Shrinking saved Volrath's life, but he had a painful wound from his left shoulder blade to his right hip. His dropped his hands to the floor and staggered forward on them. Grinning widely, Crovax tried trampling his foe into the floor. Flowstone splashed and flew as the men fought for control. Volrath rolled on his back. Crovax tried to overrun him and got a foot planted on his chest. The finely proportioned muscles in Volrath's leg uncoiled, hurling Crovax into the air. His feet didn't touch the ground for five yards, then he slammed into the tightly packed crowd.
He was up in a flash, hacking and slashing at anyone within reach of his blade. Courtiers and soldiers alike climbed over each other to get out of his way, but he slew at least ten before it became inconvenient to chase the others. Belbe knew this wasn't just pointless homicide; Crovax derived new strength from the death of others. He was refreshing himself in the midst of a duel by slaughtering innocent onlookers.
His back wet with glistening oil, Volrath went to the foot of the throne. Belbe could smell the crisp, electric odor of the fluid. Volrath's broad shoulders heaved. He looked to Greven il-Vec, standing with sword drawn at Belbe's side.
"How am I doing?" he asked wryly.
Ertai crawled all the way from the furnace mouth to the flow-hot lifts in the outer environs of the palace. Except for occasional patrols, he saw no one. Guards marched past him without stopping, the men idly watching his painful progress.
He reached the lifts and fell heavily into the closest one. It had been far too long since his last infusion. Without the dark energy to suppress them, his old injuries were slowly emerging again. The laboratory was a long way away. Despite his wounds old and new, his first thought was to find Belbe. Her life hung in the balance-he was certain Crovax would kill her once he'd been proclaimed evincar.
"Convocation hall," he said to the lift. The fleshstone flaps closed, and the flowbot sank through the floor.
The lift jerked to a stop. When the flaps lowered, he saw the antechamber was jammed with people. Everyone was craning their heads toward the open doors of the hall. Distantly he heard the sounds of combat, punctuated by shouts. Ertai grasped the leathery hide of the lift and dragged himself to his feet. If this was to be his last act, he wanted to enter standing and not on his knees.
He wormed his way through the mass of gawkers. Some shrank from his fearful, swollen visage and let him pass. Others regarded him with pity and stepped aside. When Ertai reached the inner edge of the crowd, the closely packed ranks of guards and courtiers parted to reveal a wan and worried Belbe, seated on the throne and guarded by the imposing Greven il-Vec. She was talking to another tall muscular fellow with an improbably handsome face-Volrath. Ertai recognized him from the statues around the Stronghold. He had an awful wound across his back. The flesh exposed was gray, not red. Ertai raised a hand in greeting.
Heedless of the danger, Belbe pushed past the tall, wounded swordsman and met the young sorcerer at the edge of the crowd. "Have I missed much?" he whispered. She lowered him to the floor. "You shouldn't have come. It isn't safe here."
"Where is one safe on Rath?"
Distracted, Volrath didn't see pinchers form out of the flow-stone steps behind him. One pierced his right calf. He immediately banished them and, enraged, raised a wall of flowstone six feet high and one inch thick. He shouted so loudly the floor trembled, and the wall broke into a dense cloud of small pellets. Volrath flung his hands wide, and the mass of pellets hurled themselves at Crovax.
Up came the shield. With a sound like a thousand nails punching through a hundred tin plates, the pellets reduced Crovax's shield to a sieve. His tunic was shredded, and a score of pea-sized pellets buried themselves in his face.
Scored and blasted, Crovax threw down his ruined shield. He crossed his forearms, fists tightly clenched. A growl rose from his throat. It began low and guttural but grew louder and stronger as he focused his rage and pain. One by one, the flowstone pellets worked themselves out of his body, falling at his feet at a steady rate. Soon the floor around him was covered with hundreds of pellets.
Ertai tried to size up the situation. Volrath was an unknown quantity to him. He'd seen the ex-evincar's quarters, heard commentary from people in the Citadel who knew him. He was cruel, ruthless, shrewd, and a man of unusual appetites. Compared to him, Crovax was a machinesoulless, utterly devoid of guilt or feelings of humanity. Volrath would expect to win because of his superior skills; Crovax thought he could prevail through brute force and a willingness to do anything to win.
The battle would go on and on until sheer survival determined a winner. With his ability to renew himself with the lives of others, Crovax would ultimately win. Nothing Ertai could do would help Volrath. Once the former evincar was out of the way, retribution would inevitably fall on everyone else.
Crovax's two-handed stroke tore the shield from Volrath's grasp. The dented buckler caromed off the wall. Both fighters were reduced to swords alone.
Volrath assumed a sideways stance, the pose of a fencer rather than an infantry soldier. Crovax circled warily, trading occasional cuts and jabs. As he orbited outside of Volrath's reach, he glanced at Ertai and betrayed surprise as seeing the young sorcerer alive.
Volrath sidled forward a step when Crovax's attention strayed. His arm lengthened by two inches, and he carefully bent his elbow to hide the new growth. Volrath started his lunge. His arm straightened, and with the velocity of a striking viper, he drove his blade at the junction of Crovax's right arm and chest.
Crovax's eyes widened in alarm. He tried to backpedal out of danger, but his response was too slow. The nicked, dented blade flew at him. He brought his own sword up in a desperation parry, but the impetus of Volrath's lunge bore his hilt back against his own face. Thirty inches of tempered steel slid along Crovax's arm. Volrath's lunge had succeeded, and the startled usurper seemed paralyzed by the realization of his imminent defeat.
Time stretched out. The normal yellow gleam of the hall lanterns on the bright steel blade became purplish. Volrath's triumphant face fell. An unknown force was playing down the length of his onrushing blade. Someone was tampering with the fight, using old-fashioned magic to deflect his weapon. A horrified look on his face, Volrath watched the tip of his sword fall an inch, two inches, until it passed under Crovax's arm.
Everything came together with a crash. Volrath and Crovax collided chest to chest, Volrath's sword swinging uselessly behind Crovax's back. Crovax's own blade was bent backward over his shoulder by the force of Volrath's attack. He twisted, dumping the over-balanced Volrath and at the same time punching him hard in the face with his free hand. Volrath hit the floor. His sword bounced free and skittered away into the crowd.
Crovax threw himself on Volrath's back. He hooked his left arm around the man's chin and drew his head back, arching Volrath's back as if it were a longbow. The ragged edge of his sword came down to slice Volrath's taut throat. Volrath blocked the blade with his mailed hand.
The wall of courtiers and soldiers dissolved to reveal a captain of the palace guard, backed by a phalanx of his men. The captain's face was streaked with blood.
"My lords! The rebels!" he cried. "They've barricaded themselves in the Dream Halls!"
Belbe was on her feet. She flung a hand at the straining pair of fighters. "Hold!"
They continued to struggle. She appealed to Greven. The Vec warrior did not move.