Along the hallway, up the stairs, up more stairs, and then across to another stairway, passing by servants, Sorcerers, and the much more heavily present guards that were now patrolling the Tower's passages. It seemed to take forever to get there, but it also seemed like it was way too short a time before he was in the carpeted hall that led to Jesmind's door. He paused there at the landing, looking down the hall, where the door ended it. He stood there for a long moment, stepping forward a little when footsteps coming up the stairs reached his ears, not wanting to seem like he was crowding the stairway. He knew it had to be done, but he really wasn't looking forward to this. Jesmind was very willful, and he knew that it was going to become a shouting match. He didn't really want to hurt her feelings, but it may come to that just to make her back off from him and give him a little breathing space. If he could only make her understand that the best thing she could do was leave him be, she wouldn't be angering him and jeopardizing the very thing she was working to accomplish. She had to understand that he wasn't even thinking about the choice he'd have to make until he got his memory back, or at least that was his plan right now. It had changed several times in the last few days as new information reached him, there was no guarantee that he wouldn't be trying to make that choice tomorrow if some other new information came to him.
Despite being human again, and having his mind occupied, there was enough training in him to pick up the sudden change in the footsteps behind him. There were more than one sets of them, and they suddenly went from a leisurely pace to a frantic staccato, a sound of boots running. Tarrin's first reaction was that nobody wearing boots like that would be running up or down those treacherous circular staircases unless there was a fire, and that alert conclusion was what made him turn around and look down the stairs.
He turned around just in time to see the sword coming at him, wielded by a large man with a scar on his cheek wearing the Tower guardsman's uniform and chain jack, with two others behind him. There was no reaction of fear or shock, no surprise that he was certain the men were depending on to finish him quickly. He twisted aside like a snake, letting the sword lance just by his shirt, then grabbed the man's wrist as he overextended the thrust, twisted it, turned his arm, and then twirled and flung the man back at the other two. He did it with such speed and grace that the other men had no chance to get close enough to him to try to stab him with those swords. It was the Ungardt disarming move, a technique for an unarmed warrior to disarm an armed opponent, something his mother had taught him. But instead of breaking the wrist and forcing the hand to drop the sword, he instead turned the man against his companions, making all them slow down for that critical half second for Tarrin to back away from the landing. He knew better than to fight three men alone, but he knew that assistance wasn't very far away.
"Jesmind!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, backpedalling furiously as the two other men caught the first and prevented him from knocking all of the down the stairs. "Triana! Jula! I need a little help out here!" He remembered the Cat's Claws when he raised his hands in a defensive posture as the first man was back on his feet, and the three men suddenly didn't look quite so enthusiastic about the odds when Tarrin caused the magical claws to come forth. He held out those claws and his hands in a wide stance, letting them see them, and he realized that the unbreakable metal that covered the backs of his hands and his forearms would serve perfectly to block and parry their weapons. He literally had two offensive and defensive weapons on each hand, and it didn't take but a second of consideration to understand how to use them in the tight confines of the passageway, even if he hadn't had the time or opportunity to practice with them and learn how to use them properly.
With hoarse cries, the three men rushed up onto the landing and charged him. Only two could fit in the passageway at a time, and Tarrin closed his fingers to cover his hands with the claws, to form shields, then brought his hands together as he carefully considered the angles and heights of the two swords that were rushing at him. The one on the right was taller and had longer arms, and he was just a little in front of the other. That worked in his favor. He held his ground and prepared himself to meet their charge, wondering where in the Nine Hells those Were-cats were when he needed them.
With a quick shift, Tarrin parried aside the leading sword with the back of his hand, letting it hit the metal covering it and doing him no harm, then he sidestepped and let him come almost right up on top of him, literally putting his own shoulder against the wall. He stabbed all four claws on the other hand into the man's side, making him hunch up around the four blades as they punched through the man's mail shirt and into his side, then pushed him into the path of the other, using him as a shield to protect himself from the second attacker's weapon. He slithered around the wounded man as the second tried to stop or get his weapon around the first to hit him, but he was going too fast to make such a sudden change in direction. Tarrin put his shoulder into the wounded man, still keeping his sword wide of him with his other hand, and physically bulled him into the shorter one, slamming both of them up against the wall. He did that just in time to duck under the swing of the third's sword, and heard with some satisfaction as it dug into the shoulder of the man Tarrin had injured. The man screamed this time, but it was a ragged, gurgling scream, telling him that one of his metal claws had pierced the man's lung. Tarrin spun around and backed away as the wounded man leaned heavily against his trapped companion, and the third squared off against him as the trapped one struggled to free himself.
Nonplussed by wounding his own man, the third shuffled forward quickly, and his footwork told Tarrin that this man was an experienced fighter. Tarrin gave ground to him, backing closer and closer to Jesmind's door. What was keeping that woman when he really needed her? Tarrin turned his hands palm inward, displaying a maximum amount of shielding metal to that weapon. Until he practiced some with the Cat's Claws, he'd be a clumsy opponent at best. He didn't think it prudent to try to fence the man when he was using weapons with which he was unfamiliar. What he really needed was his staff. In the confines of the hallway, the end-grip would be perfect for keeping the shorter weapon out of reach of him.
He had his staff!
How did it work? He feverishly tried to remember how the amulet worked as he was forced to use the Cat's Claws as shields, parrying several attempts from the man to stab him with the tip of his sword. The closed fingers enclosed his hands, letting him bat the sword away with either the back or the front of his fist. The man seemed intent on stabbing him, not trying to swing at him despite the fact that he had the room, almost fanatically obsessed with the idea of stabbing him. He was using a longsword, which was a weapon suited for either stabbing or slashing. Why the intense need to stab? He swatted away another stab at his belly, then one trying to stab him in the face, then another that tried to stab him in the shoulder. He glanced at the blade and realized that it wasn't entirely clean, it had some kind of oil smeared on it.
Not oil. Poison!
No wonder he was so intent on stabbing him! A stab wound would introduce the poison much more quickly than a cutting wound. He slapped the sword away again, taking another step back as he gave ground. He'd already been backed halfway down the hallway. He twisted aside from the next one and tried to cut the man's hand off at the wrist, but he withdrew his thrust with impressive speed, and sparks flew when the Cat's Claws raked across the poisoned edge of the man's sword, cutting furrows into the steel which proved who had the sharper and superior weapon. This one had seen him use that move on the other one, and he wasn't going to let it happen to him. Tarrin had the sharper, more dangerous weapon, but the poison gave the attacker every advantage. All he had to do was break Tarrin's skin once, and that would be it. The poison would do the rest.