the background. Before the companions knew it, Tamlin spit on his palm and shook hands. 'I say, Zar, this is smashing! We'll stay out of each others' hair and all prosper! My father will be pleased, and so will yours, I'm sure! We need to celebrate-Escevar, what's all that noise?'
The bellows and bleats of livestock had grown so loud the negotiators had to raise their voices. Every animal within blocks, it seemed, bawled or squawled. Farm dogs barked and farmers shouted. Escevar slid down the hall and trotted back. 'Something's spooking the cattle! They're almost breaking down the stalls downstairs! I can't see what's stirring them!'
'Well, go find out!' Tamlin ordered. Escevar trotted off. Zarrin's people shifted weapons. Axe in hand, Vox unlatched the window shutters.
As if shot from a catapult, two winged dogs swooped through the open window and smashed into the swordtrainer.
In that same second, Escevar dashed into the room, grabbed the door, and tried to slam it shut. Three unwinged gnashers bashed the door and knocked the bodyguard sprawling.
Four more gnashers galloped into the room, toenails skittering on the sandy floor. Two more soared through the window.
Everyone fought for their lives.
Tamlin glimpsed brown backs and yellow teeth and smelled the open-sewer stench. Then a gnasher clamped bonebreaking jaws onto his knee-high boot. Another leaped and slammed Tamlin into the back wall. Savage teeth snagged his doublet, and Tamlin was dragged half-over with the dog's weight. A third vaulted its comrade and snapped teeth like a bear trap. Only his wild flailing saved Tamlin's right hand. Tripped by the dog tugging his leg, Tamlin sprawled on hands and one knee, all too aware his throat was vulnerable to attack.
Zarrin snatched up a stool and slammed a dog's head. The stool splintered, but the dog was hammered flat. Snatching out her sword, Zarrin took reckless aim and skewered the gnasher mangling Tamlin's leg. Blood fountained as its throat was pierced. Tamlin kicked the dying dog loose. The other dodged Zarrin's blade, snapping and snarling.
Temporarily free, Tamlin saw they were armpit-deep in rabid killers.
Flat on his back, Vox staved off one beast by the throat while pushing another back with his axe haft. Unable to free his weapon, he kicked a third brute. Escevar danced above him, swiping and slashing at jumping animals with smatchet and sword. A frustrated animal circled Escevar to dive for Vox's face. The swordmaster tried to roll when Escevar was tumbled by a dog ramming his belly.
Escevar flopped over Vox with a pair of snarling dogs atop him. Human and gnasher legs kicked around Vox's head. Escevar's blades swirled like a wind-whipped windmill. The animals gripped by Vox tugged free to escape the circle of steel. The swordsman flipped over on all fours. Escevar was dumped on his side. Dogs pounced on Vox's bearskin back. Swearing like a fury, Escevar stabbed wildly to protect himself and punctured his own thigh with his smatchet. Bleeding, Escevar stabbed, then lunged to gain his feet. Vox bumped his hip, and the two thumped back to back. Where in the name of Seven Sinners was Tamlin?
The Heir of Uskevren lurked behind a table that Zarrin had dumped and dragged against the wall. It formed a solid barricade, but the ends gaped open. A darting dog clamped Zarrin's boot heel. Zarrin shucked the boot but blundered into Tamlin and whacked her nose against the wall. The thought of a bloody swollen nose stoked her fiery temper, and Zarrin screamed as she slashed steel at anything that moved.
Tamlin armed himself with steel in each hand, but wrongly, so the smatchet jutted down and the sword tipped up. He whipped both, but steel clashed uselessly on steel. Still, he struggled to see what went on elsewhere, knowing they had to quit the room.
Shadows swooped and swung as someone banged his head on a lantern. In the crazy light, Zarrin shrieked a battle cry and whacked at milling, growling, jumping gnashers until blood speckled the walls and ceiling. Zarrin's four servants crouched in a corner behind stools and benches, and through cracks and over the tops poked dogs to hold them at bay. Escevar and Vox, bloody and sandy and fighting mad, stood back to back slicing and stabbing. As Tamlin watched, Vox feinted high, then drove his huge axe so hard a dog's head split and the blade chonked deep into pine floorboards.
Swiping where he could, Tamlin tried to count, but dogs had overrun the room, a dozen or more. To his left, six monsters breached the makeshift barricade and savaged Zarrin's servants. Two, no, four more dogs skittered into the room, panting for blood.
Howling, Zarrin jumped the table to protect her servants. Tamlin was left alone as seven dogs scuffled to attack him.
'Can't stay here!' the heir muttered. Flicking his blades wide, gritting his teeth, he vaulted the table and almost landed on a dog. Instantly the monsters champed at his boots and clothes. One winged creature hop- skipped to tear off his head. As Tamlin dodged frantically, the dog sailed by and crashed into its companions. Punching heads with his pommel and snapping his smatchet, Tamlin raced toward Escevar and Vox. His only plan was to die with his comrades like a hero in a folktale, yet to be eaten by ugly dogs seemed a foolish and frivolous death.
'Vox!' Panting, Tamlin kicked a dog headlong. He yelled so the warrior wouldn't whack him with a back- swing. 'Escevar! We must get out-'
Vox whipped his axe down but missed a dog. The blade bit the wooden floor, and Vox let go the jutting haft. Whirling, Vox's craggy hands grabbed Tamlin and hoisted him bodily off the floor. 'Vox! What are you-'
Toted like a baby overhead, Tamlin glimpsed the night lights of the stockyard and a starry sky out the open window. Then he squawled as his boots passed the window frame. 'Vox! No-'
Pitched feet-first out the window, Tamlin wailed as he sailed through the air, but not for long. A howl ended with a grunt as his back slammed a forgiving pile, then a cry as he bit his tongue. Winded and agonized, Tamlin sucked air and a gushing aroma of cows. Vox had chucked him in a towering manure pile heaped beside the big doors.
Groaning, limping, shedding filth, Tamlin tottered to his feet. Head spinning, he sheathed his weapons and looked up at the window. A head flickered and disappeared. Tamlin heard yells and shouts and a vicious unending snarling and barking. He needed to rejoin the fray. He was no great talent as a fighter, but his friends and Zarrin needed every hand to fend off the monsters. Gnashers, Zarrin called them. Curious name.
Groggily Tamlin stumbled to the big barn doors, which stood open a shoulder's width. Faint lights glowed inside, or maybe sparkled in his head, since he felt dizzy. A sound arrested him. A whistle.
The whistle came from outside the barn, so the hillman, the dog trainer, was out here with Tamlin. The heir panted, 'Not good news,' and made to duck through the door.
An answering whistle piped inside the judging hall.
Surrounded, Tamlin froze in the doorway -and was almost stampeded by a charging bull.
A big brindled brown-and-white bull bawled and shoved its massive horned head outdoors. Tamlin barely dodged as a horn like a dagger hooked near his breastbone. Bellowing like a war trumpet, the terrified animal banged the doors wide and rumbled past like a war elephant. Cows and sheep gamboled after, bleating and lowing as if fleeing a forest fire.
Unable to get inside, not safe outside, Tamlin spotted an outside staircase and galloped up that. He hoped no animals pursued, but with his luck, he thought glumly, giant apes or mountain goats would climb for high refuge and butt him off the stairs.
A rough door at the top proved locked. Tamlin was debating where to try next when the door was flung open, almost clopping him in the jaw. Escevar and Vox, bloody and disheveled and armed with bare steel, skidded to a halt just before Tamlin was bowled down the stairs.
'Hold hard!'
'Watch it yourself! Are you all right?'
'What's happening in there? '
'Yes! Where's Zarrin?'
'Dunno!'
Tamlin and Escevar gabbled while Vox signaled madly. Below, the livestock still stampeded from the judging hall. Then the full pack of panting gnashers, winged and otherwise, erupted out the door in a brown river. Sharp whistles, three or more, shrilled through the stock market. The pack split and split again and vanished into the shadows.
