Chapter III: The Black Lotus (Cont)

“Who the hell are they!?” Blackheart drew his sword and hand-scythe and backed slowly away from the four cloaked figures now kneeling a few feet in from of him. Sand ran off their jet black cloaks and their studded-black leather armor hinted at their near invincibility to a blade.

“They’re assassins!” Adelia looked back towards the broken gate, trying to consider which fate was a faster death.

Blackheart observed the figures who in unison rose to their full height. Two were young men with brown hair slicked back, cut very short. They would have been twins if it wasn’t for the fact that each had decided to take a liking to a very different type of weapon. The first brandished a large battle axe which he spun with a nonchalant twirl as the other drew a rapier blade and cut the air meditatively. One’s hood remained shrouding his identity, though in the flickering torch light, Blackheart could make out a tight mask shrouding all but his very narrow eyes. A small blade attached to each of his wrists glinted in the light as he took fighting stance. The fourth was a bald woman with a missing eye, she brandished a three-headed flail which she spun above her head with an obvious intent. Her hand’s were the only one’s not gloved and upon one was a green tattoo. Blackheart groaned, “So they exist, too, then?”

Adelia looked back at Blackheart who was too far away for her to reach before the four, “Afraid so, but we won’t much longer if we stay.”

Blackheart looked back at Adelia who was trying to pry the gates open with her hands. “You aren’t going to get those open, and you can’t fit through the spaces, they’re webbed remember. It’ll take a lot of work to get those bars wrenched apart,” Blackheart continued, eyeing the four who still remained waiting. “Are they going to attack or what?”

Adelia sighed, “They want me alive, so if we don’t attack, they won’t kill us, or at least not me,” she said, kicking at the gate. A small, dilapidated bar broke away from the gate as she continued to kick away.

Blackheart looked up at the roof, the fountain’s trap door remained hanging open, “And they broke the trap door,” he rasped angrily. “Well then, Adelia, you work on those bars and since they don’t look like the kind who take more away alive then they have to, I’ll do the stupid thing.” Blackheart grinned devilishly despite the sickening dread. And then he whistled.

Adelia looked up to see the flash of chaos that suddenly ensued as a large furry body crashed through the partially open trap door and landed among the four Black Lotus assassins, scattering them in a partially dazzled manner.

The axe-toting twin rolled away and rose in time to see his other half trying to wrench his sword arm out from under Kiki’s front left paw. He was having difficulty since he was also dodging a tongue that was firing out of the beasts mouth and jabbing the ground all around him. The problem with the Black Lotus was that the original families were the only members of the society and no new family was allowed in to the secret circle. Thus, a family would have several children and all became the next generation of the society, creating a conflict of interest and an unneeded distraction that the Black Lotus had unfortunately not experienced yet. Unfortunately for the axe assassin, that is, because as his attention was focused on trying to figure out how to stop Kiki from devouring his brother, he didn’t notice Blackheart swing the flat of his sword.

Adelia watched with a growing admiration and almost adoration as Blackheart spun away from the brained assassin who lay motionless on the ground and parried the hooded assassin’s dagger blades. It was clear that the hooded figure was the more skilled fighter, since Blackheart was committing all his strength to keeping on his feet as the hooded figure used every inch of his body to beat Blackheart down. Adelia looked at the ground for a moment and swallowed. She really had nothing to lose since Baen wanted her alive, so with that she lunged towards the fighting pair.

Two feet from her starting point she hit the dirt, casting up a cloud of dirt. “There were four, that’s right,” she coughed rolling away from a flail crashing down with deadly intent. “HEY! You need me alive,” Adelia yelled scrambling to her feet. Adelia watched the woman for a moment as she leered with her yellow teeth, “Then again, how alive is the question, isn’t it?” Adelia dodged as the woman swung ferociously over and over, trying to catch Adelia with her flail. Adelia, not adept with a sword to say the least, swung once or twice before her sword was cast aside by the crazed assassin. “I thought assassins were supposed to be highly trained, calm, rational types!”