Chapter 10 - Part 20

Lord Ibraim himself stood in the small garden behind the house, noting the blood on the ground. Someone had been killed here, just because word of the Aundarian invasion could not be allowed to spread.

“I had no choice,” Ibraim whispered to the blood that cried out to him from the ground. “If either the druidess or the dragon-touched halfling gets wind of us, they will flee, and it will all have been for naught.”

The blood was not moved by his plea of necessity. Ibraim sighed and closed his eyes. He hated this war. It had to won quickly, no matter what the cost. This was like surgery, and some healthy tissue had to be cut away so that the disease would not progress.

Footsteps behind him. He turned and he saw Kleris. The spymaster was strangely attired, wearing scale mail and a helmet. A heavy shield was on his back, ready for use, and a large sword was sheathed down his hip.

“Expecting trouble on the front lines, oh Royal Eye?” Ibraim said, with a slight smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in scale, you preferred a scout’s leather last time I saw you in armor, how long ago was it?”

“Very long, Lord Ibraim,” Kleris said, dipping his head. “Lord, there is something that you really need to see in the main living room of the house.”

“Oh?” something about Kleris’ tone was off. If Ibraim hadn’t known him for years he would have thought that the spymaster was suppressing the urge to gloat.

“You really need to see for yourself, sir,” Kleris said.

Ibraim shrugged, and walked up the short steps into the house, two quick paces bringing him around the corner to the large living area. The place where the family that had been here had played and talked, before they were murdered on his orders.

The smell hit him first. He had passed by a slaughterhouse as a boy, and that thick, cloying smell of masses of sticky blood never left his memory. His eyes widened at the sight of all the men. The two artificers, the junior wizards, the few footmen and others that were strewn about, broken and shattered like eggshells before a windstorm.

“Khyber, Fury, Keeper, and Jarot’s broken dreams,” whispered Ibraim. Years of training had his blade, a thing wrapped in shadowstuff, drawn and ready to use without him actually thinking about doing it. He turned around to the footsteps.

Kleris was chuckling quietly, even as he no longer was Kleris. His form was shifting, bright orange and black stripes growing on his skin, which then sprouted tawny fur. His wrists twisted and whirled, growing backwards without losing his grip on either sword or shield. Even as he began to speak, his face and head became that of a tiger. “In your honor, as a noble, I thought I would let you know.”

“What are you?” Ibraim said, readying his guard. “Where is Kleris?”

“Kleris has been dead for close to six months now,” the tiger-thing grinned, readying his own stance. “I have been him since then. I was the one who let the Mosaic Committee know about the halfling, I was the one who made arrangements with the hidden, ambitious ones within the warforged ranks, and I am the one who poisoned your flagship’s sailors.” He made a jab at Ibraim, and the Aundairian noble jumped back. “Oh, and I’m the one who sent forth six bottles filled with information about this top secret missions adrift, plus another via House Orien courier to House Deneith’s sentinel marshalls.” It laughed richly. “You idiotic, tiny, worthless races have forgotten who truly owns this rock you call Eberron.”

The tiger-thing slashed at him, locking blades. Its strength and skill were phenomenal.

Ibraim spun loose, and jumped up on a blood-soaked couch, slashing within inches of the thing’s face. “How long has your race been moving about in secret, keeping the war going?”

It laughed again, and slashed at his feet. He jumped up in the air, and it blocked another jab of his with its shield. “Oh, your kind keeps the war going, Ibraim. Mine just prods it now and then to make sure it doesn’t lose momentum.”

It spun and reversed itself, and he felt himself being lifted into the air by the long blade buried within his side. “You – you – ” Ibraim sputtered, trying to make some sense out of the thing in front of him that belonged in a zoo, not in armor. Oddly he was too shocked to feel pain.

The tiger-thing pulled the blade out and whipped it around, decapitating the Aundarian lord.