Suddenly the captain began to chuckle, a maniacal sound that made the hairs on Harp’s arm bristle.
“I know what’s keeping you, boy. You can kill me and get out alone. Or you can go for the lantern, and hope your fellows are waiting below for your signal to rise up and take my ship. But you have doubts, don’t you? They might be tucked up like little bedbugs, not caring one bit about you, the lantern, or your whore.”
Harp cursed the captain under his breath. Predeau was speaking the truth. Harp had no idea if the sailors would find the courage to step out in the brewing storm and take up arms. Predeau ruled them with an iron fist, but at least they knew what to expect every day. Once they unsheathed their swords against their master, all that lay before them was the unknown.
Who was Harp to make them choose? Shouldn’t he let them be idle in their familiar lives, as meek as fawns? Normally, he would have bowed to the slow momentum of change and done nothing. But his decision had a leyline that was guiding Harp toward the rising sun. It was Kitto who was waiting for him, like a son trusting that his father wouldn’t let him down. And, more than anything, Harp wanted Kitto to have a life.
“You’re always alone,” Predeau said in his booming voice. “There’s no one out there in the rain and wind. And if you let me go, I’ll slaughter you like a pig. Take the kill and be done with it.”
But Harp wasn’t sure he could get a kill with the blunt dagger. For all he knew, Predeau veins were made of metal, and the bastard was just baiting him. And whether the others rose up was out of his hands now. He’d given them the choice, and if they wanted to live like chattel for the rest of their lives, he couldn’t make them fight. Harp had the key to free Kitto and Liel in his pocket. He would get out, or he would die trying.
As Harp shoved Predeau’s head toward the table, he sliced the knife back against the captain’s throat. Predeau’s face slammed into the edge of the wooden tabletop, and he crashed to the floor. Harp dropped the dagger, grabbed the lantern, and hoisted it to the high window. He just had time to shove it on the ledge and leap toward the closed door before Predeau was back on his feet. With a sadistic grin, Predeau grabbed a heavy wooden chair and hurled it at Harp with no more effort than if he were throwing a bread roll to a dinner mate. Harp dodged the chair, rolling out of the way as it splintered against the wall. The impact knocked the lantern off the ledge where it smashed onto the floor into glass shards, oil, and flame.
Though the lantern was gone from the window, it should have been enough. If the sailors were in the darkness waiting, they would have seen the light and recognized Harp’s signal. Both Harp and Predeau froze, even though the fire was spreading across the floor as the lamp oil seeped into the wooden planks. All they heard was the hiss of the flames, the sails cracking in the wind, and the rain hammering against the deck.
Predeau loomed over him. “You made the wrong choice.” He raised his foot and stomped on Harp’s hand. Harp cried out at the impact. He heard a cracking noise; it felt like every one of his fingers had been broken under Predeau’s steel-toed boots. Then Harp felt a pounding vibration through the deck of the ship. The rhythmic pounding increased in volume as he heard voices shouting Predeau’s name. In two strides, Predeau crossed the cabin and threw open the door. Outside, the men stood defiantly on deck as the ship tossed in the rough waves and the rain pounded the boards. It wasn’t just Harp’s boys either, but many of the older men as well. Swords in hand, they were about to take their freedom.
“Harp!”
Harp didn’t turn toward Boult’s voice. His hand was resting on the tree, and his thoughts were firmly elsewhere.
“Harp!” Boult marched up beside him and glared up at him. “Stop daydreaming,” he ordered. “It’s not her. Unless she shrunk to dwarf size and gained a substantial amount of weight.”
That snapped Harp back to the present. “It’s a dwarf?”
“Didn’t I just say that?” “No, you said she shrunk to dwarf size.” “The corpse is a dwarf. It’s not Liel.” “How do you know?”
Boult stared at Harp in frustration. “Because it’s dwarf-sized,” he sputtered. “She’s got dwarf-sized bones and a dwarf-sized head, and it’s a dwarfs corpse. This is the stu- pidest conversation we’ve had with each other in a decade of stupid conversations.”
“Couldn’t it be a small human?”
Boult rolled his eyes. “I’m going to forgive you for asking such a ridiculous question because you’re distracted by thoughts of your long lost love.”
“She’s not my long lost”
“Blah, blah, blah. You’re only lying to yourself.”
“Where in the realms did a dwarf come from?” Harp said ignoring Boult’s comment. “There weren’t any in the colony.”
Boult shook his head. “They live here.” “In the jungle?”
“You think we all live in mountains digging for gem stones?”
“Well… yes.”
Boult glared at him. “Shows what you know. We live everywhere. We live in the mountains. We live in the cities. We live in the jungles. We sail the oceans.”
“No, you don’t. You’re the only dwarf in Faerun who’ll set foot on a ship, and you do a piss poor job of it.”
“Well at least I can tell a dwarf from a human. You’re dumber than a starving ship rat.”
Harp’s demeanor softened. “It’s not Liel,” he said, as if he finally believed it. “It’s not Liel. Which means we haven’t actually found what we’re looking for.”
CHAPTER NINE
30 Hammer, Year of Splendors Burning (1479 DR) Winter Palace, Tethyr
Tresco Maynard had seen the dense fog roll across the courtyard and cover the earth like a shroud; He hoped Evonne was safe within the walls, of the Winter Palace, but couldn’t take time to find her because he was obligated to search for his student Daviel, who had disappeared for the third time in a tenday. Tresco wasn’t worried about Daviel, who was probably sneaking off to see a village girl, but he had to keep up the appearance of concerned tutor or risk losing his position entirely through rumors.
Outside the door of the kitchen, Tresco adjusted the brown cape on his shoulders and tucked it over the crook of one arm. If the cooks gave him any lip, he would have them all sent packing, he thought angrily as he shoved open the door.
But the warm, sweet-smelling room was deserted. Puzzled, Tresco walked past long tables laden with steaming dishes full of meat, soups, and spiced fruit. There were loaves of soft bread cooling on wooden racks, and the fires were stoked high in the massive ovens. But where were the cooks? Dinner was slated to begin despite Queen Anais’s absence, and the servants should have been loading the silver serving carts. Suddenly, a cold breeze swept across the room, making Tresco’s hands ache and putting a chill in his bones.
A door had been left open somewhere. Tresco pulled his woolen hood over his graying hair and flexed his stiff fingers. He was twenty years past his youth but still a powerfully built man and handsome despite his years. The infirmity in his hands was the first thing that truly made him feel old.
Tresco pulled a red leather pouch embossed with the circular crest of Kinnard Keep, his ancestral house, from under his cloak and took a pinch of black leaf. He placed it between his gums and cheek and waited until the tingling spread into his fingers. There were many things he didn’t like about getting old, but that was no matter. He must find Daviel before dinner, if indeed there would be a dinner that night. Tresco was supposed to be a tutor, not a nanny. Keeping up with an active prince was a job for a younger man.
Tresco left the kitchen area and moved into the workshop where the blacksmith and coopers worked during the day. The forges were dampened, and only a few lanterns cast light on the sawdust floor. He left the workshop and continued down a narrow corridor. The air seemed wetter the farther he walked down the passageway, so the open door must be somewhere up ahead. Tresco had been to the Winter Palace many times and had a vague recollection of the haphazard floor planeach generation built new additions to the sprawling palace without anything but temporary functionality in mind. The result was a maze of low-ceilinged walkways and dank storage rooms with mossy walls.
He’d been to the lower levels of the palace on several occasions in years past when he had been tutor for one
