Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [17]
“Perfect!” said Riltana, forcing confidence into her tone, choosing to ignore the appellation; she hated being called a thief.
She continued, “Hand over the coin I was promised, and the package I was hired to deliver is all yours.”
A sound behind Riltana made her glance back. Oh, this was getting better and better; a third orc had emerged from a side passage and stood in her exit tunnel.
Again the idiot laugh.
“Will you shut it?” Riltana snapped at the tiefling.
The orcs near the wall allowed their guttural argument to lapse, and fixed their hungry eyes upon her. One shuffled closer.
Riltana raised one hand and said, “All right you freaks, everyone stay where they are, or I’m gone, and your boss is out one fashion accessory.”
A familiar voice sounded from above, “Don’t be hasty, Riltana. My hired hands are overeager, is all.”
Riltana glanced up and saw that one of the openings to the cavern, no more than a hole in the ceiling really, was occluded by the shape of a man. A man in a hood.
“Is that you, Kalkan?”
“Indeed. Now—did you meet the pale-skinned fellow I hired you to find? Did you take Demascus’s Veil?”
“Yeah, I met Demascus. Briefly. Do you have my payoff?
Kalkan held up a satchel and shook it. The sound of coins clinking was evident even over the background rumble of the Akanawater Falls.
The hooded man said, “And the Veil; let me see it. I wouldn’t want to be swindled.”
The tiefling chortled. Something was definitely not right with her.
Riltana ignored the woman and produced the scarf from glovespace with a hedge-wizard’s flourish. “See?”
The man hunched over the hole to stare at the length of fabric, then nodded.
Riltana hid the scarf away again with a snap. She said, “It’s yours once that satchel purse is slung over my shoulder. Until then, I’ve banished the … what’d you call it, the veil? I’ve put it in a place only I can access.”
The man said, “Clever. But ultimately irrelevant. You see, Riltana, I don’t really want the wrap; my aim was only to deprive Demascus of it at the appointed time.”
“Uh … What? I don’t understand.”
“Your understanding isn’t required. What is required is your eternal silence.”
Son of a piss-pickled leech. The deal had gone bad.
Riltana flipped up and backward, spinning over the head of the third orc she’d guessed was probably closing in on her. She swept out her short sword even as she landed and stuck the orc in the kidney. It gurgled and collapsed.
A fourth orc she hadn’t anticipated emerged from behind a boulder and shoved her. She stumbled back toward the cavern’s center, tripping on the feebly moving body of the creature she’d just dispatched. She landed on her side. Impact slapped through her and made her lose her breath.
The tiefling woman crowed, and tried to kick Riltana in the face.
She grabbed the foot, twisted and pushed. The tiefling hopped backward, directly into her advancing earthsoul ally, causing a minor pileup.
Riltana spun off the ground and into her element. The air bore her up over the heads of her foes. Time to go!
She arrowed toward the aperture in the ceiling where Kalkan watched the proceedings, short sword straight over her head. Why deal with the hired help if she didn’t have to? She’d toss the double-crossing bastard down that stinking spy hole—
Kalkan said, “I think not,” as he raised a gloved hand. The world seemed to twist. Fire woke behind Riltana’s brow, and the wind let her go.
She spiraled back toward the cave floor, toward the waiting swords, axes, and daggers of her client’s goons.
“You quailing coward!” she screamed, the pain in her head fueling a red anger that competed with the fear burrowing in her gut.
Riltana ducked an orc axe that nearly intersected her downward trajectory. Then she touched down, using the earthsoul’s head as a step, and bounded over and away from the group in a high arc.
She landed near the far cave wall, her breath coming quick. In her haste to put some distance between herself and the massed might of the mercenaries, she’d jumped away from the