Darkvision by Bruce R. Cordell Read Free Book Online Page B

and were running toward the coach. They had already covered half the distance. The vengeance taker had to even the odds and give himself more time to hide among the folds in the hills. The troll would have to wait, and Deamiel was an unknown quantity, but the two archers …
    Iahn leaned his dragonfly blade against the dolmen, then unbuckled the Imaskaran crossbow from its holster on his thigh with practiced ease. He unfolded the two arms and locked them into place, then strung the crossbow’s wire. Six slender bolts were ingeniously clipped to the underside of the crossbow barrel. He plucked one, opened his damos, and dipped the bolt’s tip into the swirling venom. The bolt’s tip steamed.
    The vengeance taker fitted the bolt to the crossbow and sighted down the hillside, careful to stay under the dolmen’s cover.
    The elf archers reached the coach and took up positions with a view of the hillside. The great troll lumbered after them, but hadn’t reached the coach. Iahn couldn’t see the panther-headed creature—a problem, but one that would have to wait.
    Iahn’s bolt sailed down the slope and buried itself in the chest of an archer. The elf cried out, then yelled, “I can hear you! I can…” The elf crumpled onto the brown grass beneath the coach.
    The other archer loosed a shaft in return, but it cracked ineffectually on the dolmen pillar to Iahn’s left. The archer, seeing her arrow fall, ducked behind the coach. She yelled out in Common, “Beware, poison bolts! Mohmafel is dead!”
    The troll reached the shelter of the coach and hunkered down before Iahn could fire a second venomous bolt. The vengeance taker scanned for Deamiel. Was the creature already sheltering behind the coach? No matter.
    Iahn yelled down the hill in Common. “Stand still, or prepare to hear your doom. If the Voice is the last word to enter your ears before death, your soul is consigned to wander forever.” He doubted the creatures understood his implication, but Iahn believed the threat might give them pause.
    The vengeance taker watched the coach. He saw no movement, heard no sounds. Like his adversaries, he didn’t want to risk leaving the sanctuary of his dolmen. The blurring enchantment the taker had employed had dissipated. Iahn’s quickslide to the coach had exhausted his small reservoir of arcane ability. Until he could renew it, the vengeance taker could rely only on his guile and skill.
    A hundred breaths passed without any movement. The sun reached its zenith in the empty sky. Heat blistered the bare scrublands. Iahn was like the rock he sheltered behind; how patient were his adversaries? In the vengeance taker’s experience, his tolerance for boredom was rarely bested.
    Half-heard mutters from below preceded a sudden river of fog that streamed around, over, and past the coach, completely obscuring it. With the mist came cries and dreamy exhortations. Slender tendrils of mist extended from the mass, as if patting and feeling for sustenance. The diameter of the fog bank swelled.
    The vengeance taker envenomed another bolt from his damos. Deamiel, presumably, had manufactured a cloak of concealing vapor, a perfect blind from which to launch an attack. Iahn’s eyes narrowed—from which portion of the mist would it come? Did the…
    The troll emerged from the mist, running up the slope with the speed of a bounding boulder.
    Iahn took a bead on the fast-approaching troll, but an arrow scorched his left arm, ruining his aim. The elf archer had gotten off a shot from just inside the fog’s boundary!
    Iahn snatched a third bolt, taking the time to envenom it. The damos, too, was nearly spent this day. But the troll had to be dealt with, first and foremost.
    The charging troll reached the crown of Iahn’s hill. A great gray hand grasped the dolmen pillar Iahn sheltered behind. The hand was followed by an enormous head that blotted out the sun.
    Iahn shot the bolt straight into the creature’s left eye. It gasped out a word in