Lord of the Rose (14 page)

He waved a hand dismissively. “It was nothing, really. We had to kill a few of his comrades. They were pickets, on the ridge around a huge clan of the beggars. We chained him up and brought him back here, quick as you like.” Reynaud spoke as though it were a simple business, but the princess noticed the hard edge in his eye and perceived a stern, even cruel set to his thin lips.

“I think it’s really quite a thrilling story,” the princess said. “Do you suppose I could see the creature? Perhaps take a tour of your dungeon?”

“Absolutely not! Out of the question!” She was surprised to have her question answered not by the duke but by a knight who had stood behind the lord during the entire meal. He was the same warrior, Sir Marckus Haum, who had met her at the docks.

“I beg your pardon,” she said archly. “I was speaking to the duke!”

“Yes, Sir Marckus—she was talking to me!” added that worthy noble.

“Begging your Excellency’s pardon, but the very idea of taking the lady into them stinking dungeons is loopy. No disrespect intended, my lady, but it’s dangerous activity. The blighters will as soon bite and scratch you as glance at you. They’d spit upon you if you so much as showed your face down there!”

“I’m not worried about a little spit,” Selinda retorted. Perhaps it was the ale, but she felt surprisingly indignant and more than willing to speak her mind. “I do so much want to see a goblin!”

“The risks are simply too great. Why, if your father was to hear—”

“My father is not here!” the princess responded. “Even more to the point, my father sent me here with the authority to speak his will. It is in his voice that I demand—” She paused, smiled sweetly at the duke, who was staring at her wide-eyed. “I respectfully request that your Excellency provide me with a tour of your dungeon, during which I may lay eyes upon a captured goblin or two. I shall count upon the diligence of your knights to protect safety of my person.” She turned her beguiling smile upon Sir Marckus and watched the flush creep slowly across his face.

Ankhar relished his first night as leader of the great horde. He stayed in the Big House as, in fact, it rained hard on the thousands of gathered hobs and gobs. Naturally, there was insufficient space for more than a fraction of them inside the building, but they didn’t seem to mind. Instead, they drank, danced, and cavorted around the great fire all through the dismal night.

It wasn’t until later the next day that Laka came to see her adopted son, finding him awake and hungry—and scattering the dozen or so young gob wenches who had clamored to provide the new chieftain with whatever nourishment he needed through the night.

So tired and sore was Ankhar that he didn’t even object to his mother’s harangue.

“What you do with all these gobs and hobs?” she asked him, shaking the skull-totem so the pebbles inside the bony talisman rattled and hissed. “You got army here. You gotta lead them.”

“Lead them where?” wondered the half-giant. He recalled Bonechisel’s numerous campaigns, all of them bloody but none of them particularly momentous. “To go kill more hobs and gobs?”

Laka shook her rattle meaningfully. The black eyes gaped empty, but chiding.

“No. Go kill dwarves?”

The half-giant realized that idea made no sense. The dwarves lived in fortified cities under the ground. There was no effective way to attack them. Nor was there any reason, save a lust for the treasures that were reputedly locked away in the vaults of Kaolyn.

“No, humans. With this many gobs, we kill
lots
of humans. Maybe even a whole city.”

With those words, the eyes of the skull-rattle glowed bright green, and the fleshless lips seemed to curve into an approving grin. Laka shook the rattle again, and the half-giant was more than a little impressed as words, delivered in a croaking rasp, emerged from between those bony jaws.

“You must do exactly as I say,” huffed Sir Marckus.

“Now, now, Marckus,” reassured the duke, “this is a recreational outing, not a military campaign.”

“I still say, bring the creature out here and let her see it. She doesn’t need to go
in
there.”

“Nonsense!” replied Selinda. “The risks of an escape are much greater if you bring it outside. No, I am quite prepared to go in there to see this creature. I am not afraid.”

“Then with all respect, Excellency and your highness, do consider: We are dealing with a treacherous and implacable foe. He will do anything to get hold of an example of human womanhood—begging the lady’s pardon.”

Sir Marckus was accompanied by a dozen sturdy knights, all more than six feet tall, broad shouldered and solidly built. Each wore a supple leather tunic that gave him good freedom of movement yet still provided protection to the torso and groin. Instead of their usual lances and great battle swords they wore short swords that looked more like overgrown knives than true swords.

Selinda was glad, thinking about it, that Captain Powell had gone back to the ships to tend to matters. He would have been every bit as stiff and protective as Sir Marckus, and she certainly didn’t need two such officers clucking over her like mother hens.

“First cells won’t be too bad,” the knight of the Rose explained as they crossed the castle courtyard into a dark, muddy passageway between two high walls. A lone door with a swordsman standing guard stood at the end of the way. The guard saluted and opened the door as Marckus approached. “These’ll be scum from the city, thieves and the like. Worthless wretches, but some of them have a chance to be paroled, so they’ll be on their best behavior as we pass through.”

They went through a small room with another guard, and this one unlocked the door carefully. Marckus and several of his men took torches from a rack on the wall. With the brand held high, the captain preceded the party through the second door. There was a row of cells to each side. They were tiny cages, with iron bars and a single, small door forming the front wall of each.

“Aye, Cap’n—how’s the gout?” shouted a one-eyed scarecrow of a man in the first cell. “Yer lookin’ fit, aye you are.”

“And the lovely missus?” croaked another fellow, lurching upward from a filthy straw pallet. He came to the bars of his cell and extended an imploring hand. “You give her that bauble o’ mine, I trust? I tol’ ya, give it to the missus!”

“Sorry, Barthon,” answered Marckus, and Selinda was surprised that he did seem genuinely regretful. “That would be against regulations. Recovered booty is to be returned to the rightful owner or turned over to the garrison’s purser for recording.”

“Ah, too bad.” Barthon slumped in his cell, the picture of dejection. “It woulda looked nice an’ sparkly on her wrist, I tell you,” he said, shaking his head slowly.

The men in the other cells were not as talkative, watching the procession with a measure of apprehension or, here and there, undisguised hatred in their eyes. True to Marckus’ prediction, none of them made any sound or gesture to harass them. At the end of the long, dark row of cells, the knight captain held his torch high. This batch of cells was guarded by a pair of men-at-arms. They were long armed, low-browed ruffians, so far as Selinda could tell—they looked nothing like any of the Knights of Solamnia she had known all her life. They gave a martial salute as Marckus approached. At his command, one of them opened the door while the other stood back, his sword at the ready.

“These here are a bit of a rougher crowd, my lady,” the captain explained. “Rapists and murderers, mostly. More likely to feel a rope around their worthless necks than ever to breathe the free air again. I urge you to reconsider your sight-seeing.”

“Nonsense,” Selinda replied. “I am not afraid. Lead on, good captain.”

The ranks of knights pressed annoyingly close to either side of Selina, until she elbowed one in the ribs—it hurt her elbow more than it did his leather-shielded belly—and he backed off enough that she could see smaller, dingier cages with walls of dark, wet stone.

One scowling, black-bearded fellow lurched to his feet and lunged at the door, reaching a paw of a hand through the bars, trying to strike one of the knights. The warrior was ready, rapping the prisoner’s fingers with the hilt of his sword, and with a yelp the wretch pulled his fist back and shrank away. On the other side a weasel-faced fellow mumbled and cried, clutching his arms around his frail chest, rocking back and forth.

Selinda was relieved when they reached the end of this passage. The last few cells were empty, and she pressed forward with the guards, waiting as Marckus took out a large key and unlocked a portal, which, unlike the others, was made of solid iron. “Now, watch your step, my lady,” said the knight captain. “We’ll be going down some stairs that get kind of slippery, and down at the bottom there’ll be mud and slime and nasty stuff underfoot.”

“Thank you for the suggestion that I wear my boots,” the princess replied. She felt a shiver of excitement as they started down the dingy stairway. Sir Marckus held his torch before him, revealing slimy, uneven slabs of limestone descending down a narrow, stone-walled shaft. Water thick with ooze trickled from step to step, gurgling toward the dark, unseen bottom.

Smoke from the torch rose along the low ceiling, stinging Selinda’s eyes. She coughed and ducked her head. For the first time she wondered about the wisdom of her request, but she would not humiliate herself by changing her mind, even as Sir Marckus stopped near the bottom of the stairs and turned to regard her.

“You sure you want to go on?” he asked.

She nodded resolutely. Her foot splashed down in a puddle, and she reached out a hand to brace herself on the slippery surface. The stone of the wall was slick, mossy, and cold. Grimacing, the Princess of Palanthas continued into the dungeon.

Now there were solid doors to each side, iron doors with massive locks and narrow slots that presumably allowed the passage of food and drink. Something moved at one of those hatches, and she clasped a hand to her mouth at the sight of taloned fingers,
long and flexible and tipped with curving, sharp claws, reaching out. A knight hacked down with his short sword, slicing off one of the digits before the hand disappeared. Selinda heard a deep-chested growl that made her think of a very large dog, and something banged hard into the door. The iron slab rattled in its frame, the thumping echo suddenly amplified by a piercing shriek.

“He’ll remember us, that one,” said the knight with the bloody sword. Despite his brash words, his tone was uneasy, and he cast a wary glance at the door as the procession came to a halt.

Selinda was about to remind the captain that she wanted to
see
a goblin when he pulled out a large key and handed it to one of his men. The fellow unlocked the metal door, pulling it back with a creak of rusty hinges to reveal a barrier of close-set iron bars.

“There’s the goblin. Look all you want,” said Sir Marckus. “Don’t get close.”

The princess stepped forward, as the captain raised his torch. Her first reaction was: What’s all the fuss about?

The goblin looked wretched, pathetic, grotesque … but utterly harmless. It stared up at her with vacant eyes, dull even in the flaring torchlight as it squatted close to the bars. Its lower jaw hung slack, exposing the curl of a fleshy tongue. Its nostrils were wide-set, flaring outward and raised nearly flat against the low-browed skull. The goblin kept its arms wrapped around its skinny knees, clutching its bleeding hand. Glaring at her suddenly, it raised the wounded hand to suck on the stub of its severed finger.

She noticed a flare of green light in its hand, like a dull phosphorescence, and asked about the source of it.

“Ah, they call them their godstones,” one knight explained. “They worship Hiddukel, lots of these ugly ones do. That green chip can’t do no harm, but they fight like banshees if you tries to take it away. Easiest just to let him have it.”