The Rage (19 page)

They were still so close together that it would be awkward to use a rapier. He snatched out his poniard, poised it to thrust, then decided it might be better to take her alive. He grabbed the wrist of her knife arm, immobilizing it, reversed his own blade, and hammered her shrouded head with the pommel.

For a moment, the gilded knob seemed to meet resistance, and just a yielding softness. At the same time, his grip crushed her wrist into something he couldn’t even feel inside his clenched fingers. With a rustle of fabric, she crumpled into an odd shallow heap like a tangle of dirty laundry. It didn’t look as if anyone was inside.

Taegan crouched over it, tore the veil aside, and discovered that was in fact the case. The cloak and other garments had evidently constituted a sort of puppet, a contrivance that had allowed the Wearer of Purple to quiz him without coming within reach of his weapons.

The real cult mistress was presumably lurking nearby and might not be alone. While Taegan had wasted precious seconds wrestling with the decoy, she and her minions could already have advanced on the gazebo. He drew his rapier, sprang to the doorway, and came face to face with the thing that was hopping in.

It walked on two legs, had dirty white scales, and was half a head shorter than Taegan, though its torso was thicker, and it had to pull its wings in close to fit them through the doorway. Its snarling features, though somewhat manlike, reminded him of the wyvern. Was it a demon with dragon blood or something comparable? It made sense that the Wearer of Purple might conjure such beings to serve her.

It glared into Taegan’s eyes. He felt strange for an instant, but that was all. Evidently it had tried and failed to cripple his mind. He thrust the rapier deep into its chest, and it collapsed, pawing weakly at its wound. It seemed astonished the blade had done it so much harm. Perhaps if he hadn’t thought to enchant the weapon, it would have only have scratched the demon’s hide or glanced off entirely.

Another such creature came scuttling forward, claws poised, its prehensile tail, possessed of a sting like the wyvern’s, arching over its shoulder. Taegan decided to take the battle to the air, where, he suspected, he could outmaneuver the ash-colored spirit as he had its gigantic cousin. He ran right over the demon sprawled on the gazebo’s little ring of porch, spread his wings, then heard the genuine Wearer of Purple chanting words of power.

Taegan’s wing muscles cramped. He gasped at the unexpected stab of pain, then tried to beat his pinions anyway. That was even more excruciating and useless, too. The limbs were essentially paralyzed.

The onrushing demon pounced at him, clawing and biting, pointed tail striking like an adder. Its sting radiated a cold so intense that he could feel it even on such a frigid night. The chill would surely sear whatever the member pierced.

The creature attacked so furiously that it was challenging to find an opportunity to riposte. He pierced its membranous wing and its snout, but neither wound sufficed to put it down. The sting leaped at his chest, and he only just managed to twist out of the way.

The demon simultaneously raked at his head and whirled its sting in a low, cunning jab at his lead foot. He thrust the rapier through one of its misshapen hands, snatched his leg up, and stamped down, pinning the spirit’s tail beneath it. Blessed Sune, the stinger was cold. Despite his boot, the chill nearly made hint flinch away.

The two hurts, coming so close together, made the demon falter. He jerked the rapier from its extremity and drove it through its torso. The creature collapsed, and two more came shambling to take its place. The Wearer of Purple’s voice commenced the sibilant rhymes of another spell.

Taegan realized he needed more of his own magic. Otherwise, the chances were good that his foes would overwhelm him. Even as he met the demons’ advance with a sudden leap that he hoped would startle them, he whispered his own incantation.

Meanwhile, he pondered how best to use it. The same spell that had flung him into the wyvern’s path could carry him back inside his host’s mansion or beyond the wall enclosing the grounds to lose himself in the night. That might be the prudent course. But while he no longer found it worthwhile to initiate fights, he wasn’t inclined to run from them, either. Moreover, it occurred to him that if he could only dispose of the Wearer of Purple, her followers might leave him alone thereafter. So he risked taking his eyes off the demons long enough to glance quickly around, whereupon he spotted another cloaked figure, veiled and hooded like the puppet, lurking in the shadow of a chestnut tree.

The world seemed to shatter and recreate itself all in an instant, and he was standing behind her. He drove his rapier at her back.

It should have been a killing stroke, but somehow she sensed him, left off conjuring, and spun around. The sword plunged through her arm and pinned it to her torso. It was a nasty wound. Perhaps he’d even pricked a lung. But not the heart as he’d intended.

Well, a second thrust would finish her. He yanked the rapier from her flesh, and she surprised him. He’d expected the shock of her injury to stun her for at least a moment or two. But she pounced at him, and as she scratched at his face, he realized she didn’t look precisely like the puppet after all. Her white hands with their long, dark-lacquered nails were bare.

He tried to sidestep, and she snagged his cheek anyway. No matter, he thought, she’d missed the eye, As he shoved her. away, however, making room for his sword to continue its work, his strength deserted him all at once, his knees buckling and the rapier nearly slipping from his grasp. It was happening more rapidly than even a potent poison could act. Once again, she’d crippled him with magic. Since he’d interrupted her casting, the power had likely come either from a talisman or some strange innate capability, not that it mattered at the moment.

She laughed, snatched out a claw-shaped dagger identical to the one the decoy had carried, and sprang. He gasped a battle cry and strained to raise his rapier. For a split second, he thought he wouldn’t be able to manage it, and his strength surged back. Her own momentum served to drive his point deep into her abdomen. She gasped, and he pulled the sword back for the death stroke. At which point, the demons caught up with him.

Cursing, he had no choice but to wheel and defend himself from their assault. One was still on the ground, and the other was flapping through the air, at the moment higher than his rapier could reach. Taegan had guessed right, the wretched brutes did fly less nimbly than an avariel, for all the good that did him.

He lunged at the demon in front of him. His point drove into its chest, and it fell to its knees. But it wasn’t finished.

Snarling, slavering blood, it clutched his blade with both fists while its tail stabbed repeatedly at his forearm.

Taegan understood what it was trying to do: immobilize the rapier, or disarm him altogether, while its comrade dived at him. He could have abandoned the sword and relied on his poniard, but he hadn’t prepared a second enchantment to enhance a blade’s capabilities, and thus he doubted the dagger could do his opponents any significant harm. No, he needed the longer weapon. Frantically parrying the sting with his off hand he hauled on the rapier with all his might, only to discover the creature was about as strong as he was. He carried a charm in his head to augment his natural strength but knew he had no time to cast it.

Fortunately, though a rapier was primarily a thrusting weapon, the edges were sharp, and at last the blade jerked free by slicing so deeply into the demon’s fingers than it could no longer maintain its hold. Succumbing to its wounds at last, the creature collapsed face down in the snow. Taegan looked up and thrust at the pallid thing plummeting at his head.

The rapier rammed deep into the demon’s body a split second before it slammed down on him and smashed him to the ground. He floundered out from underneath it, distancing himself from its talons, fangs, and sting, only then discerning it was dead.

Good, but what about the Wearer of Purple? He pivoted, surveying the battlefield, and was disappointed to find her gone. The wounds he’d given her would have incapacitated most people, but evidently she had a strong constitution and a will to match. Or perhaps she’d drunk some restorative elixir.

He recovered the rapier and cloaked himself in magic that would make it more difficult for a foe to aim an attack at him, another spell he’d never found a chance to cast while the demons were pressing him hard. Then he followed the Wearer of Purple’s footprints through the snow until they ended at one of the shoveled walks.

He picked a direction at random and continued the chase. But as the seconds passed, no cloaked figure appeared in the darkness ahead, and the path intersected with others, so he had to admit his quarry had eluded him.

Nor was that the end of his frustrations. When he returned to the vicinity of the gazebo, he discovered the demons had disappeared as well. Either their corpses had faded hack into the infernal realm from which they’d originated, or—disquieting thought—the creatures had gradually recovered from their seemingly mortal wounds, risen, and limped away.

In any case, even if Taegan decided he wanted to ignore Gorstag’s dying plea for secrecy, he had no proof of what had happened and doubted the authorities would credit his story without it. Other maestros had spun wild tales to enhance their reputations and drum up trade. Moreover, even if the paladins did, in some measure believe, they might find a way to turn the affair around on him somehow. To make it a pretext to denounce him as a threat to the peace, close his school, perhaps even banish or imprison him.

All things considered, he thought he was still on his own. And in considerable danger of catching a cold. His exertions had warmed him, but having stopped to catch his breath, the chill was settling into his bones.

Accordingly, he wiped the gore from his rapier, sheathed it, combed his hair, adjusted his attire, rearranged his features into the proper insouciant expression, and rejoined the ball. In time, his knotted, aching wing muscles relaxed.

TWELVE

I 2 & I 3 Ches, the Year of Rogue Dragons

Will and Pavel found “Winking Murene” drinking raw spirit in a tiny excuse for a tavern, really just a brick alcove open to the wintry air blowing in from the street. The place did possess a door, but salvaged from somewhere and resting atop a pair of beer barrels, its tarnished brass handle and hinges still attached, the matchboarded panel was doing service as the bar. A couple of other kegs reposed on trestles behind it, while corked clay jugs and dented pewter cups sat along the shelves on the back wall.

When she realized the hunters were interested in her, Winking Murene gave them a scowl.

“What?” she demanded.

All in all, Will considered his present life preferable to the one he’d fled years before with his guild master crying for his blood, a falling out occasioned

by his decision to restore a kidnapped child to its parents despite their failure to raise the ransom. Still, Lyrabar had given him a pang of nostalgia, for with its imposing architecture, manifest prosperity, and air of optimism and stability, its bountiful comforts and amusements, the place was a far cry from the rough Moonsea towns to which he’d become accustomed. Rather, it reminded him of the Sembian cities in which he’d spent his formative years.

Which meant the queen’s men should have kicked out Winking Murene to keep up the tone, for like the grimy little pocket of poverty in which she dwelled and the ordinary surroundings in which she chose to swill her liquor, she seemed out of place. As her epithet suggested, one eyelid sagged so low it was hard to imagine she could see past it, but she was notably homely in other respects as well, obese, with red, scrofulous patches on her pasty skin. In a city so full of temples and shrines, it was hard to believe she couldn’t find a healer to cure such a condition. Evidently she was simply too lazy to seek one out.

Still, despite her ugliness, sour body odor, and lack of manners, Pavel addressed her with flawless courtesy.

“Good afternoon, Maid, or is it Goodwife?” he said. “My name is Pavel Shemov. I’m a servant of Lathander. The halfling is Wilimac Turnstone. We understand you rent a room to a young man named Gorstag Helder.”

“Then you understand wrong”

The cleric blinked, seemingly uncertain how to respond. Will thought he knew. He extracted a gold piece from his belt pouch and tossed it clinking onto the bar.

Her reaction surprised him. She stared at it and swallowed, as if she wanted to pick it up but didn’t dare. That was when he realized she was afraid.

Pavel discerned the same thing and said, “Whatever you tell us, we won’t let anyone know where we heard it”

“You’re a priest of the dawn?” she asked, peering at him in the suspicious, truculent manner of the half-drunk. “Where are your robes?”

“Worn out,” he said. “I’ve been traveling and had to replace them with what I could get”

“What do you care about Gorstag?”

“It’s a long story, but I promise, we came to Lyrabar to help him.”

She laughed and said, “You’re too late for that”

Will’s mouth tightened in vexation. He’d figured the spy was probably dead, but had hoped he was wrong.

“What happened to him?” asked the halfling.

She hesitated once more, then said, “I can’t quite remember. If I had a little something more to jog my memory….” Will sent two more coins ringing after the first.

it happened last month… ” she said. “Everybody was talking about it. Late one night, the watch found a dead wyvern and dead people lying in the street. A number of the men were rotten, but apparently they’d been up walking around with the others until somebody cut them to pieces.’

“What does that have to do with Gorstag?” asked Will.

He assumed a wyvern tied in with the Cult of the Dragon, but nothing else was clear.

“He was one of the corpses. A fresh one” She pulled back her sleeve and scratched one of her blemishes. Flakes of epidermis drifted to the floor. “The worst part is, the worthless fool was behind on his rent as usual.”