Barbara Hambly - Knight of the Demon Queen

“You hear that, Sweetlips? You keep your brat quiet and don’t lag behind …”

The wine bottle clinked on a cup.

“Cragget’s balls!” A man staggered through the black doorway and tried to fumble his britches down, then fell to his knees and vomited. Jenny slid her knife from its sheath, took a better grip on her halberd, and settled herself deeper into the dark corner to wait. The man Crake came down the dark stairs from his watchpost above when he heard the other men cursing and puking; Jenny took him from behind, half severing his head before he could reach the door. She listened for a little time more, until all was silence outside, then crept to the door to look.

Dal, Lyra, and their children were clustered in a corner of the firelit shelter, their hands bound behind them to the wrecked beams, staring at the dead men and gnomes strewed between the shelter and the far wall of the open court. Lyra’s face wore a strange, hard, bitter smile. They turned sharply as Jenny appeared in the doorway. “Mistress Waynest!” Dal cried. “Thank God!”

“Did you use magic?” Gerty whispered as Jenny cut their bonds. Her eyes were huge with shock and wonder. “Cousin Ryllis told me you couldn’t use magic anymore.”

“Just because you can’t use magic, you aren’t helpless,” Jenny said softly. “Could I have used magic I would have spared these men. Now quickly, gather up what provision we can and let’s be away from here. They may have been part of a greater band. We must tell Lord John to bring out the militia …”

Lyra, who had gone over to gather up the little sack of money from the hand of a dead gnome, screamed.

The human leader of the gnomes, a man in a long green cloak, sprang from the ground and snatched at her wrist.

Jenny leaped toward her, halberd raised to strike, then halted in her tracks in shock. Lyra had darted clear of the man’s lunge and stood back, gasping and trembling, as he fell, clutching his belly, his whole body convulsing again with the effects of the nightshade. He should be dead, Jenny thought blindly, blankly. He should be dead …

Her mouth was dry and her breathing fast as she stared at that cropped gray head, the beaky nose, the patch over the eye.

Foolish, she thought. He is dead .

The man was crawling toward them, muttering curses and vomiting again though there was nothing in him to bring up. Clinging together, Jenny and Lyra backed away before him, while Dal and the children brought the stock out of the tower, making a wide circuit around the crawling body.

I saw him die in the infirmary tent after the battle at Cor’s Bridge, at summer’s end. The eye now covered with a patch had been pierced by an arrow …

And in the other eye, as Pellanor of Palmorgin raised his head, glared the greenish light of a demon.

Jenny stepped forward with her halberd and struck off his head.

The body continued to crawl toward them.

Jenny and the little family fled into the snow-blanketed night.

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