Swords of Waar (17 page)

“Mistress!”

I jumped up, snapping out of my daydream, and went on guard. “What? What?”

Sai and Wen-Jhai raised their heads and looked around, blinking like newborn kittens.

Lhan pointed up the pit. “Look!”

I looked up. It had been too dark before, but now that the light was shining down, we could see, halfway up the wall, a smallish hole with the end of a clay pipe sticking out of it—for filling the pit with water, I guessed.

“Surely, beloved, that is within your reach.”

I nodded. “Yeah. But then what? I got no way to kick up to the top. I’d just be hanging there.”

“Er, forgive me, Mistress Jae-En.” Wen-Jhai raised to her knees, trying to lift something that looked like a mastodon tusk, all curved and about five feet long. “But could you fit this into that hole?”

I grinned. “That’s what my prom date said.”

They didn’t get it.

I shrugged and took the tusk, then looked up at the drain pipe. I couldn’t tell exactly, but the diameters looked about the same.

“Well, we’ll just have to try it and see.”

And yeah, that’s what I said to my prom date.

We cleared some running room, moving aside bones and rocks, then I got down into a linebacker crouch with the tusk in one hand.

“Here goes nothing.”

I ran for the far side of the pit, sprang as hard as I could straight at the wall, then kicked off and ricocheted back toward the pipe. I was way too wide. I tried a stab at it with the tusk anyway, and missed, but at least I saw that it would fit.

Landing sucked. I crashed down in the middle of the bones and rocks and scraped up my knees and shins. At least I didn’t twist anything.

A paladin looked over the side. “What is all this noise?”

Lhan grinned up at him. “We are building a ladder of bones, and will come up later to murder you in your sleep!”

The paladin sneered. “You may murder us in your dreams, heretic. But not in this life. Now be quiet.”

He turned away from the lip and disappeared and Lhan helped me up.

“Are you ready to try again, beloved?”

“Yeah. But I’m gonna try a different way this time.”

As Lhan and the gang watched, I got set like before, and launched like before. Running and jumping and kicking off the wall. This time, however, I changed my angle a little and got closer to the hole. I also didn’t stab at it with the tusk again. That was like trying to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Instead I grabbed for it with my free hand and caught the rim.

It was full of sand, and I almost slipped, but I grabbed again and held on, hanging from my fingers. I waited to see if the paladin was going to show his face again, but he didn’t, so I lifted the tusk with my other hand and slid the butt end of it into the hole. There was just enough room that it didn’t crush my fingers, but it would as soon as I put any weight on it. I had to pull ’em out before I was sure it would hold my weight. It made my sphincter pucker just thinking about it, but it had to be done.

“One, two, three….”

I yanked my fingers out and the tusk dropped, then held. A little sand dribbled out of the hole and got in my face, but otherwise good. Whew! Now came the tricky part.

I did a chin-up on the tusk, then threw a leg over the curly end of it and pulled myself up until I was straddling it. Below me, Lhan, Sai and Wen-Jhai were all craning their necks to watch. I gave them a thumbs-up, then braced against the wall and used it to get into a standing position.

Damn. The top of the pit looked a lot farther away than I’d thought. I mighta been able to reach it with a running jump, but from standing on the tusk? It was gonna be close. I had one thing going for me. There was some ornamental moulding at the top of the wall that looked like tentacles rising up out of the pit and stretching over the lip. It was pretty worn away, but…

I crouched on the tusk, tensing, then sprang up and kicked off the wall at a glancing angle. It got me another ten feet and I was right at the base of the tentacles. I grabbed a sucker and it crumbled away in my fingers. Fuck! Falling! I grabbed another as I dropped. This one held, barely, and I grabbed for a third. It held too. Whew!

I wanted to hang there a minute and catch my breath, but the paladin looked over the edge again and stared right into my eyes.

“What in the name of the—”

Honestly, I’m not sure how I climbed that wall. I mean, I musta gone up hand over hand, using the tentacles as holds, but I don’t remember that. All I remember is launching myself straight up at that guy and slamming him down on the floor on the lip of the hole. Fear makes spider monkeys of us all, I guess.

I bounced his head off a stone barnacle, then looked up as his lights went out. I froze. In all the excitement about figuring a way out of the pit I’d kinda forgot there was a whole crew of priests and paladins up here, all waiting around with nothing to do. Now they were standing from their cooking fires and stepping from their tents and staring at me like I was some kind of giant pink jack-in-the-box.

I swallowed and smiled and gave ’em a little salute.

“Uh, hi fellas.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

SKELSHAS!

T
he other pit guard was the first guy to make a move. He started running around from the other side. I scooped up the first guard’s spear and jumped at him, straight across the hole.

He stabbed at me as I came down, but I whacked his spear aside and shoulder-checked him into one of the iron candlesticks, sending them both to the floor.

One down. A couple dozen to go. And they were all coming now, closing in left, right and center.

I stepped back, on guard, and my back foot touched one of the coiled up grapple ropes. I kicked it into the pit.

“Grab it, Lhan! Hold tight!”

If he answered, I didn’t hear, ’cause the priests and paladins were on me like flies on shit. I jumped over their heads as they tried to bulldoze me into the pit, then came down swinging in the middle of ’em, and knocked a bunch off the edge.

The rest ducked back as I whirled my spear around, and suddenly I had a clear shot at the rope. I hooked it with the spear and lifted. Somebody was definitely on the other end, ’cause I felt the weight as I hauled on it. I just hoped it was Lhan.

The priests and paladins were coming in again. I screamed and ran straight at them, spear held out like I was grabbing the handlebars of a Harley, and the rope rasping around the shaft between my hands like cable through a pulley.

A few went splat as I mowed ’em down, but most backed and stabbed for my hands and face. I blocked and parried like Robin Hood with a quarter staff when all of a sudden, the tension went outta the rope and I crashed into the guys with the spears, knocking three of ’em flat.

“Shit! Lhan!”

Had he fallen off the rope? Did somebody cut it?

I looked behind me as I fell and saw Lhan shooting up out of the pit like he’d been riding a piston, a giant thigh bone in one hand like a club, and the rope and grapple spinning free and smacking some priest in the back of the head. Then I was flat on my back in the middle of the circle and everybody was rushing in and stabbing at me. I blocked like crazy, but a few got through. Spear tips grazed my arms and legs, and I twisted like a yoga instructor to get out of the way of one that was heading straight for my belly button. It tore my side instead. Another stabbed the floor right next to my face and sprayed me with marble chips.

“Get off of me, you fucks!”

I swiped the spear around, aiming at ankles, and knocked a handful flat, but not enough. A guy with a face like a kung-fu assassin leapt over my swing and lanced down at me like I was a fish in a barrel, but just as his spear should have run me through, he staggered forward, yelping, and it glanced off the floor instead.

He fell across me, bleeding from a gash in his skull, and I saw Lhan behind him, bashing at the rest of the mob with the thigh bone.

“Unhand my beloved, you charlatans!”

I don’t know how other gals woulda felt about it, but hearing that was like a magic elixir. I didn’t feel my wounds any more. I wasn’t exhausted. I didn’t need to take a breather. All of a sudden I was right back on my feet again, fresh as a daisy, and back to back with Lhan like I coulda fought on for hours.

“Good to see ya, Lhan.”

“And you, Mistress.”

Of course fighting for hours wasn’t actually gonna happen. In fact, we were seconds away from being dead meat. Now that they were over their panic, the priests and paladins were getting their act together and working like a team. The spear guys were forming up in a tight circle around us while the priests were fading back and readying crossbows. We were gonna get stuck six ways to Sunday.

“Uh-oh. Gotta go.”

“Indeed, mistress.”

I looked around. We were surrounded, but the crowd was thinnest toward the front of the temple, away from the hole.

“That way!”

I ducked a spear thrust and grabbed the robes of the kung-fu assassin, who was still face down on the floor, then threw him at the guys between us and the door. He flattened two, and Lhan and I charged after him, bashing back the rest as they tried to recover.

We were clear, but with a double-dozen shouting church assholes surging after us. Not to mention the crossbows.

“Go go go!”

I coulda made the door in about four steps, but I wasn’t gonna leave Lhan behind—and I’d promised him I wouldn’t pick him up anymore—so I paced him, waving my spear behind me like I was trying to fend off a swarm of buzzing bees. We got a swarm of whistling bolts instead, and Lhan got nicked just above the ankle, but after one volley, the guys who were chasing us got too close behind and the shooters couldn’t shoot anymore.

They were less than two steps behind us as we reached the door, and I turned just outside it, ready to use it as a bottleneck to hold ’em in, but they skidded to a stop just inside it and didn’t even try to come out.

I shook my spear at ’em. “Come on, you pussies! What are you afraid of?”

Fwump!

Somewhere above me, something made a sound like somebody opening an umbrella, and a shadow passed between me and the sun.

Lhan coughed. “Erm, ’tis most likely the skelshas they fear.”

I looked up. A coupla shapes like evil kites were circling overhead, grinning down at me out of their pointy Woody Woodpecker heads.

“Oh, goddamn it.”

Skelshas are Waar’s answer to pterodactyls—big-ass, leather-winged, flying lizards with mouths like a crocodile’s and a personality to match. The Oran navy uses ’em like fighter planes, with nut-job bird jockeys spurring them into loop-de-loops during air battles, but even fully tamed and trained they are ornery sons-of-bitches, and the two fuckers who were circling over us had never been anybody’s ride.

As we stared up at them, they both folded their wings and dropped at us like a couple of living darts. I woulda grabbed Lhan and jumped back inside the temple. Unfortunately, the door was filled with paladins lowering spears at us, with priests standing behind them, aiming crossbows.

Lhan and I hit the dirt as the two skelshas swept in inches above us, wings wide and claws out—and as big as fucking horses! I swiped my spear after them as we rolled back to our feet, and one veered off, shrieking, with a gash across its chest and one of the little steering wings it had tucked under its bigger wings hanging limp.

“Ha! Fucker! Take that!”

Unfortunately, the other one was just fine, and whipped into a tight circle to come back snapping for my head. I hauled Lhan back, and we ended up behind a pillar near the door as it banked away.

“Damn it! I need my sword! I coulda cut that fucker in half with—”

A crossbow bolt hit the pillar right over my head. The priests were angling shots at us from the door. We ducked around the other side of the pillar, out of sight of the priests, but right back in the open again. I looked across the street for another hiding place, but none of the buildings over there seemed to have roofs. We’d be just as exposed inside as out.

“There! Jae-En! The red building!”

Lhan was pointing down the street toward a skinny place at the next intersection that looked like it shoulda been a law firm. The upper windows had sunlight behind ’em, but the ones on the bottom were dark. Cover!

“Yes!”

I took his hand and we ran as the wounded skelsha swooped down at us again. We dodged and kept going, but there were three more up there now. And more shrieks were echoing from behind the buildings all around. Fucking hell! The first two had rung the dinner bell, and now everybody was coming to the party!

Two more came diving in, slashing with claws and wings. We ducked and swiped behind us, and somehow I connected, snapping my spear and opening one up neck to nuts. It crashed down nose first, clipping us with a wing and spilling its intestines all over the ground. We ate pavement as the second one looped up for another try. I felt like I’d been hit across the shoulders with a baseball bat.

Lhan was up first and pulled me up, then winced as he put weight on his left foot.

“Lhan! You’re hurt!”

“It is nothing. Now come—”

“Make way! Clear the door!”

We looked back at the shout and saw Ru-Sul charging out the temple door at the head of six paladins, every one of ’em mounted on a krae.

“Fuck!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SKELETONS!

I
threw down my snapped spear and we ran again, half a dozen skelshas banking after us and Ru-Sul’s cavalry shaking the ground. It was bad. The red building was still a half a block away and Lhan was slowing, limping with every step. Then he shoved me ahead.

“Go on. Save yourself.”

“Come on, Lhan. I’m not gonna—”

The kraes were almost on top of us. Ru-Sul was out in front, his spear tucked under his arm like a lance, and it was aiming right at Lhan.

Without thinking, I scooped Lhan up and leapt sideways as Ru-Sul and his riders thundered past us.

“Mistress! Did I not say—!”

I kept leaping, too busy to listen. The skelshas were dropping out of the sky like Stukas with teeth, and I zigged and zagged and bounced all over the fucking street dodging ’em as I ran toward the red building.