"Norsim's luck has held," Vors said with a chuckle.
Blood and dirt covered Norsim's tabard. The boy stumbled along beside him, lunging from time to time for the small brown bundle that Norsim's companion, Rolk, held in his hands. Norsim shook the boy by the arm as he approached Reht.
"Be still!"
The boy cowered and was still.
"We caught him in the arms of a woman," Norsim said. "She called him 'Elden' before we finished her. And he's the face of an idiot."
Reht grabbed the boy by the chin and pulled his head up. Tears streaked his face. Fear filled his eyes. His eyes were too close together and his tongue stuck out slightly between his lips. His brown hair stuck out in all directions.
"Are you an idiot, boy?"
"Bowny back," the boy said through his tears, and pointed at the puppy Rolk held.
"What is your name?" Reht asked the boy. "Tell me and I will give you the dog."
The boy swallowed, looked from Reht to the puppy, back to Reht. "E'don."
That was good enough for Reht.
"Give him the dog," he said to Rolk.
Rolk held it out and Eldon reached for it. Vors snatched the puppy from Rolk's hands, grinned, and twisted off its head. He threw head and body at Eldon's feet.
"There he is, boy," the war priest said, and laughed.
Elden screamed in horror and threw himself against Norsim. He buried his face in Norsim's trousers and sobbed. "Papa," he wailed. "Papa, Papa, Papa."
"Your papa is never coming," Vors said, still laughing. "Never."
Reht lunged at Vors and punched him squarely in the face. The priest fell on his ass, blood pouring from his nose. He growled, spit blood, started to stand, but Reht put a blade at his throat.
Behind him, the boy's words deteriorated into incoherence, into an awful animal wail of despair.
"Get the boy out of here!" Reht said over his shoulder. He put his foot on Vors's chest and pressed him flat to the ground.
"One time is all you get, priest. Do something contrary to my orders again and you'll bleed from more than your nose."
Vors snarled, daubed at his nose, and grinned. He said, "This is the only time you point a blade at me and live."
Reht backed off a step.
"Raise that axe when you stand. Do it. I'll add you to the corpses."
Vors climbed to his feet, his hand on his axe. His eyes burned with hate but he did not raise his weapon.
Reht had figured as much. No one who tortured a small boy could be anything more than a coward when faced with a determined man.
"Bind the boy," Reht said to Rolk and Norsim. "Execute anyone still alive. Take the horses and whatever foodstuffs we can carry. We ride within the hour."
He still had a few hours of darkness left before sunrise. He wanted the dawn to find him and his men as far from the Corrinthal estate as possible.
CHAPTER TEN
26 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms
Cale sweated shadows. The spire loomed before them. The thick chains anchoring it to the basin creaked under the strain, a sound like muted screams. The spire appeared carved from a single block of rough black stone, as if a mountain had been uprooted, pared down, and hollowed out. Undead shadows clung to its sides like bats to the roof of a cave.
Thousands of malice-filled red eyes stared down at Cale, Riven, and Magadon as they approached. Below them, the churning sea of pitch vomited up another shadow. It streaked past them and took station on the side of the spire.
Cale could channel enough of Mask's power to control or destroy dozens of shadows, but he could not manage the thousands hugging the spire.
To Magadon, Cale said, Mags, be ready with light. As much as you can for as long as you can.
Magadon nodded, eyes wide.
Before them loomed an archway large enough to accommodate the giants. Similar openings appeared on all sides of the spire. Two giants flanked the arch ahead of the three companions. Both wore helms and mail, and held bare swords as long as Riven was tall. Shadows clung to them and they eyed Cale, Riven, and Magadon with poorly concealed hostility.
Dim green light lit the smooth-floored chamber beyond the archway. A crowd of giants was gathering within.
As if on command, the undead shadows surrounding the sides of the spire swooped down in a long cloud.
"'Ware!" Riven shouted.
Riven, Cale, and Magadon had their blades up and ready but the shadows swooped past them and darted through the archway, for a moment blotting out the light coming from within the chamber.
They blew out a breath as one.
Esmor said to them, "There is nothing to fear here."
Cale almost laughed.
Murgan only glared at them in silence.
I hope you're certain of what you're doing, Cale, Riven said. If this goes bad, it will go very bad.
Cale was not at all certain of what he was doing. He had only a loose idea in his mind of what he would do when he saw Kesson Rel. He needed to see the lay of the room and Kesson's location in it. But he knew they would not get a better opportunity.
Just be ready, he said to Riven.
Riven nodded, murmured a prayer to Mask as they walked. His saber blades leaked shadows. He pulled his magical spell-storing stone from his belt pouch and tossed it into the air before his face. It stayed aloft and orbited his head.
"What are you doing?" Murgan asked, in the lazy tone of a dullard.
"Mind your own affairs, dolt," Riven answered.
They walked through the archway and into the round chamber beyond.
The eyes of two score giants fixed on them. Darkness trailed around the great creatures, just as it did from Cale. Undead shadows blanketed the walls. Cold radiated from them. Cale glimpsed a few dark-cloaked humans moving among the throng, their expressions sly. Immense archways before them and to their left and right opened onto adjacent corridors and chambers.
A mosaic on the floor formed a great purple circle ringed in black. The giants had taken care not to stand upon it. The purple disc motif reappeared throughout the assembled giants and humans on tattoos, necklaces, armbands, tabards, shields, holy symbols.
Cale recognized the symbol, though he did not understand its presence in the spire. Rivalen Tanthul had borne a similar symbol.
Shar.
Statues of the Lady of Loss, cast in dull black metal, stood around the perimeter of the chamber. Some showed Shar in her guise as a lithe human woman armed with daggers. Others showed her in a long cloak, her face hidden within a hood. Cale was reminded of the statues he had seen long ago outside the Fane of Shadows.
The ceiling soared above them to a height of fifty paces. A wide balcony of black stone jutted from the wall opposite them, about halfway up its height. A glittering purple cloth lay draped over the balustrade.
Cale, Riven, and Magadon stopped abruptly. Murgan pressed close behind them.
On the balcony, looking down on the assembled crowd, stood the man who had stolen divinity from the God of Thieves. He looked cast from metal himself.
Ivory bracers and earrings contrasted markedly with skin the color of obsidian. He stood a head taller than Cale and ribbons of shadow curled languidly about his form. Cale made him as a shade.
Black horns, curled like a ram's, sprouted from his bald head. His angular features showed no emotion as he unfolded membranous black wings and met Cale's gaze. His eyes were as dark as holes.
Shadows boiled from Cale's flesh. Weaveshear vibrated in his hand.
That is Kesson Rel? Magadon asked.
That is him, Cale answered.
A wild-eyed female gnome stood at Kesson's side, holding the hem of his leather cloak off the floor. Her long red hair stuck out in spikes. She shifted on her feet and eyed Cale, Riven, and Magadon with undisguised eagerness.
To Cale's surprise, he felt nothing. Not awe, not fear, not anger. Kesson was just another mark that Cale had been hired to kill. His pay would be Magadon's soul.