Breathing deeply and willing my hands to steadiness, I shot the fellow.
It was quick, so quick! There was the thrumming sound of my bowstring as I loosed it, the thump of the arrow piercing the assassin’s chest indistinguishable from the second twang as his nerveless fingers loosed his own string, the hornet-buzz of an arrow speeding between Bao and me to shatter against the wall of the path.
I lost my grip on the twilight for a heartbeat. The killer’s puzzled eyes met mine; then his gaze went to the feathered haft protruding from his chest. He toppled slowly sideways. And then my diadh-anam pulsed within me and I gasped, reclaiming the twilight.
The archer was dead.
And the Maghuin Dhonn Herself had not forsaken me. It seemed I had guessed rightly, and the stakes were indeed high enough to call for desperate measures.
Bao dismounted and went to confirm that the killer was well and truly dead, then lugged his body as far out of the way as possible. I sat atop my mare Lady, breathing hard and shaking, fighting against a surge of nausea, feeling at once sick at heart and horribly grateful that my diadh-anam yet shone within me.
“It was well done, Moirin,” Bao said when he returned, swinging himself back into the saddle. “A better death than that one deserved.”
I swallowed. “Let’s just keep going.”
We alerted Pradeep and resumed our torturous climb, zigging and zagging our way up the mountain to Kurugiri. Bao consulted his tattoo and scanned the walls for symbols; behind us, Pradeep and the others consulted their maps and did the same, following our invisible progress through the endless labyrinth.
Left, right, right; left. Again and again and again.
I felt the darkness of my deed settle into me, and accepted it. I wondered if the great magician Berlik had felt the same way when he had broken his oath and slain the Cruithne princess and her unborn child to save our people.
The gods use their chosen hard.
It was true.
It was mid-day when I sensed a second living presence in the maze ahead of us, and called softly to Bao, ordering a second halt.
This time, the path was too narrow to admit us both on horseback. Bao and I dismounted, stealing around the corner together on foot. He caught his breath in a hiss at the sight of the man awaiting us.
My throat tightened. “One of the good ones?” I asked unnecessarily. This fellow was young, younger than Bao, with delicate features. His face was filled with transcendent determination, but even I could see that he held the long pike he wielded in a tentative, inexpert grip.
“Uh-huh.” Bao glanced at me. “Sudhakar. I used to try to protect him.”
My diadh-anam flickered. “We can’t just kill him.”
“No.” He sighed. “Let him see us.”
I released the twilight.
The boy yelped with alarm at the sudden sight of us, his eyes stretched wide. I nocked an arrow and trained it on him. He leveled his long pike, swinging the tip back and forth between us in an agony of indecision.
“Sudhakar, it’s me,” Bao said in a soothing tone, his staff tucked under one arm. “You don’t want to fight, do you?”
“Our lady wills it!” His voice trembled.
“Our lady wills a great many things, none of them good,” Bao said calmly. “Think, Sudhakar. She’s not here now. Kamadeva’s diamond is not here.” He tapped his chest. “Look into your heart. You don’t want to do this. Lay down your weapon and surrender, and we will take care of you, good care of you. The Rani of Bhaktipur is a good lady, a very good lady. I promise, you will be safe among us.”
The boy hesitated, and I thought for a moment that Bao had reached him, but I was wrong. Jagrati and Kamadeva’s diamond might not be here, but they were not far enough away, either.
“No!” young Sudhakar cried in a high-pitched voice, shaking his head frantically. “No, no, no! I am loyal to her!”
Pike leveled, he charged at Bao.
Despite the narrow confines, Bao spun out of his way with effortless grace, his staff lashing out to connect with the back of the boy’s head as he passed. Sudhakar fell forward and measured his length on the rocky path, lying motionless.
I winced. “Dead?”
“Unconscious.” Bao rolled the boy over, testing his pulse. “Broken nose, chipped front teeth. He’ll live if we let him.”
“Let him,” I said.
Bao nodded and called for Pradeep, who procured a long length of sturdy rope from somewhere in our supply train. Together, they trussed the boy Sudhakar securely and dragged him into one of the blind alleys. Gods willing, we would retrieve him on our return journey.
“Two down,” I said. “Seven to go, plus the Falconer. Do you suppose there are more in the maze ahead of us?”
“Yes,” Bao said soberly. “At least one. They wouldn’t have left a half-trained lad like Sudhakar as the last line of defense in here.”
He was right.
For two more hours, we climbed uneventfully, the call of Kamadeva’s diamond growing ever stronger. I struggled to ignore it, struggled to maintain my hold on the twilight, trying not to think about the offer Naamah had made to me, trying not to let myself get distracted by the fear that I had chosen unwisely. Nearing yet another hairpin turn, I barely sensed the presence ahead of us in time to order Pradeep to halt.
It was narrow, very narrow. Once again, Bao and I dismounted and went to investigate on foot, me with an arrow nocked.
As strained and mentally weary as I was, I couldn’t make sense of the vision before me. For the space of a few seconds, I thought I was seeing one of Bhodistan’s strange gods with two heads and four arms.
Then it resolved into the image of two men crowded into the narrow space together. One gestured silently to the other, who cupped his hands together. The first man put his foot in the other’s cupped hands, and the other tossed him upward with a powerful heave. The fellow soared into the air, catching the ledge of the steep wall and pulling himself to his feet.
Behind us, shouts of alarm came as the assassin appeared above us; and I lost my grip on the twilight.
The fellow before us gave a hoarse cry of surprise, plucking a pair of short-handled battle-axes from his belt.
Bao shouldered past me. “The Rani, Moirin!” he shouted. “Get the other one! He’s after Amrita!”
I whirled and took aim, but the fellow was already in motion, racing along the top of the deep crevasse, sure-footed and swift. He had a row of silver quoits like razor-edged bangles along one arm, plucking them free with his other hand and hurling them with deadly force as he ran. Cries of agony arose in his wake.
I shot at him and missed; and by the time I had a second arrow nocked, he was around the hairpin turn, the high walls blocking him from me. With fifty men between me and my lady Amrita, there was nothing further I could do to protect her.
Sick with fear, I turned back, only to find Bao faring poorly in his battle.
Like the archer, the axe-man had picked his spot well. The path was too narrow here for Bao to wield his long bamboo staff effectively, forcing him to parry with awkward diagonal moves, essaying cautious jabs and retreating step by step.
And step by step, the assassin advanced, the narrow space suited to his short-handled weapons, which he wielded with fearful ease, describing complex patterns in the air as they crossed and uncrossed, spun and slashed. A death’s-head grin stretched his lips from his teeth, and there was a manic gleam in his eyes.
Although I had an arrow nocked, with Bao between us, I couldn’t shoot the fellow, either.
“Moirin!” Bao yelled. “Call your magic!”
There was too much shouting, too much fear, too much chaos altogether. I tried and found I couldn’t do it, couldn’t summon the concentration.
“I can’t!” I yelled back at him, furious and helpless. In a surge of desperate inspiration, I switched to the Shuntian scholars’ tongue. “Bao, when I count to three, duck!”