It's not so easy for me, Xuxa. Everything in my being cries out to hold onto this piece.
I know. But you can't. Not unless you're prepared to ask someone to die for it.
Baylee held the circlet tight in his fist. Karg had already taken a step in front of him, pulling the huge, double-bitted axe into readiness. There is an inscription here. What stories it could tell.
Xuxa flapped over and landed on Baylee's shoulder. The ranger knew she didn't like to stay upright. Even her slight weight was too much for her hind legs to maintain her balance. She laid over his shoulders like a cripple. A trail remains, Xuxa said. The female draw. Fannt Golsway's death. Someone here is covering something up. Something that may be awaiting you in Waterdeep. You've not even gone there yet.
And if there's not something waiting there and the trail ends here?
I have not often been wrong, Xuxa reminded gently. This trail will not end so quickly.
Baylee peered at the circlet, drawn deep into the hypnotic glint of it. But to lose this…
There have been other lost treasures. Else how would we find these adventures to go on?
Baylee looked up, seeing the skeleton warrior bearing down on him. The rangers nearby started to scatter, so close was the dreadful being. Everything in him screamed to clutch his prize tightly and run for all he was worth. You need to fly away, he told her. I don't want you to be trampled.
Why should I leave? she asked in that wise voice of hers. You will make the right decision. I have faith in you.
Baylee thought briefly about bolting from the skeleton warrior and taking his chances. Xuxa was right in that probably no one would help him while he seduced his own doom by trying to hang onto the circlet. But he knew if he bolted and ran, the azmyth bat might tumble from his shoulder and lose her life. She would be that stubborn.
The skeleton warrior was less than ten paces away and coming hard when Baylee flipped the circlet out to it. The ranger covered Xuxa with one hand, feeting her small, fragile body press against his palm. "We're not going to fight," he told Karg.
For a moment, he thought he had waited too long after all. Then the skeleton warrior stretched out a hand and ripped the tumbling circlet from the air. The yellowed ivory finger bones clicked against the soft gold. With amazing grace and control, the undead creature came to a stop, its legs buckling under itself as it prostrated on the ground.
With a cry of relief and anger, the skeleton warrior dropped the two-handed sword. It turned its face toward the sky and spoke. The words sounded brittle as they echoed in the clearing, but they were filled with the strong emotion of pain.
Seeing the exquisite workmanship of the two-handed sword lying beside the undead creature, Baylee moved forward and picked it up. No one tried to stop him, and no one came forward with him.
The skeleton warrior could have reached him easily, but it remained on its knees, shrilling up at the sky.
The sword pommel was fashioned of the teeth of great cats, each tooth carefully inlaid in the overall pattern to lock precisely with the others to create a smooth hilt. A loop of silvery-gray hair hung from the hilt, carefully braided to be decorative.
Even as Baylee took the weight of the sword into his arms, the skeleton warrior's cries ended. It turned its hollow-eyed gaze on the ranger, then brought the gold circlet to its forehead.
Baylee thought he saw a smile on the undead creature's mockery of a face, twisting up the tattooed flesh of the cheek. At first, the ranger had thought the lines of tattooing were old scars or even dirt, but now he knew them as tattoos.
In the next instant, all that remained of the skeleton warrior was a pile of white, powdery dust. The sword disappeared from Baylee's grip as well, leaking through his fingers as the magic exhausted it.
The ranger stood, facing the people nearest him. "Did anyone understand what he said?"
Everyone shook their head. Many of them returned to helping friends and family who'd been wounded in the battle.
"He was giving thanks."
Baylee glanced at Aymric. His friend stood between Serellia and a young boy, not yet able to support his own weight. His tunic flapped where it had been cut away to expose the wound. All that remained of the injury was a long, scab-covered line. Patches of red-inflamed flesh still carrying some infection surrounded the scabbing on either side.
"You understood him?" Baylee asked.
Aymric nodded. "Some of what he said. It was a very old dialect."
"An elven tongue?"
"Yes."
"From where?"
Aymric wearily shook his head. "You should know our history better than any human, Baylee. Once the elven races dominated Toril, then we massed at Myth Drannor, and eventually retreated to Evermeet. That tongue is still spoken in some areas. But you have to know also what time that poor soul came from."
"You saw his clothing."
"Yes."
"And the sword."
"As you held it, yes." Aymric nodded. 'To find that tongue spoken now, I'd wager you'd have to go to Evermeet to hear it. But to hear it spoken then-" He shrugged painfully. "It could have been from a number of places."
"He was a wild elf," Baylee stated, feeling certain about his conjecture. "You saw that the armor he wore was scant. Wild elves don't wear much armor." He touched his face along his jaw. "And there is the matter of the tattooing, which again indicates his heritage."
"Sy-Tel'Quessir," Aymric said. "And the god he cried out to was Solonor Thelandira, who watches over those attempting to survive in the wilderness. I did not understand everything, but the parts I did understand were quotes from Hunter's Blessing. That's the closest it translates to the human tongue."
"I've heard of it," Baylee said. "It's supposed to be one of the most ancient texts of Solonor Thelandira. From a discourse from a much longer work that has been lost to the Tel'Quessir."
Aymric nodded. "Some of the words he spoke may have been some of the missing stanzas. I will remember them and submit them to the proper authorities." He gave a weak grin. "Mayhap we've already uncovered part of the treasure you seek."
You failed!
The lich's voice thundered inside Krystarn Fellhammer's head as she returned to the hallway she had left only moments ago. "There was not much margin for anything but failure," she responded. "Your spell put us down in the center of the forgathering. There were dozens of them, perhaps even scores."
Baylee Arnvoldyet lives.
"Would it have been better had we all died killing him?" Krystarn demanded. "Even the skeleton warriors were turned against us at the end." She strode angrily down the hallway toward the wall, thinking the way might be open to her.
Instead, only a blank wall greeted her. Folgrim Shallowsoul refused to even have a proper audience with her.
Krystarn wanted to cry out with rage. Her need for vengeance soared. She had been so careful in her life never to walk into a situation she could not control, yet the lich insisted on shoving her down on her knees and placing the blade of an opponent at her throat.
Then he expected her to vanquish that foe. Black spots swam in her vision as she turned back to face the hallway. She looked back at the drow warriors as Sergeant Rr't'frn reached into the bag of holding lying in the middle of the floor and pulled men out of it.
"How many dead?" she asked the sergeant.
"Seven," Rr't'frn replied.
Krystarn cursed. Nearly a third of her men had been sacrificed in the attempt. She had counted six dead, two of them men she had killed herself with the hand crossbow. Captain V'nk'itn's death was regrettable, but necessary. With the curse put on the circlets of the skeleton warriors she had known there was the possibility of someone using the undead as a means of tracking them down if they were unable to recover them. That was why she had commanded the one she controlled to leave itself defenseless. When the axe had shattered the skeleton warrior's skull, a sharp pain had razored through Krystarn's mind, sending her back to her own body.