Shadrak didn’t see what hit him, but it hit him hard. What felt like an invisible fist the size of a boulder slammed into his ribs and sent him flying through the swing doors and out into the street. He rolled over and over as he struck the ground and came to a stop flat on his back.
The sensation of indescribable wrongness crept through his skull, stabbing sharp barbs into his brain. In response, a fissure opened within his mind, and he felt the release of potent yet ineffable qualities that were at the same time old and intimately familiar. Something intangible deep inside dissolved into tiny particles then clumped back together in chaotic patterns that smothered Bekra’s attack. Shadrak knew he should have been dead, like Trav. Would have been, if not for whatever had just happened.
The sudden silence of the crowd made him think he’d hit his head and gone deaf. He pushed himself up on one elbow, looking around blearily at the massed locals, who had only seconds ago been cheering the arrival of Dame Consilia. He saw Nils at the fore, mouth hanging open. Saw Ilesa disguised as the dame, held aloft by half a dozen greasy fishmongers. Followed their gazes to the Crawfish, as Bekra Cy burst through the still swinging doors, any last vestiges of patience incinerated by rage. She showed no awareness of the crowd that had irked her while she sat at the bar, no care for discretion.
“What’s this, a husk? A husk?” a man demanded to know, pushing through the onlookers. He wore a wide-brimmed hat like Jeb’s and the Senatorial badge of provincial law enforcement on the lapel of his coat. The Sheriff, then.
Two deputies followed him, swords drawn. The sheriff held an oversized crossbow… and it was pointing straight at Shadrak.
“A homunculus,” Bekra Cy said, striding toward Shadrak. “Else he’d already be dead.”
The sheriff glanced from her to Shadrak, a look of “Oh shog” on his face. If he hadn’t already realized he’d picked the wrong target, he was starting to second guess himself.
“Your innate resistance to the sorcery of the Abyss won’t save you from this,” Bekra said, as she drew a slender black blade from beneath her robe.
She leapt through the air—almost flew. Came down with force, knife a flashing blur. Shadrak switched his hips and up-kicked her in the face. The blade grazed the side of his neck. Bekra slid past his legs and mounted him in one fluid motion. She grabbed his throat with her free hand and stabbed again. Shadrak parried with a punch dagger he hadn’t realized he was still holding. He turned her blade and rammed his own into her chest. Again ash, not blood.
Shadrak bridged, tried to roll her off him, but she lowered her hips and wrapped her legs around his. She drew back for another strike, but Shadrak skewered her wrist with his second punch dagger. When she pulled back, he yanked the first punch dagger from her chest and rammed it home beside the other.
The more Bekra struggled, the more ash spilled from her wrist wounds. Shadrak worked the daggers in deeper then scissored them. Bekra’s black blade clattered to the road. Her hand came away and flopped down beside it amid a cloud of ash. She stared at the shredded stump of her wrist, and in that instant, Shadrak bucked her off and rolled out from underneath.
The tattoos on Bekra’s arm writhed like serpents, then they began to pulse. Shadrak circled her as five nubs sprouted from her truncated wrist and began to grow, until within seconds she had another fully-formed hand.
The crowd once more found its voice—awed muttering, cursing, sharp intakes of breath. And then they scattered in every direction.
Bekra lunged at Shadrak, and on instinct he slipped what he thought was a punch. But it was a feint, and she grabbed him by the cloak and pulled him into a clinch. He stabbed both punch daggers into her ribs, one on either side, then released his grips on the hilts. What was the point? He went for a trip, but she was too poised, too balanced. Then she fastened her fingers around his neck and started to squeeze.
A crossbow bolt thudded into her head, and Bekra let out a world-weary sigh. She craned her neck and barked a barbarous curse at the sheriff. With a yelp he flung down his crossbow as if it were suddenly molten. His deputies backed away a step, then another, then turned tail and ran.
“Get back here!” the sheriff yelled, but when Bekra opened her mouth and started to chant, he backed off, tripped over his own feet, then got up and fled.
With a malign grin, Bekra turned back to face Shadrak. Effortlessly, she lifted him into the air by his throat and continued to squeeze. His lungs burned with the need to breathe, and heat flooded his face. He could feel the throb of his jugular, knew he only had seconds left. He kicked out, but she may as well have been a brick wall.
A Rush of air, a blur of movement, and a gigantic wolf barreled into Bekra. Shadrak hit the ground hard as Bekra went down, the wolf’s jaws clamped around her slender waist.
Ilesa! Now there was a surprise.
Dimly, Shadrak could hear Nils mutter something behind him, curse, and start over again. A cant: the lad was stammering one of his useless spells.
“Run, you moron!” Shadrak yelled at him as he climbed to his feet.
He heard Nils take a couple of steps back and then gasp.
Shadrak turned.
At the top of the High Street, a lone man. The only person coming towards the fight, not fleeing it. Grey hair, charcoal tunic and britches, shiny shoes. And he was running. Really running. Like a man possessed. Like a demon.
Behind Shadrak, the wolf growled, and there was a ripping sound. He craned his neck to see Bekra bitten in two at the waist. The scars on her arms and head blurred into motion, pulsed with energy, and her legs started to inch back toward her torso. Ilesa—the wolf—gnashed at them, but Bekra pushed herself up on one elbow and spat words of power. Black vapor poured from her mouth toward the wolf—
And Nils rushed forward, moving his hands as if he were cleaning a window. He stammered out a cant in what sounded like Ancient Urddynoorian.
Bekra stiffened. A flesh-colored streak smudged across her head tattoos. Then another. Nils moved his hands wildly, rubbing, wiping, erasing. First one side of Bekra’s scalp was cleared of its inkings, then the other. She fell back onto the road, legs inches from her torso and no longer moving.
Nils stepped in close, swept his hands over each of her arms in turn, and the rest of her tattoos melted way. Bekra gave a shuddering sigh and rolled onto her side. Her eyes widened as they latched onto the man running towards them.
“Mister Cawdor…” she rasped. “Sorry… Failed…” And then she was still.
Shadrak moved in like a jackal, taking out his never-full bag and reversing it once more. He reached inside Bekra’s pouch, using the bag’s fabric as a glove, and just as he’d expected, he felt the contours of the Witch Queen’s ring. He pulled the bag over it, scrunched it up, and tucked it away again.
“See,” Nils said. He was sweating and looked ready to drop. “My eraser spell. Told you I had a notion.”
“Not now!” Shadrak said. He whirled round to face the oncoming banker. Cawdor, Bekra had called him. Brenitch and Cawdor. The silent partner.
He was still fifty yards off but closing rapidly. There were dirty yellow streaks in his grey hair. Long, aquiline nose. Thin lips, sardonic, open only a crack, as if he didn’t need to draw breath even at such a murderous pace. And the eyes, blazing across the closing distance: burning coals. It was a face that had long ago been branded into Shadrak’s memory.
Cawdor, my arse!
Cawdor was a disguise, an alias among many, many others…
Nils was looking too, now. Beside him, the wolf reverted to Ilesa. She gasped. Shadrak could tell they both knew who this was hurtling toward them. He had to break the spell, stop them all from being frozen with dread.
“Let’s go!” he shouted, tugging Ilesa’s arm, kicking Nils in the rump.
They backed away slowly, not daring to take their eyes off the man, so close now Shadrak could see the triumph in that bloodless face, feel the evil radiating from him. Already, invisible tentacles of fear were worming their way into his mind, telling him not to move. Paralysis seeped into his limbs, and Otto Blightey, Lich Lord of Verusia, slowed to a jog, then to a gentle stroll.
He knew he had them. And he liked nothing better than to take his time.
But that sound…
Blightey turned as the clop and clatter of hooves came from the direction of the whorehouse across the way. Shadrak tried to look, but invisible chains held him locked in place. He heard Nils whimper. Ilesa cursed under her breath. But then the hoofbeats grew louder, more urgent. Thunder boomed. Blightey raised his hand, and a bullet clattered to the ground in front of him. And then a horse slammed into him and ran right over him.
Instantly, the Lich Lord’s spell was broken. Invisible plaster cracked free of Shadrak’s limbs and he turned his head to see the rider.
Jeb let out a hoot of joy and discharged his gun into the air. He wheeled his mount, leading the spare horse by the reins. The Maresman held out a hand and helped Nils up behind him, then they were off at a canter.
Ilesa leapt to the saddle of the second horse and leaned down to Shadrak.
“You’re with me.”
Already, the Lich Lord was climbing to his feet, brushing himself down. He was completely unharmed. His eyes were swirling vortices of flame. Pressure rolled off of him in waves, and there was a rising stench of sulfur.
Shadrak vaulted up behind Ilesa, and she kicked the horse into a gallop. As they reached the end of the High Street, he could see Jeb and Nils had already crossed the bridge that marked the border of town. He glanced behind to see Blightey running at an alarming speed, almost gliding over the ground in pursuit.
And then they were across the bridge and racing along the dirt-packed road, churning up clouds of dust in their wake.
Blightey stopped the Portis side of the bridge, eyes molten pools of crimson. But he came no closer, and within moments he was a speck in the receding distance.