But Shukrat did keep her wits about her. She crouched in a corner and let her cloak form a barrier impervious to fireballs and shadows alike.
Men fought to get out the door. Howler loosed a spell that flashed so brightly it blinded everyone not in Voroshk protective clothing, including the little sorcerer himself. His effort did not avail. A moment later he screamed with more enthusiasm than ever he had before his cure.
"Get out of my way!" Tobo bellowed. He hurled me aside. His father was inside that room.
Before I regained my feet the tower was creaking under the psychic mass of Tobo's unseen friends. Their battle with the invisible killers was brief but belated. And, probably, needless, because the fireballs ate shadows alive. Unknown Shadows as well as the traditional lurkers in darkness.
I did not know if I wanted to get off the floor. It was very still in that other room now, except for Arkana crying. But I had to get up. We had to get moving. The rest of the palace was not silent anymore. An alarm had been sounded. People with sharp instruments would be coming to get us.
It was impossible to tell who was dead, who was dying, and who was only mildly injured. For a while it was too dark.
I got Tobo to provide another light. Then I started getting the fallen moved back to the tower top. Arkana and Shukrat and Tobo's hidden allies kept the Palace Guard at bay. I kept my emotions turned off while I lugged bodies. At the moment I could not afford to indulge.
"How are we going to get these posts and the carpet out of here?" I demanded. Lady, both of the elder Voroshk, Howler, Murgen were all out of action. So were most of the commandos.
"Shukrat and I can handle the carpet. You and Arkana will have to tow the posts."
"You hear that, new daughter?" Minutes earlier I had been about to slap the girl around to crack her shock. But she had solid stuff inside her. She was dragging the dead and injured now, calmer than most of the others.
"I know. I'll need something to use for tethers."
"Find it fast. I'll lug bodies."
A crossbow bolt buzzed past without doing any harm. An instant later the section of wall whence it had come was shattered rock and boiling flame.
Tobo was not in a kindly mood.
I told Arkana, "You get those posts out of here right now. All but mine." She had gotten some rope from aboard the carpet.
Good girl, Arkana. She got busy. Like Shukrat, she focused on the task at hand.
Funny, I thought, how the Company seemed to attract good women.
The Palace Guards and a surprising number of Greys responded to the alarm. And they refused to be intimidated by Tobo's violence and by Tobo's half-seen friends. Brave men, they. There are always brave and honorable men amongst one's enemies. Missiles filled the air. A few found targets.
I began to wonder if this would not be a good time to reconsider my lifelong determination never to leave Company people behind.
But I was incapable of leaving without my wife. And I needed the old Voroshk. Even if they were dead.
106
The Palace: View from a High Place
Mogaba felt no elation as he watched the disaster unfold, In fact, he became more troubled. He could see that there would be survivors. Those people were still strong enough to hold off the Guards and Greys while they evacuated their casualites. That meant that, unless he enjoyed a gargantuan turn of luck and they were all killed by missiles before they could get away, he still faced a final battle.
He had no tricks left in his bag.
The shadows had not been completely effective. Which proved what he had suspected for some time. The enemy had a similar force at his disposal. And that force had responded in time to save some of the raiders.
He watched crossbow bolts, arrows and even javelins bounce off the creatures in the great seething black cloaks. Only one of those people got hurt.
A fireball's flare, as the big carpet backed away from the parapet, gave just enough light for Mogaba to distinguish the Lifetaker armor.
"Lady," he murmured. Awed.
That same flash must have reflected off his eyeballs or teeth, betraying him somehow. Because when he glanced at the post riders he found the one in the Widowmaker armor hurling straight at him, black cape expanding to shut out the sky.
107
Taglios: Soldiers Live
I saw Mogaba behind the window. Rage devoured me. I drove straight at him, accelerating. And even as I did some tiny remnant of rationality wondered if what I had glimpsed was real, not my mind seeing what it wanted because I needed somebody else to hurt as much as I had begun to do.
If the Mogaba I saw was my own creation it vanished before I smashed into the window glazing.
The glass did not break. It did not yield at all. My post stopped dead. I did not. The post rebounded. I smacked into the glass. Then I bounced back. And fell. I had time for one very enthusiastic howl before I reached the end of my tether, then I was flailing around ten feet below my post.
The post kept driving forward, kept rebounding. I tried to climb back up but could get nowhere with only one reliable hand. The motion of the post got me swinging like the weight on a pendulum. One end of each swing brought me into intimate contact with the Palace wall.
The Voroshk cloak protected me well, but unconsciousness eventually came.
I was still dangling when I recovered. The ground was only a few yards below and moving slowly. I seemed to be flying along above the Rock Road, barely clearing the heads of travelers. I tried twisting so I could look up but could not manage. The tether was attached to me in the back, just above my waist. I did not have strength enough to twist around.
I did have a bit of pain when I struggled.
I lost consciousness again.
I was back in mankind's natural state, on the ground, when I wakened again. A pointy hunk of chert was trying to gouge a hole through my back. Somebody said something in one of the dialects of Hsien, then repeated himself in bad Taglian. Arkana materialized overhead, face somber. "You going to live, Pop?"
"All the aches and pain I've got, it's a sure thing. What happened?"
"You did something stupid."
"What else is new?" a second voice demanded. Sleepy's face materialized opposite Arkana. "How soon you going to get off your back, part-time? I need some help. This disaster show you guys engineered is about to put us out of business."
"Be right with you, Boss. Soon as I get my leg bones unbraided and my feet hooked back onto my ankles."
The effort of trying to get up, because I wanted to find my wife, pushed me over into the darkness again.
Rain in my face wakened me the next time. My physical pains had turned to dull aches. They had gotten something into me. Cataloging, I decided I had a lot of bruises but nothing was broken or permanently damaged.
Just when I started to make an effort to get up I floated upward. After a momentary panic I realized that I was on a litter, being moved in out of the rain. Being lifted onto the litter was what had interrupted my sleep, not those first few misty raindrops.
I got a better grip this time. I remained rational when Sleepy turned up. "How's my wife?" I asked, with only a small squeak in my voice.
"She's still alive. But her situation isn't good. Though it's better than it would've been if she hadn't been wearing the Voroshk outfit. I'd guess she might recover. If we can get Tobo to stay focused long enough to help."
I heard the unspecified offer of a job assignment in there somewhere. "What's the kid's problem?"
"His father got killed. Where were you?"