“I see it!” The Justicar kicked a charging ironmonger off thelibrary steps. “Escalla, the murdered priestess must still be alive! We have tofind her!”
“Gotcha! I’ll cover you.” The faerie whirred up into the air.
The Justicar surged down the library steps, heading for the center of the melee. With his sword sheathed, he strode into the brawl, wrenching men aside. Just overhead, Escalla tried to peer into the chaos to catch a glimpse of their prey.
A swarm of men decided to attack the Justicar. His response certainly wasn’t art, but it was beautiful to behold. A huge blacksmith threw apunch straight at Jus’ face, and the ranger parried with a forward-steppingmove. He stepped aside, dodging the blow, caught the blacksmith under the chin, spun him about, and slammed the man to the ground with one of his arms held in a lock.
The man’s apprentices came racing up to save their master.The Justicar took a look at the new onrush of attackers, briskly dislocated the blacksmiths shoulder, and then strode forward to meet the charge.
All three apprentices screamed for blood. The Justicar ducked a wild swing, flicked a hand to his sheath, and rammed the hilt of his sword into one man’s solar plexus. The apprentice folded, stumbling back into hiscompanions.
The Justicar still had not drawn his blade.
Another man swung clumsily with his fist and was punched in the jaw for his trouble-a single massive blow that lifted him off his feet andsent him senseless to the ground.
The last man came at the Justicar with a hammer held high. The ranger caught the man as he charged, turned with the passing blow, and hurled the man to the street. He knelt, hammered the apprentice three times with his left hand, and left the unconscious youth sprawled across his friends.
Six feet overhead, Escalla dodged random pots, pans, and missiles flying from the melee.
“You do good work!” The faerie had to shout to make herselfheard above the mob.
“Where’s that dead priestess?”
“No sign!”
Cinders suddenly jerked his ears, and the Justicar whipped his head about to follow the hound’s lead. Escalla followed their gaze and saw ablood-spattered female figure borne by a pair of young Geshtai priests.
The supposedly dead priestess suddenly sprouted claws and tore into the priests’ spines. The men fell dead, and the woman laughed as shestrode away from her self-made civil war.
Beside the temple, the “dead” Geshtai priestess whipped aboutto give the faerie a stare of pure malice. The priestess shimmered, cast away her previous form, and became a tall, slim female with long tresses of red hair. Her old clothing dropped away to leave her a gleaming nude. Several of the nearby rioters stopped fighting to stare at the voluptuous figure in open-mouthed shock.
Escalla cast a spell, and a thick, putrescent cloud quickly spread through a sizeable chunk of the market, sending men and women retching and staggering aside. The red-headed woman strode uncaring through the cloud, building up to a run as she changed shape into a powerful black dog.
“Damn!” Escalla blew a strand of hair out of her face.
The dog sped beneath tables and stalls, heading for the edges of the markets. It dodged and doubled back, sprinting through melees. Clinging to her quarry like glue, Escalla finally outsmarted the thing. Picking the dog out as it ran toward an alleyway, the faerie whipped beneath a line of stalls and suddenly had a clear shot straight at the black dog’s back.
“Hey! Suck on this!”
A fireball ripped from Escalla’s hands and blasted straightinto her victim’s back. To the faerie’s surprise, the dog barely staggered. Itwhipped its head about and stared at her, its eyes suddenly turning a poisonous green. Escalla felt fear slam into her like a physical blow and wrenched to a complete stop. The black dog snarled and slowly approached the faerie, who could scarcely move as the fear spell twisted through her mind.
The Justicar came striding through the stinking cloud, his hell hound skin cloaking him in sheer, savage anger. The black sword came free from its scabbard, swinging light as a toy in the big man’s hands. The black doglooked at him with its evil green eyes, then blinked as its fear spell failed. Hackles raised, it began to back away.
The dog suddenly shifted form. In a flow of melting shapes, it became a magnificently naked woman with pointed ears and pure white angel’swings. She hissed in a raw explosion of hate, savage hellfire gleaming in her eyes.
“Jus!” Escalla shouted. “Jus, it’s an erinyes! Watch out!”
The devil-woman whipped out a long rope and lashed it straight at the Justicar. The rope whipped around him in a blur, trapping his arms and binding him in loop after loop of cord. The erinyes gave a scream of triumph. The Justicar stood his ground, stared at her, then nodded his head toward the rope. Cinders gave a manic grin and blasted out a jet of flames to burn the rope in two.
Appalled, the devil-woman backed away, holding the end of her rope and screaming in anger. The Justicar freed himself from the limp coils, flicking free his sword. With a thundering growl, he charged toward his enemy.
A flash of motion streaked from the rooftops above. Four figures, each armored in black leather, landed on the ground between the Justicar and the erinyes. One of them was dead almost before he struck the ground, his guts ripped open by a flash of the Justicar’s sword. A second mantried to parry the ranger’s sudden attack. He caught the first blow then spun asa huge swipe of the black sword cut him almost in two.
The last two split up. One, wielding twin swords, veered left while his companion with a double-ended spear ran to the right. Jus tracked one, had Cinders burn him, then whirled and caught a spear blow with his sword. The double-ended spear flashed fast and bright, ringing sparks from Jus’ blade ashe caught attack after attack. A sudden upward flick of the rangers sword hooked the man’s left foot out from beneath him. The ranger followed with a savage stabinto the torso as the man smashed to the ground.
Twin blades flashed as the last attacker, burned and furious, came rampaging into the fight. Sparks rained down as his two swords cut and flickered in a blur. The Justicar backpedalled then flashed sideways, his sword whipping downward with an almost inhuman speed. His attacker managed to catch the blow with crossed blades but was hurled a pace backward by the Justicar’ssheer strength.
With a wild cry, the man charged. Jus whirled sideways, ending up behind his enemy. As the man passed, the Justicar sliced the full length of his sword across his enemy’s abdomen. The man lurched forward, horrorin his eyes as he fell dying to the ground.
With a snarl, the erinyes looked to the rooftops to summon her last reserve. Rising dazedly from hiding, a black figure silently sprang down from the rooftop above and landed behind the Justicar. Cinders hissed in alarm, and Escalla blasted a sudden mass of web down upon the newcomer, plastering him against a wall.
Escalla breathed hard, still shivering with the aftereffects of the demon’s fear spell. She lowered her hand, wisps of spider web stillfloating down from her fingertips.
“Jus, look at his sword!”
The newcomer roared. A myriad of faintly pulsing and flickering stars seemed to dance slowly along the blade, and a weird energy pulsed up from the blade into his flesh. The man began to move with unholy speed, each sweep of his black sword severing a dozen sticky web strands. The sword eked a sinister black radiance and moaned in ghastly hunger as it smelled the scent of blood. With a final slash of his sword, the man ripped out of the web and threw himself toward the Justicar
Escalla saw the devil-woman charging toward her friend’s backand fired a spell. Swarms of biting, stinging insects formed high above the street then slammed into the woman, wreathing her in a cloud of agony.
The erinyes began to fight off the insect swarm. Escalla cursed like a stevedore and backpedalled madly in midair as the woman sprang aloft to lunge up at her. Escalla led the screaming monster away from her friend, firing a stream of little magic missiles at the creature in an attempt to hold it at bay.
Far below, the Justicar readied himself to fight the sinister, moaning sword.The sword’s wielder-a tall, scarred man-raised the screeching blade and racedforward. He made one huge, twisting cut, and Jus’ parry rang
