Sword Brother

Bahzell charged through the intersection, and as he crossed over its threshold, he burst through Rethak's glamour and found himself confronting a passage abruptly packed with armsmen. He couldn't tell exactly how many of them there were, but there were enough to block his way. Unfortunately for them, they were pawing frantically at their stu

"Tomanâk!" Bahzell bellowed, and heard the sudden, deafening thunder of his allies' weapons behind him as they spun to the left and right.

Mashita wasn't really concerned about "accuracy" at a moment like this. The range to his farthest target was no more than sixty feet, and his opponents were packed into a tu

Houghton had fewer rounds, and his weapon was incapable of sustained automatic fire, which meant he had to be more selective. He had the selector lever set on three-shot burst, and unlike the men in front of him, he could still see just fine. The glowing dot projected by his day-and-night sight settled on the head of a man less than fifteen feet from him, and his finger stroked. The target went down, and he tracked instantly to his left. Another squeeze, and another helmeted head exploded and another body fell.

Rethak backed away, still rubbing his stu

Panic roared through him, urging him to turn and run, but he retained just enough control to know how stupid that would have been. There was a steep, winding flight of stairs back there. He couldn't possibly get down them without killing himself when he couldn't even see. Not that standing here, waiting while Bahzell Bahnakson carved his way towards him seemed like a much better option. Some of the armsmen felt the same way, and he staggered as two or three of them shouldered past him. They ran frantically, bouncing off the wall for guidance, forgetful (or uncaring) of the stairs in their panic, and an instant later he heard fresh screams from behind him-screams which were cut off with bone-snapping sudde

He blinked again, and his heart spasmed with sudden hope. The barrier of armsmen in front of him had shielded his eyes from the direct impact of that intolerable flash, and his vision was recovering much more rapidly than theirs had. He could actually make out blurry ghosts of images, and he rubbed more furiously, willing his sight to clear.

It did . . . just as an enormous shape, glittering with a nimbus of blue light, loomed up before him.

Rethak squealed and turned to dash after the fleeing armsmen, but it was too late. He was still turning when an avalanche of gory steel sheared effortlessly through his neck.

XVI

"Rethak is dead, Tremala!"

The sorceress' head twitched as Garsalt's voice spoke in her ear.

"What happened?" she demanded. "Was it Wencit?"

"No," Garsalt sounded as if he were about to wet himself, she thought. "It was Bahzell. He and those other two. They mowed down Rethak's armsmen, and then Bahzell took his head off before he could run."

Despite the fear quivering under the surface of their own thoughts, Tremala's eyebrows arched.

"Why in the Lady's name did the idiot let Bahzell Bahnakson into sword's reach of him?"

"I think he was blind until it was too late." She could hear Garsalt's heavy breathing, almost taste his panic. "Wencit cast some kind of light spell. It was so bright none of them could even see while Bahzell and the others cut them down. Phrobus! It was bright enough it almost blinded me through the gramerhain! I think Rethak's vision was just starting to clear when-"

Garsalt stopped. Not, Tremala reflected, that there was any real need for him to finish the sentence. A light spell! Who would have expected that? And yet, it was as brilliantly effective as it was simple. Wencit's precious Strictures prohibited him from using his sorcery to harm any non-wizard except in direct self-defense, but there was no prohibition against temporarily blinding them.

Even if it did leave them totally helpless against someone else.

"What are they doing now?" she half-snarled.

"They're still headed straight towards the chamber."

"Garsalt, there's no way anyone could go 'straight' anywhere in this miserable place, and he has at least four options now that he's finished off Rethak! I need better than that, idiot!"

Garsalt didn't reply immediately-not in words, at any rate. An instant later, however, a diagram of the temple's tu

"All right," she said, "I see it. And I think I can cut them off here-" a flick of her finger turned an intersection in the highlighted tu

"Everyone's insisting the sacrifice is going according to plan," Garsalt told her. Then his voice dropped, as if he were leaning closer to her to whisper in her ear. "Everyone's saying that, but I think they're lying. I think there's something wrong. Maybe badly wrong."

An icicle seemed to go through Tremala's heart. She told herself Garsalt was a coward, whose fears were almost certainly influencing his interpretation of events. She reminded herself that Cherdahn was one of Sharnā's most senior priests, hardly the sort to get things wrong at a moment like this. Yet even as she told herself that, she remembered Cherdahn's original time estimate. A time estimate which had expired at least twenty minutes ago.

The unaccustomed panic flickering within her told her it was time to go, time to cut her losses and flee while she was still alive. And with Bahzell and Wencit following the route through Rethak's position, she could actually get past them and make a run for it. Unfortunately, Bahzell's never-to-be-sufficiently-damned courser was outside the temple somewhere. And, even more unfortunately, Carnadosa Herself had decreed this mission. If Tremala failed Her, the consequences would be almost as terrible as what Cherdahn and his acolytes were doing to their sacrifice this very moment. As she'd told Garsalt and Rethak earlier, Wencit's magic would only kill them, and that was infinitely preferable to other possible fates.