Her eyes cut him off. With a glance toward their escort, Idaria replied, “The blow to your head still bothers you, I see. I will brew a tea that will ease your pain and restore your thoughts. If you can walk, we should go now, Sir Stefan.”
“I … I can walk.”
She pointed in the direction of his rooms and as the party started off, surprised him by taking his arm, and, once again, he thought, it seemed the chains were no impediment to her.
Only minutes later, Golgren burst into Stefan’s rooms without preamble. He took in the scene: a concerned Idaria was bending close to the human’s face. However, she leaped to her feet as her master entered with Wargroch and four guards at his heels. Golgren hesitated, something about the sight displeasing him. Over the centuries, humans and elves had often intermingled. The scene before him meant nothing, and yet it bothered him. It was more of a struggle than usual to keep his emotions under control, to keep his expression less … ogre.
“His head struck hard when one of the assassins fell upon him,” the elf slave dutifully informed the grand lord as she stood up and went to rinse out the cloth she had been using. “I have treated the area. His other wounds are superficial.”
Still, Golgren said nothing. He told the guards to step outside but kept Wargroch with him. Then, adopting a friendly grin, the ogre leader went up to the knight and exclaimed, “So terrible what has happened, yes? But so glad I am to hear that Sir Stefan Rennert has triumphed and is well! And once again, the tales of the mighty Solamnics prove no legend! Three taken down, even while you were trapped! Ha! You see, Wargroch, how worthwhile a pact between these knights and ogres is?”
“The grand lord is wise.”
The knight looked uncomfortable, but Golgren did not press him as to the reason. “I swear to you, this will not go unpunished, Sir Stefan Rennert. Khleeg is like the hound on the hunt; he will seek out our enemies and find the culprits.”
“If I can be of any service-”
The grand lord grinned even wider. “I would hear the story. It may be that something occurs to my mind.”
“Gladly.” The knight gave a short but succinct detailing of the incident. Golgren listened. On the surface, there was nothing he could question, but the ogre did have his suspicions, especially since he had viewed the bodies with Khleeg and Wargroch.
No blade had so savagely torn out the throat of the one guard.
Throughout the telling, Golgren watched Idaria. Her beautiful face was devoid of expression, but that was expected. Golgren had other ways of reading her, and what he saw further fueled his thoughts about the full truth of the attack.
But, of course, the grand lord gave no hint of his suspicions. After all, he had utter trust in only one person-himself. The only other person in whom he had ever confided had been slaughtered by the black-shelled warriors. Slaughtered, in fact, by humans not that dissimilar from Stefan Rennert.
“Such a tale, such a fight,” Golgren said admiringly when the knight had finished. “Sir Stefan Rennert, you are a G’RathItar, a warrior favored by the spirits!”
“Fortune smiled upon me,” the human remarked, wincing from one of his small wounds.
“Yes. Oh, but you must rest still! My Idaria, she will see to your needs. Come, Wargroch!”
The grand lord marched out without sparing another glance at the elf. He was determined to investigate the incident further. In the meantime, Idaria knew what he expected of her, no more, no less.
“Donnag has clan,” suggested Wargroch as he left with Golgren. “There is the son, a magic one, Maldred.”
“Yes, but they are not so foolish, I think. Maldred also has no more love for his father or clan.” Golgren’s hands stroked his chest where the larger of the two objects hanging around his neck dangled. “Perhaps, though … ”
They were met in the hallway by Khleeg. Saluting his lord, he grunted in Common, “These assassins, all guards I know. All loyal.”
“Huh! Hated humans?” Wargroch asked. “Maybe that?”
Golgren bared his teeth. “How can they be loyal? They would not thus risk my wrath. There is more, Khleeg. You. Wargroch. Find the truth. Maldred, perhaps. Others … find them.”
They slammed their fists on their chests and hurried off. Golgren sent his remaining guards with them. He did not need bodyguards in his own palace.
In the years prior to his slaying of Zharang, he would have gone in search of the truth himself rather than leave it in the hands of minions. But since his old master was dead-and Donnag too-Golgren was forced to delegate many tasks.
Still, there were avenues of investigation that only he could follow, for none of those even among his inner circle knew of Tyranos’s monstrous catch. Golgren suspected that the one assassin’s demise was caused by some predator. Yet no meredrake or ji-baraki wandered the halls unfettered. Besides, they would have been just as likely to feast on the human afterward.
The slaying had also been done with too much purpose for a simple beast, and that brought Golgren’s thinking around to only one possibility: a gargoyle.
But what did the gargoyle want with Golgren? Why would a gargoyle help Golgren? Why save the human when his death would have upset the grand lord’s plans tremendously?
Something suddenly dropped near his feet. Golgren recoiled, but when the object did not move, he cautiously bent to retrieve it.
He pulled back his hand almost immediately, his fingers wet with a familiar crimson moistness. The object lay mangled, but he recognized what covered most of it:
Flesh, gobbets of the flesh of an ogre.
Quickly recovering from his astonishment, Golgren inspected the object. Seizing it up, the grand lord wiped it clean on his own garment in order to see it better. It was a talisman of some sort, shaped into a small golden starburst. From what the ogre could see, it had once been fastened into the very skin in which it lay.
Was it skin from the throat of the third assassin?
Golgren turned it toward the light of the nearest torch, trying to better make out a symbol in the very center of the talisman.
That symbol flared to life, a brief puff of flame rising up from it, a momentary, living representation of the symbol.
Startled again, Golgren dropped the talisman. As it clattered to the floor, all hint of fire vanished.
Cursing himself for his carelessness, the ogre leader bent to find the piece and clutch it in his hand. Already suspicions formed in his mind as to its significance and why it had been worn on the throat of the assassin, a guard considered loyal by Khleeg.
Something swooped down from the dark corners above. It landed on two heavy feet, its wings nearly spreading from one wall to the other. It stood almost as tall as the ogre and certainly as wide as any of his guards, none of whom were around, thanks to Golgren having dismissed them.
It was a gargoyle.
The male gargoyle appeared to dwarf the one Tyranos had captured. It had eyes more aware than the other one too, eyes that stared intently, as if reading far more about the grand lord’s true self than the half-breed desired anyone to know.
Golgren poised to defend himself, reaching for the dagger hidden in his garments, always available as a quick and devious weapon.
But the gargoyle did a strange thing. It laughed-a coarse, mocking sound-then uttered in crude Common, “Fool of a ruler.”
And with that, it took to the air, flying directly at Golgren. The grand lord grabbed for the dagger, but at the last moment, the gargoyle veered above him. The winged creature soared past the ogre then vanished through a window.
The last thing Golgren heard was another short, mocking laugh.
All the Titans required the elixir to regularly rejuvenate themselves, otherwise they would enjoy the fate of Donnag. That eve of elixir-taking was a particularly momentous one, for it was none other than Dauroth himself who would imbibe.