Placing his left hand over his breast, Bileworm glided forward.
Ironically, it was one of the tremors that saved the Owl, for by staggering him, it turned him around sufficiently to see the would-be assassin slinking toward him. He and Bileworm both came on guard, the familiar making sure to stand in extreme profile, angling the left side of his body well away from the human's blade.
''I know what you really are," Thamalon growled. "Nuldrevyn explained it."
"How nice for you," Bileworm said, then lunged.
Ossian had been a competent swordsman, and by inhabiting his corpse, Bileworm had inherited a measure of his skill. Still, employing his buckler, Thamalon deflected the attack with ease, then riposted with a head cut.
The nobleman's long sword sheared away the left side of Bileworm's face. The shock of such a grievous injury would have incapacitated any normal fighter. Bileworm, however, had no need to suffer discomforts arising in Ossian's flesh. He reflexively blocked the pain and renewed his attack.
The remise caught Thamalon by surprise, but, displaying the reflexes of a highly trained combatant, he twisted aside from Bileworm's point with not an inch to spare. Instantly he hacked at the spirit's extended wrist, slicing muscle and tendon and splintering bone. The blow didn't quite lop off Bileworm's hand, but it rendered it useless for swordplay.
Time to go, then. Hoping that Thamalon wouldn't see him depart in the darkness, Bileworm stumbled around, turning his back to the aristocrat, then exploded from Ossian's mouth. The lad's corpse collapsed.
His malleable form flattened against the cobbles, Bileworm slithered rapidly along, seeking another shell to inhabit. The first he came across was a behir carcass, and after a split second's hesitation, he passed it by. If a body wasn't manlike, it sometimes took him a few minutes to figure out how to make it move properly, and he needed a vessel in which he could fight immediately.
Next, he spied a dead gnoll with a gash in the side of its furry neck and its hide tunic tacky with blood. That ought to do. He poured himself between the creature's fangs, then jammed his substance into rough alignment with the gnoll's limbs. Rushing the possession this way, he might find that his new body moved a trifle awkwardly, but the violence of the bridge bouncing about reduced everyone to clumsiness anyway.
Bileworm stealthily turned the gnoll's hyena head. Thamalon was still poised over Ossian's mangled form as if suspicious that it was about to jump up and resume the battle. The familiar took hold of the gnoll's notched iron scimitar, leaped to his feet, and charged, once again hoping to take his opponent by surprise.
Alas, Thamalon sensed him rushing in on his flank, spun in his direction, ducked low, and extended his point at the gnoll's chest. Staggering as another tremor jolted him, Bileworm only barely managed to halt in time to avoid impaling himself, an injury that, though it might not have affected him at all, might also have inconvenienced him severely. Snarling, he hastily reverted to the fighting stance he'd employed before.
Struggling for balance as the bridge shuddered, the two combatants circled, until Bileworm discerned an apparent weakness in Thamalon's guard. He swept the scimitar in a brutal arc toward the outside of the human's sword arm.
Thamalon's blade instantly shifted back to the right, closing the line. Metal rang as the scimitar struck the long sword and rebounded. The nobleman cut at the gnoll's already damaged neck and severed its head.
Since the head couldn't fight, Bileworm elected to remain with the body. He plunged forward, slashing madly, hoping that sheer ferocity would compensate for the fact that he was now fighting blind.
His curved blade touched only air, and his leg gave way. Thamalon must have cut it out from under him.
As the gnoll fell, Bileworm streamed up from the stump between its shoulders. This time, Thamalon saw him leave, and thrust his point harmlessly through the familiar's shadowy form. Bileworm gave him a mocking leer, then darted away, shrinking himself so his foe would lose track of him.
Tottering, Thamalon pivoted this way and that, peering to see which of the corpses on the cobblestones would rear up and attack him next. Meanwhile, Bileworm circled, trying to decide the same thing. Which carcass would best serve his purpose?
After a few seconds, he noticed the dead Talendar guard slumped in a shadowy, recessed doorway at Thamalon's back. It was in the one direction that Thamalon hadn't glanced. Evidently he hadn't noticed it was there.
Swinging wide to keep the Owl from spotting him, Bile-worm slithered up to the warrior's body and writhed his way inside. When the dead man's eyes began to serve him, he discerned that everything was proceeding according to plan. Thamalon still had his back to him.
Bileworm gripped the warrior's longsword and carefully climbed to his feet. He was resolved that this time, he would keep silent and succeed in attacking by surprise.
He assumed his fighting stance, crept forward, and aimed his sword to pierce Thamalon's spine. Then, just as he was about to thrust, his enemy spun around, lunged, and drove his point through the guard's heart and deep into Bileworm's form beneath.
Wracked by a shock and weakness he couldn't block out, Bileworm dropped his blade. Swaying, he told himself that this couldn't be happening. He, who had survived for millennia by dint of his cunning, couldn't perish at the hands of a dull-witted mortal man. Yet even as he denied it, he knew it was true.
"You aren't quite as clever as you think," Thamalon told him almost gently. "I pretended to ignore one of the corpses to induce you to occupy it, so I'd know from what quarter you'd attack next. And by taking such pains to protect your heart, you simply revealed where you were vulnerable."
The human sounded so smug that Bileworm felt some sort of mocking retort was in order, but with his mind crumbling, he couldn't think of one. His knees buckled. and darkness swallowed him.
Across the roadway, a four-story post-and-bearn house rumbled, swayed, and collapsed. Shamur winced to think of the unfortunate family crushed or trapped inside, and then, at last, she caught sight of her quarry.
As she'd hoped, Marance was alone, in the center of the fish market. She realized that she'd unconsciously expected to find the masked wizard standing straight and tall to work his magic, his hands upraised and his dark mantle flapping around him. Instead, he'd seated himself atop one of the fishmonger's tables, where he was rocking a glowing violet miniature replica of the bridge back and forth.
The burnt black remains of four men who had apparently tried to interfere with Marance lay within a few paces of the butcher-block. A few pale, horrified faces gawked from the windows of houses adjacent to the market, but evidently none of these spectators could muster the courage to try to stop the spellcaster, even though they must realize that if he kept on as he was, his efforts were likely to kill them.
Shamur, of course, did intend to stop him, and this once, despite her natural inclinations, she had no intention of allowing her adversary a sporting chance, the better to challenge and revel in her own prowess. Marance was too formidable, and there was too much at stake, to opt for a fair fight as long as she had an alternative. If possible, she meant to slip up on him from behind and dispatch him before he even realized he was in danger.
Unfortunately, the fish market was one of the few sections of the bridge that didn't have buildings along the sides. It would have been easier to sneak around behind Marance if she didn't have to descend to ground level, but she reckoned that a skilled thief still should have a chance. It was night, after all, and she was wearing dark clothing, including a hooded cloak to distort her silhouette. She started to clamber down the brown-stone wall of the last house south of the open space.