The Fanged Crown: The Wilds (18 page)

“Yes,” Boult said, taking a closer look at Harp. “Didn’t get much sleep, did you?”

Harp shook his head.

“She did a number on you and not in the good way.”

“Shut it, Boult,” Harp said in a low voice.

“What did she do? Guilt you for ever daring to touch her precious body?”

“I’m not having that conversation with you.”

“Women. They’re right in it with you, and then they change their minds, and somehow you’re a monster.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Wasn’t that the gist of the conversation? How coukLyou treat me like a such a whore?”

“Were you listening?”

“I didn’t have to. I just imagined what she would say to get you to look like that.”

“I should have done things differently.”

“Maybe so. But not with that girl.”

“Watch yourself, Boult. I still care about her.”

Boult looked over his shoulder at the porch where Liel was just sitting up, her long hair tousled and her dress falling off her shoulder. She saw them looking at her and straightened her clothes. Then she pulled on her boots and came to sit beside Harp.

“If you’re going to show us those ruins, we should leave soon,” Boult said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his legs. “Before the sun gets too hot.”

“Maybe we should just go to the ship,” Liel said after a moment.

“You don’t want to go to the ruins?” Boult asked.

“Maybe you could take me home,” Liel said.

“We can do that,” Harp said with relief. “If that’s what you want, I think that’s the best plan.”

“I don’t know,” Boult said. “I’d like to see the ruins.”

“You don’t care about the damn ruins,” Harp said.

“IVe seen that disease you talked about last night, Liel,” Boult said, abruptly changing the subject.

“Which disease?” Liel asked with confusion.

“The one that swells up the tongue and chokes its victim,” Boult reminded her. “You didn’t have time to heal him?”

“No, he died within moments,” Liel said.

“You’ve seen a lot of people die in the jungle,” Boult said.

“I’d rather freeze to death in a snowfield than spend another day here,” Liel said.

“What about Cardew?” Boult asked. “Yesterday you said you wanted to get proof of what he’d been doing.”

“She’s changed her mind,” Harp said irritably. “And just wants to go home.”

“Where do you think Cardew got the map?” Boult continued, ignoring Harp’s obvious frustration.

“The one with the sites marked on it?” Liel said. “Queen Anais must have given it to him.”

“But why would she issue a writ for a colony? Why not just send down mercenaries to search the ruins?”

“To keep up appearances? To satisfy her accomplices? How should I know? I wasn’t privy to those discussions.”

“Accomplices. That’s an interesting word.”

“The queen has interests that she keeps well hidden,” Liel said in a monotonous voice. It sounded like she was reading a line of text from a book.

“Is that so? You learned a bit while in Cardew’s keeping, then?”

“Boult,” Harp warned.

“You said he discovered the parchment with the portal spell in the ruins?”

“I have no idea where he found it,” Liel said. She looked perplexed, but there was no anger in her voice. It was same thing Harp had noticed when they were talking the night before. It was as if all her emotions had been extricated from her body. Harp remembered wishing there was a way to do that in the months after he got out of prison. He had

wanted to hollow out his insides so that he was just a shell without any painful memories or recollections of joy.

“But you said it was ancient magic,” Boult continued.

“That’s what I thought,” Liel explained.

“I don’t understand why he dragged you to Chult when he could have hired a sorcerer the same way he hired the mercenaries.”

“Why does it matter?” Harp said, suddenly feeling more alert. Boult was being annoying, and the direction of his questions was unnerving.

“Appearances,” Liel repeated. “Cardew will do everything to keep up appearances.”

“Were the mercenaries killed?” Boult asked

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Cardew came back from the ruins alone.”

“Do you think he used the portal?” Boult was firing questions so rapidly that Liel barely had time to answer. Harp couldn’t help wonder why Liel kept answering them, why she didn’t tell Boult to shut his mouth. But she was so compliant. That was another part of her personality that had not been there during their time in the Moonshae Isles. The Liel he had known was anything but compliant.

“I think so.”

“How did you find the cavern with the machine?” Boult asked.

“I was getting water from the river.” “There are closer watering holes to the camp than that one,” Boult pointed out.

“I’ve been looking all over the jungle.” “For ruins?” Boult asked.

“For whatever Cardew has been planning,” Liel said. “Had Cardew been to Chult before?” “No. Yes. I’m not sure.”

“But you’re his wife. How could you not know?”

“He would go away sometimes,” Liel explained. “I

thought he was at Anais’s court, but he could have been anywhere.”

“Even running around the jungle? Constructing machines that operate using skin and blood?”

Liel’s eyes widened, and Harp laid a hand on her arm. “Stop it, Boult,” he warned. “She doesn’t know all the answers.”

“Are you sure, Harp?”

“What are you getting at? Because you are starting to—”

“Here’s what I know,” Boult interrupted. “I know that Cardew didn’t build the machine or the cages. He probably didn’t even know about them.”

“You don’t know that,” Harp said, staring at the dwarf. “Do you?”

“I think whoever sent Cardew to Chult has been here for a while, making things, collecting things, generally doing bad things in the jungle,” Boult continued. “What do you think about that theory, Liel?”

“That might be true,” Liel said slowly.

“Who do you think that is?” Boult asked.

“Queen Anais,” she said promptly.

“What does Queen Anais want with ancient magic?”

“I don’t know.”

“Speculate,” Boult ordered brusquely. “The Torque is very powerful,” Liel said. “The queen wants the Torque.”

“What Torque?” Harp asked.

Liel’s coppery skin grew pale. “Torque?”

“You didn’t mention that last night,” Harp said.

“Didn’t I?”

“What did Cardew say about a torque?” Harp asked.

Boult piped up before Liel answered. “Liel, Harp got a nasty sting from some bastard flower. Do you think you could heal him?”

“It’s nothing,” Harp said, annoyed that Boult had distracted Liel from answering his question.

“When we go to the ruins, we should be as strong as possible. What do you think, Liel?”

“I think he’ll heal on his own,” Liel murmured, looking at the ground.

“So, what about the cups?” Boult asked.

“What cups?”

“And the food on the plates?” Boult continued.

“Stop asking me questions,” Liel said in a low, tense voice. For the first time in the conversation, there was an unmasked warning in her tone. But that didn’t stop Boult. From the smirk on the dwarfs face, Harp knew that getting a rise out of her was what Boult had wanted all along.

“Have you even been in the dining hall? Cardew left almost a tenday ago. I’d think you might have cleared out the rotting meat before the maggots moved in. Except you’re the maggot, aren’t you?”

“Boult!” Harp said.

“And no one used the portal spell, Liel. I found it in the house.”

“Give it to me,” she ordered, glaring at the dwarf.

“Why don’t you use some magic and take it from me?” Boult taunted. He would have expected Harp to snap at that, but instead Harp seemed to taking a closer look at the slender elf sitting next to him, her body rigid with tension and her hands clenched into fists as they rested on her knees.

“Harp, she isn’t the Liel that you knew,” Boult said.

“And you’re going to listen to him, Amhar, the Killer of Children?” she said, turning her head sideways to address Harp. As her gaze drilled into him, he felt a chill go up his spine. She’d spoken in such a placid tone that it took a moment for the implication of her words to hit him. When it did, Harp leaped to his feet and backed

away from her as if she’d spoken with the hiss of a forked j tongue. Boult’s face darkened, and he looked at the elf I with pure hatred. 1

“He’s been deceiving you all those years, Harp,” Liel ‘ continued in that flat voice. “If he’s innocent, why didn’t he tell you who he was? He’s in league with Queen Anais. They killed all those children to secure her power. There is no one to challenge her anymore. And once she gets her hands on the Torque, there will be no one to stop her.”

“I don’t even need to ask the question, but reassure me,” Boult asked. “Did you tell her about my past, Harp?”

“I,did not,” Harp said quietly. He had felt beaten when he woke up that morning, but suddenly it felt like his body was being crushed under a heavy weight.

“Why the head games, Liel?” Boult demanded. “Why torture Harp with guilt?”

“You’ve kept your freedom so far, Amhar. But you’ll die a miserable death at the Vankila Slab, the way you already should have died.”

“If you know Vankila, then you knew where I was all along,” Harp said taking a ragged breath. “Did you know what they did to me at Vankila at the request of your husband? Did you know?”

Liel started to run, but Boult launched himself at her. He tackled her, knocking her off the log and onto the ground. He tried to pin her down with his body, but she slammed the palm of her hand into his face. He managed to turn his head just in time to avoid a broken nose, but when his weight shifted, she twisted out from under him. She tried to scramble to her feet, but Boult lunged at her again, pinning her down. Liel struggled ferociously, but the dwarf outweighed her, and he managed to catch her arms and hold them.

“Harp!” Boult said, straining with the effort of keeping Liel’s long limbs in check. “Grab her!”

Awoken by the sound of shouting, Kitto and Verran appeared on the porch, looking sleepy and confused. The boys stared wide-eyed when they saw Boult tussling with the elf while Harp looked on passively, as if he didn’t care about the scene that was playing out in front of him.

“Don’t leave the trees!” Boult yelled to the boys.

Before anyone could respond, there was a harsh, guttural noise from outside the compound and movement above the wall. Harp saw a silhouette framed against the blue sky as something leaped over the barrier and landed on the ground in front of the gate. The creature had a humanoid body covered in green and brown scales and the elongated head of a snake. Leather armor covered its muscled chest, and it held a jeweled sword in its clawed hand. A twist of gold shimmered around each of its ankles.

The yuan-ti—serpentfolk of Chult. A forked tongue flicked in and out of its wide mouth. The creature crouched down and swayed back and forth as it scoped the inside of the compound. With its red eyes focused on the cluster of people in front of the hut, it bared its long fangs and hissed loudly in an unfamiliar language. Liel and Boult were still wrestling on the ground, but Harp felt too exhausted by Liel’s treachery to move. It was as if he had grown roots, and even the imminent threat of an enemy attack couldn’t incite him to action.

“Help me,” Boult demanded angrily. Verran hurried down from the porch while Kitto dashed inside the hut to retrieve the sword that Harp had taken from the armory. Before Verran reached Boult, the compound’s gate began rattling as if it were being battered by a strong gale. The hinges creaked, and horizontal cracks branched across the door like lightning flashing across a stormy sky. The wood groaned. The planks snapped in half and fell to the mud.

When the dust cleared, more yuan-ti wearing leather armor and golden bands around their ankles stood in the

wreckage. Behind them, three massive warriors crossed through the remains of the gate and entered the courtyard. Although they had human arms, these warriors were more snake than human and three times the size of a man. The warriors slithered on long, serpentine bodies around the wooden fragments of the door. Their dark scales glistened in the light, and their cloudy blue eyes protruded from their diamond-shaped skulls. Two carried long swords and wore plates of banded mail on their chests. The third gripped a jeweled metal staff and wore a row of glass vials and metal spikes looped across his chest.

“Take your sword!” Kitto urged, pushing the hilt into Harp’s hand. Harp took it, but he let it hang loosely in his hand, the tip dragging in the dirt.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” Verran cried. He tried to help Boult pin Liel’s arms, but she struggled with renewed energy. The yuan-ti stopped when they reached the edge of the grove, prowling just outside the trees and talking in a mixture of hissing and clicking sounds.

“Someone cast a ward of protection,” Boult said, shoving his knee into Liel’s stomach just below her rib cage. She coughed at the impact and stopped fighting as she gasped for breath. “Look at the marks on the trees.”

“Who did it?” Verran asked.

“It’s Dwarven. That’s all I know. But as long as we stay inside the circle of protection, they can’t come into the grove.”

“We’re just going to sit and wait?” Verran cried. “I don’t like that plan.”

“We sit here until Harp gets his head together,” Boult said. “Get your head together, Harp. Now!”

“Please, let me go,” Liel cried. She was shaking from exertion. “You doit’t know what they’ll do.”

“They’re your friends,” Boult growled, pressing his knee harder into her chest until Liel gasped in pain. “You told them we were here.”

“No!” Liel protested, pushing ineffectually against the dwarfs leg. Boult lifted the pressure slightly so she could talk. “I hate the yuan-ti. They’re monsters.”

“Who’s your patron?” Boult demanded. “And stop blaming the poor queen.”

The yuan-ti left the edge of the grove and turned their attention to the common building. One of the smaller creatures jumped onto the roof and tried to light the straw with his flint and steel. But the straw was wet from the rainstorm the night before, and the sparks didn’t catch right away. Another creature leaped up onto the house and dumped oil from a waterskin onto the roof.