The queen stared down at Hweilan a long time, and Hweilan was beginning to think she’d gone too far. Finally, the old hobgoblin put her staff on the ground, leaned upon it, and looked down on her.
“Have it your way, you ungrateful little nit. But know this. I’ll find a way to deal with Highwatch. I have your weapons. It’s only a matter of time before I decipher all those symbols you’ve burned and scratched into them. If I can’t find the answers, I know those who can, be they gods or demons or devils. And when your horn-headed master comes-if he dares-I’ll throw your skin at him and spit. Meet you in the Hells? Heh. I’ve been there. And back.”
Maaqua nudged Kaad with her toe. The healer stirred and looked up at her, but made no move to get up.
“Get her ready,” said Maaqua. “I’ve decided to let Rhan kill the bitch.”
CHAPTER FIVE
When Vazhad finally emerged into the courtyard, with his master and the eladrin following, it was midmorning. The sky overhead was a cloudless blue, but the sun had still not managed to climb the high eastern wall. Vazhad wondered if the guards would still be there as he’d ordered them. He wouldn’t have blamed them if they’d fled. But he suspected they’d stayed. He didn’t know these two, but he’d known many like them-men so eager for power that they’d betray clan and family. Their lust for reward would outweigh their instinct for self-preservation.
He was right.
Both men were crouched against the far wall of the courtyard where the sun would strike first. The way they sat, face to face, looking at the ground, Vazhad knew they were tossing dice or stones, probably gambling away what gold or silver they still had from the ransacking of Highwatch.
Vazhad emerged from the tunnel first, making sure he stepped loudly enough to announce their presence.
The guards stood and turned to face them. At first, they looked relieved to see only Vazhad, but when he stepped aside and Jagun Ghen and Kathkur followed, both men stood at attention and looked down in deference.
Jagun Ghen’s hood was pulled so low that only a fraction of his chin showed. Vazhad suspected the guards did not know enough to discern the true will inside the body. Most likely, they saw only Argalath, demonbinder and conqueror of Highwatch. Though that was enough to cause even the hardiest and greediest of the Creel to fear, Vazhad doubted even their avarice would have kept them here had they known the truth of what walked out next.
Kathkur stopped beside his master, his gaze fixed on the two Creel. “These two, then?”
“They are yours,” said Jagun Ghen.
The rune on the eladrin’s forehead flared suddenly, like a breeze stirring an ember. He shivered and hunched his shoulders, as if struck with a sudden chill, and then he charged.
The Creel, used to obeying orders, held their ground a moment longer than they should have. Then both men’s eyes went wide and bright like freshly minted coins. The big one screamed, “No! Please! Plea-” while his companion simply fled.
Kathkur pursued the runner, cackling with the glee of a naughty child. He caught the man after five strides, both hands seizing the man’s shoulders, and pushed him to the flagstones.
The big one still stood, not moving, wide-eyed, tears streaming down his cheeks. He looked to Vazhad and said in Nar, “Kinsman, please-”
Vazhad shrugged and replied in kind, “Run if you wish. You might stand a chance if your friend struggles a while.”
Beside him, Jagun Ghen chuckled.
The man let out all his breath, and Vazhad saw the front of his trousers darkening with wetness. Vazhad turned away in disgust. No shame in dying, but to die craven …
Still laughing, Kathkur turned the other Creel over with no more difficulty than a scholar turning the page of a book, then came down atop him, pinning one arm under his leg. The man screamed and swung his other hand. It held a dagger. He buried it to the hilt between the eladrin’s ribs.
“That hurt, you little morsel,” said Kathkur.
Vazhad could not see his face, but the sound of the possessed eladrin’s voice was not that of a man with half a foot of steel in his side. He almost sounded … pleased. But he spoke in Damaran, and Vazhad doubted the guard even understood him.
Kathkur grabbed the man’s hand and squeezed. Vazhad heard bones snap, then crumble, and the Creel’s screams turned to agony. Vazhad clenched his jaw and breathed very carefully through his nose. He would not look away. With his free hand, the eladrin grabbed the man’s chin and pushed his head back, exposing his neck.
“There,” he said. “I think I’ll start with the soft bits first.”
He bent close. The Creel’s screaming turned so shrill that Vazhad feared the man might tear his throat. Still, Vazhad did not look away. He had seen death many times, and his own choices had brought him here. If his soul were to be damned, at least he would not flinch from it.
But then, his teeth just inches from the Creel’s throat, Kathkur stopped. He trembled. But the tremble didn’t stop. It grew until the eladrin’s whole body was shaking with such force that Vazhad could hear the grit on the flagstones scraping under the two men.
Beside Vazhad, Jagun Ghen tensed, bellowed, “No!” and then rushed forward.
The eladrin screamed-a ragged-edged awful sound that began like the roar of an animal, and then rose to something that seemed … afraid, horrified, and in terrible pain, yes, but … normal. Of this world.
This was not Kathkur any longer. This was Menduarthis.
Still straddling the Creel, the eladrin turned and raised a hand at the onrushing Jagun Ghen.
Before his master stepped in front of his view, Vazhad saw the eladrin’s face. The rune on his forehead was blazing, a hot, angry red, the skin around it scorched and smoking. His expression was that of a man in terrible pain.
Then Vazhad heard it before he felt it. Wind. Not the late spring breeze of Narfell. This was a monster gale, with gusts that came out of the mountains in the darkest months of winter. It fell over the courtyard walls with the force of a cataract, shattering the dry, dead ivy on the walls, swirling around the eladrin, gathering its strength. He shrieked-Vazhad thought there might have been words in the cry-and the wind shot out from his grasp with the power of a battering ram.
But Jagun Ghen seemed to have been expecting as much. He stopped his charge and raised his own counterstrike. The wind struck, but it hit something that Jagun Ghen held up in front of him. Vazhad saw flames flickering in the air as the gale broke around his master, whipping at his robes and throwing off his hood, but otherwise doing him no harm.
And then the cloud of dust and grit and dry leaves washed over Vazhad, and he had to close his eyes and turn away. Even over the roar of the wind, he could hear the eladrin screaming, and Jagun Ghen shouting incomprehensible words.
When Vazhad opened his eyes again, his torch was no more than a smoldering branch, nearly extinguished by the wind. Vazhad tossed it aside and sought refuge inside the tunnel, going in just far enough to escape the worst of the wind but stopping well before the light ran out.
Vazhad reached into his sleeve and grabbed the talisman, holding on to it like a little boy holds a horse’s mane during his first ride alone. He could feel the point of it piercing his palm-deep, drawing blood-but he did not care.