*
“Somebody do something!“ Tilda shouted, then she jumped as the pillars rang a second time. Zebulon Baj Nif barreled out from between them and neither had time to do anything but widen their eyes before he slammed into her. They went down in a pile and almost slid off the top of the dais before Brother Heggenauer knelt and stopped them against his leg.
“Tilda?” Zeb blinked down at her. His helmet was gone and his hair was wet. Cold water dripped off his nose and onto Tilda’s.
“Get off!” Tilda hissed at the couple hundred pounds of Minaun and ring mail on her chest.
He did so with a helpful yank on his collar from Shikashe, who hoisted Zeb to his feet. Claudja helped Tilda to hers, and as Zeb stood up facing her a chunk of wet white material Tilda was unfamiliar with plopped to the floor from under his armor.
“Is that snow?” Amatesu asked.
“Uh. Yes. I think so.”
Shikashe frowned behind Zeb, reached out and tugged something off his ring mail. The samurai held several blades of deep-green grass between his fingers.
“What happened to you?” Claudja asked. Tilda was glad she did, as she wanted to know but was still trying to get her breath back after Zeb had nearly collapsed her rib cage.
“I think I went somewhere else,” Zeb said, his eyes wide and wondering. “A couple of places, actually.”
Tilda and some of the others turned to look at the Circle Wizard, but Phoarty only shrugged and shook his head.
“I’ve got nothing,” he said. “Really.”
Nesha-tari cleared her throat, and the doors barred against the hobgoblins shuddered under a heavy impact.
“We should go if we are going,” John Deskata said quietly. “We can sort out what just happened later.“ John looked absolutely awful as he was the only one who had not bathed recently, and was now spattered both in hobgoblin gore and his own blood from the deep thigh wound Amatesu had already healed. But worse than that to Tilda was the hard, blank set of his face, and the smoldering green eyes that now looked both somehow right, but terrible.
Nesha-tari waited no longer. She pulled both Claudja and Phoarty by the shoulders and hurried them down off the dais and back toward the open set of doors, the Duchess still holding tightly to a dagger Tilda had given her and the wizard clutching a heavy satchel to his chest. Shikashe handed Zeb his crossbow and followed the others, while the cleric and the shukenja still eyed Zeb oddly.
“Are you all right?” Tilda asked him once she had her breath back.
Zeb nodded dully, then his eyes seemed to finally get some focus back as he looked at her.
“You? Did I hurt you?”
“Bruised but unbroken,” Tilda said, and turned to follow the others. Zeb trotted beside her.
“You’re sure?” he said, his voice now returning to normal after sounding punch-drunk and stupefied. “Miss Matilda, I would never forgive myself if I in any way damaged your breasts.”
Tilda stopped for a moment at the bottom of the dais stairs, and Zeb jogged on past her looking back with a wide, wolfish smile and a wink.
“Told you he likes you,” Heggenauer said as he clanged by as well.
Tilda started after them shaking her head, but her mouth broke into an unbidden smile. Amatesu was beside her as the two mounted the stairs at the back of the line. The echoing bangs from the other door were deafening now, and when everyone was in the hall by which they had entered they closed those doors behind them. There was no way to lock them from this side.
Tilda wanted to ask if anyone had any idea where they were going, but Nesha-tari had already set off down the long, carpeted hallway at a lope and the others had to rush to keep up. They did not slow until they reached the end of the hall that ran the full length of the palace’s wing, and the open doors to the tower through which they had entered, what now felt like days ago. Despite that feeling, Tilda was surprised to see the gray light of Vod’Adia’s early dawn through the open doors across the tower floor.
Nesha-tari waited for the others to gather around her before she stepped out into the tower with her hands spread apart and the blue lightning sparking in her palms, raking the surroundings with her luminous eyes. She spoke in Zantish.
“She says,” Zeb panted, “that we should get away from here and regroup in the house where we camped last night. From there we will decide what to do next.”
“How far is that?” Claudja asked.
“Just across the open area. The three-story on the corner to the south and west.”
The party filed into the tower, Tilda again with her bow raised though her chest and arms were already sore. Not so much from Zeb crashing into her, but more from the score or so of bow shots she had taken in a matter of minutes.
Nothing interfered with them in the tower and Nesha-tari led the way outside again at a run, heading for the footbridge over the snaking ditch through the blasted palace grounds. The others ran with her, grouping closer together than was probably wise, but all feeling nervous.
Something dark and massive arose from the ground to the east of the party, throwing a great shadow across the morning sun. Tilda felt its touch like an icy hand and the strength went out of her legs. Party members were falling to the ground, and she was one of them.
The same titanic roar that had shaken all of Vod’Adia awake on the first night after the Opening sounded again, though this time it came from much closer, and it was aimed. A heavy wave of sound pressed Tilda into the dirt and dust and she lay beneath it shuddering, for surely nothing could stand in the face of it.
Chapter Forty-One
The Sable City Page 96