Barb Hendee - Thief of Lives

As Leesil rushed upward, he glimpsed a form leaping over the railing along the back of the hall and down into the stairwell. It landed on his back and crushed him against the stairs. Wiry hands like skin stretched upon bone snatched both of his wrists to pin them down.

"You're dead, half-blood," hissed a familiar voice in his ear.

Leesil felt the chill of Ratboy's grip on his wrists as if the cold burrowed into his flesh and spread through his body. Burning pain shortened his breath as teeth clamped against his hauberk's collar.

Not again.

The teeth closed hard on Leesil's neck, but his collar took the brunt. As shock finished its rush through his blood, he folded his left leg and kicked against the stairwell's left wall.

The thrust threw him into the right wall, crushing Ratboy behind him, and the wiry undead lost his grip. Leesil jerked his left elbow back and felt the rearward point of his blade sink into Ratboy's side. The teeth upon Leesil's neck released.

Leesil slipped down two steps and chopped back with his right blade. It bit into the empty steps. Rayboy already stood upon the landing.

The eye that Leesil had stabbed was now a mottled white orb in a bruised socket. There was only a dark, circular stain where the iris should have been.

Leesil followed carefully, both blades out in front of him. "Chap!" he yelled.

The hound spun from Magiere's side to face Ratboy.

A quarrel struck the small undead above the right eye and pierced the top of his skull. His head recoiled off the wall as smoke rose from the wound. Ratboy screamed, slapping at his face, and Chap slammed into him with both forepaws, sending him back hard into the landing's corner.

Leesil couldn't look away to see where Wynn and Vatz were, or which of them had fired. He rushed upward and made a backhanded swing with the left blade directly at Ratboy's neck.

Ratboy jerked the quarrel from his forehead as he ducked, and Leesil's blade scraped along the wall. The shock shuddered through his arm, and Ratboy ducked under toward the stairs.

Leesil turned.

Wynn stood down the stairs, an empty crossbow in her hands. She swung it at Ratboy as he drew back a claw-shaped hand to slash at her with his fingernails.

Time slowed to a crawl in Leesil's vision. The undead's nails could rip open throats. A twinge passed through the faded scars on his jaw.

Chap leaped down the stairwell.

The hound struck with his forepaws and full weight against Ratboy's back. Dog, vampire, and sage all tumbled down the stairs together in a rolling heap. Vatz grabbed the railing with one hand and barely avoided getting entangled.

A low male voice called out, "Wynn!"

Leesil couldn't help following the sound in surprise.

Magiere's eyes were black, canines bared, as she swung at Chane with her blade. It had been Chane who'd called out in panic to the young sage.

There was no time to puzzle over this, and Leesil rushed down the stairs after Ratboy.

Chane was furious. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong had before he could react. He had planned to momentarily engage the half-elf while pushing the dhampir off on Toret, but his little master's eagerness for revenge fouled everything.

He had not given due consideration to the hound's involvement. The beast's teeth were more than an annoyance. The gashes on his legs burned. In avoiding the dog, he had ended up fighting the dhampir after the boy shot him in the chest. The wound still smoked, even after he'd jerked the quarrel out.

And now Wynn was somewhere below, trapped between Toret and the hound.

Chane roared and swung at the dhampir. When she snarled back, he saw her extended canines. Unlike the crystal shimmer of an undead's eyes fully opened to the night, her irises were black pits that swallowed all light. She forced him back down the hallway. The wound in his chest hindered his sword arm, and to make matters worse, as he blocked another swing, he saw the boy near the stairs reloading his crossbow. If he did not do something quickly, this could end in his second death.

Chane feinted and stepped back.

"Toret will gut your half-blood," he said. "Tear him from throat to groin."

The dhampir hesitated. Chane feinted again, and when she moved to block, he followed with his left fist.

The blow struck her jaw. To Chane's surprise, the impact sent a jar up his arm. She was far more solid than he anticipated, but her head still whipped to the side.

She stumbled back, striking the door frame of Sapphire's room and spinning along the wall. Before she hit the floor, the boy with the crossbow stepped into the hall. Chane grabbed the railing and leaped over it, the hiss of a quarrel passing behind him as he dropped into the stairwell.

Wynn huddled on the floor at the stairs' bottom, with the snarling hound guarding her. Chane heard small footsteps on the upper landing, and turned to see the boy again trying to recock the crossbow. He lashed out with the long sword. The blade tip cracked against the top stair, and the boy skittered back to fall against the wall.

Chane leaped down to the second floor landing. Before the hound could turn on him, he swung the flat of his blade into the side of the animal's head. It tumbled across the floor.

Wynn looked up at him with terror in her eyes.

It was an expression he never thought to see upon her face when she gazed at him. He bent over to grab her wrist with his free hand and pulled her up. I "Chane… no!" she cried out.

There was no time to explain, and he hoisted her over his shoulder. Wynn's body was so small she seemed to weigh nothing. She struggled, but with little effect.

Toret scrambled to his feet, and the half-blood kicked him in the side. The small undead toppled against the closed door of the empty spare room. As the elf closed in, Chane kicked him in the back, sending him careening into Toret.

Chane took two long steps down the second-floor hall, grabbed the railing, and leaped into the next stairwell. As he raced down the last flight of stairs and out the front door, he heard the half-blood yell out Wynn's name. He sped off into the street without a backward glance.

As Toret struggled out from under Leesil, he caught only a glimpse of Chane leaping over the railing with the robed young woman over his shoulder. Then he saw Tibor's head upon the floor.

Toret was alone.

Of all the ways he had thought this would play out, facing the half-blood and the dhampir on his own had never entered his thoughts. The hound as well was on its feet, inching forward. Leesil gripped two curved blades directly in front of himself.

Leesil's eyes shifted briefly to the railing where Chane had just fled, and Toret knew the half-blood wanted to run after the abducted woman.

"Why don't you just lie down and die for good," Leesil snarled at him, and rushed forward, clearly trying to force his way farther down the hall.

Toret dodged and slashed at Leesil's face as one of the blades dropped too low, but he was buying time, and he knew it.

He was going to be destroyed, and Sapphire was in the sewers, fleeing to escape. What would happen at the moment of his second death? These intruders might go after Chane, but they might also use that wretched hound to find the passageway Sapphire had followed. They could hunt her down or even separate to go after both her and Chane.

Toret glanced quickly about for some advantage, but he saw only Tibor's head. He backed another step, and his foot bumped something on the floor.

The body.

He waited for Leesil's next advance, and when it came, he dropped low under the blade's swing.

Toret dropped his blade in midcrouch and grabbed Tibor's headless corpse with both hands. As he rose up, he pushed with his legs and flung the body forward.