Thomas Reid - The Emerald Scepter

"Finish the job?" the figure in the brown robes said with a hearty chuckle. "You aren't serious, are you?" And he began to turn around, spinning slowly to face Vambran. "After all," he said as his face came into view, "you couldn't finish the job twelve years ago."

Vambran stared at the man whose features remained partially hidden within the hood of the robe. The cryptic comment baffled him. But when his enemy reached up and pulled his hood back, fully revealing his face, a memory came flooding back to the mercenary. A memory of a man lying near a pond, with a crossbow bolt protruding from his chest. A dead man.

"You!" Vambran said, stunned. He reached out to grab hold of a table to keep his balance. "But you're dead! I saw your body!"

"As I said," Rodolpho Wianar replied, "you couldn't finish the job then, so how do you expect to do so now?"

Vambran reeled at the revelation. Still alive! How was it possible? Then another thought struck him. No, he realized, dismissing it. Xaphira would not have made such a mistake. He was dead, and brought back from the dead. But why?

Vambran's eyes narrowed. "Your death was a screen, a cover-up, wasn't it? Everyone was supposed to assume you had died, and I was set up for it."

"Right you are," Rodolpho Wianar said, looking pleased. "They said you were bright," he added, chuckling. "I just didn't believe them, seeing how you kept dragging your family into the middle of all this."

Vambran shook off the backhanded compliment. "But I wasn't the one who killed you before," he said. "And you know that."

"Too true."

"I bet you know who did, too."

"Yes, he does," came another voice from a corner of the room, one that Vambran recognized. He shot a glance over to confirm that Junce Roundface was standing there. "He knows very well I was the one who punctured his heart with one of your own bolts that night."

Vambran snorted in disgust. "Of course," he said sarcastically. "Speak of a devil, and he appears." The lieutenant moved slightly so he could keep both opponents in view. "Come to gloat over my shock and surprise?"

"Truthfully, no, though I'll take that as an added bonus," the assassin said, smirking. "I actually came to throttle Rodolpho here for not living up to his end of the bargain." He turned to the hooded man and asked, "Unless you'd like to reconsider giving up the cure?"

Vambran eyed the assassin with suspicion. "The cure?" he asked. "You have a cure?"

"No," Junce answered, still looking at Rodolpho. "This wretch of a man refuses to divulge it."

Rodolpho laughed. "What, and ruin everything just when I'm on the verge of marching an army to my cousin's gates and demanding his surrender? I think not. Now, why haven't you died yet? Surely you've been exposed to the plague by now." He spun and hurled a beaker of something viscous and yellow at Junce.

The assassin seemed to anticipate the attack, for he leaped out of the way, allowing the glassware to shatter against the wall behind him. But as soon as it did, a phlegm-colored cloud of vapors expanded outward, drifting to fill the room.

Junce backed away from it, stumbling as he bumped into a horrific torture rack. The cloud billowed up and outward, threatening to engulf them all.

"I'm sorry you won't be able to take that cure back to dear cousin Wianar," Rodolpho said, striding across the room to another door on the far side, "but you can let him know yourself, once you're part of my army." He opened the door as Junce and Vambran retreated from the cloud, backing into the same corner, trapped. "Just in case you manage to evade my recipe," Rodolpho added, swinging the door wide, "my seven apprentices are on hand to finish the job."

One by one, seven figures filed into the chamber, fanning out to stare at the two men pinned in the corner. Each man and woman might have been young and strong when they entered into Rodolpho's service, but no longer.

Vambran could see the beauty that might once have been part of each face, but that beauty was twisted and distorted in undeath. Pieces of flesh were missing, exposing bone beneath, and where the creatures' eyes should have been, red points of malevolent light glowed instead. Dressed in fine clothing and wearing cloaks of red and gold, the seven gruesome figures stood waiting and watching.

Rodolpho waved at the two men and disappeared through the door.

As memories of the previous night washed over Emriana, she felt her knees weaken, her hands tremble. Denrick was leaning against the wall, his hands folded across his chest, still wearing that smug grin that haunted her. She retreated a step, wanting to turn and run, fearing that she would never flee fast enough.

"Hello, Em," Denrick said, pushing away from the wall and following her, sauntering. "I was hoping you'd stop by for a visit. I enjoyed last evening so much, and I thought you might like to spend time with me again."

No! Emriana silently screamed, fighting the feelings of helplessness. Not again! "Get away from me," she said with as much cold hatred as she could muster. "I know you're not real."

"I'm not?" Denrick asked, looking wounded. "Last night sure felt real enough," he said, that smug smile returning. "And this is certainly real," he added, lunging forward and grabbing at the girl's wrist.

His grip was strong, so strong. He twisted her arm, bending her hand and elbow awkwardly out to her side. The pressure locked the joint and forced her to torque her body, to bow. She understood what he was doing, the mental edge he was gaining from making her bend to him. She wanted to fight it, but he kept twisting, forcing her down, down to one knee lest her arm pop free of her shoulder. His smile was gone, replaced by a grimace of effort. His eyes held a sparkling glint that radiated hatred.

"Ow!" she cried out as he continued to push, continued to angle her body to the floor. Her arm hurt and her mind told her she was not strong enough to fight him, to resist him. He would have what he wanted, again.

No, she thought, more firmly. Not again. Never again.

And in that one moment of clarity, Emriana remembered that she was strong, too. She could fight Denrick in ways that he could not defend. She could turn the tables, gain the upper hand. She stopped giving in to her fear and started feeding off it, garnering strength from it.

She reminded herself that it was not really Denrick. Oh, last night was real enough, she told herself. Accept it. But it was not Denrick. The thing in front of her needed to pretend to be Denrick in order to cow her. And she would not be cowed.

She would not succumb to it.

With a kick, Emriana lunged upward, flipping her body completely over in a single, fluid motion. As she spun, she rotated herself half a twist so that her opposite shoulder was nearest the shapeshifter, and the arm it gripped was draped across the front of her body. The look on its face was mild surprise, but Emriana did not wait for it to recover. Her free elbow came up hard beneath its chin, snapping its head up and back. A second strike with her elbow into its gut made it grunt. At the same time, Emriana yanked hard, thrusting her hip out and using leverage to hoist the shapeshifter off the floor. She pivoted on her foot, rotating her shoulders, and sent the Denrick lookalike tumbling away from her.

The thing landed in a heap a pace or so away, glowering at the girl. She ignored the stare, made a quick run forward, and snapped her foot out at its face, as Xaphira had taught her.

"I said," she growled, kicking again, "that you're not real!" A third kick. "You're just a pathetic forgery. And I'm done messing around." A final kick, then Emriana retreated a step, crouching. She drew one of the two daggers that Xaphira had given her, hidden at the small of her back. She was ready to finish the fight once and for all.