Seeds of Virtue, Dark Descent, Book I

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  Xavdak walked down the hall, heading for another interrogation room, this one holding the leader of the mercenary band. After speaking with the young wizard, it was clear to him, no matter how much he wanted to disbelieve, that the group was indeed innocent of the charges leveled against them. They had murdered no one and only been the victim of devious information, information that had been given to the Pillars most likely by the same man who had been responsible for the caravan’s destruction. It was a clever ploy, to delay your pursuers by accusing them of a crime, but one that was eventually unraveled by asking a few questions.

  Though he had yet to question any of the others–Druzeel was the first–Xavdak found the young wizard’s story too fantastic to be untrue. He had never faltered when speaking of the assassin or the shadow stalkers. He spoke clearly, held confidence in his voice, never once changed his story, and kept constant eye contact. People who were lying usually stuttered or stammered when being put in such an uncomfortable position, and they usually never made eye contact. The fact that he was a student of such a renowned archmage–though Xavdak had yet to confirm this but felt the young man was telling the truth–helped in convincing the old dwarf that the band was innocent. What also helped was that Druzeel seemed willing, more than willing in fact, to speak negatively of his companions. If he were trying to hide something, he never would have said anything about the others looting the bodies. Xavdak would still question rest of the Knights to be positive of the situation and make sure their stories matched, but he knew he would eventually have to let them go.

  Regardless of their innocence, he planned to use their confinement to learn just exactly what type of danger they had brought into his city. If the assassin was in Pelartis, a man that on a whim had killed dozens of innocent people, then the citizens he was sworn to protect could be in danger. He also planned to learn more of the band itself. If someone like Brask was going to be roaming the streets, he wanted to know more about the man and what they intended, though he saw nothing but harsh words waiting for him. The mercenary leader did not appear as one that would be as agreeable as Druzeel had been.

  As he walked down the stone halls, Xavdak found his thoughts drifting back to the young wizard. Despite his ignorance, Druzeel appeared to be a very intelligent and acute young man. Based on what Xavdak knew of Graeak, the archmage took only the best and brightest students, so to be actually accepted by the powerful wizard one would have to possess superior qualities. The High Captain could see those qualities as he spoke to Druzeel, in the way the man spoke and behaved in front of one of his peers. Xavdak could see respect, honor, and humility in the wizard. He just thought it a shame that he was striving to become part of this band of mercenaries, these Knights of the Chipped Blade. He seemed much better than that and could see Druzeel becoming just as wicked and immoral as they are if he stayed with them for too long.

  Xavdak had never meet Brask, had never met any of the Knights, but he had heard enough about them, knew their kind, and had come to his own conclusions about the group. He usually tried to reserve judgment on anyone he had not yet met, but the stories of this mercenary band, though some noble, were often times heinous and told Xavdak all he needed to know. They were selfish degenerates who worked only for coin, no matter the job and no matter the pain wrought on the innocent. Xavdak despised people like that and would have every last one of them locked up if he had his way, but he was a dwarf of the law and followed it to the letter, no matter his personal feelings. That was why he was in the position of high captain. The leaders of this great city knew he would not let his emotions control him and that he would follow the law no matter what. He had done this for over ten years and rid the city of hundreds, if not thousands, of criminals and thugs. Unfortunately, the delinquent he was about to face now seemed to be innocent of everything but bad character. Xavdak could not lock him up for that.

  Xavdak came to the door that led into Brask’s room and walked in without pause. The room was similar to the one he had just left, holding two chairs, a table, half a dozen torches, and a single guard standing next to the door. Unlike the previous room though, no one was sitting at the table. Instead, Brask was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed, with an angry look on his face. When he saw Xavdak enter, his stood up straight and walked forward with an angry stride. If this had been any other situation, Xavdak knew Brask would have lunged at him.

  “About time!” the large man said and walked right up to the table, but did not sit. Xavdak said nothing. He just pushed out the other chair and took a seat, staring at his angry guest without expression. So far, his assumption had been right on. Brask was just as aggressive and apprehensive as he thought he would be. Clearly, the intended intimidation had only made the man angry.

  “Have a seat,” Xavdak said, motioning towards the other empty chair with a simple wave of his hand.

  “I’ve been sitting in a saddle for almost two weeks,” Brask said with irritation. “And I have been in that chair for almost two hours. I’m only on my feet because my ass hurts more than my legs. I’ll stand.”

  “Suit yourself,” Xavdak answered without care, “but you would do well to calm yourself and retard your anger.”

  “Tell me,” Brask answered back with a voice thick with sarcasm, “if you were on a job and I kept you waiting for hours, how would you feel?”

  “If I were you,” Xavdak answered, his eyes locking onto Brask, “I would be more concerned with being executed for murder than I would be worrying about work. You seem mightily defensive for one that says he and his men have done no wrong.”

  “And you seem quick to condemn us for having nothing but an anonymous tip,” Brask spat back. “You have no proof, no witnesses, and no justification for holding us as you have. How did you receive this supposed anonymous tip anyhow? Did it materialize out of thin air or did one of the hundreds of corrupt guards get paid to deliver it to you?”

  Xavdak just kept his face impassive. If Brask had hoped to incite a reaction from the High Captain, he would be sorely disappointed. The seasoned dwarf had handled much worse than one stubborn mercenary.

  “Where we received the tip is none of your business,” Xavdak finally replied. “The only thing you should be worried about is clearing yourself of the murder you are accused of committing.”

  “I have already told your guards what happened,” Brask said, waving his hands through the air. “If you cannot accept my word, which I’m sure you have already discounted, then why speak to you any longer? Have your wizards do divinations. Submit us to truth seeking spells. Do whatever it is you do to learn the truth. Just don’t waste my time.”

  “I don’t consider trying to find out what slaughtered innocent people a waste of time,” Xavdak said, a hint of anger to his voice. He knew what type of man Brask was but his callous disregard for life still ate at him. “And you have told my men what happened, but not me, so I suggest you calm yourself and tell me what happened.”

  Brask growled but relented and sat down, rather forcefully. Xavdak was surprised the seat did not crumble under him. The leader of the Knights then looked at Xavdak and his angry demeanor instantly disappeared. In its place was a man that was calm and collected, looking to all the world like a man who owned the very room they sat in. Xavdak had to admit he was a little surprised. Brask had been playing him, trying to see what type of man, or dwarf, he was. Some people would lose their temper when presented with an equally irate suspect. That only helped the person accused of the crime weasel their way free. Others would keep their cool, as he had done, which made it hard for the anger to be absolved. It seemed that Brask quickly understood that his anger would get him nowhere with Xavdak, so he gave up the charade and spoke in a level voice, but the words that came out were not his side of the story.

  “So who have you spoken to?” he asked. “I know your methods of interrogation, keeping me in here to sweat it out, keeping me waiting to make me uncomfortable. I know you’re
trying to match our stories together, trying to piece together who may be lying. It may not surprise you to know that I have been in these situations before and know how to handle the likes of you.”

  “You’re right,” Xavdak said. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “And as you can see,” Brask said with a smile, “I am still a free man.”

  “Regardless of whether you were guilty or not,” Xavdak threw back. Brask only smiled wider, telling the dwarf that the man had not been innocent every time he had been accused of something unseemly.

  “So who was it?” Brask said, continuing to press the issue. “Dex? Vistalas? Ristil?” After each name, he studied Xavdak closely, looking for any sign of confirmation. So far, the dwarf was like a rock. “Thorstar? Jannda?” Brask continued. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and a sneer came to his face.

  “Druzeel.”

  Xavdak thought he had remained expressionless, but Brask must have caught something for he just growled and leaned back. A tick, a twitch, something that Xavdak could not help had confirmed Brask’s suspicion. The man just let out a quick breath and shook his head. “Stupid kid.”

  “On the contrary,” Xavdak said, seeing no point in hiding the obvious. “Druzeel is quite intelligent. You would do well to follow his lead.”

  “You’re just as stupid,” Brask commented. “That boy wouldn’t know his head from a piece of cabbage. He has been nothing but trouble. You’d be doing me a favor by throwing him in the dungeons. In fact, he was the one that killed those people. Yeah, throw him in chains and put him out of my misery. Do us all a favor.”

  “Nice,” Xavdak replied. To say that Brask disliked Druzeel was an understatement. This man loathed the young wizard. “If this is how you treat your friends, I’d hate to see–”

  “He’s not my friend,” Brask barked with a harsh tone. “He’s not my friend, my companion, or my colleague. He’s a thorn stuck in my side that just keeps digging deeper and deeper and getting more painful by the day. I’d hope to be rid of him by the end of the month but thanks to you and your guards’ incompetence, I’ll have bled to death by the time I rip him from my skin.”

  “Our incompetence?” Xavdak asked.

  “Yeah,” Brask replied. “Through your actions, you and your guards have proven themselves incompetent. You fell for a simple ruse and allowed for our quarry, the one responsible for the caravan, to get further away. If you had taken a second to think, to realize how stupid the entire situation sounded, you may have even caught the assassin yourself. No, instead you jumped to conclusions, as all you brain-dead Pillars do, and arrested the wrong people. Now it will take even longer to find him, assuring that the whelp will be with us for much longer than necessary.”

  “You speak as if you have experienced the hospitality of our city before,” Xavdak said. “Find yourself in a dungeon or two?”

  “Hospitality?” Brask scoffed. “Hardly, but I’ve seen the corruption firsthand and if you weren’t so focused on accusing innocent citizens and travelers of crimes, you may have seen the ruthlessness and corruption rampant in your own guard. You self-righteous paladin wannabes make me sick. At least a full paladin knows what he is. Your kind just denies it, hiding behind a king’s crest or politicians’ law. It’s pathetic.”

  For the first time since Brask entered the room, the man standing guard next to the door moved, turning his head to regard his commander. To the guard’s amazement, Xavdak just sat in silence, staring at Brask without any expression. He would have throttled the arrogant mercenary had he been able, but he just stood and watched in silence, waiting and wanting the High Captain to explode in rage and beat Brask to a bloody pulp. Amazingly, Xavdak just took a deep breath.

  He would not be a very good leader if he let his anger control him. Brask’s words had stung to be sure, be he let them slide away, knowing that the lack of a reaction would incite the man even more than beating the life out of him. Reacting would also lend credence to Brask’s words and Xavdak knew that everything the man said was untrue. His Pillars were noble, honorable, and strong and he would not let simple words destroy years of hard work. He should know for he had trained many of them himself.

  “You are a very angry man,” Xavdak replied, bringing a fierce stare from Brask. “Angry and sad.”

  “Just tell me what you want,” Brask said loudly, barely controlling his anger. “I grow tired of this. You have nothing and you know it, but I’ll tell you what you want to know if it gets you away from me.”

  “I simply want to know what happened.”

  For the next few minutes, Brask told his story, starting out rather quickly, skipping details and trying to get to the end as fast as he could. Xavdak would ask questions and tell him to repeat himself when he thought the man was going too fast, further inflaming Brask’s anger, but the man complied, trying to appear calm. He finally finished after almost a half hour. It was basically the same accounting that Druzeel had given, minus a few dozen details, including the part of them looting the bodies, the only real area of the story that Xavdak wanted to know more of. He had known what the story would be but wanted to see what Brask would say about the looting, a part he had purposely left out. Xavdak was content to let those details go. Until now.

  “What about the things you took from the bodies?” Xavdak asked after a few seconds of silence.

  “What about them?” Brask replied without care. “It was as Dex said. We took those things to return them.”

  “Interesting,” Xavdak said when Brask said nothing more. He leaned back on his chair. The wood groaned under his weight but he refused to yield. “Druzeel says you ordered the others to loot the bodies and that when he tried to stop you, you refused and did it anyway. He said only himself and Dex refused and walked away while you and the others took everything you could get your hands on.”

  “Course he did,” Brask said without surprise. “Stupid kid.”

  “So is it your accounting or his that is correct?”

  “Does it matter?” Brask asked.

  “To me.”

  “Then yes,” Brask answered, his anger transforming into amusement. “We looted them and took everything they had. They didn’t need it. But looting the dead isn’t a crime, is it?” He spoke as if he already knew the answer.

  “No,” Xavdak said, not surprised that Brask had finally admitted to what they had done. He knew the man took no pride in his actions, but he felt no remorse either and to Xavdak, that was what really irritated him about the band’s leader. And the vitriol in his voice was not directed at the dead, but at Xavdak, so the dwarf just let the man rant, seeing no more point in conversing with him.

  “You brought us here to see if we killed your people,” Brask said, continuing to speak in a mocking voice, “not to hear about what you already knew. You either believe that we killed them or that the assassin fooled you. So which is it because I’ve got things to do?”

  Xavdak rose to his feet. “I’ll let you know.” With that, he turned and made for the door, moving rather quickly, just wanting to be out of the man’s disgusting presence.

  “You do that,” Brask said. As much as he tried to shake it, the man’s irritating voice stayed with Xavdak as he left the room and walked down the hall.