The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [51]
The armaragor saluted, his baldric of many blades swirling, and stormed along the cross-passage with two men at his heels. Bloodblade looked to Naor, in his usual place at his master's side, and muttered, "Watch our rear-if you see any crossbows, yell!"
His warriors were already pelting across the grand chamber, an echoing place of lofty vaulted ceilings, huge paintings of stags being hunted through green-glimmer woods, and curving lounges from which white-faced men in silks were rising, goblets in their hands, and grabbing vainly at slender swords dangling from their hips.
Duthjack's men struck with brutal efficiency, slashing faces and breaking necks with almost magical speed. Some of the courtiers didn't even have time to cry out before they were falling; the one who went to his knees to plead was cut down without hesitation.
There was a clattering crash as a white-haired liveried servant who'd backed into the room with a tray of filled goblets turned, saw the butchery, and flung down his burden in terror. As the man spun around and caught at the handle of the door he'd just come through, Lultus threw his sword with care and precision.
It struck the old man around his ears, spraying blood. The servant threw back his head, fell against the door he'd been trying to claw open, and slid down it without a sound.
"Good wine," Gurkyn said with a gasp, setting down an empty goblet with a heavy thunk.
Bloodblade opened his mouth to rage at such idiocy-and then closed it again. Eight goblets were already being drained, their stems raised to the ceiling as warriors tossed back the contents with swift jerks of their heads. Horns of the Lady, what was the use?
At least no alarm had been raised. "Drag the bodies against that door," he said, pointing at where the servant had fallen, "and let's be on-back out the arch and along the other passage, where I sent Mararr!"
With both hands, his warriors were scooping up pastries and what looked like river-oysters in sauce, spread on palm-sized loaves of bread, but they were looking at him and nodding; Bloodblade rolled his eyes in disgust and set out back across the marble, striding swiftly. The stone knights might follow them inside, after all…
The cross-passage climbed a short flight of steps, widening into a gallery lined with statues, and gave into another passage that climbed a few more steps and opened out into a room from which two passages ran off north and northwest, a broad flight of steps ascended to the west, and a large, ornate, and closed pair of double doors awaited in the south wall. The body of a servant was huddled on the lowest three steps, thin ribbons of blood descending along the white marble from it; Bloodblade smiled approvingly at this sign from Mararr and led the way up, gesturing at the floor with his blade to urge stealth as he heard their first footfalls echo back from a high and unseen ceiling somewhere above.
Three look down on all, but this place seemed deserted! This was the court of the King of all Aglirta? It had the empty, echoing feel of a grand house shut up for the season, with only a few servants left behind. On the obverse, of course: sprawled corpses rarely rush about screaming. Bloodblade smiled tightly, and ascended.
More bodies were strewn in the grand chamber at the head of the stairs, sprawled around a crackling fire in an outthrust fireplace. Most were richly dressed, none of them women, and some of them had tried to fight; one of those slim, useless needle-swords lay broken underfoot on a rich manyfurs rug, amid many bloody bootprints. Duthjack looked this way and that, seeking another stair and seeing none.
He shrugged and crossed the room to a far archway, where Mararr had left another body with one arm outstretched to point down the passage beyond. The warriors crowding around Bloodblade eagerly followed its guidance, moving ahead almost like dancers with their bloody swords held ready, low at their sides.
More bodies lay ahead, and more archways, leading through a succession