“What do you intend to do instead?” Farideh asked them. “Can you disrupt that thing? Can you stop the casting?” Oota’s eye slid to Cereon. The sun elf’s impassive expression tightened ever so slightly.
“No,” Cereon said. “We may be able to deflect some of it. A shield, perhaps. I can make such a casting. I suspect some of the others can assist me, make it stronger.” He shook his head. “It will not be enough to protect all the tel’Quessir.”
Oota gave Dahl a knowing look. “Thank you, Harper, for bringing me such valued allies.”
Dahl scowled. “Look, there are three basic possibilities. First, I’m right. That spell does exactly what I’ve said and we need to be ready. Second, it’s not what I’ve said and it’s not going to kill us. In that case, we end up exactly where we are now: convincing people to attack the tower and try to bring it down. Third, it’s not what I’ve said, it’s far more powerful, and it’s going to harm us all no matter where we hide.” He spread his hands. “And if that’s the case, so far as I can see, there is nothing we can do about it.”
“Except a shield for the favored of the elves,” Oota said.
“Rhand must have taken notice,” Farideh went on. “We should be prepared for him to try and stall things.”
“A force near the shelters,” Oota agreed. “Spread out to catch the guards coming at us if need be. And a second,” she added significantly, “to free the prisoners in the fortress.”
“Now,” Dahl said. “We don’t have the time to spare waiting for nightfall. Though Phalar—”
“Can hide beneath a cloak,” Oota said. “I’ll deal with Phalar. We’ll take Hamdir, him, and you as well, Harper. Get everyone armed and back here as quick as you can.” She strode from the court, leaving Dahl and Farideh.
“She declines my spells,” Cereon said, “as well as my followers.”
“We’ll take Armas,” Dahl said. “She trusts him.” Cereon sniffed, as if to say that wasn’t enough, and left without another word. Farideh watched him go.
“You want to come with us, don’t you?” Dahl said as soon as Cereon was out of earshot. Farideh sighed.
“Wouldn’t you? But I’m not a fool—I owe them, but none of the Chosen is going to be cheered to see me. And then there’s Rhand.” She rubbed her left arm. “I’m a liability.”
“Don’t fish,” Dahl said lightly. “You’ve already been a help.”
“And a hindrance.” She sighed again and shook her head. “Don’t mind me. I’m not feeling well.”
“Fight some shadar-kai,” Dahl said. “That seems to perk you up.”
And at least that coaxed a smile from her. “Be careful,” she told him.
“You too,” Dahl said. He looked at the thinning crowd of prisoners, feeling sure he ought to say something more, but not knowing what it was. “Do you expect Lorcan to come back?”
“Gods only know,” she said. “I almost hope he stays away.” She considered Dahl a moment. “He could go in for that scroll. The one to make the cavern.”
“Better him than you,” Dahl said. “Promise me you won’t try and get back in.”
She nodded, in an absent sort of way. “How will we decide who has to . . .”
“Not now,” Dahl said. It wasn’t a question Dahl wanted to answer, especially when he knew he’d be the last one into the shelter rooms. “Maybe they’ll manage it.”
“Maybe,” she said. Then, “Did you tell Tharra about the ritual?”
“No,” Dahl said. “Why would I?”
Farideh rubbed her arm again. “Because she ought to know. Maybe she’d be back on our side if she knew the other devil had tricked her. Maybe her deal’s undone if he didn’t follow through.”
Dahl regarded her a long moment. “Tharra’s not you, you know.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means she’s not coming back over to our side. She broke her oath.”
“She made a bad decision. She did the same thing I did.”
Dahl’s temper rose. “Yes, well, you’re not a Harper. So it’s different. You . . .” He struggled for the right words. Because he knew she was right. Even if he was also sure she was wrong. “You’ve never betrayed anyone. You’re very . . . dependable.”
She stared at him, unblinking, and Dahl fought the urge to guess what she was thinking—that was a compliment.
“I can think of more than a few people who would disagree with you,” Farideh finally said. “Starting with the Chosen in the wizard’s workshop.”
The woman guarding Tharra looked as if she would have liked to stop Farideh from entering, but she only fixed a suspicious scowl on the bowl of thin gruel the tiefling carried with her and let her pass.
Tharra watched Farideh stonily as she shut the door. “I’m not hungry.”
Farideh sat down on the mat that lined the floor and set the bowl beside her. “Did you know that the ritual wouldn’t work?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Dahl studied it. He’s pretty knowledgeable about these things. The components are all wrong. The spell’s not constructed right. So,” she said, “did you know?”
Tharra searched Farideh’s face. “It has to work,” she said. “If it doesn’t work, what’s the point of my deal?”
“I think you’re a decoy,” Farideh said. “When the spell collected nothing, he could blame it on me, and you’d be too dead to argue. But now someone else is casting a similar spell.”
“And you can’t stop it,” Tharra finished. She looked away. “We have to get them down into the shelter rooms. As many as will fit.”
“We’re only up to a thousand,” Farideh said. “And we only have a few hours.”
Tharra pursed her mouth. “I’m not the one who brought them here. I’m not the one who’ll kill them. If Magros hadn’t caught me, he would have caught some other. If you want to lock me in here and recite my crimes—”
“No,” Farideh said. “I’ve come to ask for your help.”
Tharra stopped. “What sort of help?”
“In the wizard’s study, there’s a scroll,” Farideh said. “A very old, very rare scroll. It will open a chamber in the ground—big enough to make the difference.”
Tharra raised an eyebrow. “Why does he have that?”
“Windfall. He found it and he hasn’t come up with a use for it yet.”
“But you didn’t take it?”
Farideh’s chest squeezed. “I didn’t know we needed it. And now if I go into the fortress, Rhand will know he’s being played.”
“So you expect me to traipse into the Abyss in your place.”
“You know the fortress,” Farideh said, “and the guards know you. If someone spots you, they’re not going to assume right off something’s wrong. You know how to slip in and out—I don’t know much about Harpers, but I know that. You’re our best chance for saving them all.”
Tharra’s expression grew serious. “It’s in his study. The one at the top of the tower.”
“On the rack against the right-hand wall,” Farideh said. “Second shelf down. There’s scorch marks along the end, and a chip missing from the roller. If you open it, you’ll see the drawing of the cavern it makes.”
“If I can get to it,” Tharra murmured. “I can’t go in the gates. Not without a guard.”
“Dahl and Oota are planning to free the Chosen in the wizard’s workshop very soon.”
Tharra laughed once. “I think I’ll stand a better chance charming the grays.” She paused. “You have to get my pin back. I won’t survive without it.”
“How long will it work for?”
“Half a bell. Long enough, if I don’t trigger it until I have to.” She chewed her lip. “This is a little mad, you know?”
“Mad times call for mad plans,” Farideh said. “I’ll get the pin. But you don’t use it on me, or anyone else on our side. And after, you have to answer to the Harpers all the same.”
“If I’m alive,” Tharra sai
d. Farideh kneeled and untied her bindings. “Doesn’t work well on you anyway. People tell you you’re stubborn?”
“Constantly,” Farideh said. She grasped the other woman’s hand and stood. “Come on.”
“What are you planning to tell Antama out there?” Tharra asked.
“Nothing. We’re in a hurry,” Farideh said, and she pulled enough Hells magic through her brand to make a slit in the fabric of the planes, and stepped through the slat-board wall to reappear in the alley beyond.
“Did you choose the least concealable weapon available on purpose?” Khochen teased Havilar as they crept through the alleys between huts. “No,” Havilar said irritably. “I chose it because I’m good at it.”
“You were good at it before you chose it?” Khochen asked cheekily. “There’s a tale I long to hear.” Beside her, the scout, Ebros, chuckled softly.
Havilar scowled. “Do you have any idea of where we’re headed?”
“The same way everyone else is headed,” Khochen said. “Where there are people, there are answers.”
“Where there are people,” Havilar said, “there’s usually someone who wants to start a fight.”
Khochen looked back and smiled. “Don’t worry, little tiefling. You have me.”
Havilar gripped Devilslayer and started to retort that she did not need some puny thief with her blades in her boots to rescue her, and anyway Havilar had a solid half foot on Khochen. But her reply was cut off by sudden shouting from behind them.
“Well, well—not in the Hells after all.” Havilar turned and caught the chain of a shadar-kai guard on the haft of her glaive, the bladed end slicing inches from her face.
The guard’s companions—a woman with enormous arms and a heavy broadsword strapped to her back and a wiry fellow with a pair of curved knives—shouted after the chainmaster. “He doesn’t want you ruined,” the man said to Havilar. “Even though he won’t be happy to find you again. Come quietly, and we’ll kill your companions quick.”
The woman grinned. “No watching for you this time.”
Havilar didn’t stop to wonder what that meant—whoever he was, he could go to the Abyss before she’d follow karshoji shadar-kai anywhere. As the chainmaster yanked the chain free of her weapon, she followed the pull, swinging the weight of the glaive toward his face. As he pulled back, she shifted and pulled the butt of the glaive up and into his right wrist. He pulled back farther, eyes dancing, favoring his injury. The chain snaked along the ground, catching in the sticky mud. Havilar stomped onto the weapon, grinding the blades down into the muck, before leaping back off. The chainmaster hauled hard on the lodged chain and caught the point of Havilar’s glaive in his gut for the hesitation.
Ebros’s arrow hit the swordswoman in the chest and pierced her leather armor. She grinned horribly and pulled the arrow free, barbs and all. A second arrow hit the smaller man as he tried to maneuver around his allies in the narrow passage. Khochen darted past in the corner of Havilar’s eye and with a flash of steel blocked the swordswoman’s dagger on her own blade, then jabbed her dagger up under the woman’s arm.
The chainmaster gave Havilar a terrible grin as he straightened. Havilar matched it—daughter of Clanless Mehen, wielder of Devilslayer. The glaive as good as her right hand.
The chain flashed up and encircled her right forearm, biting into her bracer. She let go of half her grip and moved with the tug to punch the shadar-kai in the base of the throat. That stunned him and she yanked hard on the chain, pulling it from his grip.
Step, shift, turn the blade—she sliced the glaive deeply across the shadarkai’s belly, ripping under the leather jack. His eyes widened and he lunged at her. Havilar moved with him, turning to hook the glaive behind him as he passed, and pulling him forward hard enough to trip him. She planted the blade of her weapon in his back and the air went out of the shadar-kai in a horrible, wet gasp.
Khochen scrambled back from the shadar-kai with the broadsword on her back, the alley still too narrow to draw such a weapon. But Khochen was keen enough with her daggers that it hardly mattered. Bleeding from many cuts, the shadar-kai advanced, taking her own blood from the Harper as she did.
Havilar narrowed her eyes and brought the butt of the glaive up into the guard’s bare wrist, smacking it hard enough to make her grip loose. Slide the haft up and nick the blade—the dagger flew from the shadar-kai’s grasp. The startled guard looked to Havilar, then froze.
Ebros’s arrow protruded from the shadar-kai’s left eye. She dropped to her knees and tripped over on the fallen chain. “Well shot!” Khochen gasped.
Ebros nodded, shaking, and trained his next arrow on the man between Havilar and Khochen’s blades. But the wiry shadar-kai took quick stock of the situation fell backward, into the shadows, and disappeared.
“Running for reinforcements,” Khochen panted. “Damn.” She rubbed her wounded shoulder and looked back at Havilar. “What was that shadar-kai talking about?”
“He thought I was Fari,” Havilar said, feeling her stomach twist into knots. “We have to go.”
“ Ilharess-iblithin sun,” Phalar cursed for at least the fifth time. A heavy sheen of sweat stood out on his ebony skin, even in the cool air—low as the sun was, it still irritated the drow. Dahl hadn’t discovered what Oota had traded him. When he’d asked, Phalar had chuckled in an unpleasant manner and cleaned his nails with the tip of Dahl’s dagger.
He wasn’t so relaxed now. “Let’s go already.”
“Go ahead,” Hamdir said, standing over the drow with a cloak as a shield against the sun. “Run out into the daylight and knock on the gates.”
“I could hit them from here,” Armas said, with a familiar eagerness. He flexed his hands and blew out a nervous breath. “I could definitely hit them from here.” Phalar chuckled.
“Wait,” Dahl said. The force of Phalar’s god seemed to grip Dahl even more firmly this time, and dressed once more in the stolen uniform, Dahl had a hard time waiting for the guards to pass by before he rushed out to unlock the gate with a ritual. They needed to time it perfectly—there was no speeding the ritual, after all, no matter how sure Dahl felt in that moment that he could make it happen.
If the same effect took hold of Oota, it wasn’t obvious—she rocked on her feet, tense and ready, but she counted the beats of the guards’ footsteps under her breath and kept her hands on her belt and off the stolen sword she wore tied there. She did not look at Tharra, crouched beside her and wearing the black kerchief and apron—but then no one did. Farideh had turned up with Tharra as they were easing Phalar out of the shelters, past the crowds heading in, and even if Dahl had to admit he greatly preferred this plan to Farideh’s last one, he wasn’t going to pretend he liked it.
One more pass, Dahl thought, when the guards reached their farthest stations . . . Dahl drummed his fingers against the blue silk cover of Farideh’s ritual book, the pouches of components dangling from his wrist. He was so consumed by the plan, by forcing himself to run through the ritual instead of falling prey to Phalar’s powers, that he completely missed the fact that they were being approached until Oota turned, axe high, and nearly took Lord Vescaras Ammakyl’s head off.
“Hold!” Dahl hissed to Vescaras as much as Oota. He stepped around the half-orc and saw Brin and a red-haired elf behind Vescaras. “Gods’ books, where did you come from?”
Vescaras raised an eyebrow, but lowered his rapier. “Good to see you’re well. Your sendings were clear enough—no need to follow up and waste resources.”
Brin looked around. “What in the Hells is this place?”
“Internment camp,” Dahl said. “He’s collecting people with divine powers, and—” He stopped himself. “And we’re in a bit of a rush.”
Vescaras peered around the corner. “Infiltration?”
“Rescue,” Dahl said. “Forty or fifty. No idea about their state. No idea about guards.”
“No time for reconnaissance,” Vescaras said.
“I’ll get
the first door unlocked. After we have . . .” He glanced at Phalar. “Resources.”
Brin and Vescaras seemed to notice Phalar for the first time, and for a moment, Dahl was sure they were going to flee.
“Don’t provoke them,” Dahl said to Phalar.
The drow spread his hands. “Haven’t I been good?”
Vescaras recovered and looked very deliberately over at Dahl. “Well, Goodman Peredur, I suppose you have the lead.”
“Oota,” Dahl started, intending to acquaint her with the Harpers. But the guards had reached their farthest stations.
“Now,” Oota ordered, as she shoved Dahl forward along the reaching shadow of the building they’d crouched behind. Without stopping, Dahl sprinted up and pressed himself flat against the great door, where a passing guard would have a difficult time spotting him. He slipped the components into a pile beside him and flipped the book open to the ritual he needed.
He worked quickly, his hands remembering the passes and actions—the streak of powdered silver worked into the grain of the wood, the line of bright blue salts along the base of the door, the charcoal-marked keyhole he added to the center. The stream of words that finished the ritual seemed to collect great fistfuls of the Weave and pull them close like a cloth over a conjurer’s table. When it released, the door swung open a crack, its bar dangling on the ground.
At the next opportunity, the others darted across and into the passageway. Dahl hurried to the fore. The tunnel was unguarded, as was the open courtyard. The smell of blood still tainted the cold air.
“What happened here?” Brin breathed. Dahl didn’t answer. He could imagine Farideh standing on the ledge above, being made to watch the slaughter below and realizing how far Rhand was willing to go.
“Our hand was forced,” Tharra answered after a moment of quiet.
Dahl turned to retort, but the expression of grief on Tharra’s face stopped him. He might not count her as his fellow, but she counted the dead prisoners among hers. The living ones too, he thought.
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