Yet it was the prince's sharp eyes that caught the telltale gleam of sunlight on steel in a doorway ahead and to the left.
'Down!' he shouted, hurling himself to one side, tucking in his shoulder and rolling to the stoop of a shuttered bakery, closed by the Governor's Ashentani's rationing decrees. When Rann came to rest, his scimitar glistened in a wicked arc from his left fist.
The Guardsmen's honed reflexes snapped at Rann's command. But not quickly enough. Arrows whined, went home with deceptively soft sounds. Sword in hand, a Sky Guardsman sank to his knees, eyes fixed on the red fletched shaft sprouting between them. Beside him a comrade choked on the steel point embedded in his throat.
'Get the bastards!' a harsh voice cried.
A man and a woman broke from the cover of doorways on opposite sides of the street and cast aside shortbows. The man straightened his left arm, causing a hornbull hide buckler strapped to his forearm to slide into his hand. His other hand brought forth a broadsword. The woman drew forth forth a rapier and maingauche with identical fretwork hilts. Two more men materialized behind them, weapons in hand. A fifth figure stepped from a farther doorway as the remaining Sky Guardsmen ran to engage the killers.
Rann gained his feet. He started forward in a crouching glide, only to stop and clutch at his chest as agony shot through him.
'Dark Ones!' he gasped, 'I've torn something loose!'
He had undergone terrific punishment in recent months. Broken ribs had been his reward when he sought to interpose himself between a raging Vicar of Istu and his helpless queen. His chest barely wrapped with bandage before he was off in the saddle again, Synalon had ordered him to Athalau and a nearer brush with death. An immense block of ice had fallen from the vaulted roof of the living glacier in which Athalau lay, striking down Rann and the Sky Guardsmen who had trailed Moriana, Fost Longstrider, and their treacherous spirit companion, Erimenes. Only the wildest luck had prevented the prince from being mashed into red gruel by the ice fall. And only the fierce, driven vitality and determination of the man and his lineage had enabled him to survive, with a dozen bones shattered and a score of muscles torn loose.
He had the best healing sorcery of the Sky City; but not even the peerless mages of the Soaring World could make him altogether whole again in the short time alloted them.
Conquest for queen and City had repeatedly called him forth half mended, still hurt and hurting. Now his wounds betrayed him.
He fought for balance as blackness veiled his senses.
'Your Highness!' he heard Maguerr call in alarm.
Rann struggled against the darkness threatening to swallow him. He saw his remaining bodyguard surge forward to perform his duty. With a musical skirl, the Guardsman's curved blade met the straightsword assassin. The woman with the rapier circled, watching for an opening. The next two assassins went wide to bypass the combatants, making for the prince with deadly intent shining on their faces.
'Come forward and meet your death, dog lover,' snarled the Guardsman, Ahue. 'At least you'll know a good death from City steel.'
The assassin was a good man, strong wristed and supple, but his foe was of the superbly trained Sky Guard. Ahue's scimitar beat the larger blade aside. The killer screamed shrilly as the caress of steel severed veins and tendons of his swordarm. His blade fell, ringing on the cobblestones as his cry drowned in blood bubbling from slashed throat. Before he fell, the Guardsman was lunging for the woman, launching a vicious hail of blows that she was hard-pressed to fend off despite her paired weapons.
'Your turn, bitch,' Ahue cried, recovering to slash out again.
'Bitch, am I?' she snarled. 'Better than you who defends a eunuch! Or are the two of you lovers? Do you share his bed?'
Ahue viciously attacked, angered by the slurs both on him and his prince. Rann was a eunuch, castrated by the Thailint barbarians. The Guardsman's pride prevented him from accepting this insult calmly, even though he knew it was intended to enrage him and thus force him into a deadly mistake.
He slashed fiercely, incoherently screaming out his anger.
The black-haired swordswoman gave way. Her two companions hesitated. The one on the right, a lean straw-blond man who kept a pair of rapiers twitching before him like the antennae of some giant insect, feinted a lunge. The Guardsman's scimitar shot sparks off the twinned blades and sent the man reeling backward.
Ahue spun and lunged, almost gutting the burly red-beard who tried to dart by on the left and give his friend time to bring up his dirk for a parry. The red-beard lashed out with his spiked ball mace. Holes tapped in its haft made it whine like a banshee, a high, unnerving sound. The Guardsman was not distracted. He ducked nimbly below its lethal sweep and returned a cut that opened a long red dripping slash in the olive-drab fabric stretched taut across the maceman's thigh.
The three killers retreated. The Guardsman faced them with a wild laugh. A killing frenzy was upon him, and even seasoned slayers such as these quailed before his madness.
'Stand back!' barked the same harsh voice that had ordered the assassins forward. A tall woman strode forward. Her pale blonde hair was cut square across the brows, though it swung free behind, brushing broad shoulders. In her hands she held a curious implement, the like of which the Guardsman had never seen before. He continued to smile defiantly, but his eyes narrowed at the peculiar weapon.
Though exotic, the device was not unfamiliar to Rann. By titanic effort of will he forced himself away from the pilaster he used to prop himself upright.
'Ahue, get back!' he shouted desperately.
In his frenzy, Ahue did not hear. Or perhaps he heard and for the first time defied an order from his prince and commander. It was the first and last time. Ahue brought his scimitar up from guard, preparing to hurl himself upon his new antagonist. The blonde woman swung something around her scarred left hand. A black blur whined toward the Guardsman.
Ahue cursed as a chain wrapped itself around his throat. A fist-sized leaden ball smashed into the side of his head, staggering him. He caught the chain in his gauntleted left hand. The blonde woman jerked the chain with all the might of her beefy shoulders. Ahue plunged forward, swinging wildly with his scimitar. The blonde fouled it with her chain. Her right hand turned and swept upward. Breath and life gusted from Ahue's mouth as the upturned sickle blade tore through his light mail shirt into his guts, ripping upward. The tip of the sickle curved within his ribcage to cleave his heart. For a long moment Ahue stared past the woman's left shoulder, breast pressed to hers as though in comradely embrace, his gore gushing onto the front of her body as his wide brown eyes gaped in final surprise. Then he fell.
The killers sighed. They had stopped to watch the dance of death between their leader and the berserk Sky Guardsman. Now they started forward again, watching Rann with grim singlemindedness. The blonde drew her sickle blade free, disentangled the chain from the corpse with a musical tinkle and stepped forward.
With unnatural clarity Rann heard the sounds: Maguerr muttering in horror behind him; the many-throated murmur of crowds in Bilsinx's main street, oblivious to the deadly drama being enacted a few hundred feet away; the scuff of soft sole leather on stone; even the hissing of gasses venting from the cooling corpse of Ahue.
'I am Prince Rann Etuul and you shall not have me so easily,' he said, pushing the tip of his chin toward the dead Ahue. Rann hadn't expected any of these killers to follow the direction of his gesture. They were too good for that. But he'd lost nothing by trying.
He collected himself, pushed pain aside, forced the darkness from his vision. Battle lust sang its adrenaline song in his veins. He knew that for the next crucial few moments he would be able to function at almost full capacity. His mind had the cold clearness it always did when he went into battle. The sickness and desperation he had felt just heartbeats ago had been transmuted into exultation and anticipation. Fall he might, but he would drink deep of blood and pain before yielding to the Hell Call.
'Die, eunuch,' said the
man facing Rann. The straw-haired young man danced forward, grinning, rapiers questing. Rann glided to him. The soles of his calf-high moccasins never left the street. The rapier points darted in a quick one-two attack. Rann's scimitar dashed them aside with contemptuous ease.
The youth raised an eyebrow and began to circle. Rann knew what he attempted; the assassin wanted to get the prince to circle with him so that one of his fellows could slip a blade in from behind. Rann circled in a direction counter to the other's motion so that their left sides came close and the man's body stayed between Rann and the deadly sickle and chain.
That was the weapon Rann feared most: aizant-eshk it was called, the devil's claw. The name was appropriate.
The blond man stopped circling a few steps before his right arm would have begun crowding the gray-green stone of a facade. Rann faced him coolly, left arm half extended with his blade, right hand open and held by his hip in readiness for a grab at the other's weapon.
Rann sorely felt the lack of a parrying weapon. Normally he carried a spike dagger of his own design tucked into his right boot. But he was in Bilsinx today as a Sky Guardsman as well as Prince of the Sky City. Sky Guardsmen prided themselves that they never carried daggers, except for those rare occasions when they fought on foot. In flight they never came closer than sword's length from a foe.
'Are you going to fight or wait for me to die from old age?' demanded Rann as the man continued to circle.
Something in the words affected the blond man. Rann saw his eyes glaze slightly with rage. An opportunity. Now all he had to do was capitalize on it.
He waited until he saw the other tense for a lunge, then snapped the scimitar in a whining overhead wrist cut. With a clash, the rapiers met in a defensive cross and caught the descending blade. The triumphant grin on the blond man's face changed to a look of astonishment as Rann deftly turned his wrist and thrust the curved sword down inside the other's guard. The point went into the assassin's neck where it met the notch of his clavicle. Blood fountained, his knees buckled, and the confident light in his eyes faded in an instant.
Experience and coolness had aided the prince. He doubted the others would fall prey so easily.
Rann ripped his sword free and spun, whipping the scimitar in an eye-high cut parallel to the ground. The black-haired woman was almost upon him. Her rapier fended the stroke, but her comrade's blood spattered into her eyes. As she blinked frantically to clear her vision, Rann brought the scimitar in beneath her main-gauche in a quick backhanded return. The woman howled and doubled over, dropping both weapons to clutch at the rope intestines spilling from her belly.
The whisper of steel on steel warned the prince. He flung himself headlong, jarring every bone in his body. The lead ball of the devil's claw clattered by inches above him, drawing its chain after like a comet's tail. The weight ricocheted off stone polished to a high gloss by innumerable feet. Rann rolled fast as the blonde woman reeled in the ball. As soon as he was clear he pulled himself to his feet. His head spun; the adrenaline rush was fading fast and when it went, so would his already slim chance of survival.
'Now it is time for you to die, little man,' the blonde told him. He cast a quick glance at the red-bearded man and dismissed him as a real danger. The woman was a different case.
Rann needed to know more about the blonde if he was to successfully defeat her. Gathering that information would prove difficult. She was good, too good. As she neared, twirling the ball on a half yard of chain, holding the sickle loosely, her hand protected by a brass strap fastened to the haft as a sort of knuckleduster, he clearly made out the indigo mark on her right cheek. It was a convolute squared mandala.
From his limited experience in the City's commerce, he knew it for the tattoo of the Dyers' Guild in High Medurim. That explained her deadly expertise. The hereditary guilds controlled that city's industry with an iron hand. Those born outside a guild were forced to live on the dole or by outlawry; those born into a craft for which they lacked aptitude or interest, unless they bought out of their birth guild and into another, were doomed to the same fate.
But the guilds needed enforcers to keep power over their members, and to prosecute their ever-changing rivalries and feuds. They kept large contingents of professional killers. Some imported masters from Jorea, the North Continent, or the Far Archipelago. Others trained native Medurimites, providing opportunity for lucrative employment even for those forced to live outside a guild. But whether imported or domestic, the Weapons Masters of High Medurim were among the most perfect murderers to be found anywhere in the world. The blonde-haired woman with the feral look to mouth and eyes was one of that kindred.
That knowledge didn't cheer Rann. If anything, it drained some of his determination. At his fighting best he knew he was more than a match for gutter killers like her. But now . . .
'Yes, little man,' she cooed, moving closer. 'Your death is at hand. Come. Don't fight it. Let me dispatch you without pain, i promise you won't feel even a twinge.'
Over his left shoulder Rann heard low incantation. Maguerr was trying to summon help on his geode. Rann grimaced; the mage had more nerve than he would have credited him with. Small good his unexpected steadiness would do. The only people who might receive his call were in the City overhead. Even the swift eagles were unlikely to arrive before the issue was settled. Rann sidestepped toward the center of the deserted street, need for room overriding the worry that one assailant might get in back of him. He felt the first twinges of pain in his chest and knew help would not arrive in time.
'It is you who will die,' he said. Rann fought down giddiness. His words rang hollow in his ears, and he knew she laughed at him, this blonde killer from High Medurim.
'Your pet wizardling's magic will avail him naught,' she said, moving closer. 'Your eagles will take too long to arrive. Your corpse will be stretched out on the street for an afternoon repast. Your eagles do eat human flesh?'
The adrenaline rush was past him. Rann fought on nothing more than dogged determination. It wouldn't be enough.
He had no warning of the attack. One instant he faced the relaxed blonde, the next her sickle came spinning through the air toward his face. He dodged, hacking at the weapon as it whined past. The tip raked his right shoulder and left a burning wound. He felt warm blood pour down his arm onto his tunic.
The blonde's face twisted in rage at her missed stroke as she yanked hard at the leaden weight in her hand. She deftly spun the sickle back to her hand. Rann's blurred eyes were too intent on her. The big red-bearded maceman came for him. The prince's sword darted past the spiked ball and sheathed itself an inch in the man's left eye, almost by accident. His sword felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds now.
Bawling, the redbeard fell back. The blonde's arm moved in a blur. The chain of her weapon whipped about Rann's ankles. She uttered a cry of fierce delight as she pulled it tight, jerking the prince's feet from under him.
But even as he fell, the prince's right hand shot out to seize the chain. The blonde leaned forward to close with her intended victim; he pulled with a supernatural might born of desperation. The tattooed assassin lost her balance, fell. Rann served her as she had served his Guardsman, face twisting in a wild grin as he felt his curved blade penetrate her flesh.
But his life was done. The huge-shouldered man with the red curly beard loomed over him, face now a horrid mask, a single blue eye glaring wildly. The mace went high. Rann snarled in futile defiance as the spiked ball was silhouetted against the clouds.
The red-bearded man's head exploded in a welter of blood.
He fell heavily beside his leader's body. Rann lay gasping like a beached fish. He was aware of the distant sound of screaming, and another sound less identifiable.
Regaining his breath, Rann struggled out from under the blonde woman's body. Maguerr knelt in the street, clutching his midsection and retching dryly. Unsteadily Rann went to him and laid a gory hand on his bony elbow.
'You have my gratitude, b
oy,' he said in a voice that hardly seemed to be his own. 'Don't feel shame at being sick. It happens often when first one slays a fellow man.'
Such tender words from the fearsome Prince Rann would have shocked any of his Sky Guard. Maguerr merely shook his head.
'N-not that, lord,' he choked. 'The geode communicator. Was - aggh, my stomach - was in tune with it. What happens to it . . . I feel.'
Numbed and slow to comprehend, Rann fell back a step. His bootheel crunched on a fragment of the geode which Maguerr had hurled to burst the skull of the red-bearded assassin. Maguerr screamed.
'Breaking! Gods, it's shattering me!'
Understanding the mage's plight at last, Rann leaped to one side, lost balance, reeled, and stepped on yet another fragment. The mage fell over with the wail of one damned.
When the bird riders arrived, they found Rann Etuul, Prince of the City in the Sky, Marshal of the Sky Guard and commander of all the City's forces, dyed dark red with drying blood and scrabbling on all fours on the Bilsinx backstreets, diligently searching for pieces of Maguerr's shattered geode.
CHAPTER FOUR
Boisterous merriment boiled and soared, filling the great audience hall of the Palace of Winds clear to the vaulted ceilings far overhead. The festive week proclaimed by Synalon in celebration of her victory over her sister had dragged into its sixth day, only to have its vigor renewed once more by fiat of the queen, in honor of the miraculous escape of Prince Rann from the High Medurim assassins.
Torches guttered in sconces, splashing orange light on walls and making the ancient figures carved into them seem to writhe in the grip of nameless, unsettling emotions. Captive fire sprites thrashed inside crystal bell jars as tall as men, their furious hissing and killing heat contained by the thick greenish enchanted glass. All that escaped from the bell jars and into the great hall was their hellish blue glare. Great tables of veined green stone stood everywhere,, piled high with the finest food and drink. The revellers circulated, drinking, eating, sniffing vapors from bubbling bowls of potions, trying to adopt the appearance of being successfully and spontaneously amused. Some danced a stately pavane to the strains of an orchestra brought up from Bilsinx. Others stood around discussing what a marvel it was that the mercy of the Dark Ones had preserved Prince Rann from the treacherous attack while their eyes searched for likely partners for later assignations.
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