Knight's Prize (38 page)

A
glint of silver warned him a blade sailed directly for his chest. He turned,
catching the knife in his right shoulder instead. He grunted as the thin blade
bit deep. With his dagger hand, he yanked the knife out, ignoring the pain and
blood.

Then,
with a snarl of fury, he took one great step onto the pallet and lunged
forward, intending to crash down on top of the invader on the other side.

But
his boots slammed down on empty floor. The attacker had vanished.

Rand
whipped his head about. Where could he have gone?

His
answer came in the next instant. As he stood, casting about, a dark shadow
swept out from beneath the pallet, catching him forcefully behind the heels.

Knocked
off-balance, his hands full of weapons, Rand fell backward, hitting hard
against the wall. Scraping his head down the plaster, he landed on his
hindquarters with a bruising thud.

Through
the fluttering slits of his eyes, he saw the silhouette beneath the bed,
skittering away like a great black spider.

The
Shadow.

Nay,
it couldn't be. Sung Li was locked up in the dungeon.

Before
Rand could guess what other enemy might have found him, the attacker's cowled
head edged up over the pallet, and he snapped his wrist forward.

Rand
jerked his head aside just in time to see a sharpened silver star lodge in the
plaster beside him.

It
must be The Shadow. That star was one of the strange weapons he'd seen on
Miriel's chamber wall.

But
how had he escaped the dungeon?

There
was no time to wonder. However he'd done it, Sung Li could just as easily have
escaped the castle. But he hadn't. He'd lingered behind to finish off his
captor.

There
would be no holding back then. This was a fight to the death.

************************************

Though
Miriel
tried to train her mind to the serenity
and
purpose required for
cold-blooded killing, within her breast, her heart hammered relentlessly.

She'd
hoped 'twould be over by now, that Rand la Nuit would be dead. Forsooth, she'd
been surprised to find him awake. The rest of the castle slumbered, including
the two guards whom she'd interrogated. Before she'd sent them to sleep with a
well-placed punch, they'd told her that The Shadow was to be executed in the
morn, then pointed her in the direction of Rand's chamber.

She'd
come directly to his room. She knew if she went to Sung Li first, he'd talk her
out of killing Rand. He wouldn't understand. He didn't know that she'd given
Rand everything—her heart, her body, her soul. He wouldn't understand the
unbearable hurt that drove her to murder.

But
she'd expected 'twould be a simple thing. She'd creep into the room, find the
wretched, conniving, deceptive bastard of a mercenary asleep in his bed, and
quickly slit his throat. Indeed, 'twas a mercy that she'd planned for him a
swift and painless death, for he deserved far worse.

Instead,
not only was he fully awake and prepared to defend himself, but her own deadly
calm seemed to fail her. That last
shuriken
should have struck him in
the throat. Instead, it slipped off her nervous fingers. Likewise, her
bay sow
had
strayed off course. Even the sweep of her legs and his subsequent collision
with the wall only rattled his brain where it should have knocked him cold.

Her
heart wasn't completely invested in killing him.

But an
instant later, all that changed, for 'twas clear that Rand had become fully
determined to kill her. He stealthily edged around the end of the pallet, armed
with his dagger and his sword. He might not see her perfectly, but 'twas
obvious by his movements that he knew where she was.

Scowling
in determination, she pulled out her
sais,
hunkered with her knees bent, and prepared to
engage him at close range.

Before
he could get near enough to strike, she lunged forward with the blunt
sais,
missing
his sword with one, but catching the blade of his dagger with the other and,
with a twist of her forearm, snapping it off.

Now
he had only his broadsword.

But
he was unbelievably fast with it. Before she could leap away, he swung forward,
slicing through her garments and grazing her belly with the sharp point.

The
sting made her suck air between her teeth. But she couldn't afford the luxury
of pain. She was fighting for her life.

Snagging
his wrist between the tines of one of her
sais,
she
thrust his sword arm away and ducked past him to slide beneath the pallet again
for refuge.

He
wasted no time. While she huddled there, he jumped atop the mattress and
stabbed his sword down through it.

The
first thrust missed her hip by inches. The second landed short of her shoulder.
The third carved a sliver of flesh out of her thigh. She gasped in pain, then
rolled out from her haven before he could land another.

As
he made the fourth downward thrust, she came up beside the mattress and jabbed
her
sais
forward
to catch his ankles, sweeping him off his feet. He landed first on his
hindquarters, then tumbled backward off the pallet onto the floor. Best of all,
he was left weaponless. His sword yet lodged in the mattress.

She
quickly pulled her second
bay sow
from her arsenal and prepared
to fire it at him. But just before the blade left her fingers, something
knocked her hand askew, and the weapon landed harmlessly on the ground beside
him.

When
she glanced down at her stinging knuckles, she found she'd been struck by her
own
shuriken.
He
must have retrieved it from the wall. She picked it up from the floor with the
intent of sending it back into his throat. But he was no longer there.

Her
heart tripped.

Where
was he?

A
quick glance told her he'd not reclaimed his sword. It still protruded from the
mattress like a holy cross.

She
scoured the chamber quickly, looking for a flutter of movement. Then it came. A
scrabbling in the corner. On instinct, she hurled one of her
sais
toward
the sound.

As
it clattered heavily upon the floor, she saw, by the faint moonlight, a
startled mouse race across the planks.

The
next thing she saw was the planks rushing up toward her. Her head hit the hard
wood as her feet flew up behind her, and she dropped her remaining
sai.

For
one stunned moment, she lay there, blinded by a veil of stars, felled as surely
as a tree by a woodsman's axe. Only desperation, and the knowledge that she
would die if she remained, moved her to slither away with all haste.

She
heard him grunt, heard the scrape of his broadsword as he pulled it free of
the pallet's stuffing. But she could see naught. Praying for invisibility, she
scrambled back against a wall, making herself as small a target as possible.

Suddenly
she was seized by the front of her clothing and hauled upright. Her vision
cleared, and she saw him draw back his sword with the intent of plunging it
through her belly.

Before
he could thrust forward, she kicked him as hard as she could in the ballocks.
As he sank, moaning in pain, she poked her fingers hard into the spot above his
breastbone, making him reflexively pull his head back and drop her.

She
scrambled a hasty retreat. Her eyes watered, blurring her vision. Her head
swam. Her thigh was bleeding. She had cuts across her belly and her knuckles.
But she dared not succumb. 'Twas a matter of life and death.

Her
gloves slick with sweat, her heart thundering, the breath rasping through her
lungs, she somehow managed to struggle to her feet. Rand staggered toward the
window, reaching for the support of the sill, his sword dragging along the
floor.

He
was a clear target now. The moonlight illuminated him. With a trembling hand,
she unsheathed her
woo diep do.
She
didn't dare throw it, for she couldn't afford to lose her last weapon. Instead,
she feinted to the left, throwing her empty arm wide, at the same time diving
forward with her right.

She
thought he wouldn't have time to lift his heavy blade.

She
was wrong.

He
knocked the dagger from her hand with a hard blow of his pommel, then returned
with a wide slash meant to lop off her head.

Only
her quick reflexes saved her. When she drew her head back, the blade whistled
across her throat, but cut only deep enough to slice away the fabric of her
hood.

Still,
the attack left her at a disadvantage. The folds of the slashed hood fell over
her eyes, blinding her. Panicked, she clawed at the hampering remnants of
cloth.

His
hand clutched the front of her garb, and he hauled her up close just as she
tossed her head free of the stifling hood.

Chapter
24

Rand
froze
. 'Twas as if he'd been struck in the belly by a
catapult missile. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe.

Nay.
'Twasn't possible.

Sung Li
was
The Shadow, not...

Miriel.

Nevertheless,
he couldn't deny 'twas his beloved who stood before him. There was no mistaking
her glittering blue eyes, her flaring nostrils, her trembling lips.

"What...?
How...?"

He
felt like he might lose his supper at any moment.

She
took advantage of his confusion, wrenching from his loose grasp and giving him
two sharp jabs just below the ribs, then beating a hasty retreat.

While
he stood with gaping jaw, cradling his aching, nauseous stomach, she bumped
into the pallet, scampered backward across it, then half fell, half dove to
the floor.

How
could
this
be? How could Miriel be The Shadow?
Where
had
she
learned to fight like that? And why the
bloody
hell was she fighting
him?

As
he stood there, staring at the far side of the pallet, where she undoubtedly
crouched, waiting for his attack, he began to tremble with the reality of what
he'd done.

Jesu,
he'd tried to kill her.

He'd
sliced her belly, slashed her knuckles, nearly cut off her head. The idea left
a bitter taste at the back of his throat.

He
glanced down at his sword, its edge marked with her blood, and suddenly the
weapon seemed a vile, white-hot serpent. He dropped it, and it clanged heavily
on the floor.

His
voice quaking, he whispered across the darkness. "Miriel."

There
was no reply, only a silence, impossible to decipher. Was she surrendering or
stalking him?

"Miriel,"
he breathed, taking a step toward the bed, "come out. I won't hurt
you."

Still
she didn't respond.

He
took another step. "I'm unarmed. Come to me, Miriel."

She
was quiet so long, he feared she might have hurt herself, hurtling over the
pallet. Or mayhap his blade had cut deeper than he knew. The possibility
sickened him.

"Miriel,"
he rasped, slowly stepping around the end of the pallet.

No sooner did
he note
that Miriel had disappeared under the pallet than he felt an incredibly sharp
sting at the back of his ankle, like an unruly hound nipping at his heel.