Bran and Elle walked down the street holding hands. It was a bright, sunny Sevenday, as they always were. There were very few people walking the streets today, and those that were out and about were smiling. The townsfolk at Stonekeep for the most part liked to do relaxing or fun things on Sevendays, and having a nice walk was one of those things. Elle was wearing her favorite green dress, one that matched her eyes, and Bran loved the way she looked in it. It was modest with a high neckline, but it was a little snug in the waist and came down to her ankles. Bran knew the men around town all noticed Elle, but there was nothing to be jealous of. Elle was beautiful, but she was reserved in equal measure. She never flirted with a man she didn’t know very well, and that included pretty much everyone. They still tried anyway, but not when Bran was around. Elle had told him as much in the past, and it didn’t bother him much. He was very secure in himself.
For his part, Bran wore his newest recently purchased acquisitions, a white shirt and black pants with black boots. He was still breaking the boots in, but thankfully he didn’t have blisters yet. He had a belt knife as everyone did, but it wasn’t fancy. It was the one Elric had made for him before he and I had been apprenticed to the Thickbeards of Kurgh Rhamot. Bran wouldn’t give up such a sentimental gift even if he found one that was magical. His sword, Vengeance, was a rare exception to that rule, but he had made his shortsword himself, so he didn’t mind putting that in a footlocker. The holy sword was a very potent weapon against evil, and he bore it proudly. He hadn’t worn it since the battle with the Xerith in the Temple of the Overgod in Mithram, however. Stonekeep was a pretty safe place, and he would feel foolish walking the streets or working the smithy with a sword strapped to his hip.
Bran and Elle walked slowly into the little park in the upper city. It was very small. Really it was just a grassy lawn with three maple trees growing in it. There were six benches in the park that were situated under the branches to provide shade. Two benches were already occupied by couples enjoying the afternoon sun just as Bran and Elle were, so they found an empty bench and sat down. Elle smiled at Bran, and his heart actually fluttered a little bit.
“Have I told you how beautiful you look in that dress?” Bran asked.
“Why, yes. You may have mentioned that this morning,” Elle replied.
“Ah. Um, yeah, I guess I did,” Bran fumbled.
“I don’t get tired of hearing you say it, Bran.”
Bran took a risk and slowly brought his head down closer to Elle, and when she didn’t pull back, he gently kissed her on the lips. After a tender moment, she pulled away and he let her. It was their first kiss, and Bran was ecstatic. He had been waiting ten years for that, and his heart was hammering inside his chest. Elle brought her hand up to her heart as she blushed. She seemed to be having an internal struggle of some kind, so Bran backed off a little bit and simply sat next to her.
“That was nice,” Elle whispered. She leaned her head against Bran’s strong shoulder.
Bran thought about Elle as a tiny little songbird, beautiful to look at, but full of fear. He loved her, so he gave her the time and space she needed to overcome her fear. He wanted to spend his life with Elle, and he’d built a very strong foundation of trust with her over the years. With tiny steps, he’d been trying to overcome the effects of the abuse she’d suffered as a child at the hands of her father, Pyter. That experience had ended with Pyter when both he and Elle’s mother had been murdered right in front of Elle. She had then been adopted by the Smith family, and after that, her life had improved dramatically. Still, the scars ran deep. Some time passed as they were both lost in thought.
“Are you still having the snake dream?” Elle spontaneously asked.
Now there’s a real mood killer, Bran thought. He reasoned that Elle sometimes turned to dark thoughts as a way of distancing herself again from people, especially him. The dream in question was one where there was a carpet full of vipers that sat in the street. The vipers struck at the passersby at every opportunity. Elle had been having the same dream.
“Yeah. The dream hasn’t gone away even after our business in Mithram. You, too?”
Elle nodded. “This’s something we have to deal with, and soon.”
“I have to agree,” Bran said. “I don’t think we’re equipped to deal with that particular pile of snakes yet, though. Do you remember how battered we all were after the last time? We were all one healing away from defeat.”
“Yeah, I remember. Do you suppose Jeron will help us?” Elle asked.
“Of course, he will. Not just in fighting alongside us, but he’s working on making special armor for us, remember? He mentioned he’s already made sabatons and one greave for himself. If I know Jeron, he’s already working on it.”
“Already? He just dealt with the Executors’ caravan yesterday,” Elle said.
“Yeah, but you know how driven he can be. He makes plans in his head and despite how forthcoming he’s been recently, he doesn’t tell everyone everything. I think he’s working towards goals that only he sees right now. Besides, he and Mira are still a bit distant, so he’ll be looking to distract himself,” Bran summarized.
“Poor Mira. I wonder what she’s doing today?”
“I last saw her reading a book in the living room. Probably about some kind of magic. She’s pretty driven too, you know,” Bran said.
“Should we try to maneuver them closer together?” Elle asked.
He shook his head. “I think we should stay out of it. They’ll both see right through us, and this is something they need to work out for themselves,” Bran asserted.
“I suppose you’re right,” Elle said.
“It’s in your nature to want to heal everything, and I love you for it, but there are some wounds you can’t heal,” Bran said.
Elle looked up at Bran from where she leaned her head against his shoulder with a beaming smile on her face. Bran was a little confused, and it must have shown.
“You just said you love me,” Elle said happily.
“Oh.” Bran smiled. “Yeah, I suppose I did. And I do.”
At that moment, Elle was as happy as she had ever been. She held his big hand in both of hers and put her head back on his shoulder.
“I love you, too, Bran,” Elle said softly. “This is just hard for me.”
Bran and Elle sat on the park bench together for some time, just content to be there in the other’s company. Gradually, unnoticed at first, Bran started to get a bad feeling. It wasn’t just any bad feeling. He gradually realized that it was that warning feeling he got when something especially evil was nearby, and the miniature sword under the skin of his forehead began to glow. Bran looked around, trying to get an idea of where and what it was. Elle noticed that Bran was tensed, and when he finally faced her again, she saw the upraised sword on his forehead glowing.
Then Ell tensed as well. “What is it?” Elle asked.
“There’s something evil close by. I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s down by the docks, and I think we need to get home quickly. Try to act casual,” Bran suggested.
“Yeah, casual,” Elle said. “Your forehead’s glowing, you know.”
The two of them got up from the bench and walked back to the house at a quick pace. The whole way, Bran looked towards the docks, trying to sense whether it was getting closer or not. He suddenly felt naked without Vengeance at his side, and he got a lot of looks from the passers by. He started to get a better idea of where the creature was. It seemed to him that it was in the south side of the docks somewhere. What troubled Bran was what he was sensing was close to where Mira had docked the Unseen Blade. He hoped Mira wasn’t down there. Bran opened the smithy door for Elle as he always did, then made sure it was securely closed behind him. They walked up the stairs and into the living room of the house.
Nora was sitting with Mira on the sofa watching the little ones while Mira read from a big, leather bound book. The others were sitting around the table playing a dice game. The only one not present was me, of course. I was at the forges in the keep, as Bran guessed.
“We have a problem,” Bran said loudly enough to gather everyone’s attention. When eyes were focused on him, and before they could comment on the glowing mark he continued. “Something evil’s just arrived in town, and it’s near the docks right now, somewhere close to the Unseen Blade. Did Jeron say when he’d be back?”
“He said he’d be back for dinner,” Mira said. “I’d guess he’ll pop up in about an hour. Do you have any idea of what it is?”
“No idea.”
“If it’s at the docks, then it’s either well-hidden or it looks harmless, like one of us. Maybe it’s a Xerith,” Mira reasoned.
“I think we need to track it down and kill it before it kills us,” Bran said.
“I think we’d all agree on that,” Mira said. “The Executors know when a sorcerer’s around, or so they say, but they can’t get into the keep. When Jeron appears here, the Xerith will probably know and it’ll come at this place suddenly and with surprise.”
“You’re right,” Elle said. “We can’t hunt it in public without questions being raised, but Jeron has no idea it’s here.”
That was all Dortham needed to hear. “Let’s arm ourselves. Nora, Samirah, and Bethan, keep our small smiths in our bedroom after you help us get armed.”
“I’ll lock up and cover the windows,” Mira said. “It won’t take me long to get ready and I don’t need help.”
“All right. Hop to it, everyone,” Dortham said.
If we were nothing else, the Smith family was efficient. The house lamps were turned down despite the setting sun, the windows were covered with drapes, and all the men plus Mira and Elle were armed and ready within fifteen minutes. Elric and Darek were up in the master bedroom guarding their wives and children and everyone else was in the living room standing guard. Everyone stood with swords drawn and shields at the ready. Upstairs, even Nora, Samirah and Bethan had a dagger close to hand. All that was left to be done was to wait.
-----
I picked up the piece of chainmail I was forging after the adamantium had cooled. It was a painstaking process to add the force deadening effect into every link of the armor, but it was worth it. All that I had completed so far today was an open section meant to go at the neckline of Elle’s chain shirt. I left it open in case I needed to make it longer. My stomach growled, reminding me that it was near dinnertime. I was done here for today anyway, so I cleaned up after myself and headed to the roof portal so I could teleport back to the house.
After closing the portal securely after myself, I teleported into my bedroom with the little piece of chainmail in my hand. I walked down the stairs and wondered why the lights were down this low. I walked right into a ring of armored people and, surprised, raised a shield against projectiles before I realized they were Dortham, Bran, Elle and Mira.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“It’s coming this way,” Bran said as he faced the living room window. He pointed at something outside towards the southwest.
“We don’t know what it is, but we think it’s an Executor,” Mira said. Mira knelt on one knee and had the Pirate King’s crossbow leveled at the window, ready to fire.
“I need to arm myself!” I said. So lax had I gotten, I didn’t even have my mace on me. I foolishly thought I’d eliminated all the nearby threats. I could kick myself. I set the chain links down on an end table and moved quickly for the stairs, thinking I had still had my armor in my footlocker, but then realized it was all at the keep.
“There’s no time, brother,” Bran stated. “It’s almost here.” Bran positioned himself between me and the window, a shield and Vengeance at the ready.
I did the only thing I could and strengthened my spell of projectile shielding, trying to expand it to protect the others. We only waited there for a minute before the window suddenly shattered inward as a winged humanoid shape hurtled through it and hit the floor in a roll. It had an arming sword in its right hand, a parrying dagger in its left hand, and it had wings that were even now shrinking into its body. It appeared that the mass from its wings was being added to its muscles as it sprang from the ground straight at me with its blades leading. Mira fired a bolt from her crossbow that only grazed its back as it leapt, then blew a fist sized hole in the wall. Bran raised his shield to block its leaping advance, putting his shoulder behind the shield and bracing the best he could. The Executor hit the shield and staggered to its left, and as it regained its balance, the Executor thrust with astonishing quickness at Bran with its ready blades, aiming for the joints of his armor at the neck and armpit. Fortunately, both attacks were defeated by Bran’s armor and deft movements. Bran swung at the Xerith with his fiercely glowing holy sword, Vengeance, but the shapeshifter parried the blow easily with its dagger. Dortham swung his arming sword at the Executor, but it whirled suddenly in a spinning move to the side towards Mira and thrust with lightning quickness, scoring a hit in the center of her sternum that would have run her through had it not been for the adamantine chainmail she was wearing under her blouse. Still, the blow was strong enough to knock her back against the wall on her backside with her legs straight out and a whoosh of breath emptying her lungs.
I couldn’t hurl any magic attacks at it in the close confines of this room without hitting someone I loved, so I stood firm and waited for an opportunity to attack. The Xerith was a whirlwind of action as it parried blows and counterattacked. It suddenly grew a tentacle out of its back that had a spiked ball on the end. As it parried another attack from Bran, the Executor spun and lashed out at Dortham, striking him solidly on the helm with the spiked ball. Dortham went down heavily. As the Executor dodged another thrust from Elle, it summoned an arrow made of lightning that it hurled at Bran. The runes along the blade of Vengeance burned brighter suddenly as the sword enveloped Bran in a shield that blocked the incoming arrow. It was a spellcaster, too?!
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The Executor snarled as it slashed and thrust with incredible speed, but each of its attacks were defeated due to our thick plate armor and shields. Bran and Elle were closing in on it, pressing it back towards the window, and Mira had gathered her breath and knelt ready for another shot with her crossbow. The shapeshifter seemed to understand that it couldn’t win here with what it at first thought would be a lightning fast, lethal strike. The Executor lashed out with its spiked ball once more, this time at Elle, who blocked the attack with the Reflector. The attack rebounded on the Executor, smashing itself in the side of its chest and drawing dark blood. The Executor snarled in pain and then suddenly the room was completely dark. With my higher senses I could feel that it had cast a darkness spell, and by instinct, I unraveled its spell only to see the curtains flutter after it leapt out through the broken window. I hoped to hit it with some sort of fire spell, but by the time I reached the window it was gone from view.
Elle moved to Dortham and removed his dented helmet. She said a prayer of healing as she laid her hands on the blood matting his hair, and a golden glow flowed from her hands into Dortham’s head. His eyes fluttered open, gazed in a circle around the room, then focused on Elle.
“Thanks for that. Where am I?” Dortham said. He sat up and held his head. His gauntlet came away with blood all over it.
“Are you all right, dad?” Bran asked.
Dortham stood. “I’m fine. Dammit, I didn’t even see that blow coming.”
“You think you can track it?” I asked Bran.
“Of course. You’re not thinking of confronting something like that without armor, are you?”
“No way. I need some time to prepare, but I think we need to track it down before it can heal and come at us again.”
“Do we have time for you to get your armor?” Bran asked.
“Does it know we can track it?” Mira asked.
“Probably, but it’ll need time to set up a trap of its own,” I said.
“It knows where we live,” Mira said. She held her crossbow up with one hand, pointing at the ceiling. “We need to do something fast.”
“Do you think you can handle that thing?” Dortham asked me.
I nodded. “I think so, yes, but I need help. The fewer people I have to teleport around the better, but I need Bran to track it and Mira to disguise us, cover us from above, and maybe pick it out of a crowd. Will you help?”
Both Mira and Bran nodded. “You know you don’t need to ask, right?” Bran said rhetorically.
“All right. Then the rest of us will stay ready here and guard against another attack,” Dortham said. “Let me go upstairs and make sure everyone knows what’s happening and that no one is wounded or worse.”
“We can defend better together upstairs,” Elle said.
“Good point,” Dortham said.
“Hey, how’s your head, by the way?” I asked Dortham.
“Good as new, thanks,” Dortham said. “Hey, would you mind?” Dortham asked as he held out his dented helmet. It had three gouges on the side where spikes from the Executor’s tail had hit it.
“Don’t mind at all,” I said. I used my mending spell on Dortham’s helm and watched as the dent popped out and the gouges smoothed themselves out as if they were never there. I then did the same to all the slashed-up armor I could see on Bran, Dortham, Elle plus Mira’s blouse. “Let’s hurry. Bran? Mira? Are you ready?”
“Yeah. We’ve got this,” Mira said.
Mira and Bran came close, and I took each of them by the shoulder, then teleported to the roof of Stonekeep Castle. As quickly as I could I went to my quarters on the lord’s level and armed myself. I felt a lot better once I had armor on, too. I never liked the possibility of fighting Xerith because they had a slight resistance to magic and they were so hard to kill, and my heart was still beating a fast rhythm.
“So. Anyone got any bright ideas?” I asked as I strapped on Mordon’s helm.
“I do,” Mira said. “We know that it can sense you, but it may not know that Bran can track it. I could give you both illusions of constables to give you a little authority, then you could bring us to the docks close to the Unseen Blade. I think it knows that the ship is ours and it may have been watching it earlier. You and Bran can start your search there and I’ll provide cover from the rooftops.”
“My guess is that it’s close to the docks. It probably has a good way to hide,” Bran said.
Mira extrapolated. “So, Bran can point it out when it comes close, but for goodness sake, be secretive about the warning. If it knows we can see it, we’ll have a harder time ambushing it. Maybe yawn and point at it or something. With luck, I’ll be able to see it and put a bolt in its heart before it knows I’m there. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a good plan. Bran?”
“Yeah, I’m all right with it,” Bran said.
“All right. With one minor deviation. Let’s try to get a picture of it in the Amber Throne first,” I said.
“I can’t believe I forgot that,” Mira said. “That could make things a lot easier.”
The three of us went to the throne room, and I sat in the Amber Throne. I focused on finding the Xerith that attacked us at the house, but the throne showed nothing but grey haze.
“Well, it was worth a try,” I said. “Why does everything powerfully evil have a protection from scrying magic?”
“So much for the easy way,” Bran said. “Let’s try Mira’s idea.”
Mira grinned and rubbed her hands together. She removed some fleece from a vest pocket, then made some arcane signs with her hands and said a few words under her breath. I felt the magic take shape and coalesce around Bran and me. Bran suddenly looked like a constable with common features a little smaller than himself, and he snorted with laughter when he looked at me. I knew there had to be a catch here somewhere.
“You have a big, red nose and huge ears,” Bran said, laughing.
“Of course, I do,” I said dryly as Mira snickered. “Let’s get this over with.”
“One moment,” Mira said. She cast another spell and suddenly disappeared from Bran’s sight. I could still see her through Mordon’s helm plain as day. For a second, she looked like she was going to tickle my nose with a feather that she took out of her vest, but I made eye contact with her and she thought better of it. She pouted a bit. “I forgot you could still see me with that stupid helm. You’re no fun at all.”
“I’ve heard that before, you scallywag,” I said.
I scouted the alleyways in the southern part of the dock district, then activated the left-hand portal to create a portal exit in an alley close to the pier that the Unseen Blade was docked at. Mira went through after Bran and I, and I shut it immediately. I could see that Mira had walked up the side of the building as soon as we were clear, but then I lost track of her. I didn’t want to look and give away her position, so I just casually strolled out of the alley with Bran behind me.
“It’s definitely close by,” Bran whispered as we crossed the street. “It’s over to our left.”
I glanced over but I didn’t see anything other than store fronts for fishing supplies, a general store, and a carpenter’s shop. Not every building had been rebuilt after the invasion yet, and there were shadows everywhere in the fading sunlight. The boardwalk along the riverfront was rebuilt, however, and we angled for that to try to lure the Xerith out into the open. There were only a few people in our immediate area, and they all looked like carpenters, dock workers or boatmen to my eye. I hoped Mira could see better. When we got closer to the Unseen Blade, Bran yawned, and half pointed to my left. I tried to see what was over that way, but I didn’t see anyone. The pedestrians were all further away either up or down the street. There were two stacks of empty barrels in the area where Bran indicated. Maybe it was hiding there, but I couldn’t see it.
I had no sooner had this thought than I heard a little rapping noise as something hit the planks in front of me. It was a glass bottle of some kind that had some sparks shoot out of the top of it. Suddenly the bottle exploded in a blinding flash and loud bang. The shards of broken glass all sprayed off of my armor without doing any damage to me, but I was momentarily blinded by the flash and was made a little dizzy by the noise of the explosion. I tried to blink and wipe my eyes, but Mordon’s helm blocked my gauntleted fingers. I said a really bad word, and I could hear Bran drawing his sword next to me. I drew my mace as quickly as I could and held my shield in front of me. I heard a crossbow bolt zip through the air close by followed by a meaty thump. Something hissed in pain behind and to my left, so I pivoted and held my shield up as Bran must have been doing as well. He was a little closer to the hiss than I was, and I could hear a clang as a weapon hit Bran’s shield. I blinked rapidly, but my vision was coming back too slowly.
Bran struggled with the Xerith, who had a hole from Mira’s bolt blown through its leg. Black blood poured out of a wound that hindered its movement. It still attacked Bran with a flurry of blows, and Bran had a hard time blocking them with both sword and shield but at least he wasn’t blinded. The attack was so furious that Bran couldn’t get a proper strike in with Vengeance. The Xerith paused to concentrate very briefly, and it hurled an arrow of infernal fire at me, but the anti-magic field projected by Vengeance blocked it before it struck. Bran did his best to keep the Xerith from getting into striking distance of me, and my vision began to clear. Another crossbow bolt whizzed from a rooftop and missed the Xerith, hitting a plank on the boardwalk hard enough to blast it in half and fling the pieces up in the air. The Xerith hissed in frustration and redoubled its attacks on Bran.
Some nearby pedestrians took notice of the erupting melee and moved quickly away. “Someone’s fighting constables!” one of them yelled.
By this time, I could finally see, so I circled around Bran and tried to get through its defenses on Bran’s left flank. It was able to parry, spin away and dodge my attacks, but I was ruining its calculated attack routine against Bran. Finally, Bran saw an opening and thrust Vengeance at the shapeshifter, scoring a deep hit on its right arm. The wound flared with golden light and smoked, but the Xerith didn’t drop its weapon, nor did it make any kind of sound. Seeing that its advantage was over, it suddenly disengaged, grew another pair of legs, and sprinted towards an alley across the street. Bran and I followed as quickly as we could, but it was outpacing us easily. I heard another bolt whiz down from above, but the resulting cracking sound told me that Mira hit the cobbles instead of the fleeing Xerith. By the dim moonlight, I could barely see a dark shape run right up the outer city wall and disappear over it.
“Hold up,” I said to Bran, who had also seen that and was already slowing down.
I grabbed his pauldron to slow him further, then focused my will on the top of the wall and teleported us there. Through Mordon’s helm I saw Mira land lightly on the vertical part of the wall where she leapt from the rooftop, then ran the rest of the way up to where we stood.
“That way,” Bran said, pointing down the street to our left.
I reached out to Mira and touched her shoulder as well as Bran’s, then teleported us three blocks down the street that Bran indicated. Bran immediately spun around and pointed. The Xerith was heading our way, and it looked to have changed its color to resemble the darkened cobblestones. Mira took careful aim, then let loose another shot. This time she hit it more solidly, and it gave out a small shriek of pain, then fumbled towards an alley. I teleported all three of us down to the entrance of the cobblestone courtyard at the end of the alley, directly in its path. Bran set himself for the charge as Mira flipped the lever that drew the string of the crossbow back and reloaded a bolt as quickly as she could. I summoned an arrow of fire and flung it down the alley at the advancing Executor. My aim was a bit off, and I struck it at the base of its neck, burning a deep hole there. It would be a deadly shot for a normal person to take, but I knew that unless the hardened core of the creature was pierced, the creature would keep on coming.
The Executor feinted a charge but sprang into a front flip and lashed straight down with a tentacle and spiked ball at Bran’s head. Bran blocked the strike with his shield as the spikes struck with brutal force. The Xerith pushed off with its tentacle and used that momentum to launch itself straight over all of us and into the courtyard behind the houses on this block. Mira took aim as it sped across the courtyard and loosed her bolt. It took the Executor through the center of its back and hurled it skidding across the cobbles to crash against the stone wall of a house. Bran charged it as I initiated a telekinetic spell and lifted the shapeshifter a little bit off the ground so it couldn’t run. The Xerith squirmed and flailed about wildly as it tried to free itself and began to sprout wings. Bran quickly ran to it and finished it off with an overhand chop that cleaved straight through its torso and hit the cobbles beneath. The Xerith shuddered and died.
Afraid of someone coming to the windows to see what caused the noise, I ran over, grabbed the dead Xerith’s foot and beckoned to Bran and Mira as Bran yanked Vengeance out of the split stone cobbles. They reached out and touched my arm, and I teleported us all into the smithy along with the corpse.
“You sure it’s dead?” Mira asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Bran said as he panted for breath. “This evil has been vanquished.”
“That was cheesy,” I said.
“It was all I could think of,” Bran said, huffing.
“Well, next time think of a better ‘gotcha’ phrase, will ya?” I said.
“Bran?” Elle called from the top of the stairs.
“We’re down in the smithy. Everything’s fine,” Bran said loudly.
Dortham, Elle, Elric and Darek all filed down the stairs from the living room to the smithy. We stood around the corpse as blackish blood slowly pooled on the floor under it. The Executor still had its sword and parrying dagger clutched in humanlike hands. It looked as if no one else was going to check it for clues, so I knelt down and examined it.
“The clothes it has are not clothes, but skin-like stuff that feels like clothing until it dies,” I said, letting a flap of its shirt drop. “It looks like the only real items it has are its weapons, sheathes, a money pouch, and a belt. It has a ring, too.”
The ring was thick, made of gold and had a signet carved into the face of it. I separated the weapons from its hands, then pulled the ring off. A closer look showed that this ring belonged to the High Executor himself. I handed it to my father.
“So, it wasn’t just any Executor. The High Executor’s ring,” Dortham said as he briefly examined it and handed it back. “It was definitely not a pleasure to meet him.”
“That guy scared the heck out of me,” Elle said.
“I guess the Executors get their name for good reason,” Darek said.
“Anyone want his weapons?” I asked.
There were no takers on that. They were of very good quality, but they were distinctive. The sword and dagger had some sort of coating on the blades that was almost non-reflective.
“These things may come in handy one day,” I said.
“I don’t think we want to have that sort of stuff laying around at the house, son,” Dortham said.
“Then I’ll put them somewhere in the keep if no one minds.”
“Have at it,” Dortham said.
“All right. Let me take care of this mess, then,” I said.
I unbuckled its sword belt, sheathed its sword and dagger, tossed the money pouch to Dortham, and put the belt over my shoulder. Then I squatted down next to the corpse, put my left hand on its leg, and teleported to the roof of Stonekeep castle. I stepped back as the closest golems took notice of the corpse. The two golems close to the portal stepped forward two long paces and suddenly shot a deluge of fire out of one of the long tubes on their pauldrons. In moments the corpse was nothing but ash floating off in the wind. Satisfied, I activated the portal and put the weapons and signet ring just a bit inside. I closed the portal, then teleported back into the smithy to a corner where I thought no one would be standing. Everyone had gone back upstairs, and the blackish blood had been cleaned up like it was never there.
I walked upstairs to find Norah, Samirah and Bethan hard at work in the kitchen fixing a late dinner. The sound of armor rattling upstairs caught my attention as various pieces must have been being removed by different people, so I took my armor off with Bran’s help and piled it by the sofa. I went to the broken window and fixed it with my trusty mending spell, did the same with the hole in the wall, then sat on the end of the couch as life slowly returned to normal. I picked up the small piece of chainmail that was sitting next to me on the end table. I had almost forgotten it was there. I turned it over and over in my hands as I thought things over. Nora went to the stairs and announced to those upstairs that dinner was ready. Everyone started wandering into the kitchen to sit at the table. I could tell that everyone was very unnerved that the High Executor himself had attacked us in this very room, but no one said anything as we loaded our plates and began to eat.
I stopped eating. I looked over at father at the head of the table. We made eye contact, and it seemed everyone paused a bit. I was opening my mouth to speak when suddenly a long and obnoxiously loud belch sounded as if it had come from me. It wasn’t me, though. I looked at Mira to my left and saw her shoulders shake with laughter. The family erupted with laughter.
“Ah, thanks, Mira. I was wondering how I’d get that out,” I said, smiling ruefully.
I tried not to look, but Bandit was holding her little paws over her mouth, trying not to laugh. When the chuckles died down, I began to speak again, but Dortham interrupted me.
“It wasn’t your fault, son,” Dortham said.
“It sort of is my fault, dad,” I said. “I drew it here, and it nearly killed you. What if the next one is sneakier and kills one of you to take your place and hit me when I’m not expecting it? I can only see them with the helm.”
“I’m here for that,” Bran said.
“Anything could happen, and probably will when we least expect it.” I paused. “I’ve decided that I’ll be staying in the keep for the time being. Nothing can get in there, and nothing will lead them here.”
“He does have a point,” Elric said.
“This kind of thing will never end until I do something about it, and right now I don’t have much chance of success. Sure, this was the High Executor himself that came calling, but it was very deadly. What if the others are just as skilled? I have to take action, and to do that, I’ll need to be more prepared,” I asserted.
“You’re not in this alone, Jeron,” Bran said. “I’ll be there with you every step of the way.”
“Me, too,” Elle said, confidently. With a lot less confidence, she glanced around the table, making a silent decision. “Bran and I have started having dreams again, this time about a pile of vipers. I feel certain that we’re in this together.”
Mira said nothing, but she did put her hand over mine. She caught my eye, then looked pointedly down at my fist, and I saw that I’d bent my fork in the shape of the inside of my fist without noticing. Using a bit of magic, I repaired that damage quickly, then put my thoughts in order.
“Then we’re going to need better armor. And a plan,” I concluded.
As we ate, I couldn’t help but brood as I considered the things I needed to accomplish quickly if I wanted to survive in the long term. It was a long list.
