One of the quadnel shots must have shattered the cloak’s clasp, for the creature had come through the thinning smoke naked. The armor Erlestoke had seen had not been clothing but flesh, and the hood had hidden a hideous head with spikes and horns. The face appeared almost human, though devoid of hair and covered in scales—save that a muzzle began to jut forward, and the lipless mouth displayed the lethal curve of ivory fangs.
The elf’s arrow protruded from the creature’s mouth. It coughed and grasped the arrow as crawls and vylaens came to its aid. Erlestoke saw nothing more as the elf bodily dragged him into the small passage they’d discovered, and down between rough-hewn walls to sanctuary.
Erlestoke gasped with pain. “Slow, I can’t run. My ribs.”
“We have to, Highness.” The elf glanced up along their back trail. “We haven’t stopped it, just made it angry.”
“You know what it was?”
“Not for certain, no, but you recall my telling you about the kryalniri?”
“Nightmare creatures from long ago, yes.”
The elf nodded solemnly. “There are stories, seldom told, of things that used to prey on beasts like the kryalniri. They are ancient and fell. The only things older are dragons, and the further we are from it, the happier I’ll be.”
Goruel knelt on one knee in the snow and spat out the arrow. A little greenish black blood came with it, staining the snow. It had not hurt him as much as it had surprised him. Even the soft flesh of his mouth had not let it penetrate enough to lodge. As he swallowed he could feel a slow trickle of blood running down the back of his throat, but the wound would soon close and the injury would be of no consequence.
One of the kryalniri came and knelt before him. “How can this one aid you, Lord-master Goruel?”
Goruel almost snatched the arrow up and drove it through the white-furred beast’s lower jaw and into its brain, but the kryalniri needn’t suffer because of his similarity to the elf. He forced his hands open, then turned the right one over and, curling the fingers inward, inspected his talons. In a whisper he asked, “Why is there no pursuit?”
The creature’s eyes widened. “I thought to succor you, Lord-master.”
Goruel rose to his feet, towering over the kryalniri. It quaked there at his feet, sagging back on its heels. It cast its eyes downward, yet still flinched as the shadow of his upraised right hand passed over it. “Fools who think thus deserve to die.”
His right hand fell heavily in a crushing blow to the skull.
The kryalniri looked up, grey eyes wide as a vylaen collapsed next to it. “Lord-master?”
Goruel licked blood from his knuckles. “Prove to be more useful a fool than those vermin. Fetch me the sword.”
The kryalniri scrambled away to do his bidding. Goruel advanced, following the case’s track through the snow, right up to the blank stone wall where it ended. He sniffed, then flicked his forked, serpentine tongue against the stone. He closed his eyes and sniffed again.
There was something about Fortress Draconis that he had sensed from his arrival. It had strengthened, slowly, and had become especially concentrated and vexing. He could feel it where they sought the Truestones and in the aftermath of the araftii roost’s crushing collapse. He had never sensed its like before, which did not cause him fear, but merely whetted his curiosity.
His minion returned with the sword and offered it up on flat palms with head bowed. Goruel took the blade and sniffed it. Delicately his forked tongue came out and he trailed the twin edges over the curved length of enchanted steel. In some places his tongue lingered, in others it returned for another pass.
He could feel the sword’s magick and marveled at how insistent it was. It tried to mask his sight. It tried to paint those around him as fearful and, therefore, threats. It even offered advice as to how best it could be employed to destroy them.
He shoved this aside as one might toe away an inquisitive puppy and read more. He was able to taste its recent history. The blade related it to him in stark detail from the point at which it had been first drawn. Every bone cloven, every life taken, all of these came to him as subtly and fully as the nuances of spiced wine. He could feel the last wielder’s hand on the blade, and got a strong sense of him. Before him, a woman, and before her, a sullanciri.
Goruel slowly nodded. Malarkex. That sullanciri had been slain in Okrannel, so the blade had traveled far. That it had been created for one of Chytrine’s generals told him why the magick was strong enough for him to need to push it away.
Again he licked and found a slender thread of magick he had almost missed. The blade and its scabbard were linked.
Goruel gave the blade back to the kryalniri. “Use the seeking magick. The blade will lead to its scabbard, and that will lead to the fragment’s thieves. Do it now!”
An unholy light wreathed the kryalniri’s hands, then played like lightning over the blade. It skipped and jumped down the curved length, then leaped in a scintillating ball that circled once, then bounced against the wall Goruel had recently examined.
He moved up, back and away as the kryalniri’s cry brought gibberers with sledgehammers and pry bars. They pounded on the wall and quickly breached it. A group of them plunged into the darkness beyond it, then howled. Vylaens entered, then the kryalniri. The purple ball of light slipped into the hole, then Goruel stooped and passed through its tight confines.
Deep and down they went. Most of the passages forced Goruel to crouch. At various points they ran into blockages, but the hammers and spells made short work of them. The lower they went, the faster blockades fell.
After less than an hour they reached a large amphitheater. The tiers for spectators had been decorated with the stone effigies of a variety of warriors, though these concerned Goruel not at all. He passed swiftly down the stairs and up again to the central platform. At its heart lay a square opening, and another set of steps heading down into darkness. He saw well enough into it, but the stairs ended at a corridor running east, limiting his view.
He crouched at the platform’s edge and picked up the scabbard. It had been nestled safely in a little depression, right there on the platform, which suggested deliberation. And the only reason for that would be . . .
The magickal sense he’d had of Fortress Draconis focused and spiked. A vylaen hissed and a gibberer howled, but Goruel did not need to turn his face to know what was happening. In front of him, all along the terraces, stone figures began to move. Slowly at first, as people might move when rising from a long sleep. Steadily, inexorably, they started forward, climbing down toward him.
The stone legion caught the fleeing gibberers easily. The figures could not move quickly, but there were so many that running through a thorny thicket would have been easy by comparison. Some gibberers struggled mightily to pull free, but at the cost of shreds of pelt hanging from clawed fingers.
The kryalniri mewed loudly and reached out for him as stone enemies grabbed it. Its claws screeched over the steps, scoring little white lines in the grey stone, then the creature evaporated in a mist of blood and floating wisps of fur.
Goruel retreated, though not in any way hurried or frightful. Behind him, the stairs had melted back into solid stone, leaving the platform a smooth killing arena. He strode to the center of the stone circle, shifted his spiked shoulders, then shook his hands out and cast aside the scabbard.
He roared once, defiantly, at the stone figures that crawled up the steps. Goruel licked the air with anticipation, and caught another hint of the magick pervading the area.
He nodded. “Yes, of course. I know it now and should have seen before. Very well.” He waved the stone figures forward. “Do your utmost. Delay me you might, but defeat me, never!”
The heavy weight of the furred robes made Erlestoke’s chest ache, but they kept him warm. He followed behind Ryswin, with Jilandessa trailing. She’d offered to heal him, but he’d refused. The spell would have fatigued her, and he could still move well enough.
Jullagh-tse Seegg led the way through tunnels that wound through the earth. They had long since left behind the corridors of the fortress and headed east, but because of the twists and turns they had no way of measuring how far they had come.
The urZrethi came to a place where she shifted her hands into digging tools and clawed her way up toward the surface. She angled the tunnel to make ascent easy, and before long cold air poured down through a hole, and snow quickly followed. The wind’s howl could be heard, but not so loudly that they had to shout.
Erlestoke emerged from the hole with Ryswin’s help, and clutched the blue-green DragonCrown fragment to his belly. The others climbed out, and the group made a dash fifty yards east to the tree line. Crouched there, leaning against a venerable oak, the prince looked back at Fortress Draconis.
The once-proud fortress had been shattered, and not even the snow could hide the damage. Walls gaped and buildings sagged. Whereas once the fortress would have been ablaze, serving as a beacon to warn Chytrine’s troops away, now it lay dim and dark, like a phantom of fog drifting in from the Crescent Sea.
Verum, the weapons-master, knelt beside the prince. “I have my bearings. East for two miles or so, then southeast and we’ll reach a storehouse. We can resupply ourselves there. After that, well, that’s a decision for you.”
Erlestoke nodded. “We have to keep this fragment from Chytrine, so we’ll head south, right behind her troops.”
“Not to question your judgment, Highness, but wouldn’t we want to be going away from her troops?”
The prince gave the man a wink. “Oh, we know she’ll be tracking us, so it doesn’t matter where we run. Head south and we’re closer to friends. Somehow, we’ll have to hope they reach us before she does.”
CHAPTER 35
T oo much had been going right. Will growled as the small group came to Meredo’s north gate. The day had dawned bright but cold, with a clear sky and small sun that promised no warmth. It was not the best weather in which to start a trip, but not that bad, considering the time of the year. Pushing the horses, they could make the trip in a week to a week and a half.
And the things that had gone right had been considerable. Kerrigan had returned looking a bit worn, with a hideous, half-naked green creature trailing after him. The innkeeper would have protested but for the fact that Vilwanese sorcerers had been looking for him, and the innkeeper had no desire to be turned into a frog or, worse yet, whatever it was the young master had following him.
Kerrigan didn’t say much about his absence, other than to say he’d met a powerful sorcerer who was going to help him with a mission that was critical to stopping Chytrine. Bok, the malachite urZrethi male, was a servant on loan, and would accompany them on their travels. His master would catch up with them later.
The magicker did cast some spells to repair Will’s blacked eye, then checked over his throat. He listened very intently to the story of Lady Snowflake. He thought for a long time, then gave Will a serious look.
“I don’t know who she was or what she did, but it was powerful magick. You’re healed, I can tell that. The spells I cast show there is nothing wrong with you, nothing at all.”
Will had arched an eyebrow. “That would be good, wouldn’t it?”
Kerrigan nodded, then reached out and lifted Will’s chin. He turned his head left and right, then frowned. “The only thing wrong is this: those scars should have given me some sense of something wrong. Same with the feeling of cold troubling you. It’s not a big problem, after all, since you can get warm, and the scars are not bad, and I sense no magick that would prevent you from being healed, but it is odd.”
“Have you ever seen anything like it before?”
“No, and that is what is odd. When I checked Crow and worked on his broken leg, I also could see all the other injuries he’d had, including just getting old. Same thing with Orla. When I healed her from injuries, I repaired some other things. I cleaned up some bits of wear from age, so she wouldn’t have those aches and pains. When I cast a diagnostic spell after that, there was less wrong with her than before.”
Will nodded. “That makes sense. It would be like your spell comparing the injured person against who they would be in top shape and you fixing the differences.”
“Exactly. In your case, though, the magick says that even cold and even with those scars, you are the best you can be.”
“Could you fix the scars?”
The bed in Kerrigan’s room groaned as he shifted his weight. “I could, if I could find them. I can see them, of course, but as far as magick is concerned, they don’t exist. For me to set things to rights, there has to be a sense of wrongness, and there isn’t here. Maybe if the spells that healed you interfered with each other, you could get this sort of mix-up. Maybe. I’m guessing.”
Will smiled. “You, guessing?”
“Well, yes.”
“And admitting it?”
Kerrigan’s expression soured. “I see you’ve not changed in my absence.”
The thief shifted his shoulders uneasily. “Only a little.”
The two of them had left Kerrigan’s room to join Princess Sayce and Dranae near the fire. There Sayce and Dranae recounted the exchange at the palace for the mage. Though they kept their voices low, Will knew the story would be flying through the streets of Meredo faster than the snow. While he knew that might not be a good thing, Will had put it out of his mind.
Until now.
A company of horsemen waited in the courtyard near the gate. They’d clearly been there for a while and, what was odder yet, each of them had a bare face. Their masks had been tied to their upper right arms, as was Will’s.
One man brought his horse forward to bar their path. He had sharp features and dark eyes, which were accentuated by the fact that the flesh which his mask had hidden was noticeably paler. He looked straight at Will, ignoring Crow and Alexia. “You’re the Norrington?”
Will nodded wearily and urged his horse forward, leaving Princess Sayce’s side. “I am.”
“You called the king a coward and said he wasn’t worthy of the sort of stouthearted folk we have here?”
“Something like that.”
“And in the Rampant Panther you said that we all need to be heroes to fight the Nor’witch?”
Will caught something odd in the man’s voice. “Yes, I guess I did.”
The man smiled. “Well, then, we’re your men. Our ancestors, they took to wearing masks to hide who they were. But that’s not serving us too well right now, so we’ll be wearing our masks as you do, and we’re adopting new names. We’re the Oriosan Freeman Company, pleased if you’d be leading us to Caledo. I’m Wheatly.”
The thief blinked and didn’t know what to say. When he’d seen them, he had anticipated trouble. But before Will could get past his surprise, the Murosan Princess rode forward. “In the name of King Bowmar of Murosa, I welcome you, Captain Wheatly, and your men. Please, join us.”
“Gladly. Thank you, Princess.” Wheatly waved his arm and his group started to thread their way back through the Lancers to make up the rear of the column. Most of the riders gave him a nod, but two bringing up the rear refused to meet his eyes.
“Wait a minute. Stop.” Will frowned. “Do I know you?”
The first man, whose soft shoulders mirrored his soft chin, shook his head. The second, looking young enough to be the first man’s son, smiled confidently. Though a large man, and quite powerfully put together, his voice squeaked with tightness. “My brother doesn’t speak much, Lord Norrington.”
Will caught the voice and glanced at the man’s hands to confirm his identity, but his thick mittens thwarted him. “Your name?”
“I’m known as North, my lord, and this is Lync . . .”
The other man looked up. “Lindenmere.”
A shiver ran down the thief’s spine. Kenleigh and Linchmere, what are you thinking? “You two should go home.”
Lindenmere’s voice shrank into a croak. “I have no h
ome.” The mask on his upper arm had a second orphan notch cut into it. “I was born to the mask. I want the chance to earn it.”
“And you . . . uh, North?”
“As long as Chytrine is out there, no one is safe. Sooner we kill her, the less time I spend fearing for my family.”
Will thought for a moment, then nodded. “As the princess said, welcome.”
“Obliged, my lord.”
Will reined his horse about and fell in with Princess Sayce as she led the way out of Meredo. Not many folks were out, given the chill. Those few who were stopped and stared as the company rode past. Will couldn’t help but smile, given that the troupe had to be as odd a sight as had been seen since the last time a Harvest Festival had been held there.
Glancing back over his shoulder as a squad of Lancers rode out and along the road as foreguard, Will took a good look at the group. Alexia, Crow, and Resolute came next, followed by Dranae and Kerrigan. Lombo loped through the snow, looking as if he was having fun, and Qwc looped and swirled through the clouds of snowflakes that the Panqui would toss into the air. Bok loped along on impossibly slender stork legs, bearing a big wooden chest strapped to his back.
After him came a series of five wagons the princess had hired in Meredo, which had been fitted with runners for the snow. A big, boxy wagon led them and Peri rode in it. While she could easily fly in the cold, the air did get even colder higher up, and sometimes vicious winds blew. No one wanted her wings to get frostbitten, so they’d fashioned a rather cozy nest for her in the wagon. She had protested, but everyone countered that she was their secret weapon and she let that fiction mollify her.
After the wagons came a squad of the Lancers, all bright in their scarlet riding leathers. The Freemen company, which swelled to just over forty as other riders caught up, came next, and then the rear guard of lancers. The column stretched out over nearly three hundred yards and looked quite formidable.
Princess Sayce caught Will’s eye and smiled as he turned to face forward. “I have to thank you for having your men join us.”