The Librarian and the Assassin, a Sapphic Romance at the End of the World - 39. Chapter 39 - Far Away

Many leagues away from the island of Stonespire, and far inland on the continent where the palace of the king and queen of Falland stood, news of their slaughtered nobles had finally reached them.

“What are you talking about, Corporal Ungo?” the queen asked in a growl that was like the rumble of thunder. She was glaring at the man who had just delivered his message. “You’ve been hunting that little otter for months!”

Corporal Ungo replied to the queen in a quavering voice. “It was early in the afternoon when Captain Dakrin was killed. We had been at the docks waiting for her, and when she didn’t come back to the ship, we went looking for her. We found her body in an alleyway near where Baby Twenty had been staying, and we attacked the city. That evening, we went on the hunt for the princess, but I’m the only one who made it.”

The group of Fallandish nobles who had followed Bix to Stonespire simply assumed she had somehow managed to eliminate Captain Dakrin. They had no way of knowing about Tawni, and Tawni was unaware that Bix’s past was much more complex than she had revealed.

The queen’s eyes flamed with fury. “Why were you spared, corporal?! How did you manage to get away?”

“I… I was in the st-streets,” he stammered, “when the others were somehow killed. I was on my own. It was getting late, and I hadn’t found any sign of the princess, so I returned to the ship, but the others were already dead. I have no idea where the princess got the poison darts.”

“Poison darts?” the queen questioned. “Did that little otter have help? Were there soldiers or an armed force in the city? Are the islanders warriors?”

Corporal Ungo did not have the answers to how his fellow nobles had been so overwhelmingly defeated, just that nine of the eleven slain were found with darts in them. “I wasn’t able to get away from the island until three days later, when a cargo ship made a delivery and was willing to take me aboard.”

The queen’s fingers were gripping into the arms of her throne, and her knuckles were white. “How could one person possibly take out more than ten officers?! How did that little otter do this?” She turned to her husband. “Nothing to say, darling?” The queen sucked a ragged breath through her teeth and roared, “I want that city burned to the ground!” She focused on a woman standing off to one side. “Commander Liae, you will take Corporal Ungo back to that island. Bring your garrison and deal with that rabblerouser. I want that little otter.” She then looked around her court. “Where’s Xylda?! Someone, fetch me the chemist!”

“I’m here, milady!” Xylda called out from the far end of the hall, and she approached the pair of thrones.

Xylda was a young transgender woman who moved with an almost ethereal grace. She was tall and thin, with long, dark hair that cascaded to her shoulders. The knuckles of her right hand were tattooed with symbols for the five elements; earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. Her left fingers had a star, a sun, a crescent moon, a tree, and a mushroom tattooed on them. Xylda was wearing a fitted black dress that stretched from her collarbones to her knees. Over it was draped a lace shawl that was the color of obsidian accented with metallic red thread. A wide-brimmed hat sat atop her head, and crimson heels adorned her feet.

“How may I be of service to my lords?” she asked.

“Go with Commander Liae,” the queen ordered. “If that little otter has figured out some sort of poison, maybe you can discover its antidote. I want to know how she killed so many of our hardened soldiers, and I want her to pay.”

“As milady wishes,” Xylda replied with a gracious bow.

The following morning, Commander Liae’s company was preparing her ship, the River Blade, for its voyage. Corporal Ungo and Xylda were aboard, and the commander was barking orders at her crew.

“Get those ropes tied off! Is that sail patched yet? One of you, climb the riggings and prep the upper sheets for departure!”

In less than an hour, Commander Liae’s ship was cruising away from the river harbor, sailing downstream and leaving the palace of Falland behind. It would be a three-day journey before reaching the sea, and the island of Stonespire was going to require a further six full days of travel on the open ocean.

Corporal Ungo fit right in with Commander Liae’s soldiers. He had spent time sailing when he first joined the queen and king’s court, and he enjoyed being back on a ship.

The three days of river travel were uneventful, and the weather was pleasant for all of it. The River Blade reached the coast in the middle of the afternoon on the third day, and it began to sail out to sea. The ship’s heading was south and slightly east, and the evening sun started to set off the starboard side over the ocean.

The fourth morning arrived, and there was no sign of land in any direction. A drenching storm started pouring down before noon, but it had soon moved out to another part of the ocean.

Xylda kept to her private chambers for most of the journey. She was not a seawoman, and even though she had not been ill from the ship’s rocking, it made her perpetually dizzy and uncomfortable. She felt like she was most in control while alone in her room, and she spent the majority of her time aboard the River Blade by herself.

Another three days passed with several more minor storms that soaked the ship but did no damage.

On the eighth morning, one of the crewmembers spotted an island on the horizon and bellowed from the crowsnest, “Land ho!”

It was not the island of Stonespire, but it was the nearest settled island on the way there, the island of Grey Rock. The ship was getting close to its destination.

Corporal Ungo helped the crew prepare for the arrival at the minor port. He was ready to get to Stonespire, and for the chaos he was going to wreak upon the inhabitants who he knew were helping Bix.

The River Blade was docked, and the crew launched into their duties. Food and freshwater were loaded onboard as barrels of waste were hauled off. New ropes were purchased, and the exterior of the ship’s hull received applications of waterproof pitch over several worn sections. In less than ninety minutes, the ship was leaving the island behind.

The final leg of the journey took all of one day and most of a second, and the island of Stonespire was being pummeled by its daily storm when Commander Liae and her crew got their first glimpse of their final destination.

The storm was already moving back out to sea as the River Blade entered the Stonespire harbor. Those aboard disembarked in dinghies and headed to shore. They landed, and the crew formed ranks with Commander Liae before them. Corporal Ungo was among the commander’s men, and Xylda was standing in the shade off to one side of the dock.

“Crew,” Commander Liae barked, “you know why we’re here. We’re looking for Baby Twenty, and these islanders are all our enemies. They’ve been harboring a fugitive who…” The woman paused.

An animalistic rumbling was suddenly coming from a street that led toward the docks.

Commander Liae turned around, and she was startled and alarmed to see a mob of armed guards descending upon her and her crew.

“To battle!” one of her men cried.

Commander Liae’s eyes flashed to Corporal Ungo. “Ungo, what the hell is this?!”

Corporal Ungo looked stunned, and he did not have a chance to guess about who these furious citizens could be; the Fallandish invaders were under attack!

Each individual in the oncoming Stonespirian horde was holding a brutal weapon. Some brandished clubs, while others ran with swords held aloft above their heads. A few warriors were carrying lengths of chain, or planks of wood, or sledgehammers, and several had even armed themselves with farming tools like they were weapons of war.

“Draw swords!” Commander Liae ordered, and her crew came to blows with the raging islanders.

Metal clanged, and the voices of many savaged invaders screamed in agony. For a matter of moments, the quiet streets of the region by the harbor were a warzone.

As quickly as it started, the madness was ended.

Corporal Ungo had been slain in the brawl, along with every one of the Fallandish soldiers. Several locals had also fallen in the foray, but the protectors of the island had dominated the battle and won without question.

Commander Liae lay dying. “Who are you?” she rasped up at the defenders.

No one answered.

Thus, the final Fallandish soldier died.

The defenders were a contingent of private guards and mercenaries, who had been sent by several of the primary families of Stonespire, to stop the invasion. The Kentonworths and Whites had recently agreed to work together, and the remaining Grondsens had soon joined the alliance, unaware that they were now among those who were secretly paying to have them killed. None of the Stonespire locals knew that the foreigners had come because of a personal vendetta for the Fallandish queen and king, but when the flag of Falland had been spotted flying from the River Blade as it approached the island, the guards were dispatched to stop the invasion.

However, no one had been aware that a lone individual slipped away from the carnage unnoticed.

Xylda glanced over her shoulder only once to look back at the slaughter of her fellow countrymen, but she was not concerned with their well-being. Her mission had not been known by those who now lay dead. Xylda’s goals were secret to her. None who traveled with her from Falland had been privy to her hidden objectives.

The city of Stonespire was unknown to Xylda, but she had spotted the estates that sat on the mountain’s slopes while still aboard the River Blade, and that’s where she was headed first. It took her an hour of walking to reach one of the manors.

A guard stationed out front greeted her. “Good day to you, my lady. Do you have an appointment?”

“I do not,” Xylda replied. She held her head high. “I am trying to find the killer.”

The guard’s hand came to the hilt of his sword. “What killer?”

Xylda raised a palm in his direction in a placating gesture. “I understand that a group of foreigners was recently slain.”

The guard frowned in confusion. “Oh, them?”

Xylda was more clever than most, and she quickly comprehended the man’s meaning. “There have been others? More recent kills?”

The man nodded. “Someone’s been assassinating the old families of Stonespire.”

Xylda looked back over her shoulder at the city. Is the killer really Baby Twenty? she thought to herself. She faced the guard again. “I’m going to find the assassin.”

“The ghost,” the man corrected.

Xylda raised an eyebrow. “Ghost?”

“That’s what we’ve been calling the assassin.”

“Well, I’m going to find this ghost,” Xylda declared. “Any information your lords can share with me would be greatly helpful.”

The guard bowed. “Please, wait here, my lady. I’ll tell Madam Fifer why you’ve come. May I have your name?”

Xylda smiled. “I am the Countess Xylda Spellwood of Falland.”

He turned and left her, and he returned several minutes later. “Madam Fifer will see you.” He bowed again and waved for Xylda to enter the grand house.

Madam Fifer stepped into the foyer and declared, “When my guardsman informed me of your arrival a moment ago, the first thing I asked him was, ‘Is it the ghost?’ He said you were too tall to be the ghost, and he was confident your intentions are not to kill me. I understand you are in fact trying to find the ghost for yourself. Color me intrigued!”

“Yes, milady,” Xylda replied, and she curtsied, “I’d appreciate any information you have about the ghost. Do you know what the individual looks like?”

Madam Fifer shrugged. “The ghost was spotted when Doylithia Grondsen was killed, but no one who got a good look survived. We only know for sure that the ghost is tiny.”

“Tiny?” Xylda questioned.

“Petite,” Madam Fifer clarified, “whoever they are, they’re little, short and skinny. The guards who did not get a good look but survived said the person seemed childish, but the ghost has assassinated three people!”

“The ghost killed eleven nobles from my country.”

Madam Fifer took a sharp breath. “I’m so sorry. No one in Family Fifer has been killed… yet, but that doesn’t mean we’re not next! One of the Whites and two of the Grondsens have been killed.”

Xylda pulled a pen and notebook from her bag, and she wrote down the family names. “Any idea why they were targeted?”

“I think the ghost got a taste for killing when they slaughtered all those nobles from your land.” Madam Fifer shook her head. “And now they’re after us!”

“Is there a top family on this island?” Xylda asked.

Madam Fifer bristled. “Family Fifer is a proud and ancient house from…”

“I’m sure Family Fifer is very important,” Xylda interjected. “I’m simply asking which family the people of this island views as the top. Is it the Fifers?”

Xylda had not realized she was in one of the lesser homes, but Madam Fifer admitted the truth about her family’s position.

“The Fifers were never as powerful as most of the other families. The Whites are probably the top, and one of them has just been murdered!”

“Which other families should I know about?” Xylda asked. “I intend on questioning them as well.”

A few minutes later, Xylda was making her way around the mountain toward the Whites’ estate.

The killer can’t be Baby Twenty, Xylda thought, but has she hooked up with some sort of assassin?

It was not long before Xylda reached the locked gates that surrounded the grand home of Family White.

A less-friendly guard was stationed out front.

“Stop where you are!” he ordered. “State your name and business.”

“I am the Countess Xylda Spellwood,” she declared, “and I have been sent by the queen and king of Falland to find the ghost!”