“This one’s mine,” he announced, beating Yohan’s knife aside with his own and praying that the dwarf would guess the strange rules of this particular game.
It didn’t really matter whether Yohan understood or not, he was interested in Akashia, not Dovanne.
Dovanne tried another attack when the dwarf turned his back, but Pavek was waiting. They traded feints and insults.
The room was bigger in all dimensions than the corridor, despite being crowded. The advantage swung to him, and he made his first serious attack: a quick beat against her blade then a thrust at the soft flesh below her ribs. She countered fast enough to make him miss, and they sprang apart.
There was movement at Pavek’s back: a loud—oooff-as Yohan scooped Akashia over his shoulder, effectively removing himself from any possible defense or attack as he scurried toward the door. Dovanne could see them better than he could, but he could see the desperation take command of her face. Ruari had Yohan’s knife, but anyone with half the experience he or Dovanne had could see that the half-elf didn’t know which end to point into the wind.
Desperation called Dovanne’s shots: One all-out attack against him. If she nailed him, she’d have the other two, hands down. She’d come out of this a hero.
He saw the feint coming and parried with the middle of his blade, leaving the point in line. She came low with a counterparry, trying to get under his guard for an upward slash at his groin. But he was ready with a thrust. He gave the hilt a twist as the point pierced her skin and pushed the blade through to her spine.
“Pavek…”
Her knees buckled, the sword—as fine a weapon as was likely to come his way—slipped from her hand. He released the obsidian knife’s hilt; she fell to the floor, and he picked up the metal sword.
“Pavek…” She held out her serpent-wrapped hand.
The wound was mortal; he knew the signs. He had her weapon, and she wasn’t going to do anything treacherous with his. For the sake of the past, he bent down and took her hand. She squeezed with uncanny strength, trembled and grimaced as she pulled her head and shoulders up. He dropped to one knee and laid the sword down, thinking to put his arm behind her neck as she said her dying words.
A gob of bloody spittle struck his cheek, and she went limp.
He retrieved the sword and wiped his face on his sleeve, then he hurried down the corridor to give his companions a hand lifting Akashia to the roof.
Chapter Fifteen
“There’s no way,” Pavek muttered, shaking his head. Still in the templar quarter, on a street not far from House Escrissar, he huddled with Ruari and Yohan, Akashia slumped against his side, barely able to stand, oblivious to him and everything else. Yohan had carried her down the side of House Escrissar; the dwarf would carry her forever if he had to, but he couldn’t carry her out of the city, at least not the way they’d entered it: the passage was too narrow, too low, with too many tight corners.
“She’s got to walk on her own.”
Neither Ruari nor Yohan answered, there being no reply to the obvious. He steadied Akashia with his hands on her shoulders, then stepped back. She tottered once from side to side, then her knees gave out completely, and she would have fallen if he hadn’t gotten his arm around her quickly.
“What’s wrong with her?” Ruari demanded.
“You’re the druid. You tell me,” he replied, sharper than necessary, sharper than he’d intended.
His nerves were raw. They’d had no trouble—yet—other than the obvious problems Akashia herself had given them, and Yohan had wrestled successfully with those—so far. He didn’t trust luck, not at times like this.
The quarter echoed with the clang of brazen gongs, but: those were only domestic gongs summoning household members home from their evening activities before the great city curfew gong struck at midnight. House Escrissar itself remained dark and quiet, unaware, it seemed, that a woman lay dead on an upper-room floor and the prisoner she’d guarded was missing.
For all Pavek had a dozen worries about Akashia, it was Dovanne’s face that loomed behind his eyes: her face twisted with mortal pain and hate the instant before she died, and her face as it had been years ago. He told himself he had no regrets, that Dovanne certainly wouldn’t let his dying eyes haunt her, if events had gone the other way. They’d had