by Cam Banks
“I know what kapaks are,” she hissed back. “Those must be the scouts that have been ranging through the jungle hereabouts. Rivven must not have taken them with her.”
“I count at least six,” said Theo. “If we walk up the slope to the front gates, we shall be immediately set upon by the venomous blades of a half dozen kapaks.”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Gredchen asked.
“Quite so!” said Theo. He pointed at a number of heavily-vine-laden trees hanging over the road. “We’ll need your knife to cut those down. And those spiked floral arrangements over there.”
A short time later, thanks to the ingenuity of the gnome, Theo and Gredchen had two serviceable grappling hooks fashioned out of thorny spiked vegetation and sufficient lengths of vine to pass for rope. Gredchen located a likely place from which to toss the grapples upward, and together they scaled the sheer, hundred-foot side of the massif upon which the castle stood.
Theo was the first over the side of the cliff, and he looked around. Gredchen came next, but by that point, the gnome had scurried over to a heavy cornice along the base of the castle wall and poked his head around the corner.
When Gredchen joined him, he said, “Four of them appear to have walked in the other direction around the castle. There are only two standing at the gate now. If we are stealthy, we can attempt to overpower them.”
“With just a paring knife?” asked Gredchen incredulously. “What are you going to use?”
Theo tapped the side of his head. “Gnome tactics,” he responded.
Gredchen skeptically agreed to follow his lead, and with their backs pressed firmly against the massive, ivy-covered walls of the castle, the two would-be infiltrators sneaked along in the direction of the front gates.
They had almost reached their targets when Theo heard a loud, choking cough from behind him followed by a sneeze. Horrified, he looked up and saw that Gredchen’s face was blotchy and red, and her eyes were watering.
“My allergies to ivy,” she whispered apologetically, but it was too late. The two kapaks, their copper scales gleaming in the silver moonlight, had heard the noises. Their heads jerked back and forth, sniffing, listening, and they turned to look straight at Gredchen and Theo.
“To arms! To arms!” cried Theo.
The little gnome dashed across the flagstones in front of the gates, straight at the nearest kapak draconian. The two draconians were quite astonished to be charged by such a pint-sized creature, and by the time they could react, the gnome had flung himself into the air and tackled the first creature around its midsection.
Gredchen drew her knife and followed the gnome. The second kapak had leaped backward and looked up to see her charging. It drew what appeared to be a hatchet, licked the business end with its long tongue, and ran to meet her. The axe head was coated in greenish spittle, which Gredchen knew was a deadly poison. She needed to get her knife in quickly before the kapak landed any blows.
Theo and the first kapak were rolling over and over, stopping just shy of the edge overlooking the jungle floor below. Theo had no interest in falling a hundred feet, so he got up quickly and began kicking the kapak while it was still lying flat on its back. Somehow, he had also come away with the kapak’s hatchet, and when the creature leaped to its feet, he swung it with all his might at the enemy.
Gredchen and her opponent circled each other. The kapak feinted to bluff her into thinking it was going to swing the axe. Abandoning all thought of self-preservation, she lunged at the kapak with the knife and her arm fully extended. She succeeded in poking a vicious hole in its shoulder, causing it to yelp and retreat a pace or two.
Theodenes’ axe had just connected with the kapak’s head. The gnome heard a sickening crunch and realized the hatchet hadn’t hit along its edge but on the flat. Regardless, the kapak clutched at its temples, hissing and screeching. Theo swung again, chopping into the kapak’s left wing and forcing it back. Unfortunately for the kapak, there was nothing behind it but open space.
Theo’s kapak fell backward, and with one wing badly mutilated, it could not arrest its fall. Theo gazed over the edge to see the kapak sprawled below, its death throes kicking in. The body of the draconian was engulfed in noxious smoke and noise as it broke down into an acidic sludge.
Gredchen glanced over at Theodenes and smiled—making the mistake of taking her eyes off her opponent at a crucial moment. Her kapak ducked, sidestepped, and brought its axe up along her leg and into her thigh.
The baron’s aide screamed and fell backward. The kapak leaped atop her and brought down the axe, once … twice … three times. Theodenes ran to help.
“Gredchen!” screamed the gnome.
The kapak spun about, hissing in Theo’s face. He could smell the acrid stench from the draconian’s toxic spittle. Ducking to avoid any poison aimed at his face, he weaved and sprang at the kapak, axe held high above his head.
The kapak threw itself out of the way. Theo had to avoid tripping over Gredchen’s fallen body but kept his footing and angled himself around to meet the kapak’s axe straight on with a loud clang. Theo stooped, plucked the knife from Gredchen’s hand, and lunged forward with it. The kapak was taken completely by surprise, and before it had time to bring its axe up to deflect the maneuver, the knife was up to its hilt in one of its eyes.
The kapak staggered away, screaming, trying to remove the knife from its face. It managed only three steps before it collapsed, dead, its body beginning to bubble and dissolve.
Theo grabbed Gredchen’s ankles and pulled her clear of the slowly growing pool of the kapak’s acidic remains. He tossed aside the axe, knelt next to Gredchen’s head, and looked over her wounds.
He gasped.
Although her tunic, sleeves, even her leggings were torn and ripped by the axe, her body was whole and unharmed. She opened her eyes and looked right at him.
“Am I alive?” she said weakly.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Vanderjack stared up at the kitchen ceiling and let the nausea slowly fade away.
He had descended from the tower roof, taken the path through the upper levels and along the balcony in the direction of the great hall. Before reaching the sitting room, however, he’d decided instead to duck into what he reasoned to be kitchens and dry heave again. He was dripping with perspiration, his hands and feet felt as heavy as lead, and his stomach felt like a portal to the Abyss. So he simply lay there and waited for it to pass.
“This is ridiculous,” he told himself. “I’ve been in the mercenary business for decades. I’ve fought in battles, killed ogres, and faced down dragons. My job is killing things for a living. I am not just a …” He rolled onto his side and retched again. “A pair of legs for a magic sword,” he muttered, wiping at his face.
He didn’t believe his own words. With the ghosts around to provide commentary and assistance, he had gained a reputation as one of the most proficient sword masters alive. Without them, maybe he was just an old man lining up for an exit interview with Chemosh, the god of the dead.
“Get up, old man,” he grunted, and pushed himself first to his hands and knees, then to his feet. He needed to find Cazuvel and get the sword back. Then it would all be as it was.
Vanderjack returned to the sitting room and slowly, with his foot, pushed open the door into the great hall. He peered in through a thin crack and saw only one end of the great hall. Nobody there, apparently, for the moment. He took a deep breath, and slid into the hall as quietly as possible.
Then he smelled something strong and pungent, like scalded leather; it was pervasive, surrounding almost everything with its smoky odor. He had smelled it once before, after a mage duel in Neraka. It was the smell of burned-out magic.
There was a huge cage in the center of the room—a huge, empty, steel-reinforced cage. On his way through there earlier, he could have sworn Star was lying on the floor of that cage, unconscious. The dragonne was gone.
No blood, Vanderjack thought. They hadn’t sl
aughtered the beast, nor had there been a fight. He walked farther into the great hall, checking behind stacked tables, crouching and looking for the booted feet of guards or draconians—nothing.
Then, crossing to the opposite side of the room, he realized that the door to the cage had been bashed open from the inside. So Star had broken free. Had they been keeping him under magical sedation, a spell that wore off? All he remembered was him slumbering earlier. If the spell had worn off, that would explain the aftermagic smell.
Surely the only way out of there—at least for a dragonne such as Star—was out the front doors. Vanderjack stepped out onto the landing on the upper balcony of the entrance hall. There was no sign of anybody there either—no wizards, no draconians, no huge dragon-tigers.
Vanderjack was almost halfway down the wide marble stairs that descended to the entrance hall when the front gates swung inward. He took a step back and braced himself for the worst. A rare feeling of relief washed over him when he saw that it was Gredchen and Theodenes.
Theo was ambulatory, so the paralysis must have worn off. Gredchen looked a lot worse than she had last he saw her; her tunic and leggings were cut and torn. Theodenes seemed to be supporting Gredchen as they limped in.
“Vanderjack!” Gredchen called out. She broke free from Theodenes and hurried up the stairs. The gnome scowled and followed at half the speed.
“Well, hello,” Vanderjack said, smiling weakly. “Nice of you to come back. Probably to get the painting, not rescue me, huh?”
“Vanderjack, I’m sorry. About the painting. About the whole contract. I should have told the baron not to do it, but he’s been wanting that painting for so long—”
The sellsword raised his hands. “Hold on,” he said. “Can we talk about this out of earshot of any surprise monsters or evil villains? And knowing Theodenes, I’ll bet he wants to put in a few words, once he catches his breath.”
The gnome, coming up behind her, nodded, panting heavily. The three of them walked around the balcony and into a side room filled with overstuffed chairs and a long, low table. It was the kind of room one sat in if one wanted to be served tarbean tea and sugared buttercakes. Vanderjack dropped into a seat, and the others followed suit. For a moment they all stared at each other. Then all three started to talk at once.
Theodenes launched into a diatribe about the way he had been treated. Gredchen complained that the highmaster had it in for her and never really liked her very much and not to blame the baron. Vanderjack tried to answer both of them, barely getting a word in edgewise, until finally he sat back and closed his eyes and just listened.
The girl and the gnome stopped, staring at him.
“I have a confession to make,” he said.
They just looked at him.
He opened his eyes again and looked at each of them in turn. “I’m working for Rivven Cairn now.”
Theodenes leaped out of his seat in a fighting stance, while Gredchen almost fell out of her chair. Vanderjack raised his hands again and blurted out, “Wait wait wait!”
“What do you mean you’re working for her?” demanded Theo.
“Up on the roof, earlier this evening,” he said. “She said she and Cazuvel were no longer allies. She decided it was better for me to be alive than him and said I should find Cazuvel and kill him. If I did that, she’d let me live, and I could keep my sword, which the wizard’s got.”
“For a moment there, you jackanapes, we thought you meant you’d been working for her the whole time!” said Theo.
Vanderjack laughed. “No! Are you crazy? This is just a short-term deal. Long-term—we’re still on bad terms.”
“So that’s the confession?” Gredchen said, sitting back in her chair again.
“No. Actually, the confession is related to that. It’s about Lifecleaver.”
Theo cocked his head. “That sword? What is it? A fake? The wizard has a fake! Huzzah! Threw the wool right over his eyes.”
“No,” said Vanderjack, smiling grimly. “The fake is me.”
There was a moment of silence.
“The sword’s haunted. There are seven … eight ghosts now that Etharion’s joined them. The Sword Chorus. Ghosts of people who were killed with that sword before their time to die was upon them.”
Gredchen narrowed her eyes. “Go on.”
“When I’m in a fight, it’s the Chorus that give me eyes in the back of my head. All of that clever maneuvering and leaping about is only possible because they call out the locations of my enemies, suggest tactics, and tell me to duck or to dodge or to weave. It’s always been the ghosts.”
Theo said, “So you’re saying you don’t have any actual skill at arms?”
“That isn’t what I said! I’m a passable soldier. But without the ghosts, without Lifecleaver, I’d be a passable soldier with a sword in my back or a fallen boulder on my head.”
Theo scratched at his beard and exhaled. “So you need the sword back in order for the ghosts to once again tell you how to fight like the legendary mercenary captain you are reputed to be. I see. This is so very typical of you.”
“How is this typical of him?” Gredchen said, exasperated. “This can’t have been very easy for him to confess. I find it very … uh, touching.”
Theo shrugged. “He’s always so secretive.”
Vanderjack closed his eyes again. “Think what you like. I’ve come to the conclusion that Rivven believes I won’t be able to defeat this wizard without my enchanted sword. She’s back in Wulfgar, laughing her pointed ears off, thinking I might just sit it out and sink into depression.”
“But now we’re here,” Gredchen said, “and we can help you.”
“She’s also full of secrets,” said Theodenes.
Vanderjack looked at Gredchen. “Oh, some little secret other than the fact that this whole expedition was a fabrication?”
“That’s just it. It wasn’t. The baron wants his beautiful daughter back.”
“His painting of the beautiful daughter.”
Gredchen shook her head. “No, sellsword. That really is his daughter. A spell has bound her to that painting.”
Vanderjack stood up at that, gaping. “So now you’re saying that’s a real person stuck in a picture frame?”
Gredchen nodded. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but basically, yes.”
“And Cazuvel wants it here why?”
“He’s the mage responsible for the enchantment in the first place,” said Gredchen. “So long as it was kept here, out of harm’s way, the highmaster could continue to hold it over Baron Glayward and he’d be unable to lift a finger against her. But it was a rare enchantment. And the wizard has been studying the magic, trying to duplicate his feat ever since. Without success, or so I’m told.”
“To the Abyss with wizards!” said Theodenes. “And speaking of magical curiosities, I should also note that Gredchen here—”
“I can’t be hurt,” the baron’s aide admitted.
Vanderjack sat down again, rubbed his palm over the stubble of his scalp, and swore. “What? You’re immortal, then? Congratulations. Is that the end of the secrets?”
“It’s really only here at the castle or in the grounds. At least I suppose that’s how it works.”
Vanderjack smiled weakly. “How incredibly convenient for you. Theo? Any heartwarming truths you’d like to air? We’re all having a moment.”
“No.”
Vanderjack clapped his hands together and rose one final time. “Excellent! Well, for your information, Theodenes, I think Star’s alive and well and escaped a short while ago from the cage in the hall. And for you, Gredchen, the highmaster said nothing to me about not taking the baron’s beautiful daughter along with me when I went to Wulfgar, so I believe we can go upstairs right now and fetch the painting and be done with that part of the job.”
Gredchen’s eyes widened. “You’re serious?”
Theodenes perked up. “Star’s escaped?”
“Yes to both. In
fact, I think it may make getting to Wulfgar a lot easier if we had Star’s help. You don’t mind a short stop in Wulfgar before we head back to the baron, do you, Gredchen?”
Gredchen nodded. Theo’s eyes narrowed.
“Then it’s settled.” Vanderjack dusted himself off. “I may not be the world’s greatest swordsman, but I know a good plan when I come up with one. Let’s go.”
Vanderjack led them back to the entrance hall’s balcony and up the spiral staircase to the gallery. Gredchen did the honors, stepping forward and pulling on the silken rope. The gallery’s lamps fizzled and popped into radiant life, revealing the painting once again in its place.
Gredchen gasped. Theodenes sighed. Vanderjack clicked his tongue and walked over to the portrait with a frown.
The painting looked as if somebody had taken to it with an axe.
“Why would the wizard have done this?” Vanderjack asked.
“Oh, no!” Gredchen cried, darting forward to trace her hands over the places where the axe head had struck. “Wait.”
“Yes, I see now. Those aren’t actual cuts,” Theodenes observed, folding his arms across his chest. “Those have been painted on. Under the varnish. Clever. But why?”
Vanderjack turned to Gredchen. “Got an explanation for this one?”
Cazuvel swept through the dusty halls of the Lyceum.
Once he had left the highmaster’s presence, he had spoken the words of power that brought him back to his sanctum, the place he had hidden Vanderjack’s sword. His eldritch connection to the wards set up around Castle Glayward had triggered shortly afterward, alerting him to the highmaster’s interference. With Aggurat freed, the highmaster would know that Cazuvel had been acting behind her back. The half-elf was a powerful enough mage that she had somehow untethered the draconian from Cazuvel’s mystic bonds, despite all of the energy he had flooded into them.
Cazuvel did not care. It was just a slightly premature digression from a path he had carefully laid out, the path that had begun months earlier. He had his mirror and its magic. He had the star metal-forged sword of Vand Erj-Ackal, and he suspected there was a great deal of powerful enchantment tied up into that weapon.