tail-bone and the back of his skull, an impact that knocked even the uncompleted scream of pain out of his lungs as no more than a grunt.
“Bastard!” hissed Kyrin, clawing the
telek
out of her belt.
“I’ll gut you for that, bitch!” the man snarled back with his first regained breath, rolling over with a shortsword gripped in his uninjured hand and already clear of its sheath. Kyrin froze—because the words and the accent were both Alban.
That shocked hesitation was almost enough to kill her, for it let him regain his feet, his balance and enough time to lash out the beginning of a cut with the
taipan
shortsword—also Alban, she could see that now—which would have taken her face off. The pause when time went slow was almost long enough for her to die, but not quite. Her
telek
snapped back on line and jolted in her hand to put a single lead-shod dart into his eye.
Kyrin’s heart was beating too quickly and too loudly by far, seeming almost to advertise her presence, and there was an acid queasiness in her stomach which came not from the killing but where the killed man came from. The implications of
that
, already running through her brain, were too ugly to be believed and too urgent to be kept secret for longer than it took to find Aldric again—somewhere out there in the snowstorm, not knowing that the men he stalked were his countrymen, trained as he had been himself and most certainly more ruthless. They were people he might hesitate to kill for one reason or another, as she had almost hesitated, whereas to them he was a job of work, payment on completion and no more.
She was not so panicked that she was about to do something stupid; but whatever she did, she would have to do it fast…
The man lying at Aldric’s feet wasn’t dead, but he would likely wish he was when he came to his senses and the egg-sized lump at the back of his head made its presence felt. Shooting the assassin would have been as easy, but given the chance of choice Aldric had left him alive. Why, he didn’t know. But he wasn’t about to correct the error by killing a helpless enemy, good sense though that might have been.
Instead, he came very close to killing Kyrin as her anonymous shape appeared out of the falling snow. His
telek
was leveled and his fingers were already putting four of the necessary five pounds’ pressure on the weapon’s long trigger before he saw just who it was aimed at and twitched the muzzle to one side.
Kyrin’s face was pale enough already, and the experience of staring down the bore of a weapon whose power she had had demonstrated barely seconds earlier was enough to leave her as white as the falling snow.
“
Doamne’ Diu
!” he snarled. Alone, things would have been easier, since with Ivern and Dryval and all the others away from the steading, anyone else would have been an enemy and could be dealt with as such. Despite, or maybe because of her courage, Kyrin tied his hands by refusing to hide. But there was another way out, if the snow continued to fall as heavily as it was doing now; a way out in the most literal sense.
“Back to the stables. The horses are ready to go; we’ll mount up and get out of here while the weather holds bad.”
“You mean
run?’’’
“
Escape
sounds better. We’re still outnumbered—”
“Barely! They’ll be easier than the others—”
“No, dammit! I know more about
tulathin
than you do. We’ve been lucky so far—”
“There’s no such thing as luck!”
“Then we’ve—” His patience gave way at last and he grabbed her by the arm. “Argue later, for God’s sweet sake. But right now,
mover
Kyrin opened her mouth to say something savage; then the focus of her eyes moved from his face to a place behind him and her heel hooked round behind his knee so that they both went tumbling sideways. Two bolts from the three crossbows she had seen in the instant they were leveled went scything through the snowy air where they had stood and exploded
“Bastard!” hissed Kyrin, clawing the
telek
out of her belt.
“I’ll gut you for that, bitch!” the man snarled back with his first regained breath, rolling over with a shortsword gripped in his uninjured hand and already clear of its sheath. Kyrin froze—because the words and the accent were both Alban.
That shocked hesitation was almost enough to kill her, for it let him regain his feet, his balance and enough time to lash out the beginning of a cut with the
taipan
shortsword—also Alban, she could see that now—which would have taken her face off. The pause when time went slow was almost long enough for her to die, but not quite. Her
telek
snapped back on line and jolted in her hand to put a single lead-shod dart into his eye.
Kyrin’s heart was beating too quickly and too loudly by far, seeming almost to advertise her presence, and there was an acid queasiness in her stomach which came not from the killing but where the killed man came from. The implications of
that
, already running through her brain, were too ugly to be believed and too urgent to be kept secret for longer than it took to find Aldric again—somewhere out there in the snowstorm, not knowing that the men he stalked were his countrymen, trained as he had been himself and most certainly more ruthless. They were people he might hesitate to kill for one reason or another, as she had almost hesitated, whereas to them he was a job of work, payment on completion and no more.
She was not so panicked that she was about to do something stupid; but whatever she did, she would have to do it fast…
The man lying at Aldric’s feet wasn’t dead, but he would likely wish he was when he came to his senses and the egg-sized lump at the back of his head made its presence felt. Shooting the assassin would have been as easy, but given the chance of choice Aldric had left him alive. Why, he didn’t know. But he wasn’t about to correct the error by killing a helpless enemy, good sense though that might have been.
Instead, he came very close to killing Kyrin as her anonymous shape appeared out of the falling snow. His
telek
was leveled and his fingers were already putting four of the necessary five pounds’ pressure on the weapon’s long trigger before he saw just who it was aimed at and twitched the muzzle to one side.
Kyrin’s face was pale enough already, and the experience of staring down the bore of a weapon whose power she had had demonstrated barely seconds earlier was enough to leave her as white as the falling snow.
“
Doamne’ Diu
!” he snarled. Alone, things would have been easier, since with Ivern and Dryval and all the others away from the steading, anyone else would have been an enemy and could be dealt with as such. Despite, or maybe because of her courage, Kyrin tied his hands by refusing to hide. But there was another way out, if the snow continued to fall as heavily as it was doing now; a way out in the most literal sense.
“Back to the stables. The horses are ready to go; we’ll mount up and get out of here while the weather holds bad.”
“You mean
run?’’’
“
Escape
sounds better. We’re still outnumbered—”
“Barely! They’ll be easier than the others—”
“No, dammit! I know more about
tulathin
than you do. We’ve been lucky so far—”
“There’s no such thing as luck!”
“Then we’ve—” His patience gave way at last and he grabbed her by the arm. “Argue later, for God’s sweet sake. But right now,
mover
Kyrin opened her mouth to say something savage; then the focus of her eyes moved from his face to a place behind him and her heel hooked round behind his knee so that they both went tumbling sideways. Two bolts from the three crossbows she had seen in the instant they were leveled went scything through the snowy air where they had stood and exploded
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