objects, and the accumulated offerings left behind by visitors to the memorial went flying everywhere in a tinkling, crashing cascade. Ashi winced. She wasn’t particularly religious, but the thought of disturbing the shrine, even accidentally, crawled across her skin. If it was possible, the gods of the shrine were already taking petty revenge- only one of the candles remained upright in its holder. The others tumbled and rolled around the memorial. Their magic kept them burning, but their dim light was spread even more thinly, and the shadows they made jumped and wavered crazily.
The thief dove through one of the shadows and emerged with something else that had been knocked off the shrine: a short sword, its design old but the edge of its blade still gleaming. This time his grip on the weapon was sure and his stance solid. Ashi clenched her jaw and closed in warily. For a moment, she and the thief faced each other, blades wavering, balance shifting.
Ashi struck first and struck hard. She had to-if the thief took control of the fight, she had a bad feeling that she’d quickly find herself forced back into the darkness. If she took control, she had a better chance of keeping the fight where she could see.
The thief twisted and caught her sword on his, parrying the blow. Ashi let him bear her blade down for a moment, then whipped it up again and thrust hard. Only the blurring effect of the thief’s spell kept him from ending up on the blade. Instead, Ashi’s bright blade sliced through leather and nicked flesh. She heard the thief hiss in pain. He tried to push back with a lunge, but Ashi slid aside easily. The thief was a good fighter, but she was better. Eight months with House Deneith might not have made her much of a lady, but it had honed her fighting skills like a whetstone honed a fine blade. She let her opponent try another strike, then she unleashed a flurry of blows that kept him on the defensive and forced him to yield ground. Step by step, Ashi bullied him across the memorial. The clash and shriek of their blades filled the darkness, ringing and reverberating inside the hollow tower.
Beneath her scarf, Ashi grinned in satisfaction at the fight. A thrust from the thief slipped past her attack. She swayed away beyond the point of his sword and answered with a sharp kick that sent the thief hopping back. They were past the shrine now. Ashi lunged, then lunged again, not giving the thief a chance to recover his balance, always driving him backward. She slashed at him and he hopped back one more time-slamming into the doors of the memorial hard enough to make them shake.
Ashi checked her next blow, holding her sword back. “Surrender!” she said. “You have no right to be here!”
Eyes flashed deep in the hooded shadows of the thief’s face. “You have no right to what is kept here!”
The voice, like smoke from burning cedar wood, was a woman’s. Ashi blinked in surprise-then blinked again at the sound of another voice, this one on the other side of the door.
“Get it open! By Dol Dorn’s mighty fist, get it open! Swords ready!”
Keys scratched at the locks on the doors. Karrlakton’s night watch had finally arrived. Ashi raised her voice. “Easy! I have everything-”
The thief moved. Bracing herself against the doors that trapped her, she reared back and kicked out. A boot caught Ashi in the gut and she hunched over, her sword dropping. The thief darted past her. Ashi turned after her, struggling to catch her breath, but the thief paused just beyond her reach and spoke the word of another spell.
A sound like a massed chorus of voices mixed with the roll of thunder erupted around Ashi, pummeling her with its force. On the other side of the door, the men of the night watch cried out, some of them in alarm, at least one of them in command-the sergeant, urging his men to action. Ashi shook her head and forced herself upright.
The thief was back on the other side of the memorial, back at the cabinet she had initially opened. One of the candles from the shrine had rolled in that direction and Ashi finally saw what the thief had come to steal. Gloved hands reached into the cabinet and lifted out- almost reverently it seemed-a small casket only a handspan long and wide, made of age-darkened iron bound in bright gold. Cradling the casket, the thief turned to the stairs and her escape.
Ashi pushed herself into motion. She had only moments or the thief would be gone. No time to go around the shrine. A jump put her on top of it, scattering anything still left there. A leap and the wild fluting battle cry of the Bonetree hunters set her into the air.
The thief half-turned in response to the cry. Ashi saw her stiffen, her arms wrapping protectively around the cask, then she slammed into her and both of them went down. They tumbled across the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, the thief struggling to protect her prize, Ashi fighting to stay on top-which was how she landed when they finally came to a stop. Her hands were on the thief’s shoulders and her weight over the other woman’s hips, pinning her down. Ashi’s scarf had finally come loose and it hung around her face, puckering and billowing with each panting breath that she took. “Surrender!” she gasped.
The thief’s eyes, however, had gone wide. “Ashi?” she said.
The blurring effect vanished. Ashi stared down at amber eyes in a lean yellow face. The thief’s hood had fallen back to reveal orange-brown hair pulled back in a knot and a hobgoblin’s wolf-like ears. Ashi lifted one hand and tugged down the scarf that had covered the thief’s face.
“Ekhaas?” she asked.
Then the doors of the memorial slammed open and the intense light of everbright lanterns flooded over them. The slap of boots and the hiss of drawn swords filled the ruined space. “Don’t move!” roared the voice of the sergeant. “Under the authority of Karrlakton, you’re both under arrest!”
CHAPTER FIVE
The watchmen of Karrlakton gave Ashi and Ekhaas no chance to speak until they’d marched them to the nearest watch station and deposited the pair in a cell. They recognized Ashi’s dragonmark and handled her with a certain amount of deference, but Ekhaas didn’t receive the same favor. The men left both of them with their hands tied behind their backs-they knew at least one of their two prisoners was a spellcaster and they thought they were being cautious. Ekhaas saw no reason to tell them that she knew several spells that could be cast with song alone. Apparently the Karrlakton watch had little experience dealing with a Kech Volaar duur’kala. She held her tongue as the cell door swung shut behind them, instead watching through the bars to see what the watch did with the weapons-and other items-they had confiscated.
Ashi did enough talking for both of them. “It’s a Deneith memorial!” she said to the station commander. “I was protecting it on behalf of the House. But it was all a mistake. This woman is my friend. There’s no reason to keep us.”
The argument worked no better on the commander than it had on the sergeant who had arrested them. “House Deneith is ruled by the law just like everyone else in Karrlakton-a dragonmark is no protection. You broke into a public building in the middle of the night and caused serious damage. You desecrated a shrine of the Sovereign Host. You may or may not have stolen from the memorial.” The commander looked at Ekhaas. She ignored him, flicking her ears in disdain. He looked back to Ashi. “Your House will be contacted. We’ll see what they have to say. In the meantime, I’d suggest that you sit down and behave yourself.”
He walked away, closing the door of the the cell behind him. Ashi watched him go with what Ekhaas thought looked like a curious mix of frustration and horror.
“What do you mean the House will be contacted?” Ashi called after the commander. “Who did you contact? Who-”
“Sit down, Ashi,” said Ekhaas. She settled herself on the bare plank bench that was the only thing in the cell and tried to think of a way out of the situation. Ashi leaned her head against the bars of the door and cursed.
“Khyberit gentis.” She turned around and glared at Ekhaas.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Are you going to tell me what you were doing breaking into that memorial? What’s so special about that casket? What are you doing in Karrlakton at all?” She dropped onto the bench beside Ekhaas. “You could have at least told me you were here.”
Ekhaas’s ears rose. “I didn’t know you were in Karrlakton. I could ask you what you were doing at the memorial, too.”
