could see a stab wound in the slablike muscles of his back.
“Can you fly?” he asked, his voice quiet. He closed his eyes for a moment, and the chair in his hands abruptly twisted and writhed, suddenly as lithe as a willow branch. The various pieces of the chair elongated and wound and braided themselves together into a thick fighting cudgel as if of their own volition, a massively heavy club that would prove deadly when driven by an earthcrafter’s physical strength. “Can you fly?” he asked again.
“I’m not leaving you.”
He shot a quick glance at her. “Can you carry my sister out?”
Amara grimaced and shook her head. “I don’t think so. Cirrus was hurt. I don’t think I could lift myself out yet, much less her.”
“I’ve got her, Bernard,” Giraldi said, grimacing. “But you should take her. I’ll rear-guard you while both of you get out.”
Bernard shook his head. “We stay together. Either of you ever seen men fight like these?”
“No,” Amara said.
“No, sir.”
“There are a lot of them,” Bernard commented. Indeed, the nearest band of half a dozen had made their way down the pathway above them and were nearly close enough to rush them. At least a dozen more blocked their escape and slowly closed so that they would attack in time with the first group. Fires burned on some of the upper levels. A pall of smoke tainted the air and concealed the bloody stars.
“Yes,” Amara agreed quietly. She hated that her voice shook with her fear, but she could not stop it. “Whoever they are.”
Bernard put his back to Amara’s, facing the men coming from farther down the slope. “I’ll set Brutus on them,” he said quietly. “Try to knock them down. We’ll try to run through them.”
The plan was hopeless. Brutus, though terribly powerful, was anything but swift, and would be of only limited use in close-quarters combat. Not only that, but employing the fury on its own would rob Bernard of the lion’s share of the strength the fury could provide him. These men, whoever they were, were capable and madly determined. They would never reach the door.
But what else could they do? Their only other option was to fight back-to-back until they were slain. Bernard’s plan offered at least a wisp of hope, strictly speaking, but Amara knew that it was only a matter of choosing between final deeds before the end.
“Ready?” he asked quietly.
Amara ground her teeth. “I love you.”
He let out the low, satisfied growl he often uttered after kissing her, and she could hear the fighting grin that stretched his lips. “And I you.”
She heard him take a deep breath, just as the men above them prepared to leap down, and he let out a roar. “Brutus!”
Once again, the great stone hound bounded up out of the earth. It lurched toward the group coming up the rocky shelf, and bayed, its mountainous voice the basso rumble of stones grating together under enormous strain. The first assassin raised his weapon, but the stone hound simply hurtled into him, ducking its head and slamming its shoulder into the man’s chest. Blood burst from the assassin’s mouth in a sudden froth. Brutus swung his great head and threw the assassin back into a pair of his companions.
One of them screamed and fell from the ledge to land upon his back on a stone standing a few inches out of the surface of the water. He let out a short gasp and slipped limply beneath the pool’s surface. The other stumbled, and Brutus plunged over the man, paws landing like sledgehammers, crushing the assassin into a shapeless mass.
Bernard charged in behind Brutus, and Amara darted along in his wake. Behind her, the men on the upper level had paused for a second at Bernard’s yell, then leapt forward in what seemed a superhuman grace and disdain for pain or death.
Bernard’s cudgel struck down another attacker on the first swing, but she heard the snarl of pain the movement drew from him. Brutus continued his charge, but by then, the assassins farther back in the line had spotted the stone hound. One of the men bounded over Brutus entirely, invisible to the earth fury while airborne, and engaged Bernard. Behind him, other assassins rapidly backed up to the wooden bridge, getting their feet up off the stone of the grotto.
Amara heard a breath behind her and barely had time to turn and parry a heavy slash from the nearest of the attackers behind them. The force of the blow knocked her back into Bernard, whose forward momentum had died as the assassin in front of him menaced him with his blade. Amara parried another blow, her back to her husband’s, calling upon Cirrus to provide whatever quickness he could to her limbs. Her riposte was a silver-and-scarlet blur of bloodied steel that struck the man on the neck, just above the steel collar.
Her cut had been too shallow to open the artery in the man’s neck, but he let out a shout that sounded more like a sound of pleasure than agony and pressed his attack more furiously than ever.
Bernard let out a shout of effort, followed by a heavy thudding sound behind her. Steel whistled in the air, and Bernard cried out again.
“No!” Amara screamed, terror making her voice shrill.
And then, behind the attackers coming down the walkway at her, Amara saw a man in the somewhat grimy white tunic of a cook or scullion, in contrast to the clean white smocks that the assassins wore. He was of medium height and build, and his hair was long, shaggy, and greying. He landed on the walkway in catlike silence, a worn old
The man dropped as if he’d simply fallen asleep. His killer glided forward to the next assassin on the walkway, dark eyes gleaming behind the curtain of ragged hair. The next man in line fell to the same stroke, but dropped his blade to the stone with a clatter of metal, and the next assassin in the line whirled around.
“Fade?” Amara shouted, parrying again.
The slave never slowed. A quick bob to one side stirred some of the hair from around his face, revealing the hideous scarring on one entire cheek, the Legions’ brand burned into cowards who had fled the field of battle. Fade’s blade moved in graceful, deceptively lazy-looking circles, shattering the assassin’s weapon with contemptuous ease, then sheared off the top quarter of the man’s skull on the next stroke. Fade kicked the dying man into the one in front of him and simply strode down the rock walkway. His sword arm moved in small, simple, unspectacular-looking movements, shattering blades and bodies with equal, dispassionate ease.
Assassins fell, every single injury a blow to the neck or head, and when Fade’s sword struck them they did not move. Ever again.
The last one, Amara’s opponent, shot a swift glance over his shoulder. Amara howled her defiance and swung her captured, curved blade with both hands. She struck true, and buried the weapon to the width of its blade in the assassin’s skull. The man stiffened and twitched, sword falling from his fingers.
Fade gripped the sword’s hilt and ripped it from the assassin’s skull, simultaneously sending him falling from the ledge, then murmured, “Excuse me, Countess.”
Amara gaped for a second, stunned, then slipped aside to let Fade through. The slave nudged Bernard to one side, into the grotto wall, caught a blow intended for the Steadholder on his blade. Fade moved forward to the wooden walkway like a dancer, swords spinning, blocking, killing. The assassins pressed forward to attack.
They died. They never came close to touching him.
In the space of four or five seconds, Fade slew nine or ten men, left a legless casualty on the stone behind him for Brutus to crush, and kicked another off the walkway and into the pool below. On the far side of the walkway, he dropped into a crouch, swords ready, eyes scanning all around him.
“F-fade?” Bernard rumbled.
“Bring Isana,” the slave snapped to them. “Countess, take the lead.” He dropped the curved sword and glided back over the bridge to get a shoulder beneath Bernard’s arm and assist the dazed Count to his feet.
“Fade?” Bernard said again, his voice weak and confused. “You have a sword?”
The man did not answer Bernard. “We have to get them out of here, now,” he told Amara. “Move and stay together.”
Amara nodded and managed to gather up the Steadholder and stagger along behind the swordsman.
“What are you doing here?” Bernard asked. “I thought you were in the capital, Fade?”
“Be quiet, Count,” Fade said. “You’re losing blood. Save your strength.”
