Mistress Of Masks (Book 1) (21 page)

Bursting into their camp, the scorpion reared back on spindly legs. Its black eyes glinted wildly in the dying glow of the fire. But Eydis and Geveral weren’t what held its attention. The scorpion had driven the eyeless monster before it and into the clearing. Now it circled him.

The monster dodged the scorpion’s advances while trying to knock its skinny legs from beneath it with powerful swings of his spiked mace. Narrowly, he evaded the scorpion’s pincers, which looked big enough to cut him in two. The black hunger hounds followed their master’s lead, rushing at the scorpion, snarling and snapping.

Finding itself outnumbered and its prey now taking a stand, the scorpion stumbled around in a frenzy, backing into trees and blundering through the campfire as it struck at monster and hounds, its stinger never quite quick enough.

“This is the best chance we’re going to get!” Geveral shouted to Eydis over the commotion.

Working quickly he untied them both.

The instant she was loose, Eydis grabbed a smoldering stick from the campfire. Only she had no idea who to use it on. The clearing was filled with enemies, and she couldn’t decide which was the most immediate threat—their captor and his hounds or the fire scorpion.

As if sensing his prisoners’ escape, the eyeless Naroz took his attention from the scorpion he was battling. In that instant of distraction, the scorpion’s tail descended swiftly and its giant stinger slammed between the monster’s shoulder blades. Naroz froze, the handle of his mace slipping through his fingers. Then he collapsed to the ground, screaming and writhing in agony. Lunging on its fallen prey, the scorpion ended the monster’s suffering by using one big pincer to slice his head from his body.

It all happened so quickly there was hardly time for Eydis to reassess the scene. The monster was dead, his severed head rolling across the earth. With his death, the hunger hounds lost their courage. As soon as the scorpion rounded on them, they scattered, fleeing into the trees. Eydis and Geveral were the lone targets now.

The scorpion struck at Geveral with one great pincer, and he jumped aside to avoid the blow.

“That’s good,” Eydis said. “Draw it into the woods, where we’ll have the advantage.”

Geveral obeyed but he looked incredulous. “You aren’t seriously planning to attack this thing?”

She didn’t answer. The scorpion was attempting to face them both, but as Geveral lured it to the trees, she circled to its other side.

Her foot accidentally found the giant spiked mace beside the fallen Naroz and she snatched it up, although she doubted she could swing its great weight more than once or twice before her arm would give out. A smoldering fire-stick in one hand, the mace in the other, she made a sudden charge at the scorpion. Gritting her teeth, she swung the mace into its side, but the creature’s outer shell, thick as armor, easily deflected the blow.

The scorpion rounded on her.

“Over here!” shouted Geveral, and she tossed him the fire-stick.

As the scorpion hesitated between them, both rushed it at once. Geveral rolled daringly beneath its legs to thrust the fire-stick into its unprotected abdomen, while Eydis attacked the head, using all her strength to swing the heavy mace at its eyes. The creature reared back, escaping her onslaught but screaming in pained fury as Geveral’s stick scorched its soft underbelly.

Losing the stick, Geveral was weaponless and could only roll from side to side in a desperate attempt to dodge the pincers aimed at him. Hoping to draw attention from her helpless friend, Eydis slammed her mace into one of the scorpion’s spindly back legs, knocking it momentarily off balance.

The creature wheeled, stinger raised. To her dismay, Eydis discovered her arm lacked the strength to raise the heavy mace one last time to ward off the coming attack. Frozen, she watched the tail descend, imagining that even in the darkness she could see the poisoned venom dripping from its stinger. The world seemed to come to a standstill. Her heart’s beating was unnaturally loud, and she was intensely aware of every breath she drew, every trickle of sweat rolling down her skin.

Vaguely, as if from a distance, she heard a prolonged shout and saw a quick blur of movement from the corner of her eye. The scorpion’s massive stinger plunged downward, coming straight at her. And then a blade swept through the air, slicing the stinger cleanly from the tail. Screaming, the creature scrambled backward, as Orrick appeared. The juices of the severed stinger dripped from his sword as he positioned himself between Eydis and the creature.

In its haste to escape, the injured scorpion stumbled through the underbrush and into the trunk of a tree, setting branches quivering and leaves raining down.

When Orrick would have advanced on it, Eydis was surprised to find herself grabbing his elbow, pulling him back.

“Let it go,” she said. “It’s in no condition to come after us now. Besides it’s done us a favor, rescuing us from Naroz and the hunger hounds.”

The barbarian visibly hesitated, watching the scorpion make its clumsy escape. After a moment he lowered his sword, admitting, “I’d just as soon not prolong an encounter with a fire scorpion. But you don’t owe your escape to that thing. If I hadn’t discovered the scorpion wandering lost from its swarm and driven it into your captor’s trap, it would never have taken down the monster.”

“Then thanks for our rescue,” Geveral said, joining them.

Orrick said, “Keep your thanks. Let’s just move out of here before those hunger hounds find the courage to return. Or before the scorpion comes back with his whole swarm. If you think that one was formidable, you don’t want to see these creatures when they’re full-grown.”

Eydis glanced uneasily into the deepening shadows. “Right then,” she said. “Let’s walk through the night. We’ve lost too much time already.”

Asincourt was unlike anything Geveral had ever seen. Treeveil, with its hundreds of inhabitants, had never seemed small to him. But Asincourt must have held tens of thousands within its gates. On entering, the three travelers found the marketplace so crowded they could hardly move through the jostling press.

“You’ll get used to it,” Eydis reassured him, pulling him out of the way of a passing fruit cart. “I grew up in a city this size before I made my home at Shroudstone.”

That didn’t make the press any less overwhelming. “How long do we have to stay here?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the cacophony of screaming street sellers, rattling wagons, and poultry and livestock being driven through the streets.

“Only until we obtain an audience with the local lord,” she told him. “If we’re to defend the seclusionary outside these walls, we’ll need all the support we can get from the townspeople.”

“What if the lord won’t help us?” Geveral didn’t know which thought was worse, that they wouldn’t get the aid they needed or that they’d need to spend days in this overcrowded city, drumming up support. Seeing the great world beyond the Elder forest wasn’t turning out quite like he imagined. He had envisioned Lythnia’s great cities as bastions of beauty and order. Nowhere in his imaginings had been the foul smells, the refuse spilling out of side alleys, and the dirty, hungry-looking crowds. The eyes of the inhabitants were cold, their voices shrill, and their manners abrupt. No one even walked on the proper side of the street. Back home, the Treeveil elders would never have stood for such ugly chaos.

“Don’t worry,” Eydis cut in on his thoughts. “Asincourt won’t stand by and let their seclusionary be overrun by a dark army. Once he understands the graveness of the situation, their Lord Karol will send soldiers to protect the seclusionary. I’ve only to show him this mark to be recognized as one who speaks for the First Mother.”

Absently, she rubbed her temple, where the silvery trace spanned her forehead. The lace-like design was barely visible in the bright sunlight but could be seen in flashes as she moved her head from side to side.

Geveral suspected half her confidence was feigned but kept the thought to himself as their party obtained directions from a by-passer and headed up a slightly quieter street. At least with Orrick in the lead, pedestrians let them pass. But there were many curious stares turned their way, as if the people here had never before glimpsed a barbarian from the Kroadian wilds.

The hall of the local lord was conspicuous for being one of the larger constructions in the city. But despite its size, there was something dingy about the plain timber structure. The long porch was layered in dust from the street, and the warped glass windows looked like they hadn’t seen a cleaning in months. Even the watchman at the door had a slovenly appearance and sat snoozing in a chair, rather than keeping a lookout.

“Orrick, it might be best if Geveral and I proceed alone from here,” Eydis suggested, when the three paused before the hall. “Common people on the streets might not know you, but Lord Karol is likely better informed than they, and he may have heard rumors about the escape of the ‘betrayer of Endguard’ from the Morta den’Cairn.”

“Hold on,” Geveral interrupted. “The betrayer of what?”

His companions exchanged a glance, and Eydis said, “Perhaps we should have told you before, but Orrick has had a previous encounter with the authorities in the coastlands. Let’s just say it would be preferable to avoid a similar occurrence with the baseland authorities. They too are bound by Lythnian law.”

Geveral tried to come to grips with the information. “You mean we’ve been traveling all this time with a wanted man?” Suddenly Orrick’s suspicious behavior made sense.

“Lower your voice, boy,” the barbarian growled, darting a glance at the passing pedestrians.

“Why should I?” Geveral countered. “I have no interest in protecting some sort of criminal. How do I know you’re not plotting even now to murder me?”

“That,” Orrick warned, “is a great possibility.”

The two glared at one another until Eydis cut in. “Enough. Have you forgotten what’s important here? Geveral, if the oracle can overlook Orrick’s crimes to use him as an instrument for good—”

“Alleged crimes,” Orrick interrupted.

She ignored that. “If the oracle, and more importantly, the First Mother, can focus on the greater good, so can you and I. My visions tell me we’ll need Orrick on our side before all this is over. That’s enough for me, as it must be for you.”

She looked troubled, despite her words, and Geveral wondered if she had seen anything else in those visions of hers, something she was withholding. But at least tensions had been cleared for the moment.

The three arranged to meet at the corner tavern after Geveral and Eydis had their audience with Lord Karol. Then the Kroadian left them, and Geveral and Eydis mounted the steps to the porch, where they woke the lone guard and persuaded him to summon a serving man. Soon they were met by a black-haired fellow in scarlet livery, who looked down his long nose at the both of them.

“Lord Karol is a very important man. He is not available to every dust-stained traveler who comes calling,” the servant informed them.

“Not even a messenger from the great oracle of Silverwood Grove?” asked Eydis, lifting an eyebrow. “I should think your master might be rather angry if you turned away such a message without consulting him.”

That gave the serving man pause, and, reluctantly, he invited them inside. Eydis stepped through the doorway, and Geveral was about to follow when he had the strange feeling of eyes boring into his back.

Looking to the street, he saw a stranger staring at him. It was a bald old man, dressed in the rags of a beggar, and apparently blind in one eye, judging by its milky white color. But what gave Geveral pause was the stranger’s slender Drycaenian features and pointed ears. It was the first Geveral had seen of one of his kind since leaving Treeveil.

Finding himself discovered, the stranger looked away quickly and hurried off up the street. Geveral made an abrupt decision.

“Do you need me at this meeting, Eydis? Because if not, there’s something I’d like to do.”

She must have wondered what sort of errand he could possibly have to fulfill alone in a strange city. But she told him to go ahead and she would meet him with Orrick later.

He barely let her finish before bounding down the steps and back onto the street in time to see the bald stranger round the corner. Geveral pursued at a distance, following him down one side alley after another. He could easily have caught up, for the stranger’s pace was slowed by a slight limp. But something told him to hang back and see where the other Drycaenian might lead him.

They entered an impoverished-looking part of the city, where all the buildings were decaying and the yards around them overgrown with weeds. The stranger squeezed through an unlocked iron gate and into a high-walled courtyard. Spying through the gate, Geveral saw that the enclosed yard held the remains of a large burnt-out house that had only one wall and chimney still standing. The rest of the building had collapsed and been reclaimed by nature, being overgrown with tall grass and saplings.

But it wasn’t toward this ruin the old man scurried. He approached a smaller structure, an oblong building like a small house but constructed from panes of glass. Slipping through the gate, Geveral waded through the weeds after him, ducking out of sight only when the old man stopped to cast a quick glance around before entering the glass house. The glass panes were too grimy for Geveral to make out more than indistinct dark shapes inside. He hesitated, unsure why he felt compelled to go in. Maybe it was the pull to be near one of his kind again. Or maybe he was curious why the stranger had been watching him and why he had crept into that glass house with such stealth. What did he fear?

As Geveral considered, a reverberating sound reached his ears, like the deep roll of thunder. Only it wasn’t coming from the sky, but from that house of glass.

Emboldened by his curiosity, he let himself in the same door by which his quarry had entered. Once inside the shadowy interior, he stopped cold. The place was filled with row upon row of lush green plants and small trees, some growing out of clay pots, others sprouting from trays atop rickety wooden tables. He recognized fruit trees, stalks of vegetables, and a collection of herbs.