Tu’ala’keth kicked at his lower leg, the only part of him she could reach. Thanks to the paralyzing effect of the lightning pent in the spear, it was a spastic, floundering attack. But she still had her goddess-granted fury to lend her strength, and the thorns on her foot sliced deep into the limb. Kassur gasped and toppled down beside her.
Now she had her chance to wrestle, to pull and grind him against her and let the blades cut. She clambered on top of him.
The spear, though deadly, was too long to wield at such close quarters. He dropped it and snatched a dagger from somewhere. The point banged against her silverweave, surely bruising her ribs but as yet, not piercing the coral armor.
He was all bloody gashes and punctures now, yet fought on with a ferocity akin to her own. He gasped out the opening syllables of a spell.
She resolved to silence him short of the conclusion, cut the tongue from his mouth or mangle the larynx in his throat if necessary. But then, as they thrashed and rolled, she caught a glimpse of Anton and Chadrezzan.
Still suspended in the air, the mute pointed the wand stolen from the Red Wizards at the foe below his feet. Jagged flares of shadow exploded from the tip of the arcane weapon, while Anton lunged back and forth, trying to dodge. When a discharge caught him anyway, he convulsed.
It was plain he had no chance, not while Chadrezzan hovered above his reach. Tu’ala’keth gathered her spiritual strength and screamed, “Fall!”
The magical command smashed through the wizard’s psychic defenses, and momentarily helpless to disobey, he allowed himself to plummet. He slammed down hard enough to snap bone but evidently not to kill or even stun him, for he immediately rose once more. Supported solely by his gift of levitation and not his flopping, shattered legs, he resembled a marionette hauled upward by its strings.
Despite the punishment he’d taken, Anton somehow found the strength to charge and, when Chadrezzan soared above his head, to leap. He caught hold of the burning wizard’s garments with his free hand, and his foe carried him aloft as well. He slashed and stabbed with his cutlass, and Chadrezzanwho must have lost the wand when he’d fallenjabbed and battered with the butt of the serpent-wrapped staff.
At which point, agony ripped through Tu’ala’keth’s body. By diverting her attention to Anton and Chadrezzan, she’d given Kassur the chance to complete his spell, a blast of malignancy that savaged her from the inside out.
For a moment, the pain made her spastic. Kassur broke free of her spiked embrace and scrambled to his feet, nearly fell again when the torn leg threatened to give way, but shifted his weight to compensate. He snarled an incantation, and a fan of flame exploded from his outthrust hands.
Flame. Thanks to her wards, she was in some measure immune to it. But Kassur presumably didn’t know that.
Though she might have tried to roll aside, she let the hot, hungry flare wash right over her. Its kiss seared her, but it was bearable. She screamed and flailed as if it weren’t then lay shaking, to all appearances incapacitated, or so she hoped.
Kassur scrutinized her then looked about for his spear. He surely didn’t mean to take his eyes off her, and only did so for an instant. Still it was the opening she needed.
She reared up onto her knees, flung herself forward, tackled him, and carried him back to the ground. He banged his head, and perhaps that finally jolted some of the fight out of him, for she landed a slice across the throat, ripped his eyes away, and hammered her fists on his chest, driving her spikes between the ribs and into the heart and lungs.
Some time after that, her fury abated sufficiently for her to comprehend it was impossible to hurt him any further. She looked around for Anton and Chadrezzan then froze in dismay.
The spy and the wizard, his corona of flame now extinguished, lay tangled together on the ground. Neither was moving, and it was impossible to tell if either was alive.
She tried to stand. The world seemed to tilt, and she flopped back down. She was on the verge of passing out and would have to help herself before she could aid another.
She chanted, and vigor surged through her limbs. It wasn’t enough to silence all her pains, but that could wait. She rose and hurried to Anton.
He was still breathing. Indeed, except for the contusions where the butt of the iron staff had caught him, he was unmarked. Yet even so, his skin was icy and his pulse raced, making it plain he was sorely wounded. Chadrezzan’s wand was surely as lethal a weapon as any crossbow or trident, despite the fact that its shadowy discharge didn’t break the skin.
Gripping the bony symbol of Umberlee’s power, Tu’ala’keth declaimed the most potent charm of healing at her disposal. Anton thrashed, and his eyes flew open. He coughed hard several times as if he had a bone caught in his throat.
When the fit passed, he wiped his teary eyes and said, “Why is it that whenever you heal me, it hurts? The priests of Ilmater are gentle as doves.”
Ilmater, martyr god of the weak and helplessshe sneered at the mention of his name.
“Never mind,” Anton continued. “I’m grateful anyway.”
“What now?”
“It’s convenient that we made for the edge of town. If we can just drag the corpses on into the hills a little ways, we’ll come to a cliff where we can dump them into the sea.”
“As an offering to Umberlee?”
“If you like. But mainly to make life easier for me. People will assume I killed the Talassans, and I want them to. It will help convince the other factions I’d make a valuable recruit. But I don’t want Shandri Clayhill to try to punish me for slaughtering members of her crew. Without any dead bodies to prove Chadrezzan and Kassur didn’t just run off, she probably won’t make an issue of it.”
“What of the woman on whom we intruded? She witnessed what happened, or enough of it.”
“Good point. I’ll threaten her again, and give her some Thayan gold, too. I imagine the combination will keep her mouth shut.” ondering how best to broach the matter at hand, Tu’ala’keth shadowed Captain Clayhill through the benighted house. Long skirt whispering against the floor, jaw clenched, and body stiff, the human strode rapidly, oblivious to the fact that someone was trailing along behind her.
The pirate’s path ended in the deserted, moonlit courtyard, where she took up a boarding pike with a blunted point and edge and squared off against a straw practice dummy. Slashing and stabbing furiously, she grunted and snarled. Her jewelry lashed and clattered about her body, and the muscles in her bare, tattooed arms and shoulders bunched and flexed.
Tu’ala’keth watched from the verandah for a time then asked, “What troubles you, Captain?”
Shandri Clayhill jerked around. “Waveservant. I didn’t know you were there. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just practicing.”
Tu’ala’keth descended the steps into the yard. “You cannot deceive me. I am your shadow. Your destiny, by Umberlee’s command.”
“Well…” The human wiped sweat from her eyes. More of it plastered her bronze-colored hair to her brow. “It galls me to lose Kassur and Chadrezzan.”
“We will have better fortune with Shark’s Bliss, and all who sail aboard her, devoted solely to Umberlee.”
“So you say, but their magic served us well in the fights with the Thayans. It will vex me if we lose Anton, too. It’s his right to seek a place on another ship, but you’re supposed to be his comrade. Can’t you convince him to stay?”
“Perhaps I can. Perhaps I will. But why are you, to whom the Queen of the Depths has given her favor, so concerned? Can you not see that you are the luck and strength of Shark’s Bliss?”
The human’s mouth twisted. “That has a brave sound to it, but I can’t take prizes without good men at my back.”
“You will find many reavers eager to sail with a captain who bested Red Wizards, and were you not distraught, you would know it. Let us speak, then, of that which oppresses you and clouds your visions: of the man you dream of killing when you batter this mannequin. It is plain you have just come from his chamber. I smell him on you.”