Sentinelspire (37 page)

Sauk pitched forward, his knees buckling. Lewan stood just to one side and so barely managed to avoid being crushed under the falling half-orc. Berun was moving even before Sauk hit the ground.

The cloaked figure beside Sauk gasped and turned. Hearing Berun’s approach—perhaps even seeing the eldritch light glinting off his blade—the figure looked up.

“Kheil, no!”

Berun turned his strike just in time. The blade sliced through the fabric of the figure’s hood but missed the throat within. Even after nine years, he recognized the voice at once. It was Talieth.

Berun heard footsteps approaching from the surrounding paths. Several shapes were coming out of hiding from buildings across the street. Berun caught the blur of an arrow just in time. He bowed to the side and heard the
whisk
of the arrow go past his head before it shattered against the wall behind him.

Talieth threw her hood back and turned, both arms upraised. “Stop! I’ll flay the next man who looses an arrow. Stop where you are!”

Her men obeyed.

Sauk was stirring, one hand moving to rub his neck while he struggled to his hands and knees.

Berun darted forward, grabbing Talieth from behind. With one hand around her waist, he pulled her close and set the point of his knife against her neck. “Lewan, grab that hammer and get behind me!”

“Kheil, please!” said Talieth. “You don’t understand!”

Lewan stepped around Sauk, snatched up the hammer, and moved behind Berun.

“Order your men back,” Berun told Talieth. Even through her heavy cloak, he could feel the shape of her body. Although his mind tried to resist, his body remembered how she felt against him so many times. To hold a knife against her now …

“I already ordered them back, Kheil,” she said. “Now
listen
, pl—”

“You ordered them to stop. I want them gone.”

Sauk stood, and from somewhere above and behind Berun, the tiger roared like thunder on the mountain.

T
hat hurt,” said Sauk, rubbing his neck and jaw with his left hand. His other hand rested on the pommel of the sword at his waist. “Definitely going to bruise.”

Lewan crouched just behind his master, his heart beating a frantic rhythm in his chest as he glanced between Sauk before them, the tiger crouched on the wall above, and an array of assassins spread just beyond Talieth along the path. Every way, he and Berun were surrounded.

“Kheil never struck from behind,” said Sauk. “Thought it was cowardly.”

“If Kheil were here,” said Berun, “you’d be dead. My—”

“Name is Berun,” said Sauk. “Yes, I know.”

“Stop this!” said Talieth. She spared a glance at the blade near her neck. Although both of her hands were free, she did not struggle against Berun, and her face showed no sign of fear. Even her voice sounded more angry than frightened. “Both of you! Kheil, listen to—”

“I said get those men out of here!” said Berun.

“Berun, listen to me,” said Sauk, his voice much calmer than Talieth’s. “Let her go and we’ll talk. You continue this nonsense and I’ll have Taaki take your boy.”

“You’ll
all
leave now,” said Berun, “or I’ll kill her.”

“No, you won’t,” said Sauk. He shook his head, and the smile on his face was almost sad. “Even Kheil would never have
done that—not to her. And as you have said so many times: You are not Kheil.”

Lewan looked at his master. The Berun he had known would never kill a person in cold blood. But had he ever
really
known Berun? In all their years together, Berun had never once mentioned Kheil, Sauk, Talieth, the Old Man, or any of this.

“Ask your boy,” said Sauk. “We have shown him nothing but kindness. Even got him a girl to warm his bed. Eh, Lewan?”

Lewan paled. The guilt and shame of his actions brought before so many was bad enough—but before his master … “Master Berun, I … I …”

“Berun,” said Sauk, his tone soft, almost gentle, “let her go. And I swear to you on the brotherhood we once shared that no harm will come to you or Lewan. We only want to go somewhere and talk.”

Lewan saw his master risk a glance up at the tiger, then survey the half-dozen assassins around them. Four had blades in hand and two held bows with arrows nocked.

“Your boy is cold,” said Sauk. “I’m going to count to three, Berun. If you haven’t ended this by then, I’m going to have Taaki end it. One …”

Lewan glanced up at the tiger. Her rear haunches twitched in preparation to strike. “Master, I—”

“Two,” said Sauk—

—and Lewan heard the rustle of foliage overhead. He turned in time to see the tiger coming down on him, a huge dusky shape that in the gloom seemed to fill the sky.

Taaki hit Lewan, and he went down beneath her bulk. Had her claws been extended, Lewan surely would have had the skin and flesh ripped from his chest. Lewan hit the brick pavement hard, his eyes squeezed shut, not so much out of pain but because more than anything, he did not want to see Taaki’s teeth closing round his throat.

But the tiger did not put her full weight upon him. As soon as Lewan was down, she was gone.

Lewan opened his eyes. The tiger had bounded away but was coming round again, her eyes fixed on Berun. Talieth was on the ground, and Berun was doing all he could to avoid swing after swing from Sauk’s sword and fist. The half-orc was much taller than Berun, and the length of his sword gave him a much farther reach than Berun’s knife. But Lewan noticed that Sauk swung with the flat of his blade—once, he managed a glancing blow off Berun’s forearm.

“Sauk, stop this!” Talieth said.

The other assassins closed in, but they were hesitant to get too close to Sauk’s swing. Both archers had their bows bent and fletching held to their cheeks.

“Either of you loose and you are dead!” shouted Talieth. “You men fall back! Kheil! Sauk! I command you to stop!”

The assassins stepped well back, but Sauk and Berun continued to swipe at each other. Berun ducked a swing of Sauk’s fist and his blade flicked forward. When Sauk stepped back, blood ran down his forearm.

“He does still bite!” Sauk said, and renewed his attack.

Berun fell back before the onslaught, ducking and stepping away from the blade and blocking the half-orc’s fist. But Lewan saw Sauk’s tactic at once. The half-orc was leading Berun toward the tiger, who crouched ready just inside the open gateway of the courtyard.

“Master!” Lewan called. “Behind you! The tiger!”

Berun shifted his retreat to the right, circling away and putting Sauk between himself and the tiger.

Talieth was on her feet, her hood down and her cloak thrown back. The incessant rain had plastered her hair to her face. “Lewan, he’ll listen to you. Tell him to stop this! I
swear
to you that no harm will come to you or your master.”

Lewan opened his mouth and took in a breath to shout, but then he remembered the words of the Old Man on the
mountainside.
Talieth and her little conspiracy … they are lying to you. They are using you. Do not trust them
. But had not Sauk offered—even
urged
—Lewan to flee? And there was something else, something Talieth herself had said to him earlier, something he had not been able to get out of his mind.

He didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t sure to whom he was speaking, but he picked up the fallen hammer, stood, and shouted, “Stop it! Just stop!”

The half-orc held his sword back, prepared for another swipe, but he did not bring it forward. He stopped and risked a glance at Lewan.

Berun used the opportunity to step back and look around, surveying the situation. Sauk hadn’t moved. The surrounding assassins were keeping their distance, and Talieth stood not far from Lewan, both hands curled into tight fists.

For a moment, everyone simply looked, the only sound that of the rain in the leaves and on the pavement.

Then the tiger growled.

Berun snapped around.

Lewan saw her less than five paces from his master, crouched and ready to strike. Her lips curled over her fangs, which glowed an unearthly blue in the eldritch lights round the Tower.

The tiger’s front paws had just come off the ground when a small shape struck her on the head. Perch!

Taaki’s lunge turned into a fierce back and forth swing of her head as she tried to dislodge the treeclaw lizard. The tiger shrieked and slapped at her own head—but she remembered her previous injury and kept her claws retracted.

For the first few swings and shakes of her head and slaps of the tiger’s paws, Perch managed to avoid the strikes by shifting his grip and twisting his own lithe body back and forth. But then the tiger rolled onto her back, scraping her head and neck along the brick pavement.

Perch bounded off just in time. Had he fled into the brush,
he would have been safe. Instead, he twisted around, rose on his hind legs, and hissed at the tiger, amazingly loud for such a small creature.

“Sauk, call her off!” Berun shouted.

The half-orc’s lip had twisted into a sneer at the sight of the lizard, and he shook his head once. “Lizard took her eye,” he said. “He’s got this coming.”

Taaki rolled onto her feet, took one look at the offending lizard—she didn’t even roar—and jumped, reminding Lewan of a barn cat lunging on a mouse. Perch avoided the first strike, but he was not quick enough to dodge the second. The tiger struck again, trapping the lizard between paw and pavement. The tiger’s head ducked down. Her back faced Lewan, but he heard her massive jaws snap closed. She shook her head left and right once, then threw her head back as she swallowed the treeclaw lizard whole.

“Perch!” Berun screamed.

Sauk laughed. “Don’t cry too much. Your little friend got her eye. A lot more than most of her prey get. But only the strong survive. Your little lizard never had a chance.”

Sauk backed away and lowered his sword. Berun just stood, looking at the tiger.

“Stop this now,” said Sauk. “Before someone else you care about gets hurt. Drop the knife.
Now
. Drop it or Taaki takes you down.”

Berun stood still a moment, then he stood straight. Lewan gasped, and the hammer wavered in his hand. Was it over?

Then Berun grabbed the clasp of his cloak. A twist, and the heavy fabric fell to the ground. Unencumbered, he dropped into a defensive crouch and brandished the strange ivory blade.

“Your choice,” called Sauk. He pointed his blade at Berun and told the tiger, “Taaki,
anukh!
”

The tiger came in slowly, each paw placed carefully on the wet pavement before her, her head low to the ground. Lewan knew that a knife would be no match against the tiger. He
brought the hammer back, preparing to throw—if he could hit the tiger in the head, it would stun her long enough for his master to get away.

But before Lewan could throw, Taaki went still as stone. She crouched, unmoving, and Lewan counted five quick beats of his heart. Then a tremor passed through her, so violent that she sprayed thousands of tiny droplets of rain out of her fur. She twisted around, snapping at her midsection with her teeth.

“Taaki?” called Sauk, his voice thick with worry. “What’s wrong?”

The tiger screamed—high, pitiful, and with such strength that Lewan flinched and covered one ear with his free hand.

“Taaki!”

The tiger bit at her side several more times, then threw herself onto her back and began to flop and writhe like a live fish thrown onto a hot pan. Again and again she screamed, drowning out Sauk’s cries. She writhed and squirmed, her rear paws kicking the air, and then she clawed at her own torso with her front claws. Fur wet with rain flew—and then fur wet with blood and bits of skin—and still she screamed. Lewan had never heard such cries of agony.

A few assassins ran over. One of the archers approached Sauk, his bow in hand and arrow still on the string. He pointed it at the tiger. “Sauk, shall I—?”

Another shriek from the tiger drowned out his last words.

The bowman raised his bow, pulled shaft to cheek, and pointed the sharp steel at the tiger. Sauk snarled and cut off the man’s head with one backswing of his sword. The archer’s body fell one way, his head the other, and blood flew up in a great gout over his companions, who were quickly stepping back.

Talieth was screaming something, and even though she was only a few paces away, Lewan could not make out her words over the tiger’s cries.

Sauk dropped his sword and tried to approach the tiger, but as soon as he came within reach of her claws, one raked across his leg, gashing a wide red swath through his trousers and skin. Grimacing in horror, he backed away.

Taaki slapped her torso with both paws three times in quick succession—with such force that Lewan was shocked he didn’t hear bone snapping. Then she arched her back and let out a long, final scream that rose and rose until it was beyond human hearing. Her muscles seemed locked in that position, the middle of her back arched almost a foot off the ground, when Lewan saw it—

The torn fur and skin high up on her stomach … 
bulged—

—then fell back.

Her back relaxed, and she hit the pavement. Her stomach bulged again, larger this time, and kept expanding until the skin ruptured and tore. The lights hovering over the tower courtyard brightened from a pale blue to a bright green, and Lewan saw a tiny claw emerge from the torn skin. Then another, scratching and raking at the bloody flesh. The rupture widened, and Perch’s horned head emerged—his skin black from blood and other fluids, but when he opened his eyes, they reflected the unearthly green light.