Waterdeep (13 page)

Whispers rustled round the table. She had just confirmed the rumor that had circulated through the ranks all night. A few men cast nervous glances toward the courtyard, where Bhaal still lay in his amber prison, but no one made any comments.

Sneakabout added, “There was nothing you could do. Nobody could have stopped him.”

“But you slowed him down, friend halfling,” Deverell responded, motioning Midnight to a seat. “Perhaps you should be my watch captain.”

One of the officers, a lanky man named Pell Beresford, frowned. So did Midnight. In the few days she had known him, she had developed a fondness for the halfling - and the cleverness he had shown in twice saving their company. The prospect of parting with him did not make her happy.

“I know you haven’t traveled long with Midnight and her friends,” Lord Deverell continued, resuming his seat. “If you wish to stay here, my offer is serious. I can always use men with keen wits.”

“You flatter me,” Sneakabout said, astonished. Humans rarely offered positions of authority to halflings.

Midnight bit her lip. If Sneakabout took the offer, she would have to congratulate him and appear happy.

“I’d like to accept,” the halfling replied, looking into Deverell’s blurry eyes. “But my path runs with Midnight’s for a while yet.”

Midnight breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, thinking Lord Deverell deserved further explanation, Sneakabout added, “I’ve certain unfinished business with a Zhentilar band pursuing them.”

“Black Oaks,” said Pell Beresford, pushing aside his empty bowl.

Sneakabout nodded. “How did you know?”

“Before dawn, forty of your people passed this way. They were trailing a troop of Zhentilar that one of our patrols chased off during the night.”

“No doubt the same Zhentilar that chased you into our company,” Lord Deverell observed.

“I must leave at once!” Sneakabout exclaimed, hopping out of his chair. “Where did they go?”

“Patience,” said Lord Deverell. “They undoubtedly fled to the west, and those lands belong to the Zhentilar - if they belong to anybody. You’ll never find the ones you seek, though plenty of evil will find you. It would be wiser to forego your vengeance and accept my offer.”

“If it were only a matter of vengeance, I would,” Sneakabout sighed. He meant what he said. As much as he ached to repay the men who destroyed Black Oaks, he knew that no good would come of trailing them into the Tun Plain.

But Sneakabout had no choice. When the Zhentilar had attacked his village, they had stolen his sword. Now, as evil as it was, he had to steal it back. The thing had a will of its own - a will that had long dominated Sneakabout, forcing him to murder indiscriminately and often. If the red blade’s absence had not been driving him insane, Sneakabout would have been happy to be rid of the thing.

But an irrational desire to recover the sword dominated all of his thoughts and he had not slept an hour since losing it. Sneakabout knew his symptoms would get worse. The sword’s previous owner had turned into a raving lunatic - before dying in a poorly planned attempt to recover the weapon.

The lord commander, misinterpreting the desperation in Sneakabout’s eyes as resolve, said, “Do as your honor dictates. No matter how great my need, I can’t command you to stay.”

Sneakabout bowed to Deverell. “My thanks for your hospitality.” He turned to Midnight. “Please say goodbye to Kelemvor and Adon for me.”

“Where are you going?” Midnight demanded, rising to her feet.

“To track down the Zhentilar who destroyed my village,” the halfling answered, glancing at the door anxiously. “As I remember, you wanted to avoid them.”

Midnight ignored his barbed comment. “You’re going to catch your people and join the war party?” she probed.

“You know they won’t have me,” Sneakabout replied testily.

“If you go alone, the odds are twenty-to-one,” Deverell said. He shook his head in disbelief.

“Are you mad?” Midnight added, grabbing the halfling’s shoulder.

Noticing that the Cormyrian officers were listening to the exchange, Sneakabout hesitated before replying. Midnight did not know about the sword’s curse. Nobody did, and he thought it wise to keep it that way. Finally, the halfling pulled away from the magic-user and snapped, “I’ve slipped into better guarded camps.”

“And then what?” Midnight demanded. “Will you slit twenty throats as the Zhentilar sleep?”

Just one, the halfling thought. He’d done that often enough. But all he said was, “I must go.”

“You’ll be killed!” Midnight cried. She clenched her fists, angry at the little man’s stubbornness.

“Perhaps not,” Lord Deverell noted, turning to halfling. “We often send heavy patrols into the Tun Plain. It’s time for another. If you rode with it, you’d be safe until you caught the Zhentilar who raided your village.”

Before Sneakabout could reply, Deverell turned to Midnight. “The patrol could also escort your company as far as Yellow Snake Pass, if you’re going that way.”

Several officers arched their brows, thankful they had been permanently assigned to garrison duty.

“We’d certainly welcome that,” Midnight said. She and her companions had not yet discussed their new route to Waterdeep, but she knew both Adon and Kelemvor would agree. They’d been driven so far north that risking the Tun Plain and Yellow Snake Pass would be much easier than going south to join a caravan.

“Good,” Deverell said wearily. “I’ll have the quartermaster assemble a few supplies. You’ll need mountain ponies, cold weather gear, spare weapons, rope, a map…”

Cyric sat huddled behind a boulder, a wet cloak drawn over his shoulders. To all sides, white-streaked peaks eclipsed the horizon, scraping their jagged snouts against the sky’s gray belly. Cyric’s men were camped on the only flat space visible for miles, a field of man-sized rocks at the base of a towering cliff. The field ended atop another cliff that overlooked the road from High Horn.

A gentle, cold breeze washed down the valley, carrying with it the sour odor of skunkweed. Though a few scrappy bushes grew in sheltered pockets, there wasn’t a tree or plant taller than a dwarf in sight.

Dalzhel stood next to Cyric, having just relayed what he thought was a reasonable request from the men.

“They can’t build fires,” Cyric replied, not that he could see where anybody would find the wood to start one. After a night of icy drizzle, an insect eye had risen in the sun’s place. Though the eye had cast a green light over the mountains, its rays had lacked warmth, causing more grumbling among Cyric’s already disheartened men. Mercifully, clouds had finally moved in at midday and concealed the eye. At least the day now looked like it should be cold.

The chill did not trouble Cyric. Though the water in his canteen was frozen solid, he could not have been warmer if he had been sitting before a roaring fire. Although the thief did not fully understand the reason for his warmth, he suspected the red sword had something to do with it.

“We’re ill prepared for mountain travel,” Dalzhel grumbled, his nose and ears white from the cold. He looked toward the west, where eighteen of Cyric’s company sat huddled in the rock field. “The men are frozen and hungry.”

One of the Zhentish soldiers let out an agonized wail, as he had every few minutes since dawn. The howls unsettled the horses and put Cyric’s nerves on edge.

“No fires,” the hawk-nosed thief repeated. Though his men were freezing, there could be no fires, for fires created smoke, and smoke was visible for miles. “When our spies sight Midnight and we start moving, the men will warm up.”

“That’s little comfort,” Dalzhel replied, rubbing his hands together. “Half the men will be frozen corpses by then.”

“Think!” Cyric snapped. He touched the tip of his sword to a nearby rock. “This is us.” The thief moved the tip of his sword a few inches to the east. “And here is High Horn. The Cormyrians are over five hundred strong, with patrols crawling all over.”

Dalzhel winced at the mention of High Horn. Last night, they had camped a mile from the fortress. A patrol of fifty Cormyrians had surprised them. After losing quite a few of his men, Cyric had been forced to flee into the mountains.

The Cormyrians, mounted on sure-footed mountain ponies, had dogged their trail through most of the night. The enemy patrol had only turned back when Cyric’s band of cutthroats ambushed them in a narrow gorge. The Zhentish outlaws had taken the rest of the night to find the road and their present resting place. Along the way, the Zhentish sergeant, Fane, had broken both his legs in a bad fall, two horses had stepped off cliffs, and half the mounts had gone lame stumbling through the rocky terrain. Though he had originally snickered when he saw the Cormyrians’ riding ponies, Dalzhel would now gladly trade three men for a dozen of the sure-footed beasts.

Cyric placed his swordtip north of the spot representing his company. “The Farsea Marshes. Home to the Lizard People.” He touched the sword to the west. “Darkhold, Zhentilar stronghold.”

“We have nothing to fear from that direction, at least,” Dalzhel said. “Darkhold’s forces were decimated in the battles at Shadowdale and Tantras.”

Fane wailed again, causing the horses to whinny. Both men glanced in his direction then returned to their conversation.

“We have plenty to fear from Darkhold,” Cyric snapped. “With his numbers decimated, the garrison commander is surely sending raiders into the Tun Plain to look for recruits. Don’t you think they’d come after us?”

Dalzhel reluctantly nodded. “Aye.” A puff of steam came out of his mouth with his voice and obscured his face. “We’d be stuck on garrison duty for the rest of our lives.”

“If they didn’t recognize us as deserters,” Cyric added.

Dalzhel shivered. “This had better be worth the trouble. Fighting Cormyrians I can take - but being tortured as a deserter is another matter.”

“You don’t have a choice, do you?” Cyric snarled, irritated. A staggering urge to kill his lieutenant washed over him. He lifted his sword then realized what he was doing and stopped. The thief closed his eyes and calmed himself.

“Is something wrong?” Dalzhel asked.

Cyric opened his eyes. The anger had faded, but bloodlust had replaced it - a bloodlust more powerful and more sinister than anything the thief had ever felt. The emotion was not his own, and that made Cyric truly angry.

“You’d better check on the watch,” the hawk-nosed man grumbled, thinking of an excuse to get Dalzhel out of his sight. “And let me know the minute our spies report from High Horn.”

Dalzhel obeyed immediately and without question. He had no wish to add to the tension that was playing over his commander’s face.

Cyric sighed in relief then laid his sword across his knees. The blade had paled and was now beige instead of a healthy red. Pity for the weapon washed over him.

Cyric laughed aloud. Feeling sorry for a sword was no more his emotion than the thirst he had felt for Dalzhel’s blood.

Fane howled again, sending a shiver of irritation down the thief’s spine.

Kill him.

Cyric hurled the sword off his knees and watched it clatter to the rocky ground. The words had come unbidden to his mind in a wispy, feminine voice.

“You’re alive!” Cyric hissed, the cold biting his ears and nose for the first time.

The sword remained silent.

“Speak to me!”

His only answer was Fane’s pitiful groan.

Cyric retrieved the sword and immediately grew warm. The desire to kill Fane washed over him, but he made no move to act on the urge. Instead, the thief sat back down and laid the sword across his knees again.

“I have not decided to kill him,” Cyric said, glaring angrily at the weapon.

Before his eyes, the blade began to pale. Hunger and disappointment crept into his heart, and the thief found himself completely absorbed with pangs of hunger. As the blade grew more pale, Cyric became increasingly oblivious to his environment. By the time the weapon had turned completely white, he was aware of nothing else.

At Cyric’s back, a girl’s voice said, “I’m hungry.”

He stood and spun around. An adolescent girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, stood before him. She wore a diaphanous red frock that hinted at ripening womanhood, but which also betrayed a half-dozen protruding ribs and a stomach distended with starvation. Black satiny hair framed a gaunt face, and her eyes were sunken with fatigue and desperation.

Behind her stretched an endless white plain. Cyric was standing in a wasteland as flat as a table and as featureless as the air itself. The boulders on which he had been sitting were gone, as were the mountains that had surrounded him, and even the sword that had been lying across his knees.

“Where am I?” Cyric asked.

Ignoring his question, the girl dropped to her knees. “Cyric, please help me,” she pleaded. “I haven’t eaten in days.”

The thief didn’t need to ask how she knew his name. The girl and his sword were the same. She had moved him into a sphere where she could disguise her true form and assume a more sympathetic one.

“Send me back!” Cyric demanded.

“Then feed me.”

“Feed you what?” he asked.

“Feed me Fane,” the girl begged.

Though the plea might have shocked Midnight or Kelemvor, Cyric did not recoil from its hideousness. Instead, he frowned, considering her request. Finally, he shook his head. “No.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Fane means nothing to you. None of your men do.”

“True,” Cyric admitted. “But I decide when they die.”

“I’m weak. If I don’t eat, we can’t return.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Cyric warned. An idea occurred to him. Without taking his eye off the girl, he turned his attention inward. Perhaps she was manipulating his imagination and he could break free by force of will.

“I’m dying!” The girl staggered a few steps and collapsed at the thiefs feet.

The girl’s scream broke Cyric’s concentration. They remained in the wasteland. The young girl’s skin had turned gray and doughy, and it truly looked as though she would perish. “Then, goodbye,” Cyric said.

The girl’s eyes glazed over. “Please. Have mercy on me.”