'And put an end to all this unpleasantness so we can go back to living like civilized people,' said Tamlin, brushing futilely at a gory spatter on his sleeve.
'Come on, then,' Shamur said. She and her family began to advance back the way they'd come, when the shaking stopped. For a moment, she wondered if her analysis of the situation had been at fault. Perhaps the High Bridge wouldn't break, perhaps the spell that threatened it had run out of power. Then spheres of purple glow swelled in the gloom ahead, and as soon as they birthed the creatures intended to block the way, the span resumed jarring back and forth. Evidently Marance was unable to rock it and conjure more of his minions at the same time, and so had elected to briefly suspend the one action in order to accomplish the other.
When Shamur approached close enough to see them clearly, she judged that the wizard's new servants had been selected specifically to operate on this precarious ground, for they all possessed more than two legs and a low center of gravity. One of them, a pallid creature somewhat resembling a centipede, its segmented body half again as long as a man was tall, scuttled toward her. Tentacles coiled and writhed between its round, black eyes.
From past experience, Shamur knew that a sticky secretion on a carrion crawler's flexible arms could paralyze at a touch. The tentacles whipped at her, she swept her broadsword in a parry, and the bridge jerked. She fell, her attempt at defense turned into a useless flailing, and one of the feelers brushed her wrist.
For an instant, a horrible numbness flowed up her arm, but then the sensation passed. Praise Mask for her sturdy gauntlet and sleeve, which had kept most of the crawler's greasy, malodorous poison from reaching her skin.
Though it might not matter in the long run. She was sprawled on the ground, and the insect-thing was still scuttling forward, chittering. She rolled across the heaving roadway with the carrion crawler in mad pursuit, and then, when she thought she'd widened the distance between them sufficiently to buy herself a moment, tried to scramble onto her feet.
Just at that instant, another tremor jolted her, but, fighting for balance, she refused to let it tumble her back down. She faked a dodge to the right, then darted left instead. Only deceived for a moment, the carrion crawler lashed its tentacles at her. A couple of them only missed by inches, but miss they did, and then she was behind the creature's head with its leathery natural armor and positioned to strike at its softer, more vulnerable flank.
She drove her point deep into the crawler's body, between the base of the head and the first pair of legs. The beast jerked spasmodically, then went down.
As she pulled her blade from the carcass, Shamur surveyed the battlefield. Thamalon was plunging his blade into the chest of what must surely be the last surviving gnoll. Talbot and Thazienne fought side by side against a trio of carrion crawlers. Tamlin, who had lost his sword, slammed the axe into the spine of an enormous, fire- breathing canine. The hell hound fell, and the youth crowed in delight.
'I told you this thing was lucky,' he called to his embattled siblings, brandishing the gory tool as he spoke. Tazi sneered.
Shamur scowled in frustration. There were plenty of carrion crawlers and hell hounds still remaining, and the bubbles of violet and magenta light swelling on the roadway ahead promised even more adversaries. Meanwhile, the Uskevren had only succeeded in making their way a short distance north.
They were never going to cut through all of Marance's defenders in time to prevent the destruction of the bridge. They needed another solution, and perhaps, Shamur thought, smiling at the audacity of the notion that suddenly occurred to her, that meant it was time to stop behaving as if she were a mere earthbound warrior and start acting like the thief in the red-striped mask.
If she meant to try her idea, it had to be now, before she attracted the attention of another opponent. Leaving Thamalon and the children to keep Marance's minions occupied, praying they'd manage all right without her, she dashed to the facade of one of the swaying houses. Then, struggling to cling to hand- and footholds that constantly threatened to judder free of her grip, she climbed.
For a man as orderly and intelligent as Marance, it was child's play to juggle the various elements of a complex task. He shook the bridge for a while, glanced through the magical eye to see how the Uskevren were faring, summoned some new opponents for them if it seemed necessary, and then repeated the sequence. Now seated on the table beside his magical simulacrum, he didn't even have to worry about the tremors knocking him down.
Nor need he fret over what would happen when the bridge collapsed beneath him. A single magic word would cause him to drift downward toward the surface of the river as slowly as a bit of silkweed fluff. Then, while his leisurely descent was in progress, he could either invest himself with the power of flight or, if, as he expected to be, he was absolutely certain that all five Uskevren were dead, he could simply click his iron thumb rings together and return to the netherworld. Perhaps the latter option was preferable, given that he'd pretty much worn out his welcome at Old High Hall.
If Bileworm was in the immediate vicinity, the magic of the rings would whisk him to the Pit as well, but Marance doubted the familiar would make his way back to the fish market in time. He supposed he might actually miss the scamp, his companion and confidant for nearly thirty years. But one must accept casualties in war, and, happily, the Nine Hells possessed an abundance of slaves.
A shout roused Marance from his musings. Turning his head, he saw that the strapping warrior with the red kerchief on his head had finally returned with the men-at-arms Marance had dispatched him to fetch. Three of them, anyway. The others had no doubt been too prudent to set foot on the quaking bridge.
'What are you doing?' the big man demanded, swaying as the vibrations rattled him.
'Nothing,' said Marance, deeming the lie worth trying. 'Go forward and help Master Ossian.'
'Do you think we're stupid?' the guardsman replied. 'We see that thing under your hand. You're shaking the bridge, and I know damn well that Lord Talendar wouldn't want you to do that. Stop it right now, or we'll stop you.' He brandished his long sword.
'If you insist,' Marance said. He took his hand away from the simulacrum, but naturally, the tremors in the actual bridge continued. It would take time for them to subside, if, indeed, that was still possible, if he hadn't already damaged the structure sufficiently that a collapse was inevitable.
'I told you to stop it!' the warrior barked.
'I understand,' Marance said. 'Evidently it's going to take a bit of countermagic.'
He removed a scrap of fur, a piece of amber, and a paper of silver pins from one of his pockets, and then, manipulating the spell components, he began to chant.
When he was half way through the incantation, the men-at-arms somehow guessed what he was really up to, and frantically staggered toward him. But they failed to close the distance in time. A flare of lightning crackled from Marance's hand to the warrior with the scarf and blasted him dead.
Immediately the magic leaped from the importunate fellow's withered, blackened corpse to the guard behind him, then leaped twice more, slaying each man in his turn. Surveying the smoking, reeking husks, Marance sighed. 'I regret that was necessary,' he told them, then took hold of the bridge simulacrum once more.
Shamur waited for the present shock to subside, then leaped across the narrow gap between rooftops. Had she not chosen her moment properly, a fresh tremor might have staggered her and spoiled the jump. Even though the bridge wasn't shaking too badly, the houses still were. The vibration made her lead foot slip as it landed, and she fell and slid down the pitch. Grabbing for some semblance of a handhold, she managed to arrest her descent before it could fling her off the eaves into space. As she proceeded on her way, she reflected that if the shaking had made walking the roadway difficult, traveling the thief's path above verged on the impossible, even for a pupil of Errendar Spillwine.
Nor could she proceed cautiously. Unless she scrambled as rapidly as possible, risking a fall with every move she made, she stood no chance of finding Marance in time to prevent the destruction of the bridge.
At least her scheme was sound. The wizard hadn't thought to station any of his creatures up here, which meant that if she didn't plummet to her death, she could get at him without having to hack her way through dozens of defenders.
Off to the east, where the black river met the bay, she spied the myriad lights of the floating city. Had it only been last night that she'd bounded from vessel to vessel in pursuit of the tattooed ruffian? So much had happened since that it felt like a lifetime. She wondered fleetingly if the watermen could hear the tortured bridge grinding and
