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no kindness, Emien observed. He gripped the royal tunic with bruising force.
Thin shoulders jerked under the velvet. Emien knew a thrill of excitement.
Never before had a man born to power suffered discomfort at his hands. He
shoved the King toward the door. Kisburn stumbled gracelessly forward. Emien
followed, stepping callously on the fingers of the officer who thrashed on the
floor. With Tathagres a step behind, he plunged through the arch into the
anteroom, beyond range of enemy weapons.
The heavy iron-bound panels beyond were closed, barred from without, cornering
them like mice in a culvert. Emien whirled. He yelled warning, just as the
archway leading to the hall exploded in a burst of red light.
Tathagres spoke through the glare. "Move aside.
Hurry!"
She intended to break the doors with sorcery. Emien dove clear, dragging the
King by the collar. The spell blazed at his heels. Shadows streaked the
anteroom floor, spattered across with sparks, and the panels sagged on their
hinges. Wood and steel unravelled into smoke, rendered ineffective as the
weap-ons set against them in the main hall. But when Tathagres followed the
King through the gap, she lacked her usual lithe grace. Use of sorcery taxed
her, Emien realized; the discovery pleased him. If her powers were limited by
ordinary human endurance, he wondered how long she could continue before
exhaustion made her careless.
A guardsman sprawled dead before the doorway, the handle of a throwing knife
sunk between his shoulderblades. Tathagres saw him and stopped. With enemies
about the fortress and no time left for etiquette, she spun and faced the
King.
"Where are your personal chambers? Take me there quickly. Your Grace cannot be
properly defended in the open."
Reliant upon her protection, the King answered at once. But Emien noticed she
kept one hand poised on her necklace as if she expected resistance. When the
Warlord-General's aide ran into the corridor, a score of guardsmen at his
heels, her expression showed open annoyance.
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She regarded them as interference, the boy deduced. With the conquest of
Cliffhaven thrown into question, Kisburn's men
were allies no longer. Tathagres intended to claim the Keys to Elrinfaer by
force.
The aide saw the corpse. He skidded to a halt with a rattle of mail and gear
and saluted smartly. "Your
Grace, the enemy has closed and barred the main gates of the fortress. Archers
fire on the courtyard.
We've had to move the company inside."
He paused, breathless, and waited. But without the advice of Lord Sholl and
his council, the King seemed strangely in-decisive. He made no effort to
assert himself as Tathagres intervened.
"Forget the gates. There's been an attempt on your sover-eign's life. The
Warlord-General lies dead."
She jerked her head at the charred ruin of the doors to the main hall. "You,
guards. Block this entrance. "
To the aide she added, "Fetch reinforcements. There must be passages behind
the walls. Purge them if you can. You will receive further orders after I have
seen your King secure."
The King accepted Tathagres' judgment without question. He dismissed the aide
and fled in the direction of his chamber.
The Kielmark's fortress proved a maze of stairs and angled passages. Winded
after his rush from the main hall, Emien halted with Tathagres and the King
before a brass-studded portal. Two of Kisburn's personal honor guards flanked
the entrance, vigilant and alert at their posts.
Tathagres' aggression softened like steel under velvet. She waited with poised
patience while the guardsmen saluted their sovereign Lord, then stepped
smartly aside to admit him. Tired, shaken and wheezing, the King leaned
heavily on the latch. The massive panels swung open, revealing a wide chamber
richly carpeted in scarlet and gold. Kisburn hastened to a side table where a
tray waited with a bottle of wine from the Kiel-mark's private cellars.
Ignoring the gold-rimmed goblet, he raised the flask to his lips. Fine crystal
rattled against his teeth as he swallowed and his fingers marked sweaty prints
on the flask.
A choked-off cry made him start. The king whirled, drib-bling wine down his
chin. Beyond the opened doorway, Tath-agres lowered one of the honor guards,
dead, across the corpse of the first. She straightened with wicked intent,
pulled the heavy panels closed, then placed her back against them.
From the side, Emien saw her grip the latch until her knuckles blanched
against the brass. Fatigued at last by her sorceries, she used the doors more
to support her weight than to forestall attempted escape.
But her eyes stayed cruelly alert as she regarded her prey across the airy
expanse of the chamber. "Get me the Keys to Elrinfaer, your Grace."
She turned her shoulder to the wood, one hand raised to her necklace. "Or
shall I force them from you?"
The King dropped the wine. The flask toppled across the tray and shattered,
spattering glass over his gold-bordered tunic. A stain darkened the carpet
under his boots as he gaped in astonished disbelief.
Tathagres had betrayed him; Emien made no effort to contain the elated
laughter which arose in his throat.
Jolted by the sound, Kisburn recovered a shadow of his royal propriety. He
shook his head, wine-streaked fingers clamped over the table edge. "But the
Chief Advisor assured me-"
"Lord Sholl is dead," Tathagres interrupted. Amethysts flashed as her fingers
jumped against her neckband.
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