The Shattered Mask s-3

by Richard Lee Byers

  Shamur managed to keep the snake occupied while her husband scrambled to his feet. Once more, they assailed the reptile together, narrowly dodging its strikes and thrashing tail, and again failing to do it any discernible harm. She knew it would be only a matter of time before the beast had a bit of luck and plunged its poisonous, swordlike teeth into one of them.

  She also knew how to fight a foe with impervious armor. Strike at the parts the armor didn't cover. Unfortunately, in the snake's case, they were all on its head, which the creature carried so high it nearly brushed the ceiling. It was effectively out of reach except for those instants when the serpent struck, and then the reptile withdrew it so quickly that by the time its human foes completed a parry or evasive maneuver and were ready to riposte, the opportunity was gone.

  If Shamur wanted to attack the head, she needed to abandon any attempt to fight defensively and meet it with a stop thrust as it hurtled down. She twirled her blade in a gesture she hoped would draw the snake's attention.

  It did. The head plunged at her, and she lunged at it. Her point flashed between its fangs and punched through the roof of its pale, gaping mouth.

  She knew she'd hurt it badly, probably fatally, but the head kept driving forward, the maw engulfing her arm. The snout smashed into her shoulder and knocked her down. Now the upper part of the serpent's body was flopping spastically on top of her legs, pinning her down, while its jaws gnashed with bruising force, trying to spear her imprisoned arm with one of the fangs.

  Thamalon lunged and drove his long sword deep into one of the huge copper eyes. The snake thrashed wildly, then stopped moving.

  "Are you all right?" Thamalon asked.

  Shamur carefully extracted her arm and broadsword from the dead creature's mouth, then inspected the limb for punctures. "I think so," she said.

  "That was an idiotic tactic," he grumbled. "It was pure good luck the brute didn't get its fangs into you."

  She laughed. "You offer to Tymora, you ought to know that fortune smiles on the bold." She extricated herself from the scaly mass on top of her, then sprang to her feet. "Let's take a look at our friend in the corner."

  When they moved close enough for a good look, she was surprised to see that the man on the floor was Nuldrevyn Talendar himself. Had the conspirators had a falling out? The aristocrat was still curled motionless in a ball, but she could see that he was breathing.

  Thamalon kneeled beside his rival and touched him gently on the arm. Without opening his eyes, Nuldrevyn shrieked and began to thrash.

  Shamur stared in astonishment. Never had she seen the arrogant patriarch of the House of Talendar in such a panicked state, nor would she have imagined he could ever be reduced to such a condition, except perhaps by prolonged torture.

  Thamalon gripped Nuldrevyn's shoulders and said, "The snake is dead. We killed it. The snake is dead."

  Nuldrevyn's struggles subsided into violent trembling, proving that Thamalon's surmise was correct. Even in his present circumstances, the Talendar lord wasn't afraid of the Uskevren, whom he had battled courageously for much of his life. He had never even opened his eyes to observe that they were there. It was an overwhelming and unreasoning dread of the serpent that had so unmanned him.

  "The beast is no more," Thamalon persisted. "Look for yourself."

  Nuldrevyn did so with much hesitation and anticipatory flinching. To her disgust, Shamur felt a slight twinge of pity for him, even though she had little doubt that, his present situation notwithstanding, the Talendar lord had at the very least endorsed the scheme to murder her family and herself. At last he regarded the long, gleaming carcass for a moment, averted his eyes as if even the sight of the beast in death was too horrible to bear, and began to cry.

  "Stop blubbering," Thamalon said. "The gods know, we have good reason to wish you ill, but we may forgo our vengeance if you tell us what we want to know."

  Nuldrevyn shook his head. "I no longer care what happens to me, Uskevren. I weep because my son is dead."

  Shamur peered at him quizzically. "Do you mean Oss-ian? What makes you think so? I gather he looked healthy-enough when he left the castle earlier tonight."

  "No," Nuldrevyn said, brushing ineffectually at his eyes. "That wasn't really him. He's gone. Marance murdered him."

  Thamalon blinked. "You don't mean your brother Marance, whom I slew thirty years ago?"

  "Yes," Nuldrevyn said. "He came back from the tomb to settle his score with you, and may the gods forgive me, I welcomed him." Fresh tears slid down his cheeks.

  "Can this be true?" Shamur asked.

  "I… think it may be," Thamalon replied, amazement in his voice. "I told you Master Moon's voice was familiar, and Marance always fought by whistling up beasts and demons to do his killing for him." He turned back to Nuldrevyn. "Tell us everything, and perhaps we will avenge Ossian for you."

  Half mad with grief and the agony he'd endured under the cold, unblinking gaze of the snake, Nuldrevyn related the tale in a disjointed and only partially coherent fashion. Still, Shamur grasped the essentials. At last she fully understood how the masked wizard had tricked her into trying to kill her husband. But the Talendar patriarch's final revelation crushed such insights into insignificance.

  "Midnight on the High Bridge?" she demanded, appalled.

  "Yes," Nuldrevyn said.

  Shamur looked at Thamalon. "It must be nearly midnight if it isn't already, and the bridge is halfway across the city." Even as she spoke, her mind was racing. If they dragged Nuldrevyn along with them, the old man could countermand the false Ossian's orders and call off the Talendar guards. But no, that notion was no good. In his present state of collapse, Nuldrevyn would slow them down too much. Nor was there time to locate another high-ranking Talendar, explain the situation, and prevail on him to intervene. All the Uskevren could do was commandeer a pair of horses, race to the High Bridge, and pray they'd arrive before the trap closed on their children.

  Thamalon sprang up from Nuldrevyn's side. "Let's find the stables," he said.

  Chapter 21

  Shamur and Thamalon galloped through the streets at breakneck speed, never slowing. They veered around other riders, wagons, litters, and carriages. They scattered pedestrians, who shouted insults after them.

  Shamur felt like cursing them in return, cursing them for idiots who ought to be home in bed, not cluttering up the avenues late on a snowy winter night, not impeding her progress when she was flying to her children's aid. The delight she often found in reckless escapades was entirely absent now, smothered by fear for Tamlin, Thazienne, and Talbot and an iron resolve not to fail them.

  She wished she could think that Nuldrevyn had been mad, his tale, false, at least in certain respects, for there was a particular horror in the notion that the Uskevren's chief adversary was a dead man. But that comfort was denied her, for in fact, the Talendar lord hadn't seemed demented, merely distraught. Moreover, Thamalon manifestly credited the notion that Marance had returned, while Shamur herself had discovered in the course of her youthful adventures that the world could be a shadowy, haunted place, and the boundary between life and death more permeable than most people cared to imagine.

  She tried her best to scowl her trepidation away. Mortal or wraith, judging from the way he always held back from the thick of the fighting, Marance was wary of his enemies' swords, and that ought to mean that she and Thamalon could cut him down and send him back to the netherworld.

  Hooves thundering on the cobblestones, the stolen war-horses plunged out onto the broad thoroughfare that was Galorgar's Ride. From here, the Uskevren had a straight course north to the High Bridge, and Shamur prayed they would now make better time. She squinted against the icy wind now gusting directly in her face, straining for a first glimpse of the Klaroun Gate. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the ornately carved arch emerged from the darkness ahead. A line of men, weapons in hand, stood across the opening.

  Shamur knew the Talendar warriors wouldn't close up their
end of the killing box prematurely, for then the children couldn't enter. Their present state of readiness could only mean that Tamlin, Thazienne, and Talbot were on the bridge, and that the other would-be assassins were closing in on them, if they hadn't done so already.

  Though the guards were facing north, it would have been absurd even to hope that they wouldn't discern Thamalon and Shamur's approach, because, of course, the destriers' drumming hoof beats gave them away. The warriors turned and eyed the riders with an air of uncertainty. Shamur could virtually read their minds. They'd been ordered to hold the Old Owl's fledglings on the bridge, not to keep anyone off it. Still, the newcomers' frantic pace alarmed them, or else the guards reckoned they shouldn't allow anyone onto the span to witness their comrades committing murder. In any case, one of them waved a sword over his head, signaling the strangers to halt.

  Thamalon had happened upon a rack of lances on the way to the Talendar stables and appropriated one for himself. He couched the weapon now. Meanwhile, Shamur drew her broadsword, and, recognizing the riders as a genuine threat, the warriors hastily readied themselves to receive a charge.

  With his longer weapon and his steed a length ahead of Shamur's, Thamalon drew first blood. The lance punched through the torso of the warrior in the middle of the line. Thamalon dropped the now-immobilized spear and rode on. Other warriors lunged from either side, and he caught a sword cut on his battered buckler.

  Shamur lost track of him after that, because her mount crashed into the line, and she had her own fighting to think about. She split the skull of the foe on her right, then cut at the man on her left. But across the body was the more difficult stroke for a rider, and the warrior managed to skip back out of range.

  Shamur tried to push clear of the guardsmen. Had she succeeded, she could either have sped on up the bridge or turned and attacked anew with the momentum of a full charge to her advantage, but her horse suddenly balked. Something had evidently hurt or spooked the animal, but she had no time to wonder what, for now the surviving warriors were driving in from all sides.

  Pivoting back and forth, Shamur slashed madly about with the broadsword. The destrier bit and kicked. One by one, the Talendar warriors dropped or reeled back with bloody wounds, until Thamalon, long sword in hand, rode back into the fray and dispatched the last pair of footmen from behind.

  The Uskevren wheeled their mounts and galloped on up the High Bridge, past homes, shops, and a guardhouse where, according to Nuldrevyn, the sentries lay magically slain or at any rate incapacitated. Shamur peered into the gloom until she caught sight of the next contingent of men-at-arms, and then she felt a pang of relief, because the enemy warriors had not yet skulked all the way up to the tavern called the Drum and Mirror. The actual attack had yet to begin, and therefore, the children must still be alive.

  Some of the warriors had evidently heard the hoof beats, cries, and clangor of blades arising behind them, because they were looking back in the couple's direction. Not giving them time to organize a defense, the riders charged them. A javelin streaked past Shamur and clattered down on the cobblestones behind her. Then she was in the midst of the foe, and, leaning out of the saddle, whipped her blade in a cut that tore open a warrior's throat.

  She galloped on, dealing with any enemy who lunged or blundered into her path, but seeking one particular target. Assuming that Nuldrevyn had accurately described the trap, there should be a spellcaster here on the south side of the tavern, either Master Moon himself or a Talendar retainer, and said wizard posed a greater threat than any one of the men-at-arms. She wanted to eliminate him before he could do any damage.

  Finally she spotted the mage. To her disappointment, it wasn't Marance but a tubby little man with a bald pate and luxuriant side-whiskers, clad in a checkered mantle. It was, in fact, Dumas Vandell, a jolly, down-to-earth fellow with a limitless supply of jokes, riddles, and humorous poems and ditties. Over the years, Shamur had chatted with him at many a social function, and rather liked him. Now, in the heat of battle, she couldn't afford to regard him as anything but an enemy, and judging by the alacrity with which, upon catching sight of her, he began to weave a spell, he was indeed resolved to kill her if he could.

  She wrenched her destrier's head around and charged, hoping to reach the wizard before he completed his incantation. She didn't make it. A shadowy bolt of force, so indistinct against the night that she would never have noticed if not for the sparkling motes and whining sound, leaped from Master VandelPs fingertips. She swayed to the side, and the magic crackled harmlessly past her.

  An instant later, she closed with the wizard. He threw up his plump white hands to fend off her sword, but her cut smashed through his defense and gashed his hairless scalp. He collapsed, and, perched on her stamping, chuffing war-horse, she watched him until she was convinced he was unconscious, then rode on. For a second, she rather hoped she hadn't killed him, and then, when another guardsman tossed a javelin at her, she forgot all about him.

  She had to cut down two more warriors before she reached the entrance to the Drum and Mirror, and by that time her children were wandering out the door to see what all the commotion was about. Tamlin, exquisitely dressed as ever, although for some reason, he had an ordinary axe, a tool, not a proper weapon, slung across his back, as well as a pewter goblet of wine in his hand. Talbot looked unkempt as usual. Thazienne, eyes bright with curiosity and excitement was clad in a suit of dark, close-fitting leather.

  Shamur had rarely been so glad to see anyone, and judging from the way the children's faces lit up when she careened out of the gloom, they felt much the same. Now, however, was scarcely the time for sentiment.

  As Thamalon galloped up behind her, she shouted, "Mount up! Hurry! You're in a trap!"

  Feeling eager and slightly melancholy at the same time, Marance strode through the fish market, an open space equipped with tables and stalls. With him marched a band of Talendar men-at-arms and Bileworm, cloaked in the flesh of Ossian. In another minute or so, Thamalon's get would be dead, and then, the wizard supposed, his soul could at last enjoy a measure of peace. But what a shame that he'd had to kill his own nephew to accomplish his purpose, and in so doing, forfeit his brother's good opinion.

  Perhaps one day, after the Uskevren were extinct and in consequence, the House of Talendar had grown more wealthy than ever before, Nuldrevyn would understand and forgive. In any case, Marance resolved that he wouldn't dwell on the matter, lest he cheat himself of his enjoyment of the slaughter to come.

  Shouts, hoof-beats, and the ringing of blades sounded from the darkness ahead, jarring him from his reverie. He and his companions faltered in their advance.

  "Those idiots attacked before us," Bileworm said.

  "No," Marance replied. He pointed to a three-story cedar building still some distance ahead on the east side of the bridge. "That's the Drum and Mirror, and no one's fighting there yet. Someone has attacked our men."

  "Should we run and help our lads?" asked one of Nul-drevyn's sergeants.

  The warrior had actually been addressing Bileworm, or, as he imagined, Ossian, but it was Marance who answered. "Not yet."

  After positioning his men and disposing of the Scepters in their guardhouses, Marance had elected to wait at the north end of the bridge, where it was absolutely impossible that the Uskevren would catch sight of him. Then, as midnight approached, he had created a magical implement that would enable him to see when his prey rode onto the span, and subsequently to survey the battlefield at need.

  Though no one could see it, that small, spherical tool was floating above him now, following him about like a faithful dog. He focused his thoughts on it, and, abruptly, he was gazing down at his henchmen and himself, peering through the invisible orb instead of the eyes in his skull.

  He sent the magical eye speeding along the bridge until he caught sight of the riders who had engaged his men. So far, it appeared there were only two attackers, but, mounted on destriers and fighting superbly, they were wreakin
g havoc even so.

  As one of the newcomers cut down Master Vandell, Marance sent the eye winging closer, then twitched in amazement. Though the riders had made some small effort to disguise themselves, he recognized them, but how was it possible?

  Bileworm sensed his master's stupefaction. "What is it?" he asked. "What do you see?"

  "Thamalon and Shamur," Marance replied. He heard the quaver in his voice, felt himself shaking, and struggled to calm himself. "They evidently survived the demolition of the ruined fortress."

  "How?" the spirit asked.

  "I don't know," Marance replied, transferring his power of sight back into the eyes he had been born with, "anymore than I comprehend how they knew to come here to rescue their offspring. But it scarcely matters, does it? What does is killing the lot of them together." He gestured to one of the warriors, a burly fellow with a black mustache and a red scarf knotted around his brow. "Run to the north end of the bridge and bring up the rest of the men. Everyone else, attack."

  The guards trotted forward. Marance turned to Bile-worm. "You, too."

  The familiar arched an eyebrow. "Me?"

  "Yes. The soldiers may fight better with one of their patrons in the thick of the fray."

  "Master, I'd really rather not."

  "Don't be such a coward. Even wearing a corporeal body, you're all but invulnerable to any real harm."

  "Still…"

  Rage flared up inside Marance, and his body clenched with the effort to contain it, though he knew it wasn't truly his impudent servant who had so roused his ire, but rather these maddening Uskevren who had somehow frustrated his attempts to slay them time after time after tune.

  "You're my slave, and you will obey me," he snapped. "Go."

  Bileworm sighed, drew Ossian's golden-hilted long sword, and scurried forward. He glanced back once or twice in the hope that his master would relent, but by that time Marance was already weaving magic, a candle held high in one hand and his staff in the other. Magenta sparks danced on the black, polished wood, and the cold air reeked of myrrh.