Thornhold (27 page)

“You mentioned jewelry. You were speaking, of course, of the ring of Samular that Hronulf wore,” Dag said coolly. “Regrettably, it was not on Hronulf’s hand when he died. My sister arrived before me, it would appear, and made off with my inheritance. She will be found.”

The old priest looked up, his eyes shrewdly measuring his former student. “And the other rings?”

“I will find them, as well,” Dag said confidently. No need to tell Malchior that one was already in his possession. He waited until Malchior opened one of the books and began to leaf through it.

“How long will you be able to stay?” Dag asked.

“Not long,” the priest murmured in a distracted tone. “This is most interesting. Most interesting. Three or four days’ study should suffice, unless, of course, you can see your way clear to loan me these books.”

“By all means,” Dag said quickly—too quickly, judging from the shrewdly calculating look that Malchior sent him. The priest always suspected, and rightly so, that every other priest of Cyric knew more on any matter than he was willing to reveal.

At that highly inopportune moment, there came a sharp knock from the open door. Dag glanced over, and his throat clenched with apprehension as he recognized the captain of the escort he had sent for his daughter The man’s too stiff posture and the tight, grim lines of his face announced more clearly than words that the news was not good.

“Excuse me,” Dag murmured to a very interested Malchior. “Please help yourself to any of the books and papers, and wine as well, if you will.”

He hurried into the hail and shut the door behind him. “Well?” he hissed.

The captain blanched. “Lord Zoreth, there is grave news. When we arrived at the farm, the child was gone. Both the elf and his woman had been slain.”

The sound like a roaring sea rose in Dag’s ears, threatening to engulf him. He summoned all of his iron control and pushed away any response at all to this, the apparent ruin of his dreams. “And then? What did you do?”

“We followed. One man, on horse, headed swiftly toward the city of Waterdeep. We lost the trail once he took to the roads, but his destination was clear enough.” The man stood straighter still. “What would you have us do?”

Dag turned a coldly controlled gaze upon the failed soldier “I would like you to die, slowly and in terrible pain,” he said in an expressionless voice.

Surprise leaped into the man’s eyes, and an uncertainty that suggested he was unsure whether or not his commander was jesting with him. Then the first wave of pain ripped through him, tearing this notion from his mind—and tearing his lowermost ribs from his chest.

The soldier looked down in disbelief as the two slim, curved white bones sprang from his chest like a door flung open. His eyes glazed, and his mouth opened to emit a scream of agony and horror But all that emerged was a choked gurgle as blood rose into his throat and poured down over his ruined chest.

Dag watched impassively as the power of his focused rage tore the soldier apart. When the man lay dead, he calmly walked back into the room and tugged at a belipull. A servant arrived in moments, his face pale from the shock of what he had discovered in the hall.

“Have this mess cleaned up, and send Captain Yemid to me,” Dag said calmly. The man gulped and turned away. “Oh, and one more thing. Prepare my horse and guards. I will be leaving tomorrow at first light for Waterdeep.”

Nine

By dawn the following day, Dag Zoreth’s horse and guard stood ready for the journey south. He was not pleased, therefore, when one of Malchior’s servants came down to the gate to bid Dag to await his guest, who wished to accompany him.

An hour and more passed while the older priest lingered at breakfast and carefully supervised the packing of Hronulf’s lore books into his bags. That accomplished, the members of the party mounted and began to wind their way down the hillside to the High Road.

The size of the group worried Dag. Although none of the guards wore the symbols of Darkhold, and neither of the priests their vestments, the addition of Malchior and his score of attendants made them more suspicious and more subject to scrutiny. A group of two score armed men arriving at the gates of Waterdeep might attract too much attention and too close an examination into Dajs affairs.

He had worries enough without the close attention of Waterdeep’s officials, both overt and secret. The city was a veritable nest of Harper activity, and the secret lords of the city were nearly as intrusive and pervasive as the Harpers. The inquiries Dag needed to make in the city were extremely sensitive, and he could use none of his usual Zhentilar informers. If Malchior discovered that Dag had a daughter, and that he had kept the girl’s existence secret for over eight years, there would certainly be trouble.

And there was always the possibility that Malchior did know and that the girl’s disappearance had been the work of the Zhentarim. Dag had reason to know that the society he served used such methods.

He cast a sidelong glance at Malchior. The fat priest rode like a sack of grain, but his face showed no sign of the discomfort his body must have been experiencing. He caught Dag’s eye.

“You have met Sir Gareth. Are you finding that liaison useful?” Malchior asked pleasantly.

Dag considered his words carefully; after all, he intended to use the paladin to find his missing sister and his stolen child. “He managed to get Bronwyn to Thornhold. He handled the disposition of some newly acquired … cargo for me. In short, he seems able enough. I would hesitate to trust him too far, however, as he demonstrates a remarkable capacity for self-deception. I have no doubt he could justify any treachery.”

“Well said,” Malchior agreed. “That is always the risk of any agent, is it not? A man who is willing to betray his comrades at arms is not likely to show absolute loyalty to the men who bought him.”

This presented as good an opening as Dag ever expected. “You presented Sir Gareth as an ambitious man, jealous of Hronulf’s fame and lineage. That I can readily accept, but how did the Zhentarim hope to profit from the raid on Hronulf’s village, and what do you personally intend to gain by pointing me toward my heritage?”

Malchior cast a glance around to ensure that the guards were beyond earshot. “The answer to your first question is easy enough. Paladins and Zhentarim are natural enemies, much as mountain cats and wolves. Hronulf had more enemies among us than I could count or name.”

“You state what is known rather than answer the question,” Dag observed, keeping his voice cool only with great effort. “You taught me better than to accept such sophistry. Please, do not insult your own fine instruction.”

The priest chuckled at this tactic. “Again, well said!”

“Why were some of Hronulf’s children taken?” Dag persisted.

Malchior sighed and flapped away a fly that buzzed about his horse’s ears. “That I cannot tell you. It is the nature of the Zhentarim that one hand does not always know what the other is doing. There are many ambitious men among us. Who knows? Perhaps there was intent to seek ransom, or vengeance. Who is to say what is in the heart of any Zhentilar?”

Again, Dag noted grimly, a question evaded. “And how did you come to learn of my family’s history and to connect me, a child lost some twelve years by the time I came to your attention, to Hronulf of Tyr?”

“Ah, that. I have made a study of the Caradoon family, you see. Sometime I must show you the old portrait of your ancestor, Renwick Caradoon. You are enough like him to be his son, perhaps even his twin. I saw the resemblance instantly when you were brought to Zhentil Keep for testing as a lad, and I made a point to look into your history. Tracing your path was no easy thing, I assure you. Years passed before I was convinced that you were indeed the child stolen from the Jundar’s Vale and lost by the Zhentish soldiers who took you.”

Dag listened carefully, but habit prompted him to study the path ahead, the seemingly endless stretch of hard-packed dirt shaded and scented by the stand of giant cedars growing on the eastern side. He absently signaled to his captain and pointed to the trees, thus indicating the need for additional vigilance. The man saluted and sent a pair of men off into the trees to scout ahead for possible ambush.

“You have grown quite practiced in the art of command,” Malchior observed. “Perhaps there is something of Hronulf of Tyr in you, after all.”

Dag’s eyes narrowed. His first impulse was to believe the remark a deliberate taunt. Then, upon consideration, he realized that Malchior had at last given him the answer to his question—albeit in the roundabout manner that the priest favored. “And that is why you sought me out,” Dag summarized bluntly.

“There is power in the bloodline of Samular,” the priest agreed, “as I have said before.”

“Then why not Hronulf himself?”

Malchior scoffed. “I would have a better chance of turning the tide itself than bending a man such as Hronulf Caradoon to my purpose. No, the only way to deal with a noble paladin is the manner that you chose—and no doubt executed yourself.”

Dag stiffened. “I did not mention Hronulf’s fate.”

“You did not have to. I trained you well, and we both know that only fools leave the destruction of an enemy to even a trusted underling. The important thing now is that Hronulf’s power will be yours. When you discover what that is, and how to use it, then I trust that your gain wili also be mine.”

“You are a trusting man,” Dag said with heavy. “I suppose that is why you also seek my sister. You are, perhaps, placing bets on more than one horse?”

Malchior laughed heartily, slapping one fleshy thigh with his hand. “Alas, betting upon racing horses is one vice I have not yet had occasion to develop. But you are astute. I would like to have this woman under the influence of the Zhentarim. Yours, mine—it makes no real difference. Are we not like father and son?”

An interesting comparison, Dag thought wryly, considering the history of betrayals that lay between him and his blood father. But Dag carefully considered the older priest’s words, reading between and behind them for the true meaning. Perhaps his first conclusion was off the mark. Perhaps Malchior did not need him or Bronwyn. Perhaps he needed them both.

The family rings. There were two of them, that he knew of. One was on his daughter’s hand, the other most likely in his sister’s possession. But the inscription on the ring he found in his ruined village indicated that there were three and that when they came together, “evil would tremble.”

The third ring, then. Three rings, in the hands of three of Samular’s descendants. That had to be what Malchior wanted.

Dag’s jaw clenched, and again he turned his eyes to the road ahead. No, he certainly could not rely on the Zhentarim to help him find what he had lost. Sir Gareth, for all his limitations, was Dag’s best recourse. Two days’ travel, and then he would confront his paladin “ally” face to face. There was grave danger in this, of course. If the paladins under Sir Gareth’s command recognized the ring on the little girl’s hand, Dag might be hard pressed to get her back.

“And your sister? Have your men found any sign of her yet?”

Dag lifted a hand to his lips to hide his knowing smile. Yes, Malchior seemed very interested in finding Bronwyn. “As of this morning, no. But, sooner or later, she will return to her place of business in the city, and I shall find her there. There is no real harm in the delay. I shall have my little family reunion in due time.”

He turned a bland expression toward his former mentor, carefully studying his reaction to these words.

But the priest’s face gave away nothing. “I’m sure you are right. Now, on to more practical matters. We have been on the road for hours. Surely we should break for the midday meal.”

Dag glanced toward the east. The sun was barely visible over the tall cedars. Highsun was at least two hours away. He suppressed a sigh and gestured for his quartermaster’s attention.

The trip to Waterdeep, it seemed, would take considerably longer than Dag had anticipated.

Ebenezer Stoneshaft had never been so thoroughly and completely miserable in his nearly two centuries of life. He slumped on the deck of the ship, his back against a barrel and his eyes fixed with determination on the sky—rather than on the heaving waves beneath.

Every jolt and roll of the ship sent shivers of atavistic terror through him. How humans and elves put up with sea travel, he would never know. The feeling was too much like that of the first shivers of an earthquake, that unpredictable and devastating force that was every dwarf’s deepest fear. Being on a ship was a constant, terror-filled waiting for the damn quake to start.

The rolling motion, and the unrelieved state of expectant dread, kept the dwarf’s belly in turmoil. Ever since they’d left that cesspool of a port in this floating excuse for a coffin, Ebenezer hadn’t been able to keep much down.

Not that he’d stopped trying. When Bronwyn found him, he was doggedly spooning up salty chowder.

She crouched beside him. “The ship’s food is terrible,” she commiserated.

“Aye,” he agreed sourly, regarding the small bowl is his hands. “And the portions are pretty damn skimpy.”

For some reason she found this amusing, but she sobered quickly as she sat down beside him. “We’re making good progress. Captain Orwig was able to bribe the Gate Keepers in Skullport and learn where they sent the ship we’re seeking.

Ebenezer nodded. He remembered all too well the trip up from the subterranean port through a series of magical locks. “How much longer, do you figure?”

“This caravel is fast and light. The ship we’re chasing is single-masted, with a deep hold for cargo. It was fully loaded. According to the captain, if we keep to the course the Keepers gave us, we should outrun it soon. If not today, then surely tomorrow.”

“Good,” the dwarf said stoutly. He wiped the bowl clean with a bit of hard biscuit, which he popped into his mouth. “Like the old saying goes: Nothing settles the stomach like the scent of an enemy’s blood.”

“I missed that one,” Bronwyn murmured. “Must be strictly a dwarven proverb.”