Rivik laughed. Tavi cursed. “How far?” Tavi asked.

Halfman would have found some other way to answer, but Dorian couldn’t help himself. “About ten minutes.”

Rivik laughed again, louder.

Tavi backhanded Dorian. “What’s your name, halfman?”

“Milord, this slave is called Halfman.”

“Ooh hoo!” Rivik hooted. “We got a live one here!”

“Not for long,” Tavi said.

“If you kill him, I’ll tell,” Rivik said.

“You’ll tell?” The disdain and disbelief on Tavi’s face told Halfman that Rivik’s days as a sidekick were numbered.

“He made me laugh,” Rivik said. “Come on. We’re already late for lecture, you know how Draef will try to turn that on us.”

“Fine, just a second.” The vir rose to Tavi’s skin and he began chanting.

“Tavi …”

“It won’t kill him.”

The magic was a slight concussion inches from Halfman’s chest. It threw him back into the wall like a rag doll. The wicker splintered and the clay pot shattered, geysering human waste over Halfman and the wall behind him.

Rivik laughed louder. “We’ve gotta remember this next time we’re bored. Khali’s tits, it reeks! Imagine if we could break one of those pots in Draef’s room.”

The aethelings left Halfman gasping on the floor, wiping ooze from his face. It was five minutes before he stood up, but when he did, it was with alacrity. In the fear and in the miming of fear, he had almost missed it. The newest concubine could only be one woman. His future wife was at the top of Bertold’s Tower, and she was in danger.

9

The pit wyrm tore through the hole in reality and went for Kylar. The great wyrm was tubular, at least ten feet in diameter, its skin cracked and blackened, fire showing through the gaps. When it lunged, its great bulk heaved forward and its entire eyeless front opened as it vomited its cone-like mouth. Kylar leapt as each concentric ring snapped out. Each ring was circled with teeth, and when the third ring caught a tree, teeth the size of Kylar’s forearm whipped around into the wood. The pit wyrm sucked itself forward, its lamprey-like mouth inverting as the rings bit into the wood in turn, shearing a ten-foot section out of the tree trunk before Kylar landed.