far more widely than they’d been doing lately before he’d expect Hoy! Desperately he flung up his sword and struck away the blade reaching for him. She was trying to slay him, and if he didn’t move right swift-like-!
That blade came at him again. He parried desperately, staggering rather dazedly to his feet and discovering his left ankle hurt like tomb-fire, trying to beat back this lass while he got his wits and balance back.
Steel met steel again, right in front of his eyes, and his parry was a shade too slow. Her sword leaped over his to slice along his forehead like real fire.
Bareskar roared in startled pain; he’d made telsword without ever suffering so much as a scratch, let alone That cursed sword was coming at him again!
Dripping his blood, too, it was! He struck it aside savagely and backed away, suddenly blind. Something wet and stinging was in his eyes, was-he wiped at it, desperately, and found himself looking at blood, running from his fingers. Tluining hrast!
A door banged, nearby, and then another. Bareskar wiped the back of his hand across his brows, to try to see what She’d slashed open his forehead, stlarning near blinding him, and now she was tearing open door after door along the passage! What by all the Watching Gods was she doing?
She rushed at him again, bare chest bobbing distractingly. Bareskar wiped at his forehead again so he could see it-uh, her-better, hefted his sword, and prepared to meet her charge.
He parried her first thrust with surprising ease, grinned at her shocked expression, and thrust back at her. She gave ground, one arm waving wildly as she fought for balance, and Bareskar’s grin widened as he pressed her, striking her sword aside once-twice.
They fenced, swords clanging and rebounding in a ringing fury, and the telsword saw his half-naked foe holding her side again, pain creasing her face as they fought, as her sword started to waver.
Aye, this was it! Bareskar blinked away stinging blood again, wiped his face frantically, and charged at her, hacking and chopping as she staggered back. They were hard by the doors she’d been opening, now; she’d strike the passage wall if she retreated farther. He knew he was grinning as he wiped at his forehead again, then lunged Suddenly there was no half-naked lass in front of him, only darkness, and there was no floor under his right boot.
Pennae shook her head as she kicked the Purple Dragon’s backside as hard as she knew how, and watched him plunge helplessly down out of sight with a shout of fear and pain, riding the laundry chute she’d found down into deeper cellars.
Such an overconfident dolt, to swallow her sudden oh-so-wounded act, and believe his bladework was suddenly so superior, after she’d just wounded him at will. Some fools will believe anything.
Yet there was a kingdom to save, and she would fall over if she went on running around and bleeding for long enough. She had to get gone, now.
None of these doors had held stairs leading upward, but there were a lot of doors she hadn’t tried yet.
Pennae sprinted down the passage to the next few. Darkness. Locked. Locked. Darkness; crowded room, not stairs. Locked. Locked.
She ran out of doors, flung up her hands in exasperation, and ran on, around another corner, seeking more doors. Not that she expected to discover any shortage. They seemed to positively love doors in this Palace. Locked ones, in particular.
“I should just run away,” Bravran Merendil sobbed to himself, cowering in the darkness of another Palace linen cupboard. “Just run from all this, and let Yarl get himself killed and Blacksilver get hacked down while I’m far away-and then go back to Mother and tell her it all failed. At least I’ll still be alive.”
Then a cold and all too familiar voice spoke in his head, sharp and clear and seething with fury.
“If you do that,” Lady Imbressa Merendil told her stunned, terrified son, “don’t expect to live for a day longer than it will take me to breed you with some suitable wench. I need Merendil heirs, not spineless worms.”
Bravran Merendil thought it a very good moment to faint again, and did so. This time, he didn’t even need a vial of deadsleep.
“Nine Hells afire!” The Purple Dragon bearing the glowstone swore in amazement as much as anger, and broke into a run, his five fellows drawing their swords and hastening after him.
Two Purple Dragons were sprawled on the passage floor, amid much blood.
“I thought I heard battle-din!” the Dragon with the glowstone exclaimed, peering all around for any sign of a foe.
Nothing. Just a swordcaptain lying facedown in a pool of blood, and this-Strelgar moved a little, then, and moaned.
“Sword!” They snapped at him, seeing his rank but not knowing his name. “Soldier! What happened?”
The wounded Dragon groaned again, eyes fluttering, and drooled blood as they gently tugged him up to a sitting position, cradling his shoulders to keep him from sagging back. “What’s your name?”
“Strelgar am I,” Strelgar mumbled slowly, and groaned again, retching blood. “Hurt. Hurt bad.”
The lionar with the glowstone had seen sorely wounded Dragons a time or two before. He looked up at the five men under his command and shook his head in disagreement. This one just thought he was “hurt bad.”
“What happened?” he said, more loudly and firmly. this time.
Strelgar groaned, and then managed to mumble, “Well… uh… there was this lass, see… half-naked she was…”
There were times when Wizard of War Tathanter Doarmond hated the good looks and superbly impressive voice the gods had gifted him with-and this was one of them. Even the comforting banter of his best friend and fellow war wizard Malvert Lulleer was doing nothing to quell his nervousness. Grand Court events were always headaches, and matters weren’t helped by racing gossip insisting that someone had already managed to butcher dozens of war wizards, leaving the Dragondown Chambers looking like a slaughterhouse, and that someone was probably running around somewhere under Tathanter’s feet right now, hurling spells even Vangerdahast couldn’t quell.
And none of the bitter “well, well, you haughty-robes finally got yours” chuckles from various Purple Dragons were helping, either. Tathanter was finally starting to understand why the soldiers were all so surly. Once the fighting and running around started, it would be fine-provided he wasn’t blown apart or maimed, right off-but this hrasted waiting…
He and Malvert stood in the Longstride Hall, with its high, beautifully painted ceiling, just outside the doors of King Duar’s Hall. Until further orders arrived, they were apparently guarding a rather splendid pair of arched, gilded double doors.
Doors that stood open, with their fellow Purple Dragon guards’ shoulders keeping them that way, to allow seemingly endless droves of glittering-gowned ladies and their splendidly attired escorts to parade grandly in and out of the ballroom, gossiping-and laughing, and occasionally shrieking with malicious mirth-their scented and primped heads off.
There were more than thousand of these early arrivals in the hall already, and more were arriving in stlarning droves with every passing breath. Some idiot servant had decided to start serving them wine, which meant the hurling and fights and bodices being torn off and all of that would be starting just about the time the newly arrived envoy from Silverymoon was formally received. As the Dragon guards had already sourly noted.
“Always get someone’s sick all over my best uniform, at one of these,” Telsword Torlgrel Dunmoon growled. “Hope their High-n’-Mightynesses like the smell of it.”
“These hrasted revels always go wrong, one way or another,” Tathanter said, adjusting his jet-black-with- silver-trim uniform for the thousandth time.
“Of course,” the oldest Purple Dragon murmured. “So just watch and enjoy and wait for the disaster-and then enjoy that. ”
“Tath, if you don’t stop fiddling with that codpiece, the hrasted thing’s going to fall off,” Malvert warned.
“Don’t tempt me,” Tathanter muttered.
Florin had tried three of the faint, dim glowstones before he found one he could wrench out of its iron cage, high up on the passage wall. Its glow was feeble indeed, but it was all he wanted. He sought light enough to see by, not the making of himself into a bright beacon.
He hurried along passages, glowstone in one hand and drawn sword in the other, seeking stairs up, or some sign of the other Knights.
Instead, he found the passage he’d been traversing for a long time suddenly ended in a short flight of steps
