The Shattered Mask s-3

by Richard Lee Byers

  Brom smiled wryly, "Very well, sir-" "Deuce, please." "Deuce, then. I hear and obey."

  The wizard had to give the tiercel back to Cletus while he clambered onto his mount. Meanwhile, Escevar collected the saker he was fond of, and Tamlin took Honey-lass, his bronze gyrfalcon, onto his wrist.

  "I think we'll ride by the river," he said, stroking the hawk's feathers. "Perhaps you can take a crane."

  When everyone was in the saddle, the hawking party headed out the gate into the busy street, the greyhounds loping at the head of the procession. Tamlin, Escevar, and Brom rode palfreys, while Vox, bringing up the rear, sat astride a massive black destrier strong enough to bear his weight.

  Tamlin soon noticed that Brom managed a horse almost as awkwardly as he did a hawk. He started giving the magician pointers, alternating between expounding on equestrianism and discussing the art of seduction with Escevar, who was jogging along on his other side. So much talking quickly dried his throat, but fortunately, the grooms had performed their duties well. They'd hung a wineskin from his pommel, and no doubt tucked a flask of brandy or aqua vitae in his saddlebag as well.

  Tamlin was just tugging the leather stopper out of the wineskin, the action made a trifle more difficult by Honey-lass's weight on his wrist, when a barrier of glistening ice, its edges momentarily nickering with blue and violet light, sprang up to bar the way. It materialized just in front of the greyhounds, who yelped and recoiled, while the horses whinnied and shied. Brom's mount reared, and the spell-caster nearly fell off. The tiercel on his arm screamed and spread its wings.

  "Watch out!" Escevar shouted.

  Dropping the wineskin, Tamlin wheeled his dappled gelding around and perceived that he and his companions had ridden into an ambuscade, with the barricade of ice conjured to hold them in the killing box. Men with crossbows were leaning out of upper-story windows, while others with naked blades scrambled from doorways and the mouths of alleys. The other innocent folk unfortunate enough to be trapped on this particular stretch of street at this particular time scurried to get out of the waylayers' path.

  Though Tamlin had no particular love of fighting, either for sport or in deadly earnest, every nobleman was schooled in the martial arts, and his training now took over. Guiding his steed with his knees, he dropped the wineskin and reached for his sword, remembering only as he grasped the hilt that it was a blunt, fragile ornament of glass. He wouldn't even be able to wield it unless he freed it from the loops that secured it to his belt, and then it would almost certainly break into pieces on the first swing. Useless!

  A crossbow bolt whizzed past his head.

  As a ragged child who seldom had a penny in his pocket, Brom Selwick had loved the puppeteers, storytellers, and itinerant players who provided free entertainment in the plazas and markets of Selgaunt. And in the tales of high adventure and bloodcurdling terror the young Brom had relished most, wizards, whether good or evil, had all been of a certain type. Keen of eye, aquiline of countenance, and luxuriant of beard, the mages uniformly possessed an imperious manner, even as they fairly reeked of awesome powers and secret knowledge.

  Brom knew full well that he did not measure up to this popular stereotype. Most people saw him as bookish, awkward, and diffident, and he had to admit that in many situations, it was all true. But if casual acquaintances inferred from his mild demeanor that he was useless in a fight, in that they were very much mistaken.

  Upon completing his apprenticeship in the mystic arts, Brom had taken service as a ship's mage, and as he sailed about the Sea of Fallen Stars, honed his battle sorcery in numerous clashes with corsairs from the Pirate Isles and later the savage sea creatures called sahuagin, when they waged their war upon mankind. He most certainly could acquit himself well in combat.

  Ordinarily, that was. When he didn't have a wild killer bird screeching and flapping on his wrist, and a frightened mare shifting and heaving beneath him more treacherously than, it seemed to him now, any storm-tossed cog ever had.

  The horse tried to lurch into a gallop, though Mystra only knew where it thought there was to escape to. Nearly thrown from the saddle, Brom heaved on the reins with all his strength and forced the animal to stand. The wretched tiercel screeched again, and clutched his wrist so tightly that it hurt despite his thick falconer's glove.

  Brom surveyed the battlefield and spied swordsmen and their ilk charging up the snowy street, crossbowmen in windows, and, perched high above the action atop a roof, a masked figure in dark blue clothing with a vague, murky shape crouched at his side. No doubt it was the wizard who'd produced the wall of ice, attended by some sort of familiar.

  Brom decided he must trust Vox and Escevar to fend off the attackers on the ground, for only his magic could reach the others. And since the masked wizard didn't appear to be conjuring at the moment, the crossbowmen posed the more immediate threat.

  Wishing he'd brought his staff-it had no magical attributes, but he always felt more wizardly when he had it in his hands-Brom shouted a word of power and thrust out his fist, springing his fingers open as his arm became fully extended. Though the tiercel's weight hampered him, the gesture nonetheless adhered to the proper form. Shafts of scarlet light leaped from his fingertips, and, their trajectories diverging, struck five of the crossbowmen. Two of the bullies fell from their windows and slammed down on the ground. The others were thrown backward out of sight.

  Brom needed the materials tucked away in his pockets to work most of the rest of his spells, and he couldn't take them out, juggle the hawk, and control the agitated palfrey at the same time. He abruptly remembered Master Cletus explaining that if he unhooded the tiercel and flipped his arm, the bird would fly. He hastily released it to go wherever it wanted, and then one of the surviving crossbowmen shot his mare in the head.

  The animal dropped. Brom frantically kicked free of the stirrups, and, thanks more to luck than athleticism, a quality of which he had little, flung himself clear of the falling carcass.

  Even though the greater portion of his body lacked grace, his hands were deft enough. Even as he floundered in the cold, much-trodden snow, he snatched a wisp of cobweb from a pocket, recited an incantation, and used the gossamer to trace a mystic symbol on the air.

  A thick swatch of meshed gray cables materialized across the row of windows from which attackers were still shooting. Suddenly trapped amid the sticky strands, the crossbowmen struggled vainly to extricate themselves, then called to the mage on the roof for help.

  Ah yes, thought Brom, his teeth bared in a fierce grin that would have amazed any acquaintance who had never seen him in the heat of battle, our friend on the roof. He glanced about, making sure he was in no immediate danger from any of the enemy swordsmen, then began sending the masked wizard a little token of his regard. He snatched out a tiny ball composed of sulfur and guano, murmured a couplet, and tossed the orb into the air. The ball hurtled up at the spellcaster in blue, and as it did so, swelled in size and burst into crackling yellow flame, so it resembled a missile of blazing naphtha hurled from a catapult.

  Brom expected that the other mage would die in the impending blast, but the detonation never happened. Evidently the masked man had warded himself with some manner of defensive enchantment, for the burning missile winked out of existence a yard or so before it struck its target. Brom couldn't be sure at such a distance, but he thought he saw the shadow creature leer at him.

  *****

  It seemed to Tamlin that with the crossbowmen out of commission, the enemy was having a harder time of it. Then Tamlin saw his bodyguard. His black braid streaming out behind him, revealing the ugly scar on his neck, Vox rode among the bravos like an avenging fury. His bastard sword flashed up and down, up and down, and it seemed that every time it descended, a foeman perished. His huge mount was scarcely less formidable, kicking, biting, and trampling the fallen beneath its hooves.

  Escevar lacked the advantage of a trained war-horse, but he was a skilled rider, and evidently his chestnut pal
frey was game, for its master seemed to have no difficulty guiding it amongst the bravos. Whooping as if the fight were nothing more than some sort of roughhousing game, the redhead hacked and slashed with a will, and while he was scarcely the warrior Vox was, something, his sheer audacity perhaps, had thus far kept him safe from harm.

  After a futile attempt at slaying the masked wizard, Brom too had turned his attention to neutralizing the attackers on the ground, blinding some with a handful of sparkling golden powder and choking others with a vile-smelling greenish vapor. Tamlin suspected that if one of the bravos could only close with Brom, he could put an end to the unarmed mage and his troublesome spells in a trice, but so far, none of them had managed it.

  Meanwhile, the scion of the House of Uskevren sheltered helplessly between his friends and the barrier of ice with his ridiculous pink crystal bodkin at his side. It made him feel vaguely ashamed, and he scowled and reminded himself that after all, these people were paid to protect him.

  Bubbles of purple light appeared among the combatants, swelled, and burst, leaving in their place gaunt, mottled green things that would have been half again as tall as a man had they stood fully erect. Their limbs were long and graceless, and masses of iron-gray tendrils writhed atop their heads. Their black eyes were round and sunken, their noses, grotesquely long, and their wide mouths were lined with yellow fangs.

  The enemy swordsmen instinctively shied away from the trolls. Vox, Escevar, and Brom maneuvered frantically to engage these new and far more formidable foes. But four creatures had materialized, and the Uskevren retainers only managed to intercept three of them. Despite its clumsy, ill-made appearance, the remaining troll shambled toward Tamlin fast as a man could run, its clawed, four-fingered hands dragging through the snow.

  Tamlin's dappled gelding went wild with fear, and as he fought to control the animal, he felt on the brink of panic himself. With the ice barrier behind him and the troll in front, there was nowhere to run. Even if by some miracle he could dodge around the creature-and he was all but certain that one of those long, thin arms would whip out and pluck him from the saddle if he tried-he doubted any unarmed man could ride unscathed through the band of bravos behind it. Finally, he realized there was one place to go, even if it would only buy him a few seconds.

  He snatched off Honeylass's leather hood and sent her toward the troll's head. The gyrfalcon had never been trained to attack such monstrosities, and, winging to the left, she sensibly veered off at once. Even so, the troll apparently considered the hawk a threat, or perhaps the conjured creature was simply startled. At any rate, it stopped charging long enough to swat Honey-lass from the air, then took another moment to shake the bird's carcass off its long, curved claws.

  Meanwhile, Tamlin spurred the gelding toward the open entrance to someone's shop. He ducked beneath the lintel of the doorway, and the horse knocked over a rack of men's hats, which fell to the floor with a crash. Soft caps, high-crowned copotains, and other examples of masculine head-wear tumbled about, some of them to be immediately trampled by the gelding's stamping feet.

  Tamlin tried to straighten up, bumped his head on the ceiling, cursed, and stooped once more. His scalp smarting, he peered about the shop. As he'd feared, there didn't seem to be another exit, certainly not one he could take a horse through, and if he attempted to flee on foot, he suspected the nimble, long-legged troll would run him down. The hatter, a stout, black-bearded man with orange dye stains on his fingertips, evidently knew why Tamlin had ridden into the shop, for he gaped up at the aristocrat with horror in his eyes. "Get out of here!" he wailed. "A weapon!" Tamlin replied. All shopkeepers kept weapons on the premises to fend off thieves, didn't they? Term's fist, he hoped so!

  "Get out!" the merchant repeated. "The troll will burst in here in a matter of seconds," Tamlin replied. "One of us will have to fight it. Unless you want to do it, give me a weapon!"

  The hatter threw up his hands and raced for the counter at the back of the shop. Deciding he'd be better off on foot than trying to maneuver his terrified horse through the clutter of hat racks and tables, Tamlin dismounted and followed the other man.

  The hatter reached around under the counter, produced a cudgel, and thrust the weapon at Tamlin, who regarded it with a feeling not far from despair. A blunt little stick like this might rattle the brains of a common rogue, but it would be virtually useless against a troll. But the club was still, he reflected, marginally better than the glass sword; at least people wouldn't laugh so hard when they saw it in his cold, dead hand. He reached for it, the horse screamed, and the troll made a horrible, wet slobbering sound as it hurtled through the door.

  Tamlin whirled to face his pursuer, and it was only then that he glimpsed the rusty single-bitted axe leaning in a shadowy corner. It wasn't a battle-axe but a tool for hewing wood to fuel the stove in the center of the room, which was probably why the panicky dolt of a hatter hadn't thought of it, but it would serve Tamlin better than a cudgel if he could only get to it in time.

  He dashed for it, hoping the troll would stop to slaughter his horse, but no such luck. Crouched as it was, the creature had no difficulty maneuvering under the comparatively low ceiling, and it charged straight at him, yellow foam flying from its jaws, the claws at the end of one long arm stretched out to rend him.

  Tamlin thrust out his own arm and knocked over a rack of beaver and ermine hats. It fell in the troll's path, and, as he'd prayed, the creature stumbled over it, affording him the final second he needed to grab the axe.

  That was the good aspect of his situation. The bad was that the troll had him in a corner. He fought better with a sword, the gentleman's arm, than an axe, and the implement in his hands wasn't even a proper weapon.

  He tried to control his breathing, tried to be calm, tried to remember the combat training that he'd often attended so grudgingly, tried it all in that last instant and then the troll was on him.

  The creature raked at him with both hands simultaneously. He swayed back, and the filthy claws at the end of the long green fingers missed him by an inch. The rending motion rocked the troll forward, and, following through, it brought its mouth down to bite. Its maw gaped wide enough to engulf his entire head, and its breath was so foul that his stomach turned.

  Tamlin thrust upward with the axe as if it were a spear. The steel head cracked against the troll's jaw, breaking fangs and jolting the creature back. The noble immediately chopped a gash in its breast, then cut at its knee and nearly severed its leg. The moss-green horror fell backward, and as it did, Tamlin seized the opportunity to spring past it and extricate himself from the corner.

  Though the wounds Tamlin had inflicted would have incapacitated any human being, the troll was scarcely that, and the aristocrat knew his stalker wasn't finished. Sure enough, still quick despite the injury to its leg, the black-eyed thing spun around and flung itself at him with claws outstretched.

  Tamlin scrambled backward and kept retreating as the troll crawled after him, its claws splintering the floorboards.

  Tamlin reckoned that if he wanted to survive this encounter, he'd better finish the brute off fast. He stopped retreating, giving the troll another chance to grab at him, then met the creature's arm with a stroke of the axe. The bit crunched into the troll's wrist and sheared off its four-fingered hand.

  Instantly he rushed in to attack the troll's body and head, while the creature reared up, supported by its remaining hand. It bit at him, and he dodged. It clubbed at him with its raw, bloody stump, and he parried with the axe, meanwhile shifting into position to chop its good arm.

  The axe cut into the stringy muscle just above its elbow, whereupon, suddenly unable to support itself, the troll crashed facedown on the floor. Bellowing with rage, Tamlin hewed at the creature's head and spine.

  The troll heaved itself over onto its side, where it tried to fend off the axe with its handless arm, kick Tamlin with its three-toed feet, and thrash and flop itself into position to bite his leg. He avoided its f
lailing legs and gnashing fangs and kept on hewing until something grabbed hold of his ankle.

  He let out a startled gasp and looked down to see the troll's severed hand clutching his leg. In the instant he was thus distracted, the troll finally landed a kick to the side of his head, flinging him backward and into another display rack. The collision knocked it over, and he sprawled to the floor amid an assortment of felt tricornes.

  For a second, the world seemed silent and empty of significance. He realized dimly that the kick had stunned him, that he might even be in danger of passing out, and he struggled to break through the daze. By the time he managed it, he felt a crawling on his thigh.

  The troll's hand had clambered up his leg. Though still a little addled, he realized that it might have found it difficult to plunge its claws through his thick leather boots, but would have no trouble with the velvet breeches higher up.

  Somehow, Tamlin had kept hold of the axe. He used the butt of the haft to knock the severed hand off his thigh and followed up with a chop. The hand hopped backward, avoiding the stroke, and then a shadow fell over him.

  He looked up. The troll had gotten back on its feet and was now bending over him, its fanged, reeking jaws hurtling down to tear his face off. He whirled the axe up to meet them.

  The bloody bit thudded deep into the creature's head. The troll lurched sideways and collapsed. Tamlin studied it for a second, making sure it truly had stopped moving, then wrenched himself around to see what the severed hand was doing. It was inert as well.

  Tamlin floundered to his feet, gave the troll a few more axe strokes for good measure, then turned to the hatter, who was cowering behind the counter.

  "Burn this thing," the noble panted. "Otherwise, it will come back to life."

  A soft slurping sound came from the troll's mangled body as its hand began to regenerate.

  "Me burn it!" the hatter replied. "What about you?"