“I think.”
We moved closer. I saw that Shadowspinner felt no need for guards. Maybe he thought he was his own best guard. Maybe he did not want anyone that close while he was asleep.
We crouched in a pool of darkness, a dozen feet from the tent. One fire burned on its far side. No light came from within. I eased my blade out of its scabbard. “Blade, Swan, Ram, be ready to cover us if something goes wrong.” Hell. If anything went wrong we were dead. And we all knew it.
“Mistress!” Ram protested. His voice threatened to rise.
“Stay put, Ram. And don’t give me an argument.”
We’d had the argument already. He did not give up. I moved forward. Narayan and his arm-holders drifted with me. So did the smell of fear.
I paused two feet from the tent, drew my blade down the canvas. It cut without a whisper. An arm-holder widened the slash enough for Narayan to slip through. The other followed, I went next, then the first arm- holder.
It was dark in there. Narayan held us in place with a touch. He was a patient hunter. More so than I could have been in his place, knowing the moon was about to rise and rape away the darkness. Its fore-glow had been visible as we’d approached the tent.
Narayan started moving, slowly, certainly, disturbing nothing. His arm-holders were as good as he. I could not hear their breathing.
I had to rely on extraordinary senses to keep from stumbling over things. I felt the Shadowmaster’s presence but could not pin it down.
Narayan seemed to know where to go.
There had to be hangings ahead. No light from the fire outside reached us. How I wished for some light.
Light I got, unexpectedly. Just enough light to unveil the awful truth.
Shadowspinner was off to our left, seated in the lotus position, watching us through a grim beast mask. “Welcome,” he said. His voice was like a snake’s hiss. It was feeble. It barely carried. “I’ve been waiting.”
So the shadows had not been fooled after all.
He guessed my thoughts. “Not the shadows, Dorotea Senjak. I know how you think. Soon I shall know all that is inside your head. You arrogant bitch! You thought you could take me with three unarmed men and a sword?”
I said nothing. There was nothing to say. Narayan started to move. I gestured slightly, a Strangler’s signal. He froze. There was a chance if Shadowspinner truly believed these men unarmed.
Then I spoke. “If you think you know me, then you don’t know me at all.” I wanted him closer. I wanted him where Narayan could reach him. “Dark Mother, Mother Kina, listen! Thy Daughter calls. My Mother, attend me.”
He did not move. He hit me with something invisible that knocked me back ten feet and tore a groan out of me.
The discipline shown by Narayan and his arm-holders astonished me. They did not rush Shadowspinner. They did not come to me and separate themselves farther from their target. They moved only slightly, so they were better balanced and disposed, their adjustment barely perceptible.
Shadowspinner rose slowly, a man in pain. He slipped a crutch beneath one arm. “Yes. A cripple. With no chance for repairs because my only ally won’t lend me help he might regret when he decides I’ve outlived my usefulness. And I have you to thank.” He extended a hand. An almost invisible rope of indigo fire snaked from his fingers to me. He made a pulling gesture. The rope dragged me forward. The pain was intense. I contained my scream, barely.
He wanted me to scream. He wanted me to waken the camp so he could show his incompetents what he had accomplished despite their inattention. He wanted to play cat and mouse.
The wall of the tent behind him exploded inward. Two blades ripped canvas and Ram came flying through. Shadowspinner turned. Ram smashed into him, sent him stumbling toward Narayan.
Narayan and his arm-holders moved like mongooses striking. Narayan had his rumel around the Shadowmaster’s throat so fast my eyes insisted it was witchcraft. The arm-holders had the Shadowmaster’s limbs extended before he lost momentum.
The purple rope ripped away from me. It lashed one of the arm-holders. The man’s eyes grew huge. He stifled a scream and tried to hang on but lost his grip.
Shadowspinner whipped the rope at Narayan.
Narayan’s eyes bugged. He lost his grip on his rumel. Shadowspinner turned on the other arm-holder.
Ram grabbed Shadowspinner from behind, by the neck and buttocks, and hoisted him overhead. Shadowspinner lashed at him. He did not seem able to feel pain. He dropped to one knee, smashed the Shadowmaster down on the other.
I heard bones break. The world would have heard an earth-shaking scream if Narayan had not been so good with a rumel. He looped Shadowspinner’s neck on the fly, as Ram hurled him down. Falling with Spinner, he had a tight loop on when the cry tried to force its way out.
Ram and Narayan both hung on.
Blade stepped inside the tent, casually drove his blade through Shadowspinner’s heart. “I know you people have your ways, but let’s not take chances.”
There is an incredible vitality in someone like Shadowspinner. Blade was right. Even stabbed several times and thoroughly strangled, back broken, Shadowspinner kept struggling. Ram, Narayan, and both arm-holders hung on. I stepped up and helped Blade cut and stab.
Swan stood outside the gap in the tent and gawked, so rattled he could do nothing but keep watch. Poor Swan. War and violence just were not his thing.
We carved Shadowspinner into a half dozen pieces before he stopped struggling. We stood around the results. All of us were covered with blood. Nobody seemed inclined to do anything but pant and wonder if we’d really succeeded. Narayan, who seldom showed any humor, broke the spell. “Am I a Strangler saint now, Mistress?”
“Three times over. You’re immortal. We’d better get out of here. Everybody grab a piece.”
Swan made a choked, questioning noise.
I told him, “The only way to make sure is burn him to ash and scatter the ashes. Someone like Longshadow could bring him back even now.”
Swan dumped his last meal. Even so, he looked shamed, as though he thought he had contributed nothing.
I picked up Spinner’s head. As I passed I winked and gave Swan’s hand a squeeze. That should take his mind off his troubles.
The moon was up. It was a day short of full. Barely over the horizon, it was an orange monster. I gestured for the others to hurry, while there were still shadows to mask our going.
We were halfway to the perimeter when a terrible howl rolled down out of the night. Something wobbled across the face of the moon. Another howl tore the night. There was deadly agony in it.
Ram shoved me. “Got to run, Mistress. Got to run.”
All around us Shadowlander soldiers rose to see what the racket was.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Croaker glanced at the moon as he entered the city barracks. Not four hours had passed since the attack but already all Taglios knew the Shadowmasters had struck at the Prahbrindrah Drah. The city was united in outrage.
Already the city knew that the Liberator was alive, that he had feigned death in order to lead their enemies into a fatal mistake. The military compound was swamped with men who wanted to rampage through the Shadowlands till not a blade of grass survived.
It would not last. He could do nothing with this illarmed and untrained horde. But for their sakes he ordered
