Vazhad knew that rumors were already thick in the valley. Very few of those Nar called into Highwatch came out again. The tale that they were being sent into the high mountains to prepare for a summer campaign had been believed at first. But the Nar were no fools. Already, some had begun to trickle away in the night. His master had ordered the main gate locked and guarded by baazuled, which meant that those managing to leave were doing so through the mountains.
As they rounded the final bend in the tunnel, Argalath raised his hood and pulled it low over his eyes. Even the meager light given off by two torches pained him.
Vazhad saw two Creel hunched against the wall across from a door. The taller guard had to stoop to keep from bashing his head on the low ceiling.
The guards’ eyes widened when they saw Argalath. Both leaned back as far as they could against the wall.
Argalath ignored them. He was still leaning against Vazhad, and so Vazhad felt the tremor that suddenly ran through his master. Then Jagun Ghen stepped away, and there was no sign of weakness in him. He walked over to the door, placed one palm flat against the iron, and leaned close.
Vazhad saw the guards exchange a nervous glance, and one of them swallowed hard.
“Be gone,” Vazhad told them. “Wait for us above. Give me the key.”
The tall one slapped the key into Vazhad’s palm while his companion reached for the sconce.
“Leave the torches,” said Vazhad.
“Both of them?” said the guard.
Vazhad said nothing and just stared at him, his face expressionless.
“That means we’ll have to go up in the dark.”
“You know the way. Go now. Or stay here. But the torches remain.”
The tall one took off at just short of a full run. His companion spared Vazhad a glare as he followed, one hand running along the wall.
The sound of their footfalls faded, and Vazhad was left with only the sound of the soft whisper of the torches. There was a little smoke, though Vazhad could see no holes in the ceiling. These tunnels had once been the deep storage area for Highwatch’s dwarves. Despite their uselessness otherwise, there was no doubting the craftsmanship of the stone.
Jagun Ghen still had not moved, but Vazhad thought he saw the tiniest blue flicker along the back of his master’s hand where the spellscar was particularly thick.
“My brother will need to feed,” said Jagun Ghen without turning.
“Yes,” said Vazhad.
“You should have kept one of the guards here.”
“Shall I go get one of them?”
“No.”
Jagun Ghen let the ensuing silence linger, just long enough for Vazhad to begin to wonder if his time had come at last. He had a dagger in his right boot, and tucked inside his left sleeve was a sharpened swifstag antler, held by two strips of linen. Vazhad had bought it for three pieces of silver from a priest in one of the camps. It wasn’t the pointed end that had interested Vazhad but the runes and spells burned into the bone itself. He did not know if the priest’s words were true, if it would guard him against even the most savage demons of the Abyss. But he had seen how his master’s “brothers” fed, and he would go down fighting.
“No,” said his master, “I think my brother might enjoy a hunt. Being fed and feeding-truly feeding-do your people distinguish these concepts, Vazhad?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Then you understand?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Good.” He straightened and turned to face Vazhad. Fire burned in his eyes, and Vazhad knew little of it was a reflection from the torches. They were too red and hungry. “Have no fear, my friend. The seals have held here in the cold dark, as I’d hoped they would. My brother is quite safe at the moment. Stronger, rested, and more secure in his new home. Please open the door.”
Vazhad stepped past his master, threw back the three iron bolts that ran all the way across the door, then fitted the key into the hole at the very center of the door. The lock turned smoothly. He left the key in the lock and pulled the door. It swung open. It was well made and didn’t scrape the floor, but the hinges had gone too long without oil and shrieked as metal ground on metal.
The darkness beyond was so absolute that for a moment Vazhad thought it might smother the torches in the hall. The air inside was oven hot, and a charnel stench wafted out. He heard something rustle in the room.
“Thank you, Vazhad,” said Jagun Ghen, and he gave him an expectant look.
Vazhad stepped back to allow his master to pass. Jagun Ghen bent under the door frame and his red robes disappeared into the room. A moment later, there was the tiniest flicker of light-bright orange like a waking ember-but it failed to light anything around it. Vazhad heard the voices of his master and another speaking in a language he could not understand.
Vazhad turned his back to the room, loosened the antler talisman in his sleeve, and pulled one of the torches from the walls. When he turned, something was emerging from the room.
The figure bent to pass through the low door and then straightened as much as he could. He could not stand to his full height in the low corridor, crouching instead so that Vazhad thought he was preparing to pounce.
It was the eladrin. Or at least his flesh. The mind staring out from those eyes was nothing of this world. Kathkur, his master had named him. The eladrin’s body had been stripped of the armor and fine clothes he’d been wearing and now wore nothing more than a loincloth knotted at one hip. Arcane symbols decorated his entire torso and both arms-not painted but cut into the skin itself so that the man was red from head to toe in his own smeared blood. The deepest and most ragged of the runes, the one on his forehead, flickered with a faint light, like a distant wind-tossed torch. But unlike the baazuled, with their dead flesh and black eyes, this one had the jewel-colored eyes of all eladrin, and they glowed as if a fire burned behind them.
“This one?” Kathkur said, and its hands curled into claws.
Vazhad tightened the grip around his torch and relaxed his other arm. One quick flick of his wrist and the talisman would drop out of his sleeve and into his hand. He had hoped for some sign that the priest’s words might have been true-some sudden heat or intense cold from the antler on his skin. But there was nothing.
A deep chuckle came out of the chamber, and Jagun Ghen followed it a moment later. “No, Brother. This one is far too valuable to me.”
A look of such disappointed petulance crossed the eladrin’s face that Vazhad had to force himself not to sneer. It was a curse of his kind. Granted such long lives and seemingly eternal youth, even an eladrin who had walked Faerun for a hundred years could still look like a spoiled chieftain’s son.
“Don’t worry,” said Jagun Ghen. “We will find you another.”
“Only one?” said Kathkur, sneering.
CHAPTER FOUR
She’s waking.” Goblin tongue, the tone and accent different enough from the language Gleed had taught her that the words sounded strange to her ears, but she caught their general meaning. She had just enough time to think, Who-?
And then a pain so great hit her arm that for a moment all the world flashed white. She screamed and opened her eyes as she tried to move somewhere-anywhere-away from the pain. But something bit into her arms and torso and held her back.
Looking down, she saw-
Spiders! Dozens of them. Huge, hairy spiders covering her arms and shoulders. And for a moment Hweilan thought she was back in the lair of Kesh Naan, about to be devoured by the Grandmother’s children until their venom filled her with visions. But-
No. The spiders in Kesh Naan’s cavern had been tiny, sparkling with hundreds of colors, even … beautiful.