“Master,” one of them said in a voice like a jackal’s growl. Its jagged fangs made the word mushy, almost unintelligible. “We see. We see on road!”
“Road! On road!” croaked the other, grinning maniacally. Its tail jerked this way and that.
Andras stiffened. He took two steps toward the quasitas. “Who?” he demanded. “Who did you see?”
The fiends glanced at each other, exchanging hisses. The second of the pair seemed upset, but the first made a barking sound to silence it and turned back to Andras. “Metal men. We see,” it snarled. “Metal men and blood-woman. They come.”
“Metal men!” the other beast shrieked. “Blood-woman!”
It took a moment for Andras to understand. “Metal men” was what the quasitas called knights. As for “blood-woman” … a Red Robe? That didn’t make sense. What were the clergy and the Hammer doing with a disciple of Lunitari?
He shook his head. “How far?” he asked. “Where are the metal men?”
The first question was pointless. The little demons understood nothing about distance.
The second, however, made the pair tense. They jabbed taloned fingers out across the hills.
“There!” they shrieked, “They come! Here!”
“What!” Andras exclaimed, turning. There were no knights, of course-only the ruined wall, lined with quasitas-but the little fiends hooted and snapped as they stared, pointing, to the south.
Andras leaped up the stairs, taking them three at a time. The cold feeling that had settled over him gave way to panic. Less than two leagues away, a plume of dust was rising from the road.
He’d waited too long. The Divine Hammer had tracked him down.
“We’re very close,” Leciane murmured, her eyes fluttering beneath closed lids. “I can feel his fear. He knows we’re coming.”
Riding beside her, Cathan swallowed uneasily. He glanced back at his men-half a hundred knights and squires, all of them armed. Sir Marto was at the fore, his crossbow looking like a toy in his beefy hands, glowering at Leciane’s back. Tithian rode behind, a similar scowl darkening his youthful face. The others looked no happier. None wanted to be riding with a sorceress.
Cathan didn’t blame them. When the Hammer set forth on its mission, he’d been the most vehement that Leciane should not accompany them. He insisted her presence would cause discord among the other knights, but he knew the real reason was because of what had happened between them in her chamber.
It could have been the wine or the bloodblossom or the unfamiliar thrill of casting a spell-most likely, all three together. Whatever it was had robbed him of his faculties, brought on a moment of weakness. He hadn’t meant to kiss her. Now it was hard to say which was stronger: his revulsion at having done it or the yearning to do it again.
With a start, he realized he was staring at her. Her eyes were still closed, shifting as she used her magic to sense the Black Robe ahead. His face coloring, he looked away. It was wrong-the men of the Divine Hammer were sworn to celibacy. They did not dally with women any more than did anyone else sworn to the holy Church. They certainly never carried on with sorceresses.
For him, women had never been much of a temptation. His god-touched eyes kept them from lusting after him. Now, though … he could still taste her mouth, see the inviting look in her eyes when they’d parted. The first night out of Lattakay, he had lain awake half the night, staring at her bedroll. In the morning he’d made himself do penance for that, praying to the god for strength. He’d done a great deal more praying these past few days.
Tithian saw something, his young eyes the first to pick out the shapes ahead. Cathan squinted, trying to make out what his onetime squire had spotted. After a moment, he spied them too, winged shapes flitting across the waning silver moon. An angry rumble ran among the knights. They recognized the enemy as well.
Cathan raised a hand, and his men reined in. Reaching out, he grabbed Leciane’s arm, and her eyes snapped open, looking a question at him. He nodded up at the fluttering quasitas.
“We have company,” he said.
Leciane saw them, and nodded. “We’ve found him, then,” she said. “I think I can take care of this.”
“No.” Cathan held up a hand as she reached to the pouch where she kept the components for her spells. “Let us do our job. If we need your help, it will be against the Black Robe, not these accursed things.”
Her brow furrowed, then her eyes met his, and her mouth became a firm line. She knew what he meant. The knights would not abide it if she robbed them of their revenge.
“All right,” she relented. Pulling on her horse’s reins, she wheeled about and trotted away from the knights.
Cathan watched her go a bit longer than he meant to, then turned to face his men. If the others noticed his odd behavior, they gave no sign. They were grim, flicking glances at the circling quasitas as they awaited his orders.
“Paladine, give us strength,” he declared.
“Sifat,” the other knights replied. They had brought no priests with them. This was all the blessing they would have.
“Prepare to fire,” he bade, drawing Ebonbane. “At my command.”
Twenty of his men carried crossbows. They obeyed at once, cocking strings and fitting quarrels. He could sense their eagerness. Not a one in this group hadn’t lost friends at the Bilstibo. He kept his sword up, watching the quasitas wheel nearer. With a cacophony of shrieks, they tucked in their wings and dived.
Less disciplined men would have fired too soon. The knights only sighted down their weapons, waiting while the demons came closer, all claws and fangs and stingers. Off to one side, Cathan heard Leciane chanting softly. She was disobeying his orders, but she was not of the Hammer and there was little he could do about that. The quasitas were in range now. His men would have one shot only. There would be no time to reload. They could not waste that one shot.
Hold, he thought, raising his sword. Hold …
“Now!” he barked. Ebonbane came down.
Twenty crossbows fired. Twenty quarrels flew. Twenty demons howled, unraveling into smoke.
The knights of the Divine Hammer did not cheer. The only sound they made was the song of rasping steel as blades slid free of scabbards. Cathan brought up Ebonbane again, kissing its hilt as he shifted his shield from back to arm. His horse whinnied, its nostrils flaring at the brimstone stink of the monsters. Flipping shut the visor of his helm, he drew his sword back, holding it ready while the quasitas-at least forty of them still-dropped out of the sky.
“Tavarre!” he cried.
Other knights picked up the call, shouting the names of those who had burned upon the pyre three days before. Cathan heard Marto’s roar of “Pellidas!” just before the quasitas struck, then the screams of demons, men, and horses drowned out all else, echoing among the hills.
Cathan killed a quasito with his first blow. Ebonbane bit into the creature’s side, slicing it in half across the belly. Black blood flew, steaming, then vanished into wisps along with the rest of the monster. Cathan immediately reversed the blow, cutting a vicious arc that made a second beast shy back.
The knights’ numbers were fewer, but they were rested and ready, their blades sharp enough to cut through flesh and bone at a single stroke-even flesh and bone spawned in the Abyss. Now and then, a quasito got through their defenses, furrowing mail and skin with their talons, but most of the wounds they caused were minor. Too few to press the attack for long, the quasitas started to flee. Cathan skewered one more as it streaked past him, a wicked thrust that left it twisting on Ebonbane’s tip for a moment before it dissolved into foul vapors. Then the quasitas were gone, howling in despair as they flew north.