by Ed Greenwood
"This," he informed her, "is the village shrine. The shared temple of several gods, serving all until-if ever-Halidon is large enough for gods to have temples of their own."
The masked man shouldered through a curtain and past some tables heaped with what were probably offerings, to a mildewy-smelling wall climbed by a simple stone stair with no rail. He started up those steps. "Are you all right?"
She tried to speak again, and was mildly surprised to hear her own voice. "Now you ask me? Now?"
His only reply was a brief chuckle, that soon gave way to panting as he climbed.
It was a long way, sixty or seventy steps, before The Masked staggered away from the top of the stair to a stout door. It was held shut with a hasp and through-spike, and he set her down long enough to use the spike like a crowbar and tear the hasp away from the rotten wooden doorframe it was anchored to, hauling the door open onto a lofty view of the night sky.
Then he picked Tantaerra up again and rushed her through the door, out onto the shrine roof.
It was a flat circle of decking around a central spire surrounded by a dozen or more statues of gods, facing outward over a sheer drop to Halidon below. The dark statues were bedecked with bird droppings, and momentarily fanned by the whir of flapping wings as awakened and disturbed birds hastily departed into the night sky.
"Here," the masked man said, propping her up in a dark niche between Gozreh-a tall, somber bearded man leaning forward out of a storm cloud sculpted all over with small lightning bolts-and a robed figure with the head of an elk, who could only be Erastil. "There-hidden! Now pay me!"
"This is …rather abrupt, Sir Armistrade," she replied sharply. "You were to hide me and effect my escape from the bloodcoats. We haven't escaped yet. Your commission is half done, if that. I'll pay half."
Still panting, her half-rescuer held out his empty hand for the coins. "Done. On the condition you stop with the 'sirs.' I'm Tarram. Or Armistrade, if you're annoyed with me."
Tantaerra knelt to get at the anklet she was going to shift to her other leg anyway. "As it happens, I am. You do realize this roof is a trap, not a hiding place?"
"You did see me remove the means of bolting the door and trapping us out here?" the masked man replied gently. "Well, then, not so much a trap as a place one man-as in, me-can defend against many. Unless they take off their armor and leave their spears behind, there's no way more than one of those Molthuni soldiers is going to get through this door at a time."
"You've never met this Lord Investigator," Tantaerra told him dryly.
"Oh, but I have. Osturr has been after me these-ah, this last little while. He's been just too late to close his hands around my throat on several occasions. And whether I'd set foot in this village or not, he'd soon have come to Halidon to check on the local commanders as part of his ongoing duties. Such vigilance is the norm in Molthune these days. Along with inns keeping detailed registers of all guests, citizens being expected to report unusual people or events, and the like." His voice turned wry. "In fact, the local Molthuni commanders have almost certainly set their own spy to following and watching the Lord Investigator. They have reports to make too, you know."
"I'm less than surprised, but also less than concerned, Armistrade," Tantaerra told him. "Whether they watch him doing it or not, he's still going to be coming up here after us. So why, exactly, are you making his work easier for him? This is a blind end we've rushed up into; we've cornered ourselves."
"This is a defensible spot we'll be tarrying in only until the right time to move."
"There'll be no right time, masked man," she replied tartly, pointing down over the edge of the roof. "Look!"
∗ ∗ ∗
They could both see the Lord Investigator down below, pointing as he gave orders, his every movement swift and angry. He gestured up at them several times, then fell in behind the line of bloodcoats he'd sent trotting in their direction.
"Wouldn't it be easier to defend the top of the stairs, inside?" the halfling asked, sounding as irked as ever.
The Masked shook his head, without sparing a glance for her. "No protection against bolts or spears from below. I need the archway. And before you ask, no, I'm not some sword-swinging hero, nor a wizard who can hurl fire all night long. I'm a man who would have quite likely slept the night away peacefully if you hadn't goaded these bloodcoats and then led them right to me."
She made no reply, yet the heat of her gaze on his back was like a forge-fire.
Tarram closed the door and moved to stand between the two statues closest to the archway, undoing the cloak he'd had pinned tightly around his upper body all this time, wadding it up and stuffing it ready atop the folded arms of holy Torag, the dwarves' Lord of Creation. Then he undid the leather overflaps that kept rain out of the dagger-sheaths on his upper arms and the short sword scabbards on his lower legs, as well as keeping the weapons that lived in them secure while he was tumbling through warehouses and scrambling along rooftops. They were ready.
So now, so was he.
Drawing his favorite dagger from his belt behind his left hip, he waited. Better a small parrying fang at first, and an empty strong right hand to grapple with. Perhaps one of the first soldiers he faced would obligingly bring him a longer, stronger sword.
Abruptly the door was flung open. The first Molthuni came out onto the roof in a rush, charging with a leveled spear and a snarl. He was passing Tarram before he saw the man standing motionless among the statues-so it was child's play to give him a shove from behind that sent him over the edge, shouting in terror.
Tarram was already rolling back to the statues and up to his feet as the next two soldiers came through the archway in a rush, jabbing with their lowered spears. The one in the rear couldn't reach as far, which made it easy to parry the foremost spear and then yank on it, to tug its owner toward the statues-and into a trip and a fall over that second spear.
The Masked slammed his dagger hilt up hard under the man's jaw-low, more upper throat-and brought his other hand down on the man's neck and shoulder, wiping him face-first down the sharp, unyielding front of a carved god, sending him sprawling atop the hindmost soldier's spear. Which left that soldier scrabbling to get out his sword as Tarram trampled the first soldier in a hasty rush to reach the second soldier and slash him across the face.
The man shrieked as blood spurted, and The Masked politely relieved him of his sword and shoved him stumbling back into the next arrival through the archway.
Who almost spitted his fellow soldier, but managed at the last minute not to-at the expense of both his balance and a good parrying position. The Masked took advantage of that, hacking at the side of the man's head and then at the side of his knee. Helm ringing, the man fell heavily, and The Masked lunged over him, surprising the next soldier-another spearman-with a thrust that sunk home under the bottom of an armored tunic, up into the man's crotch.
The man screamed obligingly and writhed in the doorway, giving The Masked the time he needed to turn and rush back along the roof, kicking two downed and groaning soldiers over the edge and slamming his dagger hilt hard into the back of the third Molthuni neck. That man lay sprawled and still, and went on doing so.
The wounded soldier was clutching his crotch and moaning as he stumbled or was dragged back through the archway, but his fallen spear lay on the roof right in front of the door, an obstacle to the next attacking soldiers.
Watching the doorway, The Masked backed along the statues until he reached the angle he wanted, where a carved divinity shielded him from any bowshot. Then he stepped back between two gods and waited, dagger and new-won sword up and ready, his gaze fixed on the door.
"Gods bear witness," the halfling whispered from the next niche, "but you are a sword-swinging hero." Then she darted out of her shelter, snatched the helm off the fallen soldier's head and a dagger from his belt, and was back in her niche.
The Masked was in his niche watching the doorway, from which no new assailant had emerged
. Had they taken out an entire patrol, or cowed the last few into not daring to advance?
A moment later, he had his answer. A soldier with only a drawn short sword came running out onto the roof at The Masked-and when Tarram left his niche to parry that sword, the Molthuni flung himself down on his face.
A crossbow cracked beyond the archway, and a crossbow bolt came thrumming out of it, laying open Tarram's thigh as he dove desperately back at his niche.
He roared his pain up into Torag's carved face and clutched at his cloak, trying to shake it out into a cloud in case there were a second bowman, but the pain …
"That should slow your running," Lord Investigator Ammarand Osturr observed with cold satisfaction, as he strode out of the archway with a cocked and loaded crossbow in his hands.
"Reload the other," he snapped over his shoulder, "but hold it ready for my use. No firing."
The Masked gave him a bitter smile. "Took you long enough to catch me, Hound."
"I have a busy schedule, Armistrade," the investigator replied, halting well out of reach. "I fear you assign yourself more importance than I do."
From behind Tarram came the faintest of sounds. The Lord Investigator heard it too.
"Show yourself!" he snapped. "Whoever you are, show yourself, or I'll put a bolt through this man's face!"
He was answered by a low, gurgling moan.
Osturr's eyes narrowed, and he leaned his head to one side to peer around the statues.
A hurled halfling-sized dagger crashed into his crossbow, sending the bolt bouncing out of its channel as the bow went off, its poisoned death thrumming off into the night to strike down an astonished bird that had been cautiously wheeling to see if matters were quiet enough to return to its roost.
Osturr was still flinching in fear when the Molthuni helmet Tantaerra had salvaged came whirling out of the night to take him right across the face.
Tarram snarled, launching himself at the man who'd hunted him for so long-a snarl that became a helpless roar of pain as his wounded leg failed him, sent him stumbling amid sickening agony to fall at the very feet of the Lord Investigator.
Who'd finished lurching backward and grimacing in pain, and was now drawing a long, slender dagger from a forearm sheath.
"I've decided to dispense with your trial," the Lord Investigator spat. His arm swept up, raising the needle-dirk on high.
Tarram rolled over, trying to get his arms up in front of his face.
Luraumadar, the mask whispered insistently, sounding almost gleeful. Luraumadar, Luraumadar …
Glittering against the stars, the dagger swept down.
Chapter Four
Treacherous Moonlight
Tantaerra sprinted hard, knowing she'd be too late. That blade would be deep in Armistrade's throat or eye socket long before-
Something moved, lightning-swift, beside the Lord Investigator. It took her a moment to realize it was one of the god statues.
By then, it had dealt its death, stabbing as swiftly as a crossbow bolt through Osturr's neck with a long, slender sword that drove him a step nearer the roof-edge with the force of its strike. His spasmodically flung needle-dirk thunked into the roof beside Tarram's head.
The Molthuni investigator struggled to stand, and to speak. "Urrkh!" he announced, waving one arm wildly.
He was choking on his own blood-and the statue on the other end of the sword was no statue at all, but a dark-garbed man whose grin and dancing brown eyes caught the moonlight for a moment as he glanced at the onrushing Tantaerra.
He must have been standing there all along, utterly motionless, so still that they'd all mistaken him for-
A chorus of angry curses arose inside the doorway, and the air was suddenly full of flung spears. And a lone, speeding crossbow bolt.
Tantaerra skidded and desperately dropped onto her back.
The statue-man flung himself down and swung the helpless, dying Osturr around like a shield, to host wetly thudding spears and deflect the bolt on into the night air. The spear-bristling Lord Investigator sagged to the roof, spewing blood from his mouth in a torrent, and the soldiers of Halidon came pounding through the archway.
Tantaerra rolled to her feet and fled back for the shelter of the statues, but never took her eyes off the battle.
The man who'd been a statue was up on his feet as swiftly as an eel slipping out of a fishmonger's grasp, and crouching with drawn daggers in both hands to await the charging soldiers behind the many-speared shelter of Osturr's body. As the soldiers parted to stream around those spears, he ducked back between the statues, slicing a man viciously behind the knee. Then he lashed out at the face of the next one, parrying a sword-slash so hard that sparks flew, and driving the dagger in his other hand deep in under the edge of a helm. That soldier spasmed and shrieked, running on blindly across the roof and right over the edge-and by then the statue-man was in among the Molthuni soldiers like a flitting shadow, slaying at every breath.
The first soldier he'd wounded was swearing as he hopped and hacked savagely at Tantaerra, keeping her too busy to watch the statue-man closely. By the time his wounded leg collapsed and she managed to stab him in the throat, the roof was strewn with dead men and the statue-man had just dragged his long needle-sword out of the Lord Investigator's neck-Osturr's head almost coming with it-and was disappearing through the doorway.
A brief, abruptly cut-off scream rang out inside the temple, lower down the stair. And then another.
Smiling grimly as it occurred to her how many empty beds there'd be in the soldiers' barracks by morning, Tantaerra promptly pounced on Osturr's body.
He was dead, all right. Her little knife wasn't needed to make sure of that. So she planted it ready in the roof beside her and swiftly plundered the man's body. The first thing she took was the forearm sheath for that needle-dirk, though it was too big for her to use as a leg-sheath, and would have to go to The Masked.
An underarm purse held only papers, one of them a commission from the General Lords that might prove useful, if anyone could be fooled into thinking Tarram Armistrade was really Ammarand Osturr, but his left boot held not just a wicked poniard better than any knife she owned, but had a hollow heel holding a neat stack of gold measures, proper Absalom minting.
His right boot held what she'd really been hoping for. A flat, slender, dainty little glass vial sheltered in its own steel sheath against breakage. The sheath bore an etched sun. A healing potion.
She almost slipped it into her neck-sack out of habit, but reluctantly turned to The Masked, lying so still behind her.
He groaned as she stepped over him, his eyes flicking back and forth behind the mask, and she took hold of its lower edge, below his chin, and peeled it back to see his face.
Then froze, wishing she hadn't.
He had no chin. Or nose. Just two eyes, blinking blearily up at her out of a smooth whorl of flesh, as if everything had flowed from his forehead down to his throat. A mouth that was a lipless slit. Something out of a nightmare …
Her gorge rose. Swallowing hastily, she snatched the mask back down into place, and bent to look at his leg.
His hand rose weakly to pat at his face. No, at his mask. He was trying to make sure the mask was still in place.
No wonder.
Setting her teeth, Tantaerra tried to forget what she'd seen by poking her nose into the more mundane terror of his wound.
There was a lot of blood, dark and sticky and drenching the roof under him. The bolt had torn right through his thigh.
She didn't have to roll him, thankfully, to see the warhead, sticking out on the far side. She drew the sharpest of her knives, the one she kept sheathed high on the inside of her thigh, and sawed at the shaft of the bolt. He groaned, but Tantaerra kept grimly at it until she'd shorn through it and could pull the shaft back out of him.
Fresh blood gouted, and he roared in pain and slammed a fist down on the rooftop.
"Quiet," she hissed into his ear. "And drink this."
She thrust the mask back again with firm fingers, used her fingers to find and pry open his mouth, and fed the healing potion into the side of it. Within, he had a full set of teeth, in better shape than most she'd seen, and …and he was fully awake now, looking up at her sidelong.
He relaxed with a great shudder as the pain ebbed. The magic worked fast.
"Do they have food in temples?" she asked, looking at the blood he'd leaked all over the roof.
"Shrine, this, not temple," he muttered, "so I don't know. And I thank you, Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra."
She shrugged. "We're not out of this yet, Tarram. The forest is just over there, but might as well be half of Golarion away, for all the chance we have of reaching it. With all these buildings ablaze and the streets full of soldiers who've had time to find and load their crossbows, now. The whole village is awake and watching."
"What happened?" He was sitting up and looking around the corpse-littered roof, at the Lord Investigator and all his spears in particular. "Did you-?"
"No. There was someone else up here, hiding among the statues. He killed Osturr and all those behind him, too, then fought his way back down the stair." Tantaerra gave him a long look, trying to read his masked face but seeing only that vividly remembered glimpse of his ruined flesh. "Think you can walk yet, to follow him?"
The masked man shrugged. "One way to find out. I feel better, that's for sure." He rolled away from her, up to his knees, then crawled to the nearest statue and hauled himself upright. He clung carefully to carved divine limbs as he put just a little weight on his wounded foot, winced, and took a step with it, arms outstretched to grab the next statue along. Then, limping, he went right past that statue, turned, and announced, "I'll live. Let's get gone from this place. Before-"
"Before it becomes our shared dead ending," she interrupted him. "Help me harvest any purses we can find off these bodies, will you? Quickly!"