his club back in his room, not really believing Ivan's growing suspicions that dangers were lurking just outside.
The green-bearded dwarf believed them now, with this man hacking away at him, driving him backward with every step. Blood rolled down one of Pikel's arms; he took a glancing hit across the cheek that drew a thin red line.
The beating continued relentlessly, and Pikel, nearly across the common room, had little distance left to run.
The lockpick had been silent. Headmaster Avery, his heavy eyelids drooping, didn't even realize that anyone had entered the Dragon's Codpiece until the assassins were upon him.
Then they were beyond him, slipping up the stairs as quietly as shadows.
Cadderly looked up from the Tome of Universal Harmony and glanced over his shoulder at Danica.
"What is it?" the woman asked, her meditation interrupted by the sheer intensity of the young scholar's stare.
Cadderiy lifted a finger over pursed lips, beckoning the woman to be silent. Something had called out to him, a distant song, a voice of impending danger. He took up his spindle-disks and his walking stick and started to rise, facing the closed door.
He hadn't even left his chair when the door burst open and dark shapes stormed in.
Danica was still sitting cross-legged when the first assassin, sword in hand, rushed at her. The killer came in low, gaping in disbelief as Danica's coiled legs sprang, her momentum lifting her into the air. She tucked her legs under as she rose, clearing the low strike, then descended on the bending man.
Her legs locked around his neck as she came down, clamping tightly, and she jerked herself to the side violently, dipping into a full bend and throwing her full weight right under the bending man.
The assassin saw the room spin, but his body had not turned.
Cadderly whipped his walking stick across in front of him and was amazed when he heard something - a crossbow quarrel, he realized - tick off it and fly harmlessly wide. He swung again in a wide, shoulder-level arc, this time offensively, as two men bore down on him. Instinctively, Cadderly dropped to one knee and snapped his spindle-disks straight out ahead of him.
The ducking Night Mask came down right in line with this second weapon, catching the adamantite disks on his forearm.
Cadderly expected the man to immediately retaliate, for the young priest had not yet learned of the power of Ivan's forging. Cadderly stared as the man's arm folded - it seemed as though he had grown a second elbow! - under the power of the blow.
But pausing to gape with a second enemy so near was not a wise choice. By the time Cadderly realized his error, realized that a spiked club was on its way down to crunch his head, he knew that his life was at its end.
Pikel managed to keep close enough to his pursuer so that the man hadn't been able to extend his long arms and get in a serious hit. Still, the dwarf said "Oooo!" repeatedly, feeling the sting of a dozen razorlike slashes.
Pikel's first thought was to go for the stairs, but he dismissed the idea, realizing that if he started up, he would rise to his enemy's level and lose his desperately needed advantage of being down below the man's optimum striking area. The dwarf veered to the side, backpedaling faster, nearly tumbling over in the effort.
The man stayed with him, every step.
The killer stopped suddenly, and Pikel realized that he could not do likewise, leaving the dwarf wide open for a full-force roundhouse. "Oooo!" Pikel screamed, desperately hurling himself backward through the air. He collided heavily with the wall before he had gotten very far, and the assassin's sword whipped across just under the breastplate of the dwarfs fine armor.
Pikel didn't even have the time to cry out for this newest wound. He bounced back off the wall and charged forward wildly. The assassin held his sword level in front of him, and Pikel would have impaled himself, except that he grabbed the sharp blade with his bare hand and turned it aside.
Then Pikel was up against the man. He released the sword almost immediately and wrapped the man's arms in his own, pushing with all his strength, his stubby, muscled legs pumping frantically.
Now the killer was backpedaling and Pikel driving forward, gaining speed and momentum. The dwarf could hardly see around the larger man. He aimed for the open door but missed, two feet to the left.