The Cleric Quintet: Night Masks
Chapter Thirteen

 
Cadderly honestly did not know what to do, did not know whether he was being warned or misled.
"Tell Avery that he can find me in the morning," the young priest said, rising and spinning about to survey the room. He sensed that the invisible wizard was long gone.
"Avery will not like that," he heard Rufo say, but more acutely, he heard a thump from somewhere upstairs that he knew instinctively was his own room.
Danica!
Cadderly bounded across the floor to the stairs, but then he was moving slowly, as if in a dream, barely able to put one heavy foot in front of the other.
The song played in his head; he instinctively pictured a page from the great book, a page describing focused magical energies, describing how to dispel such malevolent collections of magic.
A moment later he was moving again normally, free of whatever magical bonds had been placed on him. The door to his room was closed, as he had left it, and all seemed as it should.
Cadderly burst through the door anyway, to find Danica, her breathing rapid, sprawled upon the floor, tangled in a pile of blankets next to the bed. Cadderly knew she was alive and not seriously hurt as he held her in his arms.
The young priest surveyed the room. The notes from the song seemed more distant to him now and all seemed calm, but still the young priest wondered if someone had come in during his absence.
"Cadderly," Danica breathed, suddenly coming awake. She looked about her, confused for a moment, pulled the blankets high and brought her arms in close - actions that struck Cadderly as curious gestures.
"A terrible dream," Danica tried to explain.
Cadderly kissed her gently on the forehead and told her that everything was all right. He placed his chin atop Danica's head and rocked her in his arms, his own smile widening with growing security.
Danica was unharmed. It had been only a dream.
A Good Day to Die
s the night wound on toward morning, the guests in half of the eight private rooms at the Dragon's Codpiece slept soundly.
Bogo Rath was simply too agitated to think of sleeping. Knowing what was to come, and knowing that he had played a part in the prelude to the actual assassination, the young wizard thought through the potential problems facing him that morning. Would Kierkan Rufo remain loyal? And even if the priest did, would the odd and angular man be able to carry out the mission Bogo had set before him? Things could get very troublesome at the Dragon's Codpiece very quickly if a certain headmaster from the Edificant Library was not dealt with properly and efficiently.
Bogo understood the unmerciful Night Mask organization well enough to realize that Ghost would hold him responsible if Kierkan Rufo failed. The wizard paced his small room, taking care to keep his footsteps as quiet as possible. He wished that Ghost would come to him then, or that one of the approaching band would at least make contact to let him know how things progressed.
The young wizard resisted an urge to crack open his door, remembering that if he interrupted at an inopportune moment, he might well share Cadderly's grim fate.
In his own room, Ghost sat staring out his window, bitter and full of rage. He hadn't slept at all that night, after Dan-ica's mental discipline had defeated his attempted possession. He had wanted to be close at hand when the assassin band roared in; he had even been forced to go to the band that night and change the orders. Danica must die beside her lover.
For ail the unexpected twists, the assassin remained confident that Cadderly would die that day, but even if the young priest fell easily now, this had been a messy execution, filled with complications and unexpected losses. Van-der had killed one man; five others were missing in the foothills of the Snowflakes.
And young Cadderly was still very much alive.
And very much awake. In his room, the young priest sat at his table, dressed for the coming day and reading through the pages of the Tome of Universal Harmony. The hearth room had shown Cadderly many surprises earlier that night, and he searched for an entry that might help explain the sudden heightening of his senses, particularly his hearing.
Danica sat cross-legged on the floor beside the bed in quiet meditation, allowing the priest his needed privacy and taking some for herself. Hers was a life of discipline, of private challenges and trials, and though it was a bit early, she had already begun her daily morning ritual, working her inner being, stretching her limbs, and clearing her mind in preparation for the coming day.
Danica had discovered no answers for her strange experience earlier that night, and, truthfully, she hadn't sought any. To her, the encounter with the unknown other mind remained a dream; since nothing else traumatic or dangerous had occurred, the explanation seemed to satisfy.
"The sun has not peeked over the rim!" Headmaster Avery protested, managing with some difficulty to roll his bulky form out of bed.
"That was Cadderly's wish," Kierkan Rufo reminded him. "He desired secrecy, and I believe what he might have to say will be worth the effort."
Avery struggled to clear his throat of its nighttime phlegm and draw in a profound breath, never taking his curious stare off the angular man.
Rufo struggled even harder to remain calm under that searching gaze. He kept his breathing steady; so many things depended on his facade now. And beneath the calm front, turmoil boiled in Rufo. He honestly wondered how it had come down to this, how he had been led to such a dramatic point. He had been used by Barjin when the evil priest had invaded the library several months before; he had been the one who had kicked Cadderly down the secret stairway, nearly leading to the library's downfall.
Rufo had never quite forgiven himself - no, not forgiven himself, but rather, had never quite been able to justify the action to himself. Self-forgiveness would imply that he held guilty thoughts for that treacherous act, and by this time, the angular man held none. With every event that had come after Barjin's invasion, Cadderly had become more Rufo's rival, more his bane. In Shilmista, Cadderly had emerged a hero, while Rufo, through no fault of his own (at least, none that he would admit, even to himself), had become a scapegoat.
Bleary-eyed, Avery stumbled across the floor and pulled on his clothes. Rufo was glad to be released from the headmaster's gaze.
"Are you coming down with me?" Avery asked.
"Cadderly does not want me there," the angular man lied. "He said he would meet with you alone in the hearth room before Fredegar began his work."
"Before dawn," Avery muttered distastefully.
Rufo continued to stare at the portly headmaster's back. How had it gotten this far? Rufo didn't hate Avery - on the contrary, the headmaster had acted on Rufo's behalf many times over the last decade.
But that was behind them now, the angular man reminded himself. Shilmista had undeniably changed Rufo's life course, but now, looking at vulnerable Avery, the angular man had to pause and consider just how drastically.
"Wfell, I am off for the hearth room, then," Avery announced, moving to the door.
He wasn't even carrying his mace in the loop on his belt, Rufo noted. And he hadn't yet prayed and prepared any spells.
"Truly I wish Cadderly would be more conventional," Avery remarked, his obvious fondness for the young priest showing through, and that only strengthening the treacherous Rufo's resolve. "But, then, that is his charm, I suppose." Avery paused and smiled, and Rufo knew the portly man was engaged in some private recollection of Cadderly.
"Meet me in the hearth room for the morning meal," Avery instructed. "Perhaps I will be able to persuade Cadderly to dine with us."
"Just what I desire," the angular man muttered grimly. He moved to the door and watched Avery descend the sweeping stairway to the dimly lighted hearth room.
Rufo closed the door softly. His part was done. He had set events into motion, as the young wizard had instructed him to do. Avery's fate was the headmaster's own to deal with.
The angular man leaned back against the wall, desperately trying to dismiss his growing guilt. He recalled Avery's recent treatment of him, of the terrible things the headmaster had said to him and the threats to drive Rufo from the order.
For Kierkan Rufo, so consumed by resentment, guilt was not a difficult emotion to overcome.
Half asleep in the common room of the inn two doors down from the Dragon's Codpiece, his head resting on the ledge of the alley window, Pikel heard a distinct whistle. The dwarfs grogginess held fast only for the few moments it took Pikel to remember what his brother would do to him if Ivan caught him asleep on his watch.
Pikel stuck his head out the window and took in a deep breath of the chilly predawn air.
Another whistle sounded, from the alley on the other side of the building he was facing.
"Eh? " the dwarf questioned, his instincts telling him that the whistles were not random, more probably a signal. Pikel hopped up from his seat and ran to the front door, throwing aside the locking bar and hopping out onto the inn's front porch.
He saw shapes moving out of the alley beyond the nearest building, shapes moving onto the veranda of the Dragon's Codpiece, slipping quietly through the open door.
Pikel started forward to better investigate when a movement close beside him stole his attention. A large man rushed up to him, sword slicing wildly. The first hit bounced off the dwarfs armored shoulder, not penetrating but leaving a painful bruise.
"Oooo!" Pikel exclaimed in surprise, backpedaling the way he had come. The man kept right with him, flailing away viciously. Pikel had no weapon - he had left his club back in his room, not really believing Ivan's growing suspicions that dangers were lurking just outside.
The green-bearded dwarf believed them now, with this man hacking away at him, driving him backward with every step. Blood rolled down one of Pikel's arms; he took a glancing hit across the cheek that drew a thin red line.
The beating continued relentlessly, and Pikel, nearly across the common room, had little distance left to run.
The lockpick had been silent. Headmaster Avery, his heavy eyelids drooping, didn't even realize that anyone had entered the Dragon's Codpiece until the assassins were upon him.
Then they were beyond him, slipping up the stairs as quietly as shadows.
Cadderly looked up from the Tome of Universal Harmony and glanced over his shoulder at Danica.
"What is it?" the woman asked, her meditation interrupted by the sheer intensity of the young scholar's stare.
Cadderiy lifted a finger over pursed lips, beckoning the woman to be silent. Something had called out to him, a distant song, a voice of impending danger. He took up his spindle-disks and his walking stick and started to rise, facing the closed door.
He hadn't even left his chair when the door burst open and dark shapes stormed in.
Danica was still sitting cross-legged when the first assassin, sword in hand, rushed at her. The killer came in low, gaping in disbelief as Danica's coiled legs sprang, her momentum lifting her into the air. She tucked her legs under as she rose, clearing the low strike, then descended on the bending man.
Her legs locked around his neck as she came down, clamping tightly, and she jerked herself to the side violently, dipping into a full bend and throwing her full weight right under the bending man.
The assassin saw the room spin, but his body had not turned.
Cadderly whipped his walking stick across in front of him and was amazed when he heard something - a crossbow quarrel, he realized - tick off it and fly harmlessly wide. He swung again in a wide, shoulder-level arc, this time offensively, as two men bore down on him. Instinctively, Cadderly dropped to one knee and snapped his spindle-disks straight out ahead of him.
The ducking Night Mask came down right in line with this second weapon, catching the adamantite disks on his forearm.
Cadderly expected the man to immediately retaliate, for the young priest had not yet learned of the power of Ivan's forging. Cadderly stared as the man's arm folded - it seemed as though he had grown a second elbow! - under the power of the blow.
But pausing to gape with a second enemy so near was not a wise choice. By the time Cadderly realized his error, realized that a spiked club was on its way down to crunch his head, he knew that his life was at its end.
Pikel managed to keep close enough to his pursuer so that the man hadn't been able to extend his long arms and get in a serious hit. Still, the dwarf said "Oooo!" repeatedly, feeling the sting of a dozen razorlike slashes.
Pikel's first thought was to go for the stairs, but he dismissed the idea, realizing that if he started up, he would rise to his enemy's level and lose his desperately needed advantage of being down below the man's optimum striking area. The dwarf veered to the side, backpedaling faster, nearly tumbling over in the effort.
The man stayed with him, every step.
The killer stopped suddenly, and Pikel realized that he could not do likewise, leaving the dwarf wide open for a full-force roundhouse. "Oooo!" Pikel screamed, desperately hurling himself backward through the air. He collided heavily with the wall before he had gotten very far, and the assassin's sword whipped across just under the breastplate of the dwarfs fine armor.
Pikel didn't even have the time to cry out for this newest wound. He bounced back off the wall and charged forward wildly. The assassin held his sword level in front of him, and Pikel would have impaled himself, except that he grabbed the sharp blade with his bare hand and turned it aside.
Then Pikel was up against the man. He released the sword almost immediately and wrapped the man's arms in his own, pushing with all his strength, his stubby, muscled legs pumping frantically.
Now the killer was backpedaling and Pikel driving forward, gaining speed and momentum. The dwarf could hardly see around the larger man. He aimed for the open door but missed, two feet to the left.
The inn suddenly had a second door.
Danica hit the floor harder than she would have liked, but she managed to scramble back under her victim fast enough so that the next closest Night Mask inadvertently sliced his sword into the back of his still-standing companion.
Out the other side, Danica ran to the foot of the bed, hooked the post in one arm, and spun right around, hopping up onto the mattress. A Night Mask came up on the bed as well, at the other end, bearing down on the apparently unarmed woman.
Danica kept low and kicked straight out. She could hardly brace herself amidst the tangle of blankets, so her kick was not fierce, but neither could the assassin brace himself, so it did not have to be. The man stumbled in the tangle and lurched over. Danica came up under him, hooking her arm under and behind his shoulder and heaved him away, using his own momentum to launch him over the foot end of the bed.
She was up, grabbing the blankets as she went, knowing the sword-wielder was too close. Instinctively she lifted the tangle of cloth out in front of her, smiling grimly as she felt it absorb the weight of the coming blow.
Caught in, and concerned with, the impromptu web, the assassin didn't even realize Danica's next attack until her foot connected solidly with his belly.
The agile monk let herself drop as the man lurched over, using the spring of the bed to lift her right back up, her forearm slamming against the stooping man's face. Danica's second arm, coiled against her chest, snapped out under the first, thumping into the man's throat, then she reversed the angle of her first arm, flying high over her head in its follow-through, and came down diagonally at her stunned victim, blasting against his collarbone. He flew to the side, and Danica, temporarily free of any immediate threat, was not pleased by what she saw beyond him.
Again using the spring of the bed, the young woman leaped out, diving between the posts at the foot of the bed. She heard a heavy thump distinctly as a crossbow quarrel hit the wall right behind her.
The man she had thrown this way was back up and turning back to the fight, but hardly prepared as Danica's shoulder-block launched him over the table and crashing into the wall.
"Stop!" The word came from somewhere deep inside Cadderly. He wasn't even aware of the magical strength it carried until the killer above him, already beginning his stroke, pulled his spiked club to a halt and stood perfectly still. The weapon hovered just a few inches above Cadderly's head.
The command had no lasting power, and the assassin came out of it quickly, snarling and lifting his club for another strike.
Still purely on instinct, Cadderly lashed out in two directions at once, slamming his walking stick against the side of the man's knee, and heaving his spindle-disks straight ahead, to collide with the crumbling killer's chest and send him flying backward.
"The balcony!" Danica cried, and Cadderly, seeing the group of killers - some cocking crossbows - still coming in the door, could hardly disagree.
Danica hooked his arm as she passed and threw open the door.
The song had started again in Cadderly's head, somehow passing through the confusion and the many noises.
He grabbed Danica's hair and jerked violently backward just as the woman took her first step out of the room. Fully caught by surprise, Danica fell back.
Cadderly snapped his spindle-disks across her angled torso, to meet head on with a thrusting dagger coming the other way.
Ivan's disks easily won the contest, bending the dagger blade and crushing the hand that held it.
Cadderly recoiled quickly, felt the sting as the disks snapped back into his own hand, and then whipped them straight back, this time hitting the wounded Night Mask in the chest, driving him over the railing.
The assassin reached out as he tumbled, grasping futilely at the rail. His hand hooked the balcony just enough to allow him to continue in his spin, to put his legs straight out under him so that when he fell the twenty feet to the ground, he landed flat on his back.
And he lay very still.
Pikel shook the splinters from his beard and hair.
"Me brother!" The call, though emphatic, sounded distant, and then was accentuated by the crash of shattering glass and splintering wood as Ivan, hearing his brother's distress, ran full speed down the inn's second story hallway and flung himself headlong through the window above the inn's front door.
He crashed down with a groan, two feet to the right of Pikel and the stunned assassin, showering the two of them with glass and shards of broken wood.
The killer, up first, his back bleeding from many gashes, turned around to discern this newest threat. He saw the lower half of Ivan - the dwarfs upper torso having plummeted right through the raised wooden decking - but he knew by the way the dwarf was flailing and cursing that Ivan would not be held captive long.
He almost got his sword up before Pikel grabbed him by the ankles and yanked his legs out from under him.
Pikel continued to pullt dragging the man away from Ivan. Rage blinded the green-bearded dwarf. "Ooooooo!" he growled, winding up, beginning his spin, and locking the man's feet under his arms.
The Night Mask twisted and turned to get at the dwarf, but Pikel's footing was sure and his spin quickly gained enough momentum to force the man out straight.
"Ooooooo!"
The man bounced and flailed, and had all that he could handle in just keeping a hold on his sword.
"Ooooooo!"
Now the only part of the Night Mask making any contact with the ground was his arms as he struggled to find a handhold, to find something to grab on to.
"Ooooooo!"
Pikel spun furiously; the man, narrowly missing porch posts and the inn's wall, heartily joined in his scream.
Ivan, back up, watched in disbelief that soon turned to amusement. The dwarf laid his brother's club aside, spat in both his hands, and took up his huge double-bladed axe.
The killer noticed Ivan's preparations and gave a halfhearted swing of his sword, not even coming close to hitting the mark. His arm still extended, he slammed his wrist against the porch support as he came around, his sword flying harmlessly out into the street.
Ivan tightened his grasp on the axe. He started to swing, but the man was by him.
"Gotta lead him," the dwarf reminded himself, taking a bead as the circling target came around again. He saw the Night Mask's face go ghastly pale, saw the most profound look of horror the tough dwarf had ever witnessed.
Slam!
Distracted by a rare onset of sympathy, Ivan's timing was not so good and he buried his axe deeply into the wooden decking.
Pikel didn't even notice his brother or the axe, didn't notice that the killer's scream had dissipated in a breathless gasp of terror, and had no idea of how he would stop this spin, or stop the world from spinning in his dizzy head.
"Ooooooo!"
The weight was gone suddenly and Pikel twirled into the wall. He looked down to the empty boots, still held tightly under his arms.
The poor assassin took out the closest supporting pole and crashed through the railing, breaking under the top rail and skidding along through the thin, carved balusters. He bounced along for several feet, then came to an abrupt halt, his hip driving onto the pointed edge of a broken beam. There he lay, half on the porch and half hanging out over the cobblestone street, groaning softly.
"Nice boots," Ivan remarked, running past Pikel and tossing his brother the tree-trunk club he had brought along. Ivan started for the fallen man, then veered away, hearing a scream as someone went toppling over a balcony - Cadderiy's balcony - of the Dragon's Codpiece, two doors down.
Both dwarves breathed a sigh of relief when they rushed past the unmoving form of the fallen man, glad that it was not Cadderly or Danica who had gone for such a tumble. But the continuing sounds of battle twenty feet above them told them that their friends were not out of trouble just yet.
The door to the inn was closed again, and barred, but such had never stopped the Bouldershoulder brothers. Actually, coming into the hearth room with a dislodged door in front of them proved a good thing for the dwarves, for several crossbow quarrels greeted their entrance, thudding harmlessly into the oaken barrier.
A quarrel ripped past Cadderly's shoulder, drawing a line of blood along his arm. Night Masks bore down on him from behind; two others waited on the balcony, a sword and a heavy axe gleaming dully in the predawn light.
Still holding Danica by the hair, Cadderly pulled the young woman to her feet. Immediately, she became a blur of motion, snapping a burst of kicks and punches at the already wounded men who were closing from behind. She landed several solid hits, enough to force one of the assassins to back off. But the other caught Danica around the waist and his momentum carried both of them across the narrow balcony to the rail.
Danica got one hand up onto her attacker's face, her fingers seeking out the man's vulnerable eyes. One of the Night Masks on the balcony, though, forewarned of this extraordinary woman's prowess, found a devilish answer. A single swing of his huge axe broke apart the railing that was supporting both Danica and her attacker.
They pitched over the side together, Danica releasing her grasp on the man's face and swinging both her arms wildly to find a handhold.