I slowly let out my breath and met his eyes; hopefully they weren’t glowing, too. “Sorry, sir. The rock’s pissed. I wouldn’t let it eat Tam.”
“Understandable.” Justinius’s face was expressionless; his question for my ears alone. “Do you have it under control?”
His real question was, or was it controlling me.
My lips narrowed into a thin line. “As much control as I’m willing to get until after I save Tam.”
His hard eyes never wavered. “Then let’s go get him.”
The stable area was busy bordering on chaotic, but not because of Nukpana/Tam or Janos Ghalfari. Mages were coming to work, meetings, or classes, and the grooms more than had their hands full stabling horses. Just beyond the stables themselves was an area for coaches and their drivers to wait for their employers to return.
It was noisy, busy, and damned near impossible to spot two dark-garbed goblins in the sea of dark-garbed stable hands.
Damned near, but not quite.
There were more horses and grooms than mages and the magical distortion lifted just enough for me to sense Tam through our bond, muffled though his presence was—and for Sarad Nukpana to sense me. That was fine; it wasn’t like I was trying to hide. He knew I was following him.
Mychael’s presence suddenly flared strong and clear. Then I spotted him. He and Vegard were quickly coming down the stairs leading from the building’s second story down into the stable yard. Nachtmagus Vidor Kalta was close behind them.
Uniformed Guardians were covering doorways and exits, as were some men in plain clothes who didn’t look any less military or deadly. Any spell let loose in here could ricochet and kill who knew how many. Mychael said something to one of his men as he strode past, and the man sprinted to where a uniformed Guardian stood. The Guardian nodded to a man in a window across the courtyard, and the signal was passed on from there. I didn’t know what the signal was or what Mychael had told them to do.
He was keeping it from me.
I knew why, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. I didn’t, not one bit. Mychael had to have seen or heard what I did in the quad, and like Justinius, he couldn’t take the chance that I wasn’t in complete control of myself.
Or because of Nukpana’s possession of Tam, had the goblin managed to tap the Saghred—and me?
Laughter welled up in my mind, mocking, derisive. “No one trusts you anymore, little seeker. Like Tamnais, your hours are numbered.”
Then Nukpana’s presence vanished, suddenly and completely.
The bastard was making his move.
I had to tell Mychael. Nukpana might still be able to hear every word, which was fine with me. The goblin certainly knew his own plans. “Nukpana’s going to leave Tam’s body, infest yours, go to the citadel, and steal the Saghred.” Short, sweet, and supremely scary.
Precious seconds ticked by in silence. Dammit. Come on, Mychael. Answer me.
“How long?” Mychael asked.
Huh? “How long, what?”
“How long has Nukpana been in Tam’s body?”
“An hour at the most.”
“Good.” Then all presence of him vanished from my mind, too. Mychael had plans of his own and didn’t want the goblin listening in.
Or maybe me, either.
I scowled. “Is Mychael talking to you?” I asked Justinius. The question came out more like a snap, definitely sharper than was wise considering the man might be toying with the idea of my annihilation.
The old man grinned impishly. “The boy likes to keep his thoughts to himself when he’s about to ruin some asshole’s good time. Don’t take it personally.”
“So you’re not planning to exterminate me?”
“And miss watching you rip Sarad Nukpana a new one once we get him out of Tam’s body? No, girl. I’m long overdue for some fun.”
Then a lot of things happened.
Shouts, the screams of panicked horses, and the hollow thumps and whistles of crossbow bolts.
Shooting. I couldn’t believe it; the Guardians were shooting at them. Surely Mychael had told them not to hurt Tam. My eyes tried to look everywhere at once. Mychael was nowhere to be seen. I swore and ran for the main gate. I heard the whistle of the bolt a split second before I flattened myself against the gatehouse to avoid being tacked there like a bug to a board.
Khrynsani.
So much for where the ones chasing us down the tunnel had gone. But there were definitely more than four keeping the Guardians at bay. Looked like Ghalfari had arranged some manpower to cover his escape.
They were firing on the Guardians, and Mychael’s boys were letting them have it with the same and more.
Fire was the Guardians’ weapon of choice and magic was its fuel. A Khrynsani timed his shot wrong and the next instant a thin shaft of blue fire punched a hole through him as clean as a lance. The fire didn’t go out but continued to spread and consume until the goblin was a dark stain on the cobblestone street.
Two other Khrynsani went up in flames exactly the same way, but the others kept firing crossbows and throwing red flaming spheres. The goblins were outnumbered and outmagicked, but they didn’t retreat one step.
It was a suicide attack. The crazed bastards were dying as a distraction so Nukpana and Ghalfari could escape.
“Step aside,” Justinius told me calmly.
I did. I had no problem with that. The old man was aiming for Khrynsani guards.
I wanted their bosses.
Justinius chose a target, pointed at it, and a fiery needle of molten silver shot from the tip of his finger, passing completely through a goblin in the act of summoning a red ball of flame. He raised his other hand, palm out, and with a shaft of white fire, vaporized two Khrynsani who had the poor judgment to shoot at him. I didn’t stick around to watch the old man have his fun; I had my own pair of goblin targets.
The coachmen with the bad luck to have high-strung horses had all they could handle just keeping their teams from bolting. If you asked me, the horses had the right idea. I darted among the coaches, following Nukpana’s trail while trying to keep myself from being trampled by terrified horses.
A surprised shout turned into a pained scream as a coachman went flying over the top of the coach parked next to his.
I bared my teeth in a savage grin. Found them.
Janos Ghalfari quickly climbed into the now-empty coachman’s seat, then stared directly at me.
Oh crap.
With a wave of his hand, the horses around me erupted into terrified screams. Diving under the coach next to me was all that kept me from being pounded into cobblestone paste by rearing and thrashing hooves. I saw the door of Ghalfari’s coach open and Tam’s boots step up and inside. Two more pair of boots, probably worn by Khrynsani guards, jumped in after him.
Dammit.
“Raine!”
It was Mychael. A real shout, not mindspeak. I rolled out from between the wheels of the coach I was under and scrambled to my feet.
Mychael leapt onto the driver’s bench of a coach near the one Ghalfari had taken, his crossbow slung across his back. I threw together some shields and ran toward Mychael, ducking, weaving, and dodging, but mostly trusting my magic to deflect anything a terrified horse could hit me with.
I was nothing short of stunned when I reached the coach with all my pieces and parts intact. Then I saw the thin metal step to the driver’s bench and stopped cold. The freaking thing was chest-high on me. Who the hell drove these things? Giants? Mychael held the team’s reins easily in one hand and leaned over the side—way over the side—and grabbed my arm right above the elbow.
I just looked up at him. “You’re kidding.”
Mychael’s reply was a grin and a pull that lifted me off my feet and landed me on the seat beside him. Impressive.
Ghalfari’s coach had just turned onto the street. Hope surged through me. We could catch them; I knew we could. We had to. I had no idea in hell what we were going to do when we did, but I’d figure it out on the way or deal with it when it happened.
The axle springs creaked and our coach lurched to one side. I turned to see Vegard getting inside on the heels of Vidor Kalta’s black robes.
“You need ballast, sir,” Vegard called from inside. “Just tell us which side you need us on.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. Ballast?
Below the bench, four sleekly muscled black horses pulled hard at the reins, eager to go. The coach was covered in ebony enamel that virtually gleamed. Dustless. Pristine.
I gripped the bar on the side of the bench and held on. “Nice ride,” I managed. “Whose—”
Mychael flashed a fierce smile and snapped the reins. “Carnades.”
I hung on for dear life.
There was a tilted metal footrest for the driver to brace his boots on, and I was definitely bracing mine. Before now, I thought my experience with coaches had been pretty extensive: I’d fought inside a coach, clung to the back of a coach, damn near been thrown under a coach, but I’d never been on the driver’s bench going at a speed that was so far beyond insane it was ridiculous.
That was Janos Ghalfari’s fault, not Mychael’s. The goblin set the speed; Mychael was simply hell-bent on catching him.
We reached a smoother patch of street and my teeth stopped knocking together long enough to speak. “You stole Carnades’s coach.”
Mychael gave me a crooked smile. “Appropriated. In pursuit of wanted felons.”
“There were other coaches.”
His smile broadened into a grin. “Yes, there were. But Carnades has some of the fastest horses on the island.”
“Plus you taking them would piss him off.”
“That, too.”
When Ghalfari and Mychael took the first corner, both coaches’ wheels stayed on the street where they belonged. But when Ghalfari took the next corner sharp—and on two wheels—the need for movable ballast became all too apparent.
Oh crap.
“Vegard!” I shouted. “Right side!”
He and Vidor moved and our coach’s wheels stayed on the street. Disaster averted. At least until the next time Ghalfari turned.