Hoppara and Iliando shrank away in voiceless terror; Mara sat frozen, as if the spell held her rooted. Only Kevin, driven by love, found the will to react. He stepped aside, reached past the shining flesh that now thrashed in mindless torment, and caught Mara’s upper arm. With a tortured cry of effort he half lifted, half dragged her beyond reach of the shrieking warrior. Then he flung his own body before hers.
Lujan found his reflexes. His sword spun down in an expert stroke and silenced the harrowing screams. Smoke puffed from the corpse, and the green glow flickered and vanished. Ordinary gloom flooded back, full darkness held off by the flame of one guttering lamp.
Openly shaking, the Lord of the Bontura made a sign against evil. ‘A magician wishes your death, Lady Mara. That thing sought you out by the sound of your voice!’
Kevin wiped sweating hands on his robe, forgetful that the cloth was already sodden. He shook his head, ‘I think not.’
Lord Bontura looked irritated at the contradiction, but Mara raised herself from the floorboards without offence. ‘Why?’
The Midkemian looked back at her, his blue eyes level, ‘If a Black Robe wanted you dead, you would be, and no effort of ours could have spared you. Just one of those lightning globes we saw at the games, tossed in here, would make an end of things. But if someone wanted to scare the hell out of you as a warning, a slow snake would turn the trick nicely.’
‘Snake?’ said Mara. Then comprehension dawned as she pulled her arms around her knees in a huddle. ‘You mean the relli. Yes, perhaps you are correct.’
‘There is another possibility,’ Hoppara offered, blotting sweat from his brow with the back of one wrist. ‘Lesser Magicians and priests can work magic, and unlike any member of the Assembly, they might be susceptible to bribes.’
‘Who?’ Kevin fought to keep the shiver of reaction from his voice. ‘Who would have the means?’
Hoppara regarded the corpse left dead by the spell, its lips pulled back in a haunting rictus of pain. ‘If a man could consign a nation’s wealth to the Hamoi tong to buy assassins, might he not also stoop to paying off the priests of a powerful temple, or hire the services of a renegade Lesser Magician?’
‘Do you accuse Minwanabi?’ said Iliando, his ham hands still clenched in his sleeves.
‘Perhaps. Or else the party who sent us the soldiers in black.’ Hoppara surged to his feet, as if further stillness might burn him. Armoured, blood-streaked, and left haggard by stress, he looked the image of Chipino. ‘We may know tomorrow, if we survive to return to council.’
No one spoke.
19 – Warlord
Four more attacks came.
Throughout the night the Acoma soldiers and their allies endured assaults by dark warriors without house badges. The Hamoi tong troubled them no more, but the armoured soldiers came in waves.
On the last influx the defenders were forced to retreat into the small back bedroom that had no outside door. Jammed in the narrow area, they beat back enemies who sallied from the hall, and others who pressed for entry through the shattered window. Kevin stationed himself before Mara at all times and fought like a man possessed. By the third attack, almost no one remained without injuries. The most tradition-bound Tsurani was too tired to look twice at the redheaded, loud-mouthed barbarian, as he rested with sword and shield in hand after the latest struggle. His blade had stood ground with the best warriors’, and let the gods determine the fate of a slave who refused to know his place. While the night wore on, and men died, no hand that could still grip a weapon could be spared.
After the fourth attack, Kevin could barely move. His arms ached with fatigue and his knees shook uncontrollably. When the last black warrior fell under his sword, his legs folded and he hunkered on the floor, while the nervous energy that had sustained him drained away.
Mara brought him a cup of water and he laughed at the reversal of roles. He drank deeply as she moved on to tend to the others able to drink. Kevin surveyed the carnage. The floor, the cushions, the walls, every cranny of the chamber glistened red, and hacked bodies lay sprawled in grotesque positions. The once pleasant room now looked like some nightmare charnel house. Of the thirty Acoma soldiers and two dozen Xacatecas and Bontura who had joined ranks the night before, only ten Acoma, five Xacatecas, and three Bontura warriors stood. The rest lay slain or wounded between heaps of black-clad corpses that no one had energy left to clear. Dully Kevin said, ‘We must have killed a hundred of them.’
‘Perhaps more.’ Called from the pantry cupboard by necessity, Arakasi knelt beside the slave. The sling that supported his arm was splashed red, and the dagger in his left hand seemed glued to his fingers with gore.
Kevin inclined his head. ‘Doesn’t that hurt?’