Unclean: The Haunted Lands Page 13

  When the sun rose, they mostly lay down to sleep, though one stood watch. When Bareris’s strength started to trickle back, he wondered if he could take the sentry by surprise, kill it or club it unconscious, and flee while the other gnolls slumbered on oblivious.

  If so, it might be prudent to try. Gnolls had a savage reputation, and it was by no means ridiculous to conjecture that eventually the hyenafolk meant to fry some bard meat in their skillet.

  Yet he was reluctant to strike out at anyone who, thus far at least, had done him more good than harm, and his lingering weakness, coupled with his frustration over his failure to liberate Tammith, nurtured a bleak passivity. He simply lay and rested until sunset, when the sleeping gnolls began to rouse.

  The big one walked over and peered down at him. “You better,” he said. As his form was half man and half hyena, so was his speech half voice and half growl. If he hadn’t possessed the trained ear of a bard, Bareris doubted he would have understood.

  “I am better,” he agreed, rising. “The curse is finally fading. My name is Bareris Anskuld.”

  The gnoll slapped his chest. “Wesk Backbreaker, me.”

  “Thank you for hiding me from my enemies.”

  “Hide easy. Sneak around humans and stinking blood orcs all the time. They never see.” Wesk laughed, and though it sounded different, sharper and more bestial than human laughter, Bareris heard the bitterness in it. “Or else they kill. Not enough gnolls to fight them. Not enough singer, either. Crazy to bother them like you did.”

  Bareris sighed. “Probably.”

  “But brave. And fight good. Like gnoll.”

  “That’s high praise. I’ve seen your people fight.” No need to mention that he’d witnessed it during his wanderings and had been fighting on the opposing side. “Was that the reason you rescued me?”

  “Help you because you chop fingers of Red Wizard.”

  “Did he wrong you somehow?”

  Wesk snorted. “Not just that one. All Red Wizards. Gnoll clan fight in legion. Wesk’s father. Father’s father. Always. Until Red Wizards say, no more war. Trade now. Then they make blood orcs and say blood orcs better than gnolls.”

  Bareris thought he understood: “To save coin, someone decided to reduce the size of the army, and you and your clan brothers were discharged.”

  “Yes. Just hunters now. Robbers when we can. Not fair!”

  “On the ride north, I heard that Thay’s at war with Rashemen again. The legions of Gauros and Surthay are looking for recruits.”

  “Recruits?” Wesk snarled. “Crawl back to take orders from blood orcs? No!”

  “I understand. It’s a matter of pride.” A mad thought came to him. “If you won’t serve a tharchion, what about working for me?”

  Wesk cocked his head. “You?”

  “Why not? I can pay.” In theory, anyway. In fact, most of his wealth was in his sword belt and purse, which the gnolls had already confiscated, but he’d worry about that detail when the time came.

  “To kill Red Wizards? Want to, but no. Told you, gnolls too few.”

  “I understand we can’t wage all-out war on them, but we can make fools of them, and maybe it will involve bleeding an orc or two along the way.”

  Wesk grunted. “Everyone needs to hear, but some not talk your talk. I … “ He hesitated, evidently groping for the proper word.

  “Translate? No need.” Bareris sang softly, and the growling, yipping conversations of the other gnolls abruptly became intelligible to him. While the enchantment lasted, he would likewise be able to speak to them in their own language. “Let’s gather everyone up.”

  The impromptu assembly convened around the ashes of last night’s cook fire, and Bareris found that the unwashed-dog smell of gnoll was markedly worse when several of the creatures gathered together. Some of the hyenafolk glared at him with overt scorn and hostility, some seemed merely curious, but with the possible exception of Wesk, none appeared cordial or sympathetic.

  But a bard had the power to make good will flower where none had existed before, and as he introduced himself and spun his tale, he infused his voice with subtle magic to accomplish that very purpose.

  Yet even so, he wondered if a story of a loved one in peril could possibly move them. If gnolls were even capable of love, they’d never, so far as he knew, permitted a member of another race to glimpse any evidence of it. On the other hand, they were tribal by nature. That suggested something approximating a capacity for affection, didn’t it?

  In the end, perhaps the person he moved the most was himself. Spinning the story made everything he’d experienced acutely, painfully real, and when he told of seeing and touching Tammith only to lose her again immediately thereafter, it was all he could do to keep from weeping, but he couldn’t allow the gnolls to think him a weakling.

  He ended on a note of bitter anger akin to their own: “So you see how it’s been for me. I undertook what should have been a simple task, especially considering that I was willing, nay, eager, to reward anyone able to help me, but I met contempt, betrayal, and bared blades every step of the way. Now I’m done with the mild and reasonable approach. I’m going to recover Tammith by force, and I want you lads to help me.”

  The gnolls stared at him for another moment, and then one, with a ruddy tinge to his fur and longer ears than the rest, laughed his piercing, crazy-sounding cackle. “Sorry, human. It can’t be done.”

  “Why not?”Bareris demanded.

  “Because the slaves go to Delhumide.”

  For a moment, Bareris didn’t understand. They were all in Delhumide, and what of it? Then he realized the gnoll wasn’t speaking of the tharch but of the abandoned city of the same name.

  Twenty-three centuries before, when Thay had been a Mulhorandi colony, Delhumide had been one of its greatest cities and bastions of power, and when the Red Wizards rebelled, they’d deemed it necessary to destroy the place. They’d evidently used the darkest sort of sorcery to accomplish their purpose, for by all accounts, the ground was still unclean today. Demons walked there, and a man could contract madness or leprosy just by venturing down the wrong street. No one visited Delhumide except the most reckless sort of treasure hunter, and few of those ever returned.

  “Are you sure?” Bareris asked. It was, of course, a stupid question, born of surprise, and he didn’t wait for an answer. “Why?”

  “We don’t know,” said the gnoll. “We have better sense than to go into Delhumide ourselves.”

  “Even if we could,” said Wesk. After listening to his broken Mulhorandi, Bareris found it odd to hear him speak fluently, but he naturally had no difficulty conversing in his own racial language. “Soldiers guard the place by day, and at night, the things come out. I don’t know if they’re the fiends that have always haunted the place or pets of the Red Wizards—maybe some of both—and it doesn’t matter anyway. They’re there, and they’re nasty.”

  “I understand,” Bareris said, “but you fellows are experts at going unseen. You told me so yourself, and I witnessed your skill firsthand when you hid the both of us. I’ll wager your legion used you as expert scouts and skirmishers.”

  “Sometimes,” said Wesk.

  “Well, I’m a fair hand at creeping and skulking myself, so long as I’m not crippled. With luck, we could sneak in and out of Delhumide without having to fight every warrior or lurking horror in the ruins.”

  “To steal back your mate,” said the gnoll who’d jeered at him before.

  “Yes. I’ve never seen Delhumide, but you’ve scouted it from the outside anyway. You can figure out the safest path in. Together, we can rescue Tammith, and in gratitude for your help, I’ll make you rich enough to live in luxury in Eltabbar or Bezantur until the end of your days. Just give me back my pouch and sword belt.”

  The gnolls exchanged looks, then one of them fetched the articles he’d requested from the shade beneath one of the lean-tos. As he’d expected, the gnoll removed his sword from its scabbard first, and when
he looked inside the pigskin bag, the coins were gone.

  But the gnolls hadn’t discovered the secret pocket in the bottom of the purse. He lifted the bag to his mouth and exhaled into it. His breath activated a petty enchantment, and the hidden seam separated. He removed the sheets of parchment, unfolded them, and held them up for the gnolls to see. “Letters of credit from the merchant houses of Turmish and Impiltur. A little the worse for wear, but still valid.”

  Wesk snorted. “None of us can read, singer, nor has any idea how such papers are supposed to look. Maybe you guessed that and decided to try and fool us.”

  “No, but I can offer you a different form of wealth if that’s what you prefer.” He started opening the concealed pockets in the sword belt and was relieved to find that the gnolls hadn’t found those either.

  He brought out rubies, sapphires, and clear, smooth tapered king’s tears. It was an absurd amount of wealth to purchase the services of half a dozen gnolls, yet for this moment anyway, he felt a sudden, unexpected spasm of loathing for the stones. If he’d never departed Bezantur to win them, he could have prevented Tammith from selling herself into slavery, and what good had they done him since? He had to resist a wild impulse to empty the belt entirely.

  He spread the jewels on the ground with a flourish, like a juggler performing a trick. “Here. Take them if you’re willing to help me.”

  The gnoll with the prominent ears laughed. “What’s to stop us from taking them without helping you, then cutting up that pouch and belt and all your belongings to see if anything else is stashed inside? Wesk liked seeing you lop a Red Wizard’s fingers off. It made him curious enough to haul you back here and find out who you are, but we’re not your friends, or friends to any human. We rob and eat hairless runts like you.”

  Bareris wondered if Wesk would take exception to his clan brother’s assertion. He didn’t, though, and perhaps it wasn’t surprising. Bareris had claimed he was capable of leading the gnolls in a dangerous enterprise. If so, he should be competent to stand up for himself when a member of the band sought to intimidate him.

  Or maybe the whim that had moved Wesk to rescue him originally had simply been a transient aberration, and now the towering creature was all gnoll again, feral and murderous as the foulest of his kin.

  Either way, it scarcely mattered. Bareris had known that displaying the jewels was likely to provoke a crisis, and now he had to cope as best he could. “Take the stones and give nothing in return?” he sneered. “Strange, that’s just what the Red Wizards and blood orcs tried to do, and I thought you deemed yourselves better than they are.”

  The gnoll with the long ears bared his fangs. “We are better. They couldn’t kill you and take your treasure, but we can.”

  “No,” said Bareris, “you can’t. It doesn’t matter that you withheld my sword or that you outnumber me.” In reality, it almost certainly would, but he did his best to project utter self-confidence. “I’m a bard, a spellcaster, and my powers are what will enable us to make jackasses of the Red Wizards. I’ll show you.”

  He picked up one of the king’s tears and sang words of power. Tiny sparks flared and died within the crystal, and a sweet smell like incense suffused the air. Alarmed, some of the gnolls jumped up and snatched for their weapons or else lunged and grabbed for Bareris with their empty hands.

  None of them acted in time, and light burned from within the jewel. It had no power to injure the gnolls. That would inevitably have resulted in a genuine battle, which was the last thing he wanted, but the hyenafolk were essentially nocturnal by nature, and the sudden flare dazzled and balked them. Coupled with the charms of influence Bareris had already spun, it might, with luck, even impress them more than it actually deserved to.

  At once, while they were still recoiling, the bard sprang to his feet and punched as hard as ever in his life. The uppercut caught the gnoll with the long ears under the jaw. His teeth clicked together, and he stumbled backward.

  “That,” Bareris rapped, “was for impudence. Threaten me again and I’ll tear you apart.”

  He then brandished the luminous king’s tear as if it were a talisman of extraordinary power, and as he spoke on, he infused his words with additional magic—not a spell of coercion, precisely, but an enchantment to bolster the courage and confidence of all who heard it.

  “It comes down to this,” he said. “Even if you could kill me and steal the gems, it wouldn’t matter. You’d still be a legion’s castoffs, worthless in everyone’s eyes including your own, but I’m offering you a chance to take revenge on the sort of folk who shamed you, and more than that, to regain your honor. Don’t you see, if you join me in this venture, then you’re not mere contemptible scavengers anymore. You’re mercenaries, soldiers once again.

  “Or perhaps you don’t care about honor,” he continued. “Maybe you never had it in the first place. That’s what people say about gnolls, that in their hearts and minds, they’re vile as rats. You tell me if it’s true.”

  Pupils shrunk small by the magical glare, Wesk glowered for a moment. Then he growled, “Put out the light and we’ll talk some more.”

  Bareris’s muscles went limp with relief, because while he still had little confidence that the gnolls would prove reliable if things became difficult, he discerned that, for the present at least, they meant to follow him.

  chapter seven

  29 Mirtul, the Year of Risen Elfkin

  Aoth and Brightwing studied Dulos, the hamlet far below. For a moment, the place looked ordinary enough, the usual collection of sod-roofed huts and barns, but then the griffon rider observed that no one was working the fields and that sheep, pigs, and oxen lay torn and rotting in their pens. Then, his senses linked to his familiar’s, he caught the carrion stink.

  “The undead have been here,” he said.

  “No, really?” Brightwing replied.

  Aoth was too intent on the work at hand, and perhaps too full of memories of the massacres at Thazar Keep and beside the river, to respond to the sarcasm in kind. “The question is, are they still here, or have they moved on?”

  “I can’t tell from up here.”

  “Neither can I. Perhaps the Burning Braziers can. Or the necromancers. Let’s return to the company.”

  The griffon wheeled, and her wings, shining gold in the sunlight, swept up and down. Soon Aoth’s patrol appeared below.

  The force was considerably smaller than the army that had met disaster in the mouth of the Pass of Thazar. Supposedly, once the undead horde gained access to the central plateau, they’d dispersed into smaller bands. Thus, Nymia Focar’s host had no choice but to do the same if they hoped to eradicate the creatures as rapidly as possible.

  When Brightwing landed, Aoth’s lieutenants were waiting to confer with him, or at least they were supposed to be his lieutenants. Nymia had declared him in charge, but Red Wizards had little inclination to recognize the authority of anyone not robed in scarlet, while the militant priests of Kossuth had somehow acquired the notion that Szass Tam and the other zulkirs had all but begged Iphegor Nath to dispatch them on this mission and accordingly believed everyone ought to defer to them.

  Aoth tried to diminish the potential for dissension by making sure to solicit everyone’s opinions before making a decision and by pretending to weigh them seriously even when they betrayed complete ignorance of the craft of war. It seemed to be working so far.

  “The enemy,” he said, swinging himself off Brightwing’s back, “attacked the village.”

  Her red metal torch weapon dangling in her hand, the scent of smoke clinging to her, Chathi Oandem frowned. The hazeleyed priestess of Kossuth had old burn scars stippling her left cheek, the result, perhaps, of some devotion gone awry, but Aoth found her rather comely nonetheless, partly because of her air of energy and quick intelligence.

  “They’ve come this far west then, this close to Eltabbar.”

  “Yes,” said Aoth. “It makes me wonder if they might even have been bold enough to
attack Surag and Thazrumaros.” They were larger towns that might have had some hope of fending off an assault. “But for the time being, our concern is here. Can someone cast a divination to see if the settlement is still infested?”

  Chathi opened her mouth, no doubt to say that she’d do it, but Urhur Hahpet jumped in ahead of her. Evidently not content with a single garment denoting his status, the sallow, pinch-faced necromancer wore a robe, cape, and shoulder-length overcape, all dyed and lined with various shades of red, as well as a clinking necklace of human vertebrae and finger bones.

  “If it will help,” he said, with the air of a lord granting a boon to a petitioner, “but we need to move up within sight of the place.”

  So they did, and Aoth made sure everyone advanced in formation, weapons at the ready, despite the fact that he and Brightwing had just surveyed the approach to the hamlet from the air and hadn’t observed any potential threats. After seeing the lacedons rise from the river, he didn’t intend to leave anything to chance.

  Nothing molested them, and when he was ready, Urhur whispered a sibilant incantation and spun his staff, a rod of femurs fused end to end, through a mystic pass. The air darkened around him as if a cloud had drifted in front of the sun, reminding Aoth unpleasantly of the nighthaunt’s ability to smother light.

  “There are undead,” the wizard said. “A fair number of them.”

  “Then we’ll have to root them out,” said Aoth.

  Urhur smiled a condescending smile. “I think you mean burn them out. Surely that’s the safest, easiest course, and it will give our cleric friends a chance to play with their new toys.”

  The Burning Braziers bristled. Aoth, however, did his best to mask his own annoyance. “Safest and easiest, perhaps, but it’s possible there are still people alive in there.”

  “Unlikely, and in any case, you’re talking about peasants.”

  “Destroying the village would also make it impossible to gather additional intelligence about our foes.”