Richard Byers - The Shattered Mask

He reeled backward, and she followed to finish him off. Then two brawny arms whipped around her from behind, one pinioning her arms and the other choking her. She realized that with her brains rattled, she'd forgotten all about the man with the shaved scalp.

For a panicky second, her mind was blank, then she remembered the counter to a choke hold. She twisted her head into the crook of Baldhead's elbow, relieving the pressure on her throat. Then she stamped, raking her heel down her assailant's shin and smashing it down on his foot, and drove the long end of the baton backward into his belly.

The assault served to loosen his grip, and she wrenched herself free. Pivoting, putting all her weight behind it, she threw an elbow, her vulnerable forearm armored by the truncheon nestled against it. The stick crashed into Baldhead's temple, snapping his head back. His eyes rolled up, and his knees buckled.

Shamur heard footsteps pounding up behind her. She whirled just in time to keep her first attacker, his braided beard soaked with blood from his ruined nose and mouth, from smashing his sap down on the back of her head a second time.

Blackboard feinted with the leather bludgeon, then lashed out with a kick to the stomach. Gripping the baton two-handed to make a horizontal bar, Shamur blocked the attack by jamming her weapon into the wounded man's shin. Then she smashed the stick up under his chin.

She'd hurt him again, but clearly, he wasn't done, because he took another swing with the sap. She stopped its descent as she'd stopped the kick, then used another elbow strike. He still wouldn't fall down, so she hooked the truncheon behind his neck and grabbed the long end with her left hand. Squeezing his throat behind her crossed arms, she choked him until he collapsed.

Shamur pivoted toward Audra. The apothecary stood gawking at the carnage, her eyes filled with a horror that afforded the victor a moment of dark amusement.

"There was no need for this," Shamur panted. "I told you I wasn't going to make any troub-"

Audra bolted. Shamur cursed and scrambled after her.

Her short legs notwithstanding, Audra made it to one of the cluttered shelves on the wall just ahead of her pursuer. She grabbed a corked beaker of some gray, bubbling fluid and swung it back behind her head to throw it.

Shamur dived and tackled the fat woman, slamming her backward into the shelves. Tangled together, the combatants fell to the floor. Shards of leathery orange eggshell, an old brown book, and the preserved head of a huge black bat, the fangs of which had been scraped and filed, showered down around them.

Shamur heaved herself on top of Audra, dealt the apothecary a backhand blow, then wrested the beaker from her grasp. Tugging at the stopper, she said, "How would you like a little drink?"

Audra thrashed, but Shamur had her well pinned. "No!" the pudgy woman cried. "Please!"

"Then tell me what I want to know."

Audra swallowed. "All right. I did make the poison intended for Shamur Karn, and why it didn't kill her I can't say, unless my client never gave it to her."

"Who was he?"

"Thamalon Uskevren, the same noble who eventually married her."

Shamur's jaw tightened. She'd known Lindrian had no reason to lie, yet she'd still hoped that somehow, he would turn out to be mistaken. Now, however, no reasonable person could doubt that Thamalon truly had murdered Lindrian's innocent daughter.

And this vile creature had furnished the means! Suddenly shivering and light-headed with rage, the noblewoman said, "I have two things to tell you. The first is that Thamalon did administer your venom. The second is that I am Shamur Uskevren."

Audra gaped, and then renewed her efforts to escape. Perhaps she expected Shamur to go ahead and pour the contents of the beaker down her gullet, and if so, she was perceptive, because for an instant the other woman wished to do precisely that. Then, however, her fury gave way to a revulsion that simply made her want to distance herself from her captive as quickly as possible. For Lindrian had been right. Wicked though she was, Audra had only been a tool. True vengeance must be sought elsewhere.

"If you or your idiot accomplices tell anyone I was here," Shamur said, "then I swear to you, I will kill you."

She rose, retrieved her fallen pouch, and withdrew into a freezing night no colder than her heart.

Audra was pressing a bag full of snow to her split lip and bruised cheek when another caller rapped on the door. That cursed Uskevren harridan had only been gone an hour, but the apothecary wasn't surprised that her client in the moon mask had turned up so soon. He was plainly a wizard, so it stood to reason he had ways of knowing things that ordinary people lacked.

Black-bearded Pedvel was swilling brandy to dull the pain of his broken nose, shattered teeth, and bruised throat, while Sawys perched on a stool alternately massaging his mashed foot and bald, battered head. Audra looked at them, silently bidding one of them get up and answer the knock, but they just stared sullenly back at her. After a moment she sighed, rose, and, her bruised limbs aching, hobbled to the door herself.

When she opened the spy hole, she saw that the newcomer was indeed her anonymous employer, accompanied as usual by his familiar spirit, a walking shadow whose shape shifted and flowed from second to second. She unlocked the door and admitted them.

The wizard looked at her compress. "Nothing but snow/ to ease your pain?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his prim tenor voice. "That doesn't inspire much confidence in your nostrums and panaceas."

"Go to the Abyss," Audra said.

"His allegiance lies elsewhere," said the familiar, his fanged maw smirking. "But that was a pretty good guess."

The wizard shot the spirit a pale-eyed glance that, despite the mask concealing his expression, successfully conveyed annoyance. Then, returning his attention to Audra, he asked, "We agreed that you were to capture the woman and detain her for several hours, during which time you'd let slip what she came to hear, and that afterward she'd 'escape.' Clearly, that didn't happen. What did?"

"It looks as if the genteel Lady Uskevren beat them half to death," the familiar said, sniggering.

"She took us by surprise," Pedvel growled, his voice roughened and slurred by his injuries. "Why didn't you tell us she knew how to fight?"

"Perhaps because I didn't anticipate that two strong young men would find it difficult to subdue one slender, middle-aged woman," the spellcaster said, "even if she had survived a previous scuffle or two."

"Why did we have to fight at all?" Sawys asked. "She was willing to pay for what she wanted."

"Because if the intelligence had come too easily, she might have scented a ruse," the wizard explained. "Whereas, believing she risked her life for it, she'll trust it. That's human nature."

"Well, why didn't you at least warn me that harpy was the very woman I'm supposed to have poisoned?" Audra demanded. "After I confessed to it, and she revealed herself, I thought she was going to kill me on the spot."

"Had I informed you, would you have consented to help me stage this little piece of make-believe?" the masked man asked. "Besides, I reckoned that if you knew her identity in advance, you might have difficulty pretending to be surprised should she disclose it. You're scarcely accomplished thespians, you know."

"Maybe not," Audra said, "but I got the job done. Even when the plan had come apart, when your Lady Uskevren was sitting on me threatening to pour essence of slithering tracker down my throat, I kept my head." Regained it, actually, but there was no point telling him that for a few moments there, astonished by the other woman's ferocity, she'd panicked. "I told her it was her husband who'd wished her dead and made her believe it, too. Now I want my money."