«What the devil?» Richard cried out, instinctively yanking Brion back from the crumpled form as he and the king also looked up.

Discarding his now-useless bow, Kenneth peered over the parapet only long enough to be certain that neither prince had been hit, then gestured urgently for them to be away.

«There’s treachery afoot! Some of our men are compromised! Get him to safety!»

He did not wait to see what they did; only pelted onward to the end of the gallery — he could see no one there — then tried to squeeze through the narrow doorway of a tight turnpike stair that spiraled downward within one of the columns that supported the transept crossing. He had to detach his sheathed sword from its hangers and hug it close along his body to get through, and it hampered him on the way down, but he knew he had to get to the king, to protect him from his own men as well as Zachris Pomeroy; for the Deryni assassin had managed to infiltrate the cathedral, probably inserting some of his own men into the ranks of Brion’s lancers, and he was able to seize men’s minds, was subverting more of the lancers, one by one. Any one of them could be potential regicides.

Emerging to sounds of a vigorous scuffle at the bottom of the stair, he found Richard grappling with another of the lancers, who was struggling violently to wrench free — almost certainly, another of Pomeroy’s unwilling conquests, for Kenneth knew the man to be loyal.

Brion and Bishop Faxon had also thrown themselves into the fracas and were attempting to assist Richard by tackling the man’s flailing legs — and getting kicked for their trouble. Beyond, more lancers were approaching at a run from all parts of the cathedral, with Tiarnán and Jiri among them. But given what Kenneth had seen above and here, he realized he could not be sure of any of them.

«Richard!» he shouted, as he ran toward them. «Either knock him out or kill him!» At the same time, he interposed himself between them and the oncoming lancers, flinging aside the scabbard from his sword and adopting a posture of challenge as he thrust his free hand upward in an emphatic order to halt.

«All of you, hold!» he ordered. «Drop your weapons! Don’t ask why, just do it! Now!»

If they defied him for whatever reason, he knew he could not stop all of them, for there must be close to a dozen, but he took the chance that most of them probably had not been compromised.

«I said, put down your swords. Do it!» he repeated, gesturing with his sword and starting to back off just a little, edging closer to the king.

Behind him, amid the garbled sounds of muffled grunts and heavy breathing and harness clanging against the floor, he heard a smothered gurgle, abruptly choked off, and Richard’s satisfied humpf as he dealt with their would-be assailant. In front of Kenneth, Jiri and Tiarnán had laid down their weapons immediately, and now were making gestures urging the wary and bewildered lancers to do the same.

Which they began to do, starting to lay down swords and bows…except for one man far at the back, with a monk’s robe over his livery, who was edging away from the others — and then made an abrupt bolt for freedom.

«Stop that man!» Kenneth shouted, pointing with his sword as he took up pursuit, plunging into the midst of the confused lancers and trying not to skewer anyone as he bulled his way through. Their sheer mass slowed him down, even though they were trying to get out of his way.

Breaking free, he pounded down the nave after his quarry, shoving aside flustered clergy and lingering townsfolk, jumping over fallen ones or dodging to avoid tripping over them, caroming off pillars as he tried to keep his quarry in sight.

Far at the west end, a group of monks saw him coming, alarmed by the shouts echoing from that end of the cathedral, and pointed urgently toward the baptistry chapel in the northwest corner, very near the door to the sacristy, where two black-clad figures were circling and feinting in a deadly dance that suddenly exploded into a knife-fight, quick and violent and bloody. Nearby lay the crumpled forms of several more black-clad bodies. Kenneth had nearly reached the struggling pair when another black-robed man burst from the sacristy doorway, sword in hand, and launched himself at Kenneth.

They met in a clash of ringing steel and grunted exclamations that sent frightened onlookers scurrying for cover in archways and behind pillars. After an initial flurry of heated attacks and parries, Kenneth’s attacker disengaged, backing off briefly in more calculating assessment.

Again they engaged, feinting, testing, neither doing any damage — until Kenneth’s attacker suddenly launched another flurry of furious attack. After half a dozen ringing exchanges, blade slithered along blade until the two swords locked at the cross-guards, the two men eye-to-eye, each straining to shift the balance. Kenneth attempted to disengage, but his opponent would not be budged, his cold gaze catching Kenneth’s in what immediately became an attempt to seize his will. He was Deryni, Kenneth realized, and moreover, almost certainly the man of whom Jamyl had warned him.

Wrenching away his glance, Kenneth finally managed to disengage, worried now, sword sweeping before him in guard as he circled a few steps, looking for an opening. He probably had the edge in experience and even skill, but his opponent was at least a decade younger. From far at the other end of the nave, he could hear urgent shouting, and the sound of running footsteps, and prayed that more of his opponent’s associates had not launched a separate attack on the king.

They closed again, with Kenneth well aware that this time the stakes were even higher than his own possible loss of life. After another flurry of exchanges, they locked blades again, but Kenneth kept his gaze averted and spun out from under the other’s blade, ending crouched in a guard position a dozen paces away, breathing hard. The running footsteps were closer now — whether friend or foe, Kenneth knew not.

But there would be no renewal of this battle — at least not with swords. Though Kenneth’s opponent again raised his blade, a look of calculated loathing in the dark eyes, this time he stretched forth his sword-arm to sight along his blade, a sneering smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. Then, though the sword tip sank slowly toward the floor, the man’s other hand lifted in a fist that, as the fingers opened, brought forth a spitting ball of orange fire.

As the man’s arm cocked back to throw, all Kenneth could think to do — and it was his body that reacted instinctively, not his brain — was to flatten himself to the floor, at the same time rolling as far aside as he could, even as lightning arced from the man’s hand. The lightning seared past where Kenneth’s torso had been, narrowly missing a ribbed column and taking a smoking gouge of masonry out of the wall beyond.

He recoiled from the sight, and saw, to his horror, that Duke Richard and the king had very nearly reached what was about to become a deadly killing zone, and that his Deryni attacker now was turning his blade toward the king, fire again in his other hand, a look of triumph in his eyes as he again cocked his arm to launch another magical strike.

«Nooooooo!» Kenneth screamed.

In that same instant, his eye caught motion high in the clerestory above him: a black-clad and hooded archer looking down, drawing a little recurve bow to full-nock, the barbed arrowhead lowering to bear directly at him.

Except that, when the gloved hand let fly, the arrow thudded into the throat of Kenneth’s attacker, who clawed at his throat with a strangled gurgle — and enveloped his own head in flames, slain by his own magic. Kenneth’s gasp was lost in the shouts of nearby witnesses and the sound of footsteps approaching, as he twisted to look back up to the clerestory.