“Jhessail?”
The mageling stepped forward, her face set, until she was standing just on the edge of the grain. “Strong magic,” she murmured, spreading her arms almost as if basking in the sun, embracing the empty air. “Like a fire, beating on my face.” She took a long step sideways, shook her head, then did the same in the other direction, returning to where she’d first been standing. “Just here.”
“Like a door,” Doust murmured.
Semoor bent, scooped up some grain in his cupped hands, strode along the path of disturbed grain, and when he got to its end, threw his handful forward.
Aside from a little wisp of drifting dust, it abruptly vanished, right in front of him. “The way is open,” he said, stepping hastily to one side.
No crossbow bolts came hissing out of the empty air, and after a tense breath or two Semoor rejoined them.
“Agannor and Bey went this way, you think?”
Islif nodded grimly. “I think.”
Florin nodded too. “All right. We’ve not got our armor or gear, but if we go back to get them, I’m thinking the murderers will be gone forever. What say you?”
“Let’s go get them,” Pennae whispered. “I saw their faces, and her blood on their swords-and they tried to slice me often enough.”
Jhessail nodded. “They know all about us. I don’t want that creeping back at me unawares, some night while I sleep! After them!”
The Swords turned as one and started through the grain.
There was an angry shout from behind them. “Hoy! Hold! Stand and down weapons!”
The Esparran spun around, weapons raised, and found themselves looking at Purple Dragons. Lots of Purple Dragons. In full battle armor, these, wearing helms and shields, and hefting spears in their hands.
“Swords of Eveningstar, down weapons and surrender! Now! ”
A hard-faced ornrion none of the Swords had ever seen before, who bore a flame-encircled red dragon on his shield, was striding to the fore, wagging a gauntleted forefinger at them. “We’ve heard all about you! I arrest you, all of you, for firesetting and-”
Florin regarded the ornrion incredulously. “What?”
“Down weapons, or we’ll down you. And quick about it! Or I’ll seize the excuse and save Arabel a lot of bother, by just butchering you like the mad dogs you are! Adventurers are always trouble-”
Trailing his sword behind him in his fingertips, Florin trudged to meet the man-who came on at him like an angry storm, wading into the grain and continuing his tirade.
“You’re mistaken,” the forester began, “and the Lady Lord of-”
“ Horsedung, lying adventurer! ’Tis from her tongue we all heard of your villainy! Your crossbows have murdered a dozen Dragons this night, and if her orders to try to take you alive weren’t riding me, I’d-”
Florin spread his hands to show his peaceful intent-and the ornrion’s hand came up and took him by the throat.
For a moment the forester stared disbelievingly into the man’s grimly smiling face. Then his fist came in with all the force he could put behind it, smashing up under the Dragon’s jaw.
The click of teeth clashing on teeth was loud, and the ornrion was suddenly staring at the rafters, up on tiptoe and already senseless. His failing hand let go of Florin’s throat, the forester twisted and snatched-and the flaming dragon shield tore free of the man’s toppling body.
“Swords!” Florin roared, spinning around with his sword in one hand and the just-seized shield half-on his other arm. “To me!”
And he charged through the grain until he-wasn’t there.
There was an instant of gently falling through endless rich blue mists ere Florin’s boot came down on hard stone. Stone somewhere underground, by the coolness and the damp, earthen smell. The blue radiance faded At about the same instant as something crashed into and through the shield, slamming into him hard enough to shatter its stout metal.
And Florin’s arm beneath it.
Triumphant laughter roared out from ahead as the fletched end of the broken crossbow bolt that had maimed him brushed past Florin’s nose, into dark oblivion.
Stumbling back as pain lanced through him, Florin wondered how likely he was to end up following it…
The Purple Dragons charged, a shouting wave of deadly spear points.
“Get through!” Islif yelled at Jhessail and Pennae, swatting their behinds to urge them to greater haste as they plunged past her. “Stoop! Clumsum! Get in there! ”
She waved her sword in defiance as she raced after them, grinning frantically as the foremost spear reached for her, perhaps the length of her own hand away from piercing her.
And then the world blinked, and she was falling through blue mist.
And blinked again, and Islif was standing in a dark stone-lined corridor with the rest of the Swords, who were clustered around… Florin? Hurt?
“Hoy!” she cried, as she spun around to face the blue glow behind her, “weapons out! ”
Spears were emerging from it, thrusting out of the swirling blueness with grim-faced Purple Dragons behind them. Three soldiers whose eyes widened at the sight of their surroundings.
They widened still more when Islif struck aside two spearheads with her sword, and ran in past the third to backhand its wielder across the face.
He stumbled into his fellows, there was a moment of startled hopping and cursing-and Pennae came out of the dark with a startling shriek, daggers flashing in both hands, Doust and Semoor trotting behind her.
The Purple Dragons wavered, and Islif drove her knee hard up into a codpiece and then thrust her leg sideways, toppling that soldier into the one next to him. Pennae landed hard on their wavering spears, smashing them to the stone floor and splintering the shaft of one of them as she flung herself forward, her fists hammering down two dagger pommels into two helms.
The Dragons reeled, and Pennae jerked on their helms, tilting the metal down half-over their faces. They struggled under her, punching and kicking and trying to rise-and as Islif wrenched spears out of the hands of two of them, Semoor leaned in, plucked a mace from the belt of one Dragon, and crowned the man solidly with it, leaving him reeling.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” he remarked happily. “Are you going to start cutting pieces off them now?”
The Dragons were already trying to shove themselves back and away, and his words goaded them into frantic flight. Back into the blue glow, with Islif’s and Pennae’s chuckles trailing them.
“Now get away,” Islif ordered, waving her fellow Swords to the sides of the passage. “Against the walls and away. I’d not put it past them to find some bows and start volleying right down this-”
A spear burst out of the mist and sailed down the passage, to bounce and skitter to a harmless stop beside Jhessail, who was helping a sweating Florin up, and easing the bent and ruined shield off his arm.
“Move!” Islif roared, as a second spear followed the first. The Swords moved, in haste, as a third spear rattled past them.
“Florin says there’s a crossbowman somewhere ahead of us,” Jhessail warned, as they hastened on together.
“Broke my arm,” Florin grunted. “Never saw him.”
“When do we start having fun?” Semoor complained. “Pools of coins and gems, dancing girls, our own castles… when does that side of adventure kiss and cuddle us?”
Behind them, the blue glow burst into a wild, blinding-bright explosion that spat lightning bolts down the passage at them, crackling and ricocheting in a chaos that sounded like hundreds of harps being smashed all at once, metal strings jangling and shrieking. In its wake, all light faded; the blue glow was gone.
“A war wizard making sure we won’t return,” Jhessail said as darkness descended, leaving them all blind.
Doust groaned. “Now what?”
“Well,” Semoor said, “we can sit down right here and pray, the two of us-and in the fullness of time be granted the power to make light to see by.”
A dim glow occurred not far from his elbow, and brightened, as it was uncovered and held up, to about the same strength as a mica-shuttered lantern. “Or,” Pennae told them all, holding what they could now see was a hand-sized glowstone, “we can use this.” Its radiance showed them her sweet smile.