Paul Kemp: Shadowbred

The Shadovar, his nose gushing blood, tried to shake his hand loose to cast a spell but Cale held him tight. The struggle spun them around and around and Cale caught intermittent glimpses of Riven dueling with the shade bodyguards. The shades blinked in and out of the shadows around Riven, but the assassin kept his blades moving so fast that the Shadovar could not gain an advantage.

Cale grunted, tried again to free Weaveshear. Rivalen grunted in answer, tried to free a hand to draw his own blade. They shoved, spun, grunted, and whirled. Shadows enveloped them. Violet sparks shot through the darkness.

Finally Rivalen gave up trying to draw his weapon and intoned another prayer. Cale answered with one of his own. As the dark energy of their spells manifested in their hands, as they spun and whirled, shouted and strained, they fell over the edge of Sakkors.

Both shouted with surprise as they fell. Cale caught a glimpse of the sea far below them. Starlight reflected off its surface. Their grips on one another loosened as they plummeted toward the placid water.

Rivalen jerked his hand free and slammed it against Cale's chest.

Cale's body exploded with pain. He screamed, his body contorting with agony. Blood poured from his ears. He responded instinctively, lashing out with a blind stab from Weaveshear. He felt it sink into flesh and Rivalen's scream joined Cale's as they fell.

The dark water rushed upward to embrace them.

Despite the pain and blood loss, Cale recovered enough to use the shadows around him to transport back to Sakkors. He appeared, bleeding and spent, ten paces from Riven.

The assassin saw him appear and unleashed a flurry of saber blows that drove back the shade bodyguards. He feinted at one in front of him and unleashed a backhand crosscut to the one on his right. The blow nearly decapitated the man and he fell at Riven's feet. Before Riven could choose his next move, the shade to Riven's left stabbed the assassin through the side. Riven grunted, waved his sword defensively, and staggered backward, bleeding and favoring his side.

For a moment, Cale let himself hope that Rivalen had perished in the fall. But the shade priest stepped from the shadows on Cale's right, breathing heavily and bleeding. Their eyes met and each glared hate at the other.

"Where is Magadon?" Cale demanded.

Rivalen only smiled.

Cale stepped through the shadows and appeared beside Riven. A shade bodyguard lunged at him, blade low. Cale parried the man's blade into the ground and punched him in the face with his other hand.

"We go," he said to Riven, and drew the darkness around them.

They shadowstepped across the city to the roof of a distant shop. Both men stood in the darkness, surrounded by a dead city, gasping, bleeding. Cale's flesh worked to close the score of tears in his body.

Riven peeled back his cloak and shirt to check the wound in his side. It was deep and pouring out blood. He closed his eyes, concentrated for a moment, and the dark purple stone circling his head flashed. The wound in his side healed completely.

"Stores a spell or two," he explained to Cale. "Someone has to cast them into the stone but I can trigger them after that."

"Useful," Cale said. He held his holy symbol and cast healing magic not into himself-his flesh would take care of his wounds- but into the whirling stone. The magical gem flashed as it absorbed the spell.

"Healing magic," Cale explained, wincing as more of his wounds sealed shut. "I don't want you dying on me."

Riven grinned. "We're in agreement on that. Now what?"

Cale was working one step at a time. "We find Magadon and get clear."

"How?"

"With spells," Cale answered, but he was not confident. He had tried magic before. He could only hope that proximity to Magadon would allow his divinations to function more effectively.

"Got to stay alive for that," Riven said. "Be quick, Cale. The shades will be after us."

Cale knew. They had almost an entire city to search-assuming Rivalen had told them the truth about Magadon-and Cale did not know where to begin. He tried mental contact before casting a spell. If Magadon had reached him in dreams, perhaps he could sense him now.

Magadon, Cale projected. Magadon, where are you?

The darkness deepened around them and ten shade soldiers charged out, blades bare. Cale rolled to his left and stabbed upward with Weaveshear. The blade pierced the Shadovar's armor, his gut, and poked out his back. Before Cale could pull it free, a blade sliced open his shoulder. Another stabbed him through the side. He spat the words to a harmful prayer, held forth his palm, and sent an arc of black energy into the Shadovar standing over him. They grunted and recoiled as the baleful force of Cale's spell cracked ribs and rent flesh. Cale pulled Weaveshear free of the Shadovar, rolled to his side, and gained his feet.

Riven shouted a series of power-laden syllables of the Black Speech and the Shadovar quailed, covering their ears. Riven slashed the throat of one near him and Cale decapitated another.

"Leave the rest," Cale said to Riven, and intoned a prayer to Mask. As he pronounced the last syllable, he shadowstepped with Riven from the roof to the top of a spire across the street. In his wake, his spell summoned a column of flame that drenched the rooftop and the Shadovar soldiers in fire. He knew that their flesh resisted magic, like his, but he hoped the spell incinerated at least a few.

Magadon, I need you to tell me where you are. Magadon!

Riven cursed as Rivalen and two other Shadovar, both with glowing metallic eyes, flew up from street level and hovered in the air less than a long dagger toss from the spire. One of them bore an archaic greatsword as long as Cale's leg. The other held a staff that bled shadows. Darkness swirled lazily around all three.

Riven hurled three daggers in rapid succession but the shadows around Rivalen deflected them.

The staff-bearing Shadovar leveled its tip at Cale and shot a swirling beam of yellow energy. Cale interposed Weaveshear but the blade absorbed nothing. The energy slammed into him, lifted him from his feet, and pushed him backward to the edge of the rooftop. His magic-fighting flesh deflected whatever other injury the spell might have caused.

Cale spared a glance down at the street below and saw a virtual army of dark-skinned, muscular bipeds with pointed ears charging down the streets toward the spire. They caught sight of Cale, pointed upward, snarled, and roiled forward.

"Riven!" Cale said.

"I see them!" Riven said. "Too godsdamned many, Cale!"

Cale agreed. They would have to leave without Magadon. Desperate, he tried once more to reach out to his friend.

Mags, where are you? Tell me now or we'll have to leave you.

The darkness near Riven swirled and a greatsword-wielding Shadovar stepped out of it. He twirled his black-bladed sword with such ease and speed it might as well have been a whipblade. The weapon trailed frost in its wake. His eyes burned orange. He stood as tall as Cale but as broad in the shoulders as a half-orc. The symbol of a stylized sword decorated the dull gray breastplate he wore.

Riven turned to face him, whirled his own sabers in answer, and intoned a short prayer to Mask. When he finished, his blades bled dark power.

"Let's dance," he said to the Shadovar warrior.

Magadon! Cale called in a last, desperate attempt.

The cell crumbles to nothingness around me. I look up into the sky and see the annihilating line rushing across the thought bubble, eating the world. I will be destroyed. The devil will be destroyed. I smile, laugh, and then remember…

Magadon will be destroyed, too.

The devil is frantic behind the wall. "We will all die, Duty! All of us! Unless you let me out! Let me out!"