Then the doors to Greyt’s manor opened and Walker’s thoughts flew away in a wave of overwhelming hatred.
Resplendent in a full suit of golden mail, with a deep purple cape billowing out behind him and golden hair falling to his shoulders, Lord Singer Dharan Greyt stepped out beaming. His skin seemed to glow and the gray in his hair had disappeared. His golden yarting sang under his talented fingers, projecting chords of triumph and magic over the crowd.
Much of the crowd was stunned at his glorious appearance, and all—even the druids who looked at him with suspicion-fell silent.
“Welcome, friends!” shouted Greyt. His voice was loud and booming, and carried over the crowd to where Walker stood in the shadows. “You have come to my door questioning and concerned, but you will leave with answers well earned!”
Walker felt bardic magic resonate from the yarting and the Lord Singer’s voice, Walker fought, exerting his will against Greyt’s own, to keep the image of Greyt—his most hated foe—as the monster he had seen little but knew too well. The Dharan Greyt Walker knew was not the bold, self-assured hero standing before the crowd, but a weak, aging coward.
In the end, Walker was not fooled by Greyt’s magic.
“Today dawns a new day in the history of our fair town, here in the frontier of the Moonwood,” continued Greyt. “Or, should I say, today marks the end of an era. For too long, a dark scourge has haunted these woods and our fair streets, a scourge that walks without sound and wields merciless steel—a scourge some call Walker, and some the Ghost Murderer.” There were grumbles in the crowd. “Well, no longer! Today, my son Meris and I have brought to an end the terrible reign of the Ghost Murderer!”
Cheers greeted this. Walker—standing there, listening to the announcement of his own death—might have smiled were he not overcome with enmity for the man speaking.
Greyt waited for the cheering to die down before continuing. “This very last eve, my son slew him, with the help of several of my servants.” With this, he indicated the gathered rangers. Gieves and Darthan nodded shortly. “We have also apprehended the Ghost Murderer’s accomplices—three renegade knights from Silverymoon.”
Gasps sounded from the crowd. Walker’s brow furrowed.
“Surely you recall three strangers who came into town, led by a woman, asking questions? Lady Arya Venkyr, who came to Quaervarr on a mission to investigate missing couriers—couriers she and the Ghost Murderer slew! Along with her two companions, they sought to find what we knew of the ghastly crimes, so they could continue them at will!”
There were a few murmurs among the crowd refuting this. Some called for proof, others for motive.
Greyt had the perfect answer.
“She is a Malarite spy! See for yourselves!” With a flourish, he produced a small, carved claw on a leather thong, old bloodstains decorating its fingers. Startled cries ran through the crowd as many recognized the dreaded holy symbol of the beast god of the Black Blood. “This was found around Lady Venkyr’s neck—it provides all the evidence we need, even if her damnable actions were not known!”
The crowd erupted in cries of terror and beseeching calls. They begged Greyt, their great champion, to defend them. A few even cried for Arya’s death.
Walker gritted his teeth and tightened his grasp on the sword he held beneath his cloak. He had to exert all his terrible will to keep from striding forward to confront Greyt.
He caught a flash of a grin across Greyt’s face, but no one else seemed to notice. “Fear not, friends of Quaervarr!” he called. “These vandals and thieves will not go free. The Ghost Murderer has already paid the penalty for his abominable crimes, but the traitor knights will also be punished. This eve, at sunset, the three shall hang in this very plaza, where all of you may bear witness to the consequences that await traitors and servants of darkness.”
Silence gripped the plaza. Few remembered such brutal justice being meted out, even in this frontier town. Even those who had called out for executions were struck by the realization that it might actually happen. Then, slowly, several men in the crowd—men Greyt had planted, Walker thought—began to clap. The applause picked up, louder and louder, until cheers sounded from the crowd. In moments, the name of “Dharan Greyt” and “Quickfinger” were the dominant calls.
Walker had taken it all in stride, but he could listen no longer. Arya! The name resounded in his mind, followed by an image of the knight’s face.
He could not allow this. This was wrong, and not only because the one he loved faced execution. This was wrong because three innocent people would pay for Greyt’s crimes, three innocents who fought against those crimes. What was more, this monster undermined the town’s stability—questioning its leaders and stirring up popular opinion against good, just people. More than just three knights would die in the chaos. Death was the only outcome of such madness.
Walker did not know where this sense of justice came from—perhaps from the same center that made him feel a twinge of sorrow over every man he killed unnecessarily, over every guard, every ranger, and every man or woman manipulated by the words or actions of one of the monsters he hated so much.
Feelings of justice, long forgotten and buried beneath years of pain, flooded back to him—values he must have held before his death at the hands of Greyt and his cruel fellows.
The spirit of Tarm knelt at Walker’s side and grasped at his hand. Walker, surprised, looked at Tarm in shock. The spirit was trying to communicate with him, but Walker felt nothing but a long string of conflicting emotions from the spirit: joy, love, agitation, fear, and anger. Walker had never seen his father act this way and it caught him off guard.
Remembering the terrible purpose that had brought him here, Walker scowled.
“Why do you not speak to me, Tarm Thardeyn?” he demanded. “Are you not my father? Am I not your son? Speak to me!”
The spirit, shocked by the words, just stared, unmoving, and Walker felt nothing emanating from the spirit but sadness.
Then he heard another shout to the Lord Singer from the courtyard, followed by applause, and he turned to fix the hated Lord Greyt’s features with his withering gaze. He felt the cold power of his ghostly rage beating within, waiting to take control.
Seething at the injustices perpetuated by Dharan Greyt, this hypocrite who so casually claimed the love and adoration of Quaervarr while he stabbed her people in the back, Walker made to step out into the open. He could picture the effect his appearance would have upon the assembled. The crowd would run in panic, scattering like flies before his cracked bellow of Greyt’s name. Striding forward, sword pointed toward the Lord Singer, he would cut down any guardsmen who attacked him. He would swat aside the rangers like locusts. Even the towering Bilgren would fall under his blade. Finally, all his defenses gone, Greyt would cower, helpless before Walker and his sword—his avenging, just sword.
The Spirit of Vengeance would have his due.
That would have occurred, perhaps, except for the hand that reached out of the shadows of the alley behind him and cupped itself around his mouth.
Chased back into his manor by cheers, shouts, and tangible adoration, Dharan Greyt shook his fists in triumph even as he fought against the ironic laughter that threatened to bubble up out of his throat. Claudir was a silent, lingering specter at his side. Greyt clapped the steward on the back, nearly knocking him down, and took the bottle of elverquisst he offered. In his triumph, Greyt almost forgot how to operate the corkscrew.
The greatest performance of his life! They had drunk up every word, even without his enthralling magic! He had but to beam at them, and these foolish sheep adored him.
Never had the stakes been higher, but never had his accomplishments been greater. Greyt loved the gamble—the risk that the townsfolk would see through the web he had woven, or the intrigues that won him their hearts—but he loved winning it even more. Secretly, quietly, he had removed Stonar’s greatest supporters. Captain Unddreth, Amra Clearwater, and several loca
l businessmen had met with “accidents” or had mysteriously disappeared in the last few tendays.
Now he was in the perfect position to seize his heroic title, and he had done it—and with what form! If he wanted to rule the town, he had but to breathe the suggestion and they would crown him Lord of Quaervarr. If he wanted to sweep the Moonwood and dispose of whatever remained of that annoying Jarthon and the Black Blood once and for all, he had hundreds of willing suicide fighters. Even if he desired to march against Silverymoon, he had no doubt these poor commoners would bring out their hatchets and saws to aid his cause.
Lord Singer Dharan Greyt felt a warm swell in his chest. So this was how it felt to be a hero at last—he hardly even remembered all the men and women he had slain to make it this far. They did not matter, for they had made him! A noble sacrifice, indeed.
The farther he walked into his manor, though, the quicker the warm feeling faded, only to be replaced with a familiar lingering emptiness, the same feeling that had come upon him when Lyetha had denied his heroism, ironic as it was, and when Meris had….
Greyt growled to no one in particular. Was there no one who shared his vision of heroism? Would he be doomed to a lonely existence as a hero forever?
Well, Meris wasn’t a concern any longer. Greyt could always have another son. How many women of Quaervarr were fighting over him even now?
He took a swig of the elverquisst and the hearty wine banished the feeling of emptiness in his stomach.
“So be it, then!” he shouted to no one in particular. He rubbed his gold ring. “If I must be a lone wolf, then so be it!”
The rangers outside his door cast quick glances as he came, then snapped back to attention. Any other day, their behavior might have struck Greyt as odd. At the moment though, still feeling enthusiasm pulse through his body, the Lord Singer thought nothing of it. He opened the door to his study, laughing at his own joke, and shuffled inside. Shutting the portal behind him, Greyt breathed a great sigh then turned toward his desk with a smile.
What he saw wiped the grin right off his face.
“Hail, Hero-Father.”
Walker spun, breaking the grip around his mouth, and held up the guard’s sword to threaten his attacker. He opened his mouth but words would not come to his tongue. He faltered, drew his blade away, and took a step back.
His attacker—a golden-haired woman—stepped from the shadows. “I know why you have come,” she said.
At first, Walker heard Gylther’yel in her voice, but this woman was taller and fuller-bodied than any elf, even though she was thin—gaunt almost. The years had done their work on her features, but Walker could see the beauty in her face.
Walker felt an overwhelming wave of emotion wash over him, a sensation of bittersweet love from the spirit of Tarm Thardeyn. Too stunned to address the spirit—and not about to turn away—he felt his fingers tingling on his sword hilt.
“Who are you?” Walker rasped. He felt oddly embarrassed by his broken voice.
“I am Lyetha Elfsdaughter, the wife of the Lord Singer, the last descendent of Wyel’thya, and the Daughter of the Sun,” Lyetha said. “You are the one they call Walker. And you have come to murder my husband.” Her eyes were sad.
“What do you want?” asked the ghostwalker.
“I ask for mercy—for my lord.” Lyetha’s face was smooth and her eyes were damp.
Walker bristled. “Dharan Greyt is a monster.” His unshakable self-confidence was not there, though, and he wondered why this woman made him so uneasy. “I must destroy him, for what he did to me …”
Moisture flared in Lyetha’s eyes, and those eyes seemed to glaze over.
“I cannot stop you, so you must kill me as well,” Lyetha said, “for I cannot live without him.” She pulled her dress up around her knees, knelt down, and bowed her head. She even shifted the gold mane off her pale neck.
Startled, Walker took a step back but kept a firm grip on his blade. “What?”
A tear dripped down Lyetha’s cheek.
“I have not wept—not like this—since my Tarm died,” she said softly, not wiping it away. “I live only for Dharan, for he was the only one who comforted me, but …” Then she looked up at Walker with tearful eyes. “But I have not wanted to live since my son died. Not truly.” Then she bowed her head.
Walker became very cold. He drew the blade back and up.
Another tear fell from Lyetha’s eye.
“Goodbye, Rhyn, if you yet live.”
CHAPTER 20
30 Tarsakh
Walker’s sword banged off a thick oak wall and clattered to the ground.
Lyetha looked up, startled, and Walker was on his knees before her. Having thrown his sword aside, he had pulled off his gloves and now clutched her face softly between his hands, though he knew without his power. Knew, but denied it, until …
Shuddering at his cold touch, Lyetha stared into his bright sapphire eyes.
Her eyes.
“Rhyn?” she asked, almost in a whisper. “Can—can it be?”
Lips trembling, unable to speak, Walker slowly nodded. He knew it was the truth.
Lyetha’s arms slid around him and she held him fiercely.
“Oh, Rhyn!” she sobbed. “I never dared hope you were alive!”
The ghostwalker’s eyes were almost soft. “Mother,” he whispered.
His rasping voice, however, jarred him back to reality. Walker pulled his arms from around his mother and tore himself free with a cry. He half-crawled, half-fell backward, slamming into the alley wall, but he hardly felt the impact. Uncalled emotions flowed up in an overwhelming torrent. He clutched his arms around his head in a vain attempt to keep them in.
“Is this the secret you’ve kept from me all these years, Father?” cried Walker, as though it were a curse. “Is this what you could not tell me?”
As always, Tarm Thardeyn was silent. The spirit just stood there, watching, though when he looked upon Lyetha, his gaze was filled with love. Walker screamed soundlessly.
After a moment, a gentle hand touched his shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” Lyetha asked.
He shrugged off her hand. Walker looked at her but found there was little anger in him. He turned his eyes to his bare hands, covered with scars and dirt as they were. They were the hands of a warrior, the hands of an avenger, the hands of a murderer.
“These hands are too bloody to touch yours,” Walker rasped.
“What are you talking about?” Lyetha asked. She moved around in front of him and gazed at him. “We’re together again. We can run from here, go to Silverymoon—beyond! We can leave here for—”
“You can suggest such a thing?” he asked. “After all I have done, all I have become … All he did to me?”
“We can leave him behind. This is finished for us.”
“Not for me,” Walker said, shaking his head. “Not after what he has done. Greyt made me who I am, and he is the last.” He stood and turned away. “He will be the last.”
“No! You can’t kill him!” Lyetha protested, clutching the fringe of his cloak.
“Why?” he snapped as he rounded on her. “Why? He has taken everything from us, ruined our lives. Why cannot I kill him?”
“There is something you need to know about Dharan,” Lyetha said. Walker watched her levelly, even as she struggled to get the words out. “You, ah … your—your ring.”
“My ring?” He held up the wolf’s head ring.
“The lone wolf is … it’s Dharan’s family crest….”
“I know. He put it on me just before he killed me, so I would live through their blows,” said Walker. Slowly, purposefully, he wound strips of watchman tabard around his hands, so that he did not have to look at them any more. “So I would be in pain to the last, until he removed it, and its protections with it. He lost it that night, and I found it. His old ring, from his adventuring days.” His gaze turned cold.
Lyetha opened her mouth to protest, but the words would no
t come.
“What is it?” Walker asked, anger in his voice.
“When Dharan was just a boy, he grew up on tales of heroes,” Lyetha said. “He … he always wanted to become one himself, to … to impress me, when we were young … but he … he….” Her voice grew soft. “In all of his eagerness to be a hero, he forgot that a hero must sometimes give up his dreams in order to do what is right. For Dharan, self-sacrifice is simply not possible.”
Walker was impassive.
“I loved him once … before I loved Tarm … and then … I … you …” Then she trailed off, unable to speak.
The spirit of Tarm looked tragic at that moment, as though she had slapped him. He clearly understood what she was saying.
Walker did not.
“Why does that matter?” he demanded.
Lyetha looked back at him with bleary eyes and managed a little smile. “I … I guess …” She looked down. “I guess ’tis easier to destroy than to create.”
They were silent for a moment. Then Walker sniffed.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”
With his toe, he flipped the sword off the ground into his hand. “Go home, Lyetha. I shall remember what you have said this day, and my vengeance will pass you by.”
Lyetha reached out to embrace Walker, but he stepped out of her reach.
“I am lost to you, Mother,” he said. “I did not see the truth, and now it is too late. Forgive me for what I have done, and for what I must do.”
The spirit of Tarm Thardeyn looked at him and cast a wistful glance at Lyetha, who could neither see him nor feel his loving caress.
Walker left his mother weeping in the alley and stepped out into the street toward the house of Lord Singer Dharan Greyt.
Murderous eyes, a war cry, a sword, and a flail were there to greet him.
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