The Conqueror's Shadow (47 page)

It was barely enough. Any human warrior would have been thrown by the move, left a few feet behind, allowing Ellowaine opportunity to regain her feet, her poise, her balance. The hunchback, however, never hesitated. Even as she gathered her bearings, Ellowaine saw her misshapen enemy closing fast. As Valescienn had done against Davro, she raised her weapons in a parry she knew could not suffice.

The wicked morningstar crashed into her hastily raised weapons with a resounding clang. Her arms thrummed in agony, and her left hand bled freely where one of the weapon's spikes proved long enough to punch through flesh despite the intercepting hatchets. And again echoing Valescienn's duel with Davro, one of the parrying weapons simply wasn't up to the task. Ellowaine glanced unhappily at the foot-long handle that was all that remained of one of her favorite weapons.

The hunchback spun, its feet churning up the snow like a digging dog, its weapon already raised for another strike. Ellowaine, out of options and growing ever more frantic, fell back on the last refuge of the hopeless:

Superstition.

Mithraem's Endless Legion weren't precisely what folklore made them out to be. The mists, the blood, the inhuman strength and speed—these were certainly all too real. But Ellowaine hadn't once seen them shapeshift into some animal; nor did the daylight appear to cause them much difficulty. So inaccurate had it proved thus far, she balked at trusting to folklore now. But she had no other way to turn.

With a sudden, piercing shriek, Ellowaine lunged forward, but not with her remaining hatchet. As she'd previously echoed the actions of the doomed Valescienn, so now did she unknowingly mimic the ogre who'd slain him. With every bit of strength in her battered and tired body, she thrust with the broken shaft clasped in her other fist.

Whether Ellowaine was the first on the field to remember her folklore and attack the Endless Legion with wood rather than steel, none could say. But it was she who first reported to Losalis, after the battle, that the tactic was as effective as myth proclaimed.

A high-pitched keening, scarcely audible, burst from the hunchback's parted and gasping lips. Now it was her opponent who retreated, morningstar held loosely in one hand, the other feebly plucking at the broken shaft protruding from its chest as though he was afraid to actually touch it.

Ellowaine might not have understood exactly why the tables suddenly turned—she'd assumed that either her stroke would slay the monster or else have no effect at all—but she recognized the fear in its eyes when she saw it. She lunged again, this time with her remaining
hatchet, smashing the beast's collarbone and carving down into its torso with a series of snaps like a crackling campfire.

That same black, viscous, oily blood pumped forth, and the creature putrefied into a puddle of corruption. But things changed when the liquefying corpse, the wooden shaft still protruding from its sodden flesh, hit the ground. The mist began to emerge, as it always did, but something was clearly wrong. Tendrils of haze stretched out, anxious to be on their way to a new body, but the bulk of the mist clung stubbornly to the wood as though held by some magnetic attraction it couldn't understand. Over the span of several infinite seconds, the mist seeped into the shaft, which darkened from a deep, rich brown to a sickly black. And then, with a faint wail that reverberated forlornly in the back of the warrior's mind, the rotted stake crumbled to black dust. The creature did not rise again.

Only then, as she stood panting heavily in an island of relative calm, did she realize that one of the sounds she'd heard moments before, during the height of her deadly struggle, was the call of the herald's horn.

Sucking in her breath, sliding her remaining hatchet into its ring at her belt, Ellowaine ran to catch up with her retreating companions.

“WELL,”
Losalis said thoughtfully as the flap once more closed behind the departing backs of Ellowaine, Teagan, and Ulfgai. “That's certainly—ouch!—interesting. It'll be useful if we have to face those things again, although that's still—ow!—not a prospect I'm looking forward to. And it might—damn it!—explain why they didn't chase us back to camp.”

Seilloah snorted as she worked on a crooked but shallow gash on the large warrior's arm. “It wouldn't hurt now if you'd let me numb it first,” she reminded him mercilessly.

“Sorry,” the general muttered, though his tone was unrepentant. “I don't like it when I can't feel what people are doing to me.”

“Losalis, you're looking right at me.” She pulled the sutures tight, the wound twisting so that it appeared to be grinning sardonically up at
her, and once more worked the curved needle through flaps of flesh. “You'd have to be blind, deaf, and possibly dead not to know what I was doing to you.”

“But I wouldn't
feel
it. It wouldn't be the same.”

The witch sighed. “It's your pain.”

“Thank you.”

“I wish I had the strength left to do this magically,” Seilloah told him more softly. “This will hurt for a while, and it's certainly going to scar.”

Losalis shrugged, drawing a mild curse from the witch as the needle was nearly tugged from her hand. “I can live with a few more scars, Seilloah, and there were those who needed your magics far more than I.”

They lapsed then into exhausted silence, punctuated occasionally by Losalis's exclamations. It was odd, Seilloah noted in the back of her mind. This was a man who could take a sword in battle without so much as a complaint, yet he couldn't stop muttering and flinching as she sewed that same wound shut. If she lived to be a thousand, the witch decided crossly, she would never understand people. Especially warriors. Especially men. Can't live with them, can't eat all of them.

Only when Seilloah tied off the sutures and slumped back with a fatigued sigh did Davro nervously clear his throat. Warily, the others looked his way.

“Umm.” He cleared his throat again. “There's something you should know. I … that is, before I killed Valescienn—”

Seilloah sat up sharply, and Losalis's eyes widened. Then, as one, they both cheered.

“Davro, that's fantastic!” the general told the ogre, wide-grinned and chortling. “If I were the one paying you, I'd give you a bonus.”

“Thanks,” Davro said drily.

“We've got to tell Corvis as soon as he gets back,” Seilloah added. “It'll be some of the best news he's heard in months!”

The ogre's face went flat. “That's what I was getting to.” Seilloah and Losalis fell silent. Davro shook his head. “I'd be lying if I said that I didn't consider not telling you this,” he admitted. “But whatever else I may be, I'm no oathbreaker, and I swore to help him to the best of my ability.” He paused.

“Corvis has been captured.”

The only sound in the tent was the occasional spark from the burning candle. Slowly, as though terrified he'd miss something, the general leaned forward. “How do you know?”

Davro repeated to them, verbatim, the conversation he'd held with Valescienn while they were circling, and he shook his head when Losalis suggested the scarred warrior might have been lying.

“I don't think so. I admit it's been a while, but I knew the man, fought beside him. It wasn't his kind of bluff.”

“Then why wouldn't they use him as a hostage to force our surrender?” Seilloah asked softly.

“I don't think Audriss is the one who's got him,” Davro explained, “precisely because Valescienn didn't do just that. I think it's the regent, Seilloah. Duke Lorum, Rheah Vhoune. Them.”

“Sodomy and damnation!” It was, to the best of her knowledge, the first time Seilloah had heard Losalis curse. He was up from his chair, pacing the small tent. “What do we do now? We've neither the time nor the manpower to go hunting for him.” He spun violently toward Seilloah. “What about magic?”

The witch shook her head sadly. “I don't know where he is. And even if I knew or could guess, distance might well prevent me from accomplishing anything. There are very specific boundaries on the kind of magics I can invoke, Losalis.”

“Then we're royally buggered, aren't we?”

Seilloah frowned. “Maybe not. I think I'm getting an idea.” She looked up at them. “It's absolutely the most harebrained, asinine thing any one of us has ever thought of, but I don't think we've got much choice.

“Losalis, pass me that parchment and ink from the table, please? Thank you. Gentlemen, I'm going to explain this to you. Kindly try not to scream too loudly.”

The sword whistled as it arced, high and across, a wild and overeager swing. Corvis ducked beneath it, lashed out with the hilt of Sunder and felt it impact nice and heavy against the fellow's gut. The mercenary's hauberk took the brunt of the blow, but still the breath burst from his lungs in a painful grunt. He didn't double over so much as simply bow ever so slightly, but it would do. Corvis twisted back the other way, raising his right hand as though delivering a vicious uppercut, and Sunder's blade cleaved clear through the man's jaw. A rush of warmth that Corvis didn't really want to think about washed over his fist and forearm.

/Oh, I've missed this!/
Khanda cackled shrilly even as Corvis whirled, readying himself for the next attack.

For a moment, it failed to materialize, as the survivors regrouped to reconsider their prey. Corvis straightened, ignoring the tearing ache in his shoulder and wishing briefly that he'd had his armor to turn the blow aside. It wasn't slowing him yet, but it was only a matter of time before the wound grew too bad to ignore; already he could smell little over the scent of his own blood. He had to wrap this up.

They stood in the midst of a muddy street, in a tiny town
whose name Corvis couldn't even recall at that moment. There were five of them now, whittled down from the original seven, all clad in mail and leathers, all armed, and all with at least some reasonable knowledge of what they were doing. Corvis didn't know if they'd somehow tracked him down, or had simply found themselves lucky enough to stumble onto the biggest bounty in Imphallion's history, but either way was bad for him. Other than these—and Tyannon, who stood to the side with a peculiar expression and seemed uncertain whom she ought to be rooting for—the streets were empty, doors locked and shutters slammed as the townsfolk fled the sudden eruption of bloodshed in their midst.

/If you're through playing,/
Khanda reminded him,
/now might be a good time to burn the lot of them down./

Corvis, for once, agreed with his mouthy accoutrement. Sunder clenched tightly in a gore-splattered grip, he raised his other hand, fingers splayed, felt the warmth begin to grow in the amulet against his chest….

And with a speed that Corvis could only marvel at, one of his foes—the man, in fact, who carried the broadsword stained with the Terror's own blood—lunged across the road and swept up Tyannon in a fearsome grip. The girl uttered a quick squeak, then grew wide-eyed and deathly silent at the press of steel beneath her breast.

/Perfect! We can get
all
of them at once!/

But Corvis clamped down on his will, snuffing the spell he'd been ready to throw, ignoring the demon's indignant squawk.

“She means nothing to me,” he growled coldly, locking his gaze with the mercenary's own.

“Then attack us and see what happens, Rebaine.”

Each stared at the other, while the remaining thugs shuffled their feet and spread out, ready either to lunge in attack or dive away from whatever monstrous spell the Terror of the East might unleash.

Instead, Corvis frowned and allowed Sunder to tumble to the earth from a slackened fist.

/Are you
completely
insane?!/

“Possibly,” Corvis muttered. Then, more loudly, “All right. Let her go and I'll come quietly.”

“I don't think so. I think it'd be better if
aauggch—!”

Corvis never did find out what would be better, since it was then that Tyannon grabbed the man's crotch and squeezed like she was juicing an orange. It wasn't really all
that
painful, given the fellow's protective padding, but it was sufficient to loosen his grip. Tyannon bent forward and straightened, slamming the back of her head into his face. Even as formerly solid bits of anatomy crunched flat, she allowed herself to fall from his grip and scramble away, trying to ignore the warm blood, mucus, and occasional tooth that now matted her hair.

Between one bloody cough and the next, the mercenary saw Corvis hook a foot beneath Sunder's shaft, saw the demon-forged axe take to the air and land solidly back in the Terror's waiting fist. And then the amulet around the warlord's neck flashed, and the mercenary's world was washed away beneath a wave of crackling fire.

Two of them managed to dive aside in time to avoid Khanda's burning wrath. Sunder split one of them efficiently down the center, but the other was long gone, leaving both his weapons and his footprints in the muddy road.