Dave Gross - Lord of Stormweather

Not unlike our mother, he thought.

Tazi broke the illusion with an unsmiling wink at Tamlin, then she put a finger to her lips.

She clamped a hand over the torchbearer's mouth, pulled his head to the side, and cut his throat with one clean jerk. She sheathed her dagger and still managed to catch the torch before it fell. With her eyes on the back of the second guard's neck, she held the dead man's body until his death spasms subsided, then let it sink gently to the floor.

The effortless killing made Tamlin gasp. The joy at his sister's timely arrival mingled with sudden fear that she'd changed far more than her lean face revealed.

Oblivious to his companion's fate, the other guard raised his long sword for a strike against the guardian beast. Tazi caught his wrist.

As the man turned toward her, she smashed the burning brand into his face.

The man screamed.

Tazi dropped the torch, grabbed her dagger, and ended the man's noise with a quick thrust to his throat. His body fell to the side, removing the only obstacle between Tazi and the darkenbeast.

"Look out!" Tamlin called out-too late.

With a trumpeting shriek, the monster leaped at Tazi.

Tamlin lunged up to grasp the thing's scaly legs. The creature easily pulled away from his weak right hand, and its talons ripped his left to the bone.

Tazi raised her arms to defend her face, but the darkenbeast's buffeting wings beat them down. Its jaws snapped at her face. She slashed with her bloody dagger, severing the tendons of the creature's left wing.

The beast screamed again, but rather than retreat it charged at Tazi, climbing up her body with the hooks of its remaining wing and both talons.

The beast's scrabbling attack sent her staggering back. She stepped on the burning torch, and as it rolled she fell hard on her back. The monster scrabbled to stay atop her, shrieking and tearing. Fragments of Tazi's leather armor flew away like cinders from a bonfire.

Tazi stabbed at its throat, but the beast's jaws clamped shut on her arm and twisted, sending her weapon spinning to the floor.

"Tal!" she yelled. "In here!"

The only response was the screaming of men from the outer room and a deep, bestial roar that made the darkenbeast sound like a frightened mouse.

Tamlin reached for Tazi's dagger. Considering his recent run of bad luck, he expected it to lie a few inches beyond his reach. Much to his surprise, he grasped it easily. The problem was in gripping it in his ruined hands.

Tazi and the darkenbeast rolled over and over on the floor. For every precise fist, elbow, or kick Tazi landed, the monster scratched away a pound of blood-stained leather.

"Now would be a very good time!" Tazi yelled again to the outer room.

"Over here!" called Tamlin. "Roll this way!"

Tazi flung herself toward the cage. Her pernicious foe clung ever more tightly, raking and biting.

Tamlin tried to stab the thing in the spine, but the blow sent the knife straight through his feeble, blood-slicked grip. There was barely a scratch on the monster.

"Dark and empty!" cursed Tazi.

She slipped one hand up under the darkenbeast's jaws and pushed its head away.

"Sorry!" cried Tamlin.

He recovered the dagger and, gripping it so tightly he was sure his torn fingers would break off, he thrust the blade deep into the beast's neck.

The arterial spray was hot and sticky, but the creature continued to struggle. Tamlin pulled the blade out of the beast and stabbed again-and again the bloody knife slipped in his grasp.

Tamlin's injured hands were beyond agony, even numbness. All he felt at the end of either arm was a weightless fire flickering in the shape of his half-forgotten palms and fingers. He knew he couldn't hold onto the knife again if he tried.

If he could distract the thing even for a moment, Tazi might have a chance to wriggle free and get the knife. He grabbed for the darkenbeast's throat.

"Die, damn you!"

As Tamlin said the words, a jolt of energy thrilled his hands. A blue-white sheet of light coruscated over the monster's body, and Tazi yelped and leaped back.

Sparks shot from the creature's eyes and mouth, leaving steaming black lumps of ruined flesh behind. The darkenbeast thrashed once more, then lay still.

"What did you do?" said Tazi. Her hair had puffed up like the tail of an angry cat, and her face was red from the hot electrical flash.

"It wasn't me," Tamlin protested.

"It sure looked like it was you."

"Maybe it was the magic circle."

As he pointed at the arcane lines, he noticed a stream of blood running from his outstretched finger. He quickly tucked his ruined hands under his arms, squeezing them gently to staunch the bleeding.

Tazi looked down at the floor and quickly stepped away from the edge of the chalk circle.

"Don't do it again," she said. "I'm coming back over there."

Tazi knelt before the lock. She slipped a pair of picks from a pocket on her thigh and went to work on the lock.

Tamlin looked down at the corpse of the darkenbeast. He felt giddy triumph mingling with horror and a peculiar sense of pity at the sight.

"Sorry about that, old fellow. We had a few laughs, some good times, I know, but you left me with no-"

"Let's get out of here," interrupted Tazi, opening the cage door.

Tamlin stepped outside his prison, stood to full his height, and immediately wobbled. Tazi took him by the arm then put her own arm around his waist. Her muscles were as hard as packed sand.

"You've been exercising," said Tamlin. He felt increasingly dizzy.

"And you've been losing far too much blood," she said. "Don't talk."

She led him through a short, dirty hall to his captors' room. The corpses of two and a half of them were still there, along with the splintered remains of a stout wooden door. Tamlin's vision was blurring. He smelled blood and dung and seawater.

Soon they were in the slimy passages of the sewers, and Tamlin felt himself lifted in big, strong arms that carried him toward the daylight.

"Vox," Tamlin mumbled as he looked up into the dark, bearded face. "You're not dead."

"No," said Escevar, walking beside them, "but you might be if you don't lie still."

Amid the stink of the sewer, Tamlin thought he smelled roses. Soft hands stroked his arms, and pleasant warmth filled his limbs. Feeling returned to his hands in the form of a dull tingling, which he recognized as powerful healing magic. It surged through every fiber of his flesh, knitting torn sinews back together.

"Hold him still," said a familiar, gentle voice.

It was one of the servants. He raised his head to look at her, but Escevar leaned over him, proffering a pewter flask.

"A little anesthetic?" he offered.

The open flask smelled of brandy, sweet and earthy rich. Tamlin felt a tickling at the back of his throat. His whole body craved a drink of the warm liquor.

"Great gods, no," he said with an effort. "That's exactly what got me into this mess."

Behind them, another roar echoed through the sewers, followed quickly by a pair of terrified screams.

"Somebody should go help him," suggested Escevar.

His tone made it plain that he was not volunteering for the job. To emphasize the point, he quickened his pace and led the way up to the street.

"It's probably better not to approach Tal in his present state," said the servant.

Tamlin looked up past the hands upon his arms and saw Larajin, one of the family's chambermaids-at least until recently.

It had been months since Larajin left Stormweather Towers, and she no longer wore the gold vest and white dress of the household maids. Instead, she had donned a plain, homespun smock and a dun-colored cloak. Russet hair spilled out from her hood, framing a fair face with hazel eyes so light they appeared almost yellow.