The Walls of Air Page 0,115

of his unwashed jerkin filling her nostrils. For a moment, they were locked in unequal combat; then she felt herself falling; the breath was driven from her, and an avalanche of flaming stars seemed to roar before her eyes. As if those blinding constellations actually gave light, she could see Snelgrin's face twitching, piglike, above her own, the eyes popping with surprise. There was an arrow driven through his Adam's apple. He choked, pawed at it, and made soundless gobbling motions, sweat gleaming on his face. He staggered a step or two to maul at the locking mechanisms of the shut outer gates, and another arrow appeared as if by magic through his temple as he turned his head.

Ten points for somebody, Gil thought and fainted.

Everyone in the Keep seemed to be around her when she came to. The roaring of voices was like the sea in a narrow place, pouring through the bare bones of her aching skull. The torchlight was blinding. She shut her eyes again and tried to turn her face away.

A wet towel was laid over her forehead. Annoyed, Gil tried to strike it aside, and a bony hand grasped her wrist. 'Easy, child,' the paper-dry voice of Bishop Govannin whispered. Gil tried to rise, rolled over, and promptly vomited. The hard hands caught her shoulders and steadied her without a word.

'What happened?' Gil asked when she finally could speak. Her head felt light, her body ached. Her face, she found, was covered with the scratches from Snelgrin's fingernails where he'd clawed her. She hadn't even felt that during the fight.

'Snelgrin is dead.' The skeletal fingers pushed aside the clammy straggle of hair from Gil's forehead. 'As we all would be by this time, had you not followed him.'

Beyond the Bishop's grave, narrow face, Maia of Thran swam into being in the torchlight, his longbow still strung in his crippled hand. 'Snel vanished through the gates just as I emerged from the Church,' he said. 'I was afraid I would not get in range in time.'

'Yeah, so was I. ' Gil looked around. It wasn't everyone in the Keep, just most of them, who crowded around her. All the watches of the Guards were there, it seemed, with most of the Red Monks, Alwir's whole private army, and most of Maia's. Melantrys' face was cut, and a lump the size of a walnut was forming on her left temple. Stiarth of Alketch now wore a kind of flowered sarong, and Alwir had his velvet cloak over his nightshirt, looking rather crumpled and human in his bare feet with their well-kept toenails. And apparently three-quarters of the men, women, and children of the Keep had all turned out in nightshirts if they had them and scantly draped in bedding if they didn't. Gil saw Tad, Bendle Stooft's rotund widow, and

Winna with her yellow hair hanging in plaits over her back. And all were talking.

Janus came back from the gate. Caldern and Bok the carpenter were still trying to hammer the wedge free with a counterwedge driven in from the other side. Snelgrin's body had been hauled out of the passage. His face lay where the torchlight could fall on it, but its expression was nothing human. Gil turned away, feeling she would be sick again.

She heard Bektis' voice, speaking low and swiftly. 'I am sure of it, my lord. The Dark are gathered outside in force. The emanations of their wrath must have driven him mad...' She turned her head and saw him standing with Alwir. Bektis was immaculate in his grey velvet gown, with every hair of his waist-length silken beard in place. Interesting, she thought. Alwir came pelting to the battle, even if he did have to do it in his nightie, while Bektis hung tight in the Royal Sector until the all-clear sounded. Probably with a bed across the door. Well, well.

'No,' a soft voice said behind her, and she looked up, to meet Maia's eyes. The Bishop of Penambra sat back on his heels, watching Alwir, Bektis, and Govannin begin to squabble in the orange circle of the torchlight. 'Snel never recovered from the night he spent outside the gates, did he, Gil-Shalos?'

Gil shook her head. 'His wife spoke to us.' 'She spoke to me as well,' the Bishop said. He glanced over at Lolli, his dark eyes gleaming in the shadows. When he and his people had come to the Keep, he had resumed the Church fashion of shaving his face and