The troll screamed nonetheless, surprised at the pain in its chest. Its claws fell with lethal fury, and Iahn rolled to evade the fatal embrace. He slashed at the creature's ankles, hoping to pierce a major artery, but its skin resisted his jabs.
Then a gray, questing hand grabbed him.
The troll lifted Iahn clear off the ground. He had sorely underestimated the threat the creature posed. The troll raised him higher, its roar a clarion, nearly bursting Iahn's eardrums. Its breath was a quagmire of rot and past blood feasts.
Scissoring his body in the troll's rough grip, he managed to slip the tip of his thinblade into the corner of its left eye. He simultaneously swung the longer dragonfly blade around to connect with the other side of the creature's head. It roared and dropped Iahn. The vengeance taker knew the wounds he'd inflicted were only superficial; after all, his opponent was a troll. Its flesh would knit soon enough.
"I see him," a voice pronounced. A slender gray shaft plunged into the ground at Iahn's feet as the vengeance taker dodged away from the gray troll's reach.
An answering voice said, "So do I, but he's wearing a charm of some sort. I missed." The last was said with some incredulity. The second voice was speaking in Elvish, one of the many languages Iahn had studied to achieve his rank and damos.
The two elves in desert dress stood not more than thirty paces from him, their bows drawn and nocked. The troll wheeled around, its eyes fastening on Iahn despite the blurring around the vengeance taker.
"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?