Silver Blades: Dread Handed

Part 3, Section 3 - Off to see the Lizard

Pertuli.

I heaved up to Rip as he stood, alarmed and wary, at the entryway to Orluz Manor. Strangely, he was sniffing the air.

"Elders, Rip," I panted. "That was invigorating. Really. The humors are flowing ... but can we please pause and think for a moment before—" Riposte clapped a hand over my mouth, silencing me rudely.

I followed his gaze to discover a streak of blood smeared ominously across the left side of the doorway. The portal itself was ajar, wordlessly inviting us to be party to the disaster that had begun without us.

"Proof that it pays to arrive fashionably late," I observed. Rip ignored me, and stepped silently within, holding his spear out before him into the gloom.

The house was quiet as a corpse. The normal exhalations of air from room to room had stilled and the usual lifeblood of servants and pets bustling about the building had drained away. We found the decomposing remains of a servant in the foyer, which added an unwelcome olfactory aspect to the metaphor.

"Gods!" Rip muttered, covering his nose with the back of one arm.

"Oh no!" I gasped in a whispered exclamation of horror. "It's poor old Gates, the butler." Ordevard Gates had grown very old in recent years and his limp, an old war wound, had pained him greatly. "I suppose he won't be worrying about his leg any longer. Where is it, anyway?" His various parts were strewn or smeared over much of the chamber.

Rip gave me a tight lipped scowl and moved deeper into the house.

"Where do you think Orluz is?" I asked. "Her chambers? Pantry? If she's gone scaly but hasn't left the house, she's bound to be hungry."

"She's this way," he said, lifting his nose to test the air. "Conservatory, I think."

"That," I said, "is very unnerving."

"Shut up."

The Riposte Clasicant I knew—when sober—was a thinking man; someone to become lost in his own head as his A'Shee-working of a brain hinged in upon itself; layers upon layers of gears cogitating down avenues of strategy and life's great mysteries on routes too convoluted or obscure for mere mortals such as I to comprehend. This new, impulsive, decisive Rip was dangerous and thrilling. I knew we were heading for disaster, but as if watching a dragon strike, I couldn't pull my eyes away.

Tyella would have liked this new Riposte. She liked danger, and his subdued nature had always been a source of mild irritation to her.

We moved as silently as we could toward the music room, and slowed further when we heard angry voices within. The door to the room was open, and as we flattened ourselves against the wall outside, I stifled a cry of alarm as I noticed someone staring out at us at ground level with cold, lifeless eyes.

I clutched Rip's wrist and directed his gaze downward so he wouldn't react in alarm. Seeing the head and the pool of blood it rested in, he just nodded impatiently. He had already seen and discounted Thamine's head, then. Another unfortunate soul gone. I had, on several occasions, flirted mercilessly with the homely maid, trying unsuccessfully to coax her from her shell. She always had been an anxious mess, though given her mistress, who could blame her?

"Look, here! See this?" A savage parody of Balina's voice demanded inside. "Right here is where he bit me, on the back of my hand so I could wear a glove and hide it."

"Ya should've seen a healer!" Ivy's voice returned in a strangled version of her dockyard accent. "This could have been avoided!"

"He was going to marry me," Balina said wistfully, her voice's mien suddenly one of sad regret. There were some treacherous seas of emotion beyond this door. "He was going to save me from my parents and bring me back into the Faranado family like my grandmother. He said together ... no, it doesn't matter."