Before The Mask by Michael Williams Page A

produced a poniard from a
     long sleeve and drew back to throw it.
    With a ringing cry, Aglaca sprang toward the rocks, his feet and short sword whirling. The
     perched Nerakan started, lost his footing as he clutched vainly for the rock face, and
     fell, breaking his neck. Aglaca's small sword broke the arcing poniard in midair, and he
     was on its owner in an instant. Verminaard circled the struggling pair, sword at the ready
     but somehow locked out of the combat. Robert took the second man down with a neat cut to
     his hamstring.
    Aglaca wrestled gamely with the bandit, who was far larger and stronger. The Solamnic
     couldn't get leverage to use his sword. All the while, the dark Voice continued to
    Stir Verminaard's deepest imagining....
    Let them be. What if the bandit wins? Surely Laca would do nothing to Abelaard if his son
     met with ... an accident of battle. And Aglaca brought it on himself with his arrogant
     refusal to cast the ceremonial spear....
    Verminaard stopped, the sword tilted uncertainly in his hand. The bandit rolled free,
     braced his back against the obsidian rock face, and, setting his feet to Aglaca's chest,
     launched the lad into the air with a compact, powerful push of his legs.
    Aglaca rattled against the far wall of the passage, his sword loosed and clattering across
     the rock floor. Stunned by the blow, he groped vainly for the long knife at his belt. The
     bellowing Nerakan leapt to his feet, skidding crazily over gravel, and sprang toward the
     Solamnic lad, another glinting poniard seeking his throat.
    Aglaca's senses cleared, and he found the hilt of his knife. In the split second after the
     bandit left his feet, the boy drew the weapon, raised it swiftly and certainly ...
    And met the bandit's last charge as he tumbled fiercely upon Aglaca's blade. The bandit's
     mouth went slack, and his eyes grew wide. Aglaca gazed up at him, coolly and straight on,
     until he slumped over in a heap.
    Robert, meanwhile, had disposed of his hamstrung opponent. Dazed, kneeling in the rubble,
     he gathered himself and weaved dizzily to his feet, looking with amazement at the young
     man who had come to his rescue.
    Verminaard, his weapon shamefully clean, shrank into the shadows, hoping somehow that the
     darkness would swallow him, hide him from blaming eyes....
    “You surely plucked those two off of me, Master Aglaca,” the seneschal muttered.
    Aglaca smiled and dusted off his breastplate and tunic. Dripping with sweat and scraped by
     his scuffle among the rocks, he leaned against a large stone until he had
    gathered balance and breath. "They weren't much different from any other kind of pest,
     Robert/' he replied with a chuckle. Robert, too, broke into a laugh as he recalled his
     previous taunt. As the battle tension drained from them, they noticed Verminaard, who
     stood between the narrow rocks, drawn sword still frozen in his hand.
    Say nothing, the Voice urged. Whatever you do, do not say it..., They do not know you were
     here. He has no idea....
    Verminaard did as he was told.
    The Solamnic lad looked Verminaard over carefully, then wiped his brow. “So at last you
     found us, Verminaard!” he said curiously. “'Twas tight quarters here. We could've used
     your arm.”
    “Indeed we could,” Robert grumbled, eyeing him skeptically. He could have sworn he'd seen
     Verminaard earlier in the fray. Hobbling a bit from the basting he had suffered at the
     hands of the Nerakans, he limped past the young man back onto the mountain trail, headed
     toward the bridge and the rest of his companions.
    “No matter,” Aglaca quickly added, his voice cheerful and melodious. “No matter, because,
     as you see, there was no harm in your delay, no bruise in your waiting.”
    They found Daeghrefn not far from the bridge, gathering his men and reckoning his losses.
    Of the forty retainers who had embarked on the morning's hunt with the Lord of Nidus, only
     two dozen