The blow missed Pirvan by the width of a fingernail; he felt the puff of air on his cheek. He leaped aside and backward in one movement, slashing hard at the nearer arm. Only the tip connected, but the creature halted for a moment to shift its grip.
In that moment an arrow sliced down from above and struck the creature in the neck. The arrow hit harder than Pirvan’s dagger, against thinner skin than the creature’s leather-tough soles. It pierced the hairy hide, to reach important blood.
The creature waved the Frostreaver wildly with one hand and clutched at its neck with the other. It weaved and lurched, but did not fall. Instead it flung itself once again at the stairs, taking them two at a time. Now it climbed too fast for Pirvan to run under the stairs and discourage it. After letting it get a few steps ahead of him, beyond the swing of the great axe, he followed it.
He tried to keep that safe distance and at the same time be close enough to strike if the creature faltered. It had to be in pain and weakening, but it showed no signs of faltering or even slowing. Nor did it seem to remember that there might be something dangerous behind it. All its bloodlust was turned entirely on Haimya, who had wounded it. It would let the rest of the world go by until it had settled with her.
Pirvan’s experience was that fighters who forgot to watch their backs frequently did not last very long against skilled opponents. However, there was always such a thing as brute strength and speed doing the work of shrewdness and vigilance. This guard creature with the Frostreaver was one such.
Pirvan had wondered why Fustiar had put the Frostreaver in the hands of such a powerful but unskilled fighter. He now understood that the creature had perhaps been bred with some inborn skills.
This gave Pirvan a higher opinion of the mage’s powers, which was not a pleasant thought. It also solved no part of the fight at hand.
Haimya was near the top of the stairs. She faced the creature, with that bent-knee stance that said she was ready to jump. Her sickness seemed to have taken little of her speed. He hoped her agility had likewise survived. She would be coming down on rough ground, from far too high to have a good chance of landing unhurt. Nor would it take a grave injury to make her easy prey for either the creature or the human guards who would soon be rallying to the tower.
It occurred to Pirvan that, in trying to do perhaps too many things at once, he and Haimya had contrived to finally lose the advantage of surprise, about all that would let two people confront a small army and live. Had they marched in with trumpets and drums, they might have learned nothing about Fustiar, but they might have had more success in encountering Gerik Ginfrayson and speaking with him.
The good will of the lords of Istar toward the brothers and sisters of the night work was not worth Haimya’s life-and Pirvan had more than a few doubts that the blood would end with her (or even with him).
The creature lurched two steps upward. It seemed unsteady on its massive legs, and Pirvan saw that the stairs behind it were red and glistening. At least it shed something that looked like blood, rather than some vitalizing fluid conjured out of Fustiar’s evil learning.
Then it seemed that everything happened at once. The creature took another step, then swung the axe. Haimya leaped to one side, thrusting upward with her sword. The axe smashed into the door, tearing through the ironbound portal as if it were silk. Pirvan did not see where the sword went.
He did see Haimya hanging by one arm from the stairs. He saw the creature whirl, heard it let out a terrible, half-choked, bubbling scream, and saw that it no longer wielded the Frostreaver. One empty hand lashed out for Haimya, she slashed at it, and the fingers closed on the sword blade. A jerk, and the creature held Haimya’s sword in a bloody hand.
Then it hissed like a caveful of serpents, threw up its hands, and toppled backward, so swiftly that Pirvan could not clear the way in time. He was lucky enough not to be caught, borne down to the ground, and crushed to pulp under the creature’s massive weight. But it flailed about as it fell, and one of those flailing hands crashed into Pirvan’s left arm. He felt the bone snap; he thought he would have heard it go if the creature hadn’t screamed again.
Then the creature struck the ground with a thud that jarred the stairs and sent pain shooting up Pirvan’s broken arm. He ignored it, covering the last few steps to Haimya at a run. One arm was enough to grip her free hand and help her swing up to the temporary safety of the stairs.
Much too temporary for comfort. She’d lost her sword, he’d lost the use of one arm, and they had between them four arrows, three arms, two daggers, and one bow.
They also had the Frostreaver, at least in the sense that no one else could wield it against them. Whether its possession made any other difference remained to be seen, but to Pirvan seemed unlikely.
“Good company to die in” was an old adage, and it was true here. Truer still, to Pirvan, was his opinion that Haimya would be good company to live in.
He had to drag the Frostreaver with his good arm, but it went inside with them as they staggered through the ruins of the door into the lowest accessible chamber of Fustiar’s tower. It scraped and squealed on the floor, and Pirvan had a nightmare conceit that it was alive and protesting the change of ownership.
Which, given Fustiar’s evident powers, was not altogether impossible.
* * * * *
Gerik led the six guards rallying to the tower. They didn’t really have enough intact humans to guard the place if neither Fustiar nor the black dragon were battle-worthy. Even taking six such to the tower would leave the gate and the ruins close to the dragon’s lair scantily protected, and that by mutes.
Gerik quickly saw that six at the tower might be too few. The guard creature lay sprawled on the ground, its sightless eyes fixed on the clouds, two ghastly wounds in its neck besides the injuries it had taken in falling. Also, the Frostreaver was nowhere in sight.
What was in sight was the door at the top of the stairs, splintered as if by a giant fist-or perhaps a Frostreaver. Gerik turned to the nearest man with a torch.
“Give me your torch. I’m going up alone.”
The man gaped. So did most of his comrades, particularly the man who’d fought the tree spirit up in the hills.
“Ah-one’s not enough-”
“If Fustiar is awake, he can deal with them. If he sleeps as usual, one is enough to keep any human foes busy until he does wake. If the foes aren’t human, one is enough to die learning that. If I don’t come out, no heroic rescues. Do you swear that?”
The men straightened. “No, we won’t. We’ll at least try to learn what befell you, then take word to Synsaga.”
Gerik threw up his hands. “Kiri-Jolith watch over you all.” They might be pirates, but there was some good and more than a little honor in anyone who would face unknown menaces for an almost equally unknown leader.
The gods have a most peculiar sense of humor, to make me a respected leader of righting men under these circumstances, he thought.
Gerik strode forward, sword in hand, passing the dead creature and slowing as he reached the slippery stairs. He would have thought better of his courage had he not gained a detailed description of the “tree spirit” from her victim. It could be a description of many women, but few of these were accomplished fighters, and only one accomplished female fighter was likely to be roaming the Crater Gulf shore at this time.
A reunion with Haimya under these circumstances suggested that the gods’ sense of humor was worse than peculiar. One might say bizarre or even cruel, not without impiety but also not without truth.