Jeff LaSala - The Darkwood Mask

Tallis simmered at the irony. Here he was, one of Karrnath’s true patriots, staring across to the other side of the law at this young rogue-in-knight’s-armor.

“Are you prepared to bleed for your nation, little white cat?” he whispered.

Tallis looked to the street far below, waited until the patrol had passed, and knew he had only a few minutes before the next. He tapped the ring on his left hand-little more than a loop of leather marked with an arcane sigil-and felt a furtive tingle spreading throughout his arms and legs. His muscles flexed involuntarily as they adapted to the magic within.

He checked to make sure his weapon-a hooked hammer-was still strapped to its harness over his shoulder. Tallis gauged the distance, made a fist with his right hand and looked to the second ring he wore there. He pointed his fist at the Lion on the balcony, sparing a glance to the tiny dragon head that adorned the iron band.

“Telchanak,” he said with his best Draconic accent, triggering the magic of the ring. He felt not the sleightest recoil as a ghostly white force manifested from the ring and launched itself across the space between the two towers. With little more than a quiet rumbling, the force closed the distance, solidifying into the shape of a dragon’s head with curling, ramlike horns. Tallis heard the guard’s brief cry of surprise then the resounding crunch of his breastplate as the dragon’s head slammed into him. The vaporous force faded away.

The parapets denied Tallis any chance of a running start, so he coiled his body into the structural cleft. Even the greatest athlete would have difficulty clearing the gap between the buildings, but Tallis had come well-equipped. When his feet pressed against the stone, he felt an instant surge of strength and agility in his legs, owing to the enchanted boots he wore.

He mouthed a silent, half-hearted prayer to the Sovereign Host, then jumped.

The sheer black wall of the Ebonspire thrust itself upon him. With a deftness belied by even his own body, Tallis grasped the minute imperfections in the wall with his right hand, grooves that would have been impossible to find without the augmentation afforded him by the leather ring. His left hand found the lip of the balcony one story above.

Tallis hung there for a moment against the wall until the swaying of his body slowed. From the gasping noises below him, he knew the dragon-ring’s concussive power had succeeded only in knocking the wind from the White Lion. He was still a viable threat. With his free hand Tallis pulled a metal rod from his belt and dropped from the railing.

A split second later, he pressed a button on the rod and it locked in place, magically suspended in space as though held by an invisible arm of prodigious strength. Swinging from the artificial handhold, Tallis used his body’s momentum to drop squarely above the stumbling guard.

“Wait!” the White Lion sputtered, struggling to rise.

“Wrong occupation, boy.” Tallis grabbed the younger man’s longbow. Ash, he noted with admiration-the garrison was issuing fine arms to its young recruits these days. Then he swung the hard wood against the man’s face.

The crack of cartilage ended all resistance and the guard slumped to the ground. Blood leaked from his nose-likely broken. Tallis would be long gone before the man would awaken to report a disturbance.

He waited briefly at one side of the balcony in case the scuffle had been heard. Satisfied his presence was still undetected, he began to climb. The two rods he carried, as well as his boots, made scaling four more stories easier work.

All told, this certainly was easier than scaling the Starpeaks in search of an enemy redoubt. Then again, the cold Aundairian mountains hadn’t been crawling with White Lions who knew his face.

When Tallis neared the appointed balcony, he locked one of the rods in place. With feet planted on infinitesimal crevices and one hand gripping the second rod, he paused to listen. Nothing but the whistle of the cold night wind. Could ir’Montevik’s balcony be unguarded, after all? Most of the Ebonspire’s occupants-wealthy visitors and influential citizens-had no need to guard from the outside, but a paranoid man like Arend wouldn’t take chances. Tallis had expected more.

He produced a rune-carved wand of ivory from a pocket on his calf and pointed it at the balcony’s edge. Muttering a series of carefully memorized syllables, his best emulation of its arcane trigger, Tallis saw a glimmer of light at the wand’s end and then a second glimmer along the iron balustrade above. Even with no guards, magical wards would have been in place. If the wand had done its work, any such spells would have been stripped away. Tallis climbed higher, then pulled himself up to the balcony’s rail-

— only to see an enormous figure rushing at him with a heavy blade raised.

“Blunted!” Tallis dropped to step down on the rod he’d left hanging in place, narrowly avoiding a wide sweep of his attacker’s sword. He steadied himself with the balcony’s lip.

“Intruder!” the guard shouted, staring down at him. The man’s head was covered with a broad helmet, his voice loud and resonant. One thick-fingered hand gripped the railing, while the other held the sword, poised to kill. He wore heavy plate armor, with a steel buckler on his left forearm.

No, not armored-not in the conventional sense. The guard was a warforged, a living construct given life during the Last War and the illusion of freedom at war’s end-now expected to settle down into the fragile peace. In Karrnath they’d never achieved even the “freedom” offered by the other nations. Here they were pressed into indentured service, usually in security or heavy labor.

“No, I’m not!” Tallis said. “I’m … family. I just … I knew my uncle wouldn’t … let me in.”

“You lie. You wear a mask!”

For a moment, he feared the warforged would turn away and shout for help, raising an alarm, but this was a matter of pride. If Tallis was a burglar intent on stealing from its master, then the guard would handle him alone.

Tallis could exploit that.

“You’re right,” he goaded. “I am lying. Thought you’d fall for it … you witless golems usually do.”

The warforged growled at the insult and swung its blade. Tallis threw his body to one side, evading the blow, trusting his balance and enhanced mobility to save him. In the same motion, he took hold of the construct’s low-swinging arm, a broad limb of fibrous hardwood and plated metal. He jumped and climbed up, easily gaining holds along the warforged’s body. The construct tried to shake him loose, but Tallis scrambled over it before it could bring its weapon to bear.

Tallis was happy to see that the balcony door was closed. The curtains were drawn along the glass door, admitting no light from within. Only a sliver of the Storm Moon broke through the clouds. He could see perfectly with his darkvision lenses and hoped the warforged was disadvantaged in the gloom. Tallis loosed the hooked hammer from its strap and held it up as the construct turned to face him.

“You would serve your master better as a ladder, my friend,” Tallis said, “as I’m guessing you’re even easier to fight than to climb.”

“I will tell him I had no choice but slay the intruder,” the warforged said.

Tallis had to make this fast. He jumped forward, buoyed by magic, and made an experimental attack with the edge of his hammer. The warforged’s buckler turned away the blow with ease, and Tallis winced at the sound of ringing metal. He aimed his second and third swings to hit, but the construct deflected each as easily as the first. The guard was a worthy foe, but Tallis was not one to rely on a fair fight.