Part 19 (1/2)

”They won't kill him!” Azoun shouted. ”They're after me!”

Artus wasn't listening. When he reached the burrow where the Shadowhawk had vanished, he stuffed the blue gem into his pocket and grabbed a more suitable weapon- a fist-sized wedge of stone tapering to a point at one end. Kneeling before the hole, he whispered, ”Father?”

His knees had barely touched the road before two squinting red eyes appeared in the blackness. Artus didn't wait to see what the groundling would do. Savagely he lashed out with the stone. The Shadowhawk had trained the boy in knife-fighting, but his years in the roughest alleys of Suzail had given him less orthodox fighting skills, too. In his hand, the stone might as well have been a warhammer, wielded by a young dwarven warrior from the halls of Earthfast.

The blow landed on the bridge of the a.s.sa.s.sin's snoutlike nose, shattering it noisily. The groundling howled and clutched at its face. Artus attacked again, this time planting the stone squarely atop the creature's s.h.a.ggy head. The sound of a skull fracturing resounded in the burrow.

For an instant, Artus felt a surge of relief. Then the groundling burst from the burrow once more, crazed with pain and fury. When he saw the flash of the creature's teeth, the boy realized what a horrible mistake he'd made.

Certain of his doom, Artus braced for the attack. He didn't close his eyes or turn away; fright had locked his arms and legs. The sole thought running through his mind was how stupid he'd been for putting the magical gem in his pocket.

Like a diving falcon, a silver blade flashed out of the night and pierced the groundling's back, right between the shoulder blades. The a.s.sa.s.sin's dirty paws went limp on Artus's arms. The thing puffed out a last stinking breath and was still.

Artus stared in horrified amazement at the groundling. Short and stocky, it vaguely resembled the dwarves who sometimes pa.s.sed through Suzail as itinerant sell-swords or miners or metalsmiths. Yet its features had been twisted by the Zhentarim's dark sorcery. Whatever stunted ears it had were buried in wild fur, its eyes reduced to nothing more than narrow slits. Artus had bloodied the long, fleshy snout, probably even broken it, from the awkward bend near its bridge. Even in death, though, the bristles on the snout's tip twitched spasmodically. The creature stank of rotten meat and fetid water. Sticks and decaying leaves, worms and crawling weevils, dotted its hairy flanks and the crown of its head.

”Get to the trees!” Prince Azoun shouted.

Artus, shocked out of his frightened stupor, looked up to find the prince bracing one dragonhide boot on the corpse. He was trying to wrench his sword free. The blade had gone right through the a.s.sa.s.sin, pinning it to the ground. Now it wouldn't budge.

A shriek reverberated eerily from the depths of the burrow. It was the animalistic cry of a groundling, and from the angry snarls that followed it, Artus was fairly certain the remaining pair of a.s.sa.s.sins had discovered their mistake in grabbing the Shadowhawk.

As the angry cacocophy in the burrow grew louder, the prince grasped the sword more tightly and pulled with all his strength-to no avail. He'd simply struck the beast too hard.

”Brute force causes as many difficulties as it solves,” he said bitterly, repeating a maxim favored by Vangerdahast, his royal tutor. As with most of the wizard's sage advice, though, its true meaning had come to Azoun just a little too late.

When he saw Artus still standing at the edge of the burrow, staring mutely at the corpse, the prince released his grip on the trapped sword. Grabbing the boy by the arm, he bolted through the hedgerow and ran toward the hillside beyond. They stopped at the nearest tree with branches low enough and st.u.r.dy enough for them to climb.

”Go as high as you can,” Azoun said as he boosted Artus onto a gnarled limb. ”Then take out that gem again and hold it tight.”

The boy moved tentatively into the lower branches. He wasn't afraid of heights; it was just that he'd never climbed a tree before. After all, he'd had few chances to do so in Suzail, since only n.o.ble estates and small, well-patrolled public parks held any greenery at all. And the Shadowhawk frowned upon hiding in trees during a jaunt, since a robber was just as likely to hurt himself by leaping on a victim.

”The only time a proper scamp's found in a tree is when 'e's dangling from it,” was one of his favorite sayings.

To counter the fear welling inside him, Artus tried to picture himself climbing up to the second story of the ruined tavern where he had his secret library. By scaling a flight of rickety stairs and pus.h.i.+ng through a hole in the upper floor, he would come to his treasure trove of books. He'd stolen most of them from scribes' stalls in the marketplace, but a few proclamations had come to him from the rubbish heaps outside the city walls. Scaling the tree wasn't so different from getting up to the loft, he decided, and the climb became less of a struggle.

When at last he reached a safe vantage, high in the tree, Artus looked down to find Azoun struggling along behind him. The prince's cloak snagged branches with each move he made, and his chain mail s.h.i.+rt hung heavily on his shoulders. Azoun settled on a thick limb below the boy. Only then did he begin to undo the elaborate clasp holding his cloak closed.

”That was a brave thing you did,” the prince noted. He puffed out a breath of relief as he slid the cloak from his shoulders. ”Put this around you. It'll get cold up here fast, once the fright lets go of you.”

Artus took the cloak with a softly murmured thanks. ”What about my fa-uh, the Shadowhawk?” he asked.

The prince paused. ”The Shadowhawk, eh? At least I was waylaid by the best.” Forcing a grim smile, he added, ”Don't worry. The groundlings are professional a.s.sa.s.sins. They won't harm your father-the Shadowhawk, I mean. He's got my gloves, I suppose. That's why they went after him-they could pick up even that much of my scent on him as he moved. But, like I said, they won't hurt him. Their contract is for my death. To kill someone else would be against guild rules. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded, and the cloud of concern pa.s.sed from his brown eyes. If the creatures were sentient enough to follow the rules of the a.s.sa.s.sins Guild, perhaps his father could fast-talk his way free. ”Will they let him go when they figure out he's not the one they want?”

”Not right away. At least not until they've got me. Right now, the groundlings-”

A sc.r.a.ping noise drew Azoun's attention back to the road. There, the a.s.sa.s.sin's corpse was slowly sliding into the burrow. The sword point jutting from its chest cut through the ground like a plow blade as the groundlings dragged their dead fellow deeper into the earth. Soon, the corpse and the sword were gone.

Azoun sighed. ”Right now, the groundlings are building a warren, an underground camp. They must realize they have us trapped, since nothing is moving on the ground. They'll do all they can to bleed us out of weapons, food, and hope, then wait for us to come down.” Scowling, he noted, ”Especially food. They'll eat almost anything. I managed to escape them outside of Waymoot by dumping my rations onto the road-that and being lucky enough to have a very fast mount with enchanted horseshoes.”

”I have some bread!” Artus offered brightly, gesturing to his pack. ”I mean, if you can think of a way to use it against the groundlings ...”

”Well, at least we won't starve,” the prince said, trying not to be patronizing, but failing badly. ”But since we don't have a horse or any way of escaping, tossing it to the a.s.sa.s.sins won't do us much good right now.”

Clouds slid over the moon once more, blanketing the hillside in a more profound darkness. A cold breeze made the branches creak and sway. The boy was glad for the prince's cloak then, for his shabby clothes gave little protection from the wind. ”I'm Artus,” he began softly.

The words jolted Azoun out of some intense reverie. ”Eh? Well, Artus, you can call me Balin.”

The boy paused, then pulled the gem from his pocket. Its blue light cast strange shadows over Azoun's face. He stared at the young man for a moment, openly sizing him up. ”But that's not your name,” Artus said at last.

”Of course it is,” Azoun began, but he saw the frown on Artus's lips, the look of distrust stealing over his eyes. He looked down at his hands, to the indentation on his finger left by his missing wedding band. His purse was gone, too. ”Was it the princess's name on the wedding ring or the signet ring in my purse that gave me away?”

”Kinda both,” Artus replied. He dug the gold band out of his pocket and returned it to the prince. ”And the tabard, too. Not many sell-swords would wear the king's symbol like that.”

Azoun looked down at the torn and grimy Purple Dragon. ”My tutor always said this was rather silly, to wear the family crest on a disguise. Still, it fooled men a lot older than you.”

”People don't look for the obvious. Do you want me to call you Your Holiness?”

”No,” Azoun said, trying not to smile at the boy's blunt-ness. ”We're fighting together now, and brothers-in-arms need not bow to courtly manners. Besides, you call clerics Your Holiness, not princes.”

”Sorry. I never met a prince before.”

”So how do you know so much about me?”

The boy fidgeted uncomfortably with the cloak's fur collar. ”Well, I've read about King Rhigaerd and about you on the royal proclamations posted around Suzail. And I saw you on your wedding day, when your carriage went down the Promenade. Well, I was too far away to see you, but I saw your carriage. And then there's the stories they tell in the Thieves Guild about you-how you dress up in disguises and play like you're a knight They say-”

”All right,” Azoun said, holding up a hand to stop the torrent. It was his turn to study his unwilling companion, to size up this worldly child-robber. Most children grew up quickly in Cormyr, especially poor children from the city. But this boy was more than world-wise. He was obviously clever. Moreover, he could read, a skill confined mostly to the n.o.bility, the priesthood, and a few wealthy merchant families. ”Your father taught you to read, did he?”

Artus laughed with surprising bitterness. ”He doesn't like me to read. A priest of Oghma taught me on the sly, until Father found out, that is. It didn't matter, though. By the time he told me to stop I already knew how.” He gripped the gem tightly, cutting off most of the light. Still, Azoun could see the angry look in the boy's eyes as he said, ”I don't want to be a scamp like him.”

The prince held his hand up to the boy. ”If you don't want to be a highwayman, how about giving me your mask? I could use it right about now.”

For a moment Artus thought the prince was going to try to fit the dirty strip over his face, but he began to tie it over his forehead. Then the boy noticed the gash on Azoun's head was leaking blood into his brown hair, staining it dark and masking the strands of gray already taking hold there. ”So what's your ambition then-a priest, perhaps? Maybe a bard? You seem to remember stories pretty well.”

A smile crept across Artus's features. ”I like stories a lot. I-” He cast his eyes down at the glowing gem and paused. ”I know some about you. The men at the guildhall told me about the King's Men. They say you won't be a good king, you know, that you'll be wandering off to rescue people and fight dragons.”

”Indeed,” Azoun said flatly. ”Maybe they're right. We'll find out soon enough, though, won't we?”

Artus let the cryptic comment drop, for the cold tone in the man's voice frightened him just a little. His father sounded the same way whenever he talked about a failed jaunt or a rival in the Thieves Guild who had questioned his skill. ”What will we do now?” he asked after a time.

”Wait, I suppose,” the prince said mournfully. ”They won't attack us once the sun comes up. It hurts their eyes too much. Besides, by dawn there'll be travelers on the road again. We can muster enough people to stand against the little monsters, if they haven't given up by then and gone back to Darkhold.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over Artus and Azoun after that. Both were certain there should be some way to fight, but neither came up with a plan worth suggesting. Azoun took to whittling away bark with the boy's knife, while Artus slumped unhappily against the trunk.

Occasionally one of the groundlings would appear at the mouth of the nearest burrow. It would sniff the air, squint uselessly into the night, then call into the darkness, ”Escape is not for you, Azoun.” Their voices were frightful, high-pitched and screeching like hobnail boots sliding on a slate floor.

After a time, though, even this hara.s.sment stopped. Artus dared to hope that the a.s.sa.s.sins were giving up, that his father would soon crawl out of the ground a free man. But the sudden, violent collapse of a tree perilously close to their sanctuary crushed those hopes.

”They're not going to wait for us to come down,” Azoun observed bitterly.