“Not yet.”
“Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
The mul did not reply, but held onto her throwing arm, waiting for Anezka’s attack. When the half-giant lifted his club to swing at Neeva, Rikus finally released her.
“Thanks a lot!” the blond gladiator exclaimed, preparing to dodge instead of throwing her dagger.
The half-giant paused in mid-stroke. He stared at his feet, then screamed in pain. The guard plunged his hand into the water behind his ankle.
Guessing that Anezka had severed the tendons at the soldier’s ankle, Rikus swung his club at the half-giant’s head. He made contact, but the shock jarred him to the soles of his feet and his hands went numb from vibration. It felt as though he had struck a marble column instead of a skull.
The only effect on the half-giant was to draw his attention away from his feet.
“Now, Neeva!” Rikus yelled. “Throw your dagger!” The guard’s massive fist shot out of the water and hit Rikus in the face. The mul tumbled a dozen yards across the patio and smashed into one of the posts supporting the bower.
As Rikus struggled to focus his eyes, Neeva threw her dagger. It struck blade first, tipping a long slice in the guard’s cheek. The half-giant roared and lifted his weapon to strike. Neeva threw herself in Rikus’s direction.
As the club smashed into the patio, the guard bellowed again, then reached into the water and grabbed at his other heel. He took a panicked step toward the colonnade. He stumbled and fell into the pond, spraying water and scattering lily pads everywhere. Rikus could see the half-giant flailing and clutching at the pillars to keep himself from drowning.
A moment later, clenching her bloody dagger in her teeth, Anezka slipped out of the pond and went to retrieve her clothes.
The bellowing and roaring of the battle inside the colonnade had reached even the faro fields surrounding the Asticles mansion. Agis and Sadira surmised that someone was fighting in the courtyard, but they could determine little else.
They crouched at the edge of a dusty field, staring over the coppery field of rockstem that separated the farm from the mansion grounds. The meadow was one of the most ancient features of the Asticles mansion, for rockstem was a leafless, hard-skinned plant that did not grow so much as accumulate in one place over the centuries, forming fantastic, twisted shapes.
From across this tangled heath, the white marble colonnade looked like nothing more than a wing of the mansion. The two half-giants and the templar standing outside it were silhouettes the size of insects.
The two watchers were protected from view by both the rockstem and the faro trees, but neither plant shielded them from the oppressive afternoon sun. Both Agis and Sadira were dizzy from the heat, and their throats were so swollen with thirst that they sometimes found themselves choking on their own tongues.
They had been prowling about in the faro fields since mid-morning, when they had returned to Agis’s estate from UnderTyr. After Ktandeo had died, a crimson knight had taken the old sorcerer’s body inside the temple. Sadira had thrown the bronze disk by which the templars had been tracking them into the shrine, then she and Agis had crept away and hidden at the edge of the dark courtyard.
Shortly afterward, the templar commander had ordered his men to storm the shrine. The crimson knights had met them at the entrances, and Agis and Sadira had taken advantage of the resulting battle to flee. They had retraced their path to the Drunken Giant. After finding the wineshop wrecked and abandoned, they had returned to Agis’s house to gather supplies.
Fortunately, Sadira had insisted that they take the morning to reconnoiter, reasoning that Tithian might well have ordered Agis’s house watched. After several hours of waiting, it had become apparent that the half-elf’s caution was warranted. Four figures, two tall and two short, had entered the colonnade. Agis had been able to identify the shuffling gait of one of the short figures as that of his manservant Caro. A short time later, Caro had left the colonnade and fetched five half-giants and a templar from main house. Three of the half-giants had gone into the colonnade, and that was when the fighting had begun.
“The time has come to reclaim my home,” Agis said, staring at Caro, the templar, and the two half-giants still waiting outside the colonnade. “I think we’re looking at all that remains of the group Tithian sent to watch my house.”
Sadira nodded. “If we stay out here much longer, my tongue will be too thick to cast spells.”
Agis studied the scene for a few more moments, then asked, “Can you disable the two half-giants?”
The half-elf started to shake her head, then looked at the cane in her hand and changed her mind. “I can probably kill everybody, but we’d better get a little closer.”
Agis scowled at Ktandeo’s cane. “Are you sure that’s wise?” he asked. “We don’t know much-”
“I know enough,” the half-elf insisted. “Besides, it’s dangerous to use normal magic so close to your rockstem. Such slow-growing plants might not recover from the drain.”
Agis pursed his lips, but nodded. “Just leave Caro alone.”
“You can’t believe he didn’t betray us!” the half-elf objected.
“No, I can’t even hope that any more,” Agis said. “I still don’t want him killed.”
Sadira shrugged, then looked toward the colonnade. “If you want to save Caro, you’ll have to kill the templar standing next to him. The more distance there is between my targets and Caro, the better.”
Agis nodded, then unsheathed his dagger and held it in the palm of his hand. The noble closed his eyes and focused his concentration on his energy nexus, opening a pathway from his body through his arm and into the palm that held the dagger. Agis let out a short breath, at the same time closing his fingers around the dagger. He pictured them melding with the hilt and ceasing to exist as separate digits. The weapon became a part of his body that he could control and direct as easily as he could his arms or his legs.
When Agis opened his eyes again, to him it appeared the dagger had taken the place of his hand at the end of his wrist. He felt the leather hilt wrapped around the cold steel of its tang in the same way he felt his skin covering his bones. “Ready?” he asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Sadira replied. “Let’s go.”
“We’ll rely on their curiosity to get us closer,” he said, leading the way out of the faro.
They moved through the waist-high rockstem formations casually, Sadira walking several paces to the noble’s left and swinging her cane as if it were any normal walking stick. As he approached, Agis could see that the templar, Caro, and the half-giants all faced the colonnade, their backs turned toward him and Sadira. So tightly was their attention focused on the small courtyard that they never noticed him and the sorceress.
Agis and Sadira had closed to within fifty yards when the templar motioned the half-giants into the colonnade.
“Attack now!” Agis said, anticipating it would be difficult enough to flush out the templars and half-giants already inside the colonnade without allowing more to join them.
The noble whipped his arm toward the templar. The dagger separated from his wrist, leaving a bare stump behind. As it streaked toward its target, Agis kept his arm pointed at the man’s head. To him, the cold steel still felt as though it were attached to his arm, and he was guiding the weapon’s flight just as though he were using his hand to plunge it into his victim’s back.
The dagger slipped into the base of the templar’s skull. In his wrist, Agis felt the scrape of steel against bone. A warm liquid enveloped the blade as it entered the man’s brain.
Agis broke the connection. He had little interest in experiencing a man’s death from the viewpoint of a weapon.