Djimon forced himself to gain control of his emotions. A large, ugly bruise was already starting to form on the child's face where she had been struck. He moved in close so that she could smell his rancid breath.

"Know this, child. If we had not found a buyer for you so quickly, I would have allowed my men to take you. They would not have stopped until they had drunk their heart's content of the pleasures your young body has to offer. Then I would have fed you to the vultures for the trouble you have caused."

"Charmer." She spat and tried to kick him in the crotch. Only his sharp reflexes allowed him to move out of the way in time. He restrained himself and did not strike her again. His buyers had been promised a fourteen-year-old blue-eyed virgin in perfect condition, and, by Cyric's fiery h.e.l.l, he was going to make good on that pledge. On the other hand, the degradation and shock of being brutally raped by a dozen or so of his men might serve to break her spirit and make her a more docile-and therefore more valuable-commodity.

He was contemplating this issue when the girl began to scream, "Kill me! Kill me!" at the top of her lungs. The raider marveled at the girl's talent for widening his options. He leaned close and said, "Child, I warn you-" With a howl of delight she brought her knee up to the s.p.a.ce between his legs. This time the short desert raider was not able to move out of the blow's path. He squealed as her knee connected, then he doubled over, his face inches from hers. She leaned in and bit at his exposed ear even as Jurgon yanked her away from his master. Djimon screamed even louder as the lower half of his ear was torn away. In alarm, Jurgon relaxed his grip on the child's arm, giving her the opportunity to slip from his hands and launch herself forward, toward the lip of the pillar's flat top. Her chains caught her legs andshe tripped, spitting out the b.l.o.o.d.y chunk of flesh that she had bitten from Djimon's head. She did not allow the bonds to defeat her; the freedom of death was within her grasp, a mere ten feet away. Rolling with her fall, the girl used her momentum and twisted her body until she had covered the ten feet and was about to make one final turn, which would send her plunging to her death.

She stopped and laughed at the men who were now running toward her. "My name is not 'child,'

you ignorant sp.a.w.n of wh.o.r.es. My name is Krystin!"

With that, she rolled off the edge and somehow suppressed a scream as she plummeted through the air, the ground rapidly reaching up to meet her.

At the lip of the flat, Djimon and Jurgon came to a halt, their chests heaving with exertion. Djimon held his savaged ear and issued a stream of curses.

He stopped only when he heard the sound of laughter from the pillar's base. Kneeling, he looked over the thin, crumbling ledge to see Krystin suspended in midair, her flight impossibly arrested. For once, the child was speechless. She floated gently downward, toward a group of six people that included a tall, gaunt man who was pointing his hands at the girl and gesturing: Magic.

Djimon ignored the pain long enough to issue yet another curse. His operations had proceeded without the opposition of mages for close to a year. The formerly stringent measures he had taken to protect himself against pract.i.tioners of the art had become lax, a seemingly unnecessary burden on himself and his people. He considered himself fortunate to realize his error in this manner. The party below had been shielded by a spell of invisibility, or some type of cloaking incantation that had allowed them to blend with the endless vista of sand as they approached. From Cyric's Hammer, he could see the main route between Calimport and Memnon in the distance. Even now his buyers appeared on the well-traveled road. He thought of the humiliation he would face for the rest of his life when the story got out of how a fourteen-year-old child had taken the legendary G.o.dslayer's ear, and the thought was almost too horrible to accept.

From the ground below, Djimon heard the group's youngest member, a man close to twenty years in age, howl, "Well, that solves the problem of how to get her down without having to engage all of these louts." The young man rested his hands on his thighs and shook his head in amazement.

"They actually think this is over," Djimon said as he rose to his feet and barked a string of commands to his people. He could not control the future, but in that moment he swore that he would have his vengeance on the child and her rescuers.

At the base of the pillar, Lucius Cardoc levitated the girl to the ground, then fell back, exhausted.

"You've done well, mage," Burke said as he caught the man and helped to steady him. All the Harpers' faces were red and blistered despite the hoods they wore to protect their skin. Varina and Reisz still sat on their mounts, holding the reins of two other horses.

"Would that all of our quests were completed with such ease," Reisz said darkly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Burke asked.

"Nothing. I hope."

Several feet away from the party, the girl they had rescued held up her chained hands. Myrmeen broke from the group and approached her tentatively. The sun was in Myrmeen's eyes and she was not able to get a decent look at the child until she was practically on top of her. For an instant she felt as if she were staring at a much younger reflection of herself: The child had her eyes.

"If you're done gawking, could you break these chains?" Krystin asked impatiently. "We have to get out of here."

Myrmeen smiled. The strange, deep-blue eyes with slivers of gold were not all the girl had inherited.

"I'm serious. Djimon keeps guards down here," Krystin said urgently.

"No more," Myrmeen replied, indicating with a slight nod the trio of bodies lying in the shadows near the pillar's base, where Djimon's route to the top began. She could not keep herself from staring at the girl in adulation, though she knew she must have appeared to be a dull-witted fool from her vacant expression and hesitancy. This was her daughter; it was actually her. Dak had told her the truth.

"d.a.m.n," Krystin said as she slid one of the blades from Myrmeen's waist, then scurried to a rock,where she rested the chains and began to pound at the links with the weapon's hilt. They snapped quickly and she immediately went to work on the chains binding her feet.

A warm, frothy euphoria filled Myrmeen's heart as she watched her daughter. The logical part of her mind told her that her actions were not those of an intelligent, calculating woman. She was giving Djimon a chance to react, and the operation was supposed to have been a quick, clean slash and grab: take out the opposition, steal the prize, get out as quickly as possible. But for some reason she was completely enchanted and unable to think of giving orders.

Then she remembered her overconfident bearing at the bar in Calimport and the ambush she had blundered into behind the trading house. The memories were sobering.

The group had stayed close to the pillar's base, underneath the overhanging lip, where the raiders would not be able to fire upon them with arrows or any other weapons they possessed. When they departed, Lucius would have to cast a deflecting wall at their backs until they were out of range of Djimon's archers. Fighting in an environment where any form of exertion could bring about heat sickness, vertigo, and exhaustion was not a desirable option.

"Don't worry about your captors," Myrmeen said. "We severed their lines with arrows. Young Ord turned out to be an expert marksman. They're trapped up there, with no means of getting to the ground. I'm sure they have archers, but-"

"It speaks," the girl said as she sprang to her haunches.

"I'm Myrmeen. My name is Myrmeen-"

"Fine, I'm Krystin. And, yes, Djimon has archers and a d.a.m.n shade more than that. Let's get out of here!"

"What do you mean, more than that? What-"

"They have magical weapons, too!" she said as they both heard several cries of terror and rage from above. Suddenly a group of four men leapt from the edge of the flat, each holding one corner of a sleek black sheet that might have been a cloak. They fell quickly, but not with the speed that would have killed them. The Harpers were drawn from their mounts by the sight of the falling men.

"A cloak of levitation," Lucius said as he watched the raiders drift slightly faster to the ground.

Ord broke out his bow, nocked an arrow, and loosed a shaft at one of the four men, who squealed as the arrow narrowly missed his face. His surprise caused him to let go of the cloak's edge, and he fell another hundred feet to his death.

Ord nocked a second arrow and fired again. The raiders' descent had been slowed by the loss of the fourth man's weight. This time the teenager was able to strike one of the men dead center in the chest.

One of the two remaining fighters reached and grabbed the dead man's hand, catching him before he plummeted and caused their descent to slow even further. Ord was preparing a third arrow when he saw that the raiders, who were now only twenty feet from the ground, had decided to take their chances with a free-fall. They released the cloak and fell to the ground in heaps, rolling and groaning at the impact.

Myrmeen was certain she had heard the snap of bones. Neither survivor attempted to get up.

"They have more than one cloak like that!" Krystin warned. "I bet Djimon and the others went down the other side-"

"Very astute," a voice sounded. Djimon stepped around the curved base of the pillar, his crossbow aimed at Krystin's head, and fired without hesitation.

The bolt whistled past Myrmeen's ear as she shoved the girl from the iron rod's path and hurled herself at the swarthy-skinned, brown-haired man. She knew that she could not afford to give Djimon a chance to reload his crossbow.

Myrmeen collided with the short, powerful man and drove him to the ground. She straddled his chest and prepared to deliver an open fisted blow that would drive the cartridge from his nose deep into his brain, killing him instantly. Suddenly she heard the slight crush of boots and looked up to see three archers, arrows nocked and ready to fire. The middle archer stepped away from the others and aimed his shaft at her face. She realized that Djimon probably had sent another contingent around the other side of the base with the intent of catching the Harpers in crossfire, slaughtering them quickly and efficiently with their arrows. She heard the sounds of conflict from where she had left the Harpers and knew thatshe could expect no help from them.

"Get down!"

Myrmeen did not question the voice. She threw herself upon Djimon and heard two sounds: A blade slicing through the air above her head and the familiar gurgle of a dying man with a dagger lodged in his throat. Then she heard the slump of a body and the snapping of a bow caught beneath a falling man.

The archer was dead.

Beneath her, Djimon had regained his breath. The man shoved her from him, then scrambled to his feet, unwittingly saving the life of the child he had wished to kill as he found himself standing between his two remaining archers and Krys-tin, who had thrown the blade that had saved Myrmeen's life. The archers pointed their shafts upward when they saw their master.

Krystin took a running start and leapt into the air, planting both feet on Djimon's back. She kicked him with all her weight, then expertly rolled to the sand as she fell. The kick drove Djimon forward, past Myrmeen, who also rolled out of the way and into the arms of his warriors, where all three collapsed in a tangle.

Suddenly, Burke and Varina were on either side of Myrmeen, running for the fallen men. Varina s.n.a.t.c.hed Djimon's hair, slid her drawn sword beneath his throat, and executed him without a word. His blood splattered on the closest of the downed archers, who screamed in his own language for mercy.

Burke had already driven his sword into the other archer's chest and was about to finish off the pleading man when a sound made him hesitate. He heard the sc.r.a.pe of a sword leaving its scabbard and registered that Krystin was removing the sword from the scabbard at the side of the still-twitching body of Djimon and was preparing to haul it over her head and decapitate the last man.

Myrmeen grabbed her arms, restraining her, and Varina slashed the last archer's throat.

"You should have let me do it," Krystin said, her chest heaving, her mouth caked with dried blood.

Myrmeen considered her daughter's murderous rage a frightening sight and not one that she had been prepared to witness. She turned to Burke. "The others?"

"Lucius, Reisz, and Ord are dealing with them. We should see if they are-"

"We're fine," came a reply from behind the Harpers. Burke turned to see Ord standing before the older men, his tunic splattered with blood. "They're all dead, except the two who hurt themselves on the way down, the ones who were supposed to distract us."

"See to them," Burke said.

Krystin sat back, staring at the b.l.o.o.d.y remains of her former captors, then glanced to the west and said, "The sc.u.m these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were going to sell me to are on their way. I can see their caravan."

Cardoc wiped the sweat from his brow. "I can shield us again. We can ride past them and they will never know it."

Burke listened to the screams of the last two raiders, whom Ord and Reisz were busy putting to death, then said, "I feel as if I can barely breathe in this heat. Mage, are you certain your strength is enough-"

"We will find out," Cardoc said in a cold, efficient manner. Burke nodded and gave the order for the Harpers to retrieve their mounts and prepare to ride. In moments, Myrmeen and Krystin were alone, regarding each other warily.

"We've got the same eyes," Krystin said slowly, only now registering the similarities between herself and the woman twenty years her senior.

"Yes," Myrmeen said guardedly. "I noticed that, too."

It had not been the reunion Myrmeen had antic.i.p.ated.

Seven.

The caravan had come and gone, its occupants pausing only long enough to verify Djimon's corpse. The buyer who had been promised the blue-eyed fourteen-year-old had been livid and hadkicked Djimon's body several times before returning with his escorts to the caravan. They rode off with haste to avoid the gathering storm.

The first drops of heavy rain struck the corpses, which had been left in the open to rot. Only two of the bodies had not begun to show signs of death. The rain pelted their still faces. Suddenly, the eyes of the first man flashed open. "Are they gone?"

"I no longer care. My back is starting to ache." Both men rose from the sand. The first was a tall man with dark skin. Crow's feet bunched around his eyes and a heavy beard covered much of his face.

His companion was short and lean, clean-shaven, and possessed a dour expression. They both had been run through with swords, the bearded man's heart cleaved in two, the shorter man gutted, a second blow having fractured his skull. Each man opened his tunic and placed his open palm over his wounds, waiting patiently as the flesh st.i.tched together. The internal injuries would heal with time. The men allowed the falling rain to wash away the blood.

Closing their tunics, the two members of the Night Parade surveyed the human corpses strewn about the pillar's base. "Mortals are so fragile," the short man said. "The smallest injury, and they surrender to death."

"We can die, too, you know."

"Yes, but not so easily. The Draw favored us."

The bearded man looked away from the Hammer, toward the distant road. "Did you see which way they went?"

"The mage cloaked them. I couldn't tell. Back to Calimport, I would wager. The woman still has to pay Pieraccinni."

"Of course." The bearded man was silent for a time as he threw his head back and allowed the rain to caress his face. Five hundred feet above, lightning struck the flat of the hammer and thunder shook loose a hail of small rocks from the pillar's surface. The short man jumped out of the way of the falling stones. His companion stood, arms stretched wide, unmindful of the danger. The rocks seemed to avoid him.

"Is the girl really her daughter?" the short man asked.

"I don't know. Does it matter? She will believe it, and because of that, she will leave and trouble us no more."

"Just curious."

The bearded man grinned. "I have curiosities, too." With that, he leapt to the side of the pillar and began to climb, his hands digging into the solid rock as if it were soft clay.

"Come down here," his companion shouted when the bearded man was already one hundred feet up the side of the pillar. His commands were ignored. "We're supposed to follow them!"

"We will," the bearded man called. "They'll make camp. They won't travel in this. We'll catch up easily." Within a minute, the bearded man had scaled the pillar and disappeared over the rim.

"You're such a child, Zandler," the short man said as he sat down hard on a rock and placed his head in his hands, waiting for his partner to finish indulging his infantile impulses. It was true that Zandler had the more spectacular ability, but he had powers of his own. Gesturing at the sand, the short man with smoldering gray eyes watched as several sand creatures burrowed out of their holes, a host of scorpions rushing to the lead. Within seconds a small army of arachnids had gathered at his feet. He remembered the last man he had tormented then killed, an older man with a paranoid fear of c.o.c.kroaches. The gray-eyed man had played with his victim's dreams for weeks before making his nightmares come true.

He heard a shuffling in the sand behind him. "Zandler?"

"No," an unfamiliar voice said with a malice that could not be mistaken for anything but murderous intent. Before the gray-eyed man had a chance to order the sand creatures to attack his unseen enemy, he convulsed in searing agony. Looking down, he saw a hand erupt from his chest. The gloved hand burned with a bluish white energy laced with crackling strands of green fire. He had seen those cold flames once before.

"The apparatus!" he shouted as he fell forward and died. His corpse struck the sand, scattering the arachnids he had summoned.The dark man with the weapon turned it a few times, examining it for damage. The dead man was wrong. It was not the apparatus, but it had been charged from the energies of that object. The design was extraordinarily simple; in truth, it was little more than a steel glove. When it was activated, however, claws made of mystical fires stolen from the apparatus would leap from the moldings above each knuckle. The blue-white talons mimicked the actions of his true fingers and allowed him to take the lives of those creatures who laughed at human conceits such as mortality. As always, the weapon had performed admirably.

"You're going to miss everything," a voice called from above. The dark man looked up in the direction of the voice and smiled.

On the flat, the bearded man stood, hands held out to the sky, the worsening storm raging directly above his head.

"Come to me," he shouted, "Come on, come on, come-"

Suddenly two streaks of lightning burst from the clouds, tearing jagged paths across the darkened sky, streaking down toward the bearded man. He screamed with delight as lightning struck each of his hands and his entire body quaked with the impact.

"Yes!" he shouted as his body absorbed the lightning. His entire form became a brilliant white ma.s.s with slight indications of what may have been human anatomy within. He held the lightning within his body for as long as he could stand, then pointed both hands at the horizon. Twin bolts of white energy sailed from his fingers and struck the ground below. Then he was human again, but his clothing had been burned away.

"Crolus, you moron, you missed the whole thing," he shouted.

"I didn't," a voice said.

Zandler turned and saw a man materialize before him. His heart seized up as he saw the shimmering hand of the dark man. He did not even have time to scream as the a.s.sa.s.sin attacked.

Seconds later, the dark man stood over the smoldering remains of the second monster. He concentrated and caused the arcane talon to vanish.

"So they're going to Pieraccinni's," he said. "I'll pick up their trail there."

With a rustic of cloth, the dark man removed two gold pieces and dropped them beside the dead man's hand. "The first one is for the information," he said. "The second is to pay your pa.s.sage into h.e.l.l, you miserable excuse for a nightmare."

The man stepped back and vanished into the storm's fury.

The Harpers had avoided the main road and pitched their tent when the storm made it too dangerous to continue. Inside the tent, as the heavy rains of late afternoon fell, Lucius elected to keep watch near the partially opened flap. He declined the meal the others devoured with their usual lack of decorum. Myrmeen was too exhausted and famished to do anything but join them. Stones were laid in the middle of their enclosure, and a small fire blazed there. Burke had unwrapped and skillfully prepared several slabs of meat, most of which had been snapped up by the dark-haired, fourteen-year-old girl whom they had rescued.

"So," Burke said, determined to slap Krystin's hand away if she grabbed at another serving before he could distribute the meat to the others, "is anyone else hungry?"