Tepelen gestured at Adelis. “Seize and bind him.”
Adelis’s chair banged over backward as he surged up out of it. No question of tame surrender this time. Nikys realized too late that she should have detoured by the kitchen to grab a carving knife, or two, but she snatched up her own chair and used it to charge at least one of the men. She caught him so by surprise she actually managed to knock him backwards, but he grabbed the legs and yanked and nearly took her down with him. When she tried to stomp him with her feet, he clutched her ankle and toppled her. She landed painfully, the world spinning, and then he seized her hair.
Adelis was more adept, and more professionally vicious, but the four other guardsmen and Tepelen combined against him. And while it was plain he could see something now, it was equally plain his sight must still be blurred and indistinct, and when one of the men managed a hard blow against his tender upper face, he gasped and staggered, and then they were all upon him.
She and Adelis both struggled and fought to the last, but the last came swiftly when swords were drawn. They were roped tightly to two opposite pergola posts, panting and bruised, staring at each other in dismay. And where was Master Penric and his promises in all this? Not that the skinny physician could have been much more help in a fight than she had been, but he might have dropped the odds against Adelis from five down to four.
Tepelen, out of breath, huffed upright and straightened his clothes. Prygos, who had stood back from the brawl in understandable terror, came up to his side, and both approached the bound Adelis. Adelis’s head jerked back as Prygos lifted his hand to touch his burns.
“As you said,” Prygos remarked, apparently to Tepelen. “The man who administered the vinegar must not have had his heart in the task. Someone is going to have to question him, later.”
“He seemed diligent to me,” Adelis gritted between his teeth. His mouth was bleeding, but then, so was Nikys’s. She licked the metallic tang from her swelling lips. “But by all means, feel free to question him. To the last extremity.”
“Enough of this,” said Tepelen. “Let us amend the lapse and go. No merit in dragging it out. The fine judicial show was all over a week ago.” He gestured to a guard. “You—no, you two—hold his head still.” Two guardsmen came up to either side of Adelis and grasped his head. The tendons stood out on Adelis’s neck as he strained against their hands, and his breath whistled through his teeth. Prygos stepped well back, gesturing assent though looking rather ill. Tepelen grimaced in distaste, drew his belt knife, and raised it toward Adelis’s eyes.
Nikys screamed.
“Oh, now,” came a soft voice from above. “I really can’t allow that.”
For no reason that Nikys could see, Tepelen hissed and dropped the knife as though it seared him. Clutching his hand, he whirled and stepped back to look up.
Master Penric stood atop the end of the pergola above Adelis’s head, one hand cocked on his hip, looking peeved.
Tepelen’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “You! You’re supposed to be drowned!”
“Really?” Penric’s head tilted as he contemplated this. “Perhaps I was.”
Horror flashed in the man’s face, to be replaced swiftly with dawning anger. His mouth clopped closed, opening again to shout to the bewildered guardsmen, “Seize him!”
That sounding a more reasonable order, they all started forward. Penric’s features set in a look of inward concentration, and one pale hand waved, fingers tapping like a man directing a group of musicians. One after another, the five guardsmen dropped to the floor with cries of pain, their legs sprawling out every which way, helpless to stand as a new foal. Tepelen lurched and followed them down.
Prygos, his eyes bulging, yelped and turned to run.
Penric bent to gaze after him. “Oh. Forgot about you.” He waved his hand again, and the secretary tripped and fell, seeming unable to get up again, although he attempted to row himself along the floor with his arms, casting terrified looks over his shoulder.
Penric heaved a sigh and climbed down from the pergola. His face shifted and he vented a weird, silent laugh. “So much for discreet, Penric.” He strode among the guardsmen, now flopping feebly like dying fish, and kicked swords away. As he bent to touch each man’s throat, their cries squeezed to squeaks, although his hand drew back from Tepelen’s, who was the only man not screaming. “Not you, yet.”
All the clamor died away. Nikys’s ears rang with the silence. Penric stood up straight. He grimaced and gestured again, and the ropes binding Nikys and Adelis to their respective posts loosened and dropped around their feet.
Nikys thudded to her knees. Adelis staggered forward, grasped Penric by the shirt, and slammed him up against another post. His face was wild, and not just from his squinting, bright red eyes, as he shoved into Penric and cried—wailed, almost—“What are you?”
“Now, now.” Penric favored him with his sunniest grin. “Mustn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“That’s not an answer!” He shook the physician, who allowed himself to flop bonelessly, unresisting. Nikys suspected him capable of resisting very effectively indeed, if he chose.
Shaking, she used her post to haul herself to her feet, and rubbed at her bleeding mouth, her numb jaw. “Why didn’t you let us loose sooner?” Or do anything sooner?
“I thought about it, but it would have put one random element too many in an already complicated situation. Our attention does have limits. Actually safer to leave you where you were, temporarily.” As Adelis released him with a curse, he brushed down his scarcely rumpled green jacket, and stretched like a cat. His mouth didn’t stop smiling, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes, which flickered constantly over the scene of not-exactly-slaughter.
Adelis seemed intent on correcting that, as he bent and snatched up a sword.
Penric’s hand fell atop his. “No, you can’t kill them. They’re helpless, you know.”
“So was I.”
Penric gave him a conceding nod, but said, “You have a more urgent task right now. You have to get your sister to safety.”
Nikys, who’d been frantically wondering how she was to get Adelis to safely, was offended by this blatant tactic, but it worked; her brother’s head cranked around to find her. Reminded of my existence, are you? Granted, Penric was a very distracting man. Adelis, still gripping the sword, hurried over to hug her to him.
“Are you all right, Nikys?”
“Just knocked around.”
He glared thinly down at the guardsmen, as if reconsidering his prey. But, stepping over the bodies—Adelis kicked a few in passing—Penric hurried them both into the atrium, lowering his voice.
“There are two horses tethered outside. Madame Khatai, if you have riding trousers, go put them on. Grab whatever moneys you have, no more clothes or treasures than will fit in a sack, and be back down here as fast as if the house was burning.”
“The house isn’t burning.” Though it felt as if her life were on fire.
“Yet.”
Compelled by his infectious insanity, she ran. A stack of cloth and his medical case were already sitting at the bottom of the stairs, she noticed as she galloped up them.
She returned to find Penric belting one of her longer gowns around a hotly protesting Adelis. He then pulled her widow’s green cloak off its peg and settled it around her brother’s shoulders, and yanked the hood up over his head. “There. Your magical cape of invisibility. Keep your face down.”