But Ghyrryn was clever. He wasn't trying to fight; he was getting the ogre to move. As he parried and cut, Ghyrryn was circling, forcing his foe to turn… and then the creature's back was to Thorn. She was still on the ground, pinned beneath the fallen wolf, and he had forgotten her.
She pushed the wolf aside. Her ribs ached and the room spun as she rose to her knees, but she forced herself to focus. As she climbed to her feet, Ghyrryn fell; the ogre knocked the gnoll's weapon out of his grasp and forced him to the ground. She had no more time: setting aside her doubt, pushing away the pain, Thorn threw Steel.
The ogre raised his blade. The blow would surely shatter Ghyrryn's skull. But he paused at the height of his arc and the blade slipped through his fingers to clatter to the floor. Steel was lodged in the base of his neck, and this time the blow was good. The ogre's fingers flexed convulsively, and his limbs went limp. The floor rumbled when he fell.
'And I wanted… a challenge,' Thorn said. She sat down on the floor, struggling to catch her breath.
Gnolls were a tough lot, and Ghyrryn rose to his feet. He picked up his axe and prodded the body; the beast was dead. He looked at Steel, and Thorn raised her hand. Return, she thought, and the dagger pulled free from the corpse and flew to her fist. 'Smaller than a crossbow,' she said. She gingerly rose to her feet, waiting to see what the gnoll would do.
Ghyrryn knelt over the ogre for a moment, his fingers working at its jaw. He grunted in satisfaction and threw a small object toward her. A bloody tooth landed on the floor and skidded into her foot. 'Take it,' he said. 'He waits for you in the world to come.'
It was the tradition he'd told her about on the first day of the journey… keeping trophies as a way of placating the spirits of the fallen. She reached down and picked up the tooth.
'You fought for me.' Blood dripped from his mouth as the gnoll removed his damaged armor.
'You defended me at the Korlaak Pass,' Thorn said. 'You saved my life.'
'True,' the gnoll said. 'Explain your purpose.'
Thorn studied the wounded gnoll carefully. She could feel Steel's presence buzzing in the back of her mind, and she sheathed the dagger before it could speak.
'I'm searching for a statue,' she said. 'And I want to know where Queen Sheshka resides.'
'Describe the statue.'
She'd kept the golden tome hidden in her left gauntlet throughout the journey. Now she drew it forth, flipping through until she found a picture of Harryn Stormblade.
Ghyrryn studied the image. Then he looked at her. For a moment both were silent, the bruised and bloody gnoll studying the Dark Lantern. Then he spoke. 'The statue was on display. It was moved, at the request of a warlord. Where, I do not know. We will pass Sheshka's quarters on the way to your own.'
Thorn gestured at the bodies around them. 'This… what will you do?'
'I will speak to my brothers. The Children of Zaeurl do not sleep when the moons are high. This will not be known.'
'But why were they going to kill you?'
The gnoll made a gesture with his hand, palm flat and horizontal. 'You have saved my life, and I yours. I care nothing for a statue. But I hold the honor of my brothers, and this I cannot speak of. There is a…' He paused, searching for a word. 'Disease, the darkness that spreads. I do not like what I see. But it is not my place to challenge the rules of war.'
Thorn inclined her head. 'I thank you for my life, noble Ghyrryn.'
'We have shared blood.' He glanced at her. 'You need new clothing. Take what you will from this place.'
Thorn was surprised, but she wasn't going to argue with this good fortune. The gnoll knew what he was doing. He wouldn't reveal secrets, but he seemed willing to trust her. She searched the footlockers until she found a hunter's uniform that would fit her, with a sack to hold it.
'A final gift,' he said. 'We have shared blood, but you placed yourself in danger when you had taken no vow. We are brothers.' He held out his long axe.
'That's all right,' she said. 'I don't really need it.'
'You will,' he said. He glanced at the dead wolf, but said no more. Thorn remembered the feel of Steel piercing flesh-a blow that had done no harm.
She took the axe and drew it into her right glove.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Great Crag Droaam Eyre 19, 998 YK
Goblins stared at Thorn as she and Ghyrryn made their way through the hallways of the Crag, but a snarl from the black-furred gnoll was enough to send the servants scurrying. Ghyrryn needed only a few minutes to find a squad of gnoll soldiers. Thorn couldn't understand their whines and chittering howls, but four of the warriors loped away following Ghyrryn's instruction; she imagined that they were going to deal with the mess they'd left behind.
The other two helped Ghyrryn and Thorn reach a dormitory held by the Znir Pact. At least twenty gnolls filled the long room; some were tending armor and weapons, some sparring, others playing a game that involved pitching teeth into an outline chalked on the floor. The arrival of the wounded Ghyrryn created a stir, and the pack crowded around him, hooting and crying in their strange tongue. The elderly healer pushed the others aside and forced Ghyrryn to sit on a bunk.
'You stay,' Ghyrryn told Thorn. For the moment, she welcomed the chance to sit down. The pain in the crystal shards had faded to the usual faint ache, but her side was a mass of bruises and her head throbbed where she'd struck the ground.
The healer came to examine her. His fur was patchy and graying, but his green eyes were sharp and alert. Still, Thorn remembered him applying broodworms to open wounds in the Duurwood camp, and she wasn't eager to trust her health to a gnoll medicine man. She held up her hand, keeping the healer at bay.
Ghyrryn snarled at the old gnoll and a debate ensued… or so it seemed to Thorn. Perhaps they were discussing the weather, but if so, the gnoll language was quite dramatic. Then Ghyrryn turned to Thorn. 'Please.' It was the first time she could recall him saying something that wasn't an order. 'This is Fharg. Let him help.'
Well, I've come this far, she thought. She stretched out on the bunk, her bruised muscles resisting the movement. 'Very well. But you tell him-no worms.'
Thorn had been treated by halfling healers, which was strange in its own way. Seen in blurred or peripheral vision, a halfling was much like a human child, and it was strange to wake up surrounded by children who appeared to be playing the healer.
Working with Fharg was something else entirely. She'd spent the better part of a week in the company of gnolls, but something was disturbing about having a creature with such bestial features sniffing at her wounds. She trusted Ghyrryn, but a primal part of her was afraid that Fharg would suddenly take a bite out of her.
His treatment was surprisingly effective. Fharg rubbed a numbing oil into her bruised skin, then applied a salve to her wounds. She felt her skin tingling beneath the greasy lotion, a sensation she recognized from the healing potions of House Jorasco; she realized that Fharg used a magic tonic. Then she understood the argument between Ghyrryn and Fharg; the gnolls undoubtedly had a limited supply of such goods, and the healer would be reluctant to use his stores on a human.
Fharg had little interest in conversation. He was quick and efficient, surprisingly so for his age. He paused when he discovered the two crystals embedded in her flesh. 'Hurt?' he said, running a finger across a shard and the scarred flesh around it.
Nothing your salves can help, she thought. The memory of that mission flashed through her mind. Hundreds of dragonshards had orbited the eldritch core of Far Passage, serving both to empower the mystical weapon and to prevent Thorn and her companions from reaching it. The pain she felt still was nothing compared to the agony when those shards had torn into her flesh-crystal shrapnel ripping through leather and cloth. When she finally woke from her coma, the healer had removed most of the shards from her flesh… all but these two, which had fused to bone
