The Temple of Yellow Skulls (4 page)

“What brings you to Fallcrest, Hakken?” Albanon asked, only to be nearly drowned out by Uldane’s eager questions.

“Where are you from? Where were you before this? I bet they’re not the same place—you don’t look like you stay somewhere for long. Do you fight with both your axes at the same time or is one for throwing—?”

Shara reached around and stifled the halfling.

Raid chuckled, a soft, rich sound. “The gods gave us two hands, so I fight with both. They gave us two legs, so that we can walk away from places we don’t like or that don’t like us. I am a wanderer, from everywhere and nowhere. The place where I was born means as little to me as the place where I will die. And the reason I’ve come to Fallcrest”—he looked to Albanon—“remains my secret for now. But let’s just say that it’s something a group willing to take on a dragon might be able to help me with.”

Surprise and elation tingled along Albanon’s spine. “Legs to walk away from places that don’t like us. By the moon of the Feywild, I like the song you sing, Hakken.”

“Call me Raid,” the big man said. “I knew I’d find a kindred spirit here.”

Uldane’s squeals of excitement were audible even from behind Shara’s hand. He spluttered and forced her hand away. “He wants us to go adventuring with him.”

“I figured that out,” said Shara. She looked at Raid. To Albanon’s surprise, she didn’t seem to share in their joy at this unexpected opportunity. “So you knew my father?” she asked.

“Knew of him,” Raid said. “Stories of his adventures had spread beyond the Nentir Vale. He wasn’t my only choice to approach, but I was definitely considering making the journey north to Winterhaven to look for him. At least until the crew of the riverboat told me he was dead. Discovering that his daughter and her companions carried on his work in Fallcrest was an unexpected opportunity, so here I am.” He spread out hands scarred by battle and still dirty from his journey.

“Why here?” said Shara.

Raid paused with his hands wide. “What?”

“Why come all the way here on your own? Why not find your help wherever you were?”

Her voice was blunt to the point of being rude. Albanon raised his eyebrows. “Shara, is that any—?”

“It’s a fair question,” said Raid before he could finish. He folded his hands and met Shara’s gaze. “There wasn’t anyone suitable where I was. Nobody I wanted to pay to travel with me, at any rate. And anyway, I want locals. People who know the region.”

“We know the region!” Uldane stood up on his chair and stretched out a hand to Raid. “I’m Uldane. That’s Albanon. Where you’re going—is it dangerous? Because we live for danger.”

Albanon wasn’t so sure he would have gone that far, but he was willing to let the halfling’s enthusiasm take over for the moment. Excitement brewed like a storm in his chest. This was the opportunity they’d been trying to find for two weeks!

Shara pushed down Uldane’s hand. “Easy,” she said. She didn’t take her eyes off Raid. “I think I’d like to know a little more before jumping into danger with you, Hakken.”

The big man’s smile faltered just a little. “Call me Raid,” he said again. “And as I told you, my reason for coming to Fallcrest is a secret I’d rather keep to myself. I’m willing to discuss conditions, but you’ll have to take my word that it will be worth your time.”

“I wasn’t asking about your business in Fallcrest.” Shara sat back. “I want to know about you. You’re a wanderer. You’ve heard stories of my father. Where have you been? Would I have heard stories of you?”

“Not likely.”

“Then tell me some.”

Raid’s eyes narrowed as he studied the red-haired warrior. The storm in Albanon’s chest turned into a tickle. He started to open his mouth to say something, but Shara gave him a glance so hard he closed his teeth on his words. For once, even Uldane was silent.

Raid lifted his head. “Ask me what I am,” he said, “and I’ll tell you that I’m a hunter. That’s how I started. Name a creature and chances are I’ve tracked it. I’ve probably even killed it. With that kind of wandering, I think it was only natural I’d turn to an adventuring life. I practically fell into it. Between hunting and adventuring, I’ve probably been everywhere. The Dragon Coast and the Two Rivers Gulf. The ruins of Bael Turath. The cities of the south and the lands of the far west. Jungles, deserts, mountains. I had companions.” His gaze swept the table. “Until they were killed. Sole survivor, that’s me. After that, I left off adventuring—until now. One last adventure. One last mystery that I’ve spent years unraveling. It all comes down to this.”

Uldane looked like he might burst if he had to hold his curiosity in much longer. Questions buzzed in Albanon’s head, too, but Shara and Raid still held control of the table between them. Shara’s expression hadn’t changed. “You’re avoiding the question,” she said.

Raid drew a hard breath. “Maybe I don’t feel the need to open up to people I only know by reputation.”

“But you want us to do the same.” Shara tilted her head. “One question. Answer it square. Are you after treasure, secrets, or revenge?”

He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Treasure.”

“How much treasure?” Uldane asked. The words came out in an eager gasp. They brought a smile back to Raid’s face.

“Enough to get you out of Fallcrest and anywhere you want to go,” he said. “Enough to live like a noble when you get there.” He looked around at them again, then his eyes settled on Shara. “What do you say?”

She looked back at him. “No,” she said.

The storm inside Albanon dropped straight into his gut. He stared at Shara. So did Uldane, a little whine creeping up out of his throat. Shara, however, had her eyes solely on Raid.

The man with the twin axes sat perfectly still for a moment before repeating, “No?”

“No. We’re not the ones you want. Go try the Lucky Gnome Taphouse. It’s right off the Market Green.”

A dark look of anger flashed across Raid’s face. Before Albanon could say anything, he was on his feet. “I’m not used to having my offers denied,” he said.

“You didn’t offer us anything,” said Shara. “Consider it a frank assessment.”

Raid’s jaw tightened. “Then I thank you for your honesty. May your gods keep you.”

He turned and stalked off, sliding with angry grace through the crowd of patrons. Shara let out a long breath. Albanon rounded on her. “What are you doing?” he yelped. “That was what we wanted, wasn’t it?”

Eyes still on the crowd where Raid had disappeared, Shara shook her head. “No,” she said, “it wasn’t. I don’t think I’d go around the corner with Hakken Raid.”

“Are you insane?” demanded Uldane. “This was perfect!”

Shara’s lips pressed tight and a flush crept into her cheeks. “There was something about him I didn’t like,” she said. “He wouldn’t tell us where he wanted us to go.”

“You hardly gave him a chance to,” said Albanon.

“He traveled alone.”

Uldane slumped down his chair and crossed his arms. “Right now I can see why he’d want to.”

Shara looked between them. “Were you two that taken in? How much have you had to drink?”

“Not that much,” Albanon said hotly. “Maybe he didn’t want to tell a bunch of strangers all of his secrets straight out. What’s wrong with that? Why shouldn’t we have taken a chance with him?”

“For one thing, what would you have done if you’d agreed to help him, then didn’t like what he told you? Would you have walked away? Maybe keeping your word doesn’t matter that much to you, but it does to me.”

Her words stung. Albanon felt his cheeks flush. “I keep my word!” he protested, but Shara didn’t stop.

“He didn’t give us one piece of information of any significance. He dodged all of my questions, even when I gave him opportunities to answer openly. So he’s been a hunter and an adventurer. So he’s been to a lot of different places. He didn’t give us any specifics.”

“He said that he’d come to Fallcrest looking for treasure,” Uldane pointed out.

“And that’s all he said.” Shara looked straight at the halfling. “You should know that question, Uldane. It was one of my father’s favorites. Anyone who wanted to hire us, he’d ask that question. The answer doesn’t matter so much as what comes after it. Raid didn’t say anything about the treasure or why he wanted to find it—he just told us how rich it would make us.”

“Uldane asked how much treasure,” said Albanon. “Raid was just answering him!”

“What about how he reacted when I turned him down?
He took it like a personal insult, as if I’d laughed in his face.”

“He came all this way looking for us and you said no. I’d be disappointed, too.”

“Would you be angry like he was?”

“Probably.” Albanon felt more than a little angry already.

“Trust me,” Shara said. “We’re better off staying right here.”

Albanon inhaled slowly and tried to call up the discipline that had kept him calm with Kossley Varn’s face shouting in his face. This time, however, it eluded him. A hot sense of disappointment burned in his belly. The feeling of isolation and displacement he’d managed to overcome only a short time before came crashing back over him. He looked back up at Shara.

“I don’t think we are,” he told her. “I think we need to get out of Fallcrest, but there’s nothing else to do unless we want to strike out on our own. You’ve just scared off our best chance at an ally.”

Shara scowled. “I don’t trust him,” she said curtly.

“Well, I liked him,” muttered Uldane. “I think Borojon would have felt the same. So would Jarren.”

Shara sucked air through her teeth and whirled on him. “You don’t know what my father or Jarren would have felt,” she said harshly. “You like everybody!”

Uldane flinched as if she’d struck him, but Shara had already turned to glare at Albanon. “And what do you know? You think being a wizard’s apprentice then falling in with a bunch of adventurers by chance makes you a good judge of anything? I know what I’m doing.” Shara thumped her chest. “My father taught me more than just how to swing a sword. He taught me what to look for when I’m choosing my allies.”

The declaration was too much. Albanon’s face burned hot.
“I wish he’d taught me, then,” he said, “because I’ve clearly made a mistake in choosing mine.”

He stood up, his chair scraping across the floor. Shara finally winced in recognition of her harsh words, but it was too late. “Albanon, no—that’s not what I meant.”

“Really? I wouldn’t know. I’m not a good judge.” He turned away from her and from Uldane, curled down in his chair and watching them in sullen silence.

“Stop acting like a child!”

Albanon stiffened and looked back at her. A wide swath of the alehouse had gone quiet again, listening in on their argument. Shara’s face was taut and hard. Albanon raised his chin.

“Don’t bother coming back to the tower tonight,” he said. “I’m raising the wards behind me when I go in.”

He walked out through the staring crowd with his head held high and his heart beating like a running dog.

A steep bluff cut through the middle of Fallcrest, dividing the upper town from the lower and creating the high cascade in the Nentir River that gave the town its name. The Blue Moon was in the lower town; the tower that had been Moorin’s was in the upper. Many times over the years of his apprenticeship, Albanon had used the climb up the crooked road along the bluff’s face as an opportunity to sober up after an evening at the alehouse.

Sometimes sobriety and second thoughts came whether he wanted them or not. By the time he was halfway up the bluff, his anger was already ebbing.

By the time he’d reached the top, regret was a gnawing hollow in his gut.

Albanon paused at the brow of the bluff and leaned against the well-worn rail that had been set there long ago for just that purpose. Fallcrest spread out below him, a few windows still lit here and there by late-night candles, but most of the town’s buildings were dark and quiet shapes under the moonlight. The Nentir River made a shining ribbon that rolled past the town wall and on into the shadowed countryside beyond.

There were adventures to be had out there—did it matter if the Lord Warden assigned them a task or Hakken Raid had some crazy secret plan? He and Shara and Uldane were a team. They’d find something for themselves. They’d beaten Vestapalk together. And maybe Shara was right. What did he really know of judging people? He’d gone straight from his father’s estate in the Feywild to Moorin’s tower. And in the wake of his master’s murder, he’d joined forces with Tempest, Roghar, and the others almost by accident. Shara had experience, even if she didn’t have tact. She knew what she was doing. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so eager to listen to Raid.

He screwed up his face, though, wrinkling his nose at his own weakness. Just because Shara was right didn’t mean he had to let her insult him. Let her spend the night somewhere else. Maybe even outside. It wasn’t going to hurt her. They could apologize to each other in the morning. Albanon turned away from the sight of the lower town. Farther along the brow of the bluff, the reflected brilliance of moonlight on white stone showed how the Glowing Tower had come by its name. Albanon tried to put Shara out of his mind as he walked, but it was hard not to dream of the morning; Shara, damp with dew and sleep-deprived, stinking of some cowshed where she’d taken shelter. It was almost a pity that the night was cloudless. A light shower of rain to add to the warrior-woman’s discomfort would have—