Twilight Falling (23 page)

Guard sheds stood at each end of the bridge, and a larger barracks complex sat in the center. Pitch torches sizzled in the wind and rain, the flames dancing as though to avoid the downpour. Just outside the near shed stood four Scepters, each armed with poleaxes and dressed in the green weathercloaks of the Scepters. They eyed Cale, Riven, and Jak suspiciously as the three approached. Cale knew the High Bridge guards to be notoriously difficult to bribe. He didn’t bother to try. Instead, he presented his Uskevren house badge and announced the three to be on Uskevren business. The bedraggled bridge guards let them pass without further inquiry.

The rain thumped a drumbeat on the wood beams. Probably due to the weather, Cale, Riven, and Jak were the only traffic on the bridge. The river flowed under their feet.

From the far side of the bridge, the Twisted Elm stood perhaps a half hour or so up the road. Ordinarily, Cale would have been able to see it from the bridge, but the rain and darkness made visibility poor. They stalked down the muddy road. The eighth hour approached.

“Near enough,” Cale said. “Let’s prepare.”

He took out his holy symbol, traced an invisible symbol in the air before him, and recited a prayer that would ward him against fire. He cast the same ward on Jak, but when he turned to Riven, the assassin held up a hand.

“Save it, Cale.”

Cale shook his head and insisted, “Take it. To the Hells with your professional pride. This is about getting the work done. Remember the fireball Vraggen used at the Stag?”

Riven hesitated.

“This will ward you against fire,” Cale said. He hesitated before adding, “It is a blessing from Mask.”

That last seemed to help convince the assassin.

Riven nodded once and accepted the spell without another word. When Cale finished the incantation, Riven pulled his holy symbol out from beneath his cloak and wore it openly.

Still holding his mask, Cale continued his prayers, asking the Lord of Shadows to bless their efforts in the battle to come.

Jak too began to pray and cast: a ward against divinations and the half-drow’s mind-reading on each of them, a ward against detection on the half-sphere, a spell to protect each of them against lightning, and finally, a request for the Trickster’s own good fortune in the battle to come.

Afterward, the halfling looked up at Cale and said, “It’s as good a plan as any, Cale, but there’s no guarantee that they won’t see me, even invisible. A powerful caster may be able to penetrate my non-detection ward. And I still haven’t figured out how the half-drow saw me back in the alley.”

“There’s never any guarantees when steel is drawn, Fleet,” Riven said as he ran a thumb along each of his blade edges in turn. “Not ever.”

Cale looked the halfling in the eyes and tried to communicate an assurance he didn’t feel.

“They won’t see you,” Cale said. “Not this time.”

To that, Jak said nothing, but Cale could see he was still bothered. Cale kneeled down and looked him in the face.

“You all right with this?” Cale asked. “What you have to do?”

The plan required an invisible Jak to take down an unsuspecting target.

Jak looked sidelong at Riven before answering, “I’m all right.”

Cale held his gaze. “Little man, these whoresons killed nine guards when they attacked Stormweather, and they tried to kill me.”

“And me,” Riven said, though Cale doubted that helped convince Jak.

“The gods only know what they’ve done to Ren,” Cale continued. “They deserve worse than a sword in their back. They need to be put down, and pity should not cause you to hesitate even a heartbeat. Understood?”

Jak nodded—slowly, but Cale saw conviction in his green eyes.

Riven spit and sneered, “You’re wasting words, Cale. We already know Fleet doesn’t have any qualms about sticking steel in a man’s back. Do you, little man?”

They all knew the assassin was referencing that night when an invisible Jak had driven a short sword through Riven’s kidney.

“Keep your mouth shut, Riven,” Cale spat over his shoulder.

Jak eyes narrowed but he laughed without mirth.

“No, he’s right, Cale,” the halfling said. “I won’t hesitate to put a blade in a back. In the backs of certain men, at least.” The halfling stared meaningfully at Riven. “I haven’t yet done it and regretted it. I haven’t yet stuck someone who didn’t deserve exactly what he got.”

Riven’s sneer deepened. He shot Jak an unfriendly wink.

Jak spat in Riven’s direction before turning back to Cale.

“I’m ready,” he said.

Cale smiled, thumped him on the shoulder, and said, “Then let’s do this.”

He reached into his belt pouch, removed his potion of flight, and handed it to Jak.

Before drinking it down, the halfling incanted the words to another prayer. When he finished, his body and gear faded from sight. Even the falling rain didn’t reveal his location.

“Our priority is Ren,” Cale said. “After that…”

“Anything goes,” Riven said, unsmiling.

From somewhere in the air above them—the potion must already have taken effect—Jak’s disembodied voice said, “My spell and the potion will only last a limited time. We ought to hurry.”

With deliberation, Cale put on the velvet mask that served as his holy symbol and drew his blade.

“Let’s move,” he said to Riven.

Before they had taken three strides, Jak’s voice sounded from just behind Riven, “Watch your back, Zhent. Never know if someone’s about to stick it.”

Riven’s one eye narrowed in anger and he muttered a soft curse. Cale couldn’t help but smile.

Jak hovered a dagger toss above Cale and Riven. He experimented a bit to get accustomed to the flight granted him by the potion. Thought controlled movement. If he willed himself forward, he flew forward; if he willed himself up or down, he moved up or down. And he could hover. The sensation felt… fun, and he would have enjoyed it if the situation had not been so dire. He drew his short sword and dagger.

“Space yourselves,” Cale said from below, his voice muffled by the mask he wore.

Jak nodded. It would not do for all of them to be caught by surprise in one of Vraggen’s spells. He distanced himself from his comrades, eight or nine paces ahead and a dagger toss above. Riven and Cale walked abreast, but fully five strides apart.

Cale held his long sword in one hand and the half-sphere in the other. Jak thought his friend looked sinister in the mask. He wondered why Cale had donned it.

Riven stalked down the road on Cale’s left, a magical saber in each hand. To Jak, the Zhent always looked dangerous. Working with Riven reminded Jak of something his father had said when Jak had brought a stray dog back to the burrow: We can’t keep it because it’s feral, and you never know when a feral animal will turn on you. You just always know it will.

In truth, the thought of putting his blade in Riven’s back tempted him, but only for an instant. He would kill when necessary and deserved, but he was not a murderer.

In moments, though, he would come as close to murder as he cared to.

But they deserve it, he told himself, and he clutched his holy symbol. Cale had said as much and Jak believed it.

From below and behind, Cale said, “We go when you go, little man. Unless they force us to go sooner.”

“I hear you,” Jak said.

When Jak attacked, all of the Nine Hells would break loose.

“And don’t dally, Fleet,” Riven growled.

“Piss off,” Jak said, but was not sure the Zhent heard him.

They continued up the road. Jak considered scouting ahead, but decided against it—he couldn’t be sure that Vraggen and Azriim wouldn’t see through his invisibility, and he didn’t want to prematurely alert them. Instead, he stayed in position above Cale and Riven. The rain continued, soaking the ground. Soon blood would join it.

A long bowshot ahead, the Twisted Elm materialized out of the dusk. The huge, magisterial tree could not be missed. It dominated the otherwise flat plain. Its canopy was wide enough to shade a hamlet. Lines in the bark of its trunk spiraled up the bole in an unusual pattern that gave the tree its name. It looked like the threads of a giant carpenter’s screw, as though a god had reached down from the heavens and twisted the tree as it grew.

Below those stately eaves, Jak saw four figures. He could not make out features, but from their respective clothing, size, and bare weapons, Jak marked them as Vraggen, Dolgan, the easterner, and a woman. Probably the woman who had led the attack on Stormweather Towers. Behind them, perhaps ten strides farther up the road, stood two other figures: one bound and standing perfectly upright and rigid—an enspelled Ren, Jak figured—with the other, Azriim no doubt, guarding him with a bare long sword.

Jak quietly reported all that to Cale and Riven. Cale nodded. He and Riven picked up the their pace. Jak followed suit, going high and praying to the Trickster that any divination spells Vraggen or the half-drow might have in effect would not penetrate his non-detection spell.

When Cale and Riven neared the tree, the woman, the easterner, and Dolgan stepped a few paces out in front of Vraggen. Dolgan’s axe was longer than Jak was tall. The easterner said something to Vraggen and the wizard began to cast. Jak knew why. They saw only Cale and Riven. They were looking for Jak.

Jak whispered another prayer to the Trickster, tried to will himself undetectable to Vraggen, and circled around behind them. Closer, he could see that the wizard’s outline was shifting and blurred, the result of an illusion that made it difficult to determine where the wizard ended and the spell began. Jak didn’t need a spell to know that other magic, without visible effects, probably also protected the wizard.

After Vraggen completed his divination, his gaze swept the area around the elm, though not the air. Dolgan and the woman did likewise, though they had no spell to assist them. They showed no sign that they noticed Jak.

Jak could not contain a fierce smile. He descended a bit and hovered in the area between Azriim and the tree. From there, he had a good view of the entire field of battle.

Cale and Riven stopped ten strides from the Twisted Elm. Cale set the half-sphere on the ground and rested the edge of his blade against it. Riven stared at the easterner. The rain continued to fall. For a few heartbeats, no one spoke. Each side simply evaluated the other.

Cale broke the silence.

“You begin to cast a spell, and I destroy it,” he said.

“Where is the halfling, Cale? I instructed you not to trifle with me.”

Riven spat and sneered.

Jak couldn’t see Cale’s face from behind the mask but could imagine his scowl.

“I don’t take instructions from you, mage,” Cale said. “And the halfling is out of this.” He tapped the half-sphere with his blade. “Now, bring forward Ren and you’ll have the other half of your sphere.”

Vraggen smiled. “The fact that you refer to him by name tells me all I need to know. Toss the rest of the globe to me, then you’ll have your … Ren.”

“No,” Cale said. “You have a five count.” He raised his blade a handswidth above the half-sphere. “One.”

“I’ll kill him where he stands, Cale. Then you. Do not—”

“Two.”

Even in profile, Jak could see Vraggen’s narrow face twist in frustration. His hands clenched into fists.

“Very well, Cale.”

When he turned his head to call back to Azriim, Jak’s breath caught. The mage looked right through him to the half-drow. He showed no sign of having noticed Jak.

“Azriim,” he said. “Proceed.”

Jak exhaled.

Without hesitation, the half-drow took Ren’s left hand, already missing three fingers, and rapidly sliced off the rest, one by one. The careless manner in which the half-drow performed the mutilation, like a butcher with a beef shank, made Jak’s stomach churn. Blood poured from the fingers. Ren said nothing, moved nothing. To Jak, the silence was worse than screams.

Azriim stepped on the fingers and ground them into the grass with his boot toe. He looked at Cale with his mismatched eyes and grinned.

Jak turned to see Cale’s body go rigid with tension.

Just give him the sphere, Jak silently pleaded. Give it to him.

Cale’s plan called for Jak to kill Vraggen after Ren was safe, but Jak feared Vraggen would take the lad apart piece by piece first.

“He is held immobile by my spell, Cale,” Vraggen said, “but I assure you, he sees, hears, and feels all that is transpiring. Imagine the agony he felt when his fingers were severed, the pain only compounded by his inability to scream.”

“Three,” Cale said. He gripped his blade tightly and stared holes into Vraggen.

The mage stuttered in surprise, but managed to recover quickly.

“V-Very well.” He called over his shoulder, “Again, Azriim. His hand.”

Jak didn’t want to watch but found himself transfixed. Dolgan, Serrin, and the woman also seemed enthralled by the war of wills in which Ren’s flesh was the battlefield.

The half-drow grabbed Ren by the wrist and extended his arm, as though he meant to chop it off at the elbow. Ren remained exactly as Azriim posed him. His appearance brought tears of sympathy and rage to Jak’s eyes. His face was bruised and swollen. He had been badly beaten and the stumps of his fingers pointed accusingly at Jak, seeping blood.

Azriim raised his blade high. His mismatched eyes looked through Jak and asked the question of Vraggen.

Just as the mage was about to nod, just as Azriim’s shadowed eyes glowed bright with the thought of doing violence, Cale, as calm as the Dragon Sea doldrums, stated above the rain, “Four.” He raised his blade.

Vraggen blinked and froze. In that instant, Jak knew that Cale had won. Jak wondered how far Cale would have let it go.

The mage whirled to face Cale squarely.

Cale’s expression was veiled by his mask, but Jak suspected it was tortured. Ren had paid the price for Cale’s victory. Jak knew why Cale had donned the mask in the first place.

“Don’t you dare do it, Cale,” Vraggen commanded, and he signaled Azriim to stand down.

With a disappointed sigh, the half-drow lowered his blade. Jak exhaled—he had not realized that he’d been holding his breath—but softly, so that the sound of his breathing would not give him away.