Spring 73: parry
Most cherished Zann,
Today I was leading a formation of Rosolla Guards, some regular guards and some of Daust’s people, in a ceremony where a young lauran woman was to inherit a title. This was in a large chamber at the top of Comet Halls. If I understood it right, her parents, the Lord and Lady of Spicyway, weren’t dead, but there were other titles that the family owned. And now that Pixiana was old enough, she could have one of them.
So we were all there, including old Princess Shonne of the Valnelatars to officiate, and Pixiana’s friends and suitors giggling in the gallery, and a delegation of Amaydyans with their formal masks. I was standing left of the dais, with Chath on the right, and another couple of guards by each of the doors, bored. Lord Spicyway had just begun his speech, when there was a crash from above: someone or something had just broken through the high window.
I pulled my cape over my face to protect against falling glass. A thump: that was a person landing on the floor. “Never!” a lauran voice said. “Pixiana will never be Countess Wanderpath! That title belongs to the Helmcreeks family!”
There was some shouting and chaos, and I dropped my cape to see the intruder, an intrepid lauran man in a hooded mask, facing off with his sword against one of Pixiana’s attendants, her brother or something. The intruder stabbed the attendant in the leg quite neatly, dropping him to the floor.
Chath said, “Try me, you swashbuckling pissbag,” and stepped in the intruder’s way, sword drawn. Before anything else could happen I grabbed Chath by the back of his pajazuse and yanked him to the floor. He fell with a startled “meep”. The intruder bounded over him to the dais.
“How dare you!” shouted Pixiana, and drew her own sword on the intruder. They clashed blades. Pixiana tried a tricky move that I probably should know the name of, and the intruder spun around and parried it. She gasped. “That parry! Elfonso–is it you?”
“Yes!” the intruder said, throwing off his mask and stabbing another of Pixiana’s cousins. “I am revealed! It is I, Elfonso of the Sparkling Isles!”
Pixiana threw her arms around him and kissed him. A trio of Rosolla Guards (including one of Daust’s men–what could he have been thinking?) started forward to seize him, or possibly both of them. I slid a bench across the center aisle and they stumbled against it. A couple of Amaydyans stepped smartly out of the way. There was now a shiny white protective haze around Princess Shonne, who had retreated to the back of the dais.
“I don’t want to be the Countess of Wanderpath! Elfonso, take me away!”
“My love!” Elfonso flipped his cloak inside out and it turned into large yellow-and-blue wings. He punched Lord Spicyway in the nose, embraced Pixiana, and the two of them flew out the high window.
Everyone was still milling around, and Chath grabbed my arm. “Did you do that? I had him!”
“I liked when you called him a pissbag. That was great. Don’t ever do anything like that again. Now could you go get some healers? I think everyone here is still alive. And cleaners!” I told him. There really was a lot of blood on the floor.
The other guards also had some complaints for me. But, later on, Candur slapped me on the back and told me I had done a magnificent job and gave me a five-cup bonus.
Love,
Ybel
