by Ed Greenwood
By the looks of things, Nirmathi bowmen had harassed them from the wooded heights on either side of the valley, turning the bridge into a slaughter-chute until the Molthuni had broken ranks and fled down into the valley—whereupon a line of Nirmathi had formed across the valley and sent a withering storm of arrows down Molthuni throats until the soldiers of Molthune had reached them and started hacking.
"Hurlandrun's somewhere the other side of this valley, isn't it?" Tantaerra asked glumly.
"One ridge beyond what we're looking at, if the map can be trusted," Tarram told her. "I keep looking at it so that if we lose it, my mind will still hold what's left of our way to the Shattered Tomb."
"It might happen sooner than you think," she said. "Look."
A little stream ran down the slope next to them. Below, Nirmathi were following it up toward where she and The Masked stood, a few Molthuni soldiers trudging after them.
Sighing, she bent low for a drink. Tarram joined her at the bank, keeping watch over the trees behind them for Voyvik as she drank her fill.
"Next time we have to take down someone trying to murder us, choose the ones with waterskins at their belts, will you?" she asked. "Your turn."
By the time he was finished drinking, some of the foremost climbers had seen them. "Friends!" Tarram called, waving hands empty of weapons.
Some of the Nirmathi faces looked less than convinced, so he and Tantaerra backed well away from the lip of the valley, and stood back-to-back watching the forest around warily for anyone approaching.
"Nirmathas forever!" Tantaerra called, when the first men reached the top.
"A halfling," one of those Nirmathi told another, then peered again and added, "A female halfling!"
Luraumadar, the mask commented airily.
"We were just going to kindle a fire," Tarram called. "Care to join us?"
It was too much to hope these warriors would be carrying food enough to share, but if he and Tantaerra could pass themselves off as Nirmathi displaced from afar in all the fighting ...
"And who, before the bleary eyes of Cayden Cailean, are you?" a heavyset, grizzled Nirmathi in rusty chainmail demanded, limping toward them with a notched sword ready in one hand. He had the air of command, and the best armor they'd seen on a Nirmathi since the riverbank.
Which turned out to be a good thing a moment later, when the poisoned dagger that came hurtling through the trees at The Masked missed and glanced off the officer's shoulder with a tling.
Everyone turned. Voyvik was a dark, distant figure hurrying away through the forest, but Tantaerra leaped into the air to draw attention as she shouted, "There he is again! The Molthuni spy who's been trying to kill us!"
A few Nirmathi jogged off into the forest after him, while the rest continued their exhausted limping up the hill. Foremost among the latter camp was the Nirmathi commander, who eyed The Masked and the halfling narrowly, and lurched over to pick up Voyvik's dagger.
"Don't touch it!" Tantaerra warned him quickly. "It's poisoned!"
He halted, giving them an even more suspicious look.
"Narandur!" a Nirmathi called, from the lip of the valley. "The Molthuni are all retreating south along the river. None coming after us, any longer."
"Good," the grizzled commander called back. "Muster to me, here!"
As armed men in motley armor and leathers began to converge, he stumped up to Tarram and the halfling. "You two are coming with us. I need to hear all you've seen of Molthuni these last few days—where, and how many, and what they were doing. Truth, and leave nothing out."
"Gladly," Tarram said quickly, before Tantaerra could say anything sharper. His empty stomach chose that moment to rumble so loudly that Narandur grinned.
"Well, you're no Molthuni, that's for sure." He headed for a stone that looked as if it could serve as a seat. "Never met a hungry one yet."
∗ ∗ ∗
By nightfall, The Masked, Tantaerra, and their Nirmathi hosts—or were they captors?—had moved a long way north along the heights above the narrowing valley, to make camp far from any surviving Molthuni who might think to steal after them.
Their campsite was a hilltop in the forest, and on that wooded height, within the shattered, tumbled, overgrown remains of a long-ruined fortress watchtower.
Luraumadar, the mask told Tarram approvingly, as he looked around at the head-high ring of massive, ivy-cloaked stones, dark tree trunks thrusting up through and around it like pillars.
Sentries had been posted and fires lit. Tarram had offered to take his turn standing sentry, but Narandur curtly refused.
"You stay here by me, the both of you. I've need of your honest tongues."
They sat.
Tantaerra hadn't let her behind touch the ground for an instant before she asked, "Aren't you worried about the fire? It'll be seen for miles, up on this height. Won't it bring Molthuni creeping here, with ready bows and drawn steel?"
Narandur looked across the flames at her, but his wasn't the only cold grin to be seen. All of the Nirmathi sitting or standing within the ring wore the same expression.
"We hope it does," the grizzled commander told her. "Any Molthuni who dares to draw near—and we don't expect many; we've taught them the hard way not to blunder around our forests by night—will walk right into the night blades."
He hesitated for an instant, to see if either of his two guests would betray themselves as liars about their professed Nirmathi heritage by asking what or who "night blades" were, but neither was foolish enough to step into his trap. It took no particular brilliance to figure out that "night blades" would be Nirmathi who'd been sleeping all day and patrolled the dark hours, awaiting Molthuni trying to blunder through the dark forests.
"This is our land," Narandur added quietly, "and we defend it night and day. Nirmathas is our cloak and our armor, and fights with us."
"While I've no desire at all to see us become part of Molthune," Tarram spoke up, following Tantaerra's lead—for the more time Narandur spent answering them, the less time they'd spend scrambling to answer his probing questions—"two things worry me increasingly, as the years pass and this war drags on." He held up one finger. "How long can we last? Or rather, how long before Molthune bleeds us dry, outslaying us until there are no fit warriors still standing to defend Nirmathas?"
He raised a second finger to join the first. "And less talked-of, but as grave: as we fight them, doing what we must to survive, how much are we slowly changed to become what we are fighting against? To become more like Molthuni and less and less like what we're fighting to preserve?"
The old Nirmathi commander leaned forward, eyes kindling with interest. "We don't talk about the first. Despair is easy, and talk of numbers aids the enemy. But the second is something we should speak of. Many of us fight because our homes or kin are attacked, it's true. But this war isn't about revenge. It's about freedom. The freedom to—"
Narandur broke off as sudden tumult arose under the trees. Swords clashed and clanged, someone shouted, someone else danced in agony and then fell with an arrow through him—and suddenly Nirmathi were charging from behind seemingly every tree, blades ready.
Men standing in the ring rushed to kindle torches in the fire, swords rang against swords in deafening earnest, and Tarram and Tantaerra stood up to watch—only to feel Narandur's iron-hard grip above the elbows of their sword-arms, seeking to drag them back down.
Yet already the bladework was slackening, as angry shouts abounded.
"Fools!"
"'Twas all a mistake! A mistake!"
Men were hurrying to Narandur now, to report. It seemed the attackers were Nirmathi, a warband insisting they'd been told Molthuni invaders posing as Nirmathi were to be found encamped here—a force led by two spies sent from Braganza in Molthune, a female halfling shorter than most, and a masked man who was her constant companion.
More than one of the Nirmathi hastening to the fire found themselves looking at Tantaerra and then at Tarram, frowni
ng hard.
"Sit," Narandur commanded curtly, doing so himself and dragging Tarram down with him, "and answer me this: are you two from Molthune?"
Luraumadar, the mask said gleefully, in the back of Tarram's mind.
"No," he said simply, giving the Nirmathi commander a level look. Then he looked across the fire at the growing row of angry Nirmathi faces and asked, "Just who told you all these lies? This is no band of undercloak Molthuni, and we aren't from Molthune. Who told you otherwise?"
Faces turned to look at one of the men, a leader of the attacking warband.
Who gave Tarram a hard glare and said, "Orivin Voyvik. Yes, that Orivin Voyvik. The war hero."
Murmurs arose in the darkness, and a ring of sword points suddenly gleamed all around Tarram and Tantaerra.
"Suppose," Narandur said grimly, squinting up at them from where he sat, his own blade back in his hand, "you both tell us again your names, heritage, and business in Nirmathas—right here and now."
It was not a suggestion.
Luraumadar?
It was the first time the mask had sounded quite that uncertain.
∗ ∗ ∗
Tantaerra lay on her back and looked up at the few stars she could see through the thick leaves overhead. Certain death had been averted yet again, and with surprising ease. This time.
Not that there weren't watchful sentries between her and the open forest—sentries who looked her way from time to time and not just out into the wild night. Yet she and The Masked weren't bound or even disarmed, let alone dying in agony.
Which meant, all in all, it had gone rather well.
They'd given their names and the backstories they'd decided on, and as for right here and now, they'd claimed to be seeking Tantaerra's mother and aunt, who'd fled their homes in Graybanks—a small Nirmathi village not far from the Inkwater that they knew had been utterly destroyed in the war—to resettle in the ancestral family farm, hard by the ruins of Hurlandrun.
"Where the Shattered Tomb stands," one older Nirmathi had said grimly. "That's all monster-prowled country, that is."
"Well, that settles it," another had put in. "No Molthuni spy would be wanting to go thereabouts. Unless they want spend their last handful of days fighting monsters, that is."
"That settles it if that's where they're really headed," a third and younger Nirmathi had pointed out sharply. "We have only their word for that."
"Go with us and guide us," The Masked had snapped back, "and you'll not have to trust our word. You'll know."
That eagerness had decided Narandur, saving their necks. For now.
Three tall, strong young Nirmathi had agreed to guide The Masked and Tantaerra.
She hadn't been pleased at having hale and unfamiliar companions who just might be slayers in league with Voyvik, but saw—still saw—no real alternative but to accept their guidance.
Before lying down on the far side of the dying fire with his drawn sword in his hand, the grizzled old Nirmathi commander had handed them a sack that held a wheel of cheese, two round loaves of hardbread, and the bowl-like half of someone's recently shattered helm that could serve as a water-scoop, and gruffly told them to be on their way to Hurlandrun "by dawn on the morrow." The three guides had settled down just beyond him with their swords drawn, too.
Tantaerra wondered how long it would be before Voyvik's attacks killed one or all of them. Or if they'd join him against The Masked and herself, when the Nirmathi dreamer's next attack came.
She fell asleep wondering about that.
∗ ∗ ∗
Tantaerra winced. Again.
"Urgh!" The Masked snarled, lifting one boot out of muck that bubbled and reached to his boot tops. Its reek was almost visible, and had already set Tantaerra gagging. What sort of foul decay could make such a smell?
The three young Nirmathi were all backing away, yellow-faced and retching.
"This is not," Armistrade told them, "what I meant by 'deeper in Nirmathas,' really it wasn't!"
"Har har," Tantaerra observed, heading away from him as fast as she could.
"Don't come close to me!" the fair-haired guide—Raldon—warned, almost falling in his haste to retreat farther. "That's ...that's just evil!"
He thrust his sword into the ground and used that hand to grab for his nose and pinch it shut.
Raldon was so distracted that he never saw the dagger that flashed out of the trees to slice open his throat. It bit deep, and he stumbled two choking steps and fell, his clutching fingers doing little to stop the blood spurting in all directions.
"Down!" the largest guide roared, but rather than heed his own command, he charged into the trees, heading for where the dagger had been hurled from.
"Nesker, come back!" the other guide shouted. "You'll only—"
There was a heavy crash, through a tangle of dead branches, and Nesker came staggering back, his face now more green than yellow. His skin was an ugly purple low on his neck, where blood trickled from an open gash.
"Behind you!" The Masked shouted, throwing one of his own daggers. The figure looming up just behind the wounded guide ducked down and to one side as fast as any darting night bird, and the hurled dagger missed him.
The Masked ran after the assassin. They were all running now, converging ...
"Surround him!" Tantaerra cried. "Don't let him get away!"
"He's a ...man in a mask," Nesker panted, lumbering along and quickly falling behind. "Just as Voyvik ...warned ..."
"He is Voyvik," The Masked told him sternly—just as a crash in the distance marked their quarry's heavy fall.
Voyvik came up out of another reeking, sucking bog to whirl and face them, breathing hard, his mask gone and blood on his forehead. He'd obviously stumbled in the muck and slammed into a fallen tree he'd been about to leap over—and, as the four survivors closed in warily around him, he just as obviously had no intention of surrendering. Daggers glinted in both of his hands as he looked swiftly from target to target.
"Out of poisoned daggers yet?" The Masked snapped. "Just how many Nirmathi are going to die for your dream for Nirmathas, Voyvik?"
The only reply he got was a snarl—and a dagger flashing at his face.
The Masked flung himself down and then up again instantly to sprint at Voyvik, bellowing, "Shall I use the mask on you?"
The cornered man flung a frightened look at him, then turned and threw his second dagger into Nesker's face, following right behind and slamming into the other man.
Nesker fell heavily under that trampling, rolled over, and went still. Voyvik ran on into the forest.
The last guide, Farstrel, gave chase for a few panting strides, then gave up and returned to where The Masked and Tantaerra were turning Nesker over.
"You scared Voyvik right proper," she muttered. "Just what can the mask do to him?"
Her masked companion merely shrugged.
The big Nirmathi was already dead, unseeing eyes staring. There was foam around his mouth, and his face had gone all bone-white and purple.
"Poisoned," The Masked told Farstrel grimly. "You'll find Raldon was, too. We should find those daggers and lose them in one of the bogs, before we move on. Voyvik doesn't want anyone but us to reach Hurlandrun, or alive to spread word of our journey to it."
Tantaerra met her masked companion's gaze, and knew he was thinking precisely what she was. That they'd not seen the last of Orivin Voyvik.
He'd be waiting for them in or near the Shattered Tomb. With more poisoned knives, no doubt.
They took the time to find the poisoned daggers and drop them in the bog that The Masked had blundered into. Then they took food, weapons, and belt-lanterns from the sprawled and already fly-surrounded heaps of Raldon and Nesker, and turned away.
"We leave the dead unburied here," Farstrel said bleakly. "It keeps the wolves from coming for the rest of us."
He led them north rather than west.
"Friend," The Masked warned him, "Hurlandrun is west from here. Is i
t not?"
Farstrel stopped, turned, and looked at them both. "You can trust me," he replied gently. "The question is, can I trust you?"
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and went on. The Masked looked at Tantaerra, then west, then back at her.
She shrugged, then started after the Nirmathi. The Masked followed suit.
Soon they saw scattered bones. Human bones. Then a sprawled body that was more or less intact, if they overlooked the gaping ribcage where prowling beasts had gnawed.
Beyond, the trees were fewer, and they could see what looked like the remnants of a trail. It was only when they spotted a leaning stone wall that they realized they were walking into an overgrown, long-abandoned Nirmathi village.
"That body was recent," The Masked commented, "where this is not."
"The wounded and dying seek home, even if home is no more," the guide replied bleakly. "Beasts dine on what they find, wherever they find it."
"Do wolves and worse lair in the Shattered Tomb?" Tantaerra asked him. "And prowl out from it?"
Farstrel looked at her. "The Tomb is one of too many haunted places in our land that sane Nirmathi shun. Many dweomercats prowl there—and something worse."
"What's a dweomercat?" The Masked asked.
"And what's worse?" Tantaerra added.
"Dweomercats—most dweomercats—are small. Forgive me, lady, but ...as you are small. And blue. But fast and sleek. Betimes their pelts glow. Yellow eyes, big fangs, and they swarm. Magic draws them, so they stray not far from the Tomb. They are many."
Farstrel shrugged. "As for what's worse, I know not truth, just wild tales. Many Nirmathi and Molthuni bands have tried to plunder the tomb—it's said to hold mighty battle magic—but all failed. And died. Now, folk foolish enough to try it are few indeed."
He smiled, and looked from one of them to the other. "These last three seasons, just you—and you."
Farstrel had stopped on a mound that had once been a home. Now he held up a spread and open hand, bidding them stop and stay where they were.
And drew his sword and dagger.
Tantaerra tensed, and knew The Masked was doing just what she was. Reaching for daggers to throw.