Erik DeBie - Ghostwalker

Burning with resolve, Arya strained at her bonds, her mind racing to formulate an escape plan. She tried to call for Bars and Derst, but the two slept soundly across the way, and her gag allowed only muffled grunts. Arya knew she was alone. Perhaps, if the guards were to come close, she could trip one and get her manacles around a throat…

But then she heard startled gasps from down the hall and the light vanished. Straining her eyes, Arya looked out but could see only darkness. Everything was silent and absolutely still. She could not be sure why, but she felt that a battle was going on, albeit a short one, though she could not hear the screams of either men or steel.

"Illynthas, shara'tem," came a whisper, and a light the size of a torch flame gleamed into existence inside her cell, a man's length from her.

It was an eerie, blue-green light that shone from a crystal high overhead. Arya looked up at it, then allowed her eyes to slide down, along a long staff of black wood, down to a thin hand that held it aloft. That hand extended from black robes that swathed a gaunt figure, a figure with glowing green eyes that seemed to bore into Arya's very soul.

The dark figure made a little gesture, but it was not an attack. Her bonds crumbled and fell away, passing into nothingness before they touched the floor. Arya blinked in disbelief.

"I offer freedom, Nightingale," said the mage. "And a warning: you are his only hope."

Arya's brow furrowed. "What? What do you mean? Who are you?" she asked.

"Someone who is doing what he should have done long ago," the mage replied. He extended his hand as though to help her up.

Still wary, Arya took that hand and, with the mage's help, got to her feet.

"What-" she started, but he was gone. Where her hand had held his, there was only a sword: her sword.

The knight looked around in wonder, but the mage had vanished as quickly as he had come, and there was no sign of his passing, except for the open cell door.

And that terrible omen: "You are his only hope." Heart pounding, sword in hand, Arya rushed out to release her companions.

In another corridor, not so far away, Meris's eyes slid from the dagger stabbing into his belly to the hands holding it. Then they traveled up the slim arms to his attacker's face to see furious sapphire eyes glaring at him with all the fury and hatred of the Nine Hells.

But they were not the eyes of Walker.

Angry tears streaming down her cheeks, Lyetha pushed with all her strength, driving the dagger through Meris's white leather armor and into the tough flesh beneath. She had stabbed near the spot Greyt's knife had found, but her blade followed an angle that cut deep into his bowels.

Their gazes locked for a moment, and the two shared a terrible understanding. Meris saw in Lyetha's beautiful eyes the final cruelty, the last crime that could be committed against her.

He saw the death of her love.

Never had Meris seen something that stunned him-or frightened him-as much as the fury in those eyes.

"For my husband," she said, steel on her tongue. "And for my son."

Meris blinked in reply.

Only when the darkness down the hall swirled and Walker materialized did Meris awaken and realize where he was and what had happened. With a flourish, he dropped his hand to the shatterspike's hilt.

"No!" shouted Walker, leaping forward.

It was too late, though, for Meris drew the blade out and across Lyetha's chest, sending blood sailing. Slowly, as though time itself stood still, the beautiful half-elf fell back into Walker's arms. The ghostwalker, panic and wrenching pain on his face, gazed into her eyes.

Meris, who had never seen Walker express emotion, blinked in stunned silence at the depth of the ghostwalker's mourning, and it sent a pang through his heart. He did not even think of attacking, though Walker was defenseless.

Lyetha looked up at Walker as though she did not recognize him, for a long, agonizing breath. Then her brows rose and a soft smile creased her face where only a pained grimace had been before. She gripped his hand with renewed strength, as though finally understanding a secret only the two of them knew. Held in Walker's arms, Lyetha drifted into death as Meris watched. At last, her eyes shifted past Walker's shoulder, and her lips moved.

"Well met again, Tarm," she said.

Then Lyetha died, a peaceful smile on her face.

Though Meris knew he should have attacked, should have sent his blade screaming for Walker's head in the man's moment of vulnerability, he could not. Some part of him caught the sight of something greater than himself-for the first time in his life-and it stayed his hand. Or perhaps it was his fear of the unknown. He did not understand-indeed, he could not begin to fathom-the emotional depth of the scene before him, and confusion ran through him and with it, terror.

Meris knew then, for the first time, the full measure of his foe, and he was terrified.

Even as he watched her spirit fade away, embracing that of Tarm Thardeyn, Walker gently laid his dead mother on the soft carpet and rose to face Meris, who still stood, apparently dumbfounded. Reaching down to his belt, Walker slowly drew out the guardsman's sword and pointed it across the short distance that separated him from Meris. The wild scout responded by raising his own weapon-Walker's shatterspike-and pointing it at the ghostwalker. The points of the blades almost touched.

Meris calmly pulled the knife out of his belly, grimacing as blood leaked out. Not taking his eyes from the ghostwalker, Meris dropped a hand to his belt, drew out a steel-encased potion, and quaffed it.

Walker watched as the blood flowing down the white leather slowed to a trickle, then stopped entirely. His eyes darted into the study, and he saw Greyt's corpse. Somehow, even knowing that his vengeance was done did not calm the rage that boiled within his heart.

"This will be our final duel," Walker assured him. "You will pay for all you have done."

"I'm sure I will," Meris replied. "We've looked forward to this duel-you and I both." He rolled the sword over in the air, and its mithral surface glinted almost gold in the torchlight. "But I have the advantage, my friend."

In response, Walker held up his bandaged left hand, upon the fourth finger of which gleamed his silver wolf ring. Its single sapphire eye sparkled.

Meris shrugged, conceding the point.

"I'll just have to make sure I cut your hand off before I kill you this time," he mocked.

Now it was Walker's turn to shrug, but he did not move a muscle. His focus remained upon Meris, this man who had taken all Walker valued in life-things he had never known, and things he had thought lost before but had only truly gone now.

Such was his focus upon Meris that Walker was completely surprised when the door behind him shook under a mighty blow and muffled shouts penetrated the wood. He lunged, startled, but Meris batted his sword out of the way and leaped to the side.

The scout slashed out with a counter-a blow Walker dodged-and his wince of pain told Walker that the healing potion had not taken full effect yet. Walker took full advantage, slamming his sword into the shatterspike with a ringing blow. The long sword snapped against the shatterspike's edge, sheering off with a scream, but the damage had been done. With a curse, Meris let the mithral blade fall from his shaking fingers. The scout dived for it, but Walker flung the broken blade at him, and it sank into the carpet a pace from Meris's hand. Scrambling away from the weapons, Meris fled down the hallway, shouting for the guards as he went.

Walker slipped a dagger out into his hand and pulled back, but another blow on the door jarred his focus and the blade ended up in a wall a foot from Meris's fleeing head. Before the ghostwalker could draw another knife, the scout vanished around a corner toward the door to Greyt's manor.