Dawnbringer: A Forgotten Realms Novel (25 page)

Vorsha’s hand tightened. “I want you to promise me—and your uncle—that you will wear it at all times. On the journey to Jadaren Hold, and while you live there.”

Kestrel’s thumb rubbed the curve of the bead reflexively. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mother. You don’t seriously think Arna’s family—or Arna—wish me harm.”

“Honestly? I don’t suspect that boy of anything but loyalty to his family. And it’s clear he’s fond of you. I
think you have as good a chance for happiness as anybody. But this feud has lived longer than any of us, and there might be those in that fortress they call home who still believe in it.”

Like your uncle, she thought, and she knew Kestrel thought it as well.

“Please, Kestrel. Sanwar’s very fond of you. He was most insistent that you should wear it.”

Kestrel sighed and put the charm carefully on the desk beside her ledger book.

“Very well. At the least, it’s very pretty.”

She closed her eyes and let her head dip back. “Brush my hair some more, Mother. It’s the last time you’ll be able to do it for a while, and I don’t want to shock my future in-laws with my hellion appearance. They might back out of the deal.”

“I doubt that,” said Vorsha, picking up the hairbrush, while thinking it might not be a bad thing, after all, if they did.

Early the next morning, the traveling party assembled in the courtyard outside the stables. The new brick paving protected their shoes and the hems of their cloaks from the dust that, no matter how often the area was swept, wisped across the packed dirt where the wagons passed. Ansel Chuit stood near Kestrel, his blue uniform newly pressed and every button shining. His eyes were in constant motion, surveying every corner of the yard as if brigands were likely to be lurking there, and his hand
was near the hilt of his sword, as if he would fight every one of them.

“I think I’m safe enough here,” whispered Kestrel, amused.

“We thought that on the road to Shadrun,” replied the young guard, without looking at her. “And I don’t intend to make that mistake again.”

Ciari was directing the servants in their loading of bundles and trunks onto the wagon with her accustomed vigor, but Kestrel couldn’t help but notice she had a satisfied, satiated expression on her face, not unlike a cat’s. Vidor Druit was not in evidence, but she wouldn’t be surprised if Ciari announced her own intention to marry within the next season or so.

Nicole Beguine spoke to Sanwar, with Vorsha standing a little apart. Kestrel’s parents, along with Ciari, were to accompany her to Jadaren Hold for the wedding, while Sanwar would stay in Nonthal to supervise the thousands of minutiae intrinsic to a merchant’s business. It was a relief to Kestrel and, she supposed, to her uncle that he would not attend the wedding, openly hostile and distrustful as he was toward the Jadarens.

Kestrel watched her father and her uncle speak, and it suddenly struck her how worn and gray Nicol looked next to Sanwar. The brothers were only two years apart, but Nicol looked twenty years older at least, his complexion muddy and his face gaunt, whereas Sanwar had kept the ruddy olive Beguine coloring, and his shoulders beneath his cloak were wide and muscular. Kestrel felt stricken that she hadn’t noticed her father’s ill health before. He’d seemed well enough when she
left to journey to Shadrun-of-the-Snows. When she returned, he was under the weather, claiming to have only a slight cold. She thought he’d recovered, but perhaps he never quite got over it, losing a little more strength every day.

She saw her mother glance from Nicol to Sanwar, and a frown creased her forehead. She must have noticed the difference as well. Perhaps a journey in the open air, away from the cares of business, would be good for him.

The brothers clasped hands, and Sanwar came to Kestrel.

“I wish you the best, Niece,” he said as kindly as he had when she was a little girl and he brought her and Ciari little trinkets from his travels abroad. He hadn’t spoken to her like that for a long time, she thought as she embraced him. He held her by the shoulders, and Kestrel realized what he was looking for beneath the ties of her new traveling robe.

With a laugh she loosed the ties and showed him where the charm lay on her breast, the gold and copper wires inside glinting in the sun that was breaking through the morning clouds.

“Not to worry, Uncle, I have it,” she told him. “And I’ve promised Mother I’ll wear it always.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and touched the glass bead with the tip of his finger, pressing it slightly so it indented her skin. She felt a vague prickling sensation, just short of a sting, at the close contact. Perhaps it was the magic.

“This eases my mind, Kestrel,” he said. “Even if your husband’s motives are pure, there are still those who might seek advantage in harming you. My little charm
won’t turn a blade aside, and it won’t neutralize poison—you must still watch against those—but it will ward off a curse or a malicious spell. Thank you for listening to an old man’s request.”

Kestrel smiled in return. Over his shoulder she saw her mother, now beside Nicol, staring at Sanwar’s back. Of late Kestrel had wondered if her mother and Sanwar had argued. The odd tension that always seemed between them had intensified. Still, Vorsha had brought her the charm at Sanwar’s behest. She hoped that whatever disagreement they had had, they could resolve it. Family ought to get along.

Sanwar felt the magic from the amulet tingle through his finger and his hand and up his arm, painful yet pleasurable at the same time. It had taken a day of concentrated work to craft the object—weaving three of Kestrel’s hairs and one of his own into the correct configuration, adding the proper elements, making his will and desire a tangible thing, and melting it along with the glass. All the time that strange geometrical figure that he’d copied from the wall of the sanctuary cell glowed dark purple on parchment, pulsing before him like a steady flicker.

He had begun constructing the charm with knowledge gleaned from his books, but as he progressed, words formed in his head, droning with a steady rhythm like that on the parchment and stringing themselves like beads on a thread until they made coherent instructions of how to bend a strand of melted glass so; how to pull a
grain of pigment through the charm’s substance; how to make such a small object brim with unrealized Power.

He hadn’t lied. The charm would protect his daughter from magical attack until the time was right, and all his pieces were in place.…

Patience
, whispered the voice from the sanctuary. Sanwar had patience and briefly cupped Kestrel’s cheek in his hand.

“Come, Kestrel,” called Vorsha. “Ciari says the horses are ready.”

“Your mother calls,” said Sanwar, winking, and Kestrel winked back.

The seasons passed, as they always had, at the sanctuary in the mountains. The Jadaren-Beguine marriage was accomplished with no more disruptions other than the fluctuations in the market values of certain goods, adjusted to account for the new friendships, enmities, contracts, and opportunities taking place in the mysterious alchemy of the merchant trade. Even Sanwar Beguine, it seemed, had bowed his head to the inevitable and not opposed his niece’s wedding. Rich gifts and plentiful supplies were sent to Shadrun-of-the-Snows from House Jadaren and House Beguine in token of gratitude for the sanctuary’s help.

The Vashtun died, and his Second, Diamar, took his place, by custom losing his name in the process. He designated a new Second, who took in his turn the name Diamar, strengthening the rumors that the Vashtun of Shadrun and his Second were immortal and eternal.

It seemed to Lakini that the new Vashtun, through his Second, took more of an interest in the doings and machinations of the outside world than the guardians of the sanctuary had done before. Emissaries from the ruling families and councils of the surrounding lands often visited now, following the example of the Beguines and the Jadarens, and were closeted with Diamar in a chamber, the walls of which were almost completely covered in strange and elaborate mathematical figures. Merchant families other than Houses Jadaren and Beguine came to the safe and neutral space Shadrun provided. Travelers arrived from all over Faerûn, as they had in the past, but now they seemed to come more to gawk at the sanctuary’s increasing treasures and to listen to the stories itinerant bards told in the Great Hall than to meditate in the presence of the holy.

Time after time, Lakini almost brought herself to ask Lusk to take to the road with her again, to tread the dust of Faerûn, to seek evil where it laired, to come to the aid of those who prayed for help, to become the earthly embodiment of the will of the gods. But Lusk seemed to relish the increased prominence of Shadrun-of-the-Snow, and he spoke whenever he could with the councilors to faraway kings, queens, protectors, regents, thrones, and dominions. Lakini considered pressing the
point, or taking to the road herself, but whenever she steeled herself to it, some voice in her innermost mind would object, telling her to stay, telling her that her duty lay in remaining the sanctuary’s protector, and that this was the will of the gods that she sought.

That changed the day she and Lusk were patrolling the wooded slopes below Rophile’s Crevasse, and her sensitive deva’s nose caught an ominous, coppery smell in the air. Lusk caught it as well, and after they cast about and sniffed at the small breezes that danced about the mountain, Lakini pointed out a clearing a half mile away that pilgrims sometimes used as a camp spot.

The dull, heavy smell of blood grew stronger as they approached the clearing, and Lakini twitched her nose and shifted her shoulder into the position she took in battle stance, so she could more quickly grasp the hilt of the greatsword slung over her back. Lusk walked behind her and slightly to one side, glancing left and right into the darkness between the trees with a distracted frown.

Almost to the clearing, an unpleasant tang undercut the oppressive copper smell of blood. Lakini laid her right hand on the hilt of the sword, its familiar, worn, warm feel a comfort. Without thinking about it, Lusk shifted to the left behind her, out of the reach of the backswing the blade would make if she drew it. It was a move that grew naturally from years of experience fighting together, where knowing each move one’s partner was likely to make was as important to survival as predicting one’s enemy’s tactics.

At the lip of the clearing Lakini stopped.

“Ah, Sweet Mother,” she swore, taking in the scene before her.

Only one of the halflings had had time to draw his weapon. The short dagger lay loose in his fist. Rigor had worn off several hours before. In death he must have clutched it tightly. He sprawled near the edge of the clearing, his eyes still wide and surprised. Lakini kneeled beside him and shuddered to see ants crawling across the dull-filmed surface of his eyeball. Carefully she shifted his head, and it lolled back loosely, half-severed from the neck by a deep slice. The killer—or killers—must have taken out the lookout first. He was lucky. He had died quickly, unlike his companions.

In the center of the clearing, beside the ashy remains of a dead campfire, another diminutive figure lay crumpled. Lakini’s gaze was drawn, however, to the dreadful sight splayed across the trunk of a large tree that stood, bare of branches ten feet up, at the opposite end of the campsite.

Cautiously she rose, forcing herself closer to the blood-soaked nightmare, listening always for the rustling of leaves that might betray the return of the creatures that did this deed, aware of Lusk on the alert behind her.

The halfling’s arms had been bound at an unnatural angle tight around the tree, so tight the rough bark had torn the sleeves of his homespun shirt. His feet were tied together with many loops of rope and also anchored around the trunk. His head dangled limply between his wrenched shoulder blades.