Lora of Two Worlds

The black-clad men made for Lora — and in a breath they were at Leon’s front.

Leon laughed short and cold. Both hands pressed the switches beneath the armrests — from either side of the chair two steel cables snapped out, and riding the cables’ spring were the meteorite-iron daggers.

One dagger buried itself in a black-clad body; the other man dodged, the blade shaving past him — and the cable hauled it home.

The dagger now in Leon’s hand was already flying — it took the dodger in the flesh.

But that was not enough to finish them. As the two turned in panic, Lora had her own dagger out — up under the masked man’s ribs, and out again — and the man’s eyes rolled white, with no breath left to scream.

The cable dragged the first dagger’s man to the chair. Leon slapped the armrest, and a two-foot short sword sprang out.

He caught the hilt and rode the motion forward — into the masked man’s back, beneath the shoulder.

The two of them, standing there, had drawn most of the eyes on the field.

The masked men did their best to shake off the guards’ clinch, and swarmed together at Leon and Lora.

Lora, down from the carriage, swept one look round: Morn, Channing, Conan to hand, Linn and Lyle too — but from where she stood she could not see her mother’s carriage. Mother — ?

”Morn — cover my mother!”

Morn gave her one look, leapt onto the carriage roof, kicked two burning arrows off it, and jumped for the carriage ahead.

Two masked men bore down on Leon. Their blades did not go for the head, set at the handiest height — they went lower, for the legs.

Cut the legs, and no legs would ever move again.

One hand he spun the wheel, one hand he fenced with the short sword, and he slipped their head-on rush.

Lora stood behind the masked men — a slip of a woman, and so unwatched. What she watched turned her heart over, flesh creeping, pulse leaping. She raised her hand and tripped the switch twice over: one hand-bow bolt into the back of a skull, one into the neck.

Leon’s short sword caught a falling blade. To lift a blade from below is poor leverage — it would not toss the stroke aside. And then he threw himself back, and the back of his head rapped hard on a stud in the chair back.

The stud was a button. Out of the crossbeam atop the chair back flew a row of poison-tipped needles — two of them bit into a masked man’s face.

The masked men standing between Lora and Leon went down, and at last the two of them found each other’s eyes:

”Lora!” ”Leon!”

Lora had just started toward him when two masked men dropped from the carriage roof — one at either side, seizing her by the upper arms, and carried her bodily for the mountain side.

”Lora!”

Leon’s heart burned like a furnace, and he could not rise out of the chair. He drove the wheels with both hands, chasing like a madman, and roared:

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”Lora — hold your breath!”

No time now to reckon friend from foe in the range of it, no time to ask whether the weapon would serve. He pressed the switch at the chair’s side, and two yellow balls shot from the crossbeam atop the back.

The two men knew the chair’s tricks by now, and kept their wariness — and at his cry of ”Lora, hold your breath,” they caught themselves holding their own.

A masked man swung the back of his blade to swat the ball aside — but the least touch split it in midair, and the yellow powder came drifting down, settling over their heads.

They were glad, even, of their face-cloths — the drug-powder could not work fast through them.

And if not now — when?

Lora’s two hands flew up, and she tore both masks off. The two men froze — the breath they’d held broke — and the long holding of it made them gulp one great breath in. The powder found its mark, and their grip on her arms went with it.

Gladly she tore loose and ran for Leon — and her own legs went soft, and she pitched forward, half in a dream.

She had held her breath, yes — but how long does one breath last? With all that motion besides. She had breathed her share of the smoke.

Leon had the chair there in time, and caught her as she went down.

”Lora...”

He took the water-skin hanging at the chair, filled his mouth, and sprayed her face; and out of his breast he brought one pill and pushed it between her lips.

The drug and the antidote both were of Osler’s compounding — and never once tried.

The pill’s outer shell was mint powder: before the drug could soak in through the gut, the mint, like the water on her face, went to the senses and dragged a mind back awake.

The drug was the last hidden weapon on the chair. If Lora had not torn those masks off, the two of them would never have felt it — they’d have had her away and gone.

The mere thought of it left him shaking after.

The Lora in his arms stirred at last, and opened her eyes:

”Leon...”

”You’re awake — that’s all that matters. Had the antidote failed, I’d have killed Osler with my own hands!”

Leon’s eyes were red. The fingers he held to her face were ice — the fear of losing her written plain across it, nothing hidden.

There was no time for sweetness. With the battle still ringing in their ears, Lora was off him and up — she looked back once at the two sprawled killers, picked a sword off the ground, and gave each of them one more.

The masked men were no mean hands — some better than their own guards — and they had the numbers too; the guards could not settle it quickly.

Leon’s party had their backs to the cliff wall now, a little clear ground between them and the brawl — which had become the best footing on the field.

He reached in a flash for the quiver hung on the chair back, bent the bow, and nocked a fire-arrow.

Lora blew the fire-stick alight and touched it to the fuse on the arrow’s powder-tube.

The fire-arrow, improved yet again by the two of them, went screaming across the ground — and took a masked man full on.

The powder-tube was a length of reed cut in two: the upper joint charged with fire-oil, the mouth sealed with waxed parchment; the lower joint held the black powder itself. The whole tube had been pared and polished fine, its shell made light and thin.

The tube burst. The fire-oil was little — but what it splashed was fire itself, and the man’s clothes went up in a blaze.

Whssst!

Another arrow — a second burning man.

Whssst! Whssst!

With someone to light them, Leon’s rate of fire was terrible. Bolt after bolt — and the masked men, howling like ghosts and wolves as they burned, frightened their own side witless.

Fire-arrows they had loosed at the carriages themselves — but never had they seen the like of these: bursting, and lighting a man whole in a heartbeat.

”Break off!”

Whoever gave the word, the masked men left scattered. The guards came up roaring, hacking and hewing — and of the attackers, only a ragged few won away, catching ropes up the cliff.

An ambush that left nothing behind it but question marks, settled to its dust.

The Countess came stumbling over under Morn’s guard, and at the sight of her daughter whole, she caught her in her arms and wept:

”Lora... you frightened your mother to death... I thought I’d never see you again—”

”Mother, I’m all right. It’s a shambles here — come, I’ll get you back to the carriage.”

Lora held her mother’s shoulder gently — and suddenly found that at some hour she could not name, she had grown half a head taller than her mother.

She did not look back. Her right hand went behind her, and the palm opened and closed, catching at the air a few times.

Leon knew it: that was her ”till we meet again.”

On a field strewn with the dead and smoking black, he smiled.