He placed a booted foot on Frentis’s chest and forced him to the floor, his two companions coming forward with shackles. “She said to tell you,” the man with the cord went on, pressing harder with his boot, “you can choose which one of your friends gets to live. Just one though.”
Frentis tried to kick out at the man crouching at his feet, but he dodged the flailing foot, catching his ankles and bearing down with a crushing weight. The other one had already taken hold of his arms, pulling them over his head and snapping a manacle over his right wrist.
“Can’t think why she wants you so badly,” the grinning man said, eyes tracking over Frentis’s prostrate form with calm disinterest. “When she could have any one of u—”
A sudden crash of breaking glass and the grinning man appeared to have grown a crossbow bolt from his temple, head swivelling as his lips slackened to mumble gibberish before he collapsed facedown on the floor. The window opposite exploded as Illian propelled herself through it feet-first, landing astride Lemera’s corpse with sword drawn. She flicked a cut at the man holding Frentis’s arms, leaving a deep wound on his forehead as he dodged away with a remarkable swiftness. His companion avoided her next blow altogether, rolling and coming to his feet with sword drawn in a perfect backward somersault. However, they had both been obliged to release their hold on Frentis.
He came to his knees in a whirl, the chain manacled to his wrist blurring like a whip as it caught the man nearest him about the legs. He jerked it tight, bearing his enemy to the floor, then leapt, bringing both feet down on his head, the neck snapping with a crack. Frentis claimed the man’s sword and turned to find Illian engaged in a desperate struggle with the other, her sword moving in frantic swipes as he drove her back, her face a picture of frustration whilst the red-armoured man wore the same maddening grin as his fallen comrade. Frentis whipped his chain at him, causing him to dance aside with a speed that would have shamed even a Kuritai, but leaving enough room for Illian to thrust at his neck. He parried the blow with consummate ease but had no counter for the stroke Frentis delivered to his leg, the blade sinking deep enough to grind on the bone. The man swore, but his face betrayed no anger, just amusement and even admiration, inclining his head at Frentis in appreciation even as Illian’s sword point pierced his throat.
“Brother!” she rushed to his side, eyes scanning him for injury.
“I’m unhurt.” He moved to the corpse of the man with the broken neck, finding a key for the manacles tucked into his boot. “You were guarding my room?”
“We take turns. There’s a comfortable ledge on the roof outside.”
His gaze went to Lemera, framed on the bedsheets in a spreading blossom of dark blood.
“I know you didn’t break your oath, brother,” Illian said, following his gaze. “She told me she found comfort sleeping at your side.”
Frentis hauled on his shirt and trews and reached for his boots. “What’s happening outside?”
“All quiet. I had no notion of any alarm until I heard the struggle.” She went to the first man she had killed, crouching to extract her bolt from his skull with a grinding squelch. “What are they?”
“They’re called Arisai. And I’ve little doubt there are more.” He retrieved his sword and rushed to the window, eyes tracking across the empty streets below to the walls where the sentries strolled on the parapet. Nothing, no indication of any threat.
He shuddered at the realisation he would now be shackled and his people facing slaughter but for her warning, a warning he knew had been no mistake.
“Fetch Draker, Lekran and Master Rensial,” he told Illian, going back inside. “And Tekrav. Be quiet but quick.”
• • •
He hung between Lekran and Rensial, head slumped, the chains on his ankles rattling on the cobbles as they bore him towards the iron drain cover in the shadow of the town’s main warehouse. Unlike Lekran and Rensial, Draker’s red-enamelled breastplate didn’t quite cover his frame, obliging him to keep to the shadows as he followed. Frentis was certain the Arisai would be watching carefully, his albeit brief experience convincing him of the dangers of underestimating their abilities whilst also giving a clue to a potential weakness.
