Richard Byers - The Black Bouquet

Following the burst of shadow, Sefris regarded Kesk and the wizard with cold satisfaction. Her ambuscade had taken them entirely by surprise, and they stood dazed and all but helpless. Only for a moment, but that gave her time for another spell, one with an excellent chance of killing them outright, or failing that, so crippling them that she'd have no trouble finishing them off with her hands. Then she'd help Aeron and Nicos escape the rest of the Red Axes, which would probably provide her the chance to slaughter a goodly number of them. Afterward, the lone-wolf thief would give her The Black Bouquet, and as soon as she had it, she'd complete her work by butchering him and the old man, too. In a world where everything was dung, and all prospect of pleasure bitter and hollow, it would nonetheless be about as rewarding an evening as a servant of Shar could wish for.

She plucked a pellet of guano and sulfur from one of her pockets and swept it through a cabalistic pass, meanwhile whispering a rhyme. Ordinarily she much preferred spells of shadow and darkness to any that conjured fire, but she was pragmatist enough to use the most effective tool for the task at hand.

A male voice, shrill with excitement, shouted, "Stop that!"

She turned her head. One of the Gray Blades, a muscular young man who'd tried with scant success to grow a beard, had spotted her and pointed a crossbow in her direction. She'd thought Aeron an imbecile to conduct his business in the lawmen's vicinity, and there was the proof.

As soon as he saw her face, the Gray Blade shot his quarrel. Something in her expression must have panicked him. She slapped the missile aside, but in so doing, spoiled her mystical gesturing and thus her spell.

The young man's eyes widened in amazement when she deflected the bolt, but he was game. With a rasp of metal on metal, he pulled his broadsword from its scabbard and charged. She spun a chakram at him and caught him in the throat. He staggered two more steps, then fell.

It had only taken a moment to deal with him. Yet she suspected it was a moment too long, and when she wheeled back around, it was clear that she was right. Kesk and the wizard had shaken off the effect of the shadow blast and scrambled out of the ragged bulb of darkness. The edges of his battle-axe shining red as magma, the tanarukk charged her. The magician wasn't doing much of anything yet. He didn't react as quickly as his partner, but given a chance, he'd start conjuring soon enough.

She sidestepped, thus interposing Kesk between the wizard and herself, and snap-kicked at the gang chieftain's massive knob of a knee. To her surprise, he managed to jerk his leg aside, and the ball of her foot only grazed him. The axe plunged at her, a powerful yet subtle stroke she had to spring backward to avoid.

Kesk leered at her and said, "Did you think you were better than me, bitch? You surprised me the first time, but now I understand how you fight."

Sefris did think she was his superior. She was confident she could defeat him and the wizard, too, but that alone wouldn't be good enough. She needed to do it fast, so she could proceed to the next part of the plan before Aeron and Nicos were overwhelmed. She launched herself at Kesk, attacking furiously, whirling, leaping, punching, and kicking.

Despite his bravado, Kesk gave ground, chopping at her as he backed away. He was fighting defensively, playing for time. She landed her share of strikes even so, but his thick hide seemed to blunt the force of her blows. Meanwhile the wizard maneuvered at a safe distance from the melee, obviously trying to reach a position from which he could target her without fear of accidentally hitting the half-demon with his magic.

She risked dividing her attention to rattle off an incantation and thrust her arm at the arcanist in his elf disguise. Jagged lances of darkness leaped from her palm to plunge into his chest without tearing his garments or breaking the skin. He reeled, but didn't fall, and his riposte came a moment later. Darts of blue light hurtled from his fingertips to pierce her own body in that same bloodless but still injurious manner. The cold pain was intense. Perhaps hoping the shock of the attack had paralyzed her, Kesk drove in hard, swinging the axe at her chest. She knocked it aside with both forearms, then followed up with a backhand strike that snapped one of his tusks and knocked him staggering backward.

At that moment, he was vulnerable. She could have lunged after him and delivered the death blow, except that she felt a sort of charge in the air that could only be the wizard's power enfolding her. Her sorceress's intuition told her it was the same spell of sluggishness that had so hindered her before. She focused her will, resisting the magic, and felt it dissolve without catching hold of her. Unfortunately, that gave Kesk time to come back on guard.

Precious seconds were racing by, and she still hadn't found the moment she needed to save Aeron. Her foes were pressing her too hard. She had to dispose of at least one of them without further delay, and unfortunately, she wasn't certain that any single attack at her disposal would suffice to cripple or kill.

But maybe she could rid herself of the wizard another way. He didn't want folk to know who Kesk's partner was, and with luck, his nerves were still shaky from the shadow burst. It generally had such a lingering effect. Once again seeking to cast a spell and evade the relentless axe at the same time, dodging the deadly strokes by inches, she recited the incantation and swept her cestus-wrapped hand through the proper pattern.

Just as when she'd negated the sluggishness, her magic broke the wizard's enchantment of disguise. The appearance of an elf wayfarer melted away, revealing a small man with a round-cheeked, boyish face, elegant silk and velvet clothes, and a long blackwood cane. He stared down at himself in astonishment, then pulled up a fold of his cloak to shield his face. He turned and ran. As Sefris had hoped, he truly was a wizard, which was to say, the kind of arcanist who needed to prepare his spells in advance. He didn't have another charm of illusion ready for the casting, and thus had no choice but to flee if he didn't want scores of onlookers to witness him fighting in concert with the Red Axes.

"Curse you!" Kesk bellowed. "Come back!" He glared at Sefris. "It doesn't matter. I'll still ki-"

She smashed a roundhouse kick into the side of his head, shattering some of his fangs and knocking him stumbling off balance. As she whirled with the attack, she spotted Nicos and Aeron. They hadn't made it very far toward the perimeter of the square, the idiot son had a bloody wound in his forearm, and the Red Axes were closing in. If she was to save them, it had to be right away.

She spoke the words of power and made the proper gesture. As before, it only took an instant, yet once again, that was all the time Kesk needed to recover. When she pivoted back in his direction, the axe was already flashing at her body.

Aeron hurled his last throwing knife and pierced a bugbear's chest. That left him only the largest Arthyn fang, the cudgel, and plenty of Red Axes still eager to spill his and Nicos's blood.

His arm throbbing, he offered his father the club. The weapon wouldn't save Nicos, but Aeron knew he'd prefer to go down fighting. The old man reached for it, and the air around them swam and thickened, giving birth to dank coils of thick white mist. In a moment, Aeron could scarcely see past the end of his nose. Elsewhere in the vapor, the Red Axes called out in dismay.

Ever since Nicos and Aeron had broken away from Kesk and the wizard, and despite the distracting business of struggling to stay alive, the younger thief had kept track of his position and orientation in the square, and the location of the objects in his vicinity. Thus he was still able to hurry his father along toward where he wanted him to go.