Baldur's Gate (9 page)

“Xzar,” the halfling said, looking up in horror and disgust.

The mage was hanging upside down from a long chain that hung from the high ceiling somewhere in the darkness of the cavernous chamber. The light coming from the half-dozen tall floor-standing candelabras was dim, flickering, and unsure, but Montaron could see Xzar’s tattooed face well enough. The mage’s lifeless eyes bulged, and the blood that dripped on Montaron’s face came from the mage’s mouth. One of his ears was missing, and his arms and one of his legs were hanging from other chains in farther corners of the room. There was a glass jar on a little table nearby that held—Montaron almost retched when he realized what it was. A big steel hook protruded from Xzar’s bellybutton, and his other leg was nowhere to be seen.

“Congratulations on a job well done my stubby friend.”

“Sarevok,” Montaron said, his voice cheerful in a terrified sort of way. “Th-thank ye, uh, sire.”

Sarevok was wearing armor of black metal and silver, full of vicious, unnecessary, terrifying spikes. The man was enormous and his eyes glowed an unnatural yellow. His voice sent chills down Montaron’s spine, and it was all the halfling could do to hold his bladder.

“I was being ironic,” Sarevok said, and Tamoko kicked Montaron’s legs out from under him. There was a loud snap, and Montaron heard a reedy, girlish shriek then realized as he slumped to the ground that it was him shrieking.

“I did what ye asked,” Montaron screamed, stupid enough to think there might be some mercy coming his way.

He didn’t hear or see Sarevok close the distance between them, the huge armored man was just suddenly there. He was holding a dagger Montaron recognized—wide, silver blade, engraved—the one Abdel had used to kill the drunk in the Friendly Arms.

” ‘E ‘as the keys,” Montaron whimpered.” ‘E ‘as the keys, an’ I set ‘im in the—in the direction of Mul-Mulahey. ‘E was goin’ the right way, si—”

The rest of that word comprised Montaron’s last, gurgling breath on this plane of existence. Sarevok traced a red line across the halfling’s throat with Abdel’s dagger; then he held his finger out to playfully deflect the blood that fountained from the severed artery.

“Everyone who’s ever repeated that name to me has had a different idea about what they want exactly,” Xan said as he walked slowly in the direction of Nashkel. The elf looked tired, and he fumbled with the laces on the high collar of his cotehardie.

Abdel was breathing just as heavily-—though he’d been carrying the sleeping Khalid.

“We should rest,” Jaheira said.

Abdel and Xan needed no further encouragement. The sellsword leaned the unconscious half-elf against a tree on the side of the path and stretched. Whatever protection Mielikki had sent through Jaheira’s prayer had gotten them through the field of poisonous black flowers no worse for wear. Xan sat heavily in the rough brown grass at the wider path’s edge. Jaheira knelt next to her husband and touched his face lightly. She didn’t look worried, but guilty somehow. She noticed Abdel looking at her and turned quickly to Xan.

“The Iron… ?” she asked. “Throne,” the elf answered. “The Iron Throne.” “So they’re a splinter group of the Zhentarim,” Jaheira concluded, “trying to control the iron mines—like with the poisonous flowers.”

Xan shrugged and said, “Maybe. I wouldn’t put it past the bastards, but there’s something… different about this. Controlling iron mines is one thing, rendering the iron useless so it snaps when forged, rusts in a day, is weaker than plaster… and then there’s the Amnian problem.” “War,” Jaheira said, “war with Baldur’s Gate.” “How would the Zhentarim benefit from that?” Xan asked.

“There are many ways to profit from a war,” Abdel offered. “I’ve made a decent living at it my—”

He stopped when Xan suddenly straightened and looked off to his left. Abdel was smart enough not to ask what was wrong, he just drew his sword and listened. A bird called, there was the buzzing of a bee or a big fly, and the whisper of the breeze moving through the leaves of the scattered trees. Tall brush obscured most of Abdel’s view of the south side of the path, the side Xan was still looking at.

The elf stood slowly, silently, and whispered, “We’re being tracked.”

Xan nodded in a more specific direction, and Abdel concentrated his attention there but still heard nothing, The elf took two silent steps backward and knelt next to Khalid and Jaheira. Abdel heard the breath of a whisper. He could see Xan’s lips form the word “Sword,” and Jaheira gave him Khalid’s. Xan stepped over the sleeping half-elf and began to climb the tree.

Abdel heard something in the bushes then, but it may have just been a bird or an animal. Xan made it to the first layer of stout boughs and kept going. Abdel could see the elf’s leg muscles twitching from exhaustion and dehydration. His stay in Mulahey’s “care” had obviously taken its toll.

Abdel jumped at the loud swish of brush and put both hands on his sword. The sound startled Xan, and Jaheira gasped when he fell from the tree.

The elf didn’t hit the ground. A figure came out of the bushes and caught him, holding Xan like a baby and maybe saving his life. The elFs savior was immediately followed by a wave of reeking stench. Jaheira put a hand to her mouth and succumbed to a rather unladylike gag. Her chin tucked itself into her neck, and her spine seemed to pop out of her back and shimmy.

Abdel grunted and turned his face away. Xan said something loudly in Elvish and leaped from his savior’s arms.

Abdel looked back to see Xan vomit on the edge of the path.

“Well,” a gravelly, resonating voice said, “pleased to make your a-a-acquain—to meet you, too.”

“Get away from me, freak,” Xan spat and scuttled away from the speaker, bringing Khalid’s sword to the ready.

The man—if you could call him a man—who saved Xan’s life was a short, stocky figure in rags. The skin of the creature’s face was an ashy white with small specks of black. Gray hair clung to its blotchy scalp in patches. Its eyes were sunken orbs of pale yellow shot with a spider’s web of tiny red threads. The eye sockets were swollen and seeping black, infected blood.

“Gods,” Abdel said, keeping his sword in a defensive posture, “that’s worse than the half-orc.”

“Korak,” the creature said. “My name is Korak. Do I look that different?”

“Korak?” Abdel asked, his voice seeming to spin in time with his head. He knew this… man. “By all the gods, I was at your funeral.”

“Didn’t quite take,” the creature replied, grinning to show gums crawling with maggots.

Xan backed up even more, his legs shaking even worse.

“Leave us alone,” he said. “Go away, or we’ll kill you.” Xan looked to Abdel for support on this last point, and the sellsword’s reply was a confused shrug.

“I join you,” Korak said. “I’ll join with you walking!”

“I don’t—” Jaheira started to say, then gagged again. She obviously wanted to back away but opted to stay with her husband.

“I don’t think so, Korak,” Abdel finished for her. “You’re not quite …” Abdel let the thought trail away since he couldn’t think of a single diplomatic way to finish it.

“I help you,” Korak persisted, taking a step forward, “like when we were kids.”

Xan flinched and stood up straight, taking a step in with his sword out.

“Come no closer, ghoul!” the elf called.

“Ghoul?” Abdel asked, surprised.

“You know this thing?” Xan asked Abdel.

“It was a long time ago,” Abdel answered, “in Candlekeep, when we were kids. He died three years ago.”

“Ghouls don’t—” Jaheira stopped at the sight of Korak’s long, thin, pointed, inhuman tongue. The thing lashed out like a snake to lick at the pestilence under the creature’s right eye.

“Gods,” the woman whispered.

Abdel felt more pity for the creature than the loathing so obvious on Xan’s face or the horror reflected in Jaheira’s gaze.

“Go on now, Korak,” the sellsword said, “back into the brush with you.”

“I help you,” Korak persisted, though he came no closer. “I help you on the road—the dangerous road.”

“Abdel,” Xan said, “help me kill the thing!”

“No, no,” Abdel replied. “Korak is going to go on his way now, aren’t you Korak?”

“I help—” Abdel burst forward, and the ghoul fell backward, then scrabbled into the tall brush.

“Stay in there, Korak,” Abdel said. “You can’t go where we’re going.”

We’ll kill you if you follow us,” Xan added, his voice shaking from fear and exhaustion.

The ghoul backed away, but not too far.

The man was too short to really head-butt Abdel properly, so the sellsword took it on the chin. The mason’s skull was hard, and his neck was strong, so it hurt.

Abdel spat a curse and punched the bricklayer across the jaw. There was a resounding smack, and Abdel thought he saw the man hit the floor but couldn’t wait to be sure. He had to dodge the stool that someone threw at his head. He took a step forward, planting a foot on the fallen mason’s stomach and grabbed for the man who’d thrown the stool. The little, chubby commoner thought he could get away, was so confident, in fact, that he was smiling as he turned to bolt. Abdel took half a yard of the faded fabric that made up the man’s shirt in his left hand and punched him in the throat with his right hand. The stool-thrower went down gurgling.

“Get off me!” the mason yelled from the floor. He was about to say something else, but when Abdel kicked him in the head he shut up.

“Abdel!” Jaheira called, and the sellsword ducked another stool. He looked up to see Jaheira knee one of the barroom toughs between the legs. The man’s breath shot out of him, and he identified Jaheira as a female dog as he crumpled to the floor in a most undignified fashion.

Abdel laughed at the sight but stopped abruptly when another stool shattered across the back of his head.

“One more chair,” Abdel growled, then spun on the man behind him. The assailant was the youngest of the ruffians and the tallest, though he still looked diminutive next to Abdel. There was no fear in the young tough’s eyes, and Abdel took offense to that.

The kid tried to punch him, but Abdel grabbed the younger man’s fist. The young blond man screamed in a decidedly girlish fashion as Abdel crushed the bones in his hand.

“One more chair hits me in the head, and I’m going to start cutting off heads!”

The last word came out so loudly that glassware behind the mildewed bar tinkled in response. The fear Abdel wanted to see flashed brightly in the kid’s eyes.

Jaheira called, “Don’t kill him, Abdel, we don’t have anyone to plant evidence on this one.”

The young tough began to cry and said, “He hires s-sell-swords — sellswords for the Iron Throne.”

“Tazok?” Abdel asked. They’d returned to Nashkel with only one bit of information: a name. When they’d inquired at the inn, after putting both Khalid and the exhausted Xan safely to bed, they’d been met with violence.

“T-Tazok,” the young man answered. Abdel still had a tight hold of his hand, and the kid whimpered through another short series of distinct cracking sounds. “He hires humanoids too — orcs and the gods only know what else. He doesn’t care who — who w-works for him.”

“Where do we find this man?” Jaheira asked, stepping over the man she’d recently emasculated.

“Beregost,” the boy whimpered. “Tazok’s a — a— he’s an ogre — works out of Beregost… .”

“Damn Zhent pigs,” Abdel muttered. “I hate those thrice-bedamned — “

“So why are they doing this?” Khalid interrupted. Abdel looked at him vacantly.

“To manipulate people,” he said, “like they teased me up and down the Coast Way, killed the only father I ever knew—”

Abdel stopped himself this time by putting his fist through the thin plaster wall of the room Jaheira and Khalid were sharing. He heard someone in the room next door say, “Hey—” but didn’t respond. He pulled his fist free and looked at the others. All three of them looked like they were ready for him to burst into flames, or just kill them all right there. He turned away, and Khalid cleared his throat nervously.

“This ‘Iron Throne’ is obviously a Zhentarim splinter group of some kind set up to disrupt the iron trade and foment a war between Amn and Baldur’s Gate. The why of it concerns me less than finding a way to stop it,” the nervous half-elf explained.

“That is why we were sent—” Jaheira said, stopping herself at a quick, warning look from Khalid. Abdel let it pass, but Xan did not.

“Sent where?” the elf asked, “by whom?”

Xan was looking better. Color had returned to his face though he still moved slowly, stiffly, and the occasional crack and creak sounded when he walked. He’d slept a long time and looked like he should sleep some more, but he would live. Khalid looked a bit better. The magic from the potion and a long rest on his own had made him a new man. Abdel looked at him and tried to think of a way to apologize to Khalid for almost killing him.

“My father knew something, didn’t he?” Abdel asked Jaheira. “He was meeting you… .”

“Yes,” Jaheira said, “but we don’t know what it was. He had someone—or something—who could—that could . . help us.”

She was lying. Abdel had been around lying enough to see that. These two had their own secrets, just like Montaron and Xzar.

“Who are you working for?” Xan asked again. Khalid and Jaheira avoided the question skillfully enough that the elf finally let them keep their secret.

“We could all use a decent night’s sleep,” Jaheira said, looking pointedly at Xan. “Then we should be off to Beregost. If this Tazok is there, we should speak with him.”

The inn in Nashkel was old and smelled bad, but it was good enough for Abdel, who’d slept in worse. He couldn’t remember the name of it—the Bloody Hen, or the Bloody Mess. The Bloody something. Among the many amenities it lacked were well oiled hinges. This failure in basic maintenance was something Abdel actually appreciated, since the long creaking of the door was enough to wake him. Someone was coming into his room.

He didn’t open his eyes or move. He wasn’t expecting any late night visitors, and he wanted whoever this was to get closer to him. Abdel counted footsteps and tracked the distance the intruder was from him by hearing alone. He hoped suddenly it was Montaron. He wanted the little Zhent to come back to try to kill him or rob him. He wanted to see that little bastard just one more time.