The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson [6]
Kail dropped to his knees next to Gertie, but the maid was already dead. Above her ruined throat, her eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. Kali felt bile rise in his throat, but a glint of gold in the blood pool caught his eye: Gertie's necklace, a small medallion emblazoned with Lathander's sunrise. The assassin's knife had cut it away. Kali scooped it up.
He caught black movement out of the corner of his eye and spun, sending his sword out in a wide, reckless arc. Another hooded figure danced back, Kail's blade swishing across his opponent's stomach to tear fabric if not flesh.
Blindly, Kail followed with a backslash, cutting up and diagonally from hip to shoulder, driving forward in a rush as he'd seen Haig do.
Kali was not a novice to sword play. When he was younger, his father had decided to personally train Kali to fight. Never had the man paid him so much attention. Kail had reveled in it, learning all he could. His skills steadily grew, but his father's interest in teaching waned over the years in favor of seeing to his business and the security of his house. Kali could feel the burn of disuse in his sword arm.
He risked a glance at the old man. Haig had pulled the hood from the foe harrying him on the left. White-gold hair tumbled down a black cloak-Isslun's. She puckered her lips saucily at Haig even as her hand went for the dagger at her belt.
Haig got thete first. He slipped the weapon from its sheath and with a grin shoved her away. Immediately, an identical face from the right met him. Aliyea-twin to Isslun-had recovered from the hit with the vase and removed her hood to fight openly beside her sister.
Kail's sword went skittering across the marble floor. Distracted, he'd let himself be disarmed. "Haig!"
Haig hurled Isslun's dagger. The fang buried itself in the hood of Kail's opponent. Kail looked away, sickened, and saw Haig fighting for better position, backing the twins toward one of the smaller rooms off the main hall. "Follow me!" the old man yelled at him.
Kali hesitated. He still didn't know where his father was. The bulk of the fray seemed to be coming from the central garden; Haig was headed in the opposite direction. With a last look at white-gold hair and whirling steel, Kail retrieved his sword and ran for the sunlight, ignoring Haig's voice calling after him.
In the heart of the garden, Kail found his father. Dhairr was alive and fighting, but he bled from several wounds. He straddled one fallen hood and fought two others who pressed him back against the lip of a fountain. This central point irrigated the entire garden; the water had been left to flow freely, turning the terrain off the raised stone walkways into a muddy jungle.
Kali ran down the flooded path, not allowing himself to think as he stabbed the black-robed figure closest to his father. The foe's back arched, and the dying assassin toppled over the side of the fountain, wrenching Kail's sword from his hands. Kail scrambled to get out of the way.
Dhairr looked up in shock to see his son. His remaining opponent backed away, hoisting up a dead comrade. Dhairr spun to see another hood charging at them through the mud, but instead of engaging, this one too, grabbed a body-that of the foe Kail had killed-and started to spirit it away.
"No!" A scream of pure agony and frustration tore from Dhairr's throat. He charged the escaping assassins, but water and wounds slowed him. He could not make the edge of the fountain before his legs gave out. He still grasped his sword in a white-knuckled fist. Kali dodged it and grabbed his father around the waist, gripping and hoisting him up.
"All back! All back!" Dhairr tried to pull away, but Kail