14. Paray Vellast
Paray Vellast
Miles
T he moons clung to a shroud of clouds, leaving the manicured grounds of Halebourne Hall in a suffocating gloom as Miles approached. It suited his mood just fine.
Gabriel was with the crew of eight mercenaries he’d been rounding up while Miles had been attempting to round up Genna.
Gabriel stood with his arms crossed, leather armor molded to his musculature, indecently tight and cut perfectly to his form.
The mercs shifted around them, their own gear functional but ill-fitting by comparison.
They were professionals of the “don’t ask, just get paid” variety, clad in boiled leather that creaked when they moved.
Gabriel’s gaze swept the darkness behind Miles, hunting for Genna’s silhouette. Finding only empty air, he stiffened. He murmured a curt order to the mercenaries and stalked over, his boots silent on the damp grass.
“Where is she?” Gabriel asked, voice pitched low enough to die before it reached the mercenaries. “Did Bria know?”
“Bria was in a panic when I told her Genna hadn’t been answering my Whisperstone calls. She hasn’t seen her since they each left for work this morning. She blamed us, and I don’t think I should repeat aloud the phrases she used to do so.”
Bria was probably right. If Genna’s disappearance wasn’t related to Vellast’s problems with them, it would be an astonishing coincidence.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “And Viz?”
“Viz didn’t have a location for Genna either.
But we’re still on,” Miles said, cutting Gabriel off before the panic could set in.
He pulled Gabriel a few steps further from the mercenaries, lowering his voice to a murmur that wouldn’t carry.
“I convinced him you were hiring enough help. Our objective has just expanded. We are to rescue Genna if Vellast has her… So long as it doesn’t compromise the primary mission. ”
Gabriel stared at him, blinking, before unleashing a stream of profanity so creative and biologically improbable it bordered on art.
He invoked the Regent, a goat, the questionable lineage of the entire judicial system, and several acts that were physically impossible without high-level transmutation magic.
Miles let him vent. There was no point in arguing with the storm; you just had to let it blow itself out.
While Gabriel poetically dissected Viz’s moral failings, Miles calmed himself by unnecessarily refamiliarizing himself with the stones, metal etchings, and inlaid-pigment runes of his quarterstaff.
He’d crafted it himself, he’d wielded it in war, and he could cast every spell in it with his eyes closed if he had to.
He hoped he wouldn’t have to.
He felt odd wearing a Guild caster’s coat while wielding a war caster’s staff.
Such an implement was rarely seen off a battlefield—overkill for a civilian practitioner’s ordinary needs.
But tonight wasn’t ordinary, and his military coat wasn’t an option.
He wasn’t here as a representative of the military, and, regardless, Gabriel had sliced his service coat up to make the rig he’d worn the first time they’d come to Halebourne.
Still, it was good to be fully armed again. He was done with trotting around in a fancy coat and clumsy satchel or rolling around on the ground in pajamas. He was eager to show Vellast’s thugs what a prepared battle mage could do.
“Are you finished?” Miles asked when Gabriel finally stopped to inhale.
“No,” Gabriel spat, eyes glittering with a mix of rage and terrified understanding. “But I’m done shouting. Fine. Let’s get on with it, then.”
They returned to their hired blades, and Gabriel’s voice cut through the murmurs.
“Right. Listen up, because I’m only explaining this once.
” He turned, sweeping his gaze over the group.
“We’re here for two things: Lord Vellast, dead if possible, and his suspected hostage, Gennavin Paystone, definitely alive.
The Order’s handling the rest of his little empire tonight, but this place? This is ours.”
Miles stepped up and cleared his throat.
“You are here to cover our back, keep a path of retreat clear, and restrain anyone we subdue. You stay behind us and out of my line of fire. If anyone flanks and comes at you directly, put them down, but don’t kill them unless they force the issue.
You decide what ‘forcing the issue’ means.
If we come running back at you, you cover the retreat.
Those of you who cover the retreat will take and hold positions as we go.
Do not leave them unless you see us or you see or hear my signal: red sparks with a high-pitched whistle. ”
“If you see Genna, you will do anything necessary to free or defend her.” Gabriel described their friend’s appearance and then met the eyes of each of their hired fighters. “Clear?”
The fighters grunted assent, shifting their weapons and checking straps. Gabriel moved among them, making sure everyone had at least one restorative draught tied to their gear in easy reach.
Miles tried to center his mind, to prepare for the split-second decisions that were always required in combat.
He knew if the night demanded a choice—Vellast’s death or Genna’s life—he wouldn’t hesitate to save her.
But the fallout would be catastrophic. Letting the monster walk would enrage Gabriel and incinerate their lifeline to the Regent.
He stared at the looming manor, silently begging fate not to force that calculation.
He knew what he wanted wouldn’t matter.
Because this was Averdon.
Gabriel finished his checks and returned to Miles. “You good?”
Miles exhaled. “As I’ll be.”
The truth was, he wasn’t. Not with Genna missing. She wouldn’t have been taken easily, and her current condition may be poor.
Gabriel searched his eyes, and Miles searched his in return.
There was something raw there, something Miles recognized.
The same thing that had been in his own voice when he’d said together .
The same thing that had made him insist on being here, staff in hand, despite the way his stomach twisted at the thought of what came next.
In the end, they weren’t just here for justice.
They were here for each other, and for their friend.
Gabriel reached out, flicking a piece of invisible lint from the shoulder of Miles’s heavy wool caster’s coat. His nose wrinkled.
“I still think we could have done better than ‘Guild Functionary Chic.’” Gabriel eyed the hated coat with disdain.
Miles swatted his hand away gently. “Fashion isn’t exactly the point tonight, is it? Unless you plan to dazzle Vellast into submission. ”
“Don’t underestimate the intimidating power of looking absolutely delicious while threatening someone’s life,” Gabriel countered, striking a pose that highlighted the dangerous, sleek curve of his leather gear and the daggers at his hip.
Miles opened his mouth to concede the point, but the sound of a clock tower in the distance cut him off.
Clang.
The first low, resonant toll of the tenth bell rolled over the estate walls.
Gabriel dropped the pose instantly. The playful glint in his eyes hardened into cold steel.
“Showtime,” he whispered.
Miles nodded, once. Then he turned back to the mercs, raising his voice. “Move out.”
The group fell into a loose formation behind them, weapons drawn. Time to go to work.
Subtlety died at the side door. Miles shattered the first ward with a resonant thrum from his staff, the magical backlash cracking the oak like dry bone.
Inside, their progress was a chaotic rush. Wards screamed as he triggered them safely from range, the detonations shaking dust from the chandeliers. As they went deeper into Vellast’s domain, they stationed mercs to secure those of Vellast’s thugs they left alive and hold critical points.
They had half their sellswords by the time they reached the Grand Foyer.
“High ground!” Gabriel fired his crossbow at movement on the mezzanine balcony.
The enemy returned a volley, sloppy but deadly enough. Miles slammed the butt of his staff into the marble tile, shouting a word of command. A dome of translucent purple force snapped into existence around them, the bolts skittering harmlessly off its surface like hail on a tin roof.
“My turn,” Miles murmured, the hum of the components embedded in his staff rising in his blood.
He dropped the shield and whipped his staff in a wide arc. A wave of kinetic pressure slammed into the balcony, tearing the railing loose in a shower of plaster and gold leaf. Men shouted as they were thrown backward, their weapons clattering to the floor below .
The mercenaries behind them surged forward, securing the ground floor. It was efficient. It was brutal. But as Miles strode through the drifting dust of his own spell, a cold wire of anxiety tightened beneath his ribs.
There was too little opposition.
To an extent, Miles had expected to steamroll much of Halebourne’s defenses.
The wards and hired swords which even a noble like Vellast could muster couldn’t match what he’d demolished in Lyonnor.
Vellast’s thugs in the rear were keeping their mercs busy, but the guards on the stairs weren’t holding the line; they were firing and falling back. They were retreating toward the office.
“They’re funneling us,” Miles warned, stepping over a groaning mercenary who had foolishly tried to charge them and eaten one of Gabriel’s daggers as payment for his folly. “He wants us inside.”
“Then let’s not keep him waiting,” Gabriel said.
They reached the gallery outside Vellast’s office. The two guards stationed there didn’t even raise their weapons before Miles sent a pulse of somnolence washing over them. They crumpled mid-shout, dropping into deep slumbers before they hit the floor.
He turned to the last mercenary with them. “Hold here. Vellast will be inside.”