And a stone came hissing past the place where her head had been to smack into the stone of the wall and clatter to the floor.
She was on her feet again with her back to the wall and her eyes scanning the corridor in two heartbeats. And cursing the carelessness that had left her belt-knife on her desk, where she'd used it to slit open some letters.
A blot of shadow separated from the rest and moved toward her, bulking huge against the wall. Blocky, looking like it should be clumsy—and moving like a hunting lion. Only one person within these walls looked and moved like that, or carried himself with his shoulders so high and tense.
"Zetren," she whispered.
He moved into the light. "Witch," he snarled, as thunder crashed again overhead. "Bitch-queen, think you're going to be a queen, don't you? Think this pretty boy barbarian's going to set you up as Mother-Goddess and then conquer the world for you, do you? Reckon you can use the rest of us as a staircase to a throne—"
"Zetren," she said, honestly bewildered, feeling the wall behind her for support. "What in hell are you talking about?"
He ignored her—really, it didn't even seem as if he'd heard her. "Going to make us all your little fetch-and-carrys, like you did with those three lackeys of yours, aren't you? Figure you've got us all outsmarted—"
"Zetren—"
"I was too smart for you, bitch. I saw where you were going, even if nobody else believed me. I had you figured. And you can ill-wish me all you want, but this time it isn't going to stop me—"
He lunged for her, and she dodged and spun herself out of his way with real, cold fear closing around her throat. This corridor was deserted; there were no eager young Hands down here this night. Zetren was stronger than she was—faster; she couldn't possibly outrun him, even if she could get past him into the clear corridor.
She couldn't outlast him, either.
And she didn't dare take him on hand-to-hand; he hadn't been spending the last few years pushing papers around, he was in better shape than she was. He'd make pulp out of her.
"Zetren, what in hell do you think you're doing?" she gasped, sidestepping a deadly blow aimed at her neck, throwing herself away from him, and coming up against the stone wall with force that would leave her bruised. "You hurt me, and—"
"Not going to hurt you, bitch," he snarled, the red madness of the bear brought to bay in his eyes. "Going to kill you—"
He lashed out again; this time she managed to get in a quick side-kick of her own to his midsection and get out of grabbing distance, further down toward the dead end, before he could react. He oofed under the impact, but recovered quickly and pivoted into a counterattack faster than she would have believed possible.
"Going to kill you," he growled again, as thunder shook the walls, destroying her hope of anyone hearing a call for help. "Drop you down your own damn staircase. Senile old bitch trips and falls—no one'll think anything about it."
She didn't even waste a breath pointing out that bruises from blows and bruises from falling look a great deal different. Zetren wouldn't listen—and anyway, what would it matter to her at that point? She'd be dead, and beyond being concerned—
He kicked, and she squirmed aside, but his foot brushed her hip and made her spin into the wall. He followed up on the kick with unnatural speed, and she only avoided his clutching hands because he'd come in to strangle rather than to strike.
He's really going to kill me—oh, gods—For the first time in years she panicked—and though it was going to do no good at all, cried out her fear.
Thunder crashed again, drowning her voice, and Zetren grinned.
"How's it feel to be the helpless one, bitch?" he laughed. "Hows it feel to—"
He was enjoying this too much, and not paying attention to her. She was too good a fighter to let that pass. This time she lunged for his throat, fingers stiffened—
And connected, but at the last minute her traitor knee gave way under her, and turned what would have been at the least a disabling blow into one that simply hurt. And she fell in a half-crouching position, unbalanced and terribly vulnerable.
He half roared, half choked, and reacted to the blow, kicking out at her with the power of a catapult.
This time he connected squarely with her ribs before she could scramble out of the way, and sent her crashing into the wall, her impact only partially under control. A tearing pain in her knee as she hit sent her dropping to the floor in agony, and she looked up a moment later to see him advancing slowly on her through a blur of tears of pain.
Oh, gods—not like—dammit, I'm not done yet!
Thunder, drowning everything; her desperate "No!" and his laugh; she could only see his mouth working, couldn't hear him at all. He reached for her—and before he could touch her, suddenly stiffened.
His eyes nearly popped out of his head, and his mouth worked again, but this time the shape was all wrong for a laugh—and as she shrank back against the stone, he collapsed like a deflated bladder, coming down in a heap with one hand brushing her foot.
She stared, unable to believe in her deliverance, while nearly constant thunder reverberated overhead.
It wasn't sound that alerted her again—it was movement, movement down at the open end of the corridor.
Kasha walked slowly through the light and shadow patterns made by the tiny lamps on the wall toward her, stalking the length of the corridor, something swinging from her hand.
A sling.
About then Felaras's nose told her that Zetren was no longer among the living.
For a moment more she sat in a kind of paralysis, both of mind and body, as the thunderstorm passed on and the nearly continuous shocks of the thunder faded into the distance.
Kasha prodded the body with her toe, then rolled it out of the way and wordlessly reached out her hand toward her superior. Felaras took it, climbing painfully to her feet. Her knee burned like somebody'd set it on fire.
"Found the sling back where he'd dropped it. How badly did he hurt you?" Kasha asked, tightly.
Felaras tried putting weight on the leg—it felt like bloody hell, but she could hobble on it. "Knee," she gasped, around tears of pain. "Sprained or torn muscle, I think. Still works, so it isn't broken. And I'm bruised some. That's all."
"You're just damned lucky I was coming after you," her aid said angrily, then, "Oh, gods, Felaras, what am I saying? Why should you have to guard your back against your own people? We aren't assassins!"
"Kash—" she got out as she gritted her teeth against pain that was threatening to make her pass out. "—orders. Me to room. Boitan to me. Zorsha too. Now."
It happened so quickly she was tempted to believe in a magic other than ill-wishings.
"All right," she said, as Boitan's pain medication began to make the room blur and slip sideways a little. "Have we all got our stories straight?"
Zorsha nodded. "Zetren fell off the wall during the storm. Nobody knows what he was doing up there; it wasn't his watch, and that part of the wall is bad when it's raining. You slipped on the stairs when the thunder startled you, and wrecked your knee. Right now we only know about you, we don't know about Zetren. Ardun is going to 'find' him a little bit after dawn."
"Good. Simple enough to be believed." She started to nod off, and caught herself with a jerk.
"Felaras, why the subterfuge?" Boitan asked.
"Kash—"
"Zetren said something to her about 'ill-wishing.' Boitan, this is to be dead-secret; Felaras and I are both wizards, and we've been detecting somebody trying to work against her since early spring."