“Look out!”
His companion turned around too late. The attacker kicked the spear from his hand. Starlight flickered off steel as the shadow struck. Crack! His companion’s head snapped back and he went down.
The shadow leaped over him.
It was only then that the warrior thought to call an alarm. He took a breath to call out, but then felt the cold of sharp steel at his throat.
“Don’t,” whispered a voice, muffled.
He looked down to see a face of bone staring up at him, but the eyes in the sockets were very much alive. The pale arm showing because of the torn sleeve was covered in dark designs, and he knew who this was. She had a bow in one hand, and he could feel the knife at his throat.
“Do not cry out,” she said.
He glanced sidelong at his companion, who lay senseless. She caught the movement.
“The skull,” she said. “Your brain inside that thick head of yours is floating inside a nice bath of ick. Hit someone just the right way, snap their head hard enough, the brain slams against the bone and decides to take a nap. Your friend isn’t dead. And don’t worry about that arrow I put in you. It went right under your collarbone. Don’t move around too much, and you’ll do yourself no permanent harm. Behave yourself, and I won’t either.”
Very slowly, praying her attention was focused on his face, he reached for the dagger at his belt.
“Naughty,” she said, and her knife sliced.
He closed his eyes and his entire body tensed, afraid to breathe.
But she had only sliced the chin strap of his helmet. She sheathed her knife and yanked off his helmet. He took a very careful breath. His throat was whole. She hadn’t opened his windpipe after all.
“Still,” she said, “hitting someone with enough force-especially a big one like you-that can be hard on the hands. Thank you for the helmet.”
Then she backhanded him across the face with it.
Buureg had twenty warriors at his back as they ran up the path to the tower. The last band of attacking ravens had fled, and they’d seen no wolves, though their howls were all around. Still, his warrior’s instinct was screaming in the back of his mind, fearing he was already too late. His one hope was that Maaqua had defeated the girl once already. Surely she could do it again.
The stairwell wound around the tower, leading to a door on every level. Hweilan had dealt with two guards in the first stairwell and another two in the first room. But she’d struck too high on the last hobgoblin’s midriff and heard bones shatter. She left him alive but struggling to breathe.
The next two stairwells and floors were empty. The second had a large window, open to the east, and as Hweilan stepped in, the moon broke over the far peaks, flooding the room with light.
“Razor Heart!”
A single cry came from outside, followed by the bellow of dozens of voices. Far more than the first band of guards that had pursued the wolves. Seemed they had found friends.
She shut the door behind her, latched it, and wedged the spear she had taken from the guard against the wood. It wouldn’t stop a determined troop, but it might slow them long enough for her to finish this.
She considered going out the window and climbing up the final level of the tower, but whatever spells wrapped this place still concerned her. Best to make a quick entrance, then.
She bounded up the final flight of stairs, threw back the latch on the door, and kicked it open.
Her skull mask let her take in the entire scene in a fleeting glimpse: Nine hobgoblins, three of them hulking warriors, blades in each hand, the nearest with a spear. Others were smaller, and made smaller still because they were kneeling. They wore an assortment of robes, skins, and bone jewelry.
By the time they’d turned to the door, Hweilan was already on them.
The nearest of the guards turned his spear to her, but he was too slow. Hweilan grabbed the shaft. Using the force of his swing against him, she pushed him all the way around to face the nearest guard. Trying to resist her and turn back around, he was already off balance, so when she rammed her left foot in the small of his back, he tumbled forward and barely escaped being impaled on his companion’s sword.
The third guard roared and charged. Hweilan stepped back into a defensive crouch.
“Stop this!”
The hobgoblin halted his charge, and both he and Hweilan looked to the speaker. One of the robed ones had stood, and purple energy was sparkling around her upraised fist.
Hweilan looked again at the center of the room. The hobgoblins weren’t kneeling in any ritual but around another form, crumpled on the floor. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, her jaw slack, a line of spittle running down her cheek.
“Maaqua?” said Hweilan.
The warrior took a step toward Hweilan, and the robed hobgoblin pointed at him with the hand holding the sparking energy. “I said, ‘Stop!’ ”
The other two guards regained their feet, the spearman with some difficulty.
“You,” the robed hobgoblin pointed at Hweilan with her free hand. “You are the one they call the Hand of the Hunter?”
Hweilan looked back and forth between the warriors and what she took for Maaqua’s disciples. “I am,” she said.
The hobgoblin pointed at Maaqua. “Then help her. Help her or you’ll never leave this tower alive.”
From the room below, Hweilan heard heavy feet kicking at the door she’d wedged shut. She lowered her knife, just slightly, though she didn’t loosen her grip. This was not how things were supposed to go. She’d come here to kill Maaqua. It would make her an eternal enemy of the Razor Heart. But she knew hobgoblins. They’d spend the first two days squabbling over who would be king or queen. Warriors might be sent after Hweilan, but there would be no strategy. And no heart. Every warrior would be wondering who would lead the clan and then determining his own loyalties. She’d have to be careful, but she could make it to Highwatch and do what needed to be done. After that, either Jagun Ghen would be destroyed, or she would be. And if she lived, she could always head east and spend the rest of her life ignoring the Razor Heart. But killing someone like this, when she lay completely helpless …
The old crone was trembling, her fingers hooked into claws. And through Ashiin’s eyes, she could see a foul miasma lurking just under the queen’s skin. It stank of Jagun Ghen.
Hweilan looked at the disciple who had spoken to her. “Tell me what happened.”
A look of relief passed over the disciple’s face. “You three,” she said, pointing at the warriors. “Meet whoever is coming up. Tell them what has happened.”
None of them moved. They looked from the disciple to Hweilan and flexed their hands around their weapons.
“Go!” The energy crackling around the hobgoblin woman’s fist flared and lit in her eyes. “Go or I’ll boil the blood in you where you stand. You think I can’t handle this whelp?”
The three warriors obeyed. They’d scarcely left when the sound of heated conversation came from the stairwell. Buureg himself emerged a moment later, a half-dozen warriors right behind him. The warchief gave Hweilan a hard look, then focused all his attention on Maaqua.
“It’s true, then?” he said. “Elret, this is true?”
“Buureg,” said the disciple, the one whom he’d called Elret. “You and any two you choose may stay. Send the rest away. Quickly!”
Buureg motioned sharply to two of his warriors and the rest filed back through the door.
“Shut the door,” said one of the other disciples.
The last warrior on the stairs looked to Buureg, who nodded. The door closed, but Hweilan noticed the latch didn’t slide home.
“You three stay where you are,” said Hweilan. She still had her knife in hand.
“The queen was using a ritual to spy on our enemy in Highwatch,” said Elret. “It was working at first. All of us could feel it. But then … something went wrong.”