The Howling Delve (35 page)

Kali tried to speak, to confirm what he hadn’t been able to acknowledge when Morgan had run onto the bridge without Laerin, when he’d seen the fresh blood on the demon’s claws.

“Is there…” Kali cleared his throat and tried again. “Is there a body?” Morgan paled, but it was Talal who answered.

“There’s nothing you’d recognize,” he said, shuddering at a memory he could never be rid of. “Your friend’s gone.”

Kali nodded, but inwardly, the rage was so profound he thought he might burn from it. Was this what it was like for Meisha, he wondered, to be filled with fire and anger so consuming it swallowed his thoughts? To think that his friend,

who loved the light, the road, the open air—that this should be his tomb…. “Kail.”

Kail blinked. For a breath, he’d thought it was Cesira’s voice—impatient, always commanding, but with an underlying softness she tried to hide. He looked up, but it was Meisha who addressed him.

“There might be another way out,” the Harper said. “The Climb. It should lead all the way to the portal room.”

Kail met her eyes and saw the reluctance there. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“We might all die in the attempt.”

“Of course.” Kail looked around the group and received answering nods of assent. They were with him. “Let’s go,” he said. Cesira’s face was still bright in his mind.

I’m coming.

Marguin slid around the corner, using a mirror the size of her thumb to see that the way was clear. Elsis came behind her with an arrow nestled in the cutve of a fully drawn bow.

“We know you’re here, Lady,” Elsis sang out mockingly. He tipped a silver candelabra off a side table onto the floor. Flames licked at the expensive woven rugs, sending up charred fumes. “The longer you hide, the more painful it will be when we catch you.”

Movement from one of the doorways caught his eye. Elsis trained his bow on the spot, but it was only Marguin’s reflection in a mirror on the opposite wall.

The house was too damn quiet. There were so many rooms that connected to other rooms without spilling back into the main hallways. The bitch could be leading them around the house, and they’d never know it.

Catch this, breathed a voice at his ear.

Elsis swept the bow in an arc and released. The arrow did not have far to travel. Less than two feet away, it splintered

through Marguin’s armor near the base of her spine. The woman made a small, pitiful cry and dropped in front of him. Elsis fumbled another arrow from his quiver and nocked it, but he did not hear the voice again. He was alone in the hallway with Marguin’s body curled at his feet.

Cesira watched the man with the bow scout the hallway. She didn’t have enough spells to run him out of arrows, but she was more than willing to disquiet his search. Murmuring a word, she cast the ghostly whisper again. This time, his arrow shattered a mirror.

Crouching low, Cesira crept back to the servants’ stair. Two down—more if any from the downstairs trap were still incapacitated. Still too many, she thought, plenty enough to box her in, and there was no sign of Balram. He must still be in the main hall. He wasn’t going to make it easy by coming for her himself. Going to him would be beyond foolish.

Cesira tried to recall how many weapons and traps remained. Not enough to take out all of them at once, but if she could get a clear path to the garden—yes, it might work. Or she might die carrying out her plan.

“You were right,” she said, holding Kail’s emerald to her breast. “I’m an arrogant, stubborn fool.” She’d underestimated Balram and the Shadow Thieves, and now she was hopelessly outnumbered. “Time to even the odds.”

Aazen came through the portal, appearing on the rocky rim of the cavern floor before a circle of drawn weapons. The thieves saw Tarthet’s body clutched in Aazen’s arms but did not lower their steel. If anything, suspicion grew in their eyes.

“Where is Morel?” The man who addressed him was Geroll, one of Daen’s men.

“Food for a demon, when I left him,” Aazen lied. He settled the dead man on the floor and drew Morgan’s dagger from his

back. He’d picked it up on the bridge just before they’d entered the portal room. Tarthet might have corroborated his story. Aazen would never know. “Does the wizard live?” he asked.

“If you can call it that.” Getoll nudged the unconscious Vatan with his leg. The wizard did not stir. “He’s been like that ever since he lost his eye.”

“His eye?” Aazen echoed, then he saw Varan’s empty socket. So that was the link. “Perhaps it’s best. Now we can safely remove him from the Delve.”

Getoll nodded carefully. “Call the others back,” he said to the man nearest him. “We have what we came for.” He looked at Aazen, clearly reluctant to telinquish the authority he’d thought would be assured by Aazen’s treachery. But he had no proof, and to accuse Balram’s son without it would mean his death. “Balram will be expecting your report,” he said finally.

“Of coutse.” Before Aazen could issue an order, the portal in the shaft above his head flared green, and Tershus dropped through, wounded but alive. The halfling saw Aazen and ran right up to him, ignoring Daen’s men completely.

“You’d better come,” he said breathlessly. “It’s your father.”

Aazen stiffened. “What about my father?”

“He took a group of men to Morel house. They haven’t returned, and there’ve been reports of fire in that section of the city.”

Aazen grabbed Tershus by the arm, digging in until the small man yelped. “Bring the wizard,” he said.

“What about the portals?” demanded Geroll. “We can’t leave them open.”

“My men and I were separated,” said Aazen. “If you wish to eliminate any hope of them returning alive, by all means, close the gates. I’ll be happy to explain your decision, and the manpower lost, to Daen.”

He didn’t wait for the man to formulate a reply. He shook the halfling in his grip. “Bring the wizard,” he repeated. “Now.”

Tershus pulled away, his eyes wide at the alteration in Aazen’s demeanor. But for Aazen, the feelings that coursed

through him were familiar, shameful, and completely unsurprising to him.

His father was in danger. His father—who’d sent these Shadow Thieves to kill him—needed his son. And Aazen ran to answer that need, as he had always done, as he would always do, for as long as Balram was alive.

Cesira knelt on the floor by the stairway, preparing to change form, when the bolt sttuck her. Her leg gave out, and she sprawled. Twisting, she ptessed her back to the meager protection of the pillar at the landing.

Below her, Balram lowered his crossbow, a weapon he hadn’t been carrying when he’d entered the house. “You are far more fetching in that shape than any other, my dear,” he called up to her. “And you are not the only person outside the Morel family who knows where the master of the house kept his toys. Come down, and perhaps I’ll show you a few Kail doesn’t know about.”

A generous offer, my lord, Cesira replied. She bit her lip against the pain in het leg. But I’m afraid I must decline. Shadows stitred in the upper hallway, and Cesira heard footsteps coming, running toward their voices.

She risked a glance down to the hall. She couldn’t see Balram, but there was, as she’d hoped, an unobstructed path to the garden. The question remained, how many crossbow bolts would she take getting there?

Elsis’s shout from the hallway decided her. She could not outrun arrows and bolts.

Elsis came around the corner, his eyes widening in surprise when he saw her just sitting, exposed, at the top of the stairs. Cesira grabbed a knife from her belt and threw it, forcing him to duck back around the corner.

Standing unsteadily, she found her balance and flipped forward over the stair rail, hanging from her fingers. She swung out feet first and let go, landing in a painful crouch on

the first floor. Her eyes tracked the toom for Balram—corner pillar; thete you are.

She jumped before she heard the twang of the crossbow. Her feet left the floor at the same time her hands came down. She pushed off, into a forward roll, and the bolt struck wood somewhere above her head. Free in that breath, she sprang up and ran, ran as she used to run with the mist stags in the deepest parts of Mir. Her leg was on fire, but she ignored the pain.

She hit the doors to the garden, flung them open, and the third bolt slammed into het back, driving her forward. She felt the tip scrape a rib and resisted the urge to scream. She would not give Balram, a man who reveled in pain, the satisfaction of seeing hers.

Cesira stumbled into the garden, breathing night air and taking in her first—and possibly last—glimpse of the cloudy sky since her vigil on the tower. She ran through the garden’s heart, calling silently as she went. In her mind, she screamed theit names with her true voice, a voice only the wild beasts could hear.

Sparks flew as an arrow skittered off the stone fountain. Distracted, Cesira tripped and fell to the walkway, striking her head against the ground. To the side, she saw Elsis and another man with a lantern step into the garden alongside Balram.

“So many memories from Esmeltaran,” Balram remarked idly. He reloaded his weapon as he approached. “An empty garden, a dty fountain, and finally an end to the Morel family.”

He stepped onto the walkway. “What form would you care to die in, my lady?” he inquired politely. He raised the crossbow. “The woman … the beast?” His lips curved. “Or are they all the same?”

All, my lord, the druid gasped as a rush of wind filled the garden. We are all bitches with sharp claws.

Balram felt the wind and looked up in time to see the birds—Morel’s hunting raptors—descend on the garden. Balram snapped his crossbow up, aiming for Cesira’s heart, but

the flock absorbed the bolt. The night filled with wings, talons, and the high, shrill cries of incensed animals.

Balram took a step forward, but the swarm only increased the closer he got to the dtuid. A sharp pain burst from his ear, ripping up into his head. He touched the side of his face and found the earlobe gone. Blood dripped down his neck.

“Back inside!” Elsis cried. “Get back!”

“No, damn you!” Balram grabbed the lantern from the other man’s hand. He waved it in the air, batting aside the large bodies. The lantern broke, sending birds up into the sky aflame. Balram threw up his other arm to protect his eyes, but he felt scratches and bites all over his body.

Through the violence, he saw Cesira—once helpless at his feet—now with her eyes changing shape and color. Her arms joined the mass of wings, and for a bizarre breath she was a hybrid of woman and bird. Balram swung the lantern again, charging forward, but she was already gone, transformed and carried away by the flock.

Meisha had never seen the bottom end of the Climb, but her research since she’d left the Delve told her it should be there. Still, it took her a while to find it. She’d only traversed a por^ tion of it in her search for Shaera—a search that had ended in tragedy. Now she had to lead an entire group to safety through the treacherous passage to the surface—if it still led all the way to the surface. Damn the Howlings anyway.

Kail stood at the base of a tunnel that slanted upward until it was almost vertical. Stone platforms jutted from the walls to form uneven rungs.

“I’ll lead,” Kail said. “Meisha and Talal come behind me, then Dantane and Garavin. Morgan, take Botl and bring up the rear.”

“Slow going,” Dantane commented, “with a dog and an injured dwarf.”

“Then we go as slowly as necessary,” Kail said. He pulled himself up onto the first stone ledge.

Meisha floated globes of shimmering fire ahead and behind them, so they would be unencumbered by torches. She could see nothing of Kail beyond his boots and the tail of his cloak, but she could sense the urgency in his movements.

“What will you do once we reach the surface?” Meisha asked. “Aazen and the Shadow Thieves will be long gone.”

“Cesira,” Kail said, hauling himself up another rung. “They’ll be going for the house. I have to be there.”

“And Varan?” Meisha asked.

“The Shadow Thieves will have him,” Kali said. “They won’t give him up easily.”

Neither will I, Meisha thought.

Below them, Garavin succumbed to a fit of coughing that echoed through the shaft. Kali stopped the group.

“How are you doing, old friend,” he called down.

Motgan answered him. “He’s spitting some blood, Kail. That silver light messed him up bad.”

“Hang on just a little longer,” Kali said. “We’re almost out of this shaft.” He closed his eyes and murmured a prayer to Dumathoin.

Don t forsake your servant now.

Kail looked up. He could see an obstacle ahead. He motioned for Meisha to send a fire globe up so he could see.

“Son of a god’s cursed whore,” he hissed under his breath.

Stating him in the face was a rusty shield floating in a cloud of viscous fluid. The fire globe drifted higher. Kail could make out the edges of a gelatinous cube suctioned to the walls of the shaft.

“Is it alive?” Meisha asked. She touched the oozing substance dribbling down the walls.

“Alive or dead, it can still suffocate us, depending on how far up the shaft it teaches,” Dantane said.

Kail leaned closer to the cube. The slime distorted the objects within—relics of the creature’s last victims—but he could make out enough of the stone handholds inside the cube to pull himself through.

“Morgan, I need your rope,” he called down.

Morgan unhooked an end of silk cord from his belt and tossed it up to Kali. Tying one end-of the rope around his waist, Kali handed the other to Meisha.

“When I pull the cord in three quick jerks, it means I’ve reached the other side,” he said. “The next person uses the rope to climb up. We pull Garavin and Borl up last.” He looked at Talal. “Big breath,” he told the boy.

Talal muttered, “Already drowned once today, why not twice?”

“Hold it in tight,” said Kali, “You don’t want a lungful of what’s up there. You won’t come back from it.”

Secured by the rope, Kali positioned himself in a crouch on the stone ledge and thrust up from the knees, into the gelatinous cube.

Sound and light instantly disappeared. Kail tried to lift his arms, but it was as if someone had attached sandbags to his muscles. His muscles burning and stretching with the effort, he gripped the next rung and climbed.