“I think he does,” said Ashi. “Look on the walkway!”
Singe looked and cursed. The angle from the sunken courtyard hid some of what was happening above, but he could see bugbears carrying more limp kalashtar in from the shadows. Three … four. Enough to make up the difference. Biish’s people must have made some captures as they drove the kalashtar toward the Gathering Light.
They needed to break through the line of guards. Singe drew a shallow breath. “Ashi, be ready to move,” he said, then focused on a thick tangle of goblins and Adarans, pointed his fingers, and hissed a spell.
Like grain before a scythe, the whole tangle crumpled to the ground. Ashi choked. “Dead?”
“Asleep. Move!” Beyond the fallen combatants, only a few startled goblins separated them from open space. Singe raised his rapier high and charged with a scream. The nerve of the goblins broke and they dived aside. He and Ashi burst through into the clear at the bottom of the ramp to the walkway.
Less than five paces away, Vennet whirled around. The half-elf’s eyes opened wide in a face speckled with blood. There were still hobgoblins carrying kalashtar up the ramp behind him, but a wild grin split his lips and he spread his arms as if in invitation. “You’re too late, Singe!” he shouted, his voice cracking. “It’s over!”
Singe leaped for him in grim silence. His rapier darted forward, but Vennet folded his arms and brought his cutlass around to beat the thin blade down. Singe let his rapier drop with the impact, then twisted to the side and cut upward. A gap opened in the white fabric of Vennet’s shirt, and a bloody crease in the flesh of his side. Vennet gasped and jumped back, his smiling lips peeled back in a snarl. Ashi stepped up to Singe’s side, and Vennet’s eyes darted between the two of them before narrowing sharply. “Dabrak!” he screamed.
On the ramp above, a bugbear with a nasty-looking axe in either hand turned, and his large, hairy face lit up pleasure. Letting loose a bellow, he sprinted down at them, axes held low and ready to strike.
Singe’s rapier wavered between the two threats-and in that instant, Vennet pressed forward, cutlass chopping down. Singe pushed himself to the side and the curved blade cut the air just past his arm. He saw Ashi turn to take on Dabrak, her shining honor blade meeting his two axes blow for blow and block for block.
Singe turned himself to focus on Vennet. The half-elf’s wild swing became a cut at Singe’s ankles. The wizard hopped back, stabbing at Vennet’s outstretched sword arm. Vennet snatched it clear. The two men circled each other for a moment, then Vennet flung himself forward once again.
This time Singe met his blow before it fell. Rapier and cutlass grated together as Singe’s block and the momentum of Vennet’s attack pushed the blades high. Their forearms locked together, muscles straining. Vennet sneered into Singe’s face. “You can’t resist me,” he said. “I command the wind itself! I’ll steal the air from your lungs-yours and your false-marked bitch!”
His eyes were bright and spittle flew with his words. There was a stink of decay around him, an odor of infection that brought memories of healers’ tents after battle, of rotting wounds and gangrene, flooding into Singe’s mind. He choked on the stench and Vennet grinned. “You can’t stand against the power of a true Siberys mark!”
Singe clenched his teeth. “Are you as blind as you are insane, Vennet? You don’t have a Siberys mark!”
He thrust hard with the words, heaving with all of his strength, and Vennet went staggering back. He glared at Singe with such rage and hatred that the wizard felt a chill spread through him. Singe brought up his rapier, ready for another attack-
The cry that came down from the top of the ramp only made him colder. “Captives are on board!”
Vennet’s eyes opened wide with terrible triumph. “Too late, Singe!” He thrust out his hand. “Storm lash my enemies!”
The howling wind that burst from Vennet was no stronger than the power Singe had seen and felt Vennet display in the past. Mad words made the sudden gust no greater. The wind was still more than strong enough to send Singe stumbling backward, blown before its force. Ashi was caught in its path, as well. She cried out in surprise and through narrowed eyes, Singe saw her grab for the nearest solid object to steady herself. That object happened to be Dabrak, but even the big bugbear staggered in the face of the wind. Beyond hunter and thug, goblins screamed as the gale sent them tumbling.
The wind only lasted a moment, vanishing with an abruptness that left Singe reeling, but a moment was all Vennet needed. By the time Singe had regained his feet, the half-elf was at the top of the ramp and onto the walkway.
Curses and the clang of metal on metal behind Singe marked the resumption of Ashi and Dabrak’s duel. Singe didn’t even look back at them-legs pumping, a spell ready on his lips, he raced up the ramp after Vennet.
He was just in time to see Vennet dash up a loading ramp and vanish through a hatch into the airship’s interior. A bugbear, apparently not fast enough to get out of Vennet’s way, was huddled on the walkway at the end of the ramp as blood gushed from a wound across its belly. The other bugbears and hobgoblins who had helped load the kalashtar onto the ship were all staring in confusion, but Singe’s appearance, rapier drawn, sent them scrambling out of the way. The end of the loading ramp was already swinging away. Singe leaped the gap between it and the walkway without looking down. Three fast strides carried him the length of the ramp, and he threw himself through the hatch, ready for an ambush.
The hatch opened into a small hold. The only light was the fiery glow that fell through the hatch from the elemental ring. In the dimness, Singe could make out some crates, a few barrels-and a number of silent, unmoving figures. Standing, sitting, or lying in whatever position they had been placed, Dah’mir’s kalashtar captives stared at him with unblinking eyes before-one by one-looking away beyond him and back toward the presence that held their minds prisoner.
There was no use trying to free them. Singe had seen Dandra in this state. The kalashtar would do nothing of their own volition until Dah’mir released them. Moving cautiously, he stepped further into the hold. He couldn’t see any sign of Vennet, but there were passages leading fore and aft, rectangles of deeper darkness amid the shadows.
Then from the passage leading fore came noise. An exclamation in Goblin, cut short by the rending of flesh. A body falling. Vennet’s voice, softly. “Storm at dawn, didn’t I tell you not to wander around on board?”
Quick footsteps moved back aft along the passage. Singe darted to the farthest side of the hold and crouched down among the unmoving kalashtar. Vennet reappeared, his cutlass and ruined shirt dripping new blood.
A spell rose in Singe’s mind, and he lifted his hand, tracking the mad half-elf. He would only have one chance to catch him. He didn’t relish the idea of hand-to-hand fighting in the hold, and the spell had to be precise or he’d risk harming the kalashtar. He focused his concentration, pointed his fingers-then held back the spell at the last moment as sudden shouts of alarm erupted from outside the ship and Vennet leaped to throw a lever beside the hatch. With a groan of steel and wood, the loading ramp began to fold itself back into the ship and somewhere a bell rang. Singe felt a tremor pass through the airship, a surge of power from the elemental that drove it, and caught his breath. They were moving!
But he could still stop this. Vennet was still leaning against the frame of the slowly closing hatch, watching whatever was happening outside. His body was a perfect silhouette. Singe focused his concentration again …
“Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-”