The Broken Pieces(21)

Out of your mind, she told herself. Put it out of your mind.

She had a job to do, and it was all part of the plan. Killing Cyric would calm her mind, and killing Darius afterward would calm her faith. This was one step to that, and to do it, she didn’t need a dagger. Her hands were just as deadly, her very being shadow and frost. No armor or blade would stop her from taking their life. Just holy light and infernal claws. To her twisted amusement, she left one behind with Darius only to approach another with Lilah.

Valessa paused a moment when she reached the wall, trying to see if she could sense Lilah’s presence. The beast was unnaturally quiet, and her intelligence frightening. If Valessa walked right into the embrace of the lioness, there’d be no opening the gate for Daniel’s men, just a painful death and an even worse eternity. But try as she might, she couldn’t sense anything. Banishing her fear, she made herself incorporeal, and through the wall she went. When she stepped out the other side, she was only fifty yards from the gate leading into the inner complex. Dropping low, she glanced about, scanning for guards. Two were at the gate, standing at attention with far more discipline than she remembered from their kind. Lilah must have kept them permanently in fear after Cyric’s defeat. Valessa could almost smell it reeking from the very stones of the tower, if she’d still had the ability to smell.

Besides those two, she spotted another pair upon the wall above the gate. Staying low, her guise nothing more than shadow and her skin a softly shifting mass of black, she checked for Lilah. She saw more mercenaries guarding the wall, especially by the river. Tents dotted the spaces between the wall and the tower, along with a few dwindling fires, yet she could not find Lilah.

If I can’t see her, she can’t see me, Valessa thought as she turned her attention back to the gate. I hope.

She slunk along the wall. The torches atop it left heavy shadows below them, which wasn’t too surprising. After all, they guarded against the outside, not within. How many enemies could walk through walls? With each step she felt her anxiety grow. Once she exposed herself, it was only a matter of time before Lilah came running.

Shaking her head, Valessa chastised herself for her fear. This wasn’t her. She hadn’t been cowardly in life, and she would not start now in whatever her current existence counted as. No longer slinking, no longer shadow, she rushed the two guards. With her coming in from the side, only one had a reasonable chance to notice, and when he caught sight of her rushing from the corner of his eye it was far too late. Leaping at him, she made her hand become solid, and it chopped against his throat, crushing his windpipe and sealing away his startled cry. The motion of his slumping body alerted the other, who turned.

“You all right?” he asked, and before the last word had left his tongue Valessa lunged at him with her foot leading. It was a risk, she knew, but she tried it anyway. Her foot passed through his breastplate, but in the gap between it and his chest, she made herself real once more. The blow cracked ribs in that brief moment, for she could not keep it up long. The rest of her passed through the man, and by the convulsions of his body she knew it must have felt like his entire being was encased in ice. Spinning about, she grabbed his head, and with strength far beyond what she’d possessed in life, jerked it sharply to one side. The sound of his neck snapping was louder than she preferred.

The commotion was enough to alert the guards, but whatever noise they’d heard below was quickly forgotten when cries of battle from the north broke the silence. Valessa cursed silently. They’d needed to walk a fine line, waiting long enough for her to open the gates, but not long enough for those in the tower to notice and try to close it. In her opinion, Darius had acted far too soon, the impatient oaf.

Just beside the gate was a heavy wheel attached to the wall, connected to unseen gears and pulleys that would lift and shut the gate. As Valessa grabbed the handles, she heard what she’d most feared: Lilah’s roar. Not daring to turn around, she pulled. The wheel was designed to be used by two men, but Valessa could still move it with ease. Advantages of being undead, she told herself, laughing madly. As alarms sounded, pierced by another roar, it seemed the two soldiers up top noticed her meddling, or at least, heard the clattering rise of the gate. An arrow pierced her chest and thudded into the grass. Valessa smirked. Two more arrows flew, and she ignored them, only spinning the wheel as fast as her arms could go.

Realizing they couldn’t hurt her, at least not with arrows, the two rushed down the stone steps. One man latched onto the wheel, trying to stall its movements, while the other swung a sword at her neck. It passed through, nearly killing the other man in the process. Annoyed by the interference, Valessa shoved her hand through the chest of the first, her icy hand closing around his heart and crushing it. For a brief moment she felt the blood swirling about her fingers, then turned her attention to the other. Keeping her entire body solid, she kicked and punched him back, each blow denting his armor. He tried to block with his sword, but her movements were too deft, too blinding. A savage blow to his chin staggered him, and when he fell he lay there, vomiting.