Vell stood silently, then he finally allowed himself a smile. "I look forward to counting you as my companion, Kellin Lyme."
His formality brought a broad, open laugh from Kellin, and she repeated it.
"And I, you, Vell the Brown." As they parted in the fading light, each of them felt a bit stronger and a bit more certain about the task to follow.
CHAPTER 6
Sungar awoke in the dark, with the stench of human waste assaulting his nostrils. He hurt worse than from any beating he had ever taken. His flesh was ripped and torn, his ribs ached, and his mouth was dry and filled with the acrid taste of blood. The only light he could see was the flicker of a torch somewhere down the hall, its light dancing on the thick steel bars of his cage. His cell looked out on the featureless walls of a passageway.
Yet somehow, he found the strength to rage. He rose to his feet, let out a hoarse war cry, and assailed the walls and bars with his fists and feet. If anything had been near enough to smash, he would have demolished it as he vented his rage, but there was nothing, and so he slammed his weight against the bars again and again, challenging his unseen captors to come and confront him.
As his energy left him, and he collapsed into a defeated heap in his cell, it occurred to him that the bars survive the prisoner much more readily than the prisoner survives the bars.
Only a small shower of pebbles broke free from the walls where he had battered them. Sungar reached out to gather them up in his weak hands.
"If yer finished," came a whispered voice, "I'd like to welcome you. If you can call it a welcome." The voice was low and gruff and came from the cell next to Sungar's.
Sungar could barely speak—his throat was parched, his energy sapped. He leaned against the stone wall.
"Where is this?" Sungar asked.
"We're residents of the Lord's Keep. Dignitaries and other important folks guesting in Llorkh get to stay in the Lord's Keep, and so do we. I'm guessin' their rooms are nicer."
"Llorkh," repeated Sungar. "Where is Llorkh?"
"You don't know it?" said the voice. "Then I really can't imagine what yer in here for. Just who are you?"
"Who are you?" demanded Sungar.
"I'm Hurd Hardhalberd. Who are you?"
"You're a dwarf," Sungar said.
"Excellent guess," said Hurd. "And now it'd be polite to give me yer name in return."
"Sungar. Of the Thunderbeast tribe."
"Thunderbeast?" the dwarf said in surprise. "Uthgardt?" He took Sungar's silence as confirmation. "I used to meet with your people when I worked up in Mirabar. Bought yer timber now and again."
"Are we near Mirabar now?"
"No," Hurd told him. "I guess you don't get to look at maps very often. Llorkh's well on the other side of the North, nestled pleasantly among the Graypeaks like an open wound oozing Zhentarim corruption throughout Delimbiyr Vale. We're south and east of the High Forest, if that means more to you."
"Is that anywhere near the Fallen Lands?" asked Sungar.
"Aye, rather near," Hurd said. "Why do you ask?"
There had to be some connection, Sungar knew. The decisions he made in the Fallen Lands had set the stage for all of this—the Thunderbeasts' disfavor had drawn them to Morgur's Mound where powers were bestowed on Vell, and the attack on his camp couldn't have been coincidence. And now he was here in this dirty hole, with no company but a nattering dwarf.
If it had been King Gundar in the Fallen Lands, Sungar wondered, would Gundar have done any differently?
"Fine conversationalist you'll be, I'm sure," Hurd said. "But you really have no idea why they've brought you here?".
"I don't even know who 'they' are."
"I can help with that part," said Hurd. "They're the Zhentarim. Or some arm of it, led by the fop wizard Geildarr, who murdered the rightful ruler of this town long ago, chased out most of the dwarves, closed down the mines, and handed Llorkh over to the Black Network."
Few in the North had not heard of the Zhentarim, even among the insular barbarians. Sungar knew that warriors loyal to the Zhentarim had slain the Great Wyrm—one of the most respected of the Uthgardt beast totems—just to scavenge its treasure hoard.
"One thing's fer sure," said Hurd. "If they brought you here, they have a reason. You should be able to figure it out soon enough, once Kiev's assistant asks you his questions. He's the chief torturer down here. You'll know him when you see him. One of them half-breeds of men and orcs, made of the vilest parts of each."
"He'll get nothing out of me," Sungar said.
"That's what I thought," Hurd told him. "But I spilled my guts, puking it out till there was nothing left. That was in the first months of my stay here. But listen to this: afterward, Kiev's assistant told me that they already knew everything I'd said. Kiev took it from me while I was unconscious, using magic. He just did it again for the pleasure of seeing me break. I don't know if he told me the truth, but it could be that every secret you have, you've already given up. It's been a year since then, and they still torture me again every now and then. They know I have nothing else to say, but they do it anyway."
"Have you ever thought about killing yourself?" asked Sungar.
"I plan to," said Hurd. "Every morning I wake up thinking that this'll be the day. But it never is."
"Cowardly dwarf," Sungar shot at him, though he instantly wished he hadn't.
"Maybe I am a coward," Hurd replied. "But I don't see what my death will accomplish. Llorkh's on the verge of big changes, one way or the other, and I want to stay alive long enough to see what happens. So kill yourself if you want," Hurd went on. "But don't do it just to prove you're braver than a dwarf."
Sungar welcomed the thought of the lash; it would be punishment either for the past betrayal of his tribe or his future betrayal of its secrets. He knew that either way, he would earn the ire of the Thunderbeast and the shame of dead King Gundar.
* * * * *
Five men marched silently to the main door of the Lord's Keep and were shown through immediately. The strangers were a common enough sight in Llorkh, but even if they hadn't been, few guards would have dared question them. Their features were worn and battered, and though they were fairly young, they looked as if they had lived many lifetimes of danger and strain in their years. The Lord's Men opened the great iron doors and nodded to them as they passed. They climbed several flights of stairs, finding their way to Geildarr's purple-curtained audience chamber, where they were greeted by a person they'd come to appreciate much in the last year.
"Welcome back," said Ardeth, embracing each of the Antiquarians in turn—Bessick, Vonelh, Gunton, Nithinial, and Royce Hundar.
"I can't tell you how glad we are to see you again, Ardeth," said Royce, their de facto leader, and the most handsome and dynamic of the bunch. His ready smile was disarming but weary. "We're puzzled about the reason Geildarr pulled us back. We think we were close to something big in Highstar Lake."
"Have no fear," said Ardeth. "Highstar Lake is child's play compared to where you men are going. You're all about to be sent on the mission of missions."
"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked Vonelh, the company's wizard. "Tell us about it."
"And spoil the suspense?" Ardeth grinned. "Don't worry. Geildarr will explain everything soon. We first need a few more people to arrive for this briefing. You'll have companions on this mission."
"Gods, no!" protested the heavyset warrior Bessick. He wore his usual maniacal grin and toyed with his favorite weapon—a heavy spiked chain. "Not more of those damned Lord's Men! Doesn't Geildarr remember what happened last time?"