by Mel Odom
That’s assuming Seaspray is still in existence, he told himself. But he didn’t have any doubts about that.
“How do you know it’s to the left?” Wick asked.
The cat looked at him with her cool agate eyes. “I don’t. I’m guessing.”
“Guessing?”
“Yes. Guessing is much better than walking back and forth till you wear a trench in the ground.”
Wick looked back the way he’d been pacing. It was true, he supposed, that he had been rather heavy-footed in his indecision.
He sighed. “I’d have much preferred a scientific basis for reaching that decision.”
“How about a mathematical one?” the cat asked. “It’s a fifty-fifty chance.”
Unwilling to argue such a point with the cat, Wick started forward, taking the left fork. They would find out the truth of the matter soon enough.
At sundown, Wick stopped to make camp. He was cold and tired and scared. In his exhaustion, he was beginning to sense shadows flitting around him and imagining them as ravening beasts waiting to take him down and feast on his bones.
He went off the road for thirty yards or so, thinking to hide himself and his camp better than last time. The snow flew thicker now, gathering intensity again as if in the night it found a new strength.
The forest was thick around him, and it was alive with nocturnal creatures. He cut the trail of a fox and heard an owl pass overhead with a heavy whoosh of its wings before ducking down and spotting it only a heartbeat later. Thankfully he found no bears or wolves, which could have provided uneasy slumber at best.
He had a cold dinner of jerked meat and journey cakes and longed for the warm meals he’d enjoyed at Karbor’s home. He thought again of the leather worker, how his daughter had been taken by the goblinkin and poor Karbor didn’t know what had happened to her.
He sat under thick blankets with his back to the donkey, who munched contentedly on a feedbag of oats purchased from Karbor. The cold was kept at bay by thick woolen blankets. Alysta slept near the donkey, more vulnerable to the cold because of her small size.
Wick hated the darkness. It was too dark to travel any farther, but his mind wasn’t yet tired enough to sleep despite his physical exhaustion. He needed a book. Not even a pipe or a glass of razalistynberry wine. Just something to occupy his mind. Unfortunately, it was also too dark to read, although the moon occasionally broke through the cloud cover for long silvery moments.
In the silence of the night, amid the calls of the nocturnal hunters and the wind, Wick heard the sound of a trickling stream. He’d crossed the stream once and been aware of its presence most of the day. It came down the mountain, clear and pure.
Grudgingly, he took the water bag from the pack the donkey had carried and went in search of the stream. He stumbled another twenty yards through the forest, pushing at the pines and getting the scent of them all over him in the process before he found the stream.
The stream meandered through the forest, running between the trees and boulders. It wasn’t any wider than six feet across and was only inches deep.
Making his way through the snowdrifts, Wick tripped and fell. As he pushed himself back up, irritated now because he had snow all over him and would probably be wet soon when the flakes melted back at the camp, the clouds passed for a moment and moonslight touched what he’d tripped over.
It was a body.
11
The Fortress
Pale, anguished features peered up from the snowdrift where Wick had inadvertently uncovered it. In life, the victim had been a young man, a human of few years, a man by their standards, though not long so.
Wick automatically thought of him as a victim because his throat had been slit. Getting to his feet, the little Librarian discovered that he was in the cold camp of the dead. Hypnotized, recognizing the lumps around him for what they were, Wick brushed away the snow and found six more people.
They’d all been humans, traders by the look of their rough clothes and some of the supplies that had been left in their packs. All of them had died by violence, not far from the cold, dead ashes of their campfire.
Wick knew they’d been killed only a short time ago. The scavengers hadn’t been at them yet. He stood in numb horror, gazing down on the faces.
“There’s nothing you can do for them.” Alysta stood near a tree outside the camp.
Wick said nothing, but the howling wind made him feel near-frozen inside.
“Did you hear me?” the cat asked.
“I heard you,” Wick mumbled.
“There’s nothing you can do for them,” Alysta repeated.
“A burial,” Wick suggested.
“You have neither the tools nor the energy.” The cat gazed solemnly at the scene. “And the earth is frozen solid.” Her voice was quiet. “Better to leave them as you found them and hope that someone else finds them to give them a proper burial.”
Stunned, Wick recognized the truth of the cat’s words. He nodded.
“At least we know we’re on the right track,” Alysta said.
“What do you mean?”
“The Razor’s Kiss thieves came this way.”
Tearing his gaze from the dead men, Wick looked at the cat. “How do you know that?”
“The wounds,” Alysta said. “Most of them were made by razors, not swords. These men, the majority of them, were murdered in their sleep. The razor is the chosen weapon of the men we’re pursuing.”
Wick knew that. “It could be another group of thieves.”
“I doubt it. Thieves don’t often come up into the mountains.”
“That doesn’t mean there wasn’t another group of thieves.”
“No, but common sense would dictate that we’re following the men we trailed from Wharf Rat’s Warren.” The cat looked through the forest and slunk back as a great owl passed by. The predator’s shadow almost found her in the darkness. “Fill the waterskins and come back to camp before you lose your way.”
Wick stood frozen, peering down at the bodies and fearing that he might end up just like them. It was a wonder that he wasn’t dead already. I’m a Librarian, he thought desperately. Not an adventurer. Not a sellsword. Not one of those heroes like Taurak Bleiyz from Hralbomm’s Wing. He took a small, deep breath and tried to steady his spinning senses. I’m a dweller, and I’m a long way from home in a land that will kill me if the men I’m chasing after don’t.
In the dark deep of the night, Wick wished only that he could go home. Someone else could solve the riddle of the Battle of Fell’s Keep and who had really betrayed whom out there. It had happened a thousand years ago. Those events should have no bearing on what was taking place now.
But they did. The arguments that took place in Paunsel’s Tavern back in Greydawn Moors. The loss Bulokk still felt over his ancestor’s battle-axe and Master Oskarr’s good name. The kidnapping of the girl, Rose, who was supposed to be the descendant of Captain Dulaun. All of those things had happened because of the Battle of Fell’s Keep. There were many who needed to know what had happened.
“Second Level Librarian Lamplighter,” the cat called with more intensity. “Do you hear me?”
Wick pushed away his fear. Fear clouded a person’s thoughts and killed him faster than an opponent’s weapon. “I hear you.”
“Fill the waterskins or return to camp,” the cat said gently. “You can’t spend the night looking at those men you can’t help.”
I know. With an effort, Wick got himself started. He went to the stream and filled the waterskins, made himself drink until he could hold no more, and headed back to camp after the cat.
They had chosen the right direction at the fork in the road. That had to mean something. But he was afraid that it only meant he was walking to his death.
The fortress came into view by late morning.
Wick rode the donkey instead of walking now. Rags wrapped his feet to stave off most of the chill. Dawdal wasn’t happy about being ridden and having to suffe
r Wick’s slight weight, but Alysta had given the donkey no choice. When Dawdal had pressed her for a reason for the change, the cat had declined to answer. She rode in front of Wick and he shielded her with his cloak.
The donkey saw the fortress first and had stopped. New-fallen snow, showing no signs of interruption, covered the narrow trail up into the mountains. When Alysta had demanded to know why they had stopped, the donkey had pointed his blunt nose at the fortress and told them where to look.
The building sat atop the mountain amid a thick copse of pine and spruce trees. The overcast sky didn’t allow much sunlight to illuminate it.
The main structure was a tumbled-down wreck, and several buildings ringed it. Humans didn’t build with the same care that elves and dwarves did. Their lives were fleet and filled with more violence than those of elves and dwarves, and even goblinkin. They had a tendency to build and abandon, seeking something new or different, or simply exhausting what the land had to give them in certain areas.
They also reproduced much more frequently than any race except the goblinkin. Elves planned each birth as a special event, and dwarves bore strong sons to help their fathers. The Old Ones had given the seas to the humans because the seas covered more space than the earth, which was given to the dwarves. The elves claimed the magic of the air, of the high and lofty places. And goblinkin had been birthed in fire.
As a result of the humans’ proclivity for reproducing and moving around, the Shattered Coast and the islands were littered with abandoned homes and settlements. Few human cities lasted more than a few hundred years.
Upon viewing the fortress, Wick felt certain that it had been vacant much longer than it had been occupied. Fire had claimed the fortress at some point, burning away the wood and cracking the mortar. Piles of stone poured out into the snow, and most of those piles were covered by snow as well.
When it had been a place where people had lived, the fortress had four towers at the corners of the structure, flanked on both sides by guard towers. Now two of those towers had fallen, spilling across the fortress and the broken land that led up to it. Spruce and pine trees and brush had started to claim the area inside the broken fortress walls as well.
It was a place, Wick felt certain, that had been looted over and over again. Nothing could lay in that tangle of stone that hadn’t been found. It wasn’t possible.
We’re on a fool’s errand. Sickness twisted Wick’s stomach and soured the back of his throat. If Captain Dulaun’s sword was ever here, it’s surely gone by now.
Smoke from three separate campfires curled into the leaden sky, mute testimony that someone was still there.
“The sword is still at the fortress,” the cat said, as if guessing his thoughts.
“Do you know that for certain?”
“Why else would the Razor’s Kiss thieves be here?” the cat asked. “Why else would we be here?”
Because we’re idiots, Wick thought, but he refrained from saying that.
Turning away from the trail, hoping their arrival had gone unnoticed in the thick flurry of snow that continued to fall, Wick and his companions forged more deeply into the forest. Once they found a grade they could climb, Alysta and Wick left the donkey in a thick copse of trees that kept him out of the weather for the most part, and tied his feedbag on for him. He was munching away, probably the only happy one of the group, when they headed up into the mountain.
The way was hard and made harder by the snowdrifts that came as high as Wick’s chest as he carried Alysta. But after a while, he broke through the last of them and made his way around to the cave Alysta had spotted on the western wall of the mountain.
The cave was small and shallow, more like a divot in the mountainside. It also smelled strongly of animal musk, indicating that it was sometimes a home for wild things. Thankfully, none of those were about at the moment.
Wick wanted a fire, but he knew the smoke would give away his presence. If the Razor’s Kiss thieves hadn’t already spotted him.
Instead, he tried to enjoy the relative comfort of the cave and tell himself that not having the wind blowing against him was good enough. For a while, he watched over the fortress.
The thieves kept a watch over the area, but it was too big for them to maintain properly. Also, they stayed busy poking about in the ruins.
There was no sign of Quarrel. Thinking about the young man, Wick wondered if he had been one of the victims he’d found last night. He regretted now not looking then, but then he hadn’t wanted any more of those dead faces permanently painted in his memory.
“What are they looking for?” Wick whispered to the cat.
She sat beside him, her eyes busily watching the thieves as well. “Clams.”
The reply jarred him. “Clams?”
The cat glanced at him with preening disdain. “What else do you think they’d be looking for?”
Wick grimaced. You left yourself open for that.
“Why don’t you act like a Librarian?” the cat suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“You have Captain Gujhar’s ship’s log. Maybe you could read it and find out why the Razor’s Kiss thieves are here.”
Actually, Wick had been itching to read the books but hadn’t thought Alysta would appreciate the effort. Rather than react to the sarcastic tone the cat had adopted, he reached into his pack and pulled out the book. Last night at Karbor’s, Wick had labored through the man’s crabbed handwriting (oh, for a raconteur who had been trained as a Librarian and could write neatly!) but hadn’t been able to read too much in the weak light of the fireplace.
He’d started with the latest entries and worked his way backward. Most of those entries, though, had concentrated on Gujhar’s search in and around Wharf Rat’s Warren, mundane things. Before that, there had been the excavation by the goblinkin in the Cinder Clouds Islands.
In all, Wick decided that the captain kept rather good notes. But then, that was probably because whomever he represented demanded them that way.
He kept turning pages, leafing through narrative and illustrations. Alysta had come to peek over his shoulder as he sat on the cold stone floor on several occasions, but she’d walked away in obvious ignorance. Perhaps the cat had taught her daughter to read (a claim Wick still doubted somewhat), but she couldn’t read the captain’s hand or his language.
After a bit, he opened their provisions and ate jerked meat, feeding tidbits to Alysta without being asked. The cat didn’t refuse the offerings.
Hours later, toward midafternoon, Wick found the answer they sought.
“After the Battle of Fell’s Keep,” Wick said, summing up what he had translated from the ship’s log, “the goblinkin kept Seaspray for almost four hundred years. Then they lost the sword.”
“To whom?” Alysta peered intently with her cat’s eyes.
Wick shook his head. “Captain Gujhar’s narrative doesn’t say. They only thing they were certain of was that Seaspray was taken by a man of Captain Dulaun’s bloodline.”
“But not his direct bloodline,” Alysta said. “It was a descendant through another ancestor.”
Wick looked at her. “You know more about this than you’re telling.”
“Keep reading,” the cat said. “I would know more.”
Closing the book, Wick returned the cat’s measured gaze. Outside, the sky was starting to darken with twilight. “Tell me what you know.”
“When I’m ready.”
“No,” Wick said, drawing on reserves of courage he hadn’t known he’d had, “now.” And those stores of courage evaporated even as he gave utterance to the word.
“What?” Alysta’s ears flattened. Her furred face grew taut. She launched herself unexpectedly, catching Wick in the chest and knocking him backward. She remained atop him and unsheathed the claws on one paw. “Don’t trifle with me, halfer! I would kill you for that!”
Wick lay stunned. He didn’t know what to say, and he feared to make a move.
Al
ysta trembled. With a flick, her claws disappeared. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Her tone carried contrite apology.
“No,” Wick agreed. You almost scared me to death.
The cat walked off him, then sat and peered out the cave mouth. “I have been searching for that sword for a long time,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper.
Cautiously, Wick sat up and picked up the book.
“I gave up more than you know, more than you could possibly comprehend, in the search for that sword,” the cat went on.
“Why did you search for the sword?”
“Because finding that sword became entrusted to me. I’m of Captain Dulaun’s bloodline, and my family is charged with returning that sword to his rightful heir. There is only one out there now who can carry that sword and wield the magic in it. My granddaughter.” Alysta’s head rose proudly. “My time for it has past, but not my granddaughter’s. She must carry the sword for us all.”
Silent and eager, Wick listened and marveled at what was being revealed. Now that he knew this, he could guess at so much more.
“I swore upon my father’s bedside that I would find that sword or die trying.” Alysta shook her head. “Instead, it has come to this. I’m a cat.”
“But you weren’t always a cat.”
“No. Once I was human. Once I was young and beautiful. But now … now I’ve grown old. And I’m no longer human. I gave up being a mother and a grandmother to pursue that sword.”
“You taught your daughter to read,” Wick said. “You told me that.”
“I did,” Alysta agreed. “But I never stayed to see if she taught her daughter to read. Then … then it was too late for all of us.” She looked at Wick. “That’s why the sword is so important. That’s why I allowed myself a second life as a cat. So I could finish what I started. Or die trying. There’s no other way for me to accept what I’ve done.”