Promise of the Witch King ts-2 Read online

  He pressed in just a bit harder, forcing Calihye up on her tip-toes.

  "I can offer gold," she said through her gritted teeth.

  "I will take whatever gold of yours I want," he assured her.

  "Please," she begged. "By what right—"

  "Did you not threaten me out on the road?" he said. "I do not let such chatter pass me by. I do not leave enemies alive in my wake."

  "I am not your enemy," she rasped. "Please, if you let me show you."

  She lifted one hand as if to gently stroke him, but he only grinned and pressed that awful dagger in more tightly, breaking the skin just a bit.

  "I don't find you charming," Entreri said. "I don't find you alluring. It annoys me that you are still alive. You have very little time left."

  He let the dagger draw a bit of the half-elf's life-force into its vampiric embrace. Calihye's eyes widened in an expression so full of horror that the assassin knew he had her undivided attention.

  He reached up with his other hand, planted it on her chest, and retracted the dagger as he unceremoniously shoved her back and to the side of the cooking pit.

  "What would you ask of me?" Calihye gasped, one hand clutching her chin as if she believed she had to contain her life's essence.

  "What more is there to know of Athrogate and Canthan?"

  The woman held up her hands as if she didn't understand.

  "You battle monsters for your living, yet you fear Canthan," said Entreri. "Why?"

  "He has dangerous friends."

  "What friends?"

  The woman swallowed hard.

  "Two beats of your fast-beating heart," said Entreri.

  "They say he is associated with the citadel."

  "What citadel? And do understand that I grow weary of prying each word from your mouth one at a time."

  "The Citadel of Assassins."

  Entreri nodded his understanding, for he had indeed heard whispers of the shadowy band, living on after the fall of Zhengyi, digging out their kingdom in the shadows created by the brilliance of King Gareth's shining light. They were not so different than the pashas Entreri had served for so long on the streets of Calimport.

  "And the dwarf?"

  "I know not," said Calihye. "Dangerous, of course, and mighty in battle. That he even speaks to Canthan frightens me. That is all."

  "And the others?"

  Again the woman held up her hand as if she did not understand.

  "The other dwarf?"

  "I know nothing of him."

  "Ellery?" he asked, but he shook his head even as the name left his lips, doubting there was anything the half-elf might tell him of the red-haired commander. "Mariabronne?"

  "You have not heard of Mariabronne the Rover?"

  A glare from Entreri reminded her that it really wasn't her place to ask the questions.

  "He is the most renowned traveler in Vaasa, a man of legend," Calihye explained. "It is said that he could track a swift-flying bird over mountains of empty stone. He is fine with the blade and finer with his wits, and always he seems in the middle of momentous events. Every child in Damara can tell you tales of Mariabronne the Rover."

  "Wonderful," the assassin muttered under his breath. He moved across the room to Calihye's sword belt, hooked it with his foot and sent it flying to her waiting grasp.

  "Well enough," he said to her. "Is there anything more you wish to add?"

  She looked from the sword to the assassin and said, "I cannot travel with you—I am charged with guarding Davis Eng."

  "Travel? Milady, you'll not leave this room. But your words satisfied me. I believe you. And I assure you, that is no small thing."

  "Then what?"

  "You have earned the right to defend yourself."

  "Against you?"

  "While I suspect you would rather fight him," — he gave a quick glance at the unconscious Davis Eng—"I do not believe he is up to the task."

  "And if I refuse?"

  "I will make it hurt more."

  Calihye's look moved from one of uncertainty to that primal and determined expression Entreri had seen so many times before, the look that a fighter gets in her eye when she knows there is no escape from the battle at hand. Without blinking, without taking her gaze from him for one second, Calihye drew her sword from its scabbard and presented it defensively before her.

  "There is no need for this," she remarked. "But if you must die now, then so be it."

  "I do not leave enemies in my wake," Entreri said again, and out came Charon's Claw.

  He felt a slight tug at his consciousness from the sentient weapon but put the intrusion down with a thought. Then he came on, a sudden and brutal flurry of movement that sent his dagger out ahead and his sword sweeping down.

  Calihye snapped her blade up to block, but Entreri shifted the angle at the last minute, making the sword flash by untouched—until, that is, he reversed the flow and slapped it hard against the underside of her sword, bringing forth a yelp of surprise to accompany the loud ringing of metal.

  Entreri hit her sword again as she tried to bring it to bear, then retreated a step.

  The woman slipped back behind the fire pit and glanced at Entreri from above the glow. Her gaze went down to the cooking pot, just briefly.

  Enough for Entreri.

  Charon's Claw came across vertically as Calihye broke for the pot, launching it and the tripod on which it stood forward to send hot stew flying. She followed with a howl, one that turned to surprise as she saw the wall of black ash Entreri's sword had created.

  Still, she could not halt her momentum as she leaped the small fire pit, and she followed the pot through the ash wall, bursting out with a wild slashing of her sword to drive the no-doubt retreating intruder back even farther.

  Except that he was not there.

  * * * * *

  "How?" Calihye managed to say even as she felt the explosion of pain in her kidney.

  Fire burned through her and before she regained her sensibilities she was on her knees. She tried to turn her shoulders and send her sword flashing back behind her, but a boot stopped her elbow short, painfully extending her arm, and the sword flew from her hand.

  She felt the heavy blade settle onto her collarbone, its evil edge against the side of her neck.

  * * * * *

  Entreri knew he should just be done with her then and there. Her hatred on the road had sounded as a clear warning bell to him that she might one day repay him for the perceived wrong.

  But something washed over him in that moment, strong and insistent. He saw Calihye in a different light, softer and vulnerable, one that made him reconsider his earlier words to her—almost. He looked past the scar on her face and saw the beauty that was there beneath. What had driven a woman such as her to so hard a road, he wondered?

  He retracted the sword, but instead of bringing it in to take his enemy's head, he leaned in very close to her, his breath hot in her ear.

  Disturbed by his emotions, Entreri roughly shook them away.

  "Remember how easily you were beaten," he whispered. "Remember that I did not kill you, nor did I kill your friend. Her death was an unfortunate accident, and would that I could go back to that frantic moment and catch her before she fell, but I cannot. If you cannot accept that truth then remember this."

  The assassin brought the tip of his awful dagger up against her cheek, and the woman shuddered with revulsion.

  "I will make it hurt, Calihye. I will make you beg me to be done with it, but…."

  * * * * *

  It took Calihye a few moments to realize that the cold metal of the demonic blade was no longer against her skin. She slowly dared to open her eyes then even more slowly dared to turn back.

  The room was empty save for Davis Eng, who lay with his eyes wide and terror-filled, obviously having witnessed the last moments of the one-sided fight.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE LOOK IN HER EYE

  By the time Entreri caught up to Jarla
xle and the others, they were camped on a hillock beyond Palishchuk's northern wall. From that vantage point, the growing black castle was all too clear to see.

  "When I left here last it was no more than foundation stones, and seemingly for a structure much smaller than this," Mariabronne informed them in hushed tones. "Wingham named it a replica of Castle Perilous, and I fear now that he was correct."

  "And you once glanced upon that awful place," Ellery said.

  "Well, if none are in there, then we'll make it our halls!" roared Athrogate. "Got me some friends to be guardin' our walls!"

  "Got you a habit to bring on your fall," Jarlaxle muttered under his breath, but loud enough for Athrogate to hear, which of course only brought a burst of howling laughter from the wild-eyed dwarf.

  "Good grief," said the drow.

  "Only kind I'm likin'!" Athrogate said without missing a beat.

  "I doubt it is uninhabited or's to stay that way for long," Pratcus put in. "I can feel the evilness emanating from the thing—a beacon call, I'm guessing, for every monster in this corner o' Vaasa."

  Entreri looked over at Jarlaxle and the pair exchanged knowing glances. The strange castle, as with the similar tower they'd previously encountered, likely needed no garrison from without. That tower had nearly killed them both, had destroyed perhaps his greatest artifact in the battle. Entreri wondered how much more formidable might the castle be, for it was many times the size of that single tower.

  "Whatever your feeling, good dwarf, and whatever our fears, it is of course incumbent upon us to investigate more closely," Canthan put in. "That is our course, is it not, Commander Ellery?"

  Entreri caught something in the undertones of Canthan's words. A familiarity?

  "Indeed, our duty seems clear to that very course," Ellery replied.

  It seemed to Entreri that she was being a bit too formal with the thin wizard, a bit too standoffish.

  "In the morning then," Mariabronne said. "Wingham said he would meet us here this night and he is not one to break his word."

  "And so he has not," came a voice from down the hill, and the troupe turned as one to regard the old half-orc trudging up the side of the hillock, arm-in-arm with a woman whose other arm was locked with that of another half-orc, a large and hulking specimen.

  Normally, Entreri would have focused on the largest of the group, for he carried himself like a warrior and was large enough to suggest that he presented a potential threat. But the assassin was not looking at that one, not at all, his eyes riveted to the woman in the middle. She seemed to drift into the light of their campfire like some apparition from a dream. Though arm-in-arm with both men flanking her, she seemed apart from them, almost ethereal. There was something familiar about her wide, flat face, about the sparkle in her eyes and the tilt of her mouth as she smiled, just a bit nervously. There was something warm about her, Entreri sensed somewhere deep inside, as if the mere sight of her had elicited memories long forgotten and still not quite grasped of a better time and a better place.

  She glanced his way and was locked by his gaze. For a long moment, there seemed a tangible aura growing in the air between them.

  "As promised, Mariabronne, I have brought my niece Arrayan Faylin and her escort Olgerkhan," Wingham said, breaking the momentary enchantment.

  Arrayan blinked, cleared her throat, and pulled her gaze away.

  "The book was lost to us for a time," Mariabronne explained to the others. "It was Arrayan who discovered it and the growth about it north of the city. It was she who first recognized this dark power and alerted the rest of us."

  Entreri looked from the woman to Jarlaxle, trying hard to keep the panic out of his expression. Memories of the tower outside of Heliogabalus buried those of that distant and unreachable warmth, and the fact that the woman was somehow connected to that evil construct of the WitchKing's stung Entreri's sensibilities.

  He paused and considered that sensation.

  Why should he care?

  * * * * *

  The look Entreri gave to Arrayan when Wingham introduced her was not lost upon Jarlaxle.

  Nor had it been lost on the large escort at Arrayan's other side, the drow noted.

  Jarlaxle, too, had been caught a bit off guard when first he glanced Wingham's niece, for the attractive woman was hardly what he had expected of a half-orc. She clearly favored her human heritage far more than her orc parent or grandparent, and more than that, Jarlaxle saw a similarity in Arrayan to another woman he had known—not a human, but a halfling.

  If Dwahvel Tiggerwillies had a human cousin, Jarlaxle mused, she would look much like Arrayan Faylin.

  Perhaps that had helped to spark Entreri's obvious interest.

  Jarlaxle thought the whole twist perfectly entertaining. A bit dangerous, perhaps, given the size of Arrayan's escort, but then again, Artemis Entreri could certainly take care of himself.

  The drow moved to join his companion as the others settled in around the northern edge of the hilltop. Entreri was on the far side, keeping watch over the southern reaches, the short expanse of ground between the encampment and the city wall.

  "A castle," Entreri muttered as Jarlaxle moved to crouch beside him. "A damned castle. Ilnezhara told you of this."

  "Of course not," the drow replied.

  Entreri turned his head and glared at him. "We came north to Vaasa and just happened to stumble upon something so similar to that which we had just left in Damara? An amazing coincidence, wouldn't you agree?"

  "I told you that our benefactors believed there might be treasures to find," the drow innocently replied. He moved closer and lowered his voice as he added, "The appearance of the tower in the south indicated that other treasures might soon be unearthed, yes, but I told you of this."

  "Treasures?" came the skeptical echo. "That is what you would call this castle?"

  "Potentially…"

  "You've already forgotten what we faced in that tower?"

  "We won."

  "We barely escaped with our lives," Entreri argued. He followed Jarlaxle's concerned glance back to the north and realized that he had to keep his voice down. "And for what gain?"

  "The skull."

  "For my gauntlet? Hardly a fair trade. And how do you propose we do battle with this construct now that the gauntlet is no more? Has Ilnezhara given you some item that I do not know about, or some insight?"

  Jarlaxle fought very hard to keep his expression blank. The last thing he wanted to do at that moment, given the nature of Entreri's glance at Arrayan, was explain to him the connection between Herminicle the wizard, Herminicle the lich, and the tower itself.

  "A sense of adventure, my friend," was all Jarlaxle said. "A grand Zhengyian artifact, a tome, perhaps, or perhaps some other clue, awaits us inside. How can we not explore that possibility?"

  "A dragon's lair often contains great treasures, artifacts even, and by all reasoning such a hunt would constitute the greatest of adventures," Entreri countered with understated sarcasm. "When we are done here, perhaps our 'benefactors' will hand us maps to their distant kin. One adventurous road after another."

  "It is a thought."

  Entreri just shook his head slowly and turned to gaze back at the southland and the distant wall of Palishchuk.

  Jarlaxle laughed and patted him on the shoulder then rose and started away.

  "There are connections among our companions that we do not yet fully understand," Entreri said, causing the dark elf to pause for just a moment.

  Jarlaxle was glad that his companion remained as astute and alert as ever.

  * * * * *

  "What's it about, ye skinny old lout?" Athrogate roared as he approached Canthan on the far western side of the hillock, where the wizard had set up his tent—an ordinary inverted V-shaped affair suitable for one, or perhaps for two, if they were as thin as the wizard.

  "Be silent, you oaf," Canthan whispered from inside the tent. "Come in here."

  Athrogate glanced around. The ot
hers seemed perfectly content and busy with their own affairs. Pratcus and Ellery worked at the fire, cooking something that smelled good, but in truth, there was no food that didn't smell good to Athrogate. On the northern end of the flat-topped hill, Arrayan and Olgerkhan sat staring off into the darkness, while across the way to the south, that damned dark elf had gone to join his swarthy friend. Mariabronne was off somewhere in the night, Athrogate knew, along with the odd half-orc Wingham.

  With a shrug, the black-bearded dwarf dropped to his knees and crawled into Canthan's tent. There was no light in there, other than the distant glow of the campfire, but Athrogate needed no more than that to realize he was alone in the tent. But where had Canthan's voice come, from?

  "What're ye about?" Athrogate asked.

  "Be silent, fool, and come up here."

  "Up?" As he moved toward the voice, Athrogate's face brushed into a rope hanging down from the apex of the tent. "Up?"

  "Climb the rope," came a harsh whisper from above.

  It seemed silly to the dwarf, for if he had stood up, his head would have lifted the tent from the ground. He had been around Canthan long enough to understand the wizard's weird ways, however, and so, with another shrug, he grasped the rope and started to climb. As soon as his bent legs lifted off the ground, Athrogate felt as if he had left the confines of the tent. Grinning mischievously, the dwarf pumped his powerful arms more urgently, hand-walking up the rope. Where he should have bumped into the solid barrier of the tent roof, he found instead a strange foggy area, a magical rift between the dimensions. He charged through and ran out of rope—it simply ended in mid-air!

  Athrogate threw himself into a forward roll, landing on a soft rug. He tumbled to a sitting position and found himself in a fairly large room, perhaps a dozen feet square, and well-furnished with many plush rugs, a couple of hardwood chairs, and a small pedestal atop which sat a crystal ball. Canthan peered into the orb.

  "Well," said Athrogate, "if ye was to bring such goodies as these, then why'd ye make a tent fit for a dwarf on his knees?"

  Canthan waved at him with impatience, and the dwarf sighed at the dismissal of his hard-earned cleverness. He shrugged it away, stood, and walked across the soft carpet to take a seat opposite the skinny wizard.