The Shattered Mask (23 page)

What if everyone was right? What if she actually wasn’t well yet, nor ready for a fight to the death against superior numbers?

Scowling, she thrust the timorous thought away. She was recovered, curse it, and even if she wasn’t, it didn’t matter, not with Talbot’s life in jeopardy. She started down the wall.

In some ways, it was the most challenging climb she’d ever attempted. She had to find her hand-and footholds in the dark, then transfer her weight in utter silence, lest the ettercaps hear her coming. Yet she also had to descend quickly, for if she took too much time, she might well engage the foe too late to do Talbot any good.

She held her body well away from the wall. Took care that no matter how she exerted herself, her breathing didn’t become audible. Meanwhile she could feel her heart pounding, and half feared that the ettercaps would hear it beating.

Or else one of them would simply happen to glance upward, and all her efforts at stealth would be in vain.

None of them did. Compelled by the masked wizard’s power, they kept watching the door with a single-minded intensity, and at last Tazi reached a point just above the ettercap hanging highest on the wall.

The creature was suspended head down. A pity, that, for she would have preferred to kick it in its vaguely equine skull, right between the long, pointed ears with the tufts of bristles on the ends. But the base of its spine was in easy reach, and she stamped on it with all her might.

Bone crunched; the ettercap screamed and fell from its perch. One of its fellows skittered around to orient on Tazi. Twisting, she kicked at that one, too, and the reinforced toe of her boot caught it in its red-eyed face, snapping the two tusks that protruded over its lower lip and jolting its head back. The brute tumbled to the ground.

Now that Thazienne no longer had the advantage of surprise, it would be foolish to continue trying to fight and hang on a vertical surface at the same time. She sprang away from the wall, landed well beyond the two ettercaps crouched on the ground, dropped, and rolled through a frigid snow drift.

The net flew through the air. She rolled again, and it clattered down beside her. As she scrambled up, the two ettercaps who’d thrown it hopped down from their perches, and then, screeching and chittering, all four of the uninjured ones shambled toward her.

She knew she mustn’t let them encircle her. She whipped out her long sword, dodged to the left, then sprang at her closest opponent.

The ettercap raked at her with the filthy claws at the ends of its elongated fingers. She ducked beneath the attack. The poison glands in its upper lip swelling, the creature lunged to bite her, and she met the threat with a cut that bisected its throat.

As the ettercap toppled, she spun away from it, meanwhile whirling her blade in a sweeping parry that, though

executed blindly, knocked away the taloned hand of the conjured being that had sought to attack her from behind. Perhaps she’d startled it or stung its fingers, for it faltered. She feinted a head cut to addle it still further, then drove her blade into its chest.

The creature dropped. Pulling her weapon free, she peered about and saw that the two remaining ettercaps had succeeded in placing themselves on opposite sides of her and were warily moving in. They thought that when she turned to defend herself from one, the other would be able to rend her or sink its venomous canines into her from behind.

Their tactics might well prevail, if she permitted them to close in on her, press her, and generally control the tempo of the exchange. To forestall that, she bellowed and sprinted at the one crouched between her and the wall.

Its crimson eyes goggling in surprise at her precipitous action, the ettercap nonetheless managed to throw up one of its long, wiry arms to fend off her blade, but she dipped her point beneath the block and plunged it into the brute’s belly.

As she yanked the sword free, she heard the remaining ettercap charging up right behind her, and realized she didn’t even have time to whirl around to face it. Reversing her weapon and gripping the hilt with both hands, she thrust it backward under her arm, ducking simultaneously.

Just as she’d hoped, the ettercap’s raking hands, aimed high, lashed harmlessly over her head. Meanwhile, the long sword slammed into flesh.

She sidestepped clear, turned, raised her weapon for another stroke or parry, then saw it wasn’t necessary. The ettercap she’d just stabbed was collapsing, and the other five were sprawled motionless on the ground.

Tazi felt a swell of exultation as intense as any she’d ever known. She hadn’t been a fool to trust in her skills and prowess. She was finally her old self again.

But she knew she had no time to stand and revel in the knowledge. She dashed for the door.

A different sort of arachnid, black with brown stripes, leaped from one of the window stages, its bony-ridged legs extended like lances to stab its prey. Talbot leaped aside, and the sword spider crashed down beside him. He drove his blade into its thorax, and it shuddered, listed to one side, and fell.

As usual, while he’d been busy eliminating one threat, others were moving in on him. From the corner of his eye, he spotted a bravo skulking up on his flank. The tough was phenomenally ugly, as if, in punishment for some crime, he’d been magically transformed into something inhuman, afid the spell to restore him had only barely done the job. Tal whirled to face him, and his King Imre wig picked that moment to slip down over his eyes.

Knowing that the ruffian would seize the instant of his blindness to attack, Tal parried by sheer instinct. His blade rang on that of his opponent’s, blocking his cut to the flank. The wig fell down to the floor, and Tal hacked at his adversary’s sword hand, half severing it. Keening, the ugly man dropped to his knees.

One of the round-bellied ettercaps charged Talbot, its thin arms with their long-fingered hands outstretched, only to plummet abruptly from sight when a trapdoor opened beneath its feet. An instant later, a flying chariot drawn by pink dragons dropped from on high, nearly braining a ruffian who had been in the process of aiming a crossbow at Tal. The startled bravo jumped, his finger pulled on the trigger, and the bolt flew wild.

Talbot grinned. Evidently, Lommy and his brother Otter, who generally operated the Wide Realms’s array of mechanical tricks and effects, had made their way to the controls beneath the stage and in the hut above and were trying to use them to help Talbot. Other members of the troupe were striving to do the same by flinging missiles and abuse from the relative safety of the wings.

Uskevren warriors were still fighting doggedly here

and there about the theater, and Brom was still keeping the masked wizard busy. Their duel stained the walls with flashes of colored light, even as it filled the air with cracklings, hissings, thrummings, waves of heat and cold, and foul odors.

Meanwhile, Tal was battling as well as he ever had in his life; Master Ferrick, his teacher, would have been proud. Yet he suspected that none of it, not his own skill nor the valor and ingenuity of his supporters, would matter in the end. The enemy’s superior numbers would soon carry the day, for, strong as he was, even he couldn’t keep fighting this furiously for much longer, with never an instant’s respite to catch his breath. Already he was panting, and could feel fatigue building in his muscles.

If only he could bolt through the door at the rear of the stage! It looked to be his only hope of survival, and he wouldn’t be abandoning his allies, because all his would-be slayers would pursue him. But those same enemies were pressing him so hard that it was impossible to break away.

Retreating before another ettercap’s advance, he heard a rattling overhead, looked up, and saw a falling star. The tasloi operating the hoists and windlasses had doubtless dropped the piece of stage dressing in hopes of hitting one of his assailants, but unfortunately, his timing was off.

Tal tried to dodge, but was too slow. Though only made of painted plywood, the star still struck him square and har”d and dashed him to the floor.

He tried to drag himself out from underneath it, but his limbs barely stirred. Through blurry eyes, he watched his foes, human and otherwise, rushing in at him, and understood in a murky way that he was stunned, helpless, and in consequence about to die.

Then a primal, indomitable other roared up from the depths of his mind. He flung the star off and leaped to his feet. The moon wasn’t full, he wasn’t sprouting fur or fangs, but for this one moment, the wolf had nonetheless emerged to preserve the life the two of them shared.

The nearest bravos quailed before his feral grimace, or

perhaps the growl rumbling in his throat. The summoned creatures kept coming. Tal decapitated a green spider, gutted an ettercap, and stormed into the midst of his foes.

Somewhere deep inside himself, the rational, human Talbot cried out in protest, for in its berserk fury, the wolf was taking the wrong tack. If he rushed in among them, he might wreak havoc for a moment, but then his foes would assail him from all sides and overwhelm him. Alas, his bestial alter ego refused to heed him.

Talbot drove his long sword through the torso of a one-eyed tough armed with a battle-axe, killed a spider at the instant it shimmered from a translucent, ghostly condition into solidity, then, suddenly, he glimpsed another blade flashing alongside his own.

Startled, he glanced to see who his new ally was. Tazi, clad in a suit of dark leather he’d never seen her wear before, had darted out of nowhere to help him, and somehow, her unexpected appearance banished the wolf. He was himself once more.

His sister’s sudden assault had likewise caught the enemy by surprise. Together with the wolf’s devastating onslaught, it served to scatter them and drive them back.

It was the opportunity Talbot had been waiting for. “Come on!” he gasped, and he and Thazienne dashed for the exit at the back of the stage.

As the enemy lunged after them, a painted backdrop depicting a castle by the sea crashed down between the hunted and the hunters, delaying the latter for a precious moment. Tal heard his fellow players cheer.

**

The Uskevren’s box had been reduced to a sad condition. Portions of the paneling and seats had been variously charred, shattered, warped, and covered in frost. Brom was sure he didn’t look in any better shape. He was bruised, bloody, and blistered, and his good mocado doublet, purchased shortly after Lord Uskevren hired him and the first

truly genteel article of clothing he’d ever owned, hung in tatters about his lanky frame.

Meanwhile, his masked opponent with the strange, pale eyes hovered unscathed in the air beyond the paling, looking exactly as he had at the start of their combat.

Sadly, Brom’s situation was every bit as dire as it appeared. His adversary hadn’t misspoken; he was the stronger wizard. Until now, Brom had managed to hold his own, but he knew he’d been lucky, and at this point, he’d expended most of his genuinely potent spells already. His rival’s next assault was likely to finish him off.

Brom supposed he wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t been tempted to turn tail. He imagined that if he fled the box, he’d probably survive, for after all, he wasn’t the victim the other wizard actually wanted to kill. The masked man—dead man, if what he’d said before was true—had only engaged him for tactical reasons, to pin him down and keep him from magically preventing Master Talbot’s murder.

But Brom vowed he wouldn’t run. Lord Uskevren had trusted him to serve and defend his House, and he intended to do his duty.

He extracted a grubby cotton glove from his mantle, and then, although he hadn’t dared to pay much attention to the fracas onstage since he started fighting himself, something about the situation below snagged his attention.

Mistress Thazienne had appeared to support her brother, and together, they flung his assailants back, turned, and fled for an exit. A backdrop smashed down behind them.

If only the masked wizard didn’t realize they were escaping! But no. Perhaps he’d noticed where Brom was peering, or maybe it was simply the prompting of instinct, but in any case, he turned his head and looked, also.

“Well,” he said to his fellow spellcaster, “it would appear that we don’t need to continue our contest.” He floated upward, seemingly intending to soar over the tiring house and intercept the Uskevren when they came out the other side.

Brom would have liked nothing better than to let the

other mage depart. But he knew Talbot and Thazienne needed a longer lead on their most formidable enemy to have any real hope of survival, and so he chanted and snapped the glove as if he were cracking a whip.

A huge, white, ghostly hand appeared in front of the masked wizard, hurtled at him, and shoved him backward through the air. For a moment, the spellcaster floundered helplessly against its luminous palm, then used his power of flight to distance himself from it. That gave him the space and freedom of movement to shout a word of power and swing his staff in an arc. The knob at the end slammed into the product of Brom’s magic, and the hand vanished in an explosion of magenta fire.

The masked man turned toward Brom. “That was pointless. The Uskevren cadets are dashing headlong into a trap. Even if you slew me, it wouldn’t save them. But if you insist on fighting to the bitter end, so be it.” Snatching a packet from one of his pockets, he began to conjure.

Brom frantically did the same. If he could finish first, somehow slip a bit of countermagic past his enemy’s wards, and disrupt the enchantment that held him aloft, the pale-eyed man would plummet—

He didn’t finish first. Purple and emerald fire leaped from the other wizard’s staff and engulfed him. For an instant, Brom had the terrifying impression that his flesh was attenuating, deforming, flying apart into particles finer than dust, and then he knew nothing more.

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Talbot and Tazi plunged through the exit onto the snowy ground behind the playhouse, where the bodies of several more ettercaps lay motionless. The Wide Realms possessed an enchantment that held inclement weather at bay, and now Tal gasped at the bitter chill in the night air.