The body pain vanished first, and Nightfall felt the sorcerer’s grip slipping as his weight-shifting talent receded back toward the core. Still bound with Ritworth, he felt the sorcerer’s enormous rage and frustration as his own. The magical grip clenched tighter, clinging to the gift it almost had. Then, abruptly, the hold disappeared, and surprise replaced the anger.
Nightfall clawed his way to the surface, gagging and sputtering on the mud he had forced his lungs to bear. He smeared stinging muck from his eyes in time to see Prince Edward’s follow-through sword stroke, an attack that had, apparently, missed its target. Nightfall had come within a long arm’s reach of the bank. Ritworth gathered power, presumably for his ice spell while the prince tensed for another attack.
Nightfall scarcely noticed the jangle of the oath-bond, the once-excruciating pain seeming minuscule in the wake of so much more. He scrambled to shore, fighting legs that seemed too weak to carry him. His muscles did not properly obey. He tripped, falling flat on his face. Spell and sword leapt forth at once. Though surely intended for Edward, the Iceman’s sorceries struck his blade instead. Edward dropped a weapon suddenly too cold to handle. It struck the ground, exploding into splinters. Nightfall scrabbled to his feet, now seizing one of the daggers he had not managed to locate while encased in swamp. He hurled it for the back of the sorcerer’s neck.
But mud weighted the blade, making its flight unpredictable. It struck Ritworth’s arm, dull edge leading, just as Edward bore in with bare fists. The wizard spoke a harsh word and flapped his hands. His body rose from the ground, and he flew over Edward’s head toward the safety of the forest. The prince sprang back. Nightfall threw his last two throwing knives. The first pierced the air a split second behind the soaring sorcerer, the blade plummeting into the swamp. The second missed cleanly as Ritworth swept from sight.
The goading throb of the oath-bond lessened to its usual tingle, and the near absence of pain seemed a joy and comfort beyond anything Nightfall had known. He headed for the pack horse, digging rope from the bundle and ignoring the flopped body of Snow. He had wanted to rid them of the gelding’s nervous presence forever, it seemed, yet never in this fashion. He could not help feeling guilty for the thoughts he had held against it in much the same way he felt his own wishes had caused his mother’s death. For now, he needed to concentrate on freeing his mount.
Prince Edward headed back down the frozen pathway. "Are you badly hurt?”
“No, Master. Just shaken. I’ll be fine." Nightfall continued freeing the rope as feeling returned to his body.
Edward drew closer, glancing around for Ritworth’s return.
Nightfall did not trouble himself to do the same, trusting the trained perception that came from years of living on the street to alert him to danger. Never again would he allow illusion, excitement, and frustration to blunt that necessary sixth sense he needed for survival.
The prince drew up beside his squire. "Why does a sorcerer want your soul?”
Nightfall coiled the rope, forming a loop to catch the bay mare. He glanced at Edward, knowing the prince had grown up with a sorcerer as his father’s adviser and certain even this sheltered youth had heard rumors. Denial would gain him nothing, only distance him from the trust he had sought to gain and mostly succeeded. The sorcerer’s claims had already revealed too much. "Master, I didn’t mean to hide anything from you. The fewer who know about my ability, the better. A word in the wrong place… if a sorcerer overheard… or one who would sell information to sorcerers…" He rolled a sad gaze to Edward, continuing his work with the rope but letting the thought trail. "I’ve never told anyone before." Except a vicious, back-stabbing whore who sold me to your father.
Prince Edward fell silent for several moments, absently looping the extra rope, assisting his squire unconsciously. "I understand." He frowned. "So who told this sorcerer?"
"No one," Nightfall admitted. "He watched me closely enough to figure it out on his own." He tossed the loop, missing the horse by a hand’s breadth. In response, the mare resumed her struggles, battering at the mud with hooves exhausted from the fight. He wound the rope back for another try.
"It doesn’t matter, you know." Edward continued his search for the returning sorcerer. "Servant or equal, I’m not going to abandon you when the next sorcerer comes either."
"Thank you, Master; but your life has to come first. If I thought others would come, I’d leave you." Nightfall threw the lasso again. It landed just in front of the animal’s ears and around the back of her head, and he coaxed it to slide along her nose. His own loyalty made sense. He little understood Edward’s, however. Any other noble would have sacrificed his squire to preserve himself without need for a moment’s consideration. Why did he come back? What does he hope to gain from me? "At the least, sorcerers have to compete too much to discuss their quarry with one another. We may see the Iceman again, but I don’t think others will attack."
{The rope jerked into place around the horse’s neck.
Edward considered. "Now that I know, what is this talent of yours?"
Nightfall concentrated on the rope, believing the prince had earned the right to know but hedged by the memory of Kelryn’s betrayal. "It helps me ride horses," he said, not quite lying. He tugged at the rope, aware he did not have the strength to pull the beast free himself yet wowing better than to request the aid of his master.
Prince Edward came over to help anyway.
Chapter 13
He feeds on elders and children,
On soldiers, kings, and beggarmen.
He never stops and never slows Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.
– "The Legend of Nightfall"
Nursery rhyme, st. 13
A multicolored wash of dancers frolicked through the muted lantern light of Noshtillan’s stage, their many and varied steps weaving into beautiful patterns of flash and movement. Prince Edward and Nightfall sat on one of the scattered benches, a crate just taller than knee-height supporting their drinks, its weathered wood still tainted by the mixture of spices it once held. It was not the best of the furniture in the performance room of Noshtillan’s dance hall. The central, more populous area contained some real tables and larger crates, but concern drove Nightfall to keep their backs against the wall and away from windows. He doubted the self-proclaimed Iceman would attack them in a crowd, even in a place where propriety and law deemed they remain unarmed; but paranoia would not allow him to drop his guard for a second.
Prince Edward and Nightfall had traveled as swiftly as the pack horse and the mud-caked mare could carry them, Nightfall surrendering the superior mount and his sword to his master. Ritworth had not bothered them on the journey, perhaps as shaken as his victim by the failed assassination. More likely, Nightfall suspected, the sorcerer was biding his time, waiting to catch his quarry in another indefensible position.
Nightfall had no intention of allowing himself to become vulnerable ever again. This excessive alertness had wrested sleep from him when they arrived in Noshtillan in the wee morning hours. Sheer exhaustion had eventually stolen consciousness from him, a dream-gorged slumber filled with chases, threats, and embarrassments. Even then, every sound had jarred him awake, and he harbored vague recollections of some dank corner of his mind processing and dismissing each normal city noise. He had sneaked his daggers, well-hidden, into the dance hall, preferring to risk arrest over being cornered without defenses.