Michelle Sagara - Cast In Courtlight

Her cursing transformed her voice. It was short, but it lingered. “Step back,” she said. She turned back down the hall and dragged a polearm from the wall. It was a halberd.

“Farther back,” she added as she readied the haft. Severn caught Kaylin by the shoulders, frowned, and then lifted her off her feet. He ran back the way they’d come, leaving Teela behind. Kaylin could hear his heart. Could almost feel it, even though he wore armor. Funny thing, that.

“What are you—”

Teela threw the halberd. It wasn’t a damn spear; it shouldn’t have traveled like one. But it did.

The door exploded. It shattered, wooden shards the size of stakes blowing out in a circle. The halberd’s blade shattered as well, and a blue flame burned in its wake.

Without a pause, Teela grabbed another weapon from the wall. It was a pike. She set its end against the floor and stood there, hand on hip, as if she were in the drill circle in the courtyard of the Halls of Law.

“What’s it look like now?” she asked Kaylin.

Severn set her down gently, but he did not let go of her.

“It looks like a bloody big hole,” Kaylin replied.

“A scary hole?”

“Could you be more patronizing?”

“With effort.”

“Don’t bother.”

The fleeting smile transformed Teela’s expression. It was grim, and it didn’t last long. “Good spotting,” she said, as if this were an everyday occurrence.

“Don’t you think someone’s going to be a bit upset?”

“Oh, probably.” She didn’t put the pike down. “Look at what it did to the frame.” Her whistle was pure Hawk.

The stone frame that had held the door and its hinges looked like a standing crater. The roof was pocked.

“What was that?”

Teela shrugged. “A warning.”

“A warning?”

“Of a sort. I imagine it was meant to be a permanent warning.” She seemed to relax then. “Which means we still have some time.” Then, thinking the better of it, she added, “But not much. Don’t gawk.”

That was Teela all over. Any other Hawk would have had the sense to ask Kaylin why she’d hesitated to go near the door. To Teela, the answer wasn’t important. Which was good. Kaylin herself had no idea why, and extemporizing about anything that wasn’t illegal betting was beyond her meager skills.

“Welcome,” Teela added, her voice so thick with sarcasm it was a wonder words could wedge themselves through, “to the High Court.” And taking the pike off the ground, holding it like she would the staff that was her favored weapon, she walked through the wreckage of the door.

Kaylin noted that Severn did not draw a weapon. And did not let go of her shoulder. They followed in Teela’s wake.

There were no other traps. Or rather, no magical ones. Teela led them through another series of rooms and past two halls, and finally stopped in front of a curtained arch.

“Here,” she said quietly. “There will be guards.” She paused, and then added, “They’re mine.”

Which made no sense.

“In service to my line,” Teela told her, as if this would somehow explain everything. “Loyal?”

The muttered humans was answer enough. Teela pushed the curtains aside and entered the room. It was much larger than it looked through fabric.

There were chairs here, kin to the great chairs she’d seen in the large room, but smaller and paler in color. There was a still pond to the side of the room, adorned by rocks that glistened with falling water. Except that there wasn’t any.

There was a table, but it was small; a mirror, but it, too, was modest.

Beyond all of these things was a large bed, a circular bed that was—yes—canopied. Golden gauze had been drawn, but it was translucent. She could see that someone lay there.

By the bed were four guards. They were dressed in something that should have been armor, but it was too ornate, too oddly shaped. Master artisans would have either wept or dis-dained such ostentation. Teela tapped the ground with the haft of the pike.

As one, the four men looked to her.

“This,” Teela said, nodding to Kaylin, “is my kyuthe. She honors us by her presence.”

Kaylin frowned. The word was obviously Barrani; it was stilted enough in delivery that it had to be High Barrani. But she didn’t recognize it.

The guards looked at her. Two pairs of eyes widened slightly, and without thinking, Kaylin lifted a hand to cover her cheek. It was the first time she had remembered it since Severn had helped her out of the death trap that was otherwise known as a carriage.

“Yes,” Teela said, her grip on her weapon tightening. “She bears the mark of the outcaste. Even so, you will not challenge me.”

There was silence. A lot of it. And stillness. But it was the stillness of the hunter in the long grass of the plains.

Kaylin started to move, and Severn caught her arm in a bruising grip. He had not moved anything but his hand. But she met his eyes, and if human eyes didn’t change color, if they didn’t darken or brighten at the whim of mood, they still told the whole of a story if you knew the language.

Seven years of absence had never deprived her of what was almost her mother tongue. She froze, now part of him, and then turned only her face to observe Teela.

The Barrani Hawk was waiting.

Kaylin couldn’t see her feet, and wanted to. She’d learned, over the years, that Teela adopted different stances for different situations, and you could tell by how she placed her feet what she expected the outcome to be.

But you couldn’t hear it; she was Barrani, and almost silent in her movements. She looked oddly like Severn—waiting, watchful. She did not tense, and the only hint of threat was in the color of her eyes.

But it was mirrored in the eyes of these four.

Hers, she’d called them. Kaylin had to wonder if Teela’s grasp on the subtleties of Elantran had slipped.

The room was a tableau. Even breathing seemed to be held in abeyance. Minutes passed.

And then Teela turned her head to nod at Kaylin.

One of the four men moved. His sword was a flash of blue light that made no sound. He was fast.

Teela was faster. She lowered the pike as he lunged, and raised it, clipping the underside of his ribs. Left ribs, center. The pike punctured armor, and blood replied, streaming down the haft of the weapon—and down the lips of the guard.

Almost casually, the wide skirts no restriction, Teela kicked the man in the chest, tugging the pike free. Her gaze was bright as it touched the faces of the three guards who had not moved, neither to attack nor defend.

The Barrani who had dared to attack fell to his knees, and then, overbalanced, backward to the ground. Teela stepped over him and brought the wooden butt of the pike down before Kaylin could think of moving.

“Kyuthe,” Teela said. “Attend your patient.”

Kaylin was frozen. Severn was not. He guided her, his arm around her shoulders; even had she wanted to remain where she was, she wouldn’t have been able to. There was something about the warmth of his shoulder, the brief tightening of his hand, the scent of him, that reminded her of motion. And life.

She had seen Barrani in the drill halls before. She had seen them in the Courtyards. She had seen them on the beat, and she had even seen them close with thugs intent on misconstruing the intent of the Law. But she had never truly seen them fight.

Teela wasn’t sweating. She didn’t smile. She did not, in fact, look down. She had spoken in the only way that mattered here. And the three that were standing at a proud sort of attention had heard her clearly. They showed no fear; they showed no concern. The blood on the floor might as well have been marble. Or carpet.