a ghilliedhu girl who shrieked and cowered, steam rising from her white, white skin. The weapon flickered through shade and glow, striking and reversing, and for a moment Robin almost forgot to breathe.
He advanced, and the lance flicked again as one of the wights leapt, its smooth noseless face twisting as it hissed. A crunch, the barrow-wight spitted neatly and flung toward the bar, where the ’tender snarled and brought one of his clublike fists down. There was a splatter, a crunch-popping, and the ghilliedhu girls fled en masse, flocking to the door in a tangle of white limbs and long wood-colored hair.
Tables and chairs scraped; the brughnies burrowing into the woodworked walls and the bartender spreading his four arms wide again, muscle flickering in his torso under his tasseled leather vest. “No more fight!” he yelled, in the peculiar half-throat accent of the outcast drow, and his eyes flared with yellow glow.
Robin inhaled, trying to decide which one of the wights she should aim the song for. If she misjudged, she might well harm Gallow.
He leaned back as their curved silver blades whispered from blackened sheaths. One darted in from the side, and he stamped, dropping his shoulder and somehow avoiding the wicked gleam of a short curved bone knife. He hit the wight with a crunch, and the butt of the lance popped out, catching this one just below the ribs with a sickening, bonebreaking crack.
The remaining wights scattered. Pale gilt gleamed at their wrists and fingers; one wore a fluid rune-scored torc and halted as Gallow stepped to one side, almost mincingly, his black hair slightly mussed despite the fogwater from outside weighing the cropped strands down.
The lance-tip made a tiny circle in the air, its hum a silver thread stitching the chaos together. Pixies and ghilliedhu girls still screaming as they fled, the pixies clinging to long hair, the kobolding massed in a corner, watchful. The brughnies had scattered, more than one straight up the wall, hanging from the ceiling as they craned their very flexible necks to witness. Other sidhe crept or cowered, pressing into corners and crannies.
Puck, of course, was nowhere to be seen as his mischief—whatever of this he’d planned—ran its course. She found herself breathing deeply, wondering why Gallow did not strike again. The wights were drifting apart; they might be able to flank him unless Robin could gain a clear—
He seemed to be waiting for something, caught in curious stasis. Perhaps for the torc-wearing wight to speak, in its throatcut whisper.
“The Ragged,” it said, slowly and distinctly. “He wantsssss her.”
Scalding ice flamed over every inch of Robin’s body. She took a single step back, finishing her inhale, the music under her thoughts sharp and dissonant as it prepared to loose itself from her throat.
“The Ragged is no part of this.” Jeremiah Gallow gave a bitter breathless approximation of a laugh. “I find myself of a mind to do you a mischief, to repay the one your kinsmen wrought upon me.”
What?
Her own confusion was echoed by the wight, which made a fluttering little motion with its strangle-fingered hands.
“Sylvia,” Gallow said, and struck again. The lance described a sweet-whistling arc, shearing the torc-wearing wight in two. It blade lengthened, curving impossibly backward and glowing red-hot. Black blood burst as the remaining barrow-wights leapt for him, and glimmering droplets of sweat flew from Gallow’s brow as he moved with the impossible, blurring speed of the sidhe. Choked cries rent the air, and those collected gasped.
The lance blurred as it sang, a low, hungry keening. Halting, a hook instead of a knife, slicing down and pulled back with a small jerk. The last wight howled as its arm, sheared from its body, dropped to the floor. Their cut-grass reek was overpowering, everywhere; Robin’s nose was full and her eyes ran with sting-hot liquid. Her mouth gapped, her throat kept clear and ready despite the stuffiness.
“Return to your master, and tell him that Gallow does not serve.” Level, furious, and very deep, his tone sliced the hubbub. “Free or Court, none commands me, and I repay.”
The wight fell down, wriggling, its right hand clutched against the spurting wound that had been its arm moments before. The stink of charring rose—even if it survived, the iron would poison-burn it into a crippling Twist.
The lance vanished. Jeremiah Gallow turned on his heel, his greenleaf gaze finding hers. “Come.”
“There are bound to be—”
“More outside, yes. Can you sing?”
Why do you ask? She nodded. “If I may breathe, I may