Arietta stepped onto her father’s private quay and could scarcely believe what she saw. The Wave Wyvern was already two hundred yards up the canal, with all oars pulling and dozens of archers at the rails. She could barely make out her father-a copper-haired figure in gold armor-standing on the quarterdeck, peering at something being held by another figure in robes-probably his majordomo, Greymace. After a moment, he reached toward Greymace, then raised what appeared to be a large hammer. He studied the hammer for a moment, then cocked his head in confusion and looked back at the majordomo.
The quay drummed with the sound of running boots as her companions caught up to her. The big watchman-he had introduced himself as Kleef Kenric-took a position at her side and began to issue orders, dispatching men to murky corners and dim alcoves to watch for any sign of Shadovar. The sergeant of her father’s guard joined them on her other side, then gaped at the departing galleass in disbelief.
“The Wyvern left without you,” Carlton said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe the duke would do that!”
“Why not?” asked one of Kleef’s subordinates-a heavy-jawed brute who was half a head taller than most of his fellows, but still half a head shorter than his superior. “He’s a noble, ain’t he? There’s not a one of ’em that ain’t a coward-”
“That’s enough, Tanner,” interrupted Kleef. “Why aren’t you looking for Shadovar, like I ordered?”
Tanner eyed his superior with open resentment for a moment, and Arietta saw in his face a bitter hopelessness that was all too frequent in Marsember. It was the sour recognition that the local nobility would do nothing to protect the common people or see to their welfare, that the city’s rulers were little better than tyrants who used their power and wealth only for their own benefit.
After a moment, Tanner finally seemed to find the courage to speak what was on his mind: “You haven’t given us what you promised for clearing the square, Topsword. I hope you’re not thinking of holding out-”
“Your gold is right here.” Kleef pulled out a purse and jingled it in his palm. “I’ll divide it after we’re finished with the Shadovar.”
Tanner looked as though he would object for a moment, then his eye dropped to the agate on the crossguard of Kleef’s sword. He seemed transfixed for a moment, then finally nodded.
“Fair enough. You’ve always been a man of your word.” A cynical grin crossed his face, and he added, “Otherwise, you’d be a blade-master by now.”
He turned to leave, and Arietta scowled at the purse in Kleef’s hand. “You must bribe your men for every task? With gold?”
Kleef looked embarrassed. “Never have before,” he said, tucking the purse back beneath his breastplate. “But these are strange times.”
“Strange indeed,” Arietta said. She abhorred the corruption of the Watch-but who was she to judge, when her own father was abandoning Marsember with a quarter of the city’s wealth stowed below his decks. “I’m sure they have earned every coin.”
As she spoke, a sudden outcry echoed across the water from the direction of the Wave Wyvern. Arietta looked up the canal to find the tall, bright-eyed silhouette of the Shadovar leader looming over her father, menacing him with a dark blade. Her heart leaped into her throat, and she saw that the archers had disappeared from the rails.
“There are your Shadovar!” Carlton gasped. “How did they cross-”
“Walked through shadows,” Kleef explained. He stepped to the edge of the quay and peered over the edge. “Is there another boat?”
“Not one that can get us there in time,” Arietta said.
As she spoke, bodies and parts of bodies were already tumbling over the Wyvern’s deck rails. She nocked an arrow and drew the string back-only to have Kleef’s big hand grab her arm.
“Hold,” he said. “You might hit the grand duke.”
Arietta looked to him in surprise. “You would care?”
“About Farnig the Feckless?” Kleef snorted and shook his head. “But I have my duty. I must do what I can to protect him.”
Continuing to hold Arietta’s arm, he looked back toward the Wyvern. When her father finally summoned the courage to attempt drawing his sword, Kleef sighed and released her arm.
“Now you can loose your arrow,” he said. “The man is as good as dead already.”
A cold hollow formed in her stomach, and Arietta raised her bow again and let fly. The shade’s blade swung, and her father’s body hit the deck while her arrow was still in the air.
“My lady!” Carlton gasped.
Arietta ignored him and watched in disappointment as her arrow barely cleared the taffrail and dropped out of sight. If the shade noticed the attack at all, he gave no sign of it.
Carlton reached for her arm. “My lady, are you-”
“I’m fine,” Arietta said, cutting him off. The watchmen still seemed to think she was a minstrel, and the last thing she wanted right now was to reveal her true identity to Kleef Kenric or his men. “We’ll say nothing more about it.”
She pulled free of his grasp and turned away from the canal, only to find Tanner marching the red-haired gentlewoman toward the quay. Next to him, two more watchmen had the red-haired woman’s manservant by the arms, dragging him along as he kicked and struggled.
“Are you mad or daft?” the little man exclaimed. “We must be gone before the fiends discover we are not aboard. Your lives will depend on it!”
CHAPTER 4
Yder Tanthul stood on the galleass quarterdeck, clutching an empty satchel in one hand and a captive’s throat in the other. The captive reeked of sweat and fresh urine, so Yder knew it would not be long before his velvet-robed prisoner told him what he needed to know. He lifted the man until his heels left the deck, then held out the bag.
“I want the thieves who gave this to you.” Yder spoke in a low, wispy voice that the prisoner would hear as much inside his head as in his ears. “And I want the Eye.”
“The … eye?” the prisoner croaked. He had an arched nose and close-set eyes, and when he spoke, it was in a strained voice. “Whose eye?”
Yder shook the satchel in the man’s face. “The stone they were carrying in this bag,” he said. “The Eye of Gruumsh.”
At the mention of Gruumsh, a flash of terror shot through the prisoner’s eyes, and Yder knew he recognized Gruumsh as the name of the orcs’ one-eyed god of savagery. But if the man understood the significance of the Eye itself, he didn’t let it show. He merely studied Yder in confusion, then finally raised his brow in a practiced expression of deferential helpfulness.
“A stone?” he asked. “And just how large … might the Eye of Gruumsh be?”
The prisoner let his gaze slide back to the satchel, silently suggesting that perhaps the stone might still be inside, and Yder realized that the fool took the Eye of Gruumsh to be the name of a mere gem-something akin to the Titan’s Tear or the Star of Halruaa.
Yder tightened his grasp on the man’s throat. “I am weary of hearing questions in the place of answers,” he said. “Where are the contents of the satchel?”
The prisoner’s eyes bulged. “There.” He pointed to a forge hammer lying on the deck next to the gold-armored buffoon Yder had killed just a few minutes earlier. “They … your thieves … they said it would protect Farnig from … your kind.”
Yder recognized the grand duke’s name and knew that his father-Netheril’s ruler, the Most High Telamont Tanthul-would be pleased that Yder had killed a Cormyrean royal. But Yder hadn’t come to Marsember to please his father or kill Farnig-and so far, he wasn’t having much success doing what the Mistress of the Night had sent him to do.
He tossed the empty satchel aside, then lowered his free hand toward the forge hammer and extended a shadow finger to retrieve it. He studied the tool for a moment and, feeling no magic in it, held it before the prisoner’s eyes.