Dawnbringer: A Forgotten Realms Novel (32 page)

If he’d been alone …

Pieces fell together like a puzzle: the halflings murdered in the woods near Shadrun, and Lusk’s indifference; the gutted body of a halfling thief outside an inn in Cormyr; a dozen, a hundred tiny things Lusk had said over the years, mildly disconcerting in themselves but taken together and considered impartially, deeply disturbing.

“It was you.” Lakini’s voice caught in her throat like a physical thing. She halted in the dark corridor, and Lusk turned back to her. “The halflings in the forest outside
Shadrun. The little thief butchered in the alley. It was you the whole time.”

She wanted him to frown at her, to deny it, to call her ridiculous, deluded, even traitorous to make such an accusation. But instead he shifted, leaned against the wall, and folded his arms, smiling at her.

She was horrified. “You’re a deva. We abjure evil and fight for the good. How could you do such things?” Her voice felt ragged, torn by the sharp lump in her throat.

“What good do we fight for?” Lusk retorted. He pointed down the corridor, where the sound of commerce mumbled through the stone walls. “Down there they buy and sell the same goods and lands, back and forth, back and forth. All a hopeless, unrelenting cycle. It doesn’t
mean
anything. Such as you and I are born, over and again, into this world of petty bickering and squabbling after gold, land, and power. Nothing changes and nothing will. Where’s the good in that?”

His raw anger seemed as deadly as his half-drawn dagger a few minutes before, ready to plunge into the hapless merchant.

“You’re arguing against our nature,” she retorted. “And why hate the halfling? Enough to do what you did in the forest at Shadrun, so near a holy place …” Suddenly her knees felt like water. She felt as if she was going to be sick.

“Halflings are filthy vermin,” said Lusk. “You don’t know, Lakini. You don’t know what they are. Not a one of them is worth saving. Listen,
Cserhelm—
”

He took her arm and pulled her to him. She was helpless to do anything but listen. The world had changed, with the dreadful knowledge that Lusk had done these
things—could even consider doing these things. She wasn’t ready to live in this new world yet.

“Infection exists in this world,” he whispered roughly, his lips to her ear, his breath hot on her skin. “If a body is not to die, it might fight off its infections. Some you cannot reason away. Some you must cut from your flesh.”

He released her arm, and she didn’t realize until the blood rushed back into it how tight his grip had been.

“If you don’t realize our nature is to carve away evil like a cancer from the body, then learn it now. We destroyed the cancers in Wolfhelm. You should remember that lesson better.”

The werewolves, more of them, five or six at least, had struck at the south gate this time. Lakini beheaded two and watched two boys and a very fierce and muscular girl, who usually was stationed behind the baker’s counter kneading the dough, deal with the rest. The Wolfshelm youth acquitted themselves well, but Lakini was uneasy. These werewolves were small and weak, little more than cubs, and she suspected the south gate assault might be more a distraction than an attack. Beckoning the sturdy baker girl to follow her, she told the rest to watch the gate and keep alert. Then she trotted around the village wall, weapons at the ready.

She was right. The previous attack was a feint, and fierce, full-grown wolves were leaping the wall that had seemed so secure. She impaled one, and the girl clubbed another’s head to a pulp, but many slipped between them and into the
streets of the town. Lakini ran down the main thoroughfare, beating on doors and bellowing a warning, the baker girl on her heels, and presently she heard the bell of Chauntea’s temple peal a warning, echoed by the shouts of the villagers in their houses steeling themselves to fight. All down the streets of Wolfshelm, firelight, torchlight, and witchlight glowed between the slats of the windows and through the chinks in the doors. The werewolves that prowled through the lanes and alleys, expecting easy prey, were met with a fierce and desperate resistance.

Lakini heard the scream of a donkey and ran through the maze of streets to the smithy. An amber witchlight shone at the apex of the building, and by its glow she saw Rosebud flailing with a wicked determination at two werewolves that were circling her. She spun about, lashing at one, then at the other, as they tried to sneak in under her guard. One almost managed to grab her leg, but she evaded it and landed a hoof square in its gut. Yipping in pain, the lycanthrope was bowled head over heels. But, recovering quickly, it sprang to its feet and returned to the attack, growling fiercely.

It saw Lakini too late, and a quick slash of her blade liberated its head from its shoulders.

She looked back to the donkey and saw what she hadn’t before: a figure lying on the ground, limp as a bundle of rags. The remaining werewolf made a lunge for it, and Rosebud let out a fearsome bray and circled the body, kicking madly. She was tiring rapidly, however, her reactions slower and slower. Lakini knew it was only a matter of time before the beast would overcome Rosebud and rend her limb from limb.

Lakini stooped and grabbed a handful of dirt, the thick, gravelly clay that defined Wolfshelm’s streets. Waiting until the donkey was clear, she hurled the dirt at the werewolf. The big clot landed hard on the side of its face.

The thing snarled and turned on her, its great yellow eyes full of hate. Standing upright, it might have come as high as her chin, but it crouched, its long, muscular arms outstretched and tipped with wicked claws. A charnel smell rolled off it, befouling the air.

It rubbed at its face and then looked at its hand, rubbing grains of dirt between its foreclaws. It charged her, arms reaching for her like the mandibles of a spider. Rosebud aimed a final kick at the thing, but she was tired and the blow was weak, missing its mark.

Lakini let the creature charge. At the last moment, when she could smell its carrion-befouled breath, she lifted her sword, still streaked with the other werewolf’s blood, braced herself, and let it impale itself on her weapon.

A mouthful of teeth snarled at her, and its spittle flicked her face. It lashed at her, and one of the claws hooked into her tunic, tearing the fabric. She forced the blade in deeper. The beast shuddered and jerked away from her with a force that almost tore the sword from her fingers, but it was the werewolf’s dying spasm, and it slid to the ground.

The supine figure stirred, moaning, and Lakini kneeled next to it. It was the smith, who still clutched the hammer he’d seized to defend himself. With a dreadful feeling of foreboding, Lakini squeezed her hand shut and opened it again, causing a small ball of light to appear on her palm. By its pallid light the man looked as pale as the undead.

“You’ve been hurt,” she said. It wasn’t a question but a statement. “Show me.”

Shaking, the smith held out his forearm. It was already swollen, and a dreadful purple color. The tattered flesh around the punctures had turned black.

“I wasn’t so lucky this time,” said Jonhan Smith, and tried to smile.

Lakini stared up into Lusk’s eyes a long moment. Then she pushed him, sudden and hard, both hands on his shoulders. Startled, he stumbled back into the wall.

“Stay away from me,” she said, shaking with anger. “You are an abomination.”

Without turning to see what he did, she ran down the corridor, through the crowded common rooms, past the startled guards, and up the wild paths of the mountains where the clean air could scour and cleanse her.

In the woods outside Jadaren Hold, a human captain of the guard stood beside a vampire with a disfiguring scar. The captain wondered how his employer had ever, ever thought this might be a good idea.

Still, the creature made no threatening gesture toward him and his men, and she kept the disorganized-appearing mob she’d brought with her in order.

She stirred against his shoulder, and he tensed. She pointed at the monolith that loomed in the darkening
sky before them, orange flickers of campfires springing into life at its base. A little more than halfway up its side, a tongue of green flame shot forth and faded.

“Soon,” whispered Helgre in her beautiful voice that had never sung. “Very soon now.”

Sanwar sat cross-legged in the middle of his private study. The room was close and hot, and he was stripped to the waist. Sweat trickled down his back and spotted the floor, but he made no move.

He was staring at the wall. One of the luxurious tapestries had been torn down and lay rumpled in a corner. On the bare wall, which was just a skim of plaster over thick and solid brick, a geometrical figure had been sketched in chalk. Purple light flickered across it, in stark contrast to the white chalk.

Sanwar had a single hair, the chestnut, honey-highlighted hair of a woman, wrapped so tightly around his finger that it cut into his flesh, making the pinched skin turn purple.

Someone tapped at the other side of the door.

“Sanwar?” Vorsha’s voice was puzzled, afraid. “Sanwar, dear, is everything all right?”

Sanwar didn’t stir at the sound of his wife’s voice. There was a scraping sound as she tried to open the door and failed.

Go
. He didn’t turn to the door but projected that voice that now lived always within him at it.
Go away, and leave me be
.

The tapping stopped, and, after a pause, he heard Vorsha’s feet padding down the corridor.

He flexed his finger, tightening the wind of the hair around his finger. Fine as a wire, it started to bite into him, and a small wound split apart on his skin. It gaped up at him like a tiny, eager mouth.

Sanwar smiled at the sensation. A small drop of blood welled from the cut and ran down his finger.

Now
, he thought.
This is the time. Now
.