"The smallest finger of your left hand," Mahalagris announced calmly, and flew backward, whirling his purring sword above his head in a grand flourish.
The Masked backed a step and planted himself-and the wizard swooped at him, slashing viciously.
Tantaerra's partner dodged, flung away his shattered dagger with enough force to reclaim his balance into a low lunge in the other direction that made the Whispering Blade just miss, and snatched off his glowing mask.
As Mahalagris whirled around in midair and hacked at his quarry, the unmasked man swept the glowing mask through the air in a slash of his own, a parry that met and caught the curved sword.
Tarram snarled in pain as the tip of the Whispering Blade caught in one of the mask's eyeholes-and his own sliced eye, cheek, and brow erupted in a spray of blood!
Yet he'd intended this, Tantaerra saw, for he was already twisting the mask in his hand to bind and capture the sword-as he flung himself over backward.
The startled corpse-wizard didn't let go of his blade, and was vaulted helplessly over The Masked. An instant before he would have slammed headfirst into his own catafalque, Mahalagris let go of the blade and flew upward. His shoulder rammed the edge of the open marble coffin and sent him into a hard, tumbling meeting with the opposite lip of the catafalque.
"Now, Tantaerra!" The Masked roared unnecessarily.
Tantaerra was already leaping into the air, her surviving hand slapping around the dog-spike protruding from the winch. With a snarl of her own, she tugged with all her might.
Then she was falling away, holding it, to the roaring rattle of racing chains.
Halflings bounce well. She turned in the air as she rebounded from the jet-black floor, in time to see the lid of the catafalque smash down on the undead wizard, crushing limbs into flopping ruin.
Mahalagris fought against the massive lid for a frenzied moment, head obviously shattered and broken ends of bone protruding from his shoulder and back, and then sagged, pinned under it.
Only to flinch in helpless spasms an instant later as The Masked landed atop the lid, the Whispering Blade in hand.
Blood streaming down his smooth ruin of a face, Tarram Armistrade hacked at every bit of Mahalagris he could see, dicing the undead wizard as his victim shrieked horribly. The curved sword in his hand flared brighter and brighter, a reddish-purple blaze too bright to look at as the curved steel rose and fell relentlessly.
Soon the screams ended and the glowing blue eyes went dark, but the man with the sword kept right on chopping and slicing for a long and terrible time, until there was nothing left of Mahalagris but an unrecognizable heap.
He stood panting above it, glaring down, until Tantaerra managed a weak cheer.
That died in her throat as he turned to glare at her with one wild eye, peering out of a mask of dripping blood, and sprang down from the wizard's catafalque to stalk toward her.
Your turn, yours, the blade whispered. Death at last, halfling princess.
"I'm not-" Tantaerra mumbled, as she scrambled up, bumping her stump and sending fresh pain racing up her arm.
She staggered back against the wall, feeling sick and beaten, watching the unmasked man coming to kill her.
"Tarram! Tarram Armistrade!"
He wasn't stopping, might not even be hearing her.
Still shrieking his name, Tantaerra rushed desperately to the door and tried to claw it open. She succeeded with almost mocking ease this time, revealing a dimly lit room beyond that seemed to open away to the left.
She didn't have time to see more; the reddish-purple glow rising right behind her told her that much. So instead of plunging through the door into the half-seen unknown, she ducked away along the wall beside it, tugging out one of her vials as she went and swigging it.
The taste that filled her mouth was the minty healing tingle-thank Desna-and she dared to turn and look back.
The Masked was still pursuing her, but was well behind her, staggering like a drunkard. With every stride his body trembled violently, muscles rippling in spasms. Time and again he almost fell, swinging the Whispering Blade clumsily and aimlessly as he lurched and swayed. He seemed to be fighting against his own sword arm.
Come now, the blade chided him aloud. Slaying with me should be simple. Bloodletting is what we do together.
Watching the sword, Tantaerra caught sight of her stump. It was dribbling blood rather wearily, like a half-opened cask spigot, but as the healing she'd drunk stole through her, it stopped. The burning pain ebbed, but the blue healing glow that momentarily flared around her arm darkened as a reddish-purple radiance also blossomed, and wrestled with the blueness. That reddish-purple was the same hue that blazed around the Whispering Blade in a now-sullen aura.
She still couldn't quite believe her hand was gone. Her stump was healed, the dark blood that had been wet mere moments ago now dry and falling off in tattered flakes. Healed, but still a stump, no new hand sprouting, no new fingers reaching for the ceiling as she wriggled them.
Her hand was gone forever.
She stumbled over something on the blood-slick floor that might have been her hand as The Masked came closer. She fled from him, throwing her empty vial in his face and feeling for another.
If he slashed open her throat, could the potion get through the welling blood to heal her?
She'd backed most of the way around the room now, slipping once or twice in blood that was probably her own.
Suddenly-she didn't know how-she was caught in a corner, with The Masked looming up in front of her. No longer glaring, but shaking his head and muttering grimly, looking down, the curved sword wavering in his hand.
And even if he collapsed at her feet, what then? She'd be alone at the heart of this murderous maze, one-handed and weak …a two-bite meal for most of those dweomercats waiting outside. Doomed.
The Masked raised his head and the sword in his hand in one slow, grim movement.
"Tarram!" she screamed. "It's me! Your halfling princess!"
His mouth crooked through the dripping blood, his one eye fixed on her-and then he turned and flung the Whispering Blade across the room.
It hit the wall with an almost musical crash, bounced off, clattered to the black marble floor, and slid lazily across the room.
It came to rest touching-very gently, almost caressingly-something that looked like a dark, oversized arachnid.
Something that rose on legs to scuttle like a spider. Five legs, two of them shorter than the others. Her severed hand. It scuttled away across the room.
"Sorry," The Masked growled, whirling away from her to run raggedly across the room again, scoop up the sword, and hack at the dodging, scampering hand. He chopped at it as savagely and thoroughly as he'd served Mahalagris, not stopping until it was diced to tiny fragments on the bloody marble.
Then he flung down the sword again and came back to her.
"Tantaerra," he gasped, "I'm sorry. I …that blade was clawing at my mind." He put his arms around her, lifted her to his breast, and leaned against the wall with his forehead, just holding her. "Your poor hand."
Tantaerra burst into tears. And found herself clutching at him and sobbing, all control fallen and fled, while he stammered out incoherent, useless apologies.
It was a long time before her weeping was done, and she could choke out words again. "Drink one of your vials," she hissed at him, when she could. "That eye of yours …"