The Inquisitives [3] Legacy of the Wolves

by Rockwell, Marsheila

  “Purple … flower. Seven petals. Spiny leaves. Use … sap, stems.”

  Irulan chewed on her lip. “Hmm … sounds like dweomer root, though the flowers are usually reddish. They’re most likely related, but whether it’s close enough, I don’t know.” She looked uncertainly at Andri. “I could probably find some, but it may take a while.”

  He nodded. “Do it.”

  Her grip on his shoulder tightened for a moment, then she stood. Andri handed her sword back to her.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She headed deeper into the forest at a trot, dodging bushes and low branches with a lithesome grace Andri couldn’t help but admire. He prayed she would find what she was looking for in time.

  Greddark groaned again, and Andri turned back to the dwarf, hefting his not inconsiderable weight in both arms. He could see last remains of their dying campfire through the trees and he set his course for the dancing orange and yellow flames, taking care not to jostle Greddark too much.

  A quick glance as he came out of the trees assured him that Maellas was still chained to the tree, where they had left him. The priest was watching him with interest. It was a shame the elf had to be gagged. Surely his healing abilities must far surpass Andri’s own. If only … but, no. Best not even to set a foot on that path.

  Andri laid the dwarf down gently on his bedroll. Greddark was shivering now, though he was giving off more heat than the fire. Andri gathered up his own bedroll and Irulan’s to cover him, tried to pour some water between the dwarf’s chattering teeth, then stared into the darkness, watching for any sign of Irulan, and prayed.

  O gracious Flame, I know not why I have been deemed an unworthy conduit of your healing power, but I beseech you to ignore my sins and grant respite to this servant of the Host. Though he walks a different road, still his heart is good, and he seeks to right great wrongs. Grant that if I cannot heal him, your daughter Irulan might be led to the antidote he needs. Give her the speed and cunning of the wolf as she searches, and bring her back to me—to us—safely.

  He was just beginning the Seventh Miracle—the Victory over Lycanthropes—when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. His hand went to his sheath, only to discover it empty. Then he remembered—d’Medani had disarmed him and thrown his sword into the underbrush. He cast about for Maellas’s silver dagger, his hand closing around its hilt before he realized that it was only the elf struggling against his bonds. He started to relax, then saw that the elf had managed to loosen his gag by turning his head and rubbing the side of his face against the tree. The rough bark had snagged the fabric, and with one sharp twist of his neck, the gag was dislodged. Maellas spat it out, coughing.

  “Andri,” he wheezed, “let me help you.”

  The paladin hesitated. A part of his mind was screeching at him not to listen, but that nagging little voice seemed distant. Irrelevant. What was important was healing Greddark.

  “Look at him!” Maellas said. “He’s starting to convulse! If we don’t do something now, he’s going to die.”

  Andri looked at the dwarf. His shivering had turned to shaking, and his limbs were jerking, as though he danced to some bizarre music only he could hear. Spittle flecked his mouth and his close-cropped beard, and his face had turned an angry shade of red.

  Maellas was right. They didn’t have time to wait for Irulan and her antidote, which might not even work. If they didn’t do something now, Greddark was going to die.

  They? the voice in his head questioned shrilly, protesting, but the cleric’s insistent words drowned it out.

  “Hurry, Andri! Release me. Let us lay hands on the dwarf and call on the Flame together. Surely with our combined efforts, the poison will be neutralized. We can save him. But only if you free me. Now.”

  Andri found himself nodding. The warning voice faded and grew silent.

  “Don’t bring the dagger. Just the keys to the manacles. Hurry! There’s not much time.”

  Andri dropped the dagger. He didn’t need it. Just the keys. He retrieved them from his belt pouch and stood. He had to hurry. There wasn’t much time.

  He skirted the fire and walked over to the tree where Maellas was bound. Something was wrong. Why had they chained the Bishop to the tree? He was their friend. He only wanted to help them. Help Greddark.

  Frowning, Andri knelt down beside the elf, fumbling with the key. Bishop Maellas was his superior, and by all accounts a humble, pious man. What had he been thinking, clapping him in silver manacles?

  Silver … why was that important? He paused, key half in the lock, trying to remember.

  “What are you waiting for?” Maellas demanded, his green eyes taking on an amber cast. “Release me!”

  Andri wanted to obey—knew he should—but something stopped him.

  Why did we put the Bishop in silver manacles?

  “Damn you! Do it!”

  Andri felt his hand moving of its own volition, sliding the key the rest of the way into the lock, twisting …

  “Andri, no!”

  He heard a sound like the whistling wind, then a soft thunk, and the Bishop’s silver dagger was protruding from the tree trunk, bare inches above the manacles and his own hands.

  Irulan shoved him to the ground and turned the key back the other way before Maellas could escape. The Bishop started to shout something, an arcane word of power, and Irulan punched him full in the face, slamming his head up against the tree. Then she pried the dagger out of the pine and held it up to his mouth, running the tip of the blade along his lips.

  “One more word out for you, Your Excellency, and I’ll cut out your Flame-forsaken tongue.”

  Maellas’s mouth snapped shut and he glared.

  “That’s better.” She grabbed the discarded wad of fabric and forced his mouth open. Not bothering to shake off the dirt and ants, she shoved it in so far that he gagged. “Choke on it, you mooncursed bastard.”

  She turned back to Andri. He stared up at her from where he lay on the forest floor, shaking off the last vestiges of Maellas’s charm. Irulan held out a hand to help him up, and he took it, clambering to his feet.

  “Thank you,” he said, his voice quavering. If she had arrived even a few moments later … he shuddered to think what Maellas would have done to him. Though he knew it wasn’t possible for the priest to infect him, he had a sudden vision of himself standing over Irulan, as his father had stood over his mother, and bile burned the back of his throat.

  Never! He would kill himself first.

  He wondered abruptly if Alestair had thought that, too.

  “Don’t mention it,” the shifter woman replied. She was staring at him oddly, and he realized he was still holding her hand, rather too tightly. He quickly let go and began brushing the pine needles from his clothes to cover his embarrassment.

  “Did you find it?”

  “It, and a few other things.” She gestured back over his shoulder, where he saw a black stallion standing at the edge of the clearing, tethered to a tree. Closer to the fire, next to Greddark, was an open saddle bag spilling food out onto the ground and his father’s silver sword, its rubies flashing crimson in the flickering light. “I had a quick look through her saddle bags, just in case she might have left the antidote behind. I found food. And this.” She held out a folded piece of paper to him. “There’s some other interesting stuff in there, too. You might want to take a look yourself, later.”

  Andri took the paper and unfolded it.

  His letter of credit.

  He looked up at Irulan, who smiled wryly. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  As Andri pocketed the letter, Irulan headed back over to the fire. She threw on more wood, then retrieved a pot from her own saddle bags and filled it with water from her canteen. Andri watched as she set it over the newly-fed flames to boil and began preparing the stems from a handful of red flowers. She looked over her shoulder at him.

  “This is going to take a while, if it works at all
. You might as well eat.” As a weak moan escaped from Greddark’s now-bluish lips, she added, “And pray.”

  Andri prayed, ate some bread and cheese from d’Medani’s saddle bag, and prayed some more. Dawn was beginning to filter through the high canopy, and still Irulan fussed with her pot, while Greddark lay as one dead, barely moving or breathing, his once-scorching skin now clammy and pale. After feeding the horses, checking Maellas’s bonds again and wandering aimlessly through their small camp, Andri finally remembered what Irulan had said about the rest of the bounty hunter’s bags.

  He crossed over to the black stallion, who whickered uneasily but allowed the paladin to pet his nose. When he was sure he wouldn’t spook the horse and that it wouldn’t bite him, Andri opened the nearest of the three bags and began looking through it.

  Clothing, some of it quite fine, and some cheap but still fashionable jewelry. This trip hadn’t been strictly business for her, then. Her identification papers were in the second bag, along with the writ for Greddark’s arrest, including a rather good likeness of the dwarf, though Andri thought he looked a fair bit more sinister in real life. The writ had been signed by King Kaius himself, though the surety for the bond was being put up by someone with the unlikely name of Rango ir’Rangoth and not House Medani. He supposed that made sense. Regardless of Greddark’s crimes, House Medani was unlikely to publicly put a price on the dwarf’s head, for fear of angering House Kundarak. He doubted ir’Rangoth actually existed anywhere but on paper.

  There was another piece of paper in the bag, though Andri didn’t notice it at first, as it had been crumpled into a ball. Smoothing it out, he saw that it was a personal letter, addressed to a Julanna d’Medani—the bounty hunter? It was signed only with an “H”—Helanth d’Medani? As he skimmed the body of the letter, he began to understand why the half-elf had been so insistent on bringing Greddark in, even after Andri had paid the bounty.

  … avenge the horrible death of my daughter, your cousin, Yaradala—a death for which you are at least partly responsible, since it was your lapse in surveillance that allowed her to contact the dwarf in the first place. Accordingly, his fate will be yours. You are no longer welcome in the Tower of the Twelve, and if you fail in this mission, you will be stripped of your name and expelled from House Medani forever.

  Do not fail.

  —H

  He almost felt sorry for the bounty hunter, but as he looked over to where Irulan was finally feeding spoonfuls of her dweomer root broth to Greddark, pouring small amounts in through his swollen lips and stroking his throat to get him to swallow, any stirrings of sympathy died stillborn in his heart. Excoriate was better than dead.

  Andri returned the letter and moved on to the third bag. It held manacles, chains, rope, a vial of a gray, oily liquid that he assumed was the dwarfbane, several unpleasant looking knives, and a scroll case. Andri opened one end of the case and eased the scroll out. He unrolled the parchment only far enough to see the first line.

  Think of the place you wish to go. Speak these words, and it shall be so.

  A scroll of teleportation? That could come in handy. “Andri!”

  He turned, shoving the scroll back in the case and dropping it back in the saddle bag.

  “Hurry! I think it’s working.”

  It seemed Andri’s prayers had been answered, for within moments, Greddark’s color and breathing had returned to normal and by midmorning he was sitting up, asking for food. As he ate, Andri related what he’d found in the bounty hunter’s bags. By the time Greddark had finished his second helping of eggs, the dwarf was ready to travel. Luckily, thanks to d’Medani, they wouldn’t have to go far.

  “You’re sure you can get us inside the gates, without getting us … inside the gates?” the inquisitive asked once Andri had revealed his plan. His concern was understandable, given his own unfortunate experiences with teleporting.

  “Do not worry, friend dwarf. I’ve used similar scrolls before, and familiarity with your target destination is not a requirement for their use. But there is likely a weight limit. We must leave the horses behind.”

  “Fine by me,” Irulan muttered, but Greddark protested.

  “Do you know what that warhorse is worth? We could buy a stable full of horses, and a stable boy to feed them, and still have money left over—and that’s if we got a bad deal. Leave the others if you must, but this one comes with us.”

  Andri hid a smile. Obviously, the dwarf was well on his way to a full recovery.

  But they couldn’t afford to bring the stallion. His bulk would only hamper them if they needed to fight in close quarters, and despite Andri’s words to the contrary, he had no way of knowing exactly where they would appear within Aruldusk. Greddark finally agreed, grudgingly, and they began transferring necessary equipment from the saddle bags to their packs. Andri felt a momentary pang of guilt at the thought of leaving the horses to fend for themselves. Still, they were near the edge of the woods and, once out of the forest, they wouldn’t be far from Angwar Keep. The horses would have a good chance of survival. Probably better than their erstwhile riders did. But as long as Maellas was brought to justice, their individual fates were not important. The will of the Flame would be done, regardless of what happened to them. And that was how it should be.

  They made their preparations quickly. The shifter damped the fire and Andri unchained Maellas from the tree, leading the unresisting priest to their staging area. As he neared, the horses whinnied nervously and moved to the other side of the clearing. The last vestiges of Maellas’s non-detection potion must be wearing off, making his nature apparent to the unhappy mounts.

  Good, Andri thought. That would just make their job easier.

  When all was in readiness, they gathered in a circle, Irulan and Greddark grasping Andri’s tabard while the paladin kept a firm grasp on Maellas. With his free hand, he unrolled the teleportation scroll and read it.

  There was an odd lurching sensation, as if they were on a boat in the middle of rough seas, and then the trees and horses were gone, to be replaced by wooden walls, a desk, and three very surprised guards.

  They weren’t just inside the gate. They were inside the gatehouse.

  Andri drew Maellas’s silver dagger and held it to the priest’s throat, while Greddark and Irulan brandished their blades.

  “Don’t,” Andri warned, as one of the guards—the inexperienced Hal—lunged for an alarm bell. “Or the Bishop’s death will be on your hands.”

  Hal stopped in his tracks.

  “Good. Now sit down,” Andri said to the other two, who obeyed after a bit of encouragement from his companions’ swords. “Hal, fetch your captain, and Bishop Xanin. Tell no one else we are here. And move quickly. If you are not back within a bell, we will kill Maellas, and then start on your friends. Now, go!”

  Soon after the guard left, Andri heard a familiar carillon and had to suppress a groan. With everything that had happened in the last few days, he’d forgotten it was Sul, the Day of Cleansing. The odds of Hal getting anywhere near Xanin on such a holy day were so low, not even Greddark would bet on them.

  He was still trying to decide how to get out of making good on his threat when Hal knocked on the door, barely a half bell later. The guard ushered in his captain and Ancillary Bishop Xanin, who was cloaked to disguise his identity. As they crowded into the small room, Andri wondered whether Hal had followed his other instructions as well. Half the garrison could be waiting for them outside. But it really didn’t matter—if they couldn’t convince Xanin of Maellas’s guilt, there was no way any of them were leaving the gatehouse alive.

  Xanin threw his hood back and blanched when he saw Maellas. “It is you. We thought you’d gone on retreat.…” He trailed off, his eyes icing over as he looked from the bound prelate to Andri.

  “What is the meaning of this, Aeyliros? Not only have you defied yet another official edict by returning here, but you have added the charges of kidnapping and assaulting a Bishop to your long list
of sins! Have you abandoned your faith completely? Or just your wits? Not even the Keeper’s favor is going to get you out of this fix, boy.”

  Andri couldn’t blame the priest. If someone had told him a month ago that he would soon be holding a knife to a Bishop’s throat after having been exiled from that same Bishop’s city, he would have thought they were mad. Was it any wonder Xanin was now questioning his sanity? He’d questioned it himself more than a few times since this whole affair began.

  “Her Holiness charged me with apprehending the murderer who has terrorized Aruldusk over the course of this past year, Your Excellency,” he said, more calmly than he felt, “and that’s what I have done.”

  Xanin’s blonde eyebrows fairly shot off his forehead. “Bishop Maellas?” he exclaimed. “You are insane.”

  “Not at all. Our investigation revealed that the true murderer was not a shifter, or even a group of them, but a werewolf. Surely you would agree that is a far more plausible explanation?”

  Xanin’s brows descended as his eyes narrowed. “Even if it is,” he replied, “what has that got to do with the Bishop?”

  “Allow me to show you.” He looked at the captain, who had been following their exchange with interest. “Captain, would you hand your dagger to Master d’Kundarak, please?”

  The soldier hesitated, looking to Xanin for direction. The Ancillary Bishop gave a curt nod. The captain withdrew his blade from the sheath strapped to his thigh and handed it to Greddark, hilt first. The dwarf then exchanged daggers with Andri, keeping the silver weapon firmly pointed at Maellas while Andri hefted the captain’s blade, a simple, non-magical dagger with a keen edge.

  Then, before anyone could react, he spun and plunged the blade into Maellas’s naked chest.

  Xanin cried out in horror, and the soldiers rushed forward, only to be held at bay by Irulan’s longsword and Greddark’s alchemy blade, which now burned with a bright yellow fire.

  Andri withdrew the dagger while Maellas thrashed about, helpless in his silver chains. Silence descended in the small room as the wound closed of its own accord, leaving no blood—or indeed any sign at all that the elf had ever been injured.