Her killer had become an armored knight of lissome form, a helmed dreamshape with a black-slitted visor. She wondered distantly if she had invented it in a state of delirium.
The world raced around her at a frightening pace, with clashing blades and whirling steel, but Soneste felt her part in it slowing down. Tallis shouted again, his voice sounding hushed, faraway. He implored her quietly and urgently to stay with him. The ground collected her, the shadows in the rafters above cajoled her.
And ushered her into a vast, empty sleep.
“Host, no!”
Tallis watched for only a second in shock as the Brelish slid from the assassin’s blade and dropped to the floor. The assassin made no second attack against her to finish her off as it had Haedrun. It turned and struck back at Tallis again, but its blows were feeble. Deliberately ineffective.
The last vestiges of its shadowed form dissolved, leaving him facing the same killer he’d met at the Ebonspire. He knew it couldn’t be a man or woman at all-there was a spirit or demon housed in that slender, steel-armored frame.
The assassin sprinted away from him. It was wounded now, the metal of its body caved in and pierced in ways that would have killed a living soul. Tallis started to pursue, knowing he could keep pace with it with his enchanted boots.
A glance back at Soneste told him she was alive still. Her cloak lay open, her shirt stained in blood, but she was still alive. If he left her now, she would die. Haedrun lay, staring into the shadows above with wide, unseeing eyes. She was gone already.
“Khyber!” he cursed, looking to the retreating assassin once more. The creature had leapt to one of the broken windows, aiming to flee to the docks. If he faced it again another day, he knew with grim certainty that it would be strong again.
“Another day, then,” he promised, seething with rage he could not express.
Tallis stowed his weapon and ran to Soneste. Stanching her wound the best he could, he searched hastily through her pockets for anything that might help but found only a single unidentifiable vial. If it wasn’t a healing draught, it could kill her instead. One of her pouches yielded the missing lens of his darkvision spectacles, which he pocketed quickly.
As he sheathed her rapier, he turned to look upon the aftermath of the fight. Haedrun, lying undignified in a pool of blood. The warforged, Aegis, immobile upon the ground. Cold night wind whistled through the jagged windows of the warehouse. Lying on the ground beside Haedrun was what appeared to be a hollow metal gauntlet-the assassin’s hand. He scooped it up and tucked it into a coat of his pocket, then he kneeled briefly beside the Red Watcher, touched a finger to her forehead, and quickly buckled her sword at his belt.
I will return for you, he promised.
Lifting Soneste into his arms, Tallis exited the building, staring up at the city. The bluffs rose like steps to the topmost tier, where the Cathedral of the Sovereign Host-and help-awaited. A maze of streets, White Lions patrols, and a race against the woman’s own heartbeat lay before him.
As he began his trek, Tallis thought of the pilgrim he’d encountered earlier, walking with his burden away from the docks of the city. The man’s friend had already been dead. One more corpse in the darkness of a Karrnathi autumn.
Aureon, he implored the night sky, keep this one alive. Please.
“Find Haedrun Kessler,” its master had said. The words still echoed through every fragment of its being, giving it purpose when there had been none moments before the order was given. “Follow Soneste Otänsin until she finds the man Tallis, who will in turn lead you to Haedrun.” Those last seventeen words had been unnecessary. It could have improvised the means of finding its quarry, but its master’s ignorance had narrowed down its options and led it to be damaged in an unnecessary fight.
“Silence Haedrun when you have found her and be sure she is dead before you return,” the voice had continued, giving the first objective a terminus. “Her usefulness has ended.”
It didn’t need or care for explanations. Motive was inconsequential, a useless quality of the listless denizens of the material world. It lived only for movement and function.
“Kill only this woman. Abort only if your own destruction is imminent, then return and report.”
Behind its master, the other construct had looked on without comment.
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Wir, the 11th of Sypheros, 998 YK
Soneste opened her eyes, remembering the visceral pain of sharp metal sliding into her belly. She pushed the blanket down and delicately probed her body. Bandages had been tightly wrapped around her stomach and waist. Only a dull ache remained, but her mind recalled the agony with perfect clarity. She had trained her mind to store both images and words in her inquisitive work, but as a consequence even her unpleasant memories were often retained.
She was safe now, she felt that much. Where was she-a Jorasco house? Recovering from such a wound would have taken weeks naturally, so she knew magic been used to heal her. Her sharp eyes caught the shape of the Octogram carved in relief above the room’s only door, symbol of the Sovereign Host.
She sat up and looked around. The room was spacious and comfortable, with an outline of morning light framing heavy curtains high on the wall above her. The wall opposite her housed a tapestry, finely woven with threads of violet, red, and gold. In a corner between the two was a small table only large enough to accommodate the game board sitting there. Carved figures of rosewood and ebony, resembling kings and soldiers, were arrayed within alternating squares of light and dark-Conqueror, one of Karrnath’s favorite pastimes.
There was a mirror affixed to the final wall with a dim cold fire lantern ensconced beside it. Below that, her shiftweave clothing and gear had been neatly folded on a small table, along with her boots and satchel.
Her weapons were nowhere to be seen.
Soneste stood, ready to assess her whereabouts. As she moved, an echo of the pain returned. She sucked in a breath and steadied herself with one hand against the bedpost.
The door opened and a brown-haired elf wearing green vestments stepped into the room. He bore no obvious weapons but carried a cloth-wrapped bundle in his hands and a broadsheet rolled up beneath one arm. It didn’t look like the Korth Sentinel.
“I wouldn’t walk just yet,” he said. “Please, take your time. Recover your balance first. That’s key.”
Soneste was grateful to note that whoever had tended to her-this elf? — had left her undergarments in place. She’d spent more than one night in a Jorasco hospital before, and it had looked nothing like this. Their rooms were small, stark, and efficient; this one was amateur yet homey. The halflings of Jorasco were more professional, perhaps-and ultimately more effective-but they would have cared less about a dying woman’s modesty. A faint aroma lingered in the air, but it smelled more like incense than a healing poultice.
“I’m well enough,” she answered, sitting back down on the bed. If she couldn’t look around just yet, she would glean from this elf whatever she needed to know.
“The wound is cured, but some pain will linger. The blade scraped against one of your ribs. If you can wait a while longer, I will use a spell to take the edge off.”
“Do I have a choice in the matter?” she asked. “Or am I prisoner here?”
“You can choose to wait patiently,” he answered, lips curling into the hint of a smile. “Or you can choose to wait impatiently. I’d recommend the former.”