Drureng snorted. “It’ll be dawn before our duty’s done, at this rate.”
Hratt ignored him and kept going. The tunnel grew no wider, but the ceiling rose high into the dark. Their torches cast many small shadows on the roughly hewn walls.
They turned around a bend to the left, and there was the storage room.
Hratt stopped and stared.
“What?” said Drureng. By his whisper, Hratt knew the warrior could sense his surprise.
“The door,” said Hratt. “Look.”
He held his torch forward and pointed. The thick iron door was still shut. It had two slide latches-one near the top and the other about a foot off the floor-that had been secured with locks. Both locks had been smashed open. The dented and scarred central pieces lay on the floor surrounded by the broken and misshapen bits of iron link. The main lock-the one set just slightly to the right of the door’s center-was also dented and scarred. It looked as if someone had taken one of the heavier forge hammers to it, then used something else to try to pry the whole latch off. But the welded bolts had held.
Hratt reached for his sword, and only then realized he had left it in his chamber. He hadn’t even brought his dagger.
Drureng stepped to the side of Hratt to get a better look. “Who could h-”
Hratt heard a sound like someone smashing a fist on a thick table, and then Drureng fell sideways toward Hratt. The armored warrior’s torch hit the ground a moment before he did.
Hratt whirled, waving his torch before him. Drureng lay motionless on the ground.
A dark shape, crouching well beyond the reach of his torch, straightened, and Hratt heard a relieved sigh followed by a chuckle.
“Hratt, is that you?”
Wide-eyed, Hratt took another step back and held his torch high. As the shadows stopped dancing and the firelight settled over the shape in front of him, Hratt recognized her at once. It took every bit of his warrior’s self-control to keep his feet.
“You’re dead,” he said to Hweilan.
“Not yet.” She smiled at him, though her eyes lost none of their hardness. “I am very glad to see you, though. I’m having a damnable time getting that door open. Please tell me you have the key.”
Near the outermost borders of the fortress, a band of hobgoblins gnawed on the remains of their meal and passed around the skin. It was the third they had drained.
“Back soon,” said one as he handed off the skin and stood.
“Where you going?” said another.
“Gotta make room for more drink.”
His companions laughed and cheered him on.
The hobgoblin took his spear with him. Even in the best of years, the Giantspires were not a safe place, and they had become particularly dangerous over the past few months.
He hesitated as he approached the farthest edge of the firelight. He could have sworn he’d heard something. A sound of something moving in the dirt.
One of his companions must have seen him pause, for he called out, “Need me to hold that spear for you?”
“Which one?” another answered, and they all roared laughter.
The hobgoblin turned halfway back so his voice would carry. “Be quiet!”
The laughter died slowly. “What is it?” one of them called, still chuckling.
“I heard something.”
“If you want someone to-”
There.
“Silence!” he called. He’d heard it again. He was certain this time.
His bladder was full to bursting, but he gripped his spear with both hands and took two steps back.
“Over here,” the hobgoblin said. “All of you.”
He could hear his companions coming up behind, so he ventured forward, leaving the last of the firelight behind, his gaze sifting every bit of shadow behind the rocks.
The other warriors fell in around him. “What is it? What did-?”
Another sound.
“I heard it that time.”
“Who’s there?” the first hobgoblin called.
“Here, damn you!” The voice was deep and raspy, but it spoke perfect Goblin.
“Name yourself!”
“Rhan,” said the voice. “Come here. Now. Or I’ll kill every last one of you.”
The hobgoblins exchanged a worried glance, then moved forward, spears and swords held before them. They put some distance between each other as they walked to give those with swords room to swing.
“There!” said one of the hobgoblins, pointing.
A large shape lay on the ground, a dark, wet trail in the dirt and rock behind it.
“It is Rhan!”
The hobgoblins rushed forward.
It was indeed the Champion of the Razor Heart. He gripped the Greatsword of Impiltur in one hand. Even in the dim light, the hobgoblins could see he was covered in dirt, made sticky by his own blood.
“Someone’s hamstrung him!”
Bits of some cloth were bound round Rhan’s knees, but they were black with blood and dirt, and more blood was leaking out. Crippled, he had crawled all this way from … wherever this had been done to him.
“Wh-what … what happened?”
Rhan looked up at the warriors with such ferocity that the hobgoblins gasped and took a step back.
“She’s back,” said Rhan through a clenched jaw. “She’s alive. Sound the horns!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Buureg had not joined in the celebrations. Something about the day’s events had left him unsettled, so he walked throughout the fortress, speaking with warriors and slaves, listening to every rumor and being asked a dozen times whether they would raid east or west of the mountains this season. He was in one of the outer courtyards when the horns broke through the sounds of celebration.
The warriors with whom he’d been speaking sat still as stones, their mouths hanging open, skins half-raised to their lips.
One of them looked to Buureg. “What-?”
“Drop the drink and get steel in your hands,” Buureg ordered. Then he ran in the direction of the horns.
Three wide-eyed warriors met him as he was leaving the courtyard. They wore no armor, but every one of them had a weapon.
“What’s happening?” Buureg asked.
“It’s the girl, she-”
“Rhan! It’s Rhan!”
“Silence!” Buureg cut them off. He pointed at the foremost. “You, speak.”
The warrior swallowed hard, then said, “Arngul and his band found Rhan.”
“Found him?”
“Yes, warchief. He’d been hamstrung. She sliced the tendons in both legs. He had to crawl all the way back.”
“She?” said Buureg. “She who?”
“That human girl.”
“The Hand of the Hunter,” said his companion, and Buureg saw the warrior was clutching a talisman in his left hand.
“She’s alive?” said Buureg. “You’re sure of it?”
“So says Rhan.”
“Come with me,” said Buureg, and he turned on his heels.
They ran back into the fortress, where celebrations were swiftly ending. Buureg gathered the first warriors he found, made sure they were armed, then sent them to guard the Damarans. He then counted off ten warriors, three of whom were actually wearing armor, and said, “You’re with me.”
“Where are we going?” one of them asked as they fell into step behind him.
“To the deep forge.”
Finding the main door of the deep forge open, Buureg and his men proceeded with extreme caution. Every warrior had a blade or a spear in hand, and more than one was praying under his breath. If the girl had managed to hamstring the Champion of the Razor Heart …
Buureg led the way into the chamber where the girl’s weapons and other belongings were being kept. He knew that Maaqua had ordered Hratt to bring them to her. On the way into the deeper parts of the fortress, Buureg asked every warrior and slave they passed if they had seen Hratt. None had.
The door had
obviously been battered, but it was still shut.
“What now?” said the warrior behind Buureg.
“Who’s there?” called a voice from the other side of the iron door.
The warriors tensed and raised weapons, but Buureg recognized it.
“Hratt?” he called.
“It’s me,” said Hratt. “That wench locked us in here!”
“Us?” said Buureg.
“Me and”-a moment’s hesitation-“oh, Hells, I think he said his name is Drureng. She knocked him senseless. He’s still breathing, but I can’t rouse him.”
“Where is she?”
“Gone! She took all her things and locked us in here.”
Buureg jabbed a finger at the nearest warrior, said, “Get them out of there!” then turned back up the hall, the other warriors following.
“How?” the warrior called.
Buureg ignored him and ran.
The fortress soon reminded Buureg very much of an ant bed stirred by bored children. The horns had stopped, but the word was out. The Hand of the Hunter had survived and wounded their champion. She might have fled, or she might be loose in the fortress. Every hobgoblin in the fortress held a weapon, warriors had donned armor, and those not set at guard were prowling the fortress, searching for the girl.
Buureg found one of his senior warriors who had just returned from seeing to the Damaran prisoners.
“Quiet as cornered rabbits,” said the warrior. “All of ’em. No sign of the girl. Maybe she ran off?”
Buureg didn’t think that likely. The first day he’d met her, she could have easily fled and left the Damarans to the Razor Heart. Instead, she’d held a knife to Buureg’s throat and bargained for their lives.
“If she isn’t trying to save them,” he wondered aloud, “then what …?”
“What says Maaqua?” said the warrior.
Buureg’s next breath seemed to freeze his heart. “Maaqua …”
Maaqua had her private chambers in the deepest caverns on the northern side of the fortress. Few beyond her disciples had ever been there. She sometimes summoned the warchief, but he never spoke of what he saw. Once, Buureg had brought two of his strongest warriors to carry some new treasure the Razor Heart had acquired in a raid. One had boasted of a vast chamber, with a floor that descended in terraces. Shelves lined the walls and terrace edges. Every one stuffed with books, scrolls, and tablets. The room itself was filled with tables on which sat iron-bound tomes, loose manuscripts, animal cages, skeletons, goblets of colored glass and precious metals, and the huge black skull of a dragon. Pedestals lined one of the lower terraces, and on them sat reliquaries of at least a dozen different faiths-some under such powerful spells that they smoked on the brass stands that held them. And scattered among all of it was treasure beyond imagining-jewels of every color, gold, silver, and metals of such strange colors that the warrior who told the tale said that he was certain they had not come from this world. That warrior had gone to his den that night, smug in the admiration of his companions. He had not been seen since. Maaqua made sure of it. Years later, the memory still brought a smile to her face.
The time had come for Maaqua to roll the dice. She could wait no longer. She had held some small hope that she could trick or browbeat Hweilan into doing her bidding. But that was no longer a possibility. There were ways to raise the dead and make them bend to your will, Maaqua knew. But she would not risk that with the Hand. The girl’s ties to the Master of the Hunt were too strong.
If you must strike the hornet’s nest-stand well away and be ready to run. A proverb she’d often heard in the south in her younger days. This was a good lesson to keep in mind when it came to Nendawen and his ilk.
Maaqua had only days until the full moon, and what the girl had told her was true. The Master of the Hunt would not take kindly to what had been done to his servant. Maaqua had to prepare. And, come high summer, she would have to deal with angry Damarans, too. But Highwatch … that was the immediate concern.
Bring us the girl and we’ll let you live. The demon’s words before disappearing from her doorstep.
Would a corpse suffice? Perhaps. She was willing to bargain. But she would not beg. This meant she needed to know her enemy. She had already sent for the girl’s weapons. Now she wanted to have a better idea of what she was up against before she probed those secrets.
Maaqua had considered using her private chambers, protected as they were by dozens of spells and guards both arcane and unholy. But she was still unsure of herself and did not want to deal with any unforeseen consequences there.
So she took her most skilled acolytes and climbed to the top of the third watchtower. It was not the highest point, but it afforded the best view to the east, which was where she needed to direct her attention.
The jagged crenellation that served as a tower had a large window, but Maaqua took her acolytes to the top of the rock under the open sky. She posted guards in the room below, and more in the stairwells.
Her acolytes used ram’s blood to paint the boundaries of protection on the stone itself, while Maaqua began the incantation to loosen the wards she’d set around the fortress. She did not dispel them entirely-that would be dangerous. But she knew that if the arcane energies served as a sort of outer wall of a castle, then she needed a window through it-one that she hoped would look only outward.
Once all was set, the acolytes kneeled on the outer edges of the lines of blood and began their own incantations. Maaqua sat cross-legged inside the circle and muttered a prayer. She then removed a silk bag from her robes, opened the drawstring, and poured out the contents-a large mound of feathers, plucked from a snow owl, whose flesh was digesting in her belly. She sprinkled the ash from a mountain oak on the feathers, then reached inside her robe again.
Fire flashed in her palm. It came from an orb she held, slightly smaller than a lamb’s skull and red as pulsing blood.
Maaqua swallowed hard. She had done this many times, but never against the new master of Highwatch.
She set the orb on the bed of owl feathers, then adjusted the crown on her head. The gold circlet had two points rising above each temple and a third above her forehead. Three rubies sat in the circlet, just above Maaqua’s eyes, and they reflected the light of the orb. The Crown of Whispers, which Maaqua had taken from the hands of Soneillon herself. Maaqua hoped it would give her the edge she needed.
She closed her eyes and continued the incantation. Something flickered over Maaqua’s head, the barest bit of light, no more than the spark from touching metal after rubbing dry wool. But the green spark grew in brilliance. It shot off tiny jolts of jagged lightning in every direction, each slightly larger than the last, until it was the same size as the red orb in front of Maaqua. The green fire flared a final time, then settled into a steady glow. A crack formed across its middle, widening like the lids of an opening eye.
Maaqua smiled, though her words did not falter. The eye looked eastward, over mountains and valleys, needing no light and piercing every shadow, until its gaze settled upon Nar-sek Qu’istrade and the castle that looked down upon it. Highwatch lay dark under the night sky, no fires burning in its stone chambers. The queen burrowed deeper, seeking the mind of her enemy.
There.
In what had once been the chambers of the High Warden’s family, a mind of fire and hunger burned inside the failing body of a mortal. There were others throughout the fortress, but they were only flickering torches against the mountain heartbeat of this one. Jagun Ghen.
Maaqua’s smile widened.
From below the tower came the sound of horns. Someone had raised the alarm. Maaqua dismissed the sound. She balanced on a razor’s edge now. The slightest misstep …
The queen burrowed deeper with her magic, her vision going beyond mere sight to the will and intent of the thing that lurked in Highwatch. If it was aware of her presence, it gave no hint. Pleased, she fathomed the outer whispers of the thing’s mind, learning a thing or two and confirming much
of what she already expected. Then one thing surprised her so much she actually gasped and opened her eyes.
No. She had learned too much. What else might there be? Her curiosity unsated, she closed her eyes, concentrated, and went deeper.
Then Maaqua screamed.
Hratt sat in the pitch black chamber, with his back and head resting against the door. After he’d told the warrior outside who had the other key what had happened, he’d been left alone with the still-unconscious Drureng. It gave him time to think.
Which way to go? Which way to run?
For run he surely must. He’d betrayed his queen.
When Hweilan demanded the key to the room, he had of course refused. But then she’d raised her hands, showing one of the forge hammers in her left and the red knife in the other, and said, “Please.”
Hratt had been a warrior for almost ten years. After watching her fight, though, he knew he stood little chance against her. But it wasn’t in him to give in. He lunged at her with the torch, hoping at most to get past her and run for help.
She smirked-actually smirked!-at him, batted the torch away with the hammer, then brought the flat of its head into Hratt’s belly. He folded over, all breath gone, and from the edge of his vision saw the knife coming for him. He clenched his jaw and prepared for the worst.
He felt the edge of the knife slide down his torso-but not stabbing or even cutting his flesh. Hweilan sliced neatly through his belt, kicked his feet out from under him, then yanked his trousers down around his knees and twisted, tangling his feet. Her full weight came down on his back and he felt cold steel rest against his thigh.
“Now, Hratt,” she said, “I know you have that key. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. I am not stealing. Everything in that room belongs to me, and I want it back. You’re going to give me the key, then you’re going to tell me where Maaqua is.”
Hratt gave a quick look around. His torch was well out of reach, as was the spear Drureng had dropped. Nothing but his bare hands.
“Well?” she said.
“To the Hells with you!”
“Hratt!” The knife didn’t move, but she gave his trousers a sharp yank. “Not all that long ago, I sliced Rhan’s legs so he couldn’t follow me. But I’m done slicing legs.”
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