Marsheila Rockwell - The Shard Axe

On Nightshard’s bloody hand, protruding from a pile of rubble that had crushed both the assassin and Leoned.

Or so she had thought.

She’d taken that ring, and she knew the assassin would never have willingly given up the one remaining, even to an accomplice. Which could only mean one thing.

There was no accomplice. There never had been. Because, despite what everyone believed—what Sabira herself had believed all this time—the assassin had not died in the cave-in.

Nightshard was alive.

Alive, and standing right in front of her, about to finish the task he’d begun so many years ago: killing Aggar.

Acting almost without thinking, Sabira reached down and grabbed a fist-sized rock, throwing it at the assassin without bothering to aim. She knew he’d be too fast for the projectile to do any real damage, even if it did manage to hit him. The attack was simply a distraction, meant to give her time to get up and get her urgrosh into position before he could deliver the killing blow.

The ploy worked; Nightshard batted the stone away with his sword, the black blade humming as it connected. Then he was swinging at Aggar’s unprotected back as the dwarf struggled to crawl away.

But Sabira was up now, her own weapon moving. As Nightshard’s arm came down, Sabira’s shard axe met it. But she hadn’t been aiming for his weapon. The blade of her axe cleaved flesh and bone, and the be-ringed hand holding the black blade separated cleanly from the assassin’s wrist, leaving nothing but a spurting stump.

Though the sword—a mindblade, Sabira realized—simply reappeared in Nightshard’s other hand, the assassin fell back with an agonized howl, and his hood slipped. Sabira now looked at the bald head, disfigured gray face, and glittering black eyes of a duergar.

A female duergar.

Sabira pulled Aggar up and away from the assassin even as Nightshard leaped forward to reclaim her severed hand. As the assassin placed her dragonshard ring on her good hand and used it to cauterize her bleeding wrist, Aggar used one of his own rings to heal the damage from her mindblade. On a hunch, Sabira tried the same motion and whispered word on the corresponding silver ring she wore, and felt a burning sensation spread through her ankle as torn ligaments reattached themselves in a mere fraction of the time they would normally have taken to heal. Too late, she realized she might have just used up the last of their restorative magic on what was essentially a glorified sprain, but she’d had no other choice. If she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t fight, especially not an opponent who could turn invisible, seemingly at will.

“I know her,” Aggar said suddenly, bringing Sabira’s attention back to him as he climbed to his feet. The dwarf winced in pain as the wound in his abdomen knit itself back together with the same speed Sabira’s own injury had shown. “Remember, I told you about her back in the Iron Council’s audience chamber? That’s the woman I was talking about. That’s Eddarga Noldrun.

“You were right all along. You just had the wrong Noldrun.”

“Clever,” the duergar woman replied with a nasty smile. “How unfortunate that none of the brilliant minds on your vaunted Iron Council figured it out sooner. Think of all the lives that could have been saved.”

Before either Sabira or Aggar could respond, Nightshard— Eddarga —took a step back and frowned in concentration. A moment later, she began … to grow.

Sabira watched in stunned fascination as the duergar doubled in size before her eyes. And not only the duergar herself, but everything she wore and everything she carried. The dragonshard on her finger was now the size of an egg and the pulsing mindblade was a virtual greatsword.

“Damnable duergar sargh, ” Aggar spat, hefting his greataxe and advancing. “I’ll take the right.”

Sabira ducked around a broken stalagmite and approached Eddarga from the left as Aggar began to harry the enlarged duergar with his axe on the right. But instead of having to divide her attention between her two attackers, the soulknife assassin simply split her mindblade into two identical swords, holding one in her hand and directing the other with the power of her mind alone.

Aggar battled the disembodied blade while Sabira fought with Eddarga. Even with her additional size, the duergar woman was still only as tall as an average gnoll, and just about as attractive. Though she may have escaped the cave-in, the explosion had left its mark on her, in the form of deep scars over virtually every inch of exposed dull, gray skin. It must have taken the assassin months, if not years, to fully recover.

Something Leoned never got a chance to do.

Had Sabira been wrong not to go back for him, despite the threat to Aggar’s safety and her own? If Eddarga survived, who was to say Ned might not have as well, if he’d been found and unearthed in time?

But no. Leoned had been dead even before the cave-in, or as good as. He had to have been. Sabira had seen him fall into that pool of magma just as the cave started to collapse. He’d have burned to death in moments, and would have felt pain only for the first few instants. Whereas Eddarga must have lain in agony for days, digging herself out with nails worn down to the bloody quick.

It hardly seemed punishment enough for all the grief the gray dwarf had caused, but Sabira was about to rectify that. The duergar would not escape alive again. Sabira would make damned sure of that this time, even if it meant holding the assassin down while rising molten rock engulfed them both.

Sabira let her anger add force to her blows, bringing her urgrosh down in fierce swings that would have snapped a more corporeal blade. But Eddarga, bigger and stronger now, was able to parry every blow with her semisolid mindblade, and laugh while she did so.

“We never did get the chance to spar the last time, did we, Marshal?” the assassin asked, smirking. “I regretted it at the time, but I see now that was an error on my part. You’re not even as good as your partner was, and he didn’t last long against my blade. Not long at all.”

Sabira knew the duergar was just trying to rile her, to get her to lose focus and make a mistake. Unfortunately, knowing the danger and being able to avoid it were two vastly different things.

“Ned was twice the fighter you’ll ever be,” she retorted, knowing she shouldn’t, but unable to stop herself. “He didn’t have to use filthy duergar mind tricks to overcome his opponents. His skill alone was enough.”

“Yes, and I’m living proof of that, aren’t I?”

Sabira’s vision went scarlet. With an inarticulate cry, she launched herself at the duergar, heedless of her exposed midsection as she whirled her shard axe around for an overhead blow.

The strength of her fury was enough to beat back Eddarga’s blade, allowing Sabira to bring the spear-end of her urgrosh up on the backswing. She scored a long gash along the assassin’s forearm, even as she took Eddarga’s riposte in her own shoulder.

Eddarga yanked her blade free, and Sabira stumbled backward, her free hand going up to her shoulder and coming away bloody.

“You’re wasting my time, Marshal,” Eddarga said, and then Sabira was facing only the duergar’s dancing mindblade as the gray dwarf turned to engage Aggar.

“Perhaps you’ll prove more entertaining, Tordannon. Though I must say watching you try to convince the masses of your innocence—and failing miserably at it—has already provided me with endless hours of amusement. I only wish I could have been in the Council chamber to witness your farce of a trial.”

As Sabira blocked a disembodied jab at her ribs with the haft of her urgrosh, she heard Aggar’s reply.