Free Easy Betrayals by Richard Baker Page B

ear to the corsairs’ tales. I know that he reports to others. Apply this damned lasso to him, and hell have to lead you to the Unseen.”
    “How do you know this?” Belgin asked suspiciously.
    The woman glared at him. “I’ve used my magic on their behalf from time to time. Marks is the man I dealt with, and he paid me well.”
    “Are you a doppelganger, too?” “No,” she grated.
    Belgin looked at Miltiades and set one hand to his knife hilt. The paladin shook his head and quickly struck the mageling with one blow of his hammer, knocking her out. She crumpled to the ground, and the sharper released the lasso’s hold, coiling it in his hands.
    “Do you believe her?” Jacob asked warily.
    “So far Noph’s lasso has proved impervious to deceit,” Miltiades said.
    Belgin nudged the unconscious sorceress with his toe. “What about her? She seems a bad enemy to leave on our trail.”
    “Doubtless she has committed many crimes, but she aided us in her quest. It would be unjust to reward her with death.” Miltiades hid his hammer under his cloak, and turned into the narrow street. “Come, we’ve wasted enough time. Every minute we delay increases Eidola’s chances of escaping us altogether.”
    The streets of Skullport were silent and almost deserted. From time to time a zombie or skeleton would stagger past, engaged on some dark mission that kept its dead limbs moving, but the deeper Belgin followed Miltiades into Skullport, the fewer people he saw. Leaning out over the alleyway, the ramshackle buildings on either side narrowed the space overhead to a mere arm’s length, enclosing them in a dank tunnel of shuttered windows and sagging porches. Thin, black mire oozed around their feet as they slogged from one dim circle of lantern light to the next.
    “I don’t like the feel of this place,” Belgin said softly. “Something’s wrong here.”
    “It took you this long to figure that out?” Jacob snapped.
    “Peace, Jacob. Belgin is right,” Miltiades said. He slowed and stopped, searching the street with his piercing gaze. In the flickering light of the next lamp, a ramshackle old building boasted a faded sign marked by a rusty polearm, maybe twenty paces ahead. The paladin frowned and tightened his grip on his warhammer. “The Broken Pike is just ahead. Come on.”
    Belgin followed, but as he glanced down at the ground to pick out his steps, he noticed a soft silver shadow dancing and moving across the dark mud and rotted wood. At the same time, a gelid malaise settled over him, his bones aching with preternatural cold. It’s behind me, he realized as the dancing shadows grew darker, more sharply defined. Mouth dry, he turned like a sleepwalker to gaze on the thing that stalked him.
    A grinning skull hovered in the air behind him, limned by a cold silver fire. Everything its argent flames illuminated seemed to acquire a faint dusting of hateful frost, boards splitting from the sudden cold, black mire frosting over in a filthy rime of ice. “Miltiades!” Belgin gasped in horror, recoiling from the apparition. He stumbled and fell, scrabbling backwards through the freezing muck as the silent skull approached. Beside him, Jacob whirled and shrank away in fear, backing into a dark alleyway. The thing ignored him and continued.
    Sensing the cold and the wrong, Miltiades whirled to confront the creature, shedding his black cloak with one swift motion. “Stay your approach, creature of evil!” he barked, holding his hammer forward. “Leave us be! You have no power over the just.”
    “Miltiades of Tyr,” the skull sang, its voice as thin and hateful as the keening of a banshee. “You have interfered with the dead of Skullport. Now you must pay for your disobedience.”
    “Miltiades! What’s it talking about? What does it want?” Belgin gasped.
    “I defied the spirits that hold this place in thrall the last time I visited,” Miltiades rasped. “It seems that they’ve been waiting for my