Dawnbringer: A Forgotten Realms Novel (20 page)

Arna and Vidor watched as the sisters walked away, Kestrel clutching the market basket to her side, Ciari with her ledger book tucked under her arm. Once Ciari glanced back at Arna with a rueful smile on her lips and sympathy in her hazel eyes. Arna felt his heart thump against his ribs. Kestrel put her hand firmly on her sister’s shoulder, and the older girl turned away, looking forward obediently. The swirl of their long skirts beat the dry dust of the market street into a small cloud at their feet, and as the clamor of dozens of sellers rose about them, they looked neither right nor left, their backs straight, strong, graceful, and uncompromising as they vanished into the morass of carts, people, and trade goods.

Vidor drew a long, shuddering breath and grasped Arna’s elbow.

“Arna Jadaren,” he said, his voice tinged by wonder.

Arna snorted. “Yes, I know. Come, let’s get out of the thoroughfare.”

But Vidor, like a man under a spell, didn’t move, still gazing, at the spot where the girls had disappeared between a glassblower and a booth hawking many colors of thread. His fingers tightened over Arna’s flesh and bone, and the youth winced.

“Arna Jadaren,” he said again, slowly, as if puzzling out the words. “You bastard.”

“No need to break my elbow,” said Arna, pulling his friend from the path of a pair of inebriated-looking mercenaries and a pack of giggling children. Vidor complied passively, continuing to look past the thread merchant as if he had a hope of bending his vision around the booth and seeing where the Beguine daughters had gone.

That would be a useful spell to package and sell, thought Arna incongruously as he pushed Vidor between the stall where apples were piled red, yellow, and green on the counter and the secondhand armor merchant. The dwarf looked up at them, shook her head, and bent back to her hammering.

“You lucky, lucky bastard,” said Vidor.

“You needn’t make fun,” said Arna. “She can’t be as bad as that all the time.”

“As bad as …” Vidor turned to him, and Arna saw he still held Nicol Beguine’s note curled between his fingers like a talisman. “You lucky piece of …” He gestured in the air as if tasked with explaining advanced accounting to an idiot. “That
creature
,” he continued. “That magnificent, gorgeous creature. That’s the kind of bride a man could search the world over for, and kill for, and die for. And, you lucky bastard, she’s yours for a handshake.”

“You mean Kestrel Beguine?” said Arna, nonplussed.

“No, I mean the Queen of the Goblins! Who else could I mean? I wish my family had an age-old feud with House Beguine, if such a thing meant marrying Kestrel.”

“The woman who just scolded you in a public street for having shoddy goods?”

Vidor smiled as if remembering his first kiss. “Oh, she never meant all that,” he said. “She’s just setting the scene for bargaining advantage.”

“Didn’t sound like that to me,” said Arna. “Sounded more like she never wanted to see your face again. Or mine, for that matter.” It occurred to him, at this belated moment, that Kestrel was likely to remember his face when they were formally introduced—and she didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. Ciari would certainly recognize him. Not much escaped her observant gaze. He could tell that much. Would she be offended on behalf of her sister?

Suddenly it seemed important that Ciari not despise him, and he wondered why.

“You’re dense as a post,” said Vidor. “And it’s not fair, because you still get to marry her. Don’t tell me you regret the bargain, because I won’t believe you for a moment.”

By Waukeen’s purse, Vidor seemed ready to fight him over the matter. Arna lifted a placating hand.

“She’s a magnificent woman, of course,” he said. “I am very fortunate. Let’s get back to our rooms, and contemplate my good fortune and your stock of cantrips. I still don’t feel entirely safe in Beguine territory.” He tugged at Vidor’s sleeve.

With a final longing glance down the market, Vidor complied, following Arna blindly and muttering beneath his breath. Arna was glad he’d taken special note of the street turnings that would take them back to the inn.

“Vidor,” he said as he nudged his friend around a corner. “Vidor, are you reciting
poetry?
”

“I wish I could recall more,” Vidor said. “What’s that verse in Tomas of Meryton’s poem about the eladrin
princess who married a mortal man? ‘Child of night and starlight, her beauty as a crown …’ and then I can’t remember. ‘Something something something down …’ or was it ‘town’? I know you’ve read it.”

“What will I do with you?” said Arna, amused. He had a wild idea of switching identities with Vidor, of trying his hand at furthering the Druit cantrip venture and letting his friend wed his promised bride, since he seemed to have fallen violently in love with her. No, it couldn’t be love, not so soon. Let it be infatuation, then.

“Did you mark her sister?” he said innocently. “Very pretty, wasn’t she? A sweet face and manner.”

Vidor shook his head impatiently. “Yes, yes, she looked well enough. But a pale shadow, my friend, to your promised bride. If you had hopes of my aligning myself with the Beguines, that is not the path to it. If Kestrel refuses you, however, at the altar or before … that’s a path I’ll gladly tread. ‘Down roads of man, to mortal town …’ No, that’s not it.”

He suspected Vidor would agree to a switch of identities, but it would never do. He’d hurt his family and House Beguine in the end. It would be best to go through with the bargain, for the sake of peace and the business.

There were worse fates, after all, than marrying a beautiful woman, however hard her tongue.

There were two more coppers in the lava-rock shrine beneath Jandi’s Oak, one knotted with green thread; another with blue. The small doll figure was gone, and
in its place, topped with his scarlet string with the square knot, was a box, intricately woven of tiny strips of bark. It fit easily in the hollow of his hand.

Carefully he opened it. The close-fitted lid lifted away to reveal another box inside. He laughed to himself when the second box proved to contain another, no bigger than his thumbnail.

He managed to pry off the tiny lid without destroying it. Inside was not, as he half expected, another box but a rough white crystal, such as one might find in the streambed below. He shook it into his palm and rubbed his thumb over it. It was just a small fragment of quartz, smaller than a pebble, with no special quality about it.

Smiling, he restored the stone to the smallest box and nestled them all inside one another as he had found them. He was at a loss to decide how to interpret the Jandi’s gift—or the craft of the forest folk—as an augury of his future. Could it mean he was to look past his bride’s brash exterior? That was an uncomfortable thought; it could mean she had a heart of stone. Or the bit of quartz could indicate a hidden jewel when it came from the people of the woods.

He slipped the box into his pocket. It was well made, even if it told him nothing, and he didn’t intend to drive himself mad trying to guess the future.

A
t the lip of the ridge two figures crouched. One was so close to the edge, she seemed almost suspended at the crux of falling, but she was rooted at the crest, still as the statue of an archer on the turrets of Belcaine Castle. Not a strand of her silver-marked hair, bound back in braids, stirred, and her face, which was marked with a wide pale band across her eyes like a mask, was impassive. Her hands were empty, and a greatsword was slung across her back.

At her shoulder a taller figure was poised, a golden image on one knee. His hair, steely in the late-afternoon sun that slanted through the pines clustered on the crest, hung free about his shoulders, and his face was also marked, with four thin stripes slanted and branched like a tiger’s over each cheek. He held a longbow gripped loosely in one hand.

Below them, in the fern-choked gully that bordered the road, there was a stir of hunched, muscular figures, and a clatter of weapons. Then all again was still.

Lakini felt Lusk tap her shoulder: once, twice, thrice, seven times. Seven brigands were hidden below. She nodded once. It matched her count. He withdrew his hand, and she heard a faint twang as he nocked an arrow to the string.

Down the road came the clatter of horses’ hooves and the sound of people calling to one another—a merchant caravan, about to venture into a trap. Lakini wondered at the rogues that lay in wait, about to ambush the caravan so close to the Sanctuary of Shadrun-of-the-Snows, but risky as it was, it might be a clever plan. In more hostile territory the guard would be on the alert, but here they were so close, they were probably relaxing and eager for a rest, a meal, and a soak in the mineral springs. And the thieves might not know two devas patrolled the slopes around the sanctuary.

The company came into view around a distant bend. Her sharp eyes saw that the four riders in front were clustered together, instead of spaced out so they could watch for attack from the side as well as in front. She wondered if the rear guard was slackly organized.

Internally, Lakini shook her head at their folly. If they had any experience at all, they should know to be vigilant always, even when they thought they’d reached the heart of safety. If they didn’t have experience, their employers were foolish to put their lives and goods in their hands.

Some would say they deserved their fate. Lakini wouldn’t. She reached back for her greatsword and drew it, slowly so the metal wouldn’t ring out against the scabbard. At the same time, Lusk nocked a second arrow to his string.

The jingle of reins could be heard clearly in the cool air, and there was the faint but unmistakable sound of a woman’s laughter. Five horsemen in blue-gray livery led the group, still ranged in their sloppy formation. A wagon drawn by a matched pair, heavy-boned draft horses by the look of them, brought up the rear, flanked by two more guards. Several riders, men and women both, clustered between the wagon and the foreguard, and one, a slight figure in a long, dull red dress, had dismounted and led her bay by the reins. Lakini watched while she bent and plucked some stalks of lupine by the side of the road.

Yes, she would make it a point to have a word with those guards—if they survived the experience. It was foolishness to allow a traveler under one’s protection to stray by the side of the road in unknown territory.

She flexed her hands around the worn leather of the grip, waiting. The birdsong stilled and each second stretched impossibly long. Each step the horses took seemed interminable, and she entered that state of perfect awareness of everything around her: the rough bark of the twig that pressed into the leather of her legging against her knee; the smell of the leaves the heavy feet of the brigands below had crushed; the body heat of her companion behind her. If she concentrated, she could hear the raspy breathing of one of the rogues. Either he was very nervous or had a head cold.

The feeling, the result of waiting, ready for battle, many times over many lifetimes, was familiar.

The guards in front were almost beneath them before they sprung the ambush. With fierce shouts, three of the
brigands leaped into the road. The horse of one of the blue-clad guards squealed and reared, more from its rider’s panicked reaction than anything else. The centermost man, a burly, bearded fellow who looked older than the rest and might have been in charge, drew his sword and advanced on the attackers.

Three more rogues charged from the ditch, leaving one behind to cover them. Lakini leaped from her perch, lifting her sword overhead in a two-handed grip. She felt the wind of Lusk’s two arrows as they flew by her left shoulder, and an instant later she heard the hiss of their passage. They hit the back and shoulder of one of the attackers, who screamed and crumpled into the road. Lakini landed on both feet behind the centermost rogue. Just as she did, he lifted his arm, took aim, and a crossbow bolt pierced the chest of the burly guard.