Promise of the Witch King ts-2

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  He flew forward, falling over into a backward somersault as he went, extending his legs and arms to control the fall. He landed lightly and in perfect balance right in front of the wizard, and out came his sword.

  The skilled wizard struck first, a blast of stunning lightning that crackled all over Entreri's body, sparks flying from his sword. His jaw snapped uncontrollably, his muscles tensing and clenching, the fingers of one hand curling into a tight ball, the knuckles of the other whitening on the hilt of Charon's Claw.

  But Entreri didn't fly back and he didn't fall away. He growled and held his ground. He took the hit and with incredible determination and simple toughness, he fought through it.

  When the lightning ended, Entreri came out of it in a sudden spin, Charon's Claw flying wide. Given the sheer power of that blade, beyond the defenses of any wards and guards, Entreri could have quite easily killed the horrified wizard, could have taken the man's head from his shoulders. But Charon's Claw came in short in a diagonal stroke, cutting the wizard from shoulder to opposite hip.

  Stunned and falling back, Canthan could not get far enough away as Entreri, his face still so cold and expressionless that Canthan wondered briefly if he was nothing more than an animated corpse, leaped high in a spin and came around with a circle kick that snapped Canthan's head back viciously.

  Entreri retrieved his prized dagger and wiped the blood from his nose and mouth as he again stalked over to the prone Canthan. Face down, the man squirmed then stubbornly pulled himself up to his elbows.

  Entreri kicked him in the head and kicked him again before Canthan settled back down to the floor. The assassin put his sword away but held the dagger as he grabbed the semiconscious wizard by the scruff of his neck and dragged him back to the corridor.

  * * * * *

  "Surely you'll be reasonable in this regard," Jarlaxle, on his hands and knees and peering over the edge of the hole, said to Athrogate. "You cannot get out without my help."

  Athrogate, hands on hips, just stared up at him.

  "I had to do something," Jarlaxle said. "Was I to allow you to kill my friend?"

  "Bah! Well I wouldn't've fought him if he hadn't've fought meself."

  "True enough, but consider Olgerkhan."

  "I did, and I killed him."

  "Sometimes acts like that upset people."

  "He shouldn't've got in me friend's way."

  "So your friend could kill the girl?"

  Athrogate shrugged as if it did not matter. "He had a reason."

  "An errant reason."

  "What's done is done. Ye wanting an apology?"

  "I don't know that I want anything," Jarlaxle replied. "You seem to be the one in need, not I."

  "Bah!"

  "You cannot get out. Starvation is a lousy way for a warrior to die."

  Athrogate just shrugged, moved to the side of the hole, studied the sheer wall for a moment, and sat down.

  Jarlaxle sighed and turned away to consider Arrayan. She was still cradling Olgerkhan's head, whispering to him.

  "Don't you dare leave me," she pleaded.

  "And only now you realize your love for him?" Jarlaxle asked.

  Arrayan shot him a hateful look that told him his guess was on the mark.

  Noise from the corridor turned Jarlaxle's head, but not the woman's. In came Entreri, muttering under his breath and dragging Canthan at the end of one arm. He moved around the hole to Arrayan and Olgerkhan.

  The woman looked at him with a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and horror.

  Entreri had no time for it. He grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her aside, then dropped Canthan before Olgerkhan.

  Arrayan came back at him, but he stopped her with the coldest and most frightening look the woman had ever seen.

  With her out of the way, Entreri turned his attention to Olgerkhan. He grabbed the large half-orc's hand and pulled it out over the groaning Canthan. He put his dagger into Olgerkhan's palm and forced the half-orc's fingers over it. He glanced at Arrayan then at Jarlaxle, and he drove the dagger down into Canthan's back.

  He slipped his thumb free, placed it on the bottom of the dagger's jeweled hilt, and willed the blade to feed. The vampiric weapon went to its task with relish, stealing the very soul of Canthan and feeding it back to its wielder.

  Olgerkhan's chest lifted and his eyes opened as he coughed forth his first breath in many seconds. He continued to gasp for a moment. His eyes widened in horror as he came to understand the source of his healing. He tried to pull his hand away.

  But Entreri held him firmly in place, forcing him to feed until Canthan's life-force was simply no more.

  "What did you do?" Arrayan cried, her voice caught between horror and joy. She came forward and Entreri did not try to stop her. He extracted his dagger from Olgerkhan's grasp and moved aside.

  Arrayan fell over her half-orc friend, sobbing with joy and saying, "It was always you," over and over again.

  Olgerkhan just shook his head, staring blankly at Entreri for a moment. He sat up, his strength and health renewed. Then he focused on Arrayan, upon her words, and he buried his face in her hair.

  "Ah, the kindness of your heart," Jarlaxle remarked to the assassin. "How unselfish of you, since the contender for your prize was about to be no more."

  "Maybe I just wanted Canthan dead."

  "Then maybe you should have killed him in the other room."

  "Shut up."

  Jarlaxle laughed and sighed all at once.

  "Where is Ellery?" Entreri asked.

  "I believe that you nicked her heart."

  Entreri shook his head at the insanity of it all.

  "She was unreliable, in any case," Jarlaxle said. "Obviously so. I do take offense when women I have bedded turn on me with such fury."

  "If it happens often, then perhaps you should work on your technique."

  That had Jarlaxle laughing, but just for a moment. "So we are five," he said. "Or perhaps four," he added, glancing at the hole.

  "Stubborn dwarf?" asked the assassin.

  "Is there any other kind?"

  Entreri moved to the edge of the hole. "Ugly one," he called down. "Your wizard friend is dead."

  "Bah!" Athrogate snorted.

  Entreri glanced back at Jarlaxle then moved over, grabbed Canthan's corpse, and hauled him over the edge of the hole, dropping him with a splat beside the surprised dwarf.

  "Your friend is dead," Entreri said again, and the dwarf didn't bother to argue the point. "And so now you've a choice."

  "Eat him or starve?" Athrogate asked.

  "Eat him and eventually starve anyway," Jarlaxle corrected, coming up beside Entreri to peer in at the dwarf. "Or you could come out of the hole and help us."

  "Help ye what?"

  "Win," said the drow.

  "Didn't ye just stop that possibility when Canthan put it forth?"

  "No," Jarlaxle said with certainty. "Canthan was wrong. He believed that Arrayan was the continuing source of power for the castle, but that is not so. She was the beginning of the enchantment, 'tis true, but this place is far beyond her."

  The drow had all of the others listening by then, with Olgerkhan, the color returned to his face, standing solidly once more.

  "If I believed otherwise, then I would have killed Arrayan myself," Jarlaxle went on. "But no. This castle has a king, a great and powerful one."

  "How do you know this?" Entreri asked, and he seemed as doubtful and confused at the others, even Athrogate.

  "I saw enough of the book to recognize that it has a different design than the one Herminicle used outside of Heliogabalus," the drow explained. "And there is something else." He put a hand over the extra-dimensional pocket button he wore, where he kept the skull-shaped gem he had taken from Herminicle's book. "I sense a strength here, a mighty power. It is clear to me, and given all that I know of Zhengyi and all that the dragon sisters told me, with their words and with the fear that was so evident in their eyes, it is not hard for me
to see the logic of it all."

  "What are you talking about?" asked Entreri.

  "Dragon sisters?" Athrogate added, but no one paid him any heed.

  "The king," said Jarlaxle. "I know he exists and I know where he is."

  "And you know how to kill him?" Entreri asked. It was a hopeful question, but one that was not answered with a hopeful response.

  The assassin let it go at that, surely realizing he'd never get a straight answer from Jarlaxle. He looked back down at Athrogate, who was standing then, looking up intently.

  "Are you with us? Or should we leave you to eat your friend and starve?" Entreri asked.

  Athrogate looked down at Canthan then back up at Entreri. "Don't look like he'd taste too good, and one thing I'm always wantin' is food." He pronounced «good» and «food» a bit off on both, so that they seemed closer to rhyming, and that brought a scowl to Entreri's face.

  "He starts that again and he's staying in the hole," he remarked to Jarlaxle, and the drow, who was already taking off his belt that he might command it to elongate and extract the dwarf, laughed again.

  "We'll have your word that you'll make no moves against any of us," Entreri said.

  "Ye're to be takin' me word?"

  "No, but then I can kill you with a clearer conscious."

  "Bwahaha!"

  "I do so hate him," Entreri muttered to Jarlaxle, and he moved away.

  Jarlaxle considered that with a wry grin, thinking that perhaps it was yet another reason for him to get Athrogate out and by their side. The dwarf's lack of concern for Canthan was genuine, Jarlaxle knew, and Athrogate would not go against them unless he found it to be in his best interests.

  Which, of course, was the way with all of Jarlaxle's friends.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  AN AUDIENCE WITH THE KING

  Athrogate and Entreri eyed each other for a long, long while after the dwarf came out of the hole.

  "Could've ruined yer weapon, ye know," Athrogate remarked, holding up the morning star that coated itself with the rust-inducing liquid.

  "Could've eaten yer soul, ye know," the assassin countered, mimicking the dwarf's tone and dialect.

  "With both yer weapons turned to dust? Got the juice of a rust monster in it," he said, jostling the morning star so that the head bounced a bit at the end of its chain.

  "It may be that you overestimate your weapons or underestimate mine. In either case, you would not have enjoyed learning the truth."

  Athrogate cracked a smile. "Some day we'll find out that truth."

  "Be careful what you wish for."

  "Bwahaha!"

  Entreri wanted nothing more than to drive his dagger into the annoying dwarf's throat at that moment. But it wasn't the time. They remained surrounded by enemies in a castle very much alive and hostile. They needed the powerful dwarf fighting beside them.

  "I remain convinced that Canthan was wrong," Jarlaxle said, moving between the two.

  He glanced back at the two half-orcs, leading the gaze of the dwarf and the assassin. Arrayan sat against the wall across the way, while her companion scrambled about on all fours, apparently searching for something. Olgerkhan looked much healthier, obviously so. The dagger had fed Canthan's life energy to him and had healed much of the damage of Athrogate's fierce attacks. Beyond that, the great weariness that had been dragging on Olgerkhan seemed lifted; his eyes were bright and alert, his movements crisp.

  But as much better as he looked, Arrayan appeared that much worse. The woman's eyes drooped and her head swayed as if her neck had not the strength to hold it upright. Something about the last battles had taken much from her, it seemed, and the castle was taking the rest.

  "The castle has a king," Jarlaxle said.

  "Bah, Canthan got it right, and ye killed him to death for it," said Athrogate. "It's the girl, don't ye see? She's wilting away right afore yer eyes."

  "No doubt she is part of it," the drow replied. "But only a small part. The real source of the castle's life lies below us."

  "And how might ye be knowin' that?" asked the dwarf. "And what's he looking for, anyway?"

  "I know because I can feel the castle's king as acutely as I can feel my own skin. And I know not what Olgerkhan is seeking, nor do I much care. Our destiny lies below and quickly if we hope to save Arrayan."

  "What makes ye think I'm giving an orc's snot rag for that one?"

  Entreri shot the dwarf a hateful look.

  "What?" Athrogate asked with mock innocence. "She ain't no friend o' me own, and she's just a half-orc. Half too many, by me own counting."

  "Then disregard her," Jarlaxle intervened. "Think of yourself, and rightly so. I tell you that if we defeat the king of this castle, the castle will fight us no more, whatever Arrayan's fate. I also tell you that we should do all that we can to save her, to keep her alive now, for if she is taken by the castle it will benefit the construct and hurt us. Trust me on this and follow my advice. If I am wrong, and the castle continues to feed from her, and in doing so it continues to attack us, then I will kill her myself."

  The dwarf nodded. "Fair enough."

  "But I only say that because I am certain it will not come to that," Jarlaxle quickly added for the sake of Olgerkhan, who glared at him. "Now let us tend our wounds and prepare our weapons, for we have a king to kill."

  Athrogate pulled a waterskin off and moved toward the two half-orcs. "Here," he offered. "Got a bit o' the healing potions to get yer strength back," he said to Arrayan. "And as for yerself, sorry I breaked yer neck."

  Olgerkhan offered nothing in reply. He hesitated for a moment by Arrayan's side, but then moved back toward the side passage and began crawling around on all fours once more, searching.

  Entreri pulled Jarlaxle to the far side of the room and asked, "What are you talking about? How do you know what you pretend to know, or is it all but a ruse?"

  "Not a ruse," Jarlaxle assured him. "I feel it and have since we entered this place. Logic tells me that Arrayan could not have constructed anything of this magnificence, and everything I have seen and felt since only confirms that logic."

  "You have told me that all before," the assassin replied.

  "Could you offer something more?"

  Jarlaxle patted his button pocket, wherein he had stored the skull. "The skull gem we took from the other tower has sensitized me to certain things. I feel the king below us. His is a life-force quite mighty."

  "And we are to kill him?"

  "Of course."

  "On your feeling?"

  "And following the clues. Do you remember Herminicle's book?"

  Entreri thought on that for a moment then nodded.

  "Do you remember the designs etched upon its leathery cover, and in the margins on the page?"

  Again the assassin paused, and shook his head.

  "Skulls," Jarlaxle explained. "Human skulls."

  "And?"

  "Did you notice the designs on the book up the ramp, the source of this castle?"

  Entreri stared hard at his friend. He had not actually looked at the book that closely, but he was beginning to catch on. Given his experiences with Jarlaxle, where every road seemed to lead, his answer was as much statement as question: "Dragons?"

  "Exactly," the drow confirmed, pleased that Entreri resisted the urge to punch him in the face. "I understand the fearful expressions of our sister employers. They knew that the Witch-King could pervert dragonkind as he perverted humankind, even from beyond the grave. They feared the apparent opening of Zhengyi's lost library, as evidenced by Herminicle's tower. They feared that such a book as the one that constructed this castle might be uncovered."

  "You doubt that Arrayan started this process?"

  "Not at all, as I explained. The book used her to send out its call, I believe. And that call was answered."

  "By a dragon?"

  "More likely an undead dragon."

  "Wonderful."

  Jarlaxle shrugged against his companion's disgusted
stare. "It is our way. An adventurous road!"

  "It is a fatal disease."

  Again the drow shrugged, and a wide grin spread across his face.

  * * * * *

  They continued on their way down the side passage Canthan had taken to the room where Entreri had defeated the battle mage.

  The magical webbing Canthan had created to prevent the daemon eggs from falling remained in place, except for the small area Entreri had burned away in his fight with the mage. Still, the five went through the room quickly, not wanting an encounter with those powerful adversaries. They all believed that the "king," as Jarlaxle had aptly named it, awaited them, and they needed no more wounds and no more weariness. The order of the day at that time was avoiding battles, and so with that in mind, Entreri took up the point position.

  They made good progress for a short while along the twisting, winding corridor. No traps presented themselves, only the pressure bars that kept lighting the wall torches, and no monsters rose before them.

  Around one particularly sharp bend, though, they found Entreri waiting for them, his expression concerned.

  "A room with a dozen coffins like those of the gnoll mummies," he explained, "only even more decorated."

  "A dozen o' the raggy ones?" Athrogate replied. "Ha! Six slaps each!" he said and sent his morning stars into alternating swings.

  The dwarf's cavalier attitude did little to lift the mood of the others, however.

  "There is another exit from the room, or is this the end of our path?" Jarlaxle asked.

  "Straight across," said Entreri. "A door."

  Jarlaxle instructed them to wait then slowly moved ahead. He found the room around the next bend, a wide, circular chamber lined, as Entreri had said, with a dozen sarcophagi. The drow took out the skull gem and allowed it to guide his sensibilities. He felt the energy within each of the coffins, vengeful and focused, hating death and envying life.