be sure.”
The courtier was trembling violently now. “I-uh-ah-yes,” he stammered. “Of course.”
“Good,” the Turmishman snarled. “Now get back to your post or to doing whatever it is that you’re supposed to do, and leave me be. As it is, I’ll have to chase down Blacksilver and not be seen doing it! Go! ”
The courtier bolted out of the room, and the seething Turmishman pounded his fist into his palm and growled, “ Hrast that Merendil bitch and her blood-bond! Without that, I’d slip away now and let that idiot puppy rush to his doom all by himself! This is going to be messy! So messy!”
“You bet it is,” Florin whispered to himself, face white and eyes blazing, as he flipped up the drop-bar, wrenched the door open, and flung himself through it, sword and dagger singing out.
Striding out of the linen room, the Turmishman reached a dimly lit passage beyond, and spun around.
Florin charged, roaring, “For Narantha! You bloody murderer! For Narantha Crownsilver!”
The man paled and stepped back, raising one hand like a claw. From his fingers streaked the bright magical missiles of a battlestrike, lancing into Florin almost before they had time to fly.
Florin groaned at their searing pain, staggered, and struggled on despite rising agony. Reaching the Turmishman, he started hacking.
The man struggled to draw a dagger and to spit out an incantation, but Florin cared not. He sliced and chopped and hewed ruthlessly until fountaining blood stung his eyes and blinded him. Then he went on hacking until there was nothing still standing in the slippery passage but himself.
Panting above a heap of what looked like clumsily butchered meat, in a passage now awash with blood, Florin burst into tears.
“Narantha!” he wept. “This won’t bring you back, but I avenged you! I avenged you! ”
The ready-room had been crowded not so long ago, but all the guards were out at their posts now, leaving behind two bored Purple Dragon lionars.
They were bent over their littered desks, rather wearily writing out duty rosters for when this cursed-by-all- the-gods revel was over, when Florin’s distant shouts arose. The older one looked up and frowned at the din. “Are they letting the madwits out to join the revel too?”
The other lionar shook his head, flung down his quill, and drew his sword. Together they hastened out into the passage.
Amarauna Telfalcon knew two things: she was more frightened than she’d ever been in her life before, and she couldn’t run much farther. She suspected one thing more: that her magical Yassandra the war wizard guise must have melted away. Surely there was no way Terentane could maintain the spell, gasping as they both were, pounding along Palace passages and hallways, running hard past the occasional startled servant.
They’d begun by racing up a long staircase. It alone had left Amarauna’s chest burning, and that had been a long time ago.
Or so it seemed. “Just a little farther, ‘Rauna!” Terentane gasped, from close behind her. “Keep going!”
They were heading for a room he knew, where he could cast a teleportation unobserved, and whisk them back to Marsember. Yet every corner could bring them face to face with Purple Dragons, or a real war wizard, and “Turn here! ’Tis just ahead!”
Blindly Amarauna Telfalcon obeyed, racing past a tapestry with her lover right behind her.
Neither of them noticed the eyeholes in that tapestry, nor the eyes behind them that watched them run past.
And neither of them heard the voice from behind that tapestry that then sneered, “Bumbling novices.”
Chapter 22
Among the orders we hated most
As they always meant greater peril
And more of our blood spilled,
Was any command of, “Take her alive.”
In my years, I learned hard, sharp, and often
That no woman wants to be taken alive.
Pennae staggered, sobbing with pain, and one of the Purple Dragons laughed, “Ha! This shouldn’t take long.”
The oldest of the three shook his head, and waved his sword at his fellows, directing them to spread out, to come at the wounded woman from three sides. “None of that! Disarm her, Strelgar! I want to know just what a lass is doing running around down here half-naked, felling war wizards! A hired slayer, or did we just interrupt a love- quarrel? Or something in between? I want some answers from this one, and so will Vangerdahast, so take her alive!”
Strelgar growled, obviously not liking these orders-and he liked them even less a breath later, when Pennae raced at him, hurled herself at the floor when he slashed viciously at her, rolled in against his shins, and stabbed upward. Hard.
Her blade darted under the edge of his chain mail shirt, up through the leathers beneath, into Strelgar’s belly and the hairy chest above it ere it flashed away again. He shrieked, writhed in pain, and staggered forward, getting in the way of the other two Dragon’s blades as they thrust at Pennae-who’d spun around against Strelgar’s ankles and past him, out of the trap closing in on her.
Both of those Dragons fully expected her to flee, and jostled their ways past Strelgar to give chase, but Pennae whirled around behind Strelgar to stab him low on the seat of his leather pants, and sprang sideways across the path of the rushing Dragon commander, parrying his reaching blade.
Their swords tangled together as he charged on, but Pennae trailed one leg rigidly behind her, catching his running feet at just the right height to collect some severe bruises, and to send him sprawling.
The third Purple Dragon, also running too fast to do anything adroit, ran right over him, tripping and swearing and ending up hopping and staggering awkwardly. Which gave Pennae time enough to land with both knees on the commander’s back and slash his neck open, and then spring up again to deal with the moaning, doubled-over Strelgar. She dealt his temples two furious blows with her sword hilt, and watched him sag senseless to the floor over her shoulder as she finally did what was expected of her: turned and ran down the passage, not taking the time to try to retrieve her leathers from beneath the Dragon commander-and his slowly spreading pool of blood.
The last Dragon gave pursuit, smiling as he saw the running lass ahead of him falter, put a hand to her side, and bring it away dripping with blood. She’d not last long, and then the glory of her capture would be his.
Ahead, she turned a corner, reeling now as if she could barely keep her feet. His grin widened, and he started to hurry.
Aye, Telsword Bareskar of the Palace Guard would win the day! Recognition at last! Recognition finally beyond mere war wizards’ disapproving looks whenever he slouched at a post, or traded saucy words with a passing maid. Oh, this would be Rushing around the corner, his ankles met something hard, thin, and sharp, that shrieked against his metal-shod boots as he toppled helplessly into…
A bone-jarringly hard meeting with the passage floor, bouncing with the wind slammed out of him and his helm tumbling away across the floor. He fought to keep hold of his sword, suddenly aware-with deepening fear-that the wench must have tripped him with her sword, and would probably be coming at him right now! He hoped not; he hoped she’d broken her stlarning arm trying that trick on him, but somehow the gods would have to smile on him
