Planting a big boot on a stout middle shelf, he vaulted up the bookcase, took a wild stab for a higher one, grabbed it, and gained the top. Books cascaded off the shelves and into the path of the increasingly reluctant Bonebreakers. He was dragging them along by their whips with brute strength.
One of them let go, the handle of his whip jerked from his hands. The other managed to hang on as Sunbright gained the top of the shelves with both feet. A crossbow bolt flew by and the barbarian jumped into open space.
The one clinging whip jerked him off course so he ended up flying sideways, but he clearly saw and felt the weird transition. One second he was leaping upward, as ungainly as a yak trying to take flight, the next he was free of the pull of the library floor and grabbed by the magical gravity of the one above. His stomach flipped, he tasted bile, then his feet and body were hauled upward, which instantly became downward.
Sunbright flung out a hand, kicked, bounced off the edge of a bookshelf, and crashed hard onto the floor. At the last second he'd cradled his head; a good thing, for his elbow clipped wood so hard that pain flashed up and down his arm like lightning. His boots slammed down, and Harvester jarred across his lap, slicing his shirt and nearly killing him.
He'd been banged and slammed in a dozen places, but he was still alive and fighting, growing angrier every moment. As he scrambled to his feet, he thought about how he and Knucklebones were hunted, and how Ox, Mother, and Lothar had died, because a spoiled brat had connived to repay an injury, and the city guards had colluded with him. All the corruption of the empire was conspiring to kill Sunbright, and the few decent people he knew, so the corrupt might be sated with revenge. If he got the chance, he'd kill a dozen for every one of his companions who'd died. And Hurodon would suffer the most, in gruesome ways only a barbarian could invent-and have the guts to apply.
But for now he held his anger, using it to fuel his fight rather than being blinded by it. First, he should untangle himself.
Two whips were coiled around his wrists. The loose one he left in place, concentrating on the woman who had managed to hold on all this time. The whip went straight up into the sky like an inverted fishing line. She stood directly above him, still hanging on to the whip, yanking to keep him off-balance, and shouting to her comrades to shoot. Two of the assassins, a man and a woman, were nocking their crossbows while the one who'd lost hold of his whip ran for an intervening wall.
Good enough, thought Sunbright with glee. He could strike back.
Bracing a knee against a bookshelf, he grabbed the thin, black whip and hauled with all his might.
The woman shrieked with surprise as she was jerked off her feet. She'd stupidly passed the handle's loop over her wrist and now she was following it upward. Her free hand grabbed for purchase as she sailed past a nearby bookshelf, but the gravity of Sunbright's floor caught her.
She plummeted straight down and landed on her head and shoulder with a sickening crack. As she crumpled, the barbarian added a vicious, finishing stomp to her bent neck.
Above, someone called out that he was ready-a crossbowman.
Stooping, tearing the whips from his arms, Sunbright grabbed the woman's body and lifted her to his shoulder. A crossbow quarrel thumped into her chest. The other shooter, now poised overhead, took aim while Sunbright grunted and pitched the dead woman.
It was the reverse of before. Now the woman traveled upward, flopping like a doll, until the opposite gravity snagged her. Like a sack of grain she landed atop the crossbowman, who bleated and tried to jump aside. But he'd been standing between two tall sets of shelves, as Sunbright had noted. The dead woman tangled the living man, and the barbarian was already running, wondering where Knucklebones had got to.
He charged across the floor, which was much like the other ones except for a threadbare carpet, and reached a spiral staircase that was enclosed on all sides, probably so climbers wouldn't get dizzy and topple off. The inside of the staircase was dark, for the glowlights had drifted away as they began to fade. He briefly considered hiding here, but rejected the idea. He had to keep moving so his enemies couldn't regroup and surround him. Knucklebones had that part right.
He stumbled over something filling the stairway. His knees thumped onto flesh. His hand landed on a cloth soaked with warm blood. He knew it wasn't Knucklebones, who wore all leather, so it had to be an assassin spiked by her elven blade. That made two dead. But where was she?
He exited the top of the winding stairs and found himself near a corner, the juncture of three "floors." Off to his right was a door out to the main corridor, but whether it would be upside down or right side up he couldn't guess. Inside this building, nothing made sense, as if a mad builder had impressed his will onto wood and stone. It further frustrated his desire to get away, but he knew not where.
Motion flickered at the corner of his eye. An assassin with his crossbow pointed upward, cocked and ready, skulked along the left-hand wall. It was the man who'd lost his whip. He'd obviously recovered the crossbow from the assassin whom Sunbright had thrown the woman onto. From the upper right came another attacker, one who'd drawn a wavy bladed knife. They obviously hoped to box him in, distract him long enough for one or the other to strike.
Sunbright struck first.
He snatched Dorlas's warhammer from his belt and flung it at the crossbowman. He waited only long enough to hear it thump flesh, then whirled right and charged the knife wielder.
The assassin was evidently not accustomed to his prey running at him and froze for just a second. Stabbing people in the back hadn't prepared him to defend against a screaming barbarian with a menacing, hooked sword. The assassin swiveled his hips, made to jump aside, but moved too slowly.
Harvester of Blood split the assassin's guts and rocketed out his back. Sunbright jerked his head aside so as not to run onto the wavy blade, but the man, mouth open, vomiting blood, had dropped his knife. It was his last act.
Still charging, Sunbright spun the dead man around and used the body as a shield. Harvester still protruded from the dead assassin's back when the second crossbowman-a woman, actually-leveled her crossbow at him and shot. The magic bolt ricocheted off the floor, actually bending like a fishing pole before seeking flesh. But it only lodged in the rear of the dead assassin.
Sunbright charged back. He hoisted Harvester's pommel to his chest and the keen blade sliced free of the dead man's bowels. The barbarian kept running, letting the sword trail behind him, then employing its weight to sling up and over his shoulder.
The woman had fumbled her reloading, unnerved by the target's mad, fast defense. Now she turned and ran, so Sunbright saw only a fluttering cape in the dying light of a glowlight sinking up ahead. It was enough. Howling, he slammed Harvester overhand and smashed it down on her shoulder, splitting her back to expose white ribs, and knocking her sprawling. Sunbright charged so fast he over ran her and had to hop her writhing body. It didn't writhe long, for he grabbed Harvester's pommel in two hands and slammed it point down into her kidneys to cleave guts and liver. If she didn't die immediately, she would before the hour was out.
Panting, the warrior backed into the shadows, scanning, counting, and thinking. Five dead, no, six with the one Knucklebones had spiked. Where was the last? One was laying in the staircase: the blonde leader? Would she have deserted her flunkies as their mission went to pot? Would Hurodon be nearby? And where was Knucklebones?
Straining to hear over his sobbing breath and pounding heart, he scuttled backward on flat feet to keep moving. As he crabwalked, he trailed a hand and found the warhammer he'd flung. That was no mere weapon, but came with a debt to pay.
His rump thumped a wall. Holding his breath, he listened. After a space of silence he heard a scuffling, then a sharp cry from the other side of a doorway.