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By R. Scott Kimsey
Aerik peered through a dirty window, looking into the alleyway and noting with some disappointment the gobbers standing casually in front of the large iron door that marked the alley's end. Acrid smoke from the Scourge still hung on the air in and around the city of Corvis, stinging his eyes even inside the abandoned building. He wiped his eyes with the back of his arm and counted again.
Ten.
The gobbers stood a little over three feet tall, and were hairless, with wide, pointed ears that twitched as they talked. They wore only the barest of leather stripping as armor, their skin taking on the subtle beige and gray hues of the buildings around them. Each carried a short sword.
Eleyna shuffled her feet impatiently and crowded next to Aerik for a look at the gobbers, blowing a few strands of copper hair aside as they fell against her pale face. She was loaded down with enough firearms and ammunition to make a dwarven general blush. She had first used firearms in battle some months ago and had taken to them with a passion, wearing four military pistols and two full leather ammunition bandoliers on her person, in addition to the rapier that always hung at her side. The overkill was typical of the Midlunder. Aerik thought it bordered on an obsession. Coupled with her innate fearlessness and slight departure from reality when it came to odds in battle, the guns made life interesting.
"I count two-score gobbers," said Aerik. They had been surveiling the location for almost two hours, counting groups of gobbers as they went through the doorway, but the ones standing in front of it now had been the last to appear for some time.
Eleyna drew her rapier, golden eyes shining and a tight smile on her lips. "Perhaps only one of us should go in, just to make things sporting."
Aerik looked her in the eyes. "Two-score is forty."
"Is it?" asked Eleyna, frowning. "I rather thought it was more than that."
Aerik would have laughed if he weren't so sure she was serious.
"Given the importance of this mission, I think we need a better plan than charging ten bloody gobbers in a crowded alley, with thirty of their closest friends waiting on the other side of a door. We don't even know Joneth is in there."
Eleyna shrugged. "We saw him go in. Only one way to find out if he's still in there. Sitting out here isn't making us any richer."
"This is bigger than the money, Eleyna." Aerik clenched his fists, forcing himself to remain calm. "This isn't something where we botch the mission and simply go on our merry way, a bit less coin our pockets. Joneth can't be allowed to sit with the Council of Ten. He's a bloody fanatic. He'll have us all bowing to Menoth if he makes it to the Council alive."
"I still don't see how the Menites can hold so much influence," said Eleyna. "Joneth is just one among ten. If he wants to force that religious wank on us, let him try. I'll send him running home with a boot in his arse." She kicked the wall for good measure, her sturdy mechanik's boot leaving a black mark.
"That's easy to say, but right now the Menites are enjoying a high number of devotees. They've got the military strength to back up any political pressure Joneth puts on the Council.. At least enough to get some concessions that our employers don't want to make."
"Maybe," Eleyna admitted, turning back to the gobbers. "But they will just send another fanatic in his footsteps."
Aerik shook his head. "His most likely replacement is Sevas Khul, a brother of the Fist of Menoth order, and not a particularly scrupulous man. He'll be more apt to give some concessions of his own, especially when he hears what happened to Joneth."
"You are better at thinking these things through than I," said Eleyna, backing away from the wall and taking a practice swing with her rapier. The blade whistled through the air. Aerik had seen few people who were faster. She regarded him, smiling again, "I say we make whatever is going to happen to him happen."
Aerik took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose. If he hadn't been in love with the woman he would have strangled her. He closed his eyes and counted to five, then looked up, prepared to explain again that they were supposed to be discreet if possible.
Eleyna was gone.
Aerik caught sight of her boot disappearing through the door to the alley, then saw her through the window, approaching the gobbers with a smile on her face. They didn't look happy to see her.
He cursed and went after her.
Eleyna was talking to the gobbers when Aerik arrived. They didn't seem to be listening to her, their mouths gaping as their eyes moved from one of her pistols to the next. Their collective gaze fell finally on her eyes and the gobbers shrank back, looking sideways at one another, each waiting to take a cue from the next. Aerik approached slowly, hands down to his side, avoiding any movement that might be interpreted as going for the claymore strapped to his back.
The largest of the gobbers, the apparent leader judging by the number of scars on his body and the size and number of thick gold hoops that hung in his ears, stepped forward and spoke.
"He isn't seeing anyone right now."
"So he is here." Eleyna said.
The gobber hesitated, apparently realizing he had given something away. Then he nodded. "But he isn't taking any visitors." The gobber turned up his hands and shrugged. "So you see, there is nothing I can do."
"But there is something," said Eleyna. "You can either continue to block our way through that door, in which case we'll have an argument, or you can clear out of this alley now."
The gobber's face reddened, an odd effect coupled with the camouflaging nature of his skin. "Now wait a minute!"
Before he could say more, a second gobber dashed forward, sword raised.
Aerik swore under his breath and went for his own sword.
Eleyna had a pistol in her hand as if by magic. She discharged it and a bloody hole erupted in the attacking gobber's chest. The goblin leader lunged with his own sword, but Eleyna had already thrown her spent pistol aside and tugged her rapier free. She parried the goblin's attack and thrust her blade deep into its chest.
Aerik was beside her then, his claymore coming down hard. A gobber tried to parry the blow, but Aerik's heavy blade tore through the gobber's sword and into his shoulder. It crumpled to the ground, shrieking in pain.
Four of the remaining gobbers slashed at Eleyna, trying to get a clear shot at her. She took a few cuts as the blades squeaked past, but they were all minor. She parried with blinding speed, knocking one blade aside after another.
The other three glared at Aerik with hatred, but kept a respectful distance from the arc of the swinging claymore. Aerik didn't have Eleyna's speed, but he used his strength to good effect. The gobbers leapt forward as one, swords high, and Aerik brought his heavy sword around in a wide swing. The two gobbers to his right were swept away in a crunch of steel and bone. Aerik used the momentum of his swing to carry his shoulder into the third gobber, crushing him against the alley wall. The creature slumped to the ground with a groan.
Eleyna had dispatched three of the remaining gobbers and the fourth was fleeing down the alley, wailing. Aerik and Eleyna were left with eight dead gobbers and one moaning against the wall, likely wishing he were dead.
"I suppose this is your idea of being discreet?" asked Aerik.
Eleyna looked at him, wiping at the blood on her face with one hand. "What? You saw what happened. They attacked me first." She grinned and the smeared blood on her face made her look positively frightful. "But I have a better question. Where are the rest of them? It's hard to believe they didn't hear any of this."
Aerik nodded. "Well, now that we've alerted this half of the city to our presence, we might as well go in and get this guy."
Eleyna picked up her spent pistol and put it back into its leather holster. "Couldn't have said it better myself," she said, taking out a fresh pistol.
She stood to one side of the door, covering it with her pistol as Aerik inched it open. When no attack was launched from within, Aerik pulled the door the rest of the way open. At the end of a wooden hallway, two gobbers balanced a long, iron barrel on their shoulders. A third stood behind them, finger on the trigger.
Aerik and Eleyna dove aside, both yelling, as the explosion rang out. An iron ball the size of a fist struck the door at its hinge, sending splinters of wood and brick flying, then ricocheted down the alley. The heavy iron door balanced precariously for a moment, then fell into the alley, kicking up a cloud of dust as it struck the ground with a whoof .
Aerik spat dust and looked at Eleyna, who was bleeding from a fresh cut to the forehead. "What the hell was that?"
Eleyna looked down at her military pistol and shrugged. "The big version."
Shaking his head, Aerik rose, jaw set firmly. He sheathed his claymore, which was too big to use in the narrow corridor. "Well let's get in there before they reload the damn thing."
Eleyna grinned. "I'm starting to like you, Schademan."
The gobbers were indeed busy reloading the massive weapon when Aerik charged them. The one in the rear was putting a large, silk-bound explosive cartridge in place, but quickly abandoned that task, grasping for his sword. Aerik bowled into the lot of them like a bull, kicking the barrel of the gun aside. He drove his fist hard into the gobber's face, the small creature's bones caving under the force of the blow. Then he grabbed the second gobber by the leathers and hurled him into the third, sending them both sprawling. With a roar, he pummeled them both into unconsciousness.
Eleyna stood by the doorway, pistol in hand.
"Aren't you going to help?"
Eleyna shrugged. "Ammunition is expensive. Besides, you're doing just fine. I'm waiting for the other twenty-something gobbers or the high priest of Menoth to come barreling through the door behind you and hand us our heads on a stick."
Aerik looked at the wooden door at the end of the corridor, and then to Eleyna. "That's what I like about you. Always full of cheerful optimism."
That's when the door burst open.
Gobbers poured through and Aerik had just enough time to pull his sword free before they were on him. He couldn't use the large blade offensively in the small corridor, but he could use it to block some of the gobber's attacks. A gobber blade cut across his shoulder and Aerik growled in rage, driving his foot into the gobber's chest, sending him into the arms of his comrades.
Then there was an explosion and something whistled past Aerik's head. A gobber's face imploded in a flash of blood. The acrid smell of burnt powder filled the air.
Damn Eleyna! Aerik had enough trouble trying to keep the gobbers at bay without worrying about being shot in the back.
His blade crossways in front of him, Aerik rushed the gobbers, pushing the smaller creatures back through the doorway. The room beyond was wide and round, with a railed staircase along the far wall. Mid-way up the stairs stood a human in chain mail, a heavy mace at his side. Joneth.
The rest of the room was full of gobbers.
Then Eleyna was there, blade flashing. Gobbers fell before her or dodged to the side, only to be caught up in the fearsome swing of Aerik's claymore. Aerik saw Joneth mumbling words and tracing intricate patterns in the air with his fingers.
"He's casting!"
Eleyna drove her sword through a gobber's chest then flipped the hilt to her left hand. She tore a fresh pistol free and, in the same motion, discharged it at Joneth. The railing next to the priest shattered, disrupting his concentration. He retreated further up the staircase, then began casting again.
Eleyna tried to go for her last pistol, but a surge of gobbers forced her back through the doorway. Aerik saw her going to the ground under a flurry of goblin blades as she disappeared into the corridor. Aerik raged, his blade beheading the gobber nearest him. He came back the other way with the hilt of his sword, slamming it into a gobber's head then driving his boot into its ribs as it fell. But there were too many gobbers - he couldn't get to Eleyna.
Suddenly, Aerik couldn't move. Joneth walked slowly down the stairs, a wide smile on his face, one arm still outstretched in the final motion of a spell. The remaining gobbers smiled as well, yellow, toothy grins that took up most of their faces, as Aerik's predicament dawned on them and they awaited orders from their master. Their hands tightened on their blades.
"You shouldn't announce yourselves so loudly when you conduct an assassination," said Joneth.
"Thanks," said Aerik, finding he could still speak, though not without effort. "Try telling her that." He couldn't turn to look for Eleyna, but there was no sound of fighting from the corridor. Maybe Eleyna was caught in the spell as well, or else she had escaped, or...he didn't want to think about the alternative.
"My gobbers could kill you now," said Joneth, stopping at the foot of the stair. "Still, it would be nice to know which of my fellow Council members hired you. I don't suppose you'd tell me in exchange for your life?"
"Not a chance," said Aerik, grunting with the strain of speaking. "When this spell wears off I'm going to send you to Menoth personally."
Joneth laughed. "By the time the spell fails, my gobbers will have made considerable use of you as a sparring dummy."
"That won't help you much, though," said a voice from the corridor. Aerik had never been so happy to hear Eleyna speak.
Joneth's eyes widened and a deafening explosion shook the room. The force of the blast knocked Aerik to the ground. Unable to put his arms out, he hit nose-first, the impact shattering cartilage. Shrieks and clanging steel filled the air and blood ran from Aerik's mouth. He tried to swallow or spit as best he could. After a moment, there was silence and Eleyna was rolling him onto his back, her face twisted in concern. She was covered in blood herself, numerous small cuts scored her face and she had a deep gash in her left arm.
"If you don't kill me someday," said Aerik, "I don't know what will."
"Shhh," said Eleyna. "Don't talk. You look like hell, Aerik."
Aerik tried to laugh but it came out as a groan. "Joneth dead?"
"He better be. I put a two-foot hole in his chest. The bastard lives through that and I'll convert to Menoth myself."
"Gobbers?"
"Mostly dead. Some ran. Which is what we need to be doing. I can't imagine our little skirmish went unnoticed."
Aerik could already feel his extremities. Eleyna collected her pistols, frowning at one before putting it in its holster. Then she hefted the heavy gun she'd used to kill Joneth, her muscles straining with the weight of it. Aerik had never seen such a large barrel - the weapon must have been designed to be mounted, not used by hand.
"If I could figure out a way to carry this thing, it would make a nice addition," said Eleyna.
Aerik had just enough range of motion to shake his head. "You don't put that down right now, I swear I'll beat you to death with it."
"You're in no shape to beat anything." Eleyna's smile as she dropped the weapon struck Aerik to the core. The woman might be the death of him someday, but it would be a hell of a ride.
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