Tamlin wished he'd paid better attention to Vox's lessons in swordsmanship. His cape was gone, ripped off by an unseen beast. Belatedly he remembered his smatchet and jerked it from his belt. Lacking finesse, he slashed the air with sword and smatchet, and hoped he didn't shear his own wrist. When Escevar screamed, Tamlin stabbed at the huge shape hanging from his friend's arm. The blade met flesh tough as rawhide, and for a second Tamlin balked, then shoved hard, leaning into the thrust. The sword grated on ribs, and only then did Tamlin recall a lesson: Never stab the ribs, because the blade might fetch up. Even as Tamlin remembered, the stricken dog dropped, the blade twisted and was trapped in bone, and the pommel ripped from his hand, gone.
"Drat the dark!" burst Tamlin. "Vox will kill me!"
"Lecture you deaf, more likely." Escevar hissed for pain in his shredded wrist. His smatchet dangled by a wrist thong. "Tam, you saved my life!"
"Did I?" Tamlin was astounded. "Oh, it was nothing, old chap, I-Ulp!"
For the second time, Tamlin crashed on his rump as Vox's brawny arm knocked him and Escevar sprawling. Tamlin glimpsed two huge shapes soaring down like catapulted boulders, then a silver gleam cut the starry winter sky. Tamlin gasped to see the fightmaster's feat, and thought yet again Vox must have orcish or ogrish blood to see in the dark like a cat. The two dog-creatures that had launched from trees were intercepted by Vox's silver axe blade. Both dogs were blown from the air by the heavy blade. Flesh sheared, blood cartwheeled, the dogs crashed to earth — Tamlin and Escevar were lifted bodily and shoved down the path. Vox couldn't speak, but his push spoke. Run!
Clinging together, the trio trotted along the slippery gravel path. When the way leveled, they pelted headlong. Ahead the path forked around a shallow pool flanked by upright columns, benches, and flowerbeds: a summer place for parents and nurses to sit while children splashed. In winter the park was deserted, and the wading pool eerily iced over, gleaming in starlight. Over their panting breath and pounding feet the trio heard more sinister whistles sound behind. They imagined the rapid patter of dog paws drumming the earth. Tamlin was just about to ask which fork to take around the pool when Vox stumbled like a runaway horse.
Knocked headlong, Tamlin and Escevar pitched over the pool's stone rim and slid on their bellies. Escevar hissed as his bare belly slithered across ice. Tamlin slapped down a hand to stop but still held his smatchet. The blade chipped ice, then grabbed so he described a wild, stomach-lurching spin. Flopping like a stranded fish, Escevar rolled until his sword hilt scratched a furrow with a teeth-grating skreeeeek! Both young men tried to rise but skidded and sprawled. Grunting, aching, freezing, they chunked weapons into the ice like crampons to drag themselves to the pool's edge.
A one-man army, Vox stood, back against a stone fountain, and killed dog-creatures. His flashing axe walloped a dog's spine, crippling its back legs. It whined like a puppy. A backswing belted a low-flying dog from the air, and the return arc slammed another's skull. Snarling and barking, more dogs surrounded the colossus, yet they were savvy enough not to attack. Tamlin and Escevar grabbed the pool's stone rim as Vox again raised his axe Whistles froze the fighter. Different, these tones started high and sank low. Instantly the dogs scampered away. Tamlin and Escevar squinted but saw no mysterious whistlers, only hunched shapes that galloped amidst dark trees.
Cat-eyed Vox saw more. Whipping his left leg forward, swinging his axe far behind, he slung the long weapon at a light-colored figure silhouetted by a dark trunk. Vox's companions heard the whap! of steel on flesh and a gargling cry. Vox was already running. Tamlin and Escevar raced after.
Vox hunched over a stricken man whose breath gurgled with blood. The giant fighter snapped his fingers. Escevar pulled a magic candle from a pocket and touched the wick to steel. The paper-wrapped tube flickered aflame, and Vox snagged Escevar's wrist to bring the light close.
"A hillman!" said Escevar.
"We're attacked by barbarians?" puzzled Tamlin. "I expected plain-old city-bred thugs."
Shaggy, cropped hair, a thick beard, and swarthy skin spoke of a lifetime outdoors. The villain wore a long homespun shirt and a laced vest with the hair still on. The hairy hide was a curious dark brown and thickened at his shoulders, giving him a humpbacked look. Vox's cruel axe had ripped the man's belly. Curled in pain, he spilled gallons of blood in a black pool.
Squinting by candlelight, Vox searched at the man's throat but found no wooden or bone whistle, which meant the doghandler whistled through his teeth. The hillman carried only a short club drilled and weighted with lead and a long knife. A squirrel-hide purse dangled from his belt, and Vox used the long knife to cut it loose. Finding nothing else, the veteran spiked the man's windpipe and left him for dead.
"You hardly need loot the man, Vox." Tamlin's voice shook. He didn't often witness death, and his bodyguard's simple savagery always startled him. "Leave the chap some coins so his kinsfolk can bury him."
Glaring under dark brows, Vox touched his own forehead, then flicked his fingers away. He pointed to his eyes, then to the dead man, and spread his fingers wide. Used to the mute's sign language, the young men read Have you lost your mind? There's more to this assassination attempt than meets the eye.
Moving on, Vox examined a dead dog-or dog-monster. Similar in shape, the creatures proved more squat than dogs, almost humpbacked, with short thick legs. Vox pinched shaggy fur, stroked his breast, and pointed at the dead man. The young men realized the hillman's furred vest was dog-hide. Square skulls of bone bore tiny lop ears and teeth like jagged glass. The rancid smell came from stale sweat, crumbs of dung, and fetid blood on their muzzles.
A second carcass sprang a surprise. Bending, Vox unfolded a leather membrane that stretched from the brute's hocks to its hunch: a lump of muscle to power the stubby wings. Escevar tugged the wing and jerked a dead leg. "It's like a bat's wing! But flying dogs? I never heard of such a thing!"
Vox yanked the wing to test the dog's weight, and found it heavy. He scooped a hand along the ground to say, More like gliding dogs. A quick check with the fading candle showed another dog had vestigial wings no bigger than a pigeon's, and a third had no wings at all. Then the candle sputtered out and plunged them into night.
"They're not devil dogs, nor phantom hounds, from what I've heard in pubs," said Escevar. "Wheels of fire! This city's gotten stranger than usual lately. All kinds of oddities crop up!"
"Blame the Soargyls and their necromancers," said Tamlin absently. "Should we alert the Hulorn's Guards?"
"No. They'd ask a thousand questions and we'd have no answers. And I'm freezing." Between battle fatigue, a wounded wrist, shorn clothes, and a lost cape, Escevar shivered uncontrollably. "Let's get somewhere inside."
"What about my sword?"
A nudge from behind was Vox's way of saying, Leave it.
Leaving the dead dogs and lone handler, they left the winter-dead park for lighted streets, and safety, and warmth.
"Master Tam," piped the girl. "You're wounded!"
"Eh? Oh, no, Dolly." Tamlin shrugged off torn clothes as the maid assisted. "It's Escevar who got hurt. I'm fine."
"No, you're not." Despite the late hour and hushed halls, Dolly still wore her uniform and waited up for her master. In the Uskevren household, servants wore a blue shift under a white smock, a gold vest, and a gold turban that set off Dolly's short dark hair. Laying Tamlin's clothing aside, she touched his cheek gently. The master started at a twinge, and Dolly's finger showed red. "This sword cut must be treated right away."