Cry of the Ghost Wolf: Neverwinter NiChosen of Nendawen, Book III (38 page)

Hweilan looked down the shaft of her arrow and set her aim. The woman was only twenty paces away. The arrow would barely drop an inch before it hit her. Hweilan set the point in the middle of the woman’s left breast.

But she only lowered the staff and offered a mocking bow. “Haweelan, you are, yes?”

Her words were thick, and Hweilan did not recognize the accent, nor the odd cut of the woman’s clothes. But by the pale skin and round eyes she knew the strange woman was not Nar nor from any of the lands east. From the far west or south, then. It seemed that Jagun Ghen was now gathering vessels from abroad. How many poor fools had lost their lives while Hweilan lingered in the mountains?

Uncle flattened his ears and bared his teeth.

As the woman lowered her staff, a spark shot out to whip the air in front of her. “Your pet moves and I kill it.”

“You’re a little late on that score,” said Hweilan.

“What do you mean?” The woman adjusted the staff
slightly. Her three companions had their gaze locked on the sacred arrow, but they had made no move to come nearer.

“I mean, he’s been killed once already and he’s still not quite over it.”

She watched the woman try to puzzle out the meaning of her words. But the woman shook her head, obviously giving up.

“We bring you this message from the Master,” she announced.

A raven cawed, just once, but very loudly, startling the newcomers. She glanced up, her eyes widening at the black bird on the branch above and behind her. It was huge, even for a mountain raven. Its beak was easily as long as Hweilan’s hand. The dead branch on which it sat creaked under its weight. More black eyes watched them from the deeper woods. Hweilan knew—as the four newcomers did as well, judging by their open jaws and frightened eyes—that the birds had not been there moments before. And in the high hills above the fortress, wolves howled.

Uncle threw back his head and returned the call.

The woman swallowed hard and stepped away from the tree. The large raven followed her with its gaze. She raised the staff again, and Hweilan could see that it trembled in her grasp.

“We bring you a message,” the woman said again. Her voice held none of its former arrogance.

“You serve Jagun Ghen?”

The woman smiled, and Hweilan saw the light of a zealot in her eyes. “We serve the Master.”

“What has he promised you? Power? Immortality?”

“More! I am—”

“Honestly,” said Hweilan, “I don’t care what you are.”

She brought the arrow out of her quiver and laid it across the bow in one smooth motion, so swiftly that the fletching was already at her cheek again by the time the newcomers reacted.

The three baazuled charged, and the woman held her
staff crosswise in front of her, her free hand already weaving a spell from the air. Hweilan saw the space in front of the woman thicken and sparkle with a shield.

At the same time, hundreds of ravens erupted from the trees—a cloud of black feathers, sharp beaks, and rending claws. They screamed and Hweilan heard the words in their cries—
iskwe! iskwe! iskwe!
Blood! Blood! Blood!

The baazuled crouched and swiped at the birds. Feathers and blood flew, but where one raven fell five more took its place, talons raking at skin and beaks jabbing at eyes.

The woman finished her spell and the ravens beat against her shield, unable to break through. Hweilan knew her arrow would fare no better.

Silent as death, Uncle slipped in low, hitting the shield at its vulnerable point where it met the ground. The sparkling air slowed him only a moment, as if he had broken through a thin skin of ice. He turned his head sideways and closed his jaws around the woman’s thigh, just above the knee. She shrieked and instinctively batted at the wolf with her staff. But Uncle knew his business and was already leaping away. The jeweled knob of the staff only grazed his shoulder, and then he was well out of reach.

Much to Hweilan’s surprise, the shield held. The ravens still could not get through. But the wolf had known right where to strike. His teeth had savaged the woman’s flesh, and blood poured out of her wound, soaking both her legs.

One of the baazuled was already down, still moving but completely covered in a mass of flapping black wings and vicious beaks. Its scream seemed to rake down Hweilan’s ears, and she saw the feathers covering him beginning to smolder and burn.

The other two were also beset by ravens, but they were still on their feet and heading right for her. Hweilan set her aim, loosed, and was already reaching for another arrow when the first one struck true. One baazuled took a step back, his limbs stiffening, and the ravens abandoned him. Hweilan’s second arrow struck his companion an instant later, with the same result. The runes on the shafts flared, and the baazuled
screamed. The light on their foreheads dimmed, and a thick miasma leaked out of their mouths and ears. They fell to the ground, both bodies now only lifeless flesh.

The woman swayed and fell to her knees. She still held the staff aloft, but it was trembling like a storm-tossed tree. Blood loss was killing her, and by the look in her eyes, she knew it.

She cried out something in her native tongue, the final syllable drowning in slur. Her eyes rolled up in her head, she fell backward, and the ravens fell upon her.

Hweilan left them to their business as she dealt with the last of the baazuled.

C
HAPTER
THIRTY

M
AAQUA HAD BEEN TRUE TO HER WORD
. A
LTHOUGH
she had not sent the strength of the Razor Heart—she was not so foolish as to leave her fortress undefended—she did send hundreds. One party came from the north, using ropes and ladders to scale the small shield wall where a few baazuled had been set to watch. Seeing the great flare of light in the sky, followed by the battle cry of a hundred or more hobgoblins charging the wall, the baazuled did not flee. They waited for the first warriors to mount the wall, and then the battle began.

The sheer force of numbers was overwhelming. Hacking furiously, the hobgoblins slaughtered their way into the fortress, leaving mutilated bodies strewn around. With their homes destroyed, the demons simply fled to the nearest bodies, and the hobgoblins soon found themselves fighting against their own.

But these warriors were Razor Heart, and they soon found a solution—leave no body whole. And so they smashed and slashed each body until it was no more than shattered bones and blood.

When the wall was finally taken, the three demons had fled. And of the hundred or more hobgoblins who had stormed the wall, less than fifty survived.

Yet another force came through the main gates of Nar-sek Qu’istrade, still broken and unguarded.

A third army struck from the southwest. As a child. Hweilan had known all the secret paths of Highwatch. On the day the fortress fell, Scith had taken her by the most secret way of all. And, although it had pained her to do it, Hweilan told Maaqua of this path. The daughter of Ardan, granddaughter of Vandalar, had felt like a traitor doing so. But Hweilan, Hand of the Hunter, knew that Damaran Highwatch was no more. Its secrets guarded only the dead.

And so the army had followed Hweilan’s instructions. By the time the new lords of Highwatch knew of the danger, the invaders were already in their midst, killing the last few surviving Creel who remained at the fortress, those who had been lured by promises of immortality and more. They fell beneath the Razor Heart’s blades or died on their spears. The warriors suffered great losses at the hands of the baazuled, and they scattered into the tight warrens and courtyards of the mountain fortress, rather than give the baazuled new bodies to inhabit. Others simply fled.

Stalking the unfamiliar fortress of the Razor Heart had been easy compared to re-entering Highwatch. Hweilan’s gut wrenched as she walked the halls. Every room, courtyard, and balcony held memories for her. And seeing the rampant neglect and purposeful destruction only fueled her rage.

Jagun Ghen had not been idle. All but a few of the Creel had either fled or been fed upon, and so he had tempted new allies from every back alley of Faerûn—exiles from Rashemen, cutthroats and thieves from the Dalelands, assassins from Impiltur. He knew Hweilan was coming, and his lackeys waited to ambush her in courtyards, manned blockades in hallways, or stalked behind her as the alarm was raised and word passed from party to party. They had been told to expect a lone girl and perhaps maddened ravens or even wolves. Instead, many found themselves facing battle-hardened hobgoblins.

But for those of Jagun Ghen’s forces that Hweilan did run across, she had no mercy. Cutthroats and assassins fell under her knives. Thieves had their throats ripped out by her wolf. And everywhere the ravens struck, gouging out eyes with their beaks or slicing skin with their claws. She took care of those few baazuled she found with her bow, stopping only long enough to retrieve the arrows, lest some poor fool actually touch one with naked skin and free the demon inside.

Highwatch, once her home, had become a slaughterhouse.

Only one plain arrow remained. After this, Hweilan would have to rely on knifework. She did not want to waste the sacred arrows on Jagun Ghen’s mercenaries.

She could feel her enemy’s presence growing with every step—so strong that she could no longer distinguish the presence of Jagun Ghen from his baazuled. They were one presence in her mind, assaulting her from all directions, like a hundred fires giving off one vast wave of heat. She had no idea how many were waiting for her, but she felt the greatest presence in the upper areas of the fortress, where the high towers hugged the mountain itself.

A half-dozen mercenaries sprinted past her in the hall below. Hweilan crouched on one of the thick oak rafters above the passage that led to the hall where her grandfather had once welcomed visiting friends. The nearest window was several paces away, the light already growing weak with the oncoming evening and the shadows pooled thick near her hiding place. It gave her time to assess her situation.