'Hold, I have not come to fight!' Iahn yelled in Elvish. He had lost the upper hand. He didn't doubt he could slay the troll by calling on his damos, but he didn't want to be skewered by the elves' arrows in the meantime.
The hoofed one rounded the knoll's edge. Iahn had enough experience with sorcery to recognize its infernal taint. It held up a hand, not speaking. Its eyes gleamed as if lit by tiny lavender flames. An answering fire burned in the creature's crystal amulet.
It said, 'Then you will die all the sooner.' It spoke not in the language of the elves-it used the speech of Imaskar.
This surprised Iahn. Perhaps these were guardians placed by the fugitive after all?
'Who are you?' demanded the vengeance taker.
'I am Deamiel, but you'll have little enough chance to remember it.'
'Wait,' interrupted Iahn. 'Answer me this-do you serve the one called Ususi Manaallin? Has she set you against me?'
Deamiel executed a tittering shriek. It said, 'We serve a power greater than mortal flesh. We are its eyes, its hands, and its claws.
Ususi Manaallin will fall to us by its command.'
'This 'power' you serve-who is that?'
'The death of all that remains of Imaskar!' So saying, Deamiel pointed a finger at Iahn. 'Slay this filth!'
The vengeance taker threw himself backward and tumbled expertly through the gap between the troll's legs. His enemy's slow-witted confusion provided him with temporary cover from the dervish archers.
A quick motion married Iahn's thinblade back into the hilt of his dragonfly blade, freeing one hand to gesticulate just so. His voice was unimpeded and able to verbalize, and residual power sang in his blood from his last sip from the damos. These, too, were his weapons and his defense, just as surely as his thinblade.
Iahn assayed a quickslide, pushing his talent to the brink. The light dimmed. He skipped through space as far as he could. Two hundred paces, perhaps three hundred…
The broad side of the travel coach stood directly in front of him, occluding the sun's glare. The vengeance taker leaned his weight against the side of the coach with his free hand, breathing hard but quietly. He was drained. He knew the creatures would not give him up quickly if Deamiel spoke the truth about slaying all from Deep Imaskar. One thing was clear-the creatures did not serve the fugitive.
They must be a further materialization of the troubles that had erupted in Deep Imaskar, Iahn mused. All the more reason for him to catch the fugitive, and quickly.
Iahn peered into the side window of the coach and saw it was empty. Cabinet doors stood ajar, and cups, food canisters, a shattered tea pot, an overturned lamp, and other items littered the floor and surfaces of the interior.
The creatures had been inside the coach when he'd first come upon them. They didn't know where Ususi was, either. But she had to be close. She wouldn't abandon her travel coach-it contained all her provisions. Of course, she could summon a mount at a moment's notice to bear her-but Iahn suspected she had invested too much in the coach to leave it behind.
The vengeance taker studied the nearest dolmen up the slope and the unfolding hills beyond. He decided that the best place to look for the fugitive would be somewhere in those downs.
On the other hand, he knew the cat-headed thing and its minions would find him quickly enough-he hadn't shifted more than a few hundred yards-unless he put more distance between them and himself.
He was already moving forward in a low, quick dash, ascending the slope, making for the first dolmen. If he could keep the coach between him and his pursuers' eyes just long enough…
'There! There!' Cries of discovery chased Iahn up the hill. The vengeance taker's posture changed-staying low no longer served any purpose. He lengthened his stride and pumped his legs, calling upon all his reserves.
He reached the first dolmen without catching an arrow or magical blast in the back, ducked behind it, and peered back carefully.
The four pursuers had crested the knoll where he'd first attempted to waylay the gray troll, and were running toward the coach. They had already covered half the distance. The vengeance taker had to even the odds and give himself more time to hide among the folds in the hills.
The troll would have to wait, and Deamiel was an unknown quantity, but the two archers…
Iahn leaned his dragonfly blade against the dolmen, then unbuckled the Imaskaran crossbow from its holster on his thigh with practiced ease. He unfolded the two arms and locked them into place, then strung the crossbow's wire. Six slender bolts were ingeniously clipped to the underside of the crossbow barrel. He plucked one, opened his damos, and dipped the bolt's tip into the swirling venom. The bolt's tip steamed.
The vengeance taker fitted the bolt to the crossbow and sighted down the hillside, careful to stay under the dolmen's cover.
The elf archers reached the coach and took up positions with a view of the hillside. The great troll lumbered after them, but hadn't reached the coach. Iahn couldn't see the panther-headed creature-a problem, but one that would have to wait.
Iahn's bolt sailed down the slope and buried itself in the chest of an archer. The elf cried out, then yelled, 'I can hear you! I can.
..' The elf crumpled onto the brown grass beneath the coach.
The other archer loosed a shaft in return, but it cracked ineffectually on the dolmen pillar to Iahn's left. The archer, seeing her arrow fall, ducked behind the coach. She yelled out in Common,
'Beware, poison bolts! Mohmafel is dead!'
The troll reached the shelter of the coach and hunkered down before Iahn could fire a second venomous bolt. The vengeance taker scanned for Deamiel. Was the creature already sheltering behind the coach? No matter.
Iahn yelled down the hill in Common. 'Stand still, or prepare to hear your doom. If the Voice is the last word to enter your ears before death, your soul is consigned to wander forever.' He doubted the creatures understood his implication, but Iahn believed the threat might give them pause.
The vengeance taker watched the coach. He saw no movement, heard no sounds. Like his adversaries, he didn't want to risk leaving the sanctuary of his dolmen. The blurring enchantment the taker had employed had dissipated. Iahn's quickslide to the coach had exhausted his small reservoir of arcane ability. Until he could renew it, the vengeance taker could rely only on his guile and skill.
A hundred breaths passed without any movement. The sun reached its zenith in the empty sky. Heat blistered the bare scrublands. Iahn was like the rock he sheltered behind; how patient were his adversaries?
In the vengeance taker's experience, his tolerance for boredom was rarely bested.
Half-heard mutters from below preceded a sudden river of fog that streamed around, over, and past the coach, completely obscuring it.
With the mist came cries and dreamy exhortations. Slender tendrils of mist extended from the mass, as if patting and feeling for sustenance.
The diameter of the fog bank swelled.
The vengeance taker envenomed another bolt from his damos.
Deamiel, presumably, had manufactured a cloak of concealing vapor, a perfect blind from which to launch an attack. Iahn's eyes narrowed-from which portion of the mist would it come? Did the…
The troll emerged from the mist, running up the slope with the speed of a bounding boulder.
Iahn took a bead on the fast-approaching troll, but an arrow scorched his left arm, ruining his aim. The elf archer had gotten off a shot from just inside the fog's boundary!
Iahn snatched a third bolt, taking the time to envenom it. The damos, too, was nearly spent this day. But the troll had to be dealt with, first and foremost.
The charging troll reached the crown of Iahn's hill. A great gray hand grasped the dolmen pillar Iahn sheltered behind. The hand was followed by an enormous head that blotted out the sun.
Iahn shot the bolt straight into the creature's left eye. It gasped out a word in a language the taker didn't know, then collapsed back down the slope. Iahn knew that the venom was more potent than the troll's ability to renew itself. He dropped the crossbow and snatched up his dragonfly blade. Not a moment too soon-black-furred Deamiel had run up the slope in the troll's wake. The creature, roaring, sprang on the vengeance taker from the other side of the dolmen. The crystal amulet on its breast suddenly blazed with a wavering, violet light.
Moving with a speed Iahn could scarcely fathom, Deamiel struck him.
