Downshadow (26 page)

Then he looked up, over A^aereene’s shoulder, and she swore she saw his face for half an instant. His lips had drawn back in a hideous grimace, and his teeth seemed very long.

“Shadowbane,” he hissed, more like a serpent than a man. “Damn that sword!”

“What?” Avaereene asked, but he was gone as though he’d turned to dust.

He had not taken the sleeping girl, but he had snatched the coins back from her. Avaereene snarled in anger and resolved to slay the first thing she saw.

A pair of her thieves came upon her. “Mistress?” one asked. “Mistress, what—”

Avaereene tossed the first one aside with a flicker of her will—he shattered against the alley wall. That made her feel better, and appeased the hungry magic within.

She thrust the sleeping girl inro the arms of the other one, whŤ looked frozen in terror, and peered down the street. Sure enough, a man ran toward them, glittering steel in his hands, gray cloak trailing

behind him. He followed on the heels of four more thieves carrying three noble girls.

r “Kalen,” the girl murmured as she stirred in the thief s arms.

ell met,” Kalen said as he caught the nearest thief by the arm. The man turned and Kalen drove both daggers into his chest.

The thief stiffened, blinked rapidly several times, then fell with a choked gasp as Kalen—hands free from the blades he left in the scoundrel—caught the woman he carried.

No time. He set her aside, ripped the curved sword from the thief s belt, and ran forward.

Ten paces farther, two men carried a bulky noble lass in a green gown between them. They cursed and fumbled, pushing her back and forth. Finally, the smaller of the men—an ugly, warty dwarf—took her, and the freed thief—a half-ore—turned to face Kalen.

The brute bristled with metalnails that stood out from his skin like ghastly pierced rings or jewels. The half-ore hefted a stout buckler on his left arm and a length of barbed chain in his other hand, and opened his mouth to challenge.

Kalen didn’t slow—he leaped to twice the half-ore’s height in the air, driven by his boots. The brute looked up as Kalen hissed down toward him, sword plunging, deadly as a hawk.

The half-ore interposed his buckler between himself and the airborne knight. Kalen’s thrust, backed by all his weight, shattered the stout wood—but snapped in two as well. The half-ore howled in pain as shards of wood flew into his face, putting more shrapnel in his flesh than before. The broken scimitar blade tumbled away.

The half-ore, infuriated, swung his chain at Kalen, who interposed his left arm. The chain enwrapped it greedily, barbs barely short of striking his helm. The slashing razors would have split his face open like a boiled egg. The barbs sank instead into his flesh, deep enough that he could feel them prickle. The chain-wielder grinned and Kalen realized his misfortune.

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“Tymora—” Kalen managed, before the half-ore jerked the chain and slammed him against a building. Pain swept through his stunned Consciousness, and he sank down.

The half-ore wrenched him over and he flopped like a limp doll to the cobblestones. The impact ripped through him, but he was still alive and still conscious.

“Stlarning Watchman.” He also growled a few Orcish words Kalen knew to be curses.

“Come!” shouted the dwarf, pausing near the half-ore and struggling to hold the kidnapped girl. “No time!”

“Wait,” said the bruiser, and he reached down to seize Kalen’s neck.

The noble girl, by chance, kicked the half-ore in the shoulder and his attention wavered.

It was just a heartbeat, but it was enough.

With a roar, Kalen rammed the jagged, shorn-off hilt of the thief’s scimitar into one half-ore ankle. The creature howled in pain and faltered on his feet. As the brute teetered, Kalen wrenched the hilt upward and jammed it into the half-ore’s groin. Black blood spurted forth and the creature gave a high-pitched squeal like a stuck pig.

Kalen rose, the half-ore’s discarded chain hanging from his arm, and faced the dwarf thug who held the struggling girl. Kalen looked down at the chain, the barbs cutting into his arm. Without wincing, with barbs ripping out his flesh, Kalen unwrapped the chain.

This second thief looked somehow familiar.

“Wait!” he said, putting up his hands as though to surrender. “It’s you! Shadowbane!”

Kalen hesitated. He recognized this one from Downshadow—this was the dwarf he’d let flee. Apparently, he hadn’t learned aught.

The dwarf thrust his forearm forward, and a tiny arrow concealed in a handbow in his sleeve streaked through the air. Kalen batted it aside with the barbed chain.

Kalen leaped forward and split the dwarf’s chin with a rising right hook. The thief slammed into the wall and Kalen caught him. With an expert twist of his wrist, he wrapped the blood-soaked chain

around the dwarf s neck and pulled. The ugly man’s eyes bugged, making his face even more hideous.

The noble girl had managed to free her hands and doff her hood and gag. “Thank—” She saw the strangling thief, saw the way Kalen spat and growled like a murderous wolf, and she froze, horror-stricken. “What—whar are you doing?”

Kalen ignored her. The dwarf fought for breath and Kalen pulled tighter on the chain.

The noble lass put her hands to her throat, found a scream, and split the night with her terror. Then she fled, shouting for aid.

Not all saviors are angels, Kalen thought. And not all killings are pretty—or quick.

The thief sputtered and slapped ar him impotently.

“Kalen,” came Myrin’s voice, whispering seemingly on the night’s mists. She spoke softly, yet he could hear her as plainly as if she stood next to him.

Was this truly her voice, or his imagination? Did that matter?

Kalen released rhe chain, let the dwarf collapse retching to the ground, and ran.

The night had grown misty of a sudden, and Kalen knew magic was at work. The thieves were hiding their escape, trying to throw him off, but Myrin’s voice led him.

He saw another kidnapper who carried a barefoot girl over his shoulder. Kalen outran him and dived, slamming into the man’s back. Kalen rolled so the thief did not fall on him and hoped he had picked the right direction to catch the captive. Sure enough, she landed atop him, and wild silver-whire hair tumbled down.

He pulled off the girl’s hood, and the shocked eyes of Talantress Roaringhorn stared into his. The magic that changed her skin black had failed, leaving her flesh very pale, but her hair was still long and whire. She managed to spit out her gag, and she blinked at him, confused.

Then a smile spread across her face. “My… my hero!”

Kalen growled in frustration and thrust her aside. Her captor had” risen and was plunging a rapier down at his chest. Kalen rolled away, then back against the blade, wrenching it out of the thief’s hand.

He kicked the man’s legs out from under him, toppling him to the ground. Kalen rose and put the man out with a kick to the jaw. ,i “Kalen!” came Myrin’s cry—louder this time. Talantress hadn’t seemed to hear it. Kalen turned toward the source of the sound and saw a greenish glow: magic.

Kalen seized the thief s fallen rapier. He coughed, opened his helm halfway to spit blood, then sealed his mask. He strode on.

“Wait!” Kneeling, Talantress caught his hand and held him back.

Calmly, Kalen snaked his hand around and unbuckled his gauntlet. It came free, and Talantress hit herself in the chest with it and fell on her overprivileged rump.

“Wait!” Talantress cried from the ground. “Come back right this breath!”

He continued his run, hobbling a bit more slowly after the punishment he’d sndured. Young Lady Roaringhorn got up and gave chase, but he paid her no mind. He plunged into the mists, following Myrin’s voice and the green glow.

The fog swelled thicker than before, but Kalen pressed on. He was nearing the source, he realized, but he quickly lost his bearing and swam, blind. His body was aching, his lungs heaving, and his heart raced to put him down. He clutched his left arm, which was in agony. He felt as if the half-ore were sitting on his chest.

“Not yet, Eye of Justice,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Not yet.”

He channeled healing into himself, praying that he had proven himself once more worthy, but no power came. He gritted his teeth and pressed on.

Kalen stumbled through an empty, gray-black world. Mist swirled around him.

“Myrin!” he choked. He felt that he would fall at any breath. “Kalen,” came her voice, leading him forward. “Kalen …” He staggered ahead, stolen rapier ready for any attack, but found only mist.

“Show yourself!” he challenged. “Cowards!” As though in response, the mist parted, and Kalen saw a woman from whose cupped hands the mist flowed. A green glow suffused her

fingers—magic. Beside her stood a thief who looked more terrified than anything else, and in his arms was a limp girl in a red dress.

“Something’s countering my casting,” the woman murmured in a deep, rasping voice that didn’t match her slim body. She seemed an ordinary human woman, but the voice was that of a beast. “It’s the girl. Somehow, even dazed, she’s—”

“Then we stop her!” The thief drew a hooked dagger and raised it over Myrin.

“No, you fool!” the woman roared.

Kalen ran forward and stabbed the thief through the chest. Stunned, the man looked down at the blade, then at a panting, heaving Kalen. He toppled, loosing Myrin as he went.

Kalen dived to catch her. She weighed little in his arms and he cradled her tightly.

An arcane word, in a voice like a grinding gravestone, stole his attention. He looked up at the woman to see her gloved, clawlike hand reaching for his face. A finger touched his brow.

Power seized him—cruel power that sucked the life out of his limbs. Lightning arced through Kalen, lashing every strerch of bone and sinew, stealing the strength from his muscles. He fell ro his knees.

“Well,” rhe woman said in her corpselike voice. “This is what happens, Sir Fool, when you cross wills with the most powerful wizard in Waterdeep.”

She raised her hands and began to chant a spell that Kalen could only imagine would be his doom. Flames and shadow flickered around her hands, like the fires of the Nine Hells.

And so it ends, he thought.

His eyes blurred and he sank toward peaceful sleep. Myrin’s eyes opened and blue lighr flooded the alley.

In the strange flash of light, Myrin saw Kalen first, kneeling and helpless, and then the woman—the dead woman wearing the false face—looming over him.

“No,” she said in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. She lunged forward and grasped Avaereene by the arm, trying anything she could to stop the slaying magic. She wanted to steal the magic away, rip it from Avaereene so it could not touch Kalen. And she did exactly that.

The fires darting around Avaereene’s fingers faded, flowing instead into Myrin’s hands, which lit with fierce blue light. The wizard opened her mouth and stammered.

Oblivious to what she was doing, lashing blindly, Myrin struck Avaereene with her will. A flash of brilliant red and black flame erupted, and the woman slammed backward against the wall with a chorus of crackles and snaps. Bricks cracked and turned inward.

Myrin stared down at her hands, horrified and awed. Blue runes spread down her forearms, almost covering her skin. Power electric filled Myrin’s body, making her shiver and shake. The fog boiled away around her, evaporating in the heat coming off her body.

“Damn you!” Avaereene hissed in a voice from beyond the grave. “You do not know what you do, child. This is my own power! How are you—?”

“Shut up!” Myrin shrieked. The stolen magic punched Avaereene in the chest, shaking the building behind her. Holes burst in the wall, and Myrin saw into the common room of a tavern through the cracks.

Avaereene hardly seemed hurt by the blow, but her eyes went wide. Then they turned blood red and began to leak sanguine tears.

“How are you doing this?” she roared in frustration. “You’re just a child!”

Myrin merely pointed her hands, loosing bright, hungry flames like nothing she had ever seen or imagined to tear at Avaereene. The wizard screamed in agony and fear. Her skin shivered, then began to bubble and boil. Around her, the bricks glowed red, sizzled, and shook as though caught between an anvil and a smith’s hammer. Her black cloak and gown started to smolder and unravel, and soon she was naked. Her entire body quaked and rotted before Myrin’s eyes, but the wizard could not scream against the pressure of Myrin’s spell. Her eyes were livid and terror filled.

A smile spread across Myrin’s face and a thought came unbidden— a thought in her voice but not hers: this will teach her.

Then Myrin heard a new sound: a gagging, rasping sound from the ground at her side. She looked down and saw Kalen coughing and retching. He tore open his helm, and she saw him vomit blood onto the cobblestones. “Muh-Myrin … stuh-stop …”

He looked up at her and she gasped. His skin shivered like Avaereene’s, and his eyes were shot through with red. Tears of blood leaked onto his face.

Myrin looked around and saw others gagging and retching—folk inside the tavern, and some who had come forth to watch or help. Gods—what was she doing?

The force holding Avaereene against the wall lessened, and the old woman sucked air into her lungs. She looked down at her withered hands, then touched her face. She screamed.

Myrin turned and clapped a hand to her mouth, shocked. Gone were the beautiful face and body—they had rotted into a withered corpse. Worse, her form had been crushed against the tavern with such force that she had somehow melded with the building’s skin. Bricks grew out of her like massive, chunky warts. The red eyes that glared out were not dead, nor were they alive. Myrin recognized the woman’s true body, that she was—Myrin didn’t know where the word came from—a lich. An undead horror.

“My face! My body!” Avaereene shrieked. “You will die for this, girl!” #

The wizard’s form had been a magic-wrought falsehood—the corpse embedded in the wall revealed the truth. Myrin’s magic