Richard Byers - Undead

The man with the trowel swallowed. "You said it yourself. At this time of night, most of the soldiers are asleep. If-"

Tammith stepped forward. Her eyes gleamed and she snarled, exposing her extended fangs. A sudden feeling of foulness and menace radiated from her, and even Bareris flinched back a step.

"Idiots!" she cried. "You know what Red Wizards can do. What they love to do to anyone who defies them. You know the sort of creatures who fight for them. I'm only the first of many such beings who stand in your way, I could butcher every one of you by myself, and I'm getting bored with your stupidity. Choose now whether you mean to live or die, or I'll choose for you."

For a heartbeat, the mob stood and gaped at her. Then the big man dropped his trowel, and it clanked on the street. He turned and bolted, shoving into the mass of humanity behind him.

When he panicked, so did his fellows. They all ran.

Tammith laughed an ugly little laugh and took a stride after them. Bareris caught her by the forearm.

Fangs still bared, she rounded on him, glared, and then seemed to remember who he was, or perhaps who they were together. The chatoyant sheen left her eyes, and the long pointed canines retracted.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be. You did that brilliantly."

She smiled. "We did it together. Your magic softened them up, and afterward I thought that if I could throw a scare into the leader, they'd all lose their nerve."

"I'm glad we were able to chase them off before any of them came to grief."

"Believe it or not, so am I. They're just frightened people trying to survive. They don't deserve punishment for that."

Trumpets blew, and someone screamed. Crossbows clacked, discharging their bolts.

"Damn it!" Bareris cried. Prompted by instinct, he dashed toward the water, and Tammith sprinted at his side.

When he looked up and down the boardwalk at the end of the lane, with the docks extending out into the surf beyond, he saw what he'd feared he might. He and Tammith had turned back the troublemakers advancing down one particular street, but those misguided souls had been only one contingent of a far bigger mob converging on the harbor. Emerging from other points, the malcontents were trying to fight their way toward the docked vessels, while lines of legionnaires formed to hold them back. Other soldiers scrambled from the warehouses to reinforce them, and sailors leaped from the decks of their long, sleek ships.

The violence exploding on every side made Bareris and Tammith's little coup in the cause of peace and public order feel like a bitter joke. But there was nothing to do now but stand with their fellow soldiers.

So they did. Whenever possible, Bareris sang songs of fear to force rioters to turn tail before anybody had to kill them. But he still had to bloody his sword, and the necessity sickened him as it seldom had before.

Light and heat flared behind him, and he risked a glance backward. Flames leaped up from the prow of a warship.

It didn't make sense that a rioter had started the fire. None of them were anywhere near it, and besides, they wanted to steal the vessels, not destroy them. Bareris suspected that one of the wizards on his own side was responsible. He'd been trying to hurl flame at the enemy, and because of the problems with sorcery, the spell turned against him.

But that didn't make much sense, either. Bareris had seen his share of battle magic, and incendiary spells usually flew in a straight line. A wizard onboard the ship wouldn't have had such a clear path to the foe. Legionnaires were in the way.

But if someone had been trying to hit the vessel with a flaming arrow or spell, the best way would be to shoot from an elevated position. Squinting, he peered upward.

At first he saw nothing to justify his sudden, half-formed suspicions. But then he spotted a point of light like a firefly. It was an arrowhead, glowing as if the point had just been forged.

He could just make out the dark figure holding the shaft. And other archers creeping around on a warehouse rooftop.

He started a song to shift himself through space. He was only halfway through when one of the black-clad bowmen loosed a shaft. The arrow lodged in the foremast of another ship, and flames instantly roared up the spar. The missiles had to carry a potent enchantment to spark such a prodigious blaze so quickly.

The world shattered into blurry streaks, and then Bareris was standing on the sloping, shingled rooftop. He'd cast the spell to position himself behind the three archers, and moving quickly but silently despite the pitch, he stalked up behind the nearest and drove his sword into his back.

The bowman made a croaking noise as he toppled forward. Despite the clamor rising from the struggle below, it was loud enough to alert his comrades, and they both jerked around in time to see his corpse roll down the slope.

Bareris rushed the nearer of the two remaining archers. He didn't have an arrow on the string, and didn't like his chances of nocking, aiming, and loosing one in time. He threw down his bow and whipped a short sword from its scabbard. The hand gripping the blade was tattooed solid black, a sign of devotion among worshipers of Bane.

Bareris scrambled to close with the man. He wanted to kill him quickly, before the third archer, who was now standing behind him, could attack from that favorable position. But his haste, coupled with the slant of the roof, betrayed him. One foot slipped out from underneath him and he fell. The swordsman stabbed at him.

Bareris slammed down hard, but managed to swing his blade in a frantic parry. Somehow it carried his adversary's thrust safely to the side. Taking advantage of his supine position, he sliced the bowman's hamstring. The man with the black hand yelped and fell. Bareris heaved himself to his knees and cut, shearing into the archer's stomach.

That should take care of him, but what about the third enemy? Bareris twisted around just as the other man's arrow leaped from the bow.

The bard wrenched himself sideways and the shaft hurtled past him. The bowman instantly snatched for another. Bareris sucked in a breath to batter him with a thunderous shout.

But before he could, a cloud of black bats swirled down to rip at the archer from all sides. He collapsed immediately. The bats hadn't shed nearly enough blood to kill, but the cold poison of their touch had stopped his heart.

The bats flew round and round one another and became a woman. "Are you all right?" Tammith asked.

"Yes." He looked up and down the row of roofs and saw other black figures slinking with bows in hand. "But we have problems." He bellowed loud as his magic would permit. "Legionnaires! Look up! At the rooftops!"

Despite the volume he achieved and the power of coercion with which he infused his call, he wasn't certain anyone would heed him. There was too much happening on the ground. But someone paid attention. Arrows and quarrels flew up from the docks and ships, and the dark bowmen started to drop. Bareris heaved a sigh of relief, and then an enormous shadow swept over him.

Black against a black sky, largely visible because it eclipsed the few stars shining through the cloud cover, a nightwing soared above the harbor, while other huge, batlike shadows glided over other parts of the city. Bareris wished again for his brigandine, wished, too, that Winddancer was with him, and that he hadn't already expended so much of his power. But the nightwings didn't dive and attack, and when they wheeled and flew north, he inferred that they'd simply been scouting the city stretched out beneath them.

He was glad he wouldn't have to fight one, but far from overjoyed. If the creatures had ventured here tonight, it could only mean the rest of Szass Tam's host was following close behind.