Irulan wished she could ask more questions, but the creature’s growing impatience was obvious. So she simply nodded her thanks. Perhaps Andri or Greddark would be able to puzzle out this choice bit of information later. But first she had to get it to them.
She slung her bow over her shoulder and began an easy lope back towards Artificer’s Avenue and the circular junction. Behind her, the rats swarmed over the road, their long, segmented tales sweeping over the dirt and erasing all the tracks-including their own-as if they had never existed.
At the entrance to the junction, she had the rats wait while she hurried over to speak with Andri and Greddark, who were understandably unsettled to find her at the head of a horde of vermin.
“You brought friends?” the dwarf asked when she got close.
Irulan ignored him. “I need your food,” she said to Andri.
“What? All of it?”
“Just the fruit, vegetables, and bread.”
“That is all of it,” Greddark muttered.
“But that will only leave us with jerky, and oats for the horses,” Andri protested.
“We can resupply in Olath,” Irulan said impatiently. “Just hurry up. They’re hungry, and there’s enough of them they could eat us if they decided to.”
“And why are we feeding the local rat population?” Greddark asked, fishing his own supplies out of his pack and handing them over to Irulan reluctantly.
“Because they’re going to make sure your friend from House Medani doesn’t sneak back to bother us again,” Irulan gave the dwarf a dark look. Then she allowed herself a triumphant grin. “And because they told us where to find Quillion.”
“Beneath the blue waves and black ships?” Greddark asked, flicking his reins. “Sounds like the docks to me.”
Irulan had cast her spell to keep them and the horses from making any tracks, and then they had exited the junction after leaving their rations in the dry fountain basin. They were trying to put some distance between themselves and the squealing of rats feasting on fresh food-including meat, as they tore one another apart to get to the fruit and bread.
Eat or be eaten, indeed.
“I thought of that, but the docks aren’t marked,” Irulan said, astride her own horse now. The nag still fought her. She might be able to calm anything from an angry bear to a host of hungry rats, but no horse had ever responded to her touch or her magic. Flame, but she hated the things, and the need to ride them. Why couldn’t she have been born a halfling? Fastieths had to be easier to handle.
“I don’t think they meant the docks,” Andri said. He looked over at the dwarf. “Let me see the maps again.”
Greddark reined in his horse and handed the maps over, watching Andri with interest. After a few sharp tugs on her own reins, Irulan’s mount followed suit.
Andri pointed to the first spot marked on the map, the large park to which they were heading.
“See this district that backs up to the park? It was known as the Crown District, because of all the nobles who lived there. What if Quillion isn’t lairing in the park, but in one of these estates?”
“So the blue waves and black ships are some sort of family crest?” Irulan asked. That would make sense-since most shifters she knew didn’t care much for any body of water they couldn’t cross under their own power, she would be surprised to find a lycanthrope choosing to lair virtually on the banks of the Sound. Then again, Quillion was supposed to be crazy.
“Yes,” said Andri.
That was abrupt.
“You recognize it?” Greddark asked, picking up on the brevity of the answer.
The paladin looked uncomfortable.
“I believe it is the device used by the Stalsun family. The entire family died in the invasion of Shadukar, all save one-Lady Hathia Stalsun, who now resides in Flamekeep.”
“You know her?” Greddark pressed, his curiosity clearly piqued.
Andri did seem to have a lot of information about her.
“I know of her,” the paladin replied, and something in his tone made Irulan wonder just how well-acquainted he and the Lady Stalsun actually were. Then she decided she probably didn’t really want to know.
“Well, how are we going to figure out which estate belonged to the Stalsuns?” she asked, turning her attention back to the map. “There must be at least twenty properties near the park alone, and that doesn’t include the rest of the Crown District. We can’t possibly search them all.”
“We don’t have to.”
Both Irulan and Andri looked at the dwarf, who was smiling.
“Why not?” Irulan demanded, not liking the inquisitive’s smug expression.
“Your rat friends gave me the idea,” he replied. “Look what they were willing to do for food that was several days away from fresh, and then again what happened when they turned on each other to get that food-a feeding frenzy, driven by the scent of new blood. Of rat blood.”
“I’m not following you,” Irulan said, though she thought perhaps she was-and didn’t particularly like where the dwarf was leading.
“There’s precious little to eat here, and we know Quillion-if it was him-didn’t get a chance to feed on Zoden. What’s more likely to bring him out of hiding than wounded prey on his doorstep, warm and ripe for the eating? Especially when this is the last night with a full moon for another two weeks?”
“And who did you have in mind for this ‘wounded prey’ of yours?” Irulan asked, already knowing the answer.
Eat or be eaten.
Damned rats.
Greddark’s smile widened, as if he had heard her thoughts. “You, of course.”
They would use the same trap as the one they had caught d’Medani in, this time amid the park’s black trees, their leafless branches jutting into the leaden sky like the grasping hands of drowning men, reaching out in supplication-though for what, Irulan couldn’t imagine. She’d been born and raised in the forests of the Eldeen Reaches, learning to climb trees before she learned how to walk. The woods were like a second skin to her, one she sometimes thought fit better than her real one. And while this place might once have been a peaceful woodland, there was nothing of the forest in it now. Burned by the ravaging Karrns, the Greensward was as dead now as on the day seven years ago when the invaders first set torches to its branches. Lifeless. Soulless.
More than the thousands of people who lost their lives when the Jewel of the Sound was plundered, the loss of this idyllic park filled her with a deep grief, and an even deeper rage. The Last War had touched her family only peripherally, and she’d never really understood the hatred the citizens of her adopted homeland had for Karrnath.
Until today.
She wondered why Quillion would choose to lair anywhere near this place. Perhaps he saw it as poetic justice-the charred remains of trees resembled the stakes still used for burning heretics in some parts of Thrane. A reminder that the fire that had taken the lives of so many of his kinsmen-her kinsmen-was indiscriminate, as likely to burn the executioner as the executed.
No. Quillion was not her kinsman. She might be descended from lycanthropes, but she was nothing like them, thank the Flame.
Irulan shook the distracting thoughts away and focused on looking for a likely spot for an ambush. Normally a wooded area such as this would be ideal for their purposes, but the stark, bare trees and lack of underbrush yielded few options. She settled on the bed of a dry pond, surrounded on three sides by a rocky outcropping. A small grotto had been carved into the stone, a place no doubt favored by young lovers during Shadukar’s heyday.
They camped in the cracked bed of the pond, easily finding enough tinder for a small fire that Irulan made no attempt to hide. They wanted Quillion to know where they were.