“Come down and we’ll have quite a conversation.”
“Don’t let my liking for you lead you to think that gives you leave to threaten me, girl,” said Maaqua. “You listen to old Maaqua. We can talk now. No more demons apparating on my doorstep. While you were sleeping down in that hole, I raised such a forbiddance around the fortress that Ao himself might have trouble peeking. I’m going to get you-and only you-out. The others will stay put for now. Any foolishness from you-anything at all!-and my guards will pull a lever up here. That lever will open a little floodgate. Once it’s opened, this hole will fill up with water. Not to the rim. No, I designed it too well. It’ll stop less than a foot over those bars. Your friends will be able to reach their hands into the air and see the sky even as they drown.”
Maaqua let that sink in.
Darric, Valsun, and Jaden all exchanged a worried glance.
“Do we understand each other?” said Maaqua.
Hweilan called up, “We do.”
The hobgoblins’ silhouettes backed out of sight.
“Is it me,” said Jaden, “or did that sound less than sincere?”
“Be silent, Jaden!” said Darric.
There was a wrenching sound, metal grinding on stone, and then the bars over their heads moved slowly into one side of the wall. A rope appeared overhead, hanging in the air a moment before falling down the length of the shaft to land on the ground between Hweilan and Jaden. It was thick and hairy, and sported a knotted loop on one end.
“Put the loop under your arms,” Maaqua called down. “Then walk up the wall, and we’ll pull from up here.”
Hweilan fitted her arms through the loop and grabbed the thick knot with one hand. She ran the other over the front of her shirt, just below her breasts. It was still there. Something stiff and unyielding, ending in a point. Good.
“Ready!” she called, then looked sidelong at Darric and whispered, “Be ready.”
The slack in the rope pulled taut, and Hweilan began her ascent up the stone wall.
“You heard what she said, Hweilan!” said Darric.
Hweilan said nothing, but kept looking up.
“Told you,” said Jaden. “Drowning … Could be worse, I suppose. Maybe the water’ll be warm.”
Valsun said, “Be silent, Jaden.”
The rope dug into Hweilan’s sides and back, scraping her skin even through her thick clothing, and the unnatural position of walking up the wall made her sore muscles scream for relief. She ground her jaw and took measured breaths through her nose to get through the pain. One of Ashiin’s lessons learned well: pain couldn’t be banished, but it could be focused, so use it. Hweilan knew she’d have one chance at this. The bars were still open below her. Good. This might just work.
Looking up, she saw that no one was watching. One hand still grasping the rope, she reached into her shirt with her other, found the braided leather thong, and pulled. She felt the point scrape against her skin, perhaps even drawing fresh blood as she drew it out, but it was no worse than the pain she was already feeling.
She thanked her gods and ancestors that the goblins hadn’t taken the kishkoman from her. If they’d found it, they’d probably thought it no more than a trinket or piece of jewelry, much like the bits of bone and stone they themselves wore. There was certainly no magic in it. Quickly, she pulled off the necklace, wound the leather around her free wrist, and palmed the sharpened antler tip. Below, she heard a sharp whisper from Darric that sounded much like a curse.
Another four steps and she could see over the edge of the pit. Rhan stood only a couple of paces beyond the edge, pulling the rope hand over hand, his breath making a great cloud around him. Despite the cold, he was bare to the waist, except for the belt of his scabbard that rode his back, and his own breath had coated his skin in a thin sheen of frost.
Maaqua was pacing beyond her champion, and half a dozen guards watched the proceedings. Some leaned on their spears. No problem there. Another hobgoblin, whose scars and facepaint marked him as a soldier of rank, had a sword belted at his waist and a wicked-looking axe dangling from one hand. No real problem there, either. Not for what she had planned. But two others, standing on the lowest bit of the rise that led up a small escarpment to the heights overhead, were holding bows. The weapons lay lax in their hands, but each hobgoblin had an arrow nocked to the string and was watching Hweilan carefully. She’d have to make this quick.
Hweilan came out of the hole with a final pull from Rhan. She feigned overbalancing, let out a small gasp of pain-genuine but exaggerated-and stumbled toward the massive hobgoblin. He cast down the lank of rope and reached for her.
She twisted under his hands and brought her leg around in a hard kick, planting the top of her foot in the side of Rhan’s knee. He tensed at the last moment, and she didn’t hear the hoped-for crunch of bone, but the leg buckled and he fell forward. Her other foot came up as he came down, and her heel came up straight into his belly. It felt like kicking a tree, but his breath shot out of him in a great cloud of steam. She used his own massive weight and momentum against him, using her leg as a lever and sending him arse over head into the pit. The Damarans screamed, Jaden loudest of them all.
But the brute had proved even heavier than he looked, and whatever Maaqua had done to Hweilan must’ve taken more of a toll than she’d first thought. She’d hoped to be on her feet and moving again before the two archers managed to pull feathers to cheek, but when she tried to push herself up, her right leg gave out and she stumbled.
Maaqua screamed, “Stop this, idiot girl!”
The hobgoblin of rank rushed forward, raising his axe and reaching for his sword. The others lowered their spears and charged. Behind her, the Damarans were still screaming down in the hole.
Hweilan kept her eyes fixed on Maaqua as she renewed her charge, but from the edge of her vision she saw the archers aiming. No help for it. She dodged slightly to the left to put Maaqua in between her and one of the archers.
She heard the thwut of a bowstring being released. Something slammed into her right arm, just below the shoulder, hard enough to knock her off her stride. But she kept going.
Maaqua raised her staff, her other hand already twirling the preparation of a spell. “Fool! I’ll-!”
And then Hweilan leaped. Despite her pain-Ashiin’s training had hardened her muscles, and she also suspected Nendawen’s blood had changed her in other ways-that one jump cleared the distance between Hweilan and the old hobgoblin while the nearest soldier was still yards away. Hweilan tackled Maaqua and rolled. She heard a snap and fresh pain shot up her arm, going all the way to the roots of her scalp. Her vision blurred for a moment, but when she came up, she had one arm tight around the old hobgoblin’s torso and the other held the point of her whistle knife at Maaqua’s temple, just behind her right eye. Maaqua’s staff lay in the dirt just behind Hweilan.
“Everyone back or she dies!” Hweilan shouted at the onrushing hobgoblins.
Maaqua stiffened under her grip but did not resist. “Do as she says.”
The guards obeyed, though they kept their weapons ready. The soldier with the scars of rank was only a couple of paces away, and he had both axe and sword in hand now. The archers held their bows taut, the points of their arrows aimed in her direction. But Hweilan knew they’d have to be fools to risk it with their queen in the way.
“Back up!” Hweilan ordered the hobgoblin officer.
He looked to Maaqua.
“Do it,” said the old crone.
He backed up three steps.
“More,” said Hweilan.
He took another three.
The Damarans were still shouting from the hole, but Hweilan could make out no words.
“Rhan!” Maaqua called out. “Rhan, do not kill them! Yet!”
Hweilan heard a smack that sounded very much like a fist striking flesh, then the screams stopped.
“You flood that hole, and your champion dies, too,” Hweilan told Maaqua.
; Maaqua chuckled. “Clever girl.”
Hweilan risked a quick glance down at her right arm. Just as she’d feared. The hobgoblin’s arrow had hit her in the arm, and she knew it had gone at least to the bone, perhaps even cracking it and lodging inside. It hurt like damnation. Her tackle of Maaqua had broken the shaft just over an inch outside Hweilan’s shirt and caused it to tear enough of her flesh that she already had a thick clot of blood freezing on her sleeve. She could feel a warm trickle running off her elbow.
“Where’s my wolf?” she asked.
“Wolf?”
“You know who I mean.”
“He’s behaving himself,” said Maaqua, “which is more than I can say for you.”
“And Mandan? The big Damaran with the club?”
“We have other plans for him.”
“Not anymore,” said Hweilan, and pressed the point of the bone until it dimpled the old hobgoblin’s flesh. “Your soldiers are going to put down their weapons and get those three halfwits out of the hole. Your champion can stay for a while. Then you’re going to have Mandan and my wolf brought to us. And then we’re all going to leave. Once we’re safely away, I’ll let you go.”
“Or we could stand here jawing until you swoon from all that blood leaking out of your arm,” said Maaqua. “I’d wager that’ll happen long before your three friends are out of the hole, much less the big one and your”-she snorted-“wolf.”
Hweilan considered that a moment. She thought she’d probably last a good deal longer than that. But not forever. Her right sleeve was already heavy with blood.
“Listen, girl,” said Maaqua. “I have no desire to tempt the ire of your master. And your friends-”
“They aren’t my friends,” said Hweilan. “I just met them.”
“Yet you’re standing here bleeding while bargaining for their lives.”
Hweilan heard footsteps and the rattle of armor. Someone must have sounded an alarm or gone for help. More hobgoblins topped the rise and began working their way down. All wore armor and carried weapons. On the cliff tops behind her she heard more.
“This is all unnecessary, you idiot girl,” said Maaqua. “I have no desire to hurt you.”
“So you knocked me unconscious and threw me in a hole as a way to show your hospitality?”
Hweilan could feel her right arm-the one holding Maaqua and leaking blood-beginning to tremble. She could no longer feel her fingers on that hand. She had to end this quickly, one way or the other.
“Let me go,” said Maaqua, “and we can discuss this in a more courteous fashion.”
Hweilan pressed the point of her whistle knife a bit harder, just enough to break the skin. “Talk now or you can explain it all in the Hells.”
A bit of steel entered Maaqua’s tone. “You’ll be right there with me.”
“Talk.”
“I am Maaqua, queen of the Razor Heart and disciple of Soneillon. Do you really think I bow to the threats of that upstart fiend sitting in Highwatch?”
Hweilan had no idea how long she’d been out. Had the attack from the thing wearing her mother’s body been yesterday or today? She had no idea. But she remembered the thing’s words to Maaqua all too clearly.
We know where you are. Bring us the girl, and we’ll let you live.
Hweilan did her best to tighten her grip around the old hobgoblin, but she could feel her strength waning by the moment. “Explain your actions then, old crone,” she said.
“You left me no choice. Had you and that big oaf with the club surrendered-like any person would when surrounded by an army!-had you come nicely, you’d probably all be sitting by a fire now. Instead we had to … subdue you. Think, girl. If I really wanted you dead, you’d be dead already.”
“Then why-?”
“I said think! That, that … thing managed to apparate on my doorstep. Mine! This entire valley has more spells and wards on it than your grandfather’s hounds had fleas, yet that walking mound of goat dung managed to get through them. Even after it left, I had no idea if we were being watched or if it was about to come back with forty of its brothers. I had to make it look like we were capturing you and your friends until I could figure out how that thing got past my wards, past the … chink in my armor.”
“And …?”
“And I found the chink and … unchinked it.”
“So you came to get me out and apologize? You really expect me to believe that?”
Maaqua gave a low chuckle. “Can you smell it yet?”
“Smell?” Hweilan’s tongue felt oddly thick, and now that she thought about it, her head was filled with a new scent. Strong enough that she could taste it on the back of her tongue. Almost like …
“A bit like pine smoke, yes?” said Maaqua. “Only sweeter.”
Pine smoke … it set off a flood of memory. Midwinter celebrations in Highwatch. The servants spent a day decking the feast hall with pine boughs and holly from the mountains and knotted wreaths of sweetgrass from the steppe. The ladies twined mistletoe in their hair, and the knights drank to the health of the High Warden over goblets of bilberry wine. At midnight, the darkest time of the darkest night of the year, the priests would hurl the pine boughs into the sacred hearth. The flames caught in the green pine and flared in tiny, very bright flames, which the priests said burned in defiance of the cold and dark. In the warm light of the hall, Hweilan had always thought the thick smoke seemed more blue than gray, and she could smell it in her hair for days afterward. It was that smell filling her head now. With every breath the scent filled her head more and more.
“The arrow,” said Maaqua. “Poison.”
Hweilan was looking up at the old hobgoblin, her wispy mane turned dark by the sky. Looking up? When …?
She couldn’t remember falling. But the swiftly fraying threads of her reason knew she was lying on the ground. She could still feel her body-in fact, every pain seemed even sharper, every pulse of her heart sending another tiny jolt through her limbs-but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t even force her eyes to close.
Maaqua’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “I was afraid you might have bled out most of the poison, tearing your wound like you did. Lucky me. Stupid you.”
CHAPTER THREE
Vazhad had to stop a moment to gather his courage. The lamps in the hall were burning through the last of their oil. A few had already sputtered out, their dried wicks spitting an acrid smoke that gathered at the ceiling. There would be no more oil coming to Highwatch. Once the supply was gone, what little fire burned at night in Highwatch would be the pitch-soaked torches-and Vazhad knew the pitch was running low as well. Soon, darkness would rule Highwatch after sunset.
He closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer to whomever might be listening. It gave him no small amount of pride that his hand did not shake when he rapped twice upon the door.
No response. Vazhad waited. He heard scuffling from the hall. His heart skipped a beat, then started again double time. But when he turned, he saw only a rat, braving the meager lamplight, scuttling along the wall. It saw Vazhad watching, stopped, then proceeded on its way.
Vazhad knocked again, slightly harder this time.
“Yes?” said a voice from the other side.
“It is Vazhad,” he called. “Dawn is near.”
Sending one of the baazuled all the way into the Giantspires the day before had taken a great deal of Argalath’s strength. Subduing the eladrin had taken the last of it. Vazhad had carried his master all the way back to his chamber.
Argalath had never been a large man. He had the build of a scholar who preferred poring over books to a good meal. But Vazhad had been shocked at how light his master had become, scarcely heavier than a child. As he’d laid his master in bed, Argalath’s head had lolled to one side, exposing his neck.
A chicken.
The thought entered Vazhad’s mind, seemingly out of nowhere. The former lords of Highwatch had kept the foul birds, raising them for food, feathers, and eggs. Vazhad
had once watched one of the kitchen servants removing the feathers. It had shocked him how scrawny and strengthless the thing looked in only its skin. The servant had set it aside, retrieved his next squawking victim from the cage, and snapped its neck with no more effort than plucking a flower.
That last image came clearly to Vazhad’s mind, as he stared down at his master’s frail neck. Vazhad had been a warrior all his life. Serving Argalath had kept him out of the saddle more than he liked, but his hands were still strong. Argalath had no hair to grab, but if Vazhad planted one hand on the neck, he could grab an ear, or even the jaw. One quick twist-
And then Argalath’s eyes had opened. Argalath’s eyes. Not the … thing inside him. It had taken Vazhad a long time to recognize the difference, but since that night on the mountain when Argalath killed Soran, there was no mistaking one for the other. Argalath the half-Nar demonbinder was weak. His gaze had no more strength than that of an old man in the last stages of sickness. But the other … it burned hot, bright, and hungry.
“Vazhad … my friend,” Argalath had said. “Thank you.”
“For what, Master?” Vazhad asked.
But Argalath’s eyes closed again. Vazhad thought he had drifted off again. Perhaps he had, for the voice that then spoke was the other. Jagun Ghen. Every word spoken so carefully that Vazhad knew it was more than a foreigner speaking a strange tongue. This was a will for whom words were a necessary inconvenience. This mind wanted only to burn and consume. Everything else … was only a means to that end.
“Wake this one before dawn.”
The dead, cold voice stopped any thoughts of wringing necks. Vazhad’s hands no longer felt strong. He had to tighten them into fists to keep them from trembling.
“As you wish, my lord.” Vazhad had bowed and left the room.
It seemed some strange sort of madness to be standing here again. Another torch sputtered out.
“Come in,” said the voice from the other side of the door. Not Argalath’s voice. It was the other. The burning hunger.
Vazhad’s hand trembled as he grasped the knob.
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