Triplet

She hesitated, then moved over to him and kissed him gently on the lips. "Be careful," she whispered, and was gone.

He stared after her for several seconds, the lingering feel of her lips on his both vivid and slightly unreal. It was the second time she'd kissed him... and the first time she also hadn't expected to ever see him again....

Picking up one of the catapults with each hand, he eased himself to his feet and started cautiously back toward the Tu

Just below the crown of his target mound, hidden from view from the Tu

And now, he thought, wiping sweat from his forehead, comes the really tricky part.

Gathering his handful of pebbles together, he laid them out in a neat row and cupped his hands over the first one. He'd learned this combined invocation/binding spell a long time ago but couldn't recall ever having used it... and if it turned out that the spirit appeared even briefly before disappearing into the pebble, he was going to bring the guard down on him in double-quick time.

In which case... well, at least Danae ought to be able to get away. He hoped she'd be smart and tough enough to take advantage of it.

Licking his lips, he took a deep breath. "Sa-trahist rassh myst-tarukha-pharumasziakai," he whispered. For an instant there was the faintest spark of red light beneath his cupped hand, a spark that settled down into a dull red glow...

A glow, he abruptly realized, that was coming from the pebble. The firebrat had been successfully bound, and with nothing the men down at the Tu

Ravagin let out his breath in a whoosh of relief. Carefully, he worked moisture back into his mouth and reached his hand to the next pebble in line.

It took nearly fifteen minutes before all the stones were glowing with trapped firebrats, and five minutes of scorching his fingers before they were all loaded into the little cloth baskets on the ends of the catapult arms. Belatedly, he hoped the pebbles' internal heat wouldn't burn through the baskets before the catapults could be triggered, but it was too late now to do more than worry about it.

Careful not to let it clang on the rocks around him, he pulled out his sword and laid it down with its point next to the cloth strips holding down the first catapult. Gritting his teeth—the noise this might make could be as bad as he'd feared the light from the firebrat binding would be—he tapped the sword firmly with his flint.

It was louder than he'd anticipated, and for a dozen heartbeats he froze, waiting for the landscape to light up as the guards below invoked dazzlers and fa

Finally, on about the twentieth try, he got a spark that actually settled into the cloth strip and began sending out tendrils of smoke. The second catapult was easier; it only took a couple of minutes and ten tries to start a smoldering fire on the restraining strip there.

And now it boiled down to a simple race: whether he could get around these mounds and into position with Danae before the things went off. Easing back down the mound, heart thudding in his ears, he resheathed his sword and headed off.

Rather to his amazement, he made it.

Danae was waiting for him exactly where he'd told her to, behind a bush a quarter of the way around the mound from the Tu

"Well?" she breathed into his ear as he eased silently behind the bush with her.

"As far as I could tell, it's ready to go," he whispered back.

"You'd better get undressed, then, shouldn't you?"

He pursed his lips. "I don't think so, not right away. I doubt they're going to be so stupid as to all rush out there when the attack starts. Whatever guard they leave behind, I'm going to have to deal with them." And deal with them, he added silently to himself, before one of them reinvokes a lar and blocks the Tu

"And what happens when they come charging back—" She broke off abruptly. "There—the first one's just gone."

Ravagin hadn't heard it himself, but he knew by now not to doubt her hearing. "Cover your eyes," he warned her, and leaned cautiously around the bush. From there he could just see the faint haze of the lar's edge....

And an instant later the haze exploded with flashes of light.

Someone around the corner barked a curse. "What the brizzling hell—?" someone else snapped.

"Firebrat attack," a third voice heavy with authority cut the others off. "Where'd the invocation come from?"

"Didn't hear one."

"Come on, there must have been seven firebrats there—they couldn't have come up by themselves."

"Damn it all, knock off the chatter," the authoritative voice ordered. "That won't be the last attack—

listen for wherever the hell they're doing the invocation from."

The group fell silent. Ravagin gritted his teeth, sending up a quick prayer for the second catapult. If its restraint had stopped burning...

He counted ten heartbeats; and then the second salvo of pebbles hit, the confrontation between spirits as the trapped firebrats attempted to pass through the lar sending flares of light across the landscape.

Easing his hand onto his sword hilt, Ravagin braced himself. If the leader reacted to the unheard attack with any intelligence at all...

He did. "Carash-melanasta," the other snapped. "Everyone—get out there and find him."

"The lar—!"

"Shut up—you want to sit here and let him just break it down?" the leader snarled. "Spread out!

Prilsift, Orlantin—you two stay here in case they try and slip past us. Everyone else, move."

Ravagin froze in place as the dimly seen figures fa

Sacrificial goats, if there had really been a spirithandler out there knowledgeable enough to have launched the attack they thought they'd just witnessed. The timing here was going to be critical...

The last searcher passed over the imaginary line he'd drawn... and Ravagin moved.

The closest of the two men flanking the Tu

"Sa-trahist rassh!" the guard shouted.

And a firebrat erupted directly in Ravagin's path.

He skidded to a hard halt, throwing up his left arm as the heat washed over him. "Run, Danae," he snapped. If the guard came around the firebrat now, while he was still blinded from its light, he was dead.

But no sword sliced toward him from the glare. Ducking past the flaming spirit, Ravagin turned toward the Tu