The jumble of structures so far below him confused Vargussel, and it took him a precious few minutes more than he expected to find the slaughterhouse. When it came clear below him, Vargussel dropped from the sky onto the street in front of the dilapidated structure. From above, Vargussel could see that the slaughterhouse was crawling with watchmen. Most were just milling around, waving on the occasional passerby who paused to wonder what they were doing.
A few of the watchmen took note of the wizard slowly descending from the deep gray sky, drenched in the rain that fell around him. They drew their swords but stepped back, afraid and on guard. One of them, a sergeant, stepped forward and as Vargussel's feet came to rest on the cobblestones, the watchman approached him. The wizard didn't recognize the sergeant but the man seemed to know him. The sergeant sheathed his sword and gave a shallow, fast bow.
"Are you in command here?" Vargussel asked.
"No," the sergeant replied. "I mean, no, sir, not really. My men are charged with containing this corner of the building."
"Do you know who I am?" the wizard asked.
"Lord Vargussel?" the sergeant replied.
"Correct," said the wizard, "and I have been sent by the duke with new orders."
"Sir?" the sergeant asked. "That's not usually the way we-"
"Did you see me fly here, Sergeant?" Vargussel interrupted, letting his impatience show in all its force. "Of course this isn't usual but I was sent as quickly as my spells would carry me because the news is grim indeed."
"Sir?"
"The murderer has been found out," Vargussel said, "and he is in the basement of that building, even now carrying out his most heinous crime to date."
The sergeant smiled dully, and said, "That's fine, sir. Lord Constable Regdar himself is down there already. You don't have to worry about-"
"I will decide what I worry about, Sergeant," Vargussel snapped, "and the duke will decide what he worries about. What worries us both now is the lord constable himself."
"Sir?"
"He is the murderer, son," Vargussel said. "It's Regdar!"
The sergeant's mouth opened, which only made him look more stupid.
"Tell the others!" Vargussel shouted, and the sergeant jumped.
As the watchman relayed the scandalous lie about their lord constable, Vargussel stepped closer to the building. He'd heard something just as the sergeant ran off-wood scraping on stone? When he leaned closer to the stinking ruin, he heard it again.
It sounded like someone was digging around in there.
When dust blew into Regdar's lungs, he coughed. When rusty nails scored his flesh, he winced. When splinters nicked his eyes, he blinked. When his muscles protested under a particularly heavy fall of wreckage, he grunted. When Naull's body slipped in his grasp, he held her tighter.
That's how he dug himself out of the ruin below and into the ruin above.
Some of his men, whom he only vaguely remembered stationing there, stood around him in a ring. By the looks on their faces, he thought he must actually look like the grave robber he felt like.
"Help me," Regdar grunted.
One watchman stepped forward, his sword drawn.
"Take her," Regdar said.
The man didn't move.
"What's wrong with you?" asked Regdar as his feet finally came clear of the rubble.
"Lord Constable…" the watchman said, but seemed unable to finish.
The watchmen all looked at each other as if waiting for someone to make the first move.
Footsteps ground toward him through the ruin. Regdar looked up to see the duke's wizard stomping at him with purpose.
"Vargussel…" Regdar started, trailing off when his eyes fell on the amulet.
Swinging from a chain around Vargussel's neck was the same stylized dog with ruby eyes. The sign of the behemoth. The sign of the death ray. The sign of the murderer.
Regdar's head spun, and his vision went red with rage.
26
For the time it took Regdar to gently lay Naull's body on the broken timbers, he let his emotions run wild. Vargussel continued to approach. The watchmen formed a ring around them both but seemed paralyzed with indecision.
By the time Regdar stood, he'd settled his mind around the imminent fight to the death with the powerful wizard. His mind slipped into trained patterns of matching information to tactics. The wizard stopped several paces away and was waving the watchmen closer, commanding their attention.
The behemoth had injured Regdar, and his climb through the wreckage of the slaughterhouse only weakened him further. While one part of Regdar wanted to draw his greatsword and hew through the wizard like a farmer reaping wheat, the soldier in him knew he had a few moments to help himself enter the coming contest, if not at an advantage, then with less of a disadvantage. He reached into a pouch at his belt and drew out a cool, steel vial.
"Hear me, men of the watch!" Vargussel called, his voice echoing in the narrow streets of the Trade Quarter. "I have come on the orders of the duke himself."
Regdar ignored the lie. Instead, with his hand behind his leg where it was hidden from the wizard's sight, he picked the wax seal off the vial.
"The murderer has revealed himself!" Vargussel shouted.
Regdar popped the cork from the vial. Vargussel pointed an accusing finger at him.
"It is Regdar!" the wizard screeched.
Regdar downed the potion in a single gulp. A nervous murmur rose from the watchmen and the gathering crowd of onlookers alike.
Regdar tossed the empty steel vial to the ground. Waves of warmth flowed through him. His pain turned to an itch, then went away. Not all of his considerable injuries were healed by the potion but Regdar felt strong again, and he had two more such vials anyway. He hadn't expected a fight at the top of the ramp or he would have downed at least one before climbing out. He expected to fall into the arms of his own men and rely on his position as lord constable to have his wounds tended to later.
As Regdar drew his greatsword, Vargussel chanted through a spell, waving his hands over his own body. The wizard burst into flames, and the surrounding watchmen all stepped back, some gasping with surprise or fear. The flames settled into a smoldering blue and orange incandescence that played over the wizard's robes, his face, and his hands. Vargussel's teeth were clenched tightly shut, his eyes narrowed to slits, his face reddened with fury. Regdar was sure his own face mirrored the wizard's.
The lord constable stepped within a blade's length of the wizard and slashed across the burning man's midsection. The tip of Regdar's blade should have cut Vargussel deeply enough to spill his entrails but it bounced and skittered across flames that had a strange solidity. A flash of white-hot light forced Regdar to close his eyes and step back. Pain blazed across his face. He knew he was burned but didn't care. He heard Vargussel scuffle backward as well.
Though his face hurt, Regdar opened his eyes and was happy to see that his vision was unimpaired. He wasn't happy to see the wizard's staff descending on him too fast for Regdar to block.
The staff didn't strike him hard. It would have bounced off his armor with hardly a grunt from Regdar were the staff not enchanted. Tendrils of blue-green lightning played along Regdar's armor and made his shoulder and neck convulse painfully. It was startlingly close to the pain he'd felt from the behemoth's lightning, but less intense.
The wizard swung the staff quickly for a second strike but Regdar was ready. He batted the weapon away with the flat of his sword. A shower of sparks cascaded around the blade and Regdar felt his fingers tingle on the pommel.
"You die now, Lord Constable," Vargussel sneered.
Regdar didn't bother replying. Instead, he swept his greatsword in a wide arc, intending to decapitate the wizard and end the fight quickly. Something about the way Vargussel moved toward the blow made Regdar change his mind. At the last possible moment, Regdar twisted the sword in his grip so that it missed the still-smoldering wizard by less than an inch. The spell would have burned him again.