“Nor am—Brenner!”
Slate turned, following the paladin’s shout, just in time to see the assassin lower the old rune to the ground. Her throat was slashed with black in the moonlight. As they watched, the blunt-fingered hands closed convulsively on Brenner’s sleeves, then relaxed and dropped away.
“You killed her!” Caliban said.
“You said yourself she was a demon,” growled Brenner. “What wereyouplanning on doing with her?”
“Dammit—there’s a rite—” The paladin dropped to his knees next to the deer woman. He put his free hand on the creature’s forehead, the other locked around the hilt of his sword.
A moment slid by. Caliban stared into the dead rune’s eyes, speaking in a language that Slate had never heard before.
Even not knowing the words, Slate felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. It was the voice he was using, the calm, trustworthy one, but it had a timbre to it that she didn’t understand.
Is that how he does it? Does he actually talk the demons into hell?
Apparently in this case he could not. He fell silent.
“Did you do it?” asked Slate quietly, afraid to interrupt him.
“No,” said Caliban bitterly. “Her soul is gone, and the demon fled unbound.” He closed the rune’s eyes with his fingertips. “No time to catch it. Brenner was quite…efficient.”
“Youwere going to do it,” said Brenner. “You ought to be grateful, paladin. This way you keep your hands clean.”
Caliban stared at him. And reached down. And drew about an inch of steel.
Oh my god, they’re really doing it.
They’re really going to have a goddamn dick-measuring contest right here in the woods with a bunch of murderous deer-people after us.
Slate pushed the gnole back, stepped between the two men, and said “Stand down, both of you, andthat’s an order.”
Neither of them obeyed. She hadn’t really expected them to.
Oh, well, at least they’re both looking at me instead of at each other.
“You got crazy friends, crazy lady.”
“I’m gonna havedeadfriends in a minute, if they don’t come to their senses!” She put her hands on her hips and glared at all and sundry. “Need I remind you that there’s a whole tribe full of deer-things that are gonna be bloody furious when they find out we’ve killed their shaman, so can I suggest we get thehellout of here before you two go back to pissing in a circle around each other or whatever the hell this is supposed to be?”
It was quite a speech and she didn’t stop for breath once. Hoping for both men to break into spontaneous applause or abject apologies was probably too much, but they did have the decency to look embarrassed.
Someone came thumping and scrabbling down the opposite bank of the river. Slate turned and saw Learned Edmund skidding the last few feet down the slope to the water’s edge.
“Mistress Slate! Is that you? I heard yelling—”
“It’s us. Saddle the horses. We need to get out of here now.” She turned her back on Caliban and Brenner. Let them kill each other if they wanted to, she’d done her job. The gnole’s arm wentaround her waist. Slate leaned on the little creature and limped down the slope to the river.
She was trying to figure out how she was going to get across the river—there wasn’t room for two on the stepping stones—and someone reached down and scooped her up.
She expected it to be Caliban—it was such a typical knightly thing, and she was prepared to get very cutting if he said anything about weakness—and was rather surprised to get a whiff of tobacco instead.
“Chivalry rubbing off on you, Brenner?” she asked.
The assassin smirked down at her and strode out lightly out across the rocks. The hands curled around her knees and shoulders were wet with blood, but she was too tired and too bloody herself to care.
“You’d better hope not, darlin’.”
“That was some pretty quick thinking with the hostage,” she said.
