The moment she was freed, Tarlamera rolled off the shelf, one wrist trailing a length of stout chain and the hunk of splintered wood. She moved stiffly, and with obvious pain, but her face was glad and fierce.
“I never once saw a prettier sight,” Ebenezer swore, and meant it down to the depths of his soul. Tarlamera was bedraggled and filthy, and her festive wedding garments stiff with blackened blood, some of it her own. Her red ringlets were lackluster and wildly disheveled, and her beard nearly as stringy as a duergar’s, but she was safe and whole.
Tarlamera’s grin matched his own, and her eyes were as suspiciously bright as his. She seized her brother by his ears and dragged him forward. She planted a kiss smack on the tip of his nose, then slapped him upside the head. And then she was off, running toward the ladder that led to the deck and clutching the remains of her bunk like a deadly club.
Ebenezer sighed happily, delighted by this unusually sentimental reunion. He didn’t have long to ponder it, for his clan was setting up a clamor fit to wake their ancestors. Each dwarf loudly demanded to be next, offered scathing comments on his axe technique, and just generally abused him left, right, and center.
It was good to have them back.
Each dwarf he freed took off up the ladder to join the battle. Not a one stayed to help him free the others. Although Ebenezer grumbled, he understood them well enough. If he’d been packed in here like a heap of coal by a bunch of damn dwarf-stealing humans, he’d be wanting to get his own licks in, too. Even the dwarf children went, as grimly determined for blood as any of their elders, and with no time out for a by-your-leave.
All but Clem, a dwarf lad who was kin to Ebenezer by way of a couple of cousins. The little scamp paused long enough to throw his arms around his rescuer’s middle for a quick, fierce hug. When he straightened up, he had a huge grin on his beardless face—and Ebenezer’s hammer clenched in his hand. Raising the stolen weapon in salute, he turned and darted for the ladder.
“Git back here, you durned thief!” roared Ebenezer, but though he mustered some impressive volume, his heart wasn’t in it. In fact, his grin was so wide it threatened to raise up his ears a mite and leave them there. Better Clem went up armed than not. And if Ebenezer couldn’t get in on the fighting, at least his hammer would shatter a skull or two.
“What’s the holdup? Dull blade?” taunted a gruff dwarven voice.
Among dwarves, that insult was roughly on a level with a reference to an orcish ancestor. Ebenezer whirled toward the direction of the sound and stabbed his forefinger at the dwarf who’d spoken. “Damn it, Jeston, you could shave with this blade!”
“I’d be willing to, if’n you’d turn me lose.”
The faintly pleading note in the tough smith’s voice smote Ebenezer’s heart, and he wavered in his decision to leave this ornery cuss for last. He hefted his axe for the first blow. “Just might be I’ll hold you to that,” he muttered.
* * * * *
On the deck above, Bronwyn heard her friend’s shout resounding from the hold. Her first response was relief that he had made it across safely. Her second reaction was a quick stab of concern. Judging by the number of grim-faced dwarves staggering about the deck, whacking away at their captors with rough, makeshift clubs, she suspected that Ebenezer had little fighting support below decks.
Bronwyn edged toward the hatch. A mercenary lunged at her, his cutlass whistling down toward her in a quick, deadly sweep. She sidestepped the attack and struck down hard with her knife, pressing the cutlass down to the deck. Then she pivoted toward the joined blades and kicked out high and hard with her left foot. Her boot sank deep, just above the man’s weapon belt. The cutlass clattered to the deck, and the man staggered back—into the outstretched hands of a waiting ogress. The sailor grinned horribly, her fangs flashing. She spun the man around a couple of times as if they were children playing at blind man’s bluff, and then flung him back toward Bronwyn.
“Catch!” she roared.
Bronwyn brought up her knife. The man fell heavily on it, and his weight slumped against her. For a moment they were eye to eye.
Bronwyn had seen death before, more times than she liked to count, but never at such close range. The life drained away from his face, surely as a receding tide, and his black eyes went empty and flat. Then he jerked back with a suddenness that left Bronwyn staggering for balance.
The ogress held the man by the collar as a boy might hold a puppy by the scruff of the neck. She grunted with approval at the sight of Bronwyn’s dripping knife, then flung the dead man aside.
Bronwyn turned back to the hold and was nearly knocked over by the dwarf lad who exploded from the hatch as if he’d been launched by a smoke-powder canon. She noted the hammer he held clenched in his hand and understood the source of Ebenezer’s ire. Reassured that her friend was not besieged by foes, she picked her next battle.
Narwhal’s first mate, a hugely muscled barbarian woman, was pinned down by two fighters, her back against the mast and her sword flailing. Bronwyn noted the jerky motion of the blade, the huge beads of sweat on the massive woman’s brow. Just then one of the attackers ducked, and Bronwyn caught sight of the wound that slashed across the sailor’s collarbone. It didn’t look fatal of itself, but the woman’s tunic was sodden with her own blood, and the cold sickness that followed a battle wound was settling upon her.
Bronwyn waded in, dodging a pair of dwarves who carried a human male between them, one dwarf holding the man’s hands and one holding his feet. Their captive writhed and struggled and cursed, but the dwarves moved inexorably toward the rail, intent upon hurling him over.
She seized one of the first mate’s attackers by the hair and jerked his head back. Without hesitation, she lifted her knife and drew it hard and fast across the man’s throat. His startled oath, though quite quickly and literally cut short, drew his partner’s attention. The second man turned toward the sound, only to be hit in the face by the sudden spurting flow of his shipmate’s lifeblood.
The man shouted and slashed blindly with his blade. Bronwyn still had her grip on the dead man’s hair, and she spun around to duck behind him. The body jolted from the impact. Bronwyn released him and danced back, almost losing her footing on the blood-slick deck.
Again the slaver lashed out. Bronwyn dropped into a crouch, ducking the blow so narrowly that she felt the wind of it. Before he could reverse his swing for another attack, she tensed for the spring and came up, knife leading.
Her blade punched hard into his ribcage. The blow registered in his eyes, but he did not go down, and his grim expression proclaimed his intent to take her with him to the gates of death.
Bronwyn wrenched her knife free and jumped up, bringing her knee up high and hard as she came. She connected in a profoundly debilitating blow. The man’s forgotten sword clattered to the deck.
She stepped back, breathing in quick, shallow bursts.
“Behind you, girl!”
The woman’s shout snapped Bronwyn back into the battle. She whirled to face the grim-faced dwarf who was preparing to apply the spiked nail in his club to the base of Bronwyn’s spine.
Instinct and memory took over. “For Stoneshaft!” she shrieked in the dwarvish tongue, remembering what her long-ago dwarf friend told her about rallying cries.
Her response clearly startled the dwarf. He lowered the club, and the red haze of battle-lust faded from his face. For a moment he peered keenly at Bronwyn. Apparently he recognized her as someone other than one of his captors, for he gave a curt nod and went off in search of another fight.
But the battle was nearly over. The sounds of fighting had dwindled to a few clashes of steel, a few screams of pain—some of which ended with chilling abruptness.
Captain Orwig’s bombastic voice could easily be heard over the ebbing tide of battle, ordering his crew to round up the dead of both sides and all the slavers and toss them into the sea as Umberlee’s due. This rallied even the dwarves, who cared not a wit for the Sea Goddess
. They took to the task with such grim gusto that they didn’t even seem to notice that they were taking orders from an ogre.
Bronwyn tucked her knife into its sheath just as the barbarian’s eyes rolled back in her head. Bronwyn caught the woman as she fell and lowered her to the deck—not an easy task given the difference in their size, but at least she managed to ease the woman down to a gentler landing than she would otherwise have had.
Bronwyn tore a strip from the hem of the woman’s tunic and pressed it to the wound, holding it firm until the bleeding stopped, then shrugged off her cloak and tucked it over the woman’s broad shoulders to keep her warm until the cold sickness ebbed. That was all the help Bronwyn could give her, and she hoped it would be enough.
Narwhal’s crew had not gone unscathed. Some of the dead tossed overboard wore familiar faces. One of them was the ogress who had played the deadly game of catch with Bronwyn, thus accepting her, if for one brief moment, as a comrade. Bronwyn took a deep breath and headed back to the stern, where stood a small, wooden shack built over the helm.
In this, as she had expected, she found the ship’s records. Quickly she thumbed through the pages, looking for something that would provide a clue to the identity of the people who had destroyed the dwarves’ home and stolen from them their freedom—and from her, her father.
But the transaction was coded. In time, she could probably figure out what it said. There was, however, a lengthy list of cargo neatly written up in Common, the language of trade. Bronwyn skimmed it and whistled softly. This would be enough and more to satisfy Narwhal’s captain’s and crew’s desire for booty. It might also help her negotiate with Orwig on a delicate matter. He was an ogre. Even in tolerant Waterdeep, he would be closely watched. And he was a smuggler, which meant his affairs would not hold up to close scrutiny. Yet she could not subject Ebenezer and his kin to the punishing journey back through the magical locks into Skullport.
She tucked the log book under her arm and walked out onto the deck. Captain Orwig stalked by and she caught his arm.
“The battle was a great victory. I want to thank you for your help,” she began.
His gold-capped tusks flashed in what she hoped was a smile. “You don’t have to thank me. You have to pay me.”
“You’ll have your full fee,” she assured him, “and as a bonus, I’ll yield my right-of-hire ownership of the cargo.” She told him what the hold contained: unworked gems, bolts of wool, valuable pelts, weapons, coin, barrels of mead.
The prospect of such treasure touched the ogre’s soul. “All?”
“Except for the dwarves. You don’t want them, of course.”
He snorted as if to indicate that this went without saying.
“I will yield my right to the cargo in exchange for two things,” Bronwyn continued, “this book with the ship’s logs and records, and your promise that we’ll make port in Waterdeep rather than return to Skullport.”
The ogre hesitated, but temptation danced in his small red eyes. He scratched his snout and considered. “There’ll be a dock fee to pay and a tax on the booty.”
“And after paying the tax, you’ll still have far more than you expected. I’ll pay the fee. Agreed?”
Still he looked doubtful. “One dwarf is trouble enough. Eats enough for two humans. How many did we turn loose? Fifty?”
“Close enough,” she responded. “But the stores from the Grunion should serve to feed them until we get to Waterdeep.”
The ogre scowled, but gave in with an ungracious shrug. “Very well, but keep that red-bearded dung heap away from me, or I won’t be responsible for his safe arrival.”
“Done,” she agreed, though she doubted she had enough influence with Ebenezer to persuade him to leave his favorite new toy alone.
She strode to the hatch and listened. No sounds of battle emerged, but a rhythmic thudding indicated that Ebenezer was still busy with his axe.
Bronwyn clattered down into the hold. She blinked, startled by the destruction. Shards of wood were scattered about, looking like the blasted limbs of trees in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. Ebenezer was doggedly chopping away at the far end of the wood pile.
“You got them all?” Bronwyn called.
“This one’s the last of ’em,” the dwarf said. “The others all took to fighting but me, the selfish sods,” he grumbled. He nodded toward a small stack of crates. “All but that one, that is.”
Bronwyn tracked his gesture. Her gaze fell upon the small girl-child who crouched upon the stack, the dwarfs table knife clutched in her hand.
Terrible memories flooded back into Bronwyn’s mind, striking her like a sword to the heart. For a moment her ears rang with the cries of the doomed and drowning slaves, the shrill piping of the rats. She absently raised her hand and rubbed the long-healed place on her head where two of them had clawed her.
But that was long ago, Bronwyn reminded herself firmly. This was now, and another small girl required comfort. She could not slay her own demons, but perhaps she could keep them from laying claim to this tiny victim.
She swallowed hard and fixed what she hoped was a reassuring smile on her face. Slowly, as if she was approaching a spooked horse, she began to move toward the girl.
“I’m Bronwyn,” she said softly. “You’ve already met my friend Ebenezer. We came to set free the dwarves. You are safe with us. We will take you home.”
She extended her hand, the offer of her pledge. The girl studied her with large, somber brown eyes, then placed her own small hand in Bronwyn’s. The contact seemed to reassure the child, and her fingers slid up to Bronwyn’s wrist and tightened into a desperate grip.
“But I don’t know where my home is,” she said in a high, clear voice that retained just a hint of early childhood lisp.
“I’ll help you find it. Don’t you worry,” Bronwyn assured her in the same soothing voice. “What’s your name? How old are you?”
“Cara Doon. I was nine last winter.”
The child looked younger than nine, perhaps because she was small and exceedingly thin. When she raised one tiny hand to tuck a stray bit of brown hair behind her ear, Bronwyn saw another explanation for her size and seemingly delayed development. The child was a half-elf. Her ears were slightly pointed, and the fingers that gripped Bronwyn’s wrist were long and delicate.
And on one of them, she wore a very familiar ring.
Bronwyn’s eyes widened in shock. Her heart thudded painfully, then picked up the beat at a quickened pace. The child’s ring was golden, and richly carved with distinctive, mystic designs. Bronwyn had one just like it in her safe back in Curious Past.
“That’s a very pretty ring,” she said, pointing. “May I see it?”
Cara snatched her hand back and hid it behind her. “My father said no stranger was to look at it, and I was to give it to no one but family. And you can’t take it from me, you know. The bad men tried,” she said, pointing to the deck. “It won’t come off unless I take it off myself.”
This was news to Bronwyn. She wondered if the ring her father had given her would display a similar magical loyalty. But that thought came and went, overwhelmed by one of much greater importance. Cara’s ring was identical to her own. Hronulf had referred to the ring as a family heirloom, meant to be worn only by the blood descendants of the great paladin Samular Caradoon. Once more Bronwyn’s eyes went wide.
“What did you say your name was?”
“Cara,” the girl said with a hint of impatience. “Cara Doon.”
Eleven
Dag Zoreth had been to Waterdeep only once before, and the proximity of so many enemies of the Zhentarim left him uncharacteristically edgy. He waited until the maidservant shut the door behind her, then he slid the stout oaken bolt firmly into place. Since one could never be too careful, he walked around the sumptuous chamber, checking for magical spying devices and chanting softly as he sought out any invasive magic.
There was none to find. The Gentle Mermaid, a festhall and ta
vern in the heart of the staid North Ward, was renowned for its discretion. Private rooms were precisely that, and in this magic-rich city, that was rare enough. The other rare things that crowded the chamber were merely pleasant extras.
There was a fine writing table and chair of polished Chultan teak, a large bed heaped with silken pillows in bright rare shades of yellow and blue, velvet draperies and fine tapestries to keep out the chill, a washbasin and pitcher of delicate porcelain, a small table upon which was laid out silver goblets and a bottle of wine, as well as a tray of small savory bites and another of sweet pastries. Dag missed none of this, for he had a keen appreciation for luxury. As he sampled a small wedge of herb-scented cheese, he vowed to have such amenities brought to Thornhold, to soften and brighten the stark quarters of the former paladins.
But at the moment, Dag Zoreth had another, more immediate task to tend. He took a small dark globe from its hiding place in the folds of his cloak and settled down into the cushioned chair. Holding the globe before him on his palm, he stared intently into its depths.
At his command, purple flames burst into life within the globe. Dag knew from experience what this would do to the man who received the message. The magical summons would bring cold, searing pain that would last until the man found a private place and took the corresponding globe into his own hand.
It did not surprise Dag that he did not have long to wait. Sir Gareth Cormaeril, for all his courtly airs and sanctimonious pronouncements, had a keen instinct for self-preservation. In mere moments the paladin’s lean, dignified face appeared in the globe, looking rather incongruous against the background of sinister purple fire.
“You wished to speak with me, Lord Zoreth? Is there some problem that requires my attention?”
“No, I was merely overwhelmed with desire for the pleasure of your company,” Dag said coldly. “What is occurring in Tyr’s temple? The place is teaming with paladins!”
“They prepare to march on Thornhold,” Sir Gareth responded, forthrightly enough. “Surely you did not think that your victory would long remain unchallenged.”
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