dazzling blur of strokes — cuts and thrusts, blades rattling in a frenzied clitter, clitter, clitter…
More light blazed up in the street, making screams resound from every window, for the battle now commanded a sizable audience. Hamish was too engrossed on staying alive to see what was happening, although he could hear Fischart and Gonzaga howling conjurations at each other.
Fortunately, just when wee Hamish Campbell thought he was about to die of terror, he saw an opening. It was briefer than the blink of a hawk's eye, but it let him run his point into Wonderman's forearm. The swordsman yelped and fell back. He did not drop his blade, but pain made him lose his focus just long enough for Hamish to aim the rapier and give the command to Zangliveri. It was a rotten way to treat a fine opponent, but a flesh wound would not have kept him out of action long. Leaping over the collapsed remains, Hamish sprinted back to the battle of hexers.
Gonzaga had summoned his oversized ape-bear demon with the claws and fangs, while Fischart had countered with a man-sized salamander of coruscating fire, which was the origin of all the lurid lighting. Now the two apparitions were rolling and wrestling about the street, filling the night with bloodcurdling shrieks and a foul sulfurous stench. Only the hexers themselves knew how many demons were involved in that display. Gonzaga was nowhere in sight, which was good, but the lizard seemed to be growing smaller and the furry thing larger and louder, and that was probably bad. Fischart had turned his attention to finding the countess. As Hamish arrived, panting, he hurled a conjuration at the door, which at once shattered into fragments. A tongue of white fire roared out.
It missed Hamish, but only just. He leaped back, wondering if he had lost his eyebrows. It engulfed the old man, who fell to the ground, screaming and writhing as his clothes burned. Hamish glanced helplessly back and forth between that baleful doorway — as dark now as it had been bright earlier — and the dying hexer, whose flesh blazed, charring and reeking horribly of roast meat. He was beyond all help, both mortal and immortal.
Where there's one booby trap there are usually more.
Hamish dived through the door into the house and lived; no wave of fire threw him back. He found himself in a dingy, low-ceilinged room, lit by a single candle, and cramped by half a dozen chairs and a wooden table… cupboards and shelves on the walls… a closed door that probably led through to stairs and other rooms… He saw what he had come for in a corner — the woman in the dark cloak, gagged and tied to a chair. There was no sign of her assailant. He reached her in three steps, sheathing his rapier as he went.
'I come to rescue you, ma'am. Lisa is safe. I know who you—' He felt for his knife to untie her, and it was gone, lost somewhere in the evening's confusion. 'Demons! I'm a friend. Will you trust me?'
No nod, no headshake, just eyes rolling in wild terror. He was soaked in blood, and she was beyond rational thought.
What to do? He looked despairingly at the doorway, where the multicolored flashes were fading and the ape's roars completely masked the salamander's dwindling shrieks. Fischart was dead and must be abandoned. Hamish couldn't even take the old man's body back with him, because Gonzaga must be still at large, as well as the accomplice who had tied up the countess.
Where there's one booby trap there are usually more.
This was a worse nightmare than the demon ride, the sort of experience whose memory will waken a man for years afterward, howling in sweat-soaked bedding. With a quick prayer for mercy to the tutelary, he made his choice and leaned over the lady to grip her arms. 'Forgive me, ma'am, but we have to get out of here.' She was shaking, but so was he. No trap so far.
Lupus. What was the word…?
'Panoply!'
The demon took them away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Having forgotten Fischart's warning that Lupus had a sense of humor, Hamish expected the chair to go with them, but the chair stayed behind, and so did the countess's bonds. She landed on her back in total darkness, and he fell on top of her. Making piteous noises behind her gag, she struggled and thrashed against his efforts to restrain her. That was a job fit for Toby, for she was a large and powerful woman in a frenzy of terror. Even if they were back in the adytum, there would be things around that could injure her. He wrapped his arms tight around her and talked comfort in her ear until she ran out of strength.
'Majesty! Countess! You are among friends. Lisa is safe. We know who you are — Karl Fischart… Baron Oreste… Lisa is here… Lisa is safe…' His eyes were adjusting. He could see shards of predawn light through the slits. It was the adytum. 'Let me take off the gag, ma'am, and I'll escort you to Lisa.'
She fell still, if violent shivering could be called stillness. He released her and felt for the cloth. By the time he had untied it, and they were both sitting up, she was weeping. It had been a rough night. For her, two very rough days. Fourteen very bad years…
'Come, my lady. My name is Hamish Campbell…'
And so on. He helped her rise. She staggered, barely capable of walking. The candle had gone out, so the excursion to Siena must have lasted longer than it seemed.
'Lisa? Truly?' She could barely speak, teeth clattering like a forest full of woodpeckers.
'She is here and unharmed. This is Fiesole, just outside Florence. You are quite safe here. We are sworn enemies of the Fiend.' Going mostly by memory, he steered her across the room to the door. The cypresses were stains of black against gray, but dawn was coming, the day stretching as it wakened. Birds singing. He talked. She did not seem to hear.
He wondered how he was going to break the awful news to Toby that the Don Ramon Company had lost its hexer. That was almost as bad as losing its cavalry. He was so engrossed in that problem that he did not notice the two figures waiting at the edge of the trees until one of them squealed and came flying. It was Lisa. Toby loped along behind her.
Toby and Lisa? Lisa and Toby? Lisa crashed into an embrace, making predictable noises of, 'MotherMotherMother!' and, 'AreYouAllRight?' and 'OhWhat'sTheMatter…?' And so on.
Gasping the equally predictable, 'LisaOhLisaIsItReallyYou?' the countess staggered and would have fallen if Hamish had not steadied her.
Then he stepped aside, leaving the two of them locked together, weeping.
'Just shock. She's had a very bad time. Don't think she's injured.'
Toby said, 'You look a little dilapidated yourself. Any of that your own blood?'
'No.' He rubbed his face and felt the caked stains. 'No. None of it honorably earned, either.'
'Rough voyage?' Toby thumped his shoulder.
That was about as far as he ever went in displaying emotion, but there could be exceptions to any rule — he also avoided women as much as he could and private assignations at all costs, yet he had been waiting there on the path with Lisa. Oh, demons! What sort of thoughts were those? There could never be reason to be jealous of poor Toby, not where girls were concerned, and Lisa was forever out of reach for both of them.
'The water was a little choppy.' The voyage had been much rougher for some. Hamish was shaking with reaction now, nauseated, thinking all confused. He knew the feelings and had seen them in other men often enough; it was only in books that heroes walked away from battles as if nothing had happened. How many corpses? And Fischart. Oh, spirits!
Before he could find the words, Toby said: 'You came back alone?'
' 'Fraid so.'
'Damn.' Longdirk rarely swore and always very quietly. He never lost his temper. Part of that icy self-control
