'It isn't. Thanks to you, we're keeping our eyes on him. Our assassin's mind wanders, and so therefore does his path. An embarrassing lack of discipline for one so weighty. I admit I am disappointed in the man.' He swung to face the portal. 'In any case, we have digressed a rather vast distance here. A small measure of assistance is required — not lengthy, I assure you. The Empress agrees that Kalam's journey suggests … personal risks to her person, and so must take ultimate precedence. Nonetheless…'
The Claw removed his half-cloak, carefully folding it before setting it down. Across his chest was a belt containing throwing stars. A brace of knives jutted pommel-forward under his left arm. Pearl went through a ritual of checking every weapon.
'Do I wait here?'
'As you like. While I cannot guarantee your safety if you accompany me, I am for a skirmish.'
'The enemy?'
'Followers of the Whirlwind.'
Lostara Yil unsheathed her tulwar.
Pearl grinned, as if well aware of the effect his words would have. 'When we appear, it shall be night. Thick mists, as well. Our foes are Semk and Tithansi, and our allies-'
'Allies? This is a skirmish already underway?'
'Oh, indeed. Wickans and marines of the Seventh.'
Lostara bared her teeth. 'Coltaine.'
His grin broadening, Pearl drew on a pair of thin leather gloves. 'Ideally,' he continued, 'we should remain unseen.'
'Why?'
'If help appears once, the expectation is it will appear again. The risk is dulling Coltaine's edge, and by the Hidden Ones, the Wickan will need that edge in the weeks to come.'
'I am ready.'
'One thing,' the Claw drawled. 'There's a Semk demon. Stay away from it, for while we know virtually nothing of its powers, what we do know suggests an appalling … temper.'
'I shall be right behind you,' Lostara said.
'Hmm, in that case, once we're through, pull left. I'll go right. Not an auspicious entry my getting trampled, after all.'
The portal flared. In a blur Pearl slid forward and vanished. Lostara jabbed her heels into her mount's flanks. The horse bolted through the portal-
— her hooves thumping hard soil. Fog twisted wildly around her, through a darkness that was alive with screams and detonations. She'd already lost Pearl, but that concern was quickly flung aside as four Tithansi warriors on foot stumbled into view.
A sharper had chewed them up, and none was prepared as Lostara charged them, her tulwar flashing. They scattered, but their wounds made them fatally slow. Two fell to her blade with the first pass. She spun her horse to ready a return charge.
The other two warriors were nowhere to be seen, the mists closing in like slowly tumbling blankets. A flurry of sound to her left brought her wheeling her horse around, in time to see Pearl sprint into view. He spun in midstride and sent a star flashing behind him.
The huge, bestial man that lumbered into sight had his head rocked back as the iron star embedded itself in his forehead. It barely slowed him.
Lostara snarled, quickly dropping the tulwar to swing wildly from the loop around her wrist as she brought her crossbow around.
Her shot went low, the quarrel sinking in just below the Semk's sternum and above the odd thick leather belts protecting his midriff. It proved far more efficacious than Pearl's star. As the man grunted and buckled, she saw with shock that his mouth and nostrils had been sewn shut. He draws
The Semk straightened, flinging his arms forward. The power that erupted from them was unseen, but both Pearl and Lostara were thrown, tumbling through the air. The horse screamed in mortal agony amidst a rapid crunching and cracking of bones.
The Red Blade landed on her right hip, feeling the bone resound within her like a fractured bell. Then waves of pain closed taloned hands around her leg. Her bladder went, flooding her underclothes in a hot bloom.
Moccasined feet landed beside her. A knife grip was thrust into her hand. 'Take yourself once I'm done! Here it comes!'
Teeth clenched, Lostara Yil twisted around.
The Semk demon was ten paces away, huge and unstoppable. Pearl crouched between them, holding knives that dripped red fire. Lostara knew he considered himself already dead.
The thing that suddenly closed from the demon's left was a nightmare. Black, three-limbed, a jutting shoulder blade like a cowl behind a long-necked head, a grinning jaw crowded with fangs, and a single, flat black eye that glistened wetly.
Even more terrifying was the humanoid figure that sat behind that shoulder blade, its face a mocking mimicry of the beast it rode, the lips peeled back to reveal daggerlike fangs as long as a toddler's fingers, its lone eye flashing.
The apparition struck the Semk demon like a runaway armoured wagon. The single forelimb snapped forward to plunge deep into the demon's belly, then pulled back in an explosion of spurting fluids. Clenched in that forelimb's grip was something that radiated fury in palpable waves. The air went icy.
