Mercedes Lackey: Winds Of Fate

To Keren for the rest. Lyra was in a horse-crazy phase at the moment, a bit young for that, perhaps, but the twins-and Jemmie-were precocious in most areas. Kris had gone mad for the Guard; half the time, when asked, he would assert that he wanted to be a Guard-Captain when he grew up (which usually made any nearby Companions snort). Tiny swords and miniature riding boots were a little out of Elspeth's line, but perhaps Keren or Sherrill, Keren's lifemate, could arrive at a solution.

The first three heads weren't worth bothering with; bubbles in the slip had flawed the castings badly enough to crack when they were fired.

The fourth was perfect; the fifth, possible, and the sixth-The arrangement of the window and door in the shed made it a regrettable necessity that she sit with her back to the door. That being the case, she had left the hinges unoiled. It simply was not possible to open the door, however carefully, without at least some noise, however slight.

She froze as she heard the faintest of telltale squeaks from behind her, then continued examining the head as if she had heard nothing. A lightning-quick mental probe behind her revealed that it was Skifagain-at the door. This time his thoughts were unguarded. He assumed that she had already put this afternoon's lessons out of her mind, a little tired and careless, here in the heart of the Palace grounds.

Not a chance, friend, she thought. And as he slipped through the door, she shifted her weight off the stool she had been using, and hooked one foot around one of the legs.

At a moment when he was poised and unbalanced, she pulled the stool over, whirled, and kicked it under his feet, all with a single motion.

He was hardly expecting opposition, much less that he would be on the defensive. He lost his balance as his feet got tangled up with the stool and couldn't recover. He fell over backward with a crash of splintering wood as her stool went with him, landing ingloriously on his rear.

She stood over him, shaking her head, as he blinked up at her and grinned feebly.

"Ever heard of knocking?" she asked. She picked up her stool without offering him a hand and made a face. He'd broken two of the bottom rungs and loosened all four of the legs, and it had not been that sturdy to begin with.

"You owe me a new chair," she said, annoyed all out of proportion to the value of the stool. "That wasn't just a dirty trick, Skif, that was dangerous. You could have broken some of my best pieces, too."

"Almost broke some of mine," he grumbled. "You aren't going to get an apology, if that's what you're looking for. You knew very well we'd be springing these surprise attacks on you.

But not in the one place I can relax, she thought, seething with resentment.

Not in the only place I can get away from everything and everyone.

"You still owe me, lout," she said stubbornly, righting the stool and rocking it to check how wobbly it was going to be. She sat on it and folded her arms, making no attempt to disguise how put out she was.

"You still could have broken something. I don't ask for much, Skif' and I give up a lot. I think it's only fair to be off-limits when I'm out here." He didn't say, Will an attacker go along with that? and he didn't give her a lecture, which mollified her a little. Instead, he grinned ingenuously and pulled himself up from the floor, dusting off his white uniform once he reached his feet. "I really have to congratulate you," he said.

"You did a lot better than I expected. I deliberately came after you when I knew you were tired and likely to be careless."

"I know," she said crisply, and watched his bushy eyebrows rise as he realized what that meant. First, that she'd detected him soon enough to make a mental test of him, and second that she'd gone ahead and read his thoughts when she knew who it was. The second was a trifle unethical; Heralds were not supposed to read other's thoughts without them being aware of the fact. But if he was going to violate her precious bit of privacy, she was going to pay him back for it. Let him wonder how much else I read while I was peeking and sweat about it a little.

"oh." He certainly knew better than to chide her for that breach of privacy at this point. "I'll see you later, I guess."

"You'd better have a new stool with you," she said, as he backed hastily out the door, only now aware that she was still clutching the much-abused doll's head. She looked at it as soon as he was out of Sight. Whatever shape it had been in before this, it was ruined now.

She disgustedly tossed it into the discard bucket beside her bench.

It wasn't until she had a half dozen usable heads lined up on the bench in front of her, and had smashed the rejects, that she felt as if her temper was any cooler. Cleaning them was a dull but exacting task, precisely what she wanted at the moment. She didn't want to see or talk to anyone until her foul mood was gone.

So when she felt the stirring of air behind her that meant the door had cracked open again, she was not at all amused.

I'm going to kill him.

She readied a mental bolt, designed to hit him as if she had shouted in his ear-when her preliminary Mindtouch told her something completely unexpected. This was not Skif-or Kerowyn, or anyone else she knew.

And she ducked instinctively as something shot past, overhead, and landed with a solid thunk point-first in the wall above the bench.

A hunting knife, ordinary and untraceable. It quivered as she stared up at it, momentarily stunned. Then her training took over before the other could react to the fact that he had missed.

She kicked the stool at him as she rolled under the bench and came up on the other side. He kicked it out of the way, slammed the door shut behind him, and dropped the bar; a few heartbeats later, the door shuddered as Gwena hit it with her hooves.

Now I wish this place wasn't quite so sturdy-The stranger turned with another knife in his hands. Gwena shrieked and renewed her attack on the door. He ignored the pounding and came straight for Elspeth.

With her lesson so fresh in her mind, she flung the first thing that came to hand at him-the half-cleaned doll's head. It didn't do any damage, but it made a hollow popping sound which distracted him enough so that she could get clear of the bench, get to where he'd kicked the stool, and snatch it up. Using it as a combination of shield and lance, she rushed him, trying to pin him against the abused door with the legs.

But the battering the stool had taken had weakened the legs too much to hold; his single blow broke the legs from the seat and left her holding a useless piece of flat board. Or almost useless; she threw it at his head, forcing him to duck, and giving her a chance to grab something else as Gwena's hooves hit the door again.

That "something else" proved to be one of her better pots, a lovely, graceful, two-handled vase. But she sacrificed it without a second thought, snatching it off the shelf and smashing it against the wall of the shed, leaving her with a razor-sharp shard. A knife-edge, with a handle to control it.

She took the initiative, as he started at the crash of shattering crockery, and threw herself at him.

He wasn't expecting that either, and she caught him completely off guard. He tried to grapple with her, and she let him, sacrificing her own mobility for one chance to get in with that bit of pottery in her right hand.

He grabbed her, but it was too late to stop her. Before he realized what she meant to do with that bit of crockery, she slashed it across his throat, cutting it from ear to ear, as Gwena's hooves hit the door and it shattered inward.

"Are you going to be all right?" Kerowyn asked, as she wiped Elspeth's forehead with a cold, damp cloth. Elspeth finally finished retching and licked her lips, tasting salt and bile, before she nodded shakily.