The Paladin Caper (39 page)

“No,” Ruck said again, “I think that was some tinker with one of those trick bows.”

They crossed into the wooded garden behind the main ballroom.

“Well, how did this Loch woman get in, then?” Matclar asked with some asperity.

“Front gate,” Ruck said. “Tried to fake her way in during a party, got herself arrested, and then broke out of the cell.”

“So she’s why we spent two weeks installing double-lock doors with crystal-aura locks in the cell areas,” Matclar muttered.

“That’s not the point.” Ruck stopped and looked out at the garden, which was still shadowed by the flowering trees in the gentle morning light. He thought he’d seen movement at the edge, near one of the trees. It was probably just a swaying branch, but the garden was shady and cool and nice to walk in, regardless.

“Well, what
is
your point, then?” Matclar asked, following as Ruck strolled out toward the trees.

“You can’t just install more wards and assume the criminals will give up.” Ruck looked through the trees and decided it had probably been nothing. “Criminals want to get in as much as we want to keep them out, and they’ll always try something new. You know what I mean?” He looked behind one last tree, then turned.

Matclar was on the ground, in front of the top half of an Urujar man hovering in midair. “Hey, he’s going to wake up, I promise,” said the Urujar man, and Ruck had time to realize that the man’s lower half was behind some sort of invisible wall—no, not a wall, the side of a ship, just barely visible as the light hit it—as he went for the blade at his waist.

“Arching ardor?”
Ruck said for some reason, instead of the shouted cry of alarm he had intended, and as everything went wavy and dark, the last thing he saw was the Urujar man giving him an apologetic smile.

Pyvic found the door, eased it open, and stepped into the enormous room lit by flickering runes on the floor and glowing crystals in the ceiling.

“I cannot believe they simply let you in,” Derenky said quietly behind him.

“I meet Cevirt twice a week. I’m not that big a security risk.” Pyvic scanned the room. The great chasm that yawned across half the floor was still dark, despite there being daylight below them. Not far from it, a waist-high ring of crystal was decked with panes that flickered and hummed luminously.

“This is where you fought the people trying to destroy the Republic?” Derenky asked, following as Pyvic went to the control console.

“This is the place. Archvoyant Bertram was locked into this console. Spines of crystal growing right into his fingers.” Pyvic started working.

“You mean around them, sir?” Derenky asked.

“Into them. Couldn’t tell if it was under the fingernail or right up through the pad.”

“And you’re comfortable using that console, then?”

Pyvic stopped and gave Derenky a look. “Unless you’d like to take over for me.”

“Ah no.” Derenky stepped back, his fingers curling in discomfort. “And you’re certain you know how to redirect the transport rune as your . . . companion requested?”

“Not even a little. But Tern and Desidora can, and they gave very specific instructions.” Pyvic finished pressing crystals, and the console lit up. “Should be ready now.”

The console began chiming.

“Supposed to do that, is it, sir?” Derenky asked with a little smile.

“I strongly suspect not,” Pyvic said, sighing and drawing his blade.

Derenky drew his as well. “Can you at least determine whether it is alerting guards to come to our location or to the location where Captain Loch and her friends will be transporting to the arena?”

“Let’s find out.” Pyvic went to the door, opened it, saw a man in a black coat and a red paladin band reaching for the handle, and stabbed him through the throat. “Good news. It’s us.”

Derenky caught the guard as he fell and eased him to the ground. “We’re sorry,” he said quietly to the man, who blinked in confusion as the life left his body. Derenky shut the man’s eyes. “If we run, the guards may pursue us, but any competent security expert will check to see where the transport rune is set to activate now.” He looked up at Pyvic. “They’ll catch Loch.”

Pyvic had been thinking the same thing. “You draw them away. I’ll get to Loch and buy her time.”

Derenky smiled crookedly. “As soon as the alarm went off, sir, any chance of me escaping through the front gate vanished. At most, I’d be delaying my capture while hurting Loch’s chances of reaching the ground and stopping these creatures.” He stood. “Now if you’d like to stop trying to hog the glory and lead the way, sir?”

Pyvic clapped him on the shoulder. “We get out of this alive, I’m retiring, and this job is yours.”

“Please, sir. I believe I already had enough to get you fired.”

They hit the hallway fast and quiet, blades ready.

“Pyvic will be in the control room,” Loch said to Desidora and Dairy. “If the gate to the Shadowlands isn’t in there, you should at least be able to use the readings to figure out where it might be.”

Desidora nodded. “We’ll find it.”

“Are you sure you want me up here, Captain Loch?” Dairy asked. “If most of the fighting is going to be down there—”

“That’s the plan, Dairy.” Loch smiled. “But you remember my plans, right?” As Dairy smiled and shook his head, Loch glanced at Desidora and added, “Besides, she no longer has Ghylspwr. And while she can take care of herself magically, I’d feel better if she still had a hammer.”

Dairy raised a clenched fist to his heart. “I’ll keep her safe, ma’am.”

Desidora and Dairy headed off down the hallway, and Loch and the others headed into the ballroom. Loch had fought a group of soul-shackled minions in that space once. For that matter, she’d punched out her sister in the garden where they’d landed the ship.

“Place is weird when it’s empty,” Kail muttered beside her.

“Better empty than full.” Loch didn’t look over.

As they left the main ballroom and stepped into a side hallway, a servant carrying an armful of sheets stepped out. She saw them, opened her mouth, said,
“Arching ardor,”
and fell over.

“Laying it on a bit thick there, are you?” Kail asked.

“She still has her throat,” Ululenia said with a grin that had a lot of teeth in it.

“All right, fair point.”

“Breakfast room isn’t far ahead,” Loch said, and pointed down the hallway. “We can activate the transport runes there.”

The door to the breakfast room burst open, and a trio of black-coated paladins burst out, arms raised.

“Blown!” Loch charged, her walking stick up, and behind her, the others did the same. It was too far, and she knew it, but fleeing wouldn’t get her to the transport runes.

She dove to the ground as a blast of crimson energy cracked past her, then scrambled back to her feet as Ululenia, in the form of a shining white eagle, screeched past her and ripped into one of the paladins, tearing at his face with cruelly barbed claws.

The last paladin aimed at Loch carefully as she got back to her feet, and she dove again, seeing even as she did that he was tracking her movement. Crimson energy cracked out.

Icy leaped across Loch, catching her even before she hit the ground and pulling her away from the blast, and then twisted, taking a glancing blow that still put him down on the ground hard.

A moment later, the paladin who had fired grunted in surprise, a crossbow bolt jutting from his chest. He stumbled and fell, holding on to the shaft, and Loch glanced back to see Tern, pale and grim, standing over Icy’s body.

Ululenia still had one of the paladins, and she was a bear now, ripping viciously at him as he screamed. The other aimed again at Loch, still too far away for her to reach him.

Then Pyvic stepped through the doorway, and his blade took the paladin cleanly across the throat. “Probably want to hurry!” he called.

“I guessed.” Loch turned, saw Kail getting Icy back to his feet, heard the sounds of combat coming from up ahead, and started running again as Pyvic turned and parried a blow from inside the room.

A booted foot caught him in the chest, and he slammed back into the far wall, grunting. Another paladin stepped out, sneering, and Loch slid her blade from the walking stick and across his throat in one smooth motion.

Inside, a justicar Loch vaguely remembered from her brief tenure as one herself stood with one hand pressed to his side, panting over the fallen form of another paladin. Derenky looked up as Loch came in. “Took you long enough.”

Kail came in behind Loch with an arm slung over Icy’s shoulder, half holding him upright. “More behind us!” Tern was supporting Icy on the other side.

Ululenia flapped past them, a small white dove, and landed on the breakfast table, where she shimmered into a human shape, albeit with blood on her face and hands. “Fight or flee?”

“Flee.” Loch stepped to the breakfast table. “Pyvic!” She pressed the little crystal inlay at the seat of the archvoyant in the configuration Tern had told her. “Derenky, come on!”

Pyvic stepped to the doorway. “How long does it take?” he called over his shoulder, still looking out into the hall.

“About a minute.” Tern stepped past Loch and pressed the crystals. “Good. Everyone touch the table.”

“That includes you,” Loch called to Derenky and Pyvic.

“We’ll try,” Pyvic said. “Count us in.”

Loch looked at Tern as the others stepped to the table and laid their hands on it.

“I don’t know,” Tern said. “I’m trying.”

Through the doorway, Loch saw blasts of energy rip down the hallway. Pyvic and Derenky ducked back, and then slashed out at enemies outside.

“Tern, give me a time.” One hand on the table, Loch took a half step toward the door. “Give me a time, and I can help them and then pull back to—”

“I don’t know,”
Tern snapped, still looking at the table.

Pyvic and Derenky slashed and stabbed. Loch heard metal tear through leather and grunts of pain.

She saw a blade punch through Derenky’s gut and out his back, and as Pyvic fell back from a blow, her hand came off the table.

“Now!” Tern yelled, and Kail’s hand clamped down over Loch’s wrist.

Loch saw Pyvic look to her, face taut with pain, before a blast of crimson slammed him to the ground, and then dazzling energy flared all around them, and they were gone.

Eighteen

P
YVIC STOOD SHACKLED
in a cell of the archvoyant’s palace while Derenky lay slowly dying on a small cot against one wall, chained only by one ankle.

“Derenky. I need you to stay awake over there.” Pyvic tested his strength against the shackles for the hundredth time. They were bolted to the wall and showed no sign of breaking.

“We’ve both seen gut wounds, sir.” Derenky wheezed for a moment, then caught his breath. “Remember the enchanted sword case, all the victims impaled? I said if it were me . . .” He paused again, trying to catch his breath.

“You said you’d take the time to write a message in your own blood saying who did it,” Pyvic finished.

“So for the record,” Derenky said, “it was a paladin with a sword.”

Pyvic hung his head and laughed despite himself.

He looked up when the door swung open. One of the black-coated paladins looked at him as though taking measurements.