The Legend of Asahiel: Book 02 - The Obsidian Key (35 page)

“Just so you know, I don’t need
his
permission to drain your filthy throat,” she hissed.

She gave the man a chilling smile, teasing her blade across his flesh, then sprang up in a single lithe motion. Holly followed with another prick, drawing a stifled shout, before joining her kinmate. Both kept their weapons at the ready.

Moss sat up carefully, massaging the back of his head. “Ah, well, some other time then.”

Torin shook his own weapon as it hung at his side—just enough to draw back the other’s attention. “You haven’t finished explaining yourself.”

“Have I not?” the big man asked, rising slowly to his feet.

“What it is you’re doing out here,” Torin prompted, “other than lurking about.”

“Ah, that,” the other said, continuing to stare at the Sword as he brushed himself off. “Well, after the guilt of losing you in the mountains, I headed on to Sydwahr. There I heard about Neak-Thur from the garrison general himself. The man is in rally mode. He’s taken on the role of prime commander of the so-called Southern Liberation Force. Offering a handsome sum to any who should survive the retaking of the keep.”

“You signed on as a soldier?” Torin asked, his skepticism plain. “If that’s so, where’s your army?”

Moss shook his head. “Me? A soldier? Why, I’d have to be dumber than my old mule.” He looked to the Nymphs, trying another grin on them. “Signed on as a flank scout. The army is to the west. A waste of my talents, to be honest. Ain’t much chance Lorre intends to send a force farther south anytime soon. Makes far more sense to await our attack at Neak-Thur.”

Torin glanced at the girls to gauge their reaction, then back to his former guide. It irritated him that Moss should be giving Dyanne such attentions. “Then why not serve at least as a point scout? Or didn’t this general trust you?”

Moss seemed unfazed by the jab, returning Torin’s sneer with a wily smirk. “I didn’t wait to find out. Volunteered, you see. The share is less, but I’ve a much better chance of living to see it.”

“And this army,” Dyanne verified. “It’s marching on Neak-Thur now?”

Moss bowed in what looked to Torin a pathetic attempt at chivalry. “As we speak. Aim is to lay siege before the warlord has a chance to entrench himself too deeply. Strike should come within a few days, no later than the outset of the new week.”

“How many of you are there?” the woman pressed.

“Twelve thousand, give or take—mostly what’s left of the city garrison. Plus whatever General Chamaar can roust along the way.”

Again Torin searched the faces of his Nymph companions, wondering at the consequences these events might have regarding their quest.

“You’re not by any chance still meaning to visit with the man,” Moss prodded.

“Not that it’s your business any longer, but yes, that’s precisely where I’m headed.”

Moss snorted and shook his head. “So that tumble down the mountain didn’t knock any sense into you.”

Torin glared at the rogue but soon turned back to Dyanne. He was no longer interested in what the other had to offer.

“If that’s the case,” Moss continued, “why not join up with the Resistance? General Chamaar ain’t being picky. And even if he was, I’ll wager he’d love to have that there blade of yours on our side.” The rogue grinned at Torin’s suspicious frown. “With any luck, by battle’s end, Lorre will be our prisoner, and you can ask of him whatever you wish.”

Torin hesitated, waiting for either Dyanne or Holly to reject the offer. Neither did.

“And what would be your stake in it?”

“Same as before. I lead you on for a fee—”

“I have the only guides I need,” Torin said flatly. He looked to the girls for confirmation. “Unless they’d rather part ways with me here.”

Dyanne shook her head. “Dynara would not approve. Nor do Holly and I have yet what we came here for.”

“Are you their charge, or their prisoner?” Moss murmured.

Torin ignored him. “You prefer his plan, then?”

Dyanne and Holly shared one of their long, knowing looks, in which an entire debate seemed to pass between them in complete silence. When finished, Dyanne turned back to him.

“The rogue is right. You’ll have a much better chance of getting from Lorre what you need if he is
your
prisoner, rather than the other way around. Besides, the Southland may not get another opportunity like this. If this siege should fail, and Lorre is allowed to fortify himself any further, the war will have all but ended.”

Torin did not mistake the fire in her eyes, the burning desire she had to affect this struggle, rather than merely fall victim to it. It had been her primary goal all along.

“But we can get you to Neak-Thur,” she insisted. “In fact, I have every intention of visiting the city myself, so that I can put together a firsthand account to deliver to my clan—should it not prove too late to convince them to join the Resistance.
His
help,” she said, nodding toward Moss, “we don’t need.”

“Let me at least guide you back to the main force,” Moss urged. “I can do so quickly, and introduce you to the general. It would entitle me to a bonus, should we not all end up dead.”

Torin studied the big man. Greedy as ever, but making no secret of it. It was difficult to mistrust him in the face of such shameless honesty.

“Four is safer than three,” the rogue added, leering openly at Dyanne.

Not necessarily,
Torin thought. Nevertheless, in this case, the scoundrel was probably right. Although he had no doubt his current guides could deliver him safely, they had admittedly traveled beyond their principal element. Nor did he see any real risk. Whatever else Moss might be, he was no threat to the three of them.

But it was the girls’ decision to make, even if he might like to pretend otherwise. He turned to Dyanne with a look that said as much.

“He’s proven already how incapable he is,” Dyanne observed bluntly, staring the rogue down. “At the same time, I don’t suppose we can stop him from following us, unless you agree to let us empty his sails here and now.”

The candid manner in which she uttered the threat stole a measure of the color from Moss’s cheeks. Torin pretended to consider, sure that Dyanne was bluffing, but enjoying watching the rogue squirm.

“No,” he said finally, sheathing the Sword. “Let’s give him a chance to prove that my mishap in the mountains wasn’t his fault. If he fails to convince me, you ladies can do with him what you will.”

Moss chuckled, though he couldn’t hide the sweat thickening upon his brow.

Holly sighed before sheathing her blade. Dyanne, however, brandished hers in final, unmistakable warning.

“Very well,” the Nymph Hunter agreed. “But if he so much as coughs in my direction, I’ll be taking his most prized parts back to my clan as a personal trophy.”

Torin nodded. “You heard the woman,” he said to Moss.

The rogue laughed, nervously this time, while rubbing his throat. “Well then, if you’ll all follow me?”

“We should rewrap that first,” Dyanne said, directing a look at Torin’s wrist, which had started to bleed through its bandages.

When that was done, the three gathered their few belongings and fell into step behind the affable rogue, who had begun already to soothe his rattled nerves with a giant wad of tobacco grounds. Sluicing and spitting, he led them north, across the rolling plain, ambling now toward war.

N
IGHT FELL SWIFT AND STEADY
on the plains of northern Partha, closing round the little company come to camp at the edge of Llornel Lake. The clouds that had followed them throughout the day hunkered now as if to join their fellowship, their dark forms reflected in the lake’s surface. Allion watched them churn and brood among themselves, sullen guests uninvited, wishing they would pass on.

His gaze shifted to find Darinor, who sat between him and Marisha upon this lakeside ridge selected by the Entient as theirs for the night. Like those haunting storm clouds, the petulant mystic had put a damper on this entire journey—even more so, Allion decided, for the weather had been just as foul in the days in which Marisha and he had been alone, and yet hadn’t bothered him. With Darinor around, however, he couldn’t help but be sour, his enthusiasm for this trek shrouded as surely as the moon and stars on this shadowy night.

Marisha appeared no less glum. Strange, given that this was what she had asked for in the beginning. But she, too, seemed perturbed by her father’s behavior—gruff and irritable throughout the day, grown worse with the setting of the sun. The man spoke only when forced to, and then in a tone bitter and sharp. What had begun as an opportunity for hunter and healer to deepen their friendship had become like a blossoming tree felled too soon, with Darinor the wedge that had been driven through.

Allion did not believe for a moment that it was accidental either. Since daybreak, the Entient had shown a complete disinterest in partaking of the pair’s camaraderie. Yet whenever he and Marisha happened to show signs of closeness, whether with words or physical contact, Darinor had been there to intervene. No matter how innocent the sentiment or gesture, the Entient acted as though it were his duty to see that nothing improper was shared between they who had sworn to protect each other. Once he had found a way to separate them, he would drop back once more, recusing himself from their ongoing conversations, only to continue eyeing them like a hawk.

This above all else frustrated Allion, for it made him feel as though he had done something wrong. Thinking back, he was sure he hadn’t. And anyway, what business was it of Darinor’s? As best Allion could tell, the man had no right, after all these years, to swoop in and start playing the role of protective father.

After watching her sulk more and more as the hours had worn on, Allion wondered if Marisha did not feel the same. Likely, it was his own imagination at work, but in some ways she seemed more annoyed by the interruptions than he. This suspicion was confirmed, he thought, when she looked back from the deepening night, turning upon her father with features angry and set.

“Tell me, Father,” she demanded, shattering the leaden silence. “Tell me when it was you decided to accept your calling. At what point did it become clear to you that you had to abandon my mother? I’ve asked you before, and you’ve refused to answer. I’ve waited long enough.”

For a long moment, Darinor still did not answer, choosing instead to stare down at the sweep of open grassland leading up to their camp. With the lake to their backs and nothing taller than a shrub within fifty paces, they had a clear view of anything that might approach. In addition, Darinor’s mount had been hobbled at the bottom of the rise, to serve as unwilling sentry. Allion kept his bow close, even though he had spent his last arrow in the fight against the goblin Illychar. He gripped it now in anticipation of the mystic’s response.

“Most are born,” Darinor said finally, “with their life’s scroll unwritten. For those, the future is filled with naught but possibility. Circumstances vary, of course, due to birth and condition. But as history has shown us, with the proper application of luck and determination, even the bastard son of a pauper can make himself into a king, the lowest-born daughter into whatever she wishes to be.

“That was not the case for me,” he confided wistfully, peering beyond their present surroundings. “My future was set. I didn’t know it at first, for I, like many children, was encouraged by my father not to limit my dreams, but to follow them, to accomplish whatever in my heart was the greatest of things. Nor was there anyone else to discourage me. We lived in isolation on the tiny island that Algorath had settled centuries before. Raemes, it was called, a crumb of earth surrounded by ocean far to the southeast. I was given to understand that it was my own private staging ground, that one day I would rejoin the larger world, in whatever manner I might choose.”

A howl sounded miles away, low and mournful. Darinor waited for it to die out before proceeding.

“I was eighteen before I learned the truth, the history of my family and its function through the ages. At long last, it was revealed to me: the manner in which I was expected to serve. As my father had, and his father before him. All the way back to Algorath and beyond.

“It was too much. I had no intention of spending my entire life as a recluse. I had long before cultivated a desire to live among others, to experience that which I learned about from my father in tales and books. Though I had no practical basis for my yearnings, I’d grown weary of my sedentary life, consumed with the need to know companionship, shared laughter, love.”

Allion’s shoulder itched, but he refused to scratch it. He hesitated even to breathe, so scared was he of interrupting the man’s reverie. Not because it spoke to him, or that he even found it interesting. But Marisha was hanging on every word, her stern features softening with that heartfelt empathy only she could feel, and he would not disturb her.

“So I rebelled. I refused the fate my father had determined for me and sailed from his island in order to make my own. For twelve years I explored the lands of this world, coming at last to these shores, where I met your mother. We settled in this very land of Partha, in the city to which we now travel, in fact, where we lived our quiet life and gave thought to raising a child. A more significant decision than you might imagine. For as I had learned, the Entients—even our splintered offshoot—were very particular in their system of procreation. Most do not produce child until their twilight years. At that time, they make use of a willing woman in order to give birth to a single son—manipulating the seed to make certain it is a boy—so as to replace themselves in the order. One of the best ways, it seemed to me, to sever ties with their kind was to break this tradition, to have a child early on, and to allow that child’s gender to be determined naturally.”

The mystic turned his head now to regard Marisha, whose eyes glistened. “You were my greatest achievement, the purpose I had long been seeking. One with whom to share my own knowledge and experience, with the freedom of choice that for me had been a lie. I had no regrets, and have none now.”