The Wizard's Mask Read online

  "Masked man?" she called out fearfully.

  "Here, Halfling Princess," came a snarl from just below her on the roof. "Thank you for my life. Again."

  "Nine silver weights?" she asked hopefully.

  "You've not paid me yet," he reminded her, clambering past. "This is all on promise."

  "Not empty promise," she replied, rolling free of what was left of her cord—he'd sliced through it, near the edge of the roof—in time to see him at the ventilator with his flint. She hastened to join him.

  They'd just kindled a tiny flame on the third twine when the night around them pulsed brighter.

  The roof of the second warehouse didn't go up with quite the roar of the first, but the two blazes together had all Halidon awake now, and the north end of the village brightly lit for everyone to stare at.

  Tantaerra peered around. There was barely a breeze, but what little there was came out of the forest heading northeast, carrying the smoke away from Halidon. And offering two escapees on a roof no concealment at all.

  The flames were bright enough to show her all the watching folk, the soldiers foremost among them, surrounding the warehouses. There was no way for them to get to the forest, nor to the caravan, sequestered down at the south end of the village in a guarded paddock.

  She watched the glow of the flaming twine inside the ventilator and said suddenly, "We're going to die up here, aren't we?"

  The masked head turned toward her. "How you doubt me, Halfling Princess! How can I collect my fee if we die on this rooftop?"

  "Oh? You've magic that can whisk us away, I suppose?"

  "Hah. Hardly. This is no ballad or fireside tale, princess."

  "I'm no princess," she snarled. "My name is Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra, and I was a slave in Canorate." She pointed at the ground down beside the barracks. "And that is the investigator I was warning you about. Recovered from the pepper I put into his eyes, and giving the orders for the noose tightening around us both now. In a savage mood, by the looks of him."

  "You took down Osturr the Hound with a handful of pepper?" The masked man chuckled. "Ah, but you furnish steadily better entertainment, Prin—Lady Klazra."

  "Tantaerra," Tantaerra corrected sharply, "masked man."

  "Since we're such good friends now," he chuckled, "I am Tarram Armistrade. Or was." He clambered along the roof past her. "Come. We have a hatch to use. In some haste."

  "We're going down into the waiting arms of—?"

  "They'll be very busy, very soon. No fear; we'll wait until the right moment."

  The hatch lifted readily under the masked man's hand; he'd evidently prepared it from below, earlier. He bundled her through it like a rebellious child and almost bowled her over coming through it on top of her.

  "Why the haste?" she panted, stumbling aside in near-darkness as she realized her cord had been left behind—and wished it hadn't. "If we're going to be waiting ...and am I permitted to know what we're waiting for?"

  At that moment, the world began to roar.

  The floor heaved, the far wall of the warehouse slammed inward as if punched by a god's fist, and every barrel, crate, and shipping-crock in the place hurtled into the air and started to come right at Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra.

  She was flying through the air too, she realized dazedly, and there was a curious ringing silence in her ears, even as she watched boards tear into splinters and doors blow open into the night and a huge wall of roiling flame come raging through that broken end wall toward her.

  This must be why The Masked had been in such haste to get down off the roof ...and must also be what he'd been waiting for ...

  Something in the middle warehouse he'd known about, something that could erupt in a blast like the fury of the very gods.

  She couldn't see him anywhere, couldn't—

  She struck something then, something solid and meaty that had boots she'd seen before—his boots, this Tarram Armistrade—that was folding up around her, his arms reaching to cradle her. She felt him strike something, something that gave way, and then they were falling past splinters and a rebounding door, out into darkness, and there were bloodcoats looming above them, and spears...

  Then that raging flame followed them out through the doorway and raced over them, and bloodcoats were tumbling, spears spinning away on their own into the night. They were bouncing, and skidding, and bouncing again.

  Then tumbling, head over heels in dirt amid ruined fences and over the sprawled bodies of fallen bloodcoats as the ringing silence started to fade.

  Tantaerra could see thousands of embers and dark shards in the sky, fountaining up against the stars as her own tumblings slowed, and she heard something deep-voiced behind her ear that might have been The Masked groaning or cursing ...and then at last she came to rest, on her back and staring up at all the fragments tumbling down now out of the sky, crashing and spattering and tlinging off the ground and buildings and roofs around her.

  Was she hurt?

  She couldn't feel a thing, just the solid reassurance of the ground under her, but something—no, someone—was rising from behind her. The Masked.

  He took her in his arms and started to stumble away, her world yawing and bouncing crazily now, and as if from far away she heard his voice.

  "I trust you found that worth waiting for, Tantaerra?"

  She tried to move her lips to frame a reply, but found no words, and he was too busy to listen anyway. Busy heading for an old and solid-looking stone building, plunging through its open front door, and swinging her onto one shoulder to free his other hand to backhand a startled-looking old man in a robe, knocking him to the floor. The Masked trotted past the blinking, protesting priest and a fitful-looking fire in a round hearth in the center of the floor, and into a deeper, darker archway.

  "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 grima
cing 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.