“Catch! Slay!” The gargoyle alighted atop a broken column a short distance from Geran, red rage burning in its eyes. Two more of its fellows circled overhead, apparently drawn by the struggle. The monster flexed its talons and hissed at Geran.
His sword was somewhere on the beach below. The compass was lost somewhere in the maze of ruins around him, if it hadn’t been shattered by the drop. He could barely stand. And he had at least one broken bone, perhaps more. Geran bared his teeth in a fierce snarl. His death was likely moments away, a fact that filled him with fury and frustration. If he fell here, Mirya and her daughter would likely never escape from whatever fate the masters of the Black Moon consigned them to. But he meant to die fighting and die on his feet, if that was all fate offered.
Holding the gargoyle’s gaze, he shaped a single arcane word with his will and whispered, “Cuilledyrr!”
The gargoyle sprang at him from its perch, claws outstretched. Geran stood his ground as long as he could before dodging aside. He managed to twist out of the way of the deadly claws, but his injured knee gave out under him, and he went down in the loose rubble and wiry grass of the street. The gargoyle gave one gloating hiss and threw itself back at him to finish him off. Then the shrill ring of steel on stone echoed through the air. Geran held out his right hand-and his sword of elven steel flew hilt- first into his open hand, summoned from the beach below by his word of calling. In one fluid motion Geran buried the swordpoint in the gargoyle’s black heart. The thing screeched horribly in his ears, and its body slammed him back to the ground again.
He struggled to free himself from the monster’s dead weight and looked up to see the gargoyles who’d been circling above swooping down on him. He didn’t have the strength to fight off another of the monsters, let alone two at once. Wildly he looked up and down the street, searching for some sort of shelter, some defensible position. All that he saw was the dark doorway of a dilapidated palace across the street. There was no way he could outrun the gargoyles to the doorway, but he had one last card to play. As the two monsters swooped down on him, Geran fixed his eyes on the darkness inside the stone archway and mustered the strength for his spell of teleportation. In the blink of an eye he was no longer on his hands and knees in the rain-soaked street outside, but instead kneeling in the clutter and debris inside the palace, looking back out at the place where he had been. The gargoyles screeched in frustration, fluttering and bounding from side to side in search of their missing prey.
Geran held still, hardly daring to breathe. If the monsters peered too closely at the doorway, they would surely see him … but the creatures moved down the street, passing out of his sight. He heard their wingbeats and their croaking voices moving away.
With a sigh of relief, he climbed to his feet. The interior of the palace was dark and cluttered; he could barely see anything inside. He hobbled a couple of steps away from the open doorway, just in case the gargoyles returned-and then his foot plunged through the floorboards. He hit the floor hard, and the whole thing gave way, sending him into the cellar below in a cascade of rubble and dust. For the second time in the last hundred heartbeats, Geran found himself falling. He hit the bottom, struck his head on something hard, and sank into dizzying darkness.
TWENTY-ONE
14 Marpenoth, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)
The smell of smoke still clung to Hulburg despite several days of intermittent rain. Rhovann believed it was an improvement over the customary odor of the city. He’d never cared for the cities of humankind, with their crowding, their cookfires and forge smoke, their garbage, their unwashed masses. In his more honest moments he might admit that the cool, damp air of Hulburg’s autumn was much more tolerable than, say, Mulmaster or Hillsfar in the middle of the summer-but he was not often inclined to give Hulburg the benefit of the doubt.
A shame the Black Moon hadn’t burned more of the place, he reflected as he gazed from the carriage at the street outside. Rhovann knew it ran counter to his ally Sergen’s purpose to destroy the city outright, but in his eyes it wouldn’t have done that much harm for a few blocks to be burned down. After all, each injury he inflicted on Hulburg was one more bitter draught of justice for Geran Hulmaster to savor. The wrongs Rhovann had endured at Geran’s instigation were many and great, and it might take a human lifetime to repay each one appropriately.
In the seat opposite Rhovann, Maroth Marstel frowned as they passed another burned-out building, one that had survived the Black Moon attack only to be destroyed by a fire set during rioting two days later. “We should muster a few hundred armsmen and clean out the Tailings,” the old lord muttered. “Drive those Cinderfists, those foreign criminals, out of Hulburg forever, before they ruin everything. That’s the first thing I’ll do as harmach, mark my words.”
“Everything in its own time, my lord,” Rhovann said. “First we must convince Grigor Hulmaster to step down-or force him to if he fails to see reason. After all, he is simply the wrong man for the times.”
“The wrong man for the times,” Marstel said softly. It was not his own thought, but he was so deeply under Rhovann’s dominion, he likely believed that it was.
“Do not speak of becoming harmach again. It is a secret between you and me.”
“A secret …” Marstel smiled, and his eyes took on a cunning cast. “I have a secret.”
Rhovann frowned. Maroth Marstel was not a young man, and between besotting himself with drink and a certain native lack of wits, he very well may have started along the long, confusing road that afflicted some humans as they grew old. Rhovann had used spells of compulsion and control on Marstel for months now with little concern for the innate soundness of the man’s mind. He found with no small vexation that he did not know exactly how his magic was likely to be affected by the subject’s slide into senescence-one more unpleasant characteristic of humankind seemingly designed for his personal frustration and annoyance. It might be wise for Marstel to spend more of his time out of sight of others and to adopt a pretense that the House mage Lastannor was an especially loyal, competent, and trusted subordinate who conducted most of Marstel’s business so as not to trouble the great man with needless details.
In a tenday or two that will be Sergen’s concern, not mine, Rhovann reminded himself. After all, he didn’t care what became of Hulburg after he was finished dealing with Geran. Whether Sergen succeeded in seating a puppet on the throne-such as it was in this rude little backwater-or lost control of the city as Marstel’s failing mind became apparent to all didn’t matter to him in the slightest. But just in case, Rhovann murmured the words of his domination charm and erased the childishness from Marstel’s expression.
The carriage rolled into the courtyard of the harmach’s castle, and footmen appeared to help Marstel from the coach. Judging from the other carriages in the courtyard, Rhovann guessed that they were the last to arrive. He allowed Marstel to lead the way into the castle’s great hall and trailed a step or two behind. The other members of the Harmach’s Council waited by the table, conversing with each other or studying their notes. Seated in the row behind the place reserved for Marstel as the head of the Merchant Council, the heads of the other great merchant companies in Hulburg-Sokol, Jannarsk, Double Moon, and Iron Ring-waited as well.
“Lord Marstel! Master Mage Lastannor!” the Shieldsworn guard by the door announced. The murmur of conversation in the room died away, and the various officials took their seats. Rhovann and Marstel sat down just in time to be called to their feet by Harmach Grigor’s arrival. They stood slowly, and the mage studied the ruler of Hulburg as he descended the stairs leading to the great hall. Grigor looked pale and tired, and he sat down with an audible sigh. The councilors and assembled advisors and seconds sat down as well.