Meek

Eli's practice with Elvaset paid off.

Before he even realized what was happening--how the vale had an Arrow fired at him from empty space?--a spark swooped to intercept.

Still, the metal marble was flying too hard and fast. His spark couldn't stop a projectile that strong, and only managed to deflect it slightly. So instead of blowing a hole in his chest, it tore a chunk out of his left shoulder.

A big chunk.

The impact spun Eli despite his steadying sparks.

Pain swallowed him.

Blood splattered in an arc and he hit the ground face-down and lay still.

He played dead, because he was on the cusp of blacking out from the wound. He needed a few seconds to heal, to make sure he didn't faint. Well, and because he didn't know what the halo was going on. How had mages snuck inside the smithy without his sparks seeing?

He clung to consciousness with everything he had. His vision narrowed, darkened ... then steadied. A few heartbeats later, he managed to draw six sparks close, in case another marble fired at him from thin air.

Instead, there was a shimmer and two women appeared.

A striking woman with silver-streaked black hair: Mage Cristonel.

And a scrawny woman with short hair and a square jaw: Mage Fluer, who was lowering her hand as the illusion she'd cast faded around her.

So she wasn't a one-fold mage. She didn't only control Arrows. She followed the Path of the Rose, too. Which she'd used to conceal their approach to the smithy, from his sight and sound. She'd projected an image of the door remaining closed and she'd blocked the sound spilling in from outside until Cristonel was in position to raise a shield and take Eli out.

Fluer sagged against the forge, apparently exhausted from the effort of casting the illusion. Well, and maybe from him bouncing her head off a stone wall earlier.

"Marchioness!" Cristonel said. "Are you hurt?"

"No," Pym said, drawing her sword again. "He wanted me alive."

She stepped toward Eli, and he remained motionless even though the danger of blacking out had passed. His shoulder was shattered, his left arm useless. He needed to wait as long as possible, to recover as much as possible, before he moved.

He didn't think Pym would kill him before questioning him ... but then his lone spark on overwatch saw the surrounding soldiers advancing. He couldn't fight them all off, not in a cramped space, not with two mages.

Not with his left arm hanging by a thread.

Ever since Eli had felt the calm tranquility of Brazinka's Stillness, he'd felt less inclined to violence. Or less eager for violence, at least. Other than the torturer, he hadn't killed anyone in the Keep, not intentionally. But now he brought to mind Fluer's actions during the assault on the troll warren, and Cristonel's untroubled face as she watched the Marquis beat the Head Clerk to death.

Screw calm tranquility.

One of his sparks cracked Fluer's head, and she dropped like a sack of dirt. At the same moment, Eli blasted another spark into Cristonel, but she summoned a mage-shield impossibly quickly and deflected most of the force. Still, she stumbled backward as two sparks shoved Pym between the shoulder blades while others pinned her feet to the ground.

Pym fell on top of Eli and slashed his side with her naked sword. Cristonel fired a marble at him but missed--too worried about hitting her Marchioness--and he got his right arm around Pym's neck.

When she cried out he jammed a spark between her teeth and pushed upward against the roof of her mouth, arching her neck backward.

"Stop them or I break her," he grunted to Cristonel.

"Keep out!" Cristonel yelled. "He has the lady!"

Mages of the Shield were trained to raise their shields facing the threat: they didn't expect, as Elasavet hadn't, at first, invisible sparks that came from every direction. So after Cristonel yelled, Eli slipped a spark behind her shield and took her down.

He didn't kill her, though. He hadn't killed Fluer either, though he knew he might regret leaving them alive. Still, between Lara's disapproval and Brazinka's Stillness, he couldn't quite take that last, fatal step. Well, at least he could blame them if his hesitation killed him.

"Blessdamn," he murmured. "A Mage of the Rose?"

Pym choked, her neck straining as she struggled on top of him.

"Pym?" Ty called from outside. "Pym!"

"Still alive," Eli shouted back. "But try another trick and see what happens."

Then he lay there until his left arm felt mostly attached. It was still weak, but not about to fall off. He finally released Pym and she gasped for air, hacking and coughing. So after a minute, he brought her a tin cup of quench water.

She swore at him--impressive vocabulary for a noblewoman--but drank, then spat, then drank again. Then she fell silent, as Eli waited.

After his arm healed fully and the day darkened to dusk, he took a knife he'd found in the smithy. He pressed it to Pym's neck and marched her through the door.

Soldiers bristled with spears and sword, crossbows and halberds. The captain of the guard called a command and Eli felt dozens of murderous eyes on him. Nobody stepped forward, though, not with his knife nicking Pym's skin.

Well, nobody except her brother Ty, who kept his empty hands at his shoulders and said, in a low voice, "Take me instead."

"You're not worth as much as she is," Eli told him.

"No, but I'm worth enough to keep you alive."

"Get back or I'll cut her," Eli said.

Ty stepped away and took his fancy halberd from one of the soldiers and looked at his sister. Eli got the distinct impression that they could communicate with expressions alone. Which would've worried him, except he was done with this. He was gone.

With his free hand, he pointed wordlessly at the soldiers behind himself. Then he started walking backwards, forcing Pym to do the same, and the soldiers parted for him.

He retreated step by step.

Past the smithy.

Across the training ground.

Thirty or forty soldiers moved in a wide circle around him and Pym as he headed for the edge of the Keep grounds, the edge of the plateau. The jangle of gear and the low murmur of orders--watch his shoulders, don't fire, eyes on the target--accompanied them, along with the murderous glares.

He backed across a path leading between the Church of the Chained Angel and a little park, and to his surprise heard music. The lofty notes of choir swept from the windows of the church. They were singing in there even now, with him on the loose? Apparently they really did trust the Angel to protect them.

Well, plus they were probably praying for Her to end Eli.

As the song continued, a memory bubbled up from some recess of his mind. When he'd come here with the Head Clerk, he'd heard the choir. And a short time before that, Scribe Lynik, in the archives, had bubbled with excitement as she'd given him the news:

"You're going to the Keep! You and the Head Clerk both. To meet the Marquis."

"The Marquis?"

That's what the summons said."

"Me? The Marquis? Summoned?"

"Apparently, Eli, that report you wrote caught someone's eye. Someone important."

"No!"

"Didn't I tell you? Hard work always pays off."

"What do you think they want?"

"To offer you a position in the Keep. Assistant to an advisor, perhaps? Just promise me this."

"Anything!"

"Once you're the official Keeper of the Scrolls, don't forget the little people."

The little people.

No, he hadn't forgotten. The Head Clerk. The prisoners in the wagon, used as human shields against the trolls. The trolls themselves, cut down as they headed for their mating grounds.

And himself.

Eli hadn't forgotten a thing, but after tonight he was finished with revenge. He was past that now. Brazinka's letter had forced him onto this path. Or at least the Marquis's reaction to her letter had. Not his refusal to pay that ridiculously outdated debt, but his brutality.

Well, Eli had taken payment in blood, now he'd make him pay in gold.

Then he was done with Rockbridge ... except to see his troll-siblings again. He needed to check in with them, and with Mist-Beneath. He wanted to see how trolls lived while at peace. And he had questions about the rite that had changed him.

Not now, though. He couldn't lead the forces of Rockbridge in that direction. Maybe in a few months, or a year ... if he survived the next Killweeds. Well, if Brazinka found them. Which he didn't doubt she would, not after she settled in the capital.

He wasn't that same gormless scribe anymore. He wasn't the man who'd come the Keep, full of naive hope; he hadn't been him for months. But he wasn't the torture victim who'd left the Keep in tatters, either. He hadn't realized how angry he'd been until that night in the brigand camp in Ehrat. He hadn't realized that despite his outward calm, he'd been moment from erupting all that time.

Maybe Lara had realized. She'd grounded him. Or 'rooted' him--ha!--like a dryad. And what she'd started, Brazinka had finished. She'd showed him the value of stillness and peace.

Not that he expected much of that as he hunted down the Killweeds. Still, he felt some measure of calm even now, surrounded by soliders. Knowing that he was finished here, that he had a worthy goal, a purpose beyond revenge.

Of course, first he needed to survive the night.

He dragged Lady Pym through the park, still facing Ty and the captain and the Keep. The choir sang, an evening breeze blew. Behind Eli, a crossbowman stumbled as he walked backwards, and a bolt twanged into the darkening sky overhead.

The captain of the guard shouted, "Wait, accident, don't hurt her!"

"We all make mistakes," Eli said.

"Everyone stay back!" the captain snapped as his people.

Then the choir stopped.

The sound cut off abruptly.

The music was replaced by a murmuring from the rear rank of the guards. The ones Eli couldn't see, because all but one of his sparks were staying close to him, in case there was a mage he didn't know about. The murmuring didn't sound like a response to the stray bolt, though.

In fact, the murmuring didn't even sound like it was coming from the rear rank of guards.

No, it was coming from the other side of the Keep. Near the gates.

And it wasn't just murmuring but shouting. Jostling, screaming, the sound of a crowd whipped into a frenzy.

His high spark finally saw them: a hundred people were pouring into the Keep through the gate in the outer wall. A hundred civilians, with more in the streets beyoned, were rampaging closer.

For him? Were they coming after him?

That didn't make sense, but neither did anything else. Blight. He couldn't carve his way through a mob of civilians. Well, he could, but he wouldn't. So he needed to--

The city bells started ringing.