Eric De Bie - Shadowbane

“Come face us, Sister,” Kalen said. “Or is the new queen a coward?”

Angry murmurs passed through the gathered rogues, but soon enough, Eden did as Kalen bade. His half-sister swayed through the ranks of her troops, dressed as before in her tarnished gold breastplate. The newly appointed queen of Luskan was all smiles as she tapped her flail against the buckler on her left arm.

“What an unexpected joy,” she said. “I was sure you’d have fled the city by now, considering how many Luskar hunger for your blood. Yet here you are. Best of all, you use my title-queen.” She squared her shoulders. “Incidentally, you may bow now.”

Kalen took a step toward her, but she raised a hand crossbow in her left hand to his face. “Oh, Brother? You had an objection?”

Kalen stared around the crossbow at her face. Anger rose in him, but he pushed it down. “It’s me you want, Eden,” he said. “Let the others go.”

“Actually, no,” Eden said. “I want the girl. Give her to me and your deaths will be both merciful and quick. I promise I’ll restrain my creativity.”

“That’s never going to happen,” Kalen said, but a soft hand touched his arm, staying him before he could step forward.

“It’s well,” Myrin said. “I’ll fight my own battles, thanks. I’ll face her.”

“But-”

“No more protecting me.” She strode forward to confront Eden. “Challenge.”

“Challenge? You?” Eden laughed, loud and long, and her men picked up the mirth. “What honor is there in defeating a child?”

“I’ve had just about enough of folk calling me a child, by the gods.” Runes traced into being on Myrin’s skin, crafting their own obscure story in a language Kalen did not know. Arcane fire dripped from her fingertips. “Do you accept or are you a coward?”

With a cry of “Eden!” two men charged Myrin. She slashed her wand and a crack of thunder sent them sprawling.

“Stop,” Eden said, raising her hand to ward off the others. “This one requires the power of the goddess.”

The scum she’d brought readily backed away, forming a circle around the two women. Kalen might have interceded, were it not for Sithe’s unflinching look. “No fear,” she whispered, ostensibly calm. “This must come to pass.”

She was right. He could leap in and die fighting at Myrin’s side, but doing so would kill all of them. If they were to survive this and have a chance against Scour, he would have to let Myrin fight this duel on her own. And more than that, this was Myrin’s fight. If he was ever going to trust her to handle herself, he had to trust her now.

The two women squared off in the middle of a room full of thugs. Eden wore heavy armor and hefted her flail. Myrin held only her dagger-long wand of gray wood. Blues runes glowed on her skin, however-great magic waiting to be called forth.

Myrin moved first, lashing out with her wand like a whip. Thunder crackled, knocking Eden half a step back. She should have gone flying, Kalen thought, but the magic drained away into the platinum coin in Eden’s eye socket. Movement suddenly seemed easier for the woman-her twisted leg hardly seemed to trouble her.

“You are overmatched, girl,” Eden said. “Best to kneel and take your punishment with some dignity.”

Myrin responded with an arrow of magical force, which Eden deflected with her raised buckler. The magic flowed around and into Eden’s coin. She rolled with the blast and came forward in a rush, grinning madly.

The wizard threw up her free hand and summoned a shield of blue force to deflect Eden’s flail. The barbed heads crackled against the magic, but Eden wasn’t done-she lunged in and bashed Myrin viciously across the face with her shield. The younger woman staggered back, blood streaming from her split lip. Eden laughed.

Myrin came back up with a ray of freezing blue light that struck Eden’s shield. Frost spread along the woman’s arm toward her face. With a curse, Eden swung her flail at Myrin, but the woman foresaw its path and dodged out of the way.

When Eden brought the flail around her head for a second blow, Myrin tried to block with her conjured shield. The flail crunched through, however, shattering Myrin’s magic and sending her staggering to the side.

“You let me know,” Eden said, “when you’ve had enough.”

Calling aloud in a whirlwind voice, Myrin whipped her wand over her head, summoning a small tornado that swept around Eden-then dissipated to no effect around her. Eden’s platinum eye-coin glowed vividly, its light dissolving Myrin’s spells. Myrin struck with a bolt of force that cut through her armor, but Eden simply pressed her hand to the wound and healed herself with a slight golden glow.

“My goddess is far more powerful than your magic could ever be,” Eden said. “Just as my arm is more powerful than your whole body !”

She slammed the flail down like a hammer and Myrin barely dodged to the side. She sent Eden back with a wave of thunder. Heaving, she chanted another spell.

“Myrin is greater than this,” Sithe said. “I have seen her wield greater magic.”

Kalen shook his head. “She can only prepare so many spells-if she casts them all now, we cannot defeat Scour and neither can we retreat. This is our only chance.”

No chance at all, he thought, if they all died here.

As if Sithe could read Kalen’s thoughts, she put a hand on his. He found that so strange-in his memory, she’d never touched him, except on the rooftop during their final duel. It hardly seemed to occur to her that physical contact could be comforting.

He clasped her hand tighter.

Myrin was barely keeping ahead of Eden, backpedaling and scrambling around. If she weren’t able to read the priestess’s moves, she would have been slain long ago. Kalen’s one-eyed sister laughed as she chased the wizard in circles, lashing out with her flail.

“Sooner or later, sweetling,” Eden said. “Sooner or later, you won’t be able to run anymore.”

“Who’s running?”

Myrin wheeled on Eden with a burst of fire from her fingers, which the priestess met with her shield. The wizard poured her power into the swelling fan of flames, but Eden stood firm, her coin absorbing the magic.

Kalen’s heart sank. This was it.

Indeed, after a moment, Eden strode forward against Myrin’s magic. Blue runes erupted all over Myrin’s body and sweat poured down her brow, but it just wasn’t enough. Pushing the fire away, Eden closed in and dealt Myrin a heavy blow with her flail. The younger woman managed to dodge enough that the flail hit her shoulder rather than her forehead, but she went down to her knees all the same.

“Ha!” Eden cried. “Pathetic!”

Myrin tried to raise her wand, but golden light burst from Eden’s coin, paralyzing the young wizard. The wand slipped from Myrin’s nerveless fingers.

Eden raised her gnarled leg, set the foot on Myrin’s chest, and pushed. The wizard slumped to the murky stone like a felled tree.

All around them, Eden’s men raised their weapons and cheered.

Kalen felt his spellscar surge toward her in desperate longing. She was going to die and he was going to watch. He almost moved, but then he saw Myrin coughing back into wakefulness. Hope remained in the gleam of her pale blue eyes.

He found, at that moment, that he believed in her.

“The goddess declares her chosen victor,” Eden said.

“Queen Eden!” a cry rose, followed by shouts of “Queen!” and “Tymora!”

On the floor, Myrin shook herself back to her senses. On her hands and knees, she crawled toward Eden. At first, Kalen despaired, thinking she meant to abase herself before his sister. Then he realized, as her fingers groped along the filthy floor, that she was going for her wand, which lay at Eden’s feet. The queen of Luskan hadn’t noticed.