The Sellsword (23 page)

“This is never going to work,” said Gredchen, looking over the gnome.

“Sivaks, even the ones from the Red Watch, aren’t that smart,” said Vanderjack. “They may be tactical geniuses, masters at deception and infiltration, but drop something on them they weren’t expecting and most of the time, you’ve got the advantage.”

On the count of three, Gredchen pulled the door open all the way. Vanderjack gave the wagon-footlocker-gnome a mighty shove and it raced out across the balcony, banged twice on the railings, and slammed into the sivak standing on the central landing.

The draconian, as Vanderjack predicted, reacted with startlement. Leaping backward, the creature spread its wings outward to steady its balance and prevent it from falling down the staircase. The gnome ricocheted off the sivak and careened against the railing, sending it speeding off around the other side of the balcony area.

Vanderjack raced in while the draconian had his back to him. The horseshoe-shaped balcony allowed him to use the railing to gain altitude and leap toward the Sivak. Unfortunately he didn’t have a sword. All
he had were his wiry, outstretched arms and what he hoped was a fearsome look on his face.

Gredchen, following hurriedly, watched as the sell-sword tackled the sivak around the neck, pinning the draconian’s enormous silver wings against his body. Already unbalanced, the sivak dropped immediately to the top three or four stairs of the grand stair.

Vanderjack hoped that surprising the bigger and stronger draconian would keep it from simply flexing its muscles and throwing him off. And it worked. The sivak flailed uselessly. Tightening the grip around the sivak’s neck, Vanderjack gave a mighty heave and felt the draconian’s neck snap.

Gredchen skirted the melee and ran to recover Theodenes, who was lying facedown under the sheet and candelabra on the far side of the balcony. She turned him over, dusted him off, and picked him up.

Vanderjack watched, amazed, as the body of the sivak shrank and shifted. Silver scales blended, darkened, and retreated in places. Where moments before had been a sivak draconian there lay a perfect copy of Vanderjack.

“Ackal’s Teeth,” the real Vanderjack said. “I never will get used to that.”

“Will it stay that way forever?” asked Gredchen, coming back around with Theo’s immobile body. “Cute. It looks just like you.”

He gave her a pained look. “After a long while, it’ll burn up and turn into ash. Meantime,” Vanderjack added, arranging the position of his doppelganger on the stairs, “the sight of my dead body should slow down anything that comes up from down there.” He pointed down the stairs to the entrance hall below, a marble and granite chamber dominated by the wide staircase and, as Gredchen had said, an enormous
rose-shaped stained-glass window. “Come on. We’d better get moving.”

Gredchen handed Theodenes back to Vanderjack. The gnome twitched, once, and Vanderjack saw the bushy white eyebrows moving just a little, as if Theo were trying to form an angry expression and only his eyebrows would cooperate.

“The paralysis is starting to wear off,” he said, hefting the gnome over one shoulder and taking the stairs two at a time.

The stairs rose up into a small semicircular area, an anteroom or waiting room of some kind, at the far end of which was a pair of huge, ironbound wooden doors. To the left of them was a spiral staircase that continued upward. Suits of Solamnic plate armor stood on either side of the doors, bearing halberds. The armor looked purely decorative, but the halberds seemed very real.

“I sure need one of those,” Vanderjack said, indicating a halberd. “But how much do you want to bet that those suits of armor are ensorcelled? Odds are we’ll walk by them and they’ll animate and attack us viciously with polearms.”

Gredchen stared at him but couldn’t tell if he was kidding. “Impossible.”

Theodenes jerked again, and his eyelids closed and opened. Vanderjack suspected the gnome would go limp soon, then start to experience feeling in his limbs and extremities. The sellsword hadn’t been paralyzed by ghouls before, but he’d seen it often enough in the service of the dragonarmies.

“So up the stairs again, one more time,” he said.

Vanderjack shifted his hold on Theo so he could fit on the spiral staircase and went up. Gredchen took the
rear, watching the ironbound doors as they ascended, but nothing burst forth or even so much as whispered from them.

At the top of the spiral stairs, the entrance hall and stained-glass windows were left behind. All that Vanderjack could see was a long hallway lined with rugs and animal skins, and bare white walls with unlit torches at regular intervals. At the far end, in total darkness, a single large, rectangular shape was dimly visible.

“There it is,” said Gredchen, fatigue and perspiration showing on her face.

“There’s what? I can’t see a thing. This gallery has no pictures in it at all.”

“They’re all in the baron’s manor now,” she replied. “All except one.” She crossed over to a large silk bellpull hanging from the ceiling. “Here, look.”

Gredchen gave the bellpull a tug. There was a faint hissing sound, and instantly the torches lining the walls flared into life, shedding a brilliant light. The light extended even into the corners of the room, and especially the darkness at the back.

The single painting hanging on the wall at the rear of the gallery was of a young woman, barely in her twenties, breathtakingly attractive, with long honey-brown hair and features so perfect that Vanderjack simply marveled at the skill and talent of the artist.

“Lord Gilbert Glayward’s beautiful daughter,” said Gredchen.

“She’s beautiful all right, but where’s the real one? She’s not in here, that’s for sure.”

Gredchen looked at him, nodding her head. “Yes, she is.”

“What are you saying?”

Gredchen looked away. “I’m saying the object of
your mission, the baron’s beautiful daughter,
is this painting.”

“You mean….”

“Yes,” she said. “Now all we have to do is get it back to the baron’s manor.”

Theo dropped to the rug from Vanderjack’s arms, suddenly forgotten.

“Ackal’s bloody Teeth,” swore the sellsword.

Highmaster Rivven Cairn alighted from the back of her red dragon and removed her horned great helm.

She let the winds up on the tower roof of Castle Glayward buffet her hair, then strode over to the opening in the roof that led to the stairs down. A sivak officer of the Red Watch was waiting alongside the opening for her.

Stopping long enough to look back at Cear, who had flown her directly from Wulfgar, she waved a hand, which told the dragon, “I have no immediate use for you,” and also, “Go burn something for a while.”

“Your Excellency,” said the sivak.

“Lieutenant,” Rivven said, correctly deducing the draconian’s rank from his insignia. “Walk with me.”

“How was your flight?” he asked, stepping aside to let her start down the staircase. He followed immediately after, matching steps with her despite his much greater stride. Rivven noticed he was extremely well trained … for a draconian.

“Always a pleasure,” she said formally. “How are matters being taken care of here? What is the status of our prisoners?”

“They have escaped, Excellency.”

Rivven almost choked. She stopped and looked up at the sivak, who remained expressionless.
“Escaped?”

“Yes, Excellency. Master Cazuvel said for us not to be concerned, that he has matters under control.”

“Under control? How in the Abyss did they escape?”

The sivak said nothing.

“What does he intend to do? There’s just you and your fellow sivaks, Captain Aggurat, and whatever staff he held onto for the kitchens. Blast him. Where is Cazuvel at present?”

The sivak led the highmaster down a narrow flight of stairs, along two hallways, across an outside balcony that overlooked the jungle, then back inside to a sitting room. On the other side of a door was the grand hall. “He’s through there,” the sivak said and stood aside.

Rivven Cairn pushed through the door and watched Cazuvel pacing back and forth alongside a large cage containing some kind of scaly, winged tiger. When he saw her, the albino pulled himself up to his full height and walked briskly over. “Your Excellency.”

Another human, missing an arm, stood off to one end of the room. Rivven recognized the man as somebody Aggurat had killed several days before, although that man had possessed two arms. Rivven knew how sivaks worked, and she knew Aggurat. If the reports were correct, the missing arm was Vanderjack’s doing; she’d heard that Aggurat had lost his arm to Vanderjack’s blade.

“One of Aggurat’s draconians just told me that the prisoners have escaped, Cazuvel!” Rivven said. “I don’t believe that was on my list of instructions.”

“Ah, no, it was not, Your Excellency,” Cazuvel said, bowing his head. “Forgive me—I fear the sivaks are given to panic. But there is no real reason to be concerned at this point.”

“So you know where they are, then.”

“Quite so, Your Excellency. Might I offer you a drink?”

Rivven just stared at him, trying to figure out what he was up to. Cazuvel seemed to take that with grace and indicated the chair he’d been sitting in earlier. “Perhaps a seat?”

The highmaster sat down and propped up her chin on one balled fist, waving at the mage with the other hand. “Carry on. I’m sure we have scant moments before we hear the front gates close behind the escapees.”

“Ah, but therein lies the underlying cause of my calm demeanor,” the mage said, showing perfect white teeth. “The sellsword will not leave the castle, for there are three compelling reasons for him to remain.”

“You have appropriated his magic sword?” Rivven said, perking up.

“Indeed. I feared that the weapon might be lost once the sivaks captured the three of them. But the kapak scouts retrieved it in the jungle. I have it safely stowed away.”

“Good. I’ll be taking that with me,” said Rivven, feeling heartened. “All right, what are the other two compelling reasons?”

“The second is that,” said Cazuvel, pointing at the slumbering dragonne in the cage.

“Yes, I see that. What is it exactly? Some kind of magical abomination you’ve created?”

“No, Your Excellency. That is a creature from the Dragon Isles, one of the dragonnes blessed by the gods to protect and ward those loyal to them.”

Rivven’s eyes narrowed.

“They were riding it when the Red Watch intercepted them.”

Rivven felt her heart racing. She hadn’t considered any divine interference in any of her plans, not because she wasn’t herself religious, but because the sellsword was by all accounts ruled by only greed and self-interest. Rivven did not think the gods who honored those traits would have stepped in the way of her plans. Was it the gnome? Or the girl? The gnome was just another mercenary, surely no different from Vanderjack, and the girl … Rivven already knew about the girl.

“The third reason?”

Cazuvel pointed above his head. “The painting in the gallery,” he said. “Vanderjack may be a mercenary, but he lives by his contract. My magical wards tell me that they’ve just located Baron Glayward’s ‘beautiful daughter.’ Your arrival could not have been more perfectly timed.”

Aggurat hadn’t said a word since Rivven had arrived. In fact, he had not budged in the slightest. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked, indicating the disguised draconian.

“The commander regrettably triggered one of my magical defenses,” said Cazuvel. “The effect will wear off in about an hour. I could have dispelled it myself, but I felt that perhaps a lesson was in order.”

Rivven frowned. “These draconians of the Red Watch,” she said, “they’ve had more experience and training in working around magic than probably any other draconians on Krynn, other than the auraks working directly for the Dark Queen. How could he have stumbled into a dangerous ward?”

Cazuvel started to put together an explanation, but Rivven shook her head. “No, it doesn’t matter. We need to deal with the sellsword and his friends. With any luck, the Ergothian will be in a position to listen to my
attractive offer. Then you can do whatever you want to the gnome.”

“And the girl?” asked the mage, rubbing his hands together.

“Let her go, I think. She’s still under the protection of the arrangement I made with the baron. She’s done her job, and if she knows what’s good for her, she’ll go back home and remind the baron—again—of the deal we made.”

Rivven observed Cazuvel’s disappointment with that. “Don’t look so glum, wizard,” she said. “You can keep the exotic beast. I’m sure there are all kinds of unusual magical experiments you can conduct on it, to your edification. Now let’s go pay our guests a visit.”

The highmaster placed her dragon helm upon her head, swept aside her flowing cape, and headed for the doors to the entrance hall. It was about time she finally met the Ergothian.