Cry of the Ghost Wolf: Neverwinter NiChosen of Nendawen, Book III (17 page)

Y
OU”—A VOICE BROKE THROUGH THE FIRST
beginnings of a dream—“get up. Now.” But the dream wasn’t a pleasant one, so Hratt wasn’t entirely sorry to open his eyes and roll over.

The dungfire in the hearth was still breathing, the flames just now burning low. He hadn’t been asleep long then. Raucous cries and bits of song from the celebration came through the open door. Had Hratt not drunk himself senseless after giving up half the gold he’d hoarded for five summers, he’d never have been able to sleep.

Meager as the firelight was, it still had to burrow its way through the swirling dizziness in his head. A hobgoblin warrior stood over Hratt and glared down at him. The warrior wore full armor, so he hadn’t been joining in the celebrations. Perhaps he had just come in from a patrol, or was on some other duty. Hratt squinted to clear his vision and noted the talon symbol painted on the warrior’s breastplate. One of Buureg’s spears then.

“I said, ‘Up.’ ”

Hratt untangled himself from the blanket and sat up on his elbows. “Wha’ for?”

“I am Drureng.”

“I don’t care,” said Hratt. “Why are you here?”

“Maaqua wants you.”

A weight seemed to settle on Hratt’s chest and he had trouble standing. “Wh-why?” he asked.

“She wants the human’s things.”

Hratt swayed unsteadily on his feet. “The human?”

“The girl Rhan killed this morning. Maaqua wants the girl’s things brought to her. Weapons and such. You and the forge chief have the keys to the chamber, and no one can find him. So that leaves you and me. Now move.”

Drureng stood by the door, pounding the flat of his hand against his mail skirt while Hratt dressed. No need for armor. But since he was going to see Maaqua, he chose his finest clothes and a cloak he had looted from a Blood Mountain tribe raid. It was too good for them, and Hratt suspected it had probably originated in a caravan through the Gap.

“You’re fetching something for the queen, not dining with her,” said Drureng.

“Out,” said Hratt.

Drureng’s eyes narrowed, and his hand inched toward the sword at his belt. He obviously thought Hratt felt insulted and was preparing to fight should Hratt challenge him.

“I need to get the key,” Hratt explained, “and this is my den. I don’t want anyone knowing where I keep my valuables.”

Drureng barked a laugh at that. “From what I hear, you don’t have many valuables left after today. Betting on a
girl
like you did. Learned your lesson?”

“Out.”

Drureng left and even shut the door behind him, chuckling.

Hratt and Drureng walked through the inner chambers of the fortress to the armories. Unlike the upper chambers, most of these halls were empty as tombs—their former inhabitants enjoying the celebration above. Both hobgoblins stopped long enough to light a torch each, then proceeded on their way.

The air grew thicker and warmer as they descended. And soon the twisting tunnels and open halls, lit only by their torches, smelled more of soot and slag than stone. The Razor Heart fortress had many forges, large and small, used for repairing armor, weapons, and other tools. But the
real masterworks were done in the deep caverns, where the Master of the Forge mixed magic with his crafts.

It was here that Maaqua had chosen to keep Hweilan’s weapons and other belongings. When Hratt had first been told of this, he had thought it strange that Maaqua put Hweilan’s things so far inside the fortress. But if they were as powerful as Maaqua said, it did make a certain amount of sense. The caves were probably the most warded area of all the fortress—save for Maaqua’s private chambers—and Hratt suspected she had reasons of her own for being suspicious of the tools of the Hand of the Hunter. With the Hand now dead, perhaps the queen felt safer.

The main door of the deep forge was not only unlocked but standing wide open. That struck Hratt as unusual, but not entirely unexpected, considering the night’s revelries. Although it was unlikely the master had left the door open, the soldiers sent to look for him certainly might have done so.

The forge itself was a vast room, its ceiling well out of the reach of their torchlight. Vents high overhead carried the smoke away. But tonight the fires lay cold, not even the hint of a glow in the coals. The reek of soot and oil and iron clung to every surface. Hratt hated the place. The air itself felt burned, and with his brain still thick from his day of drinking, it was all he could do to keep his stomach from spilling.

“Where are they?” asked Drureng.

“This way.” Hratt threaded a path through the dozens of heaps of iron, steel, copper, and brass. Tables and tool racks and anvils made islands in the room. On the far side, doors opened to other halls and storage rooms. Hratt chose a doorway so small that they had to duck into it before emerging into a larger tunnel beyond. They left the forge behind and went up a winding narrow hall that burrowed upward slightly into the mountain.

“You said they were in the deep forge,” said Drureng. His loud voice carried far through the tunnel.

“These are the deep-forge storage chambers,” said Hratt. “Same thing.”

Drureng snorted. “It’ll be dawn before our duty’s done, at this rate.”

Hratt ignored him and kept going. The tunnel grew no wider, but the ceiling rose high into the dark. Their torches cast many small shadows on the roughly hewn walls.

They turned around a bend to the left, and there was the storage room.

Hratt stopped and stared.

“What?” said Drureng. By his whisper, Hratt knew the warrior could sense his surprise.

“The door,” said Hratt. “Look.”

He held his torch forward and pointed. The thick iron door was still shut. It had two slide latches—one near the top and the other about a foot off the floor—that had been secured with locks. Both locks had been smashed open. The dented and scarred central pieces lay on the floor surrounded by the broken and misshapen bits of iron link. The main lock—the one set just slightly to the right of the door’s center—was also dented and scarred. It looked as if someone had taken one of the heavier forge hammers to it, then used something else to try to pry the whole latch off. But the welded bolts had held.

Hratt reached for his sword, and only then realized he had left it in his chamber. He hadn’t even brought his dagger.

Drureng stepped to the side of Hratt to get a better look. “Who could h—”

Hratt heard a sound like someone smashing a fist on a thick table, and then Drureng fell sideways toward Hratt. The armored warrior’s torch hit the ground a moment before he did.

Hratt whirled, waving his torch before him. Drureng lay motionless on the ground.

A dark shape, crouching well beyond the reach of his torch, straightened, and Hratt heard a relieved sigh followed by a chuckle.

“Hratt, is that you?”

Wide-eyed, Hratt took another step back and held his torch high. As the shadows stopped dancing and the firelight
settled over the shape in front of him, Hratt recognized her at once. It took every bit of his warrior’s self-control to keep his feet.

“You’re dead,” he said to Hweilan.

“Not yet.” She smiled at him, though her eyes lost none of their hardness. “I am very glad to see you, though. I’m having a damnable time getting that door open. Please tell me you have the key.”

Near the outermost borders of the fortress, a band of hobgoblins gnawed on the remains of their meal and passed around the skin. It was the third they had drained.

“Back soon,” said one as he handed off the skin and stood.

“Where you going?” said another.

“Gotta make room for more drink.”

His companions laughed and cheered him on.

The hobgoblin took his spear with him. Even in the best of years, the Giantspires were not a safe place, and they had become particularly dangerous over the past few months.

He hesitated as he approached the farthest edge of the firelight. He could have sworn he’d heard something. A sound of something moving in the dirt.

One of his companions must have seen him pause, for he called out, “Need me to hold that spear for you?”

“Which one?” another answered, and they all roared laughter.

The hobgoblin turned halfway back so his voice would carry. “Be quiet!”

The laughter died slowly. “What is it?” one of them called, still chuckling.

“I heard something.”

“If you want someone to—”

There.

“Silence!” he called. He’d heard it again. He was certain this time.

His bladder was full to bursting, but he gripped his spear with both hands and took two steps back.

“Over here,” the hobgoblin said. “All of you.”

He could hear his companions coming up behind, so he ventured forward, leaving the last of the firelight behind, his gaze sifting every bit of shadow behind the rocks.

The other warriors fell in around him. “What is it? What did—?”

Another sound.

“I heard it that time.”

“Who’s there?” the first hobgoblin called.

“Here, damn you!” The voice was deep and raspy, but it spoke perfect Goblin.

“Name yourself!”

“Rhan,” said the voice. “Come here. Now. Or I’ll kill every last one of you.”

The hobgoblins exchanged a worried glance, then moved forward, spears and swords held before them. They put some distance between each other as they walked to give those with swords room to swing.

“There!” said one of the hobgoblins, pointing.

A large shape lay on the ground, a dark, wet trail in the dirt and rock behind it.

“It is Rhan!”

The hobgoblins rushed forward.

It was indeed the Champion of the Razor Heart. He gripped the Greatsword of Impiltur in one hand. Even in the dim light, the hobgoblins could see he was covered in dirt, made sticky by his own blood.

“Someone’s hamstrung him!”

Bits of some cloth were bound round Rhan’s knees, but they were black with blood and dirt, and more blood was leaking out. Crippled, he had crawled all this way from … wherever this had been done to him.

“Wh-what … what happened?”

Rhan looked up at the warriors with such ferocity that the hobgoblins gasped and took a step back.

“She’s back,” said Rhan through a clenched jaw. “She’s
alive
. Sound the horns!”

C
HAPTER
FOURTEEN

B
UUREG HAD NOT JOINED IN THE CELEBRATIONS
. Something about the day’s events had left him unsettled, so he walked throughout the fortress, speaking with warriors and slaves, listening to every rumor and being asked a dozen times whether they would raid east or west of the mountains this season. He was in one of the outer courtyards when the horns broke through the sounds of celebration.

The warriors with whom he’d been speaking sat still as stones, their mouths hanging open, skins half-raised to their lips.

One of them looked to Buureg. “What—?”

“Drop the drink and get steel in your hands,” Buureg ordered. Then he ran in the direction of the horns.