Miri said, 'Deal with him.'
She turned, and dashed away.
Aeron and the Red Axe shifted in and out of the distance, feinting, striking, and parrying, neither, in those first moments, able to score. Something shattered, then warmth and a wavering yellow light flowered at Aeron's back. He surmised that Miri had smashed an oil lamp to set something on fire. The blaze alarmed his opponent, who started shouting for help.
If the Red Axe kept on yelling, some of his comrades just might heed him, too, even though, so far, Sefris was holding her own against them. Desperate to shut him up, Aeron lunged forward, inviting a stop cut. When it came, he blocked with the knife in his off hand and simultaneously drove his largest Arthyn fang into the Red Axe's chest.
It took the ruffian a moment to drop, and by that time, Aeron could feel the hot pain burning in his shoulder. His knife had been too light a weapon, or his defense not deft enough, to stop the heavy sword entirely. His parry had robbed the stroke of some of its force, but the blade still gashed his flesh.
Aeron knew he had no time to stop and examine the wound. Instead, he pivoted toward Miri and the fire. She'd set the mesh sealing off the servants' stairs alight, and the gluey cables were burning away.
'I learned to clear spider web in the Thornwood,' she said, flashing him a grin. 'Help me with your father.'
As they dashed toward Nicos, a couple more Red Axes started in their direction.
Fine, Aeron thought. If it was a race, he and Miri would just have to win it.
He caught sight of the wizard. Standing by the windows at a reasonably safe distance from any of the intruders, the mage had also oriented on the thief and the ranger. Holding a spell focus-Aeron couldn't make out precisely what the small object was-high above his head, he recited a rhyme.
A dark blue vapor billowed up around Aeron's feet, so thickly that he could no longer see any farther than his hand could reach. Even worse, the fumes had a vile, rotten smell that instantly turned his stomach. Stricken with a nausea as intense as any he'd ever experienced, Aeron swallowed to keep from puking.
'Run!' cried Miri from somewhere in the mist.
The strain in her tone made it obvious that she too was struggling not to be sick.
'My father!' Aeron called back.
'We can't… find him… in this murk,' Miri replied between coughs, 'and we're too ill… to carry him off… if we could. It's over… for tonight.'
He hated her for it, but she was right. Silently vowing that he'd come back for Nicos somehow, he tried to turn around toward the servants' stairs, only to realize he no longer knew where they were. He was so sick it made him dizzy.
He nearly panicked, then spotted a smudge of brightness that could only be the firelight. He staggered forward into the center of it. Curling wisps of burning web seared him as he brushed by.
At the moment, it didn't matter. The fog hadn't penetrated far beyond the doorway, and as soon as he clambered down out of it, his nausea abated. The relief of that rendered the sting of his blisters insignificant.
Miri stood below him on the steps. She beckoned impatiently, and they ran on down to the first floor, then onward through the house. When they reached the stairs leading down to the cellars, he swiped some blood from his shoulder wound and smeared it on the banister.
CHAPTER 15
Sefris had suffered a second wound, a gash just above the knee, by the time the fire started and the ruffian at the far end of the hall started bawling for help. A couple of the other Red Axes left off attacking her to answer the call.
She dodged a dagger thrust, grabbed her assailant, and spun him at a goblin armed with a spiky-headed mace. The outlaws fell in a tangle, and finally, for the first time since the man with the cane had snared her in his enchantment, she had time to rattle off a spell of her own.
She snatched a handful of black ribbons from one of her pockets, recited the words of power, and snapped the lengths of silk as if they were a cat-o-nine-tails. Tatters of shadow exploded from a point on the floor to engulf the nearest Red Axes, who cried out at the insubstantial but somehow repulsive contact. They stood dazed and shaken for a few moments, and their incapacity bought Sefris even more time.
Time to dissolve the unnatural sluggishness with which the wizard had afflicted her. Crooking her fingers through the proper signs, she began the counterspell. Gloom crawled around her, the Shadow Weave responding to her call.
At the same time, she took note of the blue fog filling the opposite end of the room. Thanks to her own magical expertise, she knew what the conjured mist was. No doubt it was intended to drop Aeron and Miri in their tracks, make them too nauseated to do anything but retch, but it evidently hadn't. Sefris could hear them calling to one another inside the cloud. If they could resist the vapor long enough, they were going to flee through the far doorway.
Sefris wouldn't be able to follow without fighting her way past more Red Axes and subjecting herself to the debilitating queasiness engendered by the fog. She thought she'd be better off trying something else instead.
She spoke the final word of power. The air around her sizzled like meat frying in a pan as her own magic burned the small man's hindering spell away. She whirled, dashed out the door, and bounded down the wide marble steps.
As she ran, her wounded leg throbbed, the pain begging her to favor it. She blocked the discomfort from her mind. If she allowed herself to limp, she might not be fast enough to intercept Aeron on the ground floor.
It turned out that she wasn't anyway. When she saw the bloody mark on the banister of the cellar stairs, she realized he and Miri had scurried down them to escape through the Underways. She continued the chase through the labyrinth of storerooms and piled crates until she found her way to the exit.
It was still locked. And bolted. Even if Aeron knew a burglar's trick that would allow him to secure it fully from the other side, it was unlikely he would have taken the time. He and Miri had actually fled the house at ground level.
Which was to say the handprint had been a trick to make a pursuer believe the fugitives had gone that way. It had worked well, too. It would be futile to race back upstairs and try to pick up Aeron's trail. Even if it didn't result in another useless encounter with the Red Axes, and further delay, he'd gained too long a lead.
Sefris simply opened the inner door, then the outer one, and departed via the tunnels herself. She felt herself seething with anger, and worked to quash the feeling. Her frustration and injured pride in her own competence didn't matter, nor the pain of her wounds-only patience, resolution, and the success they would bring did.
Yet deep down, she hoped with a bitter fervor that, in the course of accomplishing her mission, she'd have the chance to slaughter Aeron, Miri, Kesk, the wizard with the blackwood cane, and everyone else who'd gotten in her way. Perhaps it was a prayer that even a deity as cold and unyielding as the Lady of Loss would grant.
A couple blocks from Kesk's mansion, Miri and Aeron climbed a rusty wrought iron ladder, the rungs tangled in ivy, that ran up a tower wall. At the top was a Rainspan. From there, they could watch for signs of pursuit. Thus far, she hadn't seen any.
She and the outlaw leaned on the railing and panted for a time, catching their breaths and waiting for their stomachs to settle. The night breeze was mild, but her clothes were so sweat-soaked that it chilled her even so.
When Miri felt able, she said, 'Better let me take a look at that shoulder.'
'All right.'
For once, Aeron's voice was dull, not the energetic, sometimes humorous tone to which she'd become accustomed.
She ripped the rent in his bloodstained sleeve wider to get a better look at the gash.
'You're lucky,' said the ranger. 'It's shallow. If you think it's unsafe to go back to Ilmater's house, some salve from an apothecary and a bandage will probably take care of it. If need be, I can put a couple stitches in.'
