by Mel Odom
Wick thought about that, and he began to see the cat in a whole new light. “The man who stole the sword from the goblinkin—”
“Thango,” the cat said.
“You’re welcome,” Wick said, thinking she was acknowledging his decision to reveal what he knew. “That man—”
“No,” Alysta told him, “the man’s name was Thango Enlark.” She spelled it.
Wick took out his journal and wrote as he spoke, jotting down the gist of the information he’d distilled and guessed at. “Thango took the sword from the goblinkin down in the south, at a place called Pinanez Narrows.”
“Where the Steadfast River flows out of the Forest of Fangs and Shadows,” Alysta said. “I’ve been there. I’d even heard that Thango took back the sword there, but I couldn’t confirm it.”
“According to Captain Gujhar’s notes, he did. The battle was bitter and bloody, and it took place over four days, a series of skirmishes that went up and down the Steadfast River.” Wick drew illustrations of the river. He’d been to the Pinanez Narrows. The terrain came easily to hand, and so did the small figures engaged in battle. His craft with illustration was as good as his handwriting. “Finally, though, Thango took possession of the sword.”
“He always denied it,” Alysta said bitterly. “My ancestors, the true ones to whom the sword belonged, didn’t believe him. But they couldn’t prove elsewise. So they searched for him, and they searched for the sword. Given our destiny, our lives were always at risk.”
The little Wick had read about the search for the sword bore out the truth of that statement.
“Soon there were more funerals than births,” the cat went on, “till our line came down to just my father. He sired me and an older brother, then they were killed by goblinkin. I held my brother in my arms as he died, and on that day I gave up hunting for the sword for years. I met a man I could love, settled down, and had a daughter. I struggled not to feel that I was betraying my heritage, and I didn’t tell my daughter or my husband who I truly was.”
Wick turned the page and sketched the cat, drawn by the melancholy that clung to her. Her large eyes were pitiful.
“But then a rumor reached me,” Alysta said quietly. “A whisper. Nothing more. But someone said the Razor’s Kiss in Wharf Rat’s Warren was searching for Seaspray, and that they knew where Boneslicer and Deathwhisper were as well. If all three weapons were being searched for, I knew something terrible was about to happen.”
The wind stirred the snow outside the cave and chased it inside.
“I was old by that time. Truly too old to do what I did. I’d buried my husband five years before that. Maybe if he’d been alive I would have stayed. You’d think that a daughter and a granddaughter would be enough to keep me.”
“But it wasn’t,” Wick whispered. He made no accusation; just stated fact.
“But it wasn’t,” Alysta agreed. “My blood is drawn to that sword. I told my daughter and my granddaughter who we were, and what our legacy was.” Pride glinted in the cat’s eyes. “My daughter was afraid. She didn’t want me to go. She said that a thousand years lost was forever. But my granddaughter—” Pride and pain thickened her voice.
Listening to her speak, knowing that Alysta was once more in those days in her mind, Wick felt tears in his eyes.
“My granddaughter was only a child, but she promised me that if I didn’t find the sword, she would. If I had fallen, my granddaughter would have taken up the hunt. She never got the chance.” The cat’s voice broke. “The goblinkin killed her mother and father just a few years ago. She was lost. My granddaughter was lost.” The pain echoed in her words. “And I’m here with you, hoping that you can lead me to Seaspray, that I can at least redeem myself that way.”
“If there’s no one in your bloodline left,” Wick said, “what good will it—”
“Perhaps another bloodline can carry the sword now that my bloodline has ended,” Alysta said. “I think that might be true. By the Old Ones, I hope that is true.”
Silence filled the cave for a time, and kept even the wind and the cold at bay.
Finally, Wick could no longer control his curiosity. “How did you become a cat?”
“I got into a battle with a band of goblinkin near Hanged Elf’s Point. I’d gone there to get information about the Razor’s Kiss guild because I’d heard they made port there. I’m old, and my body at that time had seen nearly all of its years after all the hardship I’d put it through.”
After only begetting two generations? The thought struck Wick as odd until he remembered Alysta had been human. They were the only race that didn’t live to see many generations of offspring.
“The goblinkin took me down and mortally wounded me,” Alysta said. “I was near death when they closed in on me. I lay there helpless and dying, with nothing I could do to defend myself. They would have cooked and eaten me, except Craugh arrived.”
“Craugh?”
Alysta nodded, and the response looked strange coming from a cat. “That was when I first met him.” She paused. “I’d heard of him, of course. His name is spoken in all the dark places throughout the Shattered Coast, and there are many who fear him.”
Not without reason, Wick thought.
“To my surprise, he knew who I was,” Alysta said, “and he knew what I searched for. He slew most of the goblinkin, and those he didn’t slay he drove away. He is fierce in battle, and he will neither give nor ask quarter.”
Wick had seen the wizard in battle a few times. Alysta’s assessment of Craugh was fair.
“Afterwards,” Alysta said calmly, “he told me I was dying. Of course, I already knew that. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was searching for the sword, for Seaspray. He told me that was a worthwhile cause, something that he had an interest in as well. When he offered to put me into the body of this cat, which was all he could do, I accepted.”
“The cat died in your place?” Wick wasn’t entirely happy with that possibility.
“No.” Alysta hesitated. “Craugh made this body with his magic. Scooped up some earth and shaped it into what you see before you. I’m not flesh and blood, Librarian. I’m something else.”
“And Dawdal?” Wick asked.
“I don’t know what Dawdal is. Perhaps he’s only a talking donkey. But once, he told me when he’d been eating fermented berries, he’d been a toad for a few years because he’d angered Craugh.”
Wick absently drew a toad with incredibly long ears and a toothy grin. He thought it favored Dawdal well.
“Since that time I’ve hunted Seaspray.” The cat stared out at the fortress. “I’ve never been closer to finding it.”
Quietly, Wick said, “Seaspray is here.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am.” Wick gazed out at the ruins of the fortress. “When Thango Enlark fled, he came here and built a small keep.”
“Why?”
Wick tapped the book. “If Captain Gujhar knew, he didn’t write why.”
“That is Thango’s keep?”
“No. Thango’s keep is buried beneath those ruins. At least, his keep is beneath one of those ruins somewhere in these mountains. Since the Razor’s Kiss has concentrated their efforts on that one, I would guess those ruins would be where Thango held the sword.”
“Is Seaspray still there?”
“Captain Gujhar and the Razor’s Kiss believe so. According to what I’ve read, Thango concealed the sword within a maze of hidden walls and secret passages.”
“That explains the need for the thieves.”
“Yes,” Wick said, thinking of the tricks and deadly traps that probably lay in wait.
“Then we must go there,” Alysta said.
A sinking sensation dawned in Wick’s stomach. He knew the cat was going to say that. But he had to admit to some concerns himself. According to a few of the notes in Wraith’s ship’s log, Thango had assembled a small library of books about arms and armament. He desperately wanted to find those and get th
em back to the Vault of All Known Knowledge.
“Tonight,” the cat said, watching the thieves prowling through the ruins.
Glancing at the sun, Wick saw that the time was only a few hours off. He made himself eat, not knowing if he would find an appetite. But he did.
12
At Sword’s Point
“If they catch us there, they’ll kill us.” Wick hadn’t said that once for all the hours he’d thought it, but he couldn’t let it go unsaid any longer.
“Then,” Alysta said calmly, “it would be in our better interests not to get caught.”
Wick refrained from further comment as they made their way down the mountainside. Thankfully the trees stayed thick, but creeping through the snow was difficult, especially when it reached to Wick’s chest. Even worse, when he looked back he saw that the trail he left was clearly marked.
The Razor’s Kiss thieves kept guards stationed around the perimeters of the fortress ruins, but none of them ventured much past. Campfires lit the interior of the ruins and created long shadows that danced against the stone structures and piles.
The men talked in low voices.
Alysta leaped through the snow and occasionally fell through, but never for long. Dawdal had remained at their camp.
They stayed with the trees and went past the fortress, then hooked back around, following along the broken coastline till it met the outer perimeter wall. The stones hadn’t been set flush, and the mortar had cracked and fallen away. There were plenty of hand- and footholds.
Swallowing the sour taste of his fear, steadying himself and hoping the night kept him in its shelter, Wick followed the cat up the wall. They climbed twenty feet up till they reached the top.
Wick hung by his fingertips, cautiously peering over the edge in case a guard had been stationed there. The way was clear.
“Come on,” the cat hissed, barely audible over the wind that rushed in from the seaside. They had made their way back around to the coastline farther south where the keep had been.
Throwing a leg over, Wick pulled himself up and onto the top, then hunkered down in the shadows. During the climb, his hands had gotten cold. His bare feet had proven up to the task and to the chill touch of the stones, but he was always protective of his hands. The thought of losing his hands, even a finger, terrified him. There would be so many things he couldn’t do.
He shoved his hands under his armpits to warm them, then crept around the wall till he could look down into the Razor’s Kiss camp.
“Someone’s coming,” Alysta said.
From his vantage point, Wick saw a line of riders coming up the trail he and his companions had taken earlier. Something important brought them out at this time of night, he thought. He hid behind the low crenellation atop the wall and watched.
Two of the eight riders carried torches. The flames stood out hard and bright against the darkness. The men in the camp greeted the new arrivals and brought them into their camp.
Wick studied the men and discovered Captain Gujhar was among them. He also recognized another of the Razor’s Kiss members. There was no mistaking Ryman Bey, the leader of the thieves’ guild.
Ryman Bey was a lean man of medium height, with nondescript features save for the ruined right eye he hid under a crimson leather patch embroidered with a straight razor. His long hair brushed his shoulders, and he wore expensive black clothing.
All it would take, Wick realized, was a change of clothing and the distinctive eye patch, and Ryman Bey would disappear in a crowd.
Bey and Gujhar talked to the men in the camp only for a short time, then disappeared into an entrance in one of the tumble-down buildings.
“What place is that?” Alysta whispered.
Wick pictured the sketches he’d seen in the ship’s log. Gujhar had maps of Thango’s keep as well as the later structures. “It was the main house. It was located almost directly over Thango’s keep.”
“There are piles of earth around that building,” Alysta said. “Some of it is fresh-turned.”
Wick noted the dark earth staining the new-fallen snow then. The cat’s eyes were better than his. Several wheelbarrows stood nearby.
“They’ve been excavating,” the cat said. “We need to get in there.”
“The entrance is too well guarded.”
“There has to be a way. We have to get in. They didn’t bring Ryman Bey and Gujhar out here for no reason.”
Fearfully, Wick followed the cat as she padded through the snow piled atop the wall. At least there were no footprints in the snow, no sign that anyone else had come this way. Hopefully that meant they wouldn’t encounter a guard.
Several long minutes later, the cat found a set of broken steps leading down to the ground level. After a brief pause, Alysta headed down the snow-covered steps. Wick’s breath blew out gray but the wind quickly tore it away. The snow made the steps slippery, but he took care.
On the ground, they remained behind broken piles of stone and went soundlessly. The Razor’s Kiss thieves remained hovering around the hissing campfires under the thin shelter of oilskin tarps that kept most of the falling snowflakes from the flames.
Despite his observation of the thieves around their campfires, Wick got the distinct impression he was being watched. He halted in the inky shadow of a broken wall and listened. In the humid winter air, sound carried farther.
“I’ll be glad when they finally find that sword,” one of the thieves grumbled. “I thought they’d have by now for sure.”
“I’m in no hurry to see it,” another thief said. “The way I hear it, there’s a curse on that sword. Anybody who touches it is doomed to die soon after.”
“I’m not touching it,” a third thief said.
“What are you going to do if Ryman Bey orders you to carry it back to Wharf Rat’s Warren?” the first asked.
The man cursed. “I’ll take my chances with the curse. Not with Ryman Bey. He carries more blades on him than the number of years he’s lived.”
The other two men agreed. One of them threw another piece of wood on the fire, starting a brief stream of sparks that leaped into the air.
“I just hope this new place they found doesn’t have the sword, either,” the first man said.
“That man Gujhar thinks it does, though.”
Wick leaned against the wall at his back and kept his breathing slow. If the Razor’s Kiss found Seaspray, they would take the magical weapon and go. He wouldn’t be able to catch them or take the sword away.
He gazed around the snow-covered inner courtyard and saw three other entrances. He suspected there were more. But all of the ones he saw now looked like they hadn’t been entered in weeks.
Except for two of them.
Wick’s eyes narrowed as he studied the trail leading into those entrances. Had the thieves gone that way of late? Snow nearly covered the footprints. Before morning, they would be completely disguised again.
At that moment, a shadow stepped into view at the end of the wall. The man held a sword naked in his fist. When he saw Wick, he grinned.
Fear washed through Wick, leaving him more frozen than the weather for a moment. He’d been discovered.
“Well, well, halfer,” the man taunted. “I cut your trail back there while I was headed to the privy. I knew somebody was out here. Wouldn’t have thought it was you. Figured you’d be too smart to come here again.”
Desperately, Wick looked around for an escape path. None presented itself. As soon as he ran, even if he proved more fleet than the thief in the snow, the others would run him down.
“Heard from one of our new arrivals that you’d escaped Gujhar.” The thief took another step closer. “He wouldn’t admit to it, but there was plenty who saw you. Too bad you didn’t have enough sense to stay away from us.” He gestured with the sword. “Get over now, or I’ll kill you where you cower.”
I, Wick thought, am having no luck at all when it comes to staying concealed.
Beside him, Alysta cu
rsed and spat. She padded around him and headed for the thief. “Get ready to run,” the cat said.
Wick slowly stood.
“You’ve got a talking cat?” the thief asked.
“A m-m-magical cat,” Wick stuttered. “She knows spells.”
“Then why is she a cat?” the thief asked.
Alysta chose that instant to spring for the man’s throat, claws silvered by the moonslight. The thief swiped at her with his sword but missed. He staggered back under her attack, throwing up his free hand to protect his face as she scratched again and again. The thief screamed in fear and pain, crying out for assistance.
“Run!” Alysta shouted.
For a moment, Wick didn’t know which direction to run. The wall seemed too far away, and hiding behind the broken structures of the inner courtyard would only delay the inevitable. He took two steps one way, then two steps in the other, and noticed that he was running in the direction of the thieves, who had left their campfires and were coming on the double.
“The wall!” Alysta shouted as she climbed on top of the flailing thief’s head and kept slashing.
Wick yelled in terror before he realized he was wasting his breath and stopped. He devoted his energies to running. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw two of the thieves drawing back knives to throw.
“Get down!” a voice ordered.
A foot darted out in front of Wick and tripped him, sending him sprawling through the snow. The throwing knives shot by overhead. He rolled and tried to get to his feet at once.
“Stay down if you want to live.” Quarrel nocked an arrow to string while he stood behind a tall column, then turned and took aim at the rushing thieves. The young man had three other arrows fisted in his left hand holding the bow. As smoothly as Tongarian spidersilk, Quarrel released the first arrow, flipped the next around to the string, drew the fletchings back to his ear, and released again. In the space of a man’s exhaled breath, the young archer had three arrows in the air.
All of the arrows hit their targets with meaty thunks. In quick succession, three of the Razor’s Kiss thieves tumbled to the ground, hit dead center in their chests.
