Once the blue knight had vanished completely from sight, Arietta turned back to Kleef. “Was that …” She paused, perhaps too awestricken to speak the god’s name aloud. “Was that who I think it was?”
Kleef nodded, then added, “You can say his name. After all, Helm has you to thank for his return.”
“Me?” Arietta asked. “How?”
“By restoring my faith.” Kleef presented Watcher’s hilt to her. “I will always be yours to command.”
Arietta arched an eyebrow, then looked back out into the fire-hail. “Don’t you have a higher master now?”
“I do,” Kleef said. “And his first law is to serve those who are worthy.”
Arietta smiled. “In that case, I accept.” She touched Watcher’s hilt to formalize their bond, then motioned for him to stand. “Now rise, Sir Kenric, and let’s go find Grumbar’s Temple.”
CHAPTER 19
They came upon the girl deep within the castle, inside a long-abandoned barracks tucked against the base of the inner curtain walls. She was dressed in a simple gray shift and hard at work building one of the eerily beautiful bone walls that lined so many halls throughout the structure, carefully placing freshly scrubbed skulls atop a row of femurs stacked two-feet high. She was surrounded by a dozen ghouls and twice as many zombies, and Arietta felt sure she could see the shimmer of several ghosts floating high in the corners of the room.
With alabaster skin and brown, kohl-rimmed eyes devoid of any apparent emotion, the girl appeared to be the same one who had addressed the companions through the viewing slot in the castle entryway. She had a strong, sinewy build and a hollow-cheeked face lacking any childhood softness, so it was impossible to be certain of her age. She might have been more a young woman than a girl.
In either case, she was only the second living being the companions had encountered since entering the gruesome castle. The first had been the goat, Peox, which they had come across again in a storeroom near the entrance. The chamber had been lined by rotting corpses that were being torn apart and slowly devoured by the wallbound. Peox had been bleating in protest, springing back and forth as he grabbed mouthfuls for himself. After seeing that, the companions had been all too happy to leave the goat to his own devices and continue exploring on their own.
What they had encountered were hundreds of undead, mostly withered ghouls and rotting zombies. Fortunately, Malik had made good on his promise to protect his companions by having them hold the hem of his robe, and the group had simply eased past the undead without the creatures taking notice. It was hardly the complete command Arietta had imagined Myrkul’s Chosen to have over the undead, but as long as it worked, she wasn’t inclined to start asking questions.
Besides, judging by the muffled clamor behind them, it seemed likely Malik had chosen his method with the orcs in mind. Certainly, the brutes had been too busy fighting undead to catch up with the companions.
After observing the young woman through the barracks entrance for a time, Malik turned to his companions and lifted a querying eyebrow. Arietta was quick to raise a finger to her lips and point down the bone-lined passage ahead. The castle crypt stood next to the keep tower, just across the inner bailey from where they were now.
As determined as Arietta was to go through with the sacrifice and activate Sune’s binding magic, it would have been a lie to say her resolve was not wavering. Every step deeper into Sadrach’s Castle seemed to bring with it a fresh reminder of what she would be leaving behind-a hand squeeze from Joelle, a reassuring smile from Kleef, even a solicitous nod from Malik. These people were her friends and fighting companions, and the longer it took the group to reach Grumbar’s Temple, the less she wanted to leave them behind.
Joelle and Kleef quickly added their own nods to Arietta’s, then Malik raised a hand, motioning them to await his signal. When the young woman turned to take a fresh skull from one of her ghouls, he finally pointed his arm and started across the doorway.
Without turning around, the young woman called, “You’re acting like thieves.” She turned and placed the skull on the wall she was building. “And you don’t want to see what Grandfather does to thieves.” She shook her head. “Truly, you don’t.”
Malik stopped midway across the doorway-which meant the rest of the group did, too.
“We have not come to steal a thing,” he said. “We were only trying to pass quietly because we had no wish to interrupt your work.”
“And because you hope to break into the family crypt.” She stepped back from her work and turned to face the companions. “Though you won’t find what you’re looking for there. Grumbar’s Temple isn’t beneath the crypt.”
“How do you know what we’re looking for?” Kleef demanded.
The young woman-Arietta recalled one of the wallbound calling her Gingrid-pointed toward the side of the barracks.
“The walls have ears.” As Gingrid spoke, a female face emerged from the stone and turned its head to the side, displaying an ear. A thin smiled flashed across Gingrid’s mouth and vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Then she added, “And what the walls hear, I hear.”
“Then you must know we didn’t come to steal anything,” Joelle said, using her warmest voice. “You would be doing me a great favor by telling us how to find Grumbar’s Temple.”
“I am sure I would.” Gingrid let her gaze fall on Joelle’s face, and for a moment, it seemed the heartwarder’s magic would work. Then Gingrid looked away. “But no.”
“Why be unreasonable?” Malik asked. “We mean no harm to you or anyone in this place.”
“And yet, the castle gates hang open and Grandfather’s servants are forced to eat orc.” Gingrid’s eyes narrowed. “And they don’t like orc.”
She turned to her undead companions and looked expectant.
The ghouls looked back at her. The zombies dropped the skulls in their hands and shuffled around randomly, while the ghosts remained in their corners and keened.
Gingrid’s eyes widened, and she looked back to Malik with her head cocked in wary regard.
“It is no use commanding them to attack,” Malik said, sounding a little too smug for the circumstances. “They will never harm a Chosen of Myrkul.”
“You? A Chosen of Myrkul?” Gingrid studied Malik for a time, then shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”
“Believe what you will,” Malik said. “I wandered the Plane of the Lost for a hundred years before I was Chosen. I still carry the smell of the place in my own flesh.”
“It’s true,” Kleef said. “Not that you’d ever smell it in here.”
“A death priestess would,” Gingrid said. An odd gleam came to her eye, and her gaze remained fixed on Malik. “You have walked the Fugue Plane?”
“Indeed.” Malik extended his arm toward her. “Smell for yourself.”
Gingrid started to approach-then took another look at Kleef and stopped. “You come here.”
“Who are you to give orders to a Chosen of Myrkul?” Arietta demanded. She was less interested in defending Malik’s dignity than in keeping the hem of his robe securely within their grasp. “He has given you leave to approach him, and you will do it or suffer for your arrogance.”
Gingrid actually cringed, then shifted her gaze back to Malik. “I meant no offense.” She dropped her eyes and said, “With your permission.”
“Very well.” Malik glanced at Arietta with an expression that was half astonishment and half reassessment, then added, “You are forgiven.”
Gingrid hesitated-perhaps offended by being offered a forgiveness she had not even requested-but she glanced back to Arietta and quickly came to the barracks doorway. Keeping a nervous eye on Kleef, she took Malik’s hand and leaned over to smell it.
She was only halfway down when she abruptly stopped. “It’s true!” She looked up at Malik, then dropped to her knee. “I–I thought I was the only one who still worshiped the Lord of Bones. But you-you have actually walked with him!”