David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

Behind the altar, two chanting teenagers poised silvery knives over the priest. Their dark hair was cut to shoulder length, and their faces were identically androgynous.

The tabard of the twin on the left showed a hint of breasts, so that was probably Monine. Tanus wore a similar garment, embroidered in colored swirls. Garric could see the twins' faces clearly, but something about the tabards blurred his vision when he tried to place the figures in context with their surroundings.

"Samanax asma samou!" Monine and Tanus shouted together. They drove their knives down, Monine slashing Moisin's throat while her brother ripped his blade through the cartilage joining the victim's ribs to his breastbone. Blood gushed in fountains that seemed too huge to come from a single human being.

"Keep back, your highness!" somebody behind shouted as Garric ducked under a tree branch on his way toward the altar. The pears were done blooming, but the fruit hadn't set yet.

Moisin jerked against his bonds and fell back, his eyes staring and his mouth slackly open. A lens with an icy purple rim formed where previously there'd been only the brick wall at the back of the garden. The opening was big enough to drive a wagon through. Within it, muted walls of the same color as the rim shimmered.

The twins turned toward the lens. Garric slashed at their backs: honor had no more place in this business than it did in dealing with ticks and leeches. The tip of his patterned steel blade zinged against the bricks well to the side of where he'd been sure Monine was standing. Those tabards…

The twins stepped through the lens. They remained faintly visible as they ran down the tunnel of light beyond.

"Get them, lad!" shouted King Carus, but Garric didn't need anybody prodding him to follow. He leaped to the top of the altar, the ball of his foot on the stone but his boot touching the priest's flaccid corpse.

"Your highness!" a soldier behind him cried. "Don't-"

Garric leaped into the lens. He felt a shock as though he'd dived through a hole in a frozen river. Monine and Tanus were ahead of him, their figures shrinking more than a few seconds of distance should have caused.

From behind in the waking world Garric heard, "Follow your prince!" He didn't know how much use a regiment-or the whole army-would be in whatever business there was on this side of the gateway, but Prince Garric had lost the right to object to other people's decisions when he jumped into the portal alone.

He raised his sword high and shouted, "Carus and the Isles!" He wasn't sure if his men could hear his words, but they made him feel better and that was worth something.

"Garric and the Isles!" cried other distance-muted voices. "Forward!"

For an instant Ilna felt herself suspended in the crackling blue limbo. Then theBird of the Tide slapped water thunderously, sloshing from side to side. The hatch cover which they'd deliberately left askew jounced half off its frame.

Nabarbi snarled, "Sister take it!" and reached up to grab the cover.

"Leave it!" Chalcus said. He continued more mildly, "TheDefender 's not so tall a ship that we need worry that they'll be peering down on us as they approach. Hutena, you and Ninon ready the jug if you will. Or perhaps I-"

"No, we'll do it!" the bosun said, though he didn't look happy. Well, there was little enough to be happy about in the present situation; save that it was the one that Ilna and her companions had worked very hard to bring about.

Hutena and the seaman together swung back the lid of the iron-bound chest. The odor of camphor flooded the hold. Ilna turned to Chalcus and said in a conversational voice, "You brought reef snakes from Sidras' store."

"We broughtall the reef snakes from Sidras' store, dear heart," Chalcus said with a grin fit for a crocodile. "Seventeen of them; and I have great hopes for the result when they go to join the Commander's crew."

When theBird wallowed to starboard, Ilna could see the patrol vessel thrashing toward them with both layers of oarsmen rowing. She supposed theDefender 'd reached this stretch of sea not long after Gaur's wizardry had sent theBird into his fire-shot Hell. Lusius would've lain to until his prey returned to the waking world so he and his gang could loot it.

Ilna smiled as she ran her noose between her fingers. The night was too dark for her to be confident that her patterns would be effective, but a silken cord tight around an enemy's neck wasalways effective.

Muttering insructions to one another, Hutena and Ninon gripped the rim of the stoppered ceramic jug nestled in a bed of sand and camphor within the strongbox. The jug had a line of holes at the neck-so that the serpents within could breathe, Ilna realized, but a man with small hands like the late Master Pointin might have stuck his fingers through them when he tried to empty the chest so he could hide. The camphor fumes had kept the snakes relatively sluggish during the voyage, but the jouncing and heat of their translation to the Hellworld must've aroused them enough to respond when the supercargo offered them his fingers.

The sailors lifted the jug out of the box. They kept as clear of the openings as they would've done so many live coals.

TheBird of the Tide had steadied after it splashed back into the waking world. Now the vessel began to roll again on the bow wave of the approachingDefender. "Back water!" shouted a hoarse voice with an Ornifal accent.

TheBird rocked more violently; a pair of grappling irons thumped onto her deck. "Snub them up!" ordered Lusius' voice. "Casadein, get that pitch ready. After we've seen what they were carrying in their hold, we'll burn her to her waterline!"

Chalcus rotated his head to meet the eyes of everyone in the hold with him. He grinned and said, "Now!" emphatically but without shouting.

Tellura and Kulit threw the hatch cover back the rest of the way. Chalcus, Shausga, and Nabarbi leaped up onto the deck; Chalcus had his sword and dagger both ready, while the ordinary seamen leaned back into the hold and grasped the rim of the jug Hutena and Ninon were raising to them.

A Sea Guard with a sword in one hand and a lantern in the other had just jumped from theDefender 's deck to theBird 's. He screamed with angry frustration at the men coming out of the hold. Chalcus thrust through his eyesocket and into his brain.

The Sea Guard sprang backwards convulsively, toppling over the gunwale as the ships recoiled from their first contact. As he fell, Shausga and Nabarbi hurled the jug onto the patrol vessel with all their strength. It shattered among the oarsmen rising from their benches.

Ilna followed the men, holding her noose slack in both hands. Many of theDefender 's crew held lanterns as they prepared to board. In the bow stood a pair of Guards with a large wooden bucket and a flaring torch: the pitch Lusius had mentioned, ready to destroy theBird of the Tide as soon as his men had looted her.

A pair of Sea Guards wobbled on the patrol vessel's railing, swords in their hands. Nabarbi snatched the boat pike from its socket on the mast. As the nearer of the Guards jumped, Nabarbi thrust him through the chest, shoving him back into his comrade.

Both Guards fell into the sea. Our Brother rose in a fountain of spray to meet them. The big seawolf's jaws clopped shut, tossing an arm which still clutched a sword back aboard theDefender.

At least a dozen Sea Guards screamed simultaneously, sounding like they were being disemboweled. The lower rank of oarsmen wouldn't normally have risen until their fellows in the upper rank had cleared the walkway. Now the deck lifted like the ground during an earthquake as men lunged upward to escape the death slithering down through the ventilators onto them.

Chalcus jumped aboard theDefender, his sword and dagger gleaming in the lanternlight. The men with the bucket and torch went down, as suddenly dead as if they'd been lightningstruck. The torch fell to the deck; Chalcus kicked the bucket of pitch over beside it, then sprang backwards onto theBird. He moved with the formal grace of a peasant dancing with ram's horns bound to his feet at a borough fete. The pitch roared into flame, spreading as it burned.