Something hissed right beside his ear. Then his hands were empty. His attacker was simply gone, and his back and shoulders dropped through the empty space it had just occupied, giving him another bump.
A hiss rasped, then another from a point farther to the right. Balasar’s assailant was in motion. He scrambled up, snatched out his broadsword, and cut at a spot where, he judged, its trajectory might have taken it. The blade whizzed through empty air.
Then one cold, slimy hand seized the wrist of his sword arm and dug its claws into his skin. Another, just bare bones smeared with deliquescence, gripped his throat, and the rotten stink of it filled his nostrils and made his stomach turn over. He realized his original attacker had hissed repeatedly to cover the noise of its ally’s approach.
In time, Tchazzar dismissed everyone but Halonya and Jhesrhi. Perhaps he hoped to mend the quarrel between them. In any case, Aoth would have to wait for a private consultation with his lieutenant.
But there was someone else to talk to. When they were clear of the Green Hall, Nicos murmured, “I stood by you in there, even when Tchazzar’s pet priestess cried for your blood.”
“I know,” Aoth replied. “We’re in this together, and I’ll look after your interests as you looked after mine.”
“See that you do. And see that you acquit yourself well in the field.” Nicos gave him a brusque nod and took his leave. Glowering, Luthen and Halonya’s subordinates departed in a different direction even though, like Aoth’s patron, they were presumably bound for the War College’s primary exit.
Still a resident of the fortress, albeit in less exalted circumstances than before, Shala Karanok strode off in yet another direction with purpose in her gaze and, despite the hour, a spring in her stride. Her clerk had to scurry to keep up. Aoth inferred that she’d been impatient to march to war and meant to begin her preparations immediately.
With everyone else departing, that left him to watch the end of Cera’s palaver with Daelric. Finally, looking about as glum as Nicos had, the high priest bade her farewell and tramped off with his underlings.
Aoth gave Cera a crooked smile. “Have you been properly scolded?” he asked.
She gave him a wry smile of his own. “I suppose.”
“Well, one down, one to go.”
“Is that why you rescued me? Couldn’t you spank me instead?”
Flirting and banter generally came naturally to her. But now he saw that she had to make an effort, and no wonder. The wyrmkeepers had terrorized and tortured her. She said Amaunator’s healing light had eased her body and mind alike, but she still needed time to recover.
“I rescued you for as debauched a reward as you’re capable of giving,” he said. “But later, when I’m not too tired to enjoy it. I’ll stay with you for what’s left of tonight though, if you want. I imagine we can prevail on one of the servants to find us a spare bedroom.”
In fact, it turned out to be a nice one placed near the top of the fortress, with casements overlooking the city. Fire-kissed eyes could even make out the glimmering black thread of the River Adder some distance beyond. In bed, they lay on their sides, her back nestled against his chest. She’d only had the chance to clean up a little before the audience with Tchazzar, and her hair and skin still smelled of sweat. But it didn’t bother him. He actually found he rather liked it, as he liked everything about her physical presence.
“I’m grateful that you came for me,” she murmured, “and sorry Tchazzar was angry with you because of it.”
He grunted. “Thanks to Jhesrhi, it worked out all right. And I know you only did what you thought Amaunator wanted. Black Flame, you pretty much warned me you meant to do it. I just didn’t want to hear. Or maybe I didn’t realize you’d go about it so crazily.”
“It wasn’t that crazy. You would have done the same thing in my place.”
“But I would have known how to do it without coming to grief.”
“Like when you sneaked into the wyrmkeeper’s lair in Soolabax, about a hundred abishais tried to eat you, and I had to exorcise them?”
He tried to hold in a chuckle and was only partly successful. When his chest swelled, it gave her a tiny bump. “That was different.”
“You know,” she said, “nothing’s changed. I still have to do this. Even Daelric … It’s easy to think of him as more of a courtier and minister than a holy man. But he has his own connection to the Keeper. He wouldn’t be the supreme sunlord of Chessenta if he didn’t. And, annoyed as he was at me for stirring up trouble, when I explained why, he didn’t order me to stop.”
“Because he liked seeing somebody stick a finger in Halonya’s eye.”
“No. Or at least there’s more to it than that. He senses that I truly am doing the god’s bidding.”
“And I suppose you still want me to help.”
She hesitated. “You explained why you don’t want to.”
“That hasn’t changed either. But curse it, I keep getting dragged into the thick of mysteries no matter how hard I try to stay clear. And they just keep getting murkier. Maybe I do have to figure them out to fulfill my contract and look after my men.”
She rolled over and smiled. “You are going to help.”
“Mainly, I’m going to defeat Threskel. That’s still what’s most important. But if I have time, if a chance presents itself, and if you promise not to do any more poking around on your own without my approval, then yes. I’ll help you.”
As if that highly conditional pledge settled everything, she kissed him.
There was a technique to breaking a grip on one’s wrist. Balasar had learned it early and used it countless times against those who rightly doubted their ability to best him in a contest of weapons, but wrongly imagined they could out-wrestle or out-brawl a dragonborn smaller than the average.
Though startled by his new foe’s assault, he automatically made the move. He twisted against the weak point where thumb and fingers met. His sword snagged on something in the dark—his adversary’s body, presumably. But only for an instant. Then the blade jerked free, and so did his arm.
That left the grip that was crushing his throat and denying him air. It was awkward to use his sword at such close quarters, particularly when he couldn’t see. But he thrust repeatedly. The weapon plunged into something mushy, then rasped on what he assumed to be bone.
Still the stranglehold persisted, and then his foe’s other hand—the one that had more oozing flesh still clinging to the bones—locked on his neck. Though somewhat encumbered by the sword, he tried to break the hold by swinging his arm up, down, and across. It didn’t work.
Knowing he had only moments left before his strength failed, he stepped in close, into the worst of his unseen foe’s stench, and hammered at its head with the pommel of his sword.
Bone crunched. The clawed, clutching fingers dropped away from his neck. As he sucked in air, his foe’s body thumped on the floor.
The winged creature hissed, and Balasar somehow sensed it swooping at him. He spat frost into the blackness. The thing screeched. And veered off, seemingly, because no fangs or claws ripped at him.
Not then. But he imagined the creature would take another run at him soon enough. Or something would. And no one would give a scrap of molt for his chances as long as he kept fighting blind.
So it was just as well he wouldn’t have to.
Anticipating that his investigations might take him back into the Catacombs, or into some dark place, he’d brought a source of light. Events just hadn’t given him a chance to take it out. But now, he hoped, he had the moment he needed.
He ripped open his belt pouch, snatched out a piece of black velvet, and dumped the silver ring inside it into the palm of his hand. The silvery glow of the moonstone in the setting leaped forth to illuminate the interior of a tomb with carved stone sarcophagi on low, stepped pedestals. He’d plainly lost his balance and fallen on one set of risers when he arrived.
The decaying occupants of the sarcophagi had shov
ed the heavy lids of their coffins partway open when necromancy or some other dark power called them forth. The zombie he’d stabbed and battered sprawled on the floor, fully dead once more. The other three were advancing on him. The smallest—the corpse of a dragonborn child, its eye sockets and the lesions in its face squirming with worms—was already close enough to strike.
It swiped at his arm. He tried to jerk the limb out of the way but was a split second too slow. The blow landed, jolting his hand. The ring flew from his palm to bounce and roll clinking across the floor.
It still gave light. But the winged creature swooped down from the ceiling, straight at it. He had no doubt that it could whisk the ring out of the tomb as easily as it had whisked him into it.
Even without the walking corpses pressing in around him, he couldn’t have reached the ring first. He tossed his sword into his off hand, snatched the knife from his boot, and threw.
The dagger pierced the hurtling creature, and it vanished at once, like a soap bubble popping. Balasar still hadn’t had a good look at it, nor could he judge whether he’d hurt it badly enough to keep it from coming back immediately.
But there was no time to worry about it. Slashing at his belly, groin, and thighs, the dead child drove in. Its elders did too. Claws raked to tear away his face, and he hopped back to avoid them. That landed him back on the three shallow steps leading up to the sarcophagus—or maybe on the steps of a different pedestal—and he stumbled and almost lost his balance once again.
Snarling, he kicked the child zombie. It reeled back and fell on its rump. By then, the full-sized ones were reaching out to tear at him from either side. It would be hard to strike at one without turning his back on the other.
So he heaved himself backward and rolled over the top of the sarcophagus. And scraped and banged himself up in the process. But he landed on his feet, and now he had a makeshift rampart between the walking dead and himself. They could only claw at him with difficulty, but he had no trouble slashing at them with the sword.
He concentrated on the one on his right, cutting slimy chunks away from its head. Meanwhile, the zombies started around the two ends of the coffin to close with him once more.
He rushed the one he’d been attacking. He landed a cut that split what remained of its skull, and it collapsed. By a happy chance, the child corpse had shambled up right behind it, and the two ended up on the floor tangled together.
He thrust his point deep into the child thing’s tattered, wormy face, and it stopped struggling to wriggle out from under its larger comrade. He whirled. As he’d expected, the remaining zombie was right behind him. He cut, sheared slimy fingers from the hand that was reaching for him, then noticed how the creature’s head dangled and flopped on just a rotted vestige of neck. He struck hard and decapitated it.
He felt a stab of horror when he saw that hadn’t finished it. But at least it spoiled its aim, and he had little trouble evading its pawing as he kept on hacking pieces away. Finally, it too toppled and lay inert.
Panting, heart hammering, abruptly conscious of the sting of his cuts, Balasar picked his way through the corpses and the stray lumps and spatters of putrescence littering the floor. He recovered the silver ring and jammed it on his finger. Now no one could deprive him of light. He turned and surveyed his situation.
There was still no sign of the winged creature. Good. He hoped the wretched thing was busy dying a long and agonizing death.
The problem was that he couldn’t see an easy way out of the vault either, only the oval piece of wall someone had mortared in place after the most recent interment.
Without the proper tools, could he remove it? Would he run out of air while he was trying? The thought was enough to make the stale, fetid atmosphere feel thin.
He spat fear away and told himself he wasn’t going to die there. It had always been obvious that his end would be either glorious or scandalous, and suffocating alone in a box was neither.
So naturally, he finally did chip and bull his way out, though he ruined a good sword in the process. Beyond the hole he’d opened was a corridor lined with the sealed entrances to other tombs. One of the Catacombs’ distinctive sconces hung on the wall, its glow faded to a mere hint of phosphorescence.
He still didn’t know exactly where he was, but that was all right. If he simply wandered, he was bound to find a way back up to the Market Floor eventually. As he returned his ring to his pouch, lest its light attract unwanted attention, two thoughts were foremost in its mind.
The first was that he actually was on the trail of something incriminating. No one set a trap along a path without a reason to keep the wrong person from reaching the other end. The second was that he’d have to avoid his fellow dragon-worshipers for a couple of days, until healing magic erased all trace of the claw marks from his face and throat.
SIX
5–9 KYTHORN
THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
Tchazzar, Jhesrhi, Aoth, Cera, and Shala approached Soolabax with caution. Which turned out to be unnecessary, because the orange light of the setting sun revealed that the besieging army was gone. Nothing remained but burned and toppled trebuchets, unburied bodies, and trampled earth.
Scar screeched like he was angry he’d missed the fight. Jhesrhi peered down into the city. She wanted to know how many casualties the Brotherhood had sustained, but found it impossible even to guess from so high up and far away.
Tchazzar blasted flame across the sky. “A victory!” he thundered. “The first of my new reign!”
The flash and bellow made the folk down in the streets look up at the sky. When they saw the red dragon, they started to cheer.
Soolabax wasn’t Luthcheq. There was scarcely room for Tchazzar to land inside the walls. But that didn’t deter him. He somehow managed to set down in the intersection of three streets in front of Hasos’s keep. A flick of one wing scraped shutters and paint from the facade of a house. His tail swished and smashed a wooden horse trough, splashing the contents onto the ground.
Then he shrank, becoming the handsome warrior in red and gold. His companions landed beside him. For all her manifest toughness, Shala looked glad to be back on solid ground.
The enormous hawk the former war hero had ridden gave Jhesrhi a fierce, inquiring stare. She nodded, and it dissolved into a gust of air that stirred everyone’s hair and cloaks, becoming pure wind once again.
Looking more serious than was her wont, plump, pretty Cera said, “There must be wounded. If Your Majesty will excuse me, I’ll go help tend them.”
Tchazzar smiled and waved a hand in dismissal.
Cera and Aoth exchanged a quick, fond look. Then the sunlady hurried away while Gaedynn, Hasos, and others came striding out of the keep.
Seeing the archer made Jhesrhi feel relieved but guilty too. The relief made at least a little sense. Gaedynn could have conceivably have died in the fight to break the siege, as any warrior could perish in any battle. But the guilt was nonsensical, yet another instance of the exasperating way just being around him could tie her emotions into knots.
The newcomers bowed, and Tchazzar quickly gave them permission to rise. “Well done, gentlemen!” he boomed.
“Thank you, Majesty,” Hasos said. “The knights of Soolabax fought superbly.”
“We Brothers and the fellows Aoth mustered from along the border were there too,” Gaedynn drawled. “We held the knights’ horses and such.”
“And are there prisoners?” Tchazzar asked.
Gaedynn nodded. “Some.”
“That too was well done,” the dragon said. “Sacrifice them. It will give me the strength I need to crush Alasklerbanbastos.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Shala asked, “All of them?”
Tchazzar grinned. “Why not? Every drop of spilled blood will make me more powerful. And it’s easier than guarding and feeding the bastards, isn’t it?”
“Probably so,” said Aoth. “But there surely hasn’t been time to question
them all. We might be able to extract some useful information. We can certainly ransom the ones whose families have coin. And the sellswords might switch sides with a little coaxing.”
“Besides,” Shala said, “I’ve studied Chessenta’s history—your history—and I don’t understand. You never required such … such a thing in the past.”
“No,” Tchazzar said, gritting his teeth, “I didn’t, and then when the Blue Fire took … Never mind. You’ve heard your orders. Does anyone have a mind to disobey?”
Another silence. Then Jhesrhi said, “Of course not, Your Majesty. Everyone here wants to serve you. It’s just that there’s a problem with carrying out your will.”
Tchazzar frowned. “What’s that?”
“Lady Halonya and the rest of your priesthood are back in Luthcheq, seeing to the construction of your temple. There’s no one here to perform the sacrifices.”
“Then Cera Eurthos and her clerics can do it.”
“With all respect, Majesty, I doubt that. The Keeper’s priests don’t even sacrifice animals. I suspect they’d botch it, and then all that power would go to waste. Whereas if you keep the captives for a tenday or a month …”
The war hero fingered the ruby in the pommel of his sword. “You may have a point. But curse it, I’ll have something to slake my thirst. Every twentieth man. Or orc, or kobold, or whatever.”
“I’ll see to it,” Hasos said.
Tchazzar’s smile flowered bright as before. “Good man! I’m thinking of creating a new knightly order, open only to those who render heroic service to a living god. You just might be the first inductee.” He switched his gaze to Gaedynn. “And you the second.”
“So long as the medal’s made of gold,” the bowman said. “That’s the kind of honor a mercenary appreciates.”
The dragon’s eyes narrowed.
For the most part, the stairs, ramps, and walkways connecting the various parts of the City-Bastion honeycombed the granite. That left the walls of the atrium free for the private balconies that dragonborn considered an essential amenity of urban life.
Whisper of Venom: Brotherhood of the Griffon, Book II Page 13
