Ruby Guardian (20 page)

Both Marga and Grozier turned to look at the thing, standing behind Grozier in its natural form. It was all gangly arms and legs, except for its head, which was large and round, like an egg. The thing’s skin was gray and hairless. It was repulsive to look upon, but what unnerved Marga the most were its eyes. They were large and round, yellow orbs with narrow slits. She would have said they looked like a cat’s eyes, but such a description was inaccurate. No, she decided, they were the eyes of an octopus. Cold and dead, they seemed, and they stared straight at her. She knew the creature was reading her mind right then, could sense her loathing of it.

“Good,” Grozier said, stepping back from Marga and turning to face the thing directly. “She’s a smart girl. Because I would, you know,” he said.

“Yes,” the creature replied in a deadpan tone, its voice strangely dissonant and hollow. “I know you would.”

Grozier chuckled. “Of course you do.” Then he turned away and began to pace. “But I didn’t just show up to taunt or threaten my lovely sister tonight. No, I have most exciting news.” He moved beside

Bartimus, who had been standing in the shadows at the corner of the room, staying out of the way until needed, as usual. Grozier clapped the mage on the shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie, then spun and continued his pacing.

“It seems that various members of the Matrell family have gotten themselves into some unfortunate scrapes today. Sadly, the family is being whittled down to nothing, little by little.”

Marga gasped, unable to contain her sudden dread.

“Oh, yes,” Grozier replied, picking up on the woman’s fear. “Apparently, the ship that was carrying Lieutenant Vambran Matrell and Quartermaster Kovrim Lazelle sank off the coast of Reth today, and all hands are presumed dead or missing.” His tone had turned solemn, though it was a mocking gesture, for the man could not contain his smile as he spoke. “It seems that neither man will be coming home from campaign this season,” he finished, almost chuckling in his glee.

Marga wanted to strangle him. Her heart ached with the news.

“And as it turns out, two other members of the family have been waylaid in the dark of night in a more unsavory neighborhood of Arrabar. I’m sorry’ to report that Xaphira and Emriana Matrell won’t be finding their way home again, either.”

“No!” Marga cried, lunging up from her chair, horrified. “No! You didn’t do this! Please tell me you did not hurt them!” She charged toward her brother, her hands balled into fists, and began to pound at him, slamming both fists into his chest, trying to cuff him about the face and head.

Grozier, in his initial shock, did nothing to stop his sister at first, but then he began to step back, away from her assault, and managed to clamp his hands around her wrists, restraining her. “Stop it!”

he demanded, driving her back from him, driving her down.

Marga crumpled then, sagging to the floor in agony. It had been by her hand that the two women, Emriana and Xaphira, had been harmed. Her betrayal had led Grozier and his accomplices to find them. Marga could not stand that guilt. She buried her face in her arms, right there on the floor, and sobbed.

I did it. I killed them, she thought as she cried. The same as if I’d held the weapon myself. Why has all of this happened to me? Waukeen, what did I do to cross you, to bring this down upon myself?

Marga could feel Grozier step around his sister and continue pacing. He apparently was refusing to be upstaged during his gleeful telling of the horrid tale.

“Regrettably, after the unfortunate events of last month, that leaves only three family members alive, and two of those are … not of age, yet.”

Marga sat up, realizing where her brother was going with his explanations.

He was looking at her, an expectant smile upon his face. “Yes, Marga, dear, I knew you would figure it out. Tonight, the only person who stands between the wealth of House Matrell and your two children is Hetta herself.”

“No,” Marga said weakly, helplessly. “Don’t.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to,” he said, still smiling. “I think we’ll leave that for a different member of the family.” He turned to the gray-skinned creature, still standing and watching as Grozier had strutted in pride through the room. “I’m sure you have an idea of who might get close to Grandmother Hetta tonight,” he said to the thing.

“Absolutely,” the creature remarked, and right before Marga’s eyes, it began to change, to shift. It grew taller and filled out, adapting a human form

all too familiar to the woman. It was as if she were looking in a reflecting glass.

“No!” she cried, trying to rise to her feet. “You cannot do this! Stop it!” Marga demanded, moving toward the thing, the false version of herself. “Leave her alone!”

But Grozier stepped between Marga and the imitation of her, grabbed his sister by the arms. “No, no,” he said, wrapping his arms around her when she began to flail at him, hit him, trying to get past him and at the false version of herself. “You and I are going to wait right here, and it’ll all be over,” he said.

But Marga would not be denied. She fought like a wild thing, for she knew that she could not bear the shame and guilt of allowing her treachery to the Matrells to be continued. She had to stop the wretched creature before it got out of her chambers. She had to stop it! She began to shout, to scream at the top of her lungs, hoping someone, a servant, would hear and expose the plot.

“Bartimus, if you please,” Marga heard Grozier say, raising his voice to be heard over her screams. “She’s going to bring the entire household down op us, making this noise.”

Marga kicked and punched at Grozier, and from his winces, she could see that she was having an effect. He released her then, and she lunged forward, trying to grab her imposter and strangle it, but she never made it across the floor. In the blink of an eye, she felt herself lose mobility, felt her body stiffen and freeze in place, caught in mid-step as she had been dashing across the room.

Marga’s horror was complete then, for she found that she could still breathe, and could see—though only in the direction she had been staring, which had been right at her imposter—but she could not move

a muscle otherwise. The woman could also hear, and Grozier was laughing. It made her blood run cold.

“Very nice, Bartimus, I must say,” her brother said, chuckling, as he moved in front of Marga. “She looks quite humorous.” Then he turned his attention away from his sister and toward her duplicate. “You know what to do,” he said to the thing as he handed it something Marga could not see.

The creature nodded. “Yes,” it replied. “She will die in her sleep, and no one will be the wiser.”

“And you’re certain you can get to her?” Grozier asked. “There is only one chance at this.”

“Do not worry,” Marga’s double replied, altering its voice until it became the perfect likeness of her own. “I will reach the old woman without trouble or incident.”

Grozier chuckled again. “Of course, I should never have doubted. Then off with you,” he said.

The false Marga turned and departed.

Marga, frozen in place, wanted so desperately to scream.

II • •

Vambran felt an exposed bit of root jab him in the ribs as he tumbled across the ground, desperately dodging the gout of liquid vomited forth by the snake before him. The mercenary officer grunted in pain but refused to stop rolling, jumping to his feet several paces away from where he had originally been standing. The ground where he had been a moment before sizzled and hissed where the foul secretion landed, and he shuddered, imagining what it would have done if it had struck him.

Though he was intensely wary of the giant snake turning to pursue him, Vambran also had a thought in the back of his mind for the men coming behind

him, the professional hunters who were tracking both him and his soldiers through the forest. His agitation that the trackers could catch up to the seven members of the Sapphire Crescent only made it more difficult to concentrate on the battle at hand.

The snake lunged at Vambran, and he shifted his stance to one side and sliced with his sword at the creature’s neck. The blow landed true, but the gouge he created was only a narrow furrow, the blade inhibited by the thick scales covering the reptile. Still, the snake did not like that one bit and hissed malevolently as it recoiled from him, swaying and watching its quarry with beady, frightening eyes that glowed in the dusk.

Vambran considered launching a spell that would blind the creature, one of his magical flares aimed right at the snake’s eyes, but he dismissed the idea almost immediately, for he did not want to aid the men hunting the Crescents. Instead, he decided to conjure his magical swarm of coins. Reaching into his shirt as he backed away from the advancing snake, he produced his holy medallion and began to utter the words of a familiar prayer. Finishing the petition, he kissed the coin and felt the manifestation of magic form in front of him.

The clump of coins materialized in a low humming swarm, and with a thought, Vambran sent the buzzing cloud right at the snake’s head. In the gathering darkness, it was growing more difficult to see clearly, but Vambran knew the cloud of coins struck true when the snake jerked and retreated, hissing and biting at nothing in particular. Maintaining his concentration on the holy weapon and driving it repeatedly at the snake’s head, Vambran used the distraction to circle around to a better vantage point. The snake seemed to sense what the soldier was trying to do, though, because it turned several

times to keep its foe in front of itself, but each time, Vambran was able to maneuver the swarm of stinging coins in for another round of vicious blows.

The snake lost interest in attacking the man and settled to the ground with the intention of fleeing. It slithered through the dried leaves, rushing away from the repeated stinging bites that it could not see nor retaliate against. Vambran maintained his magic for a few moments more, desiring to make certain that the snake truly fled, but once it was clear the beast was not going to return, he recalled the swarm and turned to see how his companions were faring.

Several snakes were down and lifeless, and the two remaining were badly bleeding. At least one of the mercenaries was also down, unmoving, and two others were writhing in agony, out of range of the battle. Vambran rushed to aid the soldiers, sending his cloud of coins toward the nearest snake.

As the holy weapon struck the serpent across one side of its head, the snake jerked and shifted its attention sideways, snapping at the air. The distraction gave Grolo the opportunity to leap close to the snake and swing his axe with both hands. The dwarf’s aim was true, and he lopped the reptile’s head completely off with that single blow, sending it bouncing away into the darkness. The snake’s body began to buck and writhe haphazardly across the ground, leaking blood and other fluids as it did. Grolo jumped clear of the corpse as Vambran directed his magic at the last remaining snake.

That single opponent was clearly already in its death throes as Vambran’s swarm of coins smacked it across the snout. The strike was enough to send it reeling to one side, toppling over into the leaves. Horial and Adyan closed in and finished off the creature.

Vambran turned to the three downed mercenaries. They all had suffered burns from the acid spit by the

snakes, he realized. Filana and Burtis were alive but in terrible pain, but Elebrio did not move.

“Help them!” the lieutenant ordered his three sergeants as he bent down to check the youngest Crescent for signs of life. The acid had done its work too well, though, for most of Elebrio’s face was nothing but raw, red flesh, his features scoured by the burning acid. As Vambran suspected, the youthful soldier did not breathe.

No pain for you, at least, Vambran thought sorrowfully.

The mercenary officer knew he could not waste a moment grieving for the young man, though, and went over to see what aid he could give the other two wounded soldiers. Both Filana and Burtis were sitting up by then, while the sergeants applied a healing salve to the worst of their burns.

“Elebrio’s dead,” Vambran said. “Acid got him squarely in the face, it appears.”

“Aye,” Grolo grumbled as he handed a waterskin over to Filana. “The boy jumped right into the middle of the fight, though,” the dwarf said. “Never backed down from the snake for a moment. He would have made a fine soldier.”

“We have to get moving,” Vambran said, changing the subject. “There are trackers on our trail, hunting us down even as we speak. It won’t take them long to find us, with the kind of noise we just made.

“Adyan, strip Elebrio’s body of anything useful and bury him in leaves. We can’t dig a grave, but we can at least make it a little harder for the bloodhounds to figure out what happened.”

“Aye, sir,” Adyan replied and moved to do Vambran’s bidding.

“Grolo, Horial, help the two of them,” Vambran said, indicating the wounded pair. “You get moving northeast, back toward the coast. I’m going to try to

mislead our pursuers a little bit by laying a false trail to the south.” The other two nodded, and everyone sprang into action at once. Vambran moved to a position in the midst of the snake carcasses and set off through the trees southward, deeper into the forest, doing his best to stir up leaves, snap fallen branches, and scuff his feet into the dirt. After he had progressed in such a fashion for a couple of hundred paces, he stopped near the base of a tree.

It was almost too dark to see anything, so he drew forth his pendant and uttered a soft prayer of light. The resulting glow that sprang from the coin was gentle, like moonlight, and Vambran cupped the symbol in his hand to keep it from shining out in all directions.

Using the magical light to aid him, Vambran knelt down at the base of the tree and began hunting for another spider. He spotted one quickly enough, and he went through the motions of casting the spell again that he had used to climb with before. When he knew the magic had manifested, Vambran willed the soft light to wink out, waited a moment for his eyes to adjust, and scurried up the tree.