The Siege rota-2 Read online

  Hadrhune's eyes flashed. "You will not help your case by trying to poison the opinions of our guests against us, Harper."

  "The truth is not poison." Though Ruha spoke to Hadrhune, she was looking at Galaeron. "You're from Evereska, are you not Galaeron?" "What if he is?" Vala demanded.

  Ruha's eyes narrowed. "How long has it been since you have been outside this city's murk?"

  Galaeron frowned, wondering what the witch was trying to accomplish. "Not that it's any business of yours, but more than a tenday." Even Ruha's heavy veil could not hide her smirk. "What?" Galaeron demanded. The witch looked at Hadrhune.

  He glared amber flames at her, then turned to Galaeron and said, "The enclave is moving." "Moving?" Galaeron echoed. "It's always moving."

  "Deeper into the desert," Hadrhune clarified. "Away from Evereska. That's why-"

  "Traitors!" Galaeron lunged for the seneschal but went down heavily, Vala on his back. "You promised!"

  "And we will keep our promise," Hadrhune said. "The shadowshell has cut the phaerimm off from the Weave. Eventually, they will deplete the magic remaining to them-but it will take time, Galaeron, many months. You know better than anyone that we dare not attack until they have depleted their powers and begun to starve, until they grow too feeble to defend themselves."

  "So, you are only abandoning Evereska for a little while?" Ruha asked, her voice surprisingly cynical. "Oh yes, that makes a great deal of sense."

  Hadrhune kneeled in front of Galaeron, who was not struggling only because he knew how easily Vala could choke him unconscious with the arm already around his throat.

  "We are not abandoning Evereska," Hadrhune said, "but the situation is stable now, and we must think of our own needs as well."

  "When were you going to tell me?" Galaeron demanded. Hadrhune hesitated and looked away. "It's a fair question," Vala said.

  Hadrhune let out a weary sigh. "As you wish," he said. "The Most High thought-"

  That was when Malik appeared behind the seneschal, clambering out of a circle of shadow like a cat out of a well. He let out a bloodcurdling scream and dashed half a dozen steps across the courtyard before running into Aris's palm and stopping to see where he was.

  Turban half undone, Malik whirled on Hadrhune and said, "If you knew what I had for a heart, you would not think that funny-not at all." Seeming to forget all about Ruha, Malik started toward the seneschal, wagging his finger. "It is a good thing for you that I did not die of fright in there, or the One would surely visit on you a hell a thousand times worse-or else laugh so hard at my miserable fate that he split his rotten sides."

  This last admission, forced by Mystra's truth curse, seemed to take the fire out of him. Malik spent a moment taking in the scene in the courtyard, then slipped to Ruha's helpless form and raked his foot down her shin. "Hag! What did you do to my Kelda?"

  Ruha's eyes flared, but she showed no other sign of pain. "Why is it you care more for your horse than for your friends?"

  "Because my horse is more loyal," Malik answered. He reached under his robes and pulled out his curved dagger. "Now answer, or your death will be even more painful." "No!"

  Vala and Galaeron were not the only ones to yell this, but it was Hadrhune's staff that came down across the little man's wrists and knocked the dagger from his hands.

  "Not here," the Shadovar said. "Murder is as forbidden in Shade Enclave as it is in Waterdeep or Shadow-dale." He cast a meaningful glance at Malik. "And our justice is swifter."

  "Then you have no choice," Malik complained. "The witch will never leave here until I am dead!" "Or my prisoner," Ruha clarified. "That, we will never permit," Aris warned.

  Hadrhune considered this for a moment, then shook his head wearily. "You place Shade Enclave in a difficult position, Harper. Either we harbor this miscreant against you or we allow you to violate our guest guard."

  "There is no reason to concern yourself with that," Galaeron said, glaring up at Hadrhune. "We'll be leaving within the hour."

  Hadrhune studied Galaeron for a moment, then nodded. "That is your privilege, of course, but as long as you or any of your friends remain in Shade Enclave, Malik is protected as our guest and may not be killed or taken captive."

  "You would truly harbor a murderer?" Ruha demanded.

  "He has not murdered anyone here," Hadrhune said. He touched his staff to her binding, and the magic cord dissolved. "Nor have you. The same law that guards him guards you-and if something unfortunate should befall either of you, we will know whom to execute." Again, Hadrhune cast a warning glance at Malik. "I'm free to stay?" Ruha asked.

  "In this very house." Hadrhune seemed unable to avoid smirking. "Shade Enclave would never want it said that we made it difficult for a murderer to be brought to justice."

  "Justice?" Malik scoffed. "You have no idea what you're condemning me to!"

  "Not for long," Galaeron said. He scowled up at Vala. "If you'll get off of me, that is."

  Vala studied him doubtfully. "You're not going to attack?"

  "I'm going to leave," Galaeron said. "I'm going to go back to Evereska."

  Hadrhune motioned Vala off, then offered a hand. "If that is what you wish, but the Most High will be very disappointed tomorrow." Galaeron ignored the hand and stood on his own.

  "He will," Hadrhune insisted. "He wanted to explain himself why the city was moving. That's why I didn't tell you."

  "Sure it is." Despite his words, Galaeron took no steps toward the gate. "Tomorrow?"

  Hadrhune nodded. "He would like to break fast with you. All will be explained." Galaeron turned to Vala.

  "One more day?" She looked around the villa and shrugged. "What could it hurt?"

  The humans were at it again, clambering around on Malygris's mountain, kneeling and standing and kneeling again outside his cave, chanting, singing, groveling, begging his favor. That was a snort. He had told Namirrha he didn't want the cult members dallying about outside his lair, but did the mammal listen? What Malygris ought to do was clatter up there and bolt the whole lot, but then he would have to go out and devour something, and he just didn't feel like eating. Dracoliches needed food only to recharge their breath weapons, and Malygris hadn't discharged his (hadn't even left his lair) in over a year-or so Namirrha had told him the last time the necromancer deigned to visit.

  Something alive-something human-appeared in the shadows over by his number three platinum heap. A bitter sense of outrage rising to fill his empty ribcage, Malygris swung his big horned skull toward the intrusion. Could the warmbloods leave him not even his seclusion? A pair of dark silhouettes rose out of the darkness, not emerging from the darkness so much as peeling themselves out of it, and turned in his direction.

  How the mammals had bypassed his teleport traps, Malygris did not know, or how they had avoided activating his alarm magic. What he did know was that he could bear only so much and that this entering of his lair was the final insult. He opened his jaws and loosed a mouthful of lightning. In the crackling flash that filled the cavern, he glimpsed a pair of swarthy humans in dark robes cartwheeling across his hoard and smashing headlong into his wall. They collapsed among his diamonds and lay there scorched, smoking, and-amazingly- more or less alive.

  Malygris continued to look in their direction. When Namirrha had made him a dracolich, he had grown acutely aware of everything alive within a wingspread of himself, and he knew the two humans were badly injured. Mammals were fragile, so they seemed likely to die within a few hours anyway, and he was not about to waste another breath attack on them. If he conserved, he still had two good lightning blasts left before he would have to leave his lair and eat.

  But the pair did not expire. Instead, over the next hour, they grew steadily stronger, first crawling behind a pile of gold coins fused into a solid lump by the heat of his lightning, then hiding there and recovering by the minute, speaking to each other in some ancient human tongue even Malygris had never before heard. It was the ultimate warmblood insult-not bein
g frightened enough to flee or at least to cower in silence. Malygris would have torn them limb from limb, save that over the last year, his hideless skeleton had sunken to his spine in his nest of sapphires, and he simply did not want to abandon such a comfortable bed.

  A voice, deep and booming, at least by human standards, called out in Common, "Most Mighty Malygris, there is no need to attack. We come in peace."

  Malygris considered this, then said, "If you come in peace, why do you cower behind my hoard piles like dragon hunters and treasure thieves?"

  A soft clinking echoed of the walls as the pair rose from their hiding places. They stepped into view, revealing themselves to be a warrior and a priest, both dressed in the melted remains of some glassy, gleaming black armor. Malygris blasted them again.

  This time, his electric fury pinned them to the wall and held them there, stiff-limbed and smoking, the warrior's steel-colored eyes and the priest's bronze-colored glowing like mage-light. Their glossy armor ran off their bodies in runnels and gathered at their feet in black puddles. Their swarthy flesh melted and burned away from their chests, revealing the black organs and dusky bones beneath. Their heels and fists hammered themselves into pulp against the stone wall.

  Still they were alive when Malygris ran out of breath-limp as scarecrows and reeking of charred flesh and in places naked to the bone, but alive. They dropped to the floor and lay there groaning for half an hour, then finally grew strong enough to pull themselves behind treasure piles as they had before. Interesting.

  It was the first thing that had interested Malygris since Namirrha had gotten his mate, Verianthraxa, killed in the senseless attack upon the keepists-an assault forced upon them by Namirrha's profane magic. Malygris searched out his legs beneath his nest of sapphires and bade them serve. He lifted himself out of the gems and clacked his fleshless bones across the cavern to where the two humans lay cowering. No, not cowering.

  The two were sitting, propped against the wall, staring up at him with their little molten eyes, not even trembling. The charred chest bones that had been exposed just moments before were already covered with dark flesh, and the scars were vanishing from even that. Malygris snatched up one in each claw, then watched in amazement as their shattered hands and feet returned to their normal shape.

  "What manner of human are you that heal like trolls?" he demanded.

  "We are princes of Shade Enclave," said the bronze-eyed one. "I am Clariburnus. My brother is Brennus."

  "Do you think your names matter to me? Your arrogance is insufferable!" Malygris squeezed the one that had called itself Clariburnus and was pleased to hear the crackle of breaking bones. He felt the body go limp in his hand, but that was the only way he knew the mammal was in pain. He swung his bony muzzle toward the one with the eyes of steel. "I asked what you are, not who."

  "We call ourselves Shadovar," this one said. "In our tongue it means 'of the shade.' "

  "Ah, then you are shades." Malygris said. Shades were two-legged mammals that traded their souls for shadow essence. In the light of day, they seemed normal men, but as the light grew dim, they grew strong. "I understand now. I have met a few shades in my centuries."

  Curiosity satisfied, he tightened his grasp to crush them-and felt his claws close on air. He sensed them emerging behind him and whirled around to find the steel-eyed one stepping from the shadows in front of his nest. The other, the one with the crushed body, lay in a hollow on top. They were between him and his phylactery.

  "Clariburnus and I are shades," the one with steel eyes said. "But not all Shadovar are shades, and not all shades are Shadovar. A Shadovar is a citizen of Shade Enclave."

  "I see your game." Malygris started forward, his great tail launching whole mountains of coins into the dark air as it flailed back and forth. "Try, then. One way or the other, I will take pleasure in the end."

  The steel-eyed one-Brennus-raised his hand and said, "Stop. We're not here to attack you, but you are done attacking us."

  Malygris stopped, not because the human commanded it-he hadn't-but because he found himself snorting in laughter. "You threaten me?" Tiny forks of lightning began to dance around his nasal cavities. "Truly?"

  "We are not threatening." This from the crushed one, who had already healed enough to sit upright. "We came to talk."

  'Talk?" Malygris settled onto his haunches and waved a claw at the floor before him. "Very well, you may present your gifts."

  The two humans-Shadovar-glanced at each other, then Brennus said, "We bring you no gifts."

  "No gifts?" Malygris gasped. Even more interesting- insulting, but interesting. "How can you beg without gifts? How can you grovel with nothing to offer?"

  "We're not here to beg," Clariburnus said. He stood- so soon after being crushed-and limped down to stand beside his companion. "But Shade Enclave does have something offer."

  Malygris sensed Namirrha's arrival within the lair and whirled toward the entrance. The necromancer, a balding and wrinkled figure even by mammal standards, was already well inside, striding down the golden aisle between Malygris's carefully stacked chalices.

  "You warmbloods!" he hissed. "Do you all think my lair yours for the entering?"

  Namirrha made a show of appearing frightened, stopping to steeple his fingertips together and bow deeply. "A thousand pardons, Sacred One. I was informed that you have been hurling lightning about and thought you might be in need of assistance."

  The necromancer cast a meaningful eye at the Shadovar.

  "You think I need the assistance of a human?" Malygris sneered. "When that is so, you will scatter my bones across the Blight." "As you command, Sacred One," Namirrha replied.

  As Malygris had known he would, the necromancer stroked his amulet, and all of Malygris's anger drained away.

  Malygris hated that, really hated it, but there was nothing to be done about it He could no sooner attack Namirrha than he could regrow his long-rotted hide and scales. He was the necromancer's creature from nose-bone to tail-bone, and the fact that the sly old warmblood took pains to make it seem otherwise only added insult to injury.

  Still, Malygris found himself saying, "Perhaps you can serve me, however. These shade things-" He flicked a claw in the Shadovar's direction. "-have come with an offer."

  Namirrha's white brows rose. "Have they?" He advanced along Malygris's flank-a somewhat long journey that took the better part of a minute-and stopped across from the Shadovar. "And what is it that Shade Enclave wishes to offer Mighty Malygris, Suzerain of the Blight and all its wyrms?"

  The two Shadovar glanced at each other, then Clariburnus shrugged and said, "We would be happy to remove the Zhentarim from Anauroch."

  "Remove them?" Malygris growled. "What will my followers eat? I would sooner remove you-"

  "What harm will it do to hear them out, Sacred One?" Again, Namirrha stroked his amulet, and again a numb calmness descended over Malygris. A smirk came to the necromancer's face, and he asked, "And in return for this small service, what do the Shadovar wish?"

  "The service is more than a small one," Brennus said, addressing himself directly to Namirrha, "and so is what we expect in return: peace with the dragons, and their aid in the war against the phaerimm."

  Malygris craned his neck to look down at Namirrha. "There is a war against the phaerimm?"

  "Have I not suggested that you get out more, Sacred One?" Namirrha replied. "They have escaped their prison and captured the Sharaedim."

  "Evereska's Sharaedim?" Malygris snorted in amusement. "The Lasthaven of the elves? Well done, I say. Let them have it!"

  Again Namirrha reached for his amulet. Malygris tried to flick a claw out to stop him, but found his foot too heavy, his toe too stiff.

  "The matter is not as simple as that, Mighty One," Namirrha said. "The phaerimm pose a danger to us all. Even your shipments have been forced to detour far north or south."

  "Ah, the shipments." Though Malygris had no idea what shipments the necromancer meant-and would not
have cared lf he did-he found himself nodding sagely. "We mustn't let them interfere with my shipments."

  Namirrha smiled at the Shadovar. "If Malygris commits, the host he will bring to this war is without rival. Surely, his aid is worth more than simply driving the Zhentarim from Anauroch." "How much more?" Clariburnus asked.

  Namirrha grew serious. "Malygris would like to see them gone-wiped from the face of Faerыn."

  "Then let Malygris do it himself, if his host is so mighty," Brennus said. "The Shadovar will not." "Will not?" Namirrha demanded. "Or can not?"

  The eyes of both Shadovar flared. "It is the same to you," Brennus growled. "We did not return to Faerыn to fight the Cult of the Dragon's battles for them. If you will not strike a bargain, you may be certain the Zhentarim will."

  Namirrha stepped forward, perhaps trusting more than was wise to Malygris's imposing presence to back him up. "Then why aren't you speaking with the Zhentarim instead of me?"

  Clariburnus craned his neck to look up. "Because the Zhentarim don't have Malygris."

  "If it is my help you seek, then you should have brought gifts," Malygris rumbled, angered at being so obviously cut out of the negotiations. He knew as well as anyone who was in control of him, but he insisted on appearances. He still had that much pride. "You should be begging me."

  "There is no need for that, Malygris." Namirrha stroked his accursed amulet "This is something I should negotiate for you." "Fine," Malygris said, and he meant it. The Shadovar said nothing and stared at Namirrha.

  Namirrha remained silent for several moments, then nodded and said, "Done." He offered his hand to Brennus. "We have a bargain."

  The Shadovar stared at the appendage as though he wasn't quite sure what should be done with it, then glanced over the necromancer's shoulder at Malygris. "The Mighty One will honor the deal?" Namirrha nodded, and stroked his amulet. "Of course."

  "Good." Brennus smiled broadly, baring a mouthful of needle-tip fangs that even Malygris had to envy. "Done."