“I should put my blade through you, alley cat,” Graywing blustered.
“Shake that fist in my face again and you’ll pull back a bloody stump,” Dartimien purred, razorlike daggers appearing in his hands.
“First you’re hovering around her like a starved hound at a feast, then the minute I turn my back you lose her!”
“Who was hovering? Me?” Dartimien’s tone was scathing. “From the minute you first saw that girl, you haven’t had your wits about you! I never saw anything so pathetic!”
“I told you to look after her!”
“You ordered me to leave her alone!”
Among the nearby shadows, small voices whispered among themselves. “Why Talls hollerin’ on each other? Gonna kill each other?” “Who knows?” “Who cares?”
Growling like feral beasts, the two men glared at each other, then lowered their gazes. “This isn’t doing us any good,” Graywing said. “Where could she have gone?”
“Obviously not where we did,” the Cat admitted. “Back where the tunnels met, when you came this way, was she with you?”
“Of course she was! She … well, I thought she was, anyway. She was chirping about seeing light down one of the corridors, but …”
“But you weren’t listening,” Dartimien sighed, turning away. “You never listen!”
“I was so listening! She has a lovely voice! But I assumed she was talking to some of these Aghar.”
Dartimien sneered. “You were listening to her voice, and paying no attention to her words? Well, she’s gone now, and that’s that. Too bad, but those things happen. I think there’s a main outfall ahead a few hundred yards. We may have to bend some bars, you ought to be useful there, at least, but it’s worth a look.”
“We’re going back,” Graywing said.
“Don’t be ridiculous! That girl could be anywhere by now. She’s probably been caught and killed.” Bits of grit cascaded from the roof of the tunnel, and the paving above thundered with the sound of many running feet. Distantly, there was the clash and clatter of a full-scale battle being waged. “We have to get out of here. Come on, now. Let’s find that main grate.”
“I’m going back,” Graywing repeated, drawing his sword. “Thayla needs me.” Without another glance he strode past Dartimien and headed back down the tunnel.
“Fool,” Dartimien snarled. “Alright, so she’s pretty, but she’s just a woman. The world is full of women. You’ll just get yourself killed.… ” He let the words trail off. Graywing was already out of sight, around a bend. Dartimien shook his head. “Gods,” he muttered. “Why should I have to bend bars by myself? That’s brute work. That big oaf is better at such things than I am.” Cursing under his breath, he set off after Graywing.
Behind him, a gaggle of gully dwarves tagged along, keeping to the shadowed places. They weren’t the least bit interested in tall people’s doings, but it was in their nature to follow whoever happened to lead. Right now the only people doing any leading seemed to be these incomprehensible Talls.
Where tunnels intersected, Dartimien found Graywing crouched, studying patterns in the mud. “She was here,” the plainsman said, not turning. “I knew she was right behind me. But when I went this way”-he gestured back the way they had come-“she went off to the right. Up that rising tunnel over there.”
“Stupid,” Dartimien hissed. “That’s only a storm drain. It leads right up to the inner courtyard, not fifty yards from where we found the opening down into the catacombs.”
“How would she know where it leads?” Graywing snapped. “She followed it because there’s daylight ahead there somewhere. Look. You can see it from here.”
“I can also hear the clash of weapons from here, and smell the stench of fresh-spilled blood.”
Ignoring him, Graywing rose to his feet and headed up the tunnel.
“That barbarian is crazy as a loon,” the Cat muttered. “You’d think he’d never seen a woman before.”
“Sap’s runnin’,” a small voice beside him said.
Dartimien scowled at the grimy little creature. “Butt out,” he snapped. “I don’t need an explanation of the facts of life, and certainly not from a gully dwarf.” With an oath he strode away, following Graywing.
“What Tall say?” Pad asked, cocking a brow at the confused Blip.
“Said he don’ want facks ’splained,” Blip said. “Was jus’ tryin’ tell him Sap ran off.”
“Where Sap go?”
“Prob’ly downstairs,” Blip answered. “Prob’ly tellin’ ever’body where Clout is.”
“Where Clout?”
“Upstairs,” Blip said. “Sap heard him holler.”
With nothing better to do, the remaining gaggle of gully dwarves headed up the tunnel, where the humans had gone.
At the top of the tunnel, Graywing peered out into the main courtyard of Tarmish from the shadows of a broken grate. Beyond, armed men slashed and hammered at one another, their cries blending with the ring of steel on iron. Thayla Mesinda had definitely come this way. There were distinct marks where her small slippers had climbed the last few feet of incline, and a small handprint in the grime of the tunnel wall where she had pushed through the gaping portal.
He was bracing himself for a charge into the open when Dartimien came up to him. The smaller man looked past him and grunted in distaste. “I guess you’re planning to run right out there and join in,” he said.
“Those aren’t real soldiers,” Graywing growled. “Just Tarmites and Gelnians, fighting one another. They always do that. They always have.”
“So which side do you plan to be on?”
Graywing ignored the question. “I don’t see any mercenaries out there. Do you?”
“No, maybe they all left. Civil wars don’t pay very well. But there are some real hoodlums around somewhere. There were icemen in Chatara Kral’s camp. Those brutes are here if the Gelnians are. They don’t ever walk away from a fight.”
“Vulpin has some personal guards, too,” Graywing added. “I saw them when we first arrived. They looked like cave vandals. Real elite killers. But I don’t see them now.”
“They’re wherever Vulpin is,” the Cat said. “Look. Graywing, I hate to dash you with cold reality like this, but neither of us will profit from this mess. Whatever you were promised for bringing that magician here, you’ll never collect it. And I most certainly am no longer in Chatara Kral’s employ. The best thing either of us can do is turn around, find that outfall port, and get away from this place while we still have our skins.”
“You go, then, if you want to.” Graywing barely glanced at the city man. “Thayla needs protection, and I mean to protect her.”
“From everyone but yourself, I suppose. How chivalrous of you. Anyway, you don’t even know where she is.”
“I’ll find her,” the plainsman growled. With a lunge and a Cobar war cry, he launched himself through the broken grate and into the thick of the fighting beyond.
“Fool,” Dartimien sighed. His feral eyes narrowed as he watched the plains warrior cutting his way through the midst of battle. The barbarian’s sword was a bright blur, dancing around him as though it had a life of its own. Its blade flashed from bright steel to bright blood, singing its song of chaos as it clove through the packed combatants. Graywing’s flaxen hair and beard whipped in the wind as he dodged this way and that, making for the base of the tower. Beyond, in the shadows of the tall, tattered structure, figures appeared at a breach in the wall, paused for a moment, then filed out of sight, into the base of the tower itself.
“Chatara Kral,” Dartimien muttered. There had been no doubt of identity. The Gelnian regent’s brilliant armor was like no other. And with her were four of her personal guards, hulking icemen with brass-bound shields and great axes.
For a moment, in the intervening courtyard, the path behind Graywing was clear, swept clean by the ferocity of his charge. Then he seemed to be swallowed up in the crowd as howling Tarmites and Gelnians closed in around him.