The Wizard's Mask

Chapter Three

The mask didn't have to be on his face or next to his skin to whisper in his mind.

It was covering his crotch right now, under his breeches, but he could hear it firmly and clearly. Which meant this halfling was important.

Not that he could tell anything else about her. The mask was whispering the same word it always did.

Luraumadar.

Whatever that meant. The Masked was as sourly mystified as ever.

"Well?" he hissed, giving the throat he had hold of a little shake, ere he loosened his grip from throttling to merely tight. "Will you answer me, or die?"

"That's a hell of a way to begin negotiations," his tiny awakener croaked.

The Masked found himself grinning. "Always begin from a position of strength," he said.

So …a halfling woman, probably in her late thirties, and with the lined face of someone who'd known hunger often enough, despite the fact that she still had plenty of chest and hip on an otherwise scrawny frame. From Nirmathas originally, judging by her accent, but likely gone for several years now, as the accent was only faint. Running from the local Molthuni soldiery, but who wouldn't?

He let silence stretch to see what she'd fill it with. Shouts of bloodcoats calling to each other from the warehouse beneath them punctuated that waiting. Shouts that were getting closer.

"Let me go," she said at last, preceding and following those words with swallowing that had to be painful.

"And have you gut me with that knife you've been trying to reach? Or its cousin, hidden somewhere else about you? Not likely."

"My quarrel is not with you, sir. I'm …being pursued."

"I am aware of that," The Masked said dryly. "I'm also aware that you've led your pursuers here, to me-and awakened me from a rather pleasant slumber that I'm in sore need of. It might be wise to be more persuasive."

"It might be wise to let me go. Those men are out here in the night with their spears and lanterns not because of me, but because of you. You've not been subtle enough in your dealings, whatever they may be. There's a Lord Investigator come from Canorate to hunt you-because these dolts of Halidon have grown suspicious of you."

The Masked tightened his grip a little, to remind the halfling that she was in no position to afford scorn. Nor to try for her knife again.

"Keep your hand well away from your hilt-any of your hilts," he warned softly. "And just how is it that you know this?"

"I listen at windows," she hissed, eyes flashing fury. "They were speaking of your dealings with Escolarr Tarlmond."

"Have they found him, then?"

"Was he lost? They said nothing of seeking him, only you. Tonight. And I warn you, that investigator is both smart and a winterstone-cold bastard."

"So," The Masked told her flatly, "am I." When that drew no reaction, he asked, "I take it the warehouse below us is surrounded and being searched?"

"You take it correctly," the halfling hissed. "They'll probably be out on this roof after us very soon now."

"So my easiest play would be to open that hatch you came up through and toss you down to them."

She tried to struggle, jerking and arching suddenly, seeking to slip out of his grasp with her small size, but The Masked had been expecting that, and tightened his grip cruelly. "Stop trying to get yourself killed, and give me a good reason to do otherwise," he snapped, and relaxed his grip enough to let her breathe again.

The halfling panted for air, managing to gasp swiftly, "I'll pay you to hide me, to get me away from the bloodcoats!"

"Oh? How much?"

"Ten silver weights," she spat.

They locked gazes for a long time, as the shouts grew louder.

Then The Masked nodded. "A paltry price for a paltry deed. I accept. With one condition."

The roof-hatch squealed open.

"What?" Tantaerra hissed.

"Draw steel on me or threaten me-just once-and my fee rises tenfold," The Masked told her.

She nodded. "I accept."

"Good. Keep low."

∗ ∗ ∗

The masked man let go of Tantaerra and rolled to pluck up something from the roof on his far side.

It was a stone block the size of her head. He hefted it, waited, and as a soldier's head appeared under the raised hatch, threw it. Hard.

Tantaerra winced at the dull thud of the helm crumpling, followed by a brief rattling that might have been teeth. The Masked was already clambering over her in deft haste to grab hold of his lolling-headed victim. He hauled on that head, dragging limp arms and shoulders up through the hatch far enough to let him hook the man's sword-baldric through the hatch handle.

Then he shoved hatch and Molthuni back down, jamming the corpse in the narrow hole, and clambered back past her. "Come."

Rubbing her throat, Tantaerra followed him. To the other end of the warehouse roof, where a ventilator thrust up into the night sky. There was a long spar tied to it, hanging down off the roof.

"Where did this-?"

"I put it here," The Masked interrupted her. "If you're in the habit of spewing questions, kindly hold them for a better time."

Behind them, there were dull boomings from the hatch, then a louder, sharper one as someone slammed the butt-end of a spear against the roof from the loft below. Then a lot more of those louder, sharper booms.

Tantaerra wrestled her attention back from them to the man she'd just hired. Rather than moving the spar to serve as a bridge to the roof of the next warehouse, he had hooked an arm around the ventilator and clawed a flint striker from his belt.

Tantaerra saw an end of twine hanging out of the ventilator, swallowed the question she'd been about to ask, and joined him, holding her dagger against the twine so he could use the striker against it.

With a nod of thanks, he set to work. Three tries produced sparks, and they almost banged heads together blowing into flame. And then the twine was well and truly alight.

"Now we hurry," The Masked told his client, swinging the spar.

"I'll go first," she told him. "I'm a lot lighter. I can tie its other end to the ventilator on yon roof."

"With what?"

She slapped at her belt. The Masked peered, and saw that its buckle was a clip, and the belt itself was dark cord wrapped around and around a trim halfling waist until its wearer looked a lot fatter than she truly was.

"Go first," he agreed, "O Princess of Thieves."

"I'm not-bah!" She waved away the rest of her protest and set off across the spar, hugging it with her arms and hiking her behind into the air so she could run along it. A shout and a hurled spear told them they'd been seen, but the spear came nowhere near the halfling, and its ascent didn't make her falter; she was across in the time it took The Masked, holding the spar steady, to look behind him once. Spear tips were bursting up through the roof back by the hatch, but the unseen soldiers below seemed to lack time and space enough to shift crates so as to let them thrust up hard anywhere else along the roof slope. Which was rather fortunate. The first wisps of smoke were drifting up out of the ventilator now, and the shouts from beneath the roof shifted into startlement and fear …

∗ ∗ ∗

The halfling was up by the next building's ventilator, unwinding cord from around herself with the grace of a dancer. The Masked set about untying the knot at his end of the spar, so they could haul it along with them to the next roof.

More spears sailed up out of the night, to clang and clatter on the roofs well below them both and fall back into the night. It took practice to throw a spear up high with any accuracy, and it seemed this backcountry garrison hadn't done much high-hurling.

Then his new client was beckoning him with a wave, and flattening herself down on the spar to steady it as he'd done for her.

Not that she weighed much more than a sturdy dog, mind you. The Masked threw a last look at the loop of untied rope around his ventilator, shrugged, and started across, crawling and trying not to kick or do anything that might set the spar to sliding down the roof. This was no hero-ballad; he'd not be walking away from a fall from this height.

More shouts, and more spears-but flames were leaping up behind him, now, and the shouting inside that warehouse was turning to screams.

Down below, more soldiers were running. There'd be crossbows, soon.

The spar started shifting when he was still more than an arm's reach from the roof he was heading for, but he simply abandoned all caution in favor of haste, clawing his way onto the roof before it dumped him. The halfling, Desna be praised, was clinging grimly to her end of the spar and the ventilator, straining to slow or stop its shift, and hissing an impressive stream of curses.

"My thanks," he told her, joining her. "Let's get this untied; we'll need it to get to the next roof."

"Now we're even," she replied, as they clawed at her cord together.

"Oh?"

"Taking down those three bloodcoats on the road yonder, so I could run past," she said, pointing with her chin.

The Masked looked down at her. "What are you talking about?"

The halfling looked confused. "You mean that wasn't you?"

The Masked felt a sinking feeling deep in his gut. "Describe him." The words came out sharper than he'd intended.

Taken aback, the halfling said, "I didn't get a good look, but he's got brown eyes. Why-do you know him?"

All too well, The Masked thought grimly. That is, presuming his suspicions were correct. But explaining would only complicate matters. Instead, he said, "Lots of men have brown eyes. Come on and help me with my striker again."

A sudden smile lit up her face. "You didn't!"

"Yes, and the next warehouse, too. When my neck is concerned, I don't stint on diversions. If I hadn't needed them, I'd just have left them, not burnt all this down behind me. As it is, though, I've no hesitation at all in destroying Halidon's shipping district."

His client was grinning widely now. "I'm no thief, sir, but you …you are something of an army all by yourself."

"You hired well, then."

"So," he asked the halfling, "what should I call you?"

Her grin turned impish. "'Princess' will do."

The Masked gave her a long, steady look.

She merely shrugged. "And what should I call you?"

"The Masked," he told her simply.

That earned him a long and steady look from her. Facing it squarely, he added, "It's what I've become. The name I had before is no longer important. To anyone."

Behind them, with a sudden crackling roar, the roof of the first warehouse erupted in flame. Tongues that roared at the stars, bright gold but greenish around the edges.

Greenish. Oils, tree oils. There must have been jars inside some of those crates in the loft.

The Masked looked at his client, and the halfling princess looked back.

Then in unspoken accord they turned and hurried to get to the next roof. Those flames would die down again, but right now they were more than enough light to aim crossbows by-and the soldiers who'd been searching that warehouse had already spilled back out into the night to point, and trot, and throw more spears.

As badly as ever, but he'd only prepared one more fire, and Halidon wasn't so large that they could lose themselves in its warehouses, even if none of them had been burning.

"This is ten silver weights I'm really going to earn," The Masked told his client grimly, as he braced himself atop the spar so she could set off along it.

"I'm afraid so," was all she said, as she embraced the spar and started her run.

Halfway across, a spear laid open the left side of her breeches as it snarled past, and she yelped-but kept right on going.

The Masked winced. He was a much larger target.

Behind him, the ventilator they'd just left was spewing smoke already.

Yes, he was going to be earning this fee the hard way.

∗ ∗ ∗

The masked man started across the spar before she'd had time to set herself and steady it, almost before she was off it and onto the new roof.

Of course, it started to slip and slide, rattling down the roof he was busily departing, and not a halfling on Golarion could have held the spar once it started. Tantaerra only just had time to loop the cord lashed to the spar around the ventilator and under itself, then around her waist. She flung herself down and set her feet against the rusting metal-gods, but this warehouse was much older than the other two, roof and ventilator and all.

The cord tightened cruelly around her as the spar slid off the roof and her body took his entire weight.

"Urrhh," she told the stars, clenching her teeth. Gods, do not let him get feathered with arrows now, and leave me helpless, tethered to a dangling dead man, while cruel bloodcoats clamber up to drag me down before that ice-hearted Lord Investigator …

The cord tugged, then slackened, then tugged again. Which meant he was climbing, or kicking, or clawing his way up onto the roof.

Her left haunch smarted where that spear had laid it open, but it was a shallow cut, a mere slice. She was more worried about her breeches-or rather, the likelihood that they'd tear further, laying bare more of her leg, and letting all the world see her anklet, where she carried her coins. Wrapped and tied, so each was held apart to prevent telltale clinking …but anyone who'd seen a coin-anklet knew what they were at a glance.

She'd better pay her rescuer his ten silver weights soon, and lighten the load enough that she could shift the anklet to her other leg, safely out of sight again. She'd better-

"Agghh!" she groaned, as the cord tightened so much it felt like it was cutting her in half. She fought to breathe, fought to …

Suddenly there was no weight at all on the cord, and she heard the crash and hollow ringing bounce of the spar striking the ground far below.

"Masked man?" she called out fearfully.

"Here, Halfling Princess," came a snarl from just below her on the roof. "Thank you for my life. Again."

"Nine silver weights?" she asked hopefully.

"You've not paid me yet," he reminded her, clambering past. "This is all on promise."

"Not empty promise," she replied, rolling free of what was left of her cord-he'd sliced through it, near the edge of the roof-in time to see him at the ventilator with his flint. She hastened to join him.

They'd just kindled a tiny flame on the third twine when the night around them pulsed brighter.

The roof of the second warehouse didn't go up with quite the roar of the first, but the two blazes together had all Halidon awake now, and the north end of the village brightly lit for everyone to stare at.

Tantaerra peered around. There was barely a breeze, but what little there was came out of the forest heading northeast, carrying the smoke away from Halidon. And offering two escapees on a roof no concealment at all.

The flames were bright enough to show her all the watching folk, the soldiers foremost among them, surrounding the warehouses. There was no way for them to get to the forest, nor to the caravan, sequestered down at the south end of the village in a guarded paddock.

She watched the glow of the flaming twine inside the ventilator and said suddenly, "We're going to die up here, aren't we?"

The masked head turned toward her. "How you doubt me, Halfling Princess! How can I collect my fee if we die on this rooftop?"

"Oh? You've magic that can whisk us away, I suppose?"

"Hah. Hardly. This is no ballad or fireside tale, princess."

"I'm no princess," she snarled. "My name is Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra, and I was a slave in Canorate." She pointed at the ground down beside the barracks. "And that is the investigator I was warning you about. Recovered from the pepper I put into his eyes, and giving the orders for the noose tightening around us both now. In a savage mood, by the looks of him."

"You took down Osturr the Hound with a handful of pepper?" The masked man chuckled. "Ah, but you furnish steadily better entertainment, Prin-Lady Klazra."

"Tantaerra," Tantaerra corrected sharply, "masked man."

"Since we're such good friends now," he chuckled, "I am Tarram Armistrade. Or was." He clambered along the roof past her. "Come. We have a hatch to use. In some haste."

"We're going down into the waiting arms of-?"

"They'll be very busy, very soon. No fear; we'll wait until the right moment."

The hatch lifted readily under the masked man's hand; he'd evidently prepared it from below, earlier. He bundled her through it like a rebellious child and almost bowled her over coming through it on top of her.

"Why the haste?" she panted, stumbling aside in near-darkness as she realized her cord had been left behind-and wished it hadn't. "If we're going to be waiting …and am I permitted to know what we're waiting for?"

At that moment, the world began to roar.

The floor heaved, the far wall of the warehouse slammed inward as if punched by a god's fist, and every barrel, crate, and shipping-crock in the place hurtled into the air and started to come right at Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra.

She was flying through the air too, she realized dazedly, and there was a curious ringing silence in her ears, even as she watched boards tear into splinters and doors blow open into the night and a huge wall of roiling flame come raging through that broken end wall toward her.

This must be why The Masked had been in such haste to get down off the roof …and must also be what he'd been waiting for …

Something in the middle warehouse he'd known about, something that could erupt in a blast like the fury of the very gods.

She couldn't see him anywhere, couldn't-

She struck something then, something solid and meaty that had boots she'd seen before-his boots, this Tarram Armistrade-that was folding up around her, his arms reaching to cradle her. She felt him strike something, something that gave way, and then they were falling past splinters and a rebounding door, out into darkness, and there were bloodcoats looming above them, and spears…

Then that raging flame followed them out through the doorway and raced over them, and bloodcoats were tumbling, spears spinning away on their own into the night. They were bouncing, and skidding, and bouncing again.

Then tumbling, head over heels in dirt amid ruined fences and over the sprawled bodies of fallen bloodcoats as the ringing silence started to fade.

Tantaerra could see thousands of embers and dark shards in the sky, fountaining up against the stars as her own tumblings slowed, and she heard something deep-voiced behind her ear that might have been The Masked groaning or cursing …and then at last she came to rest, on her back and staring up at all the fragments tumbling down now out of the sky, crashing and spattering and tlinging off the ground and buildings and roofs around her.

Was she hurt?

She couldn't feel a thing, just the solid reassurance of the ground under her, but something-no, someone-was rising from behind her. The Masked.

He took her in his arms and started to stumble away, her world yawing and bouncing crazily now, and as if from far away she heard his voice.

"I trust you found that worth waiting for, Tantaerra?"

She tried to move her lips to frame a reply, but found no words, and he was too busy to listen anyway. Busy heading for an old and solid-looking stone building, plunging through its open front door, and swinging her onto one shoulder to free his other hand to backhand a startled-looking old man in a robe, knocking him to the floor. The Masked trotted past the blinking, protesting priest and a fitful-looking fire in a round hearth in the center of the floor, and into a deeper, darker archway.

"This," he informed her, "is the village shrine. The shared temple of several gods, serving all until-if ever-Halidon is large enough for gods to have temples of their own."

The masked man shouldered through a curtain and past some tables heaped with what were probably offerings, to a mildewy-smelling wall climbed by a simple stone stair with no rail. He started up those steps. "Are you all right?"

She tried to speak again, and was mildly surprised to hear her own voice. "Now you ask me? Now?"

His only reply was a brief chuckle, that soon gave way to panting as he climbed.

It was a long way, sixty or seventy steps, before The Masked staggered away from the top of the stair to a stout door. It was held shut with a hasp and through-spike, and he set her down long enough to use the spike like a crowbar and tear the hasp away from the rotten wooden doorframe it was anchored to, hauling the door open onto a lofty view of the night sky.

Then he picked Tantaerra up again and rushed her through the door, out onto the shrine roof.

It was a flat circle of decking around a central spire surrounded by a dozen or more statues of gods, facing outward over a sheer drop to Halidon below. The dark statues were bedecked with bird droppings, and momentarily fanned by the whir of flapping wings as awakened and disturbed birds hastily departed into the night sky.

"Here," the masked man said, propping her up in a dark niche between Gozreh-a tall, somber bearded man leaning forward out of a storm cloud sculpted all over with small lightning bolts-and a robed figure with the head of an elk, who could only be Erastil. "There-hidden! Now pay me!"

"This is …rather abrupt, Sir Armistrade," she replied sharply. "You were to hide me and effect my escape from the bloodcoats. We haven't escaped yet. Your commission is half done, if that. I'll pay half."

Still panting, her half-rescuer held out his empty hand for the coins. "Done. On the condition you stop with the 'sirs.' I'm Tarram. Or Armistrade, if you're annoyed with me."

Tantaerra knelt to get at the anklet she was going to shift to her other leg anyway. "As it happens, I am. You do realize this roof is a trap, not a hiding place?"

"You did see me remove the means of bolting the door and trapping us out here?" the masked man replied gently. "Well, then, not so much a trap as a place one man-as in, me-can defend against many. Unless they take off their armor and leave their spears behind, there's no way more than one of those Molthuni soldiers is going to get through this door at a time."

"You've never met this Lord Investigator," Tantaerra told him dryly.

"Oh, but I have. Osturr has been after me these-ah, this last little while. He's been just too late to close his hands around my throat on several occasions. And whether I'd set foot in this village or not, he'd soon have come to Halidon to check on the local commanders as part of his ongoing duties. Such vigilance is the norm in Molthune these days. Along with inns keeping detailed registers of all guests, citizens being expected to report unusual people or events, and the like." His voice turned wry. "In fact, the local Molthuni commanders have almost certainly set their own spy to following and watching the Lord Investigator. They have reports to make too, you know."

"I'm less than surprised, but also less than concerned, Armistrade," Tantaerra told him. "Whether they watch him doing it or not, he's still going to be coming up here after us. So why, exactly, are you making his work easier for him? This is a blind end we've rushed up into; we've cornered ourselves."

"This is a defensible spot we'll be tarrying in only until the right time to move."

"There'll be no right time, masked man," she replied tartly, pointing down over the edge of the roof. "Look!"

∗ ∗ ∗

They could both see the Lord Investigator down below, pointing as he gave orders, his every movement swift and angry. He gestured up at them several times, then fell in behind the line of bloodcoats he'd sent trotting in their direction.

"Wouldn't it be easier to defend the top of the stairs, inside?" the halfling asked, sounding as irked as ever.

The Masked shook his head, without sparing a glance for her. "No protection against bolts or spears from below. I need the archway. And before you ask, no, I'm not some sword-swinging hero, nor a wizard who can hurl fire all night long. I'm a man who would have quite likely slept the night away peacefully if you hadn't goaded these bloodcoats and then led them right to me."

She made no reply, yet the heat of her gaze on his back was like a forge-fire.

Tarram closed the door and moved to stand between the two statues closest to the archway, undoing the cloak he'd had pinned tightly around his upper body all this time, wadding it up and stuffing it ready atop the folded arms of holy Torag, the dwarves' Lord of Creation. Then he undid the leather overflaps that kept rain out of the dagger-sheaths on his upper arms and the short sword scabbards on his lower legs, as well as keeping the weapons that lived in them secure while he was tumbling through warehouses and scrambling along rooftops. They were ready.

So now, so was he.

Drawing his favorite dagger from his belt behind his left hip, he waited. Better a small parrying fang at first, and an empty strong right hand to grapple with. Perhaps one of the first soldiers he faced would obligingly bring him a longer, stronger sword.

Abruptly the door was flung open. The first Molthuni came out onto the roof in a rush, charging with a leveled spear and a snarl. He was passing Tarram before he saw the man standing motionless among the statues-so it was child's play to give him a shove from behind that sent him over the edge, shouting in terror.

Tarram was already rolling back to the statues and up to his feet as the next two soldiers came through the archway in a rush, jabbing with their lowered spears. The one in the rear couldn't reach as far, which made it easy to parry the foremost spear and then yank on it, to tug its owner toward the statues-and into a trip and a fall over that second spear.

The Masked slammed his dagger hilt up hard under the man's jaw-low, more upper throat-and brought his other hand down on the man's neck and shoulder, wiping him face-first down the sharp, unyielding front of a carved god, sending him sprawling atop the hindmost soldier's spear. Which left that soldier scrabbling to get out his sword as Tarram trampled the first soldier in a hasty rush to reach the second soldier and slash him across the face.

The man shrieked as blood spurted, and The Masked politely relieved him of his sword and shoved him stumbling back into the next arrival through the archway.

Who almost spitted his fellow soldier, but managed at the last minute not to-at the expense of both his balance and a good parrying position. The Masked took advantage of that, hacking at the side of the man's head and then at the side of his knee. Helm ringing, the man fell heavily, and The Masked lunged over him, surprising the next soldier-another spearman-with a thrust that sunk home under the bottom of an armored tunic, up into the man's crotch.

The man screamed obligingly and writhed in the doorway, giving The Masked the time he needed to turn and rush back along the roof, kicking two downed and groaning soldiers over the edge and slamming his dagger hilt hard into the back of the third Molthuni neck. That man lay sprawled and still, and went on doing so.

The wounded soldier was clutching his crotch and moaning as he stumbled or was dragged back through the archway, but his fallen spear lay on the roof right in front of the door, an obstacle to the next attacking soldiers.

Watching the doorway, The Masked backed along the statues until he reached the angle he wanted, where a carved divinity shielded him from any bowshot. Then he stepped back between two gods and waited, dagger and new-won sword up and ready, his gaze fixed on the door.

"Gods bear witness," the halfling whispered from the next niche, "but you are a sword-swinging hero." Then she darted out of her shelter, snatched the helm off the fallen soldier's head and a dagger from his belt, and was back in her niche.

The Masked was in his niche watching the doorway, from which no new assailant had emerged. Had they taken out an entire patrol, or cowed the last few into not daring to advance?

A moment later, he had his answer. A soldier with only a drawn short sword came running out onto the roof at The Masked-and when Tarram left his niche to parry that sword, the Molthuni flung himself down on his face.

A crossbow cracked beyond the archway, and a crossbow bolt came thrumming out of it, laying open Tarram's thigh as he dove desperately back at his niche.

He roared his pain up into Torag's carved face and clutched at his cloak, trying to shake it out into a cloud in case there were a second bowman, but the pain …

"That should slow your running," Lord Investigator Ammarand Osturr observed with cold satisfaction, as he strode out of the archway with a cocked and loaded crossbow in his hands.

"Reload the other," he snapped over his shoulder, "but hold it ready for my use. No firing."

The Masked gave him a bitter smile. "Took you long enough to catch me, Hound."

"I have a busy schedule, Armistrade," the investigator replied, halting well out of reach. "I fear you assign yourself more importance than I do."

From behind Tarram came the faintest of sounds. The Lord Investigator heard it too.

"Show yourself!" he snapped. "Whoever you are, show yourself, or I'll put a bolt through this man's face!"

He was answered by a low, gurgling moan.

Osturr's eyes narrowed, and he leaned his head to one side to peer around the statues.

A hurled halfling-sized dagger crashed into his crossbow, sending the bolt bouncing out of its channel as the bow went off, its poisoned death thrumming off into the night to strike down an astonished bird that had been cautiously wheeling to see if matters were quiet enough to return to its roost.

Osturr was still flinching in fear when the Molthuni helmet Tantaerra had salvaged came whirling out of the night to take him right across the face.

Tarram snarled, launching himself at the man who'd hunted him for so long-a snarl that became a helpless roar of pain as his wounded leg failed him, sent him stumbling amid sickening agony to fall at the very feet of the Lord Investigator.

Who'd finished lurching backward and grimacing in pain, and was now drawing a long, slender dagger from a forearm sheath.

"I've decided to dispense with your trial," the Lord Investigator spat. His arm swept up, raising the needle-dirk on high.

Tarram rolled over, trying to get his arms up in front of his face.

Luraumadar, the mask whispered insistently, sounding almost gleeful. Luraumadar, Luraumadar …

Glittering against the stars, the dagger swept down.