The man's eyes flashed at that, and his gloved hand fell to the pitch-handled dagger at his side. "Go."
The group wavered, some in the rear involuntarily drawing back a step. But Petra did something incredible. With the catlike speed and litheness of young girls, she slipped past the black-cloaked man and his knife. She stood now, barring the stairs above him.
"We stay. You go," she stated simply.
Lord Ferris's lip curled in a snarl. His hand gripped her shoulder and brusquely propelled her back down the stairs. Her footing failed on the damp stone, one leg twisting unnaturally beneath her. Then came a crack like the splintering of green wood, and a small cry. She crumpled to the stone-edged steps and tumbled limply down to the children, fetching up at their feet and hardly breathing.
They paused in shock. Young Bannin bent, already weeping, beside her. The others took one look at her misshapen leg and rushed in a fierce pack toward the lord. Their young voices produced a pure shriek that adults cannot create, and they swarmed the black-cloaked nobleman, who fumbled now to escape them.
They drove their fathers' knives into the man's thighs. He toppled forward onto them and made but a weak attack in return, punching red-headed Mab between her pigtails and, with a flailing knee, striking the neck of Karn, too. The first two casualties of battle fell lifeless beneath the crush, and the steps under them all were suddenly slick with blood.
As though their previous earnestness had been feigned, the children now fought with berserker rage. They furiously pummeled and stabbed the man who lay atop them, the once-bold Ferris now bellowing and pleading piteously. At one point in the brawl, Parri dropped down to take the crimson dagger from Mab's cold hand, then sunk it repeatedly into the back of the nobleman.
Yet Lord Ferris clung tenaciously to life. His elbow swept back and cracked Liesel's head against the stone wall, and she fell in a heap. Next to go was her twin, Ranwen, who seemed to feel Liesel's death in kindred flesh and stood stock-still as the man's fallen candle set her ablaze. Ranwen, too, was unmade by a clumsy kick.
Aside from the bodies that now clogged the path and made it treacherous with blood, Lord Ferris had only poor Parri and two others to battle now. His weight alone proved his greatest weapon, for these next children went down beneath him, not to rise again. That left only bawling Bannin and broken Petra below, neither able to fight.
The man in black found footing amidst the twisted limbs of the fallen, then descended slowly toward Bannin and Petra. "Put the knives away," said he, sputters coming from his punctured lungs.
The boy-child-young, eyes clouded with blood, ears ringing with screams-drew fearfully back a few paces. Petra could not retreat.
"I told you to go, you little fiends!" growled Lord Ferris. Red tears streaked his battered face. "Look what you've done!"
Bannin withdrew farther, his whimpering giving way to full-scale sobs. But Petra, with a monumental effort, rose then. The desperate cracking of her leg did not deter her lunge. Through bloodied teeth, she hissed, "Death to evil," and drove Parri's blade into the nobleman's gut.
Only now did Sir Paramore come rushing down the stairs, just in time to see wicked Lord Ferris tumble stiff past a triumphant Petra. She smiled at him from within a sea of scarlet child's-blood, then collapsed dead to the floor.
The death of the child in the story coincided oddly with the death of the fire on the hearth; the stormy night had reached its darkest corner. But the rapt crowd of listeners, who sat mesmerized in the storyteller's deepening shadow, did not even notice the cold and dim around them. Horace, in the now-frigid kitchen, did.
It was Horace, then, who had to trudge out in the snow for more wood. He wondered briefly why none of the patrons had complained of the chill and dim in the taproom, as they had tirelessly done in days and years past. As soon as the question formed in his mind, the answer struck him: The stranger's story had kindled a hotter, brighter fire this evening, and by it the people were warming themselves.
Aside from lying slurs on King Caen, Dorsoom, and Lord Ferris-dead now? Horace wondered, fearing that much of the story might be true-no crime had yet been committed by the stranger, not even a stolen bit of bread or blood soup. And his story kept the patrons there when Horace would have thought folks would flee to their lofted beds. But something was not right about the stranger. The hairs on the back of Horace's neck, perhaps imbued by the natural magic of apron yokes and years of honest sweat and aches, had stood on end the moment the man had entered with his swirling halo of snow. Now, as the darkness deepened, as Horace heard snatches of the wicked tale that held the others in thrall, his uneasy feeling had grown to wary conviction. This man was not merely a slick deceiver. He was evil.
Despite this certainty, despite the outcry of every sinew of his being, Horace knew he didn't dare throw the man out now or he would have a wall-busting brawl on his hands.
Even so, as he bundled wood into the chafed and accustomed flesh of his inner arm, he lifted the icy axe that leaned against the woodpile and bore it indoors with him.
In the taproom beyond, the stranger was bringing his tale to its inevitable end…
There was much that followed the cruel slaying of the innocent children: Sir Paramore's shock at the assassination attempt, the shrieks of parents whose children were gone for good, the trembling praise of the king for the deeds of the fallen, the empty pallets hauled precariously up the curving stair, the filled pallets borne down on parents' backs, the brigade of buckets cleansing the tower, the stationing of guards to protect the princess's betrothed…
And after it all, Sir Paramore prayed long to the mischievous and chaotic heavens, to Beshaba and Cyric and Lovi-atar, seeking some plan behind the horrific affair. When his shaken mind grew too weary to sustain its devotion and his knees trembled too greatly beneath him to remain upright, Sir Paramore hung the spell-slaying Kneuma on his bedpost and crawled into his sheets to vainly seek sleep.
Without alarm or movement, and as soon as the knight was disarmed and disarmored, the mage Dorsoom suddenly stood inside the closed and bolted door. Sir Paramore started, and an approbation rose to his lips as he sat up in bed.
But the mage spoke first, in a sly hiss: "I know what you have done, monstrous man."
Sir Paramore stood up now, gawking for a moment in rage and amazement before reaching for his spell-slaying sword. His hand never touched the hilt, though, for in that instant the mage cast an enchantment on him that froze his body like ice.
Seeing Paramore rendered defenseless, Dorsoom spoke with a cat's purr. "Most folk in this land think you a valiant knight, but I know you are not. You are a vicious and cruel and machinating monster."
Though he could not move feet or legs or arms, Sir Paramore found his tongue. "Out of here! Just as my young knights slew your assassin, I will slay you!"
"Do not toy with me," said the black-bearded mage. "Your sword dispels magic only when in your grip; without it, you can do nothing against me. Besides, neither Ferris nor I am the true assassin. You are."
"Guards! Save me!" cried Paramore toward the yet-bolted door.
"I know how you arranged the kidnappings. I know how you hired those five men to abduct the noblemen's children," said the mage.
"What?" roared the knight, struggling to possess his own body but bringing only impotent tremors to his legs.
The guards outside were pounding now and calling for assurances.
"I know how you met with your five kidnappers to pay them for their duties," continued the mage. "But they received only your axe as their payment."
"Guards! Break down the door!"
"I know how you took the clothes of one of the kidnappers you had slain, dressed in them, masqueraded in front of the children as him, and in cold blood slew Jeremy for all their eyes to see. I know how later, in guise of the noble knight you never were, you rushed in to feign saving the rest of the children," said the mage, heat entering his tone for the first time.