What they saw were Guildmasters and barons, knights and earls-perhaps eight or nine in total. Some wielded swords, some daggers, some chair legs or other makeshift clubs, but all wore that subtle, preoccupied look Irrial had seen upon so many faces earlier that day. And in the lead, bludgeon held high, was Mubarris, master of the Cartwrights' and Carpenters' Guild.
They were a rockslide of living, panting, foolish-looking flesh, ready to dash themselves to bloody bits against the bulwark of the assembled mercenaries. Stronger, more numerous, better equipped, and far better trained, the soldiers could have slaughtered the lot without breaking a sweat.
But these were their employers, men and women they'd been hired to protect. Confusion stayed the warriors' hands for a precious instant before self-preservation usurped control, and in that time the blades and bludgeons landed. Blood seeped into the formerly expensive carpeting, and the first soldier fell without having raised a finger.
The shock of the unprovoked assault faded, and the remaining mercenaries responded as mercenaries do. Crossbows thrummed, blades swung, and bodies toppled.
Irrial felt the pressure on her arms ease up as the guards holding her rose to deal with this new threat. She surged to her feet, reaching for Sunder.
Corvis, who had rolled from beneath his captor in his own moment of distraction, got there first.
The blade shifted like living clay from dueling sword to brutal axe, and the aging warlord began to kill. Irrial flinched from the butchery, the deaths of men and women who had committed no evil, but were simply doing the job for which they'd been hired. But when Corvis stopped for an instant at her side, extending, hilt-first, the sword he'd yanked from a mercenary's hand even as he'd ripped Sunder from the fellow's chest, she sighed and accepted the blade. And when Corvis waded into the thick of the melee, chopping down soldiers like saplings, she was at his back, stabbing and lunging. She would survive, she would escape, no matter what it took.
For Rahariem's sake, perhaps for all Imphallion's.
She had no choice. THEY RACED ALONG THE HIGHWAY, kicking up a cloud of dust as thick as a desert sandstorm. For more than an hour they'd galloped, Corvis desperately casting a handful of spells to keep the horses fresh.
Alas, he had no similar spells to protect his aching rump from the punishment of their grueling pace.
They left behind a capitol in chaos. Over two dozen guards, and perhaps four or five aristocrats and Guildmasters, lay butchered throughout the Hall of Meeting. Nobody seemed sure precisely how it had happened, for Corvis's surviving 'minions' had once more been mystically coerced never to speak of what had occurred, and none of the soldiers who'd been present had survived. The former warlord had every reason to hope it would be some time before anyone in authority even knew for certain that they had escaped-and even longer until they could mount any sort of pursuit.
None of which was even remotely enough to convince him to slow down, no matter that his entire body throbbed like one big saddle sore.
Eventually, however, they reached the limits of Corvis's modest magics. The horses began to tire, their sides lathered, and though he'd have liked to cover a few additional miles, Corvis reluctantly reined in his mount and guided the laboring beast off the road. For only a few moments more they continued, until they found themselves on the cracked banks of what, during cooler months, would have been a stream. A few puddles of muddy water remained, and the horses gratefully submerged their noses as though planning to dive in and float away.
Irrial wilted from the saddle with an extended groan.
'You're starting to remind me of bagpipes,' Corvis joked weakly as he, too, flopped to the dirt. He knew she must be exhausted when she couldn't even muster a glare.
'I'm sorry,' he wheezed at her, taking a huge gulp from his waterskin. 'But it's not just foot pursuit I'm worried about. I don't know what sorts of sorcerers the Guilds might have access to these days. Our best defense really is distance at this point. And-'
'I didn't ask,' she told him flatly. And that, throughout the sweltering summer night and into the next morning, was the end of the conversation. 'SO WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT more often?' she asked while they saddled the horses, after a cold breakfast of salted venison and dried fruits.
'Do…?'
'That spell.' She hauled herself into the saddle, wincing at the pains in her back and thighs that hadn't faded overnight. 'The one you cast on the horses. Don't misunderstand, I've no interest in enduring that on a regular basis, but it would save us a lot of time.'
'Dangerous,' he told her, standing beside his own roan, one hand resting idly in the stirrup. 'It's far too easy to kill the horses-either by pushing them too hard, or just from the strain of the spell itself. If we hadn't been so damn desperate yesterday, I'd never have risked it.' Still he stood, idly tapping a finger on the leather, and made no move to mount.
'Problem?' she asked.
'Maybe…' He frowned.
'Don't tell me: You have no idea what to do next?'
'Oh, I have some thoughts. It's just…' He sighed, and his expression became even more dour. Much as he'd have liked to hide it, any observer-let alone one who knew him as well as Irrial-would probably have suspected that he was frightened of something.
'I didn't really expect we'd find all our answers in Mecepheum,' he admitted, 'but I'd hoped. If we're to go chasing leads all over Daltheos's creation, there's someone I have to see first.'
'Someone you think has answers?'
'Someone I think has questions.'
'Um… All right,' she said finally. 'So where are we going?'
'Give me a minute.' Then, at her expression, 'I don't actually know, Irrial. Ever since my first campaign, I've cast a particular spell on my lieutenants. It lets me locate them far more easily than I could with any traditional divination.'
Irrial shook her head. 'I can't imagine why anyone could ever mistrust you. So we're looking for one of your lieutenants, then?'
'Ah, no.' Corvis was clearly hedging now. 'I, uh, I've also cast that spell on… On someone else I thought I might need to find.'
'Fine. So get to-whatever it is you need to get to, already.'
Corvis leaned against the stirrup, lost in deliberation. Distance, direction… He spread a mental map of Imphallion across his vision, and if they'd come roughly as far from Mecepheum as he thought they had, then that meant…
He couldn't quite repress a groan. They'd been there! They'd passed through on their way to Mecepheum! She'd been so near, if he'd only known to look!
Could that, come to think of it, have been what his dream had been trying to tell him?
'Where to?' Irrial asked again.
'Abtheum. We're going back to Abtheum.' CORVIS LEANED BACK IN HIS CHAIR, the shredded remnants of egg and pork sitting on the table before him, and idly ran a whetstone along an edge of steel. The metal rasped and screeched through the common room of Whatever The Hell This Latest Roadside Inn Was Called. The barkeep scowled from across the counter, but because there were few paying customers this early in the day-just Corvis himself and a few bleary fellows who'd drunkenly slept the night away in that very room-he didn't quite seem willing to object.
'It's not going to get any sharper if I do it outside,' Corvis said casually. The man began fussing with something behind the bar. Corvis continued to work, and the steel continued to shriek.
Sunder, of course, never needed sharpening, but the same couldn't be said for Irrial's sword. He'd shown the baroness the proper way to hone the blade, but he trusted his technique more than hers.
Rasp, shriek. Shriek, rasp.
'How did you get that?' a familiar voice demanded.
He looked up as Irrial dropped into the seat across from him. 'I'm sneaky.'
'Apparently. You stay the hell out of my room.'
'Yes, my lady.'
Shriek, rasp.
