Promise of the Witch-King

by R. A. Salvatore

  But other than that, the air around them grew still, preternaturally serene, as if Jarlaxle’s fireball had cleansed the air itself.

  A wave of heat flashed past Entreri—the hot winds of Jarlaxle’s fireball. He heard the thin man in the wagon behind him yell out in the surprise, followed by Athrogate’s appreciative, “Good with the boom for clearin’ the room!”

  If the assassin had any intention of slowing and looking back, though, it was quickly dismissed by the plop of acidic spittle on the hood of his cloak and the flapping of serpent wings beside his ear.

  Before he could even move to address that situation, he heard a thrumming sound followed by a loud whack and the sight of the blasted serpent spiraling out to the side. The thrumming continued and Entreri recognized it as Athrogate’s morning stars, the dwarf working them with deadly precision.

  “I got yer back, I got yer head,” came the dwarf’s cry. “Them snakes attack ye, they wind up dead!”

  “Just shut up and kill them,” Entreri muttered under his breath—or so he thought. A roar of laughter from Athrogate clued him in that he had said it a bit too loudly.

  Another serpent went flying away, right past his head, and Entreri heard a quick series of impacts, each accompanied by a dwarf’s roar. Entreri did manage to glance to the side to see the remaining woman, fast slipping from consciousness, beginning to roll off the side of the wagon. With a less-than-amused grimace, Entreri grabbed her and tugged her back into place beside him.

  Entreri then glanced back and saw Athrogate running around in a fury. His morning stars hummed and flew, splattering snakes and tossing them far aside, launching them up into the air or dropping them straight down to smack hard into the ground.

  Behind the two dwarves the thin man stood at the back of the wagon, facing the way they had come and waggling his fingers. A cloud of green fog spewed forth from his hands, trailing the fast-moving wagon.

  The serpents in close pursuit pulled up and began to writhe and spasm when they came in contact with the fog. A moment later, they began falling dead to the ground.

  “Aye!” the other dwarf cried.

  “Poison the air, ye clever wizard?” said Athrogate. “Choking them stinkin’, spittin’ liza—”

  “Don’t say it!” Entreri shouted at him.

  “What?” the dwarf replied.

  “Just shut up,” said the assassin.

  Athrogate shrugged, his morning stars finally losing momentum and dropping down at the end of their respective chains.

  “Ain’t nothing left to hit,” he remarked.

  Entreri glared at him, as if daring him to find a rhyming line.

  “Ease up the team,” the thin man said. “The pursuit is no more.”

  Entreri tugged the reigns just a bit and coaxed the horses to slow. He turned the wagon to the side and noted the approach of Mariabronne and the wounded soldier, the ranger still handling both their mounts. Entreri moved around a bit more onto the flat plain, allowing himself a view of the escape route. The wizard’s killing cloud of green fog began to dissipate, and the distant burning wagon came more clearly into sight, a pillar of black smoke rising into the air.

  Beside him, Calihye coughed and groaned.

  Mariabronne handed the soldier’s horse over to the care of Athrogate then turned his own horse around and galloped back to the body of the other fallen woman. Looking past him, Entreri noted that the other soldier was dead, for the man’s charred corpse was clearly in sight.

  From the sight of the fallen woman, all twisted, bloody, and unmoving, the assassin gathered that they had lost two in the encounter.

  At least two, he realized, and to his own surprise, a quiver of alarm came over him and he glanced around, calming almost immediately when he noted Jarlaxle off to the other side, up in the foothills, calmly walking toward them. He noted Ellery, too, a bit behind the drow, moving after her scared and riderless mount.

  The wounded woman on the ground groaned and Entreri turned to see Mariabronne cradling her head. The ranger gently lifted her battered form from the mud and set her over his horse’s back then slowly led the mount back to the wagon.

  “Parissus?” Calihye asked. She crawled back into a sitting position, widened her eyes, and called again for her friend, more loudly. “Parissus!”

  The look on Mariabronne’s face was not promising. Nor was the lifeless movement of Parissus, limply bouncing along.

  “Parissus?” the woman beside Entreri cried again, even more urgently as her senses returned. She started past the assassin but stopped short. “You did this to her!” she cried, moving her twisted face right up to Entreri’s.

  Or trying to, for when the final word escaped her lips, it came forth with a gurgle. Entreri’s strong hand clamped against her throat, fingers perfectly positioned to crush her windpipe. She grabbed at the hold with both hands then dropped one low—to retrieve a weapon, Entreri knew.

  He wasn’t overly concerned, however, for she stopped short when the tip of the assassin’s jeweled dagger poked in hard under her chin.

  “Would you care to utter another accusation?” Entreri asked.

  “Be easy, boy,” said Athrogate.

  Beside him, the other dwarf began to quietly chant.

  “If that is a spell aimed at me, then you would be wise to reconsider,” said Entreri.

  The dwarf cleric did stop—but only when a drow hand grabbed him by the shoulder.

  “There is no need for animosity,” Jarlaxle said to them all. “A difficult foe, but one vanquished.”

  “Because you decided to burn them, and your companion,” accused the shaken, shivering half-elf soldier.

  “Your friend was dead long before I initiated the fireball,” said the drow. “And if I had not, then I and Commander Ellery would have suffered a similar fate.”

  “You do not know that!”

  Jarlaxle shrugged as if it did not matter. “I saved myself and Commander Ellery. I could not have saved your friend, nor could you, in any case.”

  “Abominations of Zhengyi,” said Mariabronne, drawing close to the others. “More may be about. We have no time for this foolishness.”

  Entreri looked at the ranger, then at Jarlaxle, who nodded for him to let the half-elf go. He did just that, offering her one last warning glare.

  Calihye gagged a bit and fell back from him, but recovered quickly. She scrambled from the wagon bench and over to her fallen companion. Mariabronne let her pass by, but looked to the others and shook his head.

  “I got some spells,” the dwarf cleric said.

  Mariabronne walked away from the horse, leaving the woman with her fallen friend. “Then use them,” he told the dwarf. “But I doubt they will be of help. She is full of poison and the fall broke her spine.”

  The dwarf nodded grimly and ambled past him. He grabbed at the smaller Calihye, who was sobbing uncontrollably, and seemed as if she would melt into the ground beside the horse.

  “Parissus …” she whispered over and over.

  “A stream of drats for being her,” Athrogate muttered.

  “At least,” said Jarlaxle.

  The sound of an approaching horse turned them all to regard Ellery.

  “Mariabronne, with me,” the commander instructed. “We will go back and see what we can salvage. I need to retrieve my battle-axe and we have another horse running free. I’ll not leave it behind.” She glanced at the fallen woman, as Pratcus and Calihye were easing her down from the horse. “What of her?”

  “No,” Mariabronne said, his voice quiet and respectful.

  “Put her in the wagon then, and get it moving along,” Ellery instructed.

  Her callous tone drew a grin from Entreri. He could tell that she was agitated under that calm facade.

  “I am Canthan,” he heard the thin man tell Jarlaxle. “I witnessed your blast. Most impressive. I did not realize that you dabbled in the Art.”

  “I am a drow of many talents.”

  Canthan bowed and
seemed impressed.

  “And many items,” Entreri had to put in.

  Jarlaxle tipped his great hat and smiled.

  Entreri didn’t return his smile, though, for the assassin had caught the gaze of Calihye. He saw a clear threat in her blue-gray eyes. Yes, she blamed him for her friend’s fall.

  “Come along, ye dolts, and load the wagon!” Athrogate roared as Mariabronne and Ellery started off. “Be quick afore Zhengyi attacks with a dragon! Bwahaha!”

  “It will be an interesting ride,” Jarlaxle said to Entreri as he climbed up onto the bench beside the assassin.

  “ ‘Interesting’ is a good word,” Entreri replied.

  CHAPTER 10

  WITH OPEN HEART

  At ease, my large friend,” Wingham said, patting his hands in the air to calm the half-orc.

  But Olgerkhan would not be calmed. “She’s dying! I tried to help, but I cannot.”

  “We don’t know that she’s dying.”

  “She’s sick again, and worse now than before,” Olgerkhan continued. “The castle grows and its shadow makes Arrayan sick.”

  Wingham started to respond again but paused and considered what Olgerkhan had said. No doubt the somewhat dim warrior was making only a passing connection, using the castle to illustrate his fears for Arrayan, but in that simple statement Wingham heard a hint of truth. Arrayan had opened the book, after all. Was it possible that in doing so, she had created a magical bond between herself and the tome? Wingham had suspected that she’d served as a catalyst, but might it be more than that?

  “Old Nyungy, is he still in town?” the merchant asked.

  “Nyungy?” echoed Olgerkhan. “The talespinner?”

  “Yes, the same.”

  Olgerkhan shrugged and said, “I haven’t seen him in some time, but I know his house.”

  “Take me to it, at once.”

  “But Arrayan …”

  “To help Arrayan,” Wingham explained.

  The moment the words left his mouth, Olgerkhan grabbed his hands and pulled him away from the wagon, tugging him to the north and the city. They moved at full speed, which meant the poor old merchant was half-running and half-flying behind the tugging warrior.

  In short order, they stood before the dilapidated door of an old, three-story house, its exterior in terrible disrepair, dead vines climbing halfway up the structure, new growth sprouting all over it with roots cracking into the foundation stones.

  Without the slightest pause, Olgerkhan rapped hard on the door, which shook and shifted as if the heavy knocks would dislodge it from its precarious perch.

  “Easy, friend,” Wingham said. “Nyungy is very old. Give him time to answer.”

  “Nyungy!” Olgerkhan yelled out.

  He thumped the house beside the door so hard the whole of the building trembled. Then he moved his large fist back in line with the door and cocked his arm.

  He stopped when the door pulled in, revealing a bald, wrinkled old man, more human than orc in appearance, save teeth too long to fit in his mouth. Brown spots covered his bald pate, and a tuft of gray hair sprouted from a large mole on the side of his thick nose. He trembled as he stood there, as if he might just fall over, but in his blue eyes, both Olgerkhan and Wingham saw clarity that defied his age.

  “Oh, please do not strike me, large and impetuous child,” he said in a wheezing, whistling voice. “I doubt you’d find much sport in laying me low. Wait a few moments and save yourself the trouble, for my old legs won’t hold me upright for very long!” He ended with a laugh that fast transformed into a cough.

  Olgerkhan lowered his arm and shrugged, quite embarrassed.

  Wingham put a hand on Olgerkhan’s shoulder and gently eased him aside then stepped forward to face old Nyungy.

  “Wingham?” the man asked. “Wingham, are you back again?”

  “Every year, old friend,” answered the merchant, “but I have not seen you in a decade or more. You so used to love the flavors of my carnival …”

  “I still would, young fool,” Nyungy replied, “but it is far too great a walk for me.”

  Wingham bowed low. “Then my apologies for not seeking you out these past years.”

  “But you are here now. Come in. Come in. Bring your large friend, but please do not let him punch my walls anymore.”

  Wingham chuckled and glanced at the mortified Olgerkhan. Nyungy began to fade back into the shadows of the house, but Wingham bade him to stop.

  “Another time, certainly,” the merchant explained. “But we have not come for idle chatter. There is an event occurring near to Palishchuk that needs your knowledge and wisdom.”

  “I long ago gave up the road, the song, and the sword.”

  “It is not far to travel,” Wingham pressed, “and I assure you that I would not bother you if there was any other way. But there is a great construct in process—a relic of Zhengyi’s, I suspect.”

  “Speak not that foul name!”

  “I agree,” Wingham said with another bow. “And I would not, if there was another way to prompt you to action.”

  Nyungy rocked back a bit and considered the words. “A construct, you say?”

  “I am certain that if you climbed to your highest room and looked out your north window, you could see it from here.”

  Nyungy glanced back into the room behind him, and the rickety staircase ascending the right-hand wall.

  “I do not much leave the lowest floor. I doubt I could climb those stairs.” He was grinning when he turned back to Wingham, then kept turning to eye Olgerkhan. “But perhaps your large friend here might assist me—might assist us both, if your legs are as old as my own.”

  Wingham didn’t need the help of Olgerkhan to climb the stairs, though the wooden railing was fragile and wobbly, with many balusters missing or leaning out or in, no longer attached to the rail. The old merchant led the way, with Olgerkhan carrying Nyungy close behind and occasionally putting his hand out to steady Wingham.

  The staircase rose about fifteen feet, opening onto a balcony that ran the breadth of the wide foyer and back again. Across the way, a second staircase climbed to the third story. That one seemed more solid, with the balusters all in place, but it hadn’t been used in years, obviously, and Wingham had to brush away cobwebs to continue. As the stairs spilled out on the south side of the house, Wingham had to follow the balcony all the way back around the other side to the north room’s door. He glanced back when he got there, for Nyungy was walking again and had lost ground with his pronounced limp. Nyungy waved for him to go on, and so he pressed through the door, crossing to the far window where he pulled aside the drape.

  Staring out to the north, Wingham nearly fell over, for though he had expected to view the growing castle, he didn’t expect how dominant the structure would be from so far away. Only a few days had passed since Wingham had ventured to the magical book and the structure growing behind it, and the castle was many times the size it had been. Wingham couldn’t see the book from so great a distance, obviously, but the circular stone keep that grew behind it was clearly visible, rising high above the Vaasan plain. More startling was the fact that the keep was far to the back of the structure, centering a back wall anchored by two smaller round towers at its corners. From those, the walls moved south, toward Palishchuk, and Wingham could see the signs of a growing central gatehouse at what he knew would be the front wall of the upper bailey.

  Several other structures were growing before the gatehouse as well, an outer bailey and a lower wall already climbed up from the ground.

  “By the gods, what did he do?” old Nyungy asked, coming up beside Wingham.

  “He left us some presents, so it would seem,” Wingham answered.

  “It seems almost a replica of Castle Perilous, curse the name,” Nyungy remarked.

  Wingham looked over at the old bard, knowing well that Nyungy was one of the few still alive who had glimpsed that terrible place during the height of Zhengyi’s power.

  “
A wizard did this,” Nyungy said.

  “Zhengyi, as I explained.”

  “No, my old friend Wingham, I mean now. A wizard did this. A wizard served as catalyst to bring life to the old power of the Witch-King. Now.”

  “Some curses are without end,” Wingham replied, but he held back the rest of his thoughts concerning Arrayan and his own foolishness in handing her the book. He had thought it an instruction manual for necromancy or golem creation or a history, perhaps. He could never have imagined the truth of it.

  “Please come out with me, Nyungy,” Wingham bade.

  “To there?” the old man said with a horrified look. “My adventuring days are long behind me, I fear. I have no strength to do battle with—”

  “Not there,” Wingham explained. “To the house of a friend: my niece, who is in need of your wisdom at this darkening hour.”

  Nyungy looked at Wingham with unveiled curiosity and asked, “The wizard?”

  Wingham’s grim expression was all the answer the older half-orc needed.

  Wingham soon found that Olgerkhan had not been exaggerating in his insistence that the old merchant go quickly to Arrayan. The woman appeared many times worse than before. Her skin was pallid and seemed bereft of fluid, like gray, dry paper. She tried to rise up from the bed, where Olgerkhan had propped her almost to a sitting position with pillows, but Wingham could see that the strain was too great and he quickly waved her back to her more comfortable repose.

  Arrayan looked past Wingham and Olgerkhan to the hunched, elderly half-orc. Her expression fast shifted from inviting to suspicious.

  “Do you know my friend Nyungy?” Wingham asked her. Arrayan continued to carefully scrutinize the old half-orc, some spark of distant recognition showing in her tired eyes.

  “Nyungy is well-versed in the properties of magic,” Wingham explained. “He will help us help you.”

  “Magic?” Arrayan asked, her voice weak.

  Nyungy came forward and leaned over her. “Little Arrayan Maggotsweeper?” he said. The woman winced at the sound of her name. “Always a curious sort, you were, when you were young. I am not surprised to learn that you are a wizard—and a mighty one, if that castle is any indication.”