“I reckon so.” My heart rose at ’Gren’s familiar cheeky grin.
“What did you do?” Sorgrad was checking the limp figure for breath or pulse of life.
“He got inside my head and I didn’t like it.” ’Gren shrugged. “What he didn’t expect was me not letting him out.”
“You’re telling me you know Sheltya tricks?” I couldn’t stop my voice from shaking.
“No.” ’Gren sounded a little affronted. “But he came rummaging around in my mind, so that meant I could have a look around his. I decided he was a worthless piece of shit so I sort of squashed him. He didn’t put up much of a fight.”
“I don’t suppose he’d expected one.” And of course, ’Gren never believed he could be beaten, did he?
“You’re sure he’s dead?” Sorgrad kicked the Elietimm with all his strength and a metal-capped boot.
Recollection quenched my sudden optimism that we had finally found a weakness in the Elietimm.
“Artifice can separate mind and body,” I said with a sinking feeling. That was how the colonists of Kellarin had passed countless generations untouched by the years, down in their hidden cave.
“So his mind could have fled somewhere safer?” Sorgrad looked down at the inert heap. I wondered how a man who’d wielded such fear in my imagination could be reduced to an insignificant figure, dirty blond hair falling over a nondescript face hollow with hunger and shadowed with weariness, clothes stained, boots thick with the dust of travel.
“We can make sure,” ’Gren said obligingly. He grabbed a fistful of the enchanter’s straggling locks and thrust his knife blade deep into the joint of neck and skull, twisting it around. I wrinkled my nose and coughed on the reek of blood. “I thought Halice was joking when she said you lot used to collect heads.”
“We’d best—”
The opening door slammed into Sorgrad’s words. A woman froze on the threshold, jaw dropping at the carnage within, slate-blue eyes white-rimmed in consternation.
Sorgrad and I had her before she drew breath. Leaping over the bodies, we seized the woman, dragging her into the room with irresistible hands. Kicking the door closed, Sorgrad spun around to force her backward into me in one fluid movement. I had tahn-soaked cloth ready in one palm. Cupping it over her mouth and nose, I twisted my other hand mercilessly in the hood of her long gray robe. Her hands clawed at mine, adding fresh blood to the mess of paint and braises. She kicked like a mule but soft indoor shoes were no real weapon. Sorgrad caught her under the knees, her struggles weakening as the smothering drug and the strangling hood did their work. She went limp and heavy in my arms and we laid her hurriedly on the floor.
“It’s that bitch that threw us out of the Hachalfess,” observed ’Gren, abandoning his grisly attempts to claim a trophy.
“Then she’s Sheltya and that means aetheric magic and that’s what we came for,” I said incoherently. “She’ll do.” Action took over from thought. Pads of soft linen for her eyes, tied tight with broad swathes of bandage. Plugs of wool for her ears, covered with more creamy bands. A kerchief folded around a dark lump of thassin for her mouth, to keep her quiet if the tahn wore off. More bandages tight around her jaw and lower face; let her try enchantment while unable to see or hear or speak.
“She may be unconscious but she does still have to breathe, my girl.” Sorgrad reached down and tweaked a fold of cloth around the unrecognizable woman’s nose.
“Aritane, wasn’t that her name?” ’Gren looked at her with interest.
Tying off the last knot with deft hands, I sat back on my heels, heart drumming, breath fast and furious. My exultation faded at the sight of the younger man, broken like a butchered hog, and the older, unmarked save for the killing gash of Sorgrad’s knife in his throat. “They must have been waiting for the lass, already here before we started watching the stair.”
“I did try to stun her.” Sorgrad looked regretfully at the dead girl, golden curls matted with blood leaking from the shattered bones of her skull puddled around the chair leg he’d used to fell her.
“I don’t think you can, not when aetheric magic gets inside their heads. She had me all but strangled,” I reminded him soberly. Another set of bruises that would linger after I’d washed away my disguise. “I need to clean myself up.” I looked around for water.
“You and me both,” chuckled ’Gren, waving sticky hands.
Sorgrad passed me his water bottle. “Get your mail off,” he ordered his brother, stripping the woman Aritane of her long gray gown. With its wide sleeves and cowled neck, it covered ’Gren’s blood-soaked linen and breeches entirely.
“Belt it up shorter or you’ll go flat on your nose the first time you go up stairs,” I advised. “You’re not used to skirts and you’ll trip on the hem.” No one would notice his boots in the darkness and the blood was nigh on invisible against the oiled leather.
Aritane was pale and limp in her decorous linen shift and Sorgrad rapidly bundled her up in our bright blanket. He’d entered carrying an unconscious woman in it; he was going out with the same, wasn’t he? No one was going to look too closely in this confusion. I smeared some of my painted bruises on her flawless arms and then scrubbed off as much of the rest as I could. I coughed at the sickly smell of blood overlaid with the foulness of voided bowels and bladders and swallowed hard. “Let’s get clear of this charnel house and fast.”
’Gren threw the linen smock at me as Sorgrad opened the door a cautious crack. “All clear. You go first, ’Gren. Hood up, head down, and don’t talk to anyone. You’re Sheltya, so that means cock of the walk.”
“Cock-a-doodle-do,” whispered ’Gren from his anonymous cowl.
“Head for the postern gate,” I told Sorgrad. “I’ll catch up.”
As the others made their measured way down the stairs, I knelt by the door. I narrowed my thoughts to the task in hand; there’d be time enough later for nightmares and nausea. Taking picks from my pocket, I worked on the complex lock, closing my eyes the better to feel the stubborn tumblers beneath the metal fingers.
“What are you doing?” A tall man in Sheltya gray stood at the top of the stairs, coarse-cropped hair bristling like a brush. He twisted his hands around each other in an unconscious gesture.
“I were sent for my lady Aritane,” I mumbled, palming my lock picks and dropping my chin to my chest. “Door’s locked.”
The man reached the door in a few strides. Moving to let him pass, I got myself halfway to the stair unnoticed. He rattled the latch impotently before looking back over his shoulder. “Get me some woman who holds keys.”
I was down the worn stone stairs and into the busy fess like a cat with its tail on fire. People pushed past, I shoved back, and slipped through any gap that offered. There was a new urgency in the air, a harsh note of fear in the voices clamoring for attention. I ignored it, ducking and sidestepping. Sorgrad’s armor gleamed in the torchlight ahead before the seething crowds closed between us. ’Gren’s Sheltya gray was clearing a path toward the rear gate, Sorgrad close behind with the woman Aritane disguised in the gaudy blanket.
Some new commotion broke out over by the main gate. People halted, rising on their toes to try to see what was amiss; I seized my chance, weaving my way through the hesitating crowd. We could find out what was happening when we were clear of the fess. It wouldn’t take that Sheltya man long to get into the room and blood might already be seeping through the ceilings below.
I caught up with the others at the little postern. One man was pulling the gate closed while another hefted the closing bar, thick as his arm and bounded with iron like the bracers ringing his wrists. A third was pacing to and fro with a torch from a wall bracket. A flurry of horn signals struggled up the valley against the breeze.
“Did you catch that?” asked the first, running a three-fingered hand over grayish hair.