“No closer.” Nikslaus. The voice came from just inside the doorway where Vlora and the Warden had disappeared.
“I’m coming to kill you,” Tamas said.
“Not if you want this one alive.”
Tamas looked down. Both pistols were spent. He might be able to angle a bullet around the corner. No. He knew he could.
“Vlora?” Tamas called out.
No answer.
“If she’s dead,” Tamas said, “I’ve no reason to stop myself from coming around this corner.”
Tamas heard a deep, angry grunt, and then Vlora’s voice. “I’m all right, sir.”
“For now,” Nikslaus said, “but if she bites my Warden again, I’ll let him snap her neck. I’m using her as a shield, Tamas. If you angle a bullet around that wall, it’ll hit her.”
Tamas sheathed his sword and drew a pistol. He reloaded quickly, steadily, and then shoved it in his belt so he could reload the other.
“How is your leg?” Nikslaus called. “I’m surprised you can put that much weight on it.”
“It was healed by a god. It feels fantastic. How are your hands? Did Kresimir grow them back for you?”
Tamas was satisfied to hear a low curse.
“Surrender, Tamas, or I kill the girl.”
“Kill her,” Tamas said. “I don’t care.”
“I think you do. I recognize this one. Vlora. I never told you that was one of my little schemes, did I? Having her seduced.” Tamas heard another low grunt – the Warden – and then Nikslaus’s laugh. “You probably thought it was the nobility. Well, that’s what the fop thought, too.”
“She betrayed Taniel,” Tamas said. “Like I said: kill her.”
Nikslaus clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Oh, Tamas. I know everything about you. I know your hopes and your fears. I know your favorites. She’s always been one of your favorites. Did you think about bedding her after Taniel canceled the wedding? I know you did. So suddenly available. How that must have tempted you.”
Tamas opened his third eye and stepped away from the wall. He could see Nikslaus’s bright glow in the Else through the wall. It was several dozen paces back from the corner. Closer, he could see the dull glow of the Warden and the barely perceptible glow that Vlora gave off in the Else. The Warden was using Vlora as a shield. Tamas would likely hit Vlora if he tried to angle a bullet around the corner.
“Throw your pistol down, Tamas, and I’ll let her live,” Nikslaus said.
“Why should I trust you?”
“You’ve no choice. The courtyard is filling up with soldiers. I don’t care how many mages you brought, you’re outnumbered and outmatched. You throw down your weapons and come out, and I give my word that this girl lives.”
“Why so magnanimous?” Tamas said. He drew his second pistol. He aimed one at the glow of the Privileged and one at that of the Warden.
“Not sure what’s come over me,” Nikslaus said. “Maybe it’s the prospect of your head on a pike!” His voice rose to a shout. “Think of it, Tamas. Only a couple months ago, it was me trapped inside a manor, while your soldiers filed into the courtyard. What a reversal of fortunes! Maybe I’ll cut off your hands before I kill you.”
Tamas examined the walls. Marble over limestone, most likely. To pierce it, he’d have to put half a horn’s worth of powder behind a bullet, and concentrate energy around the bullet to keep it from fragmenting. One, he could do. Not two.
“I wouldn’t take the time,” Tamas said. He lowered the pistol aimed at Nikslaus and uncocked the hammer. He set it on the floor and slid it out into the middle of the hall where the Warden could see it.
“I’m unarmed. Now let her go,” Tamas said.
“When I see you on your knees!” Nikslaus screamed.
Tamas focused on the smudge of color in the Else that was the Warden. He concentrated on his bullet, and set the barrel of his other pistol against the wall and pulled the trigger.
He dropped the pistol as soon as he’d pulled the trigger and leapt and rolled into the hallway, snatching up the other pistol and coming up into a crouch. The pistol kicked back in his hand as he touched the powder with his mind.
Both shots had hit the Warden. The first, through the wall, had gone low, cutting through the creature’s neck. The second took it between the eyes, just over Vlora’s shoulder. The Warden collapsed backward, Vlora still in its grip.
Tamas caught sight of Nikslaus running across the room behind the Warden.
Tamas gently wrested Vlora from the dead Warden’s grip. The creature had been holding a knife to her throat. She had a cut there, leaking crimson, but Tamas could not tell how deep.
“Vlora. Vlora!”
Her eyes were slightly glazed, her face panicked. There was a shard of marble embedded in her cheek. Tamas pulled it out, brushing her hair out of the way with one hand.
She shook her head suddenly, as if coming out of a dream. “I’m alive,” she said. “I’m alive. I’m fine.” She seemed to be speaking more to herself than him.
Tamas removed a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to her throat. She could still speak, so the cut wasn’t too deep. “Keep pressure on it.”
“Go,” Vlora said. “Go after him.”
Tamas took off his greatcoat and wadded it into a ball. He lifted Vlora’s head and put it underneath. “Andriya! Pit, where is he? Andriya!”
Leone appeared suddenly, her bayoneted rifle held at the ready. She set her rifle on the ground and squatted beside Vlora.
“Stay with her,” Tamas said. “Vidalslav makes the cleanest stitches. When the fighting dies down, make sure she sees Vlora first.”
Tamas retrieved his other pistol and checked the room. Nikslaus had fled through a side door. He caught sight of the Privileged running across the lawn, heading for the front gate.
“Sir,” Leone said, “we’ve taken the house, but the courtyard is filled with soldiers.”
Tamas dropped a bullet down the barrel of one of his pistols and rammed cotton batting down to keep it stable. “I don’t care,” he said. “I have a man to kill.”
Taniel sagged against the rough-hewn wood of the beam from which he hung, what little strength he had sapped from his struggles.
He’d tried to loosen his bonds. No amount of wiggling would get him out of them. What else could he do? He looked down. No use anyway, he supposed. Kez guards stood at the foot of the beam at the bottom of a fifty-foot drop. Could he survive that far of a fall? Would he land, only to have the Kez finish off his broken body?
How would Tamas have gotten out of this? The old bastard may have been mean, but he was clever, too.
Julene had watched him struggle for all of an hour. She seemed amused by it, if anything, and the madness in her eyes seemed to come and go.
“Why did he do this to you?” Taniel asked.
Julene gave that choking laugh again. “I ask myself that every day.”
There’d be no help from her, Taniel decided. She was clearly as mad as the god who put her there. He looked up at the hook from which he hung, and then toward the Adran camp. Even at this distance, without a powder trance, he could tell that the General Staff was gathering. Equal commotion was going through the Kez camp. Both sides were preparing for a parlay.
Was that when Kresimir planned to kill them all?
“Kresimir didn’t want to come back,” Julene said.
Taniel turned his head sharply toward her. The madness was gone from her, and her eyes were suddenly lucid.
“He wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t summoned him like I did,” she went on. “He doesn’t care that Tamas killed Manhouch. The fate of the mortals of this world don’t concern him. I was so wrong.” Julene coughed, then swallowed hard, her broken face somehow twisting to look more bitter. “If I live another twenty thousand years, I could not possibly make a mistake again like I did by summoning Kresimir.” Her whole body shuddered, and she threw back her head, moaning in agony.
Taniel turned away. He couldn’t look at that. Cruelty for the sake of cruelty. Gods, it seemed, were capable of pettiness just as much as the next man.