Waterdeep (4 page)

Back with Kelemvor, Midnight hovered on the edge of the battle, dagger in hand. She was ready to strike if the zombie presented her an opening, but Ogden still moved with startling speed and grace. So far, she hadn’t even dared to approach within striking range of the undead creature.

Kelemvor slashed and the corpse parried, then thrust at the fighter’s head. He ducked inside the jab and smashed his hilt into the zombie’s jaw. The blow failed to stun the thing even slightly, so Kelemvor dropped to a knee and rolled away. He stumbled back to his feet just in time to block another of the corpse’s blows.

As she lingered on the edge of battle, it became increasingly clear to Midnight that Kelemvor was getting tired and would need help to destroy the zombie. The magic-user’s first thought was to try a magic missile, but after her earlier failure, she feared magic would do more harm than good. As risky as it was, she knew the best choice was stabbing the zombie in the back.

Then, as she started to circle around to the thing’s rear, Midnight saw Adon coming through the brush. The corpse seemed oblivious to him, so the magic-user decided to make sure the cleric remained unnoticed. She moved directly opposite Adon. Then, as Kelemvor slashed at the zombie’s head, Midnight hurled her dagger at its side.

The blade struck point first and sank several inches into Ogden’s torso. The zombie parried a thrust, then glanced at Midnight and snarled. The momentary distraction was all Kelemvor needed to land his first blow, opening a deep gash in the creature’s lower back. The corpse whirled on the fighter, slashing at him madly. Kelemvor barely managed to duck the wild swing, then the zombie raised its sword to strike again - and this time Kelemvor was so off balance, he would not be able to avoid the blow.

Adon stepped out of the brush and smashed his mace into the back of the zombie’s knees. The corpse dropped to the ground. Kelemvor stepped forward and separated the undead creature’s sword hand from its wrist. The cleric smashed his mace into the zombie’s nose, the fighter lifted his sword to strike again, and within moments Ogden the Hardrider no longer presented a threat.

For several seconds, Kelemvor stood panting over the foul-smelling body, too exhausted to thank Adon and Midnight for their help.

Regardless of whether he received thanks or not, Adon didn’t think it wise to allow the warrior to rest for long. “We’d better get out of here,” he said, pulling Midnight’s dagger out of the cadaver’s ribs and using it to point toward the woods. “There are still one or two zombies out there.”

“What about the archer who helped us?” Kelemvor panted. “He may be in trouble.”

“If they haven’t found him yet, they’re not going to,” Adon said, sharing a knowing glance with Midnight.

“I’m sure that this particular archer can take care of himself,” the magic-user added. If the archer was Cyric, as she and Adon suspected, the last thing he needed at the moment was to have Kelemvor roaming the woods, searching for him.

The warrior frowned. “Do you two know something I don’t?”

Midnight started walking to the north. “We’ll talk about it later,” she said.

“The men will see no rest tonight,” Dalzhel said, slipping past the cockeyed door.

A burly man who stood nearly six and half feet tall, Dalzhel resembled a bear both in build and disposition. He had broad, hulking shoulders, a heavy black beard, and a long tail of braided hair that hung down his back. His brown eyes were calm and observant.

Cyric didn’t respond to Dalzhel’s comment. Instead, he watched warily as his lieutenant entered the room. The thief and his men were five miles north of Eveningstar, in the great hall of a ruined castle. The hall was fifty feet long and twenty feet wide. An imposing fireplace dominated one end of the dusty chamber, the roaring fire within providing the room’s only light. In the middle of the floor sat a thirty-foot banquet table, gray and cracked from age and neglect. Around the table and scattered in the hall’s corners were a dozen rickety chairs.

Cyric had placed the sturdiest chair before the fireplace and was sitting in it. With a hawkish nose, narrow chin, and dark, stormy eyes, his sharp features were equally suited to sly humor or sinister moods. A recently acquired short sword lay across the thief’s lap. The blade’s reddish luster left little doubt that it was an extraordinary weapon.

Removing his wet cloak, Dalzhel moved to the fire. Beneath the cloak the Zhentish soldier wore a shirt of black chain mail. Though the armor weighed at least thirty-five pounds, Dalzhel removed it only to sleep - and then only when safely hidden away.

“You could not have picked a darker lair,” Dalzhel noted, warming his hands over the hearth. “The men are calling this place the Haunted Halls.”

Though he did not say so aloud, Cyric understood the sentiment. Located in the bottom of a deep gorge and overlooking the turbulent currents of the Starwater River, the ruin was as forlorn a place as he knew. The castle had been built before Cormyr had become a kingdom, yet many of its brooding walls and black towers remained intact. It was a hundred yards long and fifty wide, with outer walls still rising to a height of thirty feet in places. The gatehouses showed no signs of the castle’s age, though their elaborate portcullises had long since fallen into disrepair.

The great hall, residential apartments, kitchen, and stable had once stood snuggled against the keep’s interior wall, their doors and windows opening onto the courtyard. Only the great hall - built from the same black granite as the gatehouses - remained completely intact. The other buildings, constructed of some lesser stone, had fallen into ruins.

Given the castle’s combination of crumbled walls and imposing edifices, it did not surprise Cyric that the men found the place unsettling. Still, he had little stomach for their complaints. Dalzhel and the rest of the troops had arrived at the castle that morning, in plenty of time to avoid the storm that had raged all afternoon. Cyric, however, had not come until dusk - cold, tired, and wet after an afternoon in the rain. He had no wish to listen to the men simper.

Heedless of his commander’s mood, Dalzhel continued to speak. “There’s something beyond the outer curtain,” he said, trying to gain Cyric’s interest. He removed his scabbard and placed it upon the dusty banquet table. “Or so the watch says.”

Cyric had little concern for what lurked outside the walls to frighten his men. He decided to change the subject and asked, “How is my pony? That fellow carried me well, considering how hard I rode.”

“With rest it’ll recover - provided someone doesn’t kill it first,” Dalzhel said, returning to the fireplace. “There are those who grumble that it has eaten better than the men.”

“It’s proven more use!” Cyric snapped. The pony had carried him nearly one hundred and fifty miles over the last three days. A war-horse could not have done better. He considered threatening death to anyone who touched the pony, but rejected the idea. The order would breed resentment, and someone might take up the challenge. “If it survives until morning, take the pony to the plain and free it.”

“Aye. That’s for the best,” Dalzhel responded, surprised at his commander’s unexpected hint of compassion. “The men are in a foul mood. Couldn’t we have stayed elsewhere?”

“Where would you suggest?” Cyric growled, glaring at Dalzhel’s standing form. “Eveningstar?”

“Of course not, sir,” the soldier responded, stiffening his posture.

Dalzhel had meant the question to be rhetorical. Given that he and all the men wore Zhentish armor, few things would have been as foolish as seeking lodging in a Cormyrian town.

Cyric looked away and glowered into the fire. “Never question my orders!”

Dalzhel did not respond.

The hawk-nosed thief decided to further chasten his lieutenant by bringing up a sore subject. “Where are your messengers?” he demanded harshly.

“Holed up with two-copper wenches from one end of Cormyr to another,” Dalzhel retorted, standing more or less at attention.

Cyric had ordered sentries to watch all roads leading out of Cormyr, and it had fallen on Dalzhel’s shoulders to execute the command. So far, not a single messenger had reported.

“And I’d be with ‘em,” Dalzhel continued, “if my mother had blessed me with the sense of an ox.”

Cyric wheeled on Dalzhel, the rose-colored short sword in his hand and the desire to use it in his breast.

In return, the Zhentish lieutenant backed away and snatched his scabbard off the banquet table, then met his commander’s angry glare with a puzzled gaze. His reply had been out of line, but Cyric had never before responded to unruliness with such vehemence.

Three tentative raps sounded at the cockeyed door. The intrusion brought Cyric back to his senses and he thrust the short sword into its scabbard. “Enter!” he ordered.

The night sergeant, Fane, slipped into the room. He was a stocky man with a scraggly red beard. Water dripping from his cloak, he turned to Dalzhel and reported, “Alrik is missing from his post.”

“You’ve looked for him?” Dalzhel demanded, laying his scabbard back on the table.

“Aye,” Fane replied, hardly daring to meet Dalzhel’s gaze. “He’s nowhere to be found.”

Dalzhel cursed under his breath then said, “Assign another to his place. We’ll deal with Alrik come morning.” He turned away, indicating the audience was over.

Fane did not leave. “Alrik isn’t one to desert,” he insisted.

“Then double the guard,” Dalzhel snarled, turning back to the sergeant. “But don’t let the men grumble to me about it. Now go.”

His eyes betraying irritation. Fane nodded and backed out the door.

As the sergeant left, Cyric realized that he had turned on Dalzhel for a minor infraction. It was not a smart thing to do. Without exception, the men were cutthroats and thieves, and he needed Dalzhel to watch his back. It would not do to have his bodyguard angry at him.

By way of apology, Cyric said, “Everything depends upon those messengers.”

Dalzhel understood the explanation for what it was and accepted it with a nod. “It shouldn’t be as difficult for the messengers to avoid Cormyrian patrols. The storm must have muddied the roads and slowed their pace. It seems that Talos the Raging One is against us.”

“Aye,” Cyric replied, dropping back into his chair. “All the deities are against us, not just the God of Storms.” He was thinking of five nights ago, when he had been spying upon Midnight’s camp and a group of zombie riders had appeared. It was possible they had been just another aspect of the chaos plaguing the Realms, but Cyric thought it more likely a god had sent them to capture Midnight and the tablet.

“Not that it gives me fright, understand,” Dalzhel said, watching Cyric closely. “But this business hardly seems the affair of common soldiers. It makes a man curious.”

Cyric kept his silence, for any man privileged to know his intention might try to usurp his place.

“The blood between you and the three we seek must be bad indeed,” Dalzhel pressed.

“We were once… friends, of a sort,” Cyric responded guardedly. He saw no harm in admitting that much.

“And what of this stone?” Dalzhel asked. He tried to sound nonchalant, but his interest was more than casual. Cyric wanted the fiat stone the trio carried as much as he wanted them. Dalzhel wished to know why.

“My orders are to recover it.” Cyric tried to intimidate Dalzhel with an angry stare. “I don’t care to know why.”

Cyric was lying. Before the battle of Shadowdale, he and his companions had helped the goddess Mystra attempt to leave the Realms. The god Helm had refused to let her pass unless she presented the Tablets of Fate, which had been stolen from Ao, the mysterious overlord of the gods. Cyric knew little else about the tablets, but he suspected that Ao would pay a handsome reward for their return.

Cyric had spent most of his life putting bread in his mouth by thieving or fighting, always without a sense of destiny or purpose. For more than a decade, this shiftless existence had seemed an empty one, but the thief had been unable to find a higher purpose in life. Every time he tried, the matter ended as in Shadowdale, his efforts unappreciated. Often as not, Cyric found the very people he had tried to help chasing him from town.

After Shadowdale, Cyric finally realized that he could only believe in himself - not in the abstract concept of “Good,” not in the sanctity of friendship, not even in the hope of love. If his life was to have a purpose, it had to be his own best interest. After deciding this, Cyric began to formulate a plan that not only gave meaning to his life, but one that would literally allow him to choose his own destiny. He would recover the Tablets of Fate and return them to Ao in return for a reward that would doubtlessly make him as wealthy as any king.

Without knocking, someone brushed past the heavy wooden door and stepped into the room. Cyric stood and brandished his short sword. Dalzhel grabbed his own weapon. Both men turned to face the intruder.

“I beg your pardon, my commanders!” It was Fane again, still dripping wet. His eyes were locked on the naked blades in the hands of Dalzhel and Cyric, and his eyebrows were arched in fright. “I’ve merely come to report,” he gasped.

“Then do it!” Dalzhel ordered.

“Edan’s post is also empty.” Fane winced as he said the words, half-expecting Dalzhel to strike him.

The Zhentish lieutenant merely frowned. “He could be hiding with Alrik.”

“Edan is unreliable,” the sergeant admitted.

“If two men have abandoned their posts,” Cyric interrupted, addressing Dalzhel, “your discipline is not half as strict as you claim.”

“I’ll fix that come morning,” Dalzhel growled. “Still… have you doubled the guard?”

“No,” Fane replied, blanching. “I didn’t think you meant that as an order.”

“Do it now,” Dalzhel snapped. “Then find Alrik and Edan. Your punishment for disobeying my order will depend on how quickly you find them.”

Fane gulped, but did not reply.

“Dismissed,” Dalzhel said.

The sergeant turned and scrambled out the door.

Dalzhel turned to Cyric. “This is bad. The men are unruly, and unruly men fight poorly. Perhaps their spirits would be lifted if they saw a reward in sight - that halfling village we raided provided little enough loot.”