The Molthuni investigator struggled to stand, and to speak. "Urrkh!" he announced, waving one arm wildly.
He was choking on his own blood-and the statue on the other end of the sword was no statue at all, but a dark-garbed man whose grin and dancing brown eyes caught the moonlight for a moment as he glanced at the onrushing Tantaerra.
He must have been standing there all along, utterly motionless, so still that they'd all mistaken him for-
A chorus of angry curses arose inside the doorway, and the air was suddenly full of flung spears. And a lone, speeding crossbow bolt.
Tantaerra skidded and desperately dropped onto her back.
The statue-man flung himself down and swung the helpless, dying Osturr around like a shield, to host wetly thudding spears and deflect the bolt on into the night air. The spear-bristling Lord Investigator sagged to the roof, spewing blood from his mouth in a torrent, and the soldiers of Halidon came pounding through the archway.
Tantaerra rolled to her feet and fled back for the shelter of the statues, but never took her eyes off the battle.
The man who'd been a statue was up on his feet as swiftly as an eel slipping out of a fishmonger's grasp, and crouching with drawn daggers in both hands to await the charging soldiers behind the many-speared shelter of Osturr's body. As the soldiers parted to stream around those spears, he ducked back between the statues, slicing a man viciously behind the knee. Then he lashed out at the face of the next one, parrying a sword-slash so hard that sparks flew, and driving the dagger in his other hand deep in under the edge of a helm. That soldier spasmed and shrieked, running on blindly across the roof and right over the edge-and by then the statue-man was in among the Molthuni soldiers like a flitting shadow, slaying at every breath.
The first soldier he'd wounded was swearing as he hopped and hacked savagely at Tantaerra, keeping her too busy to watch the statue-man closely. By the time his wounded leg collapsed and she managed to stab him in the throat, the roof was strewn with dead men and the statue-man had just dragged his long needle-sword out of the Lord Investigator's neck-Osturr's head almost coming with it-and was disappearing through the doorway.
A brief, abruptly cut-off scream rang out inside the temple, lower down the stair. And then another.
Smiling grimly as it occurred to her how many empty beds there'd be in the soldiers' barracks by morning, Tantaerra promptly pounced on Osturr's body.
He was dead, all right. Her little knife wasn't needed to make sure of that. So she planted it ready in the roof beside her and swiftly plundered the man's body. The first thing she took was the forearm sheath for that needle-dirk, though it was too big for her to use as a leg-sheath, and would have to go to The Masked.
An underarm purse held only papers, one of them a commission from the General Lords that might prove useful, if anyone could be fooled into thinking Tarram Armistrade was really Ammarand Osturr, but his left boot held not just a wicked poniard better than any knife she owned, but had a hollow heel holding a neat stack of gold measures, proper Absalom minting.
His right boot held what she'd really been hoping for. A flat, slender, dainty little glass vial sheltered in its own steel sheath against breakage. The sheath bore an etched sun. A healing potion.
She almost slipped it into her neck-sack out of habit, but reluctantly turned to The Masked, lying so still behind her.
He groaned as she stepped over him, his eyes flicking back and forth behind the mask, and she took hold of its lower edge, below his chin, and peeled it back to see his face.
Then froze, wishing she hadn't.
He had no chin. Or nose. Just two eyes, blinking blearily up at her out of a smooth whorl of flesh, as if everything had flowed from his forehead down to his throat. A mouth that was a lipless slit. Something out of a nightmare …
Her gorge rose. Swallowing hastily, she snatched the mask back down into place, and bent to look at his leg.
His hand rose weakly to pat at his face. No, at his mask. He was trying to make sure the mask was still in place.
No wonder.
Setting her teeth, Tantaerra tried to forget what she'd seen by poking her nose into the more mundane terror of his wound.
There was a lot of blood, dark and sticky and drenching the roof under him. The bolt had torn right through his thigh.
She didn't have to roll him, thankfully, to see the warhead, sticking out on the far side. She drew the sharpest of her knives, the one she kept sheathed high on the inside of her thigh, and sawed at the shaft of the bolt. He groaned, but Tantaerra kept grimly at it until she'd shorn through it and could pull the shaft back out of him.
Fresh blood gouted, and he roared in pain and slammed a fist down on the rooftop.
"Quiet," she hissed into his ear. "And drink this."
She thrust the mask back again with firm fingers, used her fingers to find and pry open his mouth, and fed the healing potion into the side of it. Within, he had a full set of teeth, in better shape than most she'd seen, and …and he was fully awake now, looking up at her sidelong.
He relaxed with a great shudder as the pain ebbed. The magic worked fast.
"Do they have food in temples?" she asked, looking at the blood he'd leaked all over the roof.
"Shrine, this, not temple," he muttered, "so I don't know. And I thank you, Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra."
She shrugged. "We're not out of this yet, Tarram. The forest is just over there, but might as well be half of Golarion away, for all the chance we have of reaching it. With all these buildings ablaze and the streets full of soldiers who've had time to find and load their crossbows, now. The whole village is awake and watching."
"What happened?" He was sitting up and looking around the corpse-littered roof, at the Lord Investigator and all his spears in particular. "Did you-?"
"No. There was someone else up here, hiding among the statues. He killed Osturr and all those behind him, too, then fought his way back down the stair." Tantaerra gave him a long look, trying to read his masked face but seeing only that vividly remembered glimpse of his ruined flesh. "Think you can walk yet, to follow him?"
The masked man shrugged. "One way to find out. I feel better, that's for sure." He rolled away from her, up to his knees, then crawled to the nearest statue and hauled himself upright. He clung carefully to carved divine limbs as he put just a little weight on his wounded foot, winced, and took a step with it, arms outstretched to grab the next statue along. Then, limping, he went right past that statue, turned, and announced, "I'll live. Let's get gone from this place. Before-"
"Before it becomes our shared dead ending," she interrupted him. "Help me harvest any purses we can find off these bodies, will you? Quickly!"
The Masked chuckled. "Someone's feeling victorious."
"Someone's feeling practical. The one who isn't a sword-swinging, get-himself-killed, heroic dolt."
He ducked his head. "Well said. Just purses, or are you still collecting daggers?"
"Only very good ones. And put on this bracer. It's a sheath for that needle-blade-"
"That the Hound tried to kill me with. All right."
He was still buckling it onto his forearm when Tantaerra slid the blade it had been fashioned to carry firmly into place, moved her hand down to his elbow, and tugged.
"Come on. Those soldiers won't stand around down there forever."
She hustled him off the roof and down the stairs. Aside from a stiffness and obvious ache, he could walk well enough, and went down the steps in a warrior's half-crouch, the best salvaged soldier's sword ready in his hand.