The Reaver Read online

  Possibly mistaking his attitude for fear or flagging strength, she pressed him hard, and his tactics nearly cost him a split skull and a maimed leg. After that, however, he recognized what he was looking for.

  The creature’s swordplay was deft and forceful, but it had a symmetry and regularity to it that reminded him of banks of oars sweeping in unison or chanting mariners hoisting a sail. When his opponent attacked with one weapon, she invariably followed up with a cut from the other at the same tempo, provided that circumstances allowed.

  Now that Anton saw the pattern, he was happy to allow it. He parried a clanging stroke with the saber but didn’t riposte. The silver woman started to swing her other sword, he sprang in, and her cut fell harmlessly behind him.

  He thrust the cutlass up under her jaw, where her armor didn’t cover her. Her features still as immobile as those of the statues adorning the temple, she collapsed.

  Anton looked around to see what else was happening. One of Dalabrac’s Fire Knives—a black-bearded man with chipped yellow teeth—recoiled from a sword stroke and bumped into the railing at the edge of the gallery. His adversary cut with the weapon in her other hand, and the gang member’s head tumbled into space. Meanwhile, his cheeks bulging, the halfling blew a plume of dark vapor from a pipe, and, brushed by the discharge, a silver spirit fell to her knees and pawed at her face.

  Suddenly, Anton glimpsed movement at the periphery of his vision. He whirled to find a celestial foe plunging into the distance, one of her blades already cutting at his head. He raised his saber in a frantic attempt to parry.

  Then the spirit lurched off balance, and it was plain her flailing stroke would miss. Thus, Anton didn’t need to parry. He simply sliced her, once and then again.

  As the creature fell, Anton spotted the wizard in brown—who’d run through her supply of phantom decoys—standing with hands outstretched at the conclusion of some cabalistic gesture. Evidently, he had her to thank for tripping his attacker, and he gave her a nod before pivoting to engage the next silver warrior.

  That one turned out to move and fight in exactly the same manner as the first one he’d killed, and he disposed of her in a similar fashion. Afterward, when he looked around again, no other spirits remained, and he hadn’t lost any more of his allies, although Dalabrac’s remaining underling, a wiry, walleyed fellow, was squeezing a gash in his forearm in an effort to stop the bleeding.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t mean their troubles were over. Anton strode to the railing and looked over. On the ground floor, the temple guards and the sunlords with martial training had their shields on their arms, their maces in hand, and had just about finished forming up to climb the stairs and engage the intruders.

  Stedd scurried up to stand beside Anton. “You can’t just kill them all,” said the boy. “They’re only doing what they think is right.”

  Anton snorted. “I appreciate the implied compliment. But given the numbers involved and the quantity of priestly magic on their side, the trick will be to keep them from slaughtering us.” He turned to Dalabrac. “There’s not much point in worrying about being quiet anymore.”

  “Sadly,” said the halfling, “that’s true.” Of them all, he was the only one who didn’t look sweaty, out of breath, or generally disheveled. His fraudulent vestments still hung straight on his child-sized form. He picked up a dead spirit’s fallen sword and took a step toward the nearest stained glass window.

  “Let me,” the wizard said. She placed herself before the window and gave a shout that boomed like the thunderclaps crashing outside.

  The glass mosaic shattered, and despite the drumming of the storm, Anton heard the pieces smashing again on the cobblestones outside. Cold rain blew in through the window frame.

  Anton shot the mage a smile. “Nicely done.”

  It took her an instant to smile back. “I can be useful from time to time.”

  The wounded Fire Knife hurried to the opening, produced a coiled rope from under his disguise, and dropped the line over the edge. Meanwhile, Dalabrac took out a lump of something spongy, kneaded it a few times, and pressed it to the stonework. His confederate then stuck the end of the rope into it.

  “Don’t worry, it will hold.” Dalabrac grinned at Anton. “My alchemist does better work than my tailor.”

  “Stedd and I don’t need a rope.” The wizard took the boy by the hand and led him to the drop. “Just jump.”

  The boy took a breath, then stepped off the edge with her. Presumably, a word of command would cushion their fall.

  Anton slid down the rope. The wounded Fire Knife followed. Dalabrac simply scurried down the wall like a lizard, somehow never needing to fumble or grope for the next finger- or toehold despite the dark and the wet.

  The five fugitives hurried away from the temple. Judging that the disguises were no longer useful, Anton and the Fire Knives stripped their outer garments away. Then a figure stepped out of a shadowy doorway.

  Stedd gasped, and, hands darting for their weapons, Anton and the gang members pivoted to face the potential threat. “It’s all right!” said the mage in brown. “He’s on our side.”

  “Indeed I am,” said the newcomer. Like his confederate, he was tall, slender, and had an oval of fair-complexioned face within his cowl, although in the dark, Anton couldn’t make out much more than that. “That is, if you’re helping to rescue the Chosen. My—”

  “They’re not!” said Stedd. “This man”—he pointed—“is Anton Marivaldi, a pirate! He wants to sell me to Umberlee’s church on Pirate Isle!”

  Anton wracked his brain for a lie that Stedd—and the mage and her friend—might conceivably believe. “That’s over, Stedd, I promise. The halfling here believes in Lathander, and he made me a better offer.”

  “It’s true,” said Dalabrac, joining in without hesitation. “I’ve seen the Lord of the Morning in my dreams.”

  Seemingly not certain what to think or say, Stedd looked from one of his would-be deceivers to the other.

  “Look,” Anton said, “if we don’t keep moving, the rest of it won’t matter anyway.”

  “That’s true,” said the pale stranger, “and my friend’s wizardry will protect you if it turns out that these three aren’t what they claim to be. Let’s—” He frowned. “Drat.”

  For a moment, Anton couldn’t tell what the other man was reacting to. Then something leaped from the broken window and soared on lashing wings.

  The flying creature glowed with an inner light, and thus, even though he had to squint, Anton could tell at once that the new threat wasn’t another silver woman; perhaps Randal Sweetgrove had given up on those. The male angel’s wings were snowy white, and his lithe, mostly naked body, golden-bronze. He carried a flanged mace in his hands.

  “What is that thing?” asked the mage in brown.

  “An astral deva,” the pale man replied.

  “Hide us,” said Stedd, looking up at the wizard, “before it spots us!”

  “I can’t,” she replied. “I used up all my invisibility spells. I didn’t expect to need so many.” She squeezed Stedd’s shoulder. “But it will be all right.”

  “Indeed,” said the pale man. “Our wizard will stay behind long enough to kill the angel and then catch up with us.”

  The wizard shot her associate a startled look that seemed to ask, You want me to fight this thing alone? But she didn’t express the thought aloud. Instead, she swallowed and answered, “Yes, Saer.”

  “Now that that’s settled …” Dalabrac waved his hand to indicate the rain-spattered street before them.

  Everyone but the mage started running. Red light gleamed from the curtains of rain and the drenched cobbles beneath them as she threw an initial spell at the oncoming astral deva. Meanwhile, Stedd scrambled to put himself beside Anton.

  “You can’t just leave her!” said the boy.

  Watch me, Anton thought.

  “She can’t beat it by herself!” Stedd persisted.

  Anton didn’t need
the wizard to win, only delay the creature long enough to cover his and Stedd’s retreat. Still, in his way, the lad had raised a disquieting point.

  Long ago, in a life he’d thrown away, Anton’s teachers had stressed that a combat wizard was often the most powerful weapon in a battle … right up until the moment a single cut or thrust silenced the spellcaster in mid-incantation. Thus, a sensible officer never left such assets unprotected.

  The woman in brown had coped without anybody playing bodyguard when she and her allies were fighting the silver spirits, but it was plain from her reaction that the astral deva was significantly more powerful. What if, battling alone, she couldn’t even slow it down? What, then, would the remaining fugitives do without her?

  Besides … besides …

  Anton had another thought in his head, but it wouldn’t come clear, and he didn’t have time to pick at it. “Dalabrac!” he called, hoping by that one word to somehow convey that he was trusting the Fire Knives to follow through on the plan and wait for him. Even though he didn’t trust them in the slightest. Then he turned, snatched his blades out of their scabbards, and charged back toward the wizard.

  The wizard hurled a pale flare of cold from her outstretched hands. The magic froze raindrops, which for a moment then clattered on the cobbles with a sharper note. But as far as Anton could discern, the astral deva endured the freezing blast without even flinching, let alone suffering genuine harm.

  The winged man brandished his mace. Floating lengths of golden phosphorescence shimmered into being around the mage. Recognizing the spell, Anton sprinted even faster than before. He plowed into the wizard, and despite the impediment of the weapons in his hands, wrapped his arms around her and bulled her forward. The clumsy tackle sufficed to carry her clear of the blades of force just before they finished materializing and started spinning.

  Anton and the wizard splashed down together in a puddle. He hastily disentangled himself from her and looked up to check on their foe. Who was seemingly no longer interested in that role. The astral deva had seen fit to strike a blow at the mage when advancing in the teeth of her harassment, but now, intent on pursuing Stedd, the spirit was simply flying over her head and Anton’s.

  Anton scrambled to his feet. “If you put the angel on the ground, I can kill him with my swords!”

  The wizard jumped up. “There’s one spell that might do it.” Swirling her hands through a complex figure, she hissed and snarled words of power. Anton had no idea what they meant, but he’d heard it said that mages sometimes conjured in the language of dragons, and by the sound of it, this might be such a spell.

  On the final syllable, the mage clenched her fists. The astral deva’s wings flailed asynchronously and then stopped beating altogether. The resulting plunge to the ground would have killed a human being, but he rolled to his feet with just some scrapes on his golden skin. Like that of the silver women, his blood was clear.

  Anton charged, and the astral deva spoke a word that made the whole world ring like a giant bell. The resonance filled his head and made him feel on the verge of fainting. But he clung to consciousness and drove himself onward, and after a staggering step or two, he shook off the effect.

  As he closed, he feinted to the head, and the angel’s mace leaped up to parry. Meanwhile, Anton cut to the knee and scored there, too. But it was like trying to slice into seasoned oak, and the resulting wound was just a scratch. Though Dalabrac had loaned him an enchanted saber, apparently it wasn’t enchanted enough to overcome the astral deva’s holiness or whatever quality it was that armored him.

  The spirit struck back, and when Anton parried, the force of his opponent’s blow nearly knocked the cutlass from his grasp. In addition to his other advantages, the astral deva was stronger than a human being.

  As they traded attacks, Anton looked for some regularity he could exploit, only to find that the golden man didn’t share the silver spirits’ predilection for steady tempo and symmetrical patterns. Still, the saber scored twice more, but once again, the resulting wounds were superficial.

  Circling several paces away, the wizard cast darts of blue light at the angel and called writhing shadow tentacles up from the ground to wrap around his legs. Unfortunately, the former didn’t appear to hurt him, and the latter simply frayed away to nothing on contact with his shining flesh.

  All we’re doing, Anton thought, is delaying the creature. But that was enough to persuade the astral deva to use more of his own magic. He spoke another word, and a flash of light dazzled Anton and stabbed pain through his head. The combination slowed him, and his foe nearly caught him with a follow-up blow to the ribs.

  “Throw me the saber!” the wizard called. Anton heard pain in her voice. Evidently, the astral deva’s last magical attack had battered both of them.

  He wondered if it had, in fact, unhinged her. It certainly seemed like a mad idea to partially disarm himself when he was barely holding his own as it was.

  “Why?” he answered.

  “Trust me!”

  Well, he thought, with sudden recklessness, why not? Nothing else is working, and it should at least be interesting to find out what she has in mind.

  He tossed the saber in the direction of her voice, and it clanked on the cobblestones.

  The astral deva attacked savagely, relentlessly, and Anton retreated, dodged, and parried. It was difficult enough simply to defend himself, but he had to do more than that. He also had to keep the spirit away from the woman in brown while she cast what he hoped was the highly efficacious spell requiring the saber.

  He managed for a breath or two, and then parried with imperfect technique. The mace snapped the blade of the cutlass an inch above the guard.

  The astral deva whirled his weapon up for a blow to the head. Anton retreated a step, dropped the useless remains of the cutlass, opened his hands like a wrestler, and wondered why he wasn’t turning tail. Then something bumped his forearm.

  It was the hilt of the saber. The wizard had finished with it, and now she was giving it back.

  He snatched it, sidestepped the mace, and cut at the astral deva’s forearm. As he did, he had a sudden sense of ferocity, as if the saber was alive and waking up. As if it hated the angel and lusted to destroy him.

  Despite that, the astral deva managed to yank his arm back in time to avoid the initial slash. But Anton instantly stepped and cut again. The saber was light and eager in his hand.

  The second attack caught the angel across the knuckles and sliced his fingers through. The digits and the weapon they’d gripped fell away. The astral deva’s eyes and mouth gaped, and inside Anton’s head, he heard the saber laugh.

  He poised the sword for a chest cut, then glimpsed motion at the edge of his vision. He dodged, and the mace streaked past his head and flew into the astral deva’s undamaged hand.

  But as the angel’s fingers closed on the haft, Anton rushed in and cut. The saber sheared between two ribs and deep into the creature’s chest. The astral deva shuddered, and the mace slipped from his grasp. Anton yanked his sword free, made another cut, and the celestial warrior fell with clear blood gushing from what was left of his neck.

  The saber’s exultation was so intense that for an instant, the silent howl drowned out Anton’s own thoughts. Then the blade either fell back asleep or reverted to normal altogether.

  Anton grinned at the wizard. “When you simply handed the saber back to me, I had a certain sense of anticlimax. But that was neatly done.”

  The mage smiled back. “I infused the weapon with … well, the metaphysical principle antithetical to entities like our foe. Don’t worry. The taint will pass.”

  “I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Someday I might want to kill another …” A door on the ground floor of the House of the Sun flew open, and guards and priests poured out. “Run!”

  It was more difficult to catch scents in the rain. But the walleyed man was bleeding despite his efforts to stanch the flow, and if there was anything a vampire coul
d smell even in adverse conditions, it was blood. In fact, even though Kymas wasn’t particularly thirsty, the aroma had been tantalizing him ever since he’d come into contact with the mortal.

  When the smell thickened, it told him the man was sneaking up behind him. He whirled to discover a dagger in the wretch’s hand.

  The remainder of Kymas’s time in Westgate might run more smoothly if Stedd didn’t realize his true nature until they left port. So he took the trouble to block the thrust. He didn’t do it particularly skillfully. The blade would almost certainly have cut his hand if common steel were capable of doing so. But he hoped Lathander’s Chosen couldn’t tell that.

  Kymas looked into his assailant’s eyes and froze him in place. Only for a moment, but that was time enough for a vampire to draw his own dirk and stab the mortal in the heart.

  The red, coppery scent in the air intensified from piquant to maddening. For a moment, Kymas positively ached to grab the mortal and at least taste him before the alchemy of death transmuted the precious elixir in his veins to worthless dross. He willed the urge if not the desire away and pivoted toward his remaining companions.

  Obviously, Dalabrac had trusted his confederate to dispose of Kymas; he was hovering over Stedd in case the outbreak of violence prompted the lad to bolt. But as the walleyed man collapsed to the cobbles, the halfling snatched one of his blowpipes from its hiding place.

  Meanwhile, Stedd looked wildly back and forth. It was entirely possible he hadn’t noticed Dalabrac’s partner creeping up behind Kymas and didn’t know which of them had been the aggressor.

  Kymas flicked his tongue over his fangs to make absolutely sure they weren’t extended, then gave the boy a reassuring smile. “It’s all right, son. As I’m sure you suspected, Anton Marivaldi lied to you. He and these other knaves still meant to sell you to the church of Umberlee. But I won’t let them.”