Lewan crouched just behind his master, his heart beating a frantic rhythm in his chest as he glanced between Sauk before them, the tiger crouched on the wall above, and an array of assassins spread just beyond Talieth along the path. Every way, he and Berun were surrounded.
“Kheil never struck from behind,” said Sauk. “Thought it was cowardly.”
“If Kheil were here,” said Berun, “you’d be dead. My—”
“Name is Berun,” said Sauk. “Yes, I know.”
“Stop this!” said Talieth. She spared a glance at the blade near her neck. Although both of her hands were free, she did not struggle against Berun, and her face showed no sign of fear. Even her voice sounded more angry than frightened. “Both of you! Kheil, listen to—”
“I said get those men out of here!” said Berun.
“Berun, listen to me,” said Sauk, his voice much calmer than Talieth’s. “Let her go and we’ll talk. You continue this nonsense and I’ll have Taaki take your boy.”
“You’ll all leave now,” said Berun, “or I’ll kill her.”
“No, you won’t,” said Sauk. He shook his head, and the smile on his face was almost sad. “Even Kheil would never have done that—not to her. And as you have said so many times: You are not Kheil.”
Lewan looked at his master. The Berun he had known would never kill a person in cold blood. But had he ever really known Berun? In all their years together, Berun had never once mentioned Kheil, Sauk, Talieth, the Old Man, or any of this.
“Ask your boy,” said Sauk. “We have shown him nothing but kindness. Even got him a girl to warm his bed. Eh, Lewan?”
Lewan paled. The guilt and shame of his actions brought before so many was bad enough—but before his master … “Master Berun, I … I …”
“Berun,” said Sauk, his tone soft, almost gentle, “let her go. And I swear to you on the brotherhood we once shared that no harm will come to you or Lewan. We only want to go somewhere and talk.”
Lewan saw his master risk a glance up at the tiger, then survey the half-dozen assassins around them. Four had blades in hand and two held bows with arrows nocked.
“Your boy is cold,” said Sauk. “I’m going to count to three, Berun. If you haven’t ended this by then, I’m going to have Taaki end it. One …”
Lewan glanced up at the tiger. Her rear haunches twitched in preparation to strike. “Master, I—”
“Two,” said Sauk—
—and Lewan heard the rustle of foliage overhead. He turned in time to see the tiger coming down on him, a huge dusky shape that in the gloom seemed to fill the sky.
Taaki hit Lewan, and he went down beneath her bulk. Had her claws been extended, Lewan surely would have had the skin and flesh ripped from his chest. Lewan hit the brick pavement hard, his eyes squeezed shut, not so much out of pain but because more than anything, he did not want to see Taaki’s teeth closing round his throat.
But the tiger did not put her full weight upon him. As soon as Lewan was down, she was gone.
Lewan opened his eyes. The tiger had bounded away but was coming round again, her eyes fixed on Berun. Talieth was on the ground, and Berun was doing all he could to avoid swing after swing from Sauk’s sword and fist. The half-orc was much taller than Berun, and the length of his sword gave him a much farther reach than Berun’s knife. But Lewan noticed that Sauk swung with the flat of his blade—once, he managed a glancing blow off Berun’s forearm.
“Sauk, stop this!” Talieth said.
The other assassins closed in, but they were hesitant to get too close to Sauk’s swing. Both archers had their bows bent and fletching held to their cheeks.
“Either of you loose and you are dead!” shouted Talieth. “You men fall back! Kheil! Sauk! I command you to stop!”
The assassins stepped well back, but Sauk and Berun continued to swipe at each other. Berun ducked a swing of Sauk’s fist and his blade flicked forward. When Sauk stepped back, blood ran down his forearm.
“He does still bite!” Sauk said, and renewed his attack.
Berun fell back before the onslaught, ducking and stepping away from the blade and blocking the half-orc’s fist. But Lewan saw Sauk’s tactic at once. The half-orc was leading Berun toward the tiger, who crouched ready just inside the open gateway of the courtyard.
“Master!” Lewan called. “Behind you! The tiger!”
Berun shifted his retreat to the right, circling away and putting Sauk between himself and the tiger.
Talieth was on her feet, her hood down and her cloak thrown back. The incessant rain had plastered her hair to her face. “Lewan, he’ll listen to you. Tell him to stop this! I swear to you that no harm will come to you or your master.”
Lewan opened his mouth and took in a breath to shout, but then he remembered the words of the Old Man on the mountainside. Talieth and her little conspiracy … they are lying to you. They are using you. Do not trust them. But had not Sauk offered—even urged—Lewan to flee? And there was something else, something Talieth herself had said to him earlier, something he had not been able to get out of his mind.
He didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t sure to whom he was speaking, but he picked up the fallen hammer, stood, and shouted, “Stop it! Just stop!”
The half-orc held his sword back, prepared for another swipe, but he did not bring it forward. He stopped and risked a glance at Lewan.
Berun used the opportunity to step back and look around, surveying the situation. Sauk hadn’t moved. The surrounding assassins were keeping their distance, and Talieth stood not far from Lewan, both hands curled into tight fists.
For a moment, everyone simply looked, the only sound that of the rain in the leaves and on the pavement.
Then the tiger growled.
Berun snapped around.
Lewan saw her less than five paces from his master, crouched and ready to strike. Her lips curled over her fangs, which glowed an unearthly blue in the eldritch lights round the Tower.
The tiger’s front paws had just come off the ground when a small shape struck her on the head. Perch!
Taaki’s lunge turned into a fierce back and forth swing of her head as she tried to dislodge the treeclaw lizard. The tiger shrieked and slapped at her own head—but she remembered her previous injury and kept her claws retracted.
For the first few swings and shakes of her head and slaps of the tiger’s paws, Perch managed to avoid the strikes by shifting his grip and twisting his own lithe body back and forth. But then the tiger rolled onto her back, scraping her head and neck along the brick pavement.
Perch bounded off just in time. Had he fled into the brush, he would have been safe. Instead, he twisted around, rose on his hind legs, and hissed at the tiger, amazingly loud for such a small creature.
“Sauk, call her off!” Berun shouted.
The half-orc’s lip had twisted into a sneer at the sight of the lizard, and he shook his head once. “Lizard took her eye,” he said. “He’s got this coming.”
Taaki rolled onto her feet, took one look at the offending lizard—she didn’t even roar—and jumped, reminding Lewan of a barn cat lunging on a mouse. Perch avoided the first strike, but he was not quick enough to dodge the second. The tiger struck again, trapping the lizard between paw and pavement. The tiger’s head ducked down. Her back faced Lewan, but he heard her massive jaws snap closed. She shook her head left and right once, then threw her head back as she swallowed the treeclaw lizard whole.
“Perch!” Berun screamed.
Sauk laughed. “Don’t cry too much. Your little friend got her eye. A lot more than most of her prey get. But only the strong survive. Your little lizard never had a chance.”
Sauk backed away and lowered his sword. Berun just stood, looking at the tiger.
“Stop this now,” said Sauk. “Before someone else you care about gets hurt. Drop the knife. Now. Drop it or Taaki takes you down.”
Berun stood still a moment, then he stood straight. Lewan gasped, and the hammer wa
vered in his hand. Was it over?
Then Berun grabbed the clasp of his cloak. A twist, and the heavy fabric fell to the ground. Unencumbered, he dropped into a defensive crouch and brandished the strange ivory blade.
“Your choice,” called Sauk. He pointed his blade at Berun and told the tiger, “Taaki, anukh!”
The tiger came in slowly, each paw placed carefully on the wet pavement before her, her head low to the ground. Lewan knew that a knife would be no match against the tiger. He brought the hammer back, preparing to throw—if he could hit the tiger in the head, it would stun her long enough for his master to get away.
But before Lewan could throw, Taaki went still as stone. She crouched, unmoving, and Lewan counted five quick beats of his heart. Then a tremor passed through her, so violent that she sprayed thousands of tiny droplets of rain out of her fur. She twisted around, snapping at her midsection with her teeth.
“Taaki?” called Sauk, his voice thick with worry. “What’s wrong?”
The tiger screamed—high, pitiful, and with such strength that Lewan flinched and covered one ear with his free hand.
“Taaki!”
The tiger bit at her side several more times, then threw herself onto her back and began to flop and writhe like a live fish thrown onto a hot pan. Again and again she screamed, drowning out Sauk’s cries. She writhed and squirmed, her rear paws kicking the air, and then she clawed at her own torso with her front claws. Fur wet with rain flew—and then fur wet with blood and bits of skin—and still she screamed. Lewan had never heard such cries of agony.
A few assassins ran over. One of the archers approached Sauk, his bow in hand and arrow still on the string. He pointed it at the tiger. “Sauk, shall I—?”
Another shriek from the tiger drowned out his last words.
The bowman raised his bow, pulled shaft to cheek, and pointed the sharp steel at the tiger. Sauk snarled and cut off the man’s head with one backswing of his sword. The archer’s body fell one way, his head the other, and blood flew up in a great gout over his companions, who were quickly stepping back.
Talieth was screaming something, and even though she was only a few paces away, Lewan could not make out her words over the tiger’s cries.
Sauk dropped his sword and tried to approach the tiger, but as soon as he came within reach of her claws, one raked across his leg, gashing a wide red swath through his trousers and skin. Grimacing in horror, he backed away.
Taaki slapped her torso with both paws three times in quick succession—with such force that Lewan was shocked he didn’t hear bone snapping. Then she arched her back and let out a long, final scream that rose and rose until it was beyond human hearing. Her muscles seemed locked in that position, the middle of her back arched almost a foot off the ground, when Lewan saw it—
The torn fur and skin high up on her stomach … bulged—
—then fell back.
Her back relaxed, and she hit the pavement. Her stomach bulged again, larger this time, and kept expanding until the skin ruptured and tore. The lights hovering over the tower courtyard brightened from a pale blue to a bright green, and Lewan saw a tiny claw emerge from the torn skin. Then another, scratching and raking at the bloody flesh. The rupture widened, and Perch’s horned head emerged—his skin black from blood and other fluids, but when he opened his eyes, they reflected the unearthly green light.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sauk roared, his own cry of grief fierce as any tiger’s, and raised his fist to smash the treeclaw lizard. His arm was halfway through its descent when Berun tackled him. The two combatants struck and slid across the pavement in a great splash of rain and blood.
Sauk used the momentum to throw Berun off and away. Berun hit the courtyard wall—had it not been thick with green ivy and moss, he would have had broken bones—and then fell to the ground. The half-orc scrambled for his sword, and Berun regained his feet.
Talieth turned to her men. “Stop them! Hurt them if you must, but do not kill them!”
But Sauk was beyond reason. The rage of a maddened beast filled him, and he came at Berun swinging with all his strength, no longer using the flat of his blade. It was all Berun could do to avoid each strike, stab, and swipe.
The assassins advanced, none of them exhibiting any enthusiasm. Lewan had no idea where Perch had gone.
Sauk and Berun’s battle took them under the arch of the gateway and inside the courtyard. The lights seemed to gather round them, bathing the combatants in eerie green light.
One of the assassins ran forward and tried to grab the half-orc’s free arm. “Sauk, plea—”
Sauk plunged his blade into the man’s gut up to the hilt, roared in the man’s face, and pushed him away. Another man tried to grab the half-orc’s sword arm, but was either too slow or Sauk’s rain-soaked skin was too slick. A backhand swipe, and the man was missing a hand. Screaming and spurting blood from the stump of his wrist, the man fell back onto the pavement.
Talieth ran toward them, but stopped well out of range of the combatants.
“Sauk!” Talieth screamed. “Stop this at once! I command you!”
Sauk ignored her. Lewan wasn’t sure if he’d heard her. The half-orc’s face was twisted by grief and fury, and his eyes were fixed on Berun.
Talieth twisted the clasp of her cloak, threw it off, and raised both hands, her fingers twisting in an intricate pattern. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “Targelu engethlimek!”
Sauk hesitated in his advance.
“Sauk,” Talieth said, forcing calm into her voice. “Listen to me, Sauk. We need him.”
Sauk snorted like a bull and shook his head, almost like a sleeper shaking off a fading dream. His lip twisted in a snarl, the green of the lights gleaming off his silver tusk, and he leaped at Berun.
But the distraction had given Berun time to back away. He tried to make it out of the courtyard, but one of the assassins lunged for him. Quick as a serpent, Berun’s knife-hand shot forward and back, but then he had to turn to face Sauk.
The assassin lurched backward, both hands at his throat. He turned and stumbled into Lewan. The hands gripping his throat were dark with blood. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but he only made a choking sound as he fell to his knees, one hand at his throat while the other clutched at Lewan’s shirt. His death grip and heavy weight pulled Lewan to his knees. The man’s body was trying to breathe, but he was drowning in his own blood.
Horrified—more at his own actions than the dying man—Lewan brought his hand with the hammer around in a swing. Crack! went the assassin’s forearm …
The sound of the arm breaking brought it all back to Lewan—his mother’s pleading, agonized face. The look, almost of relief, in the moment before Lewan brought the black iron kettle down on her skull. That day, he’d thought all hope of happiness had left him forever. With Berun, he’d found, if not happiness, then at least hope. Perhaps even meaning. And all of that hung like a heavy stone caught on a spider’s web, sinking and about to snap at any moment—
Lewan pulled himself to his feet and backed away. The assassin fell to the ground, squirming and kicking as his body fought for air that would never come.
Only two of Talieth’s guards were left. One of them, holding a bow, ducked round Talieth to get a good aim. He raised it and brought the arrow to his cheek, the steel point aimed right at Berun.
All of the fear—fear at being hunted, captured, at the future of the world supposedly hanging in the balance—poured out of Lewan then in a desperate cry. He charged. The bowman adjusted his aim as Berun and Sauk’s battle danced about the courtyard. Lewan brought the heavy weight of the hammer around, putting all his strength into the blow. The stone hammerhead struck the bowman’s left shoulder. Bone shattered like chalk and the man went down, his arrow flying into the leaves.
The momentum of Lewan’s charge would not allow him to stop, and he stumbled over the fallen archer. He managed to keep his feet, and when he’d regained his
balance, he found himself face to face with the last of Talieth’s guards. The man—his eyes glistening brightly under the green light—looked at the hammer in Lewan’s hand, glanced at his mistress, back to the hammer, over to Berun and the half-orc … and then he turned and fled.
Seeing him go, Talieth turned the full weight of her gaze on Lewan. “This ends now!”
Talieth began to weave another incantation, even as Sauk brought his sword arm back for another strike. But his fist and blade caught in a thick tangle of vines dangling from an oak branch. The half-orc yanked his hand free and continued his advance.
But then Lewan saw that the half-orc had not simply tangled his hand in the vines. The greenery above and behind him was moving of its own accord—branches flexing like stiff fingers, vines and creepers writhing like charmed snakes. So intent was Sauk on killing Berun that he didn’t see the danger upon him.
“Sauk, get out of there!” Talieth shouted, and Lewan realized that she had seen the slithering vines as well. Her hands stopped moving. Confusion and horror passed over her face, and Lewan realized that the moving vines were not her magic at work. This was something else.
Berun stumbled and went down. Sauk stopped, towering over Berun, and swung his sword arm back. A leafy vine shot out and wrapped around Sauk’s wrist. Shocked, the half-orc pulled, but the vine held tight. Judging from the amount of blood that began to run down Sauk’s arm, Lewan thought the vine must have been thick with thorns under all those leaves. Sauk reached up with his other hand to try to free the sword, but more vines snaked down, wrapping both hands together. Roaring in anger and frustration, Sauk began to thrash, trying to dislodge his arms, but he only succeeded in bringing more of the vines down upon him. In moments only his legs were visible, and then the vines contracted, lifting the half-orc up into the branches of the oak. Even after his legs disappeared into the tree canopy, Lewan could still hear the half-orc screaming and cursing.
Talieth, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, looked up where Sauk had disappeared. But then she shook her head and rushed for Berun.
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