“The arrow,” said Maaqua. “Poison.”
Hweilan was looking up at the old hobgoblin, her wispy mane turned dark by the sky. Looking up? When …?
She couldn’t remember falling. But the swiftly fraying threads of her reason knew she was lying on the ground. She could still feel her body—in fact, every pain seemed even sharper, every pulse of her heart sending another tiny jolt through her limbs—but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t even force her eyes to close.
Maaqua’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “I was afraid you might have bled out most of the poison, tearing your wound like you did. Lucky me. Stupid you.”
CHAPTER THREE
VAZHAD HAD TO STOP A MOMENT TO GATHER HIS courage. The lamps in the hall were burning through the last of their oil. A few had already sputtered out, their dried wicks spitting an acrid smoke that gathered at the ceiling. There would be no more oil coming to Highwatch. Once the supply was gone, what little fire burned at night in Highwatch would be the pitch-soaked torches—and Vazhad knew the pitch was running low as well. Soon, darkness would rule Highwatch after sunset.
He closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer to whomever might be listening. It gave him no small amount of pride that his hand did not shake when he rapped twice upon the door.
No response. Vazhad waited. He heard scuffling from the hall. His heart skipped a beat, then started again double time. But when he turned, he saw only a rat, braving the meager lamplight, scuttling along the wall. It saw Vazhad watching, stopped, then proceeded on its way.
Vazhad knocked again, slightly harder this time.
“Yes?” said a voice from the other side.
“It is Vazhad,” he called. “Dawn is near.”
Sending one of the baazuled all the way into the Giantspires the day before had taken a great deal of Argalath’s strength. Subduing the eladrin had taken the last of it. Vazhad had carried his master all the way back to his chamber.
Argalath had never been a large man. He had the build of a scholar who preferred poring over books to a good meal. But Vazhad had been shocked at how light his master had become, scarcely heavier than a child. As he’d laid his master in bed, Argalath’s head had lolled to one side, exposing his neck.
A chicken.
The thought entered Vazhad’s mind, seemingly out of nowhere. The former lords of Highwatch had kept the foul birds, raising them for food, feathers, and eggs. Vazhad had once watched one of the kitchen servants removing the feathers. It had shocked him how scrawny and strengthless the thing looked in only its skin. The servant had set it aside, retrieved his next squawking victim from the cage, and snapped its neck with no more effort than plucking a flower.
That last image came clearly to Vazhad’s mind, as he stared down at his master’s frail neck. Vazhad had been a warrior all his life. Serving Argalath had kept him out of the saddle more than he liked, but his hands were still strong. Argalath had no hair to grab, but if Vazhad planted one hand on the neck, he could grab an ear, or even the jaw. One quick twist—
And then Argalath’s eyes had opened. Argalath’s eyes. Not the … thing inside him. It had taken Vazhad a long time to recognize the difference, but since that night on the mountain when Argalath killed Soran, there was no mistaking one for the other. Argalath the half-Nar demonbinder was weak. His gaze had no more strength than that of an old man in the last stages of sickness. But the other … it burned hot, bright, and hungry.
“Vazhad … my friend,” Argalath had said. “Thank you.”
“For what, Master?” Vazhad asked.
But Argalath’s eyes closed again. Vazhad thought he had drifted off again. Perhaps he had, for the voice that then spoke was the other. Jagun Ghen. Every word spoken so carefully that Vazhad knew it was more than a foreigner speaking a strange tongue. This was a will for whom words were a necessary inconvenience. This mind wanted only to burn and consume. Everything else … was only a means to that end.
“Wake this one before dawn.”
The dead, cold voice stopped any thoughts of wringing necks. Vazhad’s hands no longer felt strong. He had to tighten them into fists to keep them from trembling.
“As you wish, my lord.” Vazhad had bowed and left the room.
It seemed some strange sort of madness to be standing here again. Another torch sputtered out.
“Come in,” said the voice from the other side of the door. Not Argalath’s voice. It was the other. The burning hunger.
Vazhad’s hand trembled as he grasped the knob.
The sun had not yet broken over the eastern walls when Vazhad escorted his master into the empty courtyard. The wind rattled in the dead leaves of the ivy creeping up the walls. The high haze over the foothills glowed a deep orange like dying embers. Vazhad treasured the last of the light in the courtyard, then he and his master entered the door in the cliff and walked back into the darkness of the inner fortress.
His master leaned against Vazhad as they walked. But the voice that spoke had no hint of weakness in it.
“You have seen my brother Kathkur since I slept?” Jagun Ghen asked.
“No, my lord,” said Vazhad.
“He has eaten?”
“No. The others took him to the chamber.”
“Everything is prepared?” asked Jagun Ghen.
“As you commanded.”
“Very good.”
Vazhad did not understand all the rituals that brought Jagun Ghen’s brethren into the world. He had seen firsthand that those who were given a dead body to inhabit had to be fed almost immediately. But for those who possessed living flesh, things seemed to be different. So far, those few his master had managed to create had all been humans. Vazhad suspected the runes and other symbols gouged into their skin had something to do with opening the way for the spirit. Perhaps something like a beacon showing the way in, then a sort of magic lock to help keep the thing inside. But this newcomer was something else, something other than mortal.
“Master—” Vazhad’s voice caught, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “How is it that this one is able to resist your brother?”
“This one, this … eladrin”—Jagun Ghen sneered at the word—“he is the first of his kind to house us. The eladrin are no stronger than the other sheep of this world. Their strengths and weaknesses are simply different. But this one … he is still more than that. He has the stink of the Ice Queen about him. Whatever he did with her—or she did to him—it left him … changed.”
“Changed? Changed how?”
Jagun Ghen chuckled, a hollow rattling sound. “We shall find out.”
They walked a while longer, the silence seeming even heavier than the darkness. As they descended a small flight of stairs, Jagun Ghen leaned on Vazhad for support. “Tell me, my friend,” he said, “do you long for your … metamorphosis? Does it still haunt your dreams? Are you ready?”
It was all Vazhad could do to keep his feet moving down the steps. He had sworn his service to Argalath for the promise of immortality, that he would become like Argalath—both himself and joined to another of great power. But now that he saw where that path had taken Argalath …
“I live to serve,” said Vazhad. It took all his strength and control to keep his voice even.
“Your day will come. Fear not. But first we must deal with our new friend. He must learn to submit. His strengths are unexpected, but they are not beyond our control. Besides, he knows the Hand. I can taste it on his breath. What he knows might prove useful.”
No lamps or torches had burned in the deep chambers in a long time, and Vazhad ran one hand along the wall to keep his bearings. As they left the upper regions of the fortress, the darkness became complete, an almost physical sensation so strong that Vazhad felt it pressing against his skin.
He was relieved when he saw the glow ahead. The guards had torches, which meant that they were not yet the baazuled that haunted many of the dark places of Highwatch these days. This brought a small consolation to Vazhad.
Many Nar still camped in the valley outside the main fortress, but there were very few humans left in Highwatch.
Vazhad knew that rumors were already thick in the valley. Very few of those Nar called into Highwatch came out again. The tale that they were being sent into the high mountains to prepare for a summer campaign had been believed at first. But the Nar were no fools. Already, some had begun to trickle away in the night. His master had ordered the main gate locked and guarded by baazuled, which meant that those managing to leave were doing so through the mountains.
As they rounded the final bend in the tunnel, Argalath raised his hood and pulled it low over his eyes. Even the meager light given off by two torches pained him.
Vazhad saw two Creel hunched against the wall across from a door. The taller guard had to stoop to keep from bashing his head on the low ceiling.
The guards’ eyes widened when they saw Argalath. Both leaned back as far as they could against the wall.
Argalath ignored them. He was still leaning against Vazhad, and so Vazhad felt the tremor that suddenly ran through his master. Then Jagun Ghen stepped away, and there was no sign of weakness in him. He walked over to the door, placed one palm flat against the iron, and leaned close.
Vazhad saw the guards exchange a nervous glance, and one of them swallowed hard.
“Be gone,” Vazhad told them. “Wait for us above. Give me the key.”
The tall one slapped the key into Vazhad’s palm while his companion reached for the sconce.
“Leave the torches,” said Vazhad.
“Both of them?” said the guard.
Vazhad said nothing and just stared at him, his face expressionless.
“That means we’ll have to go up in the dark.”
“You know the way. Go now. Or stay here. But the torches remain.”
The tall one took off at just short of a full run. His companion spared Vazhad a glare as he followed, one hand running along the wall.
The sound of their footfalls faded, and Vazhad was left with only the sound of the soft whisper of the torches. There was a little smoke, though Vazhad could see no holes in the ceiling. These tunnels had once been the deep storage area for Highwatch’s dwarves. Despite their uselessness otherwise, there was no doubting the craftsmanship of the stone.
Jagun Ghen still had not moved, but Vazhad thought he saw the tiniest blue flicker along the back of his master’s hand where the spellscar was particularly thick.
“My brother will need to feed,” said Jagun Ghen without turning.
“Yes,” said Vazhad.
“You should have kept one of the guards here.”
“Shall I go get one of them?”
“No.”
Jagun Ghen let the ensuing silence linger, just long enough for Vazhad to begin to wonder if his time had come at last. He had a dagger in his right boot, and tucked inside his left sleeve was a sharpened swifstag antler, held by two strips of linen. Vazhad had bought it for three pieces of silver from a priest in one of the camps. It wasn’t the pointed end that had interested Vazhad but the runes and spells burned into the bone itself. He did not know if the priest’s words were true, if it would guard him against even the most savage demons of the Abyss. But he had seen how his master’s “brothers” fed, and he would go down fighting.
“No,” said his master, “I think my brother might enjoy a hunt. Being fed and feeding—truly feeding—do your people distinguish these concepts, Vazhad?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Then you understand?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Good.” He straightened and turned to face Vazhad. Fire burned in his eyes, and Vazhad knew little of it was a reflection from the torches. They were too red and hungry. “Have no fear, my friend. The seals have held here in the cold dark, as I’d hoped they would. My brother is quite safe at the moment. Stronger, rested, and more secure in his new home. Please open the door.”
Vazhad stepped past his master, threw back the three iron bolts that ran all the way across the door, then fitted the key into the hole at the very center of the door. The lock turned smoothly. He left the key in the lock and pulled the door. It swung open. It was well made and didn’t scrape the floor, but the hinges had gone too long without oil and shrieked as metal ground on metal.
The darkness beyond was so absolute that for a moment Vazhad thought it might smother the torches in the hall. The air inside was oven hot, and a charnel stench wafted out. He heard something rustle in the room.
“Thank you, Vazhad,” said Jagun Ghen, and he gave him an expectant look.
Vazhad stepped back to allow his master to pass. Jagun Ghen bent under the door frame and his red robes disappeared into the room. A moment later, there was the tiniest flicker of light—bright orange like a waking ember—but it failed to light anything around it. Vazhad heard the voices of his master and another speaking in a language he could not understand.
Vazhad turned his back to the room, loosened the antler talisman in his sleeve, and pulled one of the torches from the walls. When he turned, something was emerging from the room.
The figure bent to pass through the low door and then straightened as much as he could. He could not stand to his full height in the low corridor, crouching instead so that Vazhad thought he was preparing to pounce.
It was the eladrin. Or at least his flesh. The mind staring out from those eyes was nothing of this world. Kathkur, his master had named him. The eladrin’s body had been stripped of the armor and fine clothes he’d been wearing and now wore nothing more than a loincloth knotted at one hip. Arcane symbols decorated his entire torso and both arms—not painted but cut into the skin itself so that the man was red from head to toe in his own smeared blood. The deepest and most ragged of the runes, the one on his forehead, flickered with a faint light, like a distant wind-tossed torch. But unlike the baazuled, with their dead flesh and black eyes, this one had the jewel-colored eyes of all eladrin, and they glowed as if a fire burned behind them.
“This one?” Kathkur said, and its hands curled into claws.
Vazhad tightened the grip around his torch and relaxed his other arm. One quick flick of his wrist and the talisman would drop out of his sleeve and into his hand. He had hoped for some sign that the priest’s words might have been true—some sudden heat or intense cold from the antler on his skin. But there was nothing.
A deep chuckle came out of the chamber, and Jagun Ghen followed it a moment later. “No, Brother. This one is far too valuable to me.”
A look of such disappointed petulance crossed the eladrin’s face that Vazhad had to force himself not to sneer. It was a curse of his kind. Granted such long lives and seemingly eternal youth, even an eladrin who had walked Faerûn for a hundred years could still look like a spoiled chieftain’s son.
“Don’t worry,” said Jagun Ghen. “We will find you another.”
“Only one?” said Kathkur, sneering.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE’S WAKING.” GOBLIN TONGUE, THE TONE AND ACCENT different enough from the language Gleed had taught her that the words sounded strange to her ears, but she caught their general meaning. She had just enough time to think, Who—?
And then a pain so great hit her arm that for a moment all the world flashed white. She screamed and opened her eyes as she tried to move somewhere—anywhere—away from the pain. But something bit into her arms and torso and held her back.
Looking down, she saw—
Spiders! Dozens of them. Huge, hairy spiders covering her arms and shoulders. And for a moment Hweilan thought she was back in the lair of Kesh Naan, about to be devoured by the Grandmother’s children until their venom filled her with visions. But—
No. The spiders in Kesh Naan’s cavern had been tiny, sparkling with hundreds of colors, even … beautiful.
Then Hweilan’s vision cleared, and she saw that there were no spiders. It was only rope. Thick, hairy twine wrapped round and round her arms and chest, binding her to some sort of iron
wood rack. She was sitting on a dirty stone floor, but her legs were also bound, and a thick splint of wood ran down one leg to keep her from bending her legs to kick.
The only light came from a hearth fire a yard or so beyond her feet. And the near walls were gritty stone just a shade lighter than black.
“Forgive the accommodations,” said a familiar voice from behind her, speaking Damaran. Maaqua. “But the sun is still high, and if your medicine drinks in even a hint of sunlight, it turns to the most deadly poison.”
“Medicine?” said Hweilan, and looked more closely at the source of her pain. Her right sleeve was gone—not cut away but torn, judging by the ragged bits of cloth remaining at the edge of her shirt. Just below her shoulder were several links of the rope, and even more bound her from elbow to wrist. But in the bit of skin between the twine was a dark paste, glistening in the firelight and giving off a thin steam. As her heartbeat began to slow and her breathing calmed, Hweilan could hear the muck sizzling against her skin.
“Hurts, yes?” said Maaqua.
Hweilan just clenched her jaw and glared at the old hobgoblin.
“Such a thing you did, tackling me with an arrow in your arm. Tore the muscle quite badly. Brave and stupid. You should know better, girl.”
Someone moved past her toward the fire. Another hobgoblin—a scrawny thing in tattered fur robes covering clothes that looked as if they’d be relegated to rags upon their next wash. He was completely bald on top, but the sides and back of his hair were still black as onyx and lay on his back in a tight braid.
“This is Kaad,” said Maaqua. “My slave. He excels in the healing arts, whereas my own strengths are … elsewhere.”
The hearth fire caught in the hobgoblin queen’s eyes, giving her a malevolent aspect. Kaad returned to the fire and stirred something in a cauldron.
Hweilan took a deep breath through her nose, trying to pick up the scent of the concoction pasted over her wound. Most of the air in the chamber was filled with the dank scent of stone and the acrid smoke from the dung fire. But the steam wafting out of the black muck was very close to her head, and when she took in the second draught of air, she caught the distinct aroma of thistle root, mountain sweet grass, figwort, and dried blood. No … not dried. Burnt. Whether her own or from someone else, she could not determine.
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