“You don’t think they’d leave a stack of swords and armor stacked inside the door for you to snatch?” Sarfael said. Except, as he looked with dismay around the room, that was exactly what Dhafiyand had promised him. It seemed the old man’s intelligence was not perfect. With more confidence than he felt, Sarfael told the others: “Look for a false wall. The weapons will be behind that.”
Montimort’s nose quivered as he turned in a half circle, surveying the antechamber.
“There’s a draft,” he said, pointing to his left. “I smell old leather and metal. And something else…”
Sarfael tapped his fingers along the area that Montimort indicated and found the second door, neatly hidden behind a simple illusion. As soon as he put his hand upon the latch, the door appeared. Like the other, it was unlocked.
“Ah, that’s better,” said Sarfael as he swung the door open. Raising high his lantern, he saw the twinkle of shields, swords, mauls, short-bows, halberds, battle-axes, and other weapons.
“Well, let’s clear this out,” he said over his shoulder.
Then Montimort’s “something else” leaped upon him with an outraged scream.
Sarfael rolled back into the room.
A hound with short, rust red fur tumbled into the antechamber with him. Its sooty black teeth snapped in his face. Sarfael grappled the hellish dog by the throat as its powerful hind legs raked against the floor. Sarfael twisted underneath to avoid being disemboweled by the creature’s nasty kick.
Above him the young Nashers screamed and yelled at each other as Sarfael strove to keep the hound’s sharp black teeth out of his face. The monster at his throat growled. Wisps of sulfurous smoke emerged from its nostrils. Sarfael gritted his own teeth and heaved at the weight bearing him down. Most obviously, it was no ordinary guard dog.
As he wrestled with the creature, he cursed Dhafiyand silently for not inquiring more closely as to why that armory seemed so open and unprotected. The lack of information might well spell his doom, and the spy considered himself poorly served by the spymaster as he fought to save himself.
