Avenger

the butt of its halberd at Geran as it fell. The wooden haft caught him on his right hip and knocked him spinning to the ground a few feet away. Before the runehelm could draw back for a strike with the greataxe blade or wicked hook at the other end of the weapon, Hamil and Mirya quickly dragged Geran out of its reach.

Careful, there! Hamil told him. Mirya will never forgive me if you get yourself killed trying to guard my back.

Sarth turned another spell against the crippled runehelm, burning it down, but now the others that had momentarily tangled themselves on the slippery ice were working their way free. Worse yet, more heavy footfalls and ominous clanking of armor echoed through the castle halls. “This is madness,” the tiefling growled. “There is no point in fighting each one of these guardians. Geran, go and destroy the master stone before we are overwhelmed! I will hold off Rhovann’s creatures here.”

Geran hesitated, unwilling to leave Sarth, but Mirya caught him by the arm and pulled him up toward the hallway leading to the trophy room. “Sarth is right,” she said. “This battle can be won with a single stroke.”

“Very well,” he conceded. Sarth gave him a quick nod, and Geran turned his back on the fight by the postern stair and hurried around the corner toward the trophy hall and the runehelms guarding its door. Hamil and Mirya followed a step behind him. The door guards perceived the three of them at once; one moment they were standing as still as statues, and the next they lowered their halberds to advance a couple of steps, barring the way.

“Shoot the left one through the visor if you can,” Hamil told Mirya. “It seems to throw them off their game. Geran, you finish it off while I keep the other one busy.”

“Aye, I’ll do it,” Mirya replied. She started to draw back her crossbow-and the doors at the end of the hall flew open.

Mantled in the ghostly shapes of powerful spells, Rhovann Disarnnyl stood in the doorway, pure fury blazing in his face. Behind him the old trophy room was filled with arcane apparatuses and more runehelms beginning to stir in the great vats where they were grown. “You have the stubbornness of a troll,” the mage snarled at Geran. “You ignorant fool! What more must I do before you comprehend the fact of your defeat?”

“You would’ve been wiser to kill me when you had me in your power,” Geran answered. In the room behind the wizard he could sense the invisible currents and eddies of the wizard’s devices and spell artifices, each a subtle vibration of Rhovann’s careful weavings. The shadow sword in his hand seemed to quiver slightly, resonating with the power concentrated in the wizard’s laboratory. There was a focal point in the center of the room, an irregular crystal of dark purple in which a lambent flame flickered … the master stone for the runehelms? he wondered. His eyes narrowed as he studied it, and he resolved that whatever else happened, he’d deprive Rhovann of his toy before the wizard destroyed him. “You sent the Cyricists and their devils to slay my family in Lasparhall-assassins and monsters set loose to murder a frail old man and dozens of men and women whose only offense was their loyalty to the Hulmasters! Did you think that anything short of death would stop me after that?”

Rhovann snorted. “I should have expected no less. You simpleton, the Vaasans ordered the harmach’s death. I had nothing to do with it. You’ve sought out your demise for a mistake.”

The Vaasans? Geran wondered. Could it be true that Rhovann hadn’t ordered Grigor’s death? The elf was his enemy, and no stranger to cruelty, but Rhovann wouldn’t lie out of sheer pettiness. It certainly made little difference to Geran now; even if Rhovann hadn’t sent the assassins to Lasparhall, he’d set events in motion that were certain to result in mortal peril to Geran’s family, and he’d conspired with Sergen Hulmaster before that. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “My uncle’s death is still your doing, and I mean to see you dead for it.”

“Believe what you will. I will now correct my earlier oversight, and you can go down into death with your bitter, misconceived notions of vengeance unattained as you like.” The rumble of Sarth’s battle magic echoed through the shadowed hall, and the elf wizard sneered. “Did you truly think that I would not take steps to guard my sanctum? Your devil-born sorcerer cannot hope to overcome my defenses in the Shadowfell. You and your companions, even your beloved Mirya there, will never see the sun again.”

“I defeated you once before,” Geran said. “I wonder if you’re hesitant to begin this because you fear that I’m still your better, even crippled as I am.” He glanced at Hamil and thought at the halfling, Cover my back if you can, but above all keep Mirya safe.

I won’t fail you, Hamil replied. Do what you must.

“My better?” Rhovann hissed. “We shall see!” He raised his wand.

“Sieroch!” said Geran, invoking his spell of teleportation. Once before he’d used the spell to close on Rhovann and take him off guard; the wizard snarled an oath and leaped aside, expecting Geran to appear behind him. But instead of materializing within sword’s reach of the wizard, Geran emerged from the icy black instant of nothingness a good ten paces beyond the doorway where Rhovann stood. The purple master stone hung in its iron frame only an arm’s length away; Geran hewed at it with all the strength he could muster in his left arm. The black blade bit into the crystal; a white spiderweb crack starred its surface, and small flakes of purple crystal flew. The eddies of unseen magic in the chamber jolted as if a titan had struck a temple bell, roiling in protest. But the iron frame caught the long blade in a jarring blow, keeping Geran from finishing his stroke cleanly.

“You fool!” Rhovann shrieked. He leveled a blast of golden lightning at Geran that lashed through the workshop, shattering glassware and splintering wood. The swordmage’s wardings held just long enough for him to dive aside, flinging himself to the ground in search of cover. One stabbing bolt caught him in the calf and burned a smoking hole in his leg as he crashed into a clutter of casks and molds beside the vats in which the half-formed runehelms struggled to rise.

Hamil sighted quickly and hurled his dagger at a point between Rhovann’s shoulder blades, but one of the intact runehelms next to the wizard simply stepped into the weapon’s path to protect its master. The knife bit deeply into its pale torso; the runehelm ignored it. Rhovann glanced once over his shoulder and snapped, “Slay them all!” before returning to his assault on Geran. The damaged runehelm started toward the halfling, leveling its great halberd point first. Mirya took careful aim and shot it through the visor with her crossbow, staggering it, but before Hamil could move in to finish the thing more runehelms surged into the hall behind them.

Geran rolled to his feet and started toward the master stone again. Rhovann rounded the heavy table, lining up his wand on the swordmage. Snarling another spell, he blasted at Geran with a hissing jet of emerald acid, but Geran answered with a lightning-quick spell of parrying. “Haethellyn!” he shouted, raising the dark blade in an awkward block. A strange blue sheen flickered over the steel before the acid jet struck the blade and rebounded. With better control Geran might have been able to send it straight back at Rhovann, but instead he only managed to splatter the ground at Rhovann’s feet as a shower of droplets sizzled around him. Wisps of smoke from the potent acid started from half a dozen places on Geran’s clothing, but also from Rhovann’s. With a muttered oath the elf stumbled back from the seething pool in front of him, waving his hand to clear the air of the acrid fumes.

Geran used the moment of Rhovann’s distraction to turn back on the master stone, raising his blade for another stroke-but a damp gray hand closed on his ankle and yanked him to the floor. One of the incomplete runehelms had seized him and was trying to drag him away. “Damn it, leave me be!” he snarled, and split its skull with Umbrach Nyth. Dark ichor bubbled from the awful wound when he jerked the sword free, but the fingers remained clamped around his ankle, and it took him several precious moments to wrench himself free.

“Geran, smash the thrice-damned stone already!” Hamil shouted from the hallway outside. The halfling darted recklessly from one runehelm to another, dodging halberd blows that splintered the floor and smashed great gouges out of the walls. One of the monsters turned toward Mirya, drawing back its weapon to run her through as she fumbled with her crossbow; with a desperate lunge the halfling bounded over and dug out the back of its knee, sending its thrust aside as its leg buckled. The creature smashed at Hamil with a backhand blow of its great fist; the halfling flew a good ten feet through the air before hitting the opposite wall with bone-jarring force and crumpling. Another runehelm prepared to hew him as he lay stunned, but at that moment a brilliant green ray shot down the hall and struck it in the head. In a bright green flash the iron visor and gray clay disintegrated under Sarth’s magic, and the headless construct sank to the floor.

Battered and bleeding, the sorcerer smiled grimly at the top of the stairway they’d climbed. “I think I have finally determined how best to destroy these creatures,” he remarked. Then he was beset by the remaining runehelms in the hall, replying with a furious barrage of force darts and flame lances.

Fiery pinpricks burned here and there on Geran’s torso and arms where the droplets of acid clung, but he clenched his jaw and made himself ignore the pain. Instead of attacking the master stone directly, he darted