She leaned against him, shuddering with strain and with the wind that cried up here under the flickering stars. He looked about, seeking a way down again. Yes, over there, a doorway opening on a small terrace. Quickly now.
They crawled over the slanting, ice-slippery roof, helping each other where they could, fighting a way to the battlement until Kery's grasping fingers closed on its edge and he heaved both of them up onto it.
"Come on!" he snapped. "They'll be behind us any moment now."
"What to do?" she murmured. "What to do?"
"Get the pipes!" he growled, and the demon blood of Broina began to boil in him again. "Get the pipes and destroy them if we can do nothing else."
They went through the door and down a narrow staircase and came to the fourth floor of the palace.
Sathi looked up and down the long empty hallway. "I have been up here before," she said with a coolness that was good to hear. "Let me see--yes, this way, I think--" As they trotted down the hollow length of corridor she said further: "They treated me fairly well here, indeed with honor though I was a prisoner. But oh, Kery, it was like sunlight to see you again!"
He stooped and kissed her, briefly, wondering if he would ever have a chance to do it properly. Most likely not but she would be a good companion on hell-road.
They came into a great antechamber. Kery had his sword out, the only weapon left to him, but no one was in sight. All the royal guards must be out hunting him. He grinned wolfishly and stepped to the farther door.
"Kery--" Sathi huddled close against him. "Kery, do we dare? It may be death--"
"It will be like that anyway," he said curtly and swung the door open.
A great, richly furnished suite of chambers, dark and still, lay before him. He padded through the first, looking right and left like a questing animal, and into the next.
Two men stood there, talking--Jonan and Mongku.
They saw him and froze for he was a terrible sight, bloody, black with smoke, fury cold and bitter-blue in his eyes. He grinned, a white flash of teeth in his sooted face, and drew his sword and stalked forward.
"Aye," said Kery. "Where is the pipe of Killorn?"
Jonan thrust forward, drawing the sword at his belt. "I will hold him, prince," he said. "I will carve him into very bits for you."