Darkvision - Bruce R. Cordell [27]
The downed man's friends failed to grasp Warian's strength and speed-they continued to move forward. Or perhaps they didn't have a chance to react in the brief interval Warian allowed them.
He stood up, still rubbing his head with his right hand. The eyes of his attackers had trouble following Warian's movements. Good.
Warian strode to the fellow who stood nearest the entry hall, grabbed him, and threw him out the doorway. Ditto for the man's nearest friend, who had just enough time to scream and try to run, though it did him no good. He sailed, flailing, through the air, and was gone.
The other two, seeing their plan going horribly awry, turned to dash back the way they'd come, farther within the tenement. A few quick strides let Warian catch the hindmost. He plucked the man right off his feet. The weight of Warian's quarry was astonishingly little. The man's legs kicked, and he yelled in protest. As if he held a doll, he bumped the man's head against the ceiling. The man went limp, and Warian dropped him.
Who's next? he wondered.
Fatigue ambushed him.
The light in his prosthesis guttered out. Dullness flooded the crystal, and the world jittered back to its natural timeframe.
Warian stumbled and nearly fell flat on his face. Exhaustion hammered him. He sucked breath like he'd just finished a marathon race. His living arm trembled as he used it to support himself against the wall. Now that he'd returned to normal perception, he understood what the men were yelling. "He's killing us! Gods, he's killing us!"
Warian didn't have the strength to protest. Hurting badly, yes. Killing? No. At least, he hadn't tried to kill anyone. He looked at his left arm again. It looked as it always had, save for the dark tendrils at its core. Were they growing? Hard to tell. But one thing was certain-he'd managed to consciously activate the extraordinary new strength his prosthesis harbored. If he could consciously trigger it once, he was confident he could do it again. But should he? The way nausea struggled against his exhaustion, twice as bad as the first time… If he called on the arm's strength a third time, would the aftermath multiply again? The wall was no longer enough to support him. He slid down to a squat, still leaning on the wall, and studied his feet. They seemed strangely far away.
A man appeared from down the inner passage-not one of the toughs who'd failed to overcome Warian. The newcomer wore the tailored black and gray robe of a businessman. His assertive posture, wiry frame, and dark but thinning hair were all too familiar to Warian.
It was Uncle Zel.
Zeltaebar Datharathi, who sat with his uncles on the family council, was a schemer, a dealmaker, a master of disguise, and a self-proclaimed scoundrel. Warian and Zel never had much to do with each other.
"Nephew, is that you?" asked Zel, squinting in disbelief. "What in the name of the Ten Dark Gods are you doing back in town? And why are you killing my men?"
CHAPTER EIGHT
The destrier flitted across moonlit hills, its stone feet pounding out a tempo that mimicked the world's heartbeat.
Kiril roused from her dozing trance when Thormud called a halt. Blinking, she gazed around at the monotonous plain, at low hills and rocky ridges silhouetted in the silvery distance. Nothing seemed amiss.
"Why are we stopping?"
"I am uneasy," Thormud responded. "Another prognostication is in order."
"Really? In the middle of the night? I thought we traveled by night to avoid the heat of the day and unfortunate observation."
"The same principle holds for conducting arduous prognostications, Kiril. I prefer to undertake such exertions during night's cool and shrouding darkness."
Kiril looked around again. The destrier had stopped atop a low, smooth bluff.
"I'll tell you where to put your 'shrouding darkness,' " she murmured as she slipped off the stone destrier's back. The wait while Thormud performed his ritual promised to be excruciatingly boring.
Thormud let the elemental mount bend low before he dismounted. As soon as the dwarf's feet touched down, he moved to the