Richard Byers - The Shattered Mask

A fair-minded man, even with regard to his estimation of his most hated enemies, Marance would have freely conceded that each of the Uskevren was a formidable combatant in his or her own right. Now he saw that the five of them fighting in concert were little short of awe-inspiring. One foe after another fell beneath their bloody swords, until the wizard recognized that, impossible as it seemed, if he didn't undertake measures to hinder them, Thamalon and his family were likely to get away. Marance had better decide on his tactics forthwith.

He would cast the rest of his ordinary summoning spells, of course, but he couldn't assume that additional conjured servants would fare any better than those already sprawled and lifeless in the Uskevren family's wake. The same long, relatively narrow structure of the bridge that had made it seem a fine site for a trap likewise made it impossible for too many opponents to come at the riders simultaneously, and thus he couldn't count on overwhelming them with sheer numbers. Something extra was required.

Should Marance dive into the thick of the fray himself, throwing blasts of fire and the like? The memory of Tha-malon's long sword ripping open his belly three decades before flashed unbidden into his mind, and his mouth tightened. Not that he was afraid, of course, for his death at the Owl's hands had been a fluke. He was confident of his ability to handle any man at close quarters. Still, it was foolish to fight in that manner unnecessarily. A spell-caster gave up much of his natural advantage when he allowed his foes into striking range, or, to some degree, even permitted them to lay eyes on him.

Of course, Marance could armor himself against ordinary arrows and the like, then fly above the Uskevren well out of reach of their blades, but even that might not be prudent. He had no idea what Thamalon and Shamur had been up to since he'd seen them last. He didn't know what sort of surprises they might have prepared for him, or what manner of puissant allies, wizards and priests, belike, might even now be speeding hard on their heels to the bridge.

No, all in all, it seemed best to destroy the Uskevren from a genuinely safe distance. Marance would do it with one of the great spells he carried in his memory, and never mind the drain on his vitality. After this encounter, he shouldn't need it any longer.

Should he then conjure the corrupt earth elemental? Perhaps not. Perched so high over empty air and running water, he might find it difficult to evoke and control the giant. Besides, somehow, Thamalon and Shamur had foiled the creature once already.

Smiling slightly, Marance decided another option was superior. Unless the Uskevren got off the High Bridge quickly, an improbability with the wizard's minions attacking them, the magic would inevitably kill them, yet, the true beauty of the scheme was that if he knew Thamalon, his old enemy might well stop even trying to depart.

Swinging his staff in intricate passes, the wizard turned widdershins and chanted in a rasping, grinding tongue never devised for a human throat. A knowledgeable observer might have recognized certain similarities to a spell employed by mortal wizards to invest themselves with the capacity to move objects by thought alone. But Marance's version, a secret he'd wrested from an ancient baatezu adept in Maladomini, the Circle of Ruins, was vastly more powerful. It could shift masses unthinkable for any earthly wizard.

The sky flickered red for a moment, and voices wailed and groaned from the empty air. Marance's body burned with purple flame as the power flowered inside him, and he stumbled with the glorious agony of the sensation.

The fire faded, or rather, withdrew inside him. In control of himself once more, he poised his hand above one of the fishmonger's cleaver-scarred tables. A toy-sized simulacrum of the High Bridge, made of violet phosphorescence, wavered into being between his fingers and the butcher-block beneath. After a second, he sensed that his creation had become palpable enough to touch, whereupon he took hold of it and began to shake it back and forth.

The bridge lurched, and Shamur's destrier staggered. Tamlin's mount lost its balance altogether, and the elegant young man, rather less elegant now that his lovely clothes were torn and soiled with the blood of his enemies, frantically kicked his feet out of the stirrups and flung himself clear to keep his leg from being smashed between the horse's flank and the roadway.

A second jolt followed hard upon the first. Shamur's terrified mount stumbled again. Realizing the impossibility of riding under these conditions, she scrambled out of the saddle and released the animal to look after itself. Talbot and Thazienne did the same. Thamalon, however, had to slay one of the remaining gnolls, magically compelled to attack even when it could hardly keep its feet, before he could dismount. Somehow he managed to control his panicky, staggering horse and wield his long sword at the same time, parrying a thrust of the gnoll's spear, then dispatching it with a chest cut. That accomplished, he jumped down onto the pavement.

Keeping a wary eye out for their foes, the five Uskevren blundered toward one another to confer. The shaking bridge rumbled beneath their feet. Houses on either side of the roadway swayed, their timbers moaning, and falling objects crashing inside them. A roof tore loose from its moorings, pitched backward, and plummeted toward the river far below.

"Quake!" declared Tamlin, raising his voice to make himself heard above the din.

"No," Shamur replied, "Our enemy's sorcery is shaking the bridge. Evidently he's willing to destroy the whole thing to kill us. I assume that either he's stepped off the north end already, or he has a magical way of getting off at the moment of collapse." She looked at the road before her, where cobblestones jarred loose from their bed and jutted like rotten teeth, and saw that she and her family had covered a good portion of the distance to the Klaroun Gate. "I think that if we keep moving, we have a fighting chance of getting off ourselves. However-"

Two more gnolls lumbered forward. Conversation ceased for a moment while the Uskevren cut the creatures down.

"You were about to observe," Thamalon panted, "that if we simply run away, everyone who lives on the bridge will die."

"Yes," Shamur said. Frightened and unaware of what was truly happening, most of the residents wouldn't even try to get off the span. Thinking to wait the strange rumbling out, they'd simply cower in their homes.

"Then we need to kill the masked wizard and hope that ends the shaking," said Thazienne impatiently. "Fine. That's what I wanted to do in the first place, but does anyone listen to me?"

Strands of sweaty black hair plastered to his face, his square jaw set, and a feral light in his eyes, Talbot nodded. "Let's have done with the wretch. Avenge Jander and Master Selwick here and now."

"And put an end to all this unpleasantness so we can go back to living like civilized people," said Tamlin, brushing futilely at a gory spatter on his sleeve.

"Come on, then," Shamur said. She and her family began to advance back the way they'd come, when the shaking stopped. For a moment, she wondered if her analysis of the situation had been at fault. Perhaps the High Bridge wouldn't break, perhaps the spell that threatened it had run out of power. Then spheres of purple glow swelled in the gloom ahead, and as soon as they birthed the creatures intended to block the way, the span resumed jarring back and forth. Evidently Marance was unable to rock it and conjure more of his minions at the same time, and so had elected to briefly suspend the one action in order to accomplish the other.

When Shamur approached close enough to see them clearly, she judged that the wizard's new servants had been selected specifically to operate on this precarious ground, for they all possessed more than two legs and a low center of gravity. One of them, a pallid creature somewhat resembling a centipede, its segmented body half again as long as a man was tall, scuttled toward her. Tentacles coiled and writhed between its round, black eyes.