Текст книги "Prophet of the Dead"

Автор книги: Richard Lee Byers

Соавторы: Richard Lee Byers
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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

A claw jabbed at his head, and he sprang out of the way without breaking stride. That put him on the verge of flinging himself onto one of the immobile but still potentially deadly horns that bristled from the demon’s shell. He twisted past the point, leaped, and cut at the cluster of eyes.

The demon fell over thrashing, and as it rolled back and forth, the flailing of the various claws and spikes was almost as dangerous as if it were attacking deliberately. Fortunately, Vandar had to avoid them for only a couple of heartbeats before the convulsions came to a sudden end.

He studied the fiend for a moment, satisfying himself that he truly had killed it, then looked around for his next foe. Some distance away, rearing over the heads of smaller combatants, the undead creature called Lod hurled a jagged blast of darkness from his hand. Wheeling around the bone naga, Jet dodged, and, astride the black griffon’s back, Aoth hurled shafts of blue light from his spear point.

The red sword urged Vandar in that direction. Because Lod was the leader of the Eminence of Araunt, the ultimate author of Rashemen’s troubles, and the most formidable horror on the battlefield. And if Vandar didn’t play a central role in his destruction, it was Aoth and not he who would be remembered as the hero of the conflict.

Then, however, Vandar realized the gloom was lifting. Using the spines like a ladder, he scrambled up on the demon’s carcass in hopes of seeing why.

Cera, Yhelbruna-now in possession of the Stag King’s antler-axe-and a couple other hathrans stood in attitudes of invocation amid a luminous yellow haze. Plainly, their magic was burning away the dark.

Unfortunately, Vandar wasn’t the only one who’d figured that out. Undead and dark fey were turning in increasing numbers to push toward the sunlady and witches while mortals, bright fey, and golems struggled to hold them back.

Vandar suspected that keeping the exorcism going and so restoring the daylight was even more important than slaying Lod. Still, the sword insisted that any warrior who battled to protect Yhelbruna, Cera, and the other women would simply be one of many. It was champions who bested terrible foes in single combat-or at worst, with the aid of a comrade or two-who won glory.

But Vandar didn’t deserveglory. Not after all his selfishness and disastrous miscalculations. He ordered the sword to be silent and started fighting his way toward the golden glow.

At first, it proved fairly easy to cut down foes who were pushing in the same direction. Then, however, he glimpsed a hulking form from the corner of his eye.

When he turned and took his first close look at Uramar, he felt like a fool for ever mistaking the zombie counterfeit he’d slain under the Fortress of the Half-Demon for the true blaspheme. The genuine patchwork man was even more thick-built, scarred, and misshapen, with eyes of two different colors set at different heights.

Something had ripped away Uramar’s breastplate and shredded the flesh beneath, exposing and breaking ribs in several spots. Yet despite his ill-made body and gaping wounds, his two-handed blade struck constantly and to murderous effect. Essentially, he and Vandar were doing the same thing: cutting down foes who were likewise struggling closer to the sunlady and hathrans. But everyone the greatsword even nicked withered and rotted even as he fell.

Someone needed to stop Uramar before he got anywhere close to Yhelbruna, Cera, and their helpers. Vandar rushed the huge undead.

As he approached, chill bit into him. But his anger and the red sword buttressed him against it.

Meanwhile, Uramar didn’t appear to notice the danger racing in on his left. But when Vandar had nearly closed to striking distance, the blaspheme pivoted and swung the greatsword at his middle.

Vandar parried, and the two blades clanged together. The impact jolted Vandar, but his defense kept Uramar’s sword from cutting him.

Still running, Vandar slashed at the massive open wound that was Uramar’s chest. The undead parried, and the blades rang again.

Vandar plunged on past and now had his back to his opponent. Sliding in the snow, he wrenched himself around barely in time to see Uramar’s next cut leaping at his neck. He ducked underneath the stroke, then hurled himself forward to cut at the spot where a living man carried his heart.

With astonishing quickness for such a limping brute, and one already hideously wounded at that, Uramar retreated on the diagonal, and the footwork gave him time to parry. He took another retreat, and that put him back at the proper distance to take advantage of his longer arms and blade.

Vandar advanced with lowered guard, inviting an attack, then swayed back when it came. The greatsword whizzed past his chest with no more than half a finger’s length to spare. He lunged with the red blade poised for a chest cut.

Uramar shifted the greatsword to parry and once again protect that shredded, unarmored, vulnerable spot. Vandar instantly pivoted and cut at the blaspheme’s left wrist.

The red sword sheared flesh and splintered bone, and, though it didn’t quite sever Uramar’s hand, rendered it useless. The undead stumbled backward with his enormous weapon wobbling in what was now an inadequate grip.

Vandar started after him. Then, with a silent cry, the red sword alerted him to danger at his back.

He spun, and the war club that might otherwise have smashed his skull struck it a glancing blow instead. Still, that was enough to blank out the whole world.

The next he knew, his head was ringing, he lay on his back in the snow, and the zombie that had struck him had the war club raised for another blow. Vandar floundered backward, but the weapon still caught him in the knee. Bone snapped, and he gasped at the flash of pain.

Anger welled up inside him to mask what would otherwise be agony. As the dead man lifted the war club for a third strike, Vandar heaved himself up onto his off hand, cut its leg out from under it, and split its head when it fell down. The creature stopped moving.

Vandar wrenched himself around to face Uramar. The blaspheme had discarded the greatsword for a curved short sword glimmering with its own no-doubt lethal enchantments. Scowling, his half-severed hand dangling and spittering dark blood in the snow, the patchwork man limped forward.

Then the ambient gloom brightened a little more. A shaft of sunlight fell through the leafless canopy overhead, transfixing a pair of phantoms that shredded away to nothing.

Uramar turned and resumed pushing his way toward the women working to banish the darkness.

Vandar struggled to his feet to pursue. Or rather, to his foot, for another stab of pain made it immediately apparent that his injured leg wouldn’t bear his weight.

He hopped through the snow and bent down to retrieve the zombie’s fallen war club to use as a crutch. Before he could straighten up, a dark fey like a hound with a half-human face sprang at him. He killed it with a thrust between the eyes but lost his balance and fell in the process. By the time he managed to stand up, he could no longer even see Uramar past all the other combatants in the way.

It was absurd to think he could catch up, but he had to try. He started hobbling, and jagged fangs bared, a ghoul advanced to intercept him. He poised his sword for a head cut.

Then the golden griffon plunged down atop the ghoul. The impact likely smashed the life-or what passed for it-out of the creature, but the telthor made sure of its destruction by ripping the body to pieces with his claws.

The gold turned his head to regard Vandar with fierce blue eyes. The beast seemed to be waiting for something, and the berserker hoped he understood what.

He hobbled forward, tucked the red sword under his crutch arm, and reached out to scratch in the feathers behind the griffon’s beak. He’d seen Aoth and Cera pet Jet that way, and the gold permitted it as well. But he also gave an impatient-sounding rasp as though to remind the idiot human they were in the midst of battle.

The gold then pivoted, presenting his side, and lowered himself onto his belly. Vandar dropped his makeshift crutch and clambered onto the griffon’s back.

At once, the griffon ran a couple steps, sprang, and, wings beating, soared into the air. Vandar didn’t know how to ride a griffon, didn’t have a saddle, and his throbbing, broken-kneed leg couldn’t clamp against his steed’s side with any strength. Still, bending down and wrapping his arms around the telthor’s neck, he managed to stay on the creature’s back, or maybe the gold contrived to keep him from tumbling off.

The telthor weaved through an aerial melee that, with griffons, winged telthors and fey, and ghosts swooping, wheeling, and tearing at each other, and blasts of magic raining down from the skyship above the trees, was every bit as savage as the struggle on the ground. Still, the gold appeared to be scrutinizing the combatants down in the gory snow.

Vandar was too, but he didn’t spot Uramar until an instant after the griffon dived at him. The blaspheme had almost worked his way to Yhelbruna, Cera, and the other spellcasters. Already, the hathrans’ protectors were faltering as the leading edge of Uramar’s cloud of cold washed over them, and meanwhile, other undead were scrambling to aid the patchwork swordsman as he finished carving his way to his objective.

The golden griffon slammed down in the midst of those would-be helpers, crushing some and striking at the rest with snapping beak and snatching talons. The spiritual power of a telthor made such attacks devastating to even an insubstantial entity such as a specter.

Still, that small part of Vandar that could consider such things despite the fury was surprised at the gold’s choice of target. He’d expected the griffon to plunge down on Uramar. But evidently the creature expected his rider to finish what he’d started while he made sure that this time, no other foes meddled in the duel.

Well, so be it. Vandar gripped argent feathers and the hide beneath to anchor himself and gave every bit of himself over to the rage. Sound faded, and the world slowed.

The gold spun to continue striking at the remaining foes he’d chosen for himself. Uramar circled too, and Vandar realized the blaspheme was maneuvering to attack the telthor, not him. He meant to strike the griffon down from behind.

Vandar pulled his handful of feathers as if they were reins, and somehow the golden griffon understood he meant for it to turn, and in what direction. It jerked around just far enough for Vandar to catch Uramar’s cut with a parry.

Steel clanged. Bellowing, the patchwork man sprang and cut at Vandar’s head.

Vandar leaned sideways and slashed at the same time. Uramar’s sword whistled past him while his blade sheared into the blaspheme’s neck.

Uramar floundered forward, even though that made the fey sword slice deeper. He threw both arms around Vandar in a crushing bear hug.

Finally too bitter for any mortal human being to withstand, chill plunged into Vandar like icicle daggers. He jerked and lost his grip on his sword hilt, and then the cold was even worse. All he could do was shudder as the blade in the blaspheme’s good hand hitched around to aim at his face.

But then Uramar groaned and slumped, and the sword thrust never came. The golden griffon wrenched himself around in a manner that further loosened the undead’s embrace, and with a convulsive effort, Vandar shoved him away. The patchwork man toppled backward to sprawl motionless between the bodies of a fey with spindly limbs and enormous hands and feet and a witch with her bronze mask and the head behind it smashed out of shape. Still shaking, Vandar couldn’t tell if she’d been a hathran or a durthan.

Spinning blades of blue light chopped Lod’s tail. Unfortunately, that didn’t keep the bone naga from throwing a magical attack right back. He whipped his lower body clear of Aoth’s creations and stretched out his skeletal hand simultaneously.

Streaks of darkness painted themselves on the air, defining a cube with Aoth and Jet at the center. Lashing his wings, the griffon hurled himself forward and through the murky stripes in front of him. Cold seared him and his rider too, but they broke out before the magical structure could quite coalesce into a solid cage.

Aoth hurled a glimmering, silvery sphere of force from his spear. Lod flicked his hand to the side, and the attack flew off course to smash bark and wood from a tree trunk.

Your magic isn’t getting the job done, Jet snarled, and unfortunately, that was so.

Aoth had thrown sunlight, thunderbolts, acid, focused noise, and eventually fire-he’d apologize to the hathrans later if anyone complained-and found them all ineffective. Pure force, generally the most difficult energy for a spellcaster to shield against, had done a little more damage, but so far, not enough to slow Lod down. And Aoth had already exhausted his ability to cast his most potent attacks.

As he with his spellscarred eyes had observed early on, the problem was protective runes graven on the inside of Lod’s human rib cage. Coupled with the defensive spells the bone naga could cast at will, they rendered him largely impervious to combat magic.

Still, Aoth hadto defeat him. Although since the start of the duel he’d perforce kept his attention on his adversary, he nonetheless inferred from the increasing brightness that his allies were winning the larger battle. But given the chance, Lod, who, as he’d gradually discovered, might even be as powerful as the dracolich Alasklerbanbastos, could still turn things around.

Let’s tear him apart!Jet continued, swooping to dodge a burst of freezing shadow.

Set me down, and I’ll tear him. You fetch Jhesrhi.

Do you think I can’t handle him? I’m as strong as I ever was!

I know that. But look in my head and you’ll see what I have in mind.

Aoth’s sense of connection pulsed stronger as Jet examined his thoughts. Then the griffon spun around Lod and over the heads of the nearest combatants, warriors and creatures that had likely come rushing to aid either Aoth or his foe but ended up fighting one another.

Jet plunged down behind the bone naga. Aoth scrambled off the familiar’s back and roused the magic of tattoos that augmented his strength, agility, and hardiness. At once, aquiline talons and leonine hind paws throwing up snow, Jet ran three strides with the uneven gait of his species, beat his wings, and sprang back into the air.

By then, Lod was twisting atop his serpentine coils to orient on Aoth. His fleshless jaw worked, surely whispering an incantation, and then streamers of snow leaped up from the ground. As they stretched and twisted, they darkened into something so infused with malevolence that their mere proximity made Aoth’s head throb.

He charged his spear with destructive force and whirled. The preternaturally sharp edges of the head slashed three of the shadowy snakelike things to nothingness. The fourth had time to strike at him, but he simultaneously blocked the attack with his shield and annihilated the attacker with a thrust.

He pivoted back toward Lod and, with a short incantation and a jab, hurled glowing blue darts of force from his spear. Apparently they stung, for when they struck just below the point where bare bone gave way to scaly flesh, the undead naga flinched and hissed. In that instant, Aoth dashed a couple of steps closer.

Then Lod swayed from side to side, and something about that sinuous motion wormed its way into Aoth’s head and snarled his thoughts into confusion. No longer sure why he was running, he stumbled to a halt.

His bewilderment lasted only a heartbeat. Then, by trained reflex, he pictured a sigil of psychic defense, and his thoughts snapped back into focus. By that time, though, a wave of smoking liquid was sweeping toward him like a breaker rushing toward the shore.

He threw himself flat in the snow, burrowing in it, and covered his head with his shield. Even so, as it washed over him, Lod’s conjured acid seared him at various points along his back and legs. But evidently not badly, for he was able to leap back onto his feet, and the magic of another tattoo sufficed to mask the lingering pain.

He charged onward. Until Lod vanished, leaving nothing behind but the long, twisting rut where his enormous tail had dragged through the snow.

Lod hadn’t simply turned invisible. Aoth’s fire-touched eyes would still see him if he had. The bone naga must have translated himself through space, and Aoth spun to locate him.

Just as he did, maggots, or something like them, rained down on him from the empty air. He scrambled aside, but some landed on him anyway, clung, and gnawed. One wriggled onto his bare neck, and its bite burned like vitriol.

He slapped the conjured grub away, then, trusting his armor to protect against the rest, charged Lod once again. Come on, he thought, you’re bigger than I am! Just fight me hand to hand!

Lod, however, wouldn’t oblige. Slithering to maintain his distance, he whirled his hands through an intricate pattern as he cast another spell.

The vista before Aoth shattered into senselessness as if he were viewing it through a wall built of warped and cloudy lenses. At the same instant, something pulled at every part of him at once. Though he’d never encountered a spell exactly like it before, he surmised that this time, Lod was attempting to shift himthrough space, and that different bits of him would end up in different places.

He bellowed a word of dispelling and found the strength to sprint even faster. The painful tugging lost its grip on him when he plunged free of the spot where the unseen framework of existence itself was churning.

Then, finally, instead of retreating and evading, Lod crawled to meet him. Maybe the creature had grown tired of throwing spell after spell to minimal effect. Aoth certainly had.

The bone naga reared over him, raised his fleshless hands, and boiling shadow flowed over them, sheathing them in ghostly clawed gauntlets. Halting, Aoth came on guard, his spear and shield poised to meet the attack when Lod’s upper body whipped down at him.

For the next instant, though, it didn’t, and Aoth abruptly remembered his experiences fighting dragons in Chessenta, and how an attack might come from anydirection. He risked a glance backward and discovered the end of Lod’s tail sweeping down at him like a falling tree.

He dodged, and the tail smashed down in the snow. Lod’s skeletal upper body hurtled down at him.

Aoth shifted his targe to block. Raking shadow claws screeched on enchanted steel, snagged in it, and yanked, jerking Aoth off balance before they popped free.

The loss of equilibrium kept him from thrusting with the spear as he’d intended. And before he could recover, the end of Lod’s tail flicked sideways, slammed his legs out from underneath him, and dumped him in the snow.

The undead naga struck down at him, and he just managed to interpose the shield. Lod grabbed it by the edges and tried to rip it away.

Aoth could feel it was useless to resist. Even with tattoo magic enhancing it, his strength was inferior to Lod’s.

So he didn’t resist. He let Lod’s pulling hoist him back onto his feet, then yanked his arm out of the straps on the inner face of the targe.

And finally, a move seemed to catch Lod by surprise. Swaying atop his coils, the bone naga hesitated, holding the shield as if uncertain what to do with it.

Gripping his spear with both hands, Aoth spoke a word that brought all the power still stored in the weapon surging into the point to set it aglow. He fed the blue light with much of his own remaining innate magic, and it blazed brighter still.

Lod cast the targe aside and struck. Aoth met him with a spear thrust that drove cleanly between two ribs. With a dazzling flash, force exploded from the weapon to tear apart the naga’s rib cage from the inside, where the graven symbols didn’t protect it.

Unfortunately, that didn’t finish the bone naga. Lod hissed a word of chastisement, and Aoth cried out with sudden pain, weakness, and dizziness that dropped him to his knees.

Lod tore the spear out of his grasp and opened the fanged jaws of a skull that was abruptly far less human and more reptilian than before. The pieces of rib Aoth had blasted away floated through the air toward their former positions.

But then wind screamed, flung snow across the battlefield, and tossed Aoth onto his side. It caught the rib fragments too and swept them away despite the force animating them.

Lod twisted to look into the wind and no doubt find its source. He raised his hands to start a spell.

But meanwhile, the wind screamed louder still. The naga’s left arm snapped loose and blew away, and the right followed a heartbeat later.

But even that didn’t stop the bone naga’s conjuring. He roared words of malediction that made Aoth’s body feel as heavy as lead-his heart pounded as if it were trying to tear itself apart, and his ears ached as if he were deep underwater. Aoth strained to croak out a spell but couldn’t control his breathing.

Fortunately, Jhesrhi’s voice was chanting as vehemently as Lod’s. At her behest, the wind howled even louder until it drowned out both of them. Then Lod’s entire upper body burst apart into tumbling bones, and the snake part flopped down on the ground.

Although it didn’t die entirely, the wind ebbed. Feeling stronger than he had a moment before, Aoth floundered to his feet, recovered his spear, and found Lod’s fallen skull. The naga’s bones no longer showed any signs of wanting to reassemble themselves, but he smashed them anyway.

As he finished, Jet and Jhesrhi swooped down to light near him, the latter borne aloft by a friendly wind of lesser violence. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I will be,” Aoth panted. “Thanks to the two of you.” He turned to survey the greater battle and was just in time to view the final moments.

The air brightened yet again, burning off the last trace of unnatural murk and letting the sun shine down without hindrance. Phantoms shredded away to nothing. Vampires fell down smoking and thrashing, and zombies balked. And all those foes who were still capable of it turned and bolted, with automatons, berserkers, bright fey, and flares of hathran magic in pursuit.

Aoth grunted in satisfaction. “I believe we’ve fulfilled our contract with Yhelbruna.”

“Yes,” Jhesrhi said, “and done a service for the unknown lands the Eminence of Araunt hailed from, too.”

“Too bad we can’t charge them.”

Jhesrhi stood silent for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Aoth.”

“Yes?”

“The fire. Myfire. When it attached itself to me, I thought it made me stronger and would shield me from … from the things I don’t like. But …”

She’d always hated to confess weakness or ask for help, and Aoth saw no reason to make her say the words when he could do it for her. “But now you realize it’s a sickness.”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll cure it.”

How?asked Jet.

I don’t know. But we’ll find a way.

The Storm of Vengeancecouldn’t set down inside the Urlingwood. Mario Bez had to rendezvous with his allies, if that was still the proper term for them, on scrubland south of the sacred forest.

By then, the setting sun was casting long gray shadows across the snow, everyone had had some opportunity to rest, and Cera Eurthos, Yhelbruna, or some other hathran had had time to use her healing magic on Aoth Fezim and Vandar Cherlinka.

Still, the folk who’d fought on the ground looked haggard with fatigue, and Fezim and Cherlinka were bandaged where even a priestess’s prayers hadn’t entirely erased a wound. In contrast, Bez still felt relatively fresh. As his Thayan counterpart had predicted, flying foes had intermittently assailed the skyship. But repelling the boarders hadn’t proved toodifficult, and Bez himself hadn’t suffered any harm in the process.

He gave the circle of scowling folk who’d assembled to meet him a smile. “I take it,” he said, “that we carried the day.”

“Yes,” said Fezim, the glow of his blue eyes more noticeable with the coming of twilight. “Although a number of undead escaped, and even more of the dark fey and their telthors.”

“The dark fey shouldn’t pose too much of a problem,” the witch said in her usual austere tones. “They’re as much a part of the land as the bright ones, and without the durthans to incite them, they won’t perpetuate a war they no longer have any hope of winning.”

“But you do need to hunt down every last undead,” Cera said. “They’ll prey on the living and spread their contagion until you do.”

“Indeed,” Yhelbruna said. “We must also cleanse the Urlingwood of the stain our enemies introduced. And free those whose minds were twisted, and replace the hathrans and berserkers who perished. It will all take time, and until we accomplish it, Rashemen will be weaker than it should be.”

“Still,” said Bez, “Captain Fezim is right. Victory truly is ours. And given that we allcontributed, may I suggest that the appropriate way to honor the occasion is to lay old quarrels to rest?”

For a moment, no one answered. Then an orc who was missing his tusks grinned and said, “But the best thing about beating a war band of walking corpses and angry trees and such is that it frees you to slaughter the people you reallyhate.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” Fezim said, “but Orgurth’s right. You’re not leaving unless you first survive a duel.”

Bez shrugged. “Then let’s get to it. I assume you’re the one who’s going to meet me on the field of honor.”

“No,” said Vandar Cherlinka, “I am.”

Plainly surprised, Fezim turned to regard the berserker. “Bez and I are both war mages. It makes sense-”

“I don’t care,” Cherlinka snapped. “Look, I know you have reason to kill him. He tried to kill Jet. But he didkill my lodge brothers, and I swore to avenge them.”

The Thayan scowled, but he nodded too. “Do it, then.”

Bez waved his hand. “There’s a clear, level patch of ground over there.”

“I see it,” Cherlinka said, and people started moving in that direction. Taking a moment to watch carefully, Bez verified that an earlier impression was correct. His opponent was walking with a bit of a stiff-legged limp.

Bez then turned to Aoth Fezim. “Please, stroll along with me, Captain.”

His fellow commander fell into stride beside him. “What do you want?”

“Aside from the pleasure of your company, to remind you you said oneduel.”

“I did,” Fezim replied, “and I swear by the Pure Flame, I won’t insist on fighting you if you kill Vandar. I won’t let dozens of berserkers line up to do it either. You’ll be free to go.”

Bez grinned. “Thank you.”

Fezim smiled back. “I don’t mind renewing that pledge because you aren’tgoing to kill Vandar. I know you think you are. I saw you taking note of his stiff leg. On top of that, you have wizardry, he doesn’t, and you assume you’ve mastered fencing tricks that will befuddle a barbarian. But I’ve taken your measure and his, and he’s a better fighter than you could ever hope to be.”

For a moment, Bez felt a chill that had nothing to do with the breeze blowing down from the North Country. Then he realized what Aoth was attempting to do and snorted his momentary misgivings away.

“Good try,” he said. “But it’s not that easy to rattle me. Go watch the fight with your friends. Just don’t blink, or you might miss it.”

The motley little army had formed a circle around the dueling ground. Standing together, Uregaunt, Sandrue, and the rest of Bez’s crew made up one portion of the ring, and he gave them a wink as he entered the space. Meanwhile, griffons soared and shrieked overhead.

Yhelbruna walked out into the circle to preside over the combat. Despite her air of aloof severity, she surely wasn’t impartial in her private heart, as she perhaps proved by waving Bez closer to his opponent. She was adjusting the starting distance to facilitate blade work, not spellcasting.

But Bez had no real objection. Indeed, if the adjustment misled Cherlinka into assuming he wouldn’t have to contend with magic, so much the better.

Yhelbruna said, “Draw your weapons,” and they did. With a whispered command, Bez forbade the frost in the core of his rapier and the lightning in his parrying dagger to manifest just yet.

The hathran in her leather mask stepped backward. “Begin!” she said.

At once, Cherlinka snarled like a beast. He sprang forward with the red sword poised for a head cut.

Bez retreated, put his rapier in line, and spoke a word of release to cast one of the spells stored inside it.

Three illusory duplicates of himself sprang into being around him, each with its point extended. Now Cherlinka was hurling himself at four blades, with no way to determine which was the real threat.

The Rashemi coped by diving under all of them. Bez lowered his aim but was a shade too slow. Cherlinka was already past his point.

The berserker swung the red blade in a scything blow that caught two of the illusions and popped them both like soap bubbles. But he hadn’t struck his real foe, and ducking in mid-charge had left him canted precariously forward. Bez sidestepped, raised his sword hand high with the blade aimed downward, and stabbed at his opponent’s back.

A man who looked in imminent danger of falling flat on his face shouldn’t even have perceived that attack, let alone been able to defend against it. But Cherlinka sprang forward, and the thrust missed. Why in the name of the Abyss wasn’t the clod’s bad leg hindering him now?

Berserker fury, Bez supposed, and then assured himself it didn’t matter. Limping or hopping around like a grasshopper, Cherlinka was no match for him.

As the Rashemi arrested his headlong momentum, straightened up, and started to turn, Bez backed away and, with a word of command, roused the cold in his rapier. Fist-sized hailstones hammered down from the empty air.

Again, even with his back turned, Cherlinka somehow sensed the threat. He flung himself sideways, and only a few of the icy missiles battered him.

Still, when he finished spinning around, blood was streaming from a gash in his scalp with more making fresh red spots on his bandages. At the very least, Bez was whittling him down.