Chagrined, Elret stepped aside but hovered close as Gleed helped Maaqua settle beside the smoking ashes of the fire.
Gleed looked to Hweilan. “Stir the fire, would you?”
“No,” said Maaqua. “This one and I must speak. Kiir and Ogsut can do it.”
The two youngest disciples set to adding more sticks to the fire and stirring the embers.
“Do you need anything, my queen?” said Elret, who was standing just behind Maaqua.
“I need you to stop hovering over me. Sit and be silent.”
Elret scowled at Hweilan and sat just out of reach of the queen. Buureg kept a respectful distance but watched the proceedings with interest. Gleed sat to Maaqua’s right.
“You”—Maaqua pointed at Hweilan with a trembling hand—“you seem to have saved my life. So please tell me how in all the unholy Hells you are still alive.”
Hweilan looked to Gleed, who nodded. The fire now crackling again, Kiir and Ogsut looked on with great interest, as did the other hobgoblins. Hweilan told of the concoction Gleed had taught her that slowed the heart and breath just to the edge of death.
“You let Rhan defeat you?” said Buureg.
Hweilan shrugged. “He hit me harder than I’d hoped. But when I woke up, someone had left some gunhin for me.”
“Kaad.”
Hweilan said nothing.
“I’ll tie him in a sack and let the younglings beat him for a tenday.”
“You will not,” said Gleed. “Whoever this Kaad is, he has my thanks. He saved Hweilan’s life. And you are in my debt. I saved yours.”
Hweilan nodded. “Had Kaad not left the gunhin, I would be dead. As would you. Like it or not, Maaqua, you owe him. You owe him his freedom.”
Maaqua growled and spat into the fire.
“Elret says you were spying on Highwatch,” said Hweilan. “I take it you found something?”
Maaqua glared at her disciple. “Rather free with your tongue, eh?”
Elret blinked. “I—”
“Had she not told Hweilan,” said Gleed, “you’d now be dead. Or worse. You seem to owe a great many debts, Maaqua, and I know how you hate that.”
“Die in a dung heap, old toad!” said Maaqua. But then her eyes half-rolled in her head and she swayed.
Gleed had to catch the queen to keep her from falling into the fire. “I told you not to excite yourself, twisted old weed.”
Maaqua leaned against Gleed, but her eyes opened again. Hweilan saw something there that surprised her. Maaqua was afraid.
“You saw Jagun Ghen, didn’t you?” said Hweilan.
“Do not say his name!” said Maaqua, again sounding like nothing so much as a very tired, very old woman. “Not even here. Do not say it.”
The other hobgoblins, seeing their revered queen so stricken, looked like they might bolt at any moment. Buureg made the sign to ward off evil, and both of Elret’s hands tightened around her staff. The young disciple Kiir closed her eyes and swallowed hard.
“You’ve brought doom to my people, girl,” said Maaqua. “And maybe to the world.”
They sat in silence a moment, the hobgoblins staring into the fire.
“You captured me, as I remember,” said Hweilan. “I didn’t exactly come knocking on your door.”
“Do you know what he is, girl?” said Maaqua. “What he’ll do? You think he’s content just to bring more of his ‘brothers’ into Faerûn? They are like worms feeding off the scraps of a dragon. If Ja—if he has his way, he could become a god. Our world is not like the others. His power is growing so fast. He’s gathering what he needs now. Time is running out. And there’s no one to oppose him.”
Hweilan said, “There’s me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
VAZHAD COULD NOT SLEEP. HE KNEW HE SHOULD. IF he survived until the morning, he planned to make his escape, and he would need all his strength. His master’s baazuled were more active at night, and he did not want to execute his plan in the darkness. Vazhad intended to leave by Highwatch’s upper paths, the way he and Jatara had once gone to try to capture the High Warden’s granddaughter. Had that only been months ago? It seemed a lifetime.
Jatara … dead. Kadrigul … dead. Vazhad was the last of Argalath’s chosen. He had lived long enough to see his master become something unspeakable. And Vazhad had stayed too long, endangering not only his life but his soul. Time to be gone, before it was too late.
Once he got into the mountains, he could turn south and emerge well beyond Nar-sek Qu’istrade into the steppe. He had enough food in his pack to last perhaps three days. In the grasslands, he could seek out other Nar and hope that they didn’t know him from Highwatch. Replenish his supplies, steal a horse, then head east. Vazhad intended to keep going until he saw the next ocean. Perhaps then he would be sufficiently far away from what Argalath had become.
“Enough,” he said to himself. He would leave now. It would take some time to make his way carefully to the upper paths anyway. If anyone stopped him, he would say—truthfully—that dawn was the best time to seek a deer in the lower hills.
Vazhad stuffed a good blanket and empty waterskin on top of the food in his pack. He already had his blades and a small axe strapped to his belt. His sword, a bow, and a quiver full of arrows lay on his pallet. If he were caught on the way out, the bow and arrows he could explain. Going hunting for meat. It was no secret that Highwatch’s larders were almost empty. The knives were for dressing game. The sword he would have a harder time explaining. He reached for it anyway.
Something slammed into his door. Not a knock. Just one strike, hard enough that the door rattled in its frame.
“Who is there?” Vazhad said in Nar.
“Vazhad.” The slow, contemptuous tone of one of the baazuled. Unless they were speaking to Jagun Ghen, every word from their mouths dripped insolence. “You are summoned.”
Vazhad looked down at the weapons on his pallet. “Who summons me?”
“The master wants you.”
His breath caught in his throat, and he could feel his pulse in his temples. Had he waited too long? Vazhad looked out the window. There was not even a hint of light in the eastern sky. He loosened the string on the top of his shirt, reached inside, and pulled out the antler talisman he had hung on a leather cord around his neck. He gripped it and offered a prayer.
The baazuled slammed a fist into the door again.
“I’m coming,” said Vazhad. He hid the talisman inside his left sleeve, threw a blanket over the weapons on his pallet, and went to the door.
The baazuled was one of the Damarans of Highwatch who had survived the massacre only to find a worse fate. Blood, both old and new, covered the entire front of his body, and he reeked worse than a charnel ditch. Only his eyes showed any kind of spirit. They were mostly as black as the sky outside, but a red fire burned deep inside them.
Much to Vazhad’s surprise, the baazuled led him higher into the fortress, rather than into the deep tunnels or the desecrated temple. Vazhad actually allowed himself to hope he might survive the day after all. They went into the upper chambers, many of which had been cut into the mountain itself, and finally emerged onto a large terrace that had been built out of the mountain’s side. Vazhad remembered one of the ladies of Highwatch had once had a garden here. There were no flowers, but it was filled with trees and vines that stayed green even in deepest winter and sometimes even bore tiny red berries.
As Vazhad stepped through the door and into the garden, all hope he’d had of surviving the day disappeared.
A fire burned in an urn by the door, and by its light Vazhad saw that all the trees had been uprooted, the bushes ripped out or burned, and the vines torn from the walls. All that remained was the stone parapet wall and bare soil. More baazuled—inhabiting both living and dead bodies—stood around the yard. In the center of the garden, Jagun Ghen and Kathkur, both bare from the waist up, were making a large pact circle in blood. It was at least a dozen feet across, the interior filled with arca
ne symbols. The stench wafted over Vazhad. So much blood. From where …?
And then he saw the horse. One of his favorite mares. Her throat had been sliced open, the blood gathered in a wide brass basin. Her magnificent tail that Vazhad had once spent an entire morning twisting in intricate braids had been chopped off, and the two monsters were using it as a brush to paint the pact circle.
Jagun Ghen looked up and saw Vazhad staring at his dead horse.
“Ah, my friend,” he said. “I am so happy you are here. Your time has come, and I thought Windrunner’s blood would be most suited for the occasion.”
Vazhad tore his gaze away from the horse. He tried to speak, but his voice broke. He swallowed hard and tried again. “My … time?”
“You have served me well all these years. Your reward has come at last. Immortality.”
The eladrin stood and smiled lazily at Vazhad. He held a bloody knife in one hand, and Vazhad knew that he had been the one who killed Windrunner. At least he had used the knife and struck true. She hadn’t suffered but a few moments at most.
Then the meaning of Jagun Ghen’s words finally struck. “Immor—?” He couldn’t say the word, because he knew what kind of immortality Jagun Ghen meant. He looked around, blind panic setting in, searching for a way out.
The Damaran baazuled blocked the doorway behind him. More stood all around—seven more. And for the first time Vazhad noticed three Nar, an old man and two warriors, who had obviously resisted being brought up here. Their skin was torn and bloody, and one of them seemed to be nursing a broken arm. The old man was simply staring into nothingness, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself.
“It doesn’t seem pleased,” said Kathkur.
“Is that true, Vazhad?” said Jagun Ghen.
Turning, Vazhad lowered his body and tried to barrel past the baazuled. It was like running into a stone pillar. The baazuled took a step back, absorbing the impact of the much larger Nar, then simply grabbed him—one hand gripping Vazhad’s chin, the other seizing his belt—and threw him.
Vazhad flew and landed on his back. His head bounced off the hard soil. He must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing he knew, he was looking up at Jagun Ghen through a field of stars.
“Do not struggle, my friend,” said Jagun Ghen. “Only a few more—the most powerful of my brothers—and all will be ready for my final ascension. You will join with one of the most powerful beings these lands have ever known. You should feel honored. You shall sit at my left hand in glory, Vazhad.”
Vazhad rolled onto his belly and tried to scramble away. A low, whimpering noise was coming from deep in his throat.
“Hold him,” said Jagun Ghen.
Two of the baazuled sprang forward and grabbed Vazhad. Their reek filled his head, and he retched all over himself. He kicked and thrashed, but their grips on his arms were like steel.
“Keep him still until we have finished the final preparations.”
Vazhad screamed.
“I don’t want it … I don’t want … don’t want …”
The wailing went on and on. Vazhad realized it was his own voice.
He opened his eyes. He couldn’t remember having shut them.
The two baazuled still held him, kneeling in the pact circle, and Vazhad could smell the burned-hair scent of the air. Four other baazuled joined them. Jagun Ghen stood in the very center, holding his arms to the sky as he chanted. The eladrin kneeled in front of him, the knife held in both hands. Vazhad twisted his head around. The other baazuled was standing over the Nar.
Jagun Ghen’s back arched as he chanted louder, the rhythm coming faster, the consonants harder. The very words hurt Vazhad’s ears. One of the Nar warriors was making a high, keening noise.
The blood-drawn symbols inside the circle began to glow with light. Vazhad could feel the heat growing in the circle. The grains of dirt inside the circle began to hop and dance like water droplets on a hot pan.
Jagun Ghen screamed, and the sound hit Vazhad’s ears like a door slamming. He could hear laughter in the back of his mind.
Then the two baazuled released him and he fell forward. The baazuled prostrated themselves, writhing in the bloody soil and moaning in pleasure.
Kathkur rose in one swift movement.
Vazhad tried to push himself off the ground, but his legs would not obey him.
Jagun Ghen turned and smiled, eyes blazing with ruby fire.
Kathkur walked toward Vazhad. He raised the knife.
Vazhad felt a scream building in his throat.
But as the eladrin continued his approach, he turned the knife on himself, planting the point just above his left breast, then drawing a line down to his navel. Blood welled and ran down his torso. He breathed in deeply through his mouth, like a man enjoying the caress of a lover. He brought the knife up and drew a second line across the first.
Three steps away from Vazhad, he raised his free hand, pointing one finger at Vazhad’s forehead. The fingernail had grown long and sharp, yellowed with grime.
Vazhad still could not move. The air was almost too hot to breathe. Sweat was pouring down his face.
But something cut through his panic. In all that, there was one spot of coolness along the inner part of his left forearm. The talisman! He still had it.
The eladrin’s sharp nail dug into Vazhad’s forehead.
Vazhad brought both his hands together, for just a moment looking like a devout man in prayer. But his right hand reached inside his left sleeve, and in one quick movement he drew out the antler talisman. He had just enough sanity left to notice that the runes held the faintest blue glow.
He stabbed the pointed end of the antler into the eladrin’s arm.
The effect was shattering. The laughter haunting Vazhad’s brain rose to a shriek of pain and fury before it was suddenly cut off.
Kathkur reeled backward, the fire in his eyes dying.
In that moment Vazhad could feel his legs again. He lurched forward onto his hands, then pushed himself up. One of the writhing baazuled reached for him, but Vazhad sidestepped away, stumbling, then found his feet again and ran.
Agony hit his chest, radiating out to both arms and locking his legs. Vazhad fell forward into the dirt. The pain eased, just slightly, and he rolled over.
The spellscar on Jagun Ghen’s stolen skin was glowing a sickly blue.
“Fool.” There was fury in Jagun Ghen’s voice. “I will—”
Wind shrieked down from the mountain, gathering and narrowing as it approached so that when it hit Jagun Ghen in the chest, it had the force of a battering ram. Even over the sound of the wind, Vazhad heard bones shatter as Jagun Ghen’s body flew backward.
Someone else was screaming. But not in pain. In absolute rage. Vazhad turned his gaze and saw that the eladrin had seized control of himself again.
The other baazuled charged him. The eladrin’s fist shot out, channeling the wind and sent the nearest two monsters tumbling over the ground. A fog of bloody mud collapsed in their wake.
Another strike at a baazuled behind the eladrin, and the creature flew, screaming, over the parapet.
Two other baazuled closed in, and two more were not far behind. Seeing the odds, the eladrin swept both hands outward, and the air funneled around him, bearing him up into the air. But it was too late.
The nearest baazuled leaped, reaching out one hand, and grabbed the eladrin’s ankle. The force of the wind turned, slamming them both back to the ground.
The eladrin rolled over, both hands shooting outward, but the baazuled was too quick. He grabbed one of the eladrin’s arms and forced it down. The other arm flailed, avoiding the baazuled’s grip, then pointed up.
Vazhad felt the air rushing past him, converging on the combatants. The baazuled opened its mouth to scream an instant before its head exploded.
The eladrin threw him off and both hands shot outward. A cyclone took him in, obscuring everything in a maelstrom of dirt.
Cursing himse
lf for waiting so long, Vazhad stood up and ran for the doorway. He made it four steps before something crashed into him, forcing him to the ground. Vazhad struggled and reached for one of his knives.
He heard a growl and something hit him in the side of the face with such force that for a moment Vazhad went blind.
“You”—the voice of one of the baazuled—“you stay.”
And then Vazhad was flying. He crashed to the ground, skidded on the dirt, and slammed into stone. Opening his eyes, he saw that he was against the parapet, and the doorway was very far away.
“Enough!”
The voice hit Vazhad’s mind like the tolling of a great bell. His surroundings swirled around him, as if the world had suddenly been taken into the eladrin’s cyclone. When his senses cleared again, the dirt was settling to the ground. Five of the baazuled were struggling to their feet again. The eladrin was down, unmoving.
The two Nar warriors were gone, too. Fled most likely. But the old man’s bloody, ravaged corpse lay at Jagun Ghen’s feet. The monster had fed on the poor wretch to heal. Jagun Ghen’s eyes blazed with savagery. Real fire leaked from their edges, scorching the skin around them.
“You,” he said, pointing at Vazhad. “You caused this.”
His way of escape blocked, Vazhad screamed, “Forgive me!” But he was not speaking to Jagun Ghen. He pleaded to his ancestors, begged any benevolent gods who might be watching. His life was forfeit. He knew that. But he could still save his soul.
Vazhad pushed himself to his feet and shrieked again, “Forgive me!” Then he leaped over the parapet toward the cliffs below.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LATE MORNING WAS GIVING WAY TO MIDDAY WHEN the hobgoblins made their preparations to leave. Maaqua admitted she was still too weak to walk all the way back, but her pride would not allow her to be “carried like a corpse,” as she put it. So her disciples were doing their best to turn the litter into a sort of portable chair. And not having a very successful time of it. They had broken one of the poles in hopes of shortening it to chair-back size, only to find they’d made it too short. Buureg, sword in hand, took two of them back across the bridge into the forest to search for a replacement.
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