'Nothing,' said Vasser. 'I heard a crossbow being cranked, and that's when I dived on you.'
'And how about you?' he asked the Magistrates searching the room and the balcony.
They shook their heads. 'Nothing, my lord. No trace of the assassin.'
Korox got to his feet and helped the senator up. 'You should have a healer look at that,' he said pointing to the gash in her head.
'I am a healer,' replied Divian, giving him a weak smile.
'I'll be fine. You worry about the assassin. I'll worry about my head.'
'You mean assassins,' said the king. 'It's just a guess, but based on the number of attempts on my life in the past few days, I'm still in the running for worst king of Erlkazar.'
'Don't fret too much over it,' said the senator. 'You're only the second king. It's not all that hard to be worst.'
Quinn pushed himself deeper into the alcove, kicking at the teaching beasts with the heels of his boots. They clawed at the statue of Xeries. They gnawed at the stone with teeth like boat's tusks. They whipped the wicked barbs of their tails into the space. But nothing they did could dislodge Quinn from his spot.
He used the statue as cover, defending the narrow openings on each side to keep himself from harm. But the black beasts outnumbered him thousands to one, and they never seemed to tire. If he was going to defeat Xeries, he was going to have to find a better way than fighting his minions one at a time.
Slashing down on the claw of a nearby beast, he severed it at the joint, sending the creature sliding down the wall to the floor below. Two just like it filled the empty space. They climbed over the fallen beast to get around the statue and inside the alcove. They wedged themselves, shoulder to shoulder, into the confined space, reaching and hissing. They shoved at each other, trying to get to their prey.
Quinn scrambled, kicking, punching, and slashing as fast as he could. His blades hit the sides of the alcove as often as they hit the creatures, but he continued to battle. He was not going to die here and leave Erlkazar to these foul creatures.
Clang, clang, slash.
With the flick of a wrist, his blades sank into a fleshy throat, coming out the other side. The creature's blood spilled in a great gush down the floor of the alcove and out into the chamber beneath. The beast twitched as its life drained away, its body slumping sideways, creating further cover for Quinn.
Xeries's beasts were hulking masses of unrelenting muscle, bone, and claw. The alcove had not been intended to hold them-cramped for one, impossibly small for two.
The second black beast lunged deeper in, its obsidian claws grinding at the stone. But the corpse of its recently slain ally blocked the way, and the angry creature got stuck-unable to push in farther, unwilling to go back.
Quinn planted his foot on the head of the slain monster and kicked off, pushing himself up higher and deeper into the alcove. The creature growled and reached again. Its persistence allowed it to press in a few inches closer, and it was rewarded for such tenacity. The tips of its claws slid down the side of Quinn's leg, cutting into the leather of his boot. He winced and scrambled back, his head smacking against the stone behind him. The alcove was deep, but it did indeed end, and there was nowhere else to go.
The black beast continued to harass him, its long arm slapping to one side, grasping desperately at anything it could reach. Quinn's arms weren't as long, and he had to pull himself up into a tight ball to stay out of the monster's range.
Unbuckling his scabbard from his belt, he flipped it over and let his long sword slide out.
'Swallow that,' he said as the weapon came free. Then he jammed the blade in the beast's face.
With so little room, there was no place for it to dodge, and the tip of the sword plunged past the creature's huge fangs and into its open, salivating mouth. Putting his foot on the hilt, Quinn stomped it into the creature’s brain.
The black beast convulsed once, choking on the sharpened steel. Thrashing mightily, it died on the sword, its body jammed against the other dead creature. Together they blocked out the orange light from below.
For now, their corpses clogged the opening, a temporary blockade against the hundreds of other beasts. Quinn could hear the rest of Xeries's monstrosities clamoring into the bottom of the alcove. It wouldn't be long before they simply managed to dig through the dead flesh and mount a new attack.
Reaching behind him, Quinn pressed his hands against the wall that had smacked his head. It was smooth, just like all the other exposed obsidian, except in the center. The stone had a large crack, an opening of crumbled rock that lead all the way down the wall toward the floor below.
'Mariko's shout,' whispered Quinn. The spell the princess cast had damaged the stone in the lower chamber, but it must have reverberated up into this alcove as well. „,
'As you wish, Princess Mariko.' His palm lit up, and he peered into the cracked obsidian.
The wall behind him wasn't very thick-just enough to close the alcove off from a much larger space behind. Rolling backward, Quinn braced his shoulders against the beasts he had just killed and slammed his boots against the broken stone.
The bodies slipped down with the blow, threatening to dislodge and clear the passage. Quinn slid along with them, that much closer to the hungry monsters below. Bits of broken stone rained down as well, a large chuck tumbling against the wall and smacking Quinn in the face.
He kicked and kicked again. More stone came away, a small hole opening in the wall. Obsidian shards fell on his head, and with one final kick, he broke the crack open wide.
His effort was successful, but the blow finally knocked the dead beasts free. Their bodies slid away, pulled out of the space by the killers who wanted in. More of the creatures climbed into the alcove, teaching for Quinn.
Their claws scraped at a frantic pace. The waiting had whipped them into a rabid frenzy, and they came for him with a renewed desperation. Shoving and clawing at each other, each seemingly bent on being the first to devour the interloper, each one driven to finish what the others could not.
Upside down, his face covered in splinters of obsidian, Quinn rolled backward until his feet hit the back of Xeries's statue-the beasts grabbing at his heels. With all of his might, he leaped for the opening at the opposite end. His fingers just touched the edge of the torn, jagged stone, but it was enough. Scrambling up, he squeezed through the hole in the wall and tumbled down into the unknown-Xeries's angry minions reaching through the gap, but too big to follow.
In the space behind, Quinn tolled down a short incline, tumbling nearly out of control. Flopping over onto his back, his feet hit the ground with a thud, and he came to a stop in the bottom of a wide, rough-hewn passage, not unlike the ones he'd traversed in the Cellar. He forced himself through the tiny hole so quickly that the broken obsidian gouged large cuts in both of his arms and down the side of his fibs.
Getting to his feet, he examined the passageway.
'Shortcut,' he said quietly.
Wiping the blood from his exposed skin as best as he could, he turned and headed deeper into the citadel.
Chapter Thirty
Xeries materialized out of the obsidian wall, a woman in each hand.
'Who does your king think he's dealing with this voice echoing as he dragged Mariko and Evelyne across the floor. 'I was perfectly clear about the consequences. Yet he disobeyed me.
'You got what you wanted,' said Mariko, struggling against his grip. She was going to enjoy killing him.
Xeries stood as straight as he could, taking a deep breath. 'Yes, I suppose I did.' He released the two women, and put his hands to the side of his head, rubbing his temples. 'Though I had not counted on you having such a piercing voice.'
With a wave of his hand, a shower of black sparks appeared in midair. They drifted down onto the princess and Evelyne. 'That'll keep you from shouting.'
