even the minotaur.
You might think that none of this mattered much, that we could slip through the shadows and the dark, head for the mouth of the canyon and take our chances running and hiding until we lost them in the dark and the mountains. We couldn't.
A huge goblin stepped forward to the edge of the drop. It held something high, like a dark cleric offering sacrifice. Alyce cursed softly. The goblin held the kender above its head, had voiceless Peverell for a hostage and a shield.
Peverell writhed in the goblin's grip as if he wanted nothing more than to overbalance his captor and send him plunging to a bone-shattered death. So furiously did he struggle that I knew he'd not give a thought to his own bones until he was in midair himself. Yet he was lightly built and had not one tenth of the goblin's strength. His struggling was worth nothing but the goblin's annoyance.
Alyce gestured to Dinn, pointed to the canyon entrance. Wordless understanding passed between them in just one look, as though a whole plan had been unfolded and discussed. The minotaur didn't like it, whatever it was, but Alyce reached up, stroked his red-furred shoulder.
'Don't worry, my friend. I'll be fine. Now, go. Go.'
He obeyed, as he always did, but in the fire's light I saw his eyes gleaming, all reflected animal glare and as red as Lunitari hanging high in the sky above the canyon's black walls. A dire warning, that look, and directed at me.
'Don't worry,' I said, sarcasm not even thinly veiled. 'I'll be fine, too, Dinn.'
He exercised admirable restraint, did no more than feint a lunge at me as he passed by — and I still have two eyes today because I kept as still as stone when one of his twisted horns came close to my face. Alyce smiled in a cold, absent way.
'You shouldn't bait him like that, Doune. There might come a time when I'm not near to restrain him.'
'Might come a time when I'd welcome that.'
She said nothing, likely recognizing bravado when she heard it. I looked over my shoulder at the mouth of the canyon, yawning blackness with silvery stars hanging above. I turned back to Alyce, saw her studying me.
'Is this where a bounty hunter decides to cut his losses and run, Hunter-Doune?'
I snorted. 'Could I?'
'Go and try,' Alyce said flatly. With her sword's gleaming tip she pointed to the goblins. They'd found a narrow path, a winding way down the black canyon walls. They went slowly, being obliged to keep behind the one who was still shielding himself with Peverell. But they came on steadily, and I saw that my first count was wrong. There were more than a dozen of them; at least twice that. 'There's no profit in this for you now, Hunter- Doune.'
None at all.
In that moment the silver moon, Paladine's son lagging behind Lunitari as he always does, rose above the stony heights. By Solinari's light I saw Alyce's face in profile, as white as marble. All her attention was on the kender caught in the goblin's dutches.
The big goblin flung the kender to the ground, laughed when he saw him hit the rough stone and tumble the rest of the way to the canyon floor. Peverell lay where he fell, a pitiful jumble of arms and legs. When I looked at Alyce, I saw one thin line of silver on her cheek, moonlit tears.
'Are you with me, Hunter-Doune? Or will you leave me?'
She was not weighing me now, or taunting. She really didn't know how I would answer. By the light of wise Paladine's son, I saw in her eyes the knowledge that with me or without, she'd probably not get out of this canyon alive. I saw her wanting to believe that I would not abandon her here.
I'd be a fool to stay, but that would be nothing new. I'd been a fool for the last three days, should have gotten out when I knew I wasn't sure whether I trusted her. What had made me stay?
It was a jeweled moment, one of those spaces in the soul when you understand that something has happened to change you. Those moments have their sudden, unlookedfor absurdities to send you laughing, if only silently. Once I'd asked the silver moon why I cared what Alyce thought of me. A bit late in answering, was Solinari, but he answered me now, softly, like a whisper in my heart.
Maybe Alyce heard the laughter in me. For one moment, swiftly fled, she smiled as though she agreed.
I hefted my sword, took comfort in its trusty balance. 'I swore to deal honestly with you, Alyce. By my reckoning, that means sticking by you now.'
We stood braced, back-to-back, when the goblins entered the canyon.
Night fighting is a hard thing, all shadows and moongleaming steel, all cold sweat and heart leaping in your chest. When the odds are good, it's hard to tell friend from foe, but that wasn't anything for us to worry about. The odds weren't good. There was only Alyce and me, with never the slim breadth of a steel blade between us.
She used her blade like a sword dancer, whirling the steel so that the whistle of it filled the canyon. Any goblin who got too close lost at least a limb. One lost his head. That was all very fine and flashy, but I like the dependable parry and thrust. I spitted the first two of the fanged goblins that came at me, was ready to take on a third when I heard Dinn roaring somewhere near the canyon's mouth. I couldn't turn to see what cause he had for bellowing, but I heard Alyce suck in her breath, a soft hissing counterpoint to her sword's whistle.
The goblin who'd come to take the place of the one I killed feinted from the side, dove in under my guard. He caught me around the neck and did what his fellows couldn't do — separated Alyce and me as he threw me hard to the stony ground. I heard Alyce cursing above me, saw the star-filled sky, felt the goblin's claws raking my face.
The goblin knew how to use his knees. In two thrusts he knocked the wind from me with a knee to the belly — and nearly all the sense with a knee to the groin. I twisted onto my side, hunched over the hurt. The goblin sank his fangs into the muscle between neck and shoulder, gnawed as though he'd like to have chewed his way to my heart.
A dagger whistled past my head, its cold steel stinging my cheek, drawing blood. And the goblin fell off me, the blade through its neck. I didn't stop to marvel over my luck.
I scrambled for my sword and saw Alyce ringed by three goblins — big as boulders, gray-skinned, clawed, long fangs dripping. Her sword flashed, singing as it cut the air. I ran to her. Limping and listing, still hunched over my pain, I didn't know what I could do for her. Still, I ran. Her fine silk blouse was splattered with blood, and the silver moon's light showed me that it wasn't black goblin blood. It was as red as rose petals, and it was hers.
Alyce cried me welcome. I severed a goblin's head with one chopping blow of my sword, kicked the corpse aside, and Alyce and I were again back-to-back. The goblins came at us howling, nightmares come to life. We were outnumbered, fighting only to kill as many as we could before we fell.
Close by, I heard a piercing whistle — sharp and high and urgent. Peverell? No. It couldn't be. Someone shouted 'Kell!' as though it were a war cry, a call to arms.
I looked up, thinking,
That moment's distraction cost me. I went down under the weight of two goblins, and Alyce, kicking and hacking at my attackers, yelled, 'To me! To me!' as though she were giving an army a rallying point.
The night exploded, as if the moons and every one of the countless stars had burst to rain red and shower silver down on me. In the storm of light, flaring and running, shadows leaped to thrice their height. Alyce's face shone as white as snow, her sword like ice gleaming. A rush and babble of shouting and screaming filled the wildly rocking night, just as though an army had come.
Too late for me, though, sword-cut and bleeding…
Peverell — bruised and scraped and grinning — threw himself down on his knees beside me, gestured wildly, but I couldn't figure it out. The light, the running, raining red and silver, began to fade, then vanished altogether, taking feeling and sound with it.
I awoke in another place, a sturdy cottage so light and bright and clean that if I did not have wounds and weakness to gainsay the thought, I'd have believed the canyon no more than a place in a nightmare. The first thing
