyn could complete dancer’s grace deadly arc, the shadow stepped inside Joslyn’s range and grabbed her sword arm with both hands, clearly intending to break Joslyn’s arm as it had done with Jalid. Joslyn started to twist away, but the shadow suddenly let go.
A dagger protruded from the assassin’s flank.
Linna’s dagger.
Joslyn didn’t let the moment go to waste. With a low kick, she swept the creature’s legs out from under it and dropped one knee onto its chest, feeling the sternum crack beneath her. She lifted her short sword with both hands, prepared to drive it into the host body’s heart.
“Joslyn, no!”
If it had been any voice but Tasia’s, Joslyn wouldn’t have stopped.
But it was Tasia’s.
“We need her!” Tasia shouted from behind the wall of palace guardsmen surrounding her and Adela. “We can interrogate her!”
With a flick of her wrist, Joslyn shifted the trajectory of her short sword so that it came to rest against the assassin’s throat instead of plunging it into its chest.
“Move a single inch,” she hissed, “and I take this body from you, too.”
Joslyn was vaguely aware of a commotion behind her, of footsteps bursting forth from the palace and running towards the dock. But she didn’t have time to see who it might be, because the shadow inside the assassin grinned devilishly, pulled Linna’s dagger from its side, and drove it deep into Joslyn’s thigh.
Joslyn yelped in pain. She slashed at the assassin’s throat, planning to make good on her promise, but she was off-balance – the creature had taken advantage of Joslyn’s momentary shock and bucked, throwing Joslyn off. The sword bit into the assassin’s neck, but not with the right angle or depth to make the shadow’s host body bleed out.
But one of them was bleeding out. Linna’s dagger had sliced through Joslyn’s femoral artery.
Which meant Joslyn would be dead in approximately two minutes.
Nevertheless, Joslyn came to her feet at lightning-fast speed, so fast that onlookers probably wouldn’t even realize the wound from the dagger was life-threatening. Compared to her normal, uninjured speed, however, Joslyn’s movements were already too sluggish to stop what was about to happen. As if watching from underwater, she saw the assassin pull a curved sword from the belt of a dead Fesulian and charge towards Tasia. A brave palace guardsman stepped forward to stop it, but the shadow-infected thing cut him down as though he was nothing but an errant strand of wheat.
Desperate to get its attention, Joslyn flung her boot dagger at it, striking it between the shoulder blades. It was far from a death blow, but it still had the intended effect. The creature let out a bestial snarl and twisted to face her.
“Joslyn!”
Dizzy, Joslyn turned towards the voice, just in time to see Evrart emerge from behind a knot of guardsmen and toss something in her direction. She reached out on reflex, snatching it midair.
A rune-marked dagger.
The shadow-infected assassin was on her again, swinging the Fesulian scimitar with the intent to behead her.
Joslyn used one of the dance’s movements that she rarely had need to employ: bending reed. Like a reed at a lake’s edge folded by the wind, Joslyn threw herself backwards without losing her feet. The sword passed over her harmlessly, an inch above her face. She could feel the whoosh of air it displaced as it moved past.
And just as a reed straightened again once the wind died down, Joslyn sprang upright once more, slashing out with the dagger. The shadow-woman anticipated the attack, but its calculation was flawed: it shifted its weight back enough to avoid a killing blow, but Joslyn wasn’t aiming for a killing blow. The dagger’s tip nicked the assassin’s side, biting through the dirty tunic just deep enough to draw blood.
Its eyes went wide with shock, irises fading from bright flames to a muddy brown.
Smoke trickled forth from the place where the blade had cut – only a small amount at first, then more, then a torrent. Smoke poured from the woman’s nostrils, her eyes, her mouth, her skin itself.
The assassin’s knees buckled and she toppled forward, falling face-first at Joslyn’s feet while smoke continued to rise from her body like steam from a lake.
Battle adrenaline fading, a wave of vertigo struck Joslyn hard, and suddenly she was aware of the sensation of pulsing. Her life force was draining out of her rapidly, leaving through the gash in her thigh. She’d be gone in a minute, off to whatever world came after death.
Her eyes found Tasia. She opened her mouth to say something – Tasia’s name, perhaps – but no sound came out. Joslyn wavered the way her opponent had a moment earlier and, no longer able to fight the light-headed dizziness that had taken hold of her, crumpled to the ground.
“She’s injured!” someone said.
Tasia. That was Tasia’s voice.
“Evrart, do something!”
Feet pattered against the wooden dock. Joslyn felt the vibrations against her back.
A flutter of hands around her. A ring of faces.
“Joslyn.”
It took her a moment to process that someone else was speaking this time. Someone male; someone not-Tasia.
“Brother Rennus is here. He is a …”
But everything was fading. Evrart’s words – Joslyn was fairly certain it was Evrart’s voice – came and went, some of the words lost to the buzzing in her ears.
“… going to … Try … awake …”
Evrart wanted her to stay awake.
But Joslyn could no longer comply with his requests.