their belts. The one walking next to the woman was an officer, with a golden chimera pinned to his collar; beyond that, Thorn could see the lines of a dragonmark running along his neck and up to his ear. He was resting a two- handed axe across one shoulder, an ugly weapon with a long blade. He was a muscular man, and if not for the web of scars on almost every inch of his exposed skin, he would have been quite handsome. More to the point, Thorn had no doubt he’d be able to wield the brutal axe with ease.
“Perhaps I am. I still enjoy the dulling of it,” he said with a grin.
Thorn followed them quietly as they continued down the hallway. She traced a cross on Steel’s hilt.
Well equipped for common sentries, he told her, though nothing so impressive as our friends in the Mournland. Still, even the two pushing the cart have mystically reinforced armor and enchantments woven into blade and bow alike. Low-grade Cannith work, I’d say. The axe is on par with that of the royal executioner; enchanted to sever a head or a limb, but drawing on its full might would take time-the sort of thing one would use on a stationary target. And the woman… nothing powerful, no weapons, but a great many minor auras. The tools of a chirurgeon as opposed to an alchemist.
Thorn moved the blade in a circle, suggesting a study of the hallway.
Quite an impressive array of spells at work. No aggressive defenses, but the two doors ahead are sealed and set with warning enchantments that will be triggered should the wards be broken; I’m sensing a spell of silence as well. Kundarak work, I believe. Aside from that… The walls themselves are reinforced using Cannith hardening techniques, and there’s a broader enchantment maintaining the temperature. It has the flavor of House Ghallanda to it.
Kundarak, Ghallanda, Orien, Cannith, Vadalis, Deneith… Quite an operation, Thorn thought. Whatever the place was, it had nothing to do with her current assignment. Still, it troubled her. She could still hear the words of the Son of Khyber and the Tarkanan halfling Fileon, warnings about the growing power of the dragonmarked houses.
And with this much magic invested in the place, I imagine there are more than five guards.
Thorn still had no sense of the size of the place, and she hadn’t seen so much as an arrow slit in the walls. And she had only a minute or two of invisibility left. Still, she needed more information; she wanted to see where they were going.
Luckily for her, the team had reached its destination. There was no handle on the door; the Kundarak seal held it closed. The Vadalis savant placed one hand on her hippogriff brooch and her other palm on the door and pushed it open. It immediately became clear why there was a spell of silence on the room. The instant the door was opened, the air was filled with growls and snarls, bestial cries of rage and pain.
The guards wheeled the cart into the room, and Thorn slipped in after them. The door clicked shut behind her. Keeping her back against the wall, she stepped to the side and surveyed the situation. Her first impression was that someone had taken one of the healing houses of House Jorasco and merged it with her brother’s ramshackle clinic in Wroat. Shelves were piled high with stacks of bandages and other supplies. Surgical blades gleamed in baths of sterilizing fluids, and the walls were covered with anatomical charts and pages of parchment covered with scrawled notes and diagrams. Then there were things she’d never seen in a Jorasco ward. Alchemical equipment whose purpose she could only guess at-strange contraptions of glass and metal, dark fluid bubbling over low flames and chunks of rubbery, green flesh suspended in clear liquid.
Then there were the prisoners.
There were four beds on one side of the room, though bed was a kind word. They were clearly designed for restraint, not comfort; each was a virtual cocoon covered with leather straps and iron chains. At a quick glance, one might think there were four men bound in the beds. But they weren’t men. Each was over ten feet in height and massively muscled. Their hides were rubbery and green, covered with warts and boils. Long, hooked noses hung over mouths filled with needle-sharp teeth. They were trolls. Distant relatives to orcs and ogres, trolls were savage carnivores infamous for eating anything they could tear apart, and the talons of a troll could rend steel. They’d been driven from civilized lands long in the past, but they still lingered in deep caverns and dark woods, in the most desolate peaks of Mror Holds and in the wilds to the west. The last time Thorn had seen a troll in the flesh had been on her mission to Droaam. The leaders of that land had brought ogres, gnolls, shapeshifters, minotaurs, medusas and more together to build their nation, and Thorn had seen quite a few trolls among the guardians of the Great Crag.
There were handful of halflings and humans scattered around the room, savants wearing the colors of House Vadalis and the healing house, Jorasco. A thin halfling with wispy, white hair nodded to the newcomers. “Take table three. You can have your choice of left or right, and I’d like to see that one taken down a notch. I cut his tongue out yesterday, but you know how they are.”
One of the trolls roared again, a howl of sheer rage. Its fury was no match for its bonds. The guards surrounded it, and three of them worked with its arm. The restraints worked in series; they were able to separate the arm from the main cocoon, and working together, the four soldiers were able to force the creature’s arm down onto the stretcher they’d brought with them, lashing it onto the new restraints.
“Shadow hears me!” The troll’s voice was a guttural roar, as loud as thunder. Thorn vaguely recognized it as the language of the goblins, shaped with a mangled tongue. To her ears, it sounded like the meaningless snarls of a savage beast. But Thorn was wearing the gift she’d received from the Lord of Pylas Pyrial, and she knew the meaning even though she couldn’t understand the words. “Vengeance on he who wields the blade!”
Perhaps the guards didn’t understand the Goblin language; perhaps they’d heard the threat before. Either way, they ignored the beast completely and remained focused on their work.
“Devouring spirit!” it roared. “Vengeful daughters! Punish the one who spills my blood!”
“I thought you said you cut out his tongue,” the Deneith captain said, a mixture of boredom and annoyance in his voice. He took a practice swing with the great axe.
“Yesterday,” the halfling said. “You know how they are.”
“That I do,” the axeman said. His soldiers had finished binding the troll’s arm to the stretcher, and they drew it back, pulling it taut. The captain raised the axe, and the runes carved into the blade glowed as the power within it grew. He took two steps forward then brought the cruel weapon down with all his strength, magic and muscle combining in a deadly arc of steel. The blade cleaved straight through flesh and bone, and the troll howled in pain as his arm was severed from his shoulder.
The troll moaned and muttered foul curses as the captain cleaned thick, green blood off the blade of his axe. The severed arm twitched and struggled in its bonds, but the soldiers had bound it well. The Vadalis woman studied the wound with a critical eye.
“Clean cut,” she acknowledged. “The wound is already healing. Keston, I hope you’re tracking progress.”
“This is hardly my first time, Lalanan,” the old halfling snapped. “Now take your arm and leave us to our work.”
The captain grinned as his men began wheeling the severed limb away. “Where’s your vengeance now?” he said. He chuckled. Then a great, green hand wrapped around his head. For a moment, his laughter turned into a scream; then the crushing fingers ended that along with his life. By that time, there were many other screams filling the air.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Pit B arrakas 25, 999 YK
Thorn hadn’t stood idly by while the Deneith captain and his crew prepared the amputation. She knew an opportunity when she saw one, and with her invisibility about to expire, she had to act quickly. She traced a circle on Steel’s hilt.
You are not being observed by magical means, Steel told her. Although I fail to see what difference that makes at the moment.
All the difference in the world, she thought. Returning Steel to his sheath, Thorn quickly wove a second spell, one that fortunately required no words of power to invoke. She could feel the tingle across her skin as the mystical disguise took hold. She couldn’t see the results while she was still invisible, but there was nothing for it but to trust
