Magiere still gazed up the road toward the gatehouse, but then dropped her head with an exhalation. She didn’t argue again.
Leesil looked to Chap for support. “Agreed?
Chap immediately huffed once and wheeled to head off down Leaful Street.
When Leesil pulled on Magiere’s hand, she resisted slightly before giving in.
Chane stood flanked by two metaologers as Premin Hawes stepped wide around him.
She gestured once at her subordinates with a flip of her hand. Both halted their creeping, watchful approach and sidestepped toward each other. All three stood directly in front of Chane, but this made him more wary, not less, than when they had tried to flank him. It was more disturbing than when Hawes had dismissed those two naturologists, leaving him alone with only metaologers. And Hawes now stood in his way.
“Premin,” he rasped carefully. “I have no wish to speak with the council. I am only a guest here, and as I told you, I am off to seek lodgings elsewhere.”
Her hazel eyes did not blink. “If the council wishes to speak with you, it would be best for you to come with us.”
Chane caught the underlying threat in her words. She had dealt with him once before and with little effort on her part. That she stood just barely beyond a weapon’s reach, so poised and calm, truly unnerved him.
He gauged the distance of the sage off to her left. If this came down to violence, he would have to put all three of them down very fast. Of the three, he would have to disable Hawes first. The other two might be dangerous enough, but not like her. And his own skills in conjury, mostly by ritual, were paltry and slow compared to what he had seen of her thaumaturgy by spellcraft.
A movement off to the left caught Chane’s eye.
Shade trotted out of the keep’s main doors and stopped at the sight of him. The guardian sage behind her did the same. That was all Chane needed—another unknown metaologer. Shade’s head shifted suddenly, and she stared in turn at the two sages flanking Hawes. Her jowls pulled back once in a quick, silent snarl.
Chane did not know what worried him more: that Shade might assault a sage or that she had a reason to do so beyond what he could speculate. Had she seen something surface from the sages’ memories? He must be in greater danger than he realized.
Shade’s hackles began to rise as she turned her full attention on Premin Hawes, but the other sage behind the dog crept closer and raised a hand in the air.
“Premin!” that one called out in warning.
Chane’s hand dropped to his sword hilt.
“Open up!” someone else shouted.
The sharp command echoed out of the gatehouse tunnel and was followed by the clanking of the chains and gears for the outer portcullis. Both Chane and Hawes quickly glanced down the tunnel.
This was Chane’s only chance. He tried to think of a way to signal Shade, to tell her what he would do, and hopefully she would do nothing to make things worse.
Without warning, Shade shot forward, leaving her escort behind as she rushed the sage on Hawes’s right.
Chane bolted for the gatehouse tunnel, pulling his dwarven longsword. He focused all his effort on speed as he breached the tunnel’s mouth, his eyes on the rising portcullis.
“Captain!” Hawes shouted from behind him. “Watch out!”
In the instant it took for those words to sink in, Chane saw something between the portcullis’s upright beams. He caught a glimpse of men in red tabards on horseback, and the lead horse was pure white.
There were mounted Shyldfälches, city guards, on the other side of the rising portcullis.
Wynn gasped, her feet seemingly stuck, as Shade charged a metaologer and Dorian lunged after the dog. Premin Hawes turned toward the disturbance, and then Chane broke away, racing into the gatehouse tunnel. Wynn heard the premin’s sharp shout of warning.
Captain Rodian had come, and Wynn came to her senses. She ran out her door, down the passage to its end stairs, pushing herself to reach the courtyard before anyone went after Chane.
Chane was almost to the portcullis when he spotted the boots of three guards hitting the ground as they slid off their horses. There was no choice but to fight, and there were too many in his way to be careful about it.
Shade suddenly bolted past him, barking and snarling.
Chane almost stalled as she charged under the rising portcullis, snapping savagely at the white horse’s legs as she passed. There was no time for him to consider how she had gotten away from those sages or why she had not stayed behind for Wynn.
He ducked his head, lunged under the rising portcullis beams, and found himself face-to-face with the white horse. It was stomping and sidestepping after Shade’s passing, and atop the mare sat Captain Rodian.
“You!” Rodian shouted at the sight of Chane.
Shade’s snarls and the shouting of the other guards seemed to come from all around. Behind Rodian was a bald city guard, still mounted. All that Chane could think of was to put the captain off before the others overwhelmed Shade.
Chane lashed out and punched the captain’s horse in the face.
Wynn flew out the barracks door into the courtyard, and the eyes of all four metaologers turned to her. She made a dash for the gatehouse tunnel, but barely halfway there, something jerked hard on the back of her downed cowl. The cowl’s base cinched against her throat, choking her as she flailed to a stop.
Even as she gagged, struggling to pull free, the grip on her cowl was released as someone tried to grab her more solidly from behind. Light-headed and panicked, Wynn reacted without thinking.
She stomped back, trying to hit her assailant’s foot, and missed. Her sudden rearward shift backed her up against someone tall. She twisted hard as the grip latched onto her cowl again.
Wynn wildly lashed back and upward with her little fist. It collided with someone’s face, and her hand went numb in a shock of pain.
“Enough!”
At Premin Hawes’s command, the air blew upward around Wynn like a storm.
A harsh crack sounded as the horse whipped its head aside from Chane’s fist. The animal reared, and all the captain could do was clench his reins.
Chane ducked around the horse and saw Shade throw herself at one dismounted guard with a young face and steel gray hair. When the man raised his sword, Chane veered toward him, but Shade instantly changed course.
She clipped the guard’s knee with her shoulder. The man staggered, about to topple, as she bolted for the open bailey gate. Without bothering to make sure the man went down, Chane followed.
Another guard charged into his path. Before the man’s blade cleared its sheath, Chane brought his sword down, aiming with the flat of his blade.
It struck the man’s head and glanced off to hammer into the hollow of his collarbone. The guard tilted under the force and dropped to his knees.
“Angus!” another guard shouted in alarm, running to help.
Chane barreled into him. Something sharp sliced across his upper arm as he threw the man off. Hunger rose to eat the pain, and Chane ran out the bailey gate. But he was at a loss when he spotted Shade.
The dog was halfway up the road to the north at a full run. All Chane could do was chase after Shade along the bailey wall.
Wynn’s robe thrashed about her, pulled and whipped by an impossible, sudden wind. That and her wild swing knocked her off balance. She went tumbling onto the courtyard’s cobblestones. Immediately scrambling to all fours, she looked for Chane in the gatehouse tunnel but then stopped, frozen by another sight.