Thornhold

by Elaine Cunningham

  She thought it over and decided to speak the truth. “I already have two of the rings. One was given me by my father, the other Cara wears.”

  The archmage nodded as if he had expected to hear this. “I suppose I cannot persuade you to yield the rings into my keeping. Would you at least consider leaving the child behind? There are few places more secure that Blackstaff Tower. Laeral seems quite taken with her, and I am sure she would not mind tending her until your return.”

  Bronwyn’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “This seems too neatly planned. You knew of her, too.”

  “Not until this moment,” Khelben said plainly. “I had no knowledge of the child’s heritage, and I would not have known her for who she is had I not seen the two of you together. Only then did I look for the ring and note it on her hand. But consider this: if one man can discern this resemblance and see the ring she wears for what it is, so can another.”

  Bronwyn’s shoulders rose and fell in a sigh as she accepted the truth in the archmage’s words. Poor Cara had been tossed around like a cork on the waves, and Bronwyn wasn’t looking forward to telling the child that she would be left in the care of a stranger.

  “I’ll bring her around first thing in the morning,” she said. “She’ll need some time to get used to the idea.”

  The magi left the shop soon after, leaving Alice happily counting and recounting a pile of coins, and Cara sighing and starry-eyed over the gems she had helped to sell and the pretty lady who would wear them. Bronwyn noted this and was grateful. It would make things a little easier.

  She crouched down so that her face was level with Cara’s. “You liked Lady Laeral, didn’t you?”

  The girl beamed, and her head bobbed happily. “She’s nice. She bought me this. It is mine to keep, she said.” She showed Bronwyn a small brooch, shaped like the shadow of a leaping hart. It was a simple, pretty thing. It was also silver, and elf-crafted, and over two hundred years old. There were other pieces in the shop of greater value, but not many.

  Bronwyn gently took the brooch from the child and fastened it to the shoulder of her new gown. “That was kind of her. I like Laeral, too. She’s a good friend.”

  “She has magic,” Cara said matter-of-factly. “Lots of it.”

  That surprised Bronwyn. “You can tell?”

  Cara drew herself up. “Of course. Can’t you?”

  Well, this was an interesting twist, Bronwyn mused. She was no expert on the subject of magic, but she knew that the ability to recognize magical talent in another almost certainly meant that Cara was gifted. “Would you like to learn magic?”

  She nodded avidly. “Today?” she said, hope ringing in her voice.

  Bronwyn chuckled. “It takes a bit longer than that, but you could get a start. How about this,” she said, twisting around so that she could sit on the floor and pull Cara into her lap. “Tomorrow morning, I will take you to the wizard’s tower where Lady Laeral lives. She will play with you and take care of you and show you some magic. Would you like that?”

  Cara considered. “Will you be coming, too?”

  “Yes, but I can’t stay,” she said ruefully. “I have to go away for a while.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re not going to find your father if we don’t look, right?”

  The girl brightened. “I’ll come with you.”

  “You can’t. I’ll be riding for several days. It will be dull and tiring, and it may be dangerous. You’ve had quite enough of that sort of thing to last you a long while. You’ll be safe with Laeral.”

  The girl folded her arms. Her lip thrust out and her face turned, as portent as a thundercloud. “I’m tired of being kept safe and quiet and out of the way! I’m tired of staying in one place! I want to go with you. I want to see the places you and Ebenezer told me about.”

  Bronwyn sighed and stroked the girl’s nut-brown hair. “Believe me, I know how you feel. If I stay too long in one place, I start feeling itchy, like ants are crawling all over me.”

  Cara giggled, then shivered. “I can feel them, too,” she confided.

  Bronwyn smiled faintly, both touched and grieved that this foundling of hers was such a kindred spirit. But perhaps, because of all they shared, she could make Cara understand.

  “You know that the ship you were on was a slave ship, right?”

  “Yes, but I was not to be a slave. The men said I was a sort of princess, and that I was being taken to a palace.” Cara frowned. “They didn’t listen to me, though, when I told them to take me back. You’d think a princess could decide where she wanted to go, wouldn’t you?”

  “I suspect that princesses have fewer choices than the common, everyday sort of girl,” Bronwyn told her. “But sometimes things go wrong. I was on a ship like that, once, when I was much smaller than you. Pirates came and stole me, much as Ebenezer and I stole you and the dwarves, but they didn’t set us free. I was sold to be a slave. The first person who bought me was very … unkind. I got away but was captured and sold again. This time, a gem merchant bought me. I had clever hands, and I could draw and use tiny tools very well by the time I was your age. I worked very hard. There was no time for play, no children to play with, and never quite enough to eat. All that I had of my own was a sleeping mat in a corner of the kitchen.”

  “They were mean,” Cara decreed.

  “They did not set out to be,” she said, “but they didn’t give me much thought one way or another. That was almost worse.”

  The child considered this, and nodded. “I’m glad you stole me back.”

  Bronwyn hugged her. “I am, too. I would do anything to keep you from that life—even leave you in Blackstaff Tower for a few days, if that is what I must do.”

  “All right,” the child conceded. Her face turned stern, and she shook her finger. “But if you stay too long, Ebenezer and I will come looking for you and steal you back!”

  * * * * *

  Later that morning, Bronwyn rode down to the South Ward to say good-bye to Ebenezer. The courtyard surrounding Brian Swordmaster’s forge was alive with glowing fires, the ringing of hammer against anvil, and the voices of contentious dwarves.

  As she tied her horse to the gate, Ebenezer caught sight of her. He immediately dropped his hammer and bounded over to her. “Where’s the lass?” he asked. “You found her da yet?”

  She told him what she had learned so far and of the attempt by Ebenezer’s paladin friend to snatch her. His face clouded with concern as he listened.

  “Smells funny to me,” he said. “Paladins are supposed to be a rare breed, aren’t they? They’ve been popping up far too frequent for my liking.”

  “The paladins are the lesser of my two problems,” she assured him.

  “Seems to me we don’t know that just yet. You can’t prove by me that paladins are all that different from any other breed of human. As I always say, think the worst, just in case,” he offered. “And I don’t like you walking into their den with nothing more than a how-d’you-do as shield and armor.”

  “I don’t have time to argue, Ebenezer. I’ll see you when I get back.”

  “And lots of times in between,” he said. “I’m going with you.”

  “I’ll be riding.”

  His eyes lit up. “You know I can ride. You still got that pony?”

  “No,” she said regretfully. “I left him at the public stable, with instructions that he be sold.”

  “Well now, that’s too bad. I liked that horse better’n most men I’ve met. Got more sense. But I’ve got a few coins now, and the clan owes me. Might could buy my own pony.”

  “You don’t want to be spending your earnings,” she cautioned.

  “Oh, don’t I? One way or another, I’d-a go with you, if it means riding piggyback on a winged elf. You stood with me; I’m prepared to do the same.”

  At that moment a female dwarf hollered his name. He cast a look over his shoulder then leaned in to whisper, “And they’ve put me to work at a forge. Nothing wrong with
that, but my feet start to itching if I keep ’em in one place too long. You’d be doing me a kindness,” he wheedled.

  Bronwyn capitulated with a grin. “Well, let’s be off. We’re going to need to get you a horse.”

  * * * * *

  Algorind took his leave of Sir Gareth and returned to Curious Past, the scene of his previous failure. He puzzled over what he was to do when he found Bronwyn and the child. In this city, a man was not left alone to tend his duty. As he rode along, he noted many small watch patrols, busily tending the affairs of the city and minding the business of better men.

  To compound this matter was the difficulty in tracking anyone through a city. He had learned to follow the sign of man, horse, or monster through the hills and moors, but a woman’s passage through Waterdeep? A child’s? How was such a thing measured?

  He was still pondering this when he saw a small, furtive figure dash down a dark passage between two tall buildings. He caught a glimpse of a long, brown braid flashing around the corner.

  Algorind swung down from his horse and quickly tied the reins around a lamp post. He no longer felt secure that his mount would be there when he returned, but he could not afford to worry about that now. He hurried down the narrow way in pursuit.

  The woman ducked down two more alleys and then disappeared into the back door of a large frame building. Algorind could hear the clatter of looms as he approached, and above the noise, the sound of frantic footsteps dashing down wooden steps.

  He followed her into the building and down the stairs. The smell of moisture, dirt, and root vegetables grew stronger, and a bit of light came in from a small, iron-grated portal placed high on the cellar wall.

  When Algorind reached the dirt floor, he pulled his sword and squinted into the gloom. His eyes could not yet discern anyone else in the cellar, but he was certain he had heard her come this way.

  A sharp, short, grating sound broke the stillness, and a torch flared high. Algorind found himself facing four men, all armed with swords and wearing enormous, evil-looking grins. The biggest smile was on the man he had followed—a scrawny runt of a man with a face much pocked by some forgotten sickness, and a long, braided tail of brown horsehair in his hands. This he brandished mockingly at Algorind, fluttering his eyelashes in a parody of feminine wiles.

  His comrades laughed uproariously at this and then began to close in. From above them, the steady clack and clatter of the looms never once faltered.

  Too late, Algorind realized the trap into which he had been lured. These men knew the ways of a city and had prepared a place where they might fight undisturbed. Well, by the grace of Tyr, he would give them the fight they sought.

  He held his sword out slightly to the side, his every muscle alert and ready. The first man dashed at him, sword held high and two of his fellows hard on his heels. Algorind lunged forward with a quick, precise motion and ran him though the heart. He ducked under the next attack and stabbed upward at the third man, felling him, too, in a single blow. A skitter of feet behind him dragged to a quick stop on the dirt floor. Algorind rose and spun toward the man who had run past him. It was the man who had tricked him, and he came in with a vicious, upward-sweeping backhand. Algorind caught the sword in a ringing parry. He pressed in close and with his left hand punched out over the joined blades. The man staggered back and again Algorind lunged. His sword sank between the man’s ribs and darted back out.

  The paladin turned swiftly back to his fourth and final foe. This one was the wiliest of the group, and the worst—content to watch his comrades die as he took the measure of his opponent.

  The man was nearly as tall as Algorind, and though not as broad, he had a lean, sinewy look and a way of holding the sword that bespoke long acquaintance with a blade. He lifted the sword to his forehead in a salute that seemed only partially mocking.

  They began to circle each other, then exchanged the first ringing blow. His foe was quick, Algorind noted, and fought with a clean economy of motion. The man had been trained, and trained well.

  The paladin feinted high. His blow was met and then matched by a quick, spinning cut downward. Algorind parried and answered with a lunge. In all, three fast strokes of steel on steel, coming quickly one after another and each delivered with strength.

  Speed, then. The paladin began a stunning routine, raining a quick series of blows upon the man. His opponent stopped each, and got his own in beside. For several moments the two swords rang in rapid, steady dialogue.

  The fighters fell apart by unspoken agreement, answering the unique rhythm of their deadly dance. Again they circled, tested, parried.

  This time the assassin came in, his blade working Algorind’s low and his hand hovering over the knife strapped to his belt. The paladin understood. The man intended to come in over the swords with a knife, much as he himself had served the trickster with a barehanded punch.

  But Algorind was ready for him. The young paladin’s masters had trained him in many styles of fighting. This one marked the man as from the Dales, a rough but generally peaceable area far to the east and inhabited for the most part by goodly farmers, rangers, and foresters. What had happened to his man, Algorind wondered, to bring him so far from where he once stood?

  Some of the pity he felt must have crept into his eyes for the former dalesman to see. A convulsive twitch darted up from his clenched jaw to his anger-filled eyes, and the man drew the knife. But emotion overpowered strategy and he drew too soon and swung too high.

  Algorind easily caught the knife on the hilt of his own and sent the man’s wild blow out wide. He reversed the direction of the swing and brought the hilt of his knife in hard against the man’s nose. Bone shattered, and bright blood spilled down over his worn leather jerkin.

  The man came on again, swinging wildly now, all discipline gone. Algorind easily stopped and sidestepped the blows. With a sense of something like regret, he swiftly ended the battle with a stroke across the man’s oft-exposed throat.

  He stood for a moment over the body of the man, to murmur a prayer for a soul gone astray, a worthy opponent fallen to his own weakness.

  Algorind cleaned his sword on a handful of straw that covered a bin of last summer’s carrots and slid the weapon back into his sheath. His knife he kept in hand, and he took the torch from the wall holder into which it had been thrust. He had been caught unaware by treachery once this day, and that was all he intended to yield.

  At the top of the stairs, he snubbed out the torch, tossed it into the alley, and retraced his steps to the street. To his great relief, his horse was where he left it. He untied Icewind’s reins and pondered what next to do.

  It seemed likely to him that the woman Bronwyn and her dwarf comrade were somehow behind this. He would immediately report this information to Sir Gareth and leave the matter in his hands.

  The knight was in his office, going over a ledger and wearing an expression of martyred resolve. He looked up when Algorind announced himself, and his gray brows rose in question.

  Algorind told him what had occurred. The knight considered this for several moments, then reached for parchment and quill. “Go to the barracks and clean yourself up. We will bring this matter to the First Lord himself.”

  In moments they left the Halls of Justice, bound for the First Lord’s palace. It was an easy matter for Sir Gareth to gain an audience with Lord Piergeiron. When he and Algorind rode to the gates of the lavish palace, they were met by uniformed guards and taken at once into the First Lord’s presence.

  Once again, Algorind found himself discomfited by the unseemly splendor around him. The palace was an elaborate structure built entirely of rare white marble, crowned with a score or more of turreted towers and much elaborately carved stonework. The inside was even more lavish. A fountain played in the center of the great hall, and marble statues of heroes, gods, and goddesses encircled the room. Tapestries of incredibly fine detail and brilliant color hung in lavish profusion. The courtiers were richly dressed in silks and
jewels—even the servants wore finery appropriate to a young knight’s investiture.

  They were led up a broad, sweeping stairway, down a succession of halls to the tower that Piergeiron claimed as his own. Here, at least, Algorind found himself in familiar surroundings. The First Lord’s study was simple, almost austere. The walls were bare but for a single tapestry. The only luxury was a profusion of books, and the only comfort a small fire on the grate.

  Piergeiron rose to greet them both, with bluff good nature and a comrade’s firm handclasp. “Welcome, brothers! You have been much in my thoughts. How goes the preparation for battle?”

  “Well, my lord,” Sir Gareth said. He nodded his thanks when Piergeiron indicated a seat, and waited until all were seated before speaking again.

  “Paladins from all over the northland are gathering for the assault on Thornhold. In another tenday, perhaps two, our numbers will be sufficient for the march north.”

  “That is good news,” the paladin lord agreed. “The sooner the fortress is back in the hands of your good order, the safer will be the High Road for all who travel it.”

  Sir Gareth inclined his head to acknowledge this praise. “There is other news, my lord, that is not so pleasant to hear. This woman we spoke of. She had been up to mischief since last we met.”

  Briefly, the knight told the story of Algorind’s arrest and the ruse played on him by assassins who lured him into ambush. He also mentioned, much to Algorind’s chagrin, the theft of the young paladin’s horse by a dwarf known as Bronwyn’s companion. He told of her visit to Thornhold at the time of the assault, and her suspicious escape—doubly suspicious in light of the fact that the Zhentarim commander who took the stronghold was Bronwyn’s brother. Sir Gareth ended his litany by repeating that Bronwyn stole a valuable artifact belonging to the order.

  Piergeiron absorbed this in troubled silence. “I have had information gathered on her, but none so dire as this. The young woman has an excellent reputation in her chosen business, and she appears to live a quiet life.”