Avenger

TWO

4 Hammer, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)

Geran was sound asleep when the assassins came. Only the fact that he’d carelessly left his boots lying on the floor near the foot of his bed saved his life.

A soft stumble in the dark roused him from a dreamless slumber; he awoke just as iron-hard talons were reaching for his throat. Flailing wildly, he caught his attacker’s arms in his hands. He felt rough, scaly skin that was as hot as a firepit’s stone in his grasp, and heard a hiss of anger from the thing leaning over him. The air reeked of warm sulfur, acrid and strong enough to choke his cry of alarm.

“He wakes!” a second voice hissed from nearby. “Slay him swiftly!”

The first creature did not reply, but bent all its strength to seizing Geran in its talons. It was horribly strong, and it steadily pushed its claws closer to his neck. He saw carious yellow fangs gleaming in the shadows above his face, and a beard of thick tendrils that writhed and dripped inches from his chest. Wherever its saliva dripped on his bare flesh, his skin burned and smoked. He couldn’t hold the creature’s talons from his neck for much longer, and he was defenseless against its companion as long as he dared not let go of the creature’s arms.

A desperate idea came to him, and before he could think better of it, Geran gambled on its success. Somehow he found a still center in the midst of his pain and panic, focusing on the arcane symbols of the spells locked away in his mind. The featherlight touch of magic gathering to him stirred the bedchamber’s cold air and the sheets entangling his flailing limbs. “Sieroch!” he shouted, finishing the spell as he released his foe’s arms. The creature’s lethal claws lunged forward, but Geran was no longer there. His teleportation spell had carried him across the room. He scrambled to his feet as the monsters screeched in frustration and whirled to face him again.

“Clever, mortal,” the first creature snarled. It was little more than a jagged shadow in the darkened room. “You would have been wiser to die in your sleep.”

What in the Nine Hells is going on? Geran thought furiously. He blinked the last of the sleep from his eyes, coming fully awake. His hands throbbed from the heat and jagged scales of the creature’s hide. The Nine Hells indeed-if these creatures weren’t devils of some kind, he would have been astonished. Some enemy had summoned infernal assassins to slay him in his sleep. Other questions crowded in after that, but he thrust them aside. There would be time for answers later, if he managed to survive the next few heartbeats.

First, he needed to see better. “Elos!” Geran said, casting a minor light spell. A globe of pale gold shimmered into existence a few feet from him, its soft illumination filling the room. The two monsters facing him winced and recoiled, surprised by the sudden light. They were roughly man-sized, covered in dull reddish scales and sharp barbs of horn at knees, shoulders, and elbows. Their feet were great raptorlike talons, and they had long, lashing tails studded with more sharp barbs. Coiling tendrils of darker red jutted from their chins, giving them foul, twisting beards of a sort. Geran hadn’t faced their like before, but he’d heard of them before-barbazu, or bearded devils, fierce and deadly foes. How they’d gotten into Lasparhall he couldn’t imagine, but their purpose was all too clear.

“Rend him to pieces!” the second devil growled. The two launched themselves across the room in a sudden rush, claws stretching out for him. Geran looked past the monsters to the place where his sword hung in its scabbard by his bedstand.

He reached out his hand and called out a summoning spell of his own: “Cuilledyr!” His elven backsword shivered once in its scabbard before lurching free and soaring hiltfirst to his hand, just in time to meet the devils’ furious charge. Dropping beneath the raking claws of the first devil, he drove the point of his blade into the center of its torso, just under the breastbone. The ancient sword rang shrilly as it pierced infernal flesh; long before in Myth Drannor’s Weeping War its makers had enchanted it with spells of ruin against hellspawned monsters just such as these. The creature shrieked horribly, impaled on the blade, then burst apart in a noisome black cloud. But its companion hurled into Geran, its sharp claws raking him deeply across the chest and shoulders as it slammed him into the cold floor.

Sizzling venom from the devil’s writhing beard-tendrils splattered Geran’s cheek, and he howled in anguish. The monster pinned his sword arm with one talon and mauled him with the other. Somehow the swordmage found the strength to throw the barbazu to one side. The devil didn’t release him, but with its weight off his chest he was able to roll to one side and seize the hilt of his sword in his left hand, which wasn’t pinned. Before his assailant could seize that arm too, Geran dragged the gleaming edge across the devil’s scaly flesh in a single long draw. The bearded devil hissed in pain and scrabbled back from the bright steel. Geran surged to his feet and set upon the creature with a furious hail of blows. Yet its scales resisted all but the surest of his attacks.

“Ah, how delicious.” The creature sneered. “While we dance, the rest of your family dies. Perhaps I should let you go to them before I slay you.”

“You lie!” Geran retorted automatically. He had to believe the monster was toying with him, trying to urge him into a rash attack. If more devils were loose in Lasparhall, stealing into the harmach’s chambers-or worse yet, Natali’s or Kirr’s-then every moment he was delayed here might come with a horrible cost indeed.

He traded passes with the barbazu again, his steel striking sparks from its ironlike claws as they exchanged places. Quickly he cleared the welling fear for his family from his mind, and summoned up the calm for spellcasting. This time he charged his sword with a crackling aura of blue-white lightning that threw garish shadows against the walls as it danced along the edge. The bearded devil bared its fangs in defiance and leaped to meet him again, but this time its hard scales did not stop the sword’s bite. Lightning seared its red flesh, freezing it in place with powerful convulsions. Before the monster could recover, Geran slashed it through the throat. It, too, vanished in a sudden burst of black smoke, and the bedchamber fell still for a moment.

Blood dripped from his raked flesh to the wooden floorboards. Geran gritted his teeth against the burning pain of the wounds, and staggered to the door. Pausing only a moment to summon a better spell-shield to defend himself, he threw open the door and hurried out into the passageway. Shouts of alarm, screams, and the ringing sound of blade meeting blade echoed throughout the old manor.

Someone means to eradicate the Hulmasters this night, he realized-all of us. It was the second time in half a year that someone had tried to destroy the Hulmasters in their home. His cousin Sergen had tried to murder the family during his coup attempt the preceding spring, attacking Griffonwatch with summoned wraiths while his mercenaries waited to cut down anyone fleeing the castle. Sergen was dead now, but someone else clearly wanted the Hulmasters out of the way. Rhovann? he wondered. His old rival certainly held no end of malice for him, but indiscriminate murder was not like Rhovann. The Verunas, perhaps? Or someone else who wanted to make sure the Hulmasters never returned to Hulburg?

“Damn it,” he snarled into the darkened hallway. He whirled around, trying to make sense of the chaos. To the right were the rooms of the young Hulmasters. In the opposite direction lay Harmach Grigor’s chamber. The harmach was certainly the first target of the attackers, but Geran knew what his uncle would want him to do. Grigor would want him to make sure that Natali and Kirr were saved from this slaughter, regardless of the cost.

A child’s scream rang out in the darkness. “Natali,” Geran murmured. Without another thought he turned to his right and sprinted down the hallway, his sword bared in his hand. The harmach probably had Shieldsworn bodyguards close to hand already; if fortune smiled just a little, they might be able to hold off the attack for a while. He turned the corner at the manor’s grand stair, and found several men and women in the harmach’s colors lying dead or unconscious at the top of the steps. Two men Geran had never seen before were crumpled on the steps by the guards. They wore no colors at all other than their well-worn leather jerkins and dark, hooded cloaks, the sort of nondescript garb that scores of sellswords in Thentia’s dockside taverns wore every day. Whoever was behind the attack had likely hired any killers he could find for the task-or wanted it to appear that way-and then reinforced the common sellswords with summoned devils.

Geran did not pause to study the scene more closely, leaping over one of the fallen guards and continuing down the hallway. He came to Natali’s chamber, found the door standing open, and burst inside.

Two more Hulmaster servants were dead on the floor before him. Over them stood three more sellswords, already turning toward the corner of the nursery, where Erna huddled with her children. One of the sellswords, a bald man with Theskian tattooes on his scalp, raised a cleaverlike blade and seized Kirr’s arm to haul him away from his mother. Natali and Kirr both wailed, but Erna glimpsed Geran past her assailants. “Geran!” she shrieked. “Help us!”

The two mercenaries between him and the Theskian holding Kirr wheeled about at her cry. “One more step and we’ll slay the lot!” the first snarled. “Drop the sword, and we’ll let the small ones go!”

He hesitated a moment before realizing that the man had to be lying. They had no intention of leaving any Hulmasters alive this night. Instead of releasing his blade, he fixed his eye on Kirr and the mercenary who gripped his arm, and formed a spell of teleportation in his mind. “Sierollanie dir mellar,” he said in a clear voice.

An instant of utter darkness and icy cold flashed across his senses-then he was where Kirr had been standing, with the Theskian’s hand locked on his left arm, while Kirr stood dumbfounded in the doorway where Geran had been a heartbeat before. He rarely found use for the spell of transposition, but in this situation it was exactly the surprise Geran needed. The Theskian mercenary’s eyes opened wide in astonishment, and he opened his mouth to say something before the heavy basket hilt of Geran’s backsword slammed between his eyes with a sickening crunch. The fellow staggered back and collapsed to the floor; Geran turned to engage the remaining two swordsmen. “Kirr, get out of the hallway and find a place to hide!” he cried. “Erna, get Natali into the washroom and barricade the door!” Then his blade met the hard parry of the first of the two enemies he now faced, and the fight was on in earnest.

Unlike the Theskian sellsword lying motionless on the floor, these two were now fully cognizant of his skill and magic. He had no more surpises for them, and they were good enough blades that he couldn’t simply overwhelm them with a quick assault. He tried anyway, and succeeded in driving them back two steps toward the doorway, steel crashing against steel as their swords danced with his. Behind the two mercenaries, Kirr glanced left and right down the hallway. “More of them are coming, Geran!” he shouted. Then he darted out of sight to the left-Geran hoped to find some secure bolthole where the assassins couldn’t find him. He risked a peek over his shoulder and saw Natali and her mother pushing the door of the garderobe closed behind them.

“A futile gesture,” said one of the swordsmen dueling Geran. “We’ll have all of them within a quarter hour anyway!”

“Not while I still stand here, you won’t,” Geran retorted. He resumed his attack, trying to beat down the assassin’s guard, but now his two opponents were working together. Whichever he attacked gave ground and went on the defensive, while the other pressed hard and tried to catch him with his guard out of place. He grimaced, beginning to wonder if he’d been wise to transpose himself into the bedchamber after all. He’d caught the one holding Kirr off guard, but in doing so he’d put two good swordsmen between him and the door. His quick stroke had left him pinned in the children’s chamber, unable to fight clear quickly or affect events anywhere else in the manor. The youngest Hulmaster was out in the dark hallway somewhere, all too likely in need of Geran’s help, and he could hear more fighting echoing throughout Lasparhall’s fragrant chambers.

Steel flickered and shrilled in another exchange, and Geran ground his teeth together in growing frustration. He had to get by these two and find out what else was happening! Pressing forward recklessly with a spell of attack on his lips, he managed to shock the sword out of one man’s hand with another lightning-blade spell. The man yelped and moved back, holding his sword hand, but Geran paid for it with a shallow cut to his left calf as the fellow’s comrade struck back at him. Then the doorway filled again, this time with two more assassins and the hot, sulfurous stink of another bearded devil.

“I’ve got Geran Hulmaster here!” the swordsman fighting him cried. “Two more of them are in the garderobe! Cut him down!”

“Cuillen mhariel,” Geran said, casting a spell in reply. Thin streamers of silver mist appeared around him, the best defense he could summon at the moment. He might be able to escape with a spell or two, but he couldn’t abandon Erna and Natali. He settled into a fighting crouch, standing his ground in the middle of the bedchamber, teeth bared in a grimace of determination. Here he would stand and, if fate ordained it, die, but he would not give ground. Then the assassins and the grinning hellspawn rushed him all at once.

For a single impossible moment Geran stood without yielding, his elven blade a silver blur as he parried and countered as fast and furiously as he’d ever fought in his life. The assassins closed in from all sides, sword points weaving and darting like steel serpents eager for a taste of his flesh, while the bearded devil hissed and bulled straight at him, slashing wildly with its iron talons. A point grazed his ribs, another pinked him in the thick of his left thigh, and raking talons furrowed his chest. Despite himself Geran faltered a step, trying to use his foes as shields against the others, but there were simply too many to deal with at once in the close quarters. So be it, he thought grimly. He’d try to take as many with him as he could, and hope that any assassins he delayed here missed their chance to kill more of the Hulmasters.

The rearmost assassin suddenly cried out, back arching as his arms flew up in the air. He took two staggering steps and then pitched forward on his face. Behind him stood Kara Hulmaster in her mailed coat, her saber dripping blood from its point. Her spellscarred eyes blazed with azure light, and a snarl of rage twisted her face. “Murderers!” she snarled. “You’ll not see the sunrise, that I promise you!” She leaped into the fray, driving against the two remaining swordsmen, who turned to meet her. Kara was almost as skilled with the sword as Geran, and two more Shieldsworn followed close behind her.

Geran took advantage of the sudden distraction Kara caused to duck beneath the slashing claws of the bearded devil and throw himself into the back of one of her opponents, driving the man into the wall. He seized the stunned assassin and threw him headlong back into the face of the bearded devil rushing after him, briefly tangling the two together. While the assassin struggled to get free, the swordmage snarled a spell of strength and drove his point through the man’s torso and into the body of the devil behind him. With the power of the strength spell, Geran shoved both his impaled foes three steps to the nearest wall and drove his sword through until it grated on stone behind them. When he yanked the blade free, the assassin groaned and slid to the floor, while the bearded devil screamed in rage before vanishing in a foul cloud of smoke like the others had. He turned back around just in time to see Kara finish her last opponent with a graceful slash across the throat. A moment’s calm settled over the room.

“Natali! Kirr! Are they safe?” Kara demanded.

“Natali’s here. Kirr ran off to hide. I don’t know where he is.” Geran found that warm blood was dripping over his brow from a cut he didn’t remember receiving. He wiped it away with the back of his left hand. “What of the harmach?”

Kara paled. “I’d hoped that you might know. I was making the rounds outside when I heard the fighting.”

A terrible suspicion dawned in Geran’s heart. He looked over to the Shieldsworn who followed Kara. “You two, stay here and guard Lady Erna and Natali,” he ordered them. “Watch out for Kirr, too, if you see him. Kara and I are going to the harmach.” He pushed past the soldiers into the dark hallway beyond, and hurried back in the direction from which he’d come. Kara raced along a half step behind him. They passed the door to Geran’s quarters and continued into the short hallway leading to the harmach’s chambers. There they found several more dead sellswords and Shieldsworn. Evidently there had been a fierce fight to defend the doors to Grigor’s room, which now stood open. He could hear more sword play and the sinister hissing of another devil from inside. Without a moment’s hesitation the swordmage stormed into the room, hoping he was not too late.

One Shieldsworn was still on his feet, doing his best to fight his way past two sellsword assassins at once. A pair of Hulmaster servants-stewards, not warriors-tried to fend off one of the bearded devils, flinching in terror from their infernal foe. Just behind them, Grigor Hulmaster struggled in the grip of a second devil, a wand clutched in his right hand. He fought to bring the implement to bear against his assailant, but the monster grinned in wicked amusement, its cruel talons clamped over the harmach’s wrist as it held the wand toward the ceiling. Before the harmach and the devil pinning him stood a hooded woman in dark mail, with a cleric’s black cassock over her armor. A long dagger glinted in her hand. She whirled as Geran and Kara burst into the room, baring her teeth in a fierce snarl.

“Arochen nemmar!” Grigor cried in a pained voice. “Unhand me, foul beast!” He had a little talent as a wizard, but not enough to deal with the monster that pinned him. The wand discharged a bright lance of dancing white motes, gouging the ceiling with its icy blast. The devil gripping him laughed aloud, a terrible sound like brazen saws grinding together.

“Release him!” Kara shouted. She rushed the cleric, but at that moment the last of the Shieldsworn fell, and the sellsword who’d been dueling the guard blocked her path. Her sword flickered like blue lightning as she tried to fight her way past.

“I hardly think so.” The cleric sneered. She raised her dagger and turned to the harmach.

Geran started forward as well, only to realize his way was blocked by the devil who toyed with the harmach’s stewards. In the space of an instant he summoned his teleportation spell to mind. “Sieroch!” he said, releasing the magic held in the symbols that danced in his mind. In a single instant he stood by the cleric in her black cassock, and lunged at her with his blade.

He was too slow.

As she struck at the harmach, her motion caught his point in the long sleeve of her cassock. Instead of running her through, the elven blade glanced from the mail under her robes. And the dagger she wielded plunged hilt-deep into Grigor Hulmaster’s chest. The old man grunted and sagged; the dark priestess yanked her dagger from the awful wound and twisted away from Geran’s grasp. “Destroy them! Destroy them all!” she shouted at the devils in the chamber.

“Uncle Grigor!” Kara screamed.

Black fury washed over Geran in an irresistible tide. He leaped after the cleric with murder in his eyes, but the devil holding Harmach Grigor contemptuously discarded the gray-faced harmach, tossing him aside like a broken toy as it slammed into Geran from the side. Geran was conscious of slashing claws and the burning touch of the stinging tendrils, and he answered with a furious burst of his own. Too close to use point or edge, he seized a handful of the beard-tendrils in his left hand, ignoring the acidic ooze burning his fist, and jerked the devil’s face down into his hard-driven right knee. Needle-sharp fangs pierced his leg, but more snapped and splintered under the impact. He brought the rose-shaped pommel of his backsword down against the top of the devil’s head with enough force to crack bone, and then rained down a second, a third, a fourth blow until the creature’s skull gave way and it vanished in a belch of black smoke.

He looked up just in time to see the last of the assassins lining up a thrust at Kara’s back while she fought the other devil in the room. But one of the wounded servants in the room-short, slight Dostin Hillnor, the harmach’s chamberlain-snatched up a heavy wooden chair and threw it at the sellsword behind Kara. The blow knocked the mercenary to the ground, and an instant later, Kara finished her infernal opponent with a sweeping blow that took off most of its hideous face.

The cleric in the black robes retreated to the doorway, seeing her summoned devils and hired assassins losing ground. She looked back at Geran. “Greetings from Hulburg,” she snarled. Then she darted down the hallway, disappearing from view.

Still in the grip of his dark fury, Geran dashed after her as Kara, Hillnor, and the other servants turned on the last of the hired blades. She ran for the stairs, a dozen steps ahead of him. In desperation, he shifted his grip on his sword and hurled it spinning ahead of him. By skill or chance, the whirling blade caught the cleric across her calves. The throw was far too awkward to do any real injury to her, but she stumbled and went down to her hands and knees, her dagger clattering to the flagstones ahead of her. She started to climb back to her feet, but Geran was upon her, slamming into her at a dead sprint. His momentum carried them to the rail overlooking the manor’s grand stair.

“Let go!” the cleric hissed at him. She brandished her holy symbol, an amulet emblazoned with a silver skull, as Geran struggled to keep the symbol at bay and subdue her. He spun her around in a half circle, battering her against the lasparwood railing-and the railing gave way. She flailed for balance before toppling over the edge to the hard flagstones twenty feet below. Geran caught himself an instant before following her over the side.

He found himself standing at the broken rail, glaring down at the cleric crumpled on the floor beneath him, her holy symbol caught in his fingers. He’d seen the silver skull design before. “Cyric,” he spat. The god of lies and strife had a following among the foreign gangs infesting Hulburg. In fact, it was probably Valdarsel himself who’d sent the cleric and her infernal servants against Harmach Grigor.

His dark fury evaporated as he remembered his uncle. “The harmach!” he said. He turned back and hurried back to Grigor’s chamber.

Kara kneeled by the harmach, holding a blood-soaked sheet to his chest as a makeshift bandage. Grigor’s face was gray, and blood streaked the corner of his mouth. He breathed in small, wet gasps. Tears streaked Kara’s cheeks. “Stay with us, Uncle!” she pleaded softly. “We’ll find a healer, a curing potion. It’s not your time yet!”

“Kara, my … dear child … I fear that you are mistaken,” Grigor said weakly. He looked up at the two younger Hulmasters, and somehow found a small smile for them. “It is … for you and Geran … to carry on now.”

“Don’t say such things!” Kara cried.

Geran kneeled on Grigor’s other side and met Kara’s eyes. He slowly shook his head. He’d seen enough fighting to know a mortal wound, and so had she. He bowed his head, reaching down to grip Grigor’s hand in his own. “Speak your mind,” he said softly. “We’re listening.”

“Geran, my boy … I am glad … you came back from your travels.” Grigor looked up at both of them, gasping for the breath to speak more. “You … and Kara … must decide who will be … harmach after me … if ever you win back Hulburg.”

“We won’t rest until we set things right, Uncle,” he answered. “I promise you the Hulmasters will return to Hulburg. I promise it.”

Grigor nodded, and fell silent for a long time. His breathing grew shallower. Geran blinked the tears from his eyes, and waited for the inevitable. Kara wept quietly, holding Grigor’s other hand. Then, when Geran had started to think that he would not stir again, the harmach coughed weakly and said, “Come closer, Geran.”

Geran bent low above the harmach’s face, turning his ear to his uncle’s mouth. “The King in Copper waits …” Grigor whispered. “There is … an oath … that must be kept … in Rivan’s crypt …” He sighed, a long soft sound that trailed into nothingness.

“He’s gone,” Kara said in a small voice. She bowed her head a moment, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the heel of her hand.

“I know.” Numbly Geran stood. He could hear no more fighting anywhere in the old manor, only the cries of the wounded, the jumbled orders and reports of Hulmaster soldiers searching for more attackers, and the keening wails of sudden grief as the living found someone dear to them among the dead. “Come, Kara. We’d better make sure that Natali and Kirr are safe, and your mother too. Master Hillnor can look after him for now.”

Kara nodded, and rose to her feet. Her face was like iron as she picked up her sword again. “Who did this, Geran?”

He showed her the holy symbol he’d wrestled from the Cyricist. “The priestess is dead,” he told her. “But I think we know who put her up to this.”