Chapter 21: The Snake in the Garden, Part 4

Xigbar didn't know who he was more angry at—the thin-skinned, ham-handed, vindictive idiot who'd just stabbed him in the back, or himself for not seeing this coming. All he was sure was that he was pissed, and that if he didn't start moving right now, he was dead.

With the sound of footsteps fast approaching, he made a beeline for the closest window. It wasn't one made to be opened, so he broke it open with the pommel of his knife, and used the blade to clear the edges of the glass until he had room to get through without slicing himself to ribbons.

He was just out and onto the windowsill when the first urks, lead by an elite, arrived at the portcullis. Despite himself, Xigbar grinned, as the thing that had trapped him became his salvation. While the urks worked the mechanism to raise the portcullis, Xigbar clambered out and onto the steeply slanted roof waiting for him.

He kept his eyes trained straight ahead, pointedly avoiding the dizzying drop waiting for him if his footing faltered even a little. Without even thinking, he spotted a ledge that looked thick enough to grab on an adjacent tower, and with a running start of two steps, he leapt for it.

Only once he was in the air did it occur to him that he'd never actually tried to make a jump this far before.

He came up a full foot short, plummeting down past his intended target. By the time he was close enough to the tower to grab anything, he was already in freefall, and his hands gripped a windowsill for only an instant before he bounced off, palms ringing in pain.

He finally landed, ribs first, on a flying buttress, more than a dozen feet lower than he'd anticipated, with the wind knocked out of him and an eyefull of the still yawning chasm of empty air beneath him.

His arms wrapped instinctively around the buttress, stopping him from falling any further as he desperately tried to force air back into his lungs. Eventually, he was able to breathe again, and hauled himself up onto his feet, balancing on the narrow stonework.

That was when the first shot whizzed past his head. A burning white crossbolt whistled through the air, striking the tower behind Xigbar and leaving a scorch mark around where it embedded itself.

Xigbar slid down the buttress as more shots began to follow, several hitting where he'd been only an instant earlier.

His eyes mapped out a route across the architecture as he moved, trying to stay ahead of the keep's security. The buttress brought him to a narrow ledge that hugged the keep walls, taking him around a corner and to a gap short enough for him to jump. From there, the intricate engravings in the edifice of the keep became handholds that let him scale the side of the building, carrying him up and onto a roof big enough to run on.

All around him as he ran, figures appeared in windows, some calling him out, some letting loose with crossbows. In the back of his mind, Xigbar wondered if all of this was providing a distraction to make Arthur's escape easier, which was even more infuriating.

By the time he reached a rooftop garden on a balcony he was hoping to re-enter the keep through, he was already deep into fantasies of kicking Arthur in the balls with a pair of steel toed boots. That, and the lingering headache from his own blow to the head, distracted him from the other figure that had joined him until it was too late.

Xigbar felt the punch before he ever saw it. He pinwheeled in the air, landing sprawled out on his back. Before he could get back to his feet, the world's heaviest boot planted itself on him.

The man staring down at Xigbar looked more lithe than bulky, but his foot pressed down on Xigbar's chest like a sack of bricks. He wore dark brown leather armor, accented here and there with trim or belts in lighter earthen tones. His dark, unkempt hair fell loose over his tan face, nearly obscuring his eyes and matching the vibe of his short, ragged beard.

"Hello," Xigbar grunted, before driving his knife into the man's ankle.

The point sank through the leather of the man's boot—and then stopped, as if Xigbar had stabbed a rock. Xigbar glanced from the knife to the man, lips pursed in a silent "Oh."

The kick knocked the knife from Xigbar's hand, but gave him the space to slither out from underneath the man. He was on his feet in an instant, drawing his back up knife from its sheath on his hip, and he spun around to face—nothing.

The man was gone. Nothing but empty space where he'd been standing.

Xigbar froze, confused. And then a kick found his ribs.

Once again, by the time he turned around, he saw nothing, but he felt a punch to the back of his head. His first guess, coming through a fog of throbbing pain, was invisibility, but it was hard to feel sure. The mystery man hit even harder than Arthur, with blows that felt like dense stone coming down on him. His head was swimming, and he was pretty sure at least some of his ribs were broken.

He scurried backward while sweeping his surroundings for any sign of where his opponent was, and only just managed to see what came next.

The man came up from the floor, as if passing through the solid stone from somewhere below. His hand clamped around Xigbar's wrist like a vice, immobilizing his knife hand. Xigbar didn't waste a second as pain lanced up his arm, dropping the knife into his free hand and using it to cut a slash across the man's face.

It sparked off his skin.

The man gave him a contemptuous look, and then delivered a headbutt that felt like running face first into a brick wall.

Xibgar ended up on the floor, crawling away and bleeding profusely from a broken nose. He could hear the man's heavy footsteps plodding after him, slow and unbothered. Desperate, Xigbar drew his back-up back-up knife from his boot, and threw it. It pinged off the man's cheek, not even leaving a scratch.

"Oh come on," Xigbar muttered. "That's not even fair."

"Life isn't fair."

The man's voice was as hard as his expression, with a gravel undertone to it. He loomed over Xigbar like an executioner.

"It's over," the man said. He reached down, grabbing Xigbar by the scruff of his shirt and hauling him off his feet. "You're coming with me."

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Xigbar's whole body felt like it was made of pain, and his vision kept losing focus. He was down three knives, and wasn't dumb enough to think his third back-up knife would do any better than its predecessors. But even still, he smiled.

He really did hate to lose all of his stuff again, but it beat letting the Chosen's thugs throw him into gods-knew where.

"Alright. I see your impending imprisonment, and I raise you—"

Xigbar's whole form shrank away, leaving the man clutching nothing but an empty shirt as a blue and silver snake dropped out of the bottom. It slithered just far enough away to give Xigbar time to transform back into human form, completely naked and making a beeline for the edge of the balcony, ignoring the screaming pain in his ribs as he ran. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Xigbar finally caught the man in the act of sinking into the ground, like a stone into water.

Xigbar jumped mid stride, just as the mystery man burst out of the ground directly underneath him. Now that he knew the man's tricks, they were easier to anticipate. He didn't think he'd pull it off everytime, but once was all he needed. 

Instead of being caught in the man's surprise grasp, Xigbar kicked off the man's face, using him as a stepping stone to jump clear of the balcony's railing, and plummet through the air into the bushes of the courtyard below. By the time he hit the brush, he was already a snake again. 

In terms of landings, it could have been softer.

But he lived, and as shouts rang out through the keep, Xigbar wasted no time in slithering off and into the night.

---

Xigbar transformed back into his human form in an alleyway in Lochmire keep, his ribs filled with constant, shooting pain. He stumbled and staggered with every step, unsure whether it was more from the concussion, or just a more general pain in his everything. Blood dribbled down his face, his vison wouldn't focus, and he was still naked.

But with every unsteady step, he put the Chosen's keep further behind him.

Arthur Masters dominated his thoughts as he limped along. Of all the treacherous, nepotistically inducted morons the Pavers sported in their ranks, Xigbar had to have gotten stuck with him. Too easy to mock, too surly to take the mocking, and slimy and short tempered enough to try and do something about it.

And the most galling part? The motherfucker had actually halfway pulled his little scheme off. He used Xigbar to complete the job—and Xigbar knew for a fact Arthur never could have pulled off the job without him—then threw him under the bus. Not just for the Chosen's guards either. He was going to try to brand Xigbar a traitor to the guild.

If they believed him—and Xigbar was trying to tell himself that was a big if—then he was a dead man walking. He could try and call Arthur out on his bullshit, but that would mean putting the decision of who was right and who was dead in the guild's hands. And backstabbing shitstain as he was, Arthur was right about one thing. He'd been in the guild a lot longer than Xigbar. He had friends in the guild. Family in the guild. 

Larian might not like his little brother, but he'd still been extremely lenient on him. Any other Paver with Arthur's track record would have been thrown out on their ass or killed a long time ago, but Arthur was still around. Still getting put in charge of sects.

But Xigbar? Xigbar was an outsider. No friends. No family. Not even from this continent.

No, he couldn't go back to the guild. It would be a death sentence. His blood boiled at the thought of Arthur, fucking Arthur, actually managing to manuever him into getting effectively expelled from the guild, and probably marked for death.

He was going to get that son of a bitch for this. He was going to revisit every humiliation and broken bone he'd gotten tonight back on that piece of shit and then some. Then he was going to burn the Pavers to the fucking ground for being the kind of organization that kept around and empowered people like Arthur. And then he was going to take all the money he plundered from their burning corpse, and spend it bedding every hooker from here to Ludport.

But, first thing's first.

"I gotta find a church . . ."

---

Garem stood on a roof overlooking the guards' efforts to sweep the gardens for their snake intruder, knowing full well that if they hadn't found him by now, they weren't likely going to.

"The Chosen's not going to like this."

The feminine voice came from behind him. Emily made no sound as she joined him on the roof, and a bit of pride flickered in Garem's heart at that. Young as she was, the girl was talented, and had taken his instruction well over the years.

"No," Garem agreed. "He won't."

A sizable portion of the Chosen's personal treasury had been looted. Not enough to make a major difference in ongoing finances, but more than enough to injure the man's pride. And, if Garem's suspicions were correct, more than enough to cover the payment to the Pavers Guild that the Chosen had been intentionally delaying.

Garem had warned the man, but Emir’s arrogance was matched only by his greed. He was exactly the sort of man Garem would expect to stage a coup against one of the most benevolent local regimes Garem had encountered in Xykesh. His skin crawled at the knowledge that he'd helped make that happen.

He consoled himself with the knowledge that he wouldn't have to keep serving Emir for long. A few months, maybe a year, and Garem's real employer would be ready to move on from Lochmire, and the need to keep Emir propped up would be gone.

He was looking forward to that day. But for now, he had to go back to the Chosen, and report what the Pavers Guild had done. What a pleasant conversation that was going to be.

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