At the end of the vines, they dropped to the ground in the middle of a thorny thicket growing at the base of a ridge of silver colored rocks. The ridge, which seemed too sheer to climb, was covered in pockets of dark green moss that bulged off the rock. Tiny, gray-furred mammals with long tails and big round eyes scampered up and down the moss.
“If that’s how we’re getting to the top, Boult has to go first,” Harp said, watching the antics of the cliff dwellers.
“I’ll go,” Kitto volunteered.
“No one has to climb,” Zo said, pointing to an opening in the rock hidden behind the undergrowth. Wooden struts supported the entrance, and as they followed the path down into the darkness, Harp saw that runic markings had been etched into the support beams.
“Where does the tunnel go?” Harp asked.
“It takes us to the other side of the mountain,” Zo said. “It’s much easier than climbing up and over.”
The tunnel dipped into the rock and then leveled out. With a low ceiling designed for small travelers, it was only wide enough to walk single file. Crouched in the narrow space with solid rock hanging above his head, Harp decided to avoid caves in the future even if he had to climb a mountain to get where he needed to be. Fortunately, he could already see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“So why would the Practitioner make a husk of Liel?” Harp asked, his voice muffled in the confined space. “How does she fit into it all?”
“I don’t know, Harp,” Boult replied testily.
“So you admit to being an idiot, just like the rest of us,” Harp said.
“I admit nothing,” Boult said. “But I wonder if the dwarf we saw in the glade was a husk.”
“What dwarf?” Zo asked, stopping abruptly. Verran, who was walking behind him, bumped into him.
“We saw the body of a dwarf in a glade near the beach,” Boult told them. “She had red hair, but she was badly decomposed.”
“Red hair?” Zo asked, looking over his shoulder at Majida. “That doesn’t sound like one of ours.”
“You’ve seen husk dwarves before?” Boult asked.
“They sent a husk dwarf into the Domain to spy on us,” Majida said. “Our home has been secret for centuries. It took several days before we realized that he wasn’t who he said.”
“How did you figure out what he was?” Verran asked.
“Husks that are made from a spellcaster’s blood are easy to spot because the copy cannot cast spells,” Majida explained. “It’s harder to spot non-casters, like Brill. You have to look for subtler clues.”
“Majida noticed that Brill liked foods that he didn’t before,” Zo said. “None of us would have noticed, and the husk would have led the Ermine straight to us, had we not cut the husk’s head off before he had the chance.”
“You killed him?” Kitto asked.
“He was a spy,” Zo said.
“But … It wasn’t his fault,” Kitto protested.
“He was a spy,” Zo repeated. “A mockery of the natural order.”
“Did you find the dwarf … Brill?” Harp asked. It was very dark in that part of the tunnel, and Harp felt it was an awkward place to stop and have a conversation. Presumably all sorts of skitter-critters used the short cut through the mountain even if the serpentfolk had not discovered it.
“No, he was dead. They killed him when they took his blood.”
“Is that what they did with Liel?” Harp asked bluntly. “Do you think she’s dead?”
“I don’t think so,” Majida said, shaking her head.
“But you said …”
“They usually take the blood and kill the original, yes. But they had other plans for Liel, so they kept her alive.”
“How do you know?”
“I was the last one to see her.”
“When was that?” Harp said in surprise, jerking his head to look at Majida and banging it against the rock ceiling.
“Three days?” Majida said thoughtfully. “No, it has been four days.”
“What!” Harp asked, feeling a jolt of hope at the unexpected news. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I’m telling you now, if you’ll listen,” Majida said patiently. “She had escaped from the cavern with the flesh machine. She was weak from the bloodletting. She said that the Ermine, or Practitioner as you call him, had learned the location of the Torque. She wanted to stop him before he reached it.”
“Did she tell you where she was going?” Harp asked, blinking at the sunlight when they reached the other side of the tunnel.
“She did. And she told me other things as well.”
The wail was animalistic, almost innocent in its desperation and confusion, even though it came from a man who was far from blameless. With her back pressed against the wall of the hut, listening to the sounds of the mercenaries being slaughtered outside, Liel found herself contemplating the nature of guilt and justice. It was easier to think about such philosophical questions in a detached manner rather than listen to the incessant pleas for mercy and sickening sword strokes outside the window. Liel wasn’t one to weep, and she had no love for the mercenaries. But even with all the foul acts they had committed in their lives, they didn’t deserve to die like this.
As if he were a glass statue, Cardew had stood motionless in the middle of the room since the attack started. Liel stared at him, feeling the hatred for him curl inside her belly.
“Why do you do nothing?” Liel hissed, peering over her shoulder through the open window although she couldn’t see much in the darkness-just the flash of a blade in the moonlight, or the submissive crouch of a man as he fell to his knees in supplication before his death.
“What would you suggest I do?” Cardew said dully. There was no anger in his voice. No cocky directive or thinly veiled threat either. The arrogant man who had dominated life in the colony for months-and restricted her every movement-was gone. Her husband simply sounded defeated.
“They’re your men. Why don’t you help them?” Liel knew that what she was saying was ridiculous. Without her spell to protect them, she and Cardew would be killed just like the mercenaries in the camp.
“They’re not my men. You know that.”
“No, I don’t,” Liel said angrily. “I don’t know anything.”
“Liel, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“I don’t believe you,” she hissed as another sobbing cry of pain rose up in the courtyard.
“Killing the men was never the plan.”
“What was the plan?” Liel demanded.
“We were supposed to be gone. With the Torque.”
“We who? You and me? Or you and them?”
“All of us.”
“Your life is a farce, and you are fraud, Hero of the Realm,” Liel scoffed.
“I saved Ysabel,” Cardew said, his voice shaking.
“Poor, sweet Ysabel. Take care that she never finds out what you’ve been up to in the jungle. She might not idolize you in the same way.”
Something slammed up against the thin wall of the hut with a wet smack, jostling Liel away from her position by the window.
“Is your spell holding?” Cardew asked worriedly.
“Yes, but it won’t stop them from hurling corpses at us. It’s just your basic keep-the-coward-safe spell.”
“I’m not a coward,” Cardew shouted, and Liel took pleasure in having made him angry enough to yell. “I stayed married to you, didn’t I?”
“You bastard. You expect me to thank you for that?”
“Liel,” Cardew said, his voice softening. “You know that my patron is part of the Branch of Linden. For me to be married to an elf … Well, you can imagine what they thought about that.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel bad for you?” Liel said incredulously.
“No, it’s supposed to make you understand how much I love you,” he said, taking her hands in his. “Don’t you remember how it used to be? In Darromar? Weren’t we happy? I still love you, the way I did before.”