Ghostwalker (2 page)

Greyt smiled as he pulled his golden wood yarting from beneath his cloak. He strummed a perfect chord on the gilded instrument.

The crowd erupted into cheering as the Lord Singer began a raucous and comical story about a wandering lady, a dimwitted squire, and the dragon he had lost. The lewder adventures drew shocked gasps from the younger ladies, roaring laughter from the men, and giggles from more than a few older women. Mothers, stifling guffaws, remembered themselves and covered their children’s ears.

Greyt saw two of his closest friends—Drex Redgill and Bilgren Bladefist—in the back of the crowd, roaring drunk, alternately shouting challenges to young rangers in the square and making lecherous comments to serving wenches. Just like in their adventuring days, Greyt mused.

The Lord Singer saw Bilgren shove one man down and steal his sweetheart—or strumpet, as the case may have been. Greyt decided it was time to change key.

The song took on an epic tone as he began a ballad of battles. Greyt sang of Quaervarr’s victory against Fierce Eye’s giants in the Year of Moonsfall, 1344: he sang of the glorious defense and of the heroic Raven Claw band—his own adventuring group.

Meanwhile, he plied his bardic magic through the music, creating curtains of flame and illusions of brave knights, fierce giants, and dancing dragons to amaze the crowd. Drex and Bilgren calmed and joined in the singing, lending their slurred voices to the cacophony. Even the sneering half-elf Torlic, the only other surviving member of the Raven Claw band, watched from the edge of the crowd. The people cheered, enraptured. Greyt almost enjoyed it.

He sang a third ballad, this one again about Quaervarr: the well-known legend of the Ghostly Lady who haunted the Dark Woods to the west. It had started one night over a century ago—a night of fire and death woven by a beautiful angel of fury. The druids of the Oak House—an order recently established at that time—had fought her and ended the threat with her death, but the town thrived on stories that called her alive and well, or perhaps undead and well, haunting the woods. More than a few children—and some who were older than children—shivered at Greyt’s tale and smiled all the wider for it.

There was a moment of silence. The yarting fell still, and the people grew silent. After allowing the tension to build, Greyt began the story of Gharask Child-killer, the mad lord, his own father, and the tragic disappearances fifteen years before, when nine of the town’s children had fallen to the mad hand of—

Greyt’s fingers faltered and his voice cracked for the first time in thirty years as a bard.

A cloud uncovered the moon and he saw a figure clad all in black watching his performance as it walked over the crest of the hill at the edge of town. The figure wasn’t just watching him, though—it was staring right through him. Even at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile, Greyt could feel that gaze, palpable and fierce, boring into him, seeing through his art, and searching his very soul.

“A ghost that walks. …” he breathed. The legend of Walker of the woods had long been the subject of hunters’ whispers and boys’ blustering—but it was just a ghost story. Nothing more than foolish child’s play.

He blinked, and the dark figure was gone as though it had never been.

The Lord Singer realized he had paused for a full breath at his father’s name, and the villagers were looking at him in shock. He gave a little shrug and tried to begin again, but he had lost the note. He flashed a dazzling smile, bowed, and proceeded to hurry off the stage to uncertain applause. Meris was there, smirking, and near him the sharp-eyed Torlic, but Greyt skulked past. Speaker Geth Stonar, mopping his thick forehead, moved to stop him, but the bard stormed on.

His mind reeled. He wanted to dismiss the incident as a mere trick of the light, or the result of too much wine, but those had never broken his song before. Perhaps he was just getting old.

It began to rain, a bitter, cold cloudburst, and Lord Dharan Greyt shivered.

The streets emptied soon after the rain began. The few hundred citizens of Quaervarr dispersed into the town’s several common rooms to celebrate with ales and friends or scurried back to their homes, where they might celebrate in a more private, intimate fashion.

For Drex Redgill, the latter was the case. Roaring drunk, the man bid farewell to his friend Bilgren and staggered home with his squire and servants, eagerly seeking his room and the half-elf lass hired for the occasion. His was a large house in the south part of town, girded on every corner by watchtowers and guards.

The stranger knew this because he watched it all from the shadows.

Walker considered the scale of this duel. Guards didn’t make for a fair confrontation. Of course, once Walker penetrated the house, the scales would tip in the other direction. Did two inequalities make equality? He did not care. Fairness seemed like something his father would scold him about. If Tarm could speak, that was.

As for how to get in… There was only one way in.

“Cold as winter,” he whispered. His voice was a deep rasp.

The guards started when a man dressed in black melted from the shadows a short distance away and took a step toward them. A sweeping, tattered cloak fanned out behind him. Dark, rain-slick hair that might have been brown fell to his shoulders in a ragged mass. His collar was pulled up high, obscuring his mouth. But more than anything else, he wore resolution around him like a mantle. The intensity of his deep blue eyes was chilling. This man seemed a demon in flesh.

“Oi, where did ye come from?” the scarred one asked. “Ye don’t be no friend o’ Jarthon, do ye?” The second, much younger guard shook himself from his stupor and hefted his halberd.

The phantom man planted a fist in the first man’s face. Blood burst from the guard’s nose and he staggered back. The young man let the halberd fall from his cold fingers in surprise. The weapon clattered to the ground with a loud rattle and he grabbed for it with an oath.

The scarred guard yanked out a sword and thrust, but the phantom slapped the blade away and punched the guard hard in the stomach. The older man went down to his knees.

“Gods be curs—” the guard managed. Then a foot met his face and ended his obscenities.

The younger guard, eyes wild with terror, managed to draw his short sword. As if he had sensed the blade, the dark man turned toward the guard, throwing his cloak out wide.

Shaking, the guard thrust blindly into the shadow.

To his surprise, the blade sank home, drawing blood, and the phantom staggered and fell to the ground. The guard’s blade went with it, red fluid leaking around the sharp steel.

The clouds chose that moment to release their rain.

It took the younger guard twenty breaths to steady himself. He was too terrified to be ashamed, shaking like a goblin before a dragon.

The other guard, recovered from the stranger’s attack, slapped him on the side of the head. “Oaf!” he shouted at the boy. “Ye didn’t ‘ave to kill him! How’re we going to explain this? A drunk wanders up after the party an’ ye spit him? Are ye stupid?”

“But…” the youth stammered as his scarred companion knelt to examine the body. He had never killed a man before. “I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, ‘tis sure ye didn’t mean,” the older guard mocked. He felt at the dark man’s throat. “Damn. ‘E be dead.” He reached out and punched the youth’s thigh. “Idiot! At least help me dispose o’ the poor bastard, aye?”

Together, they hoisted the dark figure up and dragged him to the alley near Drex’s house, where they unceremoniously dumped the body. The youth started off, shaking, but remembered and reclaimed his short sword, yanking it from the dark man’s belly. The blade made a sickly squishing sound coming out of the flesh. The youth wiped it on the dead man’s cloak.

Not much blood. The man didn’t seem to bleed much, now that he was dead.

The older guard drew the man’s silvery sword and stuck it in the hole in his side. The handle was bitterly cold, and the blade seemed almost translucent in the moonlight, prompting both guards to make the warding gesture of Silvanus.

An accident, a passerby would think, with Tymora’s blessing. Lord Singer Greyt would be another matter, but he need not know.

“C’mon.” The scarred guardsman spat at the youth. “Come, afore someone be seein’ us.”

They left the body slumped in the alleyway and hurried away.

The rain chilled to the bone.

Walker waited until they were gone before opening his eyes. The sword—his sword—in his side hurt, but Walker was used to pain. He grasped the sword hilt and pulled the weapon out. The wound began to mend, thanks to his ring. He rubbed the silver wolf’s head with its single sapphire eye and empty socket. At least the guards had not noticed the shine of silver and taken the ring from his cold, “dead” finger.

“Still as death,” Walker said quietly as he sheathed his sword.

He had almost achieved his goal. The wall of the house of Drex was not an arm’s length away.

Closing his eyes and laying his hands upon the stones, Walker allowed himself to slip into the Ethereal, where he existed but could barely feel his body. Only the heat of his hate differentiated him from the icy darkness. The world became dusky, shapes and objects mere blurry masses, and the moonlight turned into a soft, muddy radiance. He let his body relax, felt his weight lighten, and he could feel a gentle tug, the pull toward somewhere else….

Walker tapped into powers few could understand and even fewer dared touch and walked into the wall.

And through the wall.

In a heartbeat, he was inside Drex’s mansion. He let the ghostly power slide from him but maintained his focus. His body became heavier and he could feel the air around him. He sensed the warmth radiating from a distant hearth, where a fire still smoldered. He was tempted to move toward that heat, but he put the ache aside.

He would not fail in this. He could not fail.

He moved through the hallways as a black fish moves through a dark stream. Two servants passed, carrying a basket of woolens and a platter of empty plates and tankards respectively, and Walker did not hinder them, hiding against the wall with ease.

As Walker turned a corner, a guardsman carrying a candle almost ran into him. “Wha—” the man started.

Walker’s sword was out, darting for the guard’s life. Light from the spilling candle flashed along its mithral surface, dazzling the guard. The man stumbled back and set a hand on his own weapon, but before he could draw he stopped, shuddered, and slumped down, gagging. The dying guard glimpsed the dagger standing out of his throat then stared at the gleam of Walker’s mithral blade, still distracting him even after the real attack had come.

Walker whispered an apology over the body—the guard had not been his target. He knelt and recovered his knife with a quick jerk. Blood splashed on his cloak but did not discolor the black.

Black absorbs blood, Walker mused wryly. Black covers all things and hides all hurts.

Drex’s bedchamber stood within half a dozen paces. Though he had no foreknowledge of the house, he could recognize the grunting and yelping sounds coming from behind the door easily enough. With a dismissive shake of his head, he turned the handle, silently opened the door, and slipped into the warm room.

Drex was in bed, and he was not alone. Walker averted his eyes and drifted silently over to an axe on the mantelpiece.

Rain pounded on the wooden roof overhead and on the shutters. A fire was sputtering and dying on the hearth, and he could feel the enticing heat as he neared it. Walker had known so little warmth that he found it succulent, fulfilling, and altogether intoxicating. He could have forgotten his purpose and just sat, watching the fading flames spark and flicker. They called to him….

But the voices he heard were those of spirits rather than flames, hissing whispers of unwanted memories of pain and hatred. The fragments of words cut like knives.

He stood, tall and slim, and pulled his cloak around him. Lightning flashed and thunder growled outside. He waited, motionless and prepared. It fell to his enemy to make the first move. Drex would notice his presence when he was no longer distracted.

Soon enough, Drex’s eye happened to wander the room and alight on Walker. Or, rather, his looming shadow on the wall.

“Who’s there?” Drex stuttered, shoving the lass away.

Walker didn’t answer. He merely stood, blending in with the surrounding dark, but Drex met his terrible gaze and the rest of the world seemed to slide away.

Drex sat bolt upright in bed, startling his courtesan. “Who in the Nine Hells are you?” he roared, now angry. The older man was from the south, by his accent. Walker remembered that.

And more.

A memory washed over him: Pain, blood. Drex’s laughter. Swords… death….

“I am tears on the mountain,” Walker said. His voice was a rasp, a deep, throaty whisper. “I am the chill in the night. I hunt with the spirits, and I walk with the dead… as will you.” He put his hand on his sword hilt. “Soon.”

Drex shivered at the intensity of that glare, but he sprang from bed all the same. He yanked the blanket with him, revealing the cowering woman, who screamed and curled into a ball. He wound it around himself to cover his nakedness.

In truth, Walker did not care. He kept his arms crossed and his gaze level.

“Pretty speech,” Drex chuckled. His hair was gray now. Different. “One of Greyt’s ‘prentices, eh?”

Walker felt a flicker of irony, but the feeling passed. His neutral frown was hidden behind the twin flaps of his high collar. Lightning flashed again. Drex was approaching fifty now, almost double Walker’s age. They stalked around each other.

“Sounds like something out of the Singer’s songs, lad,” Drex said. “So what, you barge into my room in the night to tell me a children’s rhyme? You think I’m in the mood?” He laughed and gestured to the terrified woman.

“Apparently not,” Walker replied in a monotone. He remembered the axe, the blood running down his chest and arms, the murderers standing over him…