The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [53]
"Hold!" Peldrus barked, speaking for the first time that night. "What-?"
Mararr sobbed and brushed him aside, twisting desperately past. The others fell back to let him go, and saw that several swords were missing from his baldric.
As the armaragor gasped his way on, Bloodblade saw who it was and snapped, "Guldalmyn, stop and stand! I command you!"
Mararr slowed, caught at a pillar, and swung himself to a stop, panting.
"What is it?" Duthjack growled. "Who did you meet with?"
There was a commotion in the room ahead, and all eyes went to it, in time to see two grim courtiers hurl the body of Skuldus-one of the men Mararr had taken on his foray-into the room, and follow it. A tight knot of courtiers moved forward behind them, blades in their hands and faces tight with fear and determination. At their head strode a man in full plate armor, his visor down and a sword in either hand. There was blood on both blades.
Mararr pointed wordlessly at the courtiers.
"Slay them," Bloodblade commanded bleakly, raising his voice just a trifle. As his men moved forward, he took two steps, plucked up an ornate chair, and hurled it down the room. It crashed into kindling amid the courtiers, making several hop aside and curse, but not downing a man.
Then blades met with a crash, on all sides, and fighting began in earnest. Duthjack's warriors were blooded veterans, desperate outlaws not so long away from battles as to forget tricks of the fray, and they faced obviously frightened, unarmored men years past desperation on battlefields. Yet in the midst of the defensive, overly careful courtiers strode the armored giant, his blade biting like a serpent, sliding past a parry to take Peldrus in the throat, and then Braerim, in as many breaths.
"Take the armored knight!" Bloodblade barked, plucking up another chair. If he could hurl it over everyone's head, and hit that helm at the right moment…
His throw caught on a shoulder, and spun aside, serving only to make one of his own men reel and stagger. A courtier's blade leaped in to kiss a throat, and that was one fewer blade to obey Duthjack.
A courtier fell, and then another. Then the armored knight, his blade flashing in a knot of foes, hewed down Nluthkin and Tathtorn, sending a third man-Earlevus-reeling back. Earlevus gave Bloodblade a fear-filled glance and then bolted past, fleeing the room.
"Stop, sargh you!" Bloodblade shouted, reaching out with his sword to stop the man or cut him down-but finding his reach just short. Horns and bebolt!
Others were fleeing now, turning and pounding back down the room. "Stand, you dogs!" Duthjack raged, clawing one man to a halt but missing the rest. "Stand and fight! We've a kingdom to win!"
"Three forfend," came a voice from within the closed helm, "more idiots seeking to seize Aglirta with their swords. Lady, aid me."
Bloodblade spun around again to the fray, and ran a courtier through with some satisfaction, kicking another savagely in the crotch as the first man groaned his bloody way to the floor. There was a scream behind him, and he turned his head in time to see Earlevus reel back into the room and fall, his slayer yanking his blade free. It was a darting little man in leathers Bloodblade had never seen before-a procurer, by the Three, not a courtier!
Gods, was someone else trying to slay the king this night?
Bloodblade whirled around again, made a desperate parry, and danced away from a stumbling courtier. Blades skirled on both sides, another of his own warriors ducked aside-and Bloodblade found himself blade-to-blade with the armored knight.
His lip curled. The helm of the mysterious swordsman was of olden design; a swordtip could easily slip into its visor-slits. Sendrith Duthjack raised his bloody blade and snarled, "Meet death, man!"
"Oh?" The deep voice rang within the helm. "I've been seeking the Dark One for a long, long time-yet I never seem to find him when a warrior tries to show me the way."
"Then let this day be your day of finding," Bloodblade snarled, springing up into the air to put all of his weight behind a