Darkvision - Bruce R. Cordell [19]
Deamiel was on him, hiccupping horrid laughter. It picked him up in both hands, so swiftly that Iahn failed to resist, and as easily as if the vengeance taker were but a child. Deamiel screamed. "Pandorym's blessing sings in my blood! Its will is mine, but… It… I… Pandorym! I am not…"
Deamiel's arms shook with some sort of inner struggle. Despite the creature's difficulty speaking, its grip was slowly tightening on Iahn's suspended body. More importantly, Iahn saw the crystal on Deamiel's breast pulse in tempo with its speech, word for word.
One arm still free, Iahn brought the steel hilt of his dragonfly blade down on Deamiel's amulet.
The crystal exploded.
The midnight blaze that blossomed from the amulet transfixed Deamiel, but Iahn was blown clear. The vengeance taker fell painfully for the second time in about as many heartbeats.
* * * * *
Iahn did not stir when his senses returned. Instead, he studied the scene with slitted eyes. Deamiel lay near, still burning, its chest cavity an exploded, gory ruin. Not a pleasant sight, but he'd seen worse. Farther down the slope lay the crumpled form of the gray troll. Farther still, the mist-shrouded coach.
Apparently, only an instant had elapsed since the amulet's destruction.
As Iahn watched, the fog bank swirled, thinned, and blew away in ragged, evaporating streamers. The remaining elf archer was revealed, showing little concern. She moved cautiously, studied her elf comrade, then hiked up the slope to the troll. The crystal on her breast did not glow or flare.
When she was close enough to Iahn, he sprang to his feet, catching one of her arms and twisting it painfully behind her back. Not all his skills brought death to his foes-some just delivered debilitating agony. Sometimes, final justice was not for a taker to dispense. Sometimes.
"Submit," Iahn demanded. The elf said nothing, but stopped struggling in his grip.
The vengeance taker jerked the elf closer. With his teeth, he grabbed the leather strand holding her amulet. He jerked his head back and stripped the amulet from the archer's neck. He didn't want to see a repeat of Deamiel's performance.
As the amulet dropped to the earth, the elf convulsed violently in the vengeance taker's grip. Then, as if she'd been slipped an overpoweringly lethal dose from the damos, she slumped, her life departed. Iahn was too familiar with death's onset to wonder if it could be anything else.
The vengeance taker lay the limp body on the ground and studied the scene.
"Strange."
The noonday light imparted brutal clarity, but no understanding.
CHAPTER SIX
"Give me that," Ususi said, motioning the uskura closer. Obediently, her expeditioner's pack settled into her outstretched hands.
The wizard undid the ties and rummaged through the bag. She pushed aside silver spikes; a length of strong, lean rope; various vials whose contents ranged from acid to healing magic; and finally drew forth a tiny cylinder, just shorter than the length of her hand.
She stared down the narrow hallway, and the white light of her delver's orb flooded the ancient darkness, revealing intricately carved walls. Fanciful demons-or perhaps not so fanciful-gave obeisance to a great emperor on the wall to her left, while slender humanoids, too fey to represent the mortal elves Ususi was familiar with, stood in elegant congress around a kingly figure on the right.
The images fascinated Ususi, and she thought perhaps the image on the left represented Umyatin, the first Imaskari emperor. Umyatin had taken for himself the title "Lord Artificer." The demon on the lord artificer's left had a lion's head and a dragon's body. The demon to Umyatin's right was a midnight black centaur with an ebony unicorn horn emerging from its forehead. Its eyes burned with hellish glee. The lord artificer was reaching out to this one. Below the midnight centauricorn was a name, inscribed in Low Imaskari.