A Magic Broken by Vox Day Read Free Book Online

his belt and held it out towards the elfess, whose fear had disappeared in an instant, replaced with a feral mask of unmitigated fury as she looked at the Man against the wall.
    “We come to rescue you, Elf.” Lodi spoke Man, assuming she probably understood it. “But before we go, maybe you like to do the honor?”
    She leaped from the bed and snatched the knife from his hand. Then she kneeled down in front of the Man. What she did to him next made Lodi, no stranger to death and violence, a veteran of the siege of Iron Mountain as well as the gladiator stables of Amorr, blanch and look away.
     
    • • •
     
    “Savonian!” The cry awoke Nicolas from what had been a pleasantly deep sleep. “Savonian!” It was the voice of his new master, Quadras Aetias, but the man sounded more furious than frightened.
    “I’m coming, my lord,” he shouted, heedless of the murmured complaints of the two other men with whom he shared the room. He fumbled for his tunic, slipped it over his head, pulled on a pair of trousers, grabbed his sword, still in its scabbard, and ran from the pitch-black room into a hallway lit by a single candle. It didn’t sound as if the house were being attacked, but it was clear that something was amiss.
    Quadras Aetias was standing in the front foyer of the manse. He was speaking with a slender, sweat-drenched young man clad in the livery of the house. Two of his household guards were standing near him with their short blades drawn. Upon seeing Nicolas enter, Aeitias beckoned toward him.
    “Itolos says there has been an attack on the Golden Rose. Captain, I know I can rely on you. I want you to take a coach over there immediately. I can give you five men now, and I’ll send two more coaches with ten more as soon as they can be gathered and armed.”
    Nicolas nodded, confused by what appeared to be the strange coincidence of a second attack on the man. He knew he had nothing to do with this one. “How many of them were there? Did you see any of them?”
    “They say there was ten attackers, maybe more! I didn’t see them, but I heard them fighting with the guards. I didn’t go to see what happened. I’m a harpist, not a warrior! I ran here because I thought Lord Aetias should be told at once.”
    “You did well,” Nicolas assured the young musician before turning to Aetias. “I’ll go, but I think you should come with me in the first coach.”
    “Come with you?”
    “Absolutely. The attack on the Rose may be a diversion. As you recall, the last time you were the target. The natural thing for you to do now is to send off most of your household guard in response to this attack on your property, which would leave you vulnerable here. You stay in the coach with one of the men, and I’ll go inside with the other four. The boy is probably exaggerating their numbers. Assassins wouldn’t usually take more than two or three men to hit a whorehouse, and he didn’t actually see anything.”
    “You think someone might be planning to murder me here?”
    “I couldn’t possibly say, my lord. I only know that if I wanted to strip you of your household defenses, attacking your prize brothel would be an effective way to do it. But no one will know you are in the coach, and secrecy is a better defense than walls.”
    “Very well.” Aetias quickly came to a decision. “Itolos, you will come with us and serve as a guide for the captain. Brand, you come as well while Cornelias wakes the others. Cornelias, have the rest come as soon as they are armed and ready, but leave two positioned outside the front entrance in case anyone is watching it.”
    The frenzied ride to the Golden Rose through the dark and unlit streets was veritably as frightening as any battle in which Nicolas had ever fought. The wheels of the coach clattered over the cobblestoned roads, and Nicolas was repeatedly thrown against one or the other of the guards between whom he was sitting.
    The fact that he didn’t know if they would be