Slave Unbound

Chapter 36

A Trap of Assassins

**Characters and text are protected under copyright law

Disclaimer: This story is not meant as 'erotica', but dark adventure-fantasy. It may contain material that sensitive readers might find uncomfortable. Please be advised.

Author's Note: Based on feedback and advice, this chapter has been rewritten and the events within it have significantly changed. If you read it previously, you will want to re-read it.

"They are coming back, Master!" Lanni reported, her voice sounding deeply shaken and afraid. She was staring out the back window of the coach, pale as a sheet.

Joining her at the window, hand on her shoulder in a show of comfort that he obviously didn't feel, Verdant took a look himself. "It would seem they are armed and splitting up to come to either side of the carriage." He said, his own voice sharing the same notes of anxiety as his slave's. "Two to this side and the third is coming around to the opposite."

Ashton stopped trying to force open the carriage door, reaching a hand out to halt Sasinel as well. "Then we prepare to fight." He took in the two nobles. "Myself and Leita will take the two on this side. Mistress Marlowe's...concubine will take the other side. Once we're out of the carriage, close the doors again and we'll keep them from getting in to you."

Verdant nodded numbly, but Sabrina seemed far less affected by the situation, almost confident that she would be just fine. Leita really wished she shared that confidence. She was in no condition to for a significant fight, her body already sore and weak. If these men were well trained, she would be at a serious disadvantage.

Ashton caught her attention with a snap of his fingers. "Are you up for this?" He asked, apparently mirroring her thoughts.

"Does it matter?" She asked back with a shrug. "Just give me space to get out the door when it opens."

With a nod, he drew out a pair of short swords, their blades canting at an angle halfway down their length, the latter half flaring slightly. They were Maltrian Infantry swords, the standard utility sidearm of soldiers of that country. These were very plain in comparison to the ornate styles that were common of that region, but still quite beautiful in appearance. They excelled at delivering a powerful chopping force, but lacked the length and ease of use of a common sword. In the hands of someone well trained in their use, however, there were exceptionally dangerous.

He took up a stance in preparation for his door opening, as did Sasinel on the opposite side. The men were not bothering to try and conceal their intent to open the doors, but the two on this side were obviously smart enough to work together, one man preparing to pull the door open so the other could attempt to rush into the compartment. Leita considered that the three of them likely assumed that Ashton, visible to these two through the door window, was the only actual threat in the coach. The third man, preparing to breach the other side, would probably assume he'd be facing no real challenge as he burst in on his own.

Positioned low enough that she would be hidden by the doors, Sasinel immediately burst that assumption as soon as the two doors opened. She rose up onto her hands, facing towards the front of the coach, and kicked out with her right leg, planting her foot directly into the man's chest as he vaulted up, instantly arresting his forward momentum. Faster than an eye could blink, she lifted her hands and rolled her body one-hundred and eighty degrees in the air, deftly landing back on her palms as she lashed her left foot across his stunned face.

This impact sent him colliding into the carriage door, his body barely had time to rebound off like a ball before she kicked out with her right leg again, sending him flying backwards. She launched herself right out behind him.

As this occurred, all in the span of a couple seconds, Ashton met the man trying to enter on their side, his shorter weapons much more ideal for use in the enclosed space than the large axe of his opponent. Deftly, he wove his weapons in a blinding dance, fending off the axe and forcing the man back. He wasted no time in moving with the retreating man, keeping up the pressure and pushing him all the way back out of the compartment, his twin blades slashing furiously.

Leita didn't hesitate as he cleared the door, slipping out behind him and using the frame of the door to angle herself towards the front of the carriage. The man who'd opened the door moved to confront her, but Leita rolled as her feet touched the earth, ducking beneath his initial swing, and came up behind the attack. She hammered a brutal kick into one of his knees, then slammed the heel of her palm into the side of his face.

He partially crumpled to the ground with a grunt, but Leita didn't pause, taking two strides and vaulting up onto the driver's bench of the carriage. Barty's body was slumped over, still seated, blood still draining from where the driver had driven a dagger up through the underside of his jaw and into his brain. It appeared that he'd also taken a stab to the chest, likely to stun him long enough to make the killing blow. He'd obviously never seen the attack coming, his attention probably more focused on threats beyond the carriage than from within.

From this vantage, Leita caught sight of Sasinel and her foe. The sidil was handling the man effortlessly, pummeling him with fists and feet. A powerful roundhouse kick to his head sent him to the ground, followed by a brutal drop of her heel into the man's face, taking him out of the fight. Leita had to admire the grace and talent of the sidil, hoped she'd ever become as good at Sie Faen Gael.

The sound of someone clambering up the side of the coach pulled her from the stray thought and back to her purpose. Just as the man rose up into view, she dropped to all fours and mule-kicked him in the chest, sending him sailing back to the ground. Bounding back to her feet, she wasted no more time before checking for Barty's weapons, but found the halberd gone and his sword sheath empty.

It occurred to her that Barty's sword was probably in the hand of the man already picking himself back up to try getting to her again. Fortunately, they'd been kind enough to leave the dagger they'd killed the bodyguard with, still buried in place under his chin. She ripped it free and turned, preparing herself to engage the man and, hopefully, manage to get Barty's sword back.

Her attention was arrested, however, by the sight of three shadowy forms resolving out of the darkness across the enclosed lot. One of them moved in an unnerving way, as though gliding instead of running, the outline of the torso making strange swaying motions. Another was easily seven feet tall and broad as a handcart.

More assassins, lying in wait for the trap to spring.

Focusing on the threat at hand, she looked down to see the fake coachman once again coming up the side of the carriage. He swung wildly out at her with the sword as he came into view, trying to keep her from knocking back off. She leapt over him, evading both him and the swing, and breaking her fall with a forward roll that brought her instantly back up to her feet.

Her battered ribs were already screaming at her from all the vigorous motion, but she pushed it away, refusing to let it slow her down or distract her. She turned just as the man leapt down and thrust the sword at her. She side-stepped, rotating clockwise, letting his arm shoot past her. Quick as lightening, she brought her elbow down into the arm, knocking it downwards and putting him off-balance. Rotating again, she moved around behind him as he stumbled forward.

She lashed out with the dagger, once, twice, stabbing him both times in the back of his shoulder. His shoulder blade kept the first thrust from going deep, but the second cut open the deltoid muscle. He managed to keep his grip on the sword, but quickly moved away a few steps away from her to get his bearings back.

That gave Leita a brief moment to look again towards the oncoming figures from the far side of the lot. They were entering the edge of where the carriage's lanterns reached, granting her first real look at the three of them. One was a humanfolk woman, clothed in black, holding something out in one hand and tracing unseen images in the air with the other. Beside her, an immense plate-armored hulk of a man strode, fully encased in iron, and carrying a massive maul.

However, it was the third that most caught her attention. Before meeting Colja, she would not have known the obscure being for what it was. They were an enemy of the aljin in their homeland, a desert-faring race known as the nagari. Above the waist, they appeared closely like most humanfolk, though with the powerful build of an oruhk. From the waist down, however, they had the body of a massive serpent. Brutally strong, overwhelmingly fast, and natural-born warriors, outside the deserts of Jirminnis, many believed, or hoped, them to only be legends.

This one was focused keenly on her, already splitting off from the other two to reach her. His humanoid torso armored in boiled leather and carrying a large curved sword, beautifully made to resemble flames, his snake underbody propelled him forwards with elegant speed. Things were about to get a lot more complicated.

"We have trouble!" She shouted.

***************

The body of Vicks lay on the ground behind the coach in a growing pool of blood. His obvious weapons were missing, taken by the fake coachmen, but she quickly found a pair of tansai, sidil weapons she'd been trained with since she was a child, concealed on his back, hidden by his coat. Pulling them free, she started to step back the way she'd come, planning to ensure that the inept assassin she'd knocked down stayed that way.

However, she heard Leita's shout and took a quick step forward, immediately seeing the three other assassins coming into view. Ashton, who was already finishing off the man he was fighting with a savage double slash that almost completely snipped the man's head off, was turning his attention on them as well. They shared a brief look at one another, then both charged to meet the giant armored warrior and the woman.

It suddenly made much more sense to her now, why the three hired killers who'd brought them here had seemed much less skilled than she'd expected. Likely they'd been nothing more than cheap thugs, men who could fit the part of footmen and a driver, to bring them here. At best, they were only meant to occupy any resistance from lingering bodyguards until the real assassins could approach. A distraction, at best.

These three newcomers were the real threat, without question. One a creature she'd only heard of from the wild stories of the aljin swordsman who she'd learned to sometimes take with a grain of salt. The armored one looked large enough to be an orling, at the very least, his gigantic hammer looking heavy enough to crush someone just by simply dropping it on them.

However, it was the woman that she recognized as the greatest threat here. It was her that Sasinel put her full focus, making a direct line to intercept. The woman was clearly a user of magic, and not simply a dabbler in the art either. Already a corona of luminescent energy was surrounding her extended hand, taking the vague shape of a spearhead.

As she and Master Crahka's bodyguard closed the gap, Sasinel prepared herself mentally. She knew enough of magic to recognize that it could attack the mind as well as the body, confusing what a target saw or imbedding thoughts that could mislead or even paralyze. Not everyone could harness the elemental forces that powered magic and even those blessed with the spark of ability spent years of challenging training to learn to control even a little of it.

Even among her own race, which had a higher than usual tendency for someone to be born with that talent, it was a rarity for anyone to able to do more than a small amount of magic. A cousin of Sasinel's had been one of those lucky few who could do more than just a few minor or subtle effects. Through him, she'd learned quite a bit more than what most knew of how such things worked and what they could do.

In order to manifest even the slightest of effects, one needed two things, aside from the gift and training. First was a properly prepared crystal, attuned to the caster and their mental energies, to focus the magic through. The second was a strange substance called aetherum, a thick greasy substance that acted like a catalyst. While it was possible for a particularly powerful practitioner to perform some amount of magic without one or the other, anything worth notice would require both.

Thus, her first priority would be to remove one or both of the woman's hands. The outstretched one held the crystal and the one drawing patterns in the air was painted in aethrum. Removing even one of her hands would reduce the threat she posed to something much more manageable. Until then, she had to assume the woman capable of nearly anything, be it calling down a stroke of lightening to entrapping their senses in a hallucination while the huge hulk with her reduced them to paste with his maul.

As if to emphasize that threat, the spear-shaped corona around the witch's fist rocketed outwards. The spell acted like a solid blade of force, sharp as a razor, and propelled with the force of a crossbow. Only Sasinel's cat-like reflexes allowed her to mostly evade the magical missile, though she had to halt her charge in order to do so. It still slit open the side of her gossamer dress and clipped along the edge of her torso. The cut was shallow, barely more than a scratch, but had it hit her head on, she had little doubt that it would have pierced deep into, if not passed cleanly through, her body.

Though she noted Ashton's eyes widen as he finally recognized just what this woman was, he smartly kept his attention on the armored hulk in front of him. Just as he got into the range of that huge hammer, the giant warrior bringing it around in a broad, diagonal, sweep, he dropped into a slide, narrowly managing to get beneath the hammer's oncoming head. He popped up behind the swing, expecting the warrior to be unable to recover the swing fast enough to bring it back towards him before he could get into range with his own, much shorter, weapons.

However, his assumption proved incorrect, as the hulking warrior stepped back and reversed the swing with as much ease as slinging a pillow. To his credit, Ashton reacted fast enough to brace for the backswing, lifting his feet as the weapon caught him. He was picked up and thrown away, landing right between Sasinel and the magic-user, and blocking the sidil from reaching the woman before she could weave another bit of magic.

This time, instead of a blade, the spell took the form of a rough ball, but launched with the same speed. Ashton took the hit full force, sending him sailing towards Sasinel. She was forced to leap to one side to keep from having him collide into her. To the young bodyguard's credit, he landed well, tumbling as he hit the earth and rolling up to his feet, before immediately charging back forward, once again rushing headlong towards the armored warrior.

Sasinel rushed forward as well, desperate to close the distance between herself and the magic-user before she wove something less direct and crude into being. Air blades and force balls were nothing to scoff at, but paled in comparison to what other things magic was capable of. In truth, she was surprised the woman had, so far, resorted to only these things. She hoped that was a good sign that the witch's skills were not as diverse as she feared.

When the woman released another shimmering missile at her, she was better prepared to dodge, taking a page from Ashton's tactics and dropping into a slide, letting her forward momentum carry her forward. Even so, the blade of force dipped down as she slid forward, apparently partially guided in its course. She had to lean far back to keep it from taking her head off, a billow of her dress rising into the path and being sliced into fluttering pieces.

Kipping back up to her feet behind the spell, Sasinel finally found herself within arm's reach of her sorcerous foe and immediately began raining down attacks with the two tansai. The lightweight weapons were easy to use and redirect, Sie Faen Gael also designed to incorporate the weapons into the fighting style, making it easy to perform a rapid series of strikes. Her attacks should have devastated the woman, cutting her over a dozen times before she could even begin to react.

However, each and every stroke of her tansai met with an invisible field of protection, deflecting away any real harm. While the magical defense guarded her from the weapons' edges, it appeared to only partly mitigate the force of the hits. She was buffeted back by the blitz and instinctively raised her arms to shield herself, despite her spell making such a reaction mostly unnecessary.

She could see that Ashton was having much the same problem with his own foe as she was. While he'd succeeded in slipping close enough to the towering armored hulk to begin using his shortswords, the warrior's plated armor was repelling every hit, the blades barely even leaving marks across on the metal. Unlike the witch, the massive warrior seemed otherwise unaffected by the force of the hits themselves, nor compelled to brace against them.

However, the length of his maul's haft was making it difficult for the warrior to perform an effective counterattack at the agile young bodyguard, who was now staying very close to the brute, despite his inability to breach the armor. She noted also that the warrior seemed loath to retreat away to regain his reach, as though he were trying to remain near the magic-welding woman. Possibly, the two were some sort of team, or, if there truly was an orling beneath all that steel armor, he was her faithful slave.

If possible, she might could use that to her advantage. Amid the barrage of tansai hits, she slipped in a sudden ground sweeping kick, taking the woman's legs out from under her. The maneuver cost Sasinel, however, as the mystical protection around her had significantly resisted the force of the trip, her leg now aching as though she slammed it into a stone pillar. It made her unsteady when she returned the leg back to supporting her and nearly caused her to fail to react fast enough when the armored hulk suddenly turned his full focus to her and lurched towards her, swinging his maul with deadly power.

The hammer's head struck the earth less than a second behind her reverse somersault, her throbbing leg folding as she returned to at the end of the spin, causing her to tumble backwards. A shower of stone shrapnel pelted her as the goliath warrior pounded a divot, at least two inches deep, in the paving from his aggression. For a moment, she worried that she'd erred in her tactics, worried that the brute would easily step forward and, this time, crush her into a stain on the cobbles.

Luckily, Ashton didn't waste the opening the big man gave him by completely taking his attention off the agile young man. With a relentless whirlwind of attacks, he bore into the man's side, focusing all his power into a single small area of the man's near impregnable armor. Battering the armor so fast that even Sasinel couldn't follow the flow of the blades, Ashton somehow managed to weaken the one spot enough to hook his blades up under the steel plates on the hulk's side.

In the next moment, several of those plates came flying free, exposing a fairly sizable patch where only the leather undersuit now protected the assassin. The warrior reacted to the breach by finally recoiling back, bringing his maul up in defense to fend back Ashton and his wicked little bent blades. However, his reaction proved unnecessary, as the witch had recovered herself enough to weave a fresh spell into being.