Villains by Necessity (11 page)

The assassin was tearing strips off of the edge of his cloak; cutting, checking the line of the cut, cutting again to even the edge, checking, cutting... and collecting variously sized strips of black fabric, which he was knotting together stealthily. He worked fast but innocently, whistling softly through his teeth. No one trusts an assassin who's being very quiet. At last he dropped his shortened cloak to fall down behind his back and picked up his reins again. Valeriana rode her liver-chestnut horse to the side and a little ahead. Arcie's was only a few paces away.

He urged Damazcus forward a little and caught up with the pony. Wordlessly he handed Arcie a double handful of black strips, tied into an untidy but strong net, about three feet in diameter. As he did so, he signed in the silent language: "Get bird. Hold. Listen me." He looked ahead.

Valeriana was just heading down "the other side of a hill.

"Go!"

The two criminals whomped the sides of their horses in unison. The horses leaped forward in surprise, bolted up and over the hill in a few strides, and came scrambling down upon Valeriana, one on each side. Her horse shied and reared, and then there was chaos.

Arcie made an astonishingly quick and dexterous lunge, tossing the folds of the net out over the startled raven just as it was spreading its wings. He yanked, tangling its head and wings in the mesh and ripping the taloned black feet from Valeriana's hooded cloak. It cawed and squawked in fury.

Even as the bird was snatched from its perch, Sam was standing in the saddle. A flash of the fire that came with sudden action sprung him out of the seat like an arrow, and he crashed into Valeriana in midair as she turned to grab her torn shoulder. The force of his leap threw them both off the horse and sent them crashing onto the grass.

A struggle, then Sam held the sorceress pinned on the ground, one hand holding both her wrists painfully tight, the other holding a dagger to her throat. Valeriana, her impressive chest heaving theatrically, her eyes almost magenta with rage, opened her mouth to call words of power that would blast the assassin into oblivion. Then she saw over his shoulder the figure of Arcie, cockily sitting on his pony with her beloved Nightshade in his grubby paws, his hands around her poor darling's throat!

The raven was frozen in fear as the fingers held almost too tightly to its feathered neck.

Sam saw her expression change, from livid rage, to fear and livid rage, and smiled nastily.

"One false move, sorceress, and your familiar gets it," he whispered. She glared at him in fury but said nothing.

Without taking his gaze off his deadly captive, Sam said, "Good job, Arcie. Have a care now and don't let it go. If she moves, rip the blasted crow's head off." The raven gurgled in terror.

Sam shifted the point of his dagger and pushed aside a corner of the Nathauan's collar. There, like a hole into nothingness against white skin, gleamed the stone.

Valeriana gasped in fear, panic and anger and started to speak, but a muffled croak from her raven froze her again. With the point of his weapon, Sam hooked the heavy gold chain that held the pendant and lifted it free of her neck. It revolved slowly in the sun, the gold frame glinting in the light, but the black stone was featureless as a midnight lake. Sam glanced from it to the sorceress.

"This must be quite important to you. You take off all your other jewelry when you sleep, to keep it from marring your fair skin, but not this heavy thing. You hide it under your gown that hides nothing else. And you reach involuntarily for it in moments of stress ... just a twitch, perhaps, but it's there. You said you had means of wielding power in a world lost to Light... could this perhaps be it?" Sam's hand jerked the dagger up, snapping the chain and sending the pendant hurtling into the air. With a shriek Valeriana lunged for it, her panicky strength breaking Sam's grasp. But Sam was quicker. He leaped up to the side and caught the stone neatly in his palm. As Valeriana sprang, teeth bared, he raised it over a boulder, preparing to smash it. She stopped dead. At the same instant, Nightshade gave a strangled gurgle as Arcie's fingers closed on its throat. The peril of her familiar and the loss of her amulet were too much for the sorceress. She turned and collapsed onto the grass, shoulders shaking, with anger or tears, they couldn't tell.

After a tense moment, Sam and Arcie looked at each other. Arcie's fingers slowly relaxed, and the raven gave what might have been a sigh of relief. Kaylana, unhurried, ever collected, stepped down into the hollow leading Sam's and Valeriana's horses. She handed their reins to Sam, who took them in embarrassed silence; Damazcus wiped his nose on Sam's shoulder. Kaylana stepped softly over to the huddled figure of Valeriana.

As the Druid approached, Valeriana whirled on her, her hood falling away. She cringed in the sunlight, her sensitive eyes squinting tight, but her voice was strong and proud.

"All right then, you've won! Kill me now, as I would have killed you! You'll die in the end yourselves when the Light overflows."

Kaylana spoke. "We will not kill you." She looked at Sam and Arcie as she said this, and somehow they had a feeling it would be as she said. "To do so is to build our own coffin. The Light threatens us all equally. The rest of us will not kill a one ... but nor will one of us rule the rest. Bear that in mind, Sorceress." She glanced over at where Sam was holding the horses and amulet, then back to Valeriana, who was replacing her hood, her arms already reddening from the sun. "Valeriana, is what Sam suspects true, do you draw your power from that amulet?"

"Yes," muttered Valeriana. "As you may have guessed, it's a Darkportal. The last one I know of. Very small. Very weak. But enough."

"And," pressed Kaylana, "can you do magic without the amulet in your possession?"

"No," said Valeriana weakly. "Without it I'm as helpless as a child."

Kaylana sighed. "You are lying," she said resignedly.

"All right, all right! Your powers outfathom mine without my Darkportal. I can do some magic, so long as the amulet is nearby ... I am weakened, yes, but I can still manage." Valeriana, hood restored, stood up, brushing the grass and dirt off her skirt. Kaylana nodded, satisfied.

Sam spoke up. "I vote we keep the amulet hostage, to prevent the lady from attempting to command us with fear again. That way she can still serve our mutual cause, yet not be so great a threat to us."

Arcie nodded, and Kaylana did the same. Valeriana gave in with bad grace.

"All right then, I'll accept. Let Nightshade go."

Kaylana nodded to Arcie, who took his hands away and pulled the cloth net off the bird. Nightshade fluffed his feathers and glared at Arcie. Suddenly, his thick black beak lashed out, lightning-fast, slashing the Barigan on the back of his hand. Arcie swore. Smugly, the raven flew back to Valeriana's shoulder and began to preen.

Kaylana looked around the party.

"Very well. We must be under new leadership, then; that of necessity. Though our motives may be different... " she looked pointedly at them all "... as I know they are, the end result... the restoration of darkness to its place in the world ... is our common goal. Valeriana has told us of a way in which this goal may be achieved.

We have no other way known to us. I say we shall continue on. Any opposed?"

Not a hand was raised. Kaylana nodded.

"As I hoped. We move on."

"So where are we going, then?" Sam asked.

Valeriana swung up into her saddle again. "Well, obviously the knowledge of the Gypsies was of little help. To find the locations of the segments of the Key, we must seek different help. Even the Heroes themselves do not know the true locations ... the sections of the Key were hidden by the gods themselves."

"Well, then, there's not much we can do, is there?" scoffed Arcie.

"Not quite, you impudent thief. If it is gods that have hid it, it is gods we must ask."

"Are you out of your mind?" cried Sam. "Gods? Any gods that would even notice us would turn us into slugs sooner than look at us. All the gods that ever might have been on our side are long gone."

"Not all," said Valeriana mysteriously.

When they stopped that evening, Sam took out the amulet and inspected it. He'd carried it in his pouch, not really trusting the strange stone from which Valeriana drew her power; Sam felt sure she'd wreak fearsome vengeance upon him if she recovered it. He turned the amulet by its edge in his fingers. The back was flat and resembled a mirror of hematite. He caught his own eye looking back at him from within it and was startled by the cold predatory viciousness he saw there. He flipped the stone back to face him. The dark cabochon intrigued him. He picked up a twig and poked it. It didn't seem to touch any surface, just gave a vague resistance like one feels when touching opposite ends of a lodestone to each other, until he couldn't press the twig any farther and it snapped. A cautious prod with a finger revealed much the same sensation, only as his finger encountered greater resistance he felt a chill, like an icy wind.

Arcie was coming up behind him, Sam noted with mild interest. Sneaking up on his fat booted feet, going to talk right in my ear and see if he can make me jump.

"Be you having fun, Sam?"

Sam didn't twitch. After a finely judged moment he glanced over his shoulder.

"Yes indeed, half-pint. How goes it?"

Arcie, only mildly disappointed at not having been able to make Sam jump, plopped down on the turf across from him, and pulled out his pipe.

"You've been here," he said. "What do you think, then? Are this an adventure or no?"

"It's certainly different." Sam palmed the amulet and tucked it inside one of his secret pouches. "Cut off from my past, thrust out into hostile wilderness with a couple of weird women and a thief, camping out at night, tromping around under blazing sun all day ... I can still feel it on my face."

Arcie peered at his face a moment. "Looks to me as you got sunburned."

"Oh great," muttered Sam. "An assassin with freckles and a peeling nose."

"No one will suspect you, at least," Arcie pointed out.

Sam nodded. Arcie went on.

"But see you, we should travel by night. Dark times for dark business, as they says. No sun to bother Valeriana or you, Kaylana's surely is no' disadvantaged, and I know I work better in darkness. Anybody looking for us will have a harder time of it. Besides, marching in daylight is for the heroes. If we're going to do this, we may as well go all out."

"That's a fine idea," agreed Sam. "Especially as it hasn't been getting very dark at night lately anyway."

"You noticed that too?" asked Arcie. "I thought that were odd ... something with the weather?"

"Maybe ..." replied Sam doubtfully. "Or something with the world."

The decision was reached to travel by night. As time was pressing (or so Valeriana implied), they broke camp after just a short rest and rode on into the odd dim twilight.

It was nearly dawn when they started into the far edge of the Windarm Mountains. Only a minor range, fortunately, and the party's path had intersected at a pass.

They started up into the rocky foothills, searching for a secure place to rest, for they were now very weary. As they walked their mounts into a narrow side canyon, they met their first great challenge.

It began as a slow reek as of rotting flowers that drifted through the air, making their horses stamp with nervousness.

Kaylana's stag pranced with anxiety, and she had to lean along its neck in an attempt to calm it. Meanwhile, the others glanced around uneasily for the source of the distress.

The canyon was long and twisty, but narrow, a floodwater outlet that had been formed long ago. A faint breeze echoed around them. Polished pink stone curved in strange shapes from the rippled walls, and the sky was a pale strip of slowly brightening light overhead, and the changing light sent shifting shadows through the canyon.

The ground was perfectly level and covered with fine gravel that crunched under the animals' hooves.

"This place doesn't half willie me," whispered Arcie.

"Can't we go back?"

"This is the only pass through these mountains for two weeks' journey, Barigan," retorted Valeriana, her voice tense.

Just then, one of the oddly shaped rock formations opened a huge golden eye and then jerked itself up on a long serpentine neck. A fang-filled mouth cracked open, glowing flame, and a shrill piercing trumpet of a voice cried, "Villains!"

Sam was aware of an explosion of animal panic underneath him, and then he was flying through the air. He landed on his feet with a jarring crunch in the gravel and spun to see his horse bolting out of the valley, hotly followed by another horse, a pony, and a stag. His companions were getting to their feet, their faces masks of shock-the faces of people facing certain death.

It was a dragon, just as the legends told of them: golden eyed, gaping mouth filled with sword-long teeth, breath a flickering flame of fire, and, as it heaved itself over the outcropping, great folded bat wings, vicious curved claws, a huge bulk of a body and a long lashing tail. It was a soft faded-rose color, necked with gray and gold, like the very walls of the canyon. It drew in a deep breath.

The group scattered, lunging for the safety of the sculptured walls as a blast of flame blew two inches of gravel off the ground where they had stood and melted the rock beneath. Sam rolled to a halt behind the comparative shelter of a large boulder and winced as shards of superheated gravel clattered around him. A few feet over, crouched in an overhang, was Kaylana.

Valeriana and Arcie found themselves pressed into the space behind a whorled stone column. The dragon screeched again.

"Villains! Come out and fight, you nasty people!"

Arcie looked up at Valeriana in puzzlement.

"Dragon of Light," she whispered. "If only I had my amulet!"

"Can't you do something?" hissed Arcie, wincing as the dragon's heavy feet came nearer. "We can't get out through the canyon without it flaming us!"

Valeriana snarled to herself and pulled out a few items from her pouch. Hoping her amulet hadn't gone far, or worse, been destroyed, she gathered together her concentration, softly chanting, then thrust her head around the corner of rock and with a final harsh word threw a bolt of black fire at the creature's huge pink stomach. It hit with a flash. The dragon roared, more in anger than in pain, and flame washed over their hiding place.