The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [95]
The eyes of the closest of the three surviving attackers-men he'd never seen before, though they had the look of veteran warriors-widened as the man's glare lifted momentarily from Hawkril's face. The warrior was looking over Hawkril's shoulder, and the armaragor lost no time in ducking his sword-hilt in under the man's elbow and heaving. As the man staggered back, Hawk took a single stride forward and drove his right boot into the man's gut-right about where this same man had left a sword in Hawkril, not so long ago.
The man tried to shriek as ribs cracked and he began his helpless journey towards the ceiling, but all of his breath was leaving him explosively, and he managed only a strangled whistle. The eyes of the next attacker, too, strayed for a moment to something behind Hawkril, but the armaragor did not turn his head to look-not even when Embra purred from beside him, "Hail, Boar of Blackgult. Have you missed me?"
"Lady-lass-I have," Hawkril told her, stepping forward across the passage as the man he'd kicked crashed senseless to the floor, to engage the blades of the two remaining men. "And you… are you still missing your clothes?"
"Yes," Embra replied cheerfully. "Raulin says I make a most fetchingly effective distraction. Among other things."
Hawk made a sound that was part snort and part chuckle, and drove one man back a pace with a furious slash whose backhand swing almost put his swordtip in Embra's face. She dodged behind him with easy grace and without delay, hissing a wordless comment at how close he'd come to carving her.
The armaragor took another step forward. He was carrying the fray along the passage, step by hacking step, to the head of the stairs. Swords were striking each other so hard that the steel was ringing like bells and spitting sparks. More than once Embra winced and ducked away from a particularly noisy clash.
The Flagon was an old and creaking inn, but it was a wonder how few folk had awakened and peered out into the passage to see the reason for all the tumult-or perhaps they were awake, and cowering behind their door-bars with knives clutched ready in their hands, hoping that sharp-edged battle wouldn't come looking for them.
Or perhaps, Embra thought, she'd misjudged the up-country Vale, and guests at the Flagon were quite used to the ring and clatter of swordplay in the halls through the dark hours.
As they drove their attackers to the head of the stairs and down, a third man rushed up the steps to join them. He was just in time to bump and jostle with his two sweating fellows as Hawkril's scything blade swept them another step down the stairs.
"Weldrin! Where were you?" one of the bladesmen snarled at the newcomer, as a desperate parry left his blade momentarily stuck in the stair-rail (which, he now noticed, bore many older notches and sword-scars) and his hands numbed with the force of clashing steel.
"No names, you dolt!" Weldrin snarled back. "And I was cutting the alarm-cords! Or did you want all the night guards outside-and all the other guards sleeping around us, too-out and on top of us the moment we first drew steel?"
"Huh," the other bladesman growled, twisting aside from Hawk's reaching blade, "you mean they're not?"
Nortreen Jhalanvyluk had been tapmaster and proud part owner of the Flagon and the Gauntlet for the better part of two decades, and its tapmaster and second flagonman for another two before that. The worn old beam above him, with