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Blessing coughed, and came up spitting and growling like a wild creature. Footsteps hammered, and voices shouted outside. The mask warriors poured into the nave, Zuangua in the lead with his obsidian sword held high for the killing stroke.
“Halt!” she cried.
They clattered to a halt and backed away from her, all but Zuangua, who strode boldly up the dais and straddled the wounded man. The Ashioi had a wide, white grin on his face, eerie to look on. Here was a man who enjoyed his revenge.
“I made a pledge—I swore he would live,” said Liath. Already she felt the wings furl, die away, because the faint current of aether could not support that blaze.
He looked at her, the unburned side of his face twisted up in a look of disbelief although the other, still red and raw, was pulled tight and unmoving. “You cannot be so stupid.”
“The words have been said. I said I would not kill him.”
“So you admit it!” He laughed.
“Or let him be killed. The words have been said.”
It was clear he did not intend to provoke her by challenging her. “I’m not greedy, Bright One. I see you have crippled him. You’ve taken his sight. That means he can never weave the looms. He can’t threaten us. I’ll accept that. I need only proof for my people that we have taken our share, and gained a measure of vengeance for Feather Cloak’s death.”
He acted so quickly she had no time to react. He bent, tugged Hugh’s right arm out straight, and chopped down in a strong stroke, cutting off the hand just above the wrist.
Hugh screamed. He rolled and thrashed.
The Ashioi laughed and howled as they pounded their spears on the paving stones and stamped their feet. She jumped up beside Zuangua, put her hand over the stump pumping bright red blood over the floor, and cauterized it. Hugh gasped—the only noise he could get out—and fainted.
The smell made her sick, and even Zuangua leaped back to get away from that sizzling odor. He retreated down the steps as she rose with blood dripping from her hand and Hugh passed out beside the Hearth.
“Your people have been murdering the Wendish,” she said, understanding now the reaction of the monks and villagers. “Packs of them, like roving wolves. That’s why they feared me, and hate you. How could you be so foolish as to squander the alliance Sanglant would have offered you?”
Zuangua held up the severed hand. Blood drizzled, although the cut was amazingly neat, sliced by a very sharp edge. The fingers were pale, curled, and there was—she noted—only one simple gold ring on those handsome fingers. Hugh had not been a man greedy for riches. Strange to think he had been spared such a vice.
“I am content,” said Zuangua.
But she was not. “Do not offend me and mine, Zuangua. I will keep the peace, if you will.”
He shrugged. “Our truce is over.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“That’s all. Let those of my people who mean to return with me come now.”
Sharp Edge stepped out of the crowd. “I’ll weave him through, but I’m staying with you, Bright One. If you’ll have me.” She said the words with a teasing smile—the kind that men will walk leagues to taste, given the chance. At least one young mask groaned audibly, and a few others muttered and shifted their spears in restless hands.
Liath met her gaze and nodded. “You have a home with me.”
“What of the child, my little beast?” asked Zuangua. “I’ve gotten fond of her.”
The girl had seen it all, crouched on the steps. But instead of answering, she lifted her head. Liath, too, heard footsteps. Anna ran into the nave and, with the aid of the staff, shoved her way through the bundle of soldiers, out of breath and crying.
“My lady! Princess Blessing! They’re all waking up! And they look so angry!”
The girl looked first at her mother, then at her uncle, and finally at Anna. It was Anna she crawled to, sobbing and coughing between heaves and wheezes.
Zuangua gestured. He and his warriors ran out the door, leaving a stillness behind them, the quiet after a storm. In such stunning calm, one might hear the gentle breath of God.
Liath swayed, rushed by a prickling thrill that ran all along her skin but also made her battle against tears. She could not stop the tremor that afflicted her hands.
“Let us go quickly, Anna. Bring her.”
“Where do we go now, my lady?” asked Anna as she gathered Blessing into her arms in an embrace that made Liath want to sob, seeing how the girl clung to Anna so trustingly and yet had not given her own mother a second glance. “Is—he—dead?”
