Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy)

by J. S. Morin

  Having secured the door, Brannis went to stand by the window. The glass let in a chill that felt cleansing, and Brannis thought he could use some about then. He looked at the night view of the abandoned overcity and wondered how soon the attack would come. He watched the view long enough for his passions to cool, and for the warmth of Juliana’s body to escape him.

  As he climbed back into bed, he noticed that it had managed to acquire a faint whiff of honeysuckle.

  I am a fool. Perhaps a good man, perhaps a good friend, but definitely a fool.

  Chapter 30 - Sand in the Dragon’s Eye

  A light steam rose from the murky water that poured from the large circular stone duct that jutted from the rocky base of the mountain, carrying the humans’ effluent into the lake. The duct was large enough that a human might pass through, albeit uncomfortably, in order to perform maintenance. There was a grating blocking the opening, made of iron and warded against rusting. The openings in the grating were small enough to keep out goats and bears and other wildlife that might seek respite from the cold of winter within the warm, fetid sewers of Raynesdark. They were even small enough to keep out goblins.

  But not all goblins were quite as resourceful as Gkt’Lr. The assassin studied the runes for a moment and measured the gaps in the bars against the width of his shoulders. The wards were not so complex that he could not unravel them and break through the iron of the grating, but it would take time. He reached his pack through the bars and set it quietly on the other side, just above the water level, hoping that it would stay put as he worked to join it. The stone was rough but worn, and the curved slope of the duct threatened to tumble the pack into the murk of the humans’ waste. Gkt’Lr was not squeamish about the disgusting mess, but he did not want the stink of it on him for the whole evening; he had work to do and did not want to announce it by his odor.

  The goblin assassin reached an arm through the bars and poked his head through as well.

  Now for the trick.

  He twisted his collarbone at an unseemly angle, farther than nearly any goblin could manage, enough to make an onlooker uncomfortable just watching. There was no pop, no dislocation, as human contortionists might use to fit themselves places that their bodies did not belong, merely a continued stretching as tendons and ligaments relaxed and allowed the lithe body to squeeze through a space no wider than a human forearm.

  Once the shoulder was through, the rest came easily. Gkt’Lr reoriented his shoulders to a more anatomically sustainable position—one that let him breathe—and used both arms to push himself the rest of the way through, angling his hips to pass through the square holes.

  Scooping up his pack, he set off down the warren of pipes and ducts in search of a way up into the city. The goblin pulled an amulet from beneath his tunic and gave it a bit of aether to start it. The passage was bathed in a purplish light, which he was able to see but which most goblins and all humans would be unable to distinguish from the darkness.

  Gkt’Lr was Master of Eternal Night, the second most senior position among the Cult of Knives. The only one above him was the Grandmaster of Darkness. A wizened old goblin named P’ko’t, the grandmaster had passed on a great deal of wisdom to his protégées. Gkt’Lr remembered one particularly relevant lesson …

  “You cannot just kill a dragon. The dragon is much too strong for you to overcome. Rather, be the sand in the dragon’s eye, that it might blink when the blade comes to claim it.”

  The Cult of Knives was a notoriously impious bunch, left to practice their dark craft more out of practicality than approval. The dragon-god cared little for such backroom blasphemies, though, and appreciated the competence the assassins brought among their followers. So long as the assassins neither openly insulted any dragon nor attempted to put their parables into practice, they were more than tolerated by the dragons.

  Ni’Hash’Tk was Gkt’Lr’s particular problem, though. She was disappointed in him, possibly bordering on annoyance. That was not a recipe for a long life among her followers. He needed something to prove his worth to her. He could not destroy an army, but he might provide a distraction to the defenders of Raynesdark and wound them as well.

  It was time to become the sand in the dragon’s eye, and this “dragon” was named Raynesdark.

  * * * * * * * *

  The sewers had wound a long course, much of it upward, back into the undercity of Raynesdark. Gkt’Lr was more familiar with goblin sewers than human and had to accustom himself to a whole new plethora of foul odors as he made his way through. His hopes of making it through cleanly were dashed at the first drop he had to ascend. With sewage pouring down around him, he had climbed up by rope and hook. It had happened several times after that first one, as the humans had farther to bring their runoff down than across as they drained it out into the lake.

  [I wonder if the folk in the downriver cities know they pour their filth into the lake,] the assassin muttered to himself.

  He found respite from the foul waters in a back alley of the undercity. The grating that covered the opening to the sewers was not bolted in place, and with the help of a little aether, he was able to dislodge it long enough to make his exit.

  He kept to the shadows and away from the noises of the humans’ night activities. Few were about, but those that were made enough noise for the vigilant assassin to steer well clear of them. Guards wandered the streets and taverns seemed to still be plying their trade at the late hour of his arrival, but the regular folk seemed to have largely retired for the night.

  Gkt’Lr wandered, but not aimlessly. He was reconnoitering the city, looking for three things. The first was the humans’ water supply. He could hear the waters flowing and was making his way toward them with all caution.

  The architects of Raynesdark had not relied on wells for their water but had instead diverted an underground river through the undercity. Gkt’Lr approached cautiously and examined the canal they had created. The canal flowed in from the north side of the city, and that was the point where Gkt’Lr concerned himself. The canal was cut with dark stone walls, quarried from the same stone as the lake walls outside. He studied the ancient runes inscribed along them—someone around these parts had been intent on placing wards on nearly everything, it seemed—and found ones that kept the stone from wearing away, ones that kept the flow of the water constant and, to the assassins’ dismay, ones that kept the water clean and pure.

  His pack contained a deadly contaminant that he had intended for the water, but it would have been best used in a well. The free-flowing water would have carried much of the poison—an extract from kokoi grass—out of the city before much had been consumed. Even at that, he would have used it just to try, if not for the wards.

  Gkt’Lr had two plans for the water, though, and from the second he would not be dissuaded. There was an archway at the head of the river’s entrance to the city, and he walked through it, balancing on the stone blocks that lined the edge. Once safely out of sight of the city, he stripped off his clothes and equipment and laid them on the stones. He slid into the water and washed off the muck of the sewers as best he could.

  Once he felt clean enough, he climbed back out and washed his clothing in the waters as well. The wards purified the water so effectively that the filth he left was already dispersing by the time it flowed out into the city.

  The foundries were not far from his location, and they were near to where he was headed next anyway. While the city slept, the foundries worked day and night. There was less activity than during daytime hours, but there were still humans about. Gkt’Lr could not exactly run around unnoticed forever, dripping wet from the canal, at least not if he hoped to avoid attracting notice. Gkt’Lr found himself a spot near the fires to dry out, ever alert for iron-workers in the area. He settled in and waited, taking the time to admire the sights of the city—or as much as he could see from his place of hiding.

  It was a nice enough place, huge even by goblin standards. The domed ceiling was
very practical and avoided the frequent supports that his own people’s underground dwellings used. The buildings would have to be refurbished to goblin size, but all the essential elements for goblin habitation were already in place.

  Maybe I will purchase land here, once the conquest is complete. Perhaps I can even convince Ni’Hash’Tk to include someplace as a reward for my role in it.

  * * * * * * * *

  “What this for?” the ogre asked, though his ogreish accent made “what” sound like “whad,” as all the hard sounds softened.

  The ogre’s massive brow knitted in suspicion. He was naked to the waist, wearing just a pair of leather breeches and boots, as were the other male ogres. The females, toward the back of the pen with the children, just wore simple leather skirts and were bare of both chest and foot. A few sat nursing babes, and others kept the naked, unruly children away from their visitor, as much from fear as from politeness.

  “Gold … is … your,” the assassin explained slowly, struggling with the Kadrin words. They had too many vowels.

  “Why you givin’ us gold?” the ogre persisted, looking down at his knee-high benefactor.

  “For help free you,” Gkt’Lr said. “Goblins fight humans. Ogres no fight goblins. Goblins give more gold. Goblins set ogres free. No more work mines.”

  The assassin hoped that got the point across well enough. Speaking Kadrin was tiring, and the ogres only understood properly pronounced Kadrin poorly to begin with.

  “So you come fight humans. If we no fight, you give more gold? What we do with gold? We no can go markets,” the ogre reasoned out.

  Well, he gets half of it at least.

  “We make you free. Then you go markets,” the assassin clarified.

  That gold was a means of trade for goods and services was a bit more than he hoped to have to teach them. At least they knew what markets were, after a fashion.

  “What we got do?” the ogre asked, if not fully comprehending the offer, at least understanding that he was being asked to do something. Being given tasks was at least a concept that the ogres were familiar with.

  “Humans give weapons. You kill humans, not goblins. Goblins make you free,” Gkt’Lr said, thinking that maybe finally they could reach an understanding.

  The ogre took the bag of gold coins that the assassin first offered him and looked inside again, getting a feel for the amount of money within, if not a count.

  “You give gold. Goblins fight humans in city. You say humans give us weapons?” the ogre paused to ask, and Gkt’Lr nodded an affirmative. “We use weapons and fight humans instead. You give more gold an’ make us free, so we go do markets and spend gold. Ya?”

  “Yes.”

  “We make deal.”

  * * * * * * * *

  In the darkened hallway of Raynesdark Castle, Gkt’Lr clung to the shadows. With thick carpets quieting careful feet, he felt his way along. He found his objective at the end of the corridor, the last of the rooms in the guests’ wing, usually reserved for visiting nobility.

  It seemed like the sort of place one would lodge the most important visitors, so it seemed the best place to start. The goblin assassin had made easy work of the passage up from the undercity to the castle, silencing a handful of guards along the way. If he had gotten all of them along the patrol routes, there would be no one left to report the missing guards before daybreak.

  The door at the end of the hall was not warded, the assassin concluded after a cursory inspection. There was something with a strong reserve of aether just on the other side of the door though, but it was not any sort of ward. The assassin pushed gently to open the door, but it did not move in the least. He pushed again, harder, and met with the same result.

  I could burn through the door, but that would be the end of stealth for the night. I should see what other targets are available.

  Gkt’Lr moved on to the next door, across the hallway from the first one. He inspected the wards he found there and saw that it was a simple, temporary construct, likely thrown into place hastily to give the sorcerer within some privacy.

  Gkt’Lr was about to begin unraveling it—a skill of which he was especially proud—when he noticed something. The ward he had first found to be so simple was actually a trap, meant to give false security to just such an intruder as himself. He saw that it was linked to other, more subtle wards, scribed within the first so as to pass unnoticed. They would raise an alarm and strike at the one undoing the first ward, with some sort of magic that the assassin could not identify at a glance. It was a masterful work of rune crafting, and Gkt’Lr was thankful to be as much a master at his own craft to have avoided it.

  He crossed the hall again to the next door down.

  I hope these Kadrins are not all so paranoid, or this night’s work could go poorly.

  The door was warded again, a bit more thoroughly than the last door appeared at first. Gkt’Lr gave some serious time to going over the runes of the ward in exacting detail, but found that it was merely a plain, unassuming ward to bar the door against entry. He began unraveling it and found that no surprise awaited him upon its final collapse.

  The assassin slipped inside and oh-so-quietly closed the door. The floor in the guest room was well covered in rugs as well, and there was no sound as Gkt’Lr approached the sleeping sorcerer. The Kadrin’s chest rose and fell slowly, rhythmically, almost hypnotically. The pale moonlight from the window was even enough to make out the beating of the heart in the sorcerer’s neck.

  Slowly the assassin leaned in closer to the sorcerer, holding his breath lest his victim sense the approach by a disturbance in the air. With dexterity and practiced control, the figure got right down next to the sorcerer’s neck …

  With expert timing, he simultaneously grabbed the sorcerer’s nose and drew his dagger deeply across his victim’s throat, at the end of a long breath. The heavy-set sorcerer’s involuntary gasp filled his lungs with blood and gave him no breath with which to scream.

  It was short work after that to cut the man’s heart from his chest, using magics that any Master of Eternal Night would have practiced to the point of doing them blindfolded. He burned the aether out of the sorcerer’s Source, more a matter of professional pride than for any real concern about necromancy. There were standards he had to live up to, after all.

  After cleaning his dagger on the sorcerer’s nightclothes, Gkt’Lr ventured back out into the hall.

  The door across from the last one was not warded at all. He checked twice to make sure but could find nothing. The door even opened at his lightest touch and made not a whisper of sound as it swung.

  Excellent. This is more like it.

  Gkt’Lr was disappointed, however, to find that the room was vacant. He made a circuit of the room to be thorough but could find no occupant.

  So much for things going so easily, the goblin thought ruefully.

  He closed the door behind him and crossed once again to the other side of the hallway. This door seemed like a trap. The ward upon it was crude and seemed lazily fashioned. It warranted extreme caution after the dangerous trap he had just uncovered within a simple ward, but this was no layered masterwork. It was simply a sloppy ward. Gkt’Lr applied just the slightest pressure with his own aether and it fell to nothingness.

  * * * * * * * *

  As the door swung inward, a pair of green eyes snapped open, red-rimmed yet fully alert. Using her aether-vision, Juliana noticed her would-be assailant enter the room and close the door. It was a small Source, though far from a weak one. There seemed to be some sort of runed dagger held in one of its hands.

  Two can play that game, she thought angrily as she reached silently beneath her pillows to take hold of her daggers. She lay with her back to the door, facing the curtained window. She silently cast a shielding spell and waited for the assassin to draw closer.

  The goblin—for it was obvious as to what creature so small would be skulking in the castle with a runed dagger drawn—was taking care not to m
ake the slightest noise. She almost wished she had been snoring so that the goblin would not be so concerned with stealth and just hurry up!

  At last, the goblin approached close enough that she felt confident in springing her trap. She whirled in bed and slashed out with one of her daggers. The goblin had been caught by surprise but had reflexively deflected the strike and sprung back.

  Juliana then quickly lit the room as bright as daylight and rolled off the bed to confront her attacker. She crouched low to keep the assassin from being able to get beneath her reach, wielding a dagger in each hand.

  The assassin tried to strike at her, but she parried with one dagger while striking back with the other. The goblin tried a few more slashes but was finding himself too pressed in return to carry on an offensive.

  Gkt’Lr was not above resorting to a bit of firehurling when he was in trouble, and loosed a blast of aether-borne fire toward the Kadrin woman. He would not have thought to call her a sorceress if she was goblin, for minor magical ability was common among them, and she had shown little skill with anything but a blade.

  Unfortunately for the assassin, Juliana knew more magic than he had realized—shoddy ward-crafting notwithstanding—and her shield spell deflected the weak flame. Firehurling was useful for many tasks, but breaking through a sorcerer’s shielding spell was not among them.

  Gkt’Lr had used the diversion of the spell to make his escape, bolting for the door as she instinctively flinched away from the fires. Juliana’s reaction did not buy him enough time, though, and he did not make it through the door before she had recovered. Knowing that she would never catch a goblin in a footrace, she flung one of her daggers, catching the goblin assassin low in the back. The assassin sprawled out of sight of the door as he fell.

  Juliana quickly pulled on her traveling boots before venturing out into the cold night air in the hallway. She found the assassin struggling to get to his feet, bleeding badly from his lower back. Both the assassin’s dagger and her own lay out of reach on the floor, and the assassin turned feebly toward her as she approached him.