Sentinelspire

by Mark Sehestedt

  Soon … Her heart-brother, warning her.

  Leaves rustled nearby, stopped, and the tiger heard a small hiss.

  A lizard.

  The tiger knew it, and the knowledge sang through the link she shared with her heart-brother.

  Kill it!

  The tiger lunged.

  Hama sat, his legs crossed under him and his back against a tree. He dared go no closer, not if the yaqubi had who-knew-how-many of those little lizards lurking in the trees. He was close enough that he could charge the camp quick enough.

  The first drops of rain, fat and falling hard, began striking the forest canopy. The leaves provided a barrier—so far—but they struck with enough force to be heard over the wind.

  Any time, now.

  Hama rose to a crouch and drew his knife.

  The patter of the rain came stronger, and drops began to reach the ground. Something about the drops sounded … wrong. Just off slightly. The wind had been skittering through the leaves all evening, but Hama swore the sound had changed, just slightly.

  As Hama stepped round the bole of the tree, something struck his hand. He ignored it, thinking it was only a raindrop, but when another struck his forehead, he brushed it aside.

  Something bit his finger, and he hissed. Reflex took over. He flapped his hand and in half a heartbeat, felt tiny legs lose contact with his skin.

  Lightning flashed over the mountain. In the flicker, Hama could see the wind-tossed boughs, stirred by the storm. But he’d been wrong about the raindrops. The rain had not yet come. Other things were dropping from the trees. Some were no larger than his thumbnail, but some were larger than his hand. A hundred or more shadows moved along the forest floor—moved against the wind. The nearest were only a few feet away.

  Hama looked up. The last of the lightning died, and in the instant before complete darkness surrounded him, Hama saw dozens of spiders crawling around the tree. Crawling right for him.

  Thunder shook the ground as the first of the spiders crawled over his boots.

  Hama turned to run, but on the dark hillside his haste betrayed him. Three steps and his feet went out from under him. He fell into a bush thick with new spring leaves. His heart hammered in his chest, and his breath was coming in quick gasps. In the brush he could not tell the difference between the leaves, branches, and hundreds of tiny legs crawling over him.

  Hama screamed.

  Sauk heard the first wave of rain washing over the valley. Fitful at first, it gained strength with each gust of wind.

  Most of his attention was fixed on the tiny glow of campfire twinkling in the valley below him, but a small sliver of his mind was with the tiger—every beat of her heart, every breath and careful, considered movement. He could not see what she saw or hear what she heard, but his mind registered her reactions to sight, sound, even smell.

  Lightning lit the mountain along the western sky. Thunder followed, and with it came the torrent, like a wave washing over a shore.

  He told the tiger, Soon …

  Lizard! It came through not in a word, but in the awareness that one of the little creatures had found her.

  Kill it! he told the tiger.

  He felt her lunge. Then a scream—a man’s scream, but not on the opposite hillside where Taaki waited. This came from off to Sauk’s right. A shriek of utter terror.

  “Damn!”

  Sauk would kill whoever it was. Break his neck with his bare hands. Hama, by the sound of it. The fool had just ruined their element of surprise. The yaqubi were a skittish lot, and they might well be gone before the assassins even hit the valley.

  The rain came harder, rattling the leaves overhead, but Sauk’s sharp ears caught something else. Even over the sound of the wind-tossed trees and falling rain, Sauk heard a skittering like … tiny feet. Or claws. Hundreds of them.

  Sauk turned his back on the valley and looked up the hillside. His half-orc eyes could see far better in the dark than any human’s. He could see the forest floor moving.

  Lightning cracked the sky over the valley, and in the sudden harsh light Sauk saw that he was about to be overtaken by a tide of hundreds—hundreds of thousands—of spiders.

  “Damn you, Berun,” he said. “Damn you, you clever—”

  And then the spiders were on him.

  The storm washed over the foothills of the Khopet-Dag. Wind and rain pummeled the forest while lightning lashed from cloud to cloud overhead, and thunder followed all. The thick canopy of the forest caught the rain and funneled it downward in thousands of tiny waterfalls so that by the time the fury of the storm had passed, and the rain settled in for a long, steady deluge, all the forest floor was a muddy, sodden mess.

  It took Berun longer than he’d hoped to find Sauk. The little starstone he held gave off only a faint glow, and the storm had washed away any sign of the half-orc’s trail. If only Perch could keep the tiger busy a little longer, this just might work.

  Sauk lay in the mud at the bole of a tree. The spiders were gone. The effects of Berun’s spell were long spent, and the spiders had either drowned or taken refuge from the storm wherever they could find it.

  The half-orc was doubled over and shivering. The tree’s thick, waxy leaves kept the worst of the rain off him. In the dim silver glow of his starstone, Berun could see dozens of swollen bites across Sauk’s exposed skin. His eyes were squeezed shut, and tiny convulsions rippled through his muscles.

  Berun touched Sauk’s temple with the back of his hand. The half-orc burned with fever. At the touch, Sauk’s eyes fluttered open. He tried to snarl, but it turned into a tooth-chattering grimace.

  “D-d-damn you,” Sauk rasped.

  “Damn me later,” said Berun. “Right now, I only want what’s mine.”

  He opened the pouch at Sauk’s belt and rummaged through it. It wasn’t there.

  “Where is it, Sauk?”

  “Puh-p-piss on you.” Sauk grimaced and doubled over further as a stronger convulsion hit him.

  “Don’t worry,” said Berun. “The venom from most of those spiders isn’t fatal. Not even from so many. Not for a big, strong hunter like you. Now where is it?”

  Berun set the starstone on the ground, grabbed the collar of Sauk’s tunic, and ripped. Several necklaces hung round the half-orc’s neck. Some bore symbols of his faith, others were trophies of past kills, and the brass chain seemed plain jewelry. But around one particularly fine leather thong was what Berun was searching for: Erael’len.

  Sauk tried to bat Berun’s hands away, but he was fever weak, and Berun ignored him. He eased Sauk’s head up, pulled off the necklace, dropped it over his own head, and tucked the talisman under his shirt.

  “Th-this is-s-sn’t … over,” said Sauk.

  “I know,” said Berun. “Listen to me, Sauk. Your plan is too risky. If you think you can sneak me in under the Old Man’s nose, you’ve grown soft. He’s using you to get to me. You’re only going to get us all killed. If it were just me, I might let you try, but I won’t let you pull the boy into this. I’ll help. My way. But only after I see Lewan safely away.”

  Sauk growled something unintelligible.

  “Leave the boy out of this,” said Berun. “Let me handle this my way. I’ll get my master out of the Fortress and take care of the Old Man. My way. But if you come at the boy again, Sauk, I swear I’ll kill you.”

  “Muh-m-m—” Sauk gasped, then said, “Mal karash! Oath breaker!”

  Berun retrieved his starstone and looked down on the half-orc who had once been his closest friend. Lightning flashed, painting the half-orc’s face in sharp contrast.

  “Kheil swore brotherhood to you until death,” Berun said. “He kept his oath. I owe you nothing.”

  Thunder shook the world around them, and before it faded, Berun left the half-orc lying in the mud.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lewan laid his hand against the bole of the tree, dead from a lightning strike in a long-ago storm. His hand trembled like an old man’s.

&n
bsp; It had taken him much longer to find the tree than he’d hoped. Running at night, through the storm, even with the small starstone to light his way, Lewan had been forced to go the long way round the hill. The way he and his master usually took up the southwestern face had been far too slick—mud running down in tiny rivulets over the slick rocks. Desperate to be away from the assassins, he’d tried two different ascents and fallen both times. The second time, a broken branch had opened a wicked gash along his right arm, almost from wrist to elbow, and he’d bled most of the way to the tree.

  The pain, the blood loss, the wet, and the miles-long run through rough country had left him more weary than he could ever remember being. He was soaked down to his smallclothes, and moving had been the only thing keeping him warm. No help for it. Even if he could find dry kindling in this mess, lighting a fire on a hilltop would be beyond foolish. He’d simply suffer through the storm. Once the rain stopped, he’d don his dry clothes.

  Lewan turned away from the tree and opened his left palm to allow the blue-silver light from the starstone to give him a better view of his surroundings. The lightning strike that had killed the tree had also started a fire, and most of the brush around the tree was stunted and no more than a few seasons old. To get out of the rain, he’d have to go back into the forest.

  It didn’t take him long to find a suitable spot—an old pine that had fallen under its own weight in ages past. It hadn’t made it all the way to the ground but lodged in a tight grove of aspens, and the aspens had continued to grow, unperturbed by the old cousin who had fallen into their midst. Through season after season the dead pine gathered more and more deadfall, leaves, mud, and the dwellings of various forest creatures. It formed a sort of roof. Once Lewan had cleared out several years’ worth of dead leaves and pine needles, he had a nice hollowed-out spot that, while not exactly dry, was at least not sodden. There he settled in to wait.

  Down the hillside several dozen yards into the forest, he could no longer see the lightning-blasted tree, but he knew his master would come. If he didn’t find Lewan right away, he’d look around, even call out if he’d managed to fend off pursuit. Right now, Lewan needed rest.

  He dampened the light of the starstone, huddled into his cloak, and lay down. Exhaustion claimed him, and he was asleep in moments.

  Cold woke him. With his body no longer on the move, the chill had settled into his sodden clothes. His body was shivering, his teeth chattering.

  Lewan sat up and gasped at the sudden pain that flashed along his arm. He could no longer feel his right hand, and the arm throbbed. Whether it was from the cold or from infection trying to settle in, he’d have to do something about it soon.

  He grabbed the starstone with his left hand and rubbed it between thumb and fingers, stirring the light back to life. He peeled the remains of his right sleeve back with his left hand and teeth. He gasped and winced as bits of thread and cloth pulled out of the wound. A wet, puffy scab ran down most of the length of his arm. He suspected it looked worse than it really was. Once he cleaned it and applied a salve—he prayed it was still in the pack he’d retrieved from the assassins’ camp—it would likely hurt for a tenday, then be nothing more than a bothersome itch for the rest of the month.

  As he sat worrying over his arm, Lewan heard something moving through the brush not far up the hill. Even over the roar of the downpour he could hear it. He squeezed his left hand into a fist, shutting out most of the starstone’s light. He held his breath, listened, and peered into the dark. Even after his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see nothing beyond his meager shelter. The forest was a patch of utter blackness.

  There it was again—something making its way through the brush and mud. It wouldn’t be an animal. The beasts were smart enough to find shelter and stay there until the storm was over.

  Lewan considered calling out. More than likely, it was Berun come at last. Not finding Lewan at the lightning-blasted tree, he would’ve started searching. But if it wasn’t Berun …

  It was either his master, Lewan knew, or one of the assassins, and they could not have known where Lewan was going unless Berun told them. Except for maybe Sauk and his tiger. Lewan knew that of the band, only those two would stand any chance of tracking him. So … either Berun or Sauk.

  Lewan stuffed the starstone into his shirt pocket and reached for the knife at his belt. He drew it—a wicked, ugly thing that he’d taken off one of Sauk’s men back in the camp. Lewan had carried a knife for years—as a tool. This blade was a weapon crafted for one purpose: murder. It felt heavy in his hand.

  Whatever was moving on the hill was getting closer. Had the sun been up, Lewan could have seen whatever it was.

  A voice came out of the roaring rain. “Lewan?”

  Lewan let out his breath. It was Berun’s voice.

  “Here, master!” he called out as he made his way out of the shelter. He stood and removed the starstone from his pocket. As it warmed next to his hand, the light grew, catching and sparking in the droplets of rain so that Berun seemed to emerge from a thin curtain of crystal. His master had his hood down, and his long hair lay heavy and dripping over his face and down his shoulders. He held his unstrung bow in one hand.

  “Lewan!” Relief flooded Berun’s face, but it lasted only a moment. He looked worried as his eyes took in the sight before him. “I’ve been scouring the hill. When I didn’t find you … you’re hurt!”

  “Just a scratch.” Lewan managed a grin over his chattering teeth. “I took a bad fall trying to get up the hill.”

  The concern didn’t leave Berun’s gaze. “Why the knife?”

  “Until you called out, I thought you might have been one of them.”

  “I took care of them.”

  Lewan remembered everything Sauk had told him on their walk yesterday, of Kheil the assassin, one of the most feared murderers in the East. “Took care of them?” he asked.

  “They’ll live,” said Berun. “Though if Sauk ever catches up to us, we might not. He’s never been one to forgive a slight.”

  “So it’s all true, then? You do know him.”

  Berun looked at him, and in the meager light of the starstone, the shadows under his brows seemed very deep. Lewan swallowed and held his master’s stare.

  “We’ll speak of this later,” said Berun. “Let’s get you cleaned up and warm.”

  They returned to Lewan’s makeshift shelter. Berun cleared out more leaves and deadfall to make room for them both, then hung both their starstones from the branches overhead. By their light he had a look at the cut along the inside of Lewan’s arm. He cleaned off the worst of the dirt and half-dried blood with his fingers, then dabbed at the wound with a clean cloth that he’d soaked in the rain.

  “More of a deep scrape than a cut,” he said. “Still, it bled quite a bit. A branch, you said?”

  “I slipped in the mud and came down on a log.”

  “Fortunate it wasn’t worse.”

  Lewan winced and sucked in a sharp breath. He was still freezing, and his arm was almost numb, but his master’s ministrations were working feeling back into the skin, and with the sharp tingling came pain. Fresh blood seeped out of the wound.

  “Let me salve and bandage this,” said Berun, “then we’ll get you into warm clothes. We’ll rest ’til first light, then we need to move. I bought us some time, but we need to be leagues from here by midday.”

  “Where is Perch?”

  “He led the tiger away.”

  “Is he …?” Lewan couldn’t bring himself to finish.

  “He’s alive,” said Berun. “He’s frightened and cold, but he’s alive. That much I know. Beyond that …”

  “Master,” said Lewan, “what … what did you do? To them. To Sauk and his band.”

  Berun turned to rummage through the largest of their packs. He found the small wad of clean linen they used for bandages and a polished wood vial of salve. He opened the vial and began to smear a thick, pungent paste into the wound.
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br />   “They’re alive,” he said. “I used an old trick Chereth taught me. Used the wild against them.”

  “The wild?”

  “I roused every spider in the valley and surrounding hills and set them on Sauk and his men. They’ll live, though I doubt they’ll feel much like chasing us for a few days. Still … Sauk is not one to underestimate. I want to be well into the mountains by dark tomorrow.”

  “You do know him, then?”

  “I told you we’d speak of this later.”

  “We’ll be on the run at first light,” said Lewan. “Why not talk now?”

  Berun looked up from his work and scowled, obviously displeased at Lewan’s impudence. “What do you want to know?”

  “You do know the half-orc?”

  “Did.”

  “You are Kheil, then?” said Lewan. “Sauk spoke truly? You’re a … a killer? A murderer for hire?”

  Berun put the stopper back into the vial and wiped his fingers on his shirt. He stuck his chin out and was breathing heavily through his nose. Lewan knew his master well enough to recognize that Berun was upset. Pensive. Usually when this mood hit, it was wise to leave and let Berun brood on his own. But not now.

  “Is it true, master?”

  Berun sighed and began wrapping Lewan’s arm in a bandage. “Not any more,” he said. “Years before Chereth and I found you, before you came to live with me, I … I was … reborn.”

  “Reborn?”

  “In my past life, the man I used to be—Kheil—was a killer, a murderer. Kheil served Alaodin, the Old Man of the Mountain who dwells in his fortress on the side of Sentinelspire. Four years before I met you, Kheil was sent to kill an old druid in the Yuirwood.”

  “Chereth?” said Lewan. “Your master?”

  “Yes. Kheil led Sauk and a dozen assassins into the Yuirwood. Why? Didn’t much matter. They were there to do a job. But … the job did them.” Berun finished wrapping the arm and tied the bandage. “How’s that?”

  “Tight.”