Chapter 6. Revenge

he look of abject horror upon Kantele’s face was his first sign something was amiss.  He dropped the rolls of paper he had purchased for Mabane, focusing and chanting quickly to shield himself from hexes moments before the air wavered and Kantele fell back gasping in horror between a pair of green cloaked assassins.  He gazed over his shoulder as two lean men pressed in behind him, forming a wall between Pendaran and his guardians.  Their determination to kill him blared from their minds but they moved quickly and were disguised as ordinary folk, drawing no alarm from Brigit or Nandao.  His guardians were distracted, chatting with a woman who wore the same poison green cloak as the assassins.

“Help!” Pendaran cried a split second before the gleam of daggers sprung into the men’s hands.  He did not bother with his mask but rolled beneath the merchant’s table as the two assassins fell back with an enraged cry, stung by his spell.  The old paper seller squawked in alarm as he resurfaced behind her and ripped aside the curtain that formed the back wall of her stall. He glanced back to see Brigit swinging her axe violently, tracing a bloody swathe through the other three.

These were not amateurs.  The black haired woman who had been acting as a distraction chanted a prayer and instantly healed her companions.  Nandao warded Brigit with a look of panic upon his pale visage.

Pendaran spun about, sensing the focused malice of his attackers an instant before they over turned the table and bore down on him.  Heart pounding in terror, Pendaran cried out in pain as the assassin stabbed his shoulder, cutting short his incantation.  Cursing, he tried again, focusing but sensing the long punishing hex would not make it from his lips in time.  He was proved correct as the second man landed a brutal strike to his temple, spinning Pendaran around and leaving him dazed and drooling blood.  Staggering to defend himself, Pendaran made for the counter separating him from the neighboring stall, seeking to bound over it and run for his life.  The assassins tore into him with the force of a charging bull.  Pendaran dropped to his knees in agony as the daggers ripped into his back. 

Dazed and helpless, one landed a kick to his chest and Pendaran dropped winded to the filthy cobbles, gasping for breath and frightened witless.  The masked figure drew a pair of hooked daggers from his shoulder sheaths, their blades formed of brittle obsidian and smeared with a viscous substance.

“No,” Pendaran rasped, meeting a mossy wall as he tried to crawl away.  The assassin sank the first dagger into his belly, twisting it until it broke off while Pendaran’s screams rent the air.  The second was thrust into his back, splintering against his ribs as it sank into his kidney.  Transfixed by pain, he became limp as one grasped him by his hair and dragged him out into the open where Mai Ling awaited him, a black stone clutched in her hand.  Her scarred visage was cold with malice.

“I trap your soul in eternal torment to avenge Kiku and my sundered guild,” Mai Ling snarled at him, pressing the cold orb to his forehead and awaiting the moment of his death.  She uttered a single syllable and the envenomed obsidian lodged within his body shattered, spraying the cobbles with gore.

“Pendaran!” shrieked Nandao, the horror in his voice a match to the howl of agony that erupted from his throat.  The assassins were gone in a burst of shadow, leaving him to die in a growing pool of his own blood.  Brigit tore loose from her assailants, staggering as a hammer pounded her in retreat.  Blood trailing from her axe, she let forth a mighty howl of rage.  No force in Tyria was capable of stopping her now.

The necromancer realized her peril too late as she turned to leave.  With a wailing cry of grief and rage, Brigit tore into her, the whole of her being extending through a mighty blow.  Mai Ling’s head dropped wetly to the cobbles beside her dying victim.

Nandao cried out in pain as he drew some of the injury to himself and Pendaran’s body only shuddered, the wounds refusing to close.  The city guard had arrived, but the murderers that still lived were long gone.  Brigit dropped sobbing to her knees beside Pendaran.

“Crush the stone,” Pendaran pleaded, his voice so thin and weak he could barely hear himself, “Before I die, please.”

Brigit howled as she bashed the thing repeatedly with the haft her blackened axe and he felt the curse release.  He would die free.  Detached and agonized he lay there watching as the woman rose and tore into the corpse of her foe, screaming and hacking until she had to be restrained.  She really had loved him after all.  Poor Teleri, it would break her heart.  Oh dear gods.  He did not want to die now.  Mabane needed him.

Mute with anguish he closed his eyes, escaping within himself, trying to find calm amid the weakening thrum of his blood pouring out onto the filthy cobbles.  Dying.  He cried out in pain as the frantically praying monk tried to pry the shards of obsidian from the tangle of wounds.  The darkness before his eyes was spangled with vivid bursts of purple and gold.

“Stay with us, Pen,” Nandao wept as the futility of the situation overcame his emotions, “I need help.  I can’t do this alone.”

“We can take him to the Temple of Dwayna in the upper city,” Kantele said, her own voice strained with horror, “There is an order of healing monks.”

His body recoiled in misery as Brigit drew him awkwardly into her powerful arms, his forehead falling against her throat as she cradled his bulk to her mailed breast.

“Damnation,” she gibbered, “Did you even see them?”

“It was a setup,” Nandao growled, pushing through the stricken crowd with his outstretched staff as Kantele led them away.

“Drape my cloak over him.  He’s shivering.”

“Just keep him awake, we don’t have much time.”

“Sorry,” Pendaran stuttered. 

“Easy,” Brigit replied, “That wasn’t your fault, darling.  We should have realized something was up.”

“They wanted revenge for Kiku,” he whispered, trying to stay awake even as every shred of his being longed for oblivion and freedom from the wrenching pain.  His entire body was now wracked with it and tears poured from his eyes, mingling with the cold sweat blossoming upon his flesh.

“Teleri is going to kill me for letting this happen to you,” Brigit sobbed, losing her composure, “and she’s pregnant.  Oh Nandao, he’s bleeding everywhere.  We can’t let him die.”

“The wounds won’t stay closed,” the monk wept bitterly, “This way.  Hurry.”

“Look at me, Pen,” Brigit commanded, shifting her grasp on him until he could see her sky blue eyes and flaming red hair peering beneath her helm, “That’s right.  Only a little further.  Oh Lyssa’s frilly knickers.  Nandao, he’s fading.  Do something.”

Pendaran sobbed in agony as the monk’s healing energies once more restored him to full awareness of his tormented body.   He wanted to live, but the pain was too much.  Exhausted and shuddering, he moaned as Brigit shook him slightly, willing him to stay awake.

“He’s really hurting, Nandao.”

“I know,” the monk said, his voice brittle now as he pushed ahead.  The city’s guards did not normally allow adventurers past the gate to the upper city but Kantele was known to them and they rushed through.  Soon after, Nandao pounded upon a great door embellished with the figures of angels. 

“Please, let us in! It is urgent!  A man lies dying!” the monk cried at the door, flinging himself at it for good measure.  Pendaran smiled to himself as sensation faded and he seemed to drift in Brigit’s arms as lightly as a bouquet of flowers.

A strong odor of incense drifted out onto the street as a woman with neatly braided coils of brown hair peered beyond the door, gazing owlishly at Nandao, then looking quite alarmed when she saw Pendaran.

“Um, hello Revel… uh, I didn’t expect to find you here,” Nandao said anxiously, “I know I’m not welcome but…my friend is in trouble.”

“Come to spoil another retreat for me, Nandao?” the woman grumbled, “Get your useless rump in here and keep your mouth shut for a change.  Bring your friend.  Follow me.”

Pendaran blinked as a large tear splattered off the end of Brigit’s nose. Her flesh was so pale her face glowed before his vision like a grieving moon.  It was an effort merely to keep his eyes open now and he was only mildly aware of being laid out on a table.  He drifted over himself like a forlorn cloud, glad to be free of suffering but alarmed that he could not feel his body.

Then, crying out, he was shoved back into the flesh, his body arching involuntarily as Revel pressed her healing energies into him and wrapped an enchantment around his whimpering figure.

“Hold on as long as you can,” Revel said calmly, removing her pale robe and laying it gently over Pendaran’s shuddering form.  Her features were grim as she touched his face, checking his eyes and feeling the reedy pulse in his throat.

“Teleri,” he moaned through clenched teeth.

“Go fetch his lady,” the monk said to Brigit, “Standing there crying isn’t helping anyone and he may not make it.”

Pendaran closed his eyes, no longer in control of the sounds coming from his throat.  It would be easier to just let go, but he focused upon Teleri with the last remaining shreds of his consciousness.  He had someone to live for now and he had worked too hard just to let it all go

“Look, I know I should have stayed…” Nandao stammered.

“This is not the time or place.  Your friend is dying.  You know where to find Brother Reneque?  Good.  We’ll need a sharp knife, gut, needles and a necromancer.   And something for his pain.  Got that?”

“I don’t want to die,” Pendaran pleaded silently, his eyes heavy and his vision blurring.  It was growing dark and the pain was fading as if it belonged to a distant place, perhaps another body.  He was aware of it and yet he no longer cared.  His fists relaxed so that he lay there in an attitude of prayer.  Lyssa in her dark aspect stood before him, ready to lead him away to a final appointment with Grenth.

“Don’t want to go there yet,” he explained to her, “Please.”

“Pendaran, are you well? Is something amiss?” asked the black figure of the goddess.  How odd that she would have a man’s voice when she spoke into his mind.

“Of course not, didn’t you see me get attacked?” Pendaran replied, annoyed that a goddess could be so blind.  Wasn’t it their business to be omniscient?

“Did you not get my letter?” the goddess demanded, horrified, his voice calm yet forceful.

“Zhou?  You’re here?”

“No, I am in Cantha, it’s just that we are bound.  Student and master.  It will always be thus.”

“I want to live,” Pendaran replied, reaching out to Zhou and finding comfort in his presence.

“Breathe, Pendaran, Shikai will ward you through me,” Zhou replied, strain causing his voice to fade, “Quiet now, I’m here.”