Haldemeer Grobaras groaned. The shaggy warrior's head pivoted toward him. He limped toward the lord-mayor, sword held for a downstroke. His upraised arm gave Luma a clear view of the Shoanti emblem he wore. The others had them, too.
As he prepared his blow, the shaggy man bellowed a common Shoanti curse, one that had so bled into the local slang that everyone knew it. Others, Luma thought, would not hear Korvosa in its vowels.
Luma had her sling ready, but before she could fire it, arrows pierced the shaggy man's chest. He glared down at them, gasped, and dropped to one knee.
For an instant, Luma assumed that the arrows were Melune's. But the heads protruded through his back, meaning that the shots had come from the parade ground's far side.
From the south and the west, Luma's siblings arrived. Arrus charged the shaggy man, sword held out. Terribly wounded, Shaggy still managed to stand and step away from the lord-mayor, bracing himself. At the last minute, Arrus danced to the side, avoiding the frontal assault his actions had promised. Instead, he dodged behind his opponent, slashing into the man's leg. Grunting, the dying man attempted a counter-strike. Arrus anticipated it, smashing the weapon from his hand. Words died in the Korvosan's open mouth as Arrus chopped at the side of his head. His helmet flew off, releasing his dark mane of hair. Arrus pushed his shield under his enemy's chin, choking him. The hirsute man's legs gave out, and Arrus swung his sword, half-decapitating him. The emerald orb flashed, then turned the color of soot.
A bolt of blue energy heralded Iskola's entrance: it passed through the devil-priestess, throwing her against the cliff side.
To the sound of flapping robes, Ulisa lofted into the fray, her bare, outstretched right foot thudding into the swordswoman's chest. The stone cliff magnified the echoed sound of cracking breastbone.
Luma restrained an ingrained urge to call out as the Korvosan backstabber crept up on Arrus. Her warning proved unneeded: Arrus pivoted, smashing his foe in the face with the butt of his sword.
The devil-priestess, her cloak still smoking, shuddered into the square, pronouncing an invocation to her diabolic masters. Before dread force could coalesce around her hand, a series of darts peppered her.
Ontor, having thrown them, loped into the square, shortsword held low. A length of velvet bunting, meant for the ceremony, curled around his boot.
A Korvosan warrior bulled at him, only to be felled by bursts of invisible power launched at him by Iskola.
Good, thought Luma. Let them expend their magic.
Haldemeer Grobaras stirred, moaning incoherently. Eibadon, clutching his golden key of the city god, hustled toward his still-prone form.
Luma grasped the scheme's final twist. Iskola's betrayals didn't end with her and their father. She'd destined the Korvosans for a double-cross as well. In lieu of the promised getaway, the squad had arrived to put them down. Before a stupefied audience of dignitaries, Arrus would drape himself in glory, saving Grobaras from his attacker. To complete the plan, they'd have to see to it that the lord-mayor expired from his injuries—which Eibadon could easily arrange. Witnesses would see him perform a healing blessing. In fact he would secretly reverse the prayer's effect to one of mortal harm.
A faint ripple of divine energy flared around his right hand. With his left, he pulled open the lord-mayor's doublet and tunic.
An arrow struck the backplate of his armor, shattering on impact. With a split-second glance, Luma traced the missile's trajectory: from a perch on a nearby rooftop, Melune was sniping into the fray.
The arrow blow left Eibadon unfazed. His glowing hand rose up, the golden key held like a lightning rod.
Luma placed a stone bullet in her sling and hurled it at him. It struck him in the temple, denting his helmet. He groaned, interrupting the final syllables of his spell. The nimbus of life-taking energy around his hand dissipated.
On the street below, she heard Priza bellow a Shoanti war cry. Behind him ran Noole, with his rapier, and Thaubnis, gripping her warhammer.
With the last twitch of her insect magic, Luma bounded into the fray. Sickle held aloft, she ran straight for Arrus.
The Korvosan backstabber, who stood between them with his back to Luma, saw Arrus tense. After a feint to put Arrus on the defensive, he pivoted to see what was coming his way.
But the feint had not done its work; Arrus butted him in the shoulder, knocking him off balance. Arms in the air, the man wheeled to stay upright, giving Arrus the opening he sought.
Arrus's sword plunged through the hardened padding covering the backstabber's side, stabbing into his liver. His fall to the cobblestones pulled Arrus's sword free.
In a mesmerizing, intersecting pattern, the swordswoman whirled her twinned blades, advancing on Ulisa, who responded by bending herself backward. By a secret of her strange fighting arts, Ulisa kept her footing as her body, from the knees up, unfolded itself like a scroll. As the blades whizzed overhead, she seemed to almost hover, perpendicular to the ground. She let herself fall entirely onto her back, then defied gravity to roll back to her feet. As she did so, she whipped a length of rope from her shoulder. Weighted on the far end, it shot through the air, wrapping around the swordswoman's blades, disrupting their rhythm. They clattered together and bounced into their wielder's face.
The Korvosan elbowed aside the incoming blades, warding off serious injury.
While she was still distracted, Ulisa directed a sharp kick at the side of her knee.
The Korvosan's calf buckled. She dropped to her side, leg shattered.
Meanwhile, Ulisa had retracted her weighted rope, and now threw it again, wrapping it around the Korvosan's neck. Her bare feet scarcely touching the ground, she charged across the square at Luma's companions. By the time she was halfway there, the rope tightened completely, breaking the swordswoman's neck.
The swordswman's demise left only one member of the Korvosan party: the devil-priestess who squared off against Ontor.
Releasing the rope, Ulisa reached Priza, who put all of his strength behind a wide swing of his axe. She barely evaded the blow, then, before he could raise his weapon again, surged at him with reaching hands. Her right hand, palm flattened, tapped the left side of his face, pushing it into a position facing her. As part of the same seamless movement, her left hand, its index and middle fingers pressed together, precisely jabbed his neck, between larynx and carotid.
Priza convulsed, eyes rolling back into his head. He staggered back into the square, juddering toward Ontor and the devil-priestess. He raised his axe as if to strike at one or both, then dropped it. He clutched at his throat, then his chest. His arm went rigid. Unable to cry out, he fell back onto the cobblestones.
Slippers whickering across the plaza, Ulisa followed him, hand contorted into an odd, stabbing shape, ready to strike him again.
There was no need. Priza expired, killed by Ulisa's exotic death-stroke.
Two long arrows sprouted from Ulisa's chest. She fell on top of Priza, two enemies joined together in death.
Across the plaza, Arrus slashed at Luma; she brought up her sickle to parry his blows. She let him tire himself against her, waiting for him to step wrong so she could turn a parry into a hooking scrape of her blade.
"You've grown more skilled, mouseling," Arrus grunted.
"More determined," said Luma, taking her opportunity to rip his helmet from his head with the tip of her sickle. A red line of blood opened on his face, reaching from brow to hairline.
Noole joined the battle between Ontor and the devil-priestess, scrabbling back as she aimed her spiked mace at him. "It's him I'm after, you fool!" he cried.
Ontor drove a dagger into the priestess's back. She staggered at him, pulled onward by the weight of her weapon. He grabbed her and pushed her between himself and the tip of Noole's rapier.
"Who the devil are you people?" Ontor asked him.
"Friends of your sister's," said Noole.
"She doesn't have any friends."
"Palpably untrue,
" said Noole, threading an unexpected rapier thrust past the devil-priestess and into Ontor's abdomen.
Ontor gritted his teeth, then stepped into the priestess's mace-blow. He skittered around her, grabbing the hilt of the dagger still stuck in her back, and pulled it out, twisting. The priestess crumpled at his feet.
Ontor stepped free of her body. With dagger and sword, he erected a guard against Noole's probing stabs.
Over by the mayor, Eibadon shook off the pain of the slingstone, only to be tackled by Thaubnis. The dwarf hammered at his face and shoulders. He rolled her off him, kicking her in the ribs. Freeing his club from his hip, he made to return the favor, trying to pile onto her. Sacrificing her grip on her own warhammer, she knocked the club from his hands. They grappled, he trying to press his thumbs into her eye sockets, she attempting to throttle him.
Near the bleachers, Iskola sought an angle from which to aim a spell. Arrows veered wildly as they neared her, falling yards short of a hit. Looking to their source, Luma saw Melune free-climbing her way down a storehouse wall.
No longer threatened by sniper fire, Iskola ran toward Melune, preparing a spell. She stepped over a body, barely taking note of his scorched robe and arcane tattoos.
Howling gleefully, Hendregan grabbed her ankle, yanking her off balance, disrupting her gestures and nullifying her spell. "Explain yourself!" she demanded.
"Heh!" he replied, his hand bursting into flame. Smoke poured from her as the flesh of her lower leg blackened. From a fold inside her robe she produced a six-inch blade, which she used to hack at his wrist. Hendregan let go, muttering contentedly in the language of fire. With her good leg, Iskola kicked at his head. He jumped up; she held her knife out to stop him. The fire magician sidled into her, ignoring her slashes, and wrapped her in a bear hug. "You are a sorcerer, too," he giggled.
Iskola, arms trapped, pushed her elbows out, but he was too strong for her. "A wizard," she gasped.
"Are you fireproof, too?" Hendregan asked. As she fought his grasp, he looked down at her burned leg, which now ran red as blood fled the wound. "No, I suppose you're not."
Blue flame whooshed around him, enveloping them both from head to toe. Under its roar, he was saying something about not being human, not entirely. Contrary to his words, his tissue charred as easily as hers, the tattoos vanishing as it was consumed. Iskola's robes ignited; her lacquered hairdo crackled and turned to ash.
Though Hendregan's lips and tongue had seemingly burned away, he remained inexplicably capable of speech. The sounds were formed by the hiss of the flames themselves. "You murdered your father," the fire said. "You tried to murder your sister. We are mad, but we wouldn't do that."
The flames sputtered away. Charred but inexplicably animated, Hendregan sat on the cobblestones, legs crossed, soot clouds billowing from him.
Iskola curled up beside him and, with burned-out lungs, breathed her last.
Across the square, Ontor drove his dagger between Noole's ribs. The gnome fell against the Seacleft wall.
Thaubnis clouted Eibadon on the temple with her warhammer. He slumped into unconsciousness.
The dwarf rose, ready to join Luma against Arrus. She started at a hand placed on her shoulder. She turned, swiping her warhammer.
Melune plucked it casually from her grasp, then held it out to her, handle first. "Go heal Noole, then the lord-mayor. Luma will wish to accomplish this herself."
Thaubnis nodded and crossed to the cliff wall, where Noole, paling, pressed a hand against his injured side.
Arrus, feinting furiously, had Luma on her heels. His face tightened into a humorless grin. "You had me worried for a moment, mouseling," he said. "You opened strongly, but have faded."
"The rest are defeated," said Luma. "Give up."
Arrus snorted. "And go to the gibbet? I am Arrus Derexhi. I do not surrender. You should know that, mouseling." He smacked her sickle, further notching its jagged, scythelike blade.
"Say that again," said Luma.
"What?"
"That name you call me."
Arrus laughed. "Mouseling?"
He came at her. She hooked her sickle around his sword hand and pulled it upward, half-severing his hand at the wrist. He went down screaming, gore pooling around him. Luma placed her foot on his forearm. "You'll need a clean wound for my healer to staunch the bleeding," she said, completing the amputation.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Past
Thaubnis laid the healing blessing of Magrim upon Noole, and then the lord-mayor. Grobaras insisted on dragging himself to the bleachers, where he sat in a shaken approximation of dignity.
Soldiers had arrived from the Capital District. Luma wondered why those garrisoned in the Arvensoar had not come out to defend the lord-mayor. A pounding emanated from the other side of its great door, which was closed. Grobaras's men tried fruitlessly to open it. Someone—the Korvosan spell-tosser, most likely, or perhaps Iskola—had magicked it shut.
"Can your wizard fix that?" Grobaras asked Luma.
Hendregan still sat cross-legged in the middle of the parade ground. His burned flesh had healed itself. Luma thought that his tattoos had returned in a different pattern than before, but could not remember them with the precision needed to say for sure.
"He does not seem one for fixing things," Luma said.
"Hmp." Grobaras nodded. "Well, this city crawls with magicians. We'll find someone to pry it open." He turned for a better look at Luma. "You're different than I last saw you."
Luma sat down next to him. "When you were set to have me tortured, that is?"
"Ah," he said. "I need brandy to quell my nerves. Yes, that is an action I took. When I was a victim of deception."
"Quite so," said Luma.
"Never let it be said that Haldemeer Grobaras forgets a favor."
"I didn't do it for you."
"Don't swat a man's hand when he holds it out in apology. Of the entire Derexhi clan, it appears that you are the only one who did not mean me harm."
"Nor did my father," said Luma. "That's why they poisoned him."
"Which of the traitors survives?" Grobaras asked.
"My sisters are both dead. My brothers live."
"Bring them before me," the lord-mayor commanded.
A bandage covered the stump where Arrus's hand had been severed. Dark bruises encircled Eibadon's eyes. His hands had been bound behind his back, and a gag placed in his mouth, to stop him from calling down any divine magic.
"Isn't there a third one?" Grobaras asked.
Thaubnis approached, addressing Luma and ignoring the lord-mayor. "We still haven't found Ontor. I talked to some of the onlookers. They said he slipped away after stabbing Noole."
"It is imperative that this third traitor be found," said Grobaras.
"I agree," said Luma.
"I'll detail a unit of the city guard to track him."
"Don't bother," said Luma. "I'll take care of it."
"Your travails have not made you any more politick, I see. Who else should I round up?"
Luma shrugged, as if the question was of negligible interest.
Noole, who had been sitting in the row behind them, piped up. "Cheiskaia Nirodin, for one," he said. "There will be others in her circle. You will have to determine which of their patrons merely wanted you out of office, and which ones helped target you for assassination. Urtilia Scarnetti might or might not be among that number."
Grobaras sweated, as if wound-fever was settling upon him. "Scarnetti? That will be difficult. Too many allies. Nirodin should be easier. Though still not without cost."
"You take an attempt on your life with greater equanimity than I," Luma said.
"Yes, yes, very impolitick indeed. It is a good thing, then, Luma, that you are a bastard, and hence unable to inherit the Derexhi council seat."
Melune, who sat beside Noole, spoke. "She is no bastard."
"Naturally, I mean the word in its legal, descriptive sense," Grobaras squirmed. "No in
sult was implied or should be inferred."
The rangy elf rose and stepped down one row on the bleachers to sit beside him. The gesture's casualness communicated a subtle menace. "I am Luma's mother, and was married to her father at the time of her birth."
Grobaras coughed into his hand, spattering it with red-flecked spittle. "Personally, I couldn't care two rotten figs for the pretensions of puffed-up pseudo-nobles. But naturally there are those who would expect me to subject to serious scrutiny the convenient statements of mysterious elven snipers."
Melune plucked a pristine rectangle of white linen from an inner fold of her doublet and reached over to dab at the lord-mayor's bloodied chin. He flinched.
"Surely," said Melune, "you have the power to vouch for the veracity of testimony."
"You were truly Randred's wife?" Grobaras asked.
Luma sat motionless, gulping, as if she had stumbled onto the working of a spell, and the slightest twitch on her part might end its magic.
Melune answered Grobaras's question: "I was."
Did the words crack with regret, or was this another pose, drawn from her endless well of false identities?
"Under what circumstances did the two of you come to wed?" Grobaras asked.
"We were young," said Melune. "He was not yet head of his house. I had but freshly embarked on my own vocation."
"And what was that?"
"Let's leave that to inference."
"I cannot vouch for the truth of your words if you say nothing."
"I swear," said Melune, "that whatever facts I conceal, I conceal for your protection."
"A family trade?" Grobaras asked.
"That could be said."
Grobaras took the cloth from her and dabbed his forehead with it. "Might I venture to guess, then, that were it this family that had been engaged to kill me, and not these Korvosans, that I would not now be breathing?"
Melune contemplated before answering. "This family would not have attempted it in public, for one thing."
"They would have come masked in the night, to slash my throat with a sawtoothed blade, so that I might drown in my own blood?"
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