“Then there’s Star.”
Theodenes paused. “Star?”
“Oh yes. You probably didn’t get all of that, but Star’s alive somewhere in the castle. I think Rivven told the wizard he could have him.”
Theodenes scrambled to his feet and promptly fell back down again on his rear end. “A wizard? The only thing a wizard would want to do with Star is conduct some sort of foul thaumaturgical rite upon him and extract his essence or harvest his remains for supernatural reagents!”
“Right. I knew you wouldn’t be very happy with that idea.”
“What about the highmaster?”
Gredchen handed some nuts to Theodenes, who sniffed at them before popping them into his mouth and chewing them noisily. “She’s taking Vanderjack back to Wulfgar. They made some kind of strange bargain. Vanderjack wasn’t pleased to find out that he had come all this way to bring the painting back and not some beautiful woman.”
“I ab nob surpbride,” said Theodenes, his mouth full of chewed nuts. “I woub be agry doo ib I fow dout.”
Gredchen frowned at him, finishing the nuts and turning to the fruit. “So you’re angry too?”
“I am angry to the core!” he said, greedily eating the sliced fruit and getting juice all over his beard.
“About the painting?”
“That is between you and Vanderjack,” said Theo, remembering to swallow first. “But the sellsword has a financial obligation to me, he can’t just disappear; he owes me big for all he’s done, right down to killing my cook!”
Gredchen brightened. “So you’ll return with me to the castle?”
“Do you think my expandable conflict primacy attainment utility is there too?”
Gredchen squinted. “Your what? Oh, your polearm? I’m sure it is; it’s such a valuable weapon.”
“Excellent! Then in an effort to rid myself of unnecessarily distracting anger and resentment, I shall accompany you-with addenda to be added to our contractual agreement at a later date-and retrieve both the painting and Star from the castle. Vanderjack too, if he’s still around.”
Gredchen smiled. “Thanks, Theo. That means a lot to me.”
“Nonsense,” Theo said. “As a mercenary, a master of weapons and tactics, an expert at overcoming obstacles, and as a gnome, I forsake paltry gratitudes. I shall be doing this for the glory of discovery and the attainment of purpose.”
Theodenes stood up once more. He smiled at his success, put one foot before the other, and fell flat on his face in the soft mud.
Ten minutes later, with their stomachs full and mud wiped away, Gredchen and Theodenes packed up what remained of their temporary camp and headed back along the road to Castle Glayward. Along the way, Theodenes began to formulate a plan.
“How long have you known this wizard?” Theo asked.
“About ten years,” she replied. “It’s complicated. He’s been working for Rivven Cairn at least as long as the occupation of Nordmaar.”
“Is she not herself a sorcerer of some description?”
Gredchen nodded. “Yes. Studied under Emperor Ariakas. But mages are a strange lot. Very few of them master all of the different fields of magical study. Rivven never really studied the arts of conjuration and binding pacts of dark magic. She’s more ambitious and a little obsessed with fire and war.”
“Sensible, given her position,” said Theodenes.
“So she hired Cazuvel years ago to work for her. She had some contacts within the Towers, I suppose. Mages who were more afraid of her and of Ariakas than they were of the Conclave.”
The two of them rounded a bend. The castle loomed over them from atop its mesa, awkward and towering in the early-evening gloom.
“I have dealt with wizards and their ilk before,” Theo mused. “If, as you say, this Cazuvel has been working with the highmaster for a decade, he must surely have the advantage of knowing this castle better than we do.”
“I know it just as well as he does,” Gredchen said. “I grew up here.”
Theo looked at her. “You were here as a child?”
Gredchen stammered. “Well. Yes. Sort of. I mean, you know how it is in castles. There’s a lot of people living and working inside of them. Like a small town.”
“How long, exactly, have you been working for the baron in your current capacity?”
Gredchen ran her hand through her hair. “Oh, roughly ten years.”
“Interesting,” said the gnome and said nothing more as they walked.
When they had arrived at the last sloping approach to the main gates, Theodenes stopped and pointed. Several figures were moving around in front of the castle walls, near the top of the approach; despite the darkness, the gnome could make out their features. They were draconians.
“Kapaks,” he whispered. “See the wings, tightly folded behind them, and their stature-hunched yet nimble. Not dull brutes like the baaz draconians, nor walking arsenals like the sivaks.”
“I know what kapaks are,” she hissed back. “Those must be the scouts that have been ranging through the jungle hereabouts. Rivven must not have taken them with her.”
“I count at least six,” said Theo. “If we walk up the slope to the front gates, we shall be immediately set upon by the venomous blades of a half dozen kapaks.”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Gredchen asked.
“Quite so!” said Theo. He pointed at a number of heavily-vine-laden trees hanging over the road. “We’ll need your knife to cut those down. And those spiked floral arrangements over there.”
A short time later, thanks to the ingenuity of the gnome, Theo and Gredchen had two serviceable grappling hooks fashioned out of thorny spiked vegetation and sufficient lengths of vine to pass for rope. Gredchen located a likely place from which to toss the grapples upward, and together they scaled the sheer, hundred-foot side of the massif upon which the castle stood.
Theo was the first over the side of the cliff, and he looked around. Gredchen came next, but by that point, the gnome had scurried over to a heavy cornice along the base of the castle wall and poked his head around the corner.
When Gredchen joined him, he said, “Four of them appear to have walked in the other direction around the castle. There are only two standing at the gate now. If we are stealthy, we can attempt to overpower them.”
“With just a paring knife?” asked Gredchen incredulously. “What are you going to use?”
Theo tapped the side of his head. “Gnome tactics,” he responded.
Gredchen skeptically agreed to follow his lead, and with their backs pressed firmly against the massive, ivy- covered walls of the castle, the two would-be infiltrators sneaked along in the direction of the front gates.
They had almost reached their targets when Theo heard a loud, choking cough from behind him followed by a sneeze. Horrified, he looked up and saw that Gredchen’s face was blotchy and red, and her eyes were watering.
“My allergies to ivy,” she whispered apologetically, but it was too late. The two kapaks, their copper scales gleaming in the silver moonlight, had heard the noises. Their heads jerked back and forth, sniffing, listening, and they turned to look straight at Gredchen and Theo.
“To arms! To arms!” cried Theo.
The little gnome dashed across the flagstones in front of the gates, straight at the nearest kapak draconian. The two draconians were quite astonished to be charged by such a pint-sized creature, and by the time they could react, the gnome had flung himself into the air and tackled the first creature around its midsection.
Gredchen drew her knife and followed the gnome. The second kapak had leaped backward and looked up to see her charging. It drew what appeared to be a hatchet, licked the business end with its long tongue, and ran to meet her. The axe head was coated in greenish spittle, which Gredchen knew was a deadly poison. She needed to get her knife in quickly before the kapak landed any blows.
Theo and the first kapak were rolling over and over, stopping just shy of the edge overlooking the jungle floor below. Theo had no interest in falling a hundred feet, so he got up quickly and began kicking the kapak while
