Chase went down a wide marble stairway. Zedd followed him at a quick walk. If he were sure it wasn't Chase or Rachel the screeling was after, he would have gone a different way, drawing the danger away from them, but it could just as easily go after them, and he didn't want to leave Chase to fight it alone.
A man and a woman, both in white robes, were coming up the stairs. Chase tried to turn them around but they slipped past him.
"Walk!" Zedd yelled at them. "Don't run! Go back or you will be killed!" They frowned at him in confusion.
The screeling was shuffling along toward the stairs, its claws clicking and scraping on the marble floor. Zedd could hear it panting with that nerve jarring near laughter.
The two people saw the dark thing and froze, their blue eyes going wide. Zedd shoved them, turning them around, and forced them back down the stairs. They both suddenly broke into a run, bounding down the stairs three at a time, their blond hair and white robes flying.
"Don't run!" Zedd and Chase yelled at the same time.
The screeling rose up on its clawed toes, attracted by the sudden movement. It let out a cackling laugh and darted to the stairs. Zedd threw a fist of air, hitting it in the chest, knocking it back a pace. It hardly noticed. It peered over the carved, stone railing at the top and saw the people running.
With a cackling laugh, it grasped the railing and leapt over, dropping a good twenty feet to the two running, white-robed figures. Chase immediately put Rachel's face to his shoulder and reversed direction, coming back up the stairs. He knew what was going to happen, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Zedd waited at the top. "Hurry, while it's distracted."
There was a very brief struggle, and screams that were just as brief. Howling, cackling laughter echoed in the stairwell. Blood splattered in an arc up the white marble, almost to where Chase was charging up the stairs. Rachel hid her face against him and hugged his neck tight, but didn't make a sound.
Zedd was impressed by her. He had never seen one so young use her head as well as she did. She was smart. Smart and gutsy. He understood why Giller had used her to try to get the last box of Orden away from Darken Rahl. The way of wizards, Zedd thought—using people to do what must be done.
The three ran down the hall until the screeling appeared at the top of stairs, then they slowed to a backward walk. The screeling grinned with blood red teeth, its deathless black eyes momentarily reflecting golden in the sunlight coming in a tall, narrow window. It winced at the light, licked the blood off its claws, and then loped after them. They went down the next stairway. The creature followed, sometimes stopping briefly in confusion, seemingly unsure if it was them it was after.
Chase held Rachel in one arm and a sword in his other hand. Zedd stayed between them and the screeling as they backed down a small hall. The screeling climbed up the walls, scratching the smooth stone, and sprang across tapestries, tearing them with its claws as it followed the three.
Polished walnut side tables, each with three ornate legs carved in vines and dotted with gilded blossoms, tipped over into the hall as the screeling pushed at them with a claw, grinning and laughing at the sound of cut glass vases shattering on the stone floor. Water and flowers spilled over carpets. The screeling hopped down and tore a priceless blue and yellow Tanimuran carpet to shreds as it howled in laughter and then skittered up the wall to the ceiling.
It advanced along the ceiling like a spider, head hanging down, watching them.
"How can it do that?" Chase whispered.
Zedd only shook his head as they backed into the immense central halls of the Peoples' Palace. The ceiling here was well over fifty feet high, a collection of four-pointed ribbed vaults held up by a column at the corner of each vault.
Suddenly the screeling sprang along the ceiling of the small hall it was in and leapt out at them.
Zedd released a bolt of fire as the creature flew through the air. He missed, the fire boiling up the granite wall, leaving a trail of black soot before it dissipated.
For the first time, Chase didn't miss. With a solid strike his sword lopped off one of the screeling's arms. For the first time the screeling howled in pain. It tumbled around on the ground and darted behind a green veined gray marble column. The severed arm lay on the stone floor, twitching and grasping.
Soldiers came running across the vast hall, their swords to hand, the clatter of armor and weapons reverberating off the vaulted ceilings high overhead, their boot strikes echoing off the tiles around the devotion pool as they skirted it. D'Haran soldiers were a fierce lot, and they looked all the more so at finding there was an invader in the Palace.
Zedd felt an odd sort of apprehension at seeing them. A few days ago they would have dragged him off to the former Master Rahl to be killed, and now they were the loyal followers of the new Master Rahl, Zedd's grandson, Richard.
As Zedd saw the soldiers coming, he realized the halls were filled with people. The afternoon devotion had just ended. Even if the screeling did have only one arm, this could be a blood bath. The screeling could kill a few dozen of them before they even thought to run. And then it would kill more when they did. Getting all these people away was the priority.
The soldiers rushed up around the wizard, eyes hard, searching, ready, looking for the cause of the commotion. Zedd turned to the commander, a heavily muscled man in leather and a polished breastplate with the ornate letter 'R' embossed on it: the symbol of the House of Rahl. The scars of rank were incised on upper arms covered only with coarse mail sleeves. Intense blue eyes glowered out from under his gleaming helmet.
"What's going on here?" he demanded. "What is it?"
"Get these people out of this hall. They are all in danger."
The commander's face reddened behind the cheek plates of his helmet. "I'm a soldier, not a bloody sheepherder!"
Zedd gritted his teeth. "And a soldier's first duty is to protect people. If you don't get these people out of this hall, Commander, I will see to it you become a sheepherder!"
His fist snapped to his heart in salute, his voice suddenly controlled at realizing who he was arguing with. "By your command, Wizard Zorander." He turned his anger instead on his men. "Get everyone back! Right bloody now! Spread rank! Sweep the hall!"
The soldiers fanned out, pushing a wave of startled people before them. Zedd hoped they could get them all clear, and then maybe, with the soldiers' help, they could bottle the screeling up and hack it to pieces.
But then the screeling launched itself from behind the column, a black streak tearing across the floor. It tumbled into a bunched knot of onlookers the soldiers were herding back, toppling many over each other to the ground. Shrieks and wails and hideous laughter erupted from across the hall.
Soldiers fell upon the screeling and were flung back, bloodied, as more came to their aid. In the panicked clump of people the soldiers couldn't swing a sword or axe with any effect as the screeling tore a bloody path through the bodies. It had no more caution for the armed soldiers than unarmed innocents. It simply ripped at anyone close enough.
"Bags!" Zedd cursed. He turned to Chase. "Stick close to me. We have to draw it away." He looked around. "Over there. The devotion pool."
They ran to the square pool of water that was situated under an opening in the roof. Sunlight streamed down, reflecting in rippling patterns on the column at one of its corners. A bell perched on the dark pitted rock that sat off center in the water. Orange fish glided through the shallow pool, unconcerned with the mayhem above.
Zedd was getting an idea. The screeling certainly wasn't bothered by fire; the most it did when hit with it was steam a little. He ignored the sounds of pain and dying and stretched his hands out over the water, gathering its warmth, preparing it for what he was going to do. He could see shimmering waves of heat just above the surface of the water. He held the rising heat at that point, just below ignition.
"When it comes," he told Chase, "we have to get it in the water."
&nbs
p; Chase gave a nod. Zedd was glad the boundary warden wasn't one who always needed to have things explained to him, and knew better than to waste precious seconds with questions. Chase set Rachel on the ground. "Stay behind me," he told her.
She, too, asked no questions. She nodded and hugged her doll close. Zedd saw she was clutching the fire stick in her other hand. Gutsy indeed. He turned to the uproar across the hall, lifted a hand, and sent tickling tongues of flame into the flailing dark thing in its center. The soldiers fell back.
The screeling straightened, turning, dropping a disembodied arm from its teeth as it did so. Steam rose where the flames had licked it. It hissed a cackling laugh at the wizard standing still in the sunlight by the pool.
The soldiers were pushing the remaining people down the halls, although the people no longer needed the encouragement. Zedd rolled balls of fire across the floor. The screeling batted them out of the way and they sparked out. Zedd knew the fire wouldn't harm it; he only wanted to draw its attention away from the people it was killing. It worked.
"Don't forget," he said to Chase, "in the water."
"You don't mind if it's dead when it goes in, do you?"
"All the better."
With a clatter of claws against stone, the screeling charged across the hall. The tips of the claws scratched into the floor, sending little spurts of stone dust behind along with flakes and chips. Zedd hit it with compacted knots of air, hammering it down, keeping its attention, trying to slow it down enough so they might be able to handle it. It came to its feet in a rush each time, charging onward. Chase crouched a little lower in readiness, now holding a six bladed mace in his fist instead of the sword.
The screeling made an impossible leap through the air at the wizard, landing on him with a howl before he had a chance to turn it aside. As he was thrown to the ground, Zedd wove webs of air to keep the thrashing claw at bay. Teeth snapped viciously at his throat.
Man and beast rolled over once and when the screeling came up on top, Chase swung the mace at its head, hitting a glancing blow. It spun to him and he slammed it square in the chest, knocking it off the wizard. Zedd could hear bones snapping with the blow. The screeling seemed hardly to notice.
Its one arm swept out, yanking Chase's legs out from under him and then sprang on his chest as he hit the floor with a hard grunt. Zedd struggled to regain his wits. Rachel laid the fire stick on the screeling's back and flames burst up. Zedd pushed it with air, trying to knock it in the water, but the screeling held onto Chase with its claw to keep from being pushed. Angry black eyes glared out from behind the fire. Lips curled back in a snarl.
Chase brought the mace up with both hands, catching the powerful creature square in the back. The impact knocked the screeling into the pool. Hissing steam rose upon the contact of flame and water.
Instantly, Zedd ignited the air above the water, using the heat in the water to feed it. The wizard's fire sucked all warmth from the water. The entire pool froze into a solid block of ice. The screeling was encased. The fire sputtered out when the heat feeding it was exhausted. There was sudden quiet, except for the moans from the injured across the hall.
Rachel fell on Chase, her voice choked with tears. "Chase, Chase, are you all right?"