As silent as a shark streaking toward prey, Alzena Dihanur ran across the cobblestones, between the lurching horses. The two Duke's Guards closed in around the sweating Rokat, their weapons drawn. Down went the Guardsman's horse on Rokat's left, blood pouring from two hacked legs. That would be Nurhar. He knew if he crippled the mount the rider would be too busy to interfere. Alzena dodged to that side as horse and man top pled away from her target. Sweeping her curved blade up, she sliced through Rokat's saddle girth, not caring that the razor edge bit deep into his animal's side. Grabbing Rokat's clothes, she yanked.
Down he tumbled, screaming, as the other Guardsman tried to shove past the flailing bodyguards to reach him. Alzena hacked Rokat across the belly and thighs, then got into position for her third cut, and made it. Gripping the head by the beard, she thrust it into a bag, spelled like the rest of her with unmagic, and raced down the street with it. She was invincible as long as she bumped into no one; they would never see her, because she was nothing. On she ran, giddy with blood. Nurhar would collect the mage, and return with him to the inn. It was her job to display the head, and she knew just where she would leave it.
The duke's fist struck the mahogany table, making plates and silver jump. "Shurri curse them!" he whispered. "Atop the Market Square fountain, for the world to see!"
Sandry glared at the Provost's Guard who had brought the news. She had just gotten her uncle to sit down to supper when the messenger came with word of Qasam Rokat's murder. Couldn't the servants have kept the woman back until the duke had eaten?
She bowed her head, ashamed of her anger, but a fact was a fact. Qasam Rokat was dead. She'd like to keep her uncle from following him out of life.
"What of the Guardsmen with Rokat?” the duke wanted to know.
"Guryil broke his leg when his mare dropped on him," replied the Provosts Guard. "He's in your infirmary now. His partner, Lebua, is with him. Our people are taking their story."
The duke stood. Sandry got to her feet, fighting to push her heavy chair back
"My dear," Vedris began, "there is really no need for you to—," He met her eyes and smiled ruefully. "Forgive me. I forgot who I was talking to. I become like poor Rokat, trying to shelter you when you do not want such care." To the messenger he said, "My servants will give you food and a mount for your return. Tell my lady provost I appreciate the prompt notification."
The messenger bowed her thanks.
The walk to the infirmary was a brisk one. Sandry wanted to protest the pace, but the bleak look in her uncle's eyes discouraged her. I can't coddle him forever, she thought as she trotted to keep up. He'll just get impatient and overdo.
Knowing that, it was still hard not to protest. She couldn't forget how he'd looked when, only six weeks ago, she got word that he'd collapsed in his library. When she had reached him the duke was in bed, his face ash gray and pain-twisted. He looked old and. half-dead. It had taken all her strength to bind his spirit to his body until the healers could do their work. She never, ever wanted to see him like that again.
As if he felt her worry, the duke slowed near the infirmary door and waited for her to catch up. I’ll be all right," he murmured as a guard opened the door for them. "and I promise I will eat as soon as we're done here."
The injured Guryil lay in a curtained alcove at the rear of the small infirmary. A healer sat with him, one hand on his wrist, the other on a leg braced with splints. To Sandry's magical vision the healer's power was a cool silvery blaze that ran through the Guardsman. It flickered in the broken leg, as if the magic fought something there.
"Guryil has broken that leg several times," remarked a short, stocky man who watched from the curtains edge. "He’s built up a resistance to healing." The speaker was only a handful of inches taller than Sandry, with curly white-and-gray hair cropped short, a salt-and- pepper mustache, and full, dark eyes. He spoke with a crisp Namornese accent, and wore the uniform of the Provost's Guard. His insignia was two yellow concentric circles surrounded by a rayed circle, which meant he was a colonel. The fastenings and trim on his uniform were all white, he was a mage.
"I am told his mount fell," remarked the duke quietly.
"Collapsed, poor beast," the stocky man replied. “Tendons cut in the right fore and hind legs."
"I swear, I saw nothing!" cried the young man beside the bed. He, too, wore the uniform of the Duke's Guards, he clung desperately to Guryil's free hand. "Not a midget, not a child—Gury's too good to let anyone get close like that, and they didn't use confusion balls on us, just Rokat's bodyguards!"
"Confusion balls?" Sandry whispered to the duke.
The stocky man heard and replied, "Clever devices. Mix spells for addlement and visions, throw in a drug to give the horse the staggers, and stitch them in a ball. Throw it at a man's chest, it bursts, and you've got him and his horse useless for three or five minutes, depending."
"They are illegal," said the duke coldly.
The mage shrugged. "Of course they're illegal—they're for the one purpose, aren't they? More importantly, they cost. Our killers have full moneybags."
The duke went to the Guardsman who sat beside Guryil. "Tell me what happened." He gave a flask to the young man—and where did Uncle get that? wondered Sandry—who opened it and took a long drink.
She squinted at the Guardsman as he returned the duke's flask and began to talk. There was something, not in, him but on his sleeve, like a brush of ash, something that felt alien. She wanted to go closer to look, but he was far too nervous. His full lips trembled as he talked and his eyes flicked repeatedly to the man on the bed.
"Guryil is the solid partner," the harrier-mage murmured. "Guardsman, Lebua is superb with a blade and a quick thinker, but he needs a calm hand on the rein.»
Sandry nodded, and took a better look at Guryil. He was brown to Lebua's black, a few years older, with long, crinkled hair mussed from lying on a pillow. The healer seemed to ease his pain if not mend his leg. The lines in Guryil's face were not so sharp, his body more relaxed, than when she arrived.
A shadowy smear lay on Guryil's splinted leg, a long stripe from his thigh to his foot. The healer's magic flickered in the flesh under it, like a candle shining through dirty glass.
"What is that?" Sandry whispered, staring.
"What is what?" asked the mage.
"The shadow on his leg. You can see the healing through it."
"Seeing, is it?" The harrier-mage fumbled at a ribbon around his neck, A glass round set in a copper rim hung from it. He raised it to one eye and walked closer to Guryil, leaning over him.
The healer glared at him. "Do you mind?" he asked. "This is hard enough without you meddling."
The mage returned to Sandry. "It's a shadow, all right," he said, tapping his palm with the glass. Sandry glanced at it, and caught the glint of vision-spells written into lens and rim. Niko had spelled Tris's spectacles that way four years ago, before first Tris and then the rest of them developed the uncommon ability to see magic on their own.
"Who are you, please?" Sandy asked the mage.
He bowed. "Wulfric Snaptrap at your service, my lady."
"Wulfric pain-in-the-rump," muttered the healer.