Sentinelspire - Mark Sehestedt [104]
"Sauk, stop this!" Talieth said.
The other assassins closed in, but they were hesitant to get too close to Sauk's swing. Both archers had their bows bent and fletching held to their cheeks.
"Either of you loose and you are dead!" shouted Talieth. "You men fall back! Kheil! Sauk! I command you to stop!"
The assassins stepped well back, but Sauk and Berun continued to swipe at each other. Berun ducked a swing of Sauk's fist and his blade flicked forward. When Sauk stepped back, blood ran down his forearm.
"He does still bite!" Sauk said, and renewed his attack.
Berun fell back before the onslaught, ducking and stepping away from the blade and blocking the half-orc's fist. But Lewan saw Sauk's tactic at once. The half-orc was leading Berun toward the tiger, who crouched ready just inside the open gateway of the courtyard.
"Master!" Lewan called. "Behind you! The tiger!"
Berun shifted his retreat to the right, circling away and putting Sauk between himself and the tiger.
Talieth was on her feet, her hood down and her cloak thrown back. The incessant rain had plastered her hair to her face. "Lewan, he'll listen to you. Tell him to stop this! I swear to you that no harm will come to you or your master."
Lewan opened his mouth and took in a breath to shout, but then he remembered the words of the Old Man on the mountainside. Talieth and her little conspiracy… they are lying to you. They are using you. Do not trust them. But had not Sauk offered-even urged-Lewan to flee? And there was something else, something Talieth herself had said to him earlier, something he had not been able to get out of his mind.
He didn't know what to do. He wasn't sure to whom he was speaking, but he picked up the fallen hammer, stood, and shouted, "Stop it! Just stop!"
The half-orc held his sword back, prepared for another swipe, but he did not bring it forward. He stopped and risked a glance at Lewan.
Berun used the opportunity to step back and look around, surveying the situation. Sauk hadn't moved. The surrounding assassins were keeping their distance, and Talieth stood not far from Lewan, both hands curled into tight fists.
For a moment, everyone simply looked, the only sound that of the rain in the leaves and on the pavement.
Then the tiger growled.
Berun snapped around.
Lewan saw her less than five paces from his master, crouched and ready to strike. Her lips curled over her fangs, which glowed an unearthly blue in the eldritch lights round the Tower.
The tiger's front paws had just come off the ground when a small shape struck her on the head. Perch!
Taaki's lunge turned into a fierce back and forth swing of her head as she tried to dislodge the treeclaw lizard. The tiger shrieked and slapped at her own head-but she remembered her previous injury and kept her claws retracted.
For the first few swings and shakes of her head and slaps of the tiger's paws, Perch managed to avoid the strikes by shifting his grip and twisting his own lithe body back and forth. But then the tiger rolled onto her back, scraping her head and neck along the brick pavement.
Perch bounded off just in time. Had he fled into the brush, he would have been safe. Instead, he twisted around, rose on his hind legs, and hissed at the tiger, amazingly loud for such a small creature.
"Sauk, call her off!" Berun shouted.
The half-orc's lip had twisted into a sneer at the sight of the lizard, and he shook his head once. "Lizard took her eye," he said. "He's got this coming."
Taaki rolled onto her feet, took one look at the offending lizard-she didn't even roar-and jumped, reminding Lewan of a barn cat lunging on a mouse. Perch avoided the first strike, but he was not quick enough to dodge the second. The tiger struck again, trapping the lizard between paw and pavement. The tiger's head ducked down. Her back faced Lewan, but he heard her massive jaws snap closed. She shook her head left and right once, then threw her head back as she swallowed the treeclaw lizard whole.