David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"Yes, of course," Liane said. She lit the overhead lamp with her rushlight, then said to Tenoctris, "You left your equipment in your room? I'll fetch it and be right back."

Garric watched Liane slip out with the last of the Blood Eagles. Many amazing things had happened to him in the past year; Liane was both the most amazing and the most wonderful.

"Lord Attaper," Garric said. "I'll take two companies of the Blood Eagles. Lord Waldron, I want whichever regiment is on standby to come with me also."

"That's Lord Rosen's regiment, your highness," said Waldron with a frown. "They're a Blaise regiment, though."

"Are you saying they're not to be trusted, Waldron?" Garric snapped. Tendons in his throat stood out with his fury.

"What?" said Waldron. The commander of the royal army had spent most of his long life fighting or in preparation to fight. He was stiff-necked, arrogant, and extremely competent. "Of course I trust them, or they wouldn't be on duty!"

"Then I don't care if they're bloody demons from Hell and the Sister commands them!" said Garric. "They'll come with me to the Temple of the Lady of the Sunset. I'm going to turn the place upside down until I get answers about this urn they sent-and I learn what they've done with Sharina!"

Sharina lay on the floor, trembling from a chill greater than that of any winter wind. Her eyes were closed, though it was a moment before she realized that and opened them. She'd been close to death; she'd thought shewas dead.

She was wearing the shift in which she'd gotten out of bed. It was night and the air was bitter, but even so she was warm by contrast with the place she'd been. She turned her head slowly, afraid that a quick movement would cause the tangled rubble around her to shift and crush her.

When this building's outer wall collapsed, the roof had tilted down to form a lean-to. The tiles had cracked off. Though the substructure of lathes and trusses remained, enough moonlight streamed through the gaps for Sharina to identify her surroundings.

She was in the reception room of her suite-but the palace was a ruin overwhelmed by time and the elements. The floor humped like a tilled field, and only memory told Sharina she was lying on a mosaic instead of a scatter of sharp-edged gravel.

There could be no doubt, though. A patch of fresco remained on the inner wall from which rain had flaked most of the plaster. The moon shone on it-fittingly, for it showed the face of the Lady who was the Moon in one of Her guises. In the world Sharina'd just left, the same painted visage smiled from a couch in Her garden of peace and delights.

The passage to the hall was blocked by debris. The other doorway had skewed when the wall shifted but it hadn't fallen in. Sharina could see into what had been her bedroom, where now an open fire burned on the floor. The three creatures squatting around it would've looked like gangling, raw-boned men from a distance, but upright each would stand more than twelve feet high.

The creatures' foreheads sloped; their noses were broad and flat, and coarse reddish hair covered their bodies. They didn't wear clothing, but one had a necklace of some sort. Occasionally they made noises, but Sharina couldn't tell whether they were speaking or simply grunting like dogs rolling on the ground. Meat was cooking on the fire; Sharina smelled pork and heard the regular pop and sizzle of dripping fat.

As her eyes adapted, Sharina realized that the objects around her included loot along with the debris of ruin: the creatures in the next room used this half-fallen alcove as a storehouse for the baubles they'd collected, sorting them by type. Beside Sharina was a jumble of gold and silver plate: platters, goblets, and the gilt frame of a handmirror set with glass beads.

Piled partly on the floor and partly on fallen roof tiles was a tangle of fabric, chosen for shiny threads rather than art. A border decorated with gold braid had been cut or torn from a woolen tapestry; the corner cartouche of the Three Graces dancing remained. Even by moonlight Sharina thought that Ilna would've been interested in the weaver's skill.

On the slant of rubble blocking the hall doorway were swords and daggers whose hilts were decorated with jewels and gold wire. The blades were masses of rust; many of them had been broken. A glaive of perforated brass, some usher's symbol, had survived exposure, but it had never been a weapon.

At the bottom of the pile, visible because of its soft gleam in the moonlight, was a narrow-bladed war axe with gold inlays whose complexity and beauty probably meant nothing to the creatures which had collected it. A spike in the shape of a long nose balanced the axe's single bitt. The blade was a work of art in uncorroded steel, the stylized head of a sharp-featured man with an angry expression.

The creatures in the other room began to eat, tearing chunks of flesh from the carcase without removing it from the fire. Sharina watched them for a long moment, then with a grim expression turned her attention to finding a way out before the owners decided to gloat over their hoard after dinner.

The reception room's only surviving doorway was the one between Sharina and the creatures. The maid's alcove was packed with more of the gathered loot: unguent bottles, jewel boxes, and a few larger containers with shiny metal or sparkling inlays-brass, tin and glass as well as what humans would've called precious. Even if the door beyond weren't blocked, the treasure would clatter down like a deliberate alarm.

The only possibility of escape was the slanted roof. The beams were spaced a foot and a half apart, far enough for Sharina to wriggle between them easily. The lattice of laths laid across them was the problem. She could easily tear her way through the thin wood, but that'd make noise-particularly if she dislodged one of the few remaining tiles.

Sharina slowly rolled over on her back to survey the roof without getting a crick in her neck. The creatures weren't paying any attention to this room as they grunted and slobbered their way through the meal, but there was a risk one of them might catch a flash of her white face moving in the moonlight.

The back wall, which had originally separated the room from the interior hallway, remained upright. It was the fulcrum supporting the roof beams when the outer wall collapsed. When the tiles slipped downward, they'd pulled the laths some distance with them.

Sharina was sure she could worm through the gap. To reach it, though, she'd have to climb the slope of rubble which had poured through the hall doorway, debris from the other side of the building. That should be possible; and anyway, she didn't have a choice.

She rolled onto her belly again, slowly and carefully, then crawled to the slope on all fours. Tufts of coarse grass grew from the rubble. She could at least hope that their roots had cemented debris into a solid mass that wouldn't slide noisily when she put her weight on it.

She paused, looking at the assortment of weapons in front of her. The only one that remained useful was the axe. It was on the bottom of the pile, and Sharina had no experience with anything bigger than the hatchet by the kitchen door for chopping kindling. Work that required a real axe had been Garric's job from an early age.

The dagger blades were lumps of rust, though, and she was certainly going to need a tool if not a weapon when she got out of this dreadful lair. Reaching carefully into the stack of rusted iron, she worked the axe out-first the head, then the two-foot long hardwood helve which ended in an iron knob. The sculptured face glared at her.

Gripping the axe in her right hand, just below the head, Sharina started up the slope. The rubble was as firm as she'd dared pray. The moonlit opening above her was narrower than she liked, but she "Masters!" screamed the axe. "Masters, a thief is taking me! Masters, I'm being carried away!"