The Warslayer(73)

Glory turned back to the wall, the moment already forgotten. If this was shock, it was a damned useful invention, a small part of her mind said perkily. She had to get to Ivradan, and straight up the wall was the fastest way.

Behind her, she heard the sound of gunfire.

She reached up, setting the sword on the level above her, then jumped as high as she could. She managed to get her elbows over the edge. The cloth puffs around her elbows slipped on the slick surface, and she swore, but the studded leather on her forearms gripped the floor, and she squirmed up, fighting hard for every inch. At last she dragged herself over the edge, grabbing the sword and rolling under the table without thinking.

It was dim under the cloth, and gave the illusion of safety. She blinked, willing her eyes to adjust, and began to crawl forward. If he'd panicked and run— If Charane had taken him somewhere—

Then she saw the huddled figure, curled into a tight fetal ball in front of the tumbled chair, still clutching the ragged remains of the blue elephant.

"Ivradan!" she gasped. The word came out in a husky croak. She wriggled forward, dragging the sword, and reached out for his hand.

And the world went dark.





CHAPTER SIX:

Stone and Clouds

For one sickening, surreal, disorienting instant, she thought she was back on the set. A number of other equally plausible alternatives presented themselves in quick succession.

She was blind.

She was dead.

She was in yet another godlost alternate universe.

Then she moved, and the sense of her body returned to her. She could feel weight on her wrists, and emptiness beneath her feet.

She was hanging in chains.

She'd been in this situation before, only then she'd been standing on a box (placed outside of camera-range, of course) so that her full weight didn't dangle from her wrists. Now there was nothing beneath her feet but air. The bracers protected her wrists from the full brunt of the shackles, but her arms were stretched wide, and all her weight was pulling her shoulders taut. She kicked back, and felt the wall at her back. Getting her feet behind her and pushing out helped a little, but not much, and she had no idea where her sword was. It had been in her hand. It wasn't now.

She felt dazed and battered, off-balance. The absence of the chaos of a moment before was as much of an assault on the senses as its presence had been. Her heart was still hammering, making it hard to breathe, and she struggled uselessly against her chains, fighting against a threat that wasn't there any more, the horrors she had seen playing themselves out inside her mind.

Dylan was dead. She'd barely registered the fact at the time, but now, in the darkness, she saw it again too clearly: the spear sticking out of his chest, the moment of shocked surprise, the awful, utter, deadness of him when he fell.

And what had she done? She'd given his gun to the woman who'd killed him. How heroic was that? She'd rewarded his killer.

She choked on a sob.

"Slayer?"

Ivradan's voice came out of the darkness. No, not darkness. Her eyes were adjusting now. Dimness. She blinked, realizing she could actually see him looking up at her.

He was alive and whole. Scared to death, but that was a sane and wholesome response to the situation. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to relax, settle down, focus.

"G'day, mate."

"I don't know what happened," Ivradan confessed, as if it were somehow a failure.

"Neither do I," Glory admitted. "Fine pair of heroes we make."

"Hero?" Ivradan sounded outraged at being given such a title. It made Glory smile, though she'd never felt more like bursting into tears.

Her feet slipped on the wall, and she fell to hang full length in her shackles again. The jolt of impact dragged her hands halfway through the cuffs, and that gave her an idea. If they were that loose . . .

"Say, Ivro, how chipper are you feeling?"

He came over and stood at her feet, still holding the decidedly more slender Gordon. She could now see that she was hanging only a few feet off the floor, but a few inches or a few yards, it didn't make much difference to her shoulders. It did make a difference to what she wanted to try.

"'Chipper,'" he echoed warily.

"Can you lift me up a little? I think I can work loose from these cuffs if I can get a little leverage."

Ivradan stepped forward and set Gordon down carefully. He bent down and hugged her firmly around the knees. Then he straightened up.

Glory felt the release of the strain as a thousand tiny needles of fire along her shoulders and back, and the resulting cramps in her legs as she fought to balance in Ivradan's grip. But now she could hear the chains clank, and feel their weight, and she could lift her arms enough to make the manacles slide on her wrists.

But that wasn't what was going to get her out of them. She pulled down, carefully, twisting her wrist back and forth as she did and inventing new curses for the costume designers at the same time. She folded her thumb into her palm as hard as she could, and strained against the metal, and hoped . . .