"As for the rest of you, I'm sorry it has come to this. I must respectfully ask you to take the remainder of your meeting somewhere else."
With that, Hetta turned and began to exit.
The two guards didn't move.
"I'm sorry, Madam Matrell, but it isn't quite going to work out like that," one of them said. "Please, go back into the room."
"Well, I'm glad we finally got a chance to gather for this meeting," one of the thugs surrounding Kovrim said with a laugh. "I've been waiting for this for quite a while." He motioned toward Vambran and Xaphira. "Come on over. Join our little party."
Vambran approached cautiously, freeing his crossbow from the hook on his belt and cocking it in one smooth motion. Xaphira fanned out to the opposite side of the alley, staying even with Vambran but not too close, giving them both room to fight.
"Oh, now, that's not very sociable," the man said in response to Vambran loading his weapon. "You really might want to rethink that. Someone could get hurt."
Vambran could see then that his uncle was unarmed, standing in the midst of the men with his arms stretched out to his sides, as though he had already surrendered to them.
"Uncle Kovrim? You all right?"
Before the priest could answer, the man who'd been acting as spokesman for the rest of the group responded, "Of course he's all right. We haven't harmed a hair on his balding head. Yet." The thug turned and leveled his crossbow at Vambran. "But that might change very soon, if you don't see reason and lay down your weapon."
Vambran halted his advance and studied his opponent, considering. If he gave in to the demand, Kovrim would almost certainly die. The men had no doubt been ordered to hunt him down and prevent him from sharing the information he had with anyone else. But if the lieutenant and his aunt decided to fight it out with them, Kovrim would likely fall within the first moments of the battle anyway. Either choice seemed like a bad proposition for the mercenary's mentor. Vambran chose to stall.
"It's too late," he said, hoping to bluff the thug. "I already know the news. Even as we speak, the alliance of the three Houses is being dissolved. The fight is already over; you just don't know it yet."
The lead thug laughed and said, "That's a pretty good story, my friend, but sadly, I recognize a lie when I hear one. I would know if something was going wrong back at your estate. I'd have heard about such events as quickly as they occurred."
Vambran knew it was a possibility that the fellow was in some sort of magical communication with his employers, but he'd hoped for the outside chance that he wasn't. Still, Vambran refused to diminish any of his family's chances by acting hastily.
"Maybe your lord just can't think straight," said Vambran. "Maybe he got caught so unaware that he never had the chance to warn you."
"Sort of like how I caught you and your grandmother unaware earlier tonight?" the thug responded.
Vambran's eyes narrowed, and his jaw jutted out in anger.
"You," was all he said.
"Me," the thug replied. "It's so easy to assassinate someone when you have the house guards on your side. They just let me through, easy as you please."
Vambran raised his crossbow, sighting down it at the thug, who raised his eyebrows.
"Careful, boy, you might accidentally shoot someone important," the thug said, smiling knowingly. "Wouldn't want that to happen again, would we?"
Off to his right, the lieutenant heard Xaphira gasp softly, but then she said, "Vambran, don't be a fool."
The mercenary only stood there, looking past the fletching of the bolt at the thug who had shot his grandmother, wondering how the man before him might know his secret. He could barely restrain himself from firing.
"You think you can hit me somewhere that will keep me from shooting back?" The thug asked, aiming his own crossbow. "We just might kill each other, but then, where would that leave your uncle?"
"I will see your blood on the cobblestones tonight, one way or another," Vambran said menacingly, but he lowered the weapon.
Pulling the bolt free, he set the crossbow itself down on the street and shoved it away with his foot. Then he slipped his sword free and let it fall, too. Finally, with the bolt in his hand, he took a few steps closer to the thug, his arms out to his sides, showing that he was unarmed.
"You're smarter than I was led to believe," the thug said. "Maybe I'll let you live, give you a chance to work for me," he added, smiling. "But then, you already did. You just don't know it."
He recentered Vambran in his sights.
At that moment, a mist began to rise from the street, much to the surprise and dismay of the thugs gathered in a cluster near Kovrim. Their shouts distracted their leader enough to cause him to turn around to see what the fuss was about. At the same instant, Vambran brought his crossbow bolt up so that it rested freely atop his open palm, with him looking down its length at his opponent. He spoke a quick phrase, enchanting the bolt with arcane dweomers. The bolt flew from his hand, straight toward the leader, just as he was turning around again.
The thug must have had cat's blood running in his veins, for he somehow managed to shift his weight enough at the last possible moment, so that the bolt struck him in the arm rather than squarely in the chest. As the thug reeled from the blow, staggering wide-eyed back a step, he reflexively pulled the trigger on his own crossbow, letting the missile fly. Vambran had anticipated the possibility and slid off to the side, but he'd guessed wrong, turning into the wild shot rather than away from it. The bolt struck him in the shoulder, just below the edge of his armor, sinking into his flesh.
The mercenary cried out, dropping to one knee from the pain. He looked over at the leader and saw that the man had dropped as well, clutching at his own arm. Behind him, there were shouts of confusion and pain, but the other thugs were enveloped in a thick mist that engulfed them completely. Vambran could see nothing. He took a deep breath and rose to both feet again, reaching down with his good arm to retrieve his sword. He grasped it and walked with a purpose over to the wounded leader, who was warily watching him approach.
"I told you," Vambran said, raising high his blade, "that I would see your blood spilled tonight. Too bad you didn't listen." The mercenary officer loomed over his foe, his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Who told you about it?" he demanded.
The thug laughed and said, "No one, foolish boy. I watched it with my own eyes."
Vambran snarled in fury and swung his sword down, aiming for the thug's neck, but at that moment, the man uttered some arcane phrase and simply vanished before Vambran's eyes. The mercenary's blade sliced through thin air.
"Damnation!" the lieutenant screamed, spinning around, trying to see where his would-be opponent had fled.
There was no sign of the man.
At that point, another one of the thugs staggered out of the obscuring vapors and, seeing Vambran, the man hefted his own sword and came at the mercenary. Growling, Vambran turned to fight. As they danced on the cobblestones, the lieutenant tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his shoulder where the bolt still protruded. Several times, the thug lunged in toward that side, perhaps hoping to force Vambran to jerk back out of the way and cause himself pain. On the third such lunge, though, Vambran was ready for it and spun completely around so that he ended up behind the thug, slashing into the small of the man's back with his own blade. Vambran's foe cried out in pain and fell to the street.
Vambran was already turning to look for another opponent to vent his anger on, noticing then that the misty vapors had begun to dissipate, drifting away with the perpetual breezes that blew through Arrabar. The lieutenant could see more figures, many of them surrounding Kovrim, who had summoned a cloud of coins with which to fight. Kovrim kept the glowing, incorporeal weapons dancing before himself, using them exclusively defensively. Vambran also noticed that Xaphira had managed to slip inside the circle of thugs and was standing back to back with Kovrim, using only her hands and feet to keep the approaching thugs at bay. Several of the attackers were lying about the alley, some of them still, others moaning in pain. Six or seven still stood, though, and they seemed to have gotten the idea that if they timed their attacks to occur simultaneously they might get inside the pair's defenses.