“Well,” the Warrior-Guilder said, stepping closer, “I just found out a job I thought completed was unfinished. And you know how I like the satisfaction of work well done. I came to fix that mistake.”
Keep talking, I willed Tain, edging one foot off the end of the bed, getting ready to spring.
“You’re really here to do this?” Tain asked, managing to sound cool and disappointed. “You’re going to cut down the Chancellor in his bed? That’s who you are?”
Marco smiled, a cold baring of teeth that made him look a different man. “I suppose it is,” he said. “But be reasonable, please. I made every attempt to be subtle first. This is … messy. It is lucky most of the city already thinks you have fled Silasta.” He glanced at me. “I didn’t want to have to kill you, Jovan, or Eliska, but here we are.”
“What’s Eliska got to do with anything?” Tain asked, and this time his voice wavered.
“Do not think me a fool,” Marco said. “You know the Stone-Guilder did not poison anyone. So chances are you told her the truth.” He shrugged. “I will not enjoy killing her, but you know the dangers of battle. Anything can happen.”
Anything can happen, I repeated to myself. And in the moment he stepped again toward Tain, I sprang off the far side of the bed, throwing myself into an awkward roll on the floor. I came to my feet by the ornamental daggers and had both in my hands by the time Marco caught up. I knocked his sword aside with one dagger—pitifully short by comparison to his blade—and lashed out with the other one.
Marco shifted his torso back and out of the way easily, bobbing forward again with the same cold smile. “You’re brave, Credo. But you forget I taught you all those years ago. I’ve seen you fight. Or try to, anyway.” He whipped his sword through my guard, easily parting my daggers, and only a last-minute dive to my side saved my throat from his blade. Unconcerned, the big man strolled after me as I backed away.
“You betrayed the city,” Tain said, stepping between us. He carried his sword. Bile rose, bitter, in my throat. I’d tried to give him a moment to get out the door, and he’d chosen instead to go for his weapon. Why didn’t you run, you fool?
Marco tapped at Tain’s blade and laughed at the immediate wobble in the Chancellor’s grip. “You can barely hold that up. The two of you drop those weapons and I will give you nice, clean deaths. Warriors’ deaths.”
Tain sprang forward, slashing down at the top of Macro’s head. Marco blocked it easily. “We’re not warriors,” Tain said through gritted teeth. He pivoted and struck again, but Marco met his sword with lazy ease. I circled around, trying to get a clean angle at the Guilder, but he moved his feet and positioned his body effortlessly to keep me out of range. This time he sliced at Tain, and though my friend blocked it, I could see the strain it caused him, and knew he couldn’t defend himself for long.
Marco knew it, too. His posture and expression were so relaxed he might have been eating lunch. We had to get out of here, or he’d cut us down without breaking a sweat. I looked at the doorway and circled again. Between the two of us we should be able to at least force him into moving out of the way of the door. If we could just get out of this space.…
“The door is locked, in case you are thinking about running,” Marco said. He lunged forward suddenly, almost skewering Tain, who staggered back and hit the bed. Just as Marco struck down, I leaped in with a flurry of strikes, and though none made it through Marco’s guard, it gave Tain time to right himself. Marco smirked. “I had to borrow the key off that old fool, Argo. He did not want to let me in.”
Tain let out a hoarse cry and slashed out at the Warrior-Guilder. I lunged in, too, trying to time a gap, but Marco’s agile body dodged and feinted to keep us at bay. After two steps back himself, he shifted to the attack and drove us back toward the window side of the room. A barely parried downward strike at Tain skidded down the outside of his shoulder, drawing blood, and I collected several long cuts down my arms that burned and drained my energy. Marco wielded his sword as if it were a toy, weightless, and drove us backward without effort. He seemed content to wear us out. Two of us, and it didn’t matter. He was going to kill us both, just like he’d killed so many before. Fear drenched me, making me clumsy.
I weaved my way away from Tain and Marco, then made a run for the side of the bed.
“Not so brave now, then?” Marco called out.
I spun one of my daggers around and smashed the lamp with the hilt.
The room went black.
I heard Marco’s grunt of surprise and smiled in the darkness. I crossed the room silently. We couldn’t defeat Marco, not even two to one, especially with Tain stripped of his strength. But we could tip the odds.
I heard a thud as Marco’s sword hit the wall, and my smile widened as I realized Tain had moved away the moment I’d killed the light. Marco had incomparable advantage in sword work. But I had paced this room in the darkness, counting steps, so many times in my life, and so many more times in this last week, that I didn’t need light to know its length and breadth. I knew where to step, how far, how many times, to avoid every bit of furniture. This was my world.
One, two, three steps, to the end of the bed. I let one of my daggers trail against the edge of the bedpost, creating a tiny slicing sound, then darted to the side as Marco followed the bait and lunged for the spot. I kicked out and knocked the stool by the side of the bed into his path. As he stumbled I leaped in, lungs too tight to breathe, and stabbed.
He roared with shock as much as pain as my dagger hit something hard, and luck more than skill saved me from his retaliatory swipe. My heart picked up the pace as I skidded backward to the wall near the door. I cursed in my head, my brief elation fading. That had been my chance, and I’d wasted it.
Swords clashed, and this time I almost swore aloud. Either Marco had found Tain or Tain had tried what I just had. I counted my steps forward and to the side, padding silently, moving around and around. Another clash, and footsteps, and the brush of warm air as someone rushed past me. Retreating. Tain?
I stepped back and to my right, counting in my head, picturing the layout of the room. The other person—this time I was sure it was Marco—followed the first, steps confident. Then a cry and a thump, and someone staggering up against the back wall. I swallowed my fear and tiptoed forward. Don’t panic now.
“Come on, lads,” the Warrior-Guilder said, his voice edged with irritation, as though offended that we had made his game unsportsmanlike. “Skulking around in the darkness? Come out and face me.”
I heard the whoosh of his sword this time, but Tain must have moved again, because it hit the wall and Marco swore in a language I didn’t recognize. Now I was close enough to hear Tain’s ragged breathing; either he was too tired to keep quiet or too hurt from that last blow. Marco could hear it, too; his voice moved as he did, and I knew then he’d done a pretty good job of picturing the room layout himself. He was trapping Tain in the corner.
“Where is the honor in this?” he taunted. “Honored Chancellor, hiding in the darkness instead of facing his opponent? Credo Jovan, lurking about instead of defending your friend and Chancellor? Where is your honor?”
I crept close behind him. My groping foot on the base of the curtain exposed the tiniest breath of faint silver light into the room, so I could see the rough shape of the Guilder as he raised his sword to strike Tain down.