Chosen of Nendawen Book 001 - The Fall of Highwatch

by Mark Sehestedt

  A thin curtain of dread draped itself over Guric’s mind, and for the first time since leaving his prayers, he felt his determination cracking.

  He turned to Boran. “I want you, Isidor, and two others with me. Everyone else, guard this entrance. No one comes in or out without my leave. And I mean no one. Understood?”

  The men bowed.

  Boran said, “Yes, my lord,” and chose two men to accompany them. The axemen.

  Guric’s unease grew as they mounted the stairs. Something was not right. No lamps or torches burned in the sconces. It was cold enough in the tower that their breath steamed before them, and the sounds of their footfalls echoed against profound emptiness.

  Long before they reached the top, Guric began to suspect. But before they rounded the final bend in the stairs to the top platform and the door, he knew.

  No guards stood vigil on the platform. The door to her cell stood open. The chamber beyond still held a foul reek, but nothing stirred within. Even the rats had forsaken the chamber.

  Valia was gone.

  Guric rejoined the rest of the guards at the bottom of the stairway. Seeing the fury on his face, they stepped back. Two bowed their heads and did not look up.

  “Did anyone try to come this way?” Guric asked.

  “No one, my lord.”

  Guric turned to Boran. He opened his mouth, then shut it again, reconsidering. He’d been about to say, We must find Argalath. Now.

  But no. He would not go to Argalath, making demands and begging like a cur under his master’s table.

  No.

  Argalath would come to him.

  “My lord?” said Boran. “What are your orders?”

  “I am going to my chambers. I want a flagon of wine waiting for me when I get there. Before I am finished draining the dregs, I want Argalath in front of me.”

  Sagar smiled. “I’ll fetch him, my lord.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  UNDER ATTACK?” SAID HWEILAN.

  “Those clarions,” said Menduarthis. “That is the call to arms. Something has come into the realm of Kunin Gatar.”

  Hweilan felt it then. The pulsing at the back of her skull. Not strong yet, but steady as a drumbeat. She had not felt it since …

  And she knew who it was.

  “Soran,” she said. “That … that thing that looks like my uncle. It’s him. I know it.”

  Roakh tried to laugh, but it came out more of a cough, and black blood dribbled out on his cheek. “Haak! They’ll be coming for you, Menduarthis. Your Ujaiyen. And for me. You to lead your scouts. Me to … do what I do. They’ll be coming. They’ll … find you. See what y—”

  Menduarthis kicked him again. Then he looked to Hweilan. “He’s right. If we’re under attack, the queen’s hound and her favorite snoop will soon be summoned.”

  Roakh coughed up more blood, then began to roll away from Menduarthis, closer to the shelves.

  “Where are you going, old bird?” Menduarthis asked. He bent down to turn the man over.

  But Roakh rolled back on his own, and as he did so he used his unbroken arm to punch at Menduarthis.

  Menduarthis jumped back, laughing, and said, “What do you th—?”

  And then something struck him in the face. It hadn’t been a punch from Roakh after all. A throw.

  The small brown bag bounced off Menduarthis’s forehead, surprising him more than anything, but as it did so, its contents spilled out in a cloud of white powder.

  “Wha—?” said Menduarthis, then he screamed and slapped at his face. He lurched backward, stumbling as his knees gave way, then fell face first on the floor. Only the bundle of junk saved him from cracking his head on the stone.

  Hweilan screamed, “Menduarthis!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Roakh, as he pushed himself to his feet. “He’s not … dead.” He coughed, and a fine spittle of blood flew out of his mouth. “Not after what he’s done. Death’s”—he took in a deep breath, and Hweilan could hear the broken, wet rattle in his chest—” too quick … for him. Now, what shall we do with you?”

  One twisted arm hung limp and useless by Roakh’s side. He tried to move it, winced in pain, then gave up. He took a big step to Hweilan, almost slipped on all the detritus littering the floor, then leaned against the near shelf.

  “Keep away from me!” said Hweilan, and she thrust the bow in front of her, holding it crossways like a staff. She glanced over her shoulder to the still open window. Beyond was the ledge, and after that a drop of a good forty feet or more. Too high.

  “Half a … moment!” Roakh coughed up more blood. He turned and used his good hand to rummage through the shelf behind him. An old plate fell to the floor and shattered. He turned back to Hweilan. Still leaning on the shelf for support, he now held a small phial in his trembling fist. Wincing at the pain, he used his teeth to pull the cork, spat it out, then drank the contents of the phial.

  Roakh screamed—an agonized shriek that caused Hweilan to take an involuntary step back. He fell back onto the remains of the table where he had received his beating. His back arched. He hammered the floor with one fist, his scream growing into a ravenlike cry. Then, like the tension leaving a cut string, he collapsed.

  For an instant, Hweilan thought—hoped—Roakh was dead.

  But then he took a deep draught of air and sat up. He moved his right arm. It was no longer broken. He made a tight fist then wiggled his fingers.

  “Ahh.” Roakh chuckled and looked at Hweilan. “Much better. Still not quite hale as ever.” His smile widened. The sharp teeth had mended, though blood from his previous wounds still smeared his face and mouth. In the fading light, it looked black against his gray skin. “A good meal will mend that, I think,” he said, and pushed himself to his feet.

  “Stay away!” Hweilan said, and raised her bow in both hands, like a club.

  Roakh’s smile melted, his face losing all semblance of emotion, and he cocked his head to one side. Like a raven. A raven scavenging the quiet battlefield, disturbed only by the endless drone of flies and the caws of his fellows. He charged her.

  Hweilan screamed and swung the bow.

  He laughed and caught the bow in one hand, the wood striking his palm with a loud slap. He tightened his grip, twisted, and yanked the bow from her hands. Hweilan tried to hang on to it, but he was too strong—unbelievably strong, considering his small stature and almost frail frame—and he almost pulled her off her feet.

  Roakh caught her. She pushed at him, and again he used her own strength against her, throwing her across the room. Her back struck the wall under the window, knocking every last bit of breath from her body, then she hit the floor, and bright lights danced before her eyes.

  Her vision cleared. Roakh advanced on her. She screamed and scrambled to her feet. A forty-foot drop suddenly seemed a lot more inviting than it had a few moments ago.

  She was halfway out the window when Roakh grabbed her, threw her to the ground, and put his full weight on top of her. He didn’t weigh more than a child, but his strength was incredible. She aimed a backhanded punch at his face, but he caught her wrist and pinned it to the ground beside her head. She tried to bring her left arm around, but it was pinned beneath his leg.

  Roakh opened his mouth, dark spittle fell down onto her cheek, and his teeth lunged down. Hweilan screamed, still unable to move her hands, and twisted beneath him. Strong as Roakh was, he was still much lighter than Hweilan, and she managed to get him halfway off her. His jaws snapped shut, barely missing her face and instead closing around a mouthful of hair. He growled and spat it out.

  Hweilan’s right arm was still pinned under his grip, but she’d wormed her left free. Rather than aiming another useless punch, she raised her knee and thrust her hand inside her boot. With the glove on, it took her a moment to find the knife. She managed to wrap three fingers around the hilt and pull, the knife coming halfway out.

  Roakh used his free hand to grab a handful of Hweilan’s hair. He gripped and yanked,
turning her head to expose her throat.

  Hweilan grabbed the hilt.

  His lips wet with blood and drool, Roakh lunged.

  Hweilan drew the knife. Her leg and arm were twisted at such an angle that the blade sliced through her trousers and nicked the skin beneath as it came free.

  Sharp teeth and warm, wriggling flesh, like grave worms, hit her throat.

  Hweilan screamed and stabbed upward.

  Roakh shrieked, the sound deafening so close to her ear, and his teeth scraped away skin and flesh as he flung himself away.

  Hweilan rolled to her feet and looked down. Dark blood drenched the entire length of the knife and much of the glove holding it. Roakh leaned against the opposite wall, both hands clutching his side just below his ribs. Blood wasn’t leaking out from between his fingers. It was pouring.

  “You stabbed me, you—!” Roakh pulled his hands away, twisting them into claws, and lunged.

  Hweilan dodged sideways and swept the knife in front of her. She was too frightened to aim, to think of anything more than keeping the monster away from her. But the knife sliced one arm, opening another deep gash.

  Roakh twisted and came after her.

  She brought the blade around again, stabbing this time instead. She felt the shock up her entire arm as the point slid between two ribs, the blade catching there a moment before the force of Roakh’s charge twisted the blade, forcing it in deeper.

  They fell. One of Roakh’s clawed hands went for Hweilan’s throat while the other batted at her knife hand. She screamed through clenched teeth, desperate to keep hold of the knife, and pushed him with her free hand as they hit the floor. It forced Roakh away, the blade coming out with another gush of hot blood.

  “You—!” Roakh screamed, and there was desperation as well as fear and anger in his eyes now.

  But Hweilan gave him no time to finish. All the rage and fear of the past days—her family massacred; chased by Nar and some monster wearing her uncle’s face; captured, having her mind violated by a capricious queen; and this foul creature putting his wet, slavering mouth on her—all the railing against her powerlessness and the injustice of the world … all of Hweilan’s terror and rage twisted and tightened into a tight cord, humming and vibrating under the tension.

  And then snapped.

  She fell on Roakh, the knife rising and falling again and again, sometimes hitting bone and scraping away, tearing more skin and cloth than flesh. But others sinking deep. First into the soft flesh where his neck met his shoulder. The blade sank all the way in, and Roakh’s black eyes went wide with shock and his mouth opened in a silent scream. She yanked it out, blood spraying over her, and then brought it down again and again and again, ravaging his neck and face.

  She was still stabbing and pulling, stabbing and pulling, stabbing and pulling, long after Roakh stopped moving.

  “Hweilan!”

  A strong hand caught her wrist.

  She shrieked and twisted, lunging after her new attacker.

  “Hweilan, enough!” Menduarthis said as Hweilan came down on top of him.

  She lay there, panting. The scarf on her head had been ripped off in the fight, blood soaked her hair, and it hung in matted lanks in front of her face. The knife, raised over her head and ready to plunge into Menduarthis’s face, was trembling, and a steady drip-drip-drip of blood fell off the blade and pattered onto the floor.

  Menduarthis still had bits of the powder on his face, and his lovely blue eyes were shot through with ugly red veins. Still, he gave her a weak smile and said, “I see my knife proved useful.”

  Hweilan slid off him and onto her knees. She clutched the knife to her chest in both hands, not caring in the least about the gore covering it.

  “Lendri’s,” she said. She held the knife up. “Lendri’s knife.”

  Now that her breath was coming easier and the hammering in her heart was slowing, she heard the horns again. She opened her mouth to ask, What are we going to do? But then her gaze caught the mangled mess that had once been Roakh.

  She dropped the knife, fell forward on her hands, and vomited all over the floor.

  Menduarthis let her finish, then pulled her gently to her feet and held her against his chest.

  “I killed him.” He throat and mouth ached from the burning bile.

  Menduarthis brushed the bloody hair out of her face and said, “The world is a better place without the little bastard. He can plague the Nine Hells with his chatter now.”

  She pushed Menduarthis away and retrieved her knife. Considering the bloody wreck of her clothes, it seemed pointless to clean the knife, but she did, kneeling down and wiping away the blood on an old curtain. The sounds of horns still wafted through the air.

  “Hweilan, you’re bleeding,” said Menduarthis. He knelt beside her and gently turned her face aside. “I didn’t notice it at first because of the halbdol.”

  She had completely forgotten about Roakh’s bite, but now that Menduarthis had mentioned it, she could feel a throbbing sting along the left side of her throat, just below her jaw line.

  “How bad is it?” She gave a sharp intake of breath at his touch.

  “Nasty, but it looks like more torn skin than anything. We’ll need to clean it. Come. But triple-quick. We must hurry.”

  He helped her to her feet and through the door. Beyond was an even larger room, a round door on the opposite wall, littered with even more piles of Roakh’s possessions. Windowless, the room would have been black as starless midnight if not for one iron lamp hung from the ceiling. What sort of fire or magic lit it, Hweilan had no idea, but it cast sickly blue light throughout the room, casting all the piles and tables as little islands in pools of shadow.

  One other object in the room cast its own light—a wide basin, crafted from some precious metal and encrusted with hundreds of jewels. The rim glowed vibrant green, the light rippling off the fluid filling the basin.

  “What is that?” said Hweilan.

  “Just a washbasin,” said Menduarthis, “which you sorely need.”

  Together, they washed the worst of the gore out of Hweilan’s hair. No matter how much blood stained the water, a swirl from Menduarthis’s finger, and the water cleared again. Whether this was some trick of the basin itself or one of Menduarthis’s spells, Hweilan couldn’t bring herself to care. She’d just hacked a person to death. When she closed her eyes, she could still feel the shock traveling up her arm as each blow of the blade landed—the instant of resistance as the steel passed through flesh, or the harder strike of glancing off bone. His screams … Hweilan shuddered. No, it was when the screams had stopped and she’d kept hacking away. That had been the worst.

  Hweilan’s knees trembled, and then her legs gave out, depositing her on the floor. Lendri’s knife, which she had completely forgotten she was still holding, clattered to the floor beside her. She would have retched again if anything remained in her stomach.

  “Are you hurt?” Menduarthis asked, as he knelt beside her.

  “I … I killed him, Menduarthis. I killed Roakh.”

  “That you did. He is most certainly dead.”

  Her body was shaking. She hugged herself tight but couldn’t make it stop.

  “Hey.” Menduarthis grabbed both her shoulders and shook her. Not hard, but enough to get her attention. “Now, listen to me. It was him or you. Believe that. True, you did get a bit … carried away. One sloppy mess you made of the old bird. But it was your first time. A little more practice, and you’ll be a cold killer.”

  She looked up at him. He was smiling. Not with his usual sardonic amusement. Something almost like genuine good will.

  Her body was still shaking, but she managed to give him a faint grin in return. “It … it wasn’t my first time.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Really? Well, that sounds like a tale. But at the moment, Hweilan, we’ve got to survive today. Now let’s get out of here. We’ve lingered too long already.”

  Menduarthis stood and extended a h
and to help her up.

  She grabbed his arm and stood. “Where are we going?”

  “Those horns are coming from across the river, which means that whoever is attacking either came through the main portal or from that direction, which means that the Ujaiyen, the uldra, the eladrin, the elves, the everyone, they’ll be scrambling to hunt down the invaders. That whole area will be thick with fey out for blood. But there are other ways out of here. We avoid being noticed and slip through in the confusion. Everyone will be looking for trouble coming in. Not trouble getting out.”

  She looked down at her clothes. Despite Menduarthis’s efforts, the once-fine cloth was spattered in blood, and she was a solid black mess from her left elbow down. “Avoid being noticed? Look at me.”

  “Hm. I see your point. Wait here.”

  Menduarthis returned to the first room and soon returned carrying her father’s bow and the red silk scarf he had given her. It was still clean.

  “Cover your hair with this. You huddle under that cloak and cowl, nice and snug, and I’ll give you a good coating of snow. Carrying the bow, you’ll pass a quick look for one of us.”

  “And a longer look?”

  “It’s the best we can do under the circumstances.”

  She pulled her hair back and covered it with the scarf, knotting it in a sort of cap that would both keep her hair out of her eyes and hide the tops of her ears. Looking down to do so, she saw the knife she’d dropped on the floor. Lendri’s knife. She picked it up.

  She removed all the blood she could from Lendri’s blade, but much of it had soaked into the leather wrapped around the hilt. Looking at the knife, looking at Lendri’s knife, it came to her then. Even if they could make it out of Kunin Gatar’s realm, she had nowhere to go. The most she could hope for among the Damarans was a life in hiding and the security of wedding some minor lord. A hunted woman with no lands, no riches, no dowry, she’d be lucky to bed some minor duke’s man-at-arms. A friendly tribe of Nar? She’d do little better there. If Lendri was to be believed, the Vil Adanrath were gone …