The thinly veiled contempt in words and tone brought a wave of red across Alurna's pale, grief-stained face. Then she spoke—and her words, barely audible from the choking emotion behind them, carried such hatred and loathing as to hold Pryak petrified on his chair.
"Murderer!" she whispered. "Little man of filth! It was you who caused the death of my father! Who did it for you? How long do you think you can hold Urim's place before some real man takes your place—and twists your wrinkled neck?"
Pryak, his face livid with rage, leaped from his stool and lifted his hand to strike her into silence.
The blow never found its mark. Tharn, standing near Alurna, and forgotten by the others, had moved almost before Pryak was off the stool.
And so it was that Pryak, Voice of the Great God, found his bony wrist seized by fingers of steel and his swinging arm halted as abruptly as though it had encountered one of the room's stone walls.
Before the startled priest could cry out or his astounded followers interfere, he was snatched bodily from his feet and flung almost the entire length of the chamber.
Four priests were bowled over by the catapulting body; those human cushions were all that saved Pryak from injury.
Tharn went down, then, beneath a horde of fanatical priests. And before they had him bound and helpless, more than one felt the weight of his fists and the strength of his arms. At last they dragged him to his feet and stepped aside as Pryak, rumpled and bruised, came forward.
"For what you have done," he growled hoarsely, "you shall pay in blood and suffering. When the lions hunt you down in the arena during the Games, wild man, remember that you dared to lay hands on Sephar's king."
Tharn laughed in his face. "Better the fangs of Sadu," he gibed, "than the stench of a priest!"