Death is never clean.
The sound of a door thudding open had barely touched her ears, and even before Keira had time to turn she felt a psychic concussion against her senses, the feeling of a soul being split all too unwillingly from its body. She felt dizzy, one hand lashing out to grab the edge of the table, the other still clutching the press handle, a boot scraping on the tavern floor to catch herself. In her strange vision, the swirling whorls of will and life and thought went dim for the briefest moment, a pulse of…something that flickered not only through her, but through the fabric of the world itself.
She barely heard the others clattering up stairs, slamming doors, roaring at the patrons and one another. She could feel their fear, though, and their anger, and their excitement. Kiera shook her head and blinked, her perceptions coming back to themselves, and she saw how that cocktail of emotions leapt from person to person on tides of thought and intention. Most of the tavern’s patrons darted into the street, desperate to be away from what they knew would be madness and violence, and Kiera didn’t blame them. She saw the fires of their terror and their uncertainty, stoked by months of being under the dubious authority of the King. A handful - some drunken, some less so - stayed behind, hands on table legs or their own less than ideal weapons.
They’re going to get killed, Kiera thought, looking at those who stayed,
And we’ll be the ones to blame. We were meant to be more subtle than this. If we hadn't come, nobody would care about this village. Still… She looked at the tavern, the wooden walls, the bottles of spirits behind the bar, the fire still burning in the hearth. There were too many things to go wrong here, too many other people to get hurt, and she felt muscles tighten on themselves with apprehension. With a start, she heard the sound of blades leaving their sheaths, then the crack of fists on bone, the subtle sounds of the fragile parts of a body collapsing in on one another. That same feeling of life cut short rippled through Kiera's mind, riding first on the sound of a blade in flesh, and again on the hissing sound of an arrow. She didn't stumble this time, though not because the impressions were any more pleasant - if anything, each was more unwelcome than the last. With a soft grunt, Kiera straightened and turned into the room, getting her balance.
Three men lay on the floor, one with his fingers still wrapped around a length of wood sticking from his neck. Kiera heard noises from above, saw Ashira balanced on a beam, her bow drawn. To every side, violence. In the air, shimmering between the walls, the people, the chairs and tables, Kiera saw tightly-coiled chaos, ready to scythe through the town, the countryside, and beyond. She swallowed. The air reeked of blood and worse, but for the skin of a moment, everything seemed to still. Kiera pulled in a long breath, smelled the smoke from the tavern's cook-fire, but, to her immense relief, not yet from bottles of burning oil. In her strange vision, the patterns of life around her flowed, swirled, brightened, sharpened. She turned her body, looking out the tavern's open front door, then nodded to herself.
"Enough," Kiera said. Her voice was quiet but spread through the room like a drop of ink in clear water. "There is another way than this."
Kiera stepped away from the rest of Brand's wards, toward the tavern's door. Overhead, a breeze caught the old sign and made it creak again, the squeak adding not so much a noise, but a texture to the tense, thick quiet. She rolled the fingers of her free hand, felt her knuckles pop, and spread her awareness away from her, sending her own will in a rolling wave ahead and to every side. Her skin tingled, her mind still not entirely familiar with the things those strange, masked wizards taught her when she left the Nightwood. But after a moment of uncertainty, she felt them, saw the way they pulled on the world around them, brilliant in her perceptions. The edges of swords flared in her vision along with iron-banded maces, the sleek curves of a crossbow's springs and, smallest but by no means the least, the fine steel heads of the bolts, deadly and vicious.
She breathed out slowly, her arms loose at her sides, and passed through the tavern's threshold at a walk, each step careful and deliberate. Only part of her mind studied the figures ahead of her, one large, one less so. The greater part studied those crossbows, one to each side. She saw their steel tips move, but not the people holding them - they were, after all, not the dangerous part. She took another step, and tipped her mind again, moving thorugh the mental paths she'd spent the best part of a decade learning. Power - no, not power, not strength, but something else - gathered around her, a potential waiting to be unleashed, and Kiera relaxed. She took another step toward the larger man, not far enough to need to look up at him, but not so far that she would need to raise her voice.
"Come to surrender?" He said. Kiera thought she could see a smug smile on his face, but she was focused on other things. She barely heard his voice, if she was being honest with herself.
"Not precisely," Kiera said, her strange, liquid accent making the words musical.
"So you're offering something else, then?" another man said, making a rude gesture with one hand, his hips rolling forward.
"I would like you to carry a message," Kiera said turning her blind gaze to the taller man, "To the King, if you're able."
"And what might that be?" The larger man said with a rough laugh. Even through her strange vision, Kiera could see a set of captain's markings on his jacket.
"That we let you leave with your lives," Kiera said, "And that we have business in the Nightwood. And then we have business with him."
The captain paused and looked down at Kiera, then belted out a full-throated, roaring laugh. He kept at it for several seconds, then raised one arm and pointed at Kiera, still laughing.
To her right, Kiera felt a crossbow bolt rise in a swift motion, coming to a rest at a man's shoulder level. She turned her head toward the bow, felt her shoulders tense, her pulse skip a beat. Her fingers made a short, sharp motion at her side, and she sent a lance of that potential she held away from herself, tendrils of her will wrapping around the bolt. She knew, from painful and nearly-fatal experience, that she couldn't stop the thing in mid-flight. However, she
could change its direction - provided she knew it was there to begin with. The man fired and the bolt, nudged off-target by Kiera's will, hammered into the side of the tavern with a sound like an axe on a block.
The second man had already risen by the time Keira focused again, and she had far less time to push on the projectile. The bow rattled, and this bolt flitted by her ear so closely she felt her hair flutter at its passing. To her relief, it still found purchase on nothing but the door behind her. Without time to worry, Kiera took another step forward, still facing the larger man, most of her awareness still focused on the weight the weapons around her put on the world. Crossbow bolts were one thing, but a sword with a will behind it - she would have to rely on other skills, honed long ago, should it come to that. She took another step, calm and smooth and slow. The man had, to her immense satisfaction, stopped laughing.
"The ranger, Brand. You've heard stories of him, yes?" Kiera said, her voice still slow, calm, quiet. "The stories I hear are that he took a dozen of the King's men with him when he went beyond the Doors of Stone."
"He's dead all the same," the captain said, "What's your point?" Kiera heard less confidence in his voice. Good.
"You've heard the stories of the children he raised - the orphans and the lost and the abandoned. His wards. His legacy," Kiera said.
The big man said nothing.
"Half a dozen of them are behind me," Kiera said, "And their hearts are aching, their wills are filled to bursting with violence and rage. Four of your men are already dead, but they would see every one of you return to the earth. This is not a fight you can win. The dead know. Take our message to the King and go. Leave this town, and take your men with you."
"You want to start a war with the King?" The captain said, incredulous.
"No," Kiera said, "That war has already
begun. It began when Bloody Harold murdered the Ranger in the forest." She took another step, now only a few strides from the man, "I am offering you the chance to not be one of that war's victims. Go. Deliver our message, then spend the rest of your days drinking your way through the capital. Or you can die here, and the birds will pick you clean."
The captain looked at Kiera, his hand wrapped around the hilt of the sword at his hip, then up at the tavern. Kiera knew there would be others of Brand's wards at the windows already, bows drawn taut. Even out here, she could still feel the swirling, intoxicating aura of their desire to do violence, to extract some kind of vengeance from anyone wearing the King's colours, threatening to swallow her own mind. She understood the rage, the helplessness, the pain - but these men were not their prey. She hoped they would choose not to make themselves an obstacle.
"Fine," the captain said, "God's balls, fine. What do we care about this pisshole town for anyway?" He raised a hand, waved it lazily behind him. "You know this isn't the end," The captain said, turning, "He'll come for you. With more than just men."
"I am sure he will," Kiera said, "But that is a road we can both walk."
The captain grunted and turned, his heavy tread leaving puffs in the dirt under his boots. One by one, the remaining members of the town's garrison put their weapons away, some quickly, others with more reluctance. Within a handful of minutes, all Kiera saw were retreating figures, each still a blaze of will and fire to her - though, of course, ones she would prefer not to encounter again. She pulled in a long breath, slowly blew it out, and let the strange power she had gathered to herself return to the world, vanishing back into the scintillating, coruscating fabric of reality to every side. Her chest rose again and she turned, walking slowly back to the tavern.
"They are gone," Kiera said, stepping back into the tavern, "Though I suspect we will be seeing at least a few of them again." She looked at her companions, "And possibly sooner than we'd like. But before that, we have our respects to offer, I think.." She looked up, saw Ashira's bow still drawn tight, "Can you show us where he fell?"
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