“What happened?” asked Aris.
“Crossbow, from a concealed panel behind the first recess,” said Paks, gasping a little. She did not take her eyes from the man in front of her. “Just missed me, while I was trying to get that slave to move. I saw the opening, and found those behind it. She jumped me from behind—I think he told her to, but I don’t know the language—and they all tried to spit me.”
“Damned northern war crows!” the man burst out. “May you all die strung from the walls like the carrion you are.”
“Come out, or I’ll call pikes,” said Aris calmly. The man muttered in the unknown tongue. “Now,” said Aris. The man stood still, as if considering, and the girl behind him began to cry. For some reason this made Paks angry.
“Stop that noise,” she said roughly, and the girl looked at her and was still, tears still running down her face. The man glared at Paks.
“I should have killed you. Two times, you great cow, and you still live.” He spat at Paks, but it fell short. She felt her companions stiffen, and Aris’s voice roughened.
“Drop that knife and come out, or we’ll kill you all.”
The man looked at the knife in his hand, then reversed it and threw it spinning at Paks’s chest. She jerked her shoulder aside, and it bounced off her corselet, but again the four rushed forward. She thrust her sword into the man’s robe. His weight bore her back; when she tried to step back, she tripped over the slave’s body. The silk-clad woman had pulled out a dagger to slash at the soldier before her; she too was cut down. The youth had a short sword, which he had held hidden behind the man, and fought the soldier on Paks’s left with surprising skill. The girl, no longer crying, had a slim stiletto with which she attacked the soldier fighting the boy. Paks grabbed her arm, and the girl struck at her face. Almost in reflex, Paks thrust in her sword, and the girl folded over with a cry. At the same time, the soldier got past the youth’s guard and sank his sword into him. The boy’s weapon fell with a clatter. Paks took a breath and looked around. Aris met her eyes.
“That was a new one. Sorry, Paks; I didn’t know—”
Paks shook her head. “I shouldn’t have gone between them, not after the crossbow. Is the slave—?”
“Dead. Sim stuck her when she was choking you.”
“It wasn’t her fault.” Paks looked for the baby, but it too was dead, having caught a stray bladestroke. No one knew whose, and no one cared to guess. They wiped their blades on the man’s robes, and examined the inner recess, but found nothing more.
“They’ll have something somewhere,” said Aris. “Let’s check ’em over.” The man was dead, but the woman and the two younger ones were still barely alive. At Aris’s nod, the other soldiers gave each the death-stroke, and began to search the bodies. Paks, suddenly shaky about the knees, leaned on the wall. She could not get out of her mind the frightened face of the slave, kneeling at her feet. Her knuckles burned; she looked at the shallow cut—from the man’s dagger, she supposed. She glanced at the window. Nearly dark, now—no, that can’t be right—we couldn’t see in here—She realized she was sliding down the wall.
“Paks. Paks, what’s wrong?” Aris had her arm. She felt very strange.
“I think this dagger’s poisoned,” said someone from a distance, and someone else added, “So’s this sword, if the stain on the blade means anything.”
“Paks—did that dagger cut you?” Aris seemed to be yelling very softly. She held up her hand, and felt it taken and turned. Someone cursed; boots clattered over the floor and into the passage. Paks opened her eyes again, and found that everything seemed a strange shade of green. She blinked, tasting something vile, and tried to think what had happened. Someone pushed the edge of a flask against her lips and said, “Swallow.” She did. For an instant or so she thought a whirling wind was loose inside her, and then her vision cleared. Sim held the daggers, stiletto, and sword; Captain Dorrin peered at their blades.
“This sticky orange stuff is almost certainly some kind of poison—either weak or slow-acting, to judge by its effect on Paks. Put these aside, carefully, and we’ll let the surgeons see them.” Dorrin glanced at Paks. “You better?” When Paks nodded, her face relaxed, and she offered a hand up. “You keep pushing your luck, Paks, and you won’t have any left.”
“Sorry—Captain.” Paks still felt remote, but that sensation cleared quickly. The others had found several small pouches in the dead family’s clothes, and the man’s belt had a long packet sewn in, which bulged suggestively. Under his outer robes he wore a massive silver chain with a curious medallion. As Kir slid it out, the captain swore. Paks peered at it, wondering what was wrong. As big as a man’s palm, it looked like a silver spider, legs outstretched on a web.
“Drop that,” said Dorrin harshly, as Kir started to touch the medallion itself. Startled, he obeyed. The captain drew her sword and slipped it beneath the chain. The chain and medallion let off a pale green glow and slithered away from the sword point, which was also glowing. “By all the gods and Falk’s oath,” said Dorrin. “It’s a real one.”
“Isn’t that the—the Webmistress’s sign?” asked Sim nervously.
“Yes. Don’t any of you touch it. It’s the right size for one of her priest’s symbols, and they’re dangerous.” Dorrin touched the point of her sword to the medallion. Green light flared upward, and a rotten stench filled the room. The sword’s glow was clearly visible now, blue and steady against the pulsing green. Dorrin pulled the sword back, and both glows faded. “Well, that’s that. We can hardly leave it there. We need a cleric to counter it. Paks—” Paks jerked her eyes away from the medallion: was it moving slowly? The captain nodded when their eyes met. “Go find the Duke, and tell him we need a cleric. Don’t tell anyone else. Wait—do you have Canna’s Girdish medallion?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“You’re wearing it?”
“Yes, Captain. Isn’t that all right—?”
Dorrin gave her a long look. “Seeing it probably saved your life, I would say it’s all right. It’s well known St. Gird has no love for Achrya Webmistress. But let’s see—take it out.”
Paks fished the medallion out of her tunic. Dorrin took it and let the chain slip through her fingers until it hung above the silver spider on the floor. Again the green glow rose from the spider, but the crescent above did not change. Dorrin handed it back to Paks.
“Yours is the weaker one, or at least it doesn’t reveal any power. Still, you’re alive and he isn’t.” She nudged the dead man with her boot. “Go on—find the Duke. And the rest of you search these bodies carefully. We might find more mischief.”
Paks tucked Canna’s medallion back into her tunic as she jogged down the stairs. By the time she had found the Duke, and carried his message to a tall man in black armor in Vladi’s camp, a Blademaster of Tir; it was dark. She was both eager and afraid to see what he would do, but Dorrin met her on the stairs and sent her back to camp.
“It’s priestwork now, and none of ours,” she said firmly. “We’ve much to do tomorrow, and much to guard tonight. You’re on second watch; get some food into you and rest before you’re called.”
The next day brought no such excitements, but more work, as they cleared the rest of their sector. Paks could not begin to guess how many bales of cloth, rolls of carpet, boxes, bags, and trunks of moveable treasure, copper, bronze, and iron pots, dresses, gowns, robes, tunics, shirts, shoes, boots, buckles, combs, scrolls, daggers, swords, shields, bows, bowstrings, arrows, war hammers and wood hammers, battle axes and felling axes, reels of yarn and fine thread, needles, knives, forks, spoons of wood and pewter and silver and gold, figurines carved of wood and ivory and stone, harps and horns and pipes of all sizes they had taken and packed in wagons. The very thought of all those things made her tired. What could people use it all for? A well-stocked larder or armory made sense, but not all the rest. In one house she had seen shelves of little carvings: horses, men, women, fish, leaves of different shapes, birds—what could anyone do with those but look at them? No one worshipped that many gods. She had run her hands over fine silks and velvets, furs of all colors, and handled lace so fine she feared it would tear in her fingers. And these were beautiful. But—Paks thought again of the militia around the bonfire in their stolen finery—they weren’t for her. Not now.