Mercedes Lackey - The Wizard of Karres

He wasn't going to get it.

The pirate turned to one of his associates, and pointed at Hulik. "Shoot her in the head. It'll help his memory."

And then things started happening very fast, and all at once.

Somebody kicked the backstage door off its hinges.

A flat came hissing down onto one of the assassins, knocking him off his feet. Unseen hands—or vatch ones—had apparently untied a rope.

A whistle like a punch on the jaw felled another, the pirate leader.

One Sedmon came through the door he'd just kicked in. The other, the one already on the stage, dove at the pirate who was bringing his blaster to bear on Hulik. He never would have made it in time, except that something—a pen? Pausert couldn't quite tell—went sailing from Vezzarn's hand and struck the assassin. Whatever it was, it was sharp enough to gash the man's face and completely distract him. An instant later, the Sedmon's tackle had the pirate on the floor and the two of them fell to wrestling for control of the weapon.

That left the still-unseen man holding the blaster against Pausert's spine. Old naval training came back to the captain. Holding a weapon pressed directly against a trained fighter is the trick of an amateur—or a thug grown overconfident. A quick twist and an elbow strike knocked the weapon aside. The same elbow came back up in a forearm smash to the jaw that drove the man backward. The captain followed, raising his hand for a very nasty strike at the throat.

The strike never landed. The fellow, already staggering, flipped onto his back as if he'd tripped over something unseen. The unseen something emitted a very Goth-like "Ow!" and the assassin's head made an even louder "thunk!" as it smashed against the floor of the stage.

Pausert pounced on him. He hit the man once, with his fist. A nasty temple smash. But he did so more out of anger and general principle than from any real need. The fellow had obviously been knocked cold from the impact of his head against the stage.

The captain pried the blaster out of a limp hand and rose to his feet, ready to use it. But—

There was no need.

Vezzarn had apparently joined the Sedmon's tackle on the man who started to shoot Hulik. Between the two of them . . . especially since Vezzarn had retrieved whatever missile he'd thrown so accurately and had then used it to . . .

Pausert winced. He winced again when he caught sight of the pirate who'd been floored by the falling flat. In and of itself, the flat hadn't done much more than knock the man down. What had kept him down thereafter was Pul's jaws, clamped on his leg.

Well. At one time, clamped on his leg. Right now the leg itself was no longer attached. Mentally, the captain shrugged. If the thug didn't bleed to death before medical help arrived, modern prosthetics were quite miraculous. And although Pausert wasn't any more familiar with the ethos of maximum security prisons than he was of the pecking order in the pirate afterworld, he suspected that "Stumpy" was a better monicker than "the Goof Who Picked Up The Wrong Sword."

Not that he cared anyway. Live by the growl, die by the growl. So be it.

Besides, Pausert had other problems that were far more pressing.

First, the applause from the audience was so deafening he could hardly think. The exuberant miners still thought it was all part of the act. Apparently, they ascribed such minor details as a severed leg and several quarts of spilled blood to "smoke and mirrors."

Secondly, the accolades now showering the stage—no, raining on it—were a positive menace. Gold is heavy, even in small pouches. Pausert found himself wondering for a moment if he and his fellow thespians were about to undergo an ancient form of death by torture. "Stoning," he thought it was called.

Then he spotted the person he was looking for, off in a corner, and forgot about everything else. Pausert felt almost dizzy with relief. Goth was holding the Leewit, both of the sisters shaking a little in the aftermath of using a lot of klatha power. They'd need to be fed, a lot, and quickly.

But he'd deal with that later. Goth had been looking for him also, and the moment his eyes fell on that expressionless face he knew she would be okay for a while. Something in her eyes told him so. He wasn't sure what it was, but he didn't doubt the knowledge.

Deal with the rest first, then. He saw that Dame Ethulassia was binding up a bleeding gash on Vezzarn's forehead. Hantis and Pul were mounting guard on the pirate whom the Sedmon and Vezzarn had grappled. The man looked to be badly beaten up, but he was not unconscious. It hardly mattered. His gaze was flicking back and forth from his cohort's severed leg to the instrument that had severed it. Pul in Full Gape Mode was . . . an utterly paralyzing sight.

As for Hulik, who'd almost been killed—

Hulik was cradling one of the Sedmons in her lap, while the other hovered over her. "Sedmon! Sedmon! Speak to me!" she was pleading.

Why is she doing that, Big Real Thing? There is nothing wrong with the Divided Thing.

The vatch was sorely puzzled, and Pausert didn't blame it. The captain was quite sure there was nothing seriously wrong with the Sedmon, beyond a few bruises. He wasn't breathing the way someone would if he was knocked out. Nor—the real tip-off—was his clone acting at all anxious. In fact, he seemed immensely pleased.

"Please, Sedmon!" Hulik whimpered. "Please!"

Slowly, theatrically, the Sedmon opened his eyes. "What—happened?" he asked, putting on such an act of being dazed and confused that Pausert had to fight down a laugh.

"You saved us, Sedmon! Both of you, you saved us all!"

"Hey!" the Leewit interjected from the corner, annoyed enough to come out of her own shock. "Other people had something to do with that too!"

Hulik ignored her. "You were amazing!" she said. "Can you move?"

"I don't know," said the Sedmon, who started to sit up, then groaned. "My head!"

"Here, I'll get you both back to your ship," said Hulik tenderly, helping the prone one to his feet. "I'll take care of you until you feel better."

"Oh—thank you, lovely lady," the Sedmon breathed.

She blushed. Hulik blushed. Pausert could see Vezzarn's jaw sagging. His own jaw was pretty loose, too.

"We need to get you both lying down," she told them. "You might have gotten hurt somewhere else—"

Pausert felt a gentle tug on his sleeve. "Come over here, Captain, and we'll see to that," said Dame Ethulassia, tugging on his good elbow and pointing to the wound on his other arm. "I realize that the do Eldel is normally your ship's medic. But—ha! No use trying to get her attention right now."

She coaxed Pausert over to sit down beside Vezzarn, and began cutting his shirtsleeve away. He yelled as she pulled the cloth out of the wound. She ignored him just as resolutely as she ignored the corpse of her former paramour Vonard Kleesp.

"Here, Captain," said someone—Richard Cravan, from the rich-sounding voice—handing him a cup of something. He drank it, and felt a pleasant numbness begin immediately.

"What—" he asked, thickly, "What happened to Hulik ?"

" Remember that I said she was in love, but hadn't realized it yet?" asked Ethulassia. "Well, she just realized it. So did he. They, I mean. Hence the act." One corner of her mouth came up in a sardonic little smile. "I'm glad we never gave either man a speaking role—I've never seen such a terrible bit of overacting."

Pausert blinked. He'd already deduced as much himself, but now that he really thought about it . . .

"Hulik? But—" his mind grappled feebly with the ramifications involved. "There's six of them!"

Ethulassia raised her eyebrow. "Sextuplets? Must be clones, I think. Either way . . ." Her other eyebrow raised. "Adventurous lass!"