Not that he lingered to study it in any great detail. He was already darting under it as it howled in outrage, chewing empty air and stray leaves.
Self-preservation was a strong instinct. Terror was, too. Too strong for reasonable men to ignore.
Denaos would wonder which it was that made him dart under and away from the fire, that made him charge toward the wizard. Later. Right now, he didn’t care. Neither did his knife; it was an agreeable sort, leaping immediately to his hand as one eye narrowed on the wizard’s tender throat and the other glanced at his dangerous, fiery hands.
Who would have even thought to look at a wizard’s feet?
That no one ever would was small comfort to Denaos. Comfort that grew smaller as the wizard raised a foot and brought it down firmly upon sand that didn’t remain as such for long. The moment his sole struck, the earth rolled, rising up like a shaken rug. And like a leather-clad speck of dust, Denaos was hurled into the air.
Where he lingered.
Whatever force that had shook the earth slid effortlessly through the Librarian’s body, from foot to hand. One palm extended, the air rippling in a sightless line between it and Denaos, floating haplessly in the grip of it. The other clenched into a fist, withdrawing the fire that licked from it.
Only when Denaos felt the sensation of the sky turning against him, holding him suspended in insubstantial fingers, did he begin to think this was a little unfair.
“I offered you a chance,” Bralston said. “Something clean and quick that you didn’t deserve.”
“Clean and quick?” Denaos scoffed, not quite grasping the futility of it. “What is it about fire that suggests either to you, you bald little p-”
He didn’t feel bad about losing the insult. It was hard to hold onto when insubstantial fingers wrapped around his body and slammed him bodily into earth that quickly filled his mouth. The grip of unseen force tightened, raised him again. He hovered for a moment before it smashed him once more, earth coming undone beneath him, reshaping itself and crawling into every orifice.
Except the important ones, he thought, small pleasure in that.
Smaller still after he was smashed again and again. Each time, the earth ate the sound of screaming and of impact, rendering the sound of a man being killed into something quieter.
But the moment he thought he was going to choke on dirt, which came after the moment he thought was going to be crushed by the invisible hands, he was hauled into the sky. He stared down at an indentation of his body, noted that the nose looked a little squashed, before the wizard spoke a word.
He was twisted in the air. One hand turned into a fist. . or maybe it was a foot all along. Hard to tell with the invisible and insubstantial. Hard to think on it when whatever invisible limb slammed into his chest and slammed him against a tree. It seized his head-a hand, then, good to know-and smashed it against the tree. He came back dizzy, winded, fragments of bark stuck in his hair. . probably blood, too. Hard to think, hard to hear.
That must be why Bralston spoke so loud and clear as he approached to ten paces away from Denaos, holding one hand out, the air rippling before it.
“I don’t enjoy it, no,” the Librarian said, answering some unspoken question. “Because I can’t do this without looking at your face. And every time I see it, I see when it used to be tanned and your hair was dyed black, when you pretended to be a Djaalman and you looped your arm around the Houndmistress’s and pretended you were someone she could trust.”
“No,” Denaos groaned, “she wasn’t-”
“She was,” Bralston interrupted. “Everything you think she might have been, she was. She was the one who took our city away from criminals and who didn’t look at the people like commodities. She was going to end the vice dens and the gambling halls and the. . the whorehouses. They were all going to be people again.”
“Maybe we don’t get to choose to be that,” Denaos said, flashing a bloodied grin. “Maybe they would have found something else you hated. Maybe there’s no pleasing you.”
“Maybe. Maybe people are the way they are. And people who are the way you are exist.”
Bralston’s free hand went to his head, removed the wide-brimmed hat from it. He pressed his thumb against it, spoke a word, ran it along the steel ringing its interior. Like a hound stirred, the hat twitched. Toothy spikes grew in the wake of his digit, crinkling, growling in a way that only a man-eating hat could.
“This is going to be messy,” Bralston said.
Well, obviously, Denaos thought.
“I won’t apologize.”
Probably smart.
“You deserve this.”
Denaos looked up to heaven. And this is who you send to tell me that? I suppose you don’t mess around.
He looked back at the Librarian, who drew his hand back. He tossed the hat lazily at Denaos. It opened wide, teeth glistening, leather and steel jaws gaping.
And the rogue’s hand snapped. Before either man knew it, the dagger flew from his fingers and pierced the hat with a shriek of metal and pinned it to the earth. They looked down at the hat, writhing with whatever power animated it, and then up at each other.
And in that instant, Denaos knew the Gods loathed a heathen more than a sinner.
Maybe he would think about that later, when a knife didn’t leap so readily to his hand and fly from his fingertips like an angel.
It flew straight enough to be blessed, even if it didn’t strike. Bralston’s word was sloppy, the wave of his hand undisciplined as it formed force from air to send the dagger spiraling away. He raised his hand, pointed two fingers forward, the electricity eagerly crackling upon their tips.
And Denaos was already there, ducking under to seize the Librarian’s hand and thrust it upward. The rogue felt his arm shake as lightning flew into the sky, felt the stray current shoot down his arm as another whip of electricity shot off into nothingness. It throbbed angrily, shook muscle and bone, but he didn’t let go. The Gods had sent him a message.
He was determined to fulfill it. Or defy it. Whatever.
Bralston’s hand shot out, pressed against Denaos’s chest. That force that had hurled him into the air and slammed him into the earth now reached inside him, those intangible fingers slipping past his skin and through his ribs. They searched for something important enough, poking and probing before they found it.
And then they squeezed.
His lungs, maybe. Or his heart. He couldn’t afford to be choosy, not with the sensation of the air being wrung from him like dirty water from a rag. Bralston did not smile, did not give the slightest impression he was enjoying this.
A good man, one who should survive this fight. Wouldn’t be the first one who didn’t.
Denaos’s right hand jerked, his grip upon Bralston’s wrist shifting as the blade hidden in his glove came on spring and a bloody song. It shot through Bralston’s wrist in a single red note, accompanied by the Librarian’s howl.
The fingers inside Denaos retreated just enough to grip him by something more exterior and hurl him away. A ripping sound joined him as he did, like very fresh paper tearing.
Bralston was bleeding. Bralston was angry. He reached down, seized his bloodied wrist, fought to keep the blood inside him. He looked up as Denaos sprang to his feet, raised the blade over his head. Bralston narrowed his eyes upon the rogue.
And spoke a word.
Lenk felt no lighter as he peeled off his tunic, nor the shirt of mail that lay under it. When the coarse undershirt had been stripped and he sat, half-naked in the breeze, he didn’t feel cold. That should be odd to any other man.
“No room for that,” the voice answered his thoughts.
He didn’t answer.
“For cold, for pain, for anything. We have duty. We have things to kill. First her, then them, then them.”