“The magic,” one of the soldiers whispered. “It’s mine.” It was just like Tannon’s Band. They saw the blade and they craved it more than feared it.
Thealos tried to get control of it, tried to tame the bursts of delight that danced inside him. He couldn’t. The blade was alive – a needing thing.
A dark-bearded soldier lunged for the weapon, trying to topple Thealos with his size. Thealos darted right and the blade seemed to slice on its own accord, scoring through the chain shirt like an axe biting into bark. It felt a little like borrowing someone else’s reflexes. The soldier howled with pain as the blood gushed from his side. Another movement, and Thealos met it, snapping the long sword thrust at him like brittle glass, and kicked the man down. The Silvan magic roared through him, hot and icy at once. There were Kiran Thall everywhere, coming at them from all sides. Flent swung the axe furiously, trying to keep them from Thealos’ back.
“Too many!” the Drugaen huffed, swinging his axe desperately. “Where’s the banned garrison!”
Behind the mob of panicking patrons and Bandit soldiers, the air filled with the battle yells of the Crimson Wolfsmen. Four other gleaming short swords joined the fray, cutting through the ranks of the Kiran Thall. Toward Thealos. There were too many people, hardly enough room to avoid getting hit.
“The Shaden! Kill the bloody Shaden! Kill them all!”
Flent lost his footing in the slick bloodstained floor and went down. The Kiran Thall swarmed him, their tapered blades thrusting down at him. Thealos was alone.
Then the knight shoved Secrist through the huge window, shattering it, and the fight spilled into the streets.
*
The blow caught Thealos unprepared. Dark spots danced in his eyes, making it difficult to distinguish between enemies. His lip was bleeding from the stray punch, and he felt the sword gash into his side. He managed to flop to the floor as the soldier swept the sword down, trying to cleave his head in half. He tried twice to strike the soldier, but the man was too well trained. Thealos looked back at the window and tried to scramble towards it to escape into the street. He saw others taking advantage of the exit and fleeing into the side alleys.
“Give it to me, Shaden!” the soldier snarled, dislodging his weapon from the smashed wooden table and charged at him again. Thealos was dizzy with pain and fatigue, but he’d managed to keep himself away from the mob of Kiran Thall who had turned to fight the Wolfsmen. His arm went quickly numb from the shock of the blows. The blade of Jade-Shayler held the attacker off, but the weapon’s magic couldn’t match the skill of his foe. Thealos’ rolled quickly sideways to avoid another stroke and hurried back to his feet.
Quickly, Thealos ducked away, trying to get out of the man’s reach. He was almost to the window. But the soldier’s lust for the magic drove him after Thealos relentlessly. “Give it to me! Ban you, Shaden! It’s mine!”
A deathscream cut into the tavern and stabbed Thealos’ ears and eyes like knives. The blade in his hand flared brighter than a torch, consuming him in a sheet of pulsing blue flame. The scream echoed in Thealos’ mind, and the smell of death stung his nose. A Shae’s death. For an instant, he felt death’s kiss on his cheeks, then everything in motion stopped under a cracking of rich thunder. It wasn’t thunder from a storm – it came from across the tavern and filled the leaf-blade in Thealos’ hand. One of the Crimson Wolfsmen was dead. He couldn’t see the body, but he felt the man’s final gasp of pain. The blade had reacted to it like lightning, encasing Thealos in a ball of glaring light. Thealos stood helpless for a moment, feeling the strength of the magic intensify. It wasn’t Earth magic – he’d felt that many times. It was different, stronger, more frenzied. Images of the Wolfsman’s life whipped past him, bonding him to the sword, to the memories. It was stronger than anything he had felt in his life. A bond. A communion with the dead. For an instant, all of the Shae in the tavern were one, Thealos with them. He could see things through their eyes and they could see through his.
When the shock of thunder was spent, the whirlwind of the tavern resumed.