Fire in the Blood, page 21
“There,” Crake murmured. He pointed off into the gloom of the forest, off to the left. “At least four. Hrast—gnolls.”
“How can you …” Havilar stopped herself. No time. She turned and prodded Constancia with the butt of her glaive. “Gnolls,” she said when the knight stirred, and Constancia was up as if she’d never slept at all.
“To the east,” Crake said, still looking out. “Four. Maybe five.”
“More than that,” Constancia said. “Gnolls surround. Take out the first group.” She shook Mehen, then Kallan and Moriah awake as she spoke. She looked around. “Gods blast it, where’s Desima?”
“Let’s go,” Crake said, taking Havilar’s arm. “We can see what we’re up against. Give the others time to prepare.” He gave her a wicked grin. “Knock these dogs down and gain the glory.”
Havilar wrinkled her nose. “Don’t crowd me,” she warned, shaking off his grasp. And glaive in hand, she slunk out into the night.
The forest crowded in on her, branches like reaching hands, brush like strangers stumbling into her path. She went smoothly, carefully, toward the patch of trees Crake had pointed to, picking out the way in the moonlight suffusing the clouds. As she reached the edge of a brier, she heard barking, growling voices. She slipped around the thorny barrier, until it was thin enough to see past.
Crake was right—five gnolls hunkered down in the clearing, watching over the pine bough structure, looking as if they were waiting for a signal, their spotted fur peeking out around scraps of armor scavenged from their victims. One had a glowstone cupped in its hand, its light enough to trace their wet noses, the edges of swords—
And Crake as he leaped right in and plunged his blade into the one holding the glowstone.
Havilar cursed. The glowstone’s freed light made the battle much clearer.
To all of them. Four gnolls all turned on Crake, teeth bared, and still he wore that godsbedamned smirk. A disgust so visceral and violent hit her, and for a moment, she considered standing in the shadows, letting Crake fall.
Karshoj, Havilar thought. Where had that come from? She pressed through the brambles, glaive up, and caught one of the gnolls in the back, throwing them into confusion. One of them—a female with a jagged, bald scar across her snout, swung at Havilar. In the gloom, she nearly missed it, and twisted awkwardly under the sword.
Something popped.
Something fundamental, something that shouldn’t have broken. Havilar could feel that much, but not the pain that should have come. Not the weakness. Not her shoulder, not a knee. She scurried backward, gaining the space to check herself.
Instead she saw, hanging in the air, a pair of devils no larger than barn cats. Ruby-red and winged like bats, they raced toward her attacker, claws outstretched. The gnoll who’d attacked her was so startled she didn’t start screaming until the first creature had torn out her eyes.
Havilar shrieked and, all instinct, chopped her glaive through the nearer one. The blade severed its back and one wing, and the little devil burst into a cloud of flames and an ear-splitting screech. Havilar didn’t watch. She turned and sliced toward the second devil, as it turned to see what the fuss was about. One well-placed strike, and it, too, died and returned to the Hells.
Panting, panicking, Havilar looked to Crake, and the last gnoll. The sellsword had lowered his weapon over another fallen beast and was staring at Havilar, looking puzzled and furious. He pursed his mouth, an expression that didn’t seem suited to his face.
“Crake move!” Havilar shouted. But it didn’t matter. The gnoll was already too close, too prepared. The sword came around Crake’s neck and sliced deeply into his throat, spraying blood across the battleground.
Crake never made a sound. Never stopped staring at Havilar.
The last gnoll knew well enough to run then, but a bolt of shimmering power caught him in the back. Desima stood at the edge of the clearing, glaring at the fallen scout. She looked down at Crake and muttered a curse under her breath.
“Lords of the bloody Nine,” she spat. “What happened?”
“He … he just stood there,” Havilar said.
And the devils. The devils that appeared out of the air. They’d attacked the gnolls, she thought, the eerie shiver of her dreams trailing up her spine. They came for you.
This is how it starts, she thought, wishing Farideh were there to confirm it.
“Stay quiet,” Desima said. “Don’t move.” And then she vanished.
11
26 Eleasias, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR)
Suzail, Cormyr
THE BRIGAND’S BOTTLE MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE MOST ORDINARY INN IN all of Suzail, but to Farideh it felt as alien as stepping onto another plane. Dahl jerked against her arm as she stopped just inside the doorway.
“Everyone here is human,” she hissed. Every single face in the taproom—from the merchants haggling over their ales to the beggars spending their alms to the young nobles in their cloaks, clearly enjoying a dip into the rougher parts of Suzail. Dahl looked over the room as if it hadn’t occurred to him.
“To be fair,” he said, “so are you for the moment.”
She followed him across the room, aware of every eye that tracked her—a paltry fraction. Dahl had a point. To these people, she was nothing of note. Dahl guided her to a table in the corner of the taproom where a group of tipsy card players was calling it an early night. While Dahl called for two ales from the keghand, one of the players took Farideh’s hand and helped her slide onto the bench that wrapped the table, pressing a quick kiss to her knuckles before she could snatch her hand back.
“I don’t think I should be here,” Farideh said to Dahl as he slid in beside her. “And you said you weren’t drinking.”
“It’s to put in front of me. People don’t just sit in taprooms, watching folks. And you should be here—how else are we going to manage this?”
“What if the spell wears off?”
“When did they tell you it would wear off?”
Farideh shrugged, studying the taproom, marking the exits, noting dangerous-looking people. “Before tomorrow morning.”
“That’s plenty of time.” Dahl leaned in close—very close—and smiled at her. “Ready for your first Harper mission?”
Farideh drew back. “What are you doing?”
“We’re crafting a cover,” he said. “So when people look over here, they don’t notice anything interesting. So relax. Look around.” Farideh turned to the taproom, but she was still so aware of Dahl, leaning so close to her. “When people look over at this table,” he said, “we want them to see a man and a woman, out for a drink. The man is clearly more interested in her than she is in him—he keeps on talking, but she’s looking around like she wants a way out. But here’s an important piece: is anyone making eye contact with you?”
A man in a blue cap with a small smile behind his trim beard. “Yes,” she said.
“Then look at me,” Dahl said. “And smile, and say something.”
Farideh turned and met Dahl’s gray eyes. “Does it matter what I say?”
“Tell me who’s watching.”
“The sailor standing beside the bar.”
“Good.” Dahl grinned at her. “Now he knows our lady’s not in any trouble—she’s just bored. Though not quite bored enough to want to be whisked away. He’ll have to wait for another evening, a few more tendays of our fellow being an utter clod. Ready to search?”
Farideh pushed an errant strand of hair out of her face and nodded. She made herself lean a little closer to Dahl—it would look right, she told herself. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the powers of the Hells that fed the soul sight, the gifts of Asmodeus.
It was enough to twist the powers: pain seized the back of her skull, and she gave a little gasp without meaning too. Farideh didn’t hide her discomfort—maybe that would add to the ruse. She considered the room, while Dahl murmured a steady stream of nonsense—comments about the weather, the rising cost of feed, what Vescaras drank.
“You look Rashemi,” he said suddenly, “has anyone told you that?”
Farideh turned back to him, surprised. He was leaning so close. She slid away without thinking about it. “Sorry, what?”
“Rashemi,” he said again. “You know—from Rashemen?” He studied her a little more, the scrutiny incredibly distracting. “Or maybe … Mulan? A little Durpari? It’s hard to say. But it should be easier to say, right? If the … other parts aren’t there.”
“The devil parts?” Farideh said irritably.
“I thought we called a truce,” Dahl said. “I’m just saying, if they take away things like your horns and your eyes, you should be able to guess where your parents were from. What do you think? Have you got a guess?”
Lorcan’s long ago words came back to her: There aren’t many likely options. If she was the descendant of Bryseis Kakistos, there were only a handful of people who might have been her mother or father. “I think it doesn’t matter.”
Dahl shook his head. “That’s … I can’t imagine,” he said, “not knowing where I came from. I mean, my family’s been on the same farm for two hundred years. They’ve been in Harrowdale since anyone can remember. I just can’t imagine anything else.”
Farideh tried to imagine what it would be like to know anything beyond herself and Havilar and Mehen. Even Mehen’s family in Djerad Thymar was as far off and mysterious as the dragonborn of ancient Abeir in his bedtime tales. And as for her blood relatives … there was only Bryseis Kakistos, the Brimstone Angel, the Nightmare of Vaasa.
“Do you think I could be Vaasan?” she asked. Dahl looked her over again.
“Maybe,” he said. “Vaasan and something else. You’re a bit darker than a Vaasan, but your cheekbones and nose … Why Vaasan?”
“I have an ancestor who was Vaasan. At least that’s what Lorcan said.”
“That sounds ominous,” Dahl said.
“It’s a really far-off ancestor,” she assured him.
Farideh went back to considering the jumble of merchants and shopkeepers, apprentices and farmhands and sellswords. Their dappled souls came in every hue she could imagine, speckled with shadows—some faint, some deep and dark. One flickered with the half-written glyph of a god’s blessing. A few she lingered on, long enough that the sense of what might sway them came to her—this one was so proud, the chance to clear a slight from her name would make her bend; that one was so consumed by hungers of the flesh that Farideh had to look away.
But none of them were Shar’s.
She checked a second time, then a third, before at last she turned back to Dahl, her head pounding. “None of them.”
Dahl seemed to deflate at that. “None of them? And definitely not any of the staff? Definitely not the tavernkeeper?”
“No,” Farideh said. She covered her eyes with both hands, blocking the light. “Sorry.”
He muttered a curse and sighed, and stood. Farideh waited, braced for the inevitable argument. Dahl said nothing and nothing …
A clay cup settled on the table before her. Dahl slid the whiskey over to her. “Here.”
“I didn’t find them.”
“You tried. And I forgot it gives you a headache.” He took up his own cup, toasted her.
“You said you wouldn’t drink anymore.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“You’re drunk.”
“Well it’s not as if we have Sharrans to contend with, is it?” he said. “You’re welcome for the whiskey. And the ales.” He took another sip and shook his head. “If I see Brin again, I’m going to wring his neck.”
“What’s he done now?”
Dahl shrugged as if he couldn’t tell her. “Harper things,” he settled on. Then, “He was awfully sharp with you the day we arrived. That new?”
Farideh sipped her own whiskey, just enough to warm her mouth. “He’s still angry. About what happened.” She scanned the taproom again—it was easier than meeting Dahl’s eyes. “I suppose I can’t blame him. If not for me, none of this would have happened.” She took another sip of whiskey, trying to loosen her suddenly tight throat.
Dahl snorted. “Look, let’s be honest here.” He turned in his seat to face her fully. “This was always going to happen to him. The richest royal family in Cormyr, and they don’t have a soul in the line of succession until you get to the Lady Crownsilver? There’s not a chance on Tymora’s wheel that they’re going to let a legitimized bastard’s son run away into obscurity. If he hadn’t come back, the war wizards would have been sicced on him. Don’t let him tell you otherwise.”
Farideh smiled. “Thank you.” She wrapped her hands around the cup and sighed heavily. “It’s sad. We used to be friends—and I don’t have that many to spare. But then he and Havi … well, I became less a friend and more … an obstruction.” She glanced at Dahl and then at the whiskey, her head pounding and her heart squeezed tight. “Gods, this makes you gloomy doesn’t it? It was ages ago anyway. I should let it go.”
Dahl smiled. “You know what’s funny? I’ve known Brin for longer than you have now.”
Farideh’s throat tightened a little more. “That’s true,” she managed.
“This is the thing about Brin,” Dahl proclaimed. “When he’s feeling pressured, when he thinks people are trying to block him, he acts like a real cock.”
A snort of laughter escaped Farideh before she could clap a hand over it. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t hear a lot of Common cursing.”
“You curse all the time!” Dahl cried.
“In Draconic,” Farideh said. “You wouldn’t say that in Draconic. It would sound … literal.” She chuckled once. “But yeah. He’s being a real cock.”
“Because he’s made himself an unenviable mess. It means all that noble upbringing, all that training to maneuver and manipulate and bully comes right out, and for all that he insists he’s not like them, he’s exactly like them. And I suspect he hates it.”
Farideh gave Dahl a sidelong look. “Say something nice about him now. Be fair.”
“He’s not here.” But when she didn’t speak again, he sighed. “Fine. He’s loyal—almost to a fault. I have never once worried about Brin turning traitor, and with as much turmoil and scheming and divided loyalties as Cormyr tends to accumulate, that’s a tremendous asset.” He finished his whiskey. “Also, he doesn’t leave folks behind if he can help it—that’s beyond loyal. It’s almost insane.” He got a distant look for a moment. “It definitely makes my life trickier, but I can’t complain. Then I’m being a real cock.” Farideh laughed. “Is that enough, or do I need to praise his taste in clothes too?”
“You’ve thought about that a lot.”
Dahl shrugged and picked up the flagon of ale that was just for show. “It goes well with doing what I do.”
“It makes me wonder what you say about me when I’m not around.”
“I will tell you, right to your face,” he said. “You are maddening. You never just listen—you’ve got to come up with your own answer instead, even if it’s exactly what I told you already. And you could give Brin a run for his coin, the way you try to rescue everyone. But,” he said, as she started to reply, “for someone who agrees she’s made several extremely foolish decisions, you can be incredibly astute, and I am man enough to admit you make me feel like an idiot at times. Also, you look very nice in that dress.” He waved at the keghand and gave her a triumphant grin. “There: one criticism, two compliments.”
Farideh’s face ached with all the blood in her cheeks. “That first one is half of each.”
“Greedy,” he said and signaled for two more ales. “Check again for that Sharran?” She called up the soul sight, her head still pounding, and scanned the taproom. There was nothing to see, and she was too aware the whole time of Dahl’s gaze on her. You look very nice in that dress. She fidgeted with the cuff of one sleeve.
“Nothing,” she said when she’d made a sweep of the room. She let the soul sight fall and saw the man beside the column opposite their table watching her. She turned to Dahl and smiled. “Should we go?”
The keghand set two ales on the table, and Dahl handed him more coin. “Suffer through my company a bit more,” he said. “Here.”
She watched him sip from the flagon of ale. You can’t take care of everyone, she reminded herself. “What are you really doing in Suzail? Is it this?”
“Partly,” Dahl said. “An … acquaintance of mine died. I’m here to see to her things. And this,” he said, with no small significance, “is one of those things.”
Not an acquaintance, she thought. Another Harper. “So you’re fully … with Tam again?” she asked, carefully. “Well done. And I mean that,” she added, before he could get upset at her. “You can’t pretend I haven’t always thought you were very clever.”
“Yes. Well,” Dahl said. “I’m not clever enough to figure out what this is.”
“It might be nothing.”
“It might have been nothing,” Dahl allowed, “but then you found a traitor in the princess’s chambers.” He frowned at the taproom a moment, before turning to her. “Can I ask you something?” he said. “How is it you can do this?” He nodded to the taproom. “See people’s souls, the marks of gods. I always thought warlock magic was meant more for … you know, fighting. Corrupting. Not that you,” he added, “corrupt things. Just … you could. If you were a different person.”
Farideh looked away. “It’s … meant more for that. For finding people who could be corrupted.” She took another swallow of ale. “And I don’t use it for that.”
“I didn’t say you did,” Dahl said.
Farideh stopped herself—it had been too long a day, and they’d agreed to stop arguing. And to be fair, he hadn’t said she used the soul sight to find corruptible people. She drank a little more ale.
“What do you see when you look at me?” Dahl asked abruptly. “Do I look corrupted?”
Farideh kept looking out at the taproom. “You asked me before not to look. So I haven’t. But I don’t think so.”
