The Sable City by M. Edward McNally

  *

  Balan rolled another turn across the hard ground of a courtyard, shouting as he went over his broken arm. He stopped on his back and let out a ragged breath at the featureless night sky above.

  “Poltus,” he said, and the devil appeared instantly above him.

  “Anything?” Balan asked, and the spiked devil shook his head once. Balan sighed. “Such a waste. Open the western tower.”

  Poltus bowed and disappeared. Balan lay still for a moment, grimacing as the fried skin on his chest moved, burns and blisters sinking back into the flesh and the unhealthy gray pallor returning. Nesha-tari’s lightning bolt had caused the muscles of Balan’s left arm to contract so violently his humerus had snapped. Nothing funny about it. Balan grabbed the arm under the elbow and pulled it straight with a gasp, so that the bones could knit back together.

  “Balan?” a disembodied voice asked from all around.

  “Danavod,” Balan said, needing to add no affectation of strain to his voice. “The Circle Wizard is in the central tower, at the Node. I have opened the tower doors to your hobgoblins. You must send them right away.”

  “The Wizard did this to you?”

  “No, Blue Akroya’s servant. She seeks to aid the Wizard.”

  There was silence in the courtyard but the air seemed heavy, and angry.

  “Does my Blue brother act against me?” Danavod asked, possibly a rhetorical question but Balan answered anyway, and as always with complete honesty.

  “I do not know what Akroya wants done here, your Fierceness.”

  There was another moment of silence, then dust stirred all around the courtyard as if tremendous wings had beat the ground. The dark presence of the Dragon rose into the sky, and moved off west.

  Balan winced and pulled himself to a seat. He moved his left arm at the shoulder with only a twinge of pain, as his chest was fully healed. The clothes, however, were a complete loss.

  “Such a waste,” he muttered again, and climbed to his feet.