Still grinning, the onetime pirate turned the other way to peer around and behind the desk.
"Aha!" he cried, almost immediately. In a crock on the floor down beside the desk were a cluster of canes and scabbarded blades, leaning back against the wall and nigh-invisible in the shadow of an untidy heap of parchments. A long, slender blade caught Gar's eye, and in an instant it was in his hand. He hefted it approvingly, drew it, and whistled softly in appreciation.
"Now this," he said, turning toward Iskarra, "is a beautiful blade! Might suit you, actually…"
There was a strange wriggling under his hand, a hiss, and Garfist found himself holding a serpent.
As the fanged head turned in his direction, jaws spread wide, he darted his other hand at it desperately, seeking to catch hold of it behind the jaws to keep it from striking. The rest of it was coiling angrily around his arm, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Something metal flashed through the air right in front of his fingertips, severing and carrying away the snake's forked tongue and causing it to rear back in writhing pain. Garfist got the hold he wanted, and squeezed as hard as he could as he lumbered forward so he could smash the snake's head against the wall. Repeatedly, hammering it until it was bloody mush all over his knuckles, and the wildly whipping body and tail were jerking in listless, dying spasms.
"Th-thanks," he gasped to Iskarra, as she marched past him to retrieve her hurled dagger from where it had embedded itself in the wall. She let the fragment of tongue fall away from it, unheeded, as she wiped it clean on a handy tapestry.
"Employ Vipers to slay vipers," she replied, giving his backside a friendly swat with precisely the same force and aim as he'd dealt her.
Whatever response Garfist might have intended to make was lost in a sudden, loud shout that seemed to come from the very air around them, resounding through the chamber they were in and those behind it that they'd just traversed: "Klammert! Klammert! To me!"
The echoes of those words were thunderous.
Iskarra frowned. "Sounds like that wizard."
Garfist grinned. "And he sounds a little upset, no?"
"Yes." Iskarra looked swiftly about. "Gar, I'm not staying in here; this is a dead end. I want to be somewhere that has doors, or a passage, or somewhere else I can see to flee into. If he unleashes an army of guardians…"
"Then through there!" Gar suggested, pointing hack through the arch and across the room they'd been in earlier. "We didn't open that door."
"Which was probably wisest," Iskarra muttered, following in his wake as the fat man lumbered across the room, hurling a chair aside.
The door swung open under his fist in silky, well-oiled silence, to reveal some sort of studying area with tomes on tables, and a staircase ascending between those tables, up into unseen levels above.
Somewhere above them, a door crashed open. In unspoken accord Iskarra and Garfist each ducked under a table on either side of the stairs.
They were still scrambling in and under when the lofty stairwell echoed with an excited, husky shout, "I come, master! I come!"
That cry was approaching rapidly, gaining volume as it grew closer, and they could hear hurrying, fast-approaching footfalls on the stairs. "My chance!" their rough-voiced owner gasped, as he came clattering down the last flight of steps. "My chance at last. Shine, Klammert, shine!"
Iskarra rolled her eyes, drew her sword, and moved to just the right place. She was hearing only one pair of hurrying boots; this Klammert dolt was alone. Whatever Gar did, she was going to…
Wait until just the right moment, and then bob up and thrust out her sword to trip this Klammert's racing feet, so that he-
Crashed face-first down the rest of the stairs at full rush, her blade clashing against Garfist's as he grinningly rose in perfect unison to do the same thing from the other side of the stairs.
With one accord they turned and watched the fat, young scraggle-bearded wizard slide heavily to a stop, his head and neck driven hard sideways by an unyielding wall.
Neither winced; they were too busy rushing forward to pluck wands and other useful-looking things from the sprawled apprentice.
Trading wide grins, their arms full of loot, Iskarra and Garfist rose to take themselves swiftly elsewhere in this gift-filled tower.
Taeauna and Deldragon stood their ground, setting their teeth and angling their blades-for the velduke, two puny daggers-just so. They were doing so, Rod realized, as he rolled to fetch up against a pair of shapely Aumrarr ankles, to protect him.
The great sword swept down. Deldragon and Taeauna met its force and thrust desperately forward to deflect it from Rod on the floor beneath it, but the sheer force of the guardian's swing drove them both to their knees.
The sword shuddered and squealed against the tiled stone of Ult Tower's floor, right in front of them;
Rod groaned as they ended up kneeling on him. "Roll under me!" Taeauna gasped, "and get out behind us!"
The great sword came crashing in again, backhanded, and this time it drove Taeauna and the velduke before it, sweeping them away from Rod so he could roll wherever he wanted.
The great metal automaton strode right after him. It took a slow step forward and swung its sword again; if Rod hadn't kept rolling frantically back down the passage the way they'd come, that gigantic sword would have bitten into him.
With a battle-shout, Velduke Deldragon leaped into the air and crashed into the thing from behind, slashing wildly with his daggers at the places where the metal plates met, and only enchanted air was holding the lumbering construct together. White lightnings crackled briefly along both blades and then died as the nobleman fell past, and Taeauna launched herself at it in his wake, high and hard.
The guardian staggered, swayed, and then started to turn, sword preceding its arms. Deldragon trotted around to keep himself behind it, and sprang again. This time, when he landed, his dagger blade was burning with a white fire, and the armored titan seemed to be limping. Taeauna hit it again, as Rod rolled to his feet, glanced swiftly over his shoulder to make sure nothing was coming down the passage at him, and then started running uncertainly toward the fight. He couldn't just stand and watch his friends get…
The great sword sliced empty air again, the guardian turning now as fast as it could, spinning endlessly around as the velduke and the Aumrarr kept running to keep to its rearside, springing to attack it repeatedly from behind.
The helm started to turn around on the shoulders now, the better to keep them under scrutiny; Rod saw that and shouted, pointing, as he ran forward.
The velduke struck again, awakening more lightning, stabbing at the thing's left armpit. This time, when he fell away, lightnings remained, playing and crackling in the air at that joint. Taeauna darted in to hack and slice at the guardian's left knee.
The very tip of its sword caught her and hurled her away, blood spraying, but she waved Rod away and ran in at the thing again, calling to the velduke, "Wonder how many more of these the wizard has?"
"I was never good at counting," Deldragon bellowed back, slicing it again. "One… two… many!"
Rod groaned at that pun, whether it had been meant or not, as Taeauna ducked in again to hack and hew at that knee, the guardian's metal shrieking and squealing with every step now.
Deldragon crashed feet-first into the thing, causing it to sway as it tried to turn. It grounded the tip of its sword for balance and managed the turn, slicing back along its own leg as cunningly as any street fighter, and caught Taeauna tarrying at its knee just an instant too long.
This time, the great blade caught her squarely. She folded up around it with a sob as it bit deep into her and hurled her away. Deldragon shouted in anger and dared to spring at the thing's chest, kicking it high when it was half-turned one way, and leaning back to slice in another.