My attention immediately shot back to the fight at the organic, meaty sound of Taran’s fist striking Death’s face, followed by the scrape of chairs on stone as everyone else shot to their feet.
Taran’s arm jerked back for a second blow, then a third—but it didn’t land. Death threw him off, sending him into a roll that terminated at Smenos’s feet.
Wirrea was the first person to make a noise, a high-pitched, feral screech, because she’d been dislodged from Death’s lap and toppled onto the ground. His wife’s angry yowling sparked Smenos into action, and the crafter god reached for Taran, ready to yank him up by his throat. Taran moved first though, hammering an elbow to the side of Smenos’s knee before leaping to his feet.
Death rose to his knees, expression incredulous at the trickle of golden ichor that dripped from his broken nose. He wiped it with his sleeve, smearing it across his chin and bared teeth, then snarled deep in his throat as his gaze locked on Taran.
Taran’s broad shoulders straightened in readiness and red flooded his cheeks, posture as graceful as a stone statue of a warrior in a monument when he spun to block Smenos’s bull rush.
It was faster than my eyes could track. None of them were hampered by mere mortal strength and agility, only by their surprise and incandescent rage. It wasn’t a brawl—it was more like a rockslide, given the forces being applied. Taran fought like it was a bar brawl though, a dirty one, striking out at weak points, eyes and groins and kneecaps. But he was outnumbered and not as strong as the other two gods, his defeat inevitable even as they exchanged five blows, ten, the seconds twisting up and tighter like the air was being torn out of my lungs.
I shoved at Marit’s shoulder, trying to push him into the fight, but he winced away with a reproachful expression.
“A guest should not fight with his host. But look—Taran’s winning,” he said.
And somehow Taran was—he had more experience taking hits, or perhaps in dealing them out, and Smenos was flagging quickly while Death couldn’t aim past his black eye and swelling nose. Taran’s lips were drawn back in fierce battle-joy, even though the skin on his knuckles had split and he was favoring his left leg. The way he moved was like a dancer as he hammered the side of his hand into Death’s floating ribs before Smenos finally got a hold on him by the back of his skull to lift him into the air with his feet dangling. Taran made an impossible flex of his stomach muscles and swung his feet back to connect with the crafter god’s diaphragm, but Smenos’s grip didn’t slacken.
That was when I felt the change. The taste of dust and decay on my tongue prickled into metal, swelling and heating in my nose. Divine power. This room had been empty of it before I called Wesha’s here, and now some other god’s power was sweeping in like one of Marit’s waves. I saw nothing, heard nothing, but I recognized it, what I’d felt in the high temple of Ereban a moment before the fire fell from the rafters and turned dozens of maiden-priests into unwilling sacrifices.
Death. He’d stretched back his arm as though pulling something heavy out of the world, and his face was no longer that of the smiling young man who taunted Taran over wine, but the bright shape of the lord of the Underworld who scoured life from the Earth. He’d dropped the mask, gathered his power, and now he prepared to fling it at Taran.
Abruptly certain I was about to watch Taran die a second time, blasted into his component atoms by the raw force of Death’s hatred, I screamed.
“Stop!”
In the second before Death launched his attack, the voice of a trained singer was enough to carry over the grunts of Taran and Smenos where they grappled hand-to-hand, the growling fury ofDeath…and the outraged howl Wirrea made when she realized I had a knife pressed to her carotid artery.
I tangled one hand in her fawn-dappled hair, hard enough to bow her neck back and make it clear to Smenos that the knife I held was a stone one. I firmed my feet before I looked at the other gods, but my relief that Death had stayed his hand fell into pulse-skipping confusion.
Four gods stared at me in identical, horrified disbelief.
Even Taran.
I licked my lips and shot my eyes at Death, wordlessly indicating to Taran that he ought to take this momentary reprieve to get his own knife out and even the odds.
Instead, his voice was appalled when he spoke. “Put the knife down, Iona.”
“What?”
I tried to understand what the play was. How were we getting out of this room? I glanced at Marit, wondering if a giant wave was going to deliver us from the standoff, but the sea god slowly shook his head, eyes beginning to fill up with fat, wobbling tears.
When I didn’t move, Taran shook Smenos’s grip off and slowly approached me. I didn’t believe he was serious about it until he put his hand over mine and wrenched my fingers away from the knife. It clattered to the ground, and Wirrea burst free, running with a wail to her husband.
I turned to Taran full of confused horror, because why weren’t we fighting our way out of the room? How had he thought we were getting out when he hauled off and slugged the god of death in the face?
Smenos briefly embraced the wife who’d been grinding her hips into Death’s lap a few moments before, then stalked across the wreckage of dinner to me.
Even then, I had the impulse to align my shoulders with Taran.I should have realized by then that he didn’t see us as fighting this battle together, but it still took me by surprise when he let the crafter god scream into my face so loudly that spittle flecked my cheeks.
“A guest. A mortal. You attack my wife inmy house?”
The last two words made the beams of the rafters creak and flex as though ready to bring the entire building down on top of us.
Which I might have survived. Smenos’s rage looked worse.
The Shipwright wasn’t known for his displays of emotion, and he stretched out both arms as though attempting to gather calm. The walls and ceilings flexed and vibrated but finally stilled as the panting of our breaths slowed.
Once he had recovered himself, Smenos slowly looked me up and down.
