Melegaunt flattened a ball of shadowsilk between hispalms, then flung it toward the approaching dragonmen and uttered a few wordsin ancient Netherese. A hazy disk of darkness appeared between the two groupsand began to bleed black tendrils of shadow into the sky, but Melegaunt had notbeen quick enough to raise his spell shield. He felt a familiar softeningunderfoot, and the Vaasans cried out and began to stampede up the road. It wasexactly the wrong thing to do. The rotting logs came apart all the faster,plunging the entire tribe to their knees in sodden peat.
In an attempt to spread their weight and slow theirdescent, they immediately threw themselves to their bellies and splayed theirarms. Still standing atop the peat by virtue of the spells he had cast beforethe battle, Melegaunt cursed and laid his shadow-walk again, then turned tomeet the dragonmen.
They were nowhere to be seen, at least not near hisspell shield. Pulling another strand of shadowsilk from his pocket, Melegauntpivoted in a slow circle and-as expected-found them diving out of the sun.Melegaunt allowed himself a tight smile. They were wise to respect hisabilities-much wiser, in that regard, than had been better-known foes in thesouth. He tossed his shadowsilk into the sky and uttered the incantation of oneof his more potent spells.
That whole quarter of the sky broke into a shower ofshadowy tears. Instead of rolling off when they fell on a body, however, thesedrops clung to whatever they touched, stretching into long threads of stickyblack fiber. Within moments, the entire column of dragonmen had become swaddledin gummy balls of darkness and was plunging headlong into the bog. Melegauntwatched long enough to be certain that none of the fliers would escape, thenturned to find the Moor Eagles rushing onto the log road behind him.
They were glancing at him over their shoulders, makingsigns of warding that might have kept a demon at bay, but that only madeMelegaunt feel lonely and unappreciated. Stifling bitter laughter, he walkedacross the bog to where Bodvar and three more brave warriors stood waiting forhim at the edge of the road.
"I'm sorry for your losses, Bodvar," hesaid. "I might have saved more, but there was much you didn't tellme."
"And much you didn't tell us," Bodvarreplied. He laid the hilt of Melegaunt's black sword across his arm and offeredit to the wizard. "My thanks."
Melegaunt waved him off.
"Keep it. As I said, I seldom use itanymore."
"I know what you said," Bodvar replied,"but only a fool takes gifts from a devil."
"Devil?" Melegaunt snapped, still not takinghis sword. "Is that how you repay my kindness? With insults?"
"What is true is no insult," Bodvar said."We saw the things you did."
"It was only magic," Melegaunt protested."Southern magic. If you have not seen its like before. . "
"Now it is you who are insulting us," Bodvarsaid, continuing to offer the sword. "In Vaasa, we are backward in manythings-but wisdom is no longer one of them."
Melegaunt started to repeat his protests, thenrealized he would only anger Bodvar by insisting on the lie-and revealing thetruth about the Shadow Weave was, of course, out of the question. If he werelucky enough to avoid being struck dead on the spot, he would lose forever thedark power that had so impressed the Vaasans.
When Melegaunt made no further attempts to argue,Bodvar said, "We will keep the bargain we made." He tipped his chintoward the three warriors with him. "These are the guides I promised. Theywill take you wherever you wish to go in Vaasa."
Melegaunt started to say that he no longer neededthem-then thought better of it and smiled. "Anywhere?"
Bodvar looked uncomfortable, but nodded and said,"That was our bargain."
"Good. Then I want them to take me wherever the Moor Eagles aregoing." Melegaunt took his sword back and added, "And no tricks,Bodvar. I'm sure we both know what happens to those who play false withdevils-don't we?"
Higharvestide, the Year ofthe Moat
In the Shadows of the Peaksof the Dragonmen
Bodvar came to the island, as Melegaunt had known hewould, late in the day, when the sun was sinking low over the Peaks of the Dragonmenand the shadows of the mountains lay long upon the cold bog. What the wizardhad not known was that the chieftain would bring his wife, a young beauty withhair the color of night and eyes as blue as a clear sky. She seemed a littlethicker around the middle than the last time Melegaunt had seen her, though itwas always hard to tell with Vaasan women- their shape tended to vanish beneathall the furs they wore.
Melegaunt watched them pick their way across hiszigzagging boulder-walk until a metallic sizzle behind him demanded hisattention. He checked the sky to be certain there were no white-scaled fliersdiving down to trouble them, then he donned a huge leather mitt and pulled along narrow mold from the oven he had kept blazing for three days. In the mold,floating on a bed of liquid tin, lay a sword similar to the one he had offeredBodvar all those tendays ago-save that it was still molten and glowing whitehot.
Melegaunt placed the sword on a bed of ice-freezescame early to that part of the world-then he waited for the mold to cool. Whenhe was sure the cold would draw the tempering elements down to the underside,he began to lay fibers of shadowsilk on the molten glass, taking care toarrange them first lengthwise, then diagonally in both directions, thenlengthwise again so the weapon would have strength and resilience in all directions.Finally, he used his dagger to open another cut on his arm, dripping his warmblood into the mixture and quietly whispering the ancient words that gave the bladeits magic thirst.
By the time that was finished, the sword had hardenedenough that he could lift it from its mold and plunge it into a vat of slushywater, placed at just the right distance from the furnace to keep it that way.Once the heat had melted all of the slush, Melegaunt removed the sword, thenplaced it on its bed of hot tin with the opposite side down and returned themold to the oven again. Such was the art of the shadow blade, heating andcooling a thousand times over, tinting them with shadowsilk until the glasscould finally hold no more and began to shed fibers like an unbrushed dog.
A soft boot scuffed the stone at the edge ofMelegaunt's work site, then Bodvar called, "I see you are still here, DarkDevil."
"You can see that by the smoke of myfurnaces," Melegaunt answered. He pulled the sleeve of his cloak down tohide the cuts on his arm, then turned to glower at the chieftain. "Comefor a sword, have you?"
"Hardly," said Bodvar. He cast an uneasyglance at the nineteen weapons racked at the edge of the work site. Though allwere completed and honed to a razor edge, they were paler than Melegaunt'ssword, with a crystal translucence that still showed the lay of the shadowfibers embedded in the glass. "You are wasting your time on thataccount."
"Am I?" Melegaunt smirked knowingly andadded, "Well, they will be here when you need them."
"Our need will never be that great."
Melegaunt did not argue, only swung an arm toward thefurnace behind him and said, "That will be twenty. Twenty warriors is allthat remains to you, is it not?"
Instead of answering, Bodvar glanced around the clutteredwork area and shook his head.
"Only a devil could live out here alone. It isexposed to every wind that blows."
"It's a safe place to work."
Melegaunt glanced at Bodvar's young wife and smiled.Idona smiled back, but said nothing. Though Vaasan women werehardly shy, he had noticed that most of them preferred to keep their silencearound him.
He looked back to Bodvar and said, "The bogpeople protect every ground approach but one, and the dragonmen are easy tospot from here."
"The dragonmen can watch you," Bodvarcountered, "and the bog people have you surrounded."
"Vaasans may see it that way." Melegauntknelt and began to feed his furnace from the charcoal pile beside it. "Theway to destroy an enemy is to make him fight in his home instead ofyours."