Sarya stood fuming, more furious than she had ever been in her thousands of years of life. But Malkizid had judged her all too well. Without the infernal monsters he provided to serve as her warriors, she would not long fend off the Crusade of Evermeet. And she could not bear the thought of spending the rest of her days hiding from her enemies, never daring to strike at them, never claiming openly the inheritance that was hers.
Grinding her teeth in anger, she turned back to Malkizid and slowly prostrated herself before him. “I will take you as my lord and master,” she spat. “But you must give me the strength to destroy my foes once and for all!”
“Of course, dear Sarya, of course,” Malkizid said. “You will find that I am generous with my gifts.” He reached down with one taloned hand and elevated her chin. “Now rise. I require you to offer me a token of your loyalty, if you will. And it may be instructive to Xhalph to witness your fealty.”
Sarya climbed to her feet and looked up into the pale marble face of the archdevil. Malkizid’s black eyes burned with a hot hunger that left little room for evasion. Even though her hands shook with rage, she began disrobing in submission to her lord.
CHAPTER NINE
9 Eleasias, the Year of Lightning Storms
Storms swept through Tasseldale late in the afternoon, deluging Tegal’s Mark with sheets of rain and a spectacular display of summer lightning. But as the afternoon faded toward dusk, the thunderheads marched off to the southeast, and the heavy rain slackened. In the evening, when Ilsevele and the rest of the Crusade’s embassy climbed into the carriages waiting to take them to the Sharburg, Fflar slipped away with the aid of a potion of invisibility.
He found Elgaun Manor a quarter-mile or so from the center of the town. The road climbed up a wooded hill past a small shrine to Chauntea, and the manor house stood at the hilltop. Fflar passed through a small, unguarded gate of wrought iron that marked the lane leading to the manor. He noticed that his invisibility potion was beginning to wear off as he approached the manor. Good, he thought. Let Terian wonder how he had slipped away from the Markhouse.
He climbed a short flight of stone steps to the manor’s front door. It was a handsome house of native fieldstone, with a broad veranda framed by great dark beams of Cormanthyran hardwood. He’d asked about the Elgauns during the day. They were a wealthy Sembian family from Yhaunn who often summered in the Dales.
I doubt that it’s the Elgauns I’m here to meet, Fflar decided.
He set his hand on the door and pushed it open. A shadowed foyer stood within, tastefully appointed with several fine paintings. He could make out a staircase leading up to the second floor, and various anterooms and parlors opening from the front hall.
“Terian?” he called softly.
No one answered him. Frowning, he started forward into the room… but then he heard a faint creaking sound from the shadows under the staircase.
Bowstring!
Quick as a cat, he threw himself backward out of the doorway, where he stood silhouetted against the evening sky outside. Bows snapped and sang in the darkness, and arrows pelted at him. One stuck quivering in the door not five inches from his face, a second hissed past his ear and sailed out into night, and a third struck him on the right side of his chest-but bounced from the shirt of mithral mail he wore under his tunic. A slower man would have died in that doorway, but Fflar was just quick enough to spoil the unseen archers’ aim.
Cursing savagely, he yanked the door shut behind him. Arrows thudded into the wood of the other side. “Stupid, stupid,” he muttered. “You walked right into that one!”
Now what? He could make a run for it and reach the cover of the manor wall. Or he could sidle around the side of the house and head away in an unexpected direction. But whatever he did, he would have to do it quickly.
Make it something they’re not expecting, he decided. With one swift motion he drew Keryvian. He counted to four, and he threw open the door and leaped back into the hall.
He found himself face-to-face with two drow archers, hurrying up to the door with bows in hand. The dark elves halted in astonishment, fumbling to draw and shoot. Fflar threw himself at the first archer and cut him down with a great overhand swing of Keryvian that struck sparks from the marble floor after laying the assassin open from collarbone to groin.
The second drow backed up two steps and shot. Fflar tried to spin out of the way, but the arrow caught him high in the left arm. The range was so close that the archer drove the shaft completely through mail, flesh, and mail again, transfixing Fflar’s arm. Fflar cursed and stumbled, but he finished his spin within sword reach of his foe and skewered him through the middle with a single deadly thrust. The dark elf groaned and slumped to the ground.
Drow? What in the world are drow doing here? Fflar leaned over the dying archer at his feet. “Who sent you?” he demanded. “Who are you working for?”
Stealthy footsteps rushed up behind him. Fflar whirled and raised Keryvian just in time to block a murderous thrust from a third drow, who snarled in frustration and launched a furious attack. The fellow was armed with a slender rapier, and his swordplay was blindingly quick. Keryvian was really too heavy to fence with, especially with a wounded arm, and Fflar narrowly avoided at least three deadly thrusts in the space of as many heartbeats.
“Die, lightwalker!” the drow hissed. He launched another vicious thrust at the center of Fflar’s belt buckle, but Fflar turned aside and let the rapier’s point glide past him, slicing a neat furrow in his tunic. He was far too close to make use of Keryvian’s point or edge, so he simply smashed the baneblade’s pommel into the drow’s face. Teeth shattered and bone crunched. The swordsman staggered in his tracks, until Fflar took his head off with a backhand swing.
Panting in the shadows of the manor, Fflar looked around for any more assailants, but none appeared. Before he could think about it, he set down his blade and snapped off the arrow shaft in his arm. Then he yanked it clear and threw it to the ground, stifling a ragged cry of pain. He hoped it wasn’t poisoned. Drow knew more about poisons than anybody had a right to.
“Another kind of assignation, indeed,” he muttered. If he ever got his hands on Terian, he’d wring her pretty neck.
Three dead drow in an empty manor-a manor he was lured to, specifically at this very time. Why in the world would drow want him dead? Of course, they had to be working for Terian, that was a given. Or she was working for them. But for what purpose? He stood silent for a moment, trying to puzzle it out, and it came to him.
“Damn it all to the Abyss,” he snarled. “Ilsevele!”
Without another thought he rammed Keryvian back into its sheath, then turned and dashed out into the evening. In the lane outside, he reached into his vest pocket again and found another potion bottle. Ilsevele had insisted that he should be prepared for almost anything before setting out for his mysterious appointment, and so she had given him several of the more useful potions she and the others had brought from Semberholme. Fflar took a moment to make sure he had the right one and drank down its contents. Then he leaped up into the air.
The magic of the potion carried him up into the sky. Whooping in surprise and sudden panic, Fflar spun wildly in midair and nearly landed even quicker than he had taken off, but then he got the hang of it. In a matter of moments he was arrowing over the rooftops of Tegal’s Mark, streaking toward the Sharburg.
Treetops and streetlamps streaked by under him. Fflar saw a handful of people in the streets below look up in amazement, pointing and shouting as he sped past. The roaring of the wind in his ears drowned out their words. It might have been wiser to try to circle the town or perhaps fly a higher, slower arc, but he was beyond such concerns. If the Sembians didn’t like him flying over the town, they could damn well take it up with him after he was certain that Ilsevele was safe. His arm burned and tingled, blood flowing freely from the arrow wound, and Fflar found his vision beginning to swim drunkenly.