She could not let him think so ill of her as that. “Come in, Belot. It is late, but I will not keep you standing in the hall. How fares Amrisha?”
Belot said nothing, but stepped forward. He closed the door behind him.
Rynthala felt less easy. The blank look was still on Belot’s face. Even when he had been hostile, his thin face had been wonderfully mobile.
Had he been drinking, to gain courage to come to her as he had? That promised ill. But again, it also spoke ill of her.
She bent down, to pull a stool over to him. He also bent down, so that their foreheads bumped together.
She laughed. Then the laughter died on her lips, as he took a firm grip on her night robe with one hand and clamped the other even more firmly over her mouth.
The sound of ripping cloth and Rynthala’s cry came together. But it was only a mewling cry; Belot’s hand was as hard as iron, and not much weaker.
High Judge Lauthinaradalas was approaching Rynthala’s door when he heard her cry out. He was no judge of the sounds from the throats of near-humans, but it did not sound to him like a cry of passion.
Even if Rynthala was wanton-and this was hard to believe, in a chamber next to her parents, who were as chaste in their conduct as clerics of Paladine … even if she was, he still had the duty he had sworn to earlier this day. He would go to her and apologize for his conduct, as both common elf and high judge.
It would be easiest to speak to her. Although the quickest to anger of those who must forgive him, and the likeliest to break his head, she would also be the quickest to calm herself. Then she could intercede for him.
For now, it sounded as though somebody needed to intercede for her. Lauthin gripped his staff and pushed hard on the door, with both hand and staff.
Being unlocked, the door flew open. Lauthin halted, appalled at what he saw within. Rynthala was bent over backward in the grip of Belot, who had a hand over her mouth and was holding her arms behind her back with the other. Where had such strength come from?
Lust and madness, it seemed. Rynthala’s eyes were wide, with fury rather than fear or desire, and she wore only the rags of her night robe.
Then Belot moved. He struck Rynthala on the jaw and in the stomach. She collapsed on the bed, gasping for breath, her lip bleeding. As he whirled, a knife sprouted from his hand.
The next moment, it was sprouting from Lauthin’s chest.
The elven lord also fell backward with the force of the blow. He was on the floor, looking up, by the time Belot snatched the dagger free, then thrust again, lower down.
By then, the first wound was starting to hurt. It would hurt a great deal, if he lived long enough. With two such wounds, he did not fear that danger.
But where had Belot gained such strength? He was fighting like a trained warrior, which he certainly was not. Also, Lauthin had never to his memory seen such a long knife in Belot’s possession.
This is not Belot-Lauthin held that thought, because it meant that one of his own people was not so vile and treacherous.
That was his last thought, before his mind became unable to hold any thoughts at all.
As blackness took him, Rynthala regained the breath to scream.
Krythis was sitting on the bed, wondering if he had the strength to even wash his face and hands before retiring, when Rynthala screamed.
His daughter’s scream gave him the strength to leap from the bed, snatch his sword from the peg by the door and his dagger from under the pillow, and run out into the corridor.
Tulia had been sound asleep, but she was only moments behind him.
In the corridor, they discovered their daughter’s door locked from within. Meanwhile, the screams continued-more rage than pain, and no fear whatever, Krythis told himself firmly-proving that Rynthala was very much alive and fighting.
Unfortunately, she was also fighting on the far side of that locked door. Krythis slashed at it with his sword, which only nicked the edge of one of the door’s iron bands and did not even relieve his rage.
What might have happened if Rynthala’s screams had not roused everyone in the family quarters could never be known. Several guards ran up, elven and human, as well as one dwarf wearing a loincloth and carrying an axe.
The dwarf had just taken his first swing at the door when Grimsoar One-Eye appeared. He carried an even bigger axe than the dwarf. With a nod to the other axe-men, he took his swing.
Then the two axes were biting into the oak at a rate that made Krythis stand back to avoid being hit by flying splinters. He would be no use to Rynthala until the door was down, and from the sounds within, she was still fighting. The gods willing, the men chopping through the door would distract the attacker and give Rynthala a chance to strike him down even before her kin entered-
The door flew inward, the lock chopped completely free of the wood. Krythis shouldered his way through the last standing planks, ripping skin from his limbs and shoulders as he did.
Rynthala lay on the bed, trying in every way she could to injure the man atop her. He seemed unharmed, however-and Krythis would not have withheld his blow even if the man had been dead on the floor at his feet.
His dagger plunged thrice into the man’s lower back. Then he gripped the man’s tunic to pull him off the bed. As Krythis heaved, Rynthala snatched up her pillow dagger and drove it into the man’s chest.
He crashed to the floor, and Rynthala stood up unsteadily. For a moment she wore nothing save the man’s blood; then she wrapped a blanket around herself and sat down, shaking.
Krythis sat beside her, and took almost as much comfort as he gave when she put her head on his shoulder. If she had recoiled at his touch-
“He tried, Father. But he either would not or could not. He certainly did not.”
“Even if Belot only tried-” Krythis said. He could not find words. He wanted to spit on Belot’s corpse.
“Father. That is not Belot.”
Krythis looked. “Impossible. He must have thought you-”
“You are not thinking, Father. Look at that dagger. Belot never carried one like it. And he was strong. Strong as a trained warrior-strong as a knight-oh, Paladine!”
Krythis wanted to say more, thinking of Sir Darin made mad by lust or, more likely, magic. Either would drive between him and Sir Pirvan a wedge that only Paladine could remove.
“Rynthala! Lord Lauthin!”
Belot stood in the doorway.
But Belot was dead on the floor, after attacking Rynthala and-yes, Lord Lauthin lay dead in a corner of the room. Three stab wounds in his chest and stomach-
If Belot is standing in the doorway, wondered Krythis, then who is lying dead on the floor?
No, not quite dead. Improbably but truly, the man was still breathing. This would not last for long, but any illusion spell bound upon him would not depart until he died-or until it was removed by a wizard.
“Summon Tarothin,” Krythis said. Someone vanished. Krythis hoped the eager messenger was a fast runner and not afraid of the wrath of a weary wizard freshly awakened.
“Send for Sirbones,” Krythis went on. “Turn out all the fighters-everyone-guard all the gates and tunnel mouths. Double the wall watch, and-Rynthala!”
Rynthala had stepped forward, and taken Belot in her arms.
“Rynthala, what are you doing?” Krythis exclaimed. “Even if Belot-”
“Oh, hush, my lord,” Tulia said, prodding him in his bare buttocks with her dagger. She would have sounded light-hearted, but for the quaver in her voice. “If Belot is innocent, Rynthala can do as she pleases with him.… Your pardon, daughter, that was not what I meant to say-”
Rynthala rescued her parents from confusion. “Plainly speaking, whoever lies there is half again Belot’s size and strength.”