Shadowbane: Eye of Justice

by De Bie, Erik Scott

  Myrin rose dizzily, her perceptions shattered. She tried to focus, as Ilira had taught her, and only thus did she manage to see Levia rushing back toward her, her mace held high.

  Not that she could do anything about it.

  Ilira’s first move was not to charge, as Kalen had expected. Instead, she sent her shadow racing across the floor toward him. It drew up into the room as it came on, a hulking creature with talons and wicked barbs of darkness. Kalen swept his axe around, coating the creature in gray flames, and it faltered before its talons could bite into him.

  “You cannot flee,” he said. “Helm demands—”

  “Who’s fleeing?” Ilira danced out of the shadow creature as though from a pool of water and kicked him in the face, cutting off his words.

  He staggered and batted aside a thrust of her borrowed rapier, but she came back with another lunge that scraped off his conjured armor. Gods, the woman was fast.

  He drew on a trick Sithe had taught him and slipped his mortal shell for just an instant. Ilira stabbed at him, but the steel cut nothing but gray flames as he passed, wraithlike, through the elf. Behind her now, he sent the deadly axe scything for Ilira’s neck, but she compressed down into her legs and ducked. Kalen saw an opportunity and struck at her face with the butt of the axe, but she threw up her sword arm to block his attack. The stout handle struck her arm with a wet thunk, and she rolled away with the force of the strike. When she stood up, she grasped her arm with a wince and transferred the rapier to her left hand.

  “Ambidextrous,” she said.

  Kalen wasn’t listening. Divine fury surged in him at her attempt to flee. He called upon the Threefold God and shot across the intervening distance. Ilira barely dodged his downward cut and the axe sank into the floor. She deftly cut open his arm—which he couldn’t feel—then somehow twisted Sithe’s axe out of one hand, spoiling his leverage on the big weapon. She had skill, he had to give her that.

  No matter.

  Kalen clapped a hand on Ilira’s left arm to restrain her. She turned, meaning to slip his grasp, but growing up a beggar boy in Luskan had taught Kalen long ago how to grapple with the most agile opponents. He ripped her sleeve, revealing a length of porcelain shoulder, and locked his arm around the lithe elf to pull her close against his gray armor. At his touch, gray fire spread from his fingers to her, burning Helm’s sigil into her shoulder. She gasped in pain and tried to pull free. Instantly, he could feel her, as though the brand tied their souls together.

  “There is no escape,” he said, panting for breath. “You cannot flee justice this time.”

  Her black eyes shot to his face and her breast heaved against his chest. “Again,” she whispered. “Who’s fleeing?”

  Ilira nodded over his shoulder. Kalen did not have to look; he felt it. Her shadow—forgotten in his pursuit—wrapped itself around him in an ice-cold embrace. Instantly, numbness filled his limbs, as when his spellscar manifested, and apathy filled his soul. He released Ilira, but when she tried to scramble away, the divine brand flared up, and she gasped and fell. Her eyes turned gold, as though his power had shocked her shadowdancing powers out of her.

  Let go, a deep, masculine voice said in Kalen’s mind. Rest …

  The desire to surrender swelled in Kalen, but he could not give in. Not when Myrin relied upon him—not when justice had yet to be done.

  “No.” Gray flames rose around Kalen, scalding the creature away.

  Grasping her burning shoulder with one hand, Ilira thrust the rapier at him, seeking to take advantage of the shadow’s distraction. Kalen spun Sithe’s axe and knocked her attack wide. She pumped her arm with blinding speed, as though conducting a choir, and she almost beat his defense. Without the powerful enchantments on Sithe’s axe, she would have run him through.

  “There is no escape and no victory,” Kalen said through the spinning shield he had formed with the axe. “Drop your sword.”

  Ilira lunged at him again. Her blade cut open his calf before he knocked aside her sword. He could barely feel the injury, but it served to distract him. When he saw her eyes turn black—the shadow made manifest—he realized distraction had been her plan. She rolled around Kalen, but when he cut downward with the axe, she had vanished into his shadow.

  At first, panic filled him and he gazed around wildly, at a loss for where she might have gone. But he felt the burning call of the mark he had left on her flesh, sounding like a signal horn from the center of the hall. There, Ilira had appeared in the shadows of the garden, to lurk near the marble platform. She screamed as the mark burned her.

  Enough of this game of hunter and hunted. Kalen would beat her down with the strength of the Threefold God. At his prayer, he felt power infuse his limbs, and when he ran toward her, he moved faster than any man should have been able. By Helm’s magic, she could not escape. He leaped onto the platform, the axe raised high.

  “Zhavaht,” she hissed.

  With a shudder, the platform rose. Kalen staggered at the unexpected movement, and the axe sank into the marble between Ilira’s legs. She looked at it a heartbeat, her shoulders heaving.

  “Foolish,” she said, panting on the marble. “I can dance away, and leave you here.”

  “Foolish,” he said with a smile. “To think the shadows will hide you.”

  And with that, he summoned the full radiance of his faith. His armor burst off him and soared outward in a shining beacon of light, so bright it burned the shadow from her gold eyes. The blaze of light dispelled all the shadows on the floating chunk of marble, illuminating the two for all to see. It left Kalen unarmored, but took away Ilira’s shadows as well.

  “Well, damn,” she said, hefting her rapier.

  Kalen ripped his axe out of the platform, and they were fighting again.

  Myrin saw doom bearing down upon her in the form of Levia Shadewalker, and no spells to save her came to mind. It had been days since she’d consulted her grimoire—not since the morning after the lair of Night Masters—and her mind felt muddy from Hessar’s magic-infused strikes. Had he worked a spell upon her to leave her befuddled? She couldn’t hear, either.

  A blade appeared between them, however, and Rujia strode out of a portal of flickering light. It was, Myrin thought, a window to the Feywild or something of that nature. The deva met Levia’s charge with a lance of magic, making the priestess stagger. She groped around for Rujia, seemingly unable to see her standing not two paces distant. Myrin recalled the vampire redirecting that very magic toward her in the sewers, and now she knew how it worked: it made Rujia—and only Rujia—invisible to the one struck.

  The deva raised her sword to take advantage of Levia’s confusion.

  “Stop!” Myrin shouted, hearing herself only dully as though through water. Her ears were splitting. “No killing in my house!”

  Rujia struck, but Levia had anticipated the blow and blocked. Even though she couldn’t see the deva, she managed to keep her at bay.

  Brace kneeled over Myrin, shouting something at her—a healing insult, perhaps. Warmth surged through her—Brace’s words worked their magic even if she could not understand them—and she got to her feet with his help.

  She saw that the gnome and the deva had made short work of the other Eye of Justice enforcers. Two men lay bleeding on the ground while a third slumped against the wall, seemingly senseless. A fourth man wandered aimlessly, babbling to himself in a disconnected tone. Myrin recognized an enfeebled mind, and wondered which of them had done that: Brace with his bardic magic or Rujia with her tricks?

  Myrin sought out Kalen and Ilira, who had taken their fight to the rising platform. There they clashed like angels of light and darkness, and the duel offered no indication of which angel was winning. Finally, her hearing returned with a shock, and the world rushed back into ears.

  “—all right?” Brace was asking. “My lady, are you—?”

  “Fine,” Myrin said, her voice strange and distant. “Help Rujia.”

  The deva was holdi
ng her own well enough against the priestess, although it was clear she fought only to delay her rather than to defeat her. Levia constantly swiped through empty air, while Rujia kept directing the same blinding magic at her. Blood oozed from Levia’s nose.

  Likely, it would have gone well enough if Brace hadn’t intervened.

  “Stand away, you horse’s-ass-faced wench!” the gnome shouted.

  Levia stopped swinging at the dancing Rujia and instead focused on Brace and Myrin, whom she could see quite well. “What did you say to me?”

  “I’d say you were as ugly as my horse’s rear end, but as I’ve no such beast, I cannot,” Brace said. “Also, to make such a claim would be to insult both my hypothetical horse’s hindquarters and the posteriors of worthy steeds everywhere.”

  Levia’s eyes narrowed, and the room began to tremble. Rujia stared a warning at Brace.

  “She looks angry, Brace,” Myrin said. “Very angry.”

  The gnome continued unabated. “And honestly, do you never even try to do anything with that raven’s nest you call hair?” he asked. “Cyric have mercy.”

  At that moment, a bright light shone overhead, dazzling them all. Myrin looked up and beheld Kalen and Ilira illuminated by gray flames. Myrin’s heart leaped once more, and for a moment, she couldn’t think. She wasn’t sure which of them she wanted to win.

  Then Levia loosed a cry of fury, and the ground around them rocked. A crack split along the stone from the priestess to Myrin, throwing both Rujia and Brace sprawling aside. The wizard murmured the words of her levitation spell, and hung in the air as the tremor ripped a chasm beneath her. Levia glared.

  “Do you have any idea how much coin that will cost to fix?” Myrin asked. She inspected the ruined floor. “Well, not that I do either, but still!”

  Myrin started to cast another spell when shadow wrapped around her like a fist. She glanced over her shoulder, following the trail of magic, to where Hessar stood near the wall.

  “Mother Mystra,” she said. “Wait—”

  Then the shadow hand dashed Myrin against the floor, grinding her into the stones beside the crack Levia’s magic had left in her floor. She wriggled but could not move—could not escape or breathe. Pain gave way to panic and her whole body quivered against the floor. The pressure built and built and she wanted to cry out, but she had no breath. Then something tore inside her middle, and pain ripped through her anew. The hand relaxed, only to grind again. This time, there was no fear but only a dizzy sort of weakness.

  Myrin looked up to see Levia standing over her, Hessar on the other side. “Do you yield?” the priestess asked, her mace raised. Hessar’s expression was disappointed.

  In her dizzy madness, Myrin grinned through bloody teeth. She could not speak to cast magic, but she could feel the blue fire surging within her, begging for release. Her spellscar wanted to manifest—to destroy all those who would endanger it. And just then—seeing Rujia and Brace lying senseless on the floor a few paces away—she couldn’t see a reason to deny it.

  A shield of flame surged around her. A vision flashed through her minds of the threads of magic that formed the spell—of the weave loosening. The flames turned blue, and the burned away the shadow like a thick mist. Hessar took an uneasy step back, his yellow eyes widening, and Myrin lashed at him with a surge of crimson flame. The monk tried to dodge, failed, and collapsed screaming to the floor. Myrin grinned in fierce joy at seeing his pain. This was not like her, but she did not care—it felt so right.

  She directed another golden bolt toward Levia, but realized the woman was not even looking at her. Instead, she stared up in shock at the platform upon which Kalen and Ilira fought.

  Myrin looked, and gasped.

  Glowing as fiercely as a gray star, Kalen brought the axe sweeping in, but Ilira ducked under it. They traded blows, moving each other back and forth across the rising platform. She proved damnably good at eluding his strikes, but he could tell she was tiring. Her attacks came slower, and she rarely struck through his defense, let alone cut him.

  He’d shed his armor to produce the gray glow that surrounded them, but he felt no less protected by Helm’s power. He was learning how to dodge Ilira’s attacks—exactly where and when to move—and her rapier slid barely past his body. He knew how to move much as Sithe had done when first he’d seen her fight. The armor of faith worked both ways, he realized—either way, his faith was protecting him.

  The platform rose from the hall out into the Westgate night. The Shieldmeet festivities lit the city with a thousand, thousand lights, and the effect was dazzling. As they drew up into the night sky, fires burst in the air around them—the product of hedge wizards and alchemists adding special magic to the celebration. Kalen’s light was the most impressive display of all.

  “I have the power of a god behind me,” Kalen said as they fought. “What do you have?”

  “A weapon.” Ilira eluded his next attack, caught his arm, and twisted the axe from his grasp. It fell, scything end over end, and cut into the floor far below. Deadly, but useless.

  Ilira smiled at him and raised her rapier. “Regretting the decision to chase me yet?”

  Kalen held out his arm as though to ward her off with an unseen blade. Gray flames tingled around his hand. Ilira pursed her lips, smiled, and lunged.

  Vindicator appeared between them, a blade far longer than Ilira’s borrowed rapier. Her eyes widened at the suddenness of it and she managed to twist aside so that it plunged into her stomach, rather than her heart. She tried to gasp, but merely gagged in shock. The rapier fell from her limp hand and skittered off into the night.

  They stood like that, locked together by the sword. Then Ilira staggered back and fell to her knees at the edge of the platform, clutching her stomach. Blood seeped between her fingers.

  “Devious,” she said. “I … approve.”

  “Bane bugger your opinion.” He put the point of Vindicator to her face. “Yield now, and I promise you will have justice.”

  “Justice,” she said bitterly. “I’m innocent, in case you’re wondering.”

  He shook his head. “Innocent folk don’t run.”

  “Well.” She coughed. “I suppose you’ll just have to finish me then.” Her gold eyes blinked wetly at him and a smile crooked her lips. “Come, Saer Shadow. Finish me.”

  He lowered the sword and stepped forward. “I bind you by the authority of the Eye—”

  She caught his collar in one hand, his neck in the other, and pressed her searing lips to his.

  Blue fire roiled inside him.

  “Kalen!” Myrin cried, at the same time Levia uttered the name in similar terror.

  They looked at one another.

  “Upstart bitch!” Hessar rasped from the ground. A shadowy spear appeared over his hand, and he hurled it at Myrin.

  Myrin deflected the bolt of magic with her orb—into which the spear dissipated harmlessly—but Levia smashed her mace into the back of her head. Without the shield, Myrin would certainly be on the ground, her skull caved in. Instead, she merely fell to one knee, dazed, as Levia staggered away, batting at blue flames that licked at her sleeve.

  Blackness abruptly surrounded her, illumined in the orb’s strange blue light. Myrin watched in despair as shadow magic stripped away her fire shield. The spell didn’t hurt her, but she got the sense that it could have. The monk appeared before her, gazing down with that same supercilious smile, as though he were a master chiding a student with a glance.

  “Do your worst,” Myrin said to him. “I’ve fought far greater foes than you.”

  He smiled as if to say he doubted that.

  Then, surprisingly, he nodded at her bandaged hand and winked at her. “You’d best use that now.” He vanished back into the conjured darkness.

  What did that mean? Did he know?

  No choice. Myrin grasped the edge of the bandage in her teeth and ripped it free.

  The darkness faded, and a pair of hands grasped Myrin roughly by the c
ollar. Levia.

  “What is going on?” Levia looked up at the platform, unable to utter another word.

  Myrin unwrapped her hand as quickly as possible behind her back.

  Their kiss lingered.

  Ilira pressed herself into Kalen, her body hungry for his, and he found his own appetite rising to match hers. Her tongue flicked along his lips, and he parted his teeth to allow her in. His glow dimmed as his focus shifted. They kissed and kissed.

  And there was no fire.

  Kalen had seen Ilira burn a man’s face half away with a kiss. An innocent touch had been enough to burn his own fingers. And for one horrible breath, he thought she was doing the same thing to his face and he simply could not feel it.

  But this time, there was nothing. Instead, it was simply a kiss: not tentative like Myrin’s kiss or ravenous like Fayne’s from a year ago. Those had been great kisses, but this …

  Ilira kissed him in such a way as to make him love her.

  Then the moment broke, and Ilira pulled away. “You.…” She stared confusedly at his face, then touched her lips. “Gods of the Seldarine, you’re not burned.”

  Levia stared blankly up at the platform, her mouth wide in an expression of horrified amazement. Myrin thought she could see tears welling in her eyes.

  “Kalen taught me something,” Myrin said, the bandages falling away.

  Levia looked back at her, eyebrows raised.

  “One should always attack by surprise if at all possible,” Myrin said. “So … surprise?”

  She grasped Levia’s wrist with her scarred hand, and blue flames rose from the touch. Ilira’s stolen spellscar tore apart Levia’s flesh, sending her screaming away from Myrin. She fell on her backside, cradling her burned arm.

  Myrin looked up, her blue hair swirling in the winds of magic. “Kalen.”

  Hessar was still there, rushing back toward her. Whatever amnesty had briefly hung between them was now gone, it seemed. His fists and feet blazed with dark energy.