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“There you are, then.”Jadren looked thoughtful, scratching his short auburn beard.“Should’ve been too nebulous to work well, but clearly it did.You’re just not the typical wizard.”
“Thank you, I think,” Gabriel said drily.A spirit popped up beside him, taking the form of a ticking clock.“Apparently, our runaways will be here in about four hours.We need to be ready.”
“All right, then.”Jadren clapped his hands together, rubbing them briskly.With his feral grin showing white in the sleek frame of his dark red beard, he looked like the evil villain from one of Nic’s novels.“Let’s see if I can take your moon magic via my ability to embed enchantments into artifacts and recreate your kill-any-enemy blade, skipping the months of naked dancing and virginal bloodletting.”
It took almostall the time they had, but by the time Gabriel and Jadren emerged from the workshop, they had three swords, five daggers, and a full quiver of arrows that they hoped would work against the hunters.It had turned out to be easiest to work with the weapons Gabriel had brought out of the arcanium, as—according to Jadren—made of moonlight or not, they’d been primed to accept enchantments.
“I wish we had a way to test them before we actually confront the hunters,” Jadren commented, uncharacteristically sober.“Unless you want to try one on Asa’s traitorous familiar?She qualifies as an enemy, no doubt.Though she’d be easy to kill, regardless.”
“Her name is Laryn,” Gabriel said, irritated by Jadren’s continued habit of speaking of her as something less than human.
Jadren shrugged that off.“I really don’t care what that duplicitous bitch’s name is.”
Gabriel gave the man a sidelong speculative glance.“For a spy planted in my house by my enemy, you certainly have strong opinions about loyalty.”
Jadren stared stonily ahead.“I may be a tool of my mother’s, but I’m not one of her automatons.I’m capable of having my own moral code.”He flicked a glance at Gabriel and away.“You’ve treated me fairly, Lord Phel.Far more so than I expected or likely deserve.So has Lady Phel, for that matter, though I gave her plenty of cause not to.”
Aha.As he’d suspected—something unpleasant had passed between them, something Nic hadn’t wanted him to know about.Always protecting him.He missed her presence with a sudden, fierce need.Worse, he mourned her with an agonizing grief, as if she were already lost to him.
“We’ll get her back,” Jadren said, divining the direction of Gabriel’s thoughts.“We just need to melt some hunters first.I only wish we could test these things,” he repeated, holding up the long sword he’d selected, scrutinizing it.
A thought occurred to Gabriel.“I actuallydoknow of a hunter we can test it on.”
Jadren made aface at the trunk Gabriel magically raised from the marsh.Dripping with mud and thick algae, the thing did look unprepossessing.“Explain this to me again,” Jadren said.“You locked a hunter in the trunk and buried it in a swamp?”
“It showed up here and tried to attack Nic,” Gabriel replied, setting the trunk down with an ungainly thump, as the water he’d used to mentally manipulate it had mostly dripped away.The silver chains he’d wrapped around the trunk as a safety measure unwound rapidly.“I didn’t have my enchanted blade at that point, so I chopped the thing up into pieces, sealed it in this trunk, and sank it in themarsh.”
“And that wasn’t a tiny bit of overkill?”Jadren asked dubiously.
“I’d lay coin that, when we open this trunk, the hunter will be alive and whole—and ready to kill.”
“Instead of coin, how about that machete?You’re wrong and I get that, as well as the sword.”
“You’re on.”Gabriel didn’t bother to set stakes for the opposite outcome, as he knew he wasn’t wrong.Drawing his own newly enchanted sword, he gave it a few test swings.It had a different balance than his favorite sword, but it was exquisitely made.Much as he’d like to have a bit of time to accustom himself to the new weapon, it wasn’t meant to be.Hopefully the enchantment would make up for any clumsy wielding on his part.Ifthe enchantment worked.
“Too bad there’s only one hunter in there,” Jadren noted.“That means we’re testing just one these weapons.Not exactly comprehensive quality control.”
“Be ready,” Gabriel warned Jadren, who nodded and, despite his doubts, took up a defensive stance—an amateurish one.Gabriel frowned, opening his mouth to say something, then thought better of it.No time for that.
He had to use his free hand to undo the bronze latch on the trunk, then flung it open and danced back—barely dodging the slavering hunters that leapt out.Three of them.Smaller than the others but just as vicious, and unnaturally quick.Vicious claws swiping, two jumped at Jadren and one went for Gabriel.Though he’d warned Jadren to be ready, Gabriel was caught slightly flat-footed.He’d expected one hunter and had intended to stand aside for the other wizard to test his sword on it.
Thus the hunter caught Gabriel with a stinging swipe across his thigh before he managed to bring his sword around to decapitate the thing.He was already coming around with a follow-up swing, maximizing his momentum, when his brain caught up and realized the hunter had dissolved into goo.
“It worked!”he crowed, spinning to Jadren, then cursing under his breath.
The man was hard-pressed.The El-Adrel wizard held his sword with both hands, using it like a club trying to beat off the two hunters clinging to him like burrs, claws rending his sides, long jaws snapping at his throat.Gabriel waded in, grabbing one hunter by the back of the neck and pulling it away from Jadren just enough to run it through with his sword without stabbing Jadren in the process.
The thing collapsed into a foul stew of meat and bones—all over Jadren, who was contorting himself to strain away from the lethal fangs snapping at his throat.Gabriel spun to take the other hunter, and Jadren shouted, “No!I need to test my sword, too.”
“Then do it,” Gabriel snarled, greatly disliking standing back while Jadren wrestled the unnatural creature.“Slice or stab,” he ordered.“Any cut will do.”
Jadren contorted himself, trying to free his weapon from the hunter’s barnacle-tight hold, bright blood running from the thing’s claws where it dug into him.At this rate Jadren would be worthless to fight the fresh hunters that should arrive at any moment.
“That’s enough,” Gabriel declared, taking a step.
“Not yet!”Jadren yelped as a fang caught his collarbone, but he managed to free his arm, slicing the hunter shallowly across the midsection.With a normal sword, the cut would barely have fazed a determined opponent.Fortunately, they’d created a sword far better than normal.
The hunter exploded, raining bits of rotten meat all around—mostly all over Jadren, who was at least evenly coated now.The El-Adrel wizard stood there, panting, bleeding, and looking like he might puke.
