Chapter Thirty Five; Allies and Enemies.
This is the penultimate chapter then. One more to go…"Such a waste." Alanna said regretfully
"They were fools. Pawns." Duke Roger said dismissively.
"But there were the only ones who stood by you." She smirked at him. "Funny that."
"Whore!" He cursed. "Pauper's bastard!"
"You don't know anything about me." She said, unperturbed as she began to walk around him. "Why should I care what you think?"
Outwardly he was still and calm, but his words sought to find a crack in her armour.
"Beggar! Slut!"
Alanna drew her sword from beneath her skirt where she had put it as she left the library. The hilt had been hidden at the base of her spine while the blade went up the back of her bodice, secured in a special sheath.
Roger's eyes widened slightly as she saw the sword appear from behind her back. He had assumed all this time that his nemesis was a man and that the girl who had stolen his books was hired help. He had thought the noble girl who had shot the bolt from the crossbow had just been firing wildly. But now he saw that she was a trained, disciplined fighter and she was the one who had been fighting him all this time. Her eyes were a clear amethyst, glinting with rage and confidence. She held the sword naturally, daring him to underestimate her. But Roger wasn't helpless, although the mages' spells had done a good job, leeching his Gift from him, he had been known as a great swordsman in his youth.
Alanna sized him up once more, a smile playing around her lips.
"Come on then." She urged, standing low, sword ready at centre. He was desperate she knew, his plans had been ripped out from beneath him, and he could almost see his victory moving further away from him. His desperation would make him a dangerous and unpredictable opponent.
"You'll never defeat me!" he hissed.
"Really?" She raised a sceptical eyebrow. "I think I already have. All my friends know about your plans."
"How will your friends stop me?" He asked arrogantly.
"Well, I imagine Gary will be telling his father about now. Jon will let his parents know as well soon. Sir Myles will be told by Alex and Raoul as soon as they spot him and this," She gestured around them at the devastation and the bodies, "proves my case more conclusively than your books ever could."
"What!" Roger advanced towards her. "You stole my books?"
"Yes." She didn't move from her position as he came closer. "And Master Raquel put a protection and cloaking spell upon them. They are safe now."
With an animal shriek of rage Roger slashed at her with his sword. Alanna dodged the blow; there was no point wasting her energy. She was quite good with a sword, but not up to the Conté Duke's standards. He would try and use his magic as well as his extra height against her. She would have to be very fast and cunning to defeat him. She parried another cut and sliced back at him. It was always better to attack than to defend. If you fought defensively then, at worst you weren't the better fighter, and at best you wore them down.
Roger fell back slightly as she cut at his arms and legs in an attempt to disable him. With a grunt, he knocked her blade aside and thrust his into her sword arm, just above the elbow, in the same muscle that had been wounded before. Alanna cried out in pain, her sword drooping in her grip. Roger aimed directly for her blade and knocking it out of her hand.
Unarmed now, she was weaker than him. Clutching her wounded arm close to her body, she drew her last knife. It was meant for throwing though, and the handle was too short to stab and use in close battle. As Roger came to tower over her, lifting his sword high to sever her head from her body, she leapt up from her protective crouch to hit him beneath his chin with her shoulder and to stab him deeply in his shoulder. Now he too was unable to use a sword properly. Alanna herself was wielding her knife in her left hand. She gave him no time to recover, throwing the knife hard into his thigh and kicking him over to lie flat on the ground, blood trickling through his fingers as he clutched his wound. As he struggled to rise, Alanna looked around for a weapon. Her sword seemed to have fallen off the balcony, and her knife was still in the Duke's leg.
She caught sight of her crushed crossbow lying beneath the last man she had killed. She pulled the wreckage out from beneath his body and turned to face Roger, who was holding his sword awkwardly in his left hand. He was murmuring spell words, Alanna could feel the power gathering around her. The leeching spells Thom and Raquel had used had helped her stay alive so far, but they hadn't stolen all his magic and he was prepared to risk using some of his life force to stop her.
Before he could finish the spell, Alanna threw herself at him and looped the metal bowstring around his neck. The wire cut into her hands painfully as Roger thrashed, struggling to throw her off his back. They crashed through an open door, back into the main ballroom and men everywhere froze as they saw the two locked in combat.
Alanna's hands were slick with blood both from her hands and Roger's neck, but still she clung on, biting her lip to curb the pain she felt. Roger was choking now, suffocated by the wire wrapped around his throat and the blood flooding into his lungs.
Alanna jerked the wire noose tighter and as she fell to the ground, dying, she released the bowstring and bent over him.
"That 'whore' and 'beggar's brat' just saved all of Tortall from you." She hissed in his ear. "How does that feel? And for your information my name is Lady Alanna of Trebond and Silvereves and my family are in the book of Gold."
He muttered something, she waited from him to finish, straining to understand his words, to find if they were another spell, then when he stopped muttering, she turned her back in disgust. She moved to walk away, only to find five Eldorne men and Delia throwing themselves at her as they saw their fallen master.
Suddenly a wind began to circle the hall, throwing everyone in it around like paper dolls. Alanna leant into the gale, fighting to see what had caused the wind. Then she saw; Roger's bloodstained hand had fallen upon a symbol written on the floor. Previously it had been hidden beneath a rug, but now that was pulled away, it was in plain sight. She threw herself away from her attacker, flinging herself into the wind, clutching on to anything stationary to pull herself closer. When she reached the Duke's body she kicked his hand, still bleeding orange fire, away from the symbol. The winds howled around the room once more, shifting anything and every one who wasn't holding on to something, before dying down.
She studied the symbol and her heart faltered. It was one of the characters that were written around the Gate of Idramm. She looked up and saw orange light coming from all around the room. She dropped to her knees in an attempt to rub out the design. Before she could do so, a heavy weight landed on her back, kicking and clawing. Twisting in her captor's grip she brought herself face to face with Lady Delia. As soon as she could, Delia, her green eyes wide and deranged, tried to claw Alanna's eyes out.
Alanna caught sight of the Dragon fighting off a noble man and yelled out to him
"The circle Liam! Break the circle!"
She heard him yell something back, although the words were indistinguishable from the shrieks coming out from the Gate. Alanna struggled against Delia for a few seconds more, before finally knocking the Lady unconscious by ramming her head against a pillar.
Alanna turned to see Liam kneeling by the Gate; he reached out with his hand, covered by a bit of cloth, to touch the black symbol. A man leapt for him, sword drawn. Alanna knocked him out of his trajectory, leaving Liam safe as she faced off with the man. She dodged and weaved, stalling for time more than anything else. The man lashed out, his sword catching her palm, opening the wire cuts further, and cutting her cheek. She glanced over her shoulder as she kicked her opponent in the stomach, to see the Dragon rubbing furiously at the marble floor.
Then Alanna's whole world exploded.