Mychael motioned to the boy. The goblin ripped away the still-loose leather bindings and crossed the distance to us.
Mychael took two steps toward the boy, and the Khrynsani temple guard smiled, though it looked more like a wolf baring his fangs at a new option that’d just appeared on the menu.
He’d seen me.
“It appears I’m in your debt, Paladin Eiliesor. You take one prize away and bring me another.”
Mychael stepped protectively in front of me.
“Darshan?” the Khrynsani guard called over his shoulder.
A figure stepped out of a darkened doorway wearing a black robe lined in silver. A Khrynsani shaman.
Oh hell.
I could see others in the shadows behind him. So much for there being only one entrance to the courtyard.
The guard laughed softly. “Before the paladin so gallantly shielded his fair lady, did you see her?”
“Yes, I did. She is the one. Take her.”
So I was on the Khrynsani’s dance card this evening.
I heard a pair of thumps, and suddenly there were two fewer Khrynsani. A crossbow bolt had taken one in the chest, another in the back.
Teris looked wildly behind him. The shot had come from the roof next door. The marksmen were goblins, they were heavily armed—and best of all, they weren’t Khrynsani.
The Khrynsani scattered like roaches in torchlight. Apparently there were other exits from the courtyard into the street and the Khrynsani took full advantage. Within seconds the temple guards and shamans were moving to surround us.
Crossbow bolts weren’t the only things flying through the air as the Guardians, Khrynsani, and our mystery goblin allies launched spells, counterspells, and enough nasty crossfire to fry anything left standing. I wasn’t standing. I’d hit the cobbles during the first volley. In a serious fight, mages launched spells at an opponent’s torso or head for a quick kill. Anything below the knees didn’t warrant attention. The same went for personal shields.
I never ignored any target, especially ankles. A little focused will and a quick yank would jerk a mage’s feet right out from underneath him. It’d worked for me in the past, and was doing a fine job now as another Khrynsani landed on his back in the street. That most were knocking themselves unconscious when their heads hit the cobblestones was just an added bonus.
A spell ricocheted off someone’s shields. I rolled to keep from getting fried and ended up facedown in a gutter—and face-to-face with the kid. Eyes of the clearest aquamarine; eyes of a pure-blooded high elf. About eighteen years ago, a goblin had ventured way out of his or her family tree. Another explosion made us both cover our heads.
“Looks like someone doesn’t like you, either,” he said.
There was a momentary lull in the shooting and spellslinging, and the kid started scrambling to his feet. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. “In my family that’s not silence; it’s reloading.”
I felt cold air down the front of my shirt. I looked down. My jerkin laces had come undone. I frantically felt down the front of my jerkin and shirt. The kid’s eyes followed my every move. I’d lost one of the books. Dammit. Then I saw it, lying about ten feet away against the curb. A Khrynsani shaman spotted it at the same time. His eyes went wide and he dove for the book and snatched it up. I scrambled to my feet. He tried to run, but he didn’t get far. I tackled him at the knees and we both went down. Ugly wrestling ensued. The shaman had been taught in a temple. I’d been taught to beat the crap out of anyone who took something of mine. It didn’t take me long to get my book back.
A pair of strong hands jerked me to my feet and dragged me into an alley.
I went for my switchblade, but he got there first. Only two men knew where I kept it. Phaelan was one. The other was the tall goblin wearing rough leathers whose entire body had me pinned against the alley wall. His hair fell in a dark, silken curtain around us both. He had my switchblade, but I had his wrist.
Tamnais Nathrach.
I was breathing heavily and so was he. I’d just wrestled a Khrynsani shaman. I didn’t know what Tam’s excuse was— or what the hell he was doing here.
I drew breath to ask, then held it when a Khrynsani shaman ducked around the corner into the alley. His back was to us, his hands glowing red with an unreleased spell. Tam clapped his other hand over my mouth. He needn’t have bothered; I wasn’t going to make a sound. It was Darshan, the shaman who had recognized me. Neither one of us moved, but the shaman must have sensed that he wasn’t alone in the alley. He turned, and when he saw the two of us, he smiled slowly and the red glow faded from his hands.
“Primaru Nathrach, I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses. You arrived just in time to keep your end of our bargain.”
Bargain?
Darshan wanted me—and he knew Tam by a title he’d tried to bury along with his past.
The Khrynsani held a small vial in his hand. I’d seen its twin a few minutes ago.
His smile twisted into a leer, fangs peeking into view. “Do you require this, or do you wish to subdue her yourself?”
Tam violently hissed a single word and Darshan froze, his eyes wide with disbelief, strangled sounds coming from between paralyzed lips. Lips that I knew no air would ever pass through again. Strangled turned to gurgling. Tam repeated the same word over and over, each time deeper, softer, and more sibilant until the word resolved itself into a serpent’s hiss.
A death curse in Old Goblin. The blackest of black magic.
And Tam was wielding it with a master’s touch.
The Khrynsani’s eyes went vacant as he slid lifelessly down the alley wall.
The Saghred responded. I didn’t know if it was to Tam’s touch, the sound of Old Goblin, the death curse, or the potent scent of Tam’s black magic lingering in the air.
The Saghred didn’t care.
I felt heat coil tightly like a fiery serpent in the center of my chest. It uncoiled and ignited, spreading through my body, heating and awakening. Eager and quivering. I couldn’t hear anything past the pounding of my heart. Tam held me pressed against the wall, his lean body hard against mine. He looked down at me in shock and disbelief—and beyond that lay something darker and uncontrolled. His large eyes were bottomless black pools with barely any white exposed. His breathing became ragged and the sharp tips of his fangs appeared behind parted lips.
“The Saghred?” Tam’s question came out as a raw whisper.
It was, but I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I started to panic as the power between us continued to build, my breath coming in shallow gasps. I couldn’t fight it; I couldn’t stop it.
And I didn’t want to.
Tam slid his hand from my mouth to my throat, the heated trail of his fingers burning away all instinct to defend myself. He bent his head until his lips hovered over mine. His breath was warm, the sting of his fangs a sharp sweetness as he softly bit my bottom lip. Then his mouth met mine and the Saghred’s power coursed like liquid fire through my veins, meeting and melding with Tam’s black magic until what was mine and his became ours in a searing blaze of power. A pulsing, living thing ripe with dark promise.
No!
“Back,” I gasped. I managed to wedge my hands between Tam and me and pushed hard against his chest. “Dammit Tam, get back!”
My effort wasn’t necessary. Tam staggered back from me like I was the edge of an abyss and he’d almost fallen in. I dimly realized the fighting in the street had stopped.
“What are you doing here?” Tam’s words came out half strangled.
“The boy,” I heard myself say. “The Khrynsani want him.”
And me. A Khrynsani shaman knew Tam well enough to lower his defenses—and expected Tam to hand me over to him.
But Tam had killed him. With black magic.
I bent and retrieved my switchblade from where Tam had dropped it, never taking my eyes from the goblin that until two minutes ago, I had considered more than a friend. I flipped the blade open. It was in perfect working order. Good.
“Just what the hell are you doing here?” I growled. My eyes widened in realization. “You followed me here from Mermeia.” I looked at the dead Darshan. “Why? As a favor for the Khrynsani?”
Goblins had what they called “intricate alliances”—and even more intricate betrayals. I couldn’t believe that Tam would betray me.
I couldn’t deny that Tam was a dark mage.
Tam had always wanted me. Now Tam’s black magic wanted the Saghred. He’d come close to getting both.
“Raine!” It was Mychael’s desperate shout from somewhere in the street or the courtyard. I didn’t know. Hell, I could barely think. I put Rudra Muralin’s journal back in my jerkin, and saw that my hands were shaking. Fear, shock, rage—take your pick.
“Answer me, Tam!” I snapped.
Silence.
“Raine!” Mychael was closer.
“She’s here,” Tam called, loud enough to be heard by Mychael, but no one else.
Mychael appeared at the alley entrance, saw us, and noted the dead shaman. His eyes went back to Tam, his face an expressionless mask. The air around us still crackled with the remnants of our melded powers—and the acrid scent of Tam’s death curse.
I knew a little about Tam’s past. He’d reluctantly volunteered some things, and I’d heard whispered rumors of a few more. None of it was anything to be proud of. Mychael had known Tam long before I’d met him. As a lawman, I imagine Mychael had made it his business to know the name of every skeleton in Tam’s closet.
Mychael didn’t need to say a word; his blue eyes were blazing and so was his blade. They were doing his talking for him. Tam’s black eyes matched Mychael’s for intensity, and the red glow of a spell in readiness flared to life on his hands. The two of them were packing enough firepower to wipe out most of a city block. I’d seen this kind of behavior before—at high noon on a quickly deserted street. I was going to put a stop to it right now.
I stepped between them. It wasn’t the smartest idea I’d had today, but it’d keep either one of them from doing anything potentially lethal and definitely stupid.
