Venom's Taste - Lisa Smedman [5]
Arvin stiffened, realizing he could no longer hear the rustling noises. Something was wrong; Naulg was no longer moving. Then Naulg’s body fell out of the doorway to land with a thud on the cobbles. He lay, stiff as a statue-paralyzed. Nothing moved except his eyes, which rolled wildly in their sockets.
Arvin would have to be careful; the doxy obviously had magic at her disposal. He touched the clay bead he wore on a thong around his neck. The unglazed bead, about the size of a hen’s egg and carved with circles representing a pupil and iris, was a cheap copy of the good luck charms known as cat’s eyes. It was the last gift his mother had ever given him. “Nine lives,” he whispered to himself, echoing the words she’d spoken that day.
As the doxy bent down over Naulg, Arvin reached under his jacket with his left hand and drew the dagger that was sheathed horizontally across the small of his back. He turned it in his gloved hand, ready for throwing, then whispered the command that activated the glove’s magic. The dagger disappeared.
Arvin walked boldly into the courtyard, hands apparently empty at his sides. Out of the corner of his eye, he searched the shadows on either side, alert for any accomplice the woman might have.
“Get away from him,” he ordered. “Leave now, and I’ll forget I ever saw this.”
He expected the doxy to startle, but instead she looked up boldly. Arvin saw with a shock that her face had changed. Instead of being smooth, her skin was pocked with dozens of overlapping scars. So, too, were the hands that gripped Naulg’s trousers. Arvin jerked to an abrupt halt, heart hammering in his chest as he recognized the scars for what they were-the hallmarks of disease.
In the moment that he stood, rooted to the ground with surprise, the doxy sprang into action. One of her hands rose and she began to chant. Arvin reacted a heartbeat later, speaking the glove’s command word as he raised his hand. But even as the dagger point became solid between his fingers, the doxy completed her spell. Blindness fell over Arvin like a heavy curtain, leaving him blinking.
He threw the dagger-only to hear it thud into the door behind her. At a word, the magic weapon unstuck itself and flew back to his hand; even blinded, Arvin had only to grasp the air in front of him to catch it by the hilt. Now the doxy was whispering a second spell-and approaching him. Afraid of catching her contagion, Arvin jumped sideways, sweeping the air in front of him with the dagger to keep her at bay. The tip of his dagger caught and sliced through something-her clothing?-but then his foot caught on a loose cobblestone and he tripped. He landed hard, cracking his cheek against the cobblestones.
He started to rise, all the while slashing blindly with the dagger, but then a hand shoved against his back. He sprawled forward into a tight space that must have been the doorway, and an instant later felt something hard smack into his face. Dazed, he realized it had been the door opening.
He tried to get up again, but a foot slammed into his back, forcing him back to the ground. Strong hands wrenched at his arm then banged his hand against the ground in an attempt to loosen his grip on the dagger. Frightened now, realizing he might lose the magic weapon, Arvin spoke the command that made it vanish into his glove. With luck, the doxy and her accomplice would simply take the coin in his pocket and run, leaving Arvin to recover from her spell.
But it seemed Tymora did not favor him this night. Instead of patting him down, the doxy’s accomplice wrenched Arvin’s hands behind his back and lashed his wrists tightly together. Then Arvin felt the hands shift to his ankles. He kicked violently but to no avail; whoever