Текст книги "The masked witches"

Автор книги: Richard Lee Byers

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TEN

As it thumped back down to the ground, the ice troll grabbed Jhesrhi s other arm, immobilizing it as well. She cried out in dread and revulsion. The creature opened its reeking mouth wide and lifted her toward its glistening, crooked fangs.

With a thought, she brought the fire that was a part of her leaping forth to cloak her body. The troll howled and flung her away.

Foes were still pressing close on either side. Keenly aware of the danger they represented, full of sheer loathing at their proximity, at the possibility that they too might touch her, she told the wind that still hovered close to her to whisk her back up into the air.

It tried. Her feet left the ground. But a mesh of thick gluey strands like a giant spider web appeared on top of her to stick her to the earth. The wind strained but couldn t break the adhesion.

Sneering, she called forth her flame once more, for as every apprentice knew, that was the counter to such a trap. But the mesh didn t burn.

But at least fire could protect her from the ring of foes that were about to strike at her from every side. Crying a word of power, and straining to shift her entangled staff sufficiently to write a rune on the air, she hurled flame in all directions.

The blast threw some of her assailants off their feet and sent others reeling backward, burning and screaming. But one remained: a scaly, reddish, long-eared thing that only looked a little singed. Leering, it reached to claw her through the mesh.

Suddenly the beast staggered and fell to one knee as Vandar drove his sword into its back. He hacked repeatedly at its neck, and with the third cut, the lump of a head with its wide fanged mouth and round yellow eyes fell off.

Vandar sawed at the mesh, and the red sword parted the sticky cables easily. Jhesrhi rattled off a counterspell and finished what the blade had begun. The net vanished.

Flinging drops of blood and pale ichor off his weapon, Vandar slashed it through the air to indicate the battlements. Kill! he snarled. Maybe, with his rage possessing him, that was as much speech as he could manage.

In any case, it was enough. She understood what he wanted to convey. Despite the attackers best efforts, there were too many undead up there. Masked, cloaked durthans were summoning translucent telthor wolves and bears. Nar demonbinders were drawing fiends from talismanic disks of iron, brass, and silver. There were even a couple of Raumvirans or what she suspected to be Raumvirans with magic leaping and sparking between their fingers. Insectlike mechanical creatures crouched on their shoulders and at their feet.

Vandar was right: Such creatures couldn t be allowed to work their magic without interference. Hoping that she was casting at the same magus who d dropped the mesh on top of her, Jhesrhi hurled flame at the battlements. Meanwhile, Vandar and two of his brothers surrounded her to shield her from enemies on the ground.

The vrock dived, then beat its charcoal-colored wings that glinted an odd magenta color when they caught Amaunator s light exactly right. Climbing once more, it wheeled toward Cera, Aoth, and Jet.

Beneath it, flame leaped forth seemingly from nowhere to shroud Jhesrhi s willowy body from head to toe. The ice troll that had been about to bite her roared and flung her away instead.

Cera was glad to see that, because she and her companions wouldn t be able to immediately help the elementalist. The vulture demon meant to intercept them, and they were going to have to deal with it first.

Cera asked the Keeper for strength and swung her weapon in an arc to point at the vrock. A flying, glowing mace appeared and bashed at the creature s head. Aoth pointed his spear and rattled off words of power, and a shrill whine covered the roar of battle for a heartbeat or so. Even though the noise was prodigiously loud, it somehow didn t hurt Cera s ears, but it slammed the vulture demon lower and made it flail like someone had stuck a sword in it.

Jet instantly furled his wings and dived. Astride his back, Cera couldn t see everything that happened next, but she felt the thump as the griffon s eagle talons stabbed into the demon, then felt the muscles in his hindquarters working as the leonine hind feet raked and raked and raked.

As the griffon clung to the tanar ri in his attack, they plummeted together. Though Cera trusted him, she gasped when it looked like they were going to crash down among the frenzied combatants below. But with a sudden heaving motion, Jet flung the vrock off his talons, extended his wings with a snap, and leveled off. Cera slumped and closed her eyes in relief just for an instant. When she opened them again, the air was gray with some sort of dust.

In another heartbeat, the wind Jhesrhi had conjured before the berserkers and stag warriors advanced on the fortress, a wind that was still howling and gusting, blew the stuff away. But even as it did so, Cera was jolted by terror. What was she doing there, high above the ground on the back of a fearsome beast? If Jet smashed to earth, she would be killed, and that had nearly happened just moments before. She let go of her mace, and only the leather thong that looped it to her wrist kept her from losing it not that she would have cared if she had. All that mattered was freeing up her hand to unbuckle the straps that kept her from jumping to safety.

Hurrying made her hands clumsy, and she fumbled with the harness. In front of her, Aoth thumped his chest and made his mail clink. Despite her panic, Cera realized he was invoking the magic of one of his tattoos.

Then he reached behind him and gripped Cera s thigh.

We re poisoned! he shouted. Purge yourself, and Jet, too!

His words didn t take away her fear, but they pushed it down enough so that she was able to think and to remember the dust. The vulture demon must have somehow released it into the air even as Jet was ripping it apart.

She calmed and centered herself as best she could, then drew down the light and warmth of the Yellow Sun. It filled her and quelled her fear, and then, with a touch, she passed the blessing on to Jet.

The griffon stopped veering madly back as forth as though trying to dodge a peril that only he could see. Instead, he screeched a challenge and lashed his wings as he tried to rise above the half a dozen entirely real imps that, Cera observed, had come flying at him and his riders while they were all distracted.

Blue and green shimmers rippled along the head of Aoth s spear. He snarled a word of power, jabbed the weapon through the air, and darts of light leaped from it to pierce two of the imps. Screaming shrilly, they dropped.

Another imp flew at Cera, its fanged mouth open wide, and its prehensile tail cocked to stab with the sting at the tip. She would have had to strike across her body to bash it with her mace, so she swatted it with her buckler instead. The gilded steel clanked, and the little devil tumbled away.

Meanwhile, Jet snapped another in two with his beak.

The remaining imps vanished, and Cera instinctively winced to imagine them flitting at her like angry wasps when she couldn t see them to protect herself. But Aoth could see them, and since he could, Jet could, too. With his spear crackling with destructive power, the war mage thrust to the right, and the two pieces of a dead imp appeared in midfall. The griffon caught another in his clashing beak, gnashed it up, and spat it out.

As best as Cera could judge, that was the last of the vile little things. The skull lord! she gasped, for it seemed almost certain that he was the one who d summoned them.

Yes, Jet rasped, where is There!

Because he was wheeling to aim himself directly at the creature in question, Cera had no difficulty seeing where he meant. The three-headed skeleton with the war hammer and bulky gauntlet was standing on the roof of the donjon.

Aoth looked down into the courtyard, and Cera realized with a pang of guilt that he was making sure Jhesrhi was all right. She herself had forgotten all about their friend, even though they d all been intent on rescuing her mere moments before. The frenzy of what followed had wiped the thought from her mind.

All right, said Aoth. Let s do it!

Jet hurtled at the top of the keep like an arrow. The skull lord tossed his gauntleted hand. A bat-winged devil somewhat like the imps, but man-sized and covered in quills, appeared above him. The spinagon instantly lashed its wings and flew out over the courtyard. It whipped its arm and threw a volley of quills, which burst into flame as they shot through the air.

Jet raised one wing, dipped the other, and dodged the attack. Aoth growled a rhyme, pointed his spear at the spined devil, and a thunderbolt boomed from the point to blast it apart.

Jet jerked, and Cera realized that something had hurt him somehow. But his wings beat as smoothly and as strongly as ever, sweeping them all toward their foe as swiftly as before, so evidently it hadn t been bad.

Aoth recited the words to conjure more lightning. Cera drew down the Keeper s power and flung it from the head of her mace in a blaze of brilliant light. The two attacks struck the armored skeleton simultaneously and blasted him apart.

We got him! Cera cried.

Not yet, Aoth said through gritted teeth, and Jet kept on driving at the rooftop as fast as before. She realized they understood something she didn t. And an instant later, she saw what it was.

The skull lord s charred, splintered form flew back together, reassembling him, although for the most part, his broken bones didn t whisk their bent, smoking scraps of armor along with them. That wreckage still lay where it had fallen. But other than that, the undead Nar appeared restored except that he had only two skulls instead of three.

As the skeletal mage sprang to his feet, a crimson light glimmered in the eye sockets of the skull on the right. A great flare of dark red, foul-looking flame leaped forth, and, just a heartbeat short of the rooftop, Jet had to lash his wings and wrench himself off course to dodge it. By the time the griffon had corrected, the skull lord was scrambling through a door that likely opened onto stairs leading down into the keep.

Still, the creature was only a moment ahead of his pursuers. Jet thumped down on the rooftop, and, responding to Aoth s will, the saddle straps instantly unbuckled themselves. He and Cera leaped out of the saddle and ran toward the door.

With a deafening bang, an even larger blast of red fire blew the entrance apart, staggering everyone and jolting the whole roof. When Cera approached the wreckage, coughing and her eyes stinging from the haze of grit now fouling the air, it was plain the detonation had collapsed the stairwell and rendered it impassable. She spat a curse she d heard some of the coarser members of the Brotherhood use: a reference to Lady Firehair s anatomy as blasphemous as it was obscene.

Easy, said Aoth, we ll kill the thing. Just not right now.

Don t you have magic that will she began.

Aoth waved his spear to indicate the rest of the castle and the battle still raging there. For now, the fight is here, he said. Our allies need us to kill the creatures on the wall-walks. And now that we control the highest point in the fortress, we re in a good position to do it.

Bugles blared. Welvelod sensed surges of motion on every side.

The horns were sounding the retreat. Casting about, the undead Raumathari warrior saw that his allies were doing their frantic best to disengage from their foes and scurry toward the various doors that led into the interior of the fortress. Someone Uramar himself, most likely must have decided that their side was losing.

Welvelod whirled and bolted for one of the doors into the keep. A stag man jumped in his path and tried to spear him in the chest. He slipped the blow and stabbed at his attacker s flank as he sprinted on by.

Something thumped him between the shoulder blades, pitching him forward into a stumble but not quite making him fall. He didn t know what had hit him a missile or a handheld weapon and he didn t bother looking back to find out.

He tripped over the twitching body of an ice troll, and again had to fight to regain his balance. Reeling onward, he saw that the keep, and safety, were just ahead. A Nar demonbinder, his withered gray limbs covered in tattoos and a round brass amulet hanging around his neck, was holding the ironbound door as a pair of goblins scurried through.

The wizard looked straight at Welvelod, then gave him a grin and slammed the door with a bang like a thunderclap.

You filthy Nar bastard! Welvelod thought, just as something rammed into the back of his knee. He fell forward onto the ground. As he rolled over, a second spear thrust caught him in the face.

ELEVEN

The various doors around the castle slammed with a series of thunderous bangs. Gazing down from the rooftop of the keep, Aoth tried to judge if any of the enemy were left trapped in the corner towers or any of the smaller structures along the walls.

No, rasped Jet. According to the Rashemi, the Fortress of the Half-Demon is famous for the dungeons and tunnels underneath it. My guess is that no matter what door a troll or a witch ducked into, there is a way to join up with the rest.

You re probably right, Aoth said.

Curse it, anyway.

Did you think we could stop them from locking themselves in the donjon? Cera asked, breathing heavily. Despite the cold, her round face was sweaty, and she looked like she was feeling the weight of her mace and armor.

Not really, said Aoth. Given the haphazard way we tackled this, it went as well as we had any right to expect. He took another look over the battlements. There were a couple of living or undead foes still left out in the open, but none that looked worth a burst of his magic. The men-at-arms could deal with them. Come on, let s get down there.

He swung himself onto Jet s back, and Cera climbed up behind him, buckling in. The griffon lashed his wings and leaped over the row of merlons.

As Jet swooped downward, Aoth looked for Jhesrhi. Still unharmed, she d already set about the task of burning fallen trolls and the undead. Vandar and the Stag King were all right, too, and it seemed that neither the stag warriors nor the berserkers had suffered an inordinate number of casualties.

The latter were pounding at the castle doors with any makeshift battering ram they could find. But a door wasn t a foe, and without flesh to cut and blood to spill, the berserker rage had little to feed it. One or two at a time, they abandoned the futile assault and stumbled away, gray-faced and shivering.

The Brotherhood, thought Aoth, would still have been strong and ready for another fight. But he knew he wasn t being altogether fair. Even Khouryn s infantry couldn t have managed that mad charge into the castle any better than Vandar s lodge brothers. In fact, despite all their training, they might not have managed as well. There was a time for discipline and tactics and as far as Aoth was concerned, it was most of the time but a time for sheer fury as well.

As soon as the saddle straps had unbuckled, Cera jumped off Jet s back and went looking for those who needed her healing ministrations. Aoth took another glance around, just in case something was apparent at ground level that even fire-kissed eyes had missed from the air, and spotted the butt of Vandar s red spear peeking out from under the dead bugbear that had fallen on top of it.

Jet sprang back into the air to keep watch over the battleground from on high. Aoth walked over to the spear and picked it up. He caught his breath at the force and intricate structure of the enchantments he sensed inside it, and felt instantly wary of the weapon. It wasn t that it was cursed, or at least, its maker hadn t intended it to be. But he didn t like the feeling that as he studied it, it was taking his measure as well.

That s mine! called Vandar.

Aoth turned to find that the lodge master had come up behind him. He was glaring like he was still facing an enemy, and he still had the red sword in his grip.

Making sure he didn t hurry or look rattled, Aoth proffered the weapon butt first. I know, he replied.

I was just saving you the trouble of having to look for it.

I can understand that you covet it, Vandar said.

But the spirits gave it to me, just like they mean for me to have the griffons.

Aoth stared into the other man s eyes. But you ll settle for half of them, he said. Because you do remember giving your word?

Vandar held his gaze for a long moment. Then he blinked, and something that might have been confusion or even a trace of shame flickered across his face. Yes, he said. I mean, I keep faith with those who keep faith with me. He hefted the spear. Thanks for finding this.

Be careful with it and the sword, Aoth said.

I don t know much about fey weapons

Vandar turned toward the spot where some of his fellow berserkers were still trying to smash down a door. Can t magic break through there? he asked.

Aoth sighed and said, I hope so, but it s not going to do it yet. Call your men back.

We shouldn t give the durthans time to regroup! the lodge master said.

We need time to regroup, replied Aoth. Your brothers need to recover their strength, or the enemy will butcher them as soon as they do get inside. Your wounded need care, or they re likely to die. Is that what you want?

The Rashemi took a breath. No, he said. It s just that stopping halfway isn t how a berserker fights. He raised his voice to a bellow. Brothers! Leave the doors alone for now! Just watch them, and help the wounded!

While you and I, said Aoth, confer with our fellow officers.

They headed for the Stag King, who currently stood amid the phantom beasts he d wrested from the durthans control and brought under his own. An enormous wolf fawned at his feet, squirrels sat on his shoulders, and wrens and crows perched on the points of his antlers. It might have looked comical if not for their misty appearance, the foxfire in their eyes, and the gore caking the head of the fey lord s weapon.

That didn t go too badly, said Aoth.

The Stag King nodded. I see you pulled the Rashemi back from the doors, he said.

They ve taken a beating already, said Aoth. Maybe, when we do get the doors open, your warriors should go in first.

The spirit grinned as he replied, Would that work? I d be worried that such heroes would charge regardless, and trample my folk in their eagerness to close with the foe.

Vandar snorted. We might at that, he said.

It s all right, Thayan. The Griffon Lodge is happy to take the lead, in this fight or any other.

Fine, Aoth thought. Be an idiot. What do I care?

Aloud, he said, We need more men on the walls. After we put them there, we should be able to relax a little. Eat, rest, and recover both our physical strength and our spells. Let s plan on breaching the donjon a little before sundown.

So you want to fight the undead at night? asked Zyl. Aoth looked down to find the black hare crouching near his foot.

The Stag King shrugged. It doesn t matter, he said, It will be dark inside the keep and in the vaults underneath no matter when we venture in.

That s true, said Aoth. And we should expect it s going to get nasty. The enemy knows the ground, and we don t. Most of them will be able to see better than most of us can. They ll try to split us up and lure us into traps. Which means that if we lose our heads, either to panic or to bloodlust, and go rushing off into the dark, we re done for. Vandar, can you control your lodge brothers?

Even when the fury takes us, the Rashemi answered, we don t lose all our sense. He surprised Aoth by smiling a wry little smile. Not all of us, not every time. We ll divide up into war bands, each led by a brother far advanced in the mysteries a man who can ride the anger instead of letting it ride him. The others will move when he moves and stop when he stops.

Good, Aoth said as he turned to the Stag King.

And you can manage your warriors? I confess, I don t understand much about them, but I don t imagine they ve spent much time underground.

They ll be all right, the spirit replied.

Anyway, they re my concern, not yours.

Aoth took a breath of the smoky air. I m not trying to set myself about you, Highness, he said. Or you, Vandar. But someone has to think about the overall tactical picture. And maybe a captain who s taken more fortresses and fought more undead than he can remember, and who doesn t have the management of one particular part of our army to preoccupy him, is a good choice for the job.

The Stag King waved a dismissive hand. All right, human, he said. Perhaps you have a point. I promise, I ll at least listen to whatever you recommend.

Vandar nodded curtly. So will I, he said.

Finally! thought Aoth.

Jet laughed his screeching laugh inside his master s head. They just want someone to blame if it all goes wrong.

Uramar noted how the mushy flesh of the little demonic half-corpse oozed and dripped in Falconer s grip. The skull lord himself looked somewhat the worse for wear. He still had his gauntlet, but the same skirmish that had charred bits of his bones black had cost him the rest of his gear, and he d thrown on a brigandine that hung like a sack on his skeletal frame.

The biggest change was the loss of one of his skulls. A pair of Uramar s broken selves two of the more erudite and less sane ones were debating whether the Nar could somehow procure another or must manage with only two forevermore.

For a moment their voices waxed painfully loud. Uramar resisted the impulse to grit his teeth and pound at his temples. His command had just lost a fight, and the warrior parts of him understood that at such a juncture, his officers mustn t see him acting crazy or distressed. It would be bad for morale.

Suddenly, the half-corpse spoke, distracting him from his discomfort. I humbly apologize for making you wait, noblest of wizards. But I m sure that you comprehend that, surrounded as I am by our mutual enemies, I can t always answer instantly.

According to Falconer, the little half-demon was relaying the words of one Dai Shan, a merchant adventurer out of Thesk. The mortal s accent was strange to Uramar, but his light baritone voice conveyed intelligence and self-assurance.

We re under siege here, Falconer snapped.

Why didn t you warn me that the Griffon Lodge and their allies were coming?

Would that I could have, Dai Shan said, but to my eternal regret, I didn t know. I m sure such a sagacious leader as youself can appreciate that, even though I gather intelligence as assiduously as I can, I m not privy to everybody s plans. Are you in serious difficulty?

I ve had better days, the Nar replied.

Is there anything you can do to help us?

Dai Shan hesitated, or perhaps it simply took a moment for the magic to carry his words across the intervening distance. Perhaps, august magus, perhaps, he said. As it happens

With a soft slurping sound, the remaining flesh of the half-corpse liquefied all at once. It slipped off the little demon s bones and spilled to the floor in a splash of filth. A couple of Uramar s voices shrieked with laughter. A more squeamish soul wanted to puke, and its nausea churned his stomach.

I take it that s the end of the conversation? Nyevarra asked. The vampire witch seemed vibrant with impatience. Uramar suspected it was less because her allies had lost the first fight than because the sunlight had kept her from participating and drinking the blood of those who fell victim to her powers.

Yes, Falconer said. He dropped the imp s bones into the puddle of rot at his feet.

It s just as well, said Pevkalondra, sneering. A lustrous, eyeball-sized pearl was set in the left orbit of her shriveled face; and tiny silver scorpions crawled like lice in the folds of her faded blue velvet robe. Since there were only a handful of Raumvirans in the fortress, she arguably didn t enjoy quite the same status as Falconer and Nyevarra and needn t have been included in a council of war. But some of Uramar s shrewder voices had maintained it was politic to summon her to the keep s shadowy, ruinous great hall along with the other two.

Falconer pivoted to fix the ghoul with his double stare. And why is that? he asked.

Because anyone could hear the treachery in that oh-so-unctuous voice, Pevkalondra said. I would have thought even a Nar would notice. But perhaps

Don t start! Uramar said. Please. We re all brothers and sisters now, united by the creed of Lod. And even if we weren t, this would hardly be the time to renew old quarrels among ourselves.

I realized the Shou probably couldn t help us, Falconer said through gritted teeth. But it did no harm to communicate with him, and there s no reason to think he s playing us false. He said he chiseled the marks in the tombs under the Iron Lord s castle, and if so

Uramar raised his hand with its crooked, mismatched fingers, ridged scars, and piebald skin. You don t have to justify yourself, he said. I thought it was worth talking to him myself. Now we need to consider the question he asked us. Are we in serious difficulty?

Nyevarra made a spitting sound. Of course not! she said. I m not the only durthan who couldn t venture outside into the daylight. In the tunnels, we can turn the fight around.

I agree, Falconer said. My folk have demons we haven t used yet.

Pevkalondra nodded. And mine, constructs, she added.

Uramar smiled. Good, he replied. I knew I could count on your fighting spirit. Now, it seems to me that the best way to crush the intruders is to target their spellcasters. They only have a few, and their side can t win without them.

Again, I agree, Falconer said. And no one needs to coax me to focus my efforts on Fezim and the sunlady. I have a score to settle.

While I, Nyevarra purred, would take considerable satisfaction in bringing the Stag King low. What sort of dark fey sides with hathrans?

Then we have our strategy, Uramar said. Except that there s one more point to consider. What if, in spite of everything, the enemy gains the upper hand again?

Pevkalondra snorted. I plan for victory, not defeat, she said.

One of Uramar s more glib voices advised him how to answer. But with all respect, lady, he said, it s one of the strengths of the Eminence that we plan for every contingency. We figure out how to make even defeat serve our purposes. That s why no one can stop us from establishing our empire.

How nice, Falconer said. But what s the contingency plan now?

Simply this, Uramar said. If we smash our enemies, excellent. But if the battle goes against us, the more rational undead will retreat to safety along the deathways. Meanwhile, we ll leave zombies in fine armor and durthans masks and robes behind to perish with our goblins and such. Some will carry documents to create the impression that by taking this one fortress, our foes have crushed our entire enterprise.

Even as he articulated the scheme, he felt a pang of guilt; because all undead, even those with the dimmest minds, deserved better. But it was likewise true that any commander sometimes had to sacrifice troops to achieve his objectives.

Nyevarra nodded. I like it, she said.

Good, Uramar said. Now, let s talk specifics. Falconer, you know the fortress better than the rest of us. What s the best way to harry the mortals as they advance? Where are the best places to make a stand?

The winter sun had nearly sunk behind the battlements. Jhesrhi knew the next phase of the siege would begin soon, so even though she wasn t hungry, she made herself take a couple of bites from a hunk of pungent white Rashemi cheese.

She was rewrapping what was left in a threadbare old kerchief when Cera and Aoth approached her. The Iron Lord of Rashemen has griffons for sale, the war mage said, smiling a crooked smile.

We should go buy them.

It should all be straightforward enough, Cera said, quoting him as he d just quoted himself. The three of us can handle it.

Well, Jhesrhi said, the three of us are handling it. Give or take.

True, Aoth said. But be careful inside. Especially down in the vaults, which I m sure is where we ll find the hardest fighting.

She frowned. It wasn t like him to deliver such vague, useless cautions to a seasoned veteran and trusted comrade like herself.

Cera apparently thought the same. Are you worried? she asked. Did you have a vision?

Aoth snorted. You and your thirst for revelations, he said. No, thank the Firelord. I just wish we were doing this with the Brotherhood. But wishing won t make it so, so let s get on with it.

The berserkers and stag men had already heard the plan, so it didn t take long for them to form up in a rough horseshoe shape around the tall double doors in the center of the keep. Jhesrhi stood inside the arc and fixed her eyes and her will on the ironbound panels before her.

Pointing her staff at the doors, she recited a counterspell to dissolve the enchantments that buttressed them. Then she spoke to the mundane mechanisms that likewise secured them, commanding pins to lift and bars to slide.

Nothing happened.

But that was all right. The spells she d just attempted were the least of her magic. Next, she tried to breach the stone to the left of the doors as she d shifted the cavern walls in Grontaix s subterranean palace. Chanting, she swung her staff in a horizontal pass to indicate where and how she wanted it to split.

Warded like the entryway by the magic of the ancient Nars, the sandstone blocks ignored her.

It was going to take fire. Somehow, she d imagined that it would.

Sweeping her staff up and down in a pass that suggested leaping flame, she recited a rhyme in one of the hissing, crackling languages of the Undying Pyre. The fire that was a part of her sprang forth to cloak her.

But that blaze was a feeble guttering candle compared to the heat, or the potential for heat, concentrating in her hands and her staff. When she d gathered all she could hold, she raised the brass rod over her head and swung it at the doors like an axeman cleaving a foe from the scalp down.