Дэйв Дункан - Magic Casement

“This is Darad!” Rap said sadly.

He was much bigger than Andor, and at least twenty years older. A jotunn, not an imp. He glared around the room with the ugliest, most battered face imaginable. Inos shrank back until a chair blocked her. Everyone else seemed to be pressed against the wall, staring wide-eyed.

Then the giant snatched up the sword and bounced to his feet.

Foronod turned to unbolt the downstairs door.

“Stop that!” the giant roared, and the factor froze.

Darad looked to Rap. “Call off your pet, or I kill it.”

Rap snapped his fingers and the great dog withdrew unwillingly, teeth bare, yellow eyes fixed on its former opponent.

Rap said, “Fleabag!” very loudly. With obvious reluctance, the dog slunk to his side. “Inos, I’m sorry about this. I had to warn you.”

She found her voice. “Who are you? Where is Andor?”

The mangled face looked at her—cruel blue eyes, cruel. “Come here, Princess.”

“No!” She tried to edge around the chair, and the monster moved like a striking snake, taking two huge strides, catching her arm, twisting her round and crushing her against him, her face in his chest, all in one blur of motion.

He chuckled gutturally. “Now we have a little security! Any trouble and the girl dies.”

His strength was unbelievable—that one huge arm bound her immovably against a chest like a cliff. The icy touch against the back of her neck must be his sword. Andor! Andor! There was none of the faint odor of rosewater that she had noticed on Andor. This man stank of sweat, and faintly of goblin.

Then she made the mistake of trying to struggle—to bite and kick. Instantly the ogre twisted her arm up her back and squeezed all the air out of her, as if to show how easily he could snap her if he wished. Her ribs would collapse, her spine crack, she could not cry out, there was blackness and a roaring in her head, agony. Then suddenly he eased off, and she could suck in blessed air and her brain no longer seemed about to burst.

“Don’t try that again!” he muttered.

No—Inos gasped, feeling her heart yammering like a mad bird inside her head, and also hearing the slower, level thump of the man’s. He did not seem very worried by his predicament.

“Now—the dog behind the door!” he demanded.

Stupid Rap! Rap had called up this Darad-monster in place of Andor, but what could he possibly do to get rid of it? The reverse transformation would not be so easy.

And Rap was evidently trying to reason. She could not see, but she heard his voice, harsh and stubborn. “What are you going to do, Darad? You can’t escape from here. Let her go. Give up!”

She felt a low growl rising inside the man before any sound came out. “The dog!” Cold steel touched the back of her neck again.

The door clicked as Rap obeyed. She felt the giant relax slightly. “Now drop the sword!”

With her head so awkwardly twisted, all Inos could see was Aunt Kade’s horrified face, screwed up in terror. What was Rap doing?

“Drop it!” roared the giant.

She heard a thump that might be a sword falling. What were all the men doing? But they must be all hopelessly frozen. Again she felt that cold touch of steel at the nape of her neck.

“Now make your friend throw down his dagger!”

There was a pause, and she supposed Rap was obeying that order, also. She heard the goblin argue, then stop.

“That’s much better!” the giant said. He spoke poorly and was probably slow-witted, although he could move faster than anyone she had ever seen. Blood from his arm was soaking through her doublet—she could feel it, like hot soup. “Away from the door, all of you!”

“You can’t escape!” That was Foronod.

“Can’t I? Then the girl dies first.”

“No, you can’t!” Rap again. “Call Sagorn. He’s better at thinking, isn’t he?”

But the men must have cleared the doorway, because Darad began to edge around the room, half carrying, half dragging Inos, keeping his sword arm toward the men.

She saw Aunt Kade and Mother Unonini, side by side, eyes wide with horror, mouths open. Darad went right by them, no doubt assuming that women were harmless.

But Kade was still holding the burner from the tea urn, and as soon as Inos was safely shielded by the giant’s body, she removed the cover, took two fast steps forward, and threw burning oil all over his back.

Darad’s agonized scream exploded against Inos’s eardrums. She was hurled aside and fell headlong to the rug, hearing the sword clatter on floorboards nearby. She caught a glimpse of Rap and the goblin leaping forward as Rap seized a chair and swung it two-handed, shattering it on the giant’s head. Even then, Darad seemed to throw himself down, rather than fall. He rolled over on his back to extinguish the flaming cloth, and Little Chicken landed on him with both feet. He jackknifed, throwing off the goblin, and had already started to rise when Rap disassembled more of Aunt Kade’s rosewood furniture over his head. Then Rap reached for a third chair, but it was not needed.

Kade and the chaplain hurried to help Inos. The goblin bounced to his feet, lunged across the room, grabbed up Andor’s discarded cloak, and was already ripping it into strips as he raced back to the prostrate jotunn. With astonishing speed, as if they had been practicing as a team, he and Rap bound the man’s hands and feet, and suddenly the emergency was over.

Inos allowed Mother Unonini to lead her to the sofa, but then she pushed the chaplain away, not wanting anyone very close at the moment, for she was trembling, and queens must not tremble. She sat down and folded her hands in her lap and tried to concentrate on being regal. She was covered in cold tea and Darad’s blood, of course, which did not help.

The older men were gathered around Kade, congratulating her on her quick-wittedness. Kade was preening, enjoying it. Not one of those men had done a damned thing of any use that Inos had seen, except stamp out a smoldering rug. It had all been Kade and Rap and Little Chicken.

The monster lay on the floor, tightly bound and reeking of burned hair. His back must be very painful, and his arm and head were still oozing blood, but he was staying silent, just glaring up furiously at the goblin, who was sitting cross-legged on his chest, leering triumphantly at him and playfully drawing little patterns in front of his face with the bloodstained dagger.

Rap was standing guard there, too, with the proconsul’s sword in his hand. He was worried and seemed to be watching the goblin as much as the jotunn.

And now what was going to happen? Surely she could not take any more shocks this night? And she did not have Andor to lean on any more. Oh, Andor! She felt a great emptiness in her life—first Father, and then Andor…

Foronod stepped out of the group, accosting Rap. “You said you had an excuse for your horse thievery?”

Rap flushed. “Yes, I do. Andor!”

“You were still at least an accomplice!”

“He used occult power on me!”

Foronod grunted, sounding skeptical. The gangling jotunn could look down on Rap and was doing so now. There were very few men in Krasnegar who could withstand the factor’s authority when he was in that mood, but Rap thrust out his jaw and scowled around the circle of other men, who were all listening intently.

“And on you!” he shouted. “You were going to accept him as king!”

He had struck a nerve there, the factor flinched. “In any case you now must answer a murder charge—you cannot blame Andor for that.” He paused, suspicious. “How did you get up there, anyway? Either you’ve got a lot more occult power than you ever admitted, or you had accomplices.”