Thornhold (8 page)

Malchior, Dag’s mentor and immediate superior, had enjoyed access to Osterim’s hospitality for many years. That privilege he had passed on to Dag, along with the services of the inestimable Emerson—and the control of Malchior’s paladin.

In preparation for Sir Gareth’s visit, Dag had added his own unique touch to the room’s decor. The hearth blazed with magical fire—strange, unholy black and purple flames that cast an eerie purple light and sent macabre shadows dancing across the carpeted floor. It amused Dag to flaunt the colors and the power of Cyric, in unspoken mockery of Sir Gareth’s ability to bear such proximity to evil.

The door opened and a tall, well-made man in vigorous late life stepped into the room, helmet tucked respectfully under his left arm and snowy hair smoothed into precise waves. His bright blue eyes widened in surprise when they fell upon a slight, dark young man instead of the substantial and falsely jovial priest he clearly anticipated.

“Welcome, Sir Gareth. It was good of you to come,” Dag Zoreth said, inflecting the words with irony.

The knight’s look of puzzlement deepened. “I had little choice in the matter, young sir. I was summoned.”

Dag sighed and shook his head. “Paladins,” he said with mild derision. “Always this need to state the obvious. Sit, please.”

“I have no wish to intrude upon your leisure. My duty is with another. Only accept my apologies for this intrusion and I will leave you and seek him—”

“Malchior will not be attending,” Dag broke in smoothly.

“He sends his regards and his desire that you see in me his replacement.”

Sir Gareth hesitated. “I do not know you, young sir.”

“Do you not? I have chosen the name Dag Zoreth, though you may well have heard me called by another. You knew my father extremely well, if the stories tell truth.” Dag nodded at the older man’s right arm, which hung withered and useless at his side. “You took that wound saving his life. Or so they say.”

The color drained from the paladin’s face, but still he stood as straight as a sentry.

“Oh, sit down before you fall,” the priest said irritably.

Sir Gareth moved stiffly to the nearest chair and sank into it, his eyes riveted on Dag’s face. “How is it possible?” he whispered. “Hronulf’s son. This cannot be true.”

“If you are looking for my father’s likeness in me, do not bother,” Dag said with a touch of asperity. “As I recall, we were never much alike. But perhaps this little trinket will convince you of my claim.”

He lifted a silver chain from around his neck and handed it to Sir Gareth. The old knight hesitated when he glimpsed the medallion bearing the symbol of Cyric. He forgot his scruples, however, when he caught sight of the ring behind it. He took the chain and studied the ring carefully.

After a few moments Sir Gareth lifted his gaze to Dag’s face. “You do not wear this ring,” the paladin said. “I suspect that you cannot.”

That was true enough, but Dag shrugged it aside. “Someone can wield it for me. If the ring is in my control, it matters little whose hand it bedecks.”

An expression of shrewd speculation flashed into the knight’s eyes, coming and going so quickly that Dag wondered if he had only imagined it. But he remembered it, as he remembered all things Malchior had told him about this man Dag now owned.

“There are two other rings,” Dag continued. “My father wears one. Where is the third?”

Sir Gareth reluctantly handed back the ring. “Alas, we do not know. The ring was lost to the Holy Order long years ago, during the time of the great Samular.”

The priest studied the older man’s face for signs of hesitation. Malchior had advised him that Sir Gareth never lied, yet often managed to speak truth in highly misleading fashion. It was difficult, Malchior had warned, to tell whole truth from artfully contrived prevarication. Dag suspected that Sir Gareth himself would be hard-pressed to tell the difference. According to Malchior, the knight was a master at the art of rationalization. Sir Gareth worked hard, desperately hard, to conceal from his brothers in the Order— and from himself, most likely—the fact that he was a fallen paladin. The grace of Tyr was no longer with him and hadn’t been for a very long time. In light of this, Dag concluded with grim, private amusement, Sir Gareth could hardly object to carrying a bit of Cyric-granted magic.

The priest reached into the folds of his purple tabard and removed a small black globe. This he handed to Sir Gareth. “You will carry this with you, keeping it on your person at all times. When I wish to contact you, you will feel a sensation of cold fire. I will not try to explain this—you will know what it is when you feel it. When this occurs, hasten to a private spot and draw the globe out of its hiding place. The touch of your hand will open the portal—and dim the pain.” Dag smiled thinly. “But I’m sure that warning is twice unnecessary, since alacrity and fortitude are both knightly virtues.”

Sir Gareth took the globe with an unwilling hand. He drew back in horror at the image within: Dag’s pale, narrow face, back lit by purple flames.

“Speak into it in a normal voice. I will hear you,” Dag continued. His eyes mocked the knight, who hastily put aside the globe and wiped his fingers as if the touch not only burned, but sullied him. “With this device, you can continue to serve the Zhentarim, as you have for nearly thirty years.”

Dag’s words were a deliberate insult, and were received as such. Sir Gareth’s jaw firmed and his chin lifted. “Think what you will, Lord Zoreth, but I serve the Order still. The Knights of Samular venerate the memory of Samular, our founder. In serving you, a child of the bloodline of Samular, I am fulfilling my vows.”

“Twisted,” Dag Zoreth said with mild admiration. “Perhaps you can enlighten me on another matter. I am curious have you any idea what kind of diversions a priest of Cyric finds amusing?”

The priest smiled at his visitor’s reaction. “You blanched just now. I will take that as a yes. How, then, do you justify the use of your Order’s funds to finance Malchior’s leisure activities?”

Sir Gareth’s face was ashen, but his gaze remained steady. “Whatever else he may be, Malchior is a scholar and most knowledgeable in the lore and history of my Order. It is right and fitting that some of the Order’s monies support this work. I have no firsthand knowledge that these funds were used in any other manner.”

“A fine distinction, and one that I’m sure you find soothing,” the priest commented. His face hardened and the dark amusement in his eyes vanished. “Permit me one more question. By what possible light could you justify condemning children to death?”

The former paladin dropped his head into his hands, as if the weight of his unacknowledged guilt was too heavy to bear. “I had no hand in what happened to Hronulf’s children.”

“Did you not? Did you not sell some of your Order’s most precious and closely guarded secrets? If that led raiders to my father’s village and to me, I suppose none of the taint clings to your garments.”

Sir Gareth sat up abruptly, his shoulders squared. The awareness of imminent death was in his eyes, but he was still paladin enough to meet his anticipated fate squarely.

“It is rather late for you to die a martyr,” Dag said coldly. “Killing you slowly and painfully would be vastly amusing, but all things considered, it would be administering simple justice. That is the purview of your god, not mine.”

“Then what do you want from me, priest of Cyric?”

“No more than Malchior wanted,” Dag said. “Information is worth far more to me than the brief satisfaction I would derive from your demise.”

The knight studied him, then nodded. “If the knowledge is mine, it shall be freely given.”

Three

Algorind reigned his horse around a pile of boulders that had fallen onto the path from the cliff above. They were too large for one man to move; he would have to note this in his report so Master Laharin could send more men on the next patrol. Keeping the paths between the river and the Dessarin Road clear and safe was one of the duties of the young paladins who trained in Summit Hall—a duty that Algorind was glad and proud to shoulder.

This was his first solitary patrol, and his first time riding Icewind, the tall white horse that he had spent long days breaking to saddle and bridle. Icewind was not a true paladin’s mount—that Algorind had yet to earn—but he was a fine beast. Algorind settled happily into the rhythm of the horse’s long-legged stride and allowed his thoughts to stray to the evening ahead.

Tonight, three young paladins would be inducted into the Order. They would become Knights of Samular through an ordeal of faith and arms, and by the grace of Tyr, god of justice and might. The prospect of witnessing this ritual filled Algorind with sublime joy.

All his life, he had longed to be a knight. By the happiest of circumstances, his father, a nobleman of proud lineage but light purse, had delivered his third-born son to Summit Hall before his tenth birthday to be raised and trained by the Order. Algorind had not seen his family since, but he did not feel loss. He was surrounded by young men of like ambition, future priests and paladins devoted to Tyr’s service. Were not all the young acolytes his brothers? And the masters of the hall more than father to him?

These thoughts contented him as he fulfilled the last hour of his watch. Other than the dislodged boulders, the patrol had been without incident. Algorind was almost disappointed; he had hoped to contribute to the Order’s latest venture. The knights, during their training forays into the surrounding countryside, had discovered and routed clans of orcs. The surviving beasts roamed the hills, terrorizing travelers and farmers. May Tyr grant that the last of them be found soon, Algorind thought piously, and the evil they represent vanquished.

A muffled cry caught his ear, followed by a chilling riff of guttural laughter that could not possibly have come from a human throat. Algorind drew his sword and held it aloft as he spurred his horse on to battle.

The white horse thundered around a bend in the path, down a rock-strewn hill and toward a scene that kindled Algorind’s wrath. Four orcs—great, monstrous creatures with stringy muscles covered by filthy greenish hide—were tormenting a lone messenger. The man was on the ground and curied up tight, his arms clutching his many garish wounds as if he could hold in life by sheer will. The orcs were circling him and prodding at him with their rude spears, looking for all the world like a small pack of sadistic tomcats worrying a single mouse.

The orcs looked up at Algorind’s swift reproach, their sneers frozen by sudden terror into skeleton-grins. As he closed in, Algorind lifted his sword high and to his left, and dealt a terrible sweeping blow. The keen sword caught one of the monsters in the throat and cleaved head from body with a single stroke.

Algorind reined his horse around to face his remaining foes. The three of them had abandoned their blood sport and stood to face him, their spears braced and leveled at the white steed’s breast. The young paladin sheathed his sword and took his lance from its holder. He raised it high, a chivalrous salute too deeply ingrained to withhold from this unworthy foe, and then couched it under his right arm. He leveled the lance at the foremost orc and urged his horse into a frill, galloping charge.

The horse ran straight at the braced weapons, its wild whinny ringing free as if to acknowledge the danger and defy it. But Algorind had no thought to endanger his steed. This was a tactic they had practiced together many times in the training arena of Summit Hall. His eye measured his lance at twice the length of the ores’ spears, and he silently began the rhythmic prayer to Tyr that would count off the measure of his attack.

At just the right moment, he raised himself in the stirrups and pulled up on the reins. On command, the mighty horse leaped. Algorind’s lance caught one of the surprised orcs just below the ribs and bore him up and over his shrinking comrades.

Mustering all his strength, Algorind hurled the lance forward as if it were a giant javelin. The effort did not launch the weapon, but countered the force of the impaled orc and kept the paladin’s arm from wrenching painfully back. Before the horse’s hooves touched down, Algorind pushed out to the side with all his might, casting aside the lance and the dying ore.

The horse landed, cantered a few paces, then wheeled. Two orcs remained. Algorind could not surprise them again. He swung himself down from the saddle and drew his sword.

The orcs rushed at him, spears level. Algorind stood his ground. When the first ore was nearly ffpon him, he swept the sword up hard, catching the spear and turning it toward the sky. He spun, sliding his blade off the upturned spear and bringing it down and around as he turned. The edge sliced across the ore’s belly, spilling the contents. The creature stumbled several paces more before he tripped on his own entrails and fell on his face, never to rise again.

Algorind turned to face his final foe. The ore circled him cautiously, using the longer spear to keep the paladin and his blade at a safe distance. “Challenge,” the beast grunted. “Same weapons, one to one.”

The young paladin recoiled in surprise. How had a base creature such as this ore learned anything of the paladin’s creed? By the rules of his Order, he could not refuse a challenge given, unless the challenger was clearly outmatched. On the other hand, the messenger was badly wounded, perhaps dying. Algorind glanced toward the fallen man. His tunic was sodden with blood, his breathing shallow. To make matters worse, the sun was near to setting, and the wind whistled sharply over the bleak hills. The man needed aid and warmth, and soon. A paladin was pledged to aid the weak. How, Algorind puzzled, was he to chose between these duties?

Algorind eyed his opponent. The ore was the largest of his kind that Algorind had ever seen. He easily topped seven feet, and though his slack greenish hide showed signs of lean times, he was still nearly as broad and thick and fierce as an owlbear. A carved medallion bearing the bloody claw symbol of the evil god Malar hung on a thong around the ore’s neck. The wooden disk was nearly the size of a small dinner plate, but it did not seem out of proportion to the creature who wore it.