Telari's Arc

Chapter 8 of 11

Dawn found them camped in the trees, the black tower still and silent across the open ground. Telari watched Katt roll his shoulder and flex his wounded arm. He was the master blacksmith who had fought at her side since the first pale creature fell, and lately she found her eyes on him more than the enemy. He tested the arm again, slow, then fast. "It's healed enough," he said. "I can swing." He drew his longsword to prove it. The blade caught the gray light, its rare metal bright along the etched edge. He cut the air twice, clean, no flinch. "Then we go in," Telari said. She knelt and checked her own weapons. Her bow first, then the short sword at her hip. She drew it and turned it in her hand. The blade was slim and quick, marked with a twist of blue down its length like wind made solid. Inside the tower she would have no room to draw a bow. Narrow stairs. Tight halls. She needed steel for close work. "I take this one," she told Katt. "Your longsword clears the front. My short blade covers the corners." He nodded. "Good. Corners kill men who bring the wrong sword." The lions paced at the treeline. The grey one pressed her head to Telari's knee. The white one watched the tower door, low and ready to run. Telari gripped Leia's ruff. She looked at the black stone, the narrow windows, the one dark door. A cat could not fight in there. Stairs and stone walls would trap them, turn their speed against them. Inside, they would die. "Not this time," she said. Leia's ears flattened. Telari pointed back to the trees. "Guard the door. Anything that runs out, you take it. But you don't come inside." The white lion huffed and did not move. Telari held its eyes until it stepped back. "I mean it. Stay." The two cats sank into the brush, ready but held. Katt watched her send them off. "Hard to leave them," he said. "They've carried us this far." "They carry us by watching the door," Telari said. But her chest was tight. Every fight before this, the lions had run beside her. Now she walked toward the black tower with only Katt and two blades. They crossed the open ground fast and low. No shout came from the windows. Telari reached the door first and set her hand to the cold iron. It gave. Behind her Katt raised his longsword. She drew her short sword and looked back once at the trees where the lions crouched, then into the dark stair beyond the door. "We're through the door," she whispered. "No more scouting." The stair climbed into black. Somewhere above, the hand that paid for dead armies waited. Telari stepped inside, and the tower swallowed the light behind her.