CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AT THE POINT OF DEATH
There were three dozen or more of Vohanna’s hybrid guards, unholy mixtures of man and horse and ape, of ghyre and reeth and half a hundred other Taleran monsters. There were the winged ones, shrieking like banshees as they whirled above me. And there was Bryce, with foam flecking his lips in rage at being thwarted by his mistress. He’d wanted to take my life himself; it seemed he would have to share.
I gripped my sword in clenched fingers, wishing suddenly at the point of death that I could at least say goodbye to Rannon. But still my body wanted to live. I began to inch away, seeking instinctively for something to put my back against.
For a moment, Bryce turned and snarled upon the others.
“I told you he was mine!” he shouted.
And for a bare
