Aiko wiped the tips of her blades clean on one of the ribands Egil yet held, then sheathed her swords in the scabbards at her back. Then, with her hands on her hips and her feet apart in a balanced stance, she faced the queen.
Now Gudrun leaned forward on her throne and snapped, "Well, what will it be, yellow woman: ring, thrall, beast, or fowl?"
Silence fell as all waited to hear Aiko's choice, and somewhere in the distance above the susurration of rain a bugle sounded.
Aiko looked up at the angry queen and her gaudy escort, then she glanced at Egil with the iridescent peacock feather in his cap. Suddenly her eyes widened in revelation and she turned to the queen and smiled and pointed. "I'll have him."
She had singled out Delon the Bard.
CHAPTER 41
What?" asked Egil, stunned.
Fire lighted Delon's eyes and he leapt to his feet.
"You cannot be serious!" exclaimed the queen.
"Oh, but I am, milady," answered Aiko. "It is Delon the Bard I want."
Wine sloshing in his hand-held pitcher, Alos staggered a few steps out onto the floor, shouting, "Nei, nei, Aiko. Denflugl, denfockanflugl!"
"You cannot have him," declared Gudrun.
Her gaze hard as flint, Aiko placed her left foot on the first step of the dais. "Would you go against the gods and break your word? The word of Gudrun the Comely? Pledged here before all your vassals? A thrall you promised, any of my choice, and the silver collar and chain marks Delon as such."
In the great hall the guests sat transfixed, silent but for a murmur here and there.
"You cannot have him, for he is to burn tomorrow and join my other beloveds."
Delon gasped in startlement.
A vision of pyre-blackened stone in an enclosure behind the castle flashed through Aiko's mind. Now she stepped her right foot to the second tread of the dais. Through gritted teeth she declared, "Then you will give him to me ere then."
"Bah!" shouted Gudrun. "I will give him to you afterward-his ashes, that is."
Now Aiko moved her left foot to the third tread.
"Stahl!" cried the queen.
But Egil stood with axe in hand between Gudrun and her champion, and Stahl raised his saber to guard. The guests drew in a collective breath, waiting.
In that moment the doors to the great hall boomed open, and inward, followed by the door warden, strode three mud-spattered men in dripping cloaks. They cast back their hoods, revealing the one on the left to be Baron Steiger; of the remaining two, the one on the right with a bugle depending by baldric from his shoulder was a young man who could have been Stahl's brother; the other was a bearded man in his forties, and Egil's eye widened in recognition and the scar on his forehead and cheek flared red. But ere he could say aught, Steiger pointed at Egil and shouted, "There he is, my Duke, the vile Fjordlander who slew your brother!"
Duke Rache drew his sword, as did the baron and the other man, and the duke called out, "Prepare to greet Hel, Fjordlander."
"Kill them!" cried Gudrun, triumph in her eyes. "Kill them all!" Her finger stabbed out: "That man and his comrades: this yellow woman, the Elf there, and that old man!"
Before any could move, Aiko drew a sword, and with a single stroke, she clove through Gudrun's left wrist, the severed hand clanging to the dais as the silver bracelet struck stone then fell free from the stump. Gudrun shrieked in horror and pain, her eyes widened in shock as blood fountained from the cloven wrist, and Aiko hissed, "Be grateful it wasn't your head." As Gudrun's eyes rolled up and she fainted, the golden warrior turned, and in the same movement sent a shiruken whispering through the air to take Baron Steiger in the throat, and he fell to the floor gurgling.
A second shiruken thunked into the back of the neck of the door warden, who had turned and was running for the exit, and he stumbled and fell, his spine severed, the man dead before striking the floor.
Guests screamed in fear and scrambled back against the walls… all but Arin, who reached beneath her gown and drew her long-knife from the scabbard strapped 'tween ankle and knee. She moved to stand in the main doorway, her blade gleaming in the lanternlight. The guests, many armed with nought but ornamental daggers, did not try her skill.
"Get her," cried Duke Rache, pointing at Aiko. "The Fjordlander is mine and mine alone!" and with a snarl he attacked. Stahl and the other man charged toward Aiko, and she whipped her second sword free and stood on the dais waiting. Delon dashed left and down, the silver chain and bracelet ringing upon the stone.
Rache's sword clanged against the Fjordlander's axe, driving Egil back and away, so great was the duke's fury. But then Rache's blade met swinging axehead and shattered at the hilt. Momentarily, Rache looked at the bladeless grip in his hand, then flung the hilt clanging away, and shouting in rage, his arms outstretched, his hands like claws, Rache leaped at Egil, and was slain by a blow to the skull. Without giving the duke a second look, Egil turned and ran toward the dais to aid Aiko.
Stahl sprang up the steps and closed with the golden warrior-shing-shang-to be skewered. "Third blood," growled Aiko, jerking her sword free from Stahl's toppling corpse in time to meet the next foe.
This man moved upward warily, his rapier held across his body. But then from behind a silver chain whipped 'round his neck, and he was jerked from his feet and fell backward down the steps, his head striking granite as he tumbled, and when he came to the bottom, he moved no more. As Delon untangled the chain, he looked up at Aiko. "Time to go, I believe."
In a hall filled with weeping women and quailing men, Aiko glanced at unconscious Gudrun, the queen's wrist yet pumping blood. Aiko turned to the cowering guests and called out, "I will take my prize, now, and leave you with that which you have earned." Then the golden warrior moved down the steps.
When she reached the bottom, Egil said, "We are in the stronghold of the foe and must needs go over the wall, yet our rope is in our room. Too, we have to get the rutting peacock."
Aiko shook her head and jerked her chin toward Delon in his gaudy, iridescent apparel. "Look at him closely, Egil. What else could he be but our rutting peacock?"
Delon glanced from one to the other, then in a low voice said, "I can get us out."
Egil leaned forward. "How?"
Delon gestured at the fallen foe, then began stuffing the loose end of the silver chain down the front of his shirt. "The same way they got in, if their horses are yet out front. I know the signals. By Adon, I've heard them enough. Get Duke Rache's cloak; Steiger's, too."
Delon bent down and began stripping the wet cloak from the duke's dead champion, taking the bugle as well. He buckled on the fallen man's sword, then he donned the garb, slipping the bugle's baldric across his shoulders.
Aiko retrieved her shiruken from the baron's throat, and she took his cloak and sword and belted scabbard too. She stepped to the fallen warder and retrieved her second shiruken, then moved to the door and handed the baron's gear to the Dylvana and bade her to put them on "… and hurry, my tiger whispers of danger."
Egil, now cloaked, cast his hood over his head and said, "Ready?" Then he turned and looked, his gaze searching. "Where's Alos?"
Among the bodies on the floor lay the old man. Egil stepped to him and knelt.
"Is he dead?" asked Delon.
"Damn, damn, damn!" hissed Egil. "Dead drunk." Then he hoisted Alos across his shoulders, surprised at how light the oldster was. "Come on, let's go."
As they moved through the doorway, Aiko stopped and turned to the quivering guests, crimson blood yet dripping from her blades to the floor. "I will not be riding with my mistress to escape. Instead, I will be standing just beyond the door. If any come through before the bugle sounds, I will slay whoever is the fool. Which of you will be the first to die?"