"So," said Bois-Guilbert, "De Bracy's dead and we have a traitor in our midst. As God is my judge, I will show you the price of treason, de la Croix!"
"I have already paid that price," said Andre, glancing at Marcel. "And in a moment, God will be judging you."
* * * *
What opposition there was was either dead, in flight, or hiding. Finn had to find the chronoplate. It would not be where anyone could readily see it. If Irving had been using Nottingham Castle as his base of operations, then it stood to reason that he'd keep the chronoplate secure within his chambers. But which of the rooms were his?
Finn ransacked them all systematically, tearing everything apart to find the object of his search. In several of the rooms, he found men and women cowering in fright. There was a chance that they would not have attempted to interfere with him, but he could not afford to take it. He shot them all. If they succeeded in their mission, the refs would have a lot of cleaning up to do. If not, the point was moot. There were a lot of lives at stake. Somehow, that thought did very little to comfort him.
The crossbow bolt in his shoulder was beginning to cause him a great deal of pain now. He could not afford to dwell on it. Hunter had to be right, he had to be. The thought of so much killing to no purpose ...
Where was it?
There remained two more places where he had not searched. Please, God, Finn thought, let it be in one of them, please. He tried the door. It was bolted from within, like several of the others had been, where people had attempted to hide from him. He took a small amount of the plastique and blew it open. A man rushed at him with a sword. Finn shot him. There was no one else inside. He looked down at his attacker.
He wasn't even old enough to shave.
* * * *
Irving clocked back into his chambers. Safe, for the moment, behind a bolted door. He was breathing hard. He was almost completely spent. Each time, he tried to rest a little, to catch his breath, but the strain of the temporal fugue was beginning to wear him out.
He had almost bought it when the fugue began. They were using a chronoplate as well! He had been certain that the other referee would not have risked it, would not have had a plate issued to his team. This changed everything. Obviously, there was no chance of tracing the plate. He hadn't been aware of it before and that meant that the tracer function had been bypassed, just as he had done on his unit. Those fools! Didn't they realize what they were forcing him to do? He had gone to a great deal of trouble to become Richard and he hated to abandon his role, but he had to recognize the possibility that he would have to clock out to another period, start a new scenario. They might never find him then. They had forced his hand. He hated to leave now when he
had come so close, but it appeared that he would have little choice.
But before he did anything else, he had to bring the fugue to a conclusion. He could not risk being outmaneuvered. He had to stop that man; he was the only one left. . . . And perhaps that would even end it. He had killed the other agent. Perhaps when he killed this one the scenario would take a turn in his favor. Maybe this time the other ref would be too late. He still had a hole card.
Andre de la Croix.
She was carrying a PRU slaved to his chronoplate. He could clock her back into his chambers and bring her back into the fugue with him. He could not hope to explain the mechanics of a temporal fugue to her, but she already believed him to be a wizard, he could pass it all off as sorcery and tell her that the only thing she needed to concern herself with was the death of his opponent. Together, they would outnumber him and he would stand no chance. He had given her the unit in expectation of trouble, but he had not suspected just how badly he would need her. He would end it now.
Reaching for the control console of the chronoplate, he punched out the sequence that would clock her back to Nottingham. Then, when her usefulness was ended, he could kill her at his leisure.
* * * *
Bois-Guilbert was putting up a valiant struggle, but he was being hammered into the ground. He couldn't understand how de la Croix's armor was standing up so well under his repeated assaults. Both knights were exhausted, but where Bois-Guilbert's armor bore the marks of Andre's assaults, de la Croix's armor was undamaged. She had already drawn blood.
Andre was fighting with a fury unlike anything that she had known before. For the first time, she felt the fire of blood lust coursing through her. She was tired and Bois-Guilbert was strong, but her ensorcelled armor and her charm gave her protection he did not enjoy. He had killed Marcel and he would pay.
With a savage stroke, she smashed at him. He caught the blow on his shield, which was badly battered, and the force of it was too great for him to hold on. She struck again and he lost his shield. Holding his sword with both hands, he attempted to strike back, but de la Croix was on him with a vengeance, pounding away at him, breaking through his armor, getting past his defenses....
He was growing weak from loss of blood. He could not accept that he was losing. It could not be happening, it was impossible. Her sword came down in a vicious chopping stroke and he felt it bite into his armor, penetrate through into his arm. He cried out and felt his sword slip from his hand, felt the floor come up beneath him ....
For a moment, there was an incandescent respite. He looked up and saw de la Croix poised with sword held overhead.
"Damn," he whispered softly.
The sword—
* * * *
—came down.
Irving never knew what killed him.
Andre froze. She did not know what had happened. One moment, Bois-Guilbert was at her mercy, prepared to meet his maker. The next, she was . . . elsewhere. And her sword had split the sorcerer's head right down the middle. He was at her feet, kneeling before some strange and mystifying apparatus. His helmet was on the floor, inches away, as though he had only just removed it. Dazed, she backed away and watched the corpse topple.
The door exploded inward and Finn Delaney barged into the room. He fired a quick burst into her chest, knocking her off her feet, and then he saw the chronoplate and Irving's corpse. Andre lay on her back, not moving. She was in shock. Not giving her a second glance, Finn set the charge on the chronoplate and hit his PRU. When Andre looked up, he was gone.