as the type who could kill indiscriminately.'
'So now you know who I am,' replied Quinn. 'Time to tell me who you are.'
'You really don't know?' The man chuckled. 'Then for now, you can call me the demon.'
The man lunged, reaching for Quinn's belly with the tip of his sword. The polished steel left a blue-green trail of light as it moved, reflecting the glow of the phosphorescent moss. Quinn rolled to his right, tumbling away from the Strike and coming to his feet behind a stalagmite.
The demon struck again. Quinn ducked, and the exotic sword hit the mineralized stone, shattering the rock and sending it flying silently into a patch of moss.
'That's better!' shouted the horned man, swinging down on Quinn for a third time.
Backed up against the wall of the cave and with no cover nearby, Quinn slapped the blade aside with the flat of his palm. The polished steel bounced away, glancing harmlessly off the leather of Quinn's ruined gauntlet. The demon stumbled forward, thrown off by Quinn's unorthodox defense. He hopped once then lost his balance, crashing chest first into the ruined stalagmite.
Quinn leaped from the corner, raking the demon's arm just below his chain mail with the blades on his left hand, then he darted into the open center of the cave, giving himself more room.
The demon let out a growling scream that rippled the surface of the standing puddles. The arm of his robes was now tattered, and the padded armor underneath had been shredded as well. Narrow lines of blood rose to the surface from the razor-thin slices in his flesh.
Pushing himself upright, the demon came at Quinn, a look of pure hatred in his eyes.
'Now's your chance to die in place of your king!' he shouted.
He swung his sword in a figure eight, back and forth, side to side. The blade picked up speed as he came forward, a hissing wall of sharpened steel, leaving a blue-green tracer behind as it moved.
Quinn backpedaled and nearly tripped on a loose stone. Catching his balance, he reached down and grabbed the rock, nearly the size of a grapefruit. Quickly running out of options, he hurled it at his oncoming adversary. The stone collided with the exotic blade and was cut to shreds, the pieces scattering across the cave like a handful of thrown pebbles.
'Nowhere to go now, eh, Quinn?' the demon taunted, the sweeping motions of his blade filling the cave with sharpened steel.
Quinn backed away even farther, into a deep puddle. His feet sank below the surface, the water rising over the tops of his boot?: Having little else at his disposal, Quinn kicked with all of his might, sending a wave of filthy water up and over the horned man's head.
The muddy liquid collided with the moving sword, sending a good portion of it splashing off like a sideways rain. But unlike the stone, the water was not solid, and most of it continued on, hitting the demon in the face. It filled his eyes and nose, and the horned man coughed and spat, struggling to clear his vision. His blade came to a halt as he was forced to use one hand to wipe away the water.
Quinn dashed past, once again pulling himself out from against the wall. The tight confines of the cave were not the best place for his particular type of fighting, but he had no alternative. Taking advantage of his opponent's temporary blindness, he jabbed at the man's sword hand, trying to disarm him.
But the demon pulled back, saving his hand and keeping his blade.
'Maybe I underestimated you,' said the demon.
The filthy water dripped down the demon's face, leaving long grayish-brown streaks on his cheeks, drips falling from the pointed ends of his horns. Wiping the last of it out of his eyes, he gripped his weapon in both hands and took an aggressive stance.
'At one time, I may have grown tired of this game, but'-his lips curled up on one side, revealing his sharpened teeth-'I'm rather enjoying killing you.'
A rumbling sound echoed into the cave. It was faint at first, then it grew, getting closer. Soon the chamber filled with a familiar tapping noise, followed by growling, gnashing, and a tremendous hiss. A pair of giant spiders appeared in the mossy glow at the far end of the cave. Behind them, four scaled tentacles, each with the head of a drake, and a dozen eyes on long spindly stalks protruded into the space.
'Clusterfang,' whispered Quinn.
The demon frowned. 'This is not finished.' He clomped away, cloaking himself in the shadows as if he were wrapping them around his body. 'You have not even begun to suffer for what you have done to me.' Slowly, his frame dissolved into the darkness. By the time his last word had finished its echo, the demon had disappeared entirely.
Quinn turned and ran through the puddles, back to where he had entered the cavern. His feet were soaked, his boots heavy from the water. Behind him he could hear the tapping of the spider's legs as they worked their way over the solid mineral floor.
Dashing toward the narrow passage they had squeezed through, Quinn pulled up short, grabbing hold of a nearby stalagmite to stop his forward momentum.
There in front of him, slipping sideways into the cave the same way he had, was another helmed horror. Its metallic form filled the exit, leaving no room to get by, no room for escape.
Clusterfang had taken over the opposite end of the cave, blocking off the only other way out. The deepspawn's spider minions were climbing the walls. Just watching them scamper, their bulbous bodies gliding on top of those eight spindly legs, made the skin on Quinn's back crawl and his spine itch.
He was trapped, and Evelyne was nowhere to be found.
'I should have known better than to trust her,' he muttered, glancing side to side, trying to figure out which beast he wanted to fight first. The spiders were farther away than the horror, but they were coming on fast. Neither was going to be a quick fight.
With a second weapon, maybe he could hold them all at bay. As it stood, he was going to have to try to back himself into a corner and hope he had enough reach.
The spiders were almost on him, and the horror had squeezed itself out of the crack in the wall, closing in.
'Up here! Quick!'
Quinn looked up to see Evelyne's upper body sticking out of a round hole between two stalactites, maybe twice his height off the floor.
She hung down, extending her aims. 'Grab my hand. I'll pull you up.'
Bending his legs, he leaped into the air just as the first of the spiders arrived. His right hand wrapped around hers, and his left caught the edge of the hole. With surprising speed, Evelyne scampered back into the space in the ceiling of the cave.
Quinn felt the spiders' limbs feebly try to pull him back down. But it was no use. With both hands now on solid stone, the Claw pulled himself up and out of the cavern, tumbling forward into the darkness ahead.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The moon had passed its zenith long ago, its measured descent now almost complete. One more shift of the city watch and the sun would begin to rise, filling the void left by the moon's departure.
But until then, darkness ruled.
Two half-ores, concealed by the magic woven into their armor, climbed the sheer wall of Klarsamryn. They moved slowly, silently. There were far too many guards on duty that night to be careless.
At the top of the wall, the two assassins waited, listening. When the time was right, they nodded to one another, and as one they slipped over the edge and onto the king's personal terrace.
Without a sound they slit the throats of the two guards standing outside the door. With barely more than a whisper, they did the same to the two inside the room. Stalking across the floor, they reached the side of the king's bed where they unwrapped their specially prepared blades.
Had the king been awake, he would have seen the two half-ores silhouetted against the last of the moon's light coming in through the open glass door. He would have seen them lift their knives, dripping with poison. He would have also seen what neither of the two assassins did-a lithe black figure bounding over the edge of the
