“Don’t believe him,” Dalabrac said. “One of my friends died to rescue you. By now, there’s a fair chance Anton has, too. And if that weren’t sacrifice enough, this pasty squirt of dung just murdered Darstag. You saw it for yourself!”
“I acted in self-defense,” Kymas replied with a twinge of amusement. As things had worked out, that assertion was actually true.
“No. This is self-defense.” Dalabrac blew into the blowpipe.
Kymas expected a poisoned dart or some other mundane weapon to which vampires were impervious. But to preserve his masquerade of mortality, he twisted to the side.
A puff of dust emerged from the end of the pipe. Then, with an earsplitting screech, it instantly congealed into a floating chain. Still shrieking, the links hurtled at Kymas, and he recoiled another step. The chain spun around the space he’d just vacated and yanked itself tight. As it had nothing to bind in its coils, the result was simply to jerk itself straight.
Because he recognized the spell, which some enchanter had seen fit to store in dust-and-blowpipe form, Kymas knew the magic had yet to run its course, and as expected, the screaming chain lashed at his head like a flail. He raised his arm to block.
The impact stung, but it didn’t stagger or stun him as it might have a lesser being. As the chain whirled back for a second stroke, he rattled off the first words of a counterspell to expunge it from existence.
Dalabrac puffed into another blowpipe, and the vapor that sprayed out gathered itself into half a dozen pairs of fanged jaws. Like the chain before them, they streaked at Kymas.
He swatted two away and dodged another, but the rest bit him. In the aggregate, the pain he was now experiencing was enough to spoil the precise cadence and articulation spellcasting required. The half-formed magic dispersed in a useless hiss and shimmer.
He could attempt another counterspell and probably succeed, but he decided he didn’t care about preserving his impersonation if it meant standing and enduring more punishment like a slave bound to the whipping post. He dissolved into mist and flowed out of the middle of the gnashing, flying jaws and shrieking, swinging chain.
He resumed solid form as soon as he’d drifted far enough that his magical attackers wouldn’t instantly reorient on him. His fangs were out, and inside his newly torn garments, his wounds were healing with supernatural rapidity. Some of his Red Wizard tattoos were likely on display as well, though he doubted the goggling, horrified mortals noticed the latter.
Dalabrac’s hand shot inside his jerkin, surely to bring out yet another blowpipe. No, you don’t, Kymas thought. He sprang and bore the halfling down beneath him, then drove his fangs into his prey’s neck.
The first mouthful of blood was ecstasy so keen it bordered on delirium. The fact that Dalabrac had had the insolence to defy him, to inflict pain and indignity on him, made the taste all the sweeter.
“Get off him!” Stedd shrilled, his voice barely audible over the still-screaming chain. Then light blazed through the dark and the veils of rain, and Kymas’s skin charred and blistered.
As he averted his face, Kymas supposed he should have been prepared for this. After all, Stedd was the Chosen of the god of the dawn. But up until now, he’d simply acted like a normal child, as if he was currently incapable of manifesting divine power. Perhaps the threat of an undead night stalker, the very antithesis of everything Lathander represented, had stirred him to a supreme effort.
However it happened, Kymas didn’t want to suffer another flare of holy sunlight. As soon as the first one faded, and he could bear to look in Stedd’s direction again, he leaped up, grabbed the dying Dalabrac, and threw him.
The halfling’s body slammed into the little boy and knocked him down. Kymas charged, pounced, and pinned Stedd on the ground.
Then he had to struggle not to bite him. Stedd had hurt him worse than Dalabrac, and drinking him would be even more satisfying. But the thought of Szass Tam, and the prospect of the lich’s displeasure, steadied him.
He slapped Stedd in the temple and knocked him unconscious. Then, his burns still smarting, he tossed the boy prophet over his shoulder and hurried onward.
Anton took another look over his shoulder. Though it was difficult to be certain with only the occasional lightning flash and trace of yellow candle glow leaking out one window or another to light the night, it appeared that he and the wizard in brown had shaken any pursuers off their trail.
That arguably meant his companion had outlived her usefulness. In fact, now that the half-drowned harbor lay ahead, she was apt to become a hindrance. It was time to dispose of her as the Fire Knives had surely already rid themselves of the long-legged associate to whom she’d deferred as “Saer.”
Given her mystical talents, the safest way to do it would be with a saber slash or dagger thrust from behind. But he found himself reluctant to kill her. He supposed it had something to do with the fact that they’d fought the winged spirits together. Sourly amused at his unaccustomed sentimentality, he slowed down to let her get a pace ahead of him. After that, he gripped the hilt of his knife. The pommel was heavy enough to make a good bludgeon.
He was just about to draw the weapon when two recumbent forms, one half as long as the other, appeared in the gloom. Casting about for signs of a lurking threat, Anton nonetheless quickened his stride, and the wizard did the same.
The smaller body was Dalabrac, and the larger was his walleyed henchman. The rain had washed away most of the blood that would otherwise have pooled around the corpses, but judging from the tears in his neck, the halfling must have bled copiously. Anton wondered what had made the wounds. A savage dog?
“I guess more angels or sunlords must have caught up with our companions before we did,” said the mage. “Your friends died-sorry-but until we know otherwise, let’s hope Stedd and my master got away.”
It was more likely that the Fire Knives had attacked the pale man in an effort to take sole possession of Stedd and he’d somehow killed them instead, and Anton wondered if the woman in brown failed to see that. She struck him as shrewd enough to put the pieces together. But it would be counterproductive to challenge her version of events.
“If so,” he said, “they surely hurried onward to your ship. Let’s do the same.”
She hesitated. “I will. You don’t have to.”
He cocked his head. “Meaning?”
“Just … the halfling hired you, and he’s dead. Stedd mistrusts you. The ship’s crew likely won’t welcome an infamous pirate. You might be better off if we part company.”
“I appreciate your concern. But it isn’t about coin anymore. Believe it or not, I actually like the boy-well, sometimes-and I like to finish what I start. And if he truly is a messenger from a god, well, perhaps a man who’s lived as I have could use a friend in the highest of high places. I’ll tell you what. Let me escort you all the way to your vessel and see for myself that Stedd made it there safely. Then, if there truly isn’t a berth for the likes of me, I’ll take my leave.”
The wizard sighed. “Have it your way.”
As they hurried onward, Anton was glad he’d persuaded her to lead him to Stedd’s present location but unable to imagine what he was going to do when they arrived. What could he do against a whole ship? He told himself he’d think of something, but when a rickety length of temporary pier came into view, and the wizard gasped and faltered, he realized he wasn’t even going to get the chance.
There was no ship tied up at dockside. The pale man had cast off and left the mage behind. Straining, Anton peered out to sea, but the vessel had already vanished.
“May he burn in the Abyss forever,” the wizard growled.
“If you’re talking about your superior,” Anton said, “I second your opinion. But we can’t just stand here cursing him. By now, the sunlords, the church of Umberlee, and the watch-the entire city, give or take-are all seeking us. Fortunately, I have a fast boat of my own ready to sail, the one in which I intended to carry Stedd to safety.”