Free Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel by Greg Keyes Page A

understood in that moment. She was what he might become after a few years of this. He had seen, however briefly, the hollow place in her, the weariness. He still wasn’t sure if he believed her or if they were on the same side.
    But he didn’t want her to die.
    He looked back up at the sky. Almost time for her to come home, of course. The assassin would know that, too, wouldn’t he?
    He didn’t have any rope or cord. He could make the jump to the window, maybe, but the odds were against it, and it wouldn’t be quiet. But he could jump to the next building, get to her front door before she did, and avoid the whole confrontation.
    But then he saw light in the window—not in the room itself, but diffuse light, coming from another room.
    Muttering a curse, he stepped back a few paces, assessed the distance, and leapt.
    His toes hit the window ledge and he curled forward, elbows over his eyes. Glass panes shattered but the wooden frame did not, and so he bounced back, spine toward the street thirty feet below. He kicked a foot through one of the broken panes and managed to hook it on the wood, which swung him back and smacked his shoulders into the brick. Gasping, he jerked up, tightening his stomach muscles, and drew himself up to the window.
    By the time he got it open, of course, someone was coming for him.
    He dove past and to the side of the dark blur and rolledtoward the lantern-lit room farther in, drawing his knife. He absently noticed that his hands were slick with blood.
    A knife thudded into the floor next to him as he scrambled up, and the assassin was close behind; he had a dark blade in his left hand and was drawing a bright one with his right from beneath his jerkin. Colin’s breath rushed in, and for an instant everything slowed and golden light seemed to infuse the room. His arms moved but he seemed outside of it. The next thing he knew, he hit the wall hard, pain trying to make him scream as he fell, but his throat wouldn’t open to let it out.
    His attacker was leaning against a bookcase across the room. He made a sort of snarling sound and took one, two steps toward him. With the third step his knee kept bending and he slammed face-first into the floor. Colin could see the bloody point of his knife standing out between the downed man’s shoulder blades.
    Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet, feeling them wobble beneath him. Under his breath he said a little prayer to Dibella, but he couldn’t tell if she heard. He wasn’t sure how long he could stand. He made it to the fallen man, though, and took the black knife from his hand. He stuck it in between the first two vertebrae below the skull and wiggled it. Then he had a look at himself.
    His arms were cut up from the window, nothing so deep as to be dangerous. The assassin’s other knife had driven through the pectoral muscle where it stretched up to meet his shoulder. The feeling of the impact came back to him, and he realized the blade must have hit a bone and skipped up instead of slipping through to his heart. In any event, if the dagger hadn’t been poisoned, he was probably going to survive.
    Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw a second man, coming from the direction of the window, and he tried to turn, far too slowly.
    But there was a clap like thunder, and the man went staggeringback, and in the next instant something appeared, something horrible. Colin had a glimpse of slits of green balefire, scales, and claws like sickles. The man almost managed to scream before his lungs and viscera were spattered across the room. Then the thing turned on Colin, snarling.
    “Stop!” a voice shouted, and the daedra stopped, panting.
    Arese stood behind him, her eyes wider than he had ever seen them. It made her look very young. The sleeve of her white shirt was soaked in blood, and a red patch on her temple and eye would probably soon prove itself a bruise.
    “Hunt and guard,” she told the daedra, and it turned and reluctantly slouched back