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Not only did the water feel good, but her underside was now protected by the pool’s thick lip of masonry, as well. She rattled her griff in challenge and waited.
“Well. You heard him,” Hammar said to his bodyguards. “Kill the creature!”
“We need spears for that, Lord Hammar,” the closest said. “Longer spears than our allies carry,” he added hastily, as Hammar pointed to the spears in dirty hands all around.
“You have your swords!”
A man with a deformed lip curled up to reveal brown teeth shook his head. “It’s still moving. I’m not going near those jaws, whatever that dragon-hunter said.”
“Then start at the back and work up!”
“The tail’s just as dangerous. That boy lost his eye!”
Hammar opened his mouth as if to say something else but thought better of it. “Someone get me a bow!”
Barbarians began to ride across the yard, their horses laden with bags and tied barrels. Some carried off bound women and children.
The barbarians before Mossbell were conducting an informal market, swapping candlesticks for plate, furniture for spice boxes and kitchen implements. Hammar yelled something at one of the brow-tattooed leaders, who shrugged or glanced in any direction but the fountain or scratched their beards as if to say, Dragon . . . I see no dragon!
Part of Mossbell’s sod roof collapsed with a roar.
One of Hammar’s riders rode up with a hunting bow, fully as tall as a man. Hammar notched an arrow and drew.
Wistala saw him sight on her eye. She pressed herself flat into the water, which surged and washed over the rim.
At the last instant, Hammar shifted aim and fired an arrow into Rainfall’s chest. The elf let out a weak cry.
“That was for practice,” Hammar said.
Wistala lunged out of the water. It wasn’t a dragon-dash, more of a desperate crawl, and Hammar backpedaled, dropping his arrow—
And Mossbell’s south yard-wall exploded in orange and yellow.
Through the dust and falling bricks came three gargants, charging abreast, dwarves tied on their backs holding rein and weapon.
Behind the gargants rode others from the circus, men and women on the show horses who were used to confusion and noise and crowds, and behind them others on foot, carrying everything from mallets to clubs bristling with tent spikes.
Hammar gave them one openmouthed look and ran. Wistala did not have the strength to pursue him.
The barbarians instinctively drew together into a bunch to face the attack, linking wooden shields and raising war-pick and ax, but the dwarves tightened their formation and let the iron-shod feet of their gargants crash through and stomp the barbarians as easily as they would a flower bed. All order left the barbarians, and they ran for their lives.
But the circus was not done yet. The dwarves situated highest on beast-back fired crossbows down into the rout, passing the empty bow back for others to load and taking up another with remorseless precision.
The riders harried the barbarians at the edges, throwing knives or small axes, or hooking men at neck or feet with ropes. Ragwrist himself sent Marlil and her women after the fleeing thane and his bodyguard. They lit red candle-fireworks and rode hard on the heels of the men, shrieking like loosed demons and throwing knives until the bodyguard plunged into the woods—save for the man who was dismounted by a branch.
The battle passed in fury. Dsossa appeared as though dropped from the sky, kneeling next to Rainfall. Those on foot were the last to leave the yard, clubbing their way through the lamed and the wounded barbarians.
Wistala tried to rise to her feet, failed. The front balcony on Mossbell fell in a shower of sparks.
Ragwrist returned, dismounted, ran to Rainfall, fell to his knees. Ragwrist used his thumbs and turned up Rainfall’s eyelids. He detached the sobbing Dsossa, placed a hand on Rainfall’s heart, then tore out the offending arrow.
“He is dead,” Wistala said. She could hear no breathing.
Ragwrist blew his whistle, loudly, and again. He stopped only when he heard answering whistles from the thundering gargants.
“Quarryness is aflame,” Ragwrist said. “It would appear the thane had enemies there, as well. That fat low judge is hanging from the Hypatian Hall peak.”
Wistala’s light-headedness brought a strange sort of clarity.
