The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

Televarn. Nimbulan has had enough time to make his way through the palace to Yaassima’s quarters with Scarface and the other mercenaries.”
    “Scarface owes me his life. He will have to help us. I have weapons stashed inside the palace. I’ll kill Yaassima while she’s still in thrall. You’ll come in with your mercenaries and my Rovers. Hanassa will be mine.”
    “Ours.”
     
    Quinnault grabbed the intruder by the wrists, forcing him to release the pressure on Katie’s throat. He gritted his teeth, putting all of his strength and leverage into his efforts. The Rover only leaned back, pulling the corded silk belt tighter about Katie’s neck.
    Her eyes popped open, and she clamped her fingers around the garrote. The fibers were too fine and slick for her to get so much as a fingernail between it and her vulnerable throat.
    The Rover laughed at her efforts. Quinnault shifted his grip. If he could only find the one vulnerable nerve beneath the man’s arm. He closed his eyes, remembering the trick taught him by his tutor in the monastery. Sometimes a priest had to defend himself without weapons. He fought the loose folds of the man’s black shirt and the thick embroidery on his vest, seeking, probing. Pressing.
    There.
    The Rover’s hands went limp.
    Katie rolled out of the bed and away from her assailant in one panicked movement. She gasped and pried the cord away from her throat.
    “Call the guard,” Quinnault ordered as he shifted his grip once more. This time he captured the Rover’s head with his left arm and controlled his right wrist with the other.
    “Your name,” he demanded.
    The Rover laughed again in response.
    “I’ll have your name now or by torture later.” He twisted the man’s arm back and up. A grimace of pain crossed the man’s face but he kept silent.
    Quinnault twisted harder. Another fraction of an inch and the arm would break.
    “My chieftain calls me Piedro,” the intruder said through gritted teeth.
    Quinnault relaxed the pressure on the arm a fraction. Dimly he was surprised at his lack of revulsion in causing the man pain. His priestly training to preserve all life seemed to have fled the moment Katie was threatened.
    “That tells me that you answer to another name.” Quinnault reasserted the pressure on the man’s arm.
    “Don’t we all?” Piedro shrugged within Quinnault’s tight grasp. A desperate gesture to twist free. Quinnault didn’t let him. One of the small bones of Piedro’s wrist slid out of place under the fierce grip.
    Piedro dropped his head. His defiant pose melted. But the tenseness in his thighs belied his acquiescence.
    “Who sent you?” Quinnault gestured with his head for Katie to call for help.
    She just stood there, the bed between herself and her assailant. She held her tiny hands to her throat, gently probing for injury. She stared straight ahead, wide-eyed, mouth working silently.
    “Katie, get help. I can’t hold him forever.” At the same moment he pushed upward on the arm he held while pulling back on Piedro’s throat.
    “Yihee!” Piedro screamed as his shoulder dislocated.
    Katie moved at last, staggering slightly as she hastened to the door and yanked it open. “Guards!” she croaked. Then she swallowed deeply and repeated her call, louder, more confidently.
    “I estimate you have less than one hundred heartbeats to tell me who sent you before I turn you over to my very efficient guards. They were not trained as priests and have less respect for life and pain than I do.” He tightened his grip on the man’s throat.
    “Can’t talk if you throttle me,” Piedro said calmly. Too calmly.
    “I’m not letting go. Who hired you? I don’t think you are smart enough to think up this plot on your own.”
    “I have my reasons for killing your bride with the belt to your own dressing gown, Your Almighty Supremeness.”
    “Cut the sarcasm. I know who would profit from such a plot to bring down my kingdom.” Too many people. “Which of them hired you?”
    Piedro laughed as the sound of heavy boots pounding in the corridor foretold the entry of the household guards. “Oh, they are properly embarrassed that you captured me in the middle of the crime. You who they are pledged to protect. They never suspected I walked right past them.”
    “A magician. I know how to control you now. Throw him in the dungeon. Have three magicians working together seal the door. I’ll interrogate him myself. When I have time. In a week or two.