"They have more than one cloak like that!" Krystin warned. "I bet Djimon and the others went down the other side-"
"Very astute," a voice sounded. Djimon stepped around the curved base of the pillar, his crossbow aimed at Krystin's head, and fired without hesitation.
The bolt whistled past Myrmeen's ear as she shoved the girl from the iron rod's path and hurled herself at the swarthy-skinned, brown-haired man. She knew that she could not afford to give Djimon a chance to reload his crossbow.
Myrmeen collided with the short, powerful man and drove him to the ground. She straddled his chest and prepared to deliver an open fisted blow that would drive the cartridge from his nose deep into his brain, killing him instantly. Suddenly she heard the slight crush of boots and looked up to see three archers, arrows nocked and ready to fire. The middle archer stepped away from the others and aimed his shaft at her face. She realized that Djimon probably had sent another contingent around the other side of the base with the intent of catching the Harpers in crossfire, slaughtering them quickly and efficiently with their arrows. She heard the sounds of conflict from where she had left the Harpers and knew that she could expect no help from them.
"Get down!"
Myrmeen did not question the voice. She threw herself upon Djimon and heard two sounds: A blade slicing through the air above her head and the familiar gurgle of a dying man with a dagger lodged in his throat. Then she heard the slump of a body and the snapping of a bow caught beneath a falling man. The archer was dead.
Beneath her, Djimon had regained his breath. The man shoved her from him, then scrambled to his feet, unwittingly saving the life of the child he had wished to kill as he found himself standing between his two remaining archers and Krys-tin, who had thrown the blade that had saved Myrmeen's life. The archers pointed their shafts upward when they saw their master.
Krystin took a running start and leapt into the air, planting both feet on Djimon's back. She kicked him with all her weight, then expertly rolled to the sand as she fell. The kick drove Djimon forward, past Myrmeen, who also rolled out of the way and into the arms of his warriors, where all three collapsed in a tangle.
Suddenly, Burke and Varina were on either side of Myrmeen, running for the fallen men. Varina snatched Djimon's hair, slid her drawn sword beneath his throat, and executed him without a word. His blood splattered on the closest of the downed archers, who screamed in his own language for mercy. Burke had already driven his sword into the other archer's chest and was about to finish off the pleading man when a sound made him hesitate. He heard the scrape of a sword leaving its scabbard and registered that Krystin was removing the sword from the scabbard at the side of the still-twitching body of Djimon and was preparing to haul it over her head and decapitate the last man.
Myrmeen grabbed her arms, restraining her, and Varina slashed the last archer's throat.
"You should have let me do it," Krystin said, her chest heaving, her mouth caked with dried blood.
Myrmeen considered her daughter's murderous rage a frightening sight and not one that she had been prepared to witness. She turned to Burke. "The others?"
"Lucius, Reisz, and Ord are dealing with them. We should see if they are-"
"We're fine," came a reply from behind the Harpers. Burke turned to see Ord standing before the older men, his tunic splattered with blood. "They're all dead, except the two who hurt themselves on the way down, the ones who were supposed to distract us."
"See to them," Burke said.
Krystin sat back, staring at the bloody remains of her former captors, then glanced to the west and said, "The scum these bastards were going to sell me to are on their way. I can see their caravan."
Cardoc wiped the sweat from his brow. "I can shield us again. We can ride past them and they will never know it."
Burke listened to the screams of the last two raiders, whom Ord and Reisz were busy putting to death, then said, "I feel as if I can barely breathe in this heat. Mage, are you certain your strength is enough-"
"We will find out," Cardoc said in a cold, efficient manner. Burke nodded and gave the order for the Harpers to retrieve their mounts and prepare to ride. In moments, Myrmeen and Krystin were alone, regarding each other warily.
"We've got the same eyes," Krystin said slowly, only now registering the similarities between herself and the woman twenty years her senior.
"Yes," Myrmeen said guardedly. "I noticed that, too."
It had not been the reunion Myrmeen had anticipated.
Seven
The caravan had come and gone, its occupants pausing only long enough to verify Djimon's corpse. The buyer who had been promised the blue-eyed fourteen-year-old had been livid and had kicked Djimon's body several times before returning with his escorts to the caravan. They rode off with haste to avoid the gathering storm.
The first drops of heavy rain struck the corpses, which had been left in the open to rot. Only two of the bodies had not begun to show signs of death. The rain pelted their still faces. Suddenly, the eyes of the first man flashed open. "Are they gone?"
"I no longer care. My back is starting to ache." Both men rose from the sand. The first was a tall man with dark skin. Crow's feet bunched around his eyes and a heavy beard covered much of his face. His companion was short and lean, clean-shaven, and possessed a dour expression. They both had been run through with swords, the bearded man's heart cleaved in two, the shorter man gutted, a second blow having fractured his skull. Each man opened his tunic and placed his open palm over his wounds, waiting patiently as the flesh stitched together. The internal injuries would heal with time. The men allowed the falling rain to wash away the blood.
Closing their tunics, the two members of the Night Parade surveyed the human corpses strewn about the pillar's base. "Mortals are so fragile," the short man said. "The smallest injury, and they surrender to death."
"We can die, too, you know."
"Yes, but not so easily. The Draw favored us."
The bearded man looked away from the Hammer, toward the distant road. "Did you see which way they went?"
"The mage cloaked them. I couldn't tell. Back to Calimport, I would wager. The woman still has to pay Pieraccinni."
"Of course." The bearded man was silent for a time as he threw his head back and allowed the rain to caress his face. Five hundred feet above, lightning struck the flat of the hammer and thunder shook loose a hail of small rocks from the pillar's surface. The short man jumped out of the way of the falling stones. His companion stood, arms stretched wide, unmindful of the danger. The rocks seemed to avoid him.
"Is the girl really her daughter?" the short man asked.
"I don't know. Does it matter? She will believe it, and because of that, she will leave and trouble us no more."
"Just curious."
The bearded man grinned. "I have curiosities, too." With that, he leapt to the side of the pillar and began to climb, his hands digging into the solid rock as if it were soft clay.
"Come down here," his companion shouted when the bearded man was already one hundred feet up the side of the pillar. His commands were ignored. "We're supposed to follow them!"
"We will," the bearded man called. "They'll make camp. They won't travel in this. We'll catch up easily." Within a minute, the bearded man had scaled the pillar and disappeared over the rim.
"You're such a child, Zandler," the short man said as he sat down hard on a rock and placed his head in his hands, waiting for his partner to finish indulging his infantile impulses. It was true that Zandler had the more spectacular ability, but he had powers of his own. Gesturing at the sand, the short man with smoldering gray eyes watched as several sand creatures burrowed out of their holes, a host of scorpions rushing to the lead. Within seconds a small army of arachnids had gathered at his feet. He remembered the last man he had tormented then killed, an older man with a paranoid fear of cockroaches. The gray-eyed man had played with his victim's dreams for weeks before making his nightmares come tr
ue.
He heard a shuffling in the sand behind him. "Zandler?"
"No," an unfamiliar voice said with a malice that could not be mistaken for anything but murderous intent. Before the gray-eyed man had a chance to order the sand creatures to attack his unseen enemy, he convulsed in searing agony. Looking down, he saw a hand erupt from his chest. The gloved hand burned with a bluish white energy laced with crackling strands of green fire. He had seen those cold flames once before.
"The apparatus!" he shouted as he fell forward and died. His corpse struck the sand, scattering the arachnids he had summoned.
The dark man with the weapon turned it a few times, examining it for damage. The dead man was wrong. It was not the apparatus, but it had been charged from the energies of that object. The design was extraordinarily simple; in truth, it was little more than a steel glove. When it was activated, however, claws made of mystical fires stolen from the apparatus would leap from the moldings above each knuckle. The blue-white talons mimicked the actions of his true fingers and allowed him to take the lives of those creatures who laughed at human conceits such as mortality. As always, the weapon had performed admirably.
"You're going to miss everything," a voice called from above. The dark man looked up in the direction of the voice and smiled.
On the flat, the bearded man stood, hands held out to the sky, the worsening storm raging directly above his head.
"Come to me," he shouted, "Come on, come on, come-"
Suddenly two streaks of lightning burst from the clouds, tearing jagged paths across the darkened sky, streaking down toward the bearded man. He screamed with delight as lightning struck each of his hands and his entire body quaked with the impact.
"Yes!" he shouted as his body absorbed the lightning. His entire form became a brilliant white mass with slight indications of what may have been human anatomy within. He held the lightning within his body for as long as he could stand, then pointed both hands at the horizon. Twin bolts of white energy sailed from his fingers and struck the ground below. Then he was human again, but his clothing had been burned away.
"Crolus, you moron, you missed the whole thing," he shouted.
"I didn't," a voice said.
Zandler turned and saw a man materialize before him. His heart seized up as he saw the shimmering hand of the dark man. He did not even have time to scream as the assassin attacked.
Seconds later, the dark man stood over the smoldering remains of the second monster. He concentrated and caused the arcane talon to vanish.
"So they're going to Pieraccinni's," he said. "I'll pick up their trail there."
With a rustic of cloth, the dark man removed two gold pieces and dropped them beside the dead man's hand. "The first one is for the information," he said. "The second is to pay your passage into hell, you miserable excuse for a nightmare."
The man stepped back and vanished into the storm's fury.
The Harpers had avoided the main road and pitched their tent when the storm made it too dangerous to continue. Inside the tent, as the heavy rains of late afternoon fell, Lucius elected to keep watch near the partially opened flap. He declined the meal the others devoured with their usual lack of decorum. Myrmeen was too exhausted and famished to do anything but join them. Stones were laid in the middle of their enclosure, and a small fire blazed there. Burke had unwrapped and skillfully prepared several slabs of meat, most of which had been snapped up by the dark-haired, fourteen-year-old girl whom they had rescued.
"So," Burke said, determined to slap Krystin's hand away if she grabbed at another serving before he could distribute the meat to the others, "is anyone else hungry?"
"You mean she actually left something for the rest of us?" Reisz said as he spat out the seeds from a mouthful of grapes. Ord had consumed an entire loaf of bread and was eyeing the blackened slabs of meat with lustful intent. Myrmeen had gnawed three apples to their core.
"Come now, the girl has been through an ordeal," Varina gently coaxed, her stomach rumbling almost loud enough to be confused with the rolling thunder outside.
Reisz growled, "How are you, girl?"
"Fine," Krystin said, the word delivered hard and fast, like a blow.
"You feel well?"
"Fine," she repeated sharply. Her tone became demanding as she said, "Who are you people?"
"We told you, we're Harpers," Varina said gently.
"That's right," Reisz hissed. "No matter what you may think, we are not rival slavers. We are the lord protectors of the Realms."
Krystin nodded. "So you just run around doing good deeds. You help people and don't expect anyone to pay you."
"Well," Varina said, "essentially. But we have lives away from our duties as Harpers."
Krystin bit off another chunk of meat. As she chewed, she said, "You people are either the worst liars I've ever met or the biggest fools."
Ord raised his hands and smiled. "Well, at least she's grateful we saved her life," he quipped.
"You saved it," she admitted, "but for what?"
Reisz unconsciously glanced at Myrmeen. She had been staring at the child and was alarmed to discover that she had absolutely nothing to say to her. They had decided on the long ride into the desert that, at least for a time, they would not disclose Myrmeen's last name or her position as ruler of Arabel. To Krystin, Myrmeen would be simply another of the Harpers who had rescued her.
"What?" Krystin said nastily. "The dullard has something to tell me?"
"Stop calling me that," Myrmeen said, her anger simmering within her heart.
"I'm just surprised you understand the meaning of the word," Krystin said with a shrug. "You do, don't you?"
Myrmeen fought back the urge to strike the child. She had been resisting that impulse for hours. "Where were you educated? It wasn't just on the streets."
"What makes you think I'm educated?" Krystin said. "I know I must seem that way to you, slow-wits-"
Reisz suddenly reached over and grabbed the girl's wrist as he roared, "That's enough!"
Krystin fell silent, a catlike grin on her face. She looked down at his meaty hand on her pale, thin wrist and shamed him into releasing her without saying a word.
"There are limits to our patience," Burke said. "It's best not to test them."
"I'll consider myself warned," Krystin said, her smile deepening. She had learned when she was very young that those who ultimately revealed themselves to be the most threatening often approached wearing benevolent faces. By provoking these people, she had hoped to force them to reveal their true agenda.
Nevertheless, she was troubled. Normally she assumed the worst and did not bother to wait around to be proven incorrect. For some reason, she actually wanted to trust these people, and trust was an almost impossible commodity for the streetwise teenager after the brutalities of her early life. She decided that when she had a chance, she would steal one of their horses and escape.
"Why are you like this?" Myrmeen asked. "We're just trying to help you."
Krystin shrugged and tore another chunk of meat from the bone she had been nursing as Burke distributed the remaining meat among the Harpers. She said nothing as she slowly lowered the picked-clean bone to her lap and stared at the slab of meat that Varina was about to bite into. The child's eyes widened and her shoulders slumped. She pressed her lips together and allowed the tip of her tongue to flicker out of the corner of her mouth, just for an instant. Varina slowly lowered the meat and held it out to the child.
"Don't give her that!" Burke snarled.
Krystin sat back and laughed. "I'm not hungry anyway. But thank you for the offer. You're a dear."
Varina screwed up her features in disapproval, then took a healthy bite of the meat.
"You people are so easy," Krystin said. "It takes almost no effort to get to any of you. You're all a bunch of raw nerves waiting to be irritated. You're so full of yourselves I could almost believe you are-what name did you use? Harpies? Hel-pies? Heifers?"
"H
arpers," Myrmeen said coolly.
"That's right," Krystin said. "Thank you."
Ord had been staring at her as if he she belonged to a different species, one that he was unable to identify, at least until now. Suddenly it came to him: "I think you just want attention."
The girl's smile dropped and her eyes became hard as she returned his stare.
"You're not subtle, you know. I played that game when I was your age. But I was better at it. You're sitting there fishing with a meat hook, thinking nobody's going to notice."
"Fenghis-slal" she said, backing up her foreign curse with a hand motion in case he did not understand the words.
"You're the one who is so easy," he said wryly.
Krystin froze. The others glanced at one another and smiled. Burke slapped Ord on the back and led his comrades in a tension-breaking round of laughter. The girl drew her knees up and stared at the crackling fire's orange glow.
"Dullards," she said, but her heart clearly was not to the insult. Her gaze drifted to the open flap at the tent's entrance, where Lucius Cardoc sat, looking out at the storm. The heavy droplets of rain pelted the hard leathers with the force of meteors that had slashed across the blackened afternoon sky and exploded against the enclosure. The relentless pounding made her wonder if it had become a hailstorm. The sound reminded her of the constant drumming of insistent, curious fingers. Water cascaded down the sides of the tent, dripping to the large puddles where the companions had cut ditches. The sound of running water was making her insane. All she wanted to know was how long the storm would keep up.
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