by Mel Odom
Quarrel screamed and almost passed out, dropping down to her knees for a moment. When she rose again, she had the thief leader’s knife at her throat.
“Don’t vex me, girl,” Ryman Bey said. “At the moment you yet live.”
Wick sprinted toward the sword, but one of the Razor’s Kiss thieves got there before he did. The man grabbed the hilt and lifted the blade, grinning in triumph.
“Keep coming, halfer,” the thief taunted, waving Wick on with his free hand. “We’ll see how you like the taste of cold steel. And maybe we’ll see if this sword lives up to the legend that surrounds it.”
Having no choice, Wick stopped.
Alysta threw herself at the man, but he was prepared and fast enough to slap her away. She hit the snow-covered ground and flopped miserably, mewling in pain.
“Take them to the edge,” Ryman Bey ordered.
At sword point, the thief guided Wick to the ledge. He couldn’t help looking down at the waves thundering against the rocks. The cliff wall was almost sheer, but there were ledges scattered along the way. None of them were close enough to safely drop down onto.
Ryman Bey brought Quarrel to the edge and stood her there in the wind. Several of the thieves kicked Alysta and drove her away, and the cat had no choice but to go.
Wick’s mind worked desperately. They’re going to kill us. Ryman Bey just wants to gloat first.
“Who are you?” Ryman Bey demanded of Quarrel.
“He’s a mercenary,” one of the thieves responded. “I’ve seen him around the Tavern of Schemes.”
“This is no man.” Ryman Bey pushed back Quarrel’s hood and revealed her hair and soft features. “I will weary of asking you, girl. If you would live, you’ll answer my questions.”
Quarrel only returned the thief chieftain’s gaze full measure.
Ryman Bey grinned. “You’ve meddled in something that you’ve no business being part of.” He held out his hand and the thief holding Seaspray handed the sword over.
“I have every right,” Quarrel replied.
Gujhar stepped forward then. “Get me a torch.”
One of the thieves pulled a torch from his equipment pack and lit it.
Taking the torch, the mercenary captain held the flame up and toward Quarrel. The wind whipped the flames, seeking to extinguish them. “I know you,” he said. “I recognize your face.” He reached inside his cloak and took out a book, flipping it open to a familiar section.
“A book!” one of the thieves gasped.
Most of them stepped back in consternation.
“If the goblinkin discover you have that,” another thief said, “they’ll be down on you in a second with naked steel and clubs. They hate books.”
“I’m certainly not going to tell them,” Gujhar replied. “And even a goblinkin would think twice about taking a wizard’s book of spells.”
A wizard? Wick didn’t believe for a moment that Gujhar was a wizard. He was like none of the wizards Wick had ever seen. Wizards were proud and haughty men. (And sometimes women, though he’d only encountered one of those.)
But the book was magical in nature. Gujhar spoke a couple of words and the blank pages that Wick could see suddenly filled with images. One of them was of Captain Dulaun and his wife. Quarrel favored both of them.
“You are one of Captain Dulaun’s descendants,” Gujhar said excitedly. “That’s how you were able to find Seaspray when we weren’t. I knew it had been hidden, but I had no idea where.”
Quarrel said nothing, but she couldn’t hide the truth either. “You’re not fit to carry that sword.”
“Oh, I won’t be carrying it,” Ryman Bey said. “I’m ransoming it to Gujhar’s employer.” He eyed the blade appreciatively. “As pretty as this sword is, it’s worth a lot of gold.” He smiled. “Consider me crass if you will, but I’d rather have the gold. Besides, I could never unleash the power it wields.”
“Neither can Gujhar’s employer,” Quarrel said.
“Gujhar’s employer has other intentions for the sword than using it as it was created,” Ryman Bey said.
“Careful,” Gujhar cautioned irritably. “You’re speaking out of turn.”
Ryman Bey smiled. “A few minutes from now, it won’t matter.”
Wick swallowed hard. For the first time he noticed that the other end of the rope attached to the arrow in Quarrel’s arm was looped around one of the bigger thieves’ waist. A desperate—and risky!—plan formed in Wick’s brain.
You’ve clearly been reading far too many romances from Hralbomm’s Wing, he told himself. But it was doable. Neither he nor Quarrel weighed half of what the thief weighed.
All they needed was a moment. And a lot of luck. By the Old Ones, they would have to be awfully lucky to survive what he had in mind.
“That sword,” Quarrel said, “is meant for our family.”
“Not anymore.” Ryman Bey held the sword level before him. “Gujhar’s employer plans on stripping the magic from this blade and using it for something else.” The thief chieftain looked at Gujhar, who stood in silent fury.
“That can’t be done,” Quarrel argued.
Ryman Bey smiled. “I’m told it can be. The betrayal at the Battle of Fell’s Keep ran deep. Deals were struck and the people involved trusted each other far too much. Lord Kharrion placed his agent within the ranks of the defenders and planned well.”
The news shocked Wick. It was the first confirmation of a traitor among the defenders that he’d ever heard of outside of rumor and the elemental in Master Blacksmith Oskarr’s forge. The story was becoming more tangled, and more relevant to things that were going on in the world now.
Just as Craugh and Cap’n Farok had told him. It even lent to the belief that it was something of a legacy Lord Kharrion had left.
“When Gujhar’s employer is done with this sword,” Ryman Bey taunted, “it won’t be anything but a trinket.”
During the thief chieftain’s exchange, Gujhar had been gazing with deep interest in Wick’s direction. “You were in the Cinder Clouds Islands.”
The accusation hung in the cold despite the harsh wind coming in from the sea.
“No I wasn’t,” Wick squeaked. He cleared his throat, hoping he sounded more firm. “I’ve never been to the Cinder Clouds Islands.”
Then one of the thieves spoke up. “There was a halfer there.”
“There were a lot of halfers there,” another thief snarled. “The goblinkin had slaves working those mines.”
The first thief shook his head. “You don’t often see red hair on a halfer. This one has red hair. So did the one in the Cinder Clouds Islands.”
“I think you’re right,” a third said. “I saw him, too.”
Gujhar approached and stood in front of Wick. “You were there. Searching for Master Oskarr’s axe.”
“It was someone else,” Wick insisted, but his voice cracked and he knew he sounded like he was lying. “Some other dweller. Not me.” He hated the way his voice came out. Just as guilty sounding as it did when Grandmagister Frollo wanted to know who’d smeared jam on the pages of a book or who had (accidentally!) forgotten to return a much-used reference book to its proper place. He hated sounding guilty. Terrible things always followed.
“It was you,” Gujhar said. “What were you doing there?”
“I escaped,” Wick said. “I was one of the mining slaves.”
“You,” Gujhar stated clearly, “were with the dwarves searching for the axe. They found it when no one else could.”
“Not me,” Wick said weakly.
“And now,” Gujhar mused, “you helped this girl find Dulaun’s sword in a place we had searched repeatedly.” His eyes narrowed. “What do you know about this, halfer? What do you know about Deathwhisper?”
Deathwhisper. So Gujhar was looking for the third weapon from the Battle of Fell’s Keep. Just as the journal had indicated. But why? The question tumbled endlessly through Wick’s mind. Why was Gujhar’s master planning to strip th
e action from the weapons? How had they been bound together a thousand years ago? Had that been why they’d been lost all that time?
He didn’t know. The fact that he didn’t have a clue made him so curious he couldn’t stand it.
“Do you know where Deathwhisper is?” Gujhar asked.
Wick didn’t say anything. Dread filled him. He knew what was going to happen next, and knowing that gave him strength to think about the wild scheme that had occurred to him.
“You should tell me,” Gujhar said casually, as if he were talking about the price of apples or whether the ale at the top of a tankard was more flavorful than the ale at the bottom. “It will save you a lot of painful torture.”
Actually, Wick was for anything that saved him painful torture. If he’d known where Deathwhisper was, he’d have told. Immediately. However, he also knew that he’d probably be tortured anyway because Gujhar wouldn’t choose to believe him till he’d been tortured for a while. Of course, if he told the truth immediately, there was also the possibility that Gujhar would torture a lie out of him. It would be a clever ploy.
But that meant putting up with the torture, and Wick wasn’t looking forward to that. Even when he ascribed to the fantasy that One-Eyed Peggie would arrive with Craugh, Cap’n Farok, Hallekk, and the crew, Wick didn’t care for even a little torture.
Without taking his cruel eyes from Wick, Gujhar asked, “I trust you have someone who’s good at torture?”
“I do.” Ryman Bey cleaned his nails on his cloak. “I usually attend to it myself. I’m the best we have.”
“Good.” Gujhar smiled. “I wouldn’t want anyone but the best available to handle the chores on this.”
“We’ll have to discuss the price, of course. Helping you recover these things is fine, but you didn’t mention anything about torture when we made our bargain.”
Frowning, Gujhar turned to glare at the thief leader. “Do you really want to spend more time looking for the elven bow? When you have someone right here who knows where it is?”
“Might know,” Ryman Bey countered. “I find I believe the halfer. I don’t think he’s lying.”
“He lied about being at the Cinder Clouds Islands.”
Ryman Bey grinned coldly. “Yes, but we all knew he was lying about that, didn’t we? He’s not a very good liar. Doesn’t come by it natural enough.”
Idly, Wick wondered if he should feel insulted. Then he decided there really wasn’t any room for considering an insult with all the fear running rampant in his mind. Maybe he was quiet on the outside, but he knew he was running around screaming inside his thoughts.
“We had a deal,” Gujhar protested. “I can’t have you just assigning new costs to every little thing.”
Shrugging, the thief leader said, “You can always take care of the torturing yourself.” He paused. “If you don’t have any tools for it—spikes to drive up under his fingernails, crimpers to shred his ears, knives to split his fingertips—”
Wick shuddered and sour nausea bubbled at the back of his throat.
“I don’t have any of those things,” Gujhar said.
With a smile, Ryman Bey said, “I’ll be happy to rent you a set.”
Wick knew that he’d never have a better chance of escape. He steeled himself for the course of action he’d chosen, then hoped that he didn’t get Quarrel or himself (or both of them!) killed.
He sprinted forward, quicker than the thief watching him had expected. Wick felt the man’s fingers brush against the back of one shoulder, but he was free, running straight for Quarrel.
“The rope!” Wick yelled. “Grab the rope!”
A startled look flashed across Quarrel’s face as she realized Wick was coming too fast to stop short of the ledge. Instinctively, she braced against his charge. If she’d been a full-grown man or a dwarf, perhaps even an elf, Wick knew he would have never been able to knock her from her feet. But she was slight, and she was weak from her injury. He just hoped she wasn’t too weak to help save herself. She thought quickly on her feet. He knew that and he was counting on that skill.
“Stop him!” Ryman Bey yelled.
“Stupid halfer!” one of the thieves said.
“No,” Quarrel said, trying to move out of the way.
Then Wick was on her, hitting her at her waist, below the arm she threw out to stop him. He reached up and caught the rope with his right hand, flipping his arm to catch a loop behind his right elbow.
For an instant they hovered on the brink of the cliff, teetering as Quarrel fought back and tried to stop the impending fall. “Grabtherope!” Wick yelled. “Grabtherope!”
They fell, spinning over the empty space above the sea and the jagged rock. Wick slammed against the cliffside and felt the breath leave his lungs. He got his left hand around the arrow in Quarrel’s shoulder and snapped it off so that it wouldn’t be savagely jerked from her flesh. She screamed in pain, or it might have been she was already screaming in fright, he wasn’t sure. But she grabbed the rope with both hands.
Wick hoped that his arm wasn’t torn out of its socket when they ran out of slack. He was still screaming—something, he wasn’t sure what—when that happened.
They hit the end of the rope still seventy feet from the sea, slamming into mountainside as the thief above (evidently figuring out what was going to happen and fearing the worst) tried to dig in. Whatever the thief did, Wick knew, was potentially doomed to failure. That was quickly proven true when he and Quarrel began falling again. Only this time they were close enough to the mountainside to slide down to one of the ledges.
Wick hit the ledge with bone-jarring force and skittered along, flailing helplessly as he shot over the edge. He managed to grab hold of the ledge and chinned himself, mewling with fear. Quarrel had landed on the ledge and was in no danger of falling off. She lay silent and still, and he feared she was dead. Blood covered her wounded shoulder.
Motion above Wick caught his attention. He looked up and saw the thief falling from the ledge, arms and legs flailing. His scream echoed, growing closer. Then Wick realized that the rope was still around his arm. He whipped his arm from the coils as the thief fell within inches of him, screaming, “Letgooftherope! Letgooftherope!” to Quarrel.
Weakly, she shifted and shook free of the rope as well. Wick got the rope off his arm last, noticing from the stiffness in his fingers and palms that he’d suffered burns and abrasions from struggling to hang onto the rope. The cold wind threatened to tear him from the ledge and he didn’t think he had the strength to climb up.
The thief turned end over end and smashed against the rocks below. His body lay there for just a moment, then the waves crashed in and carried it away. Somewhere in the foggy darkness, the dead man disappeared without a trace.
Wick tried to pull himself up, digging his toes into the mountainside and heaving with all his strength. Above him, he heard the shouts of the thieves. Two arrows splintered against the stone as archers tried to pick him off. Quarrel lay sheltered under an overhang, but she leaned out with her good arm and caught hold of Wick’s cloak. Leaning back, she helped him clamber up while another arrow whizzed by. He huddled under the overhang.
“That was idiocy,” Quarrel accused.
Nodding, Wick said, “It was. But if we’d stayed up there, they would have killed us.”
“That shouldn’t have worked.”
“You only think that because you haven’t read Daslanik’s Practical Applications of Dual Penduluming Bodies. It’s a fascinating book. Daslanik did a lot studies regarding penduluming weights with no fixed points.”
Quarrel shifted and got to a sitting position.
“You shouldn’t be moving,” Wick said. Blood smeared the stone surface where the young woman had lain.
“Staying here for them to climb down and slit our throats isn’t a good idea. Neither is staying here to freeze to death.”
Wick nodded, realizing that it was a lot colder on the mountainside. He helped her to her feet. They c
rouched under the overhang, then peered upward.
Gujhar looked down at them over the side. “You got lucky, halfer.”
Wick didn’t bother to argue or point out the mathematics of his actions.
“If you know what’s good for you,” Gujhar went on, “you’ll make certain we never cross paths again.”
“I’ll have my sword back,” Quarrel promised.
Gujhar smiled at her. The light from the torch he held exposed the cruel lines of his face. “You’re welcome to try, girl. I don’t like leaving loose ends.”
The thieves had spread out along the cliff, but none of them had yet found a way down to the ledge where Wick and Quarrel were. But their efforts to find one were reason enough to go.
“Can you walk?” Wick asked.
“If I can fall down a mountain and live,” Quarrel said, “I can walk.”
Wick took the lead, marking their path with a trained eye. He hadn’t navigated the steep and twisting staircases of the Vault of All Known Knowledge’s subterranean recesses without learning a few things. They went slowly, but they went, switching back and forth as they needed to. Occasionally, till they reached the rocky shore seventy or so feet below, arrows still skittered down the mountainside or splashed into the sea.
At the water’s edge, they walked east along the coast, thinking that the more distance they put between themselves and Thango’s keep the better. Wick felt certain Gujhar would return to Wraith and set sail as soon as he could.
After all, the elven bow Deathwhisper yet remained to be found.
Quarrel stumbled and almost fell. Wick took her good arm across his shoulder and supported her as well as he could. He kept them moving through the snowstorm. A few minutes later, he heard footsteps behind them. His heart stopped inside his chest, then he turned around and saw the cat had joined them.
“Is she going to be all right?” Alysta asked.
“Yes,” Wick answered, though he wasn’t sure. The wound looked horrible, and the rough trip down the mountain (the climb as well as the fall) hadn’t been good on her. “She just needs some rest. We need to find shelter.” He turned and continued on.
