The Wolf heard rather than saw Blade come into the room behind him and knew what had to be done. His sword whistled in a deadly arc toward Serana's head, smashing down her guard. Blade had the sick knowledge that Serana was going to be dead in the next moment, even if the Wolf was dead the moment after that.
Then Serana dropped to the floor, taking the Wolf's sword across her helmet. The helmet flew off, but the sword glanced off to strike the wall. Before the Wolf could swing again, Blade came up behind him and gripped the man by the throat in both hands. Serana bounced to her feet, her dagger drawn. As Blade jerked back, snapping the Wolf's neck, Serana thrust the dagger into the man's left eye, plunging it through to the brain. The Wolf writhed convulsively for a moment, blood gushing from his nose and mouth, then went limp.
Blade threw the second bolt on the door, clamped the two iron padlocks into place, and dropped the iron-strapped wooden bar into its brackets. Fists and swords hammered wildly on the door from outside, but Blade ignored them. It would now take a full-sized battering ram to break down the outer door. All the Wolves in Rentoro couldn't hurt him and Serana, as long as they were on the wrong side of the door.
Only after fastening the door could Blade spare attention for Serana. She was leaning against one wall, shaking her head and rubbing her neck.
«Are you hurt?»
She slowly shook her head. «No. Just a little dizzy.»
«Good. Come on.» He grabbed her by the hand and led her back into the Great Hall. The first Wolf was on his feet, stumbling wide-eyed toward the door, both arms hanging useless. There seemed to be no fight in him. Serana let out a wordless growl. She rushed at the Wolf, her sword held out in front of her like a lance, drove the point into his throat, and stepped back as he tottered. He didn't fall quickly enough for her, so she stabbed him again, this time in the groin. Now he went down, and as he lay twitching on the floor Serana brought the sword down across his exposed neck. The head rolled free, helmet and all, and the Wolf lay still. Serana wiped her sword on the dead man's clothes and sheathed it with an air of satisfaction.
«He was the worst of those who had me, the night the Wizard gave me to the Wolves,» she said calmly. «I thank fate I was able to face him before leaving this place and leave him dead at my feet.»
Blade said nothing, for there was nothing to say. Instead he turned to the shelves holding the sky-bridge crystals. Quickly he found the chest for Morina, opened it, took out the crystals, wrapped them in the velvet, and dropped the entire package in his belt pouch. He might not be able to take the Wizard back to Home Dimension with him, but he could certainly take samples of the crystal.
The hammering and shouting outside were growing louder. Serana was pulling on the dead assistant's robe over her guard's clothing. Blade walked over to the shelves holding the view-balls. The one for Morina was on the top shelf, a good eight feet above the floor. A ladder leaned against the wall at one end of the shelves. Blade shifted it, climbed up, took the heavy view-ball off its stand, and held it high over his head. Then he threw it down on the bare floor as hard as he could.
There was a crash like a thousand windows all shattering together, and yellow vapor boiled up. Blade caught a whiff of it, coughed, and wondered for a moment if he'd released a poisonous gas into the hall. Then the vapor sank down and vanished, leaving a broad yellow stain on the floor all around the fragments of the ball.
«Now the Wizard cannot see into Morina, until he makes and tunes a new view-ball,» said Blade. «Before he can do that, we may give him more important things to think about.»
Serana said nothing, but the look in her eyes said a great deal. Blade climbed down the ladder, wishing he had time to smash every view-ball on the shelves. That would really cripple the Wizard, but it would also take more time than was safe. Urged on by their desperate master, the Wolves might come up with some surprises, and there were always the Wizard's mental attacks to fear.
Now for the sky-bridge. Blade took Serana's hand and they walked toward the glowing crystals. She hesitated for a moment, but he urged her forward. Three steps to go, two, one-
— a sudden roaring in their ears, with the floor seeming to heave upward under them and then fall back-
— and they were standing on a brush-grown rocky hillside, in the lee of a clump of small trees. Behind them glowed the two outer crystals of the sky-bridge. Serana started down the hill, but Blade caught her arm.
«Wait. I have to smash these crystals, so no one will be able to follow us across the bridge.» He gripped the mace in both hands, raised it high overhead, and brought it down with all his strength.
An inert sky-bridge crystal had to be struck exactly right to break. An activated one would shatter at a tap. The mace came down, golden light flared, and the crystal dissolved into faintly glowing powder. Blade raised the mace again, and brought it down on the second crystal, which had begun to glow more brightly.
For a second he felt as if he'd been dropped into a blast furnace. Searing light and heat were all around him and a roaring like massed artillery fire filled his ears. He dropped the mace, jumped back, fell, and rolled several yards down the slope. He ended up almost on top of Serana, nestled against two boulders.
The glare faded and the roar died away. Blade rose and climbed back up the slope. Where the second crystal had been was now a foot-wide pit of smoking green glass. Around it the earth was blackened for several yards in all directions. The mace lay at the edge of the blackened earth, reduced to a six-inch stump of charcoal.
Blade realized now that all his exposed skin felt like a bad case of sunburn. His eyebrows and eyelashes also seemed to be missing. He was going to look rather odd for a few days. But then he'd been practically on top of the explosion of a fair-sized bomb. He'd really been quite lucky.
He returned to Serana and helped her to her feet. «It's time we went on our way,» he said. «Which way is Kassaro?»
She looked around briefly to get her bearings, then pointed off into the darkness at the foot of the hill. Hand in hand they started down the slope.
Chapter 18
Blade and Serana went to a livery stable at the east end of Kassaro and hired two heudas. They were a strange sight-Blade with his scorched face and bloodstained clothing, Serana with the badly fitting assistant's robe belted on over men's clothing. The stablekeeper looked hard at them, but he looked even harder at the gold coins Blade held out to him. Silently he led them to the stables and gave them what they wanted.
It was a moonless night, black as a coal mine and with a rising wind. Blade and Serana left Kassaro and trotted across the wooden bridge, then spurred their heudas to a gallop.
The darkness not only hid them from prying eyes, it nearly hid the road from them. Fortunately it was straight and paved all the way to Morina. Otherwise they would probably have ridden into one of the streams the road crossed on its way to the city.
They were halfway to Morina when a cold rain began whipping into their faces. The rain grew steadily heavier, until they had to slow to a trot, then to a walk. Serana gave an animal snarl of frustration at the loss of time, but Blade reassured her.
«We've nothing to fear. In this rain we could pass five yards from a thousand Wolves without their seeing us.»