by Ed Greenwood
"We want to sleep on it, and ponder. Find us late on the morrow, and ask again," Tantaerra told him crisply. "Now go away."
"But—"
"Go away, or you'll be leaning me into another refusal."
Voyvik shot an entreating look at The Masked, but Tarram curtly pointed him back the way he'd come. "You heard her."
The man with a dream for Nirmathas spread his hands, bowed his head to them, and turned away.
Tantaerra rolled to where she could whisper into The Masked's ear.
"Block his view of me, if he looks back. Stay here."
Before he could reply she was gone, scampering back along the way they'd cleared as swiftly as a bounding rabbit.
The Masked watched her go, and permitted himself a slow smile.
Voyvik just might be in for a surprise.
Luraumadar, the mask commented.
Of course. The Masked quelled a bitter laugh. Luraumadar, indeed.
∗ ∗ ∗
Tantaerra was beyond tired of feeling hounded. Shining dream for Nirmathas or not, she didn't like this Voyvik. He was one of those grinning dungpiles one couldn't trust in the slightest, about anything at all, ever. Infuriatingly cocky, as if the world always bent to his will and he knew it would.
Bastard.
This time, she would skulk and spy and pounce on any small ways she could harass him. She didn't know how, yet, but it was high time for Orivin Voyvik to be unsettled. Perhaps subtly ...say, with a sledgehammer.
Tantaerra scuttled to the edge of the thorns, where the eroded cliff side rose like a wall, and slowed to creep onward as stealthily as she knew how, one fat little spider moving along the base of the cliff, listening hard.
Voyvik didn't make much noise at all, but she heard enough to know when he got out from under the thorns and straightened up. Then he turned away from her, took three or four swift steps—probably into cover, between trees—and froze.
She froze, too, listening in silence and waiting patiently for him to move again.
There. Time to scuttle and close the distance between, to lessen his chances of being able to slip away.
She almost ran into his heels as he stopped to listen again, yet managed to sidestep behind a tree trunk just in time.
Thereafter, they moved in unison, Tantaerra matching her movements—and the little noises she inevitably made—to his.
Voyvik cut through a small wood that filled a hollow, then climbed a rocky ridge beyond those trees. From a broad belt of tumbled stones and bushes, it rose to end in a high, sloping rock like the fin of a gigantic shark.
Tantaerra ducked down into a bush, then tucked her feet up. The one good thing about being her size was that you could hide where no human had even the slenderest hope of—
Voyvik stopped, spun around and down into a crouch, then slowly surveyed Nirmathas all around him, in every direction, looking and listening.
There was nothing to hear but the wind stirring leaves, and after a long and rather suspicious listen to them, he rose out of his crouch, turned, and slowly strode up that topmost rock, peering here and there.
He was obviously looking for someone, so Tantaerra stayed right where she was. After all, that someone could be lurking anywhere.
Satisfied at last, Voyvik sat down on the edge of the rock and sighed.
Whereupon the empty air right behind him erupted in a momentary flash of silent swirling sparks, and an old man stood where there'd been nothing at all a moment earlier, wearing robes and dusty black boots.
The face was new to Tantaerra, yet reminded her of someone she couldn't recall.
He was shortish, wiry, and vigorous, thin on top but not yet balding, with a short gray-white fringe of a beard beneath a sharp-pointed nose and dark, glittering eyes.
That mouth shaped a sneering smile as Voyvik whirled, dagger flashing out.
"Don't do that!" he snarled, seeing who it was. He sheathed his dagger. "This is a land at war! I might've killed you!"
The old man shrugged. "You might have tried. Well?"
Voyvik sighed. "It's no use. They'll have nothing to do with me."
The man nodded. "So stop trying to recruit them. Kill them."
"But the halfling is Nirmathi! Was a Molthuni slave! Surely she should see the sense—"
The old man shrugged. "Do with her what you wish; she's nothing to me. The important one is the man who calls himself The Masked. You've brought him within my reach. Now kill him. And be sure to carry the gem I gave you when you do it."
Voyvik's hand went reflexively to his pouch. "Why?" he asked suspiciously. "What does it do?"
"It lets me see what happens, right after whenever you draw blood. Every time. The rest of the time it does nothing—I cannot trace it or spy through it. Worry not; I can't speak to you through it, or harm you, or send spells through it, or make it explode."
"How do I know you're telling the truth?"
"Trust, Orivin Voyvik, trust. You must trust someone—and Araungras Karm does not lie, or cheat, or indulge in deceit among those who enter his trust. Not every wizard is evil, or lacks all principles and scruples. The man you are to slay stole a mask from me, and has it yet. He must pay."
"Then why not blast him with your spells?"
"That would risk the mask. I need not gloat over his passing, nor slay him myself. I'll do it if I must, but I'd much rather have you do it, bring me the mask, and accept your rich reward."
"How do I know you won't suddenly learn deceit right then, and trick me out of my pay?"
"Trust, Orivin," the old wizard sighed. "Trust."
∗ ∗ ∗
"So if we see him again, he's been told to kill us." The halfling sounded bitter, as if she'd really been hoping Voyvik had been telling them the truth. "No matter what he says about recruiting us to help him pursue his dream."
Tarram nodded. "I find myself less than surprised."
Luraumadar, the mask murmured approvingly, inside his head.
"Let's get going," he told Tantaerra. "No doubt he'll try to ambush us, when he can catch us at a disadvantage."
"The wizard called himself Araungras Karm," the halfling muttered, "just like you said. I know I've never seen him before—but he still reminded me of someone. I just can't think of whom. It's driving me crazy."
"In my experience," Tarram said, "wrestling with memories is futile. Turn to something else, and the answer will unfold in your mind. Trying to hurry it won't work."
Tantaerra sighed. "True enough. So, how far from Hurlandrun are we?"
He shrugged. "Not far—but then again, in this forest and keeping off the roads, 'far' is a rather empty word, yes?"
"Yes," the halfling agreed—then hurled herself hard at the backs of his knees. He went over backward with a startled curse, a crossbow bolt humming through the air above his descending nose.
When he hit the ground, he wasted no time trying to see who was attacking, but rolled away from the source of that bolt, to where the land fell away in another rocky cliff—and over it, snatching at roots and clefts in the rock to keep from plummeting. Tantaerra was nowhere to be seen.
He clambered sideways along the cliff face to where he could get under an overhang, and clung there, waiting.
So, some Molthuni? Or Voyvik again?
Voyvik, for any coin he might wager. The crazed Nirmathi—or agent of Karm—had become far more than a passing annoyance. It was beyond time to deal with him.
"Tarram Armistrade, I have a proposition for you."
It was Voyvik's voice, of course, coming from around the bulge of moss-stained rock to his right.
The Masked smiled sourly. "Let me guess," he replied. "You want me to hand over the mask in return for some generous blandishment or other—so you can then kill me. Or has Karm something new in mind?"
"I've no intention of killing you."
"Are you aware that Karm probably intends to kill you? Through that gem he gave you. The moment he knows you have the mask, he'll set its m
agic on you."
Sheer bluff, but if Voyvik had dealt long enough with Karm or any wizard, its little worm of doubt should sink into waiting soil ...
"So you eavesdropped on our meeting? Then I suppose the time for deals is past. Hand over the mask, and I'll let you live."
Voyvik's voice was closer now. The man had obviously been climbing cautiously along the rock face as they spoke.
The Masked backed into a cleft that he hoped he could sit in and keep his balance, if he had to hurl several daggers. One old root curved past him, and he drew a dagger and planted it in the spongy wood. Then he slid home another beside the first, lining them up ready.
He was reaching for a third as Voyvik came into view around the rocks. Climbing carefully, with no sign of a crossbow, but with daggers strapped to his forearms that hadn't been there before. Unsheathed daggers, their blades coated with something purplish, buckled to stout bracers.
Poisoned. So one scratch—even a clumsy throw—and death would follow.
Tarram deliberately drew forth his third dagger and held it ready, awaiting the right moment for a good throw into Voyvik's face. An eye would be best ...
"Last chance," Voyvik said with a smile. "The mask, Armistrade."
The Masked hefted his dagger. Voyvik kept climbing closer.
Then things happened very quickly.
A flurry of dark cloth whipped around Voyvik's head from behind. Startled, he tried to turn, shaking his head to try to get clear—and a small hand clubbed his forehead with the pommel of a dagger, then slammed at his knuckles, twice and thrice.
Then the man was falling, clawing futilely at the rocks he was plunging from, snarling a furious curse as he left them. He slammed into an outcropping farther down, let out a roar of pain ...and was gone, leaving behind only the whispering breeze.
That, and a halfling hanging one-handed over the same drop, rather critically inspecting a ragged piece of dark cloth transfixed on the point of her dagger.
"The old underkirtle over the eyes ploy," she commented, "is harder on underkirtles than I recalled."
"Where," The Masked asked her, "did you get a spare underkirtle?"
"I didn't," she snapped, "so kindly spare my dignity, and look elsewhere for a moment or two. I was getting so tired of that man."
Tarram chuckled. "You sound like a jaded lady of pleasure."
"You sound like the sort of pig who'd patronize them, so thank me nicely for ridding us both of Orivin Voyvik, and kindly rise out of your cesspool of lust and get us to the Shattered Tomb before we both die of hunger or a hail of Nirmathi arrows."
Luraumadar, the mask said gleefully, inside Tarram's head.
"I thank you," he told Tantaerra. "I'd thank you more handsomely if I could see Voyvik's body safely burned to ashes, his bones shattered and gone so no wizard could send him after us as some sort of horrid skeleton afire with deadly magic, but ..."
"That'll do," the halfling replied, her voice more distant now as she climbed back to wherever she'd come from. "Tell me, how're you at sewing?"
Chapter Thirteen
Deep in Nirmathas
Aren't you finished yet?" Tantaerra hissed. "It's cold, sitting here with the wind whistling up my legs."
"The light isn't the best," Tarram told her irritably, "and no, I'm not. Damned thread keeps bunching."
"Next time, steal finer stuff," the halfling hissed back.
"She was going for her bow. I only had time to grab what I could see," he replied. "Are those groundchokes roasted yet?"
The halfling probed into the ashes of the dying fire with her belt knife. "No," she replied disgustedly. "I suppose I'm condemned to wait for everything, tonight!"
"Not your death, Molthuni!" The voice roared at them out of the trees, followed by three arrows.
One tore the underkirtle from Tarram's fingers, needle and all, leaving behind stinging blood. Another sent torn leaves swirling beside his ears, and the third sent embers, ashes, and half-done groundchokes spraying up into Tantaerra's face.
She went over backward, sputtering, as Tarram kicked hard at the ground and curled over into a backward roll in the other direction, clawing out daggers.
"I'm getting more than tired of this," he snarled aloud.
Luraumadar, the mask chirped helpfully.
He ground his teeth in irritation as he arrived behind a tree and found his feet in the same moment, coming up in a sprint. If there were more archers with shafts ready, he and Tantaerra were dead anyway, but if he could get to the bowstrings of those who'd just loosed before they could see someone to take down ...
A wild shriek and some crashings of dead leaves and branches off to one side told him Tantaerra was trying to provide him with a noisy diversion.
I'll not waste it, he told himself fiercely, sprinting around tree trunks and ducking under branches—only to plunge right into the heart of the Nirmathi warband.
There were only five—no, six—of them, and one was cursing a snapped bowstring while two others lacked bows and were raising large, rusty old swords to hack at him, faces tightening with the effort. He slammed into one swordsman, not bothering to launch an attack, and used the solid crash of their meeting to deflect himself into the nearest bowman, where a slash of his dagger severed a bowstring while the man was frantically fumbling to defend himself. Tarram spun away from him into a headlong charge at the next bowman—who fell precipitously before he could get there.
He heard rather than saw Tantaerra rolling out from under the falling man's ankles, grinned savagely, and slashed at the face of the next Nirmathi, who ducked away with a yell.
"We make a good team!" he announced cheerfully, spinning and ducking down to batter the head of the fallen man with both dagger-pommels. Then he sprang back up to meet the second swordsman, whose wild swing sliced the bark of a defenseless and innocent tree—before a leaping ball of halfling arrived in the man's face, feet-first. The Nirmathi staggered back, into the man with the snapped bowstring. They both groped for balance, the bowman trying not to put the dagger he'd just drawn into his fellow Nirmathi, so Tarram raced right past them, trying for the last bowman before the man could raise his bow and aim.
He got there as the bow came up, knocking the arrow away and getting his elbow into the man's throat. The man went over with a choking sob, and Tarram rode him to the ground and clubbed him solidly with a dagger-pommel.
Behind Tarram, a man groaned. He spun around again, in time to see a triumphant Tantaerra striking a pose atop two senseless Nirmathi—that second swordsman and the man whose string had parted.
Which left two Nirmathi still on their feet, and no bows intact. The soldiers were now backing uncertainly away through the trees, with two daggers each raised and ready in their hands.
Tarram gave them his coldest smile and stalked toward them, Tantaerra trotting to his side.
He took another menacing step, then spun and fled from them, heading on in the general direction of Hurlandrun—only to stumble and almost fall as Tantaerra sprang and wrapped herself around his right shin, dragging at him.
"Hold, masked man!" she panted. "I want my underkirtle! Where'm I going to find another my size, here in the middle of this oh-so-beautiful wilderness?"
Tarram hopped to an awkward halt, aided by a handy tree he could carom off, and snarled, "All right! But—"
Tantaerra let go, sprang high, caught hold of his belt, and pulled.
She was too small to overbalance him into a face-first fall, but he stumbled, trying to keep his eyes on the two Nirmathi—now mere dark, distant shiftings amid the leaves, slipping away into the trees—and snarled, "All right, I said!"
"Tarram," the halfling said, eyes not leaving his as she let go and fell to land on both feet, "look behind you."
The Masked whirled.
And saw the faintest of glimmers. A fine, sharp wire was stretched across where he'd been about to run, at just the height of his throat.
"There's another one, about three
strides on," Tantaerra told him.
The Masked turned and looked at her. "The Nirmathi are getting nasty," he said slowly.
"No. I'm thinking Voyvik is. I'd say he guided that warband to us. I'll have to do a better job, next time I knock him off a cliff. Let's get away from here, before he finds any more soldiers."
"No disagreement from me," The Masked told her. "Find your kirtle and let's be gone."
Luraumadar, the mask purred in the depths of his mind.
"Be silent," he muttered at it, aloud.
The dirty, half-cooked groundchoke Tantaerra presented him with, a short but panting forest trot later, tasted surprisingly good.
∗ ∗ ∗
They blundered across a trail heading roughly in the right direction, and walked along it the rest of the day and all that night, Tantaerra's mood cheerful thanks to her recovery of her kirtle with thread and needle intact, and only a meager spattering of Tarram's blood on it.
"I can pass that off as battle scars," she said brightly.
"Oh? To whom?" he asked pointedly, rousing the merriest laughter he'd heard out of her in quite some time.
Then they sank back into silence, belatedly mindful that not only Voyvik but all armed Nirmathas was out there in the trees on all sides, only too eager to do harm to intruders.
They walked on, listening tensely, hearing rustlings all around them—some distant, but a few close indeed.
Yet no daggers came, and it seemed their apprehension had been misplaced, because they heard nothing but hooting night birds and small rustling things until morning, when they were both staggering along yawningly seeking a place to hide and sleep for the day.
That was when the faint, distant din of a pitched battle came to their ears.
Wearily walking on toward it, they came to a long valley that narrowed to the north. In the distance, they could see a bridge that carried the best road they'd seen thus far in Nirmathas from one bank of a shallow, rock-studded river to the other.
What was left of quite a large Molthuni army was scattered across the valley floor, their numerous dead all around them.