Mistshore (29 page)

“He doesn’t look nice,” Borion said.

The man with the crossbow was talking to the girl; they couldn’t hear what was said. The girl cast the rags over herself. Her body shriveled and transformed, assuming a horrifying shape.

Borion clutched Trik’s arm. “What’d he do to her?” he said, frantic. “He’s cursed her!”

Trik shook him off. “No, he didn’t. He’s no wizard, not a dark god’s priest, either. It’s just a disguise, so people won’t know who she is. Doesn’t matter, though, we’ve already seen her.”

“We should tell the elf,” Borion said. The elf would come and get the girl, and they could finally leave Mistshore.

“Still trying to think, are we?” Trik said. “Don’t you remember, we’re supposed to bring the girl to the elf. Then we get our reward.”

“But it’s only the two of us,” Borion said. “I thought the elf wanted us to tell him so all of us could go after her together.”

“The elf hasn’t managed to do anything right since we started this chase,” Trik said angrily. “We bring the girl to him, we get more coin than the others, and we get out of here sooner. That sounds right to me, Boss. What about you?”

The explanation sounded simple enough, but it still bothered Borion. He tried to put the doubts out of his mind. He could never remember anything properly. Maybe Trik was right, and it would be better to bring the girl directly to the elf. It would save time, and Borion wanted to get out of Mistshore more than anything.

“What’s the plan?” Borion asked.

“Well, seeing as that fellow with the crossbow’s not one of us, he must be a Watch spawn in disguise. First we take her from him, but we have to make sure he doesn’t shoot her, or us. Think you can get the crossbow if I get him?”

“Yes,” Borion said. The one thing he was good at was taking things. Lately they were objects from tombs and tuins, but he’d taken people before, for coin or food.

“Let’s go, then,” Trik said. “There’s a lady in distress.”

Icelin walked slowly. It was difficult to see out from under the raggedy hood and difficult to think with the tip of a crossbow bolt shoved into her spine. Tarvin wasn’t taking any chances. He kept her close, one hand on the crossbow trigger and the other on her arm to steer her in the right direction.

They were headed back to the Dusk and Dawn. It made sense as a meeting spot for the Watch patrols, especially if they were moving around without their official regalia. Would Kersh be among them? Icelin hadn’t thought of her friend in days. Her former life seemed nothing more than a distant dream.

They reached an intersection. The pathway to the left ended in collapse, wooden planks floating on the water. The other three paths were intact. Tarvin pointed her to the right. Icelin paused to pick her footing and thought she heard the clicking of boots echoing off the planks behind them.

She tried to turn, but Tarvin twisted her arm painfully. “No going back,” he said. “Face front, keep marching.” “There’s someone behind us,” Icelin said. “Can’t you hear?” “To get behind us they’d have to swim,” Tarvin said. “We’re alone out here, and if you stall me again I’ll put a limp in your step.”

He forced her forward. Stumbling, Icelin went, but she could feel eyes on them. She couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore, and that made the sensation worse.

Could it be Ruen? If it was, you’d never have heard him, she told herself. Not that she should expect a rescue from that corner, which meant the eyes behind them were probably unfriendly.

Icelin searched her mind for a spell. There were empty corridors all throughout her mind. She’d spent herself of all but the harshest spells. She couldn’t risk her magic going wild now.

“Tarvin, please,” she said, “think. What if—”

She angled her head in time to see the board. It was one of the planks from the collapsed walkway. She saw it pass out of her peripheral vision and instinctively dropped to the walkway.

She twisted; Tarvin still gripped her arm. He cried out, but the board silenced him. It smashed him in the side of the head.

Icelin heard a weird, hollow crunch. Tarvin slumped to a half-sitting position on the walkway. She could already see he was dead.

Icelin went for his hands, seeking the crossbow, but it was gone. Two pairs of boots filled her vision, one of the pairs at least two sizes bigger than the other. She looked up to see a man as tall as Sull and twice as round. He held Tarvin’s crossbow like it was a toy. He had brown hair and a long shirt that he’d belted clumsily below his gut. His clothes were soaking wet.

His partner was slicker, his dark hair shaved to stubble. He had green eyes above a pointed nose. His clothes were saturated too.

“It’s amazing how often, in Waterdeep, the goods change hands,” the slick man said. In response, the giant pointed the crossbow at her. “You can take off the cloak, though. We’re not so nasty as the Watch.”

Icelin slid the cloak off her shoulders. She cast it into the harbor. “So you belong to Cerest?” she said.

The slick man took umbrage at that. “We’re treasure hunters. You just happen to be the treasure tonight.”

“I see,” Icelin said. “How wonderful for me.”

The giant looked uncomfortable. “Shouldn’t we be going, Trik?”

“Soon, Boss,” the slick man said. “Hands in front of you, lady. I haven’t forgotten you’re a spell hurler.”

Icelin put her hands together while Trik tied them. They stood on the walkway, and a breath later they all heard the approaching footsteps. It was something akin to a herd of elephants charging in from the sea.

Icelin turned. Horror crashed over her. “Sull, no!”

The butcher barreled into the two men from behind. He got both arms around the giant, pinning the crossbow against his side. Icelin didn’t think the man could be moved, but Sull hauled him off his feet and slammed him to the walkway.

He went for his cleaver, but the giant kicked sideways, sweeping Sull’s legs out from under him. The butcher twisted and came down on top of the giant. Part of the walkway splintered and collapsed into the harbor, but the big men didn’t notice. They were wrestling each other with a vengeance, punching and kicking and grabbing at hair. They might have been children, but the blows they landed were hard enough to break bone.

“Settle ‘im!” Trik said. He started forward to aid the giant.

Icelin brought her bound arms up, smashing Trik in the face. He took the blow in complete surprise, his jaw cracking painfully into her knuckles. He staggered back. She drove him forward, trying to push him off into the water, but he caught himself against a piling.

He hooked an arm around her waist and swept her back. She tripped over his leg and fell on her side on the walkway. Her head smacked the wood, and her teeth clamped painfully together. She bit her tongue and tasted blood. Dazed, she tried to get up, but the world swam in and out of focus.

“Don’t worry, lass,” she heard Sull cry, “I’ve rolled bigger hunks of beef than this lout. I’m comin—” He took a punch to the jaw. Plucking the giant’s fist out of his cheek, Sull gleefully bit the pudgy fingers.

Icelin saw Trik stand up, his shadow blocking out the torchlight across the walkway. He drew a knife from his belt and waded into the tangle of legs.

No, no, Icelin thought. She lunged for Trik’s ankle, missed, and lost her breath again when she came down on her chest. Forcing herself to her knees, she bit into the knots binding her hands. She managed to loosen them enough to slip the rope off, but Trik had moved out of reach.

I’m not going to make it, she thought. “Sull, Sull!” she screamed. “Get back—Ruen!” Where was Ruen? And Bellaril?

“Hold him,” Trik yelled.

The giant rolled onto his back, pulling Sull on top of him. He locked his arms in an arrowhead across Sull’s chest. The butcher wheezed, his face turning bright red. He couldn’t break the grip.

“You want to… get… ‘fectionate… with me… do you?” Sull jammed his elbow into the giant’s gut. The giant grunted, but he didn’t let go. Sull drove the elbow in again, and again.

Each blow contorted the giant’s face. He coughed, blood dripping down his chin. Both the men panted furiously, but the giant maintained his grip.

“Hurry… Trik,” the giant moaned. His head lolled to one side. His eyes were black glass.

Icelin tried to call a spell. Ice. Fire. Wind. She couldn’t find them. Pain and fear took her down twisting corridors in her mind, places that led to songs and stories and visions of her great-uncle, dead in her arms, and Sull’s face, his wild red hair.

Concentrate!

But the magic wouldn’t answer. The pain in her head blocked it all out. Her body was trying to protect itself, to preserve the few uncorrupted parts she had left.

Icelin gave up. She was searching blind. Instead she concentrated on Trik’s dagger. He held the weapon crosswise in his hand. He wanted a quick slash to the throat. A quick cut, and Sull would be gone.

A quick cut. She repeated it, and suddenly everything crystallized in her mind. The alternate paths fell away, leaving her

a clear line to the tower. She ran for the door, threw it off its hinges. The spell was waiting, had been waiting, for her to get past the fear. It appeared as a glowing tome of light in the middle of the room.

“Sull, roll him!” she cried. “Keep moving!” She whispered the spell, her voice cracking.

Over the arcane phrases, she heard more footsteps charging down the walkway. Shouts, Bellaril’s voice. So far away. They might have been coming from the other side of the city.

She risked a glance at Sull, but kept her concentration fully on the spell.

He wasn’t moving. He knew the knife was coming, but he wasn’t struggling anymore. She saw a strange, peaceful expression settling over his face. He gazed over Trik’s shoulder at her, and the look in his eyes held such a boundless affection and acceptance that Icelin felt her heart tearing open.

Go, his eyes told her. I’m fine, now.

Trik came forward. Icelin screamed the rest of the spell. The words were fire in her throat’. She felt the spell hold, and the scene erupted in shadows of torch and spell light.

Icelin’s world lost focus. The pain was unbearable. The spell burst from her like something newly born. She could only crouch on the walkway and hope that she lived through it.

Streams of metallic force shot from her outstretched hands. They quivered and solidified in the air. Passing each other, they encircled Trik at the chest and legs, tightening into two confining bands.

His balance gone, Trik pitched forward, collapsing half on Sull and half on the walkway. The magic held him immobile.

“Sull!” She came up to her knees, forcing her body to move. There was blood running down her forehead. She must have hit her head harder than she’d thought. Everything was tilting, the torchlight was too bright, but Sull…

The giant let go, freeing one of Sull’s arms. The butcher

reared back, trying to get a hand on the giant’s throat. He didn’t see the giant pick up Trik’s discarded knife, or turn it toward Sull’s chest.

“Sull.” The name framed her lips, but there was no sound. The dagger went into Sull’s chest and pinned his leather sash to his body. He fell back, and the giant fell on top of him.

In the same breath, Icelin felt the backlash from her spell. There was a distant drumming, the blood forcing its way through her body. Her skull felt tight. Would the vessels burst and her mind go dark? Yes. She welcomed it.

Sull’s lifeblood dripped between the planks, crimson on the brown water. The colors were just like Ruen’s eyes.

Icelin felt herself fall, half-curled into a ball. She could see Sull’s face. He was looking at her, the fear intense in his gaze.

Not for himself, Icelin thought. He didn’t care at all that he was bleeding to death from a chest wound. He was trying to get up, to get to her. To see if she was safe.

She could hear Ruen’s voice now. He came into view, running full out down the walkway. She saw his floppy hat bobbing. He grabbed the giant, peeling him off Sull like a fly. Before he could raise the dagger, Ruen grabbed him from behind, pushed his knee into the small of his back, and used both hands to pull the giant’s head back.

There was a soft popping noise, and the giant went limp.

His spine, Icelin thought, snapped in one movement. Such a small sound on such a big man. But Ruen had known exactly what he was doing. He dropped the giant’s body and went for Trik, a bland expression on his face. Same intentions, his course set.

He grabbed the spell bands that held the smaller man. When he was sure they were secure, he dragged Trik to the edge of the walkway.

“No, please!” Trik cried, when he realized what Ruen intended. He kicked and struggled, but Ruen kept dragging

him. His expression didn’t change. “Not the water, don’t!”

“Ruen,” Icelin said, but it was too soft for him to hear. He gazed at Trik’s frantic expression reflected in the water. “Ruen,” she said, louder.

The monk paused and turned to look at her. His face visibly softened. He started toward her but checked himself. He looked from the water to Icelin, as if he were suddenly waking from a dream.

“Leave him,” Icelin gasped. The blood pounded a sick rhythm against het temples. “Check on… Sull.”

Ruen nodded and left Trik at the edge of the walkway, facedown toward the water.

He crossed to Sull and examined the butcher’s wound. When he saw all the blood, he turned to the giant’s body. He fisted his hands in the giant’s baggy shirt and ripped the fabric down the middle. The tearing was loud in the darkness. He stripped the giant to the waist and left the body where it was.

“Help me,” he told Bellaril.

The dwarf came around to Sull’s other side. Together they hoisted the butcher into a half sitting position. Bellaril put her back against Sull’s to prop him up.

Ruen looped the ruined shirt around Sull’s middle, tying off the end under his armpit to try to slow the flow of blood. Bellaril gently laid him back horizontal.

“He’ll live for a while,” Ruen said.

Icelin put her head down to quiet the spinning, the roaring blood. She heard Bellaril’s footsteps, a short, heavy tread that stopped behind her.