“Did you find the axe?”
The warden spoke as one of the measly-faced guards appeared, lugging a sack over his shoulder. The straining burlap had been sliced open by the heavy object within, a curved razored edge gleaming in the lantern light.
His old friend. Warrick grinned.
The guard let the sack thunk to the stone floor. He flicked open the burlap, showing to the warden the head of a steel battle-axe.
Iarthil looked to Warrick. “This is yours?”
“It is.”
“It has no handle.”
Because one of Gleris’s guards had known some small spells and had crumbled the handle to dust. It hadn’t mattered. Warrick hadn’t needed an axe to split the man’s skull.
He also didn’t need a handle to swing the axe. Not when something just as useful was at hand.
Wrapping the heavy links around his wrists, Warrick hauled back on the chains securing him to the stone wall. In an explosion of gray dust and stone chips, the iron loop anchored in the wall’s mortar gave way. The warden cried out for him to desist, then scrambled back as Warrick approached the bars. The prison’s abundant rat population had kept Warrick well fed—and had given him fleas—but now served another purpose. Ignoring the fool warden, he swept up a rat bone from the floor. With it, he opened the lock on his cell, then his manacles. He tossed them aside.
The chains he kept, coiling the iron links before looping them over his shoulder.
Through it all, Iarthil stood his ground, regarding him impassively. Likely wondering why Warrick had remained imprisoned when clearly he could have escaped.
Yet he didn’t ask. Instead he tossed to Warrick a heavy purse. “Buy for yourself a horse, clothes, weapons—whatever you require for a long journey—but do not discard that axe. Bring it with you. When you’ve secured your supplies, there is a road that follows the river north out of the city.”
“I know of it.”
“We intend to make camp at the three waterfalls that lie a half day’s ride north—and will expect you before the evening star rises. Make no attempt to approach us after dark, for I will not lower the camp’s defenses and risk any threat to my queen’s safety. If you’re late, wait for dawn.”
Was he hearing aright? Warrick was to be left alone to buy what he needed and then catch up to the queen’s escort? By its weight, the purse held a small fortune. Much more than required for a good mount and clothes. What was to stop Warrick from taking this and riding his new horse in the opposite direction?
Only his word.
Which meant that this was a test.
Warrick had seen the serjeant’s relief when he’d learned Gleris’s slaves were freed. Iarthil likely considered himself a man of honor. But he could not truly be. Not if he bound his honor to someone such as his queen.
Warrick’s honor was not bound to anyone. Instead it was bound only to what was right.
At this moment, that meant doing whatever necessary to return the Stars of Anhera to the goddess’s temple and break the curse that afflicted an entire kingdom.
“I will be there before night falls,” he said.
“Warrick!”
Bannin called out from a corner of the tavern where he and Warrick had arranged to meet on the morning after the full moon. Judging by the number of trenchers and mugs littering his table, the big red-haired warrior looked as if he’d been settled there for a while.
The tavern wasn’t even half full, and the patrons who were there seemed seated as far as possible from Bannin. Now their wary eyes took in Warrick—a burlap sack and chain over his shoulder, on bare feet and scratching at his flea-infested hair, coming directly from the prison.
Like a spider, the innkeeper skittered forward to intercept him—likely thinking to toss a filthy cur out on his ass—then appeared to think better of that intention when the size of that filthy cur sank in.
The innkeeper wrung his thin, bony hands. “Ale, sir?”
“Two.”
“Is another joining you?”
“Both for me.” He flicked the man a gold piece that could buy a year’s worth of ale for every patron within. “That also ought to cover whatever my Golathan friend has had.”
“Yes, sir!” Clutching the coin, the innkeeper hurried away.
“I expected you hours ago.” Bannin smirked as his gaze ran Warrick’s length. He paused on the chain. “Trouble getting out?”
“None at all.” Dropping onto the bench seat, Warrick snagged a hunk of bread then swiped it through the gravy congealed at the bottom of a trencher. “I became so fond of my cell, I took part of it with me.”
“Confess, man. You—” Abruptly Bannin jerked back in his seat, breath gusting out. “Oick! A chain wasn’t all you brought with you. The smell of you could fell a horse!”
Or a radiant queen. But only if she puked to death. “Could it fell Lord Gleris?”
“No need. I slit that slaver’s throat as soon as they sailed—and it was just as we hoped. Gleris’s men never even came looking for us at the docks. Never figured out there were two of us or that they ought to be looking at me, because they were so focused on getting answers from you.” Leaning in, Bannin lowered his voice. Only half in jest, he asked, “You don’t see Gleris, do you? He’s not floating behind me, looking for vengeance?”
With his craw stuffed full of bread, Warrick couldn’t speak. So he answered by leaning back and giving Bannin a good eyeful of his bare chest.
No glowing. So no ghosts.
“Merciful gods, don’t lift your arms! With such a stench, you’ll put me off meals for a week.” Bannin rose, ale in hand. “Let’s take this slop outside so I can breathe, yeah?”
Warrick froze mid-nod. The fingers Bannin had slipped through the handle of his mug were gray—and stiff. His gaze flew to Bannin’s.
“Don’t,” the man snapped, his voice a thick rasp. “Save your sympathy for the others. Give none to me, who failed them all.”
Bannin hadn’t failed anyone. But the bread wedged in Warrick’s throat and the dull ache in his chest kept him from replying. He followed Bannin outside, where the midday sun was a blinding glare after a month spent in the dark.
An awning provided shade over a square wooden table, though a nearby stable put into doubt any improvement in smell. The innkeeper set down Warrick’s ale and skittered back inside.
“When?” Warrick asked.
“A few days after we took Gleris’s caravan—it’s my blasted sword arm, too. But I figure I’ve got half a year before the stone reaches my heart.” His jaw worked. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me. Helana wrote. Ouin’s got the sickness.”
Helana, his sister—and Ouin, his nephew. When the boy was a babe, Helana’s husband had fallen to the stone sickness—but he hadn’t left her bed. He was still there, a statue frozen at his final breath. Helana hadn’t let Bannin move him.
In the past ten years, Galoth had become a kingdom of statues.
Bannin drew a trembling hand down his face. “It’s up to Ouin’s knees. She says his feet are fully…and he can’t—”
His words choked to a stop. The boy was but five years of age, born after the Stars of Anhera were stolen and the curse began. The sickness struck the people of that kingdom without care or mercy, slowly turning an entire body to stone. In early years, when the sickness became apparent in someone—at the tips of their fingers or their toes—many had attempted to stop its spread through a limb by cutting it off. But the sickness merely spread from the stump. There was no cure and no way to stop it.