'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 w
as 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, boy,' 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.
But the sound of merrymaking had a false note to it like a gilded pot-metal coin dropped on a table. There were those in the Sky City who were not altogether overjoyed at their queen's victory over her twin, who by right of inheritance should have sat on the Beryl Throne in Synalon's stead. And even those who supported Synalon for reasons of conviction or expedience found it difficult to work up much cheer over the prince's survival. His was not a personality to attract tender sentiment.
On the highbacked throne carved of a monstrous single green beryl crystal Synalon sat at her ease, idly scooping berries from a silver bowl and feeding them to the ravens who perched on either arm of the throne. She wore her glossy black hair curled into an intricate knot atop her head. A thick unbound strand fell to either side of her beautiful sculpture-perfect face, lending it a decidedly misleading air of innocence.
Of all the revellers in the vast, crowded audience hall, she was the freshest looking. She had changed into a new gown only moments before ascending her throne, a gown woven of shimmering green and blue and pearl and silver threads. Depending on light, the viewer's perspective and the motion of the lithe limbs and body to which the garment clung like skin, the colors subtly changed. Debauchery, particularly of the sort mandated by Synalon, was hard work. Watching courti
ers and subjects move about in a low haze of fatigue, Synalon smiled, a wicked light touching her cobalt eyes. A life of determined dissipation, interspersed with the harsh disciplines of black sorcery, kept the queen as fit as the toughest of Rann's Sky Guard.
The dancers strutted through the complex patterns of the Virgins' Recessional, commemorating the coming of spring. Synalon covered a yawn with a slender hand. Her subjects proved most tedious. If left to their own devices for an instant they lapsed into supremely trivial activities. It was ever up to her to make sure their celebrations held at least some semblance of life.
For a time she contemplated calling for the hornbull she'd had ballooned up from the surface and giving a demonstration of what she considered properly vivid recreation. Certainly her subjects were abusing the dance area with their… tedious meanderings.
Then a better idea came to her. The smile returned to her lips. It was much like the expression of a great cat that comes upon a tender and helpless kid.
She set the silver berry bowl on a stand beside the throne. Sensing their mistress had some new diversion in mind, the ravens beat their wings and chuckled evilly. Propping her chin on her right hand, she held her left in the air before her eyes, forefinger extended. A glow appeared at the tip. Slowly the finger began to turn in a circle, leaving a silvery trail in midair. Instead of dissipating, the trails remained and began to form a ball shape, as a caterpillar would spin a cocoon.
Eyes turned toward the throne now. Motion ceased on the floor as couple by couple the dancers stopped to see what magics their monarch performed. Fear and anticipation mingled on the faces of the celebrants, giving Synalon a warm flush of pleasure. Like most of her favorite amusements, the one she concocted now would bring delight to some and stark anguish to others. The revellers, well aware of this, felt a thrill of expectation.
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