Behind them, Penthos was apparently carrying on a running argument with Dion, having surrounded himself with a glittering and impenetrable shield. Lief caught brief snatches of it as he worked, and it was apparent that the wizard was dying to argue the case for a mass auto-da-fé of the followers of Gamograth, and was getting nowhere with it.

“Just do some magic, Penthos!” Dion shouted at him at last. “No fire! No killing! Just do some magic to them and make yourself useful, you fraud!”

Lief actually got to see that one hit home, and the resultant betrayed expression that passed briefly over the wizard’s saturnine features. Then he had dropped to one knee, with such determination that Lief thought he’d been cold cocked. A second later, though, an invisible eruption of force ripped through a crowd of the monks who had been trying to get through his magical barrier, hurling them about the room like dolls. Lief reckoned that it was about as nonfatal as serious internal bleeding by mace, and therefore that it counted as a point for Penthos.

And still the manacles were stubborn, and would not unlock, and in his extremity Lief found that he had only one option left to him: the thing he had sworn never to do on many occasions, the compromise of his rogue’s honor, the last resort of any man of crime.

“Armes,” he whispered. “Come on, man. Your work, eh? Come on, give me a break!”

“Lief!”

His head jerked up at the sound of his name, concentration utterly lost, but his eyes met those of Dion’s across the busy room. She was clouting monks with fierce abandon, unable to get close to him, but some connection passed between them, dodging about all those flailing limbs. A blessing. A blessing of Armes just for him.

The manacles sprang open and Enth, creature of Darkness, was free.

“Let’s go!” Lief snapped, but the prisoner was quailing back against the altar, hands shielding his face, and Lief turned…

Abnasio was there, disc of Armes presented strongly, and a handful of still intact monks with him.

“Seize them both!” he roared, purple-faced with fury.

Lief punched him, really quite hard, and then slapped at the disc of Armes, trying to get it away so that Enth could join the fray.

A moment later he felt a shock of pain, and he sat down on the altar, abruptly weak. There was something new around his midriff level, and although he could identify it as a dagger hilt, he could not quite work out how it had got there. The monk who had donated that item to his private internal collection was looking shocked and pasty. Well, how do you think I feel, eh? Then the urgency of the situation came to him and Lief cried out, “I’m hurt! For fuck’s sake, help!” before falling backward across the altar in a welter of blood and torture implements.