Soon he became aware that someone stood beside him. He looked up with eyes that still registered clearly everything they saw. The cynical figure, wiping a short knife on a handful of grass, Ostby knew, was the man who had assaulted him. There was no emotion in the man. No hate and no rancor.
Abruptly another figure stood beside the assassin. With a shock Ostby recognized Rinda. For a second hope flickered as he noted the anguish on her face and the tears in her eyes. But the face hardened resolutely.
"I want you to know I had it done," the Duchess said. She drew back her foot and kicked him. Then she was gone.
So it had been she, Ostby reflected. Ironic justice. The one diversion he had allowed himself had been his undoing.
The assassin still stood at his side, Ostby noted. Was the ghoul waiting to enjoy the finish, he wondered. Then his mind, which even in this extremity refused to accept its fate, conceived the shred of a plan. He strove to speak. At the third attempt he succeeded.
"How much.... How much did ... she pay you?" he asked.
"One thousand heds."
"If you get me ... take me...." Ostby's reasoning was beginning to leave him. Vision and speech blurred. A fiery ball of pain strained at the base of his head, as though striving to break out.
The immediacy of his need helped him focus his vision once more on the face above him. He gasped, "Take me to Siggen. He will pay you two thousand if you get me there alive."
Ostby felt himself being lifted carefully off the ground.