Neverwinter 1 - Cold Steel and Secrets Read online

  Sarfael let out the breath that he had been holding with a relieved but muffled sigh. The lady seemed inclined to take him as he wished, something of a rogue but no threat to her or her students. That argued well for him keeping his skin whole for that night at least.

  With backward glances, and much whispering, the others left. Only Montimort lingered, until Elyne drove him out with rejoinders to find his supper and come back the next day.

  Elyne walked the room, checking that all the practice weapons were aligned within their racks, rearranging the stones into new patterns for the next day’s lessons, and finally reaching for a long-handled broom propped in the corner.

  Sarfael gently lifted it from her hands. “A small payment for today’s lesson,” he said to her.

  “Oh I doubt that you learned anything from me,” she replied, leaning back on one of the practice butts and watching him sweep. He counted it another sign of victory that she let him do the humble chore.

  Still, he wondered how much she believed about his earlier lies of having family ties to Neverwinter. She seemed a cautious duelist, preferring to keep her opponent clearly before her. But, her hand was off her sword hilt, which showed more trust than the beginning of their encounter.

  “I did learn something today,” he said, trying to draw her out and assess her mood. “I learned that I show my skills too quickly. Pride made me boast, and that was foolish.”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes, it can save you from the fight. It made the others stop and think.”

  Sarfael said no more but kept to his cleaning, making even strokes across the floor as he learned long before when he played the servant in a high-class inn that catered to a privileged and talkative crowd. Sometimes silence was better than questions for luring the wary into conversation.

  “May I see it?” Elyne finally asked. “That sword that you would not draw?”

  With a nod, he unhooked the scabbard from his belt and presented it to her with the hilt foremost. He knew the risk, to give away his weapon so easily, except he would never truly surrender Mavreen’s sword. However, he already judged Elyne to be an honorable woman, as evidenced by her earlier actions with her students, most especially the young Luskar, and he felt that the sword was safe with her. It was a feeling that surprised him slightly, for he rarely trusted anyone since Mavreen’s death.

  Elyne half turned away from Sarfael and drew the blade forth, carefully and cleanly, a practiced move to protect the edge.

  She held it balanced in her right hand, twisting only her wrist to examine it from all sides. Two passes in the air, high and low, and then she sheathed it with the same careful attention.

  “The balance is very fine and the edge exceptional,” she said. “But you have the height and the length of arm to carry a longer blade.”

  “You could tell that from the scabbard,” he rejoined, taking the sword back from her. “So why look so close?”

  “Some blades are enchanted, and the enchantment makes it worth carrying a lesser sword. But not this, I think. A well-forged rapier, nothing more, made for a smaller man or a woman.”

  “It was a woman,” he admitted with the utmost truth. Lies he always told with honeyed-tongue ease, but, for Mavreen’s memorial, the sword’s story never varied and his voice always sounded rough when he told it. “She died and I did not.”

  It took Rucas Sarfael four days to attain an invitation from Elyne to rob one of General Sabine’s armories.

  “We must assume that this is a test,” Dhafiyand said.

  “Oh, most certainly, it is a test, but it was designed earlier for the rest of the brats. She’s not happy about it,” Sarfael said as he paced back and forth in the old man’s room. “Elyne is forbidden to accompany us. But she and other Nashers will meet us when the task is done to take charge of whatever we carry away.”

  “And how do you know she is unhappy about this?”

  “Montimort told me that she has put off this raid three times already. And been reprimanded for the delay. So I went to the lady and told her that I knew a certain cache of weapons that would be easy to steal—better than easy, one that would pose little risk for her students. You will find me such a thing, I assume?”

  Dhafiyand waved one ink-stained hand in assurance. “It can be arranged without much difficulty. The question is whether or not we inform the general that she must sacrifice a few weapons for our purposes. On the whole, I think it better to leave her in the dark and make our own arrangements.”

  “As you wish. It makes no matter to me.”

  “What else have you learned?”

  “Very little of use to you.” Sarfael continued his perambulation around the room, stopping to admire a miniature painting. Framed in silver and pearls, it showed a delicate young moon elf peering out at the world. Sarfael wondered who the lady was and how her portrait came to grace the spymaster’s collection of trinkets. Dhafiyand had a crow’s propensity of picking up shiny little treasures to line his nest.

  “They are brats, these so-called Nashers, young idiots for the most part. Most of Elyne’s students are still barely out of their teens,” he said to Dhafiyand. “Their foolish parents stuffed their heads with stories of a Neverwinter that is no more.”

  “But they talk of sedition?”

  “They daydream, no more than that. Gnash their teeth about Neverember as you said and take that for a nickname to make themselves sound fierce. Children’s games, I tell you.” Having fully circled the room, Sarfael leaned his broad shoulders against the mantel and crossed his arms. “Idle chatter about reclaiming the throne and finding a royal heir to unite the ancient families and bring back the splendors of the past fills their days. Truly, if they, and their teacher, are the biggest threat Lord Neverember faces, then we should look for sport elsewhere. Red Wizards, perhaps?”

  Dhafiyand ignored the last remark. “Have you heard any talk of a crown?”

  “A crown?” Sarfael frowned. “Not at all. Why do you ask?”

  “Rumors, most likely nothing more than hot air, but I would know where they started.”

  “If I hear of such a thing, I will add it to my report.”

  “Do so. But they mean to overthrow Lord Neverember?”

  “Oh, in the vaguest possible way. Press them about it, and none have any plans.”

  “Still, you admit that you have not met the true leaders yet.”

  “No, the purpose of this expedition is to prove our loyalty and thus promote us in the ranks of rebellion.”

  “Then go forth and rise high,” said Dhafiyand. “And remember, if you hear talk of a crown, bring the news to me at once.”

  Sarfael nodded. “But first, find me a nice little armory that my young friends can raid without risking my skin.”

  “Consider it done,” Dhafiyand said. “I will send word to you in a day or so.”

  The patrol passed the doorway where they lurked, a resounding clatter of boots on pavement and the rattle of armor on burly men and women. It might be well past midnight, but they made no attempt at silence, nor did they seem worried about waking anyone sleeping nearby. Or perhaps the neighbors counted it a blessing to hear the heavy tread of Tarnian mercenaries beneath their windows every night. Far worse things could come shuffling out of the shadows in Neverwinter.

  Sarfael counted beneath his breaths. A slow count to twenty, according to Dhafiyand, and then the patrol would turn and be lost behind the next street’s ramshackle buildings. If Sarfael and his crew could clear out the weapons from the armory before dawn, the second patrol would miss them completely.

  Behind his back, he could feel Montimort Ratlyn shiver, but, to give the boy his due, he thought it was excitement and not fear that made the thin young Luskar whisper in his ear, “Are they past?”

  He motioned for silence. “Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two,” he finished, going a little longer just for safety’s sake. The sound of the Tarnian patrol faded into the distance. “Wait here, I’ll check the door. Better
one man be spotted than a gang of ten young ruffians, so obviously up to no good.”

  Fog filled the street, the cold night air rising off Neverwinter’s perpetually warm river providing its usual shroud over the night’s activities. Even so, Sarfael ventured with many glances up and down the street to check the armory’s door.

  As Dhafiyand promised, the door was unlocked. Sarfael bent over the knob, hiding his hands with his body from the Nashers watching across the street. Let them think him an accomplished lockpick; it could only enhance his reputation.

  He opened the door and slipped inside, then poked his head out again to motion the others to follow.

  They hurried across the street, Parnadiz and Charinyn in the lead, as usual, with the rest following hard on their heels.

  Once they were all inside, he pulled the door closed. They were immediately plunged into darkness.

  “Light,” he muttered.

  “Sorry,” Montimort whispered back. A glowing light appeared cupped in his long fingers, flowing outward until the room was clearly lit.

  “Lanterns too,” Sarfael ordered the Nashers. They carried three dark lanterns in the group.

  “What do we need them for?” Parnadiz said. “We have Montimort.”

  “Think of him as a candle,” Sarfael said. “If he snuffs out, how do you see to rescue him or yourselves?”

  Montimort squeaked at the description and Sarfael dropped a friendly hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Magic is a useful talent,” he said. “But never assume that it can keep you from being killed.”

  In the back of his head, Mavreen laughed to hear him quote her so earnestly. But it was good advice. Her spells and other tricks did nothing to protect her from Thayan treachery.

  “Now what?” said Charinyn. The tiny room in which they stood was remarkably bare of weapons. In fact, it was completely empty. Further, the only door in evidence was the one that they had used to enter.

  “You don’t think they’d leave a stack of swords and armor stacked inside the door for you to snatch?” Sarfael said. Except, as he looked with dismay around the room, that was exactly what Dhafiyand had promised him. It seemed the old man’s intelligence was not perfect. With more confidence than he felt, Sarfael told the others: “Look for a false wall. The weapons will be behind that.”

  Montimort’s nose quivered as he turned in a half circle, surveying the antechamber.

  “There’s a draft,” he said, pointing to his left. “I smell old leather and metal. And something else …”

  Sarfael tapped his fingers along the area that Montimort indicated and found the second door, neatly hidden behind a simple illusion. As soon as he put his hand upon the latch, the door appeared. Like the other, it was unlocked.

  “Ah, that’s better,” said Sarfael as he swung the door open. Raising high his lantern, he saw the twinkle of shields, swords, mauls, short-bows, halberds, battle-axes, and other weapons.

  “Well, let’s clear this out,” he said over his shoulder.

  Then Montimort’s “something else” leaped upon him with an outraged scream.

  Sarfael rolled back into the room.

  A hound with short, rust red fur tumbled into the antechamber with him. Its sooty black teeth snapped in his face. Sarfael grappled the hellish dog by the throat as its powerful hind legs raked against the floor. Sarfael twisted underneath to avoid being disemboweled by the creature’s nasty kick.

  Above him the young Nashers screamed and yelled at each other as Sarfael strove to keep the hound’s sharp black teeth out of his face. The monster at his throat growled. Wisps of sulfurous smoke emerged from its nostrils. Sarfael gritted his own teeth and heaved at the weight bearing him down. Most obviously, it was no ordinary guard dog.

  As he wrestled with the creature, he cursed Dhafiyand silently for not inquiring more closely as to why that armory seemed so open and unprotected. The lack of information might well spell his doom, and the spy considered himself poorly served by the spymaster as he fought to save himself.

  A whiff of brimstone, a laughing ghost,

  and talk of a crown …

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