"Is it?" Taynad—what was she doing using that voice, addressing this Guild leader as she would a lesser servant?
"We have not indeed forgotten you, my dear. Guild bargains hold. You have been dispatched to ensnare one of your own kind—though a traitor. He is freely yours and in such condition that you will not have to worry about any guards. You will be lifted from here, returned to the port with your catch. Gosal shall again obey orders and see that you and this lump of meat will be returned to Wayright. What happens beyond that, I leave to your own people. We have done as we were paid to do."
"It would seem, Veep," the Taynad Jofre could not see answered, "that you have taken into consideration every point except one. Your knowledge may run deep but I do not think that it encompasses the oaths of the issha breed. I gave the Learned One my promise to be one with him until this adventure was finished—"
"It is finished." There was a note of impatience in that. "The lizard has done what he desired-—proved the usefulness of this time reader of his. Therefore, you are now freed. We will proceed as planned—"
"The lizard—Lord Rang—he is dying!"
Those words were like a jolt—as sharp a jolt of fear and energy as any the Assha stone had ever delivered. Jofre reached for strength from the Center, and that responded. He knew he could move again, but how greatly would the stass hinder that movement? He could only test it by the swiftest action he could summon.
His arm swept under the Jat's flaccid body.
"No watch now—" Those three words fed Jofre's energy another, if shorter, jolt. They believed him entirely out of the picture. Well, they would discover what an issha could do to revenge his oath!
There was a babble of voices to which he closed his ears. That rock he had slid down against at the first attack gave him a solid base against which he shifted now. Then he flung aside the Jat and was up, his back to the stone. And he had been right! Their attackers were gathered some distance away about a body on the ground and one of them knelt beside it, an open medical kit to hand.
Taynad? She was in the midst of them, Zurzal's frilled head on her knee. But her eyes sought farther afield—found Jofre. He tensed—she would cry out—
He had already picked his man. By the clothing and the way orders sprouted from him, this was the leader. His back was to Jofre, whom they had totally dismissed from their minds.
The guard inched forward. Had he been able to throw off all the effects of the stass, he might well have gone into action. However, his arms and legs did not respond to the orders his raging mind gave. Rage—anger—it was fuel, it could burn away doubts, increase energy if it were so used. Jofre allowed, in a sudden snap of control, his rage to flare.
He was behind that Guild leader, the clawed chain out, about the man's throat, its hooks biting into the other's thick flesh.
"Now," Jofre said in a set, quiet voice, "there is a new payment, life for life. You die, brother of all evil."
"BLOOD PRICE—"
They had frozen as if a stass had taken them all, though they did not collapse. Jofre tightened hold with his left hand on the chain, though he was not yet ready to supply the final twist. His right flashed around and gripped the blaster in his captive's holster, flicking it out into the open.
One of that group of four about the prone Zacathan rolled and was on his feet, running towards the flitter. Jofre fired. A scream which tore the air was his answer. That would-be escape ended with a sobbing, screeching body rolling on the earth, beating at smoldering clothing.
The man Jofre held jerked, and then uttered a cry of his own as one of the hooks tore into his flesh. He who had tried for the flitter now lay quiet.
"Blood price—" Jofre repeated and his voice seemed battle shrill in the heavy silence.
Taynad moved, setting Zurzal's head gently aside. As she pulled up to her feet her hand skimmed along the side of the man beside her, neatly disarming him. Jofre waited. He could kill now with one twist of his wrist and burn down those others in a wide-armed sweep, but such would take in Taynad.
She held her own weapon steady but did not try to aim at Jofre. Perhaps she did not dare, for, even as she crisped him, she would be destroying also the leader he held.
"Drop your weapons!" It was she who said that and the blaster was on the other three.
Perhaps the precarious position of their leader might not have brought such instant obedience, but the fact that they, too, were now within range of a blast which could not miss made them indeed draw their weapons and drop them to the ground.
"Kick them—" Jofre took a quick hand in the game, though he was not yet sure by which rules Taynad was playing—"out!"
That man who had continued to kneel by the Zacathan with the medical kit picked his sidearm up by the barrel and hurled it in Jofre's direction. The other kicked as ordered, sending his weapons in the same direction.
Taynad turned again to the man she had already disarmed. Still holding the blaster at ready, her other hand grabbed at his dangling arm, ran down the sleeve there and now held a knife by the blade. This she tossed after the blasters.
"There is no blood price yet." For the first time she addressed Jofre directly. "The Learned One still lives—if that one can keep life in his body." She nodded toward the one with the medic's bag.
"Do so," Jofre snapped. At the same time he brought the barrel of the blaster around behind the ear of the man he held in the chain noose. That one crumpled so suddenly that he nearly took Jofre down with him before the guard could loosen his grasp.
He stood over that unconscious prisoner for a moment, eyeing Taynad. But she was no longer looking in his direction; her attention was all for the two men she covered with her blaster.
Jofre dared believe that, at least for now, they were on the same side. He used the chain for another purpose, in spite of the cruelty of the embedded hooks, and fastened the wrists of his captive securely behind him before dragging them down so that the hooks on the other end could be caught firmly in the boots, leaving the other's body arched as a bow.
With that one as secure as he could make him, the guard rounded one of the rocks to the side of the man from whose sleeve Taynad had dislodged the hidden knife. A blow delivered with the edge of his hand sent that one sprawling and his own belt was used to truss him up.
That left the medic, but Taynad was standing over him now as he worked on the Zacathan. Jofre saw that charred stump and his breath hissed between his teeth as if he shared some of Zurzal's reptilian blood.
"I guard," he told the girl. "There is Yan—"
"Yes," she agreed but she did not put away the blaster. With that still swinging in one hand she hurried to that small brown form curled at the foot of the rock.
"You!" Jofre demanded attention from the medic who had been keeping his head down, working quickly and, Jofre thought, with practiced skill at the Zacathan's burn. Perhaps, seeing who he companioned with, he had plenty of skill in such matters.
"Tell me," the guard demanded, "what can you do to bring the Jat out of stass?"
"For humanoids there is an injection," the man answered, though he did not look up. "Whether that will work for a Jat—who knows?" He shrugged.
"You for one had better," Jofre said. He watched the last of the elastic casing applied to Zurzal's wound and then he gestured to the Jat. "Be about your business there now."
Zurzal slowly opened his large eyes. They did not seem to focus on Jofre, but before him, straight up into the sky. "The legions rode—" he said and his frill fluttered, save for where the weight of his head pinned it to the ground. "The legions of the lost rode—we saw them."