Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

Holding his place was all he could do ... until someone snarled and pulled his gaze.

There was Shade watching him and still rumbling with a twitch of her jowls. She could not sense that feral beast within him straining to go after Magiere. No, she had only seen the look on his face, perhaps.

Chane pushed the fury away and nodded to Shade, once again in control of himself.

Before he could even look back up, the alarm sounded, long and loud. The gate reopened and five guards rushed out. The one in the lead shouted after the escapees. As Shade’s hackles stiffened and her ears flattened above bared teeth, Chane pulled his dwarven longsword.

The lead guard’s shout broke with a cry of pain. When he tumbled across the street stones, a broken arrow protruded from his thigh.

“Now!” Chane rasped, though Shade had already charged, and he raced out behind her.

Other guards veered away from the first as more arrows cracked against stone, driving them into erratic dodging. Shade launched directly into one near guard backpedaling from an arrow’s strike. He went down under her weight and his head slammed sharply on the street. The red wrap around his skull did little to cushion the impact, and three more guards rushed out the imperial gate.

Chane bit down against Wynn’s instructions not to kill.

If only he could take a few heads, and in the terror of that, Osha could cover their escape. Instead, he charged the nearest guard, let the man take a slash with his curved blade, and blocked it aside with his own.

Chane struck with his fist, and the man’s head whipped back under the crack of impact. The guard toppled as his sword fell and clattered. Chane turned as Shade lunged off the top of her own target.

Two more guards came at them. One lost his footing as another black-feathered arrow struck his shoulder and he swerved in a spin. The second took an instinctive glance at the first, and Chane lunged one step and kicked into the second’s knee. In a yelp, the guard crumpled, and Chane kicked him in the head to put him down and out.

Only the span of four or five breaths had passed.

Shade shot past Chane in a straight line toward the three new oncoming guards, and he quickly rasped, “Wait!”

Whirling, he peered up the street. Wynn and the others were already gone. Distant shouting pulled him the other way as Shade rounded his legs to watch the street.

More guards high up on the palace wall called wildly down to those in the street, and these wore gold sashes. One ran along the wall top toward the gate, screaming the same few words over and over.

Chane knew imperial guards would soon be pouring out of the gate. It was time for the next step.

“Howl!” he told Shade.

She did not even look up at him. She knew the plan as well as he did.

A manic sound out of the back of Shade’s throat pierced Chane’s ears.

“Run and lead!” he said.

Shade took off up the mainway away from the palace and out in plain sight.

Chane followed, hoping any emerging men fixed on him and her ... rather than go hunting for Wynn.

Dänvârfij froze in indecision upon the rooftop. She watched as her quarry came out of the imperial gates, and though their faces were obscured, hidden, or unclear, the deviant majay-hì was unmistakable. Before she could act, an alarm was sounded.

Guards ran out after the prisoners—Dänvârfij’s stolen prisoners. Arrows flew down into the street from somewhere high across the mainway. Two unknown figures appeared and hurried off Léshil, Magiere, the quarter-blood girl, and Chap. Even then, Dänvârfij had stalled again at the appearance of a tall swordsman with another majay-hì—a black one fighting beside him.

Three more guards ran out of the gate.

Rhysís as well could only stare.

Within moments¸ the swordsman and black majay-hì ran down the mainway, obviously trying to draw off any pursuit. Dänvârfij recognized those two who had fought beside an interfering little human “sage” back in Calm Seatt.

Was Wynn Hygeorht somewhere down there as well?

As the swordsman and black majay-hì vanished from sight, six imperial guards in gold sashes rushed out of the gate. How bitterly ironic, considering that Dänvârfij no longer needed even one to interrogate.

“What action do we take?” Rhysís whispered.

Magiere’s group was now too large in addition to there being several unknowns among them. For Dänvârfij to attack so many with only Rhysís would be a great risk, and there was no way to know if or when the swordsman and black majay-hì would double back to join their companions.

“Report to Fréthfâre but keep to the rooftops,” she answered. “I will track our quarry to their final destination. We can then find a way to separate and capture the ones we want.”

In that, they would need Én’nish, despite her near crippling wound. Even in the face of so much effort wasted, Dänvârfij took hope in her quarry’s panicked flight.

Magiere had barely been able to walk, but she was out in the open. It was simply a matter of finding a way for her or Léshil to be taken alone. For the first time in a long moon, Dänvârfij breathed more easily.

“Go,” she told Rhysís.

He ran silently over the roof and leaped to the next one across an alley. As the imperial guards rushed off to harry the decoys, Dänvârfij slipped over the building’s front. She dropped easily to the street and headed after the true prey of this night.

Brot’ân’duivé crouched in stillness at the rooftop’s edge, his stiletto in hand with its blade flattened beneath his forearm to hide it from the moonlight. He absorbed the most unexpected events taking place below in the street.

Wynn Hygeorht had a penchant for chaos, though it often hid something purposeful. Yes, he recognized her even though strangely cloaked. Her movements and gait were unmistakable, and the others had not hesitated to follow her. Unfortunately, the surprising young woman too often overlooked and failed to anticipate complications.

Two of Most Aged Father’s loyalist anmaglâhk were watching from above as Wynn and the others slipped beyond sight. Dänvârfij had dropped to the street to follow as Rhysís raced across the rooftops deeper into the city, likely to report to Fréthfâre.

Brot’ân’duivé was uncertain what Wynn Hygeorht would do next—or where she would take Léshil and the others. He did not like indecision, especially his own, and glanced toward Rhysís slipping farther away.

A choice had to be made between two different targets.

Brot’ân’duivé flipped his stiletto, bit the blade in his teeth, and swung over the roof’s edge to drop.

Osha nocked another arrow and aimed as Chane and Shade fled up the mainway. He understood their need to draw the guards off, but they were heading for a more populated district. How would the citizens react to a howling wild beast if Shade did not fall silent, and soon?

There was nothing to be done. The guards must be lured away, but Osha worried that, with Chane to slow her, Shade might not have enough of a lead.

He turned his eyes on the gate as six men in gold sashes ran out and down the street. He aimed ahead of them and released the bow’s string. Ducking low as the arrow flew, he saw it strike the cobble two strides before the lead guard.

That one skidded to a stop, forcing the others to do so as well. At their shouts to one another in looking about, Osha dropped below their sight on the roof.

He no longer heard Shade’s howling, and neither she nor Chane was in sight. The guards below would have to slow in their search without a visible quarry.