“None. Hire what porters or guides you need. Kill them when you’re done with them. Understand?”
She did. Left unsaid but understood by both of them was that Breetan must succeed or die.
He departed, leaving Breetan alone in the vast courtyard. Wind swirled hair in her face. She’d been given a second chance. She would not fail. Her honor as an Everride was at stake, as much as her life.
Neither especially gifted as a fighter nor valiant in the accepted knightly sense, Breetan had long ago realized she would never come close to matching her famous father’s deeds. She was determined to make her own mark, so she had chosen another path, away from battlefield glory. Lord Burnond had disapproved of his only daughter’s decision to join Liveskill’s order. Long retired to his estate near Lemish, he lived like any successful elder warlord, chasing bandits, banqueting on the anniversaries of his victories, hunting, and training men-at-arms. Concealed daggers and poisoned cups might sometimes be necessary, he said, but a true warrior did not seek them out. He likened the Black Hall to a tombstone, and branded it no fit home for honor. Breetan had braved his censure and taken her own path. If it lay in the shadow of a tombstone, so be it.
Beneath the lightening sky, she shouldered the new crossbow and put the third and last whisper bolt into the exact center of the target.
Chapter 6
The journey to Samustal passed largely in silence. Naturally taciturn, the Kagonesti communicated among themselves with gestures and facial expressions. The captive Nerakans had little to say, and little breath left with which to say it. The elf in charge kept them moving, allowing only brief stops for food, water, or rest.
Among themselves the humans dubbed their masked captor the Scarecrow for his ragged appearance. It was obvious from his speech and manner he was an elf, and the men wondered why he kept himself so thoroughly covered. Near their destination, as they crossed a steeply banked creek, Sergeant Jeralund caught a glimpse of the elf beneath the rags.
In ages past, the Speaker of the Sun had maintained a forest patrol to inspect the bridges, roads, and tunnels in his realm and keep them in good repair. That necessary service had been neglected by the invaders who infested Qualinesti. As Jeralund, last in the line of prisoners, neared the end of the bridge over Claymore Creek, he felt the planks drop away from his feet. He cried out, expecting to be dashed to pieces on the boulders eighty feet below. Instead he was jerked to a halt, booted feet dangling in midair.
Gasping, he looked up. With one hand, the Scarecrow had clutched the vine connecting Jeralund’s bound wrists to those of the man ahead. His other hand was clamped on the arm of the prisoner in front of Jeralund.
“Pull!” he commanded, teeth clenched with the effort of bearing the human’s full weight.
The captives and Kagonesti fell to, hauling Jeralund up. The sergeant scrambled onto the bridge and crouched on hands and knees, breathing heavily and shaking with relief.
He looked up, eying the ragged figure standing over him. “You’re stronger than you look.”
Jeralund halted abruptly. The Scarecrow’s robe had split across his stomach. The ragged gap revealed not pale skin or visible ribs, but vivid red flesh, bisected by angry scars.
The glimpse lasted only a moment. The Kagonesti jerked Jeralund to his feet, and the line of captives moved on. In the interim, the Scarecrow disappeared into the trees, leaving Jeralund to ponder the significance of what he had seen.
Their masked captor had been burned very badly. His flesh looked like the skin of a Karthay beach lizard. If the rest of him was anything like that, it was no wonder he covered himself from fingers to toes. As a soldier, Jeralund had known many disfigured men. The back streets of any garrison town were littered with men missing hands, feet, limbs, eyes. Such was to be expected among those who made their trade from fighting. The worst cases ended their days as beggars. But those were humans, not elves. Disfigured elves were a rarity for one simple reason: they usually took their own lives. Jeralund had known a Qualinesti officer who lost an arm in the battle that preceded the fall of the Dragon Overlord Beryl. The fellow had thrown himself from a high tower as soon as he had sufficient strength for the task. Obsessed with beauty and purity, elves could not bear disfigurement. Only the Kagonesti were different. With their body paint, tattoos, and ritual scarring, they seemed to revel in a tortured appearance.
The Scarecrow was city bred, Jeralund was certain of that, but there he was, dreadfully scarred and still alive. For a human, such an existence would be painful; for an elf, it was unthinkable. As he trudged along with his fellows, Jeralund wondered why the elf hadn’t taken his own life.
Concealed behind an oak tree, Porthios felt as if his body had hardened into stone. He had thought himself beyond any sensation of shame, but when the barbarian looked upon his scarred flesh, he knew he’d been wrong. Humiliation surged through his veins like fresh fire. Strong as the raging river that had drowned Qualinost, it filled his throat with bile.
“Great Lord?” Nalaryn called out, unable to see his leader. “Great Lord, the band has moved on.”
Porthios replied loudly, “Go. I will rejoin you.”
The faithful Kagonesti departed. When Porthios was alone, he seated himself on a rock and took a small sewing kit from a pocket in his robe. Born to rule Qualinesti, he was no tailor, but of late he’d had a lot of practice sewing. His stitches were uneven but tight and strong. In minutes his shame was covered once more.
Night had fallen by the time they beheld Samustal. The dark seemed to hang all the heavier over the squalid town. An overcast sky pressed the smoky air down like a damp, choking mantle.
Porthios ordered Nalaryn to make camp at a nearby stream. He would enter the town alone to penetrate its defenses and find out what he could about any elves being held there. Unarmed as he was, he probably could have used the main gate with no more hindrance than a bribe to the guards, but that would mean submitting to a search-an intolerable notion-so he chose a stealthier course.
He circled away from the gate, moving carefully over the open killing ground beneath the walls while watching the parapet above. Lord Olin had built the stockade quickly. His men hadn’t bothered leveling the ground first, so some places were closer to the top of the wall than others. Porthios found a spot where the sharpened points of the stockade were only eight feet above the ground. He backed until he came up against a line of bark- covered lean-tos then ran at the stockade wall.
He leaped and jammed his right foot onto the scant toehold offered by the stump of a branch sawed off the side of one of the stockade palings.
His muscles screamed, and his lips drew back in a grimace of pain. The hand-to-mouth existence in the woodlands and the ravages of his wounds had left him weakened. Tight, scarred skin pulled over his emaciated frame as he levered himself upward.
The pain was unbelievable, but just as fierce was Porthios’s will. He flung his left hand at the wall of logs. His nails bit into the wood through his gloves. With his right hand, he reached higher, finding a chink between two timbers. When at last he grasped the rough-sawn peak of the stockade, he felt a warm wetness soaking through his gloves. His hands left dark stains on the wood. Still he moved with deliberate care, making certain no one had observed him. He finally dropped onto the battlement and lay still. He trembled all over and his gloves were stiff with drying blood, but he was inside.
This was the secret of Porthios’s new life dogged indifference to any level of pain and the willingness to go where others dared not. He’d lived long enough with his disfigurement to have given up luxuries such as fear or worry. What had he to fear? His own body was a horror worse than death.
The only sentinel in sight was a human seated in a plank sentry box twenty paces along the wall. A dented pot helmet rested over his eyes, and he snored with great dedication. At his feet a clay jug lay on its side. The sentry wasn’t going to awaken any time soon.
Porthios sidled up to the sentry box. Pulling the torch from its bracket, he dropped it to the hard-packed ground outside the stockade. It went out. Keeping clear of the snoring sentinel, he squatted in the narrow sentry box and carefully peeled the bloody gloves from his hands. He rinsed his gloves in the filthy water of the guard’s fire bucket. Lifting the discarded clay jug, he heard liquid sloshing within. He poured it over his hands.
Unfortunately it wasn’t wine, but brandy, and it burned like vitriol on his insulted hands. Violent words
