The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [100]
"Necessary weapon," Raulin told her firmly, closing her fingers tightly around it with his own. "A dainty little table back down the passage won't be needing it any longer. Use it to bat away swords!"
He was already leaping back up the stairs. "I've got to get back to Sarasper," he called. "Fair fortune, Lady Em!"
The woman who wore only boots winced. " 'Em'?" she asked the world, in pained tones. " 'Em'?"
There was a fresh thunder of boots from below. Embra whirled around in time to see another two bladesmen charging up the stairs to join the two who'd been retreating before Hawkril's blade. She frowned, went to her knees, and opened the first pouch.
"Hurry!" Tapmaster Nortreen was more angry than they'd ever seen him. "Haste, before they set the place afire around us!"
The tapmaster usually waddled from place to place, wheezing whenever he wasn't roaring out laughter or orders, and lurching from side to side with every step. Right now he was lumbering down the passage with surprising speed, the boards thundering under his weight. The two guards he'd aroused wiped sleep from their eyes and shrugged their hastily donned armor into place as they hurried after him. The unmistakable clangor of swordplay was coming from the main stairwell; they both drew blades as they went.
"Sarghing claws of the Dark One!" Nortreen swore, as he burst out into the stairwell-and came to a dead stop.
It was almost literally a dead stop, as the guard right behind him brought his swordblade up to avoid spitting the tapmaster only just in time. He swung himself past Nortreen's bulk and skidded to his own halt, staring up at the stair.
Four men in motley armor were hacking and thrusting like men possessed, up at a half-naked giant of a man, all rippling muscles and hair, who was fending them off with a huge cleaver of a sword. At his side stood a woman with long, flowing black hair, who wore only-
"Gods above!" the second guard gasped delightedly.
–boots and a smile. She was striking aside sword-thrusts with a table leg, ducking and bobbing, and slashing back at the faces of the bladesmen with a sword or jet of flame that seemed to be growing from the empty palm of her other hand.
"Sorcery!" Nortreen and the first guard snarled, together, at about the same time as one of the bladesmen threw a knife at the giant, and his almost casual parry sent it spinning past the tapmaster to sing and ring its way down the wall.
The sorceress ducked to let a blade stab past one shapely bare shoulder and asked merrily, "How well do you like your eyeballs cooked?" as she thrust her flame up into the face of the bladesman who'd launched that thrust. He screamed, threw his head back, and flung himself a few steps back down the stairs out of her reach, shaking his head frantically from side to side.
"I've seen enough," the tapmaster growled, swinging his sword at the gong on the wall beside him. It rang protestingly-but alone: the rings that should have echoed it, all over the Flagon, did not sound.
Nortreen gaped at it, and then his face went white with fear and fury. "Someone's cut the cords!" he bellowed. "We're under attack!"
"What do we do?" one of the guards demanded.
The tapmaster turned on him. "What you're paid to do, dolt!" he snarled, peering right and left. "Where are the night guards, curse them!?! Are they deaf?"
"Are they dead?" the other guard muttered grimly. Nortreen turned slowly to stare at the man, sudden fear rising in his eyes.
"May the Three bear witness-it's cold!" Kether hissed, watching his breath curl away in the moonlight.
Borthor's answer was a wordless grunt, as he turned and tramped away along the fenceline. On their left was the dark wall of the forest, branches reaching out at them like claws. They could always feel unseen eyes watching them from its depths. Kether felt them now.
To their right, across the muddy yard, sprawled the unlovely bulk of the rear of the Flagon-all ladders and gutter-pipes and