The first drops of heavy rain struck the corpses, which had been left in the open to rot. Only two of the bodies had not begun to show signs of death. The rain pelted their still faces. Suddenly, the eyes of the first man flashed open. 'Are they gone?'
'I no longer care. My back is starting to ache.' Both men rose from the sand. The first was a tall man with dark skin. Crow's feet bunched around his eyes and a heavy beard covered much of his face. His companion was short and lean, clean-shaven, and possessed a dour expression. They both had been run through with swords, the bearded man's heart cleaved in two, the shorter man gutted, a second blow having fractured his skull. Each man opened his tunic and placed his open palm over his wounds, waiting patiently as the flesh stitched together. The internal injuries would heal with time. The men allowed the falling rain to wash away the blood.
Closing their tunics, the two members of the Night Parade surveyed the human corpses strewn about the pillar's base. 'Mortals are so fragile,' the short man said. 'The smallest injury, and they surrender to death.'
'We can die, too, you know.'
'Yes, but not so easily. The Draw favored us.'
The bearded man looked away from the Hammer, toward the distant road. 'Did you see which way they went?'
'The mage cloaked them. I couldn't tell. Back to Calimport, I would wager. The woman still has to pay Pieraccinni.'
'Of course.' The bearded man was silent for a time as he threw his head back and allowed the rain to caress his face. Five hundred feet above, lightning struck the flat of the hammer and thunder shook loose a hail of small rocks from the pillar's surface. The short man jumped out of the way of the falling stones. His companion stood, arms stretched wide, unmindful of the danger. The rocks seemed to avoid him.
'Is the girl really her daughter?' the short man asked.
'I don't know. Does it matter? She will believe it, and because of that, she will leave and trouble us no more.'
'Just curious.'
The bearded man grinned. 'I have curiosities, too.' With that, he leapt to the side of the pillar and began to climb, his hands digging into the solid rock as if it were soft clay.
'Come down here,' his companion shouted when the bearded man was already one hundred feet up the side of the pillar. His commands were ignored. 'We're supposed to follow them!'
'We will,' the bearded man called. 'They'll make camp. They won't travel in this. We'll catch up easily.' Within a minute, the bearded man had scaled the pillar and disappeared over the rim.
'You're such a child, Zandler,' the short man said as he sat down hard on a rock and placed his head in his hands, waiting for his partner to finish indulging his infantile impulses. It was true that Zandler had the more spectacular ability, but he had powers of his own. Gesturing at the sand, the short man with smoldering gray eyes watched as several sand creatures burrowed out of their holes, a host of scorpions rushing to the lead. Within seconds a small army of arachnids had gathered at his feet. He remembered the last man he had tormented then killed, an older man with a paranoid fear of cockroaches. The gray-eyed man had played with his victim's dreams for weeks before making his nightmares come true.
He heard a shuffling in the sand behind him. 'Zandler?'
'No,' an unfamiliar voice said with a malice that could not be mistaken for anything but murderous intent. Before the gray-eyed man had a chance to order the sand creatures to attack his unseen enemy, he convulsed in searing agony. Looking down, he saw a hand erupt from his chest. The gloved hand burned with a bluish white energy laced with crackling strands of green fire. He had seen those cold flames once before.
'The apparatus!' he shouted as he fell forward and died. His corpse struck the sand, scattering the arachnids he had summoned.
The dark man with the weapon turned it a few times, examining it for damage. The dead man was wrong. It was not the apparatus, but it had been charged from the energies of that object. The design was extraordinarily simple; in truth, it was little more than a steel glove. When it was activated, however, claws made of mystical fires stolen from the apparatus would leap from the moldings above each knuckle. The blue-white talons mimicked the actions of his true fingers and allowed him to take the lives of those creatures who laughed at human conceits such as mortality. As always, the weapon had performed admirably.
'You're going to miss everything,' a voice called from above. The dark man looked up in the direction of the voice and smiled.
On the flat, the bearded man stood, hands held out to the sky, the worsening storm raging directly above his head.
'Come to me,' he shouted, 'Come on, come on, come-'
Suddenly two streaks of lightning burst from the clouds, tearing jagged paths across the darkened sky, streaking down toward the bearded man. He screamed with delight as lightning struck each of his hands and his entire body quaked with the impact.
'Yes!' he shouted as his body absorbed the lightning. His entire form became a brilliant white mass with slight indications of what may have been human anatomy within. He held the lightning within his body for as long as he could stand, then pointed both hands at the horizon. Twin bolts of white energy sailed from his fingers and struck the ground below. Then he was human again, but his clothing had been burned away.
'Crolus, you moron, you missed the whole thing,' he shouted.
'I didn't,' a voice said.
Zandler turned and saw a man materialize before him. His heart seized up as he saw the shimmering hand of the dark man. He did not even have time to scream as the assassin attacked.
Seconds later, the dark man stood over the smoldering remains of the second monster. He concentrated and caused the arcane talon to vanish.
'So they're going to Pieraccinni's,' he said. 'I'll pick up their trail there.'
With a rustic of cloth, the dark man removed two gold pieces and dropped them beside the dead man's hand. 'The first one is for the information,' he said. 'The second is to pay your passage into hell, you miserable excuse for a nightmare.'
The man stepped back and vanished into the storm's fury.
The Harpers had avoided the main road and pitched their tent when the storm made it too dangerous to continue. Inside the tent, as the heavy rains of late afternoon fell, Lucius elected to keep watch near the partially opened flap. He declined the meal the others devoured with their usual lack of decorum. Myrmeen was too exhausted and famished to do anything but join them. Stones were laid in the middle of their enclosure, and a small fire blazed there. Burke had unwrapped and skillfully prepared several slabs of meat, most of which had been snapped up by the dark-haired, fourteen-year-old girl whom they had rescued.
'So,' Burke said, determined to slap Krystin's hand away if she grabbed at another serving before he could distribute the meat to the others, 'is anyone
'You mean she actually left something for the rest of us?' Reisz said as he spat out the seeds from a mouthful of grapes. Ord had consumed an entire loaf of bread and was eyeing the blackened slabs of meat with lustful intent. Myrmeen had gnawed three apples to their core.
'Come now, the girl has been through an ordeal,' Varina gently coaxed, her stomach rumbling almost loud enough to be confused with the rolling thunder outside.
Reisz growled, 'How are you, girl?'
'Fine,' Krystin said, the word delivered hard and fast, like a blow.
'You feel well?'
'Fine,' she repeated sharply. Her tone became demanding as she said, 'Who are you people?'
'We told you, we're Harpers,' Varina said gently.
'That's right,' Reisz hissed. 'No matter what you may think, we are not rival slavers. We are the lord protectors of the Realms.'
Krystin nodded. 'So you just run around doing good deeds. You help people and don't expect anyone to pay you.'
'Well,' Varina said, 'essentially. But we have lives away from our duties as Harpers.'
Krystin bit off another chunk of meat. As she chewed, she said, 'You people are either the worst liars I've
