Thornhold

by Elaine Cunningham

  But his axe began to grow heavy, and his limbs slowed. Even the sweat-soaked ringlets of his hair began to relax, hanging straight and limp before his increasingly bleary eyes. The song of the river, too, began to slow, until the rush and babble seemed to become words that he could almost, but not quite, make out. Soon, even that faded away, and there was only darkness, and silence.

  He awoke later, stiff in every limb and with a headache that no amount of ale could produce. Cautiously, he sat up. He lifted his hand to his head and bumped against wood. Blinking rapidly, he managed to clear his vision and began to sort out what was what.

  First off, he was in a cratelike cage. A good, sturdy one, made of thick slats of wood. Instinctively his hand dropped to his axe loop. The weapon was gone, of course. His cage was in a small alcove, a little cave just off the river. It appeared to be a treasure trove of sorts. His captors were avid collectors—Ebenezer recognized some of the items he’d seen in the osquips’ hoard. His captors had gone through the trouble of keeping him, rather than killing him outright. Which—and this pained him to admit—would have been the sensible thing to do.

  “Seems like I’m some sort of treasure,” Ebenezer muttered, more to raise his spirits than from any belief in his own words. “About time someone recognized what I’m worth.”

  But even as the words formed, the dwarf began to realize the truth behind them. There was only one reason for them to keep a dwarf alive, something that any dwarf worth lizard spit would happily die to avoid.

  He’d been captured by slavers.

  * * * * *

  The gate to the western wall of Darkhold creaked open. Dag Zoreth’s horse, recognizing the Zhentarim fortress as home, suddenly shook off fatigue, nickering and prancing in its eagerness for the stable. Dag absently reined in the horse and fell into ranks behind his scouts. He, unlike his steed, was not particularly keen on entering the fortress that had been his home for several years. The time he’d spent away, and the knowledge that he was on the verge of acquiring his own stronghold, enabled him to view the Zhentish fortress with new eyes.

  Darkhold was as grim and forbidding as any place Dag had ever seen or imagined. The castle itself was enormous, constructed on an exaggerated scale from huge blocks of red-streaked gray stone. Legend had it that blood was mingled with the stone and mortar. Dag did not doubt it. An aura of evil and death emanated from the castle as surely as the smoke rose from the spike-encircled chimneys of its many towers. Set in a deep valley, surrounded on three sides by steep, sheer stone cliffs, and on the other side by the high, thick wall through which his caravan had just passed, the fortress was virtually impregnable. The valley floor that lay between the gate and castle was flat and rough and littered with stone, barren but for a winding brook that sang sadly on its path over jagged rocks and a small, besieged copse of trees.

  The massive outer gate clanked shut behind them, and Dag rode through the bleak valley to the inner wall surrounding the castle. Thirty feet tall it was, and nearly as wide. The four-man patrols that walked the wall met and passed each other with room to spare.

  The caravan paused at the end of a deep moat and waited while the iron portcullis rose. The bridge swept down to meet it, gears grinding in a chilling metallic shriek that sounded to Dag like a playful dragon raking its claws over a sheer slate cliff.

  Dag and his men crossed the bridge into a massive courtyard. He swung down from his horse and handed the reins to an instantly attentive soldier. After a few terse words to his men—reminding them of the penalty they would suffer for divulging any aspect of the trip—he strode through the great open door, and through a banner-draped hall with impossibly high ceilings, sized to accommodate the long-dead giants who had built the fortress.

  He stopped before one of the giant-sized doors that led out of the hall. A smaller door had been cut into the center of the massive portal, one more manageable for the current, human inhabitants. Dag felt every saddle-sore muscle as he walked stiffly up two spiraling staircases and down another hall toward the richly appointed suite of rooms that served as his private quarters.

  Dag had earned such luxury. He had served Darkhold as part of the new cadre of war-priests since its inception nearly four years ago. During that time he had risen to a position of considerable power among the clergy, second only to Malchior. Even Kurth Dracomore, the castle’s chaplain and the not-so-secret informant of Fzoul Chembryl, ruler of far-off Zhentil Keep, observed Dag with a wary and respectful eye.

  The young priest nodded to the pair of guards who paced through the hall on some errand. He could afford to be gracious—his preparations for the conquest of Thornhold were going extremely well. He had sent word to Sememmon, the mage who ruled Darkhold. Sememmon had applauded his plan and bid him return to the fortress for his pick of men to take to his new command. The mage approved of initiative and ambition, as long as those who possessed it did not threaten his own position. And Dag Zoreth had no ambition to rule in Darkhold. He preferred to claim his own territory. This conquest did not represent the zenith of Dag Zoreth’s ambitions—far from it—but it was a reasonable next step. It would add to the rapidly growing power of the Zhentarim, and also bring him great personal satisfaction.

  A faint purple haze lingered on the door latch—a warning to those who might be tempted to enter uninvited. Dag quickly disabled the spells that guarded his door and stepped into his chamber. Immediately the lamp beside the door turned on of its own accord, even as he was reaching for flint and stone. The room was suddenly warmed by golden light, the rich, spicy aroma of scented oil—and the soft, heady, and menacing sound of seductive female laughter.

  Before the startled priest could unleash a defensive spell, the shadows at the far side of the room stirred. A slim figure, an elf woman of supassing beauty, rose from the bed and stepped into the circle of light. She was clad only in a sleeping gown of fine, deep red silk. Her long flaxen hair had been left unbound to ripple over the pale gold skin of her shoulders.

  Dag’s heart missed a beat, then thudded painfully. It had been many years since she had come to his chamber, and never had they met so in Darkhold.

  A small, knowing smile lifted the elf’s exquisite lips as she regarded the dumbfounded priest. Surely she knew that apprehension, not desire, glazed his eyes and stole the scant color from his face. But as if to taunt him, she gathered up a handful of her clinging skirts. “You recognize this gown, perhaps? I wore it the night our child was conceived.”

  “Ashemmi.” He spoke her name in an admirably controlled, well-modulated tone. “Forgive me if I seemed somewhat surprised. I had thought you wished to forget the brief time we shared.”

  “I forget nothing. Nothing.” She floated closer, skimmed the tips of her fingers down the line of Dag’s jaw, then touched the point on his forehead where his dark hair dipped into a pronounced widow’s peak. She tipped her head to one side, regarding him. “You have grown more handsome. Power does that to most men.”

  “By that measure, our lord Sememmon is second only to Corellon Larethian himself,” he said dryly, naming the elven god who epitomized male beauty.

  Ashemmi laughed—a beautiful, uniquely elven sound that reminded Dag of fairy bells and delighted babies. But she eased away from him, which was exactly the response that Dag had intended to evoke with a mention of the wizard who was her lord and lover.

  Her face clouded slightly as she recognized his ploy. “Sememmon is secure in his position,” she said firmly. “All the more so now that you plan to establish your own hold. He was growing wary of you, you know.” Her voice rose in a coquettish lilt, and one eyebrow lifted in subtle challenge.

  Dag understood, and fell at once into the almost-forgotten rhythm of subtle predation. At this art, Ashemmi was a master. With a few words, the minx intertwined the deadly competition of Darkhold’s hierarchy with a tantalizing reminder of her considerable personal charms. A volatile balance indeed. Anything he said, whatever note he struck, could be dangerously wrong
. This knowledge quickened his pulse, and rekindled the dark pleasure he had last tasted nine years before. Dag was not a man for simple carnality, but this was a game he appreciated, and this was a woman who played it well.

  His equilibrium restored, the priest strode over to a small table and pulled the stopper from a bottle of fine elven spirits. He poured two goblets and handed one to the elven sorceress. She raised it to her lips, savoring the scent and the taste with tauntingly slow and disturbingly thorough enjoyment—all the while eyeing him over the edge of the goblet. Dag merely sipped his drink and waited for her to have her say.

  Finally she tired of this ploy and set the goblet aside. “You are patient, my poppet. You were always so. Once, I found it rather … charming.”

  “Times have changed,” he observed in a bland tone that nonetheless managed to convey a dozen shades of meaning.

  A brief, appreciative smile flitted across the elf’s face. Next to power and beauty, Ashemmi appreciated subtlety above all else. She came closer, close enough to envelope him in the scent of her perfume—an enticing and incongruous mixture of night-blooming flowers, musk, and brimstone. “Times have changed,” she agreed. “I have lately come from another visit to Zhentil Keep. The signs of its destruction are almost vanished.”

  “Gratifying,” Dag commented, then took a casual sip of his wine.

  “Very.” She reached out and took the goblet from him, turned it and slid the tip of her tongue over the place on the rim his lips had touched. “It is a time to rebuild what once we had, and to seek new … heights.”

  “You were always ambitious,” he said, deliberately taking her words only at face value.

  This amused her. She set the goblet down and began to walk in a slow circle around him. “Opportunities are great for those who have the strength and wit to take them. You could do very well. Your devotion to the Zhentarim is beyond question, and your spells are stronger than those of any other cleric in the fortress. Indeed, you rival the spell power of all Darkhold’s wizards but two!” She paused when she came around to face him, closer than she had been before. So close that he could feel the heat of her, and the ice. He sternly banished the awareness of her from his eyes, even when she reached up to unleash the clasp of his cloak. The dark garment fell unnoticed to the floor.

  He cleared his throat before he could think better of it. “You flatter me.”

  “Not at all. I say nothing more than truth.” Ashemmi toyed with his medallion, tracing her finger over the engraved sunburst pattern.

  Instinctively Dag clutched the medallion, and the secret hidden behind it. He could not risk her or anyone else discovering the ring. On the morrow, he would have it sent to his daughter for safekeeping. To distract a suddenly interested Ashemmi from the source of his concern, he lifted the medallion over his head and dropped it in a silver vase that stood on the table.

  A flicker of triumph lit the sorceress’s eyes. Her hands dropped to his belt, to which were affixed his weapons and his bag of potions and prayer scrolls. From another woman, this would be nothing more than a logical next step. Not Ashemmi. Dag had set aside one sign of power: she sought to strip him of another. Trust Ashemmi, with her passion for irony, to seek to geld him thus.

  Dag captured one of her roving hands. He reached for her wine goblet and closed her fingers around it. “Why these questions, this sudden passion for ‘truth?’ I never noticed that it held much interest for you before.”

  Suddenly the elf’s golden eyes turned hard. She took a step back and impatiently flung the goblet aside. “Let us speak plainly. You have intelligence, talent, ambition, and the good will of those who rule in Zhentil Keep. Why do you insist upon besieging a fortress? What have you to prove?”

  So that was it. Somehow, she had heard of his plans, and was puzzled by them. “You ascribe too many complications to my thinking. My motives are simple,” he informed her. “I merely wish to command my own stronghold. The fortress I desire is, regrettably, not currently under Zhentish control. Correcting this problem is a small matter.” He paused and slid one hand through the silken curtain of her hair to cup the nape of her neck, then tightened his grip just to the point of pain. “But truly, your concern for my well-being is most touching.”

  She arched back to lean into his grasp, and her lips curved in a feline smile. “Why would I not be concerned? After all, you are the father of my only child.”

  Dag’s heart quickened at this second reference to the child that, to his way of thinking, was his alone. Ashemmi had been happy enough to turn over the babe eight years earlier, fearing that her climb to power might be hampered by a half-breed brat clinging to her silken skirts. All she had asked from Dag—no, demanded of him—was a vow of absolute secrecy. This was the first they had spoken of the child, or of much else, in eight years.

  He smoothed his hand down her back and made an effort to steer the conversation onto a safer path. “Your concern is noted, but the reward is worth the risk. The fortress will be a good acquisition for the Zhentarim. It is strategically located on a major trade route.”

  “And it is far from Darkhold. Let us not forget that. You could have your precious child at your side and not concern yourself with any need to share her—or the power she carries.”

  The priest felt the blood drain from his face. This seemed to amuse Ashemmi. Again she cocked her head and studied him. “Now I understand the whispers of the common soldiers,” she purred. “Do you know what they say of you, when they feel certain that they will not be heard? You are so pale and austere, so light of step and delicate of frame that you seldom make a sound, barely cast a shadow. You unnerve them. They say that you resemble a vampire in all things but the fangs!”

  Beneath the obvious insult in her words lay several layers more, reminders that Dag Zoreth was a small man, a physical weakling in a fortress of warriors. But he smiled nonetheless. His hand dipped lower, his fingers dug into firm and yielding flesh. “If you desired to do so, you could inform them that my teeth are sharp.”

  Her laughter bubbled over again. “It is so much more amusing to let them learn at their own peril.” She sobered quickly, and moved beyond reach of his punishing caress. “We were speaking of your plan for an assault on a mountain fortress. Surely you know of the difficulties inherent in a siege! It is a long and costly process. The fortress you desire is but a few days’ march from cities unfriendly to our cause, which greatly lowers your chances of success. Do you think Waterdeep would allow a Zhentish army to lay a lengthy siege, when in five days they could muster enough fighters to engage you in open warfare?”

  Dag had considered all of this and prepared for it. He captured a lock of her pale gold hair, let it slide between his fingers, and skimmed his hand down the slender length of her. “Set your mind at ease. I do not intend to lay siege to the fortress.”

  “No? What, then? You cannot believe you can conquer it outright. There are not enough warriors in the whole of Darkhold to accomplish such a feat. Nor could you move a force of the needed size without drawing attention. The alarm would be sounded before you left the Greycloak Hills! What then?” she demanded again.

  His eyes grazed the feminine form that Ashemmi’s crimson gown did little to hide. “It is dangerous to reveal too much to an enemy. Or have you not heard?”

  She smiled again, darkly, and her arms lifted to twine around his neck. “If enemies are well matched, battle can be a pleasant diversion. Tell me, and then we need talk no more.”

  Dag reminded himself of his vow to have nothing more to do with this viper in elf form. “I have been preparing this attack for a long time. Arrangements have been made to ensure a successful, if unorthodox, escalade.”

  “You can do better. I remember well,” she breathed in his ear.

  He stepped back while he still could. “Content yourself with this: the capture of this fortress will not deplete Darkhold’s military strength. I do not plan to shatter the Pereghost and his commanders against the fortress walls,�
�� he said, naming Ashemmi’s chief rival for the position of second-in-command. He inclined his head in a brief, ironic bow. “I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you.”

  They studied each other in silence. Dag Zoreth had no intention of telling Ashemmi that he would gain much more from the assault than the possession of a fortress. She already knew too much, as her presence here demonstrated.

  “You have been forthright. Now it is my turn,” she said, as if she followed the path his thoughts were taking. “You are planning to bring the child to your new command.”

  Dag’s heated blood suddenly cooled. “Why should you care? You gave her into my hands willingly enough. I have kept my pledge. Few know I have a daughter, and no one knows who gave birth to her. No one need ever know, least of all Sememmon.”

  Ashemmi’s smile was that of a cream-sated cat. “Ah, but perhaps I want him to know. Why should he care whom I bedded some ten years ago? It is of no consequence—unless, of course, the child that resulted is of the bloodline of Samular.…”

  Dag had been dreading this revelation since Ashemmi’s first mention of their child, but even so the implications staggered him. Why should Ashemmi want his daughter, unless she knew of the power the little girl could command? He fervently hoped that if Ashemmi had received this information from Malchior, it was by theft or magical spying. The thought of these two conspiring together was more chilling than a ghost’s embrace. If Malchior learned of the child’s existence, there would be no safety for her. But surely Ashemmi would not give up such valuable information, not when she could hoard the girl’s power for herself! Unfortunately, with a subtle, treacherous creature such as Ashemmi, there was no knowing for certain.

  He decided to bluff. He closed the distance between them and his hands skimmed down her back, cupping her intimately and drawing her close. “Samular, indeed,” he murmured into her hair. His voice revealed nothing more than mild, derisive amusement. “What is some long-dead paladin to you and Sememmon? Perhaps you two are thinking of changing your occupation and allegiance?”