His eyes rolled back, showing the whites, and his body sagged forward. Bronwyn released her grip on his hair, and he fell facedown onto the carpet he’d ruined with the tavern wench’s blood.
Bronwyn cautiously stooped and placed her fingers just below the man’s ear. Life still beat in him. He would awaken far too soon, to do more evil, but that was the deal she had made. His life, and the promise that whatever secrets he had inadvertently confided to the amber necklace would be kept from prying eyes.
Promise made, promise kept.
She rose and slipped back behind the tapestry. She would leave by a different path from the one she had taken in, but this first step was the same. As she made her way through the escape route her elf associate had carefully marked out, Bronwyn tried not to regret what she had done. She kept her promises, whether made to man or monster. It made good sense. Even if a person was totally lacking in honor, that did not render him incapable of recognizing and appreciating honor in others. She did well—for herself, her clients, and the Harpers—because people knew her reputation and were willing to deal with het But there was another reason for this stern policy, one even more important and deeply personal. If once, just once, she allowed herself to break the primary rule that guided her path, would she be any different from the people with whom she dealt?
A new voice in her mind—new, yet disturbingly familiar— added a quiet addendum. And if she broke the rules, could she truly be a paladin’s daughter?
Four
Ebenezer stalked down the river path, as stealthy as one of Tarlamera’s cats. Most humans he knew thought dwarves were about as subtle as an avalanche, but the truth was, any dwarf worth navel lint could travel his tunnels as silently as an elf walked the forest.
For that reason and a host of others, what happened next was downright embarrassing. One moment Ebenezer was walking along behind the three humans, well out of range of their torchlight and their limited vision. The next, he was netted like a fish.
The heavy ropes thumped down on him, hard enough to knock him on his backside. With a craftsman’s instinctive appreciation for made things, Ebenezer noted that the net was strong and heavily weighted along the edge, then threaded through with another rope like a drawstring on a leather coin bag. Ebenezer was hard pressed, though, to imagine humans strong enough to draw it shut. He looked up through the web of rope and saw the pair of grinning half-orcs on the ledge above. One of them raised his hand to his nose in a tauntingly obscene gesture, and then the two of them began to haul him up.
The first jerk swept the rope drawstring underneath him and toppled him over. Angry now, the dwarf reached for his hunting knife and began to saw at the net. One strand pinged open, then another. He was almost within reach of the half-orcs when the net gave way. Ebenezer wriggled through the opening and fell heavily to the stone path below.
The impact of dwarf meeting stone rumbled though the cavern. The humans turned and lifted inquisitive eyes to the ledge above. The half-orcs shouted out a warning and began to scramble down the sheer stone wall toward their prey.
Ebenezer whirled, axe in hand, to face the approaching humans and their half-orc henchmen. The eager grin on his face faded as his eyes fell on the one holding the torch. He was a tall man, wearing a short purple and black robe. His shaved head was as bald as the skull emblazoned on his oversized medallion. Ebenezer knew that symbol and didn’t much like it. A priest. Men, he could fight, but add a lying coward of a human god into the mix, and suddenly Ebenezer didn’t much like his odds. But there was no time to consider the matter. The half-orcs finished their climb and came at him, weapons in hand.
For many moments the ring of steel against mithral rang loud over the spring song of the river. Then another sound edged into Ebenezer’s consciousness, a low, ominous chanting. Dread seized him, and he flailed frantically in an effort to cut down the fight and get to the priest before it was too late.
But his axe began to grow heavy and his limbs slowed. Even the sweat-soaked ringlets of his hair began to relax, hanging straight and limp before his increasingly bleary eyes. The song of the river, too, began to slow, until the rush and babble seemed to become words that he could almost, but not quite, make out. Soon, even that faded away, and there was only darkness, and silence.
He awoke later, stiff in every limb and with a headache that no amount of ale could produce. Cautiously, he sat up. He lifted his hand to his head and bumped against wood. Blinking rapidly, he managed to clear his vision and began to sort out what was what.
First off, he was in a cratelike cage. A good, sturdy one, made of thick slats of wood. Instinctively his hand dropped to his axe loop. The weapon was gone, of course. His cage was in a small alcove, a little cave just off the river. It appeared to be a treasure trove of sorts. His captors were avid collectors—Ebenezer recognized some of the items he’d seen in the osquips’ hoard. His captors had gone through the trouble of keeping him, rather than killing him outright. Which—and this pained him to admit—would have been the sensible thing to do.
“Seems like I’m some sort of treasure,” Ebenezer muttered, more to raise his spirits than from any belief in his own words. “About time someone recognized what I’m worth.”
But even as the words formed, the dwarf began to realize the truth behind them. There was only one reason for them to keep a dwarf alive, something that any dwarf worth lizard spit would happily die to avoid.
He’d been captured by slavers.
* * * * *
The gate to the western wall of Darkhold creaked open. Dag Zoreth’s horse, recognizing the Zhentarim fortress as home, suddenly shook off fatigue, nickering and prancing in its eagerness for the stable. Dag absently reined in the horse and fell into ranks behind his scouts. He, unlike his steed, was not particularly keen on entering the fortress that had been his home for several years. The time he’d spent away, and the knowledge that he was on the verge of acquiring his own stronghold, enabled him to view the Zhentish fortress with new eyes.
Darkhold was as grim and forbidding as any place Dag had ever seen or imagined. The castle itself was enormous, constructed on an exaggerated scale from huge blocks of red-streaked gray stone. Legend had it that blood was mingled with the stone and mortar. Dag did not doubt it. An aura of evil and death emanated from the castle as surely as the smoke rose from the spike-encircled chimneys of its many towers. Set in a deep valley, surrounded on three sides by steep, sheer stone cliffs, and on the other side by the high, thick wall through which his caravan had just passed, the fortress was virtually impregnable. The valley floor that lay between the gate and castle was flat and rough and littered with stone, barren but for a winding brook that sang sadly on its path over jagged rocks and a small, besieged copse of trees.
The massive outer gate clanked shut behind them, and Dag rode through the bleak valley to the inner wall surrounding the castle. Thirty feet tall it was, and nearly as wide. The four-man patrols that walked the wall met and passed each other with room to spare.
The caravan paused at the end of a deep moat and waited while the iron portcullis rose. The bridge swept down to meet it, gears grinding in a chilling metallic shriek that sounded to Dag like a playful dragon raking its claws over a sheer slate cliff.
Dag and his men crossed the bridge into a massive courtyard. He swung down from his horse and handed the reins to an instantly attentive soldier. After a few terse words to his men—reminding them of the penalty they would suffer for divulging any aspect of the trip—he strode through the great open door, and through a banner-draped hall with impossibly high ceilings, sized to accommodate the long-dead giants who had built the fortress.