The Shadowmask Read online

  “Well all right then, kid, if you insist.” The bandit came at me, his spear tip leading.

  I whipped my sword up and out, pushing aside the thrusting spear, and moved to lunge forward. But with a simple twist of his wrists the man reset the spear, its tip directly in my path. I stopped and pulled back, shuffling a step to the left to stay ahead of the prodding spear.

  The bandit circled with me, his feet crossing over in perfect harmony. He jabbed again. I blocked easily, tapping my sword against the shaft of the spear and redirecting its head aside. Still I held no illusions about my fighting prowess. I knew the bandit was testing me.

  Steel crashed against wood. With each motion, a wave of nausea washed over me, and with each impact, the fingers of my left hand tingled. After each thrust and parry, I took a step to my left, and the bandit did the same, and soon we had reversed positions, with his back to the water and mine to the desert.

  I hoped that the sound of our battle would not carry above the loud celebration. I could still hear the loud laughter and mugs clanging. I considered running. But I doubted I could outrun the man in my current state, let alone the horses he could send after me. No, I needed to win the fight, and I needed to do so quietly, without alerting the other bandits.

  But the task was not a simple one. The bandit had apparently taken enough of my measure. He jabbed again, but even before I had finished my parry he retracted his spear, moved his trailing right hand over his left, and stepped forward. I found my sword out of position as he stepped and lunged, his spear tip covering the three feet to me in the blink of an eye.

  I fell back, and threw up my hand in desperation. And somehow, I clipped the shaft of the spear to raise it harmlessly over my head.

  I stumbled backward. The bandit brought his hands up and thrust the spear brutally toward me.

  I fell flat on my back to avoid the wicked tip. Its barbs glinted in the setting sun. Suddenly I knew what to do.

  I somersaulted backward. The bandit came at me again. I came to my feet just as he lunged forward for the third time, and I brought my sword to bear.

  I did not try to parry. Instead, I brought my sword up under the thrusting spear and hooked my blade right at the hilt against the spear’s barbs. In the same motion, I dropped my trailing shoulder. I rolled my sword over myself, pulling with all my strength and weight.

  The man was perfectly balanced to thrust his spear. But his feet were not set to resist my tug. I rolled all the way around, pulling him forward, pulling us together, pulling his spear past my body. When our momentum played itself out, we found ourselves barely four inches apart. I was far inside his spear’s reach, but my sword was out wide.

  I expected him to try to retreat, to reset his spear, and to continue the fight. So I moved forward. I brought my sword in tight, hoping to get at least one good strike, to win the fight right there. But he did not retreat. He dropped his spear and stepped forward, wrapping his arms tight around me.

  I struggled a moment, but could not even begin to break his clinch. He was strong. Not abnormally strong, not as strong as Asbeel or the strange pirate who had pulled me off Sea Sprite into Memnon’s harbor. But the bandit was a man, and I a boy, and he had the better position: his arms were wrapped all the way around me, pressing my own arms tight against my body.

  I felt as though he would crush the life out of me. Each time I exhaled, he squeezed tighter. Each breath was more difficult than the last.

  I had only one option left. I held up my sword and put it flat on his back. He barely seemed to notice. I had neither the angle nor the strength to try to stab him with it.

  But I did not need to stab him. I thought of blue fire, and suddenly my sword was ablaze.

  The bandit screamed. I fell to the ground, gulping down air.

  I looked at my fallen foe and gripped my sword, preparing to continue the fight. But he lay curled in a ball, weeping.

  I jumped to my feet and spat, the taste of sour bile still lingering in my mouth,. “I guess you won’t be taking coins from my corpse then, will you?” I said. And that’s when I saw the bandit’s back, where the fire had burned him. His tunic had been torn open, and his skin was bright red and blistering, as if badly sunburned. The torn clothes were wet. The bandit rolled over, and he howled again.

  The camp across the pond was silent. But only for a second.

  Then all sorts of commotion broke out. I glanced across the oasis to see the rest of the bandits running to their horses, saddles and bridles in hand. Others ran at me along both banks of the pond.

  The nausea came back up again, and I did not fight it. I vomited, and though the bile burned at my throat, it felt somehow good.

  Then I turned and ran full speed into the desert.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The sounds of the oasis receded behind me as fast as the top edge of the sun disappeared beneath the western horizon. My strides were long—impossibly long—like a deer bounding through the forest. My boots did not sink into the loose sand; they barely left a footprint even. “They make you run faster,” Sali Dalib had said. I had thought them a hoax. But I had never even tried running.

  I sprinted until my lungs burned before stopping to catch my breath. I stared down at my waterskin, hanging from my belt, empty.

  I had been right at the watering hole and had not filled the skin, and I felt truly the fool for it. Calimport was no less than five days away from me, and I would not survive that long without water. I would have to wait a day and try to sneak back, hoping the bandits had moved on.

  But as it turned out, I would not have the chance. I caught the faint sound of approaching hoofbeats, muffled by the sand. I turned to look only seconds before six men on horses, three brandishing spears and three carrying torches, crested the sand dune not thirty yards behind me.

  I forced my tired legs to move, one then the other, as fast as they could carry me. I skipped across the surface of the sand, while my pursuers dug in with every galloping stride, throwing up a great cloud of dust behind them.

  But horses were still faster than I. After mere moments they were around me, beside me.

  A rider prodded at me with a spear. “Thief! Stop!”

  He narrowly missed my arm. I could hardly breathe, and I feared I might vomit again. I glanced ahead through the shifting sands, but I saw nowhere I could hide. Panic rose in my chest.

  I remembered seeing a fox chase a rabbit once, when I lived with Elbeth in the forest. The fox was faster than the rabbit, and whenever the chase moved in a straight line, the fox would gain ground. But the rabbit was more agile, and changed direction often, never allowing the fox a good straight line to run.

  I would have to be as the rabbit.

  I planted both my feet and leaped out to my side as forcefully as I could. My magical boots pushed hard against the loose sand, propelling me out and away. I hardly lost momentum despite my sharp turn.

  The horses could not shift so quickly. They skidded and stomped right past the spot where I had pivoted.

  I changed direction again, turning sharply to my right. The horses tried in vain to keep up with my darting movements. Just like the rabbit and the fox.

  Of course, I couldn’t help but think of the end result of that chase. The fox had caught the rabbit, and I had been given a lesson on the laws of the natural world: win, or die.

  I turned to my left, and four of the six horses changed to follow. The other two, one with a spear and one with a torch, continued in a straight line. Soon they were far out to my side.

  I cut hard right, and two of the four turned with me, and suddenly I knew my folly. The horses running in straight lines stayed even with me, flanked me.

  “Nowhere to go now, thief. No way to get past us,” a bandit said. He wasn’t wrong, but his high-pitched squeaky voice made him seem less frightening.

  Two behind, two right, two left. I could not turn, or I would run into the flankers; I could not reverse, or I would meet the pursuit. And I could not outrun
the horses if I stayed to my course.

  My path led straight up the side of a great, tall dune, and I saw the flanking pairs moving farther out from me, to stay low around the mound. Horses would not travel so well up the dune. I could use the terrain to my advantage.

  My legs ached, but I pushed them on, running as fast as I could in a straight line, directly for the top of the dune. The flankers were at least a hundred yards to my sides, whooping and hollering and staying dead even with me. The riders behind me stayed close, but on the uphill I gained some distance. On the downhill, I knew, I would be caught.

  So I would not reach the downhill. As soon as I crested the top of the dune, I dug both my feet into the sand and drove myself to a halt. I felt my left leg go numb, felt my knee shift, but I ignored the pain. I turned fully around, facing directly at the oncoming riders.

  And I leaped.

  I leaped as no human is meant to leap. High and far and fast I soared through the desert air. I cleared the riders and horses by several yards, and landed so lightly I could hardly believe it, so lightly I did not even break stride. I heard the riders yelling and the horses whinnying. I heard a thud. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a torch, and the man holding it, lying on the ground, and one of the horses milling about.

  I smiled. I am the rabbit, I thought again. But I beat the fox.

  I crested the next rise to a beautiful view of the moon rising over the desert, appearing huge and bright and beautiful. I slowed my pace to a jog and listened carefully for hoofbeats, but I heard none.

  My throat burned, and my tongue felt thick. My thirst nearly overwhelmed me. I had no choice but to stop and catch my breath. Perhaps they would not try to follow me, I thought. Perhaps I was in the clear. But the thought did nothing to comfort me. Bandits or no bandits, I would never make it to Calimport without water. To make matters worse, the wind picked up, howling and cold.

  I wrapped my cloak tight around my shoulders. If I died here in the desert, at least I could say I had fought with honor at the oasis. I smiled at the memory of my final maneuver. The bandit had not even noticed me drawing my blade, let alone the blue fire, burning his back and leaving his tunic torn and wet.

  I drew my blade, still its in saber form, and stared at it for a long moment. I took in a short breath. Could it be? I wondered. I ripped my cloak from my back and whipped it around the blade. With a thought, I lit the sword. The blue fire did not burn through the cloak. But when I unwrapped the blade, I saw something spectacular.

  A layer of frost had formed on the blue fabric and it was quickly melting. Melting into precious water. I folded the cloak to make a trough, put my mouth against one end, and tilted it. Water trickled down, sweet and pure.

  Again and again I lit my blade and nearly danced as the frost melted to a puddle on my cloak. But as thirsty as I was, I forced myself to drink slowly, letting the water settle in my stomach before sipping again. Once I had drunk my fill, I wrapped the cloak around my body and set off again at a jog, headed south.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Over the past several tendays my idea of a city had continually expanded. Despite my young life spent traveling with Perrault, I had never been in a city until a month before, when we had entered Baldur’s Gate. Until then I had never seen so many people living so close together. Then I had sailed into Memnon harbor and seen a true sprawl. Miles of city, of buildings and makeshift shacks, rich and poor, were thrown together in a huge crowd. Baldur’s Gate could have fit inside Memnon several times over. But even Memnon had not prepared me for my first view of Calimport.

  Beneath the rising sun, the largest city on the face of Toril spread out before me, as endless as the sea beyond it. A million people must live there, I thought.

  I walked down the last dune before the city gates. The wrought-iron bars were capped with golden spikes, each likely worth more than the average citizen’s lifetime earnings.

  I was weary and starving. I hadn’t eaten in six days, since the night before the oasis. But I felt so elated by the end of my long road through the desert, I practically jogged into town. The guards, like those in Memnon nearly a tenday earlier, barely spared a glance.

  The children, on the other hand, stared.

  They reminded me of the boy in Memnon who had pointed me to Sali Dalib. They were thin, waifish, wearing whatever clothes they had stolen or salvaged, if any at all. Their skin was burnt, their bellies swollen with hunger. They stared at me as I walked past, not expectantly but hopefully.

  I fished about in my pocket for my last two silver coins and moved to one of the several carts of food and supplies that lined the street. The fat vendor grinned as I handed him the coins, and without a word I took the two largest loaves of bread from his cart and moved away. I had certainly overpaid, but I was in no mood to haggle. I needed food, and I needed information, and the bread would get me both, I hoped.

  The children, predictably, followed me, their hands out. A round-faced boy hung back in the shadows, watching. He looked about eight years old, larger than the others and healthier. Their leader, I guessed.

  “Listen up,” I said after I had led them all down a lonely road off the main entrance to the city, far from the guards’ prying eyes. “You can all have some food if you help me. I’m looking for an elf by the name of Drizzt Do’Urden. He’ll be with two humans, a man and a woman, and a dwarf with a red beard. Do you know where I might find him?”

  A hush fell over the kids. I had expected to get a flood of responses, and to have to sift through a dozen false leads to hopefully find the one truthful one. But they were obviously frightened. I broke a piece of bread off, and they all stared at it, practically drooling. They were also obviously hungry.

  One boy stepped up to me. I gripped my dagger, half worried that he might try to challenge me for the bread.

  “No food’s worth that fight,” he said. He motioned to the rest of the children, and they all turned and shambled back to the gate, leaving me alone on the side of the road holding my bread.

  I sat down on the dusty cobblestones, feeling much like a beggar myself. Had I been thinking clearly, I would have found some more people to question and continued my search for Drizzt. But I was holding two loaves of fresh bread. My stomach grumbled. By the time I fully realized I had taken a bite, I was brushing the last crumbs of the second loaf from my lap.

  I breathed a satisfied sigh and looked up to find a boy right in front of me. It was the child who had hung back, watching from the shadows.

  “You’re looking for the drow,” he whispered.

  I started to nod, then stopped. “Elf. I never said drow.”

  “You don’t have to say it. And you shouldn’t be asking about him.” He leaned his hand on the wall above me, and tilted his head toward the end of the road. He looked like all the other urchins on the street: dark hair, tanned skin bearing witness to years without shelter, oversized clothes probably stolen from a drunk passed out in an alley. But there was something different, something odd, about his eyes. “Entreri claimed him.”

  “What’s an Entreri?”

  He nearly choked and staggered back a step as if he’d been slapped in the face. He started to speak and stopped several times before finally managing a sentence. “You can’t be walking around Calimport and not know the rules,” he said.

  “What rules?” I asked, scrambling to stand beside him. I wasn’t exactly tall for my age, but still I towered nearly a foot above him.

  “The rules of the streets, kid. The rules the pashas make. And the first rule is, don’t cross Entreri.”

  “So Entreri is a person, then?”

  “Yeah.” The boy kicked a loose stone down the narrow road before turning back to look up at me. “Used to be, at least.”

  “Used to be? Is he undead?”

  “I meant it figuratively. But he’s as cold as the undead, that’s for sure.” The boy let out a short laugh. I couldn’t help but stare as deep wrinkles creased the corners of his eyes.


  “Who are you?” we both asked at the same time.

  I waited a second, but he didn’t answer. “My name is Maimun,” I said.

  “Twice lucky.” He stared at me, studying my face. “That’s a desert name, but you don’t look like a desert person.”

  I nodded. “I suppose I am now, since I crossed the Calim on foot alone.”

  “You crossed the desert alone, looking for the drow? Gutsy, kid, but not too smart.”

  “Why do you keep calling me ‘kid’? I’m probably older than you.”

  He chuckled. “Not a chance, kid.” Again his skin crinkled around his eyes, and that time I was sure he wanted me to see it.

  I took a step toward him and jabbed my finger at his chest. “You’re not a kid,” I said. “You’re a halfling.”

  “And you’re perceptive,” he said, pushing my hand aside. “Been a street kid for about twenty years. Name’s Dondon.”

  “You pretend to be a kid so you can rob travelers. So why tell me your secret?”

  “So you’ll believe me when I tell you to drop your search. Besides, you don’t have anything worth stealing. I already checked.”

  I instinctively patted myself down—cloak, weapon, all there. Somehow I felt offended that he didn’t consider those things worth stealing.

  “Too hard to fence,” the halfling said with a wink. He started walking down the road.

  “Wait!” I ran after him. “Why do you care? Why are you telling me this?”

  He chuckled again, but kept walking. “I don’t care if you get yourself killed, kid.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “I can handle myself, you know.”

  Dondon kept walking until he reached the street corner. Then he stopped and looked at me over his shoulder. “I got no reason not to warn you,” he said. “No gain either way. Besides, I like you. You were gonna give the urchins some food, even if they were smart enough not to accept. Under the circumstances.”