between; a spray of blood went up in the night, black drops in blackness. The arm went limp and the knife fell from it. The man hissed with a gobbling undertone and snatched at the weapon with his left, his fingertips touching the dimpled bone hilt before it struck the floor.
He never grasped it. She fell across him in a diving body check, and the breath wheezed out of him as his ribs hit the floor with her on his back. She drove her left elbow down into the base of his skull as they landed, the hard thud sending a shooting pain up her arm.
“Light,” she said, shaking her hand and working the fingers.
The man wasn’t quite limp, but he was twitching and moving with the vague undersea slowness of someone who’d had his bell truly rung. The lamps flared. Both the other assassins were down and bound, ankles and wrists lashed together and good thick gags in their mouths; she wanted no more fanatics biting out their tongues and drowning in their own blood before they had every scrap of information wrung out of them.
“See to this one,” she said as she rose, kicking his knife aside and wiping hers on the man’s hair. “Don’t let him bleed out. Pity about the rug.”
She slipped her blade into the sheath along the inside of her left forearm as she walked through the doors into the other room. That one looked considerably messier; there was a triad of assassins lying just inside the windows. Two had been struck as they climbed over the sills-one had a leg still on his, with that spilled awkwardness that only the suddenly and violently dead could show. Both those two were riddled with crossbow bolts. At this range the armor-smashers buried themselves to the fletching, and one of the men had been pitched back and pinned upright to the wall like a butterfly in a display case. His body, limp and leaking on the tiles, slid off the shaft and struck the floor with a thump as she came in.
The third was three paces into the room, lying on his side with the killdagger just beyond his twitching fingertips, and, unfortunately from his point of view, still alive. The human body was astonishingly resilient sometimes. A single bolt had struck him, and his face was like a contorted carving of hardwood with blood seeping past his clenched teeth and out his nostrils in bubbles. Sound trickled out as well.
The sergeant of the crossbowmen saluted. “That one was clever, my lady,” he said admiringly. “He backflipped into the room, must’ve dropped straight down and caught the sill and bounced in like a rubber ball. We missed him clean, everyone except young master… except Squire Lioncel de Stafford, I mean, my lady. He nailed him good, right in the brisket, which ain’t easy when things go south and it’s all noisy and confusing, like.”
“No, it isn’t,” she said; it was astonishing how many bolts were used per hit in a combat situation. “Thank you, Sergeant. A very creditable job. A week’s pay bonus to your and your squad for losing a night’s sleep.”
The man grinned, and she nodded again. She’d meant it. Missing number three hadn’t been serious. A man with a knife wasn’t going to do much against eight with swords and bucklers and wearing three-quarter armor, no matter how good he was with a blade. Assassination and straight-up fighting were quite different things. And one thing she’d learned from Sandra was never to stint praise or reward where they were really due. Being a cheapskate that way always left you with the bill coming due at the worst possible time.
Norman was a bit of a niggard now and then. Sandra, I note, is still alive and still in power long after he’s dead.
Lioncel was staring at the dying Cutter, his crossbow still in his hands, motionless.
“Lioncel!” she said, and he started and seemed to come to himself.
Well, it is his first, I think… yes, definitely. About the same age I was, at that. Of course, these Cutters didn’t intend to rape him before they killed him and eat his flesh afterwards. Still, it’s traumatic.
“We… caught them by surprise, my lady,” he said. “It all happened just like you said it would.”
“Good. And Lioncel?”
He looked at her, his blue eyes a little wild.
“They came to kill us in our sleep. If your mother or little sister were here, they’d have killed them. We were defending them. Fight knights like knights, and stamp on a weasel.”
He took a deep breath. “Yes, my lady.”
“And he’s too far gone for questioning. Finish it quickly. That’s your responsibility, whether it’s a beast or a man.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The boy was pale but steady as he drew his knife and did what was needful, and followed her back into the bedroom. The two knights had the Cutter she’d disabled in a chair, finishing up a field dressing and binding his arm before tying him up.
“Good,” she said; the Cutter was reviving, a vicious clarity in his eyes. “We’ll need this one for questioning. I think he’s one of the leaders on this mission, and we’ll have a nice little talk.”
The Cutter laughed, and then opened his mouth at her. Lioncel crossed himself, Armand swore, and even Tiphaine blinked. Only the stub of a tongue remained in the man’s mouth, and he laughed again, a thick odd sound. The wound was healed, but recent; this had been done deliberately by a surgeon and by the man’s own choice, to keep him from talking if he was taken.
Then Tiphaine smiled. At first because she was trying to imagine torturing a man into writing out his answers. And then because of another thought.
“Keep him very safe,” she said coolly. “Keep him for the High King. I think the Sword of the Lady can get secrets even from a tongueless man.”
The mad glee dropped off the assassin’s face, and he began to struggle and scream wordlessly. They were equipped for that; Rodard twisted open a metal canister, and held the damp pad of cloth within over the man’s face. The struggles died away as his eyes rolled up in his head.
Lioncel was looking revolted, but he had her sword belt ready. She buckled it on as they walked out into the hallway, twice around her unarmored waist; the corridor was dim, with only a few lanterns gleaming on the armor and weapons. Rigobert had just arrived, with blood on his naked sword and a scratch down the front of the breastplate lames of his full suit.
“We didn’t take any alive, and I lost a man, dammit,” he said, handing his blade to a squire for cleaning without looking around. “You, my lady ninjette?”
“Killed three, took three prisoners, no losses. You are so depressingly straightforward sometimes, de Stafford.”
Though my methods had substantially more downside risk. You roll the dice…
The nobleman made a disgusted sound as he took the blade again and sheathed it, before replying, “The ones who attacked us all had their tongues cut out. Which would render them useless for interrogation, and even more so on dates. I doubt even the Lady Regent’s experts could do much with interrogation via sign language. Or in epistolary form.”
“Ours had oral circumcision too. But remember who we work for now, Rigobert. Matti’s guy? The one with the magic sword?”
“Ah!” A slow smile, and one which echoed hers. “Yes, there is a point to that observation. A point with an edge to it.”
“I mentioned it to him, and he seemed rather upset.”
“Good. I’m not looking forward to telling Jurian’s family how he died.”
“Dead’s dead, Rigobert, tonight or next week from an arrow or a lance head. And”-she poked a finger at the scratch on his armor-“I don’t think you were leading from behind.”
He shook his head. “I still don’t like it, we shouldn’t have had losses when we were expecting them. Let’s go call on our host.”
They clattered down the staircase towards the family quarters-though in fact the Countess was now in a hidden safe room, not the chamber she usually shared with her husband. Apparently the Count’s father had been a firm believer in having a secret passage out, of which Tiphaine heartily approved; Todenangst was riddled with them. A household knight met them before they reached the landing, panting and looking a little wild-eyed.
The freckle-faced young man stopped and started to salute with fist to breastplate, then realized he was holding a red-running long sword in that hand and brought the hilt up before his face instead.
“My lady Grand Constable, my lord de Stafford.”
“Is the Count your master unharmed?” she snapped.
“Yes. That is… this way, please!”
She exchanged a glance with her second-in-command. Their own swords came out, and sped up to a trot;
