The chamber within was not as she had left it. The Semk's corpse was gone. Mebra's body had been stripped of its clothing, the clothing itself cut apart. What little furnishings occupied the room had been methodically dismantled. Cursing under her breath, Apsalar walked to the doorway leading to the inner chamber – the curtain that had covered it had been torn away. In the small room beyond – Mebra's living quarters – the searcher or searchers had been equally thorough.
Indifferent to the absence of light, she scanned the detritus. Someone had been looking for something, or deliberately obscuring a trail.
She thought about the Semk assassin's appearance last night. She had assumed he'd somehow seen her sprint across the rubble and so was compelled to return. But now she wondered. Perhaps he'd been sent back, his task only half-completed. In either case, he had not been working alone that night. She had been careless, thinking otherwise.
From the outer chamber came a wavering whisper, 'Where are you?'
Apsalar stepped back through the doorway. 'What are you doing here, Curdle? I told you to-'
'Two people are coming. Women, like you. Like us, too. I forgot. Yes, we're all women here-'
'Find a shadow and hide,' Apsalar cut in. 'Same for Telorast.'
'You don't want us to kill them?'
'Can you?'
'No.'
'Hide yourselves.'
'A good thing we decided to guard the door, isn't it?'
Ignoring the ghost, Apsalar positioned herself beside the outer entrance. She drew her knives, set her back against the sloping stone, and waited.
She heard their quick steps, the scuffing as they halted just outside, their breathing. Then the first one stepped through, in her hands a shuttered lantern. She strode in further as she flipped back one of the hinged shutters, sending a shaft of light against the far wall.
Behind her entered the second woman, a scimitar unsheathed and held out.
The Pardu caravan guards.
Apsalar stepped close and drove the point of one dagger into the woman's elbow joint on the sword-arm, then swung the other weapon, pommel-forward, into the woman's temple.
She dropped, as did her weapon.
The other spun round.
A high swinging kick caught her above the jaw. She reeled, lantern flying to crack against the wall.
Sheathing her knives, Apsalar closed in on the stunned guard. A punch to the solar plexus doubled her over. The guard dropped to her knees, then fell onto one side, curling up around the pain.
'This is convenient,' Apsalar said, 'since I was intending to question you anyway.'
She walked back to the first woman and checked on her condition.
Unconscious, and likely would remain so for some time. Even so, she kicked the scimitar into a corner, then stripped her of the knives she found hidden under her arms. Walking back to the other Pardu, she looked down on the groaning, motionless woman for a moment, then crouched and dragged her to her feet.
She grasped the woman's right arm, the one she used to hold a weapon, and, with a sharp twist, dislocated it at the elbow.
The woman cried out.
Apsalar closed a hand on her throat and slammed her against the wall, the head cracking hard. Vomit spilled onto the assassin's glove and wrist. She held the Pardu there. 'Now you will answer my questions.'
'Please!'
'No pleading. Pleading only makes me cruel. Answer me to my satisfaction and I might let you and your friend live. Do you understand?'
The Pardu nodded, her face smeared with blood and an elongated bump swelling below her right eye where the iron-embedded moccasin had struck.
Sensing the arrival of the two ghosts, Apsalar glanced over her shoulder. They were hovering over the body of the other Pardu.
'One of us might take her,' Telorast whispered.
'Easy,' agreed Curdle. 'Her mind is addled.'
'Absent.'
'Lost in the Abyss.'
Apsalar hesitated, then said, 'Go ahead.'
'Me!' hissed Curdle.
'No, me!' snarled Telorast.
'Me!'
'I got to her first!'
'You did not!'
'I choose,' said Apsalar. 'Acceptable?'
'Yes.'
'Oh yes, you choose, dearest Mistress-'
'You're grovelling again!'
'Am not!'
'Curdle,' Apsalar said. 'Possess her.'
'I knew you'd pick her!'
'Patience, Telorast. This night's not yet done.'
The Pardu woman before her was blinking, a wild look in her eyes. 'Who are you talking to? What language is that? Who's out there – I can't see-'