by Ed Greenwood
Zreem promptly took a second bundle from a second warrior and hurled it at The Masked, who caught it rather stiffly. The huge Telcanor warrior jerked his head in a silent order as he took Tantaerra's much smaller bundle into his hands, and suddenly the Telcanor host was on the move, heading briskly down off the knoll and back toward Braganza.
Leaving the three prisoners and the bodyguard alone on the knoll with three hobbled horses, as a wind started to rise and stir the open grasslands all around.
Tantaerra's bundle caught her squarely in the face. Payback from a man who obviously didn't bother waiting long to take his little revenges.
She clawed at her knives, not waiting for her eyes to stop smarting and streaming from the blow. Around The Masked, not to mention this "Ahrkholm," things had a habit of happening fast.
Already Zreem was standing in front of Ahrkholm and proffering a small roll of parchment. "A map to the Shattered Tomb."
Ahrkholm accepted it with a half-smile. When Lord Telcanor's bodyguard turned to march over to The Masked, another map in his hand, the brown-eyed man drew one of the daggers that had just been returned to him and threw it hard at the exposed back of the bodyguard's neck.
Zreem ducked and sidestepped smoothly as if he'd expected the throw, letting the dagger sail past his shoulder and on.
He said nothing, and the almost smiling, slightly contemptuous expression on his face didn't change. He held forth The Masked's copy and announced, "A map to the Shattered Tomb."
When The Masked wasn't quite quick enough to take the parchment, Zreem let it fall through the air and strode on to Tantaerra, who had all her weapons back in place—even the picks back to exactly where in her hair she preferred to let them ride—and her cloak around her shoulders.
"Details of the route to what will become my tomb?" she asked lightly.
"A map to the Shattered Tomb," he replied flatly. The moment she took the parchment from him, he turned, deftly struck a second hurled dagger from Ahrkholm out of the air with his forearm, and announced to them all, "You are hereby ordered, in the name of Lord Krzonstal Telcanor, to set forth immediately on your mission, tarrying not near Braganza nor returning to it this day. So go, now. Go to your deaths."
The bodyguard turned to face Ahrkholm fully—just as two more daggers came whirling at his face, one right behind the other. With contemptuous ease, he plucked them both out of the air and tossed them over his shoulder into the trampled grass.
"If you're pondering the wisdom of abandoning this task and just fleeing, be aware that you'll die about a month from now. A long, slow, agonizing death, as the spells that were covertly cast on all three of you as you slept will really take hold in your innards. My master can end those spells in an instant, of course, when you return to him. Or rather, if you return, bearing the gauntlet, and freely surrender it to him."
"What?!" Choked with rising fear and terror, Tantaerra entirely lost control of her temper. "You heartless, treacherous mothershun! You thrice-poxed cur! You wormspine!"
Zreem smiled at her almost fondly. "Life," he observed, "is so unfair."
Then he put his helm back on and strode away, ignoring the last dagger Ahrkholm threw. It clanged off the crested back of his magnificent helm without apparent effect.
Tantaerra continued to shout curses at the towering bodyguard as he dwindled into the distance, returning to the city, until The Masked sighed in exasperation and came to stand beside her. "Calm yourself, little one. He's lying."
"Oh? And how can you be sure?" she snapped at him.
"He's lying," Ahrkholm agreed flatly, from where he was bent over searching for the two daggers Zreem had tossed away together. "There's a spell at work on that advisor of his, probably a disguise, but no one worked magic on us while we were in the Telcanor mansion. I would know."
"Oh?" Tantaerra asked, making the word a challenge. "How, exactly?"
He shrugged, then smiled. "Some secrets, I keep."
∗ ∗ ∗
"So why did you try to kill him?" The Masked asked, as the sun sank low and their saddles creaked under them.
"Zreem?" Ahrkholm asked, then shrugged. "I didn't like him. Still don't."
"You know him, don't you?" Tantaerra asked, letting the suspicion she felt show clearly as she peered up at the brown-eyed man. "From before yesterday."
The only answer he gave her, before he spurred away, was a smirk. He guided his mount well off to one side of The Masked and Tantaerra, to within shouting distance but too far for casual conversation to be overheard.
It was the same response he'd made earlier, when Tantaerra had asked him who he really was and why he'd followed them from Halidon.
They were an unlikely trio, riding across the rolling hills toward Nirmathas. Somewhere ahead was the Inkwater River, and all around them were farms and open ranchland, crisscrossed by winding cart tracks.
Their horses were experienced war-mounts: tough, stolid, and swift when urged with spurs, easily up to the tasks of dodging suspicious Molthuni patrols and keeping clear of the dustraisers—army units marching to participate in the latest invasion of Nirmathas. On maps, this part of Molthune was almost empty—"a whole lot of nothing," as one of Hroalund's clients back in Canorate had put it—but it was becoming clear to Tantaerra just how much that "lot" was. As in, days of riding, not a long afternoon.
This first day was coming to an end now, the sun sinking low. The few trees in sight cast impossibly long shadows across the land. The rising breeze was taking all warmth along with it, reminding her that their cloaks were not stylish luxuries or mere rain protection.
Ah, yes, rain ...
Tantaerra studied the sky, sniffed the air, and relaxed. Oh, there'd be night-damp and a heavy dawn mist, but she couldn't sense any coming rain.
Which was good, because rain would have made her misery complete.
They were riding right into a messy, long-drawn-out war, and a land ravaged by it. On a mission that looked to be, to put it gently, suicidal, if not utterly impossible. With a companion she trusted not at all.
All day long she'd been keeping a close eye on the man who was calling himself Ahrkholm, and although he wasn't as obvious about it, she could tell The Masked was, too. Ahrkholm had shown no signs of tossing any knives their way, but it was hard to forget that sudden, casual, and entirely unannounced volley of daggers the self-proclaimed High Investigator had hurled at Zreem. He'd recovered at least three of them—who knew how many more he had hidden on his person? If she herself were anything to go by ...
She couldn't stay awake forever, and neither could The Masked. Just one of those knives could end their lives in an instant—this very night, perhaps, long before they got anywhere near the killing traps and fell magics that undoubtedly guarded a wizard's tomb.
She rode nearer to The Masked. "I fear knives in the dark," she told him, nodding in the direction of Ahrkholm, who was riding off to their right, smiling his easy smile. "What'll we do?"
"Take turns staying awake and keeping watch," he replied.
Tantaerra yawned suddenly. Gods, where had that come from? It must have been hearing the word "awake."
"Stay awake how?" she asked sharply.
"We find a stream. The one keeping watch stands with one foot in it. The water will be cold, believe me. When that foot goes numb, go and step on a stone we've warmed by our fire—which we'll let burn out, but the stone'll stay hot a long time. Then take your burned foot back to the cold water. When you get bored, change feet. But make sure the wet one is unshod."
"Great," Tantaerra told him. "Well, at least footwear isn't going to get overly damaged in all of this to-do."
"Neither," The Masked reminded her, "is your throat."
∗ ∗ ∗
That evening and the next, The Masked and Tantaerra were quietly hostile toward Ahrkholm. He fell into smiling silence, and rode away from them as each dusk deepened to camp off by himself, somewhere out of sight.
Though they stood watch,
neither he nor anything larger than very small prowling things came anywhere near where they slept.
The dawns were shiveringly cold, but the saddlebags of the Telcanor horses supplied kindling as well as frymeat and little three-legged cauldrons for broth.
On their second morning, Tantaerra looked up from the broth she was tending as the first wisps of steam started to rise from it, saw that Ahrkholm was still nowhere to be seen, and asked suddenly, "So ...the mask that cursed you ...they took it, yes? You're free of it?"
He laughed sharply. "No such luck, I'm afraid. When they removed the mundane mask, I managed to activate the temporary illusion trinket I carry, just in case I need to go unmasked. By the time they got to my crotch, where the real mask was stuffed down my breeches, it had already moved to my face, where the illusion hid it as well.
Tantaerra winced. "Moved? So it's alive?"
The Masked nodded grimly. "I think so."
Tantaerra paused, considering, then set the matter aside. "So how come you don't use illusion spells all the time?"
The Masked shook his head. "Do you have any idea how much an illusion spell like that costs, princess?"
Tantaerra sighed, wrapped her hands around the cauldron to warm them. "Fair enough. So what of this Ahrkholm? What do you think he's really after?"
The Masked shook his head. "Unbridled speculation can be more dangerous than not knowing, little one. Bide, watch, and listen, and perhaps he'll let something slip."
His gaze lifted to look over her. "And here he comes now."
So by day they rode as three, deeper into a deserted Molthune of burned barns and neglected fields, closer to Nirmathas.
The Masked and Tantaerra always moved their camp after Ahrkholm left them, suspecting he'd direct Molthune's patrols to find and capture or kill them—but no matter where they went or what detours they tried the next day, Ahrkholm found them before daylight failed, to silently ride beside them.
As they muttered to each other forehead to forehead in the deepening night, reaching agreement that it was now too risky to light a fire, Tantaerra whispered, "You think he has magical powers?"
The Masked shrugged. "Some magical means of tracing us, perhaps. Competent spellhurlers are rarer than all the tales will have you think."
"So what then?"
The Masked shrugged. "Await his treachery or some revelation of what he's up to. What else can we do?"
Tantaerra nodded—and then froze.
By all the gods! For the first time in years, I'm trusting a man. She looked at him, a dark shape in the gloom, lying down with his cloak wrapped around himself, preparing to sleep while she stood first watch. Trusting her.
He was only one man. Yet would this trust be as foolishly misplaced as every earlier instance?
The night gave her back no answer.
∗ ∗ ∗
Tantaerra reined her tired mount to a halt. "Is that what I think it is?"
The Masked nodded. "The Inkwater," he confirmed. "The border."
"There's no bridge, is there?"
"None. And the water's fast and cold."
"Then we can't take the horses across."
"Your tactical brilliance continues unabated."
Tantaerra made a rude sound, and gave him a rude gesture to go with it. "Suppose you demonstrate your tactical brilliance by telling me what we do now."
"Dismount. We're too close to the river as it is. Both Molthune and Nirmathas loose a lot of arrows and bolts across the Inkwater—and riders are nice tall targets."
"Back to that hollow we just rode through?"
The Masked nodded approvingly. "As good a place as any. Better than most."
"Any sign of Ahrkholm?"
"Yes. He's two hills that way. Right—there."
Tantaerra peered along the masked man's pointing arm, but could see only rolling hills, a hedge along a long-abandoned farm fence line of old stumps and boulders, and long grass swaying in the breeze. A lot of long grass, swaying in the breeze.
She waved in exasperated dismissal at the view, and turned away.
"He ducked down when I pointed," The Masked told her. "I think he's afraid of you."
"Very amusing," she muttered. "So, clevertongue, how're we going to get into Nirmathas without wearing a few dozen arrows each? Wait until dark?"
"Wait until dark. After using what remains of the day to find the best place to cross."
"And that would be?"
"A good thick stand of trees on the Nirmathi side, or better yet a forest. A forest downstream of a swamp, so we can cross level with the swamp, where Nirmathi bowmen can't wait in a tidy line to send arrows down our throats, and drift with the river flow down to where we can go ashore under cover of bushes and trees, somewhere a little drier than the sucking mud of full swamp."
"Sounds hoof-thuddingly sensible to me. I'd be happier if I didn't think every last Molthuni commander has reasoned just as you have, and sought the same things—giving the Nirmathi good training in knowing where crossings will be tried, and waiting there in force, with traps to deal with anyone seeking a way across the Inkwater from Molthune."
The Masked nodded. "So we give them a diversion."
"Such as?"
"A fire. Something on fire that's trying to cross the river, or at least floating down it. While we cross where they aren't looking because of that fire."
Tantaerra nodded. "I just knew I'd end up getting wet again. So what do we set on fire? I'm guessing any boats around here are going to be very well guarded—and I doubt that horse's hind end of a Telcanor lord has bothered to even let the soldiers of Molthune know we're coming, let alone ordered them to help us or stay out of our way."
"I share both that guess and that doubt," The Masked replied calmly. "So we'll go looking for a log, and something eye-catching to prop up on it."
"Such as?"
"Such as a screaming, thrashing, on-fire Ahrkholm—or failing that, any handy Molthuni warrior who gives us grief."
"That," a deep voice said out of the darkness very close by, "sounds almost like a cue."
Tantaerra froze, then turned reluctantly to see who'd spoken.
A dozen Molthuni warriors with mud-covered faces and tufts of grass covering their helms and shoulders were rising with menacing slowness out of the tall grass around the hollow, cocked and loaded crossbows aimed at the mounted man and halfling.
"So," The Masked greeted him calmly, "did you hear it all, or must I explain it to you?"
"I'd appreciate knowing just which horse's hind end of a Telcanor lord has sent you two doomed idiots here, and on what task," the deep-voiced Molthuni officer replied. "Oh, and draw no weapons and make no sudden moves, if you don't mind."
"There's another man nearby, somewhere yonder," The Masked said, moving his arm very slowly to point, "who was sent out on the same mission."
"And who you don't trust," the officer replied, smiling thinly. "I'm waiting."
"Lord Krzonstal Telcanor of Braganza sent us," The Masked said quickly, "to recover a gauntlet from the Shattered Tomb, in Hurlandrun, in Nirmathas. On the orders of the General Lords."
"I see," said the officer. "You don't look like the usual sort of agent the Telcanors send to do their bloody-work."
"It's a slow month for Telcanor recruiting," The Masked replied calmly. "We're something like 'found goods.'"
The officer's thin smile grew more full. "Coerced goods, you mean."
The Masked nodded gravely, and the officer looked even more pleased.
"Well, now. It's not often we gain two such splendid horses, and I'm inclined to assist you in your little plan. Both for purposes of entertainment, and because those trees armor the Nirmathi across the river all too well, and I'd love to draw some of them out to where I can sink a few bolts home."
"You'll help us?"
"We'll help you. As it happens, we've two boats that are far too rotten to repair, and the remnants of no less than three Nirmathi rafts. Not to mention some camp ref
use and the carcass of a foam-jawed wolf that tried to take down one of our oxen two nights back. I'm inclined to put them all together and give you your fiery diversion. It'll give us light to shoot by."
"Won't the river just carry the flames downstream while the Nirmathi watch? What's to make them shoot?"
The officer's smile turned cruel. "Over years of patrolling, we've made quite a trail along our riverbank. The most troublesome of our soldiers will be detailed to ride along it, with ready crossbows. I doubt the Nirmathi will be able to resist the targets, given how roused they'll be by flames coming right at them."
"Right at them?" The Masked asked, eyes narrowing.
"As close to right at them as you two can manage," the officer replied. "Swimming as hard as you can and towing our fire-barges to the far bank. If you can start a fire there, and burn off some of that cover ...well, forest fire or not, I'm always happy to assist intrepid agents of Molthune."
The Masked chuckled grimly. After a moment, the officer joined in.
Tantaerra sighed. "This sort of thing is going to get me killed someday."
Some of the other Molthuni soldiers snickered at that, as they reached for the bridle of her horse.
"Masked man," she asked quickly, "do we?"
The Masked gave her a meaningful look. "Go along with this gallant, generous, and patriotic offer of aid? Of course, and with no dissembling!"
So Tantaerra let out another sigh, relaxed, and let the soldiers reach her down from her horse. They found it necessary to paw at her chest in the process, of course, but she bit back her sharp response—and caught sight of a silver ring that looked familiar on one soldier's hairy-backed hand. Where had she seen one of like design before?
In moments they were all down in the hollow, with the Molthuni going through their saddlebags, amid a ring of sentinels watching for unwanted arrivals. Two of them saw Ahrkholm even before The Masked did, and loosed bolts that hissed through the tall grasses at him, but probably didn't bite home. When several soldiers bounded hastily into that cover to look for him, drawn blades in hand, they found no one.