The leap took him past the whirring swords of two highlanders who were cutting blindly at the air in front of the door, hoping to get lucky and hit the invisible wetboy.

Drawing Retribution from its back scabbard, Kylar rolled to his feet.

A swarm of tiny hands appeared in the air as the wytches chanted. The hands were looking for him, plucking at him. They seethed over the ground leaping and clawing at each other as they groped for him.

He jumped away, cutting at the hands, but his sword passed through them harmlessly; there was nothing for him to cut.

They swarmed over him and the hands thickened, strengthened as two of the wytches chanted in time with each other. Then, as the hands pulled him upright, Kylar felt something else seize him. He felt like a baby caught in giant’s fingers.

It tore at him and he felt the ka’kari’s cloaking strip open. He let it go. It wouldn’t do him much good to be partly invisible if he couldn’t move.

Well, that was glorious. In all the history of stupid men intentionally springing traps set for them, that was probably the lamest result ever.

Kylar had hoped—hell, expected—that he’d at least take a few guards with him. Maybe a wytch. Two would have been nice. Durzo would be shaking his head in disgust.

“I knew you’d come, Blint,” Roth crowed from the throne. He hopped to his feet and waved to the wytches. Kylar was lifted off his feet and shot forward, carried magically up the stairs and deposited on the landing below the throne.

Blint? Gods. I sprang a trap that wasn’t even set for me.

The magic fingers tore away Kylar’s mask. “Kylar?” Roth said, astonished. He burst out laughing.

“My prince, beware,” a red-haired wytch at Roth’s right said. “He has the ka’kari.”

Roth slapped his hands together and laughed again, as if unable to believe his luck. “And just in time! Oh, Kylar, if I were another man, I’d almost let you live.”

The witty riposte dried on Kylar’s tongue as he saw into Roth’s eyes. If most of his deaders had a cupful of darkness in their souls, Roth had a river, boundless and bleak, a roaring, devouring darkness with a voice like thunder. Here was a man who hated all that was lovely.

“Captain,” Roth said, “where are the girl and the scarred wench?”

One of the men who’d entered after Kylar said, “We’ve lost them, Your Majesty.”

“I’m disappointed, Captain,” Roth said, but his voice was jubilant. “Unlose them.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” the soldier said. He grabbed his ten highlanders and headed back into the hall.

Roth turned back to Kylar. “Now,” he said. “Dessert. Kylar, do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”