A moment later the nightmare of claws and teeth fell apart, collapsing into a wash of darkness. Nona rolled just in time to see the chunk of stone and plaster that had struck Kettle fall to one side as the nun dropped bonelessly to the other. Yisht must have used her rock-work to break the lump free. Nona could see the spot where the piece had fallen from, high above Kettle where the wall joined the ceiling. But the blow was a glancing one. Kettle had sensed it at the last, and managed to pull back far enough to save her skull from being smashed.
Yisht came on at speed, neatly sidestepping a knife that came winging down the corridor. Nona only just got to her feet in time to meet the attack. She held her place between Kettle and the ice-triber, trading blows. Although her speed kept Yisht on the defensive each clash of swords threatened to tear Nona’s from her fingers. Her arm ached and she was tiring swiftly. Of Clera there was no sign other than the knife.
Kill her! Keot sounded desperate. The devil drove himself into Nona’s right hand, strengthening her grip on the sword hilt.
Kill her!
Too crowded for you inside Yisht, is it? Don’t fancy sharing?
Nona fought on. To her side she caught a glimpse of Kettle starting to move. An arm lifting to her head. A groan followed.
Yisht stumbled, her footing wrong after a difficult parry, one boot skidding on scattered ceiling plaster. Seeing her chance, Nona pressed the advantage but suddenly found her sword stolen from her hand by some wrist-rolling action that went unrevealed until the result had become inevitable. Yisht surged up, her stumble a ruse, and Nona, now letting time escape only in the smallest fractions, suddenly became aware of several square feet of ceiling plaster descending upon her. The falling mass had already covered more than half the distance to the floor.
Nona dived back, twisting from the thrust of Yisht’s blade, turning her shoulder to the plaster as it hammered into her. She hit the ground hard in a white cloud of dust and fragments, rolled and kept rolling, knowing that a razored tular would come scything out of the dust any moment.
But none did.
The air cleared to reveal Yisht, her blacks now whitened, the slow colour-tides across her skin pale beneath powdered plaster. She stood with one foot pressing Kettle’s head to the floorboards, the blade of her sword against the nun’s pale throat. Whatever looked at Nona from her eyes did not appear to be human.
“Friends are a weakness,” Yisht repeated. “You should run away now . . . but you won’t.” She moved the sword a fraction and Nona cried out. Yisht smiled, the devils fighting over her tongue. “You should have let me kill you back in the convent. I was different then. Not kind, but not cruel. That has changed. Now I am cruel.”
Run away, Keot said. The nun’s doomed. In any case, she’s just a burden.
“I will cut her throat on the count of three. One . . .”
No! Run! Keot shrieked. Run, you idiot . . . His voice growing faint and thin.
Nona threw herself forward empty-handed. Yisht timed her move perfectly, lifting her sword with a spray of blood just as Nona’s feet left the ground, committing her to her trajectory.
The tular came level with Nona as she reached it, ready to impale her. She lashed out with her flaw-blades, her fingers scarlet where Keot had invaded them. Her blades met steel, slicing the weapon into bright, tumbling sections, but Yisht had seen what would happen, and had seen the last foot of her sword, deflected from Nona’s chest, piercing her upper thigh instead and grating over bone.
Yisht sidestepped Nona’s tackle and the girl fell to the ground beside Kettle with a scream, her leg a hot, wet agony. The remains of Yisht’s tular fell beside her, torn from the woman’s grasp.
“I could leave you both to bleed to death. I doubt you’d last until Sherzal’s guards found you.” Yisht stepped back, beyond range if Nona had the strength to swing at her.
The blood pumped from the wound in Nona’s leg at an alarming rate. If she hadn’t had to slaughter pigs on Sister Tallow’s instructions she would not have believed how much blood was in her or how fast it could leave. Of course she had inflicted worse wounds on others, but in the heat of battle there was no time or desire to observe the aftermath.
Direct pressure on the wound. That was the most important thing. Unless something else was about to kill you more quickly, of course.
Yisht had a small package in her hand. “Grey mustard. I had hoped to spend more time helping you make a slow exit from this world.” The creature didn’t sound like Yisht any more. “I hear that Lord Tacsis wanted the same pleasure. But grey mustard isn’t exactly a kindness . . .”
“No!” Nona didn’t want to beg, but she knew what the stuff could do. “Please.” She raised her hand as if she could somehow ward off the coming cloud of spores.
And as she did so, something red left her fingers, a crimson cloud, its tendrils seeking purchase on her skin but losing their grip one by one as though some force were sucking it from her.
No!
A moment later Keot lost his last connection with her and shot away as though drawn by a bowstring, to hit Yisht square in the forehead.
The ice-triber drew in a huge breath like the gasp made when you fall into freezing water. She dropped the grey mustard package and staggered back, still gasping, wheezing for air. All across her skin the devil taints swirled, flowing over her, converging on her head. Somehow Keot had been sucked from or driven from Nona, or both at once, and his initiation into Yisht’s crowded flesh did not appear to be a gentle one.
The pain in Nona’s leg demanded her attention. She pressed her fingers hard into the wound where the blood spurted with each beat of her slowing heart, and rolled, awkwardly, to see Kettle, with both hands pressed to a crimson throat, eyeing her frantically. Nona reached out to pull Kettle’s robe open, exposing the tight-bound bandolier of poisons and cures. In amongst them would be stanching powder, which when applied to wounds would, along with causing excruciating pain, dramatically reduce the blood flow. Nona could see only two containers that looked as if they might hold powder, and snatched one at random. Kettle gave a slight nod. Behind them Yisht bellowed and roared, underlining the need for haste.
Nona readied the stanching agent, raised herself from the ground, and pulled one of Kettle’s hands from her throat, trying not to grimace. The cut wasn’t as deep as she had feared given all the blood. Kettle must have managed to jerk her head back and lessen the damage. The nun held the middle of the slice together, pinched between finger and thumb, while Nona applied the powder. Kettle immediately went rigid, showing her teeth in agony’s grimace. The wash of blood slowed, clotting darkly around the powder.
Nona rolled to her side and applied the remains of it to her leg wound. It hurt less than the Harm, despite her fears. She had Thuran Tacsis to thank for showing her that whatever hurts she suffered in life, worse were possible.
“Come.” A pained rasp from Kettle.
Nona reached out for her sword, thrust it through her belt, and together they began to crawl away down the corridor. Behind them, Yisht was throwing herself around, impacting the walls, roaring, shattering masonry.
With every yard they put between Yisht and themselves Nona’s fear grew that the ice-triber’s raging would summon Sherzal’s guards. It seemed, though, that whatever the emergency was that had drawn away those charged with the defence of the emperor’s sister, it was proving to be a big one.
After twenty yards Nona got to her feet using the wall for support and helped Kettle up. Apart from the pain and weariness she felt a kind of emptiness, a hole where Keot had been. She had tried so hard to be rid of the devil, especially in the early days, turning the whole of her will against him, but to no avail. And then, at her weakest, he’d been ejected without conscious effort, like a sickness coughed out . . .
The reason came to Nona as a small epiphany, only half-believed. Every time she forgave, every time she showed love or loyalty, the devil’s hold on her had been weakened . . . Was that really all it had taken? For her to throw herself between a friend and certain death?
Kettle and Nona hobbled on, leaning on each other, and as they approached the junction where another passageway intersected their own Nona saw Clera peeking from the corner.