Sword and Sorceress 31: Sword and Sorceress, #31 by Elisabeth Waters

Author:Elisabeth Waters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, women fighters, sorcery, magic
Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust
Published: 2018-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

Lord Ruthven’s Masque

Steve Chapman

Princess Shada has always leapt from one battle to another. But then she killed her godfather, and was maimed by a necromancer. She has learned a new style of fighting to compensate for the missing finger on her sword hand, but she hasn’t yet dealt with her real handicaps: guilt; and the loss of the confidence that carried her through her previous adventures.

Steve Chapman is a learning science professional who writes genre short fiction and novels in his somewhat elusive spare time. He lives with his wife, daughter, and sailboat at the New Jersey shore. This is his seventh appearance in Sword and Sorceress.

“Tall, bald. Horrendous nose.” Petra shuddered at the memory. “He was just as you described. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before.”

Shada was sorry, too. A whisper of support from Petra Ruthven, the beautiful, terrifying daughter of the wealthiest man in St. Navarre, and the past months might have played out differently.

Shada knew the necromancer Pitch was loose in the city. Its people were in terrible danger. And none of them believed her.

But now Petra had seen him. Petra, the last girl Shada had expected to have on her side.

“Coming down here was stupid, I know.” Petra led Shada into a maze of streets in the shadow of the city walls. Passersby grew scarce as the sun sank. Dried leaves scuttled across cobblestone. “Ansel wanted privacy. He’s in love with me, you know.”

Every girl at Court knew Ansel Arabount was wrapped tight around Petra’s expertly manicured finger. Rumor had it they’d announce their engagement on her seventeenth birthday, a union between the two beautiful, horrible children who’d caused Shada endless grief in classrooms and ballrooms.

“What will you do if we find them?” Petra glanced at Shada’s right hand, her ring finger an ugly stump. “You can’t fight with that hand.”

“I can fight.” Shada tucked her right hand into her left. “But not with a sword.”

She’d developed, by her sixteenth year, one the best sword arms in St. Navarre. But that was before Pitch maimed her. For months she’d retrained herself, short sticks and ju-jitsu, close-fighting techniques that didn’t rely on her ruined hand.

Those techniques wouldn’t matter to the necromancer. His cloaks could paralyze at five paces. So she carried a prepared spell, crafted by the College of Mages. It should—hopefully—bind Pitch.

“Where did they go?” Shada asked.

Petra pointed to a pedestrian bridge, ahead in the gloom. “That’s where the necromancer took Ansel.”

“If he’s alive I’ll bring him back.” Hands shaking, Shada drew the blue gemstone that held her spell. This was her chance to set everything right.

“Good luck,” Petra whispered as Shada slipped into the darkness beneath the bridge.

She heard only the drip of broken cisterns, barely discernible above her pounding heart. Then, movement; she pulled tight against the wall. A tall silhouette soaked out of the murk. She brought the gem to her lips; her breath would activate its magic.

Dim light hit the figure. It was no necromancer, but Petra’s brother, Markus, followed by his friend Damien.

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