“Don’t call me Stump,” Hegner told Sackett.
“You aren’t killing anything!” Persephone exclaimed. “Your weapons are making Minna nervous, that’s all. Suri, can you calm her down?”
The men kept advancing. “Adler, you come up. Hegner, stay where you are. I’ll block it in; then Adler can slay it. He has the best angle.”
“I order you to stop!” Persephone yelled.
Sackett and Adler chuckled, looking at each other, amused. Persephone had always known laughter to be a warm, friendly sound, but this was cold—the noise a raow might make when tucking itself in for the night on a bed of human bones.
“Don’t care what you do with the wolf or the girl. We can move their bodies after,” Sackett said. “But no cuts on Persephone. When her body is found, it has to look like an accident. I’m guessing she took a bad fall on these rocks.”
“What?” Persephone couldn’t believe her ears. Her mind struggled to make sense of the absurd and failed.
Adler fanned out to flank Minna.
Suri finally took her eyes off the canopy and looked squarely at Adler. She pointed at him and announced, “The trees say you’ll die first. They told me you offended Wogan. He doesn’t appreciate killing in his woods.”
Suri turned to Sackett. “The trees tell me you will die second. Not because you deserve to live longer but so you’ll have time to understand. They say you won’t be going to Alysin or even Rel. The paths to paradise are shut to you. Your spirit will enter the darkness of Nifrel.”
Sackett’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need to be a mystic to predict the future. I’m not the one about to die, little girl.”
“Yes, you are,” Suri said. As usual the girl’s tone was wildly out of context. She sounded pleased, almost giddy—a child excited to have been called upon because she knew the answer. “And I get to watch.”
“She’s crazy,” Sackett said. “Go on, Adler. Kill the wolf.”
“Now, Minna,” Suri whispered.
Adler was shifting his weight to his back foot and raising his spear when Minna sprang. A hundred pounds of snarling teeth and claws landed on him. Perched on a ledge of slick stone, the man went over. Shield and spear clattered on the rocks, swept away by the water. Adler and Minna both fell one shelf down; Adler landed on a boulder. The back of his head struck the rock, making a hollow sound, a muffled crack. Whether he was dead or merely unconscious was impossible to say, but the one-eyed man wasn’t getting up.
Sackett raised his spear to throw it at Minna, but Persephone grabbed the shaft. Although she had hold of it with both hands, Sackett jerked it free and slammed the pole of the weapon into her stomach. Persephone collapsed to the rocks, gasping for air.
“Sackett!” Hegner shouted. The one-handed man used his stump to gesture wildly down the cascade.
Still gasping to fill her lungs, Persephone saw two more men coming up the rocks. Both were strangers. The man out front was tall, beardless, slender, and dressed in shimmering robes, with a silver torc around his neck in the fashion of a wealthy chieftain. But Persephone knew every chieftain of the seven Rhulyn clans and hadn’t seen anyone like him before. The second man was as different from the first as a wolf was from a dog. Large and muscled, he had a tempest of black hair and a bristling beard. His clothing was as intriguing as his friend’s. Dressed mostly in leather, he also wore a black-and-white-checkered leigh mor bearing the pattern of Clan Dureya.
Sackett tracked Minna’s movements, but the wolf didn’t attack. She leapt back to Suri’s side. The two women looked past him toward the strangers.
Persephone shouted, “Help! They’re going to kill us!” With her newfound breath, she started to crawl away from Sackett as best she could.
“This is a private matter,” Sackett called out to the approaching men. “None of your business. Be on your way.”
“The lady just invited us,” the slender man said as he passed Hegner without incident.
“You’re a stranger here. Best keep it that way.”
“I’d rather not, so allow me to introduce myself. My name is Malcolm.” The man approached quickly as he spoke, brandishing a spear with both hands. Behind him, the larger man struggled to keep pace. “By what right or authority do you plan to harm these women?”
The two strangers navigated the last of the rocks that Hegner hadn’t yet bothered with and stood on equal footing with Sackett, albeit across a shallow pool. The big man had a hand on a naked sword wedged in his belt.
A sword!
Persephone had never seen a man with a sword. They were the weapons of gods, and this elaborately decorated one shone brightly. On his back, she spotted the hilt of another.
Two swords! Grand Mother of All, who are these men?
“Well, Mal-colm,” Sackett said. “You must be hard of hearing, so I’ll say it again. This is a private matter and none of your concern.”
“You, sir, are a coward, preying on the weak. You’re not particularly handsome, either. I’d go so far as to say you’re genuinely ugly. Now, let me tell you what I think about your mother. She’s—”
Sackett took a splashing step through the pool separating them and jabbed out with his weapon. Malcolm stepped back, knocking the spear aside with his own. Sackett advanced, shuffling his way across the cascade, fighting the thrust of water as he sought to close the distance, but Malcolm backed up just as quickly.
The man wearing the Dureya-patterned leigh mor rushed forward, donning his shield and pulling the sword from his belt.
Sackett raised his shield, expecting a strike that didn’t come. The Dureyan didn’t swing. Instead, he stepped in front of Malcolm and planted his feet on firm ground. Malcolm moved aside, choosing to watch the fight he’d started.
“Who are you?” Sackett asked, looking nervously at the metal blade.
The big man said nothing and stood in a slight crouch, shield up, sword back.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Sackett repeated once more.
“Didn’t say it did,” the Dureyan replied.
“Then go away!”
“So you can murder these women?” Malcolm asked. “I think not. Perhaps it’s you who ought to go away.”
“Be careful,” Persephone said, having regained her feet. “He’s skilled with a spear.”
Sackett sneered at her, then lunged toward the Dureyan.
The big man blocked the thrust and brought the sword across his body. The blade caught the end of the spear and cut through the wooden shaft. The sharpened stone tip clattered onto the rocks.
Sackett leapt back in fear. “Hegner, get around behind—” he started to say, but stopped after seeing what the rest had already noticed. Hegner was climbing down and was already close to the bottom of the cascade. “Tetlin’s Witch! You lousy cul!” Sackett shouted after him.
Throwing the remainder of his spear at the Dureyan, Sackett turned and started his own retreat. Behind him, Minna growled menacingly. Perhaps he thought the wolf was about to leap or maybe that Malcolm would throw his spear. Either way, Sackett rushed his descent over the slime-covered rocks.
Persephone cringed even before he fell.
Sackett slipped and dropped more than five feet, hitting his back on one edge and then another. His body continued its way down the water-sprayed staircase, falling four times. He grunted with each slap against the rocks. The third ledge caught his right foot and spun him, making the last fall headfirst. His skull didn’t crack like Adler’s, but the blow bent his neck sharply.