Farideh didn’t dare move, didn’t dare look away. The memory of Rhand smiling at her while the poison he’d slipped her made her thoughts slip out of reach like little fishes in a dark pond. What had Sairché promised him?
Anything she wanted, Farideh thought. And Havilar and Lorcan will answer if you don’t.
She looked down at the dead guards. Adolican Rhand was still watching her, one part amused, one part hungry.
“If you didn’t intend them as a sacrifice,” Farideh said calmly, “you should have told them to let me pass. I didn’t come here to be tested.”
“My apologies,” Adolican Rhand said. “I suppose it was in their nature. To see how far something can be pressed before it breaks.” He smiled. “Obviously further than they thought.”
“Much further,” Farideh snapped.
“Well met, and I will warn them they should avoid it in the future.” His smile wavered, as if he might laugh. “Though you must promise me you won’t press them back. Come, I have quarters prepared for you.”
Run, every muscle of her body urged. Go. Go.
But instead she sheathed her sword, put away the rod, and sent the quickest, most secretive glance in the direction of the dark hallway. Dahl was gone, and despite her fear, she nearly sighed in relief, as she headed up the stairs, into the reaches of a man she’d had every intention of never, ever coming near again.
Dahl cursed and cursed again, as he wound through the passageway away from Farideh, away from the dead guards. He should have stayed. He should have gotten her away-she might be a traitor, she might not, and he wouldn’t be able to find out which if she was dead.
She’d come here on purpose, and if she hadn’t expected the shadar-kai, she’d expected something bad. Something dangerous.
But she told you to run, he thought, pulling the second dagger from his boot before edging around a corner. She could have kept you there, let whomever it is kill you.
Shade, he thought, easing open a door and finding a cistern and storeroom. That many shadar-kai in Faerûn and who else could it be? But why would Farideh aid the Shadovar? And if she would, why would she tell him to run?
A deal with a devil, Havilar had said. If the Nine Hells worked in concert with Netheril. .
Then Toril had best all pray together, he thought, because anyone would make a better hero than you in this case.
Dahl moved quickly and quietly, checking for exits, and though he heard the sounds of more guards behind several doors, none of them opened on him.
He ducked behind a stack of water barrels, checked his wound. Still bleeding. He pressed harder and tore strips off his own sleeve to tie the packing on. He wriggled the flask out of his breeches’ pocket and took a mouthful- just enough to think straight. Until he knew what was happening, until he could get reinforcements, he was the only hero Toril got.
Stop the bleeding, he thought. Send a message back to Tam. A group of human guards passed by, talking in low, tense voices. Dahl waited until they passed, then-after another swallow too tiny to count-he edged down the corridor in the direction they’d come from.
He tried a quiet door-found a pair of human guards, dead asleep in their uniforms-and quickly shut it. A second-filled to the edges with casks. No exit. A third-an armory. Dahl slipped inside, his head getting lighter. He needed to sit.
Racks and racks and racks of swords. Spiked chains dangled from hooks like hideous vines. Hooked knives, vicious katars, long black whips-he counted back over the rooms he’d passed, considered the unused weapons. Whatever this fortress was guarding, it was well armed.
All the more reason to get out, he told himself. Not for the first time he was glad of the little sending kit he’d convinced Tam to have his Harpers carry. Even lost in the middle of gods-knew-where, he wasn’t cut off entirely from support. And Dahl carried a spare besides.
He found a dim corner and pulled out the pouch, the vials of powdered metals and salts, the little scroll. He poured the vials out in neat lines, one eye on the door, half his thoughts on the right words to send. Weapons. Fortress. Farideh. He cursed again, and read the ritual.
The lines burst into brief, bright flame.
“Netherese stronghold,” he whispered. “Soldiers, shadar-kai,heavily armed. Somewhere cold,” he added, spotting a single fur-trimmed cloak on a rack, and he nearly cursed again, recalling his thin breath. “High up.” He hesitated. “Farideh came intentionally. I’ve lost her, both wounded. Have one reserve sending, sword and dagger.”
The magic crackled like a fading fire, as the spell carried his words across Faerûn, to Tam Zawad’s ears. A moment later the reply came.
“Lie low. Get me better idea of your location, quickly, so rescuers can find a portal. Find Farideh. Determine where she stands. Stay safe.”
Dahl opened his mouth to protest, but the magic was spent, there was no replying. There was no insisting that he didn’t need to be rescued, that wasn’t what he meant. And the way Tam had said “find Farideh”-did he think Dahl had fumbled that too? That he ought to have stuck beside her, regardless of wounds, regardless of what she told him to do-regardless of the fact that it was likely she wasn’t exactly in need of rescue from the Shadovar? He couldn’t even be sure this was a dangerous place-what if what he thought was a Netherese fortress was only some Shadovar nobleman’s pleasure house?
He dragged his hands over his face. Gods, he thought. You’re a mess. Even Tam knows it. He sighed, sure there was no farther for him to fall. He’d missed the signs Khochen had picked up on, and let a probable Shadovar agent into the Harper’s hall-and then let her flee. He had botched recapturing her when he’d had the chance, and as much as he’d have liked to blame that on being hit on the head, he knew better. And just to confirm how little anyone trusted him to manage, there was a rescue party coming for him. Like some kidnapped noble in sullied hose.
Dahl was sure down to his bones that if his colleagues had to save him, he would dig the tattoo out of his arm himself. He would find out what they were dealing with. He would find the way out.
And then he’d find Farideh-and whatever had passed between them before wouldn’t cloud his judgment again.
He stood, a little better for his rest, but his vision still swirled. He untied the makeshift bandage-the blood had clotted-and wiped the remaining smears away in the dull reflection of an axe head.
This is just information gathering, he told himself. You’re just in the field instead of behind a desk.
A fortress this stocked, and he’d be hard pressed to get out past its guards. He scanned the walls and racks of the armory before spotting the leather armor uniform of the Shadovar guards he’d seen earlier. If there were so many guards in the fortress, maybe one more wouldn’t faze the rest.
Dahl slipped out of the room moments later, his old clothes shoved back under a rack of pikes. The armor wasn’t fit for him, but the spare cloak covered the looseness around the chest and the gaps in the bracers. He pulled up the hood and continued searching for an exit.
The air was definitely thinner, he thought, as his pulse clattered along like a runaway wagon. Up in the mountains? Floating city? (Gods’ books, please, he thought, not a floating city.)
He found a way out at the back of a cellar, past vast stores of roots and kegs (ready for a siege, Dahl thought), and came up and out into a yard. A smithy sat to one side, still and seldom used. A trio of goats looked up at Dahl from a small pen, bleating uneasily. A handful of shadar-kai threw dice in the corner by the light of the moon. Dahl watched as one threw a bad round and was rewarded with a stiletto through the back of her hand as a prize.