David Drake - The Gods Return

"Are you frightened now, Allarde?" shrieked Milady from the chasm below. Her voice was as tiny and insistent as a mosquito in the night.

"You should be, husband! Youshould be afraid!" She was still wrapped in blue fire. Cashel shouldn't have been able to see her, let alone hear her voice from up on the bridge. She was as sharp to look at as a painted miniature he held in his palm, though. The wizard-Allarde, if that wasn't a curse word in some language Cashel didn't know; Milady had made it sound like a curse, for sure-backed a step and then another step. He started moving his wands again, though this time in a different pattern. Cashel supposed the wizard could retreat any distance on the bridge, though if you weren't used to backing on a narrow track it wouldn't be hard to go over. He stepped forward again, not rushing but making it clear that he was going to keep right on going to the other side unless Allarde managed to stop him-which he surely didn't look like doing so far. "You're doomed, husband!" Milady shrieked. "You were so clever, you thought. But I have you now!"

Cashel frowned. He didn't like it to sound like he'd hammer somebody just because Milady said to. It was sort of working out that way, sure, but only because Allarde wouldn't let him fetch the pledge piece without a fight. Instead of stretching a stout braided tendril straight at Cashel, the wizard was curling a pair of threads like calipers from the tips of his wands. They spread into a circle wider than Cashel could've touched with one tip of his staff reaching out at the end of his arm. He frowned, rotating his staff in slow figure-8s to keep his muscles loose. It looked like a crazy thing for Allarde to do, so it had to be a trap. Except- It was pretty clear by now that the wizard wasn't used to people who fought back and who knewhow to fight. No boy in the borough could grow up without knowing that, and a poor orphan who hadn't got his growth yet was going to learn quicker than most. It must not be the same way with wizards. "Numa quadich rua!" Allarde shouted. The scarlet curls started to hook back in.

Cashel strode forward, left foot and right foot, then lunged with staff out like a spear. Allarde crossed his wands before his chest to block the thrust. The ferrule smashed through them in a blue flash.

Bits of crystal flew in all directions, blazing as they fell like sapphires in sunlight. The staff punched the wizard in the breastbone, flinging him back for a double pace. He bounced onto the bridge, then slipped off and dropped into the abyss. He screamed all the way down.

Cashel recovered his staff. He felt like he'd fallen from a high cliff into the sea, shocked and stunned. He could still handle himself if push came to shove, though. He hadn't planned what he was doing, just did what seemed right at the time. Ithad been right, but there'd been a cost. Well, it wasn't the first time he'd been bruised and achy after a fight. "Join the halves of the coin, hero," Milady called.

She'd wrapped her arms around Allarde. Blue flames continued to lick from her mouth as she spoke and from the wizard's as he screamed without end. "There's a doorway in the back of the room you're in.

Give the coin to the man in the hut behind the castle. He'll show you to Gorand." Cashel spun the staff, sunwise and then widdershins; getting his balance, working the stiffness from muscles that'd felt like they'd been frozen when Allarde's wands shattered. He was all right now, or close enough. "Thank you, ma'am," he called to the tiny figure laughing in the hellfire. He started toward bridge ending in the far distance, wondering how long it would take him to get there.

His foot came down on polished stone, black and white almost-squares laid in a swirl pattern that matched the floor of the anteroom where the busts were. The bridge was gone, the chasm was gone, and half a silver coin gleamed on the little table against the far wall. It was the room he'd seen through the doorway before he'd entered. Cashel looked over his shoulder. Liane and Rasile were walking toward him.

The head, Milady's fiery head, had vanished. His lips pursed. "Cashel, you saved me," Liane said. "You and Rasile. Your expression, though… is there something wrong?" Cashel smiled. She was due an answer, though, so he said, "Allarde wouldn't have been a friend of mine, I guess, no matter what else was going on. But being yoked to Milady for, well, forever… seems pretty hard." "He's probably regretting not having considered that before," Rasile said, her tongue laughing. "Before he mated with her and then betrayed her, that is.

But we have work to do, companions." She walked across the room and waited by the table till Cashel and Liane joined her. Gesturing to the bit of silver, she said, "This is your task, warrior." Cashel fished the half coin Milady had given him out of his sash, leaned his staff into the crook of his arm, and picked up the rest of it. The edges mated with a dusting of blue wizardlight; the coin was whole again.

"This way, I think," Rasile said, walking toward the door in the wall to the left. It was heavy and cross-braced, but the bar had been withdrawn from the staples it rode in. "A moment," Cashel said, folding the coin back into his sash. He hefted his quarterstaff, then stepped in front of the women and pulled the door open. He strode out into a sun-dappled forest. *** Sharina retreated a step but bumped her heel into something.

She leaped high, bunching her legs beneath her to keep from sprawling backward as the scorpion advanced on her. "On command!" Prester shouted. The nave of the temple had excellent acoustics. "Aim at the eyes!" Sharina landed on the squirming body of the priest Burne had hamstrung. He squealed shrilly. She hopped to the side now that she was upright again. "Loose!" Six javelins flickered into the monster's headplate. Two clinked together in the air but penetrated anyway.

Cracks spread in pale webs across the black chitin. The slender steel points obliterated the two large eyes set close together in the center of the plate, though when the scorpion shook itself Sharina saw that there were three more eyes along each side of the head. The wooden shafts rattled together. "Keep your guard up, boys!" shouted Pont as he rushed in. The scorpion's pincers were each the length of Sharina's outstretched arm. One reached out and closed on the top of the veteran's shield, crunching it into separate layers of wood. Pont stabbed up, into the joint. The other pincer grabbed for his head, but a soldier blocked it with his shield and Prester's sword cut through that joint as well. The scorpion's tail curled, ripping with it the upper part of the screen that had closed the sanctum. The creature snapped the bronze backward and forward as it tried to shake it off.

The perforated plating flexed like thunder in the vaulted temple.

Sharina poised. Ascor bellowed a warning, but she ducked between the first two of the four legs on the creature's right side, chopping right and left. The Pewle knife cut through both joints from the inside. Yellow ichor that smelled of vinegar spurted from the wounds.

The scorpion's massive body sagged, battering Sharina to the stone floor. Ascor and Prester each grabbed an ankle and jerked her back on her belly. The tail flicked down, free of the screen, and stabbed the hooked six-inch sting into the shield which Pont had interposed. Pont slid his arms from the straps and backed away, his sword lifted on guard. With his left hand he drew his sheathed dagger. The scorpion shambled forward. Soldiers hacked at the legs on the left side, but the outside joints were protected by stiff hairs and plates flaring above and below the flexible part of the case. Sharina rolled away and scrambled to her feet. The white-haired priest was trying to get up also, but each time his foot flopped under and he fell down again. The scorpion stepped on his torso and pinned him screaming, then stepped on him again. Blood sprayed from the priest's mouth and he finally fell silent. Pont and Prester moved in together. The scorpion slashed at them with its right pincer, though the lower blade couldn't close any more. Pont lunged to meet it with the edge of his sword. The blow slammed him down, but he'd bought his comrade enough time to cut twice. Prester didn't have the advantage of being underneath, but his arm was strong and his sword was much heavier than the Pewle knife.