The White Dragon (50 page)

Just a trifle ostentatious
, Tansen thought.

Rumor had it that Wyldon was touchy about his artistic talents and had once killed an assassin who'd said the wrong thing about one of his sculptures. People also claimed that several local
toreni
not only praised his art, but actually paid him for it, just to appease him. Looking at some of Wyldon's efforts now, Tansen suspected those
toreni
had put the sculptures in the darkest, most forgotten corners of their residences.
 

Hiding amidst soaking foliage and with nothing to occupy him as he waited, Tansen was chilly and bored by the time an assassin finally wandered into view.

It's about time.
 

An attack which met with no opposition was normally the ideal situation, but since the goal tonight was to be seen and noticed, he'd had to wait until now.

Uttering a piercing, high-pitched battle cry that he hoped would carry above the noise of the water and alert any assassin within earshot, as well as inform his own men to commence the attack,
 
Tansen leaped out of the foliage with a
shir
in each hand, launched himself at the assassin—and slipped in the mud created by Wyldon's copious waterworks.

Damn.

The soles of his wet boots slid out from under him, and his arms flailed as he went careening into the stunned assassin.

"What th—Oof!" The assassin went down, winded by the violent collision.
 

Tansen reached out to stab him—and missed completely as he went sliding past his opponent and straight toward the geysering pool of water.

He scrabbled wildly at the slick mud as he slid downhill.

A slope? This didn't look like a slope!

He crashed into the low—previously unnoticed—barrier surrounding the pool. Winded and smarting in a dozen places, he hauled himself to his feet and turned to face the assassin—who'd already risen and now came at him in a flying tackle.

They went tumbling backwards together into the water pool—which was not, Dar be thanked, ensorcelled against enemies. Wet and cold, yes, but it didn't freeze Tansen's parts off.

He rose to his feet again, glad that the pool wasn't deep—he'd sunk only to his waist—and peered through the heavy shower of water raining down on him from Wyldon's magical fountain. The assassin was on the other side of its dense core.
 

They both started to circle it at the same time. Unfortunately, in the same direction. Tansen stopped and switched direction—again, at the same moment the assassin did. They stopped again and stared at each other in consternation.

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Tansen shouted, "I'll wait here."

He didn't know if the assassin—now looking very annoyed—had heard him, but the man came tromping laboriously through the waist-high water while Tansen awaited him. Meanwhile, a few shrill sounds coming faintly from around them suggested that others were fighting now. Squinting against the water pouring down on him, Tansen glanced over his shoulder and saw frantic movements beyond the edge of the pond. The battle was on.

The pond
, he realized suddenly.

Yes, he could leave a
shir
sticking out of the assassin's body, but what if it got dislodged somehow, after his escape, and sank to the bottom of the pool?
 

That would be just my luck.

Realizing he needed to kill the man on solid ground to be sure that someone would discover the
shir
, Tansen found himself obliged to run away from his approaching opponent. He glimpsed the assassin's incredulous expression as he started retreating, making his way to the edge of pond.

This is embarrassing
.

They were close enough together now that he could hear clearly when the assassin bellowed, "Come here, you coward!"

"Come catch me!" he replied.

I sound like a coy virgin.

Tansen placed his hands on the solid barrier surrounding the pool and, pausing just long enough to make sure he wasn't leaping into another assassin's arms, heaved himself up out of the water. The still-healing
shir
wound on his hand burned in protest, but he ignored it. He stalled his opponent's oncoming attack with a quick backward kick in the face, then rolled onto the ground. Well, the mud.

The assassin tried to follow, but he slipped and fell back into the water—hitting his head on the solid barrier. He floated face down in the pool, unconscious and drowning in peace.

I don't believe this.

Tansen looked around for another opponent. Someone he could actually kill with the damned
shir
this time. There were a number of men struggling together all around him now, mostly rolling around on the slippery ground. It was dark, the men were all dressed in black, and they were all covered in mud. He couldn't tell Wyldon's assassins from his own men.

Maybe I should just wait around for someone to attack me
, he reflected sourly.

However, the combatants were all so occupied with each other than no one seemed to notice him. The steady rumble of the water ensured that he couldn't hear anyone's voice well enough to distinguish friend from foe. He supposed he could just drop a
shir
on the ground, but that seemed so obvious that even Wyldon might suspect it had been left behind on purpose.

"Wouldn't anyone like to fight
me?
" he invited.

He took a few quick steps backward as two mud-coated tumbling bodies came hurtling toward him across the ground. When he backed into something solid and icy cold, he stopped abruptly and spun around—or tried to. Two chilly arms encircled him from behind with astonishing speed and held him fast.

He saw water enfolding him. Felt water against his body. Sensed the cold evil of water magic engulfing him.

Wyldon's sculptures! They weren't just there for decoration, he realized, they were sentries. Less effective than Wyldon perhaps supposed, since all Tansen's men had slipped past them and were wreaking havoc now. But the statues were not without their uses, he acknowledged as he struggled against this one.

The
shir
, he thought suddenly. His own Kintish blades had always proved ineffective against water magic, but a
shir
was different. Its watery origin was the same as this ensorcelled statue's. And the
shir
was harder than this creature, in the way that a steel blade was harder than flesh. The arms the held him now possessed magical strength, but they were nonetheless soft, fluid, full of give.
 

Yes.

He gave up his struggle and, lowering one hand, reached back and plunged the
shir
into what passed for a leg on Wyldon's water-born sculpture, then ripped sideways, destroying the limb.

The thing lost balance and started to wobble. The creature's grip on him loosened, and Tansen twisted in its cold embrace. Aiming at what could best be described as its torso, he plunged the
shir
into it and pulled it downward, gutting the creature like a fish. It released him and collapsed, the
shir
still stuck in its ruined body. Only one
shir
in hand now, he stared as the statue started to disintegrate, melting into mere water again, a puddle growing around the
shir
he had left sticking out of it.

Now killing
that
thing, Tansen figured, was a believable reason for an assassin to forget his
shir
.

Time to go.

He stumbled way from the corpse—so to speak—and started yelling, "Retreat! Fall back!" The men didn't seem to hear him, so he entered the fray, still shouting for retreat.
 

Someone barreled toward him, and Tansen nearly killed the man in sheer reflex before a familiar voice howled, "No! Don't! It's me!"

"Galian?" He blurted at the moving mountain of mud. "Go! Go! Now!"

"But—"

"That's an order!"

Wyldon's waterfall roared angrily, a very different sound from its rumbling rush. The coiling bars over his cave's entrance began hissing like angry snakes as they parted like curtains.

He's coming.

"Retreat!" Tansen shouted again, worried now.

"I'm
trying!
" Radyan shouted back.

Tansen whirled in the direction of that familiar voice. He recognized Radyan just in time to see him slip and fall, locked in deadly struggle with an assassin.
 

The angry roar of the waterfall had attracted another of the men's attention, and he was already making for the forest.
 

Taking care not to lose his footing, Tansen made his way to where Radyan was struggling in the mud. He meant to deliver a fatal blow to Wyldon's assassin with his
shir
, but the two men were rolling around so much that he only got the shoulder. No matter, it was enough to stop the struggle and let Radyan escape, which was what counted right now.

The violent roaring and hissing of the water all around them was enough to alert his remaining men to make their escape, though one was pinned down by one the water sculptures—which were actively stalking the intruders now.

That does it. I am
never
coming back here.

The
shallah
struggled violently, grunting in pain beneath the watery claws of some huge, fantastic, catlike creature. Tansen leaped on it and used the
shir
to cut off its head. Then he grabbed the muddy, bleeding, dumbfounded man by the arm and dragged him into the thick foliage, where they made a wet and undignified retreat, with all due haste, from the scene of their battle.

Waiting in the dark with the men's supplies—food, water, ordinary clothing, and Tansen's swords—Zarien listened intently for any sound of his companions' return. There were so many strange sounds on the dryland at night that he could have sworn he heard them coming twenty different times, only to be mistaken every time.

His head was drooping sleepily and he could barely keep his eyes open when he heard the sound—unmistakable even to his ears, this time—of someone (or something?) stalking through the dense forest.

Please, please, please
, he prayed to all the gods of the wind and the sea.
Don't let it be a mountain cat.
 

Then he remembered the
stahra
. Theoretically, it wouldn't let a mountain cat kill him. Or even hurt him.

All the same, he'd rather not test the theory right now, alone and in the dark.

He heard more crashing through the foliage and decided that, whatever was out there, it couldn't be an assassin. Wouldn't they use a little stealth? And he knew by now that Tansen and his men wouldn't make that much noise. Well, not unless speed was more important than silence, he thought anxiously.

Life wasn't hard enough already. No, now Tansen had to go around attacking waterlords.

As the noise drew closer, Zarien raised his head from his hiding place—a tumble of rocks—and peered out into the darkness. Yes, he could see it now, something moving through the faint dappled moonlight. A shadowy figure—tall like a person, not short like a mountain cat.

Only when it was fairly close did he realize that it was a woman. The roundness of certain areas was unmistakable when she paused and turned, silhouetted in the faint moonlight.
 

A woman lost out here in the dark? He wasn't sure what he should do, but he didn't think that ignoring her was right. So he rose to his feet and said in a loud whisper, "Don't be afraid."