Avenger: Blades of the Moonsea - Book III

by Richard Baker

  To the Nine Hells with it, he decided. He couldn’t afford to be crippled at the moment. “Sarth, let me see that,” he said.

  The tiefling gave him an odd look, but he stooped and picked up Rhovann’s artificial hand. He studied it carefully, murmuring the words of a detection spell as he examined it. “It is a complex and subtle magic,” he finally said. “I cannot say for certain what it might do. Are you certain you wish to try this?”

  “Try what?” Mirya demanded.

  “The silver hand. It served Rhovann as a replacement for his own. It may work for me as well.” Geran used his left hand and his teeth to worry at the bandages on his right wrist, then began to unwrap them. A flood of fresh pain washed over his arm as the pressure eased and new sensation returned to the stump; even after two healing potions, it was far from whole. A faint, acrid reek—the remnant of the acid, he thought—came to his nostrils.

  Mirya shuddered. “Have you lost your mind? How could you think about wearing that thing on your wrist? Who knows what spells Rhovann wove to bind it to his flesh?”

  “I have read of such things before,” Sarth replied. “Magical devices that replace limbs are often enchanted to join themselves to the wearer’s body. It’s how they are customarily made, and the experiment is simple enough to perform. But I still think it is reckless to place your trust in Rhovann’s craftsmanship or intentions. Until you know what he paid for that hand, or whether it can be removed once you join it to your arm, you would be wiser to wait.”

  “Not this day,” Geran said. “Lives may depend on me. I can’t afford to be crippled, not if I have any alternative.” He held out his left hand for the silver device, intending to try it himself.

  Sarth sighed, and shook his head. “No, if you insist on proceeding, it’s best to let someone else align it. For all we know it may graft itself instantly to you, and if that is the case, you will want to be absolutely certain it is arranged correctly. Here, set your arm on this table. Hamil, hold his arm firmly in place. Mirya, you watch too, and help me to marry it evenly to the stump.”

  Mirya grimaced, but she did as Sarth asked, leaning down to study the silver device and the blackened ruin of Geran’s wrist. As Sarth held it close, Geran realized that the hand was not a perfect match for the one he’d lost; it was a little more slender and long in the finger than his own.

  Hamil came up and took Geran’s forearm in his own grip, looking up at him to silently say, I hope you know what you’re doing. The last thing this device remembers is that it was locked around your throat. Who’s to say that it won’t try to strangle you again?

  “Do it,” Geran murmured.

  Sarth pressed the base of the silver hand to Geran’s wrist bones; Mirya reached out to turn the device a fraction of an inch. The metal was shockingly cold against the exposed bone, a jolt of ice that ran up the marrow of Geran’s forearm. He hissed in discomfort but held his arm in place. The sorcerer studied the runes glimmering at the base of the device, and spoke the arcane words recorded there: “Izhia nur kalamakoth astet; ishurme phet hustethme …”

  Nothing seemed to happen, and Geran sighed. It had been worth a try, he decided. He started to straighten up—and then the runes on the silver surface gleamed with a flash of purple fire. The silver suddenly grew warm and pliable; Sarth grunted in surprise, but held it steady against the end of Geran’s arm. A jolt of searing agony shot through Geran’s arm as the silver suddenly flowed into the wound where his arm ended. Despite his resolve, he screamed aloud and sank to his knees. Hamil swore in his native tongue, his eyes wide, but he held Geran’s arm with both of his and refused to let go. Smoke rose from burning flesh at the end of the stump as the magical device sealed itself to the bones of Geran’s forearm and reshaped itself, forming a short, smooth band around the damaged flesh. Geran felt as if the thing were filling his arm with molten metal; the pain was beyond bearing, and he swooned briefly into darkness.

  A short time later, he came to in Mirya’s arms, who was kneeling behind him and holding him upright. His arm throbbed painfully, but it was no longer unendurable. He groaned and stirred in her arms.

  “Geran Hulmaster, you damned fool,” Mirya snapped at him. “That’s twice in the last quarter hour I’ve seen you unconscious. Never do something like that again! I thought you were dying under some awful curse of Rhovann’s. What was in that thick head of yours?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. With care he raised his right arm close to inspect the silver hand; it met the flesh of his arm in a metal band only an inch wide, but he could feel by the weight of it that the thing was anchored as firmly on the bones of his arm as his own living hand would have been. For better or worse, there would be no taking it off now. Gingerly he tried to make a fist with the device—and the smooth metal fingers answered to his desire. He could even feel the pressure of fingertips against palm, although it was strangely distant and numb. His wrist still ached, and he suspected it would for a long time yet, but his arm felt whole and sound. “It works,” he murmured.

  “Best not trust it for sword play until you’ve had a chance to become used to it,” Hamil advised. “Your grip might be different, and it could throw you off.”

  The swordmage started to answer, but a sudden pounding at the door interrupted him. He exchanged worried glances with his companions and scrambled to his feet. Then a voice in the hallway outside called, “Lord Rhovann, excuse the interruption, but Harmach Maroth said to fetch you right away! Are you well, my lord?”

  Geran exchanged looks with Mirya, Hamil, and Sarth. “It seems Marstel is missing his wizard,” Mirya whispered. “What do we do?”

  “Wait for them to leave,” Sarth advised. “We do not want to alert the whole castle.”

  “My lord!” the man in the hall outside called once again. Then the heavy jingle of a key ring came clearly through the door, along with a murmured conversation.

  Hamil glanced at the headless body on the floor, and back to Geran. “Forgive me for saying so,” he said, “but Marstel isn’t going to be happy with you.”

  “Of all the luck,” Geran breathed. It seemed he’d find out soon enough whether the silver hand would answer his bidding.

  TWENTY-NINE

  15 Ches, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)

  Geran stood paralyzed for a moment more, searching for a way out of the room, and then keys rattled in the lock of the laboratory’s door. There was nothing for it—they’d have to deal with whoever was at the door. He nodded at Hamil, who quickly crossed the room to stand beside the door on one side, while he moved to the opposite side. When they were in position, he motioned for Hamil to wait. In his best imitation of Rhovann’s elf accent, he called angrily through the door, “Who is there?”

  The key stopped at once. Geran couldn’t help but smile; apparently the idea of disturbing the harmach’s mage in his sanctum was more than a little intimidating.

  “Castellan Sarvin and Guard Murrn, my lord.”

  “What is it?” Geran demanded.

  “You are needed, my lord—the Hulmaster army is at the gates, and the harmach requires your counsel. Something must be done!”

  The Hulmaster army is at the gates? Hamil observed silently. Kara must have made the most of her opportunity when we destroyed the master stone.

  Geran nodded. “Something must be done, indeed,” he said. He reached down to unlock the door with his silver hand; it seemed to answer his will deftly enough, even though he could not feel the latch under his fingertips very well. “Enter!”

  There was a brief hesitation before the door pushed open. Castellan Sarvin—the big, black-bearded officer Geran had seen in the Council Hall dungeon—and his guard stepped inside with some trepidation. They halted in confusion as they took in the wreck of the laboratory, the remains of the golem, and the presence of Mirya and Sarth at the other end of the room. Then Hamil’s knife appeared at the throat of the one mercenary, while Geran set the point of Umbrach Nyth at Sarvin’s belt buckle. The
two Council Guards had sense enough—or were simply surprised enough—not to make a fight of it. They froze, keeping their hands well away from their weapons.

  “A good idea,” Geran told the two guards. “Rhovann is dead, and I’m here to take back my castle. Now, where might I find Maroth Marstel?”

  The two guards kept still until Hamil prodded his man with his knife. “The courtyard!” the guard answered. “The harmach is abandoning Griffonwatch. The Vaasans have offered us sanctuary. He sent us to see what was keeping Lord Rhovann.”

  The Vaasans? Hamil remarked. What in the world do they have to do with this?

  Geran scowled. He wasn’t sure what the Vaasans were doing in Hulburg, but here was a second piece of evidence of Warlock Knight meddling in the space of the last few hours. A year earlier, the Warlock Knights had aided Warchief Mhurren’s Bloody Skull horde; he’d dueled a Vaasan sorcerer during the battle at Lendon’s Wall. And Rhovann had said that the Vaasans had put Valdarsel up to his murder. Now Vaasans were waiting to spirit away the false harmach? No good could come of that. “How long before they ride?” he demanded.

  “He’s waiting in the courtyard with the Vaasans now,” Castellan Sarvin answered. “We have no more quarrel with you, Lord Hulmaster. All we want is to be quit of this place.”

  “You should have thought of that before you took Marstel’s coin,” Mirya replied. “What do we do with these two, Geran?”

  “Bind them and leave them here. They answered, and for that I’ll spare their lives.” He smiled grimly. “After that, I think I’d like to go down to the courtyard and have a word or two with Harmach Marstel and these Vaasans before they depart.”

  Hamil and Mirya quickly secured the two guardsmen. Geran noticed that the castellan wore a fine pair of light leather gauntlets; he tried on the right-hand gauntlet over the silver hand. He felt more than a little self-conscious about wearing Rhovann’s hand at the end of his own arm, and felt like he ought to keep it out of sight. Satisfied with the fit, he nodded to his friends, and they set out into the castle.

  The halls of Griffonwatch were eerily quiet as Geran, Mirya, Sarth, and Hamil hurried down toward the lower courtyard. None of the castle servants or clerks seemed to be about; Geran guessed that they’d quietly slipped out of the castle in the last few hours to join loyalists in the streets or simply lay low and wait out events. Nor were any of Marstel’s mercenaries at their posts, since the towers and battlements seemed abandoned. They did find a number of runehelms as they descended, but Rhovann’s constructs were listless and unmoving. The magical glyphs marking their flesh had almost completely faded, and thin black ichor dripped from beneath their iron visors.

  “Should we destroy these things as we pass them?” Hamil asked as they made their way through a motionless band of four gray guardians gathered around the upper entrance to the great hall.

  “They are unlikely to pose a threat,” Sarth observed. “I suspect that the master stone’s destruction erased whatever orders or instructions Rhovann provided them, and clearly Rhovann will provide no new instructions now. With a little time, I might be able to determine whether the runehelms are crippled, awaiting new orders, or have simply ceased to function altogether.”

  “Never mind that,” Geran answered. “We have no time to waste on the runehelms now—we must stop Marstel’s escape.”

  “I’ve no reason to think kindly of Maroth Marstel, but does he matter at all now?” Mirya asked. “He was only a figurehead for Rhovann’s rule. Without the wizard, he’s naught but a drunken old fool.”

  “That’s almost certainly true, but I can’t let the Vaasans have him. If the Warlock Knights have someone who can claim rulership over Hulburg in their keeping, there’s no end of the trouble they might cause. They might field an army of their own against us on the pretense of restoring Marstel to the throne. At the very least, it would give them a justification to keep up their meddling for years to come.” Geran led the way as they clattered down the steps at the rear of the great hall and ran to the doors at the room’s entrance. He set his hand on the handle and was about to yank one of the great doors open when Hamil caught his arm.

  “Carefully,” the halfling said in a soft voice. “Listen!”

  Geran paused, and cocked his head. He could hear the hoof stamps of horses and the anxious shouts of a number of men outside. Instead of opening the door, he instead moved to one of the shuttered loopholes in the door, undid the catch, and peeked out. The front of the great hall looked out on the castle’s large, lower courtyard. A light rain was falling, and deep puddles dotted the ground. To the left and right stood towers, barracks, and stables; directly across from the great hall stood the gatehouse, where the road climbing up from the Harmach’s Foot ended. In the cobbled space, two dozen warriors—some in the red and yellow of Marstel’s Council Guard, and some in the black and crimson of Vaasa—stood by their mounts or waited in the saddle. Maroth Marstel sat on a large charger, dressed in a broad-bellied suit of plate armor; beside him a Warlock Knight in a black, horned helm frowned impatiently.

  “My lord harmach, we have waited as long as we dare,” the Warlock Knight said to Marstel. “Already our path may be blocked. We must leave now, and trust that Lord Rhovann will join us when he is able.”

  “I don’t care for the idea of leaving without him,” Marstel answered. He stared up in the direction of the castle’s upper towers. “Perhaps I should go speak to him myself.”

  “There is no more time, Harmach Marstel. I am leaving now, with my guards. If you hope to reach safety ahead of Kara Hulmaster’s soldiers, you would be well advised to come with us.” The Vaasan brought his mount in front of Marstel’s. “Rhovann is a very competent wizard. He will have little trouble making his way out of Hulburg, I am sure. But if you allow yourself to be caught here, then you may very well negate whatever effort Rhovann is engaged in. You can aid him best by leaving now.”

  Marstel grimaced beneath his white mustache. “Very well, Lord Terov. Perhaps you are right. Let us go.”

  The Warlock Knight—Terov, or so Geran guessed—nodded curtly to his men. With a creaking of saddles and the clatter of hooves on the well-worn cobblestones of the courtyard, the band of riders began to stream out through the castle gate and down the causeway beyond.

  “They’re leaving,” Geran growled. “Quickly, after them!” Before he could reconsider his actions, he pulled open the door and ran out into the courtyard after the retreating riders, drawing the shadow sword as he went. It felt solid in the grasp of his new hand—perhaps a little rigid and stiff, but firmly under his control. Hamil followed after him, brandishing his knives, while Sarth stepped out into the doorway. The sorcerer conjured a ball of sparking green lightning and hurled it spinning into the middle of the soldiers waiting for their turn to pass the gate; with a great thunderclap it detonated, raking Council Guards and Vaasan soldiers alike with emerald bolts. Horses screamed in terror, and warriors tumbled from their saddles as panicked animals reared and shied. Mirya’s crossbow sang, and a Council Guard grunted as a bolt punched into his thigh. Some warriors spurred out after the lead riders, some turned to face the unexpected attack from the rear, and others simply hovered in between, torn by indecision.

  Geran ran toward Marstel, intending to drag the fat old lord out of the saddle or kill him if he couldn’t manage that. For a moment, in the chaos and confusion of the courtyard, he thought he’d be able to reach Marstel unimpeded. But a pair of Vaasan armsmen moved to intercept him, blocking his way. The swordmage found himself engaged by a pair of competent bladesmen who wouldn’t simply be swept out of his way; grinding his teeth in frustration, he turned aside from his headlong charge to meet Vaasan steel with Umbrach Nyth, falling into the familiar flow of parry and attack. His wrist throbbed with each jolt of steel on steel, but the sword hilt remained firm in the silver hand’s grasp, and in a moment he almost forgot that it wasn’t his own living flesh that held the shadow sword’s leather hilt. “Sarth!” he shout
ed. “Stop Marstel!”

  The tiefling turned his scepter on the usurper. “Ummar skeyth!” he intoned. A smoking white ray lanced from the device’s end straight at Marstel—but a woman in a crimson veil who sat on a horse near the Warlock Knight drew a wand from her sleeve and spoke a countering spell. The bitter white ray met some invisible shield conjured by the Vaasan witch and deflected upward, blasting a great white patch of ice in the side of one of the towers overlooking the courtyard. Then Terov urged Marstel out of the courtyard, followed by the Vaasan woman with her wand. They galloped out of sight down the causeway, and most of the guards followed them—but not before Sarth knocked two more out of the saddle with another blast of lightning.

  Geran ducked under the wild swing of one of his opponents and bobbed up again to bury six inches of his sword point low in the Vaasan’s side, unhorsing him. The other guard nearly rode him down as he dodged around the stamping hooves and flashing blades, but Hamil rolled up under his stirrup and deftly cut the saddle strap. The horse spooked away from the halfling at its belly, and the unsecured saddle slid right off the animal’s back, taking the second Vaasan with it. He landed badly on the cobblestones; before he could get up, Geran stepped over and kicked him unconscious. The last of Marstel’s escorts vanished through the castle gate, leaving six of their number dead, wounded, or stunned in the courtyard.

  “Sarth, go after them!” Geran called. “Do what you can to slow them down!”