“We understand,” the sorcerer said. “But how did you get into the cell?”
Gaedynn sneered like it was a stupid question. “My lady doesn’t need to move around as common people do.” And let’s not dwell on the fact that no wizard in her right mind would shift herself around blindly in an unfamiliar tunnel system without a compelling reason.
“But why go to the cell at all?” the shaman persisted. “I wouldn’t ask, but the prisoners are my responsibility.”
“We didn’t hurt them,” Gaedynn said. “When Lord Jaxanaedegor mentioned them, my lady thought she detected a resemblance to a pair of sellswords who caused trouble in Thay last year. She was curious to see if these were the same two knaves. It turns out they’re not. Now, orc, have I satisfied your curiosity, or will you keep us here until the dragon starts wondering what busybody is detaining his guests?”
“You’re free to go, of course,” the sorcerer said, “and I’m sorry if I gave offense.” He and the other orcs shifted to the sides of the passage.
As Jhesrhi and Gaedynn strode forward, he glimpsed motion at the periphery of his vision. Trying not to be obvious about it, he glanced in that direction.
An eyeless black rat crawled out of the sorcerer’s collar and perched on his shoulder. Where it sniffed repeatedly like a bloodhound.
Would Jhesrhi’s disguises deceive the nose as they did the eyes? Gaedynn had no idea.
He drew the scimitar, pivoted, and cut. The sorcerer fell backward with blood gushing from his throat. The familiar tumbled from his shoulder.
Gaedynn turned, slashed, and dropped another orc. So much for the easy part. The other three had their weapons ready.
They drove in, and he gave ground before them. Jhesrhi slashed her hand from right to left and raked them with a flare of flame. One caught fire and reeled. Though barely singed, the other two faltered. Taking advantage of their distraction, Gaedynn pounced at them and cut them down.
The burning orc dropped too. Gaedynn turned to give Jhesrhi a smile. Facing back the way they’d come, she rattled off words of power and thrust out her hand. Darts of yellow light shot from her fingertips. They plunged into the torso of the orc who’d called to the others. The one that Gaedynn had to admit, to himself if never to Jhesrhi, he’d forgotten all about.
The orc pitched forward. His finger still pulled the trigger of his crossbow, but the bolt merely hit the floor a pace or two in front of him.
“I thought we were trying to trick our way through,” Jhesrhi said. “It still might have worked.”
“Maybe,” Gaedynn said, “but I didn’t feel like giving up the advantage of surprise to find out. Besides, you need a staff, and I a bow. We both need some of that meat.”
Which turned out to be goat. It was still half raw, but they didn’t have time to linger and turn the spit. They gobbled their fill and moved on.
In time they found their way to a broad shelf where the ceiling rose high enough to permit a huddle of stone buildings and stubby towers. Beyond was a gray sky.
The sight of any sky would have excited Gaedynn, but this one all but elated him. Because it was a daytime sky, and not so shrouded in fumes from the volcano as to mask every trace of the sun. No vampire could pursue fugitives under such a sky, and even living but nocturnal creatures like orcs might find it inconvenient.
“What’s the plan?” Jhesrhi allowed her floating light to blink out of existence. “Try to walk out like we have every right to?”
Gaedynn grinned. “Why not? We’re bound to fool somebody, eventually.”
They headed into the cluster of buildings. Gaedynn tried to look like a haughty Thayan warrior having a casual look at the area and finding it contemptible. As opposed to a twitchy escapee, his nerves frayed to rags by fumbling his way through a dark maze of tunnels.
A stooped, dirty man stepped into the sellswords’ path, noticed them, hesitated as though trying to decide whether they were close enough that he needed to bow or kneel, and then settled for scurrying on his way. A sentry, also human, watched their progress from the battlements atop one of the towers, but not with any show of suspicion or even much curiosity.
Beyond the edge of the shelf, the mountainside fell away in a slope shallow enough to permit cultivation. Slaves bent in freshly plowed fields, planting peas or beans in the furrows and grain on the ridges. Overseers with whips sauntered among them.
Nearby was a barn, and horses standing in a paddock. Gaedynn led Jhesrhi in that direction. “Grooms!” he shouted.
Two thralls scrambled into view. They had the same cringing demeanor as the man back on the shelf, and sets of scabby double puncture wounds on their throats.
“The lady and I are going for a ride,” Gaedynn said. “Saddle two horses.”
The men hesitated. Then one said, “The countryside can be dangerous. I can ask the soldiers in the towers to-”
“Now!” Gaedynn snapped.
The slaves flinched, then hurried to obey. He could see they were hurrying, even if the task seemed to drag on endlessly. But finally he and Jhesrhi were in the saddle and, moments later, trotting down the trail that meandered among the fields.
Jhesrhi shook her head. “Strange.”
“What?” Gaedynn asked.
“I wouldn’t have said it while we were doing it, but now that we’re out, escaping almost seemed too easy.”
He laughed. “By my estimation, we have about half an afternoon to put distance between Mount Thulbane and ourselves. Before you make up your mind how easy it was, let’s see how we fare come nightfall.”
SEVEN
GREENGRASS-7 MIRTUL THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
The scent of flowers filled the air. The prayers of druids and sunlords made it possible to grow them in time for the spring festival. Usually they went to decorate public places, or to worshipers to use as offerings, but Cera had diverted two bouquets to fill the vases in her bedroom.
At present, she lay on her stomach with the tangled covers concealing her from the small of her bare back down. Aoth studied her, and she reassured him that she truly was asleep by giving a soft buzz of a snore.
Moving carefully, he stood up, put on the clothes he’d left strewn on the floor, and picked up his spear where it leaned against a chair. She kept snoring.
So far, so good. Now what?
He could rummage through her personal effects, but it would be unfortunate if she woke and caught him. And it seemed likely that if what he was looking for was there at all, he could find some sign of it elsewhere.
He prowled through the rest of her apartments and peeked out into the corridor beyond. It pleased him that some thrifty soul had extinguished the oil lamp. The gloom would obscure him without hindering his own vision.
He skulked on past the chambers of Cera’s subordinates. Moans sounded from one and a rhythmic slap-slap-slap from another. For a moment he smiled. When he was young, the priests of Lathander had been a famously amorous lot, and although Amaunator was supposed to be a more staid and dignified god, perhaps their successors had inherited the same proclivity.
Or maybe it was just Greengrass sparking carnal urges in one and all.
He slipped from the cloister into the sanctuary, where it wasn’t quite as dark. Votive flames burned in one place and another, and the moon and stars shone through the skylights. He didn’t know a great deal about Amaunatori customs, and-concerned that he might encounter a priest performing some late-night ritual, or perhaps a ceremonial guard-he crept even more warily. But there didn’t appear to be anyone else around.
He trusted his fire-touched eyes to reveal the presence of concealed doors and the like, but there didn’t seem to be any of those either. Just stone stairs in plain sight descending into the floor. He headed down and came to a door in the form of a wrought-iron grille. He tried it, and it was locked.