The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [183]
Cazaril jerked his horse back beside Bergon’s, leaned over, and muttered, “This is a trap. Look to your weapons. Pass the word.” Bergon fell back beside dy Tagille, who in turn bent to speak quietly to a pair of the party’s grooms. Cazaril smiled in dissimulation, and sidled his horse over to Foix’s, where he held up his hand before his mouth as if sharing a jest, and repeated the warning. Foix smiled blandly and nodded. His eyes darted around the courtyard, counting up the odds, as he leaned toward his brother.
The odds did not seem ill, but for that rangy lout up on the wooden perch beside the gate, leaning against the inner wall, a crossbow dangling, as if casually, from his hand. Except that it was cocked. Cazaril maneuvered back by Bergon, putting himself and his horse between the royse and the gate. “ ‘Ware bowman,” he breathed. “Duck under a mule.”
The ghosts were darting from place to place about the yard, pointing out concealed men behind the barrels and tools, shadowed in the stalls, and, apparently, waiting just inside the main door. Cazaril revised his opinion of the odds. The grizzled man motioned to one of his men, and the gate swung shut behind the party. Cazaril twisted in his saddle and dug his hand into his saddlebag. His fingers touched silk, then the smooth coolness of round beads; he had not pawned Dondo’s pearls in Zagosur because the price was disadvantageous there, so close to the source. He swept his hand up, drawing out the glistening rope of them in a grand gesture. As he swung the string around his head, he popped the cord with his thumb. Pearls spewed off the end of the line and bounced about the slate-paved court. The startled toughs laughed, and began to dive for them.
Cazaril dropped his arm, and shouted, “Now!”
The grizzled commander, who had apparently been just about to shout a similar order, was taken aback. Cazaril’s men drew steel first, falling upon the distracted enemy. Cazaril half fell out of his saddle just before a crossbow bolt thunked into it. His horse reared and bolted, and he scrambled to pull his own sword out of its scabbard.
Foix, bless the boy, had managed to get his own crossbow quietly unshipped before the chaos of shouting men and plunging horses struck. One of the male ghosts streaked past Cazaril’s inner eye, and pointed at an obscured shape dodging along the top of the portico. Cazaril tapped Foix’s arm, and shouted, “Up there!” Foix cocked and whirled just as a second bowman popped up; Cazaril could swear the frantic ghost tried to guide the quarrel. It entered the bowman’s right eye and dropped him instantly. Foix ducked and began recocking; the ratcheting mechanism whirred.
Cazaril, turning to seek an enemy, found one seeking him. From the main door, steel drawn, barged a startlingly familiar form: Ser dy Joal, dy Jironal’s stirrup-man, whom Cazaril had last seen in Cardegoss. Cazaril raised his sword just in time to deflect dy Joal’s first furious blow. His belly twinged, cramped, then knotted agonizingly as they circled briefly for advantage, and then dy Joal bore in.
The excruciating belly pain drained the strength from Cazaril’s arm, almost doubling him over; he barely beat off the next attack, and counterattack was suddenly out of the question. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the female ghost curl tightly in upon herself. She—or was that a pearl?—or both united, somehow slid under dy Joal’s boot. Dy Joal skidded violently and unexpectedly forward, flailing for balance. Cazaril’s point rammed through his throat and lodged briefly in the bones of his neck.
A hideous shock ran up Cazaril’s arm. Not just his belly but his whole body seemed to cramp, and his vision blurred and darkened. Within him, Dondo screamed in triumph. The death demon surged up like a whirling fire behind his eyes, eager and implacable. Cazaril convulsed, vomiting. In Cazaril’s uncontrolled recoil, his sword ripped out sideways; vessels spurted,