Ghostwalker

by Erik Scott De Bie

  Arya. So that was her name. A beautiful name, for a beautiful….

  Growling inwardly, Walker shoved the thoughts aside.

  The caravan in front of the decrepit former tavern bulged with crates and bundles of silks from Kara-Tur. He found it odd that merchants would stop in this part of Quaervarr, and even odder that the merchants would leave their wagon, fully loaded and unguarded.

  An odd sensation of paranoia crept through him.

  Strange. Why should he feel unnerved? Was this merely Arya’s warning coming back to haunt him?

  He was pondering this when the lids of the crates burst open and soldiers, glittering steel in their hands, poured out into the rainy night around him. These men were dressed in dark leather and carried swords, daggers, and axes, most with a weapon in both hands.

  Caught momentarily off guard, Walker barely drew his sword in time to deflect the first slash of a ranger’s blade. He twisted aside and winced as the man’s dagger scraped past his side. Fortunately, the blow was cushioned by the magic of his bracers and drew little blood. He countered with a vicious punch to the jaw, laying the man low, but two were waiting to take the fallen ranger’s place, swords darting for his life.

  Walker spun, throwing his cloak up high to distract them, and the blades stabbed right through the thick cloth, one narrowly missing and the other sparking off his left bracer.

  Continuing the spin, Walker yanked his cloak hard to the left, and the cloth pulled the swords along with it, dragging the rangers off their guard. He reversed the shatterspike in his left hand, followed the spin, and cut one of the rangers down with an underhand slash. Even as the man fell, Walker leaped backward into the middle of the street, warding off the dozen attackers with his blade.

  One came forward, and Walker batted the sword aside, but his counter went to parry the sword of a second, coming from his unarmed side. A dagger snaked in and Walker slapped the man’s hand, disarming him, caught the falling weapon, and jabbed it into the first attacker’s belly, all in a blur of motion. The man cursed and kicked out, but Walker twisted aside to dodge.

  Then white-hot pain slashed across his back, and Walker lost his focus. He ducked under the next slash and thrust his blade behind him. The flanking ranger leaped back with an oath.

  Walker rose. The angry-faced rangers, many sporting scars and eye patches, sneered at him. More men came out of the surrounding buildings, until Walker found himself facing thirty men, all armed to face a small army. They did not advance—Walker’s aura of deadly resolve kept them at bay for now—but they kept Walker carefully surrounded.

  The huge iron doors of Bilgren’s tavern home creaked open and two figures came out, one with dark curls, clad in white leather armor, and the other a hulking giant of a man, wrapped in furs and carrying a long weapon with a sword blade extending from one end and a single chain flail from the other. The latter man’s thick red moustache quivered as he guffawed loudly.

  “Ah, ha ha!” the huge man bellowed. “Look at the rat me trap has caught!”

  “My trap, Bilgren,” said the smaller man. “My trap. You’d have just fought him alone.”

  Bilgren roared with laughter. “Ye be right, little Meris, ye be right.” He spun his gyrspike before him, blade over chain. “An’ now I’ll do the like anyway.”

  Meris raised a finger and opened his mouth to speak but then shrugged. “Whatever you say,” said the dusky scout.

  Walker, bleeding from half a dozen small wounds, kept warding the rangers away with his threatening blade and gaze. Then the rangers drew back and lowered their swords, allowing Walker his circle. The ghostwalker stood up as straight as he could, held his blade low, and stared at the huge barbarian coming toward him. Bilgren shouldered his way through the rangers and stepped into the circle with the bleeding ghostwalker.

  “Thy race be run, dark man,” Bilgren rumbled, holding his weapon ready. He twirled it in front of him and across to both his sides, then over his head, with astonishing grace given the weapon’s size and Bilgren’s bulk. He finally snapped it down and held the flail and sword handle in his two huge hands. “I only regret that a sickly goblin like ye could kill me friend Drex.” He lifted his gyrspike over his head in challenge.

  Walker’s grim scowl did not waver. He lifted his shatter-spike, accepting the barbarian’s challenge.

  Bilgren roared and leaped in, attacking with reckless abandon. It was a berserk fury, a terrible blood frenzy Walker had observed many times in animals backed into corners. The rage would heighten Bilgren’s strength, speed, and endurance. Against Walker, already injured, the advantage was clear.

  The fight would be a quick one, unless Tymora intervened.

  Spinning his gyrspike, Bilgren slashed down at Walker’s head. The smaller man made to parry, then leaped aside, dodging the blow and the spiked ball that smashed down after it. Working with both hands, Bilgren continued the swing, allowing the sword and flail to slash past the side of his body. For such a huge man, he possessed remarkable speed. Bilgren turned and brought the weapon horizontally right to left, turning the swipe past his side and allowing the flail to swing. Walker managed to whirl away in time, the flail passing within a hand’s breadth of his chest.

  Meanwhile, a dagger slid into Walker’s hand, and he let fly.

  Walker landed and went to one knee, one hand low, and his cloak spread out around him. Bilgren gave a gasp from behind, and the ghostwalker closed his eyes as though mourning. The street was silent.

  Then a sound broke that silence—a loud, booming laugh.

  Walker turned to see Bilgren looming over him, a dagger stuck to the hilt in his right arm. The barbarian looked at the wound idly, then ripped the knife from his flesh with the slightest of winces. He tossed it aside and swung the gyrspike, keeping the sword blade against his arm.

  Eyes wide, Walker managed to duck the flail by throwing himself on his back.

  Bilgren followed through and took the weapon behind his back, turning it like a staff, and the blade came back around his right side. Walker leaped to the opposite side of Bilgren’s body, but the barbarian kept the weapon slashing after him. The ghostwalker managed to parry aside the sword blade but the spiked ball clipped his shoulder and sent him spinning to the ground.

  Intense pain lashed through Walker and blood flew from his lips. He pushed on the earth, trying to force himself up from where he lay on his belly, but he could not muster the strength. He tried to summon up the ghostly powers that would allow him to escape by walking through the very earth, but the necessary focus eluded him. For the first time in the life he remembered, Walker felt his resolve and his calm slipping away.

  The rangers laughed and jeered all around him. A flat, emotionless expression was painted across Meris’s dusky face, but something burned in his eyes.

  In those eyes, something … Anger, yes. Rage, yes. But something else….

  Looming over him, the bearlike Bilgren spun the gyrspike over his head. “Not used to facing death, are ye, dark man?” the raging barbarian roared like a lion. “How does it feel? To know I be about to crush ye—”

  “Sir Bilgren!” a voice shouted from somewhere.

  Startled, the barbarian watched, stupefied, as a lance stabbed into his shoulder, lifting him up and out of the circle.

  Holding the other end of that lance, Arya burst into the circle on the back of a charging steed. The confused Bilgren, borne aloft on her lance, flew back and crashed bodily into the full trader’s wagon. Nightingale-and-Moon shield in one hand and lance in the other, Arya scattered the surrounding rangers like children with her furious gaze and, more tangibly, with the hooves of her war-horse. Her lance now freed, Arya swung it around in a wide semi-circle, knocking half a dozen rangers to the ground.

  “Up!” Arya shouted to Walker. She dropped the lance and reached down.

  Somehow, the ghostwalker managed to muster his strength and rise to one knee. He reached up, caught hold of her hand, and pushed himself up as she pulled. T
ogether, they hauled him onto the horse. Arya gave a shout and the steed leaped through two rangers, throwing them to the ground, and sprinted away from the battle, south toward the center of Quaervarr.

  “Strumpet!” came Meris’s shout, and a light axe whirled end over end toward them. Arya got her shield up in its way and the weapon skittered off Everlundian steel.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” Walker choked out, blood trickling down his chin.

  “My turn to save your life!” the knight replied with cheery ardor. She flicked the reins again and the horse leaped into a full gallop.

  “Head west …” Walker murmured. “My grove….”

  Arya nodded and spurred the horse toward the outer gate of Quaervarr.

  Meris’s rangers were in hot pursuit, running full out as fast as their legs could carry them. Thus, when a rope suddenly came up between the two old gates, fully half a dozen were caught off guard, took it in the chest, and stumbled to the ground. The rope fell as two men dressed in tabards of the Knights in Silver stepped out from the sides of the gate.

  “I don’t know how you talked me into this one, Derst,” the larger man rumbled. “Covering their escape—”

  “The old duty and honor trick,” his weasel-faced companion said. “Gets you every time.”

  Spinning the two light maces he held, Bars laughed grimly, conceding the point.

  “Stay with me, Walker,” whispered Arya, surprised at how worried her voice sounded.

  They had burst out Quaervarr’s main gate, not slowing as the stunned guards threw themselves into the mud. Bearing her two riders, Swiftfall leaped with a whinny into forbidding cold.

  More than any pursuit, Arya feared for the wounded man who clutched her waist so fiercely.

  That grip was inexplicably distracting, but as they rode, the arms slipped and the hug loosened bit by bit as Walker lost more and more blood. Thus, even as his touch filled her with an unexpected tingling, it also wracked her with a sense of dire urgency. She spurred Swiftfall on all the faster, heading south.

  “Drink this,” said Arya, handing him a potion from her belt. The vial was marked with the Dethek rune for healing. Walker choked down the milky liquid and nearly gagged, but the potion spread its healing warmth through his body. “It’s not much, but Swiftfall can get us to Silverymoon this night—”

  “No!” Walker hissed so sharply that Arya started. “No … I cannot … leave….”

  Arya opened her mouth to protest, but shut it once more. “All right, all right,” she said. “Where do we go then?”

  “West,” said Walker. “West to my grove….” He trailed off into silence.

  Frightened, Arya started to ask if he were awake—or even alive—but at that moment, the ghostwalker leaned his head against her strong back, repeating his directions in a whisper.

  Arya turned Swiftfall to the right, toward the Dark Woods. “We’ll be safe, old lass,” she said to the horse, stroking her mane. “No one will think we ran where you can’t run.”

  They broke into the woods and left the road to Silverymoon—and safety—behind.

  Greyt’s rangers were up long into the night, pounding on doors and interrogating townsfolk, looking always for the two knights—one huge, and one tiny. After a short skirmish, the knights had disappeared, and try as the rangers might, the knights were nowhere to be found. Oaths, growls, threats, and even the clashing of weapons filled the air, and little of Quaervarr got any sleep.

  Meanwhile, on the edge of town, beneath the eaves of a certain Bullot Feyfoot’s stables, a loud oath was heard, seeming to come from the air. A stray dog, hearing the curse, yipped and backed off from the invisible barrier its nose had struck just an instant earlier.

  “Derst, where the Hells are you?” Bars asked aloud. The invisible paladin shifted and almost lost his balance, nearly falling to the cobblestones. He could not, after all, see his feet.

  “Right here, actually,” came a voice from beside him. The suddenness made Bars jump, then fall.

  “Beshaba’s horns!” Bars covered his mouth as though to pull back the foul words. Since he couldn’t see his hand, he poked himself in one invisible eye.

  “Watch yourself there, you big oaf,” said Derst. “You almost crushed me!”

  “I can’t ‘watch myself,’ orc-brain!” shouted Bars. “Your Tyr-cursed potions made us invisible, remember?”

  “Well, obviously….” he trailed off. “I always find invisibility comfortable, don’t you?”

  “How do you turn the damned things off?” growled Bars. “I feel … disconnected, as though I’m outside my body. A ghost.” Like Walker, was his next thought, with a chill.

  “Oh, you’re all right,” replied Derst in a tone that indicated he had rolled his eyes. “Well, I suppose I’m used to it, and my senses are a little sharper than yours. I’m tempted to just leave the invisibility on and let your small brain figure it out.” Bars felt a heavy tap on his shoulder, a light push, and Derst shimmered back into visibility.

  “See, it’s that simple,” said the wiry knight. “You remember how I told you not to hit anyone until—” Then a heavy force struck his stomach, and the smaller man doubled over with a gasp.

  The paladin faded into view. “You’re right, that was simple,” said Bars, cracking his knuckles.

  Derst just moaned.

  “Funny, didn’t mean to hit you so hard. Right then, Sir-Plans-A-Lot, what now?”

  Slowly, Derst recovered himself and stood up straight. “To the stable,” he muttered. “There’s a trap door, used by those who Har—er, do business with me, in certain unpleasant circumstances a little like these. Tight quarters, though.”

  “Joyous,” Bars said glumly.

  CHAPTER 10

  28 Tarsakh

  Arya did not know how long they had been traveling through the forest, Swiftfall picking her way between fallen limbs and avoiding holes in the ground. The deeper they went, the darker it became and the less at ease she felt. The silence of their ride did not help. Walker was far from talkative. Nightmares had gripped him earlier, and he had called out strange words she had not recognized, but they seemed to have passed, leaving him silent.

  At first, she had filled the quiet with the tale of how she came to be in Quaervarr, of the vanished couriers, and of her suspicions about Greyt. Now, the knight divided her focus between ducking under tree branches and thinking about the mysterious man slumped against her back. He had long since stopped murmuring, and now she didn’t know if he were even still breathing.

  “Walker?” she asked. “Still with me back there?”

  When there was no response, Arya turned her head back to look at Walker. He sat slumped, eyes closed, on the back of the horse. “Walker?” she asked in a frightened whisper. “Are you—still alive?”

  His eyes flickered open and his intense blue gaze found her worried face.

  “Of course,” said Walker. “I shall speak up if I feel about to expire.”

  Arya looked away, hiding her relief. At first, she was upset he had frightened her, and that his voice had been almost mocking, but she laughed. It was appropriate, since she had sounded like a frightened little girl.

  “Was that a jest?” she asked with a half smile.

  Walker did not reply except to release her waist.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Arya, worried again, clutching at his hand. He felt so cold, even through the glove.

  “I can sit on my own,” Walker said. She heard a tiny elf touch to his voice.

  “You’ve lost that much blood and now you can sit on your own?” Arya asked, doubtful.

  “Healing.” His rasping voice was soft.

  “No one heals that fast,” Arya said. “You were on Kelemvor’s doorstep when I pulled you onto Swiftfall’s back. How—”

  Walker’s right hand came up from her side. In the moonlight, a tiny sapphire glistened from within a silver wolf’s head ring wrapped around the fourth finger.

  “You have many secret
s, it seems,” said the knight with a nod of approval. “Lone wolf.”

  Walker nodded. Looking away, Arya bit her lip in thought. She was familiar with rings that healed their wearers—a warrior in the field did not always have a priest’s healing at hand—and how powerful such rings could be. Still, she did not know how healed he was.

  “Put your arms back around me,” Arya said finally. “I don’t want you falling off—I’m too tired to pick you up again.”

  Walker hesitated, but he did as he was told. She supposed the order was half for his benefit and half for hers. It was bitterly cold and though his arms were not overly warm, Arya welcomed them. His proximity reassured her against the dark of the forest.

  That was what she told herself, at least.

  “Talk to me,” said Arya after a moment. “I’ve told you all about myself; what about you?”

  “What shall I tell?” asked Walker. His voice still rasped, but he did not sound so deathly now. “I walk with ghosts. I have my task. That is all.”

  “Your task … you mean killing people?” She felt him wince at her harsh tone, and she quickly amended. “People who wronged you? Hurt someone you loved? Greyt? The others?”

  Walker said nothing and silence fell again.

  “I’m still not convinced you’re not the one attacking those couriers, you know,” Arya observed after a moment. “It’s quite a coincidence, that I run into you exactly when I’m investigating those attacks—”

  “Yet you aid me now,” Walker replied. “Why?”

  Arya paused. “My … Lord Greyt wants you dead, and that’s enough for me.” She was not sure why, but she stopped herself from drawing a connection with her step-uncle. “The same man is trying to kill us both, whatever his plans might be. Then the man’s son, gods above, he’s just as dangerous—”

  Walker perked up. “Meris?” he asked, interrupting.

  Then he stopped and looked around. “Wait.” His arms were gone from around her waist.

  Arya had been about to respond, but the urgency in his voice cut her off. “What is it?” she asked. Swiftfall whinnied and paced nervously.