It struck the Dark Helm in the back of the neck, smashing him off his feet and up into the air, head almost severed. When man and stone slab crashed on the stairs together, and bounced wetly once, there was little left of the fleeing warrior's head.
As an onrushing crowd of Dark Helms came to a wary halt, Taeauna crawled hurriedly up the steps and plucked up the grisly crushed helm from the broken body under the slab.
She bore it, dripping with its contents, back down the crypt stairs to Rod. "Drip some of your blood on it," she panted, "and the magic that compels it should burn away."
Wonderingly, he did just that. The metal hissed and smoked, Taeauna hurriedly let it fall to the stone steps, and together they watched the helm melt away to nothing.
Standing over his crystal, the wizard Arlaghaun arched over backwards with a startled cry of pain, and clawed at the air as the sudden agony of being burned raged up within him.
With a shriek and a rattle of chains, honey-blonde hair flying, his apprentice flung down the guttering candles and fled.
Unnoticed, the book of spells on the floor glowed and started to turn its own pages, tiny voices hissing out incantations that went unheeded.
The dozen Dark Helms roared in common pain, clutched their heads, and staggered away into the night, some of them dropping their swords and all of them hurrying.
"Come," Taeauna whispered. "Swiftly! Take up my sword; let's be up and out of this place of death!"
Rod did as he was told, grinning wryly at how used to swiftly obeying her he was getting, and pleased as Punch that she was awake and alert and with him again.
As they went up the steps, Taeauna sucked greedily at Rod's fast-vanishing wound, seeming to gain strength with every step. Behind them, the dark and gaunt skeleton reached out beseeching hands and begged hollowly, "Shaper, give me life again! Raise me to the living, and I'll serve you! I-"
"You can't," Taeauna whispered in Rod's ear. "You musn't!"
Rod was hastening up the last few steps, swallowing down a fresh surge of horror that threatened to choke him. "I… I don't know how," he admitted helplessly, "even if I wanted to."
"Noooo!" the skeleton howled, hurling itself desperately at his ankles. "Don't leave! Master of All, don't leave me!"
Rod flung himself up onto the grass and rolled away from the crypt and up to his feet. He sprinted out into the street, with Taeauna running hard at his heels, and dared not turn to look until he was in the alley.
At the top of the steps leading out of its crypt the undead was straining to follow and starting to crumble. As Rod and Taeauna watched, huddling together, it collapsed into dust with a last, helpless wail.
Shaken, Rod drew in a tremulous breath, shook his head, and asked, "Dare we go back to our rooms at the inn?"
"When I'm stronger," she murmured. "Lord, I need more."
Setting his teeth, Rod put his arm around her, handed her back her sword, and drew her back against him. Then he took his dagger and drew it steadily along his forearm that was around her stomach, cutting deep.
The fingers of his cut arm suddenly felt like ice, and then as if they were on fire. He loosened his grip around Taeauna, and felt her pluck his arm up to her mouth and start to suck hungrily. Glowing blue fire pulsed around her mouth as she leaned back against him.
God, her mouth is beautiful.
Watching her, Rod felt sudden desire rising in him. His body stirred, and he knew she must be feeling it, against her leg.
She ignored it so he said nothing, as the pain in his arm slowly sank into an ache, and then into nothing at all.
Abruptly the Aumrarr spun but of his loose embrace, took his hand with a mysterious little smile, and tugged it gently, bidding him follow.
Along the alley and back to the inn, trotting swiftly, swords out and peering this way and that for any sign of Dark Helms, snake-headed warriors, or anyone else who was up and about in the waning moonlight.
Nothing. Arbridge might have been deserted, empty buildings under the moon. Even the inn-yard doors were firmly latched and barred, and inns were customarily open but well lit and guarded in the dark hours. Rod and Taeauna went around the back, finding the window shutters of their room gaping open, just as they'd left them.
Inside, the room was crowded with the sprawled dead: a Dark Helm, hacked to death, atop too many snake-headed men to count. Many of them had been felled in the wardrobe they'd entered the room through; its back stood open, slid aside to reveal the dark mouth of a secret passage beyond. Taeauna went right past it to the entrance door of the room, waved a stern finger against her lips to warn Rod to be as quiet as possible, and took down the door-bar, taking infinite care to be silent.
When she gently tried to open the door, the Aumrarr found it had been boarded firmly shut from the inn-passage side. She turned to Rod, took hold of his nearest ear, and whispered into it, "As I expected. We must be gone from Arbridge by morning."
"Or?"
"Or tarry and be slain. With every slain wizard, favorable regard in Arbridge for Lord Tharlark grows. He never misses any chance at a mage-slaying."
"But I'm not-"
' "That matters not to him. Come. We have a long walk ahead of us, in the dark. A cold swim, too."
"There's something wrong with the bridge?"
"'Tis guarded by the lord's armsmen. And watched by Dark Helms and the Vengeful, too."
"The Vengeful again," Rod said thoughtfully. "Local crazies?"
At Taeauna's puzzled frown, he hastily amended his question. "Local mad-folk?"
She shook her head. "Spreading now, and ordinary folk who are frightened more than touched in the wits. Some of my sisters believe-believed-the Dooms were encouraging the Vengeful, to scour the lands of hidden and lesser wizards, to drive the survivors to seek apprenticeship with the Three to save their own skins, and exterminate all unpleasant surprises. None of the Dooms wants someone unknown bursting into their lives as an ally of another Doom, who could overwhelm defenses they've prepared to stand against the rivals they know."
"As I could be," Rod whispered.
She nodded on her way past him to the window. "Let's be going; despite how it may feel, thus far, this night won't last forever."
"By the four sinister Dooms!" the tall masked man snarled. "You found it just like this? Nothing's been moved?"
Both of the other Vengeful nodded. "Just like this," one of them offered.
"Nothing," the other confirmed.
The tall man stared down at the headless body under the huge tomb lid.
"A Dark Helm." Unhooding his lantern, he stepped carefully around it, peering closely at the corpse-dust on the top step and stone lip of the tomb, and went down the crypt steps to peer into the open coffin. Empty.
He looked back at the body under the lid, then up at the other Vengeful. "Get to Olnar's and fetch four pry-bars… and Olnar, too. We've a body to dispose of, an empty coffin to fill, and a crypt to close before the womenfolk are up and seeing things and screeching about them."
The other Vengeful hesitated.
"Go! Unless you've the stomach for explaining all this to half the women in Arbridge, and listening to the other half gossip about you as liars who must have been 'up to something.'" He spread his hands, smiling. "The choice is yours."
Both men turned and started down the street that led to Olnar's.
Here in the shadow of the trees, the black, rushing waters of the stream looked very cold.
Taeauna moved a little way along the bank, peering.
Rod waited, figuring she was seeking the best footing to cross, but eventually she nodded, plucked a few flowering rushes, took off her sword-belt and then various daggers in their sheaths from all over her body, laid them on the bank, and started to strip.