“These are Rings of Arbitration,” the old merchant explained. “Both a blessing and a curse, created long ago by magic long lost to the world. Only a few pairs existed, items crafted for lovers who were bound body and soul.”
“Arrayan and I are not—”
“I know, but it does not matter. What matters is what’s in your heart. Are you strong enough to share her burden, and are you willing to die for her, or beside her, should it come to that?”
“I am. Of course,” Olgerkhan answered without the slightest hesitation.
He reached for Wingham and took the offered ring. With but a fleeting glance at Arrayan, he slid the ring on his finger. Before he even had it in place, a profound weariness came over him. His vision swam and his head throbbed with a sharp pain. His stomach churned from the waves of dizziness and his legs wobbled as if they would simply fold beneath him. He felt as if a taloned hand had materialized within him and had begun to tug at his very life-force, twanging that thin line of energy so sharply and insistently that Olgerkhan feared it would just shatter, explode into a scattering of energy.
He felt Wingham’s hand on him, steadying him, and he used the tangible grip as a guide back to the external world. Through his bleary vision he spotted Arrayan, lying still but with her eyes open. She moved one arm up to brush back her thick hair, and even through the haze it was apparent to Olgerkhan that the color had returned to her face.
He understood it all then, so clearly. Wingham had asked him to “share her burden.”
That thought in mind, the half-orc growled and forced the dizziness aside, then straightened his posture, grabbed Wingham’s hand with his own, and pointedly moved it away. He looked to the old merchant and nodded. Then he glanced down at his ring and watched as a blood-red mist flowed into it and swirled in the facets of the cut stone. The mist turned gray, but a light gray, not the blackness he had seen upon poor Arrayan’s finger.
He glanced back at the woman, at her ring, and saw that it, too, was no longer onyx black.
“Through the power of the rings, the burden is shared,” Wingham whispered to him. “I can only hope that I have not just given a greater source of power to the growing construct.”
“I will not fail in this,” Olgerkhan assured him, though neither of them really knew what “this” might actually mean.
Wingham moved over and studied Arrayan, who was resting more comfortably, obviously, though she had again closed her eyes.
“It is a temporary reprieve,” the merchant said. “The tower will continue to draw from her, and as she weakens, so too will you. This is our last chance—our only chance—to save her. Both of you will go with Mariabronne and Gareth’s emissary. Defeat the power that has grown dark on our land, but if you cannot, Olgerkhan, then there is something else you must do for me.”
The large half-orc stood attentively, staring hard at old Wingham.
“You must not let the castle have her,” Wingham explained.
“Have her?”
“Consume her,” came the reply. “I cannot truly comprehend what that even means, but Nyungy, who is wiser than I, was insistent on this point. The castle grows through the life-force of Arrayan, and the castle has made great gains because we did not know what we battle. Even now, we cannot understand how to defeat it, but defeat it you must, and quickly. And if you cannot, Olgerkhan, I will have your word that you will not let the castle consume my dear Arrayan!”
Olgerkhan’s gaze went to Arrayan again as he tried to sort through the words, and as Wingham’s meaning finally began to dawn on him, his soft appearance took on a much harder edge. “You ask me to kill her?”
“I ask for your mercy and demand of you your strength.”
Olgerkhan seemed as if he would stride over and tear Wingham’s head from his shoulders.
“If you cannot do this for me then …” Wingham began, and he lifted Arrayan’s limp arm and grabbed at the ring.
“Do not!”
“Then I will have your word,” said the merchant. “Olgerkhan, there is no choice before us. Go and do battle, if battle is to be found. Mariabronne is wise in the ways of the world, and he has brought an interesting troupe with him, including a dark elf and a wizened sage from Damara. But if the battle cannot be won, or won in time, then you must not allow the castle to take Arrayan. You must find the strength to be merciful.”
Olgerkhan was breathing in rough pants by then, and he felt his heart tearing apart as he looked at his dear Arrayan lying on the bed.
“Put her hand down,” Olgerkhan said at length. “I understand and will not fail in this. The castle will not have Arrayan, but if she dies at my hand, know that I will fast follow her to the next world.”
Wingham slowly nodded.
“Better this than to enter the castle beside that troublesome dwarf,” said Davis Eng, his voice weak with poison.
Herbalists had come to him, and Pratcus had worked more spells over him. He would survive, they all agreed, but it would be some time before he even had the strength to return to the Vaasan Gate, and it would likely be tendays before he could lift his sword again.
“Athrogate?” Calihye asked.
“A filthy little wretch.”
“If he heard you say that, he’d crush your skull,” the woman replied. “The finest fighter at the wall, so it was said, and there’s more than a little magic in those morning stars he swings so cleverly.”
“Strength of arm is one thing. Strength of heart another. Has one so fine ever thought to enlist in the Army of Bloodstone?”
“By serving at the wall, he serves the designs of King Gareth,” Calihye reminded.
Flat on his back, Davis Eng lifted a trembling hand and waved that notion away.
Calihye persisted. “How many monster ears has he delivered to your Commander Ellery, then? And those of giants, too. Not many can lay claim to felling a giant in single combat, but it’s one that Athrogate all too easily brandishes.”
“And how do you know he was alone? He’s got that skinny friend of his—more trouble than the dwarf!”
“And more dangerous,” said Calihye. “Speak not ill of Canthan in my presence.”
Davis Eng lifted his head enough to glower at her.
“And be particularly wise to do as I say as you lie there helplessly,” the woman added, and that made the man lay his head back down.
“I didn’t know you were friends.”
“Me and Canthan?” The woman snorted. “The more ground’s between us, the calmer beats my heart. But like your dwarf, that one is better on my side than my opponent’s.” She paused and moved across the small room to the fire pit, where a kettle of stew simmered. “You want more?”
The man waved and shook his head. It already seemed as though he was falling far, far away from the conscious world.
“Better to be out here, indeed,” Calihye said—to herself, for Davis Eng had lapsed into unconsciousness. “They’re for going into that castle, so I’m hearing, and that’s no place I’m wanting to be, Athrogate and Canthan beside me or not.”
“But did you not just say that the dwarf was a fine warrior?” came a different voice behind her, and the woman froze in place. “And the skinny one even more dangerous?”
Calihye didn’t dare turn about; she knew from the proximity of the voice that the newcomer could take her down efficiently if she threatened him. How had he gotten so near? How had he even gotten into the room?
“Might I even know who’s addressing me?” she dared ask.
A hand grabbed her shoulder and guided her around to look into the dark eyes of Artemis Entreri. Anger flared in Calihye’s eyes, and she had to fight the urge to leap upon the man who had allowed her friend to fall beneath the wagon wheels.
Wisdom overcame the temptation, though, for in looking at the man, standing so at ease, his hands relaxed and ready to bring forth one of his ornamented weapons in the blink of an eye, she knew that she had no chance.
Not now. Not with her
own weapons across the way next to Davis Eng’s bed.
Entreri smiled at her, and she knew that her glance at the sleeping soldier had betrayed her.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I wanted you to keep on speaking, that I could hear what I needed to hear and be on my way,” Entreri replied. “Since that is not an option, apparently, I decided to bid you continue.”
“Continue what?”
“Your appraisal of Athrogate and Canthan, to start,” said the assassin. “And any information you might offer on the others.”
“Why should I offer anyth—”
She bit off the last word, and nearly the tip of her tongue as faster than her eye could even follow, the assassin had his jeweled dagger in his hand and tip-in against the underside of her chin.
“Because I do not like you,” Entreri explained. “And unless you make me like you in the next few minutes, I will make your death unbearable.”
He pressed in just a bit harder, forcing Calihye up on her tip-toes.
“I can offer gold,” she said through her gritted teeth.
“I will take whatever gold of yours I want,” he assured her.
“Please,” she begged. “By what right—”
“Did you not threaten me out on the road?” he said. “I do not let such chatter pass me by. I do not leave enemies alive in my wake.”
“I am not your enemy,” she rasped. “Please, if you let me show you.”
She lifted one hand as if to gently stroke him, but he only grinned and pressed that awful dagger in more tightly, breaking the skin just a bit.
“I don’t find you charming,” Entreri said. “I don’t find you alluring. It annoys me that you are still alive. You have very little time left.”
He let the dagger draw a bit of the half-elf’s life-force into its vampiric embrace. Calihye’s eyes widened in an expression so full of horror that the assassin knew he had her undivided attention.
He reached up with his other hand, planted it on her chest, and retracted the dagger as he unceremoniously shoved her back and to the side of the cooking pit.
“What would you ask of me?” Calihye gasped, one hand clutching her chin as if she believed she had to contain her life’s essence.
“What more is there to know of Athrogate and Canthan?”
The woman held up her hands as if she didn’t understand.
“You battle monsters for your living, yet you fear Canthan,” said Entreri. “Why?”
“He has dangerous friends.”
“What friends?”
The woman swallowed hard.
“Two beats of your fast-beating heart,” said Entreri.
“They say he is associated with the citadel.”
“What citadel? And do understand that I grow weary of prying each word from your mouth one at a time.”
“The Citadel of Assassins.”
Entreri nodded his understanding, for he had indeed heard whispers of the shadowy band, living on after the fall of Zhengyi, digging out their kingdom in the shadows created by the brilliance of King Gareth’s shining light. They were not so different than the pashas Entreri had served for so long on the streets of Calimport.
“And the dwarf?”
“I know not,” said Calihye. “Dangerous, of course, and mighty in battle. That he even speaks to Canthan frightens me. That is all.”
“And the others?”
Again the woman held up her hand as if she did not understand.
“The other dwarf?”
“I know nothing of him.”
“Ellery?” he asked, but he shook his head even as the name left his lips, doubting there was anything the half-elf might tell him of the red-haired commander. “Mariabronne?”
“You have not heard of Mariabronne the Rover?”
A glare from Entreri reminded her that it really wasn’t her place to ask the questions.
“He is the most renowned traveler in Vaasa, a man of legend,” Calihye explained. “It is said that he could track a swift-flying bird over mountains of empty stone. He is fine with the blade and finer with his wits, and always he seems in the middle of momentous events. Every child in Damara can tell you tales of Mariabronne the Rover.”
“Wonderful,” the assassin muttered under his breath. He moved across the room to Calihye’s sword belt, hooked it with his foot and sent it flying to her waiting grasp.
“Well enough,” he said to her. “Is there anything more you wish to add?”
She looked from the sword to the assassin and said, “I cannot travel with you—I am charged with guarding Davis Eng.”
“Travel? Milady, you’ll not leave this room. But your words satisfied me. I believe you. And I assure you, that is no small thing.”
“Then what?”
“You have earned the right to defend yourself.”
“Against you?”
“While I suspect you would rather fight him,”—he gave a quick glance at the unconscious Davis Eng—“I do not believe he is up to the task.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I will make it hurt more.”
Calihye’s look moved from one of uncertainty to that primal and determined expression Entreri had seen so many times before, the look that a fighter gets in her eye when she knows there is no escape from the battle at hand. Without blinking, without taking her gaze from him for one second, Calihye drew her sword from its scabbard and presented it defensively before her.
“There is no need for this,” she remarked. “But if you must die now, then so be it.”
“I do not leave enemies in my wake,” Entreri said again, and out came Charon’s Claw.
He felt a slight tug at his consciousness from the sentient weapon but put the intrusion down with a thought. Then he came on, a sudden and brutal flurry of movement that sent his dagger out ahead and his sword sweeping down.
Calihye snapped her blade up to block, but Entreri shifted the angle at the last minute, making the sword flash by untouched—until, that is, he reversed the flow and slapped it hard against the underside of her sword, bringing forth a yelp of surprise to accompany the loud ringing of metal.
Entreri hit her sword again as she tried to bring it to bear, then retreated a step.
The woman slipped back behind the fire pit and glanced at Entreri from above the glow. Her gaze went down to the cooking pot, just briefly.
Enough for Entreri.
Charon’s Claw came across vertically as Calihye broke for the pot, launching it and the tripod on which it stood forward to send hot stew flying. She followed with a howl, one that turned to surprise as she saw the wall of black ash Entreri’s sword had created.
Still, she could not halt her momentum as she leaped the small fire pit, and she followed the pot through the ash wall, bursting out with a wild slashing of her sword to drive the no-doubt retreating intruder back even farther.
Except that he was not there.
“How?” Calihye managed to say even as she felt the explosion of pain in her kidney.
Fire burned through her and before she regained her sensibilities she was on her knees. She tried to turn her shoulders and send her sword flashing back behind her, but a boot stopped her elbow short, painfully extending her arm, and the sword flew from her hand.
She felt the heavy blade settle onto her collarbone, its evil edge against the side of her neck.
Entreri knew he should just be done with her then and there. Her hatred on the road had sounded as a clear warning bell to him that she might one day repay him for the perceived wrong.
But something washed over him in that moment, strong and insistent. He saw Calihye in a different light, softer and vulnerable, one that made him reconsider his earlier words to her—almost. He looked past the scar on her face and saw the beauty that was there beneath. What had driven a woman such as her to so hard a road, he wondered?
He retracted the sword, but instead of bringing it in to take his enemy’s head, he leaned in ver
y close to her, his breath hot in her ear.
Disturbed by his emotions, Entreri roughly shook them away.
“Remember how easily you were beaten,” he whispered. “Remember that I did not kill you, nor did I kill your friend. Her death was an unfortunate accident, and would that I could go back to that frantic moment and catch her before she fell, but I cannot. If you cannot accept that truth then remember this.”
The assassin brought the tip of his awful dagger up against her cheek, and the woman shuddered with revulsion.
“I will make it hurt, Calihye. I will make you beg me to be done with it, but.…”
It took Calihye a few moments to realize that the cold metal of the demonic blade was no longer against her skin. She slowly dared to open her eyes then even more slowly dared to turn back.
The room was empty save for Davis Eng, who lay with his eyes wide and terror-filled, obviously having witnessed the last moments of the one-sided fight.
CHAPTER 12
THE LOOK IN HER EYE
By the time Entreri caught up to Jarlaxle and the others, they were camped on a hillock beyond Palishchuk’s northern wall. From that vantage point, the growing black castle was all too clear to see.
“When I left here last it was no more than foundation stones, and seemingly for a structure much smaller than this,” Mariabronne informed them in hushed tones. “Wingham named it a replica of Castle Perilous, and I fear now that he was correct.”
“And you once glanced upon that awful place,” Ellery said.
“Well, if none are in there, then we’ll make it our halls!” roared Athrogate. “Got me some friends to be guardin’ our walls!”
“Got you a habit to bring on your fall,” Jarlaxle muttered under his breath, but loud enough for Athrogate to hear, which of course only brought a burst of howling laughter from the wild-eyed dwarf.
“Good grief,” said the drow.
“Only kind I’m likin’!” Athrogate said without missing a beat.
“I doubt it is uninhabited or’s to stay that way for long,” Pratcus put in. “I can feel the evilness emanating from the thing—a beacon call, I’m guessing, for every monster in this corner o’ Vaasa.”
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