their feet, apparently an innocent who had wandered into the creatures' path in his attempt to flee.
Myrmeen noticed that Krystin's arm was bleeding from a very deep gash. The artery had not been severed, but the wound was a serious one. The girl looked as if she might faint at any moment.
Shouting her daughter's name, Myrmeen launched herself at the closest of the abominations, drawing her sword in mid-stride. She dropped to her knees and swung her sword at the monster's knees as the creature lashed out with its talons.
A sharp crack filled the air as Myrmeen's sword hit home, biting through the bone and cartilage of her victim's right knee and the hard, leathery muscle of its left thigh. Neither limb was severed outright, but the creature toppled backward as Myrmeen yanked her bloody sword from the monster. Before she could cross to the second creature, who had not allowed its partner's distress to deter it from its mission, Ord rushed forward, stepping between the creature still standing and Myrmeen, raised his own sword, and brought it down on the fallen abomination's neck.
'Krystin!' Myrmeen shouted helplessly. Because of Ord, the creature would be upon the girl before Myrmeen could reach her. For an instant her gaze locked with that of her daughter. The absolute dread that Myrmeen felt at the thought of losing the girl whom she had gone through so much to find-the child who eventually might fill the empty hollow that passed for her heart-translated into an expression of un-distilled love and primal fear. The expression startled Krystin, but she quickly recovered and moved forward to deal with the threat from which her mother could not save her.
In those critical seconds, as the monster raced at her, Krystin reacted as she had been trained to by Myrmeen. She bent her legs slightly at the knee and planted them with exactly the right amount of space between her feet. Then she flipped both of her blades so that she held them by the sharp, cold metal of their flats. Staring at the creature's eyes, she launched the daggers. Her wound made her flinch as she released them and only the first blade struck true, piercing the soft red orb of the creature's left eye. The second blade opened a bloody rivulet across the right side of its face, then clattered to the ground. The skinless creature threw its head back and howled in pain.
Myrmeen finally made her way past Ord and the member of the Night Parade that he had dispatched. Krystin was weaponless. Before the half-blind creature could retaliate for Krys-tin's attack, Myrmeen drove her sword through its torso. The dying thing grabbed the blade's hilt, and Myrmeen sawed it back and forth until the creature released its grip and fell back to lie beside its dead partner.
She wondered why it had been so easy to kill this pair. Compared to the monsters they had faced in the alley behind the counting house, these two seemed like little more than a distraction, though a potentially lethal one.
Ord stood, pleased with himself. 'That's one less of those murdering bags of filth that we have to-'
'Shut up,' Myrmeen said, her chest heaving. Ord fell silent in surprise, a hurt expression clouding his features. He had stopped Myrmeen from getting to Krystin and she had nearly been killed because of him. Krystin, however, had not died. She had performed like a warrior. Myrmeen turned to her daughter. 'I'm very proud of you.'
Krystin was speechless. Myrmeen shook her head and added, 'Come on. We have to see to the others.'
Suddenly a high-pitched scream erupted from the opposite side of the court. Myrmeen looked up and noticed that, except for the men who had started fights with other humans, the number of people at the Lathe had thinned out considerably. She was able to see two nondescript men standing near a heavy bag glowing blue-white. The first man looked down at his hands as if they had betrayed him. Collapsing to his knees before the bag, the man slumped forward and landed to the parcel's side. His partner, a heavier man who carried a recently blooded broadsword, looked down at the bag in alarm. When a tongue of green fire cut through the heavy sack and licked at the air before the second man's face, he turned and ran.
'The gauntlet,' Myrmeen whispered as she futilely scanned the area for signs of Shandower, Reisz, or Lucius. She assumed that if the Night Parade somehow had gained possession of Shandower's weapon, they had taken it from his corpse. If that were the case, she would need the arcane weapon to ensure her friends' safety as they retreated from Calimport and sought the Harpers in Berdusk for assistance. Her words were strident as she commanded, 'Follow me.'
Although many of the eatery's patrons had left the area, a large number had remained and had formed a circle of spectators, settling less than two hundred yards away. From their vantage, they could see all that transpired without exposing themselves to danger. Myrmeen looked at the members of the crowd, the quick- tempered fighters who had started a handful of brawls and continued to battle even now, oblivious to all else, and even the eatery's staff, who had come from the kitchen to watch the proceedings with interest. She knew that every person in the area could be a Night Parade abomination in human form.
A figure appeared before her. She raised her sword instinctively, then lowered it again as she saw the look of concern in the eyes of the boy whose hair was the color of sawdust.
'Alden,' Myrmeen said in relief. The young man seemed unhurt, despite the flecks of blood on his shirt. Lucius had been with Alden, and memories of the mage rescuing them from the ambush behind the counting house flooded her mind. 'Where's Lucius?'
Alden shook his head and glanced at the earth. 'Dead.'
Fourteen
The news struck her hard. Myrmeen thought of her private talk with Lucius and the revelation that he had a family that even the Harpers apparently knew nothing about. Who would tell them? she thought, and who would be there to comfort his children when they woke in the night? Myrmeen forced such thoughts away. She could not deal with them now. 'Where's his body?' she asked. 'I don't know,' Alden replied innocently. 'Alden, we have to take Shandower's weapon and leave. Have you seen Erin or Reisz?' 'I haven't,' Alden said, lying expertly. Krystin touched Myrmeen's arm. 'The glove was fused to his arm. If that's the glove, then his hand is still-' 'I know,' Myrmeen said in disgust, 'but it has to be done.' Breaking from the others, Myrmeen closed the distance separating her from the gauntlet, which had become encased in a sphere of blue-white energy that crackled with strands of green fire. The power within the glove was blossoming out of control, and Myrmeen realized that Shandower had not been summoning the power, but had been holding it in check. She knelt before the weapon. The glove was empty. If they had taken his arm to separate him from the gauntlet, no trace of meat or bone remained. Myrmeen was afraid that her own flesh would melt away if she touched the arcane weapon, then decided that she had no choice if she was going to safeguard her daughter's life.
She reached out and touched the glowing metal. It was warm, but it did not burn her. Snatching the weapon from the ground, she turned and motioned for the others to follow.
'Alden, do you know a place where the Night Parade will not follow? They know about you now. It must be a place you would not normally go.'
'Yes,' he said absently. 'I can think of a place.' She took a step in his direction and he moved back suddenly, absently cutting a glance at the weapon in her hands. Krystin and Ord had not moved at all. Alden shuddered as he looked around. 'I suppose we should get out of here before more of those things arrive.'
'Hold this for me,' Myrmeen said to Alden, her instincts alerting her that something was very wrong with the young man. She held out the gauntlet, and Alden shrank away, raising his hand before his face.
'Go on,' Krystin urged. 'Take it. What's wrong?'
'Nothing,' Alden said softly, sweat breaking out on his pale skin. A blanket of ochre hung above the city, beneath the clouds, and a soft breeze had gathered at the companions' backs. Alden ground his hands together. 'I don't want to touch it. I'm afraid.'
'Why should you be afraid?' Ord asked, suspicious.
Unexpectedly, Alden ran, waving his right hand over his head. He was signaling someone, Myrmeen realized. She heard shouts and turned her attention to the crowd that had gathered nearby. A dozen men dressed in the armor of the local guard broke through the crowd, ordering them to disperse or face a penalty. The crowd broke up swiftly and the soldiers shouted a command that Myrmeen did not recognize as they broke into a dead run, charging at Myrmeen with weapons drawn. She turned to run and saw a half dozen men who had been fighting at another
