Iron and Blood (22 page)

He crept up to a tent that was dark and looked still, and after listening long enough to determine it wasn't occupied, slipped inside. It was an armory containing racks of crossbows, assorted quivers of bolts, enchanted and otherwise, and a wide variety of swords, axes, shields, and helmets. He rummaged about for a rapier and came up with the next best thing—­a cavalry saber, well-­maintained if a trifle top-­heavy, with a plain iron basket hilt and knuckle guard. He took a few practice swings—­it would do.

A troop of men stomped by outside, their armor jingling. “Fan out!” an officer of some kind barked. “Reldamar may try and escape this way, and I'll whip every man-­jack o' you raw if that happens. Move!”

The men knuckled their foreheads and scattered in teams of four, beginning a search pattern that reminded Reldamar eerily of a late night visit to his flat several days ago. Peering through the tent flap, he could see he had about another minute or so before he'd have to move or get caught. That gave him a minute to ask himself a very important question:
How can they be looking for me if they don't know I'm here yet?

The answer leapt to his lips almost immediately. “Artus.”

Artus was alive.

 

“W
ho are you and where do you think yer goin'?” The Delloran soldier had Artus by the collar and was using it as a tourniquet for the boy's throat. Thanks to the helmet the man wore, Artus could only see the man's dirty beard and blazing eyes. It was enough to let him know the kind of fellow he was—­a murderous thug, just like every other man in Sahand's ser­vice.

Artus didn't have any trouble sounding frightened. “They told me to ditch the body somewhere, so . . . so I'm ditching the body somewhere.” He jerked a thumb at the corpselike Myreon in the wheelbarrow.

The soldier took a good look at Myreon and licked his lips with a red tongue. “Yeah?”

Artus noticed the soldier's grip loosen and tugged himself away. “Yeah, that's right.”

The soldier stomped around the wheelbarrow, prodding Myreon with a mailed hand. “She were a looker, that's certain. Shame she's dead.”

Artus did his best not to scowl. “Yeah, well can I go?”

The soldier pointed up a narrow passage half filled with rubble and ice. “Dump her over the side with the rest. Anygate's off limits since she came through.”

Artus blinked. That was it? It was that easy?

As if reading his thoughts, the soldier grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “How come I ain't seen you around before?”

“I used to work in Arble Keep, 'fore the mirror men showed up. I ran through with Captain Hendrieux and . . . and the big feller.”

The soldier grunted and let him go. “Get outta here—­don't let me see you down here again, or it'll be yer hide.”

Artus saluted and pushed the wheelbarrow off in the direction the man indicated. When he was out of sight, he set the wheelbarrow down and let his breath run out in ragged gasps. Saints, he didn't know how long he could push this thing! His legs were quivering and his every pore seemed to ache with pain, and Myreon seemed to look even worse. He wanted to listen for her breath but didn't. He couldn't stomach the idea that she was dead, though he didn't know why, exactly. She wasn't a bad person, at any rate. She had come after him—­she had tried to save him from Sahand, and that meant a lot. It was more than Reldamar was doing anyway. For the thousandth time he wondered where the smuggler was. He wondered if Tyvian were thinking about him.

Probably not.

So far, Artus's “disguise” as himself was working perfectly. Apparently there were or had been a cadre of adolescent boys—­slaves and vagrants, probably—­brought here by Hendrieux to do menial work, and nobody paid much attention to a kid pushing a wheelbarrow with a corpse around. That soldier had been the first one to take an interest—­everybody else was running around in armed groups, looking for Reldamar.

Something occurred to Artus then. If everybody else was looking for Reldamar, what was
that
soldier doing? Peeking back around the corner, he saw that the man was still there, keeping watch. He was guarding something. What, though?

Artus looked around—­he was still in the depths of the earth, or so it seemed. The halls and passages and rooms he passed through looked to be millennia old—­the engravings on the wall showed things that he was fairly certain no longer existed and hadn't for ages. There were giant monsters ridden by glowing wizards, flying cities, armies of the walking dead . . .

. . . Well, at least he
hoped
things like that no longer existed. His history wasn't very good. More accurately, his history was nonexistent beyond the stories of the Saints of the North, which he wasn't sure was exactly history anyway. Well, maybe it was, but . . .

Focus, Artus.
Tyvian's voice seemed to echo in his head so clearly that Artus actually looked around to see if the smuggler had found him. No, just his brain playing tricks; it was a good point, though—­focus. He needed to focus. Why would you need a guard way down here in the depths of this weird old maze?

“Prisoners,” Artus muttered to himself. Obviously—­he was guarding more prisoners. Maybe even Hortense's daughter.

“Okay Artus,” he said under his breath, “what's the plan?”

The soldier wasn't a great deal taller than Artus, but about twice as broad. He was armored, and armed with a broadsword and dagger at his hip, whereas Artus had nothing. There was also the little problem that he had never killed anybody in his life, and wasn't sure if he could if he wanted to. As a final point, he noted that, aside from his beard, the man had no hair to pull, and even if he had, Artus somehow doubted a little hair pulling would work as well against a brutish Delloran soldier as it would against a spoiled Kalsaari Hanim.

Running through his options, Artus came up with the best plan he felt he had at his disposal. He began to scream, “Help! Help! It's Reldamar! I'm being attacked! Help!” His voice echoed through the icy corridors. In the distance he heard shouting and the crashing jingle of mail and weapons coming closer at a run.

Artus picked up a rock and peeked around the corner, expecting the soldier to be almost upon him. He wasn't, though—­the soldier was looking in his direction but hadn't left his post. Where was the jingling coming from, then?

Artus looked behind him. A troop of four Dellorans were at the opposite end of the corridor where he had stopped to rest, and they were jogging in his direction, scanning the surrounding passageways. Their sergeant's voice echoed,
“It came from this way. Look sharp, boys.”

“Kroth's teeth!” Artus swore, and put his back into pushing the wheelbarrow back toward the lone sentry. One Delloran, he figured, was better than four.

When the bearded soldier saw Artus coming, he spat something foul on the ground and came to meet him. Artus forced himself to smile. “Oh, thank Hann! It was Reldamar—­he almost got me and . . .
ulghh.
”

The sentry seized Artus by the throat and threw him against the wall. “I thought I told you not to come back, rat!” He pulled out his dagger. “Now it's time to pay.”

Artus dug his fingers into the soldier's arm, trying to loosen his grip. He kicked out with his legs, hitting the soldier in his armored shins. He coughed, scarcely able to speak, “
W-­Wait . . . I—­”

The man pressed the knife to Artus's sternum and snarled, “Orders is orders, scum.”

Adrenaline surged through Artus's body. He kicked and tried to scream and scraped his fingernails along the man's mailed arm. The man was as immovable as a tree, though, and he leered a yellow-­toothed smile at him. “Hope that wheelbarrow fits two.”

A shadow fell over both of them, causing the guard to look behind them. Something with huge hands grabbed the man by his tabard and flung him headfirst into the opposite wall so hard, Artus heard something break. The man's body flopped onto the floor and didn't move.

Artus was still gasping for breath when great, furry hands picked him up off the floor and brushed dust and snow off his clothing. Hool's voice was heavy with motherly disapproval. “You are always about to be stabbed by soldiers. What is wrong with you?”

“Did you . . . is he dead?” Artus pointed at the soldier's inert bulk.

Hool's ears swiveled back and forth, as though thinking about it. “Maybe, maybe not. He will not walk again. His spine is broken. Why are you always asking stupid questions?”

“Hool you've got to help me—­I've got Myreon and she's . . .”

“Dead,” Hool announced. “I can smell her on you. She is dead.”

Artus felt the wind rush out of him. “No! No she isn't! She was breathing just a few minutes ago!”

Hool nodded. “And now she has stopped. Dead things always smell a little different than alive things. I know.”

Artus shook his head. “You just said you didn't know if
this
guy was dead—­how can you be so sure about Myreon, huh?”

“Because she has been dead for long enough to smell dead. You are wasting time.”

Artus looked back in the direction of the wheelbarrow. It couldn't be true! He'd . . . he'd worked so
hard
to save her. He'd come too far to have her die now. It . . . it wasn't
fair.
“She tried to save me.” He felt tears beginning to well-­up. “She didn't have to do that. It's . . . it's my fault she's dead, Hool.”

Hool slapped him in the face. “There is no time for sadness. Come with me.”

The gnoll grabbed Artus by the collar and dragged him toward the dark corridor the soldier had been guarding. “Hool! Let go! Where are we going?”

Hool pointed down the corridor. “This way is a lot of blood . . . and magic. It is where Sahand is.”

Artus's stomach flipped at the mention of the Mad Prince's name. The terror, though, drove some of his tears away. “Then let's not go that way!”

Hool didn't budge. She took a deep breath and let it out so that the fur on her cheeks rippled. “I have come for Sahand.”

Understanding hit Artus all at once. That was why Hool was here, of course—­revenge. Not him. Not Myreon. Revenge. “Did you find your pups?”

Hool's ears went back. “Two of them. One of them is alive and hiding outside. The other . . .” She pointed down the dark hallway. “
He
skinned her. Now I will skin him.”

The gnoll started down the hall, but Artus grabbed her by the wrist. “Don't go, Hool—­he'll kill you, too. He kills everybody—­the guy is, like, incredibly dangerous. He killed Myreon, he killed Hendrieux, he . . . he's a monster, Hool. Just take the pup you got and leave.”

She looked down at Artus and ran a hand slowly through his hair. “You are a kind human, Artus. But you do not understand.”

With that, she took off down the hall, vanishing in the dark before Artus could even say good-­bye. He stood there, watching the dark spot where she had vanished, for almost a whole minute. Should he follow? Should he escape? What help would
he
be, anyway?

From behind him, he heard voices shouting.
“Sir, look! It's the mage, sir—­he must have ditched her body here!”
and
“Fan out, find him—­shoot on sight. Don't give the weasel a chance to talk his way out of it.”

If the Delloran squad had found Myreon, they had also blocked the only way out Artus knew, and they would find the incapacitated guard momentarily. He drew the guard's broadsword and started down the corridor after Hool. It seemed as though luck was making his decisions for him today.

T
yvian ducked out of a shadowy enclave after the party of Delloran guards had passed and followed them as quietly as he could across the dusty, ice-­choked corridors of the inner ruins. The camp and the wide gallery it occupied was just the tip of the iceberg. Corridors and stairwells cut deep into the heart of the mountain, leading to a labyrinthine warren of tunnels, chambers, and dead ends. All around, the eyes of the long-­dead kings who once walked these corridors stared out from their endless portraits, bracketed in hieroglyphics that Blue College magi had studied extensively before Freegate had them expelled after the war. Tyvian felt a certain weight of history in this place—­heavy, moldering,
dreadful—­
that made the way Sahand's goons were casually marching through it all unnerving. They really had no idea how important Daer Trondor had once been, or how much ancient blood stained the flagstones beneath their feet.

The party ahead of him were following a report that said he'd been spotted somewhere down in this part of the ruins, and so Tyvian was following them in the hopes of finding Artus. Since they hadn't run across any mauled or mangled corpses, he guessed Hool was coming in from another direction, which was just as well—­he didn't need all these soldiers any more on edge than they already were.

They crossed a grand hall with a fallen-­in roof, a great crack of sky visible down the center of the crumbling vaults. The last dying breath of sunlight sent some weak rays spilling across the rubble-­strewn floor, but that was all. It was dark, and most of these corridors weren't lit—­they had been originally designed to admit as much natural light as possible through the clever use of skylights and, one presumed, some kind of reflecting devices that now were replaced by packs of blue-­white ice and drifts of wet snow. Of course, once the sun went down, none of that would matter anymore.

Tyvian had a shard of illumite in his pocket that he had picked up in the armory tent, but he didn't dare bring it out—­he might as well ring a bell and shout “Come attack me.” He was forced, therefore, to stick close enough to the party of Delloran guards that he could use their light to avoid tripping on anything, but not so close that he himself would be illuminated. It was a tricky business, since the party kept stopping to get their bearings and would occasionally fan out, a shard of illumite apiece, to search large rooms. He supposed in these instances he might have taken them out, one by one, but four fewer Dellorans running around wasn't going to make a lot of difference in the end, and furthermore, the ring seemed to disapprove of stabbing men in the back from the shadows anyway.

Tyvian really couldn't afford to ignore the ring at this stage. He was relying on it too heavily to give him the strength to carry on—­its every pulse of goodwill toward his goal of stopping Sahand and, now, rescuing Artus was an essential jolt of energy. He could see how a thing like the ring could become addictive, perhaps even be seen as an asset. Eddereon's behavior was making a bit more sense now, though he still rejected the theory that stated the ring was making him a hero of some kind. Nonsense. It was only natural that he should be exhausted and alone in the dark corridors of some cursed ruin trying to take on the world's most dangerous man and his army of bloodthirsty mercenaries. It was totally in character.