“I barred the door below so that we should receive no more interruptions,” the beast growled as he limped toward the elf. From somewhere below, Cael heard the Knights pounding on the tower door and yelling angrily. He backed along the wall, keeping his naked blade at guard while carefully watching his footing.
“It is time we settled this, you and I,” Kolav continued. His tulwar whistled through the air above his head.
“Indeed,” Cael agreed. Everything depended on one perfectly timed, perfectly placed lunge. He released his hold on the Reliquary, letting it fall from his cloak. It landed at his feet.
A deep growl rumbled from the minotaur. “A thief to the last, I see,” he said.
Cael readied himself. Kolav limped closer. Another wary step, another.
“No longer can you hide behind that beard,” Kolav said. “I shall cut out your heart and eat it raw.”
Cael lunged. His sword sang through the air. Kolav blocked the attack and trapped Cael’s sword against the crenellated wall with his own weighty blade. A sledgelike fist sent the elf sprawling back dangerously near the parapet’s edge. His sword flew from his hand, slid a few feet over the rain-slick stone, then toppled over the edge. The clang of steel against stone below sounded the death knell.
Cael struggled to his feet. He drew the throwing dagger from his belt, the one he’d stolen from Oros’s desk. The minotaur advanced upon him, relentless as the sea’s tide.
In a flash of lightning, Cael saw a hunched figure on the parapet behind Kolav. It held something in its hand, something raised to throw. Cael’s eyes widened in surprise, and seeing his reaction, Kolav half-turned to confront the new threat.
It was too late. With a fierce cry of “Nevermind!” the figure launched its weapon. A smooth metallic cube it appeared to be, but as it flew, it unfolded in the air. Kolav threw up his hands in defense, to no avail.
The minotaur staggered back, clutching at the hideous steel spider affixed to his horned head. He bellowed in agony as, with a sickening rending noise, his flesh and sinew struggled against springs of steel and levers of tempered iron. One black horn tore free from his skull, firmly gripped in the metal spider’s jaws. Kolav screamed as blood gushed over his face.
With a flick of the wrist, Cael sent his dagger winging to lodge in the beast’s throat. Kolav staggered, clutched at the dagger, then toppled backward over the parapet wall. Thirty feet below there was a dull crunch as the minotaur landed in the muddy trench. Slowly he sank, the black mud sucking him down, as he clawed weakly at the wall. In moments, he was gone.
Cael reeled, exhausted, and fell into the waiting arms of his rescuer. A stench more vile than any he had ever encountered greeted him.
“Gimzig!” he cried. “How can it be? You are alive?”
“Of course I am alive, no thanks to the gully dwarves who found me, I nearly died under their gentle ministrations,” the gnome answered. “You’ve grown a beard, it looks superb on you, I never could abide those abominable, youthfully smooth cheeks, nothing like a proper beard to give you a certain nobility….”
“But how, Gimzig? Alynthia saw you dragged away by a sewer monster! How did you survive?” Cael asked as he clutched his small friend.
“I’ll tell you, but first let’s get down from here, I do enjoy the view, but this is no place for the telling of tales, just follow me, I have a self-extending ladder just over… oh dear!”
The tower door slowly swung open. A gray-robed figure strode out onto the lightning-lit battlements, a long straight sword in its fist. Cael gasped, recognizing it as his own sword.
“Thank you for returning the staff, Cael Ironstaff,” the Thorn Knight laughed. “It makes a truly marvelous sword. I shall enjoy exploring its powers.” He tossed the sword playfully into the air.
Cael pushed the Reliquary into the gnome’s grimy hands. “Stow this safely in your pack, Gimzig,” he whispered.
The gnome nodded. “Let me handle this chap,” he muttered as he slid his pack to the ground and opened it. He reached inside, removing another of his folded spiders.
“No,” the elf said, shaking his head. “This is between Arach Jannon and me.”
“Now we shall finally discover who is the better man,” the Thorn Knight said calmly.
“You have the advantage of me, however,” Cael said.
“Ah, yes. You lack a sword. Never fear. I am an honorable man.”
Sir Arach drew a short stabbing sword from its hip sheath and slid it across the battlement to the elf. Cael stooped and lifted it, testing its weight and feel in his left hand.
“Not much of a match against that,” Cael commented, pointing at his own sword.
“No, I suppose not,” the Thorn Knight answered. He swung the blade, whistling, through the air. “It is wonderfully balanced, sharp as a witch’s tongue. Too good for the likes of you, I’m afraid.”
“We shall see,” Cael said as he advanced slowly across the battlement, the short sword held before him.
“Yes, we shall,” Sir Arach said with a laugh as he charged. He lifted the sword over his head and brought it crashing down. Cael deflected it, then used his injured shoulder to press the Thorn Knight against the wall. They struggled there for a moment, growling, spitting curses atone another, before Cael leaped away.
Sir Arach spun to attack again, then caught sight of the weapon in his hand. It was his own short sword! Returned to his hand as though by magic. The elf’s sword, once firmly in his grasp…? He looked up, stunned, to find it back in Cael’s hand. The Thorn Knight backed away, a spell forming on his lips, but in a lunge too quick for the eye to follow, Cael’s blade split him from shoulder to hip. The short sword fell from nerveless fingers, the spell died on his lips. Sir Arach fell in a heap at Cael’s feet, a look of surprise frozen on his face.
Gimzig rushed to the elf’s side and helped him to stand. Cael collapsed against the wall. He clutched his bloody sword to his chest.
The gnome lifted the Thorn Knight’s body onto his stout shoulders and shoved it over the battlement. Arach Jannon’s corpse landed in an awkward sprawl atop the deep mud between the city walls. Slowly, the mud devoured him.
As the new day dawned, Palanthas came out to inspect the damage caused by the storm. Here and there in the Bay of Branchala a ship or galley listed to one side. Their crews were busy pumping seawater from their holds and mending the damages to their rigging and hulls. The cobblestones of Bayside Street were littered with flotsam, seaweed, and puddled foam. Tiny white-and-blue crabs scuttled underfoot, trying to find their way back to the safety of the water, while gulls chased after them, occasionally dueling each other over some particularly choice bit of the bounty of the sea.
Two figures strode wearily along the waterfront. One figure leaned heavily on a tall black staff. His much shorter companion limped along beside him, his misshapen back bent. The tall one spoke in hushed tones, the other chattered volubly in response to his companion’s questions.
“Well, as a matter of fact the sewer monster did bite off my foot in the first attack,” the gnome said in response to an earlier question. “She took me down for a death roll, but my bones weren’t strong enough, my foot came off in her mouth and she swam away, as you can imagine I was in a terrible fix as I had all those heavy metallic devices in my pack dragging me to the bottom of the sewer, and my foot down the gullet of the beast, when what do you know… she came back to finish me off!”
The gnome paused for a breath. “She attacked me from behind again, I tell you it was like being rammed in the backside by a minotaur pirate galley, but this time she clamped down on my pack instead of me, lucky thing too, well, you know the delicate nature of the things back there, crikey, but there was a tremendous poing, and then a sharp tug brought me up short, blood, guts, and I don’t know what else flowed around me, and what did I see but my own foot go floating by my own nose. I tried to catch it but…; here we are, this is where you said Dark Horizon was moored.” They mounted the steps as Gimzig continued.