“Come back later, miss,” the closest soldier answered.
“What’s going on?” she asked with concern. It wasn’t hard to fake it.
“It doesn’t matter. Move along.”
“I saw the Conqueror’s Host mustering,” Soneste added. “Should I be concerned?”
The Lion turned to look at her. There was frustration in his expression. “Yes. That is, no. There’s been bloodshed on the streets. It’s being handled.”
“And bloody wizards coming in from House Medani,” she heard the man behind the guard whisper to the comrade beside him.
The first Lion spun around. “Private, speak out of turn again and you’ll be polishing up the Old Man’s privy for the next month.”
Medani? The House of Detection. Were they looking for her and Tallis … or Halix and Borina?
Soneste slipped away without a word.
Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
Wir, the 11th of Sypheros, 998 YK
Night had fully embraced Korth. The dim light of several moons and the cold fire lanterns of the city saw Soneste’s way to the Community Ward. She had purchased a few supplies of her own as quickly as possible, altering her shiftweave into the same dark clothing she’d worn at the Midnight Market, and made her way to Charoth’s estate.
Aegis’s blue crystal eyes glowed faintly in the darkness. She slipped into the alley between the closed shop and the adjacent building. Buckled around the warforged’s metal-plated waist was the Rekkenmark blade that Jotrem-then Gan-had carried. In his hands, Aegis carried the long sword Haedrun had wielded. Moonlight seemed to collect along its blade, so the warforged tried to hold it out of plain sight.
Soneste wondered where the real Jotrem was. Despite her dislike of the man, she hoped he was all right. At least it was the false Jotrem, Gan, who’d be thrashed by Tallis in Wollvern Park.
The Karrn stood waiting in the shadows behind Aegis, back against the wall. He had discarded his Windwrights garb entirely, wearing the black clothes he favored with their pseudo-military design. A pair of green vambraces girded his wrists. Over his shoulders was a bulging backpack. Most remarkable was the sword strapped in a fine leather scabbard across his back. Its hilt glistened with an emerald light from the jewels encrusted there. A magewrought weapon, for sure.
“Never touch this sword,” Tallis said by way of greeting, his eyes fixed on the manor across the way.
With a start, Soneste noticed a man lying against the alley wall with an empty bottle tucked in his arms. She squinted and saw that his head was twisted in a disturbing angle.
“A sentry,” Tallis explained. “Our ’forged friend here has the stealth of a herd of gorgons, but it’s-he’s-more observant than I took him for. Know any drunks that carry these around?” The Karrn held up a stiletto, the kind used to slip through the greaves of a warrior’s armor.
“Is it common for nobles of Karrnath to place exterior guards?” Aegis asked.
“No,” Tallis answered. “Charoth’s caution is apparent.”
“We were right. Someone has gone missing.” Soneste kept her voice quiet, though the dark street appeared to be empty. She thought of the nimblewright and Lady Erice’s words: It can wear the illusion of any other person, so it can walk among regular people.
“But I hope we’re wrong,” she said.
They turned their eyes upon Charoth’s manor, the Murder House. Soneste described her previous visit, the “yowler” outside, and what little she’d seen of the house’s interior, while Tallis recounted his reconnaissance around the estate. Five other sentries had been posted in various places outside the gate, but Tallis had dealt with them before her arrival.
“They are no shifts tonight. Our dead friend there said every man had been ordered to guard all night.” He turned to Soneste. “This watchdog of his, just how thick was the chain?”
“Strong enough to hold the yowler, it seemed,” Soneste answered, “but it was uncomfortably long.”
The Karrn looked back at the gate. “All right. Just stay behind me. I’ll get us in, but your job will be to locate the captives. No lights until we’re inside. Understood?”
“Yes,” Soneste and Aegis said at once. Weapons in hand, the trio moved across the street, guided only by Tallis, the moons, and the faint light of distant lanterns.
When Soneste had visited the estate the first time, the gates had opened for her. Now the black iron bars formed an impassible stockade. Tallis peered between the tall spikes, searching for any sign of motion beyond. He led them slowly alongside the gate on one side, seemingly counting the individual bars. At last he paused, reaching out with a gloved hand and grasping the black iron. She expected to see a flare of defensive energy, but there was nothing.
“Soul descending,” he said with an odd inflection. The bar vanished beneath his fingers, along with several around him. “Inside, now!”
Soneste and Aegis followed, passing through that section of gate before it disappeared again. “How did you …?” she asked.
Tallis stared into the darkness of the estate before them with an appraising eye. With elf blood in his veins, the Karrn could see much better than she in the dark, but the landscaping was obviously not enough cover for his liking.
Finally, he looked back. “I coerced one of the sentries into telling me the watchword,” he whispered, offering no details. He withdrew from his pack the ivory dispelling wand and held it out to Soneste. “Take this. Verdax said there are only three charges left, so use it sparingly.”
She tucked the wand away, then pointed. “Look, there. The chain.”
Squinting in the gloom, Tallis saw a length of heavy chain on the ground, snaking out from a line of bushes. At the end of the chain, an empty collar. “So where is-?”
A ghastly cry, almost human, rose up from the night itself, sending a painful chill through his spine. Tallis grit his teeth and forced himself to turn, looking for the source. Soneste stood behind him, eyes searching left and right, her expression panicked. Tallis didn’t want to hear that wail again. It made him feel like a child hiding from the dark.
“I see it,” Aegis said, and Tallis turned in time to see a lion-sized animal with motley skin and fur crash into the warforged from a low-hanging eave of the house.
The weight of the beast bore the construct to the ground. Tallis lashed out with the mithral pick of his weapon, but it passed harmlessly through the creature. He remembered Soneste had warned him of this, a displacement glamer that made the yowler appear a short distance from its actual location. He swung again, guessing, and felt the mithral bite into the creature’s hide.
A yelp of pain that sounded too much like a screaming child turned its glowing, catlike eyes upon him. It raked one hideous paw across Aegis’s chest, and the warforged lay perfect still. Tallis wondered if Aegis was dead.
The yowler evidently thought so and padded off the construct to prowl around Tallis. Aegis rolled to his feet and smacked the buckler of his hand against the beast’s rump. It turned, snarling, and Tallis buried the pick’s head into its hide a second time.
Man and warforged continued this barrage as Soneste backed away, evidently frightened by the preternatural yowl that gave the creature its name. Tallis noted that the creature seemed weakened by their blows only marginally. It was going to take a lot more to bring it down.
Soneste managed to load her hand crossbow and aimed it with shaking fingers at the creature. A dart-sized bolt struck the beast on the head, leaving a welt that Tallis swore vanished only seconds later. It was time for a new tactic. He reached for one of his metal rods. The beast finally gave up trying to fight each of its opponents and focused exclusively on one: him.