Magic weapons weren’t any easier to come by-at least not when you’d been kicked out of the largest city in the area. Greddark had tried asking around in Olath, but those who trafficked in such items rarely advertised on the street, and even if you could find a seller, transactions were often by appointment only. Not an option when the four moons which were currently full would all begin waning in a matter of days. If they stayed on schedule, Aryth would still be full by the time they reached Shadukar. If not, their job would become that much harder.
So he’d taken the precaution of borrowing a vial of liquid belladonna extract from Andri before they entered the ruined city. He couldn’t coat his own blade with the mixture-since it was neither silver nor magical, any wound from the short sword would heal before the poison could be introduced into the lycanthrope’s bloodstream. No, if it came down to it, and he was forced to fight Quillion before Andri and Irulan arrived, he’d have to remove the stopper and splash the mixture in the werewolf’s face, praying that some of the liquid reached Quillion’s eyes or the soft, delicate tissues of his nose or mouth. With any luck, he might be able to blind the lycanthrope before it tore his throat out. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He wasn’t often lucky.
They reached the junction much more quickly than Greddark would have liked. A long-dry fountain served as the circle’s centerpiece, carved from a single block of bluish-green marble and depicting a merman in mid-leap, seaweed and shells twined in his hair and beard and a trident carried in one webbed hand. The trident was an ancient symbol of the Devourer, and finding the emblem of the god of destruction right where they were about to spring their trap struck Greddark as a very ill omen indeed.
He saw no further signs of their pursuer as they neared the fountain, but the hairs on his neck refused to relax-the lycanthrope was out there, watching them. He could feel it.
Sighing, he put their plan in motion. He sneezed once, loudly, an action that was not entirely a charade-the dust and ashes stirred up by their passage floated in the air and tickled his nostrils with every breath. He could taste Shadukar’s death on his tongue, oily and rancid.
Irulan, still on foot ahead of him, turned to shush him with an angry gesture. If he hadn’t been anticipating it, he would not have seen her drop the ball he’d given her in his horse’s path. Marking where it landed, he shrugged apologetically at her and urged his horse onward, guiding it until it stepped right on the spot where the ball lay.
As if on cue, the horse balked, whinnying in discomfort and lifting its leg off the ground. If Greddark had been a better horseman, the ball of spikes-a trick he’d learned from the Karrns, who used the tiny balls against opposing cavalry during the War-would not have been necessary, but they had to make it look convincing. Hopefully, the spiked ball would not actually hurt the horse, merely lodge in its hoof and make walking uncomfortable until it was removed.
“Something’s wrong with the horse,” he said loudly to Andri, who’d ridden up to see why Greddark had stopped. “Maybe the shoe-I’ll check it out, but you two should go on and see if you can find the lair. I’ll catch up to you afterward.”
“Are you sure?” The paladin frowned, his brown eyes concerned. He hadn’t been thrilled with the idea of leaving Greddark undefended. Frankly, Greddark wasn’t all that happy about it himself, but as the only one of them the lycanthrope had no reason to fear, he was the obvious choice for bait.
“Yes,” he responded, perhaps a bit too forcefully, but Andri did not argue further. He simply nodded.
“Very well. If you should require aid-”
“Scream and you’ll come running? Along with anything else that might be hiding out in this Host-forsaken shell of a city. No thanks.” Greddark swung his leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground. “I’ll be fine.”
The paladin considered him for a moment, then shrugged. He urged his mount onward, motioning for Irulan to continue. The two were across the circle, around another bend, and out of sight in moments.
Greddark led his limping mount to the fountain, Irulan’s mare tagging along behind, whickering softly in complaint. He tied the reins to the merman’s outstretched arm, then sat on the edge of the basin and lifted the horse’s leg to look at the affected hoof. As he made of show of examining the shoe, he pulled out a small knife and dug the spiked ball out of the sole of the animal’s hoof. Perhaps Olladra did smile on him, after all-the spikes had come a sovereign’s width from puncturing the spongy frog and causing the horse real injury.
He heard something-a footfall?
He thought it came from the road behind him, but in this empty, echoing city, it was hard to ascertain the cause or direction of any noise. He pretended not to notice, cooing comfortingly to the horse while he palmed the vial of belladonna. As the glass slid across his sweaty hand, he realized that he was frightened in a way he hadn’t been while facing down the ghost tiger, which surely could have killed him as easily as any lycanthrope.
But, then, he knew he could hurt the magebred cat. Not so one of the moontouched.
He was alone, with a crazy, possibly murderous werewolf sneaking up on him, and his only defense was a vial of purplish-green liquid that smelled like an ogre’s breath after a night of hard drinking.
The surprise was not that he was afraid, but that he wasn’t more so.
There. Another footfall. He was sure of it this time.
Twin whinnies from the horses as they pulled against their tethers confirmed it. Quillion was here.
With a prayer to Onatar and Andri’s Silver Flame-because it couldn’t hurt to have the favor of a deity whose very essence was anathema to werebeasts-Greddark popped the stopper on the vial and turned, intending to fling its contents full in the lycanthrope’s face.
Instead, the vial was slapped out of his hand and sent flying to the ground where it shattered, the belladonna extract oozing out to form a nacreous puddle.
Greddark found himself looking at the business end of a war spikard aimed straight at his head.
His eyes focused on the quarrel, then followed the shaft of the crossbow bolt upwards to his assailant’s arm, and the dark lines of the Mark of Detection that wound up it. Above the arm, violets eyes regarded him coolly out of a delicate face framed by soft golden curls.
The half-elf from Sigilstar flashed him a smug grin.
“I told you it wasn’t over.”
Greddark thought quickly. She was a bounty hunter, not an assassin, or she would have killed him in the City of Spires. If he could stall her, get her talking, it would give Andri and Irulan time to get in position. Thankfully, Irulan was the one with the ranged weapon. Unlike the paladin, she would have no qualms about loosing an arrow into an enemy’s back.
He hoped.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said, taking a step back toward his horse so he could see her better.
“Don’t move,” she said, her grin morphing into a scowl as she resighted the crossbow. “My employer wasn’t too explicit on whether he wanted you dead or alive, and it’s a lot easier to transport a corpse.”
“Your employer?” There were a lot of people who might put a bounty on his head, but most of them would have been quite specific about the dead part.
The half-elf shrugged. “You’re the inquisitive. You figure it out. It shouldn’t be that hard. But first get your hands in the air and turn around-slowly, unless you want to find yourself doing a bad impression of the House Orien unicorn.”
Greddark complied, raising his arms and turning around, not risking a glance at the road where Andri and Irulan should be entering the junction. He prayed to Olladra that the two would have the sense to change their tactics once they saw they weren’t dealing with Quillion-he didn’t relish a crossbow bolt sticking out of the back of his head any more than the front.