“Make the darkness,” Dahl hissed. “Hide us!”
“I have a better idea,” Phalar said. And he kicked Dahl into the patch of damaged tiles.
The tiles fell in, and so did Dahl, slipping between the broken beams of the roof to land roughly on a loft piled with detritus and old hay. He’d hardly gotten his breath back, but the veserab’s flexing mouth appeared beside his head, as likely trying to take a bite of the intruder as goading him into riding.
There were two of them now, thrashing and fighting the lines that held their harnesses in agitation.
Dahl rolled to his feet-all too aware of the shouts outside, the nearing voices. He climbed down from the loft, cursing Phalar and skirting the veserab’s wild wings. There were two doors, he noted, one on the side where the carrier had landed, one on the farther wall.
Two shadar-kai men came into the stable, weapons out, muttering to each other in Netherese. Dahl ducked behind a bale of hay, landing in a pile of the veserabs’ stinking shadowstuff castings. He watched the shadar-kai split up, edging around the stable. Looking for the intruder.
Oghma don’t forsake me, Dahl said to himself. He eased from his hiding place enough to gauge the distance, and when the shadar-kai were as far behind the fitful veserabs as they could be, he leaped out. He pulled loose the tethers holding down the veserabs one by one as he ran for the door. Behind him the shadar-kai shouted, and Dahl dared to glance back. One veserab threw itself at the nearer guard, battering him to the ground. The other disentangled itself quickly from the ropes and threw itself at the other door, knocking it wide.
Dahl didn’t wait to see what happened next. He ran through the opposite courtyard, wondering what in the world had possessed him to do something so mad. As he reached the shadows of the fortress wall, hands seized him and pulled him into the darkness.
“See?” Phalar said. “A much better idea.”
Dahl tried to shove the drow back, but Phalar was quick and the darkness, complete. “You nearly killed me.”
“Yes,” Phalar said. “Because I like you, cahalil.” Dahl felt the drow clap him on the arm, and the darkness evaporated. “So you get to be ‘nearly’ dead.” He chuckled again. “Come along.”
They skirted the fortress wall, before slipping in through a trapdoor that led to the cistern.
“There you are,” Phalar said. “Swim through and you’ll come out in the fortress.”
“You really think I’m an idiot.”
“It’s rainwater,” Phalar said. He pulled a pair of skins from his pack. “No one wants to drink the tainted stuff.” He held out a hand. “My dagger?”
“You’re supposed to get me into the fortress,” Dahl said.
“I don’t go into the fortress,” Phalar told him, filling the first skin. “All the stores I steal from are in the outbuildings-where I can get out quickly.
A drow in the fortress would be a little suspect, don’t you think?”
“So how do I know this doesn’t end with me drowning in some underground river?”
“You don’t,” Phalar allowed. He gave Dahl a wicked smile. “I could snatch that blade, cut your throat, and leave you here for some jack to find the next time the wizard gets thirsty.”
Dahl was sure Phalar wasn’t lying-the drow likely had plenty of practice cutting throats in the darkness. But he was also sure that he wasn’t the easy target Phalar expected-especially with the drow god stirring up his adrenalin, urging him to keep the dagger, or maybe leave it buried in Phalar’s gut. “You could,” he said evenly, pushing down that alien brashness for all he was worth. “But then your chances of getting out of here get a little slimmer.
I can’t imagine you like being caged up, put to work for a stlarning half-orc.
But maybe you’re more of a cahalil than you think.”
Phalar smirked. “Well. You’re no fun.”
Dahl waded into the water, up to his waist. The water moved from the small pond he stood in through a narrow passageway. He could see lights beyond, filtered through the cold, dark water. He swam right up to the passage, turned and threw the dagger to Phalar, before ducking under and swimming to the other side.
The cistern room within the fortress was empty, thank the gods. Dahl squeezed as much water as he could from his cloak and shirt, and poured out his boots before donning them once more, half-hoping that the drow would swim up from the cistern and attack him after all-
Dahl shook the urge off and said a little prayer to Oghma as he slipped down the hallway, looking for the armory once more. Much as he’d like to pretend Phalar’s powers were nothing notable, the force still thrumming through him called his bluff. Even with Phalar far behind him. How long was this going to last?
Dahl found the armory and slipped inside. He considered the array of weaponry. Blades, arrows, whips, chains-how much would fit in the sack? How much can you take before they notice? he thought, looking for a new dagger. He was certainly cleverer than some shadow-kissing mercenaries.
Dahl stopped to collect himself-he knew better. He’d worked hard not to be the sort of man that took everything as a challenge. After all, look where that had gotten him.
You’ll be fine in a bit, he told himself. Just don’t make any decisions you can’t undo and keep your steel sheathed. Find a dry uniform, stay calm- As unexpectedly as she’d appeared in the taproom, Farideh stood in front of him, holding a dagger. She looked up at him lazily. Unconcerned. Dahl hadn’t planned this far ahead, what to do or say when he found her, and all the options he’d considered crowded up into his thoughts. For once, Phalar’s damned god had a use.
She’ll cut you down if you don’t take her first, the voice in his thoughts murmured. Dahl reached for his sword, his sureness bolstered by Phalar’s powers. Good, he thought. He wouldn’t be able to do this without it. “Drop the blade,” he said.
Farideh blinked at him, as if she didn’t quite believe he was there. “Dahl?”
“Drop,” he said again, “the blade.”
She looked down at the knife, as if she weren’t sure where it had come from. The dagger fell out of her hands and she threw her arms around him in a way he was very much unprepared for. “You’re all right. Oh gods.” He froze and let go of the sword. Not even Phalar’s god had an answer for this.
“You’re all right,” she said again. “I didn’t know which was the safe one. I was sure. .” She exhaled again, as if it were taking all of her effort to talk. For a moment, he was entirely too aware of her-the curve of her breasts, the strength of her arms, the faint wind of her exhalation, damp with tears on the edge of his collar. She was tall enough to rest her chin on his shoulder, and he noticed this, too, without meaning to.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
She pushed back from him, looking. . tired? Dazed? Embarrassed? Gods, he was still so bad with tiefling eyes. “I don’t know. Something happened.
Everything’s going wrong. I was coming to save you. . but I have to save the girl first, before. .” She inhaled as if she’d forgotten she ought to be doing that. “But I can hardly keep my thoughts. . ”
“What girl?”
“With Rhand,” Farideh said. “She’s so young. But then she’s so strange too. Like a shadow? Like a nightmare? But he’s the nightmare.” She was squeezing his arms, her hands over the sharp buckles of the bracers, and she was swaying on her feet. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. She met his eyes, and the shade of them shifted, darkened. He wondered if she was trying to focus on his face. “I think I was poisoned.” Horror poured through Dahl. “What did he give you?”
“Not like that,” she said. “He calls her ‘my lady’ like he doesn’t want to.