Nightshard was alive.
Alive, and standing right in front of her, about to finish the task he’d begun so many years ago: killing Aggar.
Acting almost without thinking, Sabira reached down and grabbed a fist-sized rock, throwing it at the assassin without bothering to aim. She knew he’d be too fast for the projectile to do any real damage, even if it did manage to hit him. The attack was simply a distraction, meant to give her time to get up and get her urgrosh into position before he could deliver the killing blow.
The ploy worked; Nightshard batted the stone away with his sword, the black blade humming as it connected. Then he was swinging at Aggar’s unprotected back as the dwarf struggled to crawl away.
But Sabira was up now, her own weapon moving. As Nightshard’s arm came down, Sabira’s shard axe met it. But she hadn’t been aiming for his weapon. The blade of her axe cleaved flesh and bone, and the be-ringed hand holding the black blade separated cleanly from the assassin’s wrist, leaving nothing but a spurting stump.
Though the sword—a mindblade, Sabira realized—simply reappeared in Nightshard’s other hand, the assassin fell back with an agonized howl, and his hood slipped. Sabira now looked at the bald head, disfigured gray face, and glittering black eyes of a duergar.
A female duergar.
Sabira pulled Aggar up and away from the assassin even as Nightshard leaped forward to reclaim her severed hand. As the assassin placed her dragonshard ring on her good hand and used it to cauterize her bleeding wrist, Aggar used one of his own rings to heal the damage from her mindblade. On a hunch, Sabira tried the same motion and whispered word on the corresponding silver ring she wore, and felt a burning sensation spread through her ankle as torn ligaments reattached themselves in a mere fraction of the time they would normally have taken to heal. Too late, she realized she might have just used up the last of their restorative magic on what was essentially a glorified sprain, but she’d had no other choice. If she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t fight, especially not an opponent who could turn invisible, seemingly at will.
“I know her,” Aggar said suddenly, bringing Sabira’s attention back to him as he climbed to his feet. The dwarf winced in pain as the wound in his abdomen knit itself back together with the same speed Sabira’s own injury had shown. “Remember, I told you about her back in the Iron Council’s audience chamber? That’s the woman I was talking about. That’s Eddarga Noldrun.
“You were right all along. You just had the wrong Noldrun.”
“Clever,” the duergar woman replied with a nasty smile. “How unfortunate that none of the brilliant minds on your vaunted Iron Council figured it out sooner. Think of all the lives that could have been saved.”
Before either Sabira or Aggar could respond, Nightshard—Eddarga—took a step back and frowned in concentration. A moment later, she began … to grow.
Sabira watched in stunned fascination as the duergar doubled in size before her eyes. And not only the duergar herself, but everything she wore and everything she carried. The dragonshard on her finger was now the size of an egg and the pulsing mindblade was a virtual greatsword.
“Damnable duergar sargh,” Aggar spat, hefting his greataxe and advancing. “I’ll take the right.”
Sabira ducked around a broken stalagmite and approached Eddarga from the left as Aggar began to harry the enlarged duergar with his axe on the right. But instead of having to divide her attention between her two attackers, the soulknife assassin simply split her mindblade into two identical swords, holding one in her hand and directing the other with the power of her mind alone.
Aggar battled the disembodied blade while Sabira fought with Eddarga. Even with her additional size, the duergar woman was still only as tall as an average gnoll, and just about as attractive. Though she may have escaped the cave-in, the explosion had left its mark on her, in the form of deep scars over virtually every inch of exposed dull, gray skin. It must have taken the assassin months, if not years, to fully recover.
Something Leoned never got a chance to do.
Had Sabira been wrong not to go back for him, despite the threat to Aggar’s safety and her own? If Eddarga survived, who was to say Ned might not have as well, if he’d been found and unearthed in time?
But no. Leoned had been dead even before the cave-in, or as good as. He had to have been. Sabira had seen him fall into that pool of magma just as the cave started to collapse. He’d have burned to death in moments, and would have felt pain only for the first few instants. Whereas Eddarga must have lain in agony for days, digging herself out with nails worn down to the bloody quick.
It hardly seemed punishment enough for all the grief the gray dwarf had caused, but Sabira was about to rectify that. The duergar would not escape alive again. Sabira would make damned sure of that this time, even if it meant holding the assassin down while rising molten rock engulfed them both.
Sabira let her anger add force to her blows, bringing her urgrosh down in fierce swings that would have snapped a more corporeal blade. But Eddarga, bigger and stronger now, was able to parry every blow with her semisolid mindblade, and laugh while she did so.
“We never did get the chance to spar the last time, did we, Marshal?” the assassin asked, smirking. “I regretted it at the time, but I see now that was an error on my part. You’re not even as good as your partner was, and he didn’t last long against my blade. Not long at all.”
Sabira knew the duergar was just trying to rile her, to get her to lose focus and make a mistake. Unfortunately, knowing the danger and being able to avoid it were two vastly different things.
“Ned was twice the fighter you’ll ever be,” she retorted, knowing she shouldn’t, but unable to stop herself. “He didn’t have to use filthy duergar mind tricks to overcome his opponents. His skill alone was enough.”
“Yes, and I’m living proof of that, aren’t I?”
Sabira’s vision went scarlet. With an inarticulate cry, she launched herself at the duergar, heedless of her exposed midsection as she whirled her shard axe around for an overhead blow.
The strength of her fury was enough to beat back Eddarga’s blade, allowing Sabira to bring the spear-end of her urgrosh up on the backswing. She scored a long gash along the assassin’s forearm, even as she took Eddarga’s riposte in her own shoulder.
Eddarga yanked her blade free, and Sabira stumbled backward, her free hand going up to her shoulder and coming away bloody.
“You’re wasting my time, Marshal,” Eddarga said, and then Sabira was facing only the duergar’s dancing mindblade as the gray dwarf turned to engage Aggar.
“Perhaps you’ll prove more entertaining, Tordannon. Though I must say watching you try to convince the masses of your innocence—and failing miserably at it—has already provided me with endless hours of amusement. I only wish I could have been in the Council chamber to witness your farce of a trial.”
As Sabira blocked a disembodied jab at her ribs with the haft of her urgrosh, she heard Aggar’s reply.
“It was almost as amusing as watching your temper tantrum in that same Council chamber. Is that what this is, duergar? My father took away your toy, so now you want to take away mine?”
Sabira cringed as she swatted another thrust away with the head of her shard axe. Aggar was using the Noldrun woman’s ploy against her, to even better effect than the assassin had used it herself.
“It wasn’t a toy, you arrogant whoreson! It was my inheritance!”
Sabira saw Eddarga’s stance shift forward suddenly and knew she was stabbing her blade at Aggar’s gut, leaving her flank unprotected in the process. But the Marshal couldn’t get past the assassin’s second mindblade to take advantage of the opening.
“As Frostmantle is mine,” Aggar returned, his own axe flashing orange as he sidestepped Eddarga’s lunge and swung low, aiming for her legs.
An icy lump formed in Sabira’s stomach at the sight, and she risked a glance toward the fissure, only to have her fears confirmed. As
they had battled Eddarga, she’d thought she’d noticed it getting warmer. And now she saw why. The magma had continued to rise, far more quickly than she had expected. It was now only a few feet from the lip of the chasm, and would soon be spilling over onto the very ground upon which they now stood.
As if somehow sensing her distraction, the mindblade darted forward, slicing a fine line along her jaw before she could wrench her head away. Then, as Sabira brought her urgrosh up to parry another blow, the blade simply winked out of existence.
“You’re starting to bore me,” Eddarga commented idly, and suddenly she was shrinking back down to her regular size and once again wielded only a single blade. She stepped back, her mindblade weaving a defensive black wall in front of her as the dragonshard on her ring began to glow. “Let’s try something new.”
Aggar jerked to attention abruptly, like a marionette on too-short strings.
“Yes, Aggar? You had something to say?” Eddarga taunted.
Aggar’s voice, when it came, was halting and unnatural.
“I love my mistress and would do anything to please her.”
Eddarga’s hideous face split into a cruel smile.
“So. Please me,” she said and then laughed as Aggar rushed at Sabira with a ferocious roar, axe swinging and death gleaming in his eyes.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Far, Nymm 20, 998 YK
Somewhere beneath Frostmantle, Mror Holds.
Sabira settled into an easy stance, awaiting Aggar’s attack. The last time she and the assassin had crossed paths, in a cavern very similar to this one, Sabira had followed her sworn duty to protect her charge at all costs—and the cost had been very high, indeed. Eddarga undoubtedly expected her to do the same now. But Sabira wasn’t going to hold back. Not this time. This was bigger than Aggar, and keeping him safe was no longer her chief priority. It couldn’t be, not with the entire population of Frostmantle going about their daily business somewhere far above her, unaware of the danger that was even now topping the lip of the fissure and oozing purposefully toward her.
If she had to kill Aggar to stop the assassin, she was prepared to do it.
And knowing how dogged the Tordannon heir was, she just might have to.
Aggar ran at her, but instead of attacking head-on, when he was just a few feet away, he catapulted into the air. The leap took him far higher than should have been possible under his own power. As he soared over her head, his greataxe whooshing down at her from above, Sabira realized that he must have used yet another of his rings.
She brought her urgrosh up to block the swing. Their axe-heads met with a metallic clash, and as Aggar’s trajectory took him out of range, the bit of his axe slid down the cheek of hers and across the haft of the urgrosh, slicing the back of her left hand to the bone. Then he was past her, and she was spinning around to face him while still trying to keep the Noldrun woman in her sight.
Luckily, the duergar assassin seemed content to watch her puppet at work and showed no sign of launching her own attack. Or perhaps she simply couldn’t control both Aggar and her mindblade at the same time. Whatever the reason, she remained where she’d climbed, atop a broken-off stalagmite ten feet away, and Sabira was grateful not to have to battle on two fronts at once. Especially since Aggar was proving to be a far better fighter than he’d been the last time she’d had occasion to cross blades with him, seven long years ago.
Twisting in the air and landing with almost feline grace, the red-bearded dwarf had barely touched down when he was rushing at her again, the haft of his greataxe held parallel to the cavern floor as he ran. She knew that grip. It was the one Aggar used when he wanted to get up close and personal with an opponent. For, unlike a normal axe, a greataxe was double-headed and double-edged, making it an effective and deadly weapon both at arm’s length and in close quarters.
She couldn’t let him get inside her guard. Not unless she wanted her last sight to be of him eating his own eyes at Eddarga’s command before the assassin finished them both off. And before she then moved on to do the same to Frostmantle.
With her shoulder throbbing, her hand on fire and dripping, and her grasp on her weapon made slippery by warm blood, Sabira went on the offensive. She charged forward to meet Aggar, her shard axe singing as it whizzed through the air toward the dwarf’s knees. With her superior reach, her best hope was to try and harry him with attacks he had to either parry or dodge, and to keep him too busy to get close.
But she’d forgotten about Aggar’s preternatural jumps. He leaped up, over her blow, and landed within arm’s reach. As she struggled to arrest her swing and bring the shard axe’s spear-tip to bear, Aggar punched her in the gut with the spike that separated the blades of his axe. The sharpened metal tip stabbed into her flesh, not nearly far enough to puncture anything vital, but still drawing blood and an oof of pain from her.
Then he yanked the haft of his greataxe to the left, intending to disembowel her with the axe-blade on the right. She threw her hips backward, arching her back, and the edge of the blade skimmed along her stomach, scoring her armor. Before he could reverse his momentum, Sabira completed her own backswing, catching him behind the knee with the butt of her shard axe. Aggar’s leg folded and he went down with a surprised grunt.
Sabira stamped down on his wrists until he let go of his weapon, then she planted the toe of her boot under his ribs. As the air rushed out of him and he was momentarily stunned, Sabira kicked his axe away, sending it skittering across the uneven ground and right into the leading edge of the advancing magma flow.
She stood over him, the tip of her urgrosh nestled at the base of his throat. As she leaned into him, the Siberys shard broke skin. The power inherent in the golden dragonshard seemed to momentarily counteract that of the darker one on Eddarga’s finger, for Aggar’s eyes cleared of the mad rage that had filled them and then widened in horrified realization. But Eddarga would not be so easily denied her prey, and the hatred bled back into his face as the duergar attempted to reestablish her influence over him. Aggar fought the assassin’s mental onslaught valiantly—Sabira could see it in the sweat beaded on his upper lip and the deep lines of effort creasing his brow—but he wasn’t strong enough. As Eddarga’s mind once more took hold of his, Aggar was able to whisper a single, urgent entreaty.
“Forget about me, Saba. Save Frostmantle.”
Then all recognition was gone from his eyes, and Sabira had the space between two ragged heartbeats to make her choice, the same awful choice she’d been faced with seven years ago, triggered by the same awful words.
Leoned’s voice rang out of the past, calm and unafraid. Accepting.
“Forget about me, Saba. Save Aggar.”
Sabira stared down at the dwarf, his green eyes at once alien and too familiar, and, remembering, made her choice.
She pulled the spear-end of her shard axe away from his throat, then quickly pivoted and thrust it deep into the meat of his thigh. Aggar howled in agony, but Sabira was already moving away. Even if the pain didn’t sever Eddarga’s hold on him for good, the injury would at least guarantee that he couldn’t get up and follow her as she charged his manipulating mistress.
The Noldrun, her mind still entangled with Aggar’s, was caught off guard by Sabira’s sudden rush. She was barely able to muster her mindblade and bring it to bear against Sabira’s furious onslaught in time. As it was, Sabira forced the duergar to abandon her high ground and landed a good hit to Eddarga’s midsection as well, smiling when her axe came away satisfyingly bloody.
But the assassin recovered quickly, and soon the two were battling back and forth across the cavern floor, trading blows and taunts, neither of them able to gain the advantage over the other.
“You should have seen your face when you realized that you triggered the trap that wound up killing your partner. That memory has kept me warm on many a long, cold night in the years since,” Eddarga said as she feinted toward Sabira’s thigh, only to change direction at the last minute and
jab at the wound in the Marshal’s shoulder.
“No doubt it was the only thing,” Sabira retorted, twisting out of the way and getting in a jab of her own, the Siberys shard of her urgrosh grazing the Noldrun woman’s hip.
“Perhaps. But that’s still better than having no one to share my bed with all these years except the ghost of a man who turned his back on me. Don’t you think?”
Eddarga accompanied the verbal barb with a quick lunge to Sabira’s chest that slid off the haft of her urgrosh and nicked her under the arm. But neither the insult nor the wound caused Sabira any real pain, for she knew what Eddarga could not—that she had shared her bed with someone, a man who was definitely not a ghost and who did, in fact, love her. Probably more than she deserved.
“I wasn’t lying,” he had written.
Someone, she realized, whom she loved in turn.
That knowledge spurred her on as anger or vengeance could not. It gave renewed strength to her blows and purpose to her attack. Slowly she forced the assassin back, toward the advancing magma, the air around them shimmering with heat.
The gray dwarf risked a glance behind her and saw where Sabira was guiding her. Panic poured into her eyes and she launched herself at Sabira, her mindblade a black blur as she landed a flurry of blows. But Sabira, with a calmness that bordered on serenity, parried every strike with haft and axe and pushed the duergar back, inexorable and implacable as death itself.
“What are you doing?” Eddarga asked, alarm making her voice high and childlike. “You’ll kill us both!”
“If that’s what it takes,” Sabira agreed amiably.
“You’re mad!”
“Aren’t we all?”
Eddarga thrust at her again, with flashy footwork designed to hide the fact that she’d angled her steps so that she would be moving mostly parallel to the magma’s edge instead of toward it as Sabira advanced on her. Sabira let her think the ploy had worked and didn’t immediately try to correct the duergar’s path. Instead, she intensified her attack, bringing her shard axe down in powerful, sweeping blows that Eddarga could not counter. And when she had the assassin in position, she pretended to tire, taking too long to recover from one wide swing.
The Shard Axe: An Eberron Novel (Dungeons & Dragons) Page 27
