The Sentinels

  But something off a few hundred yards up the road and a few hundred to the side caught my eye.

  “Is that …?” I began, staring into the distance.

  “Torchlight,” Joen said.

  Though we were three days east of Waterdeep, there were still farmsteads and tilled fields, a few abandoned buildings and crumbling watchtowers, and scattered copses of bare trees. The hills looked like frozen waves, and the heavy rain was melting snow and ice and creating little fast-running streams all around us. The sound of the rain was practically deafening, and the clouds were so heavy it was almost as dark as night. The torchlight, however distant, was unmistakable.

  “Could be a patrol from Waterdeep looking for us,” I said, hoping it wasn’t true.

  “They wouldn’t waste their time,” Joen said, “especially in this weather.”

  “Bandits, then?”

  “Could be. Think they’d have some food, eh?” she chuckled.

  “I doubt they’d share.”

  “C’mon, it ain’t bandits. You just don’t wanna get your hopes up, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a hamlet,” she said. “But if you say, ‘It’s a hamlet’ and it ain’t, it means you got hopeful too early.”

  “It could be a hamlet,” I said. “But way out there?”

  “It’s a hamlet, or a farm at least, and we’re going there, eh? What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “Could be an orc war party,” I joked, but even as I said it, the thought made me shiver.

  “All right, sure. But what’s the best that could happen?”

  “It could be Malchor Harpell,” I said.

  “Oi, who?”

  “He’s a wizard, I think. I was going to look for him last autumn, but then I found Chrysaor in Waterdee—”

  Joen’s angry growl cut me off. “Chrysaor. Yeah, that’s the best case right there,” she said.

  “Best?” I asked, confused.

  “Chrysaor’s the one carrying that torch, and we find him, and I kill him dead, eh?” she said. The anger had left her voice as quickly as it had come, replaced with a chilling flatness.

  “It’s probably just bandits,” I said, trying to change the subject.

  We both laughed and Joen patted Haze on the side of her neck, teasing her in the direction of the torch. The horse turned—and stumbled. Joen and I both jerked forward, and my forehead hit the back of her head hard enough that I saw stars and she gasped in pain. Haze’s head dipped forward, and we both slid off her back for fear we’d tumbled forward over her head.

  When our weight was off her, Haze seemed to feel better, but not much better.

  “She’s never stumbled like that before,” I said.

  Joen’s brow was furrowed and her jaw tight as she patted her hands gently along the horse’s flank. We were all dripping wet and our breath came in puffs of white steam—Haze’s bigger and faster than ours.

  “She needs rest,” Joen said to me, then to Haze, “Don’t you, my fine girl?”

  I looked around and there was no other sign of life, not even an abandoned barn or a stand of evergreens that might have sheltered us. There was just that torchlight.

  “Maybe you can trust in that luck of yours, eh?” Joen said, and her voice was tight, strained.

  I shook my head at first, but when her face fell, I nodded instead.

  Looking back at the torchlight, I said, “Whoever it is, we should try, while Haze can still walk at all.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?” I asked with a sigh.

  “Not for a long time, at the least, eh?” Joen said.

  The torchlight we’d seen from the road turned out not to be a torch at all, but the diffuse glow of a fire in a fireplace. The light emanated from the window of a small house that was itself part of a small collection of buildings.

  It was a hamlet.

  “You folks look cold an’ wet,” a man called out to us as we trotted into the tiny town. He seemed like a nice enough sort, with a full, busy brown beard and the sturdy wool and leather clothes of a frontier farmer.

  “Well met, good sir,” Joen said, sounding uncharacteristically friendly. “You know where we can get warmed up?”

  “Ayuh, I do at that,” the man said. “I got a warm fire and good food if ye’ll come inside.”

  “Very kind of you to offer,” I said.

  “Comes with a price, though,” he continued, ignoring me.

  “We have no coin,” I said.

  “Don’t have to be coin, then,” the man offered.

  I looked around at the tiny cluster of houses. The village was altogether only half a dozen buildings clustered close together and circled by sturdy fences. In some ways it was almost more a fort than a town, but then we were far from any city and the reach of armed patrols. The folk out this far had to fend for themselves and had built this village—little more than a meeting place for scattered farmsteads—to keep someone, or something, at arm’s length. Still, that fire looked warm, and I could see a stable where Haze could get some rest.

  Joen nudged me, showing me the gem she’d taken from Deudermont’s cabin.

  I lowered my voice to a whisper and said to her, “That’s worth more than a meal and a night in the stables.” I shook my head then called back to the man. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, nothin’ much. The horse’ll do,” He flashed a near-toothless smile.

  Before I could stop her, Joen stepped away from the ailing horse. The man took a step closer, thinking she had accepted his offer. I knew better. I tried to hold her back, but lost my balance, falling unceremoniously into the mud, pulling Joen down with me.

  “Oh ho, now ye’ll need a bath too,” the man cackled.

  “Joen, put the daggers away,” I whispered. “Ignore him. We’ll move on.”

  “He wants Haze bad enough, maybe we go to sleep tonight and don’t wake up in the morning, eh?” she said, her voice colder than the driving rain. “I’ll give him a few good, painful memories, and then we can have all the food and warmth we need.”

  “We’re not killers,” I reminded her, “and we aren’t bandits.”

  “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Joen …,” I whispered.

  She looked at me for a long moment. “Fine,” she said at last. “But if no one else will help, we come back and take what we need here, eh?” She took my arm.

  “Agreed,” I said, pulling her to her feet. Together we turned toward the rest of the town.

  We’d taken only a few steps when the man called after us. “Change your mind, did ye?”

  “Oi, hold your tongue or I’ll cut it out,” Joen snapped at him.

  “If I can’t have the horse, lad,” the man said with a cackle, “maybe you could leave me the lass. I could use someone to do the cookin’ and washin’ up.”

  Joen stopped dead in her tracks, but before she could turn and take a step, I wrapped my arm around her waist, trying to pull her along. I managed only to tackle her once more into the mud. The man behind us cackled away.

  Across the way, the door to another house swung open. A bit of light trickled out into the street—not so warm and inviting as the first man’s house, but light nonetheless. The hunched silhouette of an old woman stepped through the door.

  “You dearies just ignore that old codger,” she called out to us.

  “We’re lost,” Joen and I replied at the same time.

  “Well, that’s a shame. Come on now. I’ve got warm food and a spare room.”

  We both rose from the mud—again—and walked toward the woman. Joen cast one last deadly glare over her shoulder at the toothless man, who was still laughing wildly.

  “Room’s been empty since my son left,” the woman said as we approached the quaint little cabin. “Left it ready in case he comes back to visit, but he never does. Well, I ain’t got proper stables for your horse, but I can put him in with the pigs, if you wa
nt.”

  “She,” I said. “And I think she’ll be grateful for any shelter at all.”

  “All right, dearie. You two can head in, leave your wet things by the fire. I’ll put your horse up and be back shortly.” She reached up to pat Haze’s strong neck, and the horse, a good judge of character, didn’t shy away.

  It had been so long since I’d had a warm meal, I had nearly forgotten just how good it can be. And the old woman, Tessa, proved to be a fine cook.

  Dinner conversation was light, as Joen and I each had food in our mouths for the whole of the hour. I had once read that following a period of starvation, it’s a bad idea to eat too much too quickly, but when presented with food after three days without, no amount of logic would keep me from stuffing my face as thoroughly as I could manage.

  We did get a few words in between bites, relating only the barest essentials of our story to Tessa: we’d been sailors but had quit the crew, and now we journeyed east. And it wasn’t until then that I really stopped to wonder where we were heading, after all. At first we’d just had to get away from Waterdeep, for fear that Captain Deudermont had set the Watch on us. But now …

  “And how about you, ma’am?” I asked Tessa after I’d finished chewing the last bite of my fourth plate of food. “How did you come to live out here?”

  “Most of them that live in these villages were born to ’em, I expect,” Tessa replied. Her voice was as warm and as welcoming as the fire dancing in her hearth. “But I was a city girl once, long ago. Lived in a place far to the south, called Baldur’s Gate. You ever been that way?”

  “We’ve both been there, aye,” Joen said. “We met for th’ first time on a ship just out of the Gate, last summer, you remember?”

  “I remember the meeting, but the ship’s name escapes me,” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter now, eh? She’s at the bottom of the sea.” She shot me a glance somewhere between anger and laughter.

  I winced at the memory. My mentor had called pirates on my behalf to take that ship. I had thought by now Joen would have let that go, but apparently not.

  “So, why did you leave the Gate?” I asked Tessa, trying to change the subject.

  “Not unlike you, I’m guessin’,” she said, “I was runnin’ from someone. Took my son and left the city, came to where the towns ain’t even got a name. Farmers and trappers ’round here just call it ‘Town.’ Better place to raise a young boy, anyway, out where there’s room to play and grow.”

  A flash of a forest entered my mind. Yes, growing up in the wilder world had been good for me. “I lived in the countryside when I was young,” I said, embellishing my story a bit to make it fit. “But I longed to see the cities.”

  “Well, so did my son, at that!” the woman said with a laugh. “He turned his twentieth and he met a girl, and off they went to live in the city, and I’ve been alone since. But I bet your’n parents still live out in the country, don’t they? And they’re just waitin’ for you to come home and visit, like a good boy should.”

  I winced. Apparently noticeably, as Tessa’s expression dropped a bit.

  Joen spoke for me. “We’re both orphans,” she said, her voice toneless, matter-of-fact, as though being an orphan was nothing to worry about.

  “Oh, dearies, I’m sorry. And here I am bringing up memories you probably don’t want to be seeing. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  You’re half right, I thought. Plenty of memories, but I’d rather remember than forget.

  “Well, anyhow, dearies, it looks like you’ve had enough of my cooking for now,” Tessa said after a pause.

  “Yes, and it was wonderful,” I said.

  “Oi, delicious,” Joen agreed.

  “Well, thank you for saying. Now, as I said, there’s an open room and the bed’s all clean and made and ready. I expect you two could use a good long sleep, yes?”

  I nodded emphatically, rising to my feet. Joen followed suit.

  “Well, it’s right through there.” She motioned to one of the plain doors in the plain walls of the plain room. “I’ll just clean this up. You two can head for bed. I’ll wake you for breakfast in the morn.”

  I would have helped with the cleaning, but after three long days on the road, the thought of bed was simply too enticing. Joen, I could see, agreed, based on the way she pulled her feet behind her. Usually she walked with such a light step, practically a skip.

  Of course, once we got into the guest room, one more problem became obvious. There was only a single bed, and it was rather small. Joen didn’t seem to mind—or even notice. She simply moved to the bed and plopped down.

  “I suppose I’ll sleep on the floor, then,” I said. “Toss me a pillow, would you?”

  Joen looked at me for a moment, puzzled, then burst out laughing.

  “What, you’re afraid to share a bed with a girl, eh?” she said, her voice low, mocking.

  I took a little wooden carving of a horse off a shelf and turned it over in my hands, pretending to be interested in one of Tessa’s son’s childhood toys.

  “I … um … I don’t … What?”

  “Relax, kid,” she said, emphasizing the last word as if she were so much older than I. “Look, it’s simple.” She took one of the pillows and laid it down the center of the bed, which was clearly delineated by the simple pattern of the homespun quilt. “This is the line. You cross the line, I’ll stab you really really hard with my daggers. You got it?”

  I put the horse back on the shelf and reached for the little wooden pig next to it. “These are …,” I said, searching for a word, any word, “… fun.”

  “You shut up and go to bed already, eh?”

  The storm passed in the night, and I awoke to sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window. Joen had apparently risen before me, and the room was empty, the bed warm and comfortable. I wrapped myself in the blankets and watched the morning light, which was shining through the dusty glass, trace its way across the floor ever so slowly.

  The door burst open and I sat up, startled.

  “Wake up, lazy,” Joen said as she entered. Her hair was damp, pulled back from her face. Her clothes were clean—or, at least, cleaner than they’d been the day before.

  “I’m not lazy,” I said, rolling out of bed. My foot caught on a rug I hadn’t noticed the previous night. The rug slipped out from under me and I stumbled, nearly crashing to the floor.

  “Oi, you’re clumsy, though,” Joen chuckled.

  I shrugged, hardly in any position to argue.

  “Well, the washroom’s open, eh? And Tessa’s cooking breakfast.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said.

  “No, it really doesn’t,” Joen answered. “Do we have a plan?”

  “Sort of,” I said, moving toward the door.

  But Joen stepped in front of me. “ ‘Sort of’ ain’t good enough right now, eh?” she said.

  “I have a name,” I said. “The dark elf told me: Malchor Harpell. When we find him, I think he can help us destroy the stone.”

  “Oi, you mean the stone that got me free of Sea Sprite’s brig, that made good our escape, that cold and wet as we were got us to Tessa? That’s the stone you want to destroy? The one you almost killed me and my shipmates to get? I say we follow Tymora’s good fortune wherever she leads us, and—”

  She was interrupted by the clatter of clay plates as Tessa set the table just outside the door. The smell of freshly cooked eggs wafted in, and my stomach rumbled a bit.

  Again I moved toward the door, and again Joen stepped in front of me. “I don’t want it,” I told her as plainly as I could.

  “And you can’t toss it away, or give it away?” she asked.

  “Can’t you just trust me that this is important?”

  “Can’t you trust me enough to tell me what I’m out here risking my life for?” Joen’s expression was soft, gentle. I had not seen such a look on her face often, but it seemed to fit. “Oi, didn’t we just face a dragon to get the thing back?”

>   “I can’t just toss it away,” I said. “If I get too far away from it, I die.”

  Joen’s eyes widened and she backed a step away from me. She was about to say something when there came a sharp rap on the front door of the cottage. I heard Tessa move to the door, humming a soft tune. “And this … Malker Horple?”

  “Malchor Harpell.”

  “Can take care of that for you?” she asked. A look of desperation crossed her face and made my heart sink. “He can free you of it?”

  “Before I found you in Waterdeep,” I said, “I had a guide, a friend. He gave me that name. I don’t know any more than that he might be able to help,” I said, crossing to the door and pulling it open. “I have to find Malchor Harpell.”

  I stopped in my tracks. The front door to the house was ajar. A man had entered. He had apparently been speaking to Tessa, but now he turned to look at me.

  “Well now,” Chrysaor said, his voice deep, his bluish skin shining in the morning sunlight. “That’s an interesting name for a child to know.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Always before, Joen’s movements in battle had been graceful, each motion leading naturally to the next. But not this time.

  All grace had left her, replaced by pure rage. She leaped forward, stabbing out with both her daggers.

  I looked at Tessa. Her jaw hung open, and her face was pale.

  “How do you know him?” I asked her.

  “Don’t, dearie,” she said. “He just showed up. I was gonna ask him to join us for breakfast.”

  Chrysaor fell back a step, out of Joen’s reach, and she pursued, step for step, withdrawing her blades and stabbing out again.

  “I don’t think he’s here for breakfast,” I said.

  Joen slashed at him, a wild roundabout swing that came up short.

  “No,” the old lady replied. “I suppose not.”

  But even as Joen’s dagger flashed harmlessly by, she charged in behind it, stabbing with her other hand, an awkward and off-balance movement that conveyed her blind rage.

  The pirate’s sword finally left its sheath. Though it was a fine metal blade, straight and narrow, it seemed almost dull in comparison to Joen’s flashing daggers. Each ray of the morning light glinted off the twin weapons, reflected a dozen times, shining as bright as the sun itself.