“I suppose civilians generally wouldn’t be allowed near it,” Dorna agreed. “So you think if we were wearing black and gray we could walk right up to it?”
Kel turned up an empty palm. “Maybe. I don’t know whether it wants just the right colors, or the actual uniforms.”
“Good point. We probably can’t fake the uniforms-we might have the wrong length tunic, or something.” Kel had almost reached the ridge now, and could see Dorna’s face where she crouched behind it; she looked very thoughtful. Ezak, sitting behind her, looked bored.
Kel ambled up over the rise, then sat down in the grass beside Dorna. Their actions had trampled out an area perhaps a dozen feet across, and Kel found a smooth spot to sit near one side of this cleared patch.
“If I can get close enough, I can blast it,” Dorna said, reaching for her canvas bag. “I brought a couple of weapons. They can’t hit it from here, but if I can get close enough…” She frowned. “How close were you when it warned you off?”
Kel was good at estimating distances; it was a useful skill for a thief to have when climbing around rooftops or up and down walls. “At least fifty feet,” he said. “But less than sixty-five.”
“That should be close enough,” Dorna said, digging through the bag. Things clattered and clanked as she searched, but then she pulled out something black and about the size and shape of a hound’s foreleg.
Kel hesitated. “Do you want me to use that?” he asked. “I’m not good with magic.”
Dorna looked up, startled. “You? Gods and stars, no. I wouldn’t trust you with this thing even if I thought you could learn to use it. I’ll do it.”
“But…you’re wearing green.”
She looked down at herself. “Yes, I know,” she said. “I’ll have to take off my dress.”
“But…” Kel could not complete his protest.
“You don’t need to blush. I’m wearing a shift under it. A white one, which should be safe.”
“Oh,” Kel said, relieved.
Dorna stood up, untied her belt, and began tugging at her skirt. Kel quickly turned away, looking out over the meadow toward the Northern talisman.
A moment later Dorna said, “There!” Kel turned back to see her standing there in her shift.
Never having seen a woman clad only in her undergarments before he had not been sure just what to expect, but even so, he was startled. The shift was a simple sleeveless white garment supported by two straps over Dorna’s shoulders; it exposed far more of her breasts than Kel had expected, and ended just above her knee, reminding Kel of a little girl’s summer tunic and making her look far younger than her years. She had removed her green ribbon and let her hair down, which added to the youthful effect.
The shift was almost transparent; Kel had never seen so revealing a fabric. The cheapest whore in Soldiertown was generally not as exposed as this. Despite what Dorna had said, Kel did blush.
Ezak whistled, and Dorna turned around to slap him, deliberately aiming for his injured ear. He ducked, but the blow still brushed across his head just above his half-healed wound, and Ezak winced.
“Well,” Dorna said, “Let’s see if this works.” She reached down and lifted the canvas bag onto her shoulder, then took the black weapon in hand and stepped forward, up the little ridge.
There was a red flash.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dorna dropped to the ground; an instant later, so did Kel.
He had been standing with his back to the Northern device, so he had had no warning, and had not ducked until he saw the flash, but then he had flung himself down vigorously enough that a blade of grass had gone up his nose, and he could smell the dirt beneath. He snorted out the grass and pushed himself up enough to free his hands, then quickly patted first his head and then his shoulders to see if he felt blood anywhere. He seemed unhurt.
“Are you all right?” he called, staying low.
Dorna’s response included suggestions that made Kel blush even more than her undressed state had; he was fairly sure at least one was physically impossible. When she had calmed down a little, she shouted, “Apparently it wasn’t the green dress.”
“I guess not,” Kel replied miserably. “Are you hurt?”
“No. My hair’s shorter on one side, though.”
Kel lifted his head further and peered through the grass, but he could not see the others-the contour of the land hid them both. With a glance over his shoulder in the direction of the Northern talisman, he got slowly to his feet, ready to drop again at the first hint of another red flash.
No flash came. He stood, and stared out over the meadow.
The talisman was still there, and the horn-thing was pointed at him-or at Dorna, or Ezak; they were close enough together it could have been any of them.
He turned around to see Dorna struggling to pull her dress back on while staying below the thing’s line of sight. As her head emerged from the collar he could see that the red flash had indeed cut away a hank of hair on the left side.
It had cut the top off Ezak’s right ear. Why would it be different? Why would it strike to one side at all, instead of right down the middle? It shouldn’t just be poor aim; this wasn’t a person, it was magic.
Maybe it wasn’t aiming for her head at all. Maybe, Kel thought, it hadn’t been aiming at Ezak at all. Ezak had been behind Dorna. And it obviously hadn’t been aiming at him-he was standing right here in plain sight, and it wasn’t throwing anything at him.
It hadn’t been aiming for the green dress, either, but Kel thought back to what he had seen a moment before. Dorna had been standing there in her shift, with her sorcerous weapon in her right hand, and the canvas bag slung on her left shoulder…
The magical blade had struck her on her left, as she dropped. Her head must have already been halfway to the ground when her long hair was chopped off.
“It was aiming at the bag,” Kel said, pointing.
“What?” Dorna looked up from tying her belt.
“It hit the hair on the left as you went down,” Kel said. “It was aiming for the bag.”
She looked down at the bag where it lay on the trampled grass to her left, then at a hank of black hair that lay beside the bag. “Blood and death,” she said. “You’re right.”
“Why would it do that?” Ezak asked. He was still sitting just where he had been all along; he had not stood up when Dorna did.
“Sorcery,” Dorna said. “It must sense the sorcery in the bag.”
“But it is sorcery!” Ezak said.
“It must be able to tell that some of what I have here is Ethsharitic,” Dorna said.
“Is your weapon Ethsharitic?” Kel asked, pointing.
Dorna picked up the black thing and looked at it. “I don’t know,” she said. “I never thought it mattered.”
“It didn’t try to hit that.”
Dorna glanced at Kel, then looked at the weapon again.
“The bag was a bigger target,” Ezak said.
“That’s true,” Dorna said, still studying the weapon. Then she looked around. The sun was moving down the western sky; they had spent most of the day pursuing the fil drepessis or dodging the Northern device’s attacks. She tucked the weapon in her belt, then swung around and began moving behind the ridge, sometimes on hands and knees, sometimes on her feet but bent almost double.
When she was about fifty feet away from the canvas bag she took a deep breath, then straightened up and looked out across the ridge and the meadow. Kel turned, too.
The Northern talisman was not moving. The horn, or tube, or whatever it was was still pointed toward the ridge in front of the trampled area where Ezak sat and the canvas bag lay.
“It’s not throwing anything at me,” Dorna said.
Kel nodded, though he realized that Dorna was not looking at him and probably did not see the gesture. He turned to watch her.