King of Swords (The Starfolk) (28 page)

No, he had miscounted; it would be four on one. The enraged lovers both came after him, armed from ankles to ears with amulets, wearing nothing except furious expressions. Happily the man was Tarf himself, and killing him would present no problem for Rigel’s still-tender scruples. Naked, he looked more human than he had when clothed, aboard
Saidak
that morning; only the absence of a navel and nipples marked him as part elf, and that was masked by an abundance of human body hair. His tumescence was fading rapidly.

The woman was a halfling too—she had an elfin shape, almost-elfin ears, and blue hair, but human teeth and a navel. She was taller than Tarf and looked even more furious. A sword fight with a woman would be a nasty experience. The two of them stopped just out of reach.

Tarf said, “You!” and showed his sawtooth dentition. “Pretty boy Rigel has decided to change sponsors already? Momma didn’t waste any time.”

Every second Rigel could delay the battle was more time for the queen’s forces to arrive. “What makes you think so?”

“Take off your amulets and we’ll talk,” Tarf responded. Every second he could delay the battle would be more time for Hadar to arrive with reinforcements.

Nevertheless, talking was safer than fighting. Should this moment of confrontation occur, Zozma had suggested, Rigel ought to read out the queen’s warrant. Rigel had explained the problem with that plan. But he produced the scroll he had tucked into the waistband of his wrap and tossed it at Tarf’s feet, where it was ignored.

“Queen Electra is back, halfling. That is a warrant for your arrest on a whole pile of charges, with an offer of clemency if you surrender peacefully. You,” he told the woman, Adhil, “keep out of this.”

“I’ll have your balls for earrings!” A sword appeared in her hand, flashing sunlight.

Good! The other side had drawn first.

“Wait!” Tarf laughed. He held up both hands. “Oh, please, Halfling Rigel, don’t hurt us. We were only having a little innocent fun. The lady will be very happy to have you join our party, won’t you my precious? You can go next, and I’m sure we can figure the other matter out before she performs the surgery she has suggested.”

He was stalling for time, too. That much was obvious because Saiph was quivering harder than ever. The two goons up on the balcony were probably too high up to jump down without injury, and the stairs were at the far end of the courtyard. Reluctant as he was to attack first, Rigel knew he needed to put Tarf out of the fight before the others could join in.

A harpy swooped overhead. “Hey, pothead! You’re outnumbered, boy! You’re dead meat.” It banked and returned. “Zozma says he’s on his way, but I wouldn’t count on him arriving in time if I were you.”

Halfway through that speech, and very much to his own astonishment, Rigel leaped at Tarf. Saiph appeared in his hand, of course, and about ten centimeters of steel slid into Tarf’s belly before the halfling could invoke his own magic sword to parry. Saiph slit him open, then flashed around to parry a clumsy stroke from the woman.

One down. Tarf screamed as he collapsed, clutching his wound and spraying blood through his fingers. That helped pay for the massacre in the Walmart store at least. Rigel went after Adhil, but either his heart wasn’t in it, or she didn’t represent a real threat to him, because Saiph failed to even nick her.

The two men in the balcony jumped. Rather than risk broken ankles or worse, they leaped into the nearest of the ornamental pools, landing in a huge explosion of water and startled flamingoes.

Adhil’s retreat had drawn Rigel away from the portal, so he had to back up quickly as Hadar and Muscida came charging into the fight, both soaking wet and bare to the waist, each armed with both a sword and a parrying dagger. Hadar was an oversized gorilla; blond Muscida would have seemed quite starborn had he not been humanly hairy. Metal rang and rang. For a few moments the battle seemed quite equal. Moving in a blur, Saiph held off the two men despite their additional weapons, and Adhil’s efforts to help them just got in their way.

Suddenly an enormous clanging sound flooded the courtyard, like the sound of a giant shaking an iron foundry. Rigel guessed that it was an alarm to warn those inside that someone was using magic on the gate’s defenses. So Kornephoros had started work at last. It startled him, but it startled his opponents more, because it came from behind them. That was all the advantage Saiph needed to lunge deep into Muscida’s neck and then swing free to parry a haymaker scythe-slash by
Hadar. Rigel did not escape unscathed, though, for the giant’s dagger sliced his left shoulder. He registered blood spurting, but he was too fired up by the fight to feel pain.

Adhil screamed, Muscida toppled to the ground, and the action paused for an instant while both sides assessed the situation. Muscida writhed in his death throes—gurgling, vomiting blood, and pumping out arterial rivers of it. Rigel was wounded, but the magical defenses Wasat had given him had already stemmed the bleeding.

Tarf, too, must have possessed healing amulets. He should have been dead or dying, but he was on his feet again, bloody and bloody mad. Baring his teeth, he threw a fireball at Rigel. The ball exploded before it hit, giving him a mild, tingling shock and a momentary glimpse of a multicolored glass barrier. He could not retaliate in kind, because Wasat hadn’t had the time to explain how all of his new amulets should be used.

Tarf caught hold of Muscida’s right ankle and callously hauled him out of the way of the fight. The dying halfling managed a scream that died in a gurgle and a fountain of blood.

“Adhil, beloved,” Hadar said, “you burn his balls off and we’ll stick him.”

The woman stood aside and began hurling a stream of fireballs. Rigel’s amulets protected him from them, although he found them distracting. Saiph, fortunately, did not, and their only real effect was to scorch the door behind him, which smoked and gave off a foul smell of burning paint.

Tarf snarled and stepped back into the fray. For a moment the three combatants stood poised at guard, and then Saiph tried a feint at Hadar. Hadar blocked and lunged high while Tarf came in low. Saiph beat them both off, but they kept coming, and the battle grew fierce. The brothers’ resemblance
was more apparent when they fought side by side. They moved smoothly together, as if they’d practiced this way for years. No doubt they had.

Hadar was very good. Talitha had classed his amulet, Sulfur-something, as being almost as ancestral as Saiph. It was making the big man move even faster than his small brother, and Tarf was no slouch as a swordsman. Rigel was soon gasping for breath and streaming sweat, as his body tried to keep up with Saiph’s inhuman demands.

Thrust—parry—riposte—counter—engage… on and on, feet and arms in constant motion. Had any of the amulet’s previous owners died of a heart attack? How long could his muscles possibly hold up under this strain? And through it all, he had to stay far enough from the door to leave himself room to retreat, but not so far that the brothers could get behind him.

Why was the idiot Kornephoros taking so long? Were the sphinxes never going to get here? Would that terrible din never stop? How long could Adhil keep throwing the damnable fireballs?

Stamina amulet or not, Rigel was close to collapse, but so were the others. Saiph and Sulaphat were the best. Whatever sword Tarf was wielding was no match for either of those, and he had been wounded earlier. Inevitably, he was the one who failed first. He slowed just enough for Saiph to slash him across the face.

Seconds later, the din came to a sudden stop. With a very different sort of thunder, the gates flew off their hinges, propelled by centaur hooves, and sphinxes poured into the court.

Rigel tried to lunge at Hadar, but was blocked by Tarf’s collapsing body. Hadar grabbed Adhil and threw her bodily at Rigel. Her sword flashed into her hand, but Saiph impaled her before she could do any damage. Using Rigel’s momentary
distraction to full advantage, Hadar dived through the portal. Rigel slumped to the ground exhausted, and the world darkened.

M
agnificent!” Menkent yelled, scooping Rigel up in his arms as he would a child. “Incredible! The harpies were telling us all about it.” He clattered over to a pool and waded across to hold Rigel’s face under a stream of water emerging from a marble putto. Rigel gulped it down thirstily. “You got three of them!”

Rigel spluttered, trying to say that Hadar had escaped.

“Had enough?” the centaur asked. “Ready to bathe now?” He released the halfling with a big splash.

Rigel struggled to his feet, cursing. But the cold water felt very good—refreshing, cleansing. His legs were shaking so hard he could barely stand. He drank some more from the cherub’s stream.

Zozma stood on the edge of the water, his smile not at all inscrutable. “Well done, Rigel Halfling! A great feat of arms.”

No it wasn’t. It was a great feat of magic, and Rigel had only been a puppet. He staggered to the edge of the pool, heading back to the scene of the fight, but when he tried to climb out, his arms would not obey him. Menkent, following close behind him, obligingly lifted him out. Though the
young centaur lacked Bellatrix’s weightlifter build, he had impressive strength. His horse portion was bay, his scalp bore a curly mop of reddish-brown curls, and he had the beginnings of a red-gold beard around what seemed to be a permanent grin.

Rigel forced himself to inspect the bodies—Muscida already corpse-white, Adhil flat on her back with a seemingly trivial wound over her heart, Tarf with his face cut in half. Yet the great gash was still oozing blood, and Prince Kornephoros was kneeling over him, clutching the halfling’s head and muttering under his breath. Bellatrix knelt beside him, cutting away Tarf’s bracelets with a dagger. A heap of rings and ear studs glittered on the pavement.

“He’s alive?” Rigel asked incredulously.

“His Highness is hoping to revive him.”

The scorched and blistered portal was closed once more. Only Rigel was invisible to any booby traps it might have. He tottered over to it, and three sphinxes moved in with him to see what he might find. Saiph offered no warning, so he went ahead and turned the handle. He found a closet with a stack of wooden chairs.

Kornephoros rose to his feet, scowling at the bloodstains on his hands and knees. “Hopeless!”

“This portal may still be booby-trapped,” Rigel told him. “It should be inspected before you seal it.”

“If I need advice on magic, boy, you will not be the first person I turn to. The idea was to arrest them. You staged a massacre.”

“I regret that I did not kill all of them.”

“That is not how we do things in the Starlands.”

It was the way Hadar and his brothers did things. Rigel needed rest—he was going to be as stiff as a tombstone after
his exertions—but he had more important things to do first. He turned his back on the prince and headed over to Menkent, the only friendly one in the whole bunch.

“May I ask a favor?”

The centaur widened his ever-present grin a few notches. “Ask away, hero. I’m not great at climbing trees, but I’m willing to try anything else.”

“I need to tell the princess something. It’s very urgent.”

“Always happy to oblige a hero.” Menkent turned his tail on Rigel and sat down, reaching both arms back. Rigel offered his wrists to the centaur and was hauled aboard. “Hold tight!” The centaur folded Rigel’s arms around his waist, but he kept a firm grip on them so that he would not lose his still-shaky passenger. “Next stop, the palace!” He took off at a canter, cornered sharply onto Front Street, and geared up to a gallop. By then Rigel had put himself to sleep.

“You did say urgent?”

Rigel started awake. “What? Yes, very.” His nap must have been brief, but it seemed to have helped. His muscles were not shivering quite as much.

“Good.” Menkent cantered past the sphinx at the gate and straight up the staircase, ignoring the angry shouts that followed him. “Always wanted to see what’s up here.”

He was probably kidding, because he knew exactly where he was going through the maze of corridors. Talitha and a circle of a dozen or so starborn ladies were dining in a hall even larger than the Dolphin Room, each one seated at her own small table. Starling maidens were serving them, while human servants bore platters of food in from the kitchens and tended
the heaped sideboard. The queen was not present. Courtly ladies cried out in alarm and disgust at the sight of a centaur invading their banquet.

Talitha shouted, “Rigel!” and came running to his side as he made an unsteady dismount. “Oh, Rigel, Rigel, I was so worried!”

For a giddy moment he thought she was going to throw herself at him, but then she recoiled. “You’ve been wounded!”

“It’s nothing.” He had forgotten the cut on his shoulder, which was already closed and healing. He was back on the angel team, apparently, anger forgotten. She was calling him ‘Rigel’ and not ‘halfling.’”

“Zozma sent word! You’re a hero! I’m so proud of… What’s wrong?”

Rigel glanced up uneasily at the centaur’s idiot grin.

“Yes,” Menkent said, “tell us what was so urgent.”