[Mkguild] Spies and Assassins (3/?)

[Nathan Pfaunmiller]

Here is part three of my next story.  HUGE thanks to Hallan for helping me
make this scene work with what he has written.

-LurkingWolf

__________________

<i>February 29, 708 CR</i>



Lois marched through the halls of the keep with purpose, seeking out the
small room that had become a second home to him over the course of the past
few months.  Around him, the sounds of the howling blizzard blotted out
even the constant staccato of his own claws against the stonework of the
floor.  Despite having walked for several minutes already, Lois had never
escaped the sound of the blizzard amid the unnaturally shifting hallways of
the upper Keep.  He had been south of the storm during the assault a little
more than a year ago, but the howling winds brought to mind the possibility
of another such attack.  He doubted that anyone in the watch would sleep
well this evening, at any rate.



Regardless, as he entered the training room once again, he found that Kyia
had made certain that both he and Paula would be comfortable this
evening.  Instead
of the balcony and the wide open vista that generally occupied the far
wall, a small window, visibly set in an extremely thick wall, was the only
access to the outside world.  Still, looking out through the window
revealed a veritable curtain of white falling from the sky, and the wind
whipped across the mouth of the open window, causing unnatural wails to
reverberate through the window’s depth.  Lois wondered if Kyia’s
adjustments had actually made the storm seem less threatening at all.



“I’ve never seen a storm remotely like this,” Paula commented as she
entered.  She was already prepared for the evening’s activities, having
learned from their plentiful training exercises beforehand.  Although she
lived in the town below, she had seen the storm coming and found an excuse
to be absent from the house when it arrived.  She began to stretch as Lois
continued to stare out the window.  He could not even see lights from the
town below, although he wasn’t certain if it was perhaps a trick of
perspective due to the depth of the window.  A flash, and he saw strange,
fingerlike tendrils of lightning striking in the distance, only to scatter
off of some sort of barrier, no doubt erected against the storm by the
Keep’s mages.



“I am ready,” Paula announced.  She was waiting for him in the middle of
the room, and he slowly turned to join her there.  He stretched a bit
himself for a few moments, but he had already prepared beforehand and did
not need as much adjustment as Paula did.



“You say you have not seen a storm like this?  What of the assault last
winter?”



Paula seemed to shiver a bit as she recalled the event, but she recovered
after a moment.  “It was a blizzard, yes, but most of it was snow, ice, and
wind.  I do not recall much lightning or thunder then.  I wonder what might
have happened to anger all of the elements so, and all at the same time?”



Lois shrugged.  “I do not worry myself with the workings of the pantheon.  By
what I have heard from their servants with whom I am personally acquainted,
they tend to be too fickle to predict on the best day.  I think as likely
as anything, one petty god or another was insulted by a daemon somewhere,
and is throwing a tantrum outside to vent a bit.”



Paula shook her head with a sideways smile.  The two of them began their
practice to the sound of the howling wind, talking very little as the storm
seemed to try to sink its icy fingers through the stone to reach those
within.  Although the room was colder than usual for certain, neither Paula
nor Lois noticed any other effects from the storm.  Some of the swirling
snow managed to cling to the first few inches of the window’s depth, but
none of the flakes came into the room.  The wind simply kept the air in the
room moving, and neither of them minded that provision.



They were soon sparring, each of them holding one of Lois’ daggers.  Paula’s
skill had definitely reached a very good level by this point, aided at once
by her preternatural foresight and her recent training.  Lois was still
able to best her handily in most situations, but she had learned to
identify her own errors very efficiently after each defeat, and she was
remarkably skilled at learning from past mistakes.  So long as she was
given an opportunity to make mistakes in an environment that would not kill
her, Lois was certain that she would soon be a match for almost any man in
the Keep before very long.



And then, a sudden red flash lit the room from the window behind them.
 Thankfully,
they were both too shocked to land the blows they had been dealing in their
current duel, and they turned to watch the window.  Another blood-red flash
lit the room, and then a thunderous rumble shook the room through the very
stones that made up its floor.



“Did the spells fail?” Paula breathed with some concern.



Lois’ long fur was on end.  “That wasn’t the storm,” he said, speaking to
himself as much as Paula.  He walked to the window and stared out, but the
storm had not ebbed and the only thing he could see for certain was snow.



“Stay here, Paula.  I’m going to have a look.”



The young woman followed him as he stalked towards the doorway.  “Stay here?
Where are you going?  I could help!”



Lois turned and looked her in the eyes.  His expression was serious, but
not truly angry.  “Paula, there is a blizzard out there.  The Curse gave me
the form of an animal that can take the cold.  You’re hardly prepared for
it.  Stay here, and stay safe.”



He was gone before Paula could say another word.  She wanted to argue, but
the fact was that he was right.  She would probably freeze to death well
before she accomplished anything remotely profitable.  She returned to the
training room and began to run through some drills on her own.



And then she noticed that Lois had left his daggers.



*             *             *



The assassin noticed the same thing a few moments later, but he had already
committed to investigating the strange occurrence, and he didn’t have time
to return for them.  He wished that he had anticipated leaving the Keep; he
would have at least thought to bring other weapons.  Perhaps the creeping
paranoia that he had become accustomed to during his assassination career
might prove to be one thing he kept to in the future.  At least in that
time he was never caught without a weapon.


As it was, he found his way to the exit quickly, only to see the portcullis
closed.  At the moment there were no guards posted at the gate, which
struck Lois as odd, but he was not about to question his luck.  He
considered trying to open the gate briefly, but decided that he didn’t have
the time to waste.



He focused on his body and mentally molded it to change into its most feral
form.  Almost before he had a solid image of the shift he desired, his body
began to change.  The ermine was glad that he had attempted this shift a
few times since taking the Curse; it made shifting feel far more natural.



Soon he was small enough to slip through the bars of the portcullis, and he
took several steps out into the howling storm before shifting back.  He
reached back through the bars and took his discarded clothing, but simply
bundled it and hid it in a pile of firewood against a nearby house.  On
second thought, he pulled out a light shirt and slacks from the rest of his
clothing and put them on, allowing the wind to whip the material into a
wrinkled mess.



As he began to run, the former assassin realized that he had very little
idea where he should be heading.  He began to run down the main
thoroughfare through the city before pulling up short.  A cart had crashed
ahead, turned sideways for some reason Lois couldn’t guess.  The snow was
already piling high around the broken wheel that rendered the mechanism
unusable, so the only way around it was to go over it.



Lois turned down a side road and began to dodge through the alleys between
houses before running into another obstacle.  A pile of barrels had been
tumbled from where they were stacked only moments before.  Lois would have
blamed the storm, but the position of the nearby houses should have
shielded the stack from the wind.



Lois scowled.  It seemed that something was trying to block his passage,
but there was one way he knew to circumvent these barriers.  He used what
was left of the stack to jump to a low-hanging roof nearby, and from there
leaped to the next building.



Where the ground level had been subject to the spiraling winds and slicing
snow, Lois found that his higher perch was even worse.  The winds
threatened to hurl him bodily from the rooftops, and the snow came not just
from the sky, but also blew at him from where it had clung to the
surrounding shingles.  He had to squint through the ice that tried to tear
at his eyes, growling to himself at yet another obstacle.  His fur snapped
this way and that, trying to be blown with the wind even though the wind
refused to go in a constant direction.



Steadying himself, the ermine tried to run to the far side of the roof,
intending to jump the gap.  His paw hit a slick patch as he ran, and sent
him sprawling and sliding down the slanted roof until his claws again found
purchase.  He grunted and lifted himself back up; at the very least, his
fall had taken him to the far side of the roof.



He blinked as he looked down.  Another pile of debris blocked the alley.  He
could not identify what it was from his perch, but it looked again as
though it had been intentionally thrown there to stop a pursuer.  Lois held
a paw across his face to shield his eyes from the blinding snow.  Looking
about, he realized that he could see similar barricades in the nearby
alleys.  Suddenly, the truth came to him.



The intention was not to block a pursuer.  It was meant to channel someone
in a specific direction.  He turned his face and gasped as the constant
wind made it difficult to breathe.  A few moments later, he had dropped
from the roof and landed in a roll in another alley, one of the few not
completely blocked.  He followed it, now paying the barricades the
attention they demanded and veering to attempt new paths as they were
opened to him.



He was almost ready to vault over one of the strange barriers when he heard
screams on the wind, words lost in the howl of the wind but emotions
hanging clearly on the edge of the voice.  Rage…



Lois looked for a pathway, but found the only one that led the direction he
wished to go was blocked.  Growling, he again used the barrier to take him
to the roofs, and this time he meant to stay there.  He made full use of
the claws that the Curse had given him, running on all fours to increase
his stability as he leapt from roof to roof.  The wind tried to stop each
of his jumps, but he would not be denied now.



More voices now, and more emotions.  Grief…  Disbelief…



Death.



Lois was almost blinded by another flash of light amid the storm, and then
the screams came again, desperate now.  The ermine willed himself to move
faster.



A sudden haunting, horrible cry stole all strength from the ermine’s body
even though it was cut short.  He missed the next jump, claws sliding
hopelessly on the icy rooftop, dropping him to the ground in a heap.  The
former assassin wretched as he attempted to rise, body contorting as his
mind flashed with visions only he could see.



<i> A baroness whose only crime was being born a commoner…  A revolutionary
with high hopes and a righteous cause…  A merchant, ruthless in business
but a gentleman at home…  A thirteen year old boy, a victim of his uncle’s
lust for power…  A mage, his last moments spent shielding his child and
apprentice from a hail of thrown daggers…</i>



Lois gasped, crying with a wretched agony that only he could feel as the
flashbacks came like nightmares that were only too real.  Their voices
joined with the scream he had heard, echoing through his skull as memory
united with the present to torment him.  With the pain unrelenting, the
former assassin growled in agony and frustration, forcing himself to his
paws.  The tears that clouded his vision were no longer due only to the
cruelty of the wind.  He gasped in agony once more before stumbling out
into the snow-whipped street.



There were more cries now, the voice so strong that the words nearly
survived the savage winds.  Lightning lit the sky once again, followed in
dangerously close succession by a roll of thunder.  Lois kept moving until
he was brought up short by another barrier.  He cursed between gasping
breaths and once more used it to mount the rooftops.  He steadied himself
for a few moments before moving on, following the constant screams as well
as he could through the force of the wind.  The screams became wilder until
they joined with the howling of the wind.



One more rooftop…  Climb to the peak, slide down the other side…



The ermine took the moment’s respite to breathe, heavy gasps filling his
burning lungs.  He coughed as he turned, and looked down on the scene below
him, eyes wide with shock and horror.



The scene below was a masterpiece of chaos, painted in blood and snow.  A
building lay in pieces, discarded planks and bricks scattered too
thoroughly to blame on the storm.  Some of the rubble even seemed to
smolder, lines of smoke rising in spiraling eddies as the wind caught them
and bore them about.  Laying on the snow a few paces from the building were
a pair of forms, intertwined with no grace as they turned the snow red with
their mixing blood.



Those who still lived below were speaking, but the former assassin failed
to notice the words.  Instead, his gaze was transfixed in horror on the man
furthest from his perch, his dark hair hanging down onto the plates of his
pitch black armor.  Lois did not recognize him, but the man saw him sliding
to a stop at the edge of the roof, and the moment he spared to glance at
the ermine and sneer in his direction sent a gut-wrenching chill up his
spine.



Fortunately, the man was otherwise occupied, and his gaze was elsewhere in
moments.  In one hand he held a cruel black chain, its links wreathed in a
simmering flame.  At the end of the chain and bound in a collar was the
largest wolf Lois had ever seen, white but for a single, sloppy streak of
red.  Another chain, this one silver that gleamed with inner radiance, held
to the collar of the wolf as well, and led to a regal lady whose back was
turned to Lois.  He could only see her gleaming armor from where he watched.



Whatever dispute held the two gods on the corner of the street reached its
conclusion, though not without several more harsh words exchanged.  Their
argument over, the two withdrew from the others who had gathered.  In a
flash half of light and half of shadow, the two were gone, and the wolf
with them.  The wail that lingered behind chilled Lois anew, but he was
able to choke back the flood of memories that tried to cripple him again.



Composing himself, he dropped to street level, approaching a side where no
one would see him fall.  He doubted that anyone present would react well to
a man coming out of nowhere at this point.  Instead of approaching them, he
moved towards the bodies, allowing his face to fall into a shocked
expression.  It was surprisingly easy after what he had just witnessed.



He could tell from the roof that the two were dead.  There was far too much
red in the nearby snow for either of them to be alive.  The ermine simply
wished to maintain a believable alibi.



He did not go unnoticed by the small crowd that had gathered before his
arrival, and he found himself at the point of several swords before he
could even stand.  He collapsed back into the snow, raising his arms to
show them that his paws were empty.



“Peace!” he exclaimed with a desperate tone to his voice.  “I heard
screaming.  What happened?”



“Go home,” a grizzled raccoon told him gruffly.  He held the hilt of a
well-kept katana in his paw, although he turned the blade to allow Lois to
stand.  “You cannot do anything to help here.”



A female cat gave the raccoon a sidelong look before turning to speak to
Lois herself.  Although he was no religious man himself, Lois could tell by
her clothing that she was a Lightbringer.  “Take care, sir.  There are
Daedra about this evening.  I suggest you return home with all haste and
remain there for the rest of the night.”



“I think the Daedra have gone,” another young woman suggested grimly from
beside the cat.  “They have what they were here for.”



Lois looked between them.  “What were they here for?  Did the Daedra kill
that man and the girl?”



The raccoon still did not seem amused, but he was the first to speak.  “No,
that was Master Snow’s—“



“Yes.”  A black leopard stalked up beside the raccoon and glared at him
angrily.  “Yes, the Daedra killed them.”  He kept the glare focused on the
raccoon for several more moments before he stalked in another direction,
fuming silently to himself as he paced through the swirling snow.  He
kicked a drift with one paw, the cloud of snow he raised spiraling in the
wind.



Lois watched him with his jaw agape.  “Master Snow?”  He looked at the
raccoon, but the man turned away, mumbling about having said too much.  The
Lightbringers had turned away as well, and Lois remained alone, standing in
the snow.



He wouldn’t have…  He couldn’t have…



But the words of the raccoon rung with truth, and Lois could not deny it.  How
could that sort of man do such a thing?  What could have happened to make
him so desperate?



Lois finally staggered off, back towards the upper Keep.  Paula would be
waiting, and she would begin to wonder if he did not return soon. Lois had
to know what had happened, but there were no more answers to be found
tonight.  He stumbled back up the road, wind blowing through his fur in
gusts.  He was not certain what he had just witnessed, but it made his head
swim.  The smith involved with Daedra?  It didn’t seem right.



The ermine set his jaw.  There were too many questions here.  He would find
the answers.
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