Whisper of Venom: Brotherhood of the Griffon, Book II

by Richard Lee Byers

  Aoth’s eyes narrowed. “What? Everyone knows Soolabax is surrounded, don’t they? She wouldn’t try to return here without a flying steed to carry her.”

  “Everyone knows,” Jhesrhi said. “Your messenger arrived. Now that you mention it, it’s strange, because I’ve seen plenty of Daelric.” Mostly trying fruitlessly to arrange to talk to Tchazzar without Halonya in attendance. “You’d think Cera would have accompanied him at least part of the time.”

  “I’m coming down there.”

  At the end of the palaver, Aoth waved his hand. Jhesrhi’s image vanished, and the leaping flames subsided to mere flickering wisps among the coals. They’d devoured most of the wood while the magic was active.

  “You realize,” Gaedynn said, “this is stupid. Maybe not let’s-go-to-Thay-and-fight-Szass-Tam stupid, but stupid nonetheless.”

  “Somebody has to prod Tchazzar into motion.”

  “And that somebody is Jhesrhi. The drake picks his favorites, and for the moment at least she’s one of them. So if she can’t do it, you can’t either. You’ll just make yourself look bad by showing up at court when you’re supposed to be here attending to business.”

  “I’ll be there attending to business.”

  “It’s Cera, isn’t it? You only just met the wench. How can she mean so much to you?”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  One corner of Gaedynn’s mouth quirked upward. “I have no idea what you mean by that. But if I did … Never mind. Just because Jhesrhi hasn’t seen her for a day or two, why do you leap to the conclusion she’s in trouble? A vision?”

  “I wish. It’s because she believes Amaunator wants her to find out what’s really behind the Green Hand murders and all the other mysteries. She urged me to help, and I refused. I told her fighting the war was my proper concern.”

  “Which was sensible. But you’re afraid she took advantage of being in Luthcheq to snoop around by herself and has come to grief because of it.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Then let me go look for her.”

  “It may take truesight to pick up her trail. Now, I give you my word. Whether I find her or not, I won’t stay gone for long. While I’m away, you’re in command. Don’t make any big moves unless you have to. But use scouts to track those wyrms and other creatures coming down from the north. If you decide you need to go ahead and break the siege to spring the trap as planned, do it.”

  It had been a long time since Aoth had seen Gaedynn succumb to consternation. “I know how to lead my bowmen and skirmishers,” the lanky redhead said. “But the whole Brotherhood?”

  “You can handle it.”

  “Khouryn’s still in Tymanther doing Keen-Eye only knows what.”

  “That’s why you have to handle it.”

  “With both you and Jhesrhi absent, there’ll be scarcely any sorcery to speak of.”

  “Despite being a surly young snot, Oraxes has some power, and some sense and grit to go with it. He can help you use what magic you do have to best effect.”

  “You realize Hasos won’t be happy taking orders from your lieutenant.”

  “I’ll order him to obey you as he would me.” Aoth snorted. “For whatever that’s worth.”

  Clad in her favorite purple robe with the silvery sigils sewn on, Nala spun her shadow-wood staff through complex figures and chanted in the secret, sibilant language the dragon god evidently preferred. As usual, her body writhed from side to side like she was a snake trying to crawl straight up into the air.

  As the chant progressed, that sinuous motion became contagious. The half dozen true neophytes started doing it too.

  Balasar knew why. He could feel Power buzzing around his head like a swarm of flies. But because he’d resisted the temptation to yield to his dragon nature during his initiation, it couldn’t get inside.

  He just had to hope Nala couldn’t tell. He shifted back and forth like his fellows in an effort to keep her from taking a closer look at him. Which made him feel like a jackass with spectators watching.

  Up until then, the Platinum Cadre had conducted nearly all its rituals and other activities removed from the hostile public eye. But since the cult had gained a measure of acceptance, Nala and Patrin had decided to conduct the trial of faith in a corner of the shaded, breezy Market Floor—with thick columns along the edge of the platform, the prodigious bulk of the City-Bastion suspended overhead, and the cries of vendors sounding not far away.

  Nala twirled the staff faster and faster. Her voice rose until she was all but screaming. Then, on the final word of her chant, she whipped down the rod to rest in front of her with the butt exactly equidistant between her feet. Except for the constant boneless shifting, she stood motionless. Even to Balasar, who’d learned sword forms from some of the most exacting masters-at-arms in Tymanther, the instantaneous transition from frenzy to stillness was impressive.

  Nala scrutinized the recent converts. Perhaps her gaze lingered on Balasar for an extra moment. More likely it was just his imagination.

  “You’re ready,” she declared. “Arm them, Sir Patrin.”

  The paladin with his deep blue surcoat and clinking beard of silver chains opened a wooden box and started handing out knives. Balasar felt a pang of dismay.

  Which, he supposed, had its comical side. He’d fought a topaz dragon and its strange, formidable minions on the journey down from Chessenta. And he was worried about a pen full of pigs?

  Well, yes. Because they were the enormous, savage variety sometimes called dire boars, and an unarmored knife fighter—no matter how skilled—would be at a substantial disadvantage. Especially in the somewhat cramped confines of the pen, where an animal could pin him against the fence.

  Yet it was obvious the other neophytes didn’t share his trepidation. Shifting, they stared at the pen like they could hardly wait to start the slaughter.

  Nala didn’t keep them waiting any longer than it took to distribute the dirks. “Begin!” she cried, and Balasar’s fellows rushed the pen. He saw little choice but to rush right along with them.

  The rules said an initiate couldn’t attack until he was inside the pen. Balasar arguably cheated just a little by breathing frost at the nearest boar while still vaulting over the top of the fence.

  Rime painted the pig’s snout white and, as he’d intended, encrusted its eyes. Too ferocious to balk or even flinch, the hump on its back as high as he was tall, the black beast charged him anyway. He sidestepped its slashing tusks and stabbed at its neck.

  The knife penetrated, but failed to draw the arterial spurt he wanted. The accursed animal was moving too fast. Its bristle-covered hide was too thick, and there was too much fat and muscle underneath.

  Elsewhere in the pen, gouts of fire leaped and lightning crackled. Carried on the breeze, a stray trace of poisonous vapor stung Balasar’s nose and filled his mouth with an acrid taste. His companions were using their breath weapons repeatedly, because unlike him, they could. After a dragonborn truly gave himself to Nala’s deity, the ability renewed itself more quickly.

  The boar slammed into the fence. The heavy rails lurched and banged, and the spectators gasped and recoiled. But the barrier held. The pig spun, faster than such a massive, short-legged beast had any right to, and Balasar had to give ground before it. To scurry back toward the center of the pen.

  He was horribly conscious of squeals and grunts, the thump and scrape of trotters on stone, and the smells of blood and burned flesh right behind him. But he couldn’t even glance around to see if a second boar was about to gore him. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the one that he knew for certain meant to kill him.

  The frost had largely fallen away from its little red eyes. Which, evidently not frozen and blind, were glaring straight at him.

  The boar surged forward. He dodged, and it compensated. He sidestepped again, and his foot slipped. Because, while the Market Floor was made of granite, the pigs had been in the pen long enough to start fouling it with muck.
r />   Balasar floundered for balance and saw that he couldn’t avoid the hog. At best he might be able to avoid being sliced open by one of its tusks. As it charged into range, he planted his hand on top of its head and jumped.

  It was nothing like the agile spring that had carried him over the fence. It heaved him above the tusks, but the boar’s bulk still slammed into him and bounced him off to the side.

  He landed hard, and for a moment the world was just a jumble of lunging shapes and noises that didn’t mean anything. Then he remembered what had happened to him and knew the pig was already turning to attack him again.

  It lunged, dipping its head to slice a target so low to the ground. Balasar twisted, somehow avoided the stroke, then snatched with his offhand. His fingers closed on one of the lower tusks. As long as he maintained his grip, the pig wouldn’t be able to gore him.

  Unfortunately, it could wrench its head back and forth and up and down, trying to break his hold. The motion pounded him against the granite. Meanwhile, he repeatedly plunged his dirk into its throat and the underside of its jaw.

  He felt his fingers slipping. Then, finally, blood spattered him and the stone in rhythmic gushes. The boar thrashed in a convulsion that flung him loose, charged, but collapsed a pace or two short of its target.

  Balasar just wanted to lie still and gasp for breath. But with a fight raging all around him, that was a good way to get killed. He lifted his head and looked around.

  Some of the other pigs were dead, and by and large those that were still active looked in worse shape than the cultists who seared them with repeated blasts of flame and vitriol. Balasar had just about decided he could sit out the rest of the fight when, from the corner of his eye, he saw a hog toss its head and slice a green-scaled dragonborn from thigh to shoulder.

  Even as Balasar scrambled to his feet, it occurred to him that the injured fighter was a wyrm-worshiper and thus, in the truest sense, an enemy. Someone he himself might want to kill someday. But his instincts were stronger than that consideration. He charged the boar, meanwhile yelling as best he could in the hope that he could distract it from the foe sprawled helplessly before it.

  The huge pig started to turn. Hoping the blade would pass unimpeded under bone and find some vital spot, Balasar thrust his point at the base of its jawline.

  The boar exploded into a great thrashing spasm, and it was luck as much as Balasar’s nimbleness or battle sense that kept it from slashing him in the process. But it didn’t, and then it flopped over onto its side.

  Still keeping an eye on it, he moved to check the wounded cultist. The son of a toad lay in a sizeable pool of his own blood, but at least he was breathing.

  Balasar looked around. All the pigs had fallen and lay inert, mere ugly mounds of bristles and charred, bloody flesh, while Patrin was already trotting in his direction. The paladin evidently realized that if he used his healing powers quickly enough, he could save the maimed cultist.

  Patrin kneeled down in the gore, murmured a prayer, summoned silvery light into his hands, and then applied them to the long gash in his fellow worshiper’s body. The magic worked exceptionally well. The wound closed completely, and the fellow dazedly raised his head.

  When Patrin helped him to his feet, the cheers erupted, with only a scattering of holdouts among the crowd looking disgusted at everyone else’s reaction.

  Balasar registered the acclaim with mixed emotions. He really didn’t want anyone applauding the Cadre for anything. But curse it, he’d fought well, and there was a part of him—no doubt the part the elders of Clan Daardendrien had always decried as frivolous, immature, and irresponsible—that simply wanted to wave and bow.

  Then Nala came to the side of the pen, and her cool, appraising gaze reminded him he was playing a deadly serious game—and nowhere near winning it yet.

  “You only used your breath once,” she said.

  Balasar smiled. “My way was more sporting, and more fun.”

  “He fought well,” Patrin said.

  “Yes,” Nala said. “But I’m not sure I saw the god’s gift of fury augmenting his strength.”

  “My teachers trained me to fight with a cool head,” Balasar said. “Sun and sky, when we faced the giants, Patrin didn’t constantly spit fire, and he didn’t go berserk either.”

  “It’s because I’m a paladin,” Patrin said. “Bahamut blessed me with a different set of gifts.”

  “Well,” said Balasar, “maybe he’ll end up making me a paladin too.”

  Nala snorted. “I doubt it. Still, it’s true that the god doesn’t bless everyone in precisely the same way, and occasionally it can take a while for his blessings to manifest. Even so, the next time—”

  The war drums started thumping. They’d sounded often across the Market Floor, and through all Djerad Thymar, ever since the giant tribes had set aside their feuds and joined forces to assail Tymanther. Sometimes the drummers had pounded out the steady cadence of an alert and sometimes the slow, hollow beats that announced defeat. Only rarely had they hammered out the fast, intricate, largely improvisational rhythms used to celebrate a victory, but they were doing so now.

  The spectators headed toward the center of the marketplace, where many folk were starting to cheer. Nala, Patrin, Balasar, and the rest of the neophytes followed.

  On horseback, the lancers loomed above the heads of the crowd. Despite all the excited people crowded together in front of him, Balasar could more or less see Medrash and the rest of the procession riding past. Unlike the Platinum Cadre, the patrol hadn’t mutilated the bodies of fallen giants for trophies. But they had appropriated the barbarians’ huge stone weapons to show what they’d accomplished.

  “This is glorious!” Patrin said.

  He didn’t see the scowl Nala gave him, but Balasar did. At that moment, it was difficult to believe the two were lovers.

  As the servant ushered Gaedynn into Hasos’s study, he reflected that he and the baron had a good deal in common. They were both gently born and followed the profession of arms. They were still young and good-looking, and in their disparate styles took pains with their appearances. Still, he could tell from Hasos’s frown that it wasn’t likely to be a particularly cordial meeting.

  I don’t like it either, Gaedynn thought. But if I have to swallow the stone, then so do you.

  Hasos stood up from behind his desk, although not with any great alacrity. “Sir Gaedynn,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “My scouts report that the dragons and their creatures are closer than we’d hoped.” Gaedynn noticed a map on the desk and pointed to a spot in Threskel. “As of this morning, they were here. Which means that to carry out Captain Fezim’s strategy, we need to break the siege now.”

  Hasos’s frown turned into an outright glare. “That’s impossible.”

  “To the contrary. It’s entirely feasible, especially since we have powerful wizards on our side.” At least they might be powerful. Gaedynn hadn’t seen any irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

  Hasos made a spitting sound. “Wizards. Devil-worshiping degenerates.”

  Gaedynn grinned. “Not anymore. Not since Tchazzar proclaimed them to be fine fellows, one and all. More to the point, whatever you think of them, we can put them to good use.”

  “Still—”

  Gaedynn decided it was time to move on from unfounded optimism to outright lies. “It’s also my pleasure to inform you that the war hero and the army under his personal command are now on their way to Soolabax. They’ll advance onto the battlefield when their sudden appearance will do the most damage.”

  “Where’s the messenger who carried this news? Why didn’t you bring him to me right away?”

  “Because it was the mage Jhesrhi Coldcreek, speaking to me from far away. The spell didn’t last long enough for me to send someone to fetch you.”

  “Then have one of the ‘powerful’ wizards who are still in the city communicate with her. Or Captain Fezim. Or the war hero himself.”
/>   Gaedynn smiled and spread his hands. “I wish that were possible. But as you may know, every sorcerer has his own secrets and specialties. Oraxes and his fellows truly are formidable, but alas, none of them is a master of the particular art in question.”

  Hasos sneered. “You have an answer for everything.”

  “I like to think so. Unfortunately, it’s clear you don’t find any of them especially convincing. But you can believe this: We’re going ahead with Aoth’s plan, and Tchazzar will receive a report of the outcome. It’s up to you whether he hears that you gave your wholehearted support or balked at every turn.”

  His voice tight with resentment, Hasos said, “When exactly are we planning to launch the attack?”

  FOUR

  4 KYTHORN, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

  Nicos Corynian loved his family and made a point of taking his evening meal with them whenever practical. That night, however, the bright, trivial chatter of his wife and nieces grated on his already jangled nerves. As soon as he could make his escape, he headed for the private study that served him as a kind of refuge.

  His hand with its scarred knuckles trembling ever so slightly, he opened the door, set the single white wax candle he’d brought along on the dice table, and headed for the walnut cabinet in which he kept strong drink. The taper was sufficient illumination for the moment. He’d worry about lighting the lamps when he had some brandy inside him.

  A deep voice sounded from the shadows. “Good evening, milord.”

  Startled, Nicos lurched around. A robed and hooded figure rose from one of the chairs between the dice table and the wall. The apparition stepped forward and Nicos saw the eerie blue glow of its eyes.

  Aoth pushed the cowl back, and the yellow candlelight gilded his tattooed face. “Please excuse the clothes. I realize they’re filthy and smell like garbage. But it’s not easy to wander around without being recognized when you look like I do.”

  “How did you get in here?” As soon as the question left Nicos’s mouth, he realized the answer wasn’t important. But he was still too rattled to think straight.