The Quest for the Trilogy: Boneslicer; Seaspray; Deathwhisper Page 5

  Verdin stood suddenly and snatched a serving platter from a nearby table. The young sailor held the platter up like a shield.

  Spotting the obstruction, Critter tried to stop the attack. Instead, all the rhowdor managed was an ungainly and panicked wing flapping. It hit the wooden serving platter with a pronounced thump! that scattered feathers in all directions.

  The crowd all groaned, “Ooooooooh!” in sympathy.

  Even though he didn’t especially like the rhowdor, Wick winced a little himself. The bird would be lucky if something wasn’t broken by the impact.

  Off balance, Critter sailed on, flapping weakly and somehow gliding back toward Hallekk and the dwarven pirate crew. The front row of human sailors had to duck to let the rhowdor go by. It landed on its back, wings spread across the sawdust-covered floor, feathers wafting through the air in its wake, and came to a stop at Hallekk’s boots.

  “That’s gonna leave a mark,” someone promised.

  “Awwwwwwrrrrrkkkkk!” Critter cried out. The rhowdor lifted its head uncertainly, bobbing at the end of its long neck, and fastened its beady eye on Hallekk. “He sucker-punched me, Hallekk! Struck me while I wasn’t lookin’!” Its head wobbled one last time, then thudded against the floor. The rhowdor lay still.

  Wick stood in frozen awe. Even though he didn’t like Critter, he’d never wished the rhowdor harm. Well, maybe that wasn’t quite as truthful as it could have been. He actually had wished Critter harm; he’d just never wanted to be there when it happened.

  The silence held for a moment as everyone stared at the fallen rhowdor.

  Finally, someone asked, “Is it dead?”

  “We should be so lucky,” someone else (and Wick truly believed it was one of One-Eyed Peggie’s crew that said this) unkindly added.

  Hallekk knelt down and picked up the rhowdor by the feet. The bird dangled limply, a scrawny shadow of its former self. The dwarf squinted at it and smelled its beak.

  “Oh, it’s dead all right,” the big dwarf growled. “Dead drunk.” He shook his shaggy head. “It’s still breathin’.”

  “Be careful with him!” Slops shouldered his way out of the crowd of dwarven pirates. Old and flinty-eyed, he was the ship’s cook. When Wick had been shanghaied and first crewed aboard One-Eyed Peggie, Slops had been a cruel taskmaster in the galley.

  Twisting slightly and flipping his wrist, Hallekk tossed the unconscious rhowdor to Slops. The cook caught Critter tenderly, and held the bird in his arms like a newborn babe.

  “Ye gonna let that loudmouth get away with harmin’ the ship’s mascot?” Slops demanded. “If ’n ye ask me, if ’n ye do, why ye ain’t much of a—”

  Hallekk shoved his big face into the cook’s, stopping Slops’s tirade at once.

  Slops backed away meekly. For all his bluster and loud voice, the ship’s cook knew the first mate would pound him into a Lantessian pretzel. “I’m just gonna take Critter back to the ship. Tend to him a little.”

  “Good,” Hallekk said, “’cause I’ve had me fill of him tonight, I have.” Then he shifted his attention back to Verdin, who still held the serving platter. “Now ye, ye’re gonna take back everythin’ ye said about Master Blacksmith Oskarr.”

  “Over me dead body,” Verdin said. “Or do ye let yer ship’s mascot fight all yer battles for ye?”

  Grim faced, Hallekk started forward, lifting his battle-axe easily in one hand. One-Eyed Peggie’s crew fell in behind him.

  Verdin and his crew stood up as well and advanced a line.

  That was when Wick decided that discretion was once again the better part of valor. He started to turn to head back for the exit in the other room. At that same time, though, Paunsel acted in the only way he knew to prevent damage to his tavern: He shoved Wick in between the two groups.

  Stumbling and flailing, realizing that he very probably looked like a good imitation of Critter flying through the air after he’d struck the serving platter, Wick caught himself against a table and managed to stay upright. Unfortunately, he was between the two groups of combatants, both of whom had braced with drawn weapons against the unexpected attack.

  Cowering, Wick closed his eyes, dropped to his knees, and covered his head with his arms. He waited to be pierced and smited.

  “Wick,” Hallekk growled.

  Cautiously, Wick opened one eye, marveling at his survival. The humans and dwarves still stood poised. I’m not dead. Then he looked at the weapons ringing him, some of them only inches away, and decided that his present predicament hadn’t appreciably improved. He swallowed hard and his Adam’s apple bobbed past a sailor’s cutlass blade both ways, though hanging slightly on the way up.

  “What’re ye a-doin’ here, little feller?” Hallekk asked. There was some sincere warmth in his eyes. He even had a trace of a smile.

  “I’m attempting to keep you from killing these sailors,” Wick said, still on his knees and both hands wrapped around his head, though he had managed to open both eyes now.

  The humans snorted and addressed him with threats regarding their skill and his assumption of who would lose the coming fight.

  Sensing the sudden shifting of the tide of animosity in the room, Wick quickly added, “These brave, brave sailors without whom Greydawn Moors would never have enough trade goods.” Surely that will appease them, the little Librarian hoped. He stopped himself from swallowing again because he didn’t think his Adam’s apple would survive a second trip.

  “Get yer hands off him,” Hallekk ordered. “He’s a Librarian. Ain’t no one a-gonna harm ye.” He knotted a big fist in Wick’s robes and yanked him into a fierce hug that left his feet dangling. “I’ve missed ye somethin’ awful, little man. No one tells a story quite the way ye do.”

  “Hallekk?” Wick wheezed, certain he’d never draw another breath through the cracked rib cage he must have.

  “Aye,” the big dwarf said, his ugly face only inches from Wick’s.

  “Could you put me down?”

  “Well, sure.” Hallekk did with surprising gentleness.

  Straightening himself with as much aplomb as he could muster on knees that rattled with fear, Wick nodded at the dwarf. “It’s good to see you again, Hallekk.”

  “I wish it were under better circumstances,” Hallekk replied. Straightening his kerchief, he waved at Wick. “An’ if ’n ye’ll shove off for a bit, it’ll get better really soon. We got some business here needs tendin’, a bar what needs a-clearin’ of the riff-raff.”

  “Ha!” Verdin exclaimed. “Ye ain’t dwarf enough to get that job done!”

  “About that business,” Wick began, trying to interrupt before they closed ranks with him in the middle, “I really think we should talk.”

  “Ain’t no time for talkin’.” Hallekk glared fiercely across the top of Wick’s head. “Gotta smash the knobs of these here bilge rats.”

  “Gonna be smashed, ye mean,” Verdin said.

  “Maybe I can help,” Wick said.

  The human and the dwarf looked at him.

  And maybe I can die right here, Wick thought, shrinking inside like new-fallen snow under a gentle rain.

  “How can ye help?” Verdin asked.

  Hoping that his weak knees didn’t desert him entirely, Wick stood erect as Grandmagister Frollo always told him to when he addressed assemblies at the Vault of All Known Knowledge. “I’m a Second Level Librarian at the Great Library,” he said. “You’re obviously in a war of wits.”

  “An’ they didn’t come armed,” Hallekk said.

  Verdin scowled at the big dwarf. “Mayhap he’s come to take yer final words.” He turned to Wick. “That’d be somethin’ along the lines of ‘Ow! Ouch! By the Old Ones, he was too fast an’ too strong fer me!’”

  “Why you—” Hallekk began, starting forward.

  Wick shoved his hand against the big dwarf’s chest, but he might as well have been seeking to stop a warship under full sail with a good wind behind her. In seconds, he was smashed between the bodies of the
two combatants.

  “Enough!” Wick cried in a voice too shrill to be his. But it was the best he could manage under the circumstances with the wind left to him. “Don’t make me tell Grandmagister Frollo!”

  Surprisingly, that threat stopped the two crews in their tracks. Hallekk and Verdin separated and Wick plopped to the ground.

  “Ye’d do that, ye little halfer?” Verdin asked, eyes round with surprise.

  “Over a tavern brawl?” Hallekk asked, surprised as well.

  Then Wick remembered the power the Grandmagister had over the ships’ crews. They all operated by charter with the Vault of All Known Knowledge. Although Grandmagister Frollo hadn’t taken much of an interest in the affairs of Greydawn Moors, the previous Grandmagister, Ludaan, had spent a lot of time among the Greydawn Moors townsfolk, including the elven warders, dwarven guards, and human sailors. Ludaan was even friends with Craugh the wizard, which seemed a most unlikely and unthankful task.

  At any time, the Grandmagister could revoke a ship’s charter and order the crew landlocked. With as much anger and consternation as he’d drawn, Wick was certain he’d threatened far beyond his intentions. He stuck out a foot and started to ease away.

  Paunsel blocked the path, folding his arms and shaking his head.

  “Well,” Wick tried in a less threatening tone, “perhaps it needn’t come to anything as dire as that.”

  “C’mon, little man,” Hallekk beseeched. “A good fight clears the air an’ invigorates the blood. I’m just gonna thump him a little. Teach him the wrongness of his arrogant ways. It’s a lesson his da shoulda taught him.”

  “Gonna get thumped, ye mean,” Verdin replied.

  Sensing that everything was about to get out of hand once more, Wick said, “Maybe I could help.”

  “Who?” Hallekk and Verdin demanded at once, shoving their faces into his.

  “Eeep!” Wick cried, suddenly startled again. Embarrassed, cheeks burning, he clapped his hands over his mouth.

  Verdin turned to Hallekk. “Seems a mite sheepish.”

  Hallekk shrugged. “Ol’ Wick’s better at adventurin’ when things gets impossible.”

  “Humph!” the sailor snorted. “Sounds about as threatening as a hissing Kardalvian dung beetle!”

  “Still,” Hallekk sighed, “he does have the ear of the Grandmagister. Perhaps ’twould be better if ’n we heard him out. Then we can get back to the thumpin’.”

  Wick stood on shaking knees. I faced the dragon Shengharck in his lair in the Broken Forge Mountains. I slew him there. Well, perhaps that was by accident, but I did it. He made himself take a breath because he’d suddenly realized he wasn’t breathing, and turning blue while trying to make a point didn’t seem very inspiring.

  “You’re arguing over the events of the Painted Canyon,” Wick said in what he hoped was a reasonable and not fearful tone of voice.

  “Aye,” both potential combatants replied.

  “Everybody knows they was betrayed there,” Hallekk said. “Thousands of warriors lost their lives in that battle.”

  “By Oskarr the dwarven leader,” Verdin said. “He was the one what sold out the human an’ the elven warriors what was gathered there against Lord Kharrion’s armies.”

  Instantly a quiet fell over the crowd. No one spoke the Goblin Lord’s name out loud for fear it might trigger ill luck. Only a few years ago, on the night when Wick had first been shanghaied by One-Eyed Peggie’s crew, Boneblights had descended upon Greydawn Moors and very nearly been the end of him. But they had been after the book Warder Kestin had taken to Craugh.

  “Master Blacksmith Oskarr of the Cinder Clouds Islands was a good an’ fair dwarf,” Hallekk insisted.

  “No one,” Wick said, before he had time to truly think about what he was saying or remember why he should keep his mouth shut, “knows who betrayed those warriors. I’ve studied the Battle of Fell’s Keep, which is what that engagement in the Cataclysm was called.”

  Verdin fixed Wick with a glaring eye. “Ye know about that battle?”

  “I do,” Wick said. It had been mentioned in one of the books he’d read. He didn’t forget anything he read, which was partly due to his training and partly because that’s just the way he was.

  “Then who was the traitor?” Hallekk asked.

  And the whole tavern leaned in closer to listen to the tale.

  2

  A Tale of Betrayal

  “The Battle of Fell’s Keep took place near the end of the Cataclysm,” Wick said in a good strong voice that he used for training Novices at the Vault of All Known Knowledge. He sat on the counter in front of the tavern, which didn’t please Paunsel, but at least none of the crockery seemed at risk. “At that time, as you may recall, the Goblin Lord—”

  “Was thumpin’ melons an’ takin’ names,” Hallekk scowled. “Aye, we know all of that. ’Twas a hard time for the Unity.”

  “Goblinkin tribes had laid aside their old rivalries,” Wick said, “and they’d gathered beneath the Goblin Lord’s banner. Everywhere an honest dwarf, human, or elf looked in those days, they saw the banner bearing the crimson mailed fist clenched on a field of sky blue. Those were the Days of Darkness.”

  Enamored of the attention he was getting from the previously raucous crowd—and perhaps a little emboldened by the sparkleberry wine and the tale of Taurak Bleiyz he’d been enjoying, Wick pushed himself to his feet. Although he often spoke in front of groups within the walls of the Vault of All Known Knowledge, those instances paled in comparison to how he’d felt while speaking in front of One-Eyed Peggie’s crew or the Brandt’s Circle of Thieves. They’d been audiences who had appreciated his skills as a raconteur. He’d come alive then in ways he knew Grandmagister Frollo would never have approved of.

  “Teldane’s Bounty had fallen by that time,” Wick continued. “Lord Kharrion’s evil spell had wreaked havoc on the mainland. He’d sent a plague of locusts, followed by a killing blight that stripped the orchards and farms that grew there. Ships had gone down to watery graves with thousands of men, women, and children aboard, most of them freezing in the wintry waters of the Gentlewind Sea after Lord Kharrion had summoned mountains up from the sea to break apart the land.”

  A sad quietness held sway over the tavern crowd. Wick knew that Paunsel would hold him accountable for slowing the flow of wine and ale in the tavern. But Wick was consumed by the tale, as were his listeners.

  “Those deaths were not in vain,” Wick said. “For the first time since the beginning of the Cataclysm, dwarves, humans, and elves set aside their differences and came together for one purpose. Though there had been talk of working together to make the world a better place, that course had never taken root. But they could agree to save the world. And they set about that task.”

  “But it was almost too late,” someone said.

  “Silverleaves Glen fell in the next year,” Wick said, remembering the poor, cursed creature he had met on his first voyage aboard One-Eyed Peggie. “Lord Kharrion destroyed the elven tree village, Cloud Heights, and killed King Amalryn and his beautiful queen, N’riya.”

  The elven warders in the back room lowered their proud heads in sympathy. All the elves had known about Silverleaves Glen.

  “Furthermore,” Wick said, “the Goblin Lord put to death the three princes. He reserved a far harsher fate for the nine princesses, breaking them and warping them into creatures he could use. They became Embyrs, beings of flame who lived only to destroy, and who had no memory of what they had been or what they had done.”

  “Aye,” a human sailor said. “I’ve heard tell of ’em, all right. They’re still out there, still killin’ an’ destroyin’. Made all of fire, they are, an’ terrible vengeful. They find a ship at sea, like as not they’ll burn her to the waterline just outta spite.”

  The crew of One-Eyed Peggie said nothing. They had seen an Embyr up close and been some of those fortunate enough to have survived such an encounter. Wick had managed to save them all by touchin
g, if only briefly, the Embyr’s angry heart.

  Wick strode along the countertop, knowing that he held captive every eye in the room. “The goblinkin came roaring up out of the Western Empire, destroying everything in their path. Lord Kharrion designed a pincer movement, one that would trap those retreating overland from the south in the narrow confines of the Painted Canyon as it passed through the Unmerciful Shards, that range of the Misty Mountains where the dragonkind spawn.”

  Hallekk handed Wick a tankard of sparkleberry wine and he quaffed it down, warming to the story.

  “For those of you who don’t know, the goblinkin first took over the south,” Wick continued. “They came up from Gaheral’s Wastelands, where vile things were said to run rampant after the wizard unwittingly unleashed bloodthirsty creatures from other worlds.” He shrugged. “Or mayhap they were created when Gaheral’s Wild Magic finally turned on him as everyone believed would happen.”

  “They had driven them goblinkin there over the years,” Hallekk said. “Beat ’em back until they had no place to go but the Wastelands.”

  “Before Lord Kharrion showed up in their midst, yes,” Wick agreed. “But the Wastelands turned out to be a boon to the goblinkin. The harsh territory killed off all the weaker ones, leaving only those strong enough to survive the unforgiving climate and the bloodthirsty predators. When the Goblin Lord gathered them to his cause, they were ready to kill everything in their path.”

  “An’ they did,” Verdin said.

  “Yes,” Wick echoed as he watched Hallekk pour him another tankard of wine. He drank it down gratefully, surprised at the way his head felt as if it were floating. “They did. After Teldane’s Bounty was destroyed and the ships dragged down to the bottom of the Gentlewind Sea, after Cloud Heights was ripped asunder and torn from the trees at Silverleaves Glen, humans, dwarves, and elves began a mass exodus from the south, driven unmercifully by the combined might of the goblinkin tribes.”

  Despite the time spent in the Wastelands, the goblinkin population hadn’t dwindled. They had no equal when it came to bearing offspring then, and still didn’t. Even the humans came in at a distant second, followed by the dwarves and elves, but the goblinkin far outlived the humans.