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  Of the man himself, Kisser saw nothing more than the cracked opening of a narrow back door, left ajar in a rushed escaped.

  “Shit…”

  For a brief moment Kisser considered running after the man, hoping to track him down and gain himself some credit in the eyes of Garth’s group. When he realized that he had no idea how long the physician had been gone, though, the desire to give chase morphed rapidly into a wish to flee through the door himself, to escape Garth’s fury and the others’ harpings and taunts.

  Thinking better of it, though, Kisser opted instead to whirl around and scramble back to the main room, where the rest of the group still waited.

  “If Veret’s tryin’ ta’ pull something, I’ll gut him,” Garth was muttering to himself, pacing back and forth in front of the window as Kisser got over the tall stacks of yellowed parchment that partially blocked the hallway. “He’d better be dead, or dying in a ditch somewhere.”

  “He’s gone.”

  All eyes shifted to Kisser, who felt weak and shaky as Garth’s mean gaze met his.

  “What did you say?” the man spat, stopping his striding.

  “He’s gone,” Kisser said again, abruptly aware of the others in the room leering at him as well. “Sven. He ran for it. Through a back door.”

  There was a tense few seconds in which Garth merely stared at Kisser, his right hand twitching by his side as though itching to go for the hilt of the sword on his hip. When he did move, though, it wasn’t towards the younger man.

  In two steps Garth was in front of Les. His fist collided with the side of the man’s face so hard Les fell sideways into the table on which the Monster still lay, then to the floor where he rolled and moaned, clutching at what was at least a few broken teeth.

  “There was a back door?” Garth howled, kicking the fallen man in the ribs as he twisted. “A back door, Les? And you didn’t think ta’ stay and watch ‘im? Bloody. Fucking. IDIOT!”

  These last words were punctuated with a stomp of Garth’s boot across Les’ legs and body. No one moved to stop the group leader as he took his frustration out on the poor man at his feet, having no interest in shifting Garth’s attention to themselves. Once he’d had enough, Garth stood over Les, breathing hard.

  When his eyes moved, they fell on the leather bag the woman Eva had left at the edge of the table to his left.

  Stepping over, he grabbed the bag in both hands and pulled it open roughly, peering inside. Whatever he saw only spiked his fury, though, because he screamed in frustration and upended the bag over Les, who covered his face and curled into a ball as the contents tumbled down onto his head and shoulders. The wrappings and medicine vials the Southerner had pulled out to show them came first, bouncing and rolling over the floor.

  Then a dozen slim silver instruments—the tools of the surgeon’s trade—fell out after them.

  “Bitch!” Mihk cursed from the corner, jumping to his feet.

  “We’ve been had,” Garth said through angry breaths. “Kisser, Albur, get this idiot,”—he gave Les another kick for good measure—“on his feet. Mihk, get the horses ready.”

  “What about Veret?” Kisser asked, smart enough to already be moving towards Les as he did so.

  “Like I said,” Garth grumbled, turning to face the table and drawing his blade. “Dead or dying, most like.”

  With that, he brought the sword up high in both hands, ready to bring it down with all his might on the Raz i’Syul’s neck.

  “STOP!”

  To a one, each of them froze and whirled towards the back of the room. A great bear of a man was stepping over the parchments piled across the entrance of the hallway that led to the kitchen. He leaned heavily on a tall silvery staff in his left hand, and seemed to be favoring one leg more than the other. His trimmed beard was more grey than brown, and the hood of his white robes was pulled up over his head, a single narrow strip of black arching back along its crest. Kisser knew what those cloths meant—as did any man of the North—and he grew suddenly nervous. The Priests and Priestesses of Laor were forbidden from killing, but that didn’t mean they weren’t formidable in their own way.

  When the newcomer managed to steady himself on both feet, he regarded the room with sharp blue eyes that revealed none of the weakness his limp might suggest. When they found Garth, they fell to the sword, now hanging tensed at the man’s side.

  “I won’t permit you to kill this man,” the Priest said, indicating the atherian with a wave of his free hand as he looked back up to meet Garth’s angry gaze levelly. “Raz i’Syul is under the protection of the faith. Harm him in any way, and I will give you great cause to regret it.”

  “This ain’t yer business, High Priest,” Garth said, and Kisser abruptly recalled what the black stripe along the top and back of the Priest’s robes denoted. “This thing here”—he jabbed the point of his sword in Arro’s direction—“is worth more than any a’ us will make in a lifetime, dead or alive. And, as I don’t much feel like haulin’ all that weight halfway across the world right now, dead it is.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

  At the second voice, Kisser and the others spun to face the front of the room, where another man was ducking under the stoop of the door. He, too, wore the white robes of the faith, though they lacked the black stripe of office that the first man’s had. Beyond that, whereas the High Priest before them looked more troublesome than dangerous, this man had the unmistakable look of a menacing character. As tall as his partner, a mane of braided blond hair dominated the man’s shoulders, peeking out from either side of the hood he, too, had pulled up over his head. Rings of wood and metal shifted in dreaded locks, just like the ornaments that decorated his plated beard.

  There’s mountain man blood in this one, Kisser thought to himself, unconsciously taking a step back.

  The second stranger noted the motion, his own staff shifting in his hand as he turned his head to regard Kisser with the clear blue eyes that ran common among the Northern people.

  Whatever they saw, there, the man kept to himself.

  “Just two of ya’?” Garth scoffed, shifting so he could keep both Laorin in his range of vision. “Think tha’s enough to make us run off?”

  “Two is more than enough,” the High Priest said calmly, lifting his free hand before him. There was a flash of white, and a glimmer of pale ivory flames blinked into existence, hovering over his gloved palm. “That being said, I’d like to avoid a fight. My friend”—he nodded to the other Priest—“isn’t a fan of violence, you see.”

  Kisser glanced at the blond man, and indeed saw an odd sort of queasiness flash across the man’s face. Garth must have seen it too, because he started to chuckle.

  “Craven!” He laughed, taking a step towards the High Priest. “Bastard’s a coward! He don’t have what it takes to tussle with us.”

  “If that is your choice, you should know he doesn’t have to ‘tussle’ with any of you at all,” the first man responded, and the flame in his palm suddenly began to burn with a new intensity. “He just has to keep you from getting away.”

  And with that he sent the fire streaking towards them, aiming right for Garth with a flick of his wrist.

  Garth cursed and leapt out of the way, intending to dodge the light. Before it could whizz past him, though, the magic exploded with a whoosh of flames, and a blinding flash filled the room, bright as the sun over freshly fallen snow. Kisser was abruptly thieved of his sight, his vision going completely white, and he cursed as he struggled to unsheathe the knife he kept in one boot. He wasn’t the only one, apparently. All around him other voices were swearing, and he could make out the familiar scrape of swords and axes being drawn from their sheaths.

  Among the ring of metal, however, came a distinctly different sound. A dull thump thump thump, like the chorus made by a maid as she beat dust from a rug.

  When something collided with Kisser’s abdomen, cold and hard and driven with incredible strength, he had just enough t
ime to register that the sound was that of the High Priest’s steel staff pounding into flesh. Then another blow took him in the temple, and the white of his vision blinked to black.

  Talo took down the man directly in front of him first, the one he’d been exchanging words with, assuming him to be the leader. His own sight was only mildly affected by the flash spell, the brunt of the blinding light blocked by tightly shut eyes and a raised hand at the last moment. As soon as the spell burned itself out, he’d been moving.

  The first blow caught the blinded man across the wrist of his sword hand, the second coming around so fast to catch the man in the chest that he didn’t have time to do more than grunt in pain as his blade dropped from limp fingers. The next two strikes were practiced hits to the gut and knee, bringing the man down to a kneel.

  Then the blunt end of Talo’s staff caught him directly between the eyes, knocking him unconscious to the floor.

  All in about four seconds.

  Talo didn’t have time to thrill in the momentary pleasure of finding the rhythm of battle once again, though. Three other men still stood, floundering about with fists and weapons as they screamed in surprise and anger, rubbing at their eyes with free hands in a vain attempt to rid themselves of the offending blindness. Three paces to the left, a young man was drawing a knife from his boot, cursing to himself and blinking rapidly as he looked around in sightless panic.

  Talo was on him in a blink, practiced blows to his stomach and the side of his head laying the mercenary out cold.

  By then, though, sight had begun to return to the eyes of the last two men. They stood on the other side of the table upon which Raz i’Syul lay sprawled unconscious on his stomach with one arm hanging off the edge. Talo rushed to meet them, hoping to catch at least one of the pair off guard, but the messiness of the room played against him. He was forced to watch his step even as he bulled forward, nearly stumbling over the clutter more than once. He reached the two men just in time for them to wheel on him, weapons at the ready.

  But Talo didn’t slow.

  The steel staff in his hands snaked out in a silver blur, going for the small point between the abdomen and chest of the first man where even a moderate jab of pressure would leave him winded. The blow struck true, but jarred as it hit hollowly against the iron chest piece that must have been hidden beneath the mercenary’s thin fur and leather armor. Only Talo’s years in the pits of Azbar saved him then—or at least his left hand—as he twisted away from a savage uppercut blow from the man’s own sword. He felt the wind from the blade whisk against his face, and almost fell backwards as he stumbled over a small pile of books that shifted under his back foot. It gave the second man enough time to rush forward, bellowing as he raised a long-handled ax above his head in one hand, long knife in the other.

  Talo let go of his staff all together, his hand whipping out in practiced patterns to grab the charging man’s wrists before the weapons could find their mark. Then, with a twist of his body, he used his opponent’s own momentum to flip him around and over, swinging him sideways and diagonally by the arms much like a woodcutter might swing his ax at the trunk of a tree.

  The man hit the room’s small desk with a crash, flipping the thing on its side even as he tumbled over it, and didn’t rise again.

  Not pausing, Talo spun about to meet the last man, expecting another rush. Instead, he found the sellsword scrambling away from him, tripping over the jumbled riff raff in his rush for the front hall.

  “Get outta’ my way!” he heard the man snarl, brandishing his sword at Carro, who stood in the way of the man’s escape.

  In response, Carro wrenched an arm back, paused, then punched the man square in the face with a fist roughly the size and weight of a set of bricks.

  “Sorry,” Talo heard him mumble in earnest over the uneven noises of yet another limp form falling back into the mess.

  There was a moment of quiet, the only sounds coming from the wind as it whistled through a couple of loose panes in the wide window over Talo’s shoulder. He looked around the room, unwilling to let his guard down just yet as he eyed the other men scattered about the floor, waiting for someone to groan and push themselves to their feet.

  Eventually, though, he relaxed, and looked around at Carro.

  “You alright?” Talo asked him. The Priest nodded, carefully avoiding glancing down at the blood on his hands as he looked about desperately for something to wipe it off with, his face tinged green.

  “Swell,” he said queasily as he finally tugged a dirty old cloth from beneath of sheaf of old papers, sending them tumbling to the floor. “You?”

  Talo gave a pained grunt in response. As the adrenaline of the fight faded, a throbbing ache was already blooming in his bad knee, building quickly.

  “Let’s just say it’s going to be a long time before I stop regretting this,” he groaned, hobbling over to lean against the corner of the now upturned desk. Carro started towards him at once, but Talo raised a hand to stop him.

  “I’ll live,” he said through gritted teeth, then waved at Arro, still prostrated over the table. “See to him. I’ll tell Eva and Atler it’s safe.”

  Carro hesitated only for a moment, then nodded his understanding. As the Priest used his long legs to clamber over the stacks of book and papers and random oddities, Talo lifted the index finger of his free hand and started moving it in concise circles through the air. At once, light trailed across the space he was tracing, solidifying from a bare glow until it hung like white silk suspended around his digit. Then, with a flick, he sent the messenger spell off, slipping across the mess of the floor, down the hall, and under the lip of the front door.

  “How’s the boy?” he asked Carro, clenching his jaw against a wave of pain as he pushed himself off the desk and limped to where his staff lay. By the table, Carro was bent to examine the atherian’s back, one hand pressing the side of his hood over his nose and mouth. Talo was about to ask him what was the matter when he caught a hint of the stench.

  “Infected,” Carro told him unnecessarily, voice muffled behind the cloth, just as the door down the hall opened and Eva stepped inside, High Priestess Atler right behind her. “Awfully, too. Someone almost ran him through.”

  “He’s lucky to be alive.” Eva breathed in relief, looking around at the men strewn about the room. “Another few inches and the blade would have found heart.”

  “He’s made of hardier stuff than the rest of us, thank Laor,” Talo told her with a grunt as he finally managed to lift his staff awkwardly from the floor. By the table, Eva nodded.

  “I once saw him take a kick that might have caved in the chest of another man,” she said, her hand reaching out to rest on Arro’s upturned forearm. “Two, actually. When he saved me from some bitch woman slaver. The blows broke a few of his ribs, but even then barely a week went by before it was like nothing had happened.”

  “Well whatever advantage his body might grant him, it’s losing now,” Carro said, still leaning over the atherian. “We need to do something about this, before it’s too late.”

  “What do you need?” Eva asked at once.

  Leaving the healers to their discussion, Talo tried to catch Atler’s eye. The poor woman was staring at the prone form of the atherian, though, as she had been from the moment she’d stepped into the room. There was a measured dose of awe in her gaze, the amazement of bearing witness to something wonderful and terrifying. Even as he watched, Talo saw her take in the sheen of sleek, scaled skin, then the breadth of sunset wings, one of them pinned under the man when he’d been rolled.

  When her eyes found the claws of his long fingers, the dark talons on his feet, and the white teeth protruding up and down from between his lips, though, some of that awe turned to fear.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Talo told her gently, coming to stand beside her. “A kind soul hidden in a harsh vessel, I promise you.”

  Atler nodded her understanding, but still didn’t look away. She’d ridden
hard with them, leaving the temple workings to her Priests and Priestesses, and had listened intently to Eva’s shouted story as they barreled through the streets, never saying a word. Talo was unsure what impact the tale had on the woman, but as he saw her eyes flick up to the Southerner’s face, softening at the intense concern that painted Eva’s tanned features, he allowed himself to hope it had weighed her opinion for the better.

  “Is he going to live?” she asked quietly, not wanting to interrupt Carro and Eva’s conversation.

  Talo nodded. “Carro knows what he’s doing, and so—I think we can assume—does our Southern friend. If Arro was beyond saving, they would have said so.”

  Atler hesitated, obviously torn, still watching Eva’s face.

  “Good,” she said after a moment.

  Talo nodded, allowing the High Priestess a minute of quiet observance as the healers plied their trade, Eva picking her tools up from the ground and Carro sterilizing them quickly with a flash of magic. When they got to work on the atherian himself, though, Talo nudged the woman to get her attention, then nodded at the men strewn about the room.

  “How about we make sure they don’t wake up before the guard arrives, hm?”

  It was a chore, an hour or so later, moving Arro’s sleeping form from the house back to the cart Talo assumed the mercenaries had used to smuggle him into the city in the first place. Not for the first time, as he watched Carro—hefting the atherian’s body under the arms—and the two women—each straining under the weight of a massive leg—Talo wished Laor had granted his faithful the magics to dispel weight. It would certainly save them all a lot of sweat and trouble during the gathering season at the apex of every summer when the Laorin descended from the High Citadel to stock their stores in preparation for the winter.