either, for fear that the situation would abruptly become worse the moment her eyes left them.
From another doorway, on the left side of the courtyard, Wolf and Fei appeared. They took in the scene with its grunts, curses, and flash of weapons with open surprise, but then a devilish smile came over Wolf’s face. He said something to Fei, which made Fei shake his head in resignation, before Wolf jumped off the porch and onto the paving stones. With a whoop, he punched the nearest man, sending him flying, then dodged and weaved until he came to Rune’s back.
Siobhan, all set to protest this, stopped mid-step at the look on Rune’s face. He was…not just amazed that Wolf had come to fight at his side, but touched by it as well. For the first time that she had known him, he gave a genuine smile. Then with a whoop of his own, he started fighting in earnest and actually doing damage to people.
She hesitated. While fighting with the men of one’s hosting guildmaster was wrong—very wrong—she instinctively felt that this was an important moment. Trust between those two was building in front of her eyes. With every punch, every opponent knocked down, they were learning how to fight with each other, how to coordinate their attacks. That experience would be invaluable in the future, she knew that for a fact.
Didn’t change the fact that fighting with their hosts was wrong, though.
“Two minutes,” she promised herself in an undertone. “I’ll give them two more minutes. Then I step in and stop them. Somehow.”
Sylvie slid to a stop beside her, took in the raging fight, and groaned. “Oh no. When did Wolf join in? And Fei?!”
“Fei?” Siobhan repeated, eyes darting about madly to spot him. Oh heavens, Sylvie was right, he had joined in at some point and she hadn’t noticed. Even now he was slowly maneuvering his way to fight with Wolf and Rune. “Oh for the love of—! He’s supposed to be the sensible one! Why did he…arghhhh.”
“Well, granted, they are outnumbered otherwise,” Sylvie reasoned in a remarkably cool way.
“It’s Wolf out there,” Siobhan protested. “No they’re not!”
“Ooooh, I’ve never seen Rune fight before. He’s quite good, isn’t he? I’d say on par with either Wolf or Tran.” Sylvie leaned in, watching every move with keen eyes. “If we had him fight Wolf or Tran, I wonder what would happen?”
“The furniture wouldn’t survive, that’s what would happen,” she groaned. As it was, she wasn’t sure the courtyard would survive under this madness. So far, the men had managed to trample every flower, bush, and the single bench that had been out here.
The question of how she would stop the fight resolved itself very quickly once Fei started fighting. Within minutes, the Iron Dragain members were down, most of them sporting nothing more than a broken bone or three with enough bruises to resemble a patchwork quilt. Since they were all still conscious, Siobhan took advantage of the situation and stalked into the middle of them, glaring about as she did so. Seeing the bloody lip on Rune’s face, the minor cuts on his chest and arms, made her vision go red and the calm speech she’d prepared in her head disappeared in a puff of smoke. Instead her voice rose to a loud, thundering roar.
“WHAT IN THE FOUR WINDS DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?!”
Every man there flinched, at the sheer volume of her voice, if nothing else. She spun on her heel with a snarl, lip curled in a menacing baring of teeth. “We are Jarnsmor’s guests. We are here on Blackstone’s behalf. How dare you attack one of my own?!”
One of the men—she didn’t recognize him, especially since he was holding his bloody nose—spoke up in a surly manner. “He’s not one of yours. He’s Silent Order. We know him.”
“He was Silent Order,” she corrected sharply, the words snapping like a whip. “He’s now Deepwoods.”
“He’s an assassin and a thief,” someone else said from behind her. She whirled around to face him, feeling blood roar to her head. The man met her eyes unflinchingly. “We won’t have him here.”
“You won’t have him here,” she repeated with lethal calm. “Even though your guildmaster said differently? Oh? You didn’t think Jarnsmor knew about him? But he did. We discussed it, he and I, and Rune is here because I vouched for him. He obviously didn’t want trouble, he’s been avoiding all contact with your guild from the first day. Wind