Thornhold (41 page)

Bronwyn opened it and slipped the ring onto her left hand as her father had done. As with the other, this one magically sized itself to her finger.

“What of the Fenrisbane?” she asked, remembering the name the lich had spoken, and assuming that this was the much-sought artifact.

“It is not here, of course. I had the siege engine hidden away for safe keeping years ago, much as one would hide a tree in a forest,” the lich said slyly. “It is in the attic of a toy and curiosity shop, in a remote town not too far from the monastery.”

Siege engine. In a toy shop. Bronwyn was beginning to understand what part the rings might have in this. “Why did you do this?” she asked. “I would think the Fenrisbane would be safer here.”

A bony finger waggled in admonition. “There is danger in having the rings and the tower in the same place. The four artifacts should be reunited only when there is a force gathered sufficient to use and to protect the artifacts.” The lich paused, tilted his head, and leaned forward in a menacing gesture. “You don’t have the other rings with you, do you?”

“I know where they are, but I do not have them with me,” she assured the lich. “One is in the hands of another child of Sainular’s blood, a child who is protected by powerful magic. If threatened, she can magically flee within strong walls.”

Some instinct prompted her not to mention Blackstaff Tower.

“Good. That is good. Your forebears have prepared you to wield the Fenrisbane in Samular’s name?”

There was a cunning note in the dry tone that Bronwyn mistrusted. The lich obviously sensed her heritage— perhaps this was a test of her knowledge and worthiness. She answered as truthfully as she could. “My father gave me the ring just before he died in an attack on his fortress. He would want me to use the Fenrisbane to right this wrong.”

The lich nodded avidly, shedding flakes of ancient skin in the process. “Good, good. You have two children of the bloodline, two who are agreed in how to use the rings. That is a needed thing—one person alone cannot fully awaken the Fenrisbane’s magic. Go now, and do.”

Bronwyn was only too glad to obey, but at the wall, she turned back. “The toy shop.”

“Gladestone,” the lich said impatiently. “An old town of elves with long lives and longer memories. Seek out Tintario or his heirs. There is a dweomer on these elves and their shop. They will never sell the Fenrisbane or close the shop. If the need to protect it arises, they will do so or die. See that you do likewise.”

She had one more question, one that she feared to ask. “Who are you? Or, if you prefer, who were you?”

The lich hesitated. Bronwyn got the impression that it was more saddened than aggrieved by this impertinence. “I no longer recall the name I once wore. What I was is lost. What I am now is the Guardian of the Order.” A dry, heavy sound wheezed from the lich, one that might have been a sigh had it come from a living throat. “This puts me in a paradoxical position. Paladins cannot abide undead and would destroy me on sight. For good or ill, few of the paladins and priests in yonder fortress knows who or what inhabits this ancient tower. They simply ?onsider it a holy place and are restrained by their order’s edict from disturbing it.”

The lich shook itself, staving off despair as it must have done many times in its long years of undeath. “But now you have come. I entrust the third ring and the Fenrisbane into your care. This I do because you are of the bloodline of Samular, and because I cannot give these things to the paladins for whom they were intended.” The creature darted forward with startling speed and loomed threateningly over Bronwyn.

One bony hand parted the robe. A small black bat flew out from the empty ribcage. The lich paid it no heed, but slipped a tiny scrying globe from an inside pocket of the robe and showed it to her. “I will know what you do,” he said. “Fail, and I will seek you out.”

Cara and Ebenezer spent a pleasant day on the hillside. He taught her to spit for distance and how to hold a knife for whittling. She took to both with gusto and soon had a pile of wood shavings around her feet. Wood chips and toothpicks, the dwarf observed, pretty much average for a first-time whittler.

The girl pestered him for stories, as she had on the ship. Ebenezer had used up most of his best tales, but he didn’t mind telling the second-rate ones. They didn’t tell bad, once he added a bit of gloss and color. While he talked, he whittled away at a toy for her. An orc, she wanted, just like the ones in his stories.

Orcs were much on Ebenezer’s mind. He knew the signs better than he liked. The scuffling big-footed prints, scat that showed small game eaten raw and whole, and the fetid, musty smell that emanated from some of the hidden caves. There would be trouble, of that he was certain. Orcs always meant trouble.

But trouble, when it came, took a very different form. Cara’s soft, sharp intake of breath startled him. She seized his wrist and pointed. “There! See that white horse coming along with the gray dappled? That’s the man who stole me from my farm and chased me in the city.”

Ebenezer strained and squinted, but his eyes weren’t made for distance in the same way the sharp-sighted child’s were. He couldn’t make out the man, but oh, he knew that horse!

“More paladins,” he muttered. “And heading to the keep.” He didn’t like this, not one little bit. His every instinct told him this put Bronwyn in a bad way. But how could he warn her?

Cara whistled sharply. A few feet away, Shopscat was tearing at the bones left from their breakfast of roast rabbit. The raven looked up at the sound and flew to the child’s shoulder. “We could send Shopscat to warn her,” she suggested.

Ebenezer pursed his lips and considered. “He’d know how?”

“He can fly. He can find her and bring her a message,” she said confidently. She suddenly bit her lip in consternation. “I don’t write very well yet. Can you write the note?”

He could, but not in Common. The sign on Bronwyn’s shop bore Dethek runes along with Common lettering and curling, sissy Elvish script. Ebenezer hoped she hadn’t needed to hire a dwarf scribe to write the Dethek for her. He took the stump end of charcoal pencil Cara handed him and scribbled a few runes on a scrap of parchment. “Guess it’s time to see if that dwarf what she boasted of taught her anything useful,” he muttered as he wrote the message.

The sunset colors were fading as Sir Gareth and Algorind rode swiftly toward Summit Hall. They hailed the watch towers as they came so that they need not slow to wait for the gates. They swept in through the wooden doors and bore down upon the startled group emerging from chapel.

“Where is the wench?” demanded Sir Gareth as he slid down from his horse.

Master Laharmn strode forward, his yellow brows drawn down in a scowl. “Courtesy is a rule of this Order, brother. The only woman in this fortress is an honored guest.”

The rebuke was a harsh one to a man of his station, but Gareth didn’t seem to take notice.

“She is a traitor and a thief. Lord Piergeiron of Waterdeep told us she was bound here. Find her!”

Such was the knight’s urgency that most of the paladins obeyed at once. Algorind dismounted to join in. Before he took a dozen steps, Yves, a young man perhaps a year behind A.lgorind in training, came running back to the courtyard. “The chain on the tower tunnel has been disturbed!”

Algorind had never seen such unbridled rage on a paladin’s face as Sir Gareth wore. The knight quickly mastered himself and turned to a suddenly pale Laharin. “You see? This woman has made fools of you.”

It seemed to Algorind that the knight took an unseemly relish in delivering this news.

“This woman was at Thornhold when it fell,” continued Gareth. “Did it not occur to you to ask how a single woman walked out unscathed?”

“She is Hronulf’s daughter,” Laharin stated simply. “She told me that she met with Hronulf and that he showed her a secret tunnel whereby she might escape.”

“Did she also say that Hronulf had given her his ring? Did she mention that the lost child of Samular is in her keeping, held in the fastness of Blackstaff Tower?”

Laharin paled as the enormity of the situation hit him. “She did not.”

“And she has been to the old tower,” Sir Gareth concluded grimly.

Although Algorind did not know what that signified, Laharin clearly did. The’ master paladin was fairly wringing his hands. “It seems likely. By the Hammer of Tyr! The three rings will again unite.”

Sir Gareth turned to Algorind. “Find her. Take another man with you. Do what you must, but retrieve the rings of Samular.”

The utter coldness of the knight’s voice chilled Algorind, but he could not fault Sir Gareth’s reasoning or question the duty ahead. He whistled for his horse and beckoned for Corwin, a comrade of about his own age, to follow.

The two young paladins struck out for the tower. Algorind assumed that if Bronwyn had left by some hidden door, she could not be far. They would pick up the trail.

Twilight was deepening swiftly toward night when Algorind saw the first tracks—prints made by small, worn boots. There was a single set, and they ran behind a rocky hillock.

He swung down from his horse and knelt for a better look. The woman was small, and these prints looked a little big to be hers, but not so big that a match was impossible. For safe measure, he drew his sword and motioned for Corwin to do the same. Together, they rushed the hillock.

No woman awaited them there, but a small band of orcs did—scrawny, hideous creatures, with their piggish red eyes and jutting canine fangs. This band was armed with nothing but evil grins and bone knives. Most were naked, or nearly so, and only one greenish-hued female had a pair of boots. She must have left the deceitful tracks. This, then, was an ambush.

These creatures were smaller than any Algorind had seen, and younger. The female wore nothing but her ragged boots and a small leather loincloth, and her small young breasts rode high against her clearly delineated ribs. Likely she was not yet of breeding age, and some of the males looked younger still. But they were orcs. The paladins charged as one.

The ambushers lacked the courage for honest battle. When it was clear that the fight would not be easy, most of them shrieked and tried to flee. Algorind cut down one orc who charged him with a knife, then gutted a second with his returning stroke. He lunged forward and high, cutting deeply between the ribs of the coward trying to scramble up and over the rocks.

The survivors scattered and fled. The boot-shod orc had the wit to try to steal a horse. She hauled herself onto Corwin’s black steed and frantically kicked the horse into a run, but she did not reckon with a paladin-trained mount. As the horse cantered past, Corwin gave a sharp whistle. Instantly the black horse reared, pawing the air. The orc rolled backward and fell heavily onto the rocky ground. Corwin was there in a moment, his sword at her throat. The little orc wench managed to spit at him before she died.

Algorind leaped onto Icewind’s back and called for Corwin to follow. Working together, they managed to slay all but two, and even those did not escape unscathed. The two surviving orcs were wounded and promptly left their companions to slink away and lose themselves among the rocks and shadows.

“That is the way with wild animals,” Corwin observed when at last they gave up their search. “Even a wounded dog will seek out a small, quiet space to lick his wounds.”

Algorind nodded. “Let us find a place to make camp. In the morning, we will surely find the trail. If Tyr is willing, we will find Bronwyn before the sun sets again.”

Bronwyn stepped through the tower wall and collapsed onto the ground. Never had she felt so chilled, so drained of life, so utterly despairing. Dimly she noted that the terrain looked different and that the walls of Summit Hall were not where she expected them to be. Later, she would think about that. She pillowed her cheek on the rocky ground and let the darkness claim her.

When Bronwyn awoke, twilight had nearly passed, and the sky’s silver was tarnished with the coming of darkness. A sudden flutter seized and focused her groggy thoughts. Shopscat landed beside her, batting his wings and cawing furiously.

Bronwyn groaned and turned her head so that she was face down. The raven’s raucous voice made her temples throb. “Think about it,” she pleaded with him.

The familiar thunder of Ebenezer’s iron-shod boots came rumbling toward her. The dwarf picked up her head by her braid and scrutinized her face.

“Thought you forgot how to read, woman. Where in the Nine Hells were you—an ice cave? You’re blue as a Moon elf!”

Bronwyn rolled up into a sitting position, hugging her knees and shivering uncontrollably. “A lich. Gods, I’m cold. I didn’t realize how cold until I got away.”

“Fear’s a good thing,” the dwarf commented. “Keeps you going. And speaking of going, we’d best keep on. Can you stand?”

She let him haul her up and after a few trembling steps, her legs held her well enough. She listened as Ebenezer told her about the paladins’ arrival, and how Cara’s idea enabled them to find her. In turn, she told him what the lich had revealed.

“We’re going to Gladestone,” she told him, “a village perhaps two hours’ ride north of here. It’s a small community of elves and half—”

“Stones!” the dwarf spat. “An elf village. Never thought the day would come when I’d be heading to one on purpose. And what’s this thing that we’re looking for?”

“A toy siege engine. I’ll explain later.” She cast a glance over her shoulder. “We’d better move. If that paladin was following me before, odds are he’s still at it.”

They rode by the light of the rising moon, keeping a cautious look out for paladins and orcs. Before long Cara started nodding off, and Bronwyn was riding with one arm wrapped around the girl to hold her in place. By the time they got to Gladestone, Cara was not the only one sleeping. Most of the houses and shops were dark.

The village was small, a cluster of homes and shops arranged along two narrow streets and some connecting alleys. It was a homey enough scene, and a place that Bronwyn had enjoyed the time or two she had passed through. Most of the houses were low and small, cozily thatched with straw. A stork dozed in a nest built on an unused chimney. The large, outdoor clay oven that baked all the village bread still gave off a pleasant heat and a warm, yeasty aroma. The toy shop was closed, the doors and shutters barred, and the whole guarded by a large and rather hungry-looking dog.