Shiv watched in admiration as she increased the tempo. Unarmored, she was more agile than the Knight, and within the span of several minutes she had her foe gasping for breath. She made quick work of the man now, wresting his blade from him with one fierce swing, then thrusting her sword into a gap between his plates.
She jumped back as he fell, then leaped forward and over the dead knight, charging along the narrow trail straight toward Shiv.
“Shiv!” she cried. “Move!”
Shiv turned as she raced past, following her movements in horror as he saw the Knight he thought he’d killed back up on his feet, his arm drawn back to hurl a dagger.
The metal caught the sun as the dagger flew deep into Risana’s abdomen.
“No!” Shiv stared in disbelief as she fell, sword clattering on the path.
The Dark Knight was unsteady, blood flowing down his breastplate. Still, he refused to die, drawing another dagger from a band at his waist, taking aim at Shiv this time. The master assassin stood frozen. Then he saw a bloodied dagger fly over the Knight’s head. Risana had tugged the weapon free and sent it back.
The bad throw was enough to distract the Knight. Shiv plunged in, ramming his borrowed short sword into the knight’s chestplate, cracking the armor and lodging it deep in the man’s chest.
“Rish!” Shiv hurried to Risana’s side. For an instant he considered doing nothing, waiting for her death to come and hiding her body, collecting his pay. Instead, he found himself groping for her pouch that held herbs and powders. He’d become knowledgeable at using them just by watching her, but he didn’t know how to treat such a serious wound. “Tell me what to do. What do I use, Rish? Tell me! What can I do?”
She stared at him a moment, doe eyes meeting his worried and confused ones, lips faintly smiling. He bent close, turned his ear so he could hear her.
“Maybe they’ll think I’m dead and stop sending assassins,” she mused.
It was spring, and the snow had started to melt on the slopes. Shiv was walking behind her, listening to her cloak flutter in the breeze and enjoying the scent of the pale purple flowers that were poking through the snow here and there.
“Maybe,” Shiv said after several moments. “Maybe they’ll think I’m dead, too.” We make quite a pair, he thought, a former Solamnic Knight and an old assassin.
“A pair of deserters,” Risana said, as if she’d heard what he’d been thinking.
Shiv looked over his shoulder, studying the spires and overhangs, watching for out-of-place shadows and the glint of steel.
They were heading north, to a string of villages that were being visited by a bothersome pox. There would be herbs to gather along the way, their healing pouches to be refilled, roofs to be repaired, fences to be mended…
Shiv knew an old man’s luck would not last forever. What mattered to him now was how long hers would hold out. He realized now he’d become undone that first night he saw her, when he peered through the crack in the shuttered window and watched the firelight dance across her selfless, determined face. He had a new contract now, one he’d made with himself-he would protect her as long as he could.
“Till my last breath,” he said as he walked.
Hunger
Richard A. Knaak
“Massster Brudasss! Massster Brudasss! May I beg of you leave to enter?”
Brudas looked up from his work, barely containing the rage that had swelled up the moment the irritating voice of the Baaz had grated on his sensitive ears. If he could have fulfilled this mission without the aid of the lowest of all draconian kind, he would have done so, but that would have meant muddying his hands himself-something the Bozak would only do for his mistress, the great black dragon Sable. Digging in swampy mud was definitely work for Baaz, and they were welcome to it.
“Enter, you fool!” Brudas snapped, eager to get on with his own responsibilities.
He and a trio of Baaz had come to the half-sunken ruins of the city of Krolus on a quest for their mistress. Sable had come across scraps of information that led her to believe that some powerful relics, including those created by a dark wizard of the Third Age known for his trafficking with the undead, still lay buried somewhere in the heart of the old kingdom. In the past, her minions had comhed the devastated area for such items without success. Brudas, however, hoped to change that. He had uncovered old scrolls that hinted of places missed hy his hapless predecessors and had convinced the black dragon to let him lead this latest hunt for the elusive artifacts.
Success would further the draconian’s own ambitions. Of course, at the time he volunteered, he had not considered that there was no more stench-infested, waterlogged region in all the overlord’s domain than this one.
Bowing as he entered, the Baaz hurried to the bench and table where his superior sat glaring at him. He quickly fell to one knee. Brudas eyed the newcomer with distaste. Baaz were the least of the draconian races, a far cry below the elegant Auraks Brudas so admired and emulated, and certainly not nearly advanced as the Bozaks, of which he himself was a sterling example. The stinking, mud-encrusted figure before him was typical of his kind.
They were a contrast, these two, whose only connection was the fact that they, like all draconians, had been created full-grown by dark magic from the stolen eggs of metallic dragons, the so-called dragons of light. Baaz sprang from the eggs of the brass leviathans and their scaled hides showed a tarnished hint of that coloring. Pathetic in so many ways, Baaz had wings that would not even let them fly. They could merely glide. Once they had been the most numerous of the draconians, but as even the Dragon Highlords had seen their uselessness, many had perished fighting in the front lines in the War of the Lance. True, Baaz were more muscular than the taller, slimmer Bozaks, but they lacked the quick wit of the latter. Little wonder, since Bozak sprang from the magnificent bronze dragons and had been granted a great gift-the ability to wield magic in a manner that all the other draconians, (save the imposing Auraks, of course) could only dream about.
The Auraks. As much pride as Brudas felt concerning his own heritage, he dreamed of being as skilled and advanced as the tall, wingless ones. The Auraks were the epitome of draconian superiority, the creations of corrupted golden dragon eggs. They could cast better spells in swifter fashion, were taller, sleeker, and spoke eloquently, boasting intelligence and wisdom.
Brudas tried his best to emulate Auraks, even to the point of dressing in sorcerer’s robes and practicing his speech so he didn’t sound like one of the lesser draconian races. The Bozak felt, with some justification, that he could now number himself among the most gifted of his kind, yet still he felt inadequate in comparison to the Auraks. To add to his frustration, his sorcery had begun to fail of late, a horrible thing to happen to one born with the gift. He hadn’t told anyone, hoping that he might manage to find and ferret out a magical artifact for himself in the ruins of the city of Krolus. The expedition had to succeed…
“Get up, you imbecile!” he snarled at the crouching Baaz. Other races occasionally confused the two draconian types because of the similar coloring of their scales, a fact that always irritated Brudas. Could not the color-blind fools tell the difference between tarnished bronze and knavish brass?
The Baaz rose. Brudas recognized him as Drek, the lowliest of his lowly kind, perhaps the stupidest of the three draconians who accompanied him on this quest.
Drek had the ambition and intelligence of a rock, perhaps even less. To Drek, the Bozak tended to delegate the most menial and disgusting labor.
“Forgive me, Massster Brudasss!” Drek hissed. “I did not mean to disssturb you.”
The sibilant hiss annoyed Brudas even more than the Baaz’s blunt snout. Even though sitting, he managed to stare down his own sleek, narrow snout-more akin to a true dragon’s than Drek’s swinish nose-and, with perfect enunciation, he retorted, “You disturb me simply by existing, Drek! If you have something to report, report it and get out of my sight! I still hope to find out if one of these artifacts-” he waved a slim, taloned hand at the table, upon which lay nearly a dozen supposedly magical items- “has any latent power, something that will please our mistress!”