Triplet

—weak points ought to be joints, sensors, powerpack, power leads—

"Anywhere!" Ravagin shouted as she hesitated in indecision. "Hit it anywhere!"

Gritting her teeth, she hurled the dagger with all the power and accuracy she could muster; and as it caromed off the troll's face near its eyes, Ravagin suddenly leaped into the air, twisted his body to bring tucked legs up toward the troll—

And was yanked horizontally through the air to slam feet first into the machine's chest and head as the untrapped part of the whip coiled back into place on the top of the glove.

They went down together, Ravagin managing to hold onto most of his balance and land on his feet.

It took another second for him to extricate the end of his whip from the troll's loosened grasp, and then he was spi

The troll's blade arced down to catch the upper arm of the Z, the stiffened whip deflecting it just enough to send it wide of its intended mark. Ravagin countered instantly, slashing the whip hard across the troll's face. The machine staggered backward with the impact, waving its arms for balance

—

And Ravagin coiled and snapped the whip out to wrap around the troll's legs. With a horrendous thud the machine slammed flat on its back.

And lay still.

Danae took a deep, shuddering breath. "Ravagin...?"

"I think it's over," he said, wincing as he carefully massaged his right upper arm. "Come on."

Swallowing, she started tentatively forward, a wary eye on both inert trolls. If this was some sort of trick on their part...

But they remained motionless, not even stirring as Ravagin leaned over and relieved them both of their swords. "Well, at least we got some new weapons out of the deal," he remarked tiredly. "Too bad they're not spark-swords."

Danae shook her head. "I give up," she said. "What the hell just happened here?"

He frowned at her. "I thought you'd figured it out. You're the one who distracted them with that spiritprotection spell, after all."

"The—? Oh." She felt heat rising to her cheeks. "That wasn't really pla

"Yeah, well, reflex or not, it worked beautifully. Not really worked, of course, the way it would've on Karyx. But it did enough."

"Did enough what? Are you trying to tell me Shamsheer trolls can be that easily distracted by words in a language they've never even heard before—?"

"Not the trolls, Danae. The spirits."

She opened her mouth, closed it again. "If that was supposed to be an explanation, it didn't work. Try again?"

Rubbing the sweat off his forehead, Ravagin glanced skyward. "I just hope there aren't any more of them on their way... Look, you saw just as fast as I did that there was something seriously wrong with these trolls. Way out of their jurisdiction, though they thought they were still there, giving the wrong responses, having to stop and think their way through what should have been a pretty standard challenge and rebuttal session—the whole thing was cockeyed."

"I caught the jurisdiction part, anyway. All of that was wrong?"

"Uh-huh. And then, when they finally attacked, they couldn't seem to handle all of their systems at once—they could shoot but not simultaneously process incoming sensory information, to the point where it took an incredible amount of time for them to even notice that they'd missed me. And for that spell to have distracted them the way it did—" he shook his head. "That was the last bit of proof."

"Proof for what?"

"Proof that you were right. Some of Karyx's spirits have invaded Shamsheer."

An icy chill ran down Danae's back. "You mean... there were spirits controlling the trolls? How in the worlds could they do that?"

Ravagin shook his head, slipping his scorpion glove back onto his belt. "I don't know. But remember that on Karyx, anyway, the spirits are able to interact some with matter, especially on the microscopic level. Maybe that's how they're doing it here."

Danae thought back to the throbbing pain in her side that had been the result of her tangle with the demon in Melentha's mansion. "So instead of finagling synapse chemistry and neuron pathways like they do there, here they're fiddling with microfine circuits?"

"It seems reasonable enough. In fact, compared to what they handle on Karyx, pushing picoamps of current around must be a breeze."

"Oh, God." Danae felt her knees begin to shake, and let herself sink awkwardly to the ground. "You have any idea what this means?"

"In terms of our safety or Shamsheer's?"

"Either. Both."

"It's a hell of a mess for both of us." Ravagin took a deep breath. "Look, before we go looking for a place to give up in, let's see if there's a bright side we can look at. One: we don't know how many spirits are actually here—and if there're only a few of them we'll have a pretty good chance of getting through their cordon. Shamsheer is a mighty big place for two people to lose themselves in.

"Except that we eventually have to get to the other Tu

"Yes, well, we'll cross that one when we get to it. And second: it's clear that these spirits, at least, were way in over their heads on this one. You and I and a dozen more shouldn't have been able to handle even one troll, let alone two. But apparently there're so many separate systems the spirits couldn't keep control of all of them. Which is what eventually tripped them up—they got sloppy and let the trolls realize where they were, which in turn tripped the deadman switch."

Danae looked down at the motionless trolls. "The what?"

"We call it the deadman switch. It prevents people from stealing trolls and transporting them out of their home Protectorate for illegal purposes. Basically puts them into a shutdown mode once they're a certain distance outside their boundaries. Once activated, it supposedly can't be lifted except back at their original castle and by their castle-lord."

"Not even by something inside with the circuitry?"

"Yeah. Well..." Ravagin looked down at the trolls and grimaced. "That is a point. Let's not hang around to find out. You as good with a crossbow as you are with a throwing knife?"

"I've never used a crossbow, but I'm pretty good with normal projectile guns. Hart made me learn all this stuff when I was younger."

"Good for him." Reaching down, Ravagin pried the crossbow pistol from the troll's grip and then collected both sets of spare bolts. "Take one of the swords, too," he said, handing the weapons to her.

"I don't think we should take the time to go hunt for our daggers, if you don't mind. Come on—let's go."

"Wait a second," Danae growled as a horrible thought suddenly hit her. "You mean you knew they wouldn't be able to shoot straight and you still threw that dagger at me?"

He turned back, frowning. "I threw it to miss you. Didn't you notice?"

"No, I did not notice," she said stiffly. "And I'd appreciate it if next time you'd try and find a safer way to handle things."

"I'll do what I can. Come on; we'll try for the Darcane Forest way house, about ten kilometers due south."

She blinked. "We're going on foot? With a perfectly good sky-plane right over there?"

"You mean the sky-plane that brought the bewitched trolls here?" he asked pointedly.

"Yes, I mean—oh." Danae glanced back at the sky-plane, licked her lips. "Yeah. Okay; on foot it is."

"And stick close to me," he added over his shoulder as he started off toward the edge of the clearing.

"A few of the forest's predators—not many, but a few—do hunt during the day."

Great. Gritting her teeth, Danae hefted the crossbow and followed.