His brother gave him a dark look. 'Don't worry,' Perivel muttered. 'We're unlikely to stay alive long enough to find out.'
He leveled the sword at the distant, leaning fountain, set his jaw, and watched the leaning stone topple slowly into complete collapse in the heart of leaping lightning.
On the other side of Stormweather Towers, another young, angry man with a sword in his hand glared at the lightning and snarled, 'I thought you said there was no one left alive back there.'
The panting, bleeding, bearded man crumpled against the gatepost shuddered as his shattered arm sent fresh agonies through him, bent his head for a moment to struggle against the pain, then sobbed as the man with the sword kicked him impatiently.
'C-crave pardon, Lord Talendar,' the injured man gasped, 'but I spoke truth. There was none but me and heaped stone there when I flew away.'
'Then that must be Uskevren work,' another of the men standing nearby growled, hefting his own sword in his hand. 'So they do have a tame wizard.'
'Aldimar Uskevren always claimed he wanted nothing to do with magic,' a third young noble protested, waving a jeweled hand axe.
'Aldimar Uskevren made a lot of false claims, it seems,' snapped Lord Rajeldus Talendar. He'd been head of his house for a bare handful of minutes, but already he was sounding more bitter, more serious. Ruling families did things to people, it seemed. They became far swifter at hurling orders about, for one thing. 'We'd best be going. I'm not stumbling through a house roused against us, in the dark, if they've got mages awake and ready for us.'
'It'll be worse on the morrow,' rumbled the Lord Loargon Soargyl. He, too, had been lord of his clan for mere minutes, but it seemed to have sobered him as well. 'They'll be ready for us. Just a pair of servants with crossbows could make scouring the house a very unpleasant experience.' His brother Blester laid his jeweled axe back against his own shoulder, and nodded mute agreement.
'I've no intention of setting foot in this place,' Rajeldus said grimly, staring up at the dark bulk of Stormweather Towers above them. 'I intend to bring a ring of our own bowmen and stand well clear, behind it, as we burn it to the ground with all the Uskevren inside. We shoot down any who try to flee, and let the rest cook-at first light tomorrow.'
He smiled bleakly at his own brothers, Marklon and Ereldel, received their nods of support, then turned again to face the two surviving Soargyl. 'Are you with me?' he asked. 'Or do our ways part here?'
Loargon Soargyl cast a longing glance at the mansion, seeming to realize that he'd never get an undisturbed chance to pillage the fabled wealth within. If the Soargyl were elsewhere, however, there'd be nothing to stop the Talendar from entering Stormweather in force, to plunder-and no argument he'd dare to raise later, to this cold- eyed young head of the Talendar, about their having done so.
The hand of a wealthy Sembian never hesitates to help itself to unguarded valuables.
'We'll be here,' he grunted. 'No fighting between us, and mind your bowmen know we're coming. First light in the morning it is. We burn Stormweather Towers and all the Uskevren together.' He glanced again at the mansion. Smoke was still drifting from some of the holes in its shattered walls. 'May the gods grant the Uskevren the fates they deserve.'
'No need for that,' Marklon Talendar growled. 'We'll send them to their fates while the gods watch-and make sure of it all. This house must fall, both loudly and dramatically, so that none miss the lesson and dare to challenge our rightful supremacy in Selgaunt again.'
Lord Soargyl gave him a long, dark, considering look, but made no reply.
The hard, familiar smoothness of the black, star-adorned hilt was growing warm under Thamalon's fingers. Those fingers that itched to pluck it and throw the dagger hard and straight into a few of those furious remembered faces.
Burn Stormweather and all the Uskevren together. They'd have succeeded, too, if it hadn't been for Roel's philandering. He'd evidently been seeing Aldimar's second wife, Teskra, for some time…
Thamalon found himself shaking his head slightly in disbelief, as he always did when faced with this particular little truth. Ilrilteska, a delicate little beauty from House Baerent, was a subtle, superb actress and a practiced deceiver, though Thamalon had never seen so much as a hint of malice in her ways. He and Perivel had both been awed by her, and he could still scarcely believe that she'd found Roel's boisterous brutishness attractive. But, oh, thank the gods that she had:
'Thamalon-wake up, damn you!'
The voice was female, and as frantic as it was angry. Out of an endless inferno of dying Aldimars and burning Stormweather Towers, in which he ran and ran through rooms of screaming, dying men, and could never find a way out, Thamalon came slowly, blinking, up to the light.
It came from a candle held in the bare and trembling hand of the Lady Teskra Uskevren, wax dripping down over her dainty fingers to spot his own bared shoulder. Someone-Teskra, no doubt-had bandaged the worst of his hurts, and put him to bed in one of the guest rooms, but his sword and armor lay ready on serving tables beside him.
Wordlessly Thamalon sat up and reached for the belt of the breeches he still wore, to have them off ere he donned his war harness.
'There's no time for that,'. Teskra snarled, eyes twin flames of fury. 'They're here already, and I've used up all of my arrows. I haven't the strength to pull any of the war bows. Get your sword and come on! Perivel can't hold them off alone forever.'
Thamalon discovered his boots were still on his feet. He scooped up his sword and a belt of daggers, and ran for the door, Teskra at his elbow. A slender sword bounced at her hip, and there were daggers strapped to her forearms. A House Guard's buckler bounced on the low-cut front of her silk blouse, serving as a crude breastplate, and another buckler was belted crazily to her right side. Thamalon recalled grimly that neither guardsman was likely to be alive enough to ever need either buckler again.
'How many?' he asked, letting his stepmother slip past him to lead the way.
'Sixty or so, at the start,' Teskra called back, as she shouldered through a hanging and the usually closed panel beyond, into one of the secret passages. She had to slow down and cup the candle to keep it from going out, as they descended its steep, damp stone steps. 'It was dark, then, before dawn, and hard to see. I think we've taken down more than half, though, and all of their bowmen. They're standing in a ring all around us, trying to work up dragon-fire enough in their bellies to charge us. They wanted to burn us out from a long bow shot away, but they'll have to carry their little fires right up to us, now. Blester Soargyl tried a few fire arrows, but he can't use a bow. One of them came down almost in his own boot.'
They shared a bark of hollow laughter at that, an instant before Teskra burst out into a ravaged room that had once been a linen cellar. She led the way, vaulting heaps of rubble, through a breach in the walls to where Perivel was crouching behind the spell-scorched remnant of a wall, grimly putting arrows in distant men.
He gave them a wild look, and snapped, ' 'Ware either side, you two! They're creeping around along the walls where I can't see.'
Thamalon looked obediently to the right, saw nothing, then looked to the left. Teskra was already crouching, slender and beautiful, and leaning out on one knee to peer around a corner.
Thamalon saw the blade flash down at her even before she screamed, and he got his own sword out in time to catch it and take it, ringing, into the wall scant inches from her hip. Teskra sprang up beneath the bound blades with her flickering candle still in her hand and thrust it into the face of the bearded swordsman.
His beard caught light with a vicious crackle. The arms-man screamed hoarsely as he staggered back, waving his sword wildly to keep them at bay. Teskra flung herself around his ankles like a striking snake and heaved.
One of her daggers flashed out as the man fell-ready to stab as she climbed along his body-but the man's head struck the wall with a wet, heavy sound. His lolling neck as he plunged the rest of the way to the flagstones
