Darwath 2 - The Walls Of The Air by Barbara Hambly Page A

the living creatures. In a single motion, she turned and slashed, her body reacting to cues before her mind registered them. The creature that loomed so suddenly from the darkness behind her split on the bright metal of a long, one-handed side-cut that Gnift had told her only that morning looked like an old granny beating a carpet…
    To hell with Gnift and his granny
    
     , Gil thought, turning in the storm of slime to cut downward at the third Dark One, delighting, as she always did, in that clean and terrible precision. Her face and hands smeared now with charred muck, she swung around, scenting the night for further signs of attack.
    The night was still. She reached down quickly and hauled Alde to her feet, running for that square of burning orange light that was the only thing visible in the blackness of the overcast night. “Are there more?” Alde whispered, glancing back over her shoulder at the massed, windy darkness of the trees and mountains beyond. “Can you…”
    “I don't know,” Gil panted. She stumbled, her feet slipping in the trampled goo of the road, her drawn sword in one hand and her other gripping Alde 's elbow. “There's a Nest of them in the valley twenty miles to the north— they haven't got far to come. I guess those three were strays from the main attack.” The light was nearer now, warm and amber on the snow, hard as glass reflected from the black sides of the Keep. Against an orange whirlwind of fire, forms were recognizable—Alwir, like Lucifer in his winged cloak, the Guards' instructor Gnift with the firelight flashing off his bald head, Seya and the other Guards.
    “Main attack?” Alde asked, horrified. “But where…”
    “Can't you guess where the rest of the Dark are? Why we were attacked by only two or three?” They reached the last slope of ground, coming into the glare of the fires. The ruddy light gilded Alde 's scratched, dirty face and shimmered like a live thing over the dark, rippling fur of her cloak. She shook her head, confused.
    “They're all down at the Tall Gates,” Gil said quietly.
    Alde looked absolutely stricken. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
    Dark figures massed within the slit of brightness that was the gate. Alwir came striding down the steps toward them, looking relieved and concerned and, Gil thought, just a trifle annoyed. It didn't help that Alde immediately and automatically accepted the blame for herself and hung back like a schoolgirl caught out in a scrape. Her brother took her arm gently and led her up the steps.
    In the gate passage, everyone was talking at once. The gates were closed—six inches of solid steel. The well-oiled locking mechanisms clicked softly as the rings were turned. There seemed to Gil to be hundreds of people in that ten-foot passageway—Guards and Alwir's red-uniformed troopers, volunteers and herdkids, and people who were idle, curious, or ineffectually helpful. The narrow space rang with their chatter and was filled with crowding faces and flaring torches. Gil heard herself gabbling out what had happened, explaining it to Seya and Gnift. Strong hands rested on her shoulders and back; her friends were all around her. Before her, barely visible through the massed backs, the jumping shadows played crazily over Queen and Chancellor, grimy little sister and tall brother sharing the big man's vast, dark cape.
    As they crowded out from the inner gates into the Aisle, Gil passed them. She could see Alde talking earnestly, her wet hair shaken around her face with the intensity of her speech. Alwir stopped, listening gravely to her.
    Gil was close enough to hear him say, “Alde , I'm sorry. There is nothing I can do…”
    “You can try!” Minalde cried passionately. “You can at least talk to him! Not turn them away like tramps!”
    “You are a mother,” the Chancellor said quietly, “and easily touched by pity. I am a commander. Janus and his foraging party set out this afternoon for the river valleys, and it may be that