He didn't notice when Beysib and human help pitched in beside him-his god-given speed made them seem too slow and the task too great to make them matter.
But Jihan, once he'd cut through the widest coil at her throat, was help worth having.
And once she was free, and it was clear that she'd saved the child from certain death, the Beysibs and the Rankan priest and Kadakithis all crowded round the Froth Daughter and the child.
Which suited Tempus, who finished cutting the yet-quivering coils from the Stepson who'd fought beside him and helped Niko to his feet.
Only when the boy, through his one good eye, put a hand on Tempus's shoulder and said, "Life to you. Commander- and thanks," and collapsed into Tempus's arms did Niko's leftside leader have time for snake-bitten children or Jihan.
For he'd found out, there among the butchered chunks of snake and royal ranks of confusion, that the bond Niko and he once shared was stronger than it had ever been.
Jihan limped over to him, where he lay Stealth down, and frowned at the bums on Niko's face and his acid-eaten eye. "The placenta of a black cat, powdered at midnight, Riddler- that will heal his eye. The rest, I can do."
The Froth Daughter's hand was gentle on Tempus's face, turning it away from the boy. "We have children who are worse hurt," Jihan said. "Both poisoned by the snake who bit them." Her chest was heaving, her muscles torn; flaps of skin hung loose from her thighs as if a man-wide rope had burned her.
But the children-Arton and Gyskouras, who might be his or perhaps just the offspring of the god-had crowds to care for them and all of Sanctuary's priesthood to pray for them, while Stealth had only what a Stepson could expect.
Tempus sat flat on the floor, knees crossed under him, ignoring ichor slick which smarted and caused his skin to hiss and curl. "Get me what medicine you can, Jihan. You and I must heal this one. He wouldn't want life returned by magic."
They exchanged glances-one immortal and mortally tired, one feral and full of the fire of fierce and forgotten gods.
Then Jihan nodded, rose up, and said, "Your dagger skewered the eagle-witch. I saw it. She's wounded, maybe gone for good."
But it didn't please him, not at the price Niko always seemed to pay for others' folly.
Sometime in that interval, because Niko was conscious and could hear, Tempus affirmed and renewed their pairbond so that he had a rightside partner once again. And so that Niko, should it matter, would know that he was not alone.
Down by the White Foal Bridge, the gathered Stepsons waited: Kama was there, with a dozen hand-picked fighters from Sync's 3rd Commando.
It made Crit uncomfortable to command the Riddler's daughter's unit, so he gave them the periphery, made them the watch guards, kept what distance from her he could.
Strat, on the other hand, was comfortable with everything coming out of the dark that evening-with his bay horse, with paired Stepsons riding up, holding torches, with Ischade's whispered council, with men who once were Stepsons and now were no longer men-men who stayed in shadows when Crit looked at them straight on.
Strat had "explained" about Stilcho and Janni and Ischade's talent for raising uneasy dead. Strat said it was a favor she did them, a gift to those who'd died with their honor blighted.
Crit hadn't argued-there wasn't time. Strat was addled, bewitched, and if he got through this he was going to beat some sense into the big fool as soon as possible, do something final about Ischade or make her loose her hold on Strat.
If-
Something puffed and popped and Crit's horse shivered. Looking to his right, Crit saw Randal, the Stepsons' warrior mage, decked out in Niko's armor.
"Greetings, Crit. I heard you'd like some help." The flop-eared mage looked older, more fearsome tonight in dream-forged battle gear. He caught Crit staring at his cuirass. "This?" Randal touched his chest. "It's Niko's, still. Just a loan. We ... have an understanding, but no pairbond." The freckled face aped a smile (hat was wan in torchlight as his horse reared and Crit realized it wasn't quite a horse at all-it was definitely transparent, though horselike in every other respect.
"Help. Right. Well, Randal, you know the Riddler's orders, if you're here. Any advice? Or should we ride right in there, storm the place, bum it to the ground?"
At his knee came a touch as soft as a butterfly landing. "I told you, Critias, just walk right in and take it-walk in by my side, if you will.... She's not at home and, if my guess is right, quite indisposed."
Crit looked from Ischade to Randal for confirmation. Randal nodded. "That's my best guess as well." The mage scratched one ear. "Only, I'll go in with Ischade. Roxane's my enemy, not yours-at least not so much so. And you don't trust Ischade ... no offense, dear lady."
"None taken. Yet," said the woman whose head reached only to Crit's knee, but who seemed taller than anyone else about.
Strat rode up, concerned, looking at Crit as if to say, 'You'd better not start trouble now, partner or not. Don't push your luck.'
"I'm going," Crit said. "I have my orders."
"Into a witch's house?" Strat shook his head. "You may be my partner, but these are my men, until we've worked things out. We needn't risk them, or you. We've got friends to deal with magic who deal with it routinely. Ischade. Randal. Please be our guests-" As he spoke, Strat bowed in his saddle and, one hand outstretched in a sweeping gesture, motioned the mage and the necromant to precede the fighters up the cart-track to Roxane's house. And as his gesturing hand neared Crit's horse, it snatched a rein, and held it.
"Strat," Crit warned. "You're pushing matters."
"Me? I thought it was you, mixing in what you don't yet understand."
"Let go of my horse."
"When you let go of your anger."
"Fine," Crit sighed, holding up empty hands and feigning a smile. "Done."
Strat stared a moment at him, then nodded and freed the horse. "Let's go, then... partner?"
"After you, Strat. As you say, you're in command-at least till morning."
Inside Roxane's Foalside home was a smell like burning feathers and a glow as if the whole place smouldered.
Ischade was well aware that any instant, the premises might burst into flame. She said so to Randal.
They'd never worked this close, the Tysian Hazard and the necromant.
It was an eerie feeling, especially when Randal drew his kris, a recurved blade, and said, "It directs fire. Don't worry, Ischade. I didn't fight the Wizard Wars for nothing," in his tenor voice.
They walked over boards that creaked as if the place had been abandoned for eternity and Ischade's neck grew cold with trespass.
Randal said, waxing more the fighter with a woman watching, more the expert First Hazard of the Mageguild with a famous witch pacing by his side, "I'll open the rent where she keeps it, get it out for you. But you'll have to destroy it. I can't."
"Can't?" she said, disbelieving.
"Shouldn't, really. You see, I've got one of my own. I wouldn't want it to think I'd turned hostile. You should understand."
She did.
It was odd to work so closely with a rival mage of rival power. She wondered if there would be a price.
And there was, of sorts, though it did not fall on them directly.
When Randal had made the requisite passes with his hands and a flap in space fell down and the globe lay revealed, Ischade's soul wrenched: she loved beauty, baubles, precious trinkets, and the power globe was all of those and more. It was the most beautiful, potent piece she'd ever seen. If not for Randal, here and witness, even despite Strat she would have claimed it for her own.