The Inquisitives [3] Legacy of the Wolves

by Rockwell, Marsheila

  “So where are we?” Greddark asked. They had exited Lamannia at a different place than they’d gone in, and she’d been hoping to discover both their approximate location within the forest and—more importantly, as far as Greddark was concerned—how long it was going to take them to get out.

  “I can’t be certain,” she replied, picking at a few stray needles from her braids, “but I think we’re only a day, two at most, from the edge of the wood, and closer to Angwar Keep than Olath. Ostra’s guide must have taken us to the southernmost boundary of the manifest zone. It probably cut a good three days off our journey. Maybe more.”

  Thank the Host! He was getting tired of the trees, oppressive green, and interminable biting insects. The forest made him feel insignificant and, well … dwarfed, and he had to agree with Andri—the sooner they were out of it, the better.

  “I also brought us some food, if anyone feels like eating,” she continued, pulling three large blue eggs out of her tunic. At the mention of food, both his stomach and Andri’s grumbled.

  Irulan laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said and set about cooking the eggs, adding the last of their salted pork and the caps of some mushrooms she found growing in the shade of a large rock.

  After they’d eaten, Irulan drew out a tiny bell and a bit of silver wire from her pouch. Whispering a few words, she set an alarm spell around their camp.

  “We don’t need a repeat of the other night, especially now that we don’t have the dire wolf to guard us.”

  “Not that he helped much,” Greddark muttered, earning himself an annoyed look from the shifter.

  “You didn’t fare so well against the shifters yourself,” she reminded him, before climbing up from her spot by the fire and grabbing her bow.

  “I’ll take the first watch, “Andri said, the first words he’d spoken since before dinner, other than a mumbled thanks when Irulan had handed him his plate of eggs. Irulan frowned at him as he stood.

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “You haven’t gotten much sleep in the past few days.”

  None of them had, but Andri’s short naps had been particularly restless. From the words he murmured as he tossed and turned to the occasional moan or whimper, it was clear that the revelations of Shadukar still haunted his dreams, even if he didn’t speak of them during daylight hours.

  “Paladins are trained to go days without sleep, if necessary,” he replied. “I’ll be fine.”

  Irulan still looked skeptical, but she finally acceded.

  “Just stay within the radius of the alarm spell. I don’t want to be woken up if I don’t have to be.” Her words were gruff, but her concern was obvious. Greddark wondered if the tormented young man even noticed.

  “I will,” Andri answered, and by the gentleness of his tone, Greddark realized the paladin wasn’t quite as oblivious to the shifter’s feelings as he might appear. “Sleep well.”

  After he had gone, Irulan walked over to where Maellas was, double-checking his bonds and his gag. When the Bishop made a noise, Irulan just grunted.

  “Right. Like I’d be stupid enough to unmuzzle a rabid wolf. We’re only a few days from Aruldusk. You won’t starve. Think of it as penance—Flame knows, you’re in need of it.”

  She turned her back on the priest, whose green eyes narrowed in anger as they followed her. But there was little else the elf could do besides glare—the silver manacles were enchanted to keep him from changing forms, and the chains were strong enough that he couldn’t break them, even with a werewolf’s might. He was at their mercy. Or rather, at Andri’s, since both Greddark and the shifter woman would just as soon kill him now and let the priests in Aruldusk pull their answers from his corpse.

  Irulan remarked on the paladin’s forbearance as she laid her bedroll out by the fire.

  “Why didn’t he just let the werewolves kill Maellas and be done with it? I’m sure he could have persuaded what’s-her-name—Daimana—to do it.” She said the female werewolf’s name with the same distaste she might reserve for a piece of meat that had gone bad. She didn’t wait for Greddark to answer. “Justice,” she snorted. “As if the Church could deliver that to one of its own. You don’t need a trial to ensure justice. All you need is a sword.”

  “I’m not sure his motives are all that noble,” Greddark said, hiding his amusement at her venom. It was probably a good thing she spent most of her time in the woods. Her way of speaking exactly what was on her mind wouldn’t endear her to those who were used to at least a pretense of civility.

  One of Irulan’s eyebrows rose. “Why, then? It would be so much easier to just get rid of him here, where there are no witnesses.” She stopped short. “Oh.”

  Greddark nodded. Not having witnesses was exactly what Andri was trying to avoid.

  “No one in Aruldusk is going to believe Maellas is infected if they don’t see it for themselves. It would be the situation with his mother all over again,” she said, shaking her head. “Poor Andri.”

  “We are all forged in the fires of our past,” Greddark said, by way of agreement. It was an old dwarf saying; a favorite of his father’s, judging by how many times the old dwarf had said it the day he exiled Greddark.

  Irulan look surprised, then thoughtful.

  “Yes, I suppose we are.”

  It took Greddark a long time to fall asleep. His hand twitched toward his sword at every frog’s croak and cricket’s chirp. When he was awakened from a fitful slumber some hours later by the frantic ringing of a bell, his first thought was—Host! What did I do to deserve this? His second was—Not again.

  As he and Irulan scrambled to their feet, grabbing their weapons, Greddark cast a quick eye over to the tree where the Bishop was tied. Still there. Then he turned his attention back to the forest, just in time to see Andri step into the small clearing they had chosen for their camp.

  “Andri!” Irulan’s voice was sharp with reproach and relief. She lowered her sword at the sight of the young paladin. “I told you not to trigger the al—”

  “He didn’t,” came another familiar voice. “I did.”

  D’Medani stepped out from behind the paladin, her war spikard pressed up firmly against Andri’s back.

  “I’ll thank you to drop your weapons now, unless you’ve got another paladin handy to heal this one when I skewer him.”

  “Flame!” Irulan swore as she bent and placed her sword on the ground. “What, do we have some sort of magical beacon floating over our heads that only our enemies can see? Here we are, come ambush us?”

  “Well, actually, in this case, you do,” the half-elf replied, nodding towards Greddark. “I believe it’s called a locator charm, and it’s attached to my quarry’s back, there.”

  Locator charm? It couldn’t be!

  Greddark dropped his blade and reached over his shoulder, fingers brushing lightly over his coat. There. He pulled a small spiky object out from the weave and held it up, scrutinizing it in the firelight.

  The little metal device was designed to look like a bur, down to its brownish coloring and its carefully-crafted casing of spines. It would be inconspicuous on a traveler’s clothes, overlooked until it was too late. Inside the casing, the “seed” was in fact a tiny Siberys dragonshard imbued with a location spell that was linked to a ring on d’Medani’s finger, which also sported a golden shard. A variation on the standard location spell, the charm linked the ring to the bur so that, once the bur was planted on a subject, the ring-wearer could follow at a considerable distance without worrying about interference from running water, or lead, or even other spells. A powerful tool in the hands of a bounty hunter or an inquisitive, this prototype was the only such charm currently in existence.

  He should know. He created it.

  D’Medani caught his look of recognition, and gave him a smug smile.

  “It’s only fitting, don’t you think? That we use your own inventions to track you down? House Medani has made good use of the things you were forced to leave behind at the To
wer—some even think it was a fair trade, Yaradala for the plans to your clever toys.” Her smile grew brittle. “I don’t.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Andri asked, drawing the half-elf’s attention back to him. “Your bounty has already been paid.”

  D’Medani laughed, a musical sound in the night, utterly at odds with the scene being played out. “And a most generous payment it was, sir paladin. But if I take it and deliver d’Kundarak to my employer anyway, then I’ll get paid twice. One hundred platinum dragons. How could I possibly pass that up?”

  The bounty hunter had gumption, Greddark had to admit. Beautiful and smart. Too bad she was on the wrong side.

  “So, how about it, d’Kundarak? You, for the paladin. Though, if you ask me, the shifter’s getting the best end of that bargain.”

  Greddark’s thoughts raced. D’Medani would have no qualms about killing Andri, and he had no more healing potions left in his pockets. Irulan wouldn’t be able to nock her own arrow or close the gap between them to engage the bounty hunter with her sword before the other woman could get off another bolt, and at this range, the half-elf wouldn’t miss. No, it was better if he complied—he still had the chimes on his bracer, which d’Medani hadn’t seemed to realize earlier was anything more than a rather gaudy accessory. If she thought he was unarmed, he might get a chance to use one, though it would be a shame to see that pretty blonde head explode like the ghost tiger’s had. Not as great a shame as doing time in a Karrnathi cell would be, though—or worse, in Helanth d’Medani’s private dungeons. Yaradala had had good reasons for wanting to escape her father’s overbearing presence, not the least of which was his reputation for cruelty, and even torture. No, the half-elf’s sweet face would be a small price to pay to avoid that.

  “Very well,” Greddark said, over protests from both Andri and Irulan. He raised his arms and began walking slowly toward the bounty hunter.

  “Turn around,” she ordered. “Walk backwards.”

  As he did so, taking each step with care, she continued speaking, this time to Andri and Irulan.

  “I see you’ve picked up another straggler. I hope you have better luck with this one than you did with the dwarf, though from the looks of him, he’s as bad as d’Kundarak.”

  If she only knew.

  Then Greddark was beside her, and she shoved Andri past him. As the paladin stumbled and fell to his knees, she grabbed a handful of Greddark’s hair and pulled him back until her war spikard was pressing into the small of his back, a sensation that was becoming all too familiar. The feeling was only magnified when she released his shock of hair and slapped her manacles on his wrists. An easy task, considering she was at least a foot taller than him. She let his bound hands fall in front of him, and looped the chain that ran from them once about his neck. When she pulled on the makeshift leash, the links scraped his neck raw and drew his hands up to his chest, giving him very little room to maneuver.

  “Now we’re going to back out of here slowly, and you’re going to act as my dwarven shield.” She seemed to find that funny, chuckling at her own joke.

  Irulan had her bow in hand, an arrow nocked and ready, and was keeping pace with them, trying to outflank them and get a shot, but d’Medani was compensating for the other woman’s movements, keeping him firmly interposed between the two of them. Andri had picked up Irulan’s sword—d’Medani must have tossed his when she captured him—and was following, ready to take advantage of any misstep on the half-elf’s part.

  But there would be no misstep this time, Greddark knew, and no timely rescue. If he wanted an opportunity to escape, he was going to have to make it himself. And, unfortunately, he had a feeling it was going to hurt.

  As they backed out of the clearing, Greddark knew he was running out of options. Though d’Medani hadn’t had a teleportation device at Shadukar, he realized it was probably because she had been on foot—the horse Irulan had described her riding away on sounded like a Valenar warhorse, and there was no way the bounty hunter would risk leaving such a valuable mount behind. Once they got to wherever the half-elf had tethered her stallion, all bets were off. He had to make his move now.

  He decided to wait until they were past the first few trees and into the forest proper. The extra cover should make d’Medani relax a little. The trunks would impede both Irulan’s line of sight and any charge Andri might see fit to make. It would also serve as protection for his companions if his aim was off.

  There. The pressure on his back lessened almost imperceptibly. Before he could change his mind, Greddark pretended to stumble over his own feet, falling backward into the half-elf.

  Agony exploded through his back as she released the trigger on the war spikard and the crossbow bolt buried itself to the fletching, the quarrel tearing through muscles and organs and popping out through the front of his abdomen with a squelching sound. At the same time, the chain about his neck was pulled taut, effectively choking him even as his hands were jerked up to slam into his nose so hard he felt blood gush. Then they went down in a jumble of limbs and Greddark rolled onto his side, trying desperately to pry the blasting chime off his bracelet before d’Medani could regain her feet, or he blacked out from the pain.

  He was too slow. The half-elf was up, and instead of loading another bolt into the crossbow mechanism, she used the spikard as a hammer, bringing the heavy head down on his shoulder. Distantly, he heard the crack of bones and realized they were his.

  But he had the chime off now, and the charm grew to fit in his hand, an inscribed bell with an ornate grip, a small Siberys dragonshard embedded in its clapper. As d’Medani raised her arms for another blow, this one aimed for his head, Greddark used the last of his strength to ring the bell, its sweet tone echoing through the surrounding forest. As Greddark watched the warhammer descend, he thought fuzzily that the timber of the bell’s ring had changed since the last time he used it, followed by the horrified realization that he’d grabbed the wrong chime.

  Then the head of d’Medani’s hammer was blocking his vision and he closed his eyes, awaiting the inevitable.

  The blow never landed. Greddark opened one eye, half-expecting the hammer to smash into his face as he did so.

  D’Medani was gone. Andri and Irulan were rushing to him, the paladin sheathing Irulan’s sword in his father’s ornate scabbard while the shifter cast about wildly for some sign of the bounty hunter.

  “Where did she go? She just disappeared—an invisibility spell, do you think?”

  Disappeared …?

  Then Greddark was laughing as understanding dawned, though the movement made fire blaze in his belly and pulled the chain even tighter about his abused neck.

  He thought he’d grabbed the blasting chime, but he’d inadvertently pulled a different charm off his bracer, the one he’d never been able to figure out how to use. Whenever he’d tried it before, nothing would happen. But it had worked now, because d’Medani was a dragonmarked member of her House.

  It was a recalling chime, designed to teleport anyone within a certain radius who bore the Mark of Detection back to the Warning Guild in Wroat. No doubt d’Medani was there even now, cursing his name.

  “Gone,” he gasped, his laughter fading as he struggled to breathe. “To Breland.”

  “Don’t try to talk,” Andri admonished as he knelt beside the dwarf. First the paladin loosened the chain about his neck, then he used Maellas’s silver dagger to cut the quarrel off the crossbow bolt protruding from his stomach. With great gentleness, he pulled the bolt out through the inquisitive’s back. Greddark nearly bit his tongue in half to keep from screaming, then promptly vomited blood all over them both as soon as the wooden shaft was free.

  The darkness deepened around him, and he realized that he was losing consciousness. He felt Andri lay one hand on each wound, both entry and exit, and a seeping warmth crept outwards from the paladin’s fingers, running through Greddark’s body, up to his ruined shoulder and abraded neck, even through his bloody nose and mouth
and out to the tip of his tongue. He was healed.

  But then why did his veins still burn like he’d swallowed acid, and why was he so terribly thirsty all of the sudden?

  Irulan was kneeling beside him now as well, apparently satisfied that d’Medani had indeed departed. A look of concern crossed her face, and she picked up the quarrel Andri had discarded, sniffing it experimentally. Her expression grew grave.

  “Poison,” she said. “Concentrated, by the smell of it. I think it’s dwarfbane. And I’m guessing d’Medani took the antidote with her.”

  Greddark couldn’t suppress a groan. If she was right, then he was already dead.

  Chapter

  TWENTY-ONE

  Sul, Eyre 8, 998 YK

  Is it still in his system?” Irulan asked, watching as a sheen of sweat formed on the dwarf’s creased brow. “Maybe your healing took care of it?”

  Andri reached his hand out to touch Greddark’s forehead. His skin was hot to the touch. “No,” he replied, shaking his head. “But I’ll try again.”

  He invoked the Flame once more and felt warmth course through his fingers, but if he’d done anything more than delay the effects of the poison, Andri couldn’t see it. Greddark’s clothes were drenched in perspiration, and he seemed to be having trouble breathing.

  “I don’t think it’s working. We’d better get him back to the fire.”

  “Wait,” Irulan said, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him from lifting the inquisitive in his arms. “Let me talk to him first.”

  The dwarf’s eyes were glazing over, and she slapped him lightly on the cheek to bring him around.

  “Greddark! Can you hear me?”

  His eyes cleared for a moment, focusing on her. He gave the barest of nods, as though the movement pained him.

  “You know what the antidote for dwarfbane is, right? What the plant looks like? I need you to describe it to me.”

  Greddark opened his mouth, licking away a string of drool that had been forming.