Thomdor looked at Bhereu. His brother’s face looked like a death mask and wore a look of grim realization that must mirror his own. The duke nodded in unspoken answer to Thomdor’s look as he came around the bull, hacking at its legs as vigorously as Azoun was doing on the beast’s other flank, then opened his mouth to speak.

What came out was a weak cough, and Bhereu’s eyes turned an odd green color. Then the beast lunged in their direction, and the world became a place of stabbing horns, hacking blades, and desperate dives for safety clear of plunging hooves. Both royal cousins fell and roiled, then rose to topple backward again. Thomdor struck the ground hard more than once, but the pain felt distant, as if the world were slipping away into numbing mists.

The tunnel that the world had become heaved and rolled, and Thomdor knew he was rising very slowly, pushing at the stubborn ground with his hands. Beside him, Bhereu rolled over, but did not try to rise. Somewhere the bull roared again as the Warden of the Eastern Marches staggered over to his brother, using his sword to support himself.

The duke was laboring to breathe, his face taut with pain, his eyes bright and wide.

“Poison!” Bhereu gasped. He was shaking under Thomdor’s hands, his burly body streaming with sweat. He tried to rise once, scrambling to gather himself in the baron’s firm grasp, and then collapsed, head lolling and limbs jouncing loosely.

Thomdor laid him back down. Poison, not magic. Yes, that would make sense, particularly with a clockwork creation. To have any hope of surviving, he and Bhereu would both have to get back to the Royal Chirurgeons in Suzail as soon as the battle was over.

Aye, the battle. Where was that bull, anyway?