The Alabaster Staff - Edward Bolme [58]
"And everyone wants to be the one with the key."
Tharrad winked at her and said, "Let's see what they want, shall we?"
Kehrsyn followed Tharrad up the central staircase but hung back as he approached the Tiamatan delegation arrayed in their distinctive red robes. Concerned that she might be seen and recognized, for she had no idea what complications that might bring, Kehrsyn loitered in the background, keeping her face concealed by shadows and obstructions.
She saw that the Tiamatan speaking for their delegation was the same bulbous-nosed, high-browed, arrogant cleric whom she'd begged for help when Demok and his thugs had first caught her.
She tried to eavesdrop on the conversation, but, as Tharrad faced away from her, his words were swallowed by the muffled roar of the crowds outside. Many of the Tiamatan's words were inaudible, as well. Their body language, however, told Kehrsyn that the meeting was not congenial: clenched fists, narrowed eyes, mouths drawn into snarls, accusing fingers thrust forward like swords.
The Tiamatan raised his voice, cutting through the ambient noise as he said, "How dare you undertake that theft without us! And including the Red Wizards is unthinkable. You have no idea the damage you've caused!"
Kehrsyn, her heart beating rapidly, ducked through a doorway and out of sight. How had the Tiamatans known? How had they found her? And, since they surely knew, would Furifax's gang turn on her?
The Tiamatan yelled, "Give us the staff! Now!"
Kehrsyn twitched toward the dagger in her boot just as one of Furifax's rebels stumbled backward through the doorway, an arrow sticking from his chest. Kehrsyn saw him pull it out. The shaft trailed the oily glint of poison, and the arrowhead remained in the wound.
Kehrsyn hazarded a glance around the door and saw the two groups locked in vicious, hand-to-hand combat. She had seen some of the battles against the pharaoh's army, but that was something different. Kings' battles were filled with crashing, shouts, roaring charges, trumpets, drums, and thundering chariots. The fight was between shadow factions, conducted with brutal silence to avoid the unwanted attention of the city guard. She heard the swipe of steel through flesh, gasps of pain, the twang of bows, and the murmur of spells. The loudest noises were not the sounds of blazing rocks plowing through massed formations, but rather crockery being upset and smashed, chairs buckling under the weight of wrestling bodies, and the cracking of bones.
Kehrsyn ran through the building, raising the alarm first on the top floor, then down the staircase to the rooms below. She remained below, fearful of both sides, for indeed it was likely that in the heat of combat, those who followed Furifax would consider her, a stranger, to be an enemy.
Not knowing what else to do, she remained under the stairs, trembling with fear as the battle developed above her. She feared such combat-mindless savagery in dense groups-where her only advantages, speed and agility, would avail her little when there was no room to escape.
She wondered if there was another exit, a secret underground tunnel, something that might help her escape the danger. She made an effort to locate a trapdoor, quickly poking from room to room, but nothing was easily seen, and the sounds above troubled her. She heard the Tiamatans pressing the advantage, driving the bandits farther back into the building. Their footsteps moved across the wooden floor above her head, the beams creaked with the weight of the assailants, and dust fell from the trembling planks as bodies dropped for the final time. She heard grunts, curses, bottles rolling across the floor, and the strange, whetstone sound of spells being cast. Fear that the Tiamatans might charge downstairs