Graal laughed. “You are weak, Fhazail. I would not bother with the bribes, or the assassins. I would kill them myself.”
The steward shrugged. “I lack your warrior’s conviction.” Then he added, “I must go back to my search for the workers soon. Azlar will grow suspicious if I do not return in a timely manner.”
“Wait,” Graal said as Fhazail turned to go. “I will report this news to Xiliath. I have no doubt he will act on it immediately. We cannot allow Azlar to bring his package to the cult stronghold. Your work in this matter is not done.”
Swallowing hard, Fhazail asked, “What would you have me do, O mighty Graal?”
“I will take some of my men, and set an ambush for the cultists. We will steal the package, and with any luck kill Azlar in the process. The loss of their prize and the death of such a promising mage from their ranks will leave the dragon worshipers reeling.
“You must lead them into the ambush, Fhazail. The usual place, just outside of town. I’m sure you remember.”
“But … but how am I to make Azlar take that route?” Fhazail protested.
“Use your powers of persuasion, Fhazail. I’m sure you will be most convincing.”
An all too familiar look popped into the steward’s eyes. “Perhaps I could be more convincing if Xiliath provided me with inspiration of a monetary nature.”
“No haggling,” Graal warned in a low voice. “Now is not the time for your games.”
Fhazail’s head tilted ever so slightly as he gave the orog a brief, appraising glance. “Of course,” he replied after assessing the situation. “Now is not the time for games. I will go at once.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
To the casual glance, there was nothing remarkable about the warehouse. To someone hiding in the shadows, watching for the past several hours as deepest night fell, it was evident something important was taking place inside.
Corin had been watching the building since the early dusk. He had seen figures arrive in small groups of two or three every half hour, their forms hidden by dark, hooded cloaks. Elversult had a temperate coastal climate, it rarely fell below freezing even in the heart of winter. Now that they were in the first few days of the Sunsets, and spring was just a few tendays away, only foreigners from the southern desert lands found it necessary to bundle themselves up in such heavy garments. Foreigners, or those with something to hide.
A knock, a slight delay while passwords were exchanged, and the mysterious figures would be ushered in. Over a dozen so far, plus those that were already inside before Corin’s vigil began.
In the ghastly light of their torches, Corin caught occasional flashes of armor and weapons peeking out from beneath the robes. Once he even caught a glimpse of an insignia—the unmistakable emblem of the Cult of the Dragon. His instincts about the naga had been right, but Corin cared little about the cult, or their business here. He had come with only one purpose in mind.
Ever since the conversation with Lhasha at the Weeping Griffin, Corin had begun plotting his revenge. The half-elf’s description left no doubt in Corin’s mind about her contact’s identity. Once, long ago, Fhazail had betrayed the White Shields, set them up and led them right into a trap. He had Corin’s friends killed, played a part in taking his hand, and somehow managed to shift the blame onto the White Shields themselves. He had broken Corin’s once proud spirit, and driven him into a nightmare of alcohol and despair.
Corin had always felt his meeting Lhasha had been pre-ordained. He sensed some greater force had brought them together. Lhasha had saved him, delivered him from his torment. She had dragged him out from beneath his burden, healed his spirit, and restored his honor and sense of purpose. He refused to believe it had all been mindless chance and random circumstance.
At first, Corin felt the gods had seen fit to bring them together to give him a second chance, a long overdue reward for the pilgrimages and contributions to Lathander’s Church on Temple Hill. Now he understood the real reason behind their meeting. Inadvertently, Lhasha had brought Fhazail back into Corin’s life. The gods had sent her as a courier, she had brought him a chance for revenge!
Or so he hoped. There was no real reason to believe Fhazail was working for the Dragon Cult, but Corin’s instincts said it had to be. How else could Fhazail know about the mysterious package? Duplicity was a fundamental aspect of the steward’s character and Corin was certain Fhazail would be trying to betray the cult as he’d betrayed the White Shields. The warrior could not even begin to fathom what treachery Fhazail plotted against the dragon worshipers, and he didn’t care. He only cared about slicing open the steward’s rolling belly.
So he went to the cult warehouse, and waited. Corin’s only link to the man who had taken away everything he valued, his instincts had lead him there in pursuit of his prey, and he trusted his instincts.
If he was right, his vengeance was close at hand. Corin had watched a small army disappear into the warehouse over the past few hours, soon they would all come out. He needed to be ready. He might only get one chance to strike before the cultists took him down.
He shook his head, trying to gather his hatred into a lethal, focused rage. Despite his bitterness and anger about what Fhazail had done, Corin’s mind kept returning to his fight with Lhasha.
His words had hurt her. They betrayed her trust in him. He had lied to her, and in his duplicity he saw something of Fhazail. The resemblance sickened him, but he had no other choice. Corin lusted after nothing but vengeance and he would willingly surrender his life to get it. But he wouldn’t sacrifice Lhasha, he couldn’t ask her to accept the risks of a suicide mission. Driving her away was the right decision—this mission was his and his alone. His brothers in arms deserved no less than to have their deaths avenged.
Despite his conviction, he could find no peace. A small voice inside his head—Lhasha’s voice—urged him to give up his quest for retribution.
“This hate is of your old life,” it whispered, “let it go. A new beginning awaits. Come with me to Cormyr and we can both be reborn.”
Other voices answered, those of his fallen comrades. “You are a warrior!”
“You are a White Shield!”
“Remember the fallen!”
“The traitor must die!” The voice of their captain rose up from the anguished din. “Avenge our deaths!” Igland commanded. “In the name of the White Shields, Fhazail must pay!”
Loudest of all was Fhazail’s own voice, reverberating through Corin’s skull. “The White Shields were betrayed by one of their own!” it shrieked, just as Fhazail himself had done from the witness box at the inquest as he pointed the finger of blame and hurled accusations. “Corin One-Hand cannot be trusted!”
“Corin One-Hand is waiting for you, Fhazail,” the warrior whispered to the night. “You can trust in that.” Mercifully, the voices fell silent.
An hour later the cultists began to emerge. First came several runners, hurrying on ahead to scout a clear path through the all but deserted Elversult streets. They scurried through the darkness, a few returning minutes later to report that the route was free of prying eyes. Of course they didn’t see Corin, who stayed motionless in the shadows across the street. Lhasha had taught him well.
A phalanx of warriors marched out next, their armor and swords no longer hidden beneath robes. Every second one carried a bright torch, the shadows surrounding them were banished by the light. Illuminated by the flickering fire, Corin could plainly see the mark of the Cult of the Dragon emblazoned on their breastplates.
Next came a tall man in wizard’s robes. His head was bald, his face clean shaven. He looked too young to be a mage of any import, but the immediate, unquestioning responses of the soldiers as he gave them his orders told another story. From experience, Corin knew that those who made a living with the blade generally held magicians and sorcerers in disdain. Only a wizard of great power could command such respect from a whole company of warriors.
The mage quickly arranged the guards
into a formation that was familiar to Corin. They built a protective wall around their leader, guarding him against physical attacks from any direction. The firelight reflected off the wizard’s shaved skull, poking up from the near solid mass of shields, swords, and armor that surrounded him. Between their formation and the torches it would be impossible to get closer without being seen.
Finally two more figures emerged, quickly joining the young magic-user in the protection of the center of the company. One was completely covered in heavy robes. From the size, Corin suspected it to be a woman, though her face was veiled to protect her identity. She must be the mysterious package Lhasha had been sent after.
However, Corin registered all the information about her in a small, subliminal corner of his mind. On the conscious level, his full attention was focused on the figure guiding her out.
The sight of Fhazail, gingerly holding the woman’s arm as if she were a lethal viper, filled Corin with a sense of vindication. If anything, the steward looked even fatter than before. His clothes looked more garish, and even from this distance Corin could plainly see that the steward still wore his hideous rings. The tawdry gemstones reflected tiny spots of flaming orange and red that danced across the helmets and armor of the guards surrounding him.
Corin resisted the urge to leap out and attack. He wanted vengeance, and he was willing to die for it—but only if it meant he could take Fhazail’s life in the process. He wasn’t about to waste his opportunity by launching himself against impossible odds.
If he had worn armor, Corin might have risked a brazen frontal assault. Protected by the heavy steel of full battle gear, he just possibly might have been able to withstand enough blows to reach Fhazail, and deal a fatal strike to the steward before succumbing to the combined blades of the guards surrounding his quarry.
Unfortunately, Corin was not wearing full battle gear. He wasn’t even wearing so much as a thin mail shirt. After careful consideration, Corin had chosen to wear no armor at all on this night. It would have hampered his ability to lurk unseen, to pursue unheard. The cumbersome gear would have slowed his pursuit of a cowardly, fleeing opponent. And Corin knew he would have no need of armor to protect him from Fhazail.
Now he regretted the decision. With nothing to protect his vulnerable flesh from the attacks of his enemies, his hand was stayed. The wall of guards protecting the steward forced Corin to bide his time, and wait for a break in the shield wall.
In tight formation, the cultists moved out. The soldiers’ boots struck the pavement in perfect unison, the result of many hours of intense drills and training as a unit. As he watched the guards march in perfect precision, Corin realized there was little chance of finding a weakness in their wall. He might not get a chance to strike Fhazail down after all, not tonight. Now that he had found his quarry, he would keep him in sight until he saw an opening. It might take days, maybe a tenday, but Corin had no intention of letting the steward escape his wrath.
As the armed platoon marched through Elversult, the runners shuttled back and forth, darting on ahead, then scampering back once they had verified that the street ahead was still clear.
Moving silently as Lhasha had taught him, and being careful to stay far enough back to remain cloaked in shadows, Corin followed the cultists through the deserted streets of the Elversult night.
Lhasha waited until Corin was a safe distance away before she emerged from her concealment, materializing from the dark of a nearby alley. It would be a simple matter to follow him without being noticed. He may have learned enough to keep out of the soldiers’ unsuspecting eyes, but Lhasha herself was not so easily fooled.
She had been following him since shortly after their fight at the Weeping Griffin. At first she had been shocked by his actions, she had to admit he had caught her off guard. In their time together Corin had been anything but talkative, but Lhasha now knew that he was able to wield words almost as well as he handled a blade.
If he had simply screamed insults at her she would have seen through his ruse immediately. Corin was subtle, and dangerous. He first put her off balance by suddenly announcing the end of their partnership. He lured her into dropping her defenses by referring to his own weakness. Then, when she was vulnerable, he turned on her, striking at her own feelings of inadequacy by bringing up her failings in combat. In the end he had hit her in her most sensitive spots, insulting her skills as a burglar, belittling her chosen calling and her expression of her identity.
A masterful performance, she had to admit. However, he had underestimated her. She was no fool. It hadn’t taken her long to realize the game he had played. At first she couldn’t understand why he would do such a thing. It made no sense.
As she replayed the conversation in her head, the pieces fell into place. The key, she realized, was when he grabbed her shoulder. The violent reaction was out of character for him, at least since he had stopped drinking. Even in combat Corin attacked with precision, strategy, and purpose. She rarely saw him lose control. Something must have triggered it.
Suddenly it had all clicked. Her description of her anonymous contact had set him off. Corin obviously recognized the man. She remembered the venom in Corin’s voice when he’d told her about the man who had destroyed him—the steward, Fhazail. She knew then that her contact and Fhazail were one and the same.
She also knew Corin was going to hunt Fhazail down and kill him, but Lhasha still didn’t understand why he had tried to drive her away. Corin had to know she would help him however she could, despite her qualms about needless violence. Maybe his actions were out of respect to her, a way to keep her from becoming involved in something she might find distasteful. Or maybe the pain of the past was too personal to share, and the only way Corin felt he could end it would be to kill Fhazail by himself.
In either case, Lhasha would respect his desire to be left alone. But she wasn’t about to let him go off without at least keeping an eye on him. If he got into trouble, she wanted to be there to help however she could. She had doubled back to the Weeping Griffin and waited. When he came out, she followed him, effortlessly blending into the silence and darkness of the night. He led her right to the cult warehouse.
At first she was surprised. She couldn’t imagine why Corin would go back there. The last place she wanted to be was the site of such a recent, and horribly botched, job. She settled in to wait, certain it would all be made clear eventually.
When Fhazail emerged leading the cowled woman, Lhasha at last understood. How Corin knew his enemy was working with the Dragon Cult she couldn’t even guess, in truth, it really wasn’t important. Corin had found him, and soon he would try to kill him. That was all that mattered.
Lhasha feared her friend would leap out and attack the small army of guards. If he did, there was little she could do but stay hidden and watch him die. She vowed that if such a thing happened, she would take up the mantle of avenger, and follow Fhazail until she had a chance to sink a dagger into the soft, puffy white flesh between his ribs, in honor of the memory of her friend. She prayed it wouldn’t come to that.
Fortunately, Corin showed restraint. He controlled his rage, and followed the group cautiously, and a little clumsily, at least by Lhasha’s high standards. She knew he was waiting for his opportunity—one that might never come. Lhasha trailed in his wake, hoping he wouldn’t succumb to anger or frustration and do anything rash.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
With the runners watching the route ahead, the small knot of cult warriors made their way through Elversult’s deserted midnight streets. Keeping to little-used thoroughfares, they marched from beneath the shadows of the warehouses in the Caravan District and wound their way through the city.
Corin quickly realized the cultists were taking their “package”—and Fhazail—into the forests just beyond the city’s borders. There were no gates leading in or out of Elversult, no protective battlements encircled the city. Unlike a walled town, access was not restricted to the main roads. A reminder that El
versult was built by smugglers. It was virtually impossible to control the traffic of goods, or to prevent people from coming in or going out.
Within half an hour the armed group had reached the city’s western limits. Although there were many paths through the groves that dotted the landscape around Elversult, the trees were not densely packed, and there were few if any wild animals and monsters for the first few miles outside the city. If the cult intended to travel quickly and without being seen, as Corin suspected, they wouldn’t even bother taking the road—they’d cut right through the trees.
The soldiers changed formation, confirming Corin’s hypothesis. Instead of the tight shield wall, they now marched several feet apart—a formation that allowed the war party to march through the forest in a relatively straight route and still maintain a formidable defensive perimeter. Between each man there was enough space to let the trunks of the thinly dispersed trees pass through the formation without having to break rank, and the men were still close enough to prevent anyone from slipping through their lines without being seen. Each soldier could clearly see the man on either side of him, making it impossible to pick them off one at a time without being noticed.
Corin knew he still didn’t stand a chance of getting close to Fhazail, but he wasn’t about to give up the hunt just because they had left the city. As the cultists moved through the trees, Corin became bolder, inching ever closer to the group, trusting the cover of the trees and the gloom of the forest night to keep him hidden, searching in vain for a break in their defenses and a chance to go after Fhazail.
He was so intent on his quarry that he never even heard the unknown assailant who rushed up and tripped him from behind. He hit the ground and his attacker leaped upon his back, a small hand threw itself across his mouth to stifle his grunt of surprise. Before he could gather himself and throw his undersized enemy from his back, soft lips pressed against his ear.
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