Part 7 (1/2)
The noise of the feast was far behind them. They walked warily on into deepening, almost velvet silence. The pa.s.sage was dark, and the room they were stepping into even darker.
”I've never been in this part of the palace before,” someone muttered. ”No guards, no war wizards...”
”They've few enough left of either, these days,” Marlin Stormserpent told them calmly from the darkness at the back of the room. ”You're late.”
”We were followed,” came the curt reply from a man still wiping blood from his hands. He'd killed before, but butchering a war wizard had to be done in haste, before the mage could get out a spell or send some magical cry for aid. ”We've taken care of our little shadow.”
”Darrake Harnwood?”
”Yes. We put his head down a garderobe shaft.”
”Good.” Stormserpent was pleased and let them hear it. ”However, every killing is someone who will be discovered, probably sooner rather than later. So let's be about matters.”
”We're all here,” someone else said simply. ”I counted.”
”I trust all of you counted the coins I paid you, too?” Marlin asked coolly, and without waiting for a reply told the men standing close around him, ”The undead of the haunted wing are real, but very few. If you come with me and do what I've paid you to do, destroying the handful or so of skeletons and wraiths you'll meet, you'll have done Cormyr a great service.”
”Why are there undead in the royal palace at all?” someone muttered. ”Have the war wizards grown so feeble as all that?”
Marlin smiled. ”The war wizards command command the undead, using them as guardians to keep everyone out of the haunted wing-where the Obarskyrs keep most of the wealth they seize from citizens, the dark magic they've collected over the centuries, and...certain prisoners. n.o.bles and commoners who have become too great a challenge to the Crown.” the undead, using them as guardians to keep everyone out of the haunted wing-where the Obarskyrs keep most of the wealth they seize from citizens, the dark magic they've collected over the centuries, and...certain prisoners. n.o.bles and commoners who have become too great a challenge to the Crown.”
”Belnar? Thol Morand?”
”Among others. And unless you want to join them, you must all keep as silent as the tomb-ha ha-about what you've done, until I can make sure all all the undead are gone, or you'll be seen in the city not as heroes but as the war wizards will portray you: traitors plotting against the Dragon Throne.” the undead are gone, or you'll be seen in the city not as heroes but as the war wizards will portray you: traitors plotting against the Dragon Throne.”
”Ganrahast is so stlarning suspicious,” suspicious,” someone snapped. ”He sees traitors behind every door and around every corner.” someone snapped. ”He sees traitors behind every door and around every corner.”
”The war wizards,” someone else said gloomily. ”The doom of the realm and its real rulers. Always Always, when there's trouble, it's the war wizards.”
”A threat to every Cormyrean-even the royal family,” another agreed.
”The sooner they're all killed off,” Marlin told his hirelings smoothly, ”in a series of accidental accidental demises too deft and veiled to raise any general alarm, the better.” demises too deft and veiled to raise any general alarm, the better.”
That brought nods, and he added quietly, ”Now come. Into the haunted wing. Swords out, all.”
Great arched doors had been locked across the main pa.s.sage, but there was an easy way around them, through a room whose connecting doors were neither locked nor barred.
When they got three steps beyond that room, two skeletons strode to meet them-one a dust-shrouded, floating a.s.sembly of bones too decrepit to fit together anymore, the other newer and more intact.
Stormserpent strode straight on, raising his sword and pointing at the undead. ”Hack them apart. Then shatter all the bones. No shouting, no clangings. Do this quietly.”
Fear rose in him as empty eyesockets turned his way. They were dead or should be dead, not moving forward in silent menace, swords las.h.i.+ng out- One of his hirelings snapped, ”Quickly-before something else else shows up!” shows up!”
There followed a general rush and a frenzied hewing and hacking.
Stormserpent peered ahead into the gloom. The faint glows of old lighting spells, long unrenewed, kept the empty wing from pitch darkness, but he'd have been much happier if he'd dared bring lots of lanterns and walk along in proper brightness. In the shadows, anything could be...
Anything was. Another less-than-whole skeleton with a zombie-no, two zombies-lurching in its wake. Behind them, something dark, almost batlike, glided. One of the wraiths. Real Real trouble. trouble.
Marlin turned to his hirelings. ”Get them!” he hissed. ”There'll be more! You and you-watch behind us and our flanks!”
He was scared, all right. He could taste it, and the excitement was making him tremble. Not that he'd have dared such a thing at all if he hadn't had his amulet. An old family treasure that the G.o.ds alone remembered which errant ancestral Stormserpent had got and from where, that was said to render the one who wore it ”immune to what undead can do, beyond purely physical woundings.”
Not that there was a Stormserpent alive who'd tested those claims. A visiting Sembian had confirmed there was ”strong magic” on the nondescript, tarnished little pendant and had ventured the opinion that it should should protect Marlin-but not anyone with him-against life drain, soul reaping, and other such necrotic dooms. But the Sembian had admitted that was just his guess. And it would be an idiot's death to trust overmuch in a greedy outlander's guess. protect Marlin-but not anyone with him-against life drain, soul reaping, and other such necrotic dooms. But the Sembian had admitted that was just his guess. And it would be an idiot's death to trust overmuch in a greedy outlander's guess.
The skeleton was down; one shattered bone skittered past Marlin's boots. The zombies, too, had been hewn apart by men with their teeth clenched in distaste.
The sword wraith hung back; Marlin took a step toward it and ordered, ”Stand together, now. Some of these horrors can leap around.”
His hirelings were only too happy to obey; they were still drawing together into a shuffling ring, holding their swords very carefully to keep from slicing each other, when what the wraith had been waiting for appeared.
Down the pa.s.sage toward them came a helmed and armored warrior with gray, dead flesh, and eyes that blazed with an eerie emerald glow. More of that glow flickered and played around its arms and shanks as it stalked forward, moving far more like a living warrior than the undead they'd faced thus far.
”It's just one guardsman and what used to be a highknight,” Marlin announced dismissively. ”Hack yon greeneyes apart, but keep your eye on the wraith. The highknights were used to sneaking and stabbing, not facing down bands of armed men. As long as we keep at it, once it's alone, we can take it easily. Just keep hacking.” keep hacking.”
He proved to be right. The hirelings hacked in frantic fear the wight went down swiftly, literally cut apart as it fought and the wraith tried to stab and whirl away, only to find itself pursued and hewn down.
Well, then. It was proving easy easy.
Moreover, the wraith had tried something on Marlin with its sword-a blade that had seemed almost a part of it, a thin line of shadow no different than the rest-that had numbed and chilled him for a breath-s.n.a.t.c.hing moment...then simply had faded away. A warmth spread from his amulet and steadied him.
Well, then. Not that the heir of House Stormserpent saw any need to tell his hirelings about the amulet, nor that he felt any more emboldened then when they'd first gathered.
”We go on,” he ordered. ”I'm not expecting the gold to be just lying around. If we're to find it at all, we'll need time enough to really search. Let's find and destroy the rest of these walking dead.”
He doubted very much they'd find any gold at all, or prisoners-being as he'd invented all of that earlier this evening, above the gleam of the silver finery on the feast table. Just as he'd invented the ”ball of spellplague in the little coffer” to lure the Royal Magician away from Dragontriumph Hall. Word of which had pa.s.sed from his hired informant to the ear of War Wizard Vainrence, who'd sent word on to his superior Ganrahast via the understeward of the palace...it was nice to know war wizards could be just as gullible as anyone else.
Not that Marlin was bothered about what these hirelings might think; very few of them were likely to live long enough for their opinions about anything to matter.
They advanced through the haunted wing in a small, tight band around him, confident and quiet, ready for trouble.
Marlin allowed himself a small smile and the words, ”Good work. I'll have more of it for you all, soon enough.”
Empty promises were always a useful tool.
He had no intention of trusting in these sword-brawn swindlers after that night. Not if he could control even a few of the Nine.
The Nine. The blueflame ghosts...
He couldn't wait to have them them at his beck and call, to send into danger like this on his behalf. at his beck and call, to send into danger like this on his behalf.
Very soon, he'd have two of them. The Flying Blade had long been a treasure of his family, and he knew where the Wyverntongue Chalice was.