Mansourah looked at him with a bit more warmth than perhaps the moment merited. Warmth, fury, who could tell the difference in the gloom?
He looked back at the lay of the land and wondered how best to proceed. It was, as he’d noted several times recently, extremely inconvenient to move about as a mere mortal. If he’d been at liberty to do what he did best, he would have stridden out into the courtyard of the stables, fought a delightful little duel with those lads there—singly or in a group, as it suited them—then swept off as a bitter, screeching wind toward the promise of more mischief in another place.
As it was, he could only be appallingly grateful, if not a little surprised, when his horse landed on his free shoulder and nipped at his ear.
He sighed. Some things never changed.
Sianach, that sterling fellow, hopped down to the ground, then changed his shape into a rather slim but eminently terrifying black dragon. Acair caught his eye before he spewed out a bit of fire in the wrong direction, then made a hasty decision.
“You and Léirsinn go,” he said to Mansourah without hesitation. “I’ll follow.”
Léirsinn looked gratifyingly horrified. “On foot?”
“I’ve done it before,” he said cheerfully. “You go on and keep our injured princeling from falling to his death. I’m guessing he can find my mother’s house and keep you covered in a useful spell of concealment, even with his wounded wing.”
“Your mother’s house,” Mansourah said, almost soundlessly. “I thought you were making a poor jest.”
“She’s a very competent healer,” Acair said, “as well as one who sets a delightful table for supper. As long as you check her spells before she uses them on you or slips them into your tea, you’ll be fine. Off you go, lad. Léirsinn, don’t let him fall.”
If he expected an argument, he didn’t get one. What he did have for his trouble, however, was a brief peck on the cheek from Léirsinn and the same attempt made by Mansourah. And damn that bloody middle child of the fierce and irreverent maker of inappropriate jests Desdhemar of Neroche if he didn’t simply laugh and hop up on Sianach’s back with only a minor groan. Acair watched Léirsinn clamber up onto Sianach’s scaly self, then send him a look full of meaning. He supposed since the gloom was so complete, he could read into that look anything he liked.
He scarce managed to duck before Sianach heaved himself up into the sky with a shriek that should have woken half the city. That horse-turned-dragon spewed out a fierce blast of fire in the direction of that vexatious clutch of mages, causing a handful of them to frantically strip off their cloaks and beat the flames into the dirt. Acair watched his companions disappear under a spell of un-noticing and felt a rather unwholesome wave of relief wash over him. They were away and safe. He could hardly ask for anything more.
He was momentarily distracted by a bag of something dropped at his feet—on his foot, rather. He picked it up and hefted it experimentally. He had a look inside as well, because he was a suspicious bastard and it wouldn’t have surprised him at all to have found that the traveling funds Mansourah had obviously left for him were nothing but useless blanks. They were actually Nerochian gold sovereigns that certainly bit as though they were the genuine item, so he tied the purse to his belt and strode out into the courtyard.
Someone had thoughtfully lit a lamp or two, which he supposed would aid him in what he intended to do. He realized with a bit of a start that one of the men carrying a lantern was glaring at that equally irritated group of mages with a fair bit of enthusiasm and that the man was accompanied by a serving maid who was also holding up a light.
He thought it might be a reflection of the state of his life at present that he hadn’t noticed either of them before.
Well, their arrival hadn’t left him as much leisure as he might have liked, so he took matters into his own hands right away.
“The king’s book of spells,” he shouted, holding the thing up. He waited until all of them were looking at him—and recognizing him apparently—before he hurled the book over their heads with as much force as possible.
Mages scrambled to catch it, but they failed. Acair wasn’t prepared to credit his endless amounts of do-gooding for anything, well, good, but he had to admit that perhaps there was something to it. He watched in astonishment as the serving girl plucked the king’s book of spells out of the air as if she’d been using a spell to do the like. She fumbled with it, tossing it up in the air repeatedly as mages fell over themselves in an effort to grasp it.
There was magic afoot. Acair could smell it at twenty paces.
The serving girl seemingly lost control of her juggling and the book went flying into the hands of her master.
“Oh, my lord, don’t steal that,” she pled.
Mages converged on the man as one, flapping their metaphorical wings like a pack of damned vultures. Acair stood there long enough to see the servant look at him, then point rather pointedly at the gates.
Well, he would be damned.
He would have thanked her, but she looked as if she were capable of unleashing a bit of temper on him, so he made her a quick bow and dashed for the gates, keeping as much to the shadows as he could. He wasn’t one to let something as insignificant as a city wall keep him from the sweet freedom of bucolic countryside, so he scaled the wall, rendered unconscious a pair of burly lads with mischief on their minds, then dropped to the other side without breaking any bones.
And with that, the night could quite properly be considered a success.
He had a final look at the city behind him, caught sight of the serving wench slipping past gate guards as if she’d been practiced at the same, and considered going back to ask her if she needed aid. He dithered, something he never did, but there it was again. Too much cozying up to his softer side had definitely done a foul work upon his good sense.
He was still trying to latch onto the cold, calculating, nobler part of himself when he found himself facing a wench who certainly was rather cheeky for her station.
“Are you daft or stupid?” she demanded, shoving her hood back off her hair. “I’ve helped you escape, now go!”
Acair very rarely found himself without a single thing to say, but at the moment all he could do was gape at the woman standing in front of him and wonder how it was that a complete stranger could look so much like Léirsinn of Sàraichte.
“Are you—”
She threw up her hands. “I’m no one! You will be no one as well if you don’t flee.”