CHAPTER THIRTY — FIVE
These are the rooms of the duke’s residence, in this wing,” Selinda told Dram, gesturing to a long, high hallway paneled in dark wood. “His private apartments are down there.”
The dwarf and the princess, with the gnomes hurrying along behind, trotted down the castle corridor. Dram, his axe ready, looked alertly to the left and right, still uncertain if he could trust this woman. Just as they turned into the passage, a grizzled knight of Solamnia with the epaulets of a captain lunged into their path. The dwarf instantly recognized the officer whose company had discovered the companions in the apple grove, the very knight who had arrested Jaymes Markham. The man’s sword was out, and he advanced on the dwarf with a murderous glare.
“Thank the gods I found you, Princess!” cried Captain Powell, “Get away from her, you scoundrel!”
The knight closed in without waiting for a reply. Dram raised his axe and adopted a fighting crouch, ready to draw blood.
“Captain Powell-wait!” cried Selinda. The woman stepped between the two glaring combatants.
“Don’t be fooled, lady!” cried the captain. “It’s the same dwarf as accompanied the Assassin! They’re in this together! His comrade is in the castle, already under guard-let me take him, now!”
“No! I already know that Markham is here, too!” she declared. “We’re going to look for him now-and I don’t believe he’s an Assassin, any more than I believe you’re the master of the thieves’ guild!”
“What! Wait…” The captain glowered, feeling uncertain. “Didn’t you send for help… say you needed me urgently?”
“Certainly not,” she replied. “I’ve been pacing around like a caged animal, until I finally decided I needed to do something. I encountered Dram-and we are going to see the duke together.”
She frowned, suddenly. “Who told you I needed help?”
“Captain Reynaud.” Powell’s face darkened. He spun on his heel. “Come on!” he shouted, starting off at a run.
Dram and Selinda sprinted after, ignoring Sulfie’s plaintive cries to “Wait up!” The trio raced to the end of the corridor, turning into a dark-walled hall leading to the ducal apartment.
“By Joli-no!” shouted the captain. He sprinted ahead to kneel beside a wounded, motionless man. “Marck!” he cried.
It was Captain Marckus, who lay on the floor outside the game room, bleeding profusely from a wound to his back.
Selinda also rushed to kneel and touch the man’s pallid forehead. “He’s alive, but barely,” the princess said grimly.
Powell glanced at Selinda and Dram, who had joined them. “Either the Assassin did this, or…”
“Stop blaming everything on Jaymes,” said the dwarf angrily. “Can’t you figure it out?”
“It’s Reynaud!” Selinda said.
“Yes!” gasped Marckus. His eyes opened, glowing with a martial spark kindled by fresh outrage. “The traitor…”
“Don’t talk,” the princess whispered. “We’ll get a priest, a healer.”
Dram’s fingers tightened around the haft of his axe as he scrutinized the nearby door. It was banded with iron, made of stout oak timbers. Meanwhile, with Selinda’s help, Powell rolled his fellow captain onto his side as gently as possible. The Palanthian tore a strip from his own shirt to stanch the bleeding.
Marckus extended an arm toward the stout door. “In there…” he croaked.
“Your friend is in there too,” Captain Powell said grimly, glancing at the dwarf. “If he’s still alive.”
Dram hurled himself against the portal but fell back and tumbled to the floor. The dwarf raised his axe to chop at it, but he was stopped by Sulfie, who stumbled up to him, gasping.
“What?” he demanded.
“Your axe… will take too long,” she panted.
“Do you have any bright ideas?” He shook her off, spread his legs, prepared for a mighty blow.
“Pete… he’s got a little container of the compound.”
While the second gnome came staggering up from one direction, burdened by the weight of his backpack, four more knights raced into view, coming up the stairs from the great hall.
“One of you-get a cleric!” Selinda ordered. “One who knows some healing magic!” Immediately two of the knights turned and raced back down the stairs. Two knelt beside Marckus.
“Let’s get him away from here, around that corner,” Dram suggested. The four knights and the dwarf carried the wounded man away from the door. They set him down on a plush rug that must have cost a thousand steel in some eastern market.
The two newcomers identified themselves as Sir Rene and Captain Dayr and said they had made their way back to the castle after finding a passage up from the subterranean chambers beneath the Temple of Shinare. They shocked the others with their tale of a secret shrine located just outside the walls of Castle Caergoth.
“Temple to the Prince of Lies-here?” Selinda exclaimed in disbelief.
“Worse. It sounds as though the duke himself and perhaps one or two others have been corrupted,” explained Dayr. “The priest was gloating-had us all dead to rights. Till the Assassin pulled out a little crossbow and shot him.”
“Reynaud has fooled us all, serving this Prince of Lies,” Powell said, his face dark with certainty.
“The army…” Marckus said weakly. “Reynaud betrayed the army… on the plains.”
“Well, let’s get after the bastard, then,” said Dram.
They returned to the duke’s room. Salty Pete knelt at the door, carefully arranging a small cask. When he extended the fuse and brought out a large, sulfir-tipped match, Dram backed away.
“First, though,” the dwarf said to the lady and the knights backing away with him. “You might want to cover your ears.”
Coryn was choking on the gag the duke had twisted around her jaw. Jaymes was flat on his back, struck hard by a blow from Reynaud’s mailed fist. His head throbbed, and he tried desperately to clear his vision, but all he could see was the foggy outline of the game room and the four people in the room.
“Shall I kill him now?” Reynaud asked his duke, standing over his prone prisoner, triumphantly clutching Giantsmiter.
“No! Not so fast! Let us satisfy his curiosity first!” gloated Crawford.
“Hurry, then,” the captain snapped. “I’m eager to wet this blade with his blood!” Sir Reynaud twisted the hilt of Giantsmiter but snarled in frustration when the blade refused to flame. The captain angrily waved the blade close to the warrior’s face, almost cutting him.
“Lorimar!” Jaymes gasped, trying to focus through his pain on the face of the smiling duke. “Why did you have him killed?”
The duke’s answer astonished him.
“I didn’t! It wasn’t me!”
Coryn groaned through her gag, shaking her head in disbelief. Jaymes drew a slow, ragged breath. Reynaud, though he watched the warrior carefully, made no further attack.
Crawford continued to talk.
“Of course, I wasn’t sad when he was killed. I was a little sad about his daughter-she was a tempting morsel! I would have married her in a minute. Such a loss, that was. Really, a waste, but there are other wenches who know how to decorate a bedroom. The late Lady Martha wasn’t bad in that respect-my next wife, I vow, will be much better!”
The duke turned to the small closet in the side of the room. Jaymes spotted a mirror on the wall in the alcove, and Crawford peered into the crystal glass when he spoke next.
“My lord? I have them both here. Should I kill them now?”
All the warrior could see was a reflection of the room in the crystal mirror. Apparently the duke was
