Rod was hastening up the last few steps, swallowing down a fresh surge of horror that threatened to choke him. 'I… I don't know how,' he admitted helplessly, 'even if I wanted to.'
'Noooo!' the skeleton howled, hurling itself desperately at his ankles. 'Don't leave! Master of All, don't leave me!'
Rod flung himself up onto the grass and rolled away from the crypt and up to his feet. He sprinted out into the street, with Taeauna running hard at his heels, and dared not turn to look until he was in the alley.
At the top of the steps leading out of its crypt the undead was straining to follow and starting to crumble. As Rod and Taeauna watched, huddling together, it collapsed into dust with a last, helpless wail.
Shaken, Rod drew in a tremulous breath, shook his head, and asked, 'Dare we go back to our rooms at the inn?'
'When I'm stronger,' she murmured. 'Lord, I need more.'
Setting his teeth, Rod put his arm around her, handed her back her sword, and drew her back against him. Then he took his dagger and drew it steadily along his forearm that was around her stomach, cutting deep.
The fingers of his cut arm suddenly felt like ice, and then as if they were on fire. He loosened his grip around Taeauna, and felt her pluck his arm up to her mouth and start to suck hungrily. Glowing blue fire pulsed around her mouth as she leaned back against him.
God, her mouth is beautiful.
Watching her, Rod felt sudden desire rising in him. His body stirred, and he knew she must be feeling it, against her leg.
She ignored it so he said nothing, as the pain in his arm slowly sank into an ache, and then into nothing at all.
Abruptly the Aumrarr spun but of his loose embrace, took his hand with a mysterious little smile, and tugged it gently, bidding him follow.
Along the alley and back to the inn, trotting swiftly, swords out and peering this way and that for any sign of Dark Helms, snake-headed warriors, or anyone else who was up and about in the waning moonlight.
Nothing. Arbridge might have been deserted, empty buildings under the moon. Even the inn-yard doors were firmly latched and barred, and inns were customarily open but well lit and guarded in the dark hours. Rod and Taeauna went around the back, finding the window shutters of their room gaping open, just as they'd left them.
Inside, the room was crowded with the sprawled dead: a Dark Helm, hacked to death, atop too many snake-headed men to count. Many of them had been felled in the wardrobe they'd entered the room through; its back stood open, slid aside to reveal the dark mouth of a secret passage beyond. Taeauna went right past it to the entrance door of the room, waved a stern finger against her lips to warn Rod to be as quiet as possible, and took down the door-bar, taking infinite care to be silent.
When she gently tried to open the door, the Aumrarr found it had been boarded firmly shut from the inn- passage side. She turned to Rod, took hold of his nearest ear, and whispered into it, 'As I expected. We must be gone from Arbridge by morning.'
'Or?'
'Or tarry and be slain. With every slain wizard, favorable regard in Arbridge for Lord Tharlark grows. He never misses any chance at a mage-slaying.'
'But I'm not-'
' 'That matters not to him. Come. We have a long walk ahead of us, in the dark. A cold swim, too.'
'There's something wrong with the bridge?'
''Tis guarded by the lord's armsmen. And watched by Dark Helms and the Vengeful, too.'
'The Vengeful again,' Rod said thoughtfully. 'Local crazies?'
At Taeauna's puzzled frown, he hastily amended his question. 'Local mad-folk?'
She shook her head. 'Spreading now, and ordinary folk who are frightened more than touched in the wits. Some of my sisters believe-believed-the Dooms were encouraging the Vengeful, to scour the lands of hidden and lesser wizards, to drive the survivors to seek apprenticeship with the Three to save their own skins, and exterminate all unpleasant surprises. None of the Dooms wants someone unknown bursting into their lives as an ally of another Doom, who could overwhelm defenses they've prepared to stand against the rivals they know.'
'As I could be,' Rod whispered.
She nodded on her way past him to the window. 'Let's be going; despite how it may feel, thus far, this night won't last forever.'
'By the four sinister Dooms!' the tall masked man snarled. 'You found it just like this? Nothing's been moved?'
Both of the other Vengeful nodded. 'Just like this,' one of them offered.
'Nothing,' the other confirmed.
The tall man stared down at the headless body under the huge tomb lid.
'A Dark Helm.' Unhooding his lantern, he stepped carefully around it, peering closely at the corpse-dust on the top step and stone lip of the tomb, and went down the crypt steps to peer into the open coffin. Empty.
He looked back at the body under the lid, then up at the other Vengeful. 'Get to Olnar's and fetch four pry- bars… and Olnar, too. We've a body to dispose of, an empty coffin to fill, and a crypt to close before the womenfolk are up and seeing things and screeching about them.'
The other Vengeful hesitated.
'Go! Unless you've the stomach for explaining all this to half the women in Arbridge, and listening to the other half gossip about you as liars who must have been 'up to something.'' He spread his hands, smiling. 'The choice is yours.'
Both men turned and started down the street that led to Olnar's.
Here in the shadow of the trees, the black, rushing waters of the stream looked very cold.
Taeauna moved a little way along the bank, peering.
Rod waited, figuring she was seeking the best footing to cross, but eventually she nodded, plucked a few flowering rushes, took off her sword-belt and then various daggers in their sheaths from all over her body, laid them on the bank, and started to strip.
Rod blinked and retreated a few steps, half-turning away, but she paid him no heed at all. When she was done, she bundled her clothing and boots together on the bank, took up the rushes, and climbed down into the stream.
Rod stared at her as she scrubbed at her armpits and crotch with the broken-off ends of the rushes, and then quickly looked away when she looked up at him and said quietly, 'Is anyone coming? Either side of the stream? Look well, mind.'
'I…' Rod gazed hard past the trees and across moonlit fields, this way and that. 'No. Ah, no. Uh, isn't the water cold?'
'Icy,' she confirmed tersely, scrubbing hard. The rushes seemed to be oozing a sort of foam; Rod watched with quickening interest as she lifted one breast and then the other, thrusting a rush under them both.
When she shot another quick look up at him, he didn't look away. 'How can you do that?' he protested. Darkness descended on them, as a racing cloud hid the moon.
'Shh!' Taeauna hissed at him, and in the same whisper added, 'I stink. And so do you. Now get those clothes off and use some of these rushes. Soon we'll have half the prowling beasts in the North following us if you don't. They track by scent, look you!'
The moon chose that moment to come out again, full and bright and clear. Bare and beautiful in the moonlight, the Aumrarr put her hands on her hips and stared up at him.
'Lord Rod Everlar,' said Taeauna, somehow contriving to make her whisper sound like a sergeant's bark, 'get bare and get down into this water right now. Or I'll come up there and bring you down and wash you myself.'
Rod tried to grin and say something snide about welcoming that, but somehow, now that this was happening to him, it didn't seem even the slightest bit erotic. Not like in good fantasy novels.
Or even his. Wincing, Rod Everlar looked around for approaching foes in the bright moonlight, as a cold breeze rose gently out of the east and slid numbingly past him. Finding none, he sighed and started
