Tass looked into her coffee and frowned. “I read it twice, but I don’t fully understand.” She set the letter down on the table without looking at it. “Do you trust this?”
Lerran tilted his head. “I honestly don’t know if I can trust Havard or not,” he said. It was the same letter he had received a few days earlier, stating that Antha would soon betray the position Lerran had given her as Captain of Sheld’s Guard.
“She’s been through a lot lately,” Tass said, though Lerran raised his shoulders at that—they all had been. “Go to her, talk to her. Help her.”
“I guess I should,” Lerran said, with a sigh. He spun his own coffee mug around to pick it up when a loud crash echoed through their open window. Someone started shouting. “What’s this?” Lerran said.
In two paces, he was at the window. Below, in the courtyard, guards were scrambling toward the mansion. Lerran craned his neck—the two front doors of the house lay on the deck, leaning off into Tass’s flower garden.
“Gods, what is going on?” Lerran asked. He grabbed his good sword from the wall and marched to the door.
“Lerran?” Tass asked, standing beside her coffee table.
Lerran glanced back. “Stay here,” he said. He slammed the door behind him. Someone had busted his front doors! He marched down the hallway to the stairs—their quarters were on the third floor, while his office was on the second. A loud metal clang resounded. The wooden corridors of the estate echoed with it, and then the shriek that followed it. Another smash. There was a fight downstairs.
He saw Eseveer on the second floor, as he marched past his office. “Stay here,” Lerran said, with a smirk. He would get this sorted out. His sister sat down again, anxiously.
At the top of the last flight of stairs, Lerran froze. Someone came striding up the stairs, jangling a strange array of armour plates. He—she, he corrected himself—held a sword in both hand, and spotted him before he could react. “Where is she?” the woman demanded as she advanced. Behind her, a dead guard skidded down a few steps with a dull clank.
Lerran dropped his sword, holding his hands out at his sides. “Who are you looking for? Who is she?” he asked.
She paused on the second last step, close enough for him to see blood dripping from various spots of her armour—none of it was hers. Her eyes, nose and mouth were visible through the front of her metal helmet. She had scraped off the painted green eye of the man she had stolen it from. She was the one who had perpetrated the attacks in Lerran’s absence. Her skin was white, and she was a foot shorter than Lerran, more so presently, due to the stairs. “I’m looking for a big woman with teeth, claws, and thick skin,” the stranger muttered. “Paksis, though she might fake a different name.”
“Why do you seek her?” Lerran asked, timidly. Damn it all, he cursed internally. Paksis had been right—someone had come looking for her.
The attacker inhaled stiffly. She was fuelled by anger, the ferocity of a predator. “None of your damn business, bug. Ask me another question and I’ll swat you. Where is Paksis?”
“Check the tavern, she’s not in here,” Lerran muttered. He kept guard of his tongue; now was not a time for his usual wit.
“I’ll be back for you if she’s not there,” the woman said. She turned her back on him carefree and started down the steps. A dozen guards had arrayed at the bottom while Lerran had spoken to her. Brave fools shivered in their boots and pointed spears or swords up at the stranger.
“Back!” Lerran shouted. “All of you, let her pass!”
“Sir?”
“Let her by!” he ordered, sternly. His warriors stepped back slowly, keeping their weapons trained. A circle of dead guards adorned the foyer, hands severed and torsos impaled. Blood pooled on the carpet.
The attacker walked through the lot of live fighters with a quiet chuckle, and out onto the deck, half-blocked from Lerran’s view by the second-storey wall above the wide staircase. As Lerran stepped onto the second step, someone smashed headlong into the stranger, with a metal bang, and the two reeled off the deck and onto the bloody cobblestones.
Lerran stumbled down to the front door, to see more of his guards had been killed earlier, though apparently much quieter than those inside the foyer.
The stranger rose from the yard and faced the newcomer. “Paksis,” she said.
Lerran’s friend wore her custom-made plate armour, though not all of it had been completed yet. She didn’t have a helmet, nor gauntlets. In one hand she wielded a large two-handed sword, but just a small brass buckler in the other.
“Finally, a good fight,” their attacker said. She tossed aside one of her two swords—wielding two wasn’t very effective in an even fight. Then, she stabbed at Paksis, but the blade resounded off the buckler shield with a few sparks, while Lerran’s friend jabbed her sword at the stranger’s side. A plate of metal went flying and the other woman was knocked back a few steps by the force of the blow.
Paksis strode after her, across the courtyard, and raised her shield again. This time, the smaller woman charged forward, with her shoulders lowered. Paksis slashed at her neck, but the sword was caught in an armour groove, harmlessly. Then the stranger grabbed her around the waist and the two rolled across the ground.
“Sir?” asked Kolt. With his fellow guards, they stood in front of the mansion, awaiting Lerran’s orders.
“We just watch,” Lerran said, with a sigh. There was nothing they could do to make a difference.
Paksis lifted her buckler shield and struck the woman on top of her in the face. The metal visor broke, but both of their swords were still pinned. Someone laughed—probably the strange attacker. Paksis smashed her again with the shield, but when she pulled it back for a third hit, the other woman dropped her forehead and helmet in a powerful blow to Paksis’s head. The larger woman’s scalp smashed against the cobblestones, cracking them.
With adrenaline and fury, Paksis shoved her legs up and sent her attacker reeling. She stood to her feet shakily, and readied her sword. Lerran spotted blood, dripping out of her hair. It was the first time he had seen her bleed.
The attacker spun, almost faster than Lerran could see, and swung her sword against Paksis’s with all of her strength. Both swords shattered. One length embedded in a guard’s shoulder, twenty feet away, knocking him to the ground with a cry of surprise. The rest backed up further. The fighters fared no better, showered with sparks and shards of metal. Paksis dropped her hilt as flecks of bronze embedded in her hand. She stumbled back, and glanced at Lerran.
Though they were twenty feet apart, he saw her nod apologetically. Blood was dripping off her chin and she squinted one eye. One of the guards tossed her a new sword, but she let it clatter across the cobblestones without trying to catch it.
The attacker stepped up behind Paksis and jammed her broken sword blade through a hole in the uniquely angled armour they had crafted for her. Paksis arched her back in pain, but didn’t cry out vocally. The other woman shoved her off the point, and Paksis collapsed on the cobblestones. She rolled over, flattening her back, and finally crying out.
The short stranger stepped up again.
“Finish me,” Paksis groaned.
This made the attacker hesitate. She knelt at Paksis’s side for a moment, as though considering what to do. Then she tossed aside the buckler shield and heaved Paksis up over her shoulder.
Lerran, seeing what was happening, immediately descended the deck. His guards hurriedly formed up around him as he advanced. “Where are you taking her?” he called.
“Far away,” the woman drawled. She marched toward the gate with her back to him. Paksis hung over one shoulder, trailing blood and not struggling.
Lerran followed still. “Who are you taking her to?”
The stranger looked back at him with a smile. Her mouth was bleeding, and half of her brass visor was missing. “None of your business. Now, will you please have them open the gates for me?”
“If you want to leave my place,” Lerran said, “just tell me.”
She laughed, and lowered Paksis toward the ground. “I can get out here with or without you.”
Lerran looked at the Emerald Eye, where its staff had gathered to watch as well. “Let’s go have a drink and talk about it,” he offered.
“I’m tired of your lip,” the woman said, and dropped Paksis on the cobblestones. She was armed only with her sword hilt now, but started pacing toward Lerran and his men.
“Take it easy!” Lerran called, raising his hands. “How much are you being paid? I’ll double it.”
The woman burst out laughing and smashed the first guard in the face with her sword hilt; his neck snapped and he rolled onto the ground. She caught the next sword blade swung at her in the nook of her elbow and then snapped the blade with her other hand. Metal showered through the sunlight.
“Enough!” Lerran called. “Open the gate!”
The man who’s blade had broken stood before her as the attacker paused. She stared at Lerran for a moment, then smashed that man aside by just unfolding her previously folded arm. He collided with the guard behind him. Then, with a bow, the strange woman strode back toward Paksis. Lerran’s poor friend had crawled a few paces, but didn’t protest when her captor scooped her up over her shoulder again.
The huge gates of their estate swung inward. The madwoman who had defeated Paksis shouted, “Thank you!” as she marched forth. Lerran watched them go.
Tassina came running out the front door of the mansion as soon as it was safe to do so and threw her arms around Lerran as he stumbled back toward the house. When she was done holding him, she started kissing him. She called him a fool, for back-talking, but rejoiced in his survival. Though he had a dozen questions or more without answers, he was simply in shock—they had lost Paksis.