The Jewel of Turmish (9 page)

Haarn raised a hand and uttered a few more words.

Another prickling sensation passed through Druz, almost strong enough to buffet her as much as the storm winds that came howling through the forest. She watched in amazement as the trees around the slavers came to life, twisting and writhing like arthritic snakes.

“Brugar!” one of the men yelped.

Tree branches reached down and caught the man up, curling around him and ripping at his clothing and skin with rough bark.

A jagged flash of lightning sizzled across the black sky, turning the surrounding world harshly white for a heartbeat, then dropping the curtain of night back into place. Only two of the slavers escaped the groping tree branches that lifted them high into the air.

The bear left the druid’s side in a diving lunge that took it back to all fours. Before the two slavers could take more than a handful of steps, the bear closed on them. Jaws distended widely, then snapped closed, ripping through the back of one man’s neck. A mighty paw slammed against the back of the second man’s head, crushing the skull like a grape and spilling a loose-limbed corpse to the ground. The bear shook its first victim then dropped the body and stood up. It growled a challenge, reaching for the men suspended in the trees.

The slavers drew their legs up, barely out of reach of the bear’s claws.

The wind picked up in intensity, bringing an almost wintry cold with it. More red and purple lightning darted across the black sky.

The druid stood unmoving in the winds and peered up at the slavers. It was easy to believe, Druz realized, that the man had summoned the storms.

“I am Haarn Brightoak,” the druid stated in a loud voice, “charged by the order of the Emerald Enclave to protect and care for the lands you have invaded.”

Lightning flashed again, followed immediately by booming thunder that almost drowned out the pleading cries of the men trapped in the trees.

Can he crush them? Druz wondered.

She’d never seen the spell before, but she’d witnessed black tentacles summoned by combat mages that had wielded incredibly destructive force. The men hanging in the trees, she knew, had to be asking themselves the same thing.

The slavers struggled against the grasp of the still—

moving tree branches, screaming out in pain as the rough bark tore into their flesh. Even if they got free, the bear and the druid waited below.

There was no escape. Druz realized that even as she knew the slavers had to. She’d seen men kill coldly in battle before, and even some kill coldly afterward. Some of those kills had been merciful, putting injured men out of their misery, but some had been done with a vengeance. She didn’t know what emotion moved the druid, and she didn’t know if she could stand by while the men were ruthlessly executed.

The trees finally stopped moving and resumed their normal shapes. The bear growled threats at the slavers, who wisely made no attempt to climb down from the trees.

“Leave these lands,” the druid commanded in his fierce voice.

“Are you going to guarantee us safe passage?” Brugar called down.

Haarn didn’t hesitate. “No.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Let you go free,” Haarn replied. “Whether or not you make it out of these lands is up to you. Animals will hunt you until you are clear of this area, and they will devour you if they catch you.”

“That’s no kind of bargain,” Brugar objected. “You’ve killed over half of my men. We’ve got damn little chance of getting clear of here.”

“Nature doesn’t bargain. It is neither merciful nor merciless and only requires that the strong survive. Whether you’re strong enough to survive is up to you.”

Haarn turned away and the storm winds whipped his hair across his implacable face.

“Druid …” Brugar called.

“In a few moments, I’m going to release these people,” Haarn replied without turning around. “I’m sure they’ll avail themselves of the weapons that are lying around this campsite. Perhaps they’ll even choose to shoot you down from the trees with the crossbows they find… if you haven’t left. I understand that a crossbow doesn’t require

much skill.”

Brugar snarled oaths. “If those peasants think that I’m going to—”

Haarn looked up at the man. “If you dare attack them in return, 111 hunt you all down and kill you. None of you will ever see home again. I offer my oath to Silvanus on that.”

Quietly, after only a little hesitation, the slavers climbed down from the trees. As soon as they reached the ground, they ran for their lives.

The druid turned his attention to the people tied to the heavy slaver’s chain. His scimitar flashed, reflecting the lightning as the impending rain started to fall in heavy drops.

Unfettered, the people gathered in small groups and took shelter from the pelting rain, but they were careful to avoid the trees that had captured and held the slavers. A few of them scavenged among the supplies the slavers had left behind, seeking out other garments as well as something to eat.

Druz kept her sword naked in her fist. Even with the power that the druid had shown, she didn’t trust the slavers completely to leave the area. They’d left too many things behind. Maybe, she thought, staring at the trees that now just looked like trees again, the slavers had been scared enough.

Glancing back at the druid, she watched as he quietly talked to the wounded bear. The massive animal dropped down to all fours and nuzzled the man. Gently, Haarn put his foot against the bear’s shoulder, gripped the broken crossbow quarrel, and pulled it from the animal’s body. Blood leaked out of the wound, matting the bear’s fur. Growling, the bear licked the wound with a bright pink tongue.

The druid spoke softly to the bear, then prayed for a moment and placed his hands over the animal’s blood-matted shoulder. Blue light gleamed from under the druid’s hands, and Druz’s skin prickled again in response. When the druid took his hands from the animal, the bear moved its shoulder tentatively, then put its weight on the limb with greater confidence. The bear rumbled again,

but this time it sounded almost pleased.

Haarn turned from the bear and walked to the wagon. The released slaves backed away from him fearfully, but a few of them muttered that he was probably coming to claim his choice of whatever gold and silver the slavers might have left behind. Instead, Haarn only recovered the few items of his that were personal belongings. He rigged his weapons once more about him without a word and set off into the forest.

“What are you doing?” Druz asked.

“Leaving,” the druid replied.

“You can’t—we can’t just leave these people here like this.” “I don’t owe them anything.” “You freed them.”

“I came after the slavers,” the druid said, “not to free those people. They’re responsible for themselves. If they’re meant to live, they’ll find a way.”

He stepped into the brush without hesitation or a backward look. Caught off-guard, Druz quickly went to reclaim her own kit from one of the men, who had taken it from the wagon.

“That’s mine,” she said.

“I found it,” the man said, clutching the leather kit to him.

Druz showed the man the sword in her fist. “I’m not leaving here without that kit,” she stated in a calm voice.

Even though she’d felt sorry for them a moment before, she also knew she’d take what was rightfully hers. She’d been in cities before that had been attacked by invading forces. Even after the invaders were routed, looting had gone on in the shops and homes that had been damaged. The citizens had taken whatever was left by the invading forces.

“Let her have the bag, Larz,” a thin woman with a bruised face said.

“I found it,” the man said.

“It’s probably hers.”

“Maybe she’s lying.”

Angry and frustrated, Druz stripped the bag from the man’s hands. She’d liked the man better when she’d believed he was a victim. Stepping back from him, she

tucked the kit under her arm and opened it. She took a few small packages from the kit and handed them to the woman.

“Food,” Druz said. “It’s not much, but maybe it will help see you back to your homes.”

“The slavers burned our homes,” the woman said. “They burned us out when they took us.”

“I’m sorry,” Druz said.

“What we’ve got here,” the woman said, “is all we have.”

“At least you’re still alive and free,” Druz said.

“Free to starve to death in this forest or to fall to one of the vicious beasts that live here,” a man muttered. “If we don’t catch our death in this rain.”

“We need someone to guide us out of here,” the woman told Druz. “We have small children with us. Maybe we can’t pay you for your services now, but there will come a time when we can.”

“No,” Druz said softly, forcing herself to be hard. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” She glanced at the forest in the direction Haarn and the large bear had gone. There was nothing to mark their passage. “I’ve got to go.”

“If you leave us here, we may die,” the woman said.

Druz sheathed her sword. “Maybe you won’t,” she replied. “Head east. Alaghôn lies in that direction. Perhaps youll encounter a merchant caravan. Stay together and you should be all right.”

The ex-slaves’ faces showed the doubts they had.

Haunted by feelings of guilt but knowing she’d already undertaken an allegiance, Druz jogged in the direction Haarn had taken, hoping the druid had not gotten too far ahead of her and wasn’t going to try to leave her behind. She didn’t allow herself to look back at them because she didn’t think she’d be strong enough to keep going.

She knew it wasn’t strength that had allowed the druid to leave the slaves. The man simply didn’t care for any of the people they’d freed. The realization chilled Druz as much as the rain that soaked her clothing because, for a time, she’d tied her future to the druid’s.

T)u’re sure this is the place?”

Eyes burning from only occasional restless sleep over the last three days, Cerril glanced up at Two-Fingers’s hoarse, whispered question. He stood on trembling legs only from sheer force of will and a desire to survive. Leaden-gray fog rolled in from the Sea of Fallen Stars and carried a cold mist that had already dampened Cerril’s hair and skin. The young thief pulled the thin blanket more tightly around his shoulders and shivered again.

Another of the small cemeteries that pockmarked Alaghôn’s surrounded them. Headstones and markers, tumbled and disheveled, offered visual proof that most—if not all—of the families that had left dead there in the past had long since died out or moved away. Rampant weeds and untrimmed trees formed living walls that subdivided the land of the dead.

“Is this the place?” Two-Fingers asked again. “Is this the cemetery you dreamed about?”

Cerril peered out at the piles of broken markers and shattered crypts. Nightmares—vibrant and bloodcurdling—had haunted what couldn’t have been more than a handful of hours of sleep during the past three days.

“Perhaps,” Cerril said.

“Perhaps?” Hekkel sounded restless and angry. Before he realized it, Cerril took a step toward the smaller boy and gripped the haft of bis knife.

Hekkel stepped back, tripping over a toppled headstone and sprawling in the greasy loam that had been left from the rain earlier in the day.

“Don’t touch me!” the smaller boy yelled.

Two-Fingers gripped Cerril’s shoulder. “He’s not who you’re here to be mad at, Cerril.” Two-Fingers spoke gently, and there was a trace of fear in his voice.

For a moment, the blanket flying around him and rage boiling inside him, Cerril considered shrugging Two-Fingers’s grip off and leaping down on Hekkel, except he knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d cut the boy’s heart from his chest. Instead, Cerril made himself turn away.

Two-Fingers drew away quickly. Wan starlight blunted by the thick cloud cover formed a dulled sheen on his round face.

“I’m sorry, Cerril,” the bigger boy mumbled.

Hekkel slowly, warily, got to his feet. “Maybe we should forget this,” he suggested.

Drawing the sodden blanket back around him, grateful for even the small amount of warmth he drew from the cover, Cerril shook his head. His hair was so damp it stuck to his face, but that wasn’t entirely due to the weather. A fever had plagued him, along with the nightmares.

“No,” Cerril said, turning to look out over the time-ravaged cemetery. Rats scurried among the stones, their red eyes gleaming in the darkness. “We finish this tonight.”

During the course of the two previous nights, Cerril had led them through over a dozen cemeteries. They’d been chased from three of them by the city watch and by a couple of gravediggers preparing a plot for a burial the next morning.

Until the dreams had sent him into the cemeteries of Alaghôn, he hadn’t known how many graveyards there were in the city. He still didn’t know an exact number, but he had garnered a better sense of the city’s long history from his endeavors.

Even before Turmish had become a nation, Alaghôn had existed as a trade port to the Sea of Fallen Stars. Nomadic

tribes traveled from the Shining Plains to trade with seafaring merchants who stopped over during their journey to the southern lands. Even the dwarves of the Orsraun Mountains came down from their digs and cities to barter gold they’d clawed from the clutches of the earth.

As the trade port became a city, growing by leaps and bounds as successful trade ventures encouraged new business, death followed. Besides war and robbery, plagues claimed the lives of the settlers. The Year of the Clinging Death took nearly half the populations of the entire Vilhon Reach. War with pirates and other nations followed, lasting hundreds of years. Alaghôn stood as a city despite the worst of it, but citizens fell and were buried, sometimes in mass graves. The Plague of Dragons in 1317 began in Alaghôn and spread throughout the Vilhon Reach.

The Time of Troubles had followed forty years after that, and none of Faerűn remained untouched. Gods had walked the lands, and death and destruction had followed. The building of more gravesites had followed as well.

Knowing that the other boys in the group were on the verge of deserting him, Cerril plucked Malar’s coin from his belt pouch. The gold coin glinted dully under the overcast night sky.