There was a lot of noise ahead of me but I didn't pause, instead I hurried up. Grinning, I brought a few words of Gedurian to mind, using the Alendi dialect that Meran had taught me. By the time I was back at the head of the stairs, with several barbarians in sight, I was practically thinking in the language.
Two men were at the top of the stairs, looking down. One glanced my way for just a moment before looking back.
“What happens?” I demanded.
He looked my way again and gestured that I look. “The demon cooked himself dinner.”
Steaming gently, covered in oil, stinking of cooked flesh, skin red where it wasn't cracked and oozing or covered in blood from the thrusts of my sword, lay the two men I had doused in hot oil. I snorted in disgust. “Didn't stay to eat though.”
The two gave uneasy snorting laughs. At the bottom of the stairs another barbarian was looking up. “Want to help us move them?” Behind him half a dozen men were in the hall, milling nervously. If there had been less I would have shoved these two down the stairs and gone on from there, but ten seemed more than I could take.
“You got plenty of help.”
I was about to move away and find easier prey when Sapphire struck in the hall below. I saw him moving, calm and deadly, short blade flashing in a killing stroke, the mortally injured man grunting even as Sapphire moved on. Two were down before anyone noticed he was there and I twitched out of my reverie, stepped around behind them and shoved my two companions down the stairs. Why had I hesitated? The time for acquiring facts was over, the time to think was past. Now was the time to act, I berated myself. So act.
Sliding my new sword out of its scabbard I descended the stairs, lopping the arm from the first man I reached; he had caught the banister, arrested his fall and got to his feet just as I struck. Kicking him away so that he fell before me, I carried on down. As chance would have it the second had fallen into the roasted bodies of his dead compatriots, and filled with disgust at their touch had stood, his back to the top of the stairs, only to be struck from his feet by his falling companion, blood spraying from the stump of his arm in measured steady arcs.
Measured and steady, that was the way Sapphire moved, calm and calculating, aware of everything around him and moving in complete control of the situation, as though he knew what everyone was going to do. The calm concentration he displayed on his face told the story clear. He was in complete control of himself, doing what needed to be done in the simplest most expedient fashion he knew. He could have been digging a ditch, I thought, and tried to adopt his attitude as I moved to dispatch the two tangled men; they were panicked, defensive, trying to get clear, even the one who was surely bleeding to death. By the time I got to the bottom of the stairs there was nothing more to do. Sapphire looked all about, never still but showing no sign of urgency.
“What happened to the plan?”
“I changed my mind. Confound the enemy with chaos and disorder.” I said.
He nodded. “Down.”
I ducked into a squat before I could stop myself and he smiled at me. “Don't lose that attitude,” he said.
“Down it is. Head for the throne room.”
“Eleven less?” He was doing a quick head count.
“Fourteen,” I told him.
“Good,” he walked away, making for the head of the stairs down to the next level.
As I followed I ran through the route to the audience chamber in my mind. Where Kukran Epthel doubtless awaited us, ready or unprepared made no difference to me at the moment. It wasn't so far and I knew the way.