The Howling Delve (2 page)

of the tower. A breath passed, and the bird cries intensified. When the guard re-emerged, his sword lay bare in his hand, and his face was covered by a dark hood that obscured all but his eyes. In his other hand, he held a flaming scrap of cloth stuffed into a green glass bottle.

Without hesitating, the guard threw the concoction of fire down into the central courtyard, where it smashed against a lattice of wood and climbing roses.

Shouts and smoke immediately filled the courtyard. Balram stepped away from the window. He slid his uninjured hand inside a carefully sewn pocket at the breast of his tunic. His fingers closed around a hard, circular object that seemed to pulse under leather and flesh.

All caution. He repeated the mantta. And if that wasn’t enough, well, Daen wasn’t the only one who possessed magic.

-Esmeltaran, Amn

12 EUasias, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR)

Kail couldn’t think. He looked desperately to the shore, at Dencer nocking another arrow to his longbow. The other figures were on the move, covering their faces with some sort of hood, fading back into the trees in the ditection of his father’s estate. Kail could see the tips of its two domed towets in the distance.

Morel house was being attacked from within. His mind fumbled over the realization. Did his father know of the treachery? Was he still alive? The last thought sent a tremor through Kail’s body. If Aazen hadn’t been there to grab him, Kail would have lurched up onto the rock, running right into death to get back to the house.

“Kali,” Aazen croaked, snapping the boy’s attention back to the shore. Dencer stood, aiming, but something was wrong. He was taking too long, holding the shot. “W-what’s he waiting for?”

Aazen’s teeth chattered despite the warmth of the day. Kail held him up, treading water for both of them. “I don’t know,” he said.

Suddenly, the air whistled again. Kail braced, but the

expected killing blow never came. Instead, Dencer fell to his knees, cradling his right hip.

A horse thundered up the strand of beach, kicking sand up against black flanks. Its rider tossed aside an empty crossbow and drew a short blade as he came.

Dencer had crawled to his feet by the time the rider reached him. Kail could finally make out the man’s face. He was one of Kail’s personal guardsmen, assigned by his father. “Haig!” he cried.

The rider ignored Kail’s shout and swung down from the still-moving mount, swotd leading. Dencer hastily blocked with his bow, the only weapon he could bring to hand in time. The swotd bit deeply into the wood, cleaving it nearly in two.

Dencer pushed back and thrust the older man off. Haig’s attack came in a bull rush, clumsy and imprecise, as if he hoped to finish his opponent off quickly and move on. Dencer dodged a second thrust, at the same time groping with the bolt that had penetrated his armor. His hand fell slack, and he swooned.

Haig pressed the advantage, driving in close for a quick kill, and played right into Dencer’s feint. Dencer dropped heavily to the sand on his good side, swept one leg behind and in front of Haig’s knees and twisted. The older man bent sideways and hit the ground. In the same breath Dencer sprang to his feet, running full out for the trees.

Haig cursed loudly but did not follow. He sheathed his sword and ran for the water, picking a path across the rocks.

“Haig,” Kail cried again when he reached them. “Morel— the house is—”

“Besieged, aye,” the man said curtly, hoisting Aazen up in his arms. “Stay behind me.” His eyes were on the tree line as they picked their way back to the shore.

“Where is Father?” His heart pounding, Kail knelt on Aazen’s other side as Haig laid him out on the beach. “Does he live?”

“He did, when I left him to come for you.” Haig caught Kail by the arm and guided him to the arrow still planted in Aazen’s shoulder. The man’s hands were square and brown. Traces of gray beard lined his cheeks and chin, yet for his age he was easily twice the width of Kali, with muscle as firm as the gauntlets encasing his wrists. He shrugged off a sand-stained cloak and spread it over Aazen.

“Remove the fletchings,” he instructed Kali. “Be quick, but do not aggravate the wound.”

Kail did as he was told,’ snapping the feathery ends off an arrow he might well have helped build. The thought jarred him, and his hands trembled.

Aazen was white to the lips. He hadn’t spoken. He would be thinking of his own father, Kail realized. An attack on the house would put Balram in the heart of the battle. “What of Captain Kortrun?” he asked. “Does he—”

“Mind your work!” Haig snapped.

Kali flinched and fell silent. He threw aside the fletchings and waited while Haig helped Aazen to a half-sitting position.

Haig looked the boy in the eyes. “This will hurt.”

Aazen nodded, his expression resigned. “Take it—”

Before he’d finished speaking, Haig drove his arm forward. From Kail’s angle, it looked as if he were trying to wrench Aazen’s arm out of its socket, but the sound was nothing like that.

Cold sweat broke out on Kail’s arms. He felt like retching. Aazen’s body convulsed, but he stayed eerily silent as Haig tossed the bloody arrow aside, unstoppered a vial of milky liquid, and poured it down the boy’s throat. His head lolling, Aazen slid into unconsciousness. A trickle of white slid down his chin.

“He’ll live,” Haig said grimly, putting the empty vial back in his pouch. “He’s endured worse.”

“What did you give him?” Kali wanted to know, but Haig had already pulled Kail to his feet, and was dragging him to the black horse.

“A healing potion.” He mounted and reached down a hand for Kali.

“We can’t leave him!”

Haig made an impatient sound in his throat. He hooked a hand under Kail’s armpit and hauled him bodily onto the back of the horse.

“Young Kortrun will be safer than either of us,” he said. “Now, if you would care to aid your father and fight for what remains of your house, we will ride swiftly and with no talk at all. If you fall off, I will not stop for you.” He looked back at Kail. “Do you understand?”

Wordlessly, Kali nodded. Haig had never reproached him like this before. He’d never spoken to him at this length in all of Kail’s life, though the old man had been a permanent fixture in Kail’s memories since he could walk. The common jest, whispered among the guards, was that Haig preferred the company of his horse to that of people and needed no woman to warm his bed. But the subdued old man who’d shadowed his steps on the streets of Esmeltaran was not the same person who sat before him now. Where had the strength and the steel in his eyes come from?

Those eyes raked him from head to foot, noting, Kail thought, his lack of armor. He’d left the pads on the rocks of Lake Esmel with Aazen’s violin. Haig reached down and freed a curved shield from where he’d hooked it to the saddle horn.

“Here,” he said, thrusting the shield at Kali. “Protect yourself when we get close to the grounds.” He shook his head as he gazed at Kail. “Tymora’s miracle Dencer was confused. In your smallclothes, with your hair wetted down, you both look just alike.”

Kail would have asked what he meant, but Haig dug his heels into hoiseflesh, and they wete away.

Esmeltaran, Amn , 12 Eleasias, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR)

The grounds were deserted. Haig’s boots crunched gravel as the big man dismounted in the outer yard. He pushed Kail between himself and the horse. They moved in a line right up to the entry hall. The doors were wide open, and Kali could hear fighting within. Morel’s servants—guards who had not turned traitor, even members of the household staff—fought with men in hoods. Kail had counted five such on the beach, including Dencer, and there were more inside without sand on their boots.

“Whatever happens, stay at my shoulder where I can see you.” Haig spoke rapidly, reaching for the short sword affixed to his saddle. “I don’t know how skilled you are with a blade, but if you get the chance to stick this in something, don’t hesitate, do you hear?” When Kail nodded, he went on, “We’re badly outnumbered, so remember, this house is no longer your home. It’s theit ground until we drive them out. Anything is a weapon to that end.” He handed Kali the short sword and took a second, broader blade from a sheath. Large emeralds adorned the hilts, marks given to all the blades of Morel, from the lowliest rusted dirk to Balram’s elegant long sword—a

mark of Morel’s success in gems and fine ornaments.

Kail’s father scoffed at Amnians who draped their wealth over themselves with no context. Dhairr’s gesture to even his lowest-ranking servants had clear meaning: Morel had the means to protect his own.

But he had never planned for an attack from within, an attack that amounted to a betrayal by family. How many of the men in hoods bore emerald weapons? How many would Kail know personally if unmasked?

His chance to find out came when they entered the main hall. Two of the hooded foes darted in from side rooms, as if they’d seen them coming. Haig put himself in front of Kali and ran at both, grabbing up a large Calishite vase from a side table. He smashed the expensive item in the face of the hood to his right while simultaneously batting a raised sword out of his way. Dazed, the attacker fell back, unresisting, allowing Haig to charge forward to engage the foe to his left.

Kali stated at the scene, retaining only the presence of mind to raise his weapon while he watched the old man fight.

Screams filled the air as Gertie, one of the maids, hurtled from the hallway into the ctystal display front as if she’d been thrown. Fragile glass panes shattered under her weight. Her hands and arms were bloody when she picked herself up, but she kept running, bolting across the hall. Her usually meticulously combed curls hung loose and wild from her bonnet. A gloved hand snagged her hair, jerking the maid’s head back into the doorway to the kitchens.

Kail watched in numb horror as the hand drew a knife in a crooked, horizontal slash across Gertie’s throat. For a breath, the young maid’s eyes met Kail’s across the room. Then she saw the blood pouring down her dress and raised her hands as if she could stop the flow.

Kali charged forward, away from the safety of Haig’s back. Instead of engaging the man with the knife, he ran a wide circle. Before the man could realize what he intended, Kail had wedged his sword between the wall and the display front and

pulled, levering the heavy glass case away from the wall. Piles of crystal, wood, and glass came down on the hooded man, knocking him back into the kitchen. The last Kali saw of the man was the Morel emerald glinting in his knife, alongside a ruby in a nest of gold loops.

Kail dropped to his knees next to Gertie, but the maid was already dead. Above her ruined throat, her eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. Kali felt bile rise in his throat, but a glint of gold in the blood pool caught his eye: Gertie’s necklace, a small medallion emblazoned with Lathander’s sunrise. The assassin’s knife had cut it away. Kali scooped it up.

He caught black movement out of the corner of his eye and spun, sending his sword out in a wide, reckless arc. Another hooded figure danced back, Kail’s blade swishing across his opponent’s stomach to tear fabric if not flesh.

Blindly, Kail followed with a backslash, cutting up and diagonally from hip to shoulder, driving forward in a rush as he’d seen Haig do.

Kali was not a novice to sword play. When he was younger, his father had decided to personally train Kali to fight. Never had the man paid him so much attention. Kail had reveled in it, learning all he could. His skills steadily grew, but his father’s interest in teaching waned over the years in favor of seeing to his business and the security of his house. Kali could feel the burn of disuse in his sword arm.

He risked a glance at the old man. Haig had pulled the hood from the foe harrying him on the left. White-gold hair tumbled down a black cloak—Isslun’s. She puckered her lips saucily at Haig even as her hand went for the dagger at her belt.

Haig got thete first. He slipped the weapon from its sheath and with a grin shoved her away. Immediately, an identical face from the right met him. Aliyea—twin to Isslun—had recovered from the hit with the vase and removed her hood to fight openly beside her sister.

Kail’s sword went skittering across the marble floor. Distracted, he’d let himself be disarmed. “Haig!”

Haig hurled Isslun’s dagger. The fang buried itself in the hood of Kail’s opponent. Kail looked away, sickened, and saw Haig fighting for better position, backing the twins toward one of the smaller rooms off the main hall. “Follow me!” the old man yelled at him.

Kali hesitated. He still didn’t know where his father was. The bulk of the fray seemed to be coming from the central garden; Haig was headed in the opposite direction. With a last look at white-gold hair and whirling steel, Kail retrieved his sword and ran for the sunlight, ignoring Haig’s voice calling after him.

In the heart of the garden, Kail found his father. Dhairr was alive and fighting, but he bled from several wounds. He straddled one fallen hood and fought two others who pressed him back against the lip of a fountain. This central point irrigated the entire garden; the water had been left to flow freely, turning the terrain off the raised stone walkways into a muddy jungle.

Kali ran down the flooded path, not allowing himself to think as he stabbed the black-robed figure closest to his father. The foe’s back arched, and the dying assassin toppled over the side of the fountain, wrenching Kail’s sword from his hands. Kail scrambled to get out of the way.

Dhairr looked up in shock to see his son. His remaining opponent backed away, hoisting up a dead comrade. Dhairr spun to see another hood charging at them through the mud, but instead of engaging, this one too, grabbed a body—that of the foe Kail had killed—and started to spirit it away.

“No!” A scream of pure agony and frustration tore from Dhairr’s throat. He charged the escaping assassins, but water and wounds slowed him. He could not make the edge of the fountain before his legs gave out. He still grasped his sword in a white-knuckled fist. Kali dodged it and grabbed his father around the waist, gripping and hoisting him up.