The Ghost King (27 page)

She heard a loud popping sound and knew it was a prelude to agony. Indeed, the waves that came at her had her doubled over and vomiting.

But she could see her shoulder, aligned once more, and the pain fast subsided. She could even move her arm again, though the slightest motion hurt badly.

She stood leaning against the stone wall for a long while, falling within herself to find a place of calm against the furious storm that roiled in her battered form.

When she at last opened her eyes, she first focused upon one of the fallen crawlers, flattened and splattered against the ground. She managed to look up behind her, up the cliff, thinking of the dracolich and what she had to do to warn those who might help her defeat the beast.

She looked south, guided by her mothering instincts, toward the road to Carradoon and her children, and there she desperately wanted to go. But she focused on an area not so far to the south, trying to get a sense of the valley in proportion to the direct north-south trail to Spirit Soaring.

Danica nodded, recognizing that she wouldn’t have to cross the mountainous barrier to find that road. Fairly certain of her location—she was in a deep valley several miles from the cathedral—she started away on unsteady legs, her ankle threatening to roll under her with each step.

Soon after, she was leaning on a walking stick, fighting the pain and dreading the trail up to her home. The road was much steeper than the trail from Carradoon, and she toyed with the idea of continuing all the way around to the port city, then using the more passable pathways instead.

She couldn’t help but laugh at herself for that feeble justification. She’d lose a day and more of travel time taking that route, a day and more Cadderly and the others didn’t have to spare.

She came upon the north-south road some time after highsun, her strength sapped, her clothes sticking to her with sweat. Again she looked southeast toward unseen Carradoon, and thought of her children. She closed her eyes and turned south, then looked upon the road home, the road she needed to take for all their sakes.

She recalled that the road continued fairly flat for about a quarter of a mile, then began an onerous climb up into the Snowflakes. She had to make that climb. It was not a choice, but a duty. Cadderly had to know.

And Danica meant to walk all through the night to tell him. She started off at a slow pace, practically dragging one foot and leaning heavily on the walking stick in her right hand, her left arm hanging loose at her side. Every step jolted that shoulder, and so Danica paused and tore off a piece of her already torn shirt, fashioning it into a makeshift sling.

With a sigh of determination, the woman started away again, a little more quickly, but with her strength fast waning.

She lost track of time, but knew the shadows were lengthening around her, then she heard something—a rider or a wagon—approaching from behind. Danica shuffled off the trail and threw herself down behind a bush and a rock, crawling into a place to watch the road behind her. She chewed hard on her bottom lip to keep from gasping out in pain, but even that notion and sensation were soon lost to her as her curious quarry came into view.

She saw the horse first, a skeletal black beast with fire around its hooves. It snorted smoke from its flared nostrils. A hell horse, a nightmare, and as Danica noted the wagon driver—or more particularly, the driver’s great, wide-brimmed and plumed hat, and the ebon color of his skin—she remembered him.

“Jarlaxle?” she whispered, and more curious still, he sat with another dark elf Danica surely recognized.

The thought of that rogue Jarlaxle riding along with Drizzt Do’Urden knocked Danica even more emotionally off-balance. How could it be?

And what did it mean, for her and for Cadderly?

As the wagon neared, she made out a couple of heads above the rail of the backboard. Dwarves, obviously. A squeal from the side turned her attention to a third dwarf riding a pig that looked like it grazed on the lower planes right beside the nightmare pulling the wagon.

Danica told herself that it couldn’t be Drizzt Do’Urden, and warned herself that it was not out of the realm of possibility that the fiendish Jarlaxle might be behind all of the trouble that had come to Erlkazar. She couldn’t risk going to them, she told herself repeatedly as the wagon bounced along the trail, nearing her hiding place.

Despite those very real and grounded reservations, as the wagon rolled up barely ten feet from her, the nightmare snorting flames and pounding
the road with its fiery hooves, the desperate woman, realizing instinctively that she was out of options, pulled herself up to her knees and called out for help.

“Lady Danica!” Jarlaxle cried, and Drizzt spoke her name at the same time.

Together the two drow leaped down from the wagon and ran to her, moving to opposite sides of her and falling on bended knee. Together they gently cradled and supported her, and glanced at each other with equal disbelief that anything could have so battered the magnificent warrior-monk.

“What’d’ye know, elf?” one of the dwarves called, climbing from the back of the wagon. “That Cadderly’s girl?”

“Lady Danica,” Drizzt explained.

“You must …” the woman gasped. “You must get me to Cadderly. I must warn him …”

Her voice trailed off and she faltered, her consciousness slipping away. “We will,” Drizzt promised. “Rest easy.”

* * * * *

Drizzt looked at Jarlaxle, grave concern evident on his face. He wasn’t sure Danica could survive the journey.

“I have potions,” Jarlaxle assured him, but with less confidence than Drizzt would have hoped for. Besides, who could be sure what effects his potions might produce in such a time of wild magic?

They made Danica as comfortable as they could in the back of the wagon, laying her beside Catti-brie, who sat against the backboard and still seemed totally unaware of her surroundings. Jarlaxle stayed beside the monk, spooning magical healing potions into her mouth, while Bruenor drove the wagon as fast as the nightmare could manage. Drizzt and Pwent ran near flank, fearing that whatever had hit Danica might not be far afield. On Jarlaxle’s bidding, Athrogate and the hell boar stayed near, riding just in front of the nightmare.

“It’s getting steeper,” Bruenor warned a short time later. “Yer horse ain’t for liking it.”

“The mules are rested now,” Jarlaxle replied. “Go as far as we can, then we’ll put them back up front.”

“Night’ll be falling by then.”

“Perhaps we should ride through.”

Bruenor didn’t want to agree, but he found himself nodding despite his reservations.

“Elf?” the dwarf asked, seeing Drizzt approach from some brush to the side of the trail.

“Nothing,” Drizzt answered. “I have seen no sign of any monsters, and no trail to be found save Danica’s own.”

“Well, that’s a good thing,” Bruenor said. He reached over and grabbed at Drizzt’s belt to help the drow hop up the side of the rolling wagon.

“Her breathing is steady,” Drizzt noted of Danica, and Jarlaxle nodded.

“The potions have helped,” said Jarlaxle. “There is a measure of predictable magic remaining.”

“Bah, but she ain’t said a word,” said Bruenor.

“I’ve kept her in a stupor,” Jarlaxle explained. “For her own sake. A simple enchantment,” he added reassuringly when both Drizzt and Bruenor looked at him with suspicion. He pulled from his vest a pendant with a dangling ruby, remarkably like the one worn by Regis.

“Hey, now!” Bruenor protested and pulled hard on the reins, bringing the wagon up short.

“It’s not Regis’s,” Jarlaxle assured him.

“You had his, in Luskan,” Drizzt remembered.

“For a time, yes,” said Jarlaxle. “Long enough to have my artisans replicate it.” As Bruenor and Drizzt continued to stare at him hard, Jarlaxle just shrugged and explained, “It’s what I do.”

Drizzt and Bruenor looked at each other and sighed.

“I did not steal anything from him, and I could have, easily enough,” Jarlaxle argued. “I did not kill him, or you, and I could have—”

“Easily enough,” Drizzt had to agree.

“When can you free her of the trance?” Drizzt asked.

Jarlaxle glanced down at Danica, the monk seeming much more at ease, and he started to say, “Soon.” Before the word got out of his mouth, Danica’s hand shot up and grasped the dangling chain that held the ruby pendant. With a twist and turn that appeared so subtle and simple as she sat up from the wagon bed, she spun the startled Jarlaxle around and jerked the chain behind him, twisting it even more to hold the drow fast in a devastating chokehold.

“You were told never to return, Jarlaxle Baenre,” Danica said, her mouth right beside the dark elf’s ear.

“Your gratitude overwhelms me, Lady,” the drow managed to gasp in reply.

He stiffened as Danica pulled and twisted. “Move your fingers a bit more into position to grasp a weapon, drow,” she coaxed. “I can snap your neck as easily as a dry twig.”

“A little help?” Jarlaxle whispered to Drizzt.

“Danica, let him go,” Drizzt said. “He is not our enemy. Not now.” Danica loosened her grip, just a bit, and stared skeptically at the ranger, then looked to Bruenor.

Drizzt nudged the silent dwarf.

“Good to meet ye at last, Lady Danica,” Bruenor said. “King Bruenor Battlehammer, at yer ser—” Drizzt elbowed him again.

“Aye, let the rat go,” Bruenor bade her. “‘Twas Jarlaxle that gived ye the potions that saved yer hide, and he’s been a help with me daughter there.”

Danica glanced from one to the other, then looked over at Catti-brie. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked as she released Jarlaxle, who shifted forward to get away from her.

“I never thought I would see Jarlaxle caught so easily,” Drizzt remarked.

“I share your surprise,” the mercenary admitted.

Drizzt smiled, briefly enjoying the moment. He came over the rail of the wagon then, stepping past Jarlaxle to go to Danica, who leaned against the tailgate.

“I’ll not underestimate that one again,” Jarlaxle promised quietly.

“You must get me to Spirit Soaring,” Danica said, and Drizzt nodded.

“That is where we were going,” he explained. “Catti-brie was touched by the falling Weave—some kind of blue fire. She is trapped within her own mind, it seems, and in a dark place of huddled, crawling creatures.”

Danica perked up at that description.

“You have seen them?” Jarlaxle remarked.

“Long-armed, short-legged—almost no-legged—gray-skinned beasts attacked Spirit Soaring in force last night,” she explained. “I was out scouting …” Her voice trailed off as she gave a great sigh.

“Ivan Bouldershoulder is dead,” she said. Bruenor cried out and Drizzt winced. From the side of the wagon, Thibbledorf Pwent wailed. “The dragon—a dracolich, an undead dragon … and something more …”

“A dracolich?” Jarlaxle said.

“Dead dragon walking—dead dragon talking, dead dragon furious, I’m thinking that curious!” Athrogate rhymed, and Thibbledorf Pwent nodded in appreciation, drawing a scowl from Bruenor.

A dumbfounded Danica stared at the bizarre Athrogate.

“You have to admit that one does not see a dracolich every day,” Jarlaxle deadpanned.

Danica seemed even more at a loss.

“Something stranger still, you mentioned?” Jarlaxle prompted.

“Its touch is death,” the monk explained. “I found it by following a trail of utter devastation, a complete withering of everything the beast had touched. Trees, grass, everything.”

“Never heared o’ such a thing,” said Bruenor.

“When I saw the beast, gigantic and terrible, I knew my guess to be correct. Its mere touch is death. It is death incarnate, and something more—a horn in its head, glowing with power,” Danica went on, her eyes closed as if she had to force herself to remember things she did not want to recall. “I think it was …”

“Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard,” said Jarlaxle, nodding with every word. “Yes.”

“That durned thing again,” Bruenor grumbled. “So there ye go, elf. Ye didn’t break it.”

“I did,” Jarlaxle corrected. “And that is part of the problem, I fear.” Bruenor just shook his hairy head.

Danica pointed to a tall peak not far behind them and to the north. “He controls them.” She looked directly at Jarlaxle. “I believe the dragon is Hephaestus, the great red wyrm whose breath destroyed the artifact, or so we thought.”

“It is indeed Hephaestus,” Jarlaxle assured her.

“Ye think ye might be tellin’ us what ye’re about anytime soon?” Bruenor grumbled.

“I already told you my fears,” Jarlaxle said. “The dragon and the liches, somehow freed of the prison artifact of their own creation—”

“The Crystal Shard,” said Danica, and she tapped her forehead. “Here, on the dracolich.”

“Joined by the magic of the collapsing Weave,” said Jarlaxle, “merged by the collision of worlds.”

Danica looked at him, incredulous.

“I know not either, Lady Danica,” Jarlaxle explained. “It’s all a guess. But this is all related, of that I am certain.” He looked at Catti-brie, her eyes wide open but unseeing. “Her affliction, these beasts, the dragon risen from the dead … all of it … all part of the same catastrophe, the breadth of which we still do not know.”

“And so we have come to find out,” said Drizzt. “To bring Catti-brie to Cadderly in the hope that he might help her.”

“And I’m thinking that ye’ll be needin’ our help, too,” Bruenor said to Danica.

Danica could only sigh and nod in helpless agreement. She glanced at the distant cliff, the lair of the dracolich and the Crystal Shard, the grave of Ivan Bouldershoulder. She tried not to look past that point, but she couldn’t help herself. She feared for her children.