Кейт Новак: Azure Bonds

Alias was lost in her thoughts, absentmindedly digging a half-covered shell from the sand with the side of her boot, so she failed to notice the trio stalking her. The rushing sound of the surf covered the noise of their approach. One hung back and began chanting a spell, while the other two rushed the swordswoman.

The spell-caster’s incantation, a high-pitched female voice, inadvertently warned Alias of danger. The swordswoman whirled around and discovered the pair of armed men advancing on her. They carried clubs, but light from the cloud-wrapped moon did not reflect off their black leather armor—armor that was the trademark of a particularly dangerous underworld class.

Assassins! Alias grabbed at the hilt of her sword and nearly jerked herself off her feet before remembering the blade was still tied to its scabbard. The awkward movement pulled her forward so, by dumb luck, she rolled within the swing of the first assailant and away from the second. With one hand she tried to foil the knot at her sword.

Then the spell-caster’s magic let loose—a pair of missiles of hissing energy, leaving a wake of glittering dust in their path. The bolts dove at Alias like hunting falcons and caught her in the left shoulder. The arm below that shoulder went dead from the shock, and the force knocked the swordswoman backward on the sand. Ignore the pain, just get the knot, she ordered herself.

Fortunately, the first assailant was an amateur. He rushed forward while his wiser companion circled. Alias brought her leg up hard and connected. The fool dropped his club, clutching himself in pain.

Get the knot, get the knot, her mind chanted as the fingers of her right hand tore frantically at the binding on her sword. Don’t think about the spell-caster! Work the knot!

Alias attempted to rise, and the second assailant swung at her from behind, catching her left shoulder again. She rolled with the blow and came up at last with sword in hand. The first assassin had recovered, so that Alias stood on the beach facing both armed assailants, shifting her eyes from one to the other. Worse than that, she could hear the rising chant in the distance of another spell.

The chant died with a sudden muffled scream, and the two assassins half-turned in surprise. Alias lunged, catching the first in the belly. She lost her grip on her sword’s hilt as the assassin crumbled to the sand.

The remaining black figure thrust his club like a sword, seeking to catch Alias between the ribs. Alias dodged backward, so the force of his lunge knocked the assassin off balance. She reached to the top of her boot with her good hand and flung a dagger underhand. Her aim was true, and the second assailant fell, hands clawing at the protruding hilt, staining the sand with his blood.

Alias breathed deeply and recovered her weapons. Both men were dead. She rubbed her sore shoulder, feeling the tingling of life returning to it. Then she remembered the spell-caster. Has she fled, or is she waiting in the shadows? Alias moved cautiously in the direction the magic missiles had come from.

The spell-caster lay face down in the sand about twenty yards away, a nasty gash across her back. Bending over her body was the lizard-creature. It’s just as ugly in the moonlight as it had been in the dusk, Alias thought. In one paw the creature held an odd-looking blade that had too much steel and not enough grip. The tip of the blade was an oversized diamond shape edged with curved teeth that curled backward. The teeth were bathed in the mage’s blood.

Alias raised her own sword into a guard position. The lizard looked up and hissed. Is that a hostile sign? she wondered. She tightened her grip on her own blade. The beast rose from the mage’s body. Swordswoman and lizard stood motionless, each waiting for the other to move first.

Finally, the lizard-creature gave a muted snarl as it twisted its odd-shaped blade in its hands, spinning the weapon like a baton once, twice, thrice …

And drove it, point first, into the ground at Alias’s feet. The creature dropped to one knee beside the grounded blade, head down, offering its bare neck to Alias’s weapon.

Alias raised her sword over the creature. I failed to kill the thing this afternoon, she realized, and I’ll never have a better chance to deal with it. Putting it out of my misery would be the simplest, most logical thing to do. Four dead bodies on a beach attract no more attention than three.

The lizard remained in its kneeling position, not reaching for its blade. The creature seemed to be holding its breath.

Alias hesitated. You’d think I was a follower of Bhaal, God of Murder. First I try to kill a priest, and now I’m ready to slay a foe who’s surrendered. For that matter I don’t know that it’s a foe. The creature took out the magic-user for me. It’s offering me its services like a knight.

Alias tapped the lizard-creature on the shoulder with the flat of the blade. “Okay, you can live.” Her voice sounded overloud and pompous. “But one false move and you’re dragon bait. Read me? Dra-gon bait.”

The creature nodded and pointed to its chest with a long, clawed finger.

Alias rubbed her temples with annoyance. “No, you’re not named Dragonbait. If you give me any trouble, you’ll become dragon bait.”

The creature repeated the gesture toward itself.

Alias sighed. “Dragonbait it is, then.” She pointed toward herself. “Alias,” she said. “Now let’s search these bodies and get out of here before the watch arrives.”

Dragonbait nodded and, using an overlong thumb-claw, started cutting the strings of the magician’s purse.

Dragonbait was like no other creature Alias had ever seen before in all her travels through the Realms. He wasn’t a real lizard, at least not of the species she’d helped drive back from the city of Daggerford. As she noted when she’d seen the creature at sunset, his snout was thinner at the tip and more rounded than a lizard-creature’s, and he sported a head fin like a troglodyte.

Given time for more leisurely study, she could see many other differences. For one thing, the sharp teeth at the front of his mouth gave way to the peglike molars of a salad eater, and though he walked on his hind legs, his posture was hardly erect. The creature tilted forward some at the hips, balanced by a tail as long again as his torso. With such an odd posture, his head only reached to her shoulder, about five feet high. Finally, the scales that pebbled his hide were so small and smooth he looked as though he were covered in expensive beadwork, like a noblewoman’s evening gown.

At any rate, for something more lizardish than human, he was pretty intelligent. At least, that is, the lizard made an excellent servant. Upon their return to The Hidden Lady, he busied himself helping her off with her boots, straightening her room, and fetching food for a late night snack.

“I see you found your lizard,” the innkeeper commented cheerily to Alias, upon discovering the five-foot lizard with a cold meat pie and pudding in his paws.

Except for a few catlike hisses, snarls, and mewling sounds, Dragonbait remained mute. If the creature had his own language he did not bother to use it. Alias found she could get him to fetch and carry things on command, but he responded to questions with the blank look of a beast.

She needed to know when she’d first met him, what he knew of her memory loss, and especially what he knew of the tattoo. In frustration and desperation she began shouting questions. Her anger only invoked in the lizard a tilted head and a puzzled expression.

Alias lay back on the bed, defeated. Dragonbait made a sympathetic mewling. Struck with an inspiration, Alias shouted down to the innkeep for an inkpot, quill, and parchment. When the items were brought up, she set them on the table and sat Dragonbait down before them.