Troy Denning - Faces of Deception

Head still spinning, Atreus lurched across the hill. The astonished slaver stumbled back, eyes darting toward the chain still whistling above his foe's head. Finally, he seemed to collect himself and stopped. He cocked his arm and planted his forward foot, then hurled the heavy hammer.

There was no time to duck or dodge. Atreus sprang into a charge, snapping his arm up to protect his head. The hammer glanced off his wrist and tumbled away. Then Atreus was on the slaver, swinging the heavy chain into the man's head.

The fellow's eyes went dull and gray, but somehow he kept his feet and came up with a belt dagger. He attacked low, shooting the knife in toward Atreus's groin.

Atreus skipped backward and slapped the weapon down, bringing his blocking hand up in a vicious back-fisted strike. The slaver's jaw clacked shut He spit out the tip of his tongue and stumbled back, blind with pain and slashing his dagger about madly. Atreus whirled the chain down across his attacker's wrist, entangling the fellow's arm and knocking his knife loose. The slaver howled and tried to jerk free but succeeded only in drawing Atreus closer.

Atreus grabbed him behind the neck and pulled, at the same time slamming a knee to his foe's chest. There were two muffled cracks, and the man groaned and dropped to the ground, wheezing and clutching at his side.

Atreus kicked the slaver down the slope and saw Rishi scrambling up the mountainside, moving quickly despite his limp and the large bundle slung over his shoulder. Farther below, Tarch and a dozen men were just starting across the narrow flat that separated the mountains from the swamp. Staggering along in front of them, covering six feet a step despite a numb-footed limp, was Yago.

The ogre's face and cloak were caked with ice and mud, and a veritable copse of broken willow stalks jutted up from inside his belt and collar. He looked as if he had passed the night wallowing in the swamp, but Atreus knew better. Yago understood the value of concealment as well as any good hunter, and his camouflage suggested he had spent the night trailing Tarch and his slavers. They had probably not even realized he was there until he broke from the willows and started across the flat.

Too breathless to call out to his friend, Atreus merely waved, then scrambled up the mountainside, his lungs burning so badly he feared he had bruised them tumbling down the hill. On the cliff above, the slaver finally released Seema's ankle and dropped to the ground. She started to climb higher, looked down at Atreus, and stopped where she was.

The slaver retrieved his sword and met Atreus five paces below the cliff, using his uphill advantage to attack with a vicious overhand strike. Too exhausted to dodge or feint, Atreus simply dropped to the ground and swung his chain around in an overhand strike.

The surprised slaver stumbled forward off-balance, and the chain caught him across the wrist, twining itself around his forearm. Atreus spun downhill, whipping his foe overhead like a stone in a sling. The chain reached the end of its length and untwined, hurtling the fellow down the slope like a catapult The slaver hit a dozen paces below, crashing headlong into a boulder and tumbling down the mountainside in a limp heap: Atreus retrieved his dropped sword and rushed up the slope to Seema.

"are you…" he started to say, but was too out of breath to finish.

1 am fine," Seema replied, sounding rather aloof. "Have you injured yourself again?"

"I don't think so. Unless you count… being out of breath."

Atreus turned to see Rishi taking the dagger from the second slaver's weapon belt Instead of slitting the man's throat, he surprised Atreus by simply adding the knife to his bundle of goods. Fifty paces below, Yago was climbing up the slope, steadily opening the distance between himself and the rest of the slavers.

"I'm sorry for the trouble waiting with us caused you," Atreus said, motioning to the barge.

"Yes, so am I," Seema said, glancing toward the two slavers lying motionless below. "Be quiet now and rest. When your friend gets here we will have to move quickly, or there will be more bloodshed."

Atreus braced his hands on his knees and struggled to catch his breath between fits of coughing. His wounds were throbbing, but the pain was nothing compared to the agony in his pounding head and burning chest. He silently thanked Vaprak, god of the ogres, for looking after his bodyguard. Without Yago, he could not imagine where he would find the strength to defeat Tarch and his men.

Rishi arrived gasping and trembling, hardly able to hold the blanket bundled over his shoulder.

"So you decided to forget about the gold after all," Atreus observed.

"It was… decided for me," Rishi wheezed. "But perhaps… the gods will see fit to… leave it there until we return."

"Which will not be until your next life, if we do not leave before Tarch's giant catches us," said Seema.

"Tarch's giant?" Atreus turned toward Yago, who was only twenty paces below. "That's no giant, that's Yago… my bodyguard."

Seema raised her brow at this, but seemed to take no comfort in the fact that they had an ogre on their side. She simply turned away, eyed the cliff above their heads, and said, "I suppose you two and your ogre friend cannot climb."

"Not that!" Atreus exclaimed, astonished she would even suggest such a thing. "It must be five hundred feet high."

"I suppose we must go around," Seema said, taking the bundle from Rishi. "What is in here?"

"Blankets and food," the Mar replied. "Other things we might need."

Seema fished through the bundle, then withdrew the dagger he had taken from the second slaver and pitched it down the mountainside.

"We will not need that," she said, motioning to the sword and chain in Atreus's hands. "Or those."

Atreus glanced down the slope at Tarch and his warriors. He shoved the sword into his belt and draped the chain over his shoulders. "It will do me no harm to carry it," he told her.

"If you must."

Yago arrived stinking of swamp mud and sweat. Too exhausted to offer greetings, the ogre simply braced his hands on his knees and filled the cold air with clouds of white breath.

"It's good to see you again," Atreus said, and clasped his friend's big shoulder. "It's about time."

The ogre's head snapped up, then he saw Atreus's grin, gave him the evil eye, and said, "You could of left a boat for me!"

"Oh, you have no business blaming us for that." Rishi grinned, then added, "We had to get our own. Certainly, a big fellow like you should have had no trouble doing the same thing."

Yago snarled and looked as though he would bite the Mar. Seema grabbed Rishi's supply bundle and shoved it into the ogre's waist.

"Now that you are here, make yourself useful," she said. "It is going to be difficult enough to save all of you without wasting any more time."

With that, she whirled away and started along the base of the cliff, moving so swiftly and gracefully that Atreus felt as if he was stumbling along after her. Rishi was almost skipping, and even Yago had to scurry to keep pace.

When Tarch and his slavers saw where the four were going, they began to angle toward the edge of the cliff and close the distance. Seema gathered her skirt and broke into a trot, and Atreus, Rishi, and Yago were soon puffing as hard as before.

They rounded the cliff with their pursuers less than fifty paces behind, then started to pick their way up a boulder-strewn couloir-a narrow rock chute so steep that Atreus and Rishi began to grab for handholds. Seema simply leaned a little forward and sprang up the gully as though hopping stones across a stream. Atreus tried to imitate her gait and only found himself tiring more rapidly. Behind him, Yago's heavy breath sounded like a forge bellows, and Rishi's wheezing left no doubt that he found the climb just as difficult as his companions.