My heart began to pound in my chest. I was terrified. What if it was another of the fierce Kobalos like the beast who had attacked Susan? What chance would I have against something like that? For a moment I panicked completely and was ready to run and save myself. Then, with a sense of shame, I thought of Susan and Bryony. How could I leave them?
So I took a deep breath to steady myself, turned, and gripped the knife in my belt more tightly.
To my surprise, coming towards me was one of the fierce women who had taken me up to the bath house where I’d found Slither. She was carrying a club and I saw anger and purpose in her eyes. With a trembling hand I tugged the knife from my belt and pointed it towards her. The sight of it brought her to a stop about five paces short of me.
I feared the club she wielded, but I could see that my blade scared her more. I took a step towards her as if I meant to attack; she took a step as well – backwards, away from me.
‘Susan, take the horses outside!’ I shouted, keeping myself between the slave woman and my sister.
Twice Susan fumbled with the reins but managed to lead the three piebald mares out into the yard. I followed, backing slowly and warily, never taking my eyes off the woman who held the cudgel. Now she was matching me step for step and I thought I saw a new determination in her eyes.
Her face was criss-crossed with scars, as were her arms. A slave’s rearing and training were effected with the bite of a blade – so Slither had told me. No doubt I would face the same when I became a slave myself.
I tried a new tactic. ‘Why don’t you come with us?’ I suggested, forcing a smile onto my face. ‘You don’t have to stay here and be mistreated. Escape with us!’
She did not reply, answering my words with a scowl. Suddenly I understood. If she allowed me to escape with the horses, she would be punished – perhaps even killed. She feared her masters more than she did me. But now I was out in the yard, and I had to protect my family.
‘The gate! Lead them to the gate!’ I shouted at Susan, pointing towards it.
The slave was still matching me step for step but had not yet attacked. Then I heard more female voices. Other slaves were running towards us – including their leader, the woman with the torch.
‘I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die here!’ Susan screamed. ‘What did we do to deserve this? I wish I were back at the farm!’
I knew that it was all over now: Susan was correct – we would probably die here. But I had no intention of betraying my own terror and despair. Why give them the satisfaction?
I raised the blade to show that I would not go down without a fight.
The woman with the club held it aloft and ran straight towards me. I was scared but desperate, and as she brought down the club, intending to brain me, I slashed at her arm with the dagger.
The blade cut into her forearm. She screamed and the club dropped from her hand. Now she was looking at me with pain-filled eyes, while blood dripped from her arm onto the flags. For a moment it halted the others in their tracks. But then they began to move forward again.
Where was Slither? I wondered. Had he managed to rescue poor Bryony?
THIRTY-NINE KOBALOS WARRIORS faced me in the cellar. Thirty-nine warriors between me and the human child I had come to claim. They wore armour but were without helmets, as was customary on such occasions. The hair on their faces was long and obscured their mouths.
Then there was that most dangerous opponent: the pigtailed Shaiksa assassin who now held a blade to Bryony’s throat.
For a moment the room became almost totally silent; all that could be heard was the crackling of the logs in the fireplace. Then, with a roar of anger, a warrior charged towards me, lifting a huge double-edged sword, ready for the kill.
I gave no ground, moving only at the very last second. I stepped to the right, ducked under the descending blade and struck out sideways with my sabre. My blade bit into his neck and severed the spinal column so that my would-be killer fell stone dead at my feet.
Then I slowly flexed the fingers of my left hand so that the knuckles cracked, and then, with a wide, cruel smile, reached into my coat and withdrew my second blade, a dagger, so that now I faced my enemies with a sharp weapon in each hand.
‘Give me what is rightfully mine. Give me what I demand. Do it quickly and I may let some of you live!’ I shouted, amplifying my voice so that the dishes rattled and the knives and forks danced on the table-tops.
I had used those words as a distraction – because immediately, without waiting for a reply, I leaped up onto the nearest table. Then I was racing across the table-tops towards the fireplace, scattering silver dishes and golden goblets with my feet, all my will directed towards one end: to prevent the assassin crouching over the child from slaying her.
To control the assassin while dashing through my enemies was not easy. Shaiksa assassins are trained in a multitude of mind disciplines and can sometimes resist even the will of a mage.
Thus, even as I jumped down from the final table, he began to slice the blade up towards the child’s throat. The blindfold had fallen from her eyes, and she shrieked as it approached her. But I struck out with the hilt of my own blade, driving it hard into the temple of my opponent so that he fell backwards, stunned, the weapon falling from his hand.
It did not pay to kill such a being wantonly. The Shaiksa never forget, and even as one lay close to death, his dying mind could reach out over a great distance to tell his brothers the name and location of his slayer. So it was pragmatism, not mercy, that had guided my hand.
I snatched up the child. She screamed as I lifted her, but I used the mage skill called boska: adjusting the chemical composition of the air in my lungs, I breathed quickly into her face and she fell instantly into a deep coma.
Then I turned back to face my enemies, who were approaching me with weapons drawn, faces filled with fury. I began to increase my size, simultaneously using my will to hurl into their faces a twitching pulse of naked fear so that, as I grew, their eyes rolled in their sockets and their mouths opened in dismay.
Then, with one final effort of will, I reached out with my mind and extinguished the thirteen torches that lit the subterranean banquet hall. It was instantly plunged into darkness, but through my mage eyes I could still see: for me, the room was lit by a silver spectral light. Thus I was able to escape the melee, passing safely through my enemies.
I had almost reached the door when I sensed a threat behind me. It was the Shaiksa assassin. He had recovered quickly and, unlike the warriors, was resisting my magic. Now he was racing towards me, twirling a blade in his left hand and a war-axe in his right. Every fibre of his being was focused upon slaying me.