The Fanged Crown: The Wilds (7 page)

“I was in the village when … something came to the house and killed him and Mama. Our neighbor found me and told me what happened. They smuggled me out of the province that very day. There’s no reason for it to be looking for me, but still I wonder. It’s why I joined the Crane.”

Harp laid his hand on Verran’s shoulder. “None of us have an empty road behind us.”

“No, I guess not,” Verran said, but he sounded unconvinced. He turned sharply as Boult and Kitto walked up to them. Behind them, Harp could see Cenhar rowing the skiff across the waves to the Crane.

“Did you do the spell on the ship?” Boult asked abruptly. “The one that melted the captain?”

Verran looked at his fingers. “I’m not sure.”

“How could you not know?” Boult demanded.

“It seems too powerful for me. Once we left home, my mother wouldn’t let me try spells anymore. She was too scared.”

“And do you try spells now?” Harp inquired.

“Sometimes,” Verran admitted. “And sometimes things just happen.”

“Has anyone ever gotten hurt?” Harp asked.

“You mean besides the dead captain?” Boult reminded him.

Tve never hurt anyone… who didn’t deserve it,” Verran finished slowly.

“That’s comforting,” Boult said sarcastically.

“It’s been useful to us so far,” Harp pointed out. “Verran, I don’t supposed you have another useful spell that can locate the path?”

Verran looked sheepish. “It’s over there.”

“Did you just figure that out?” Harp asked.

“Um, a little while back. Before Cenhar was attacked. I was on that side of the trees when you shouted,” Verran replied. “And there’s something else.”

“I hope it’s a welcoming party,” Boult said.

“No. I think there’s a body on the other side of the trees.”

ŚŠŚ ŚŠ• ŚŠŚ

A mesh of woven branches hid the path. Without Verran’s luck, there was little chance they would have discovered it. And without the path, there was little chance they would have made it very far through the twisted undergrowth, fungus slicks, and flesh-eating vines.

“You think it was Bootman’s crew who covered the path?” Harp asked Boult as they made their way down the narrow channel through the dense vegetation. It was more like a tunnel than a path, with leaves and branches intertwining over their heads. Without regular travel across the ground, the jungle would soon retake the unnatural highway that allowed intruders to enter its confines.

“Doubtful,” Boult said. “That wasn’t done yesterday. There was new growth mixed in with the cover. Plus, someone shaped the vines. I don’t think they formed that latticework naturally.”

Boult glanced at Harp out of the corner of his eye. Kitto and Verran were ahead of them on the path, and Boult

wanted to know what Verran had told Harp. Boult had been suspicious of Verran from the moment they met him in a waterfront village south of the Amn border. A cold, stinging rain had fallen in sheets, soaking the shivering boy. At first glance, it was obvious the boy was unprepared for whatever he was dealing with. Boult barely gave him a second thought, but Harp had stopped and struck up a conversation.

Harp had bought the boy a hot meal in a nearby inn, and before Boult could kick his captain-under the table, Harp had hired the strapping lad to help on the Crane. Despite the fact that he said he didn’t know how to sail. Or use a sword. Or work a trade. Boult didn’t have much use for such helplessness. But Harp was drawn to a needy person like a moth to a flame.

“You’d hire a plague rat to sail our ship,” Boult grumbled as he stomped through the jungle. He glared up at Harp, hoping to get a rise out of him.

“Huh?” Harp asked.

“A plague rat,” Boult repeated impatiently. “And you wouldn’t be able to see his dagger at your throat.”

Harp looked at Boult like he’d lost his senses. “Since when do rats have daggers? What are you babbling about?”

“I’m talking about Verran,” Boult said.

Harp’s brow furrowed. “He’s had a hard time of it, Boult. Give him a chance.”

“He’s a wild shot,” Boult said with annoyance. He should have known that Harp was going to defend him.

“Sometimes wild shots hit their mark,” Harp said. “He took out Bootman. That was helpful.”

“He could have just as easily taken you out,” Boult said. “That doesn’t make you a little nervous?”

“He could have. He didn’t,” Harp said. “And if we find Liel’s body, I’ll be grateful to him.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because I’d know for sure,” Harp said. “I’d know that she was gone.”

Boult sucked in a mouthful of air, mainly to keep himself from saying what he wanted to. Harp’s pining for Liel had gotten old years before, and he hoped the trip into Chult would end it, in whatever way necessary.

“Do you actually think we’re just going to stumble on Liel’s body as soon as we walk into the huge, highly dangerous jungle? Do you know how many people die in the jungle every day?”

Harp rolled his eyes. “No, and neither do you.”

“It has to be a lot. Do you know how many ways there are to die in the jungle? Animals, disease, cannibals … Did I mention they have a disease down here that turns your tongue into an actual slug. In your mouth. Did you hear me? A slug.”

“Ugh,” Harp shuddered. “Tell me why I took the job again?”

“Cause you’re a drunk who can barely keep his ship.” “Again. Not helping.”

“And I’m not trying to. You were a good sailor once,” Boult said.

“I was good,” Harp said. “That’s why you made me captain.”

Boult snorted. “We made you captain because no one follows a dwarf who gets seasick.”

“Particularly not one as charming as you.”

“There’s another way,” Boult said, after a moment. “We could signal the crew and sail the ships to port.”

“No. I told you already. We have a job to do.”

“We’re not prepared for the jungle,” Boult said quietly. “And selling the Marigold will equal the rest of Avalor’s payment.”

“I’m going to the colony.”

“There’s a good chance that Liel is dead, Harp. What do

you want to find? Her decomposing body? Bring it home to her father in a box?”

“Cardew survived somehow,” Harp pointed out. “And I’ll wager Liel is mountains stronger than her pitiful excuse for a husband.”

“Unless he killed her. That’s what Avalor thinks happened, isn’t it?”

Harp hesitated. “He wants proof. And when I find it, it will give me every justification to cut Cardew’s throat.”

“Vankila’s not enough?” When Harp didn’t respond, Boult continued. “Why would Cardew bring Liel all the way down here to kill her?” Boult said. “Why not just kill her in Tethyr? Or just have her kidnapped. Again.”

“Too much protection? Avalor is well connected. And it’s more than that, anyway. Avalor thinks Cardew has his heart set on something else.”

Boult stopped in his tracks. “Avalor thinks so? So what does that sniveling blot of a man have his sights set on?”

“Not much,” Harp said pushing a large fern frond out of his way. “Just the kingdom of Tethyr in the palm of his hand.”

ŚŠŚ ŚŠŚŚŠŚ <$>Ś

It had been Boult who insisted that Harp answer Avalor’s summons in the first place. Harp and Avalor had never met in person, but the powerful elf had summoned him, and him alone, for a reason. If Avalor offered them a paying job, they would have to take it. Otherwise they were going to lose the Crane. If Harp was being summoned for another reason, he would just have to deal with whatever news Avalor had for him.

“And about time you started dealing with things too,” Boult often said to him. “Kitto looks up to you. And there isn’t much to look up to. Not anymore.”

So Harp hauled himself to the designated meeting place, a pub called the Broken Axe. Although Harp had walked past the shabby building many times, the sign above the front door showed only a war axe cleft in two pieces; there was nothing to show that it was an alehouse.

Harp had a few pints while waiting for Avalor to arrive— just enough to get almost drunk, but sober enough to have a conversation and keep up appearances. It was the best he could possibly expect from himself, given the nature of the situation.

“Don’t drink anything,” Boult had told Harp before he left. “You want to keep your wits about you.”

Then Avalor should have picked an establishment that served tea and sweet cake, Harp thought, taking another drink from his pint and staring out through the dirt-smeared window at the crowded market street. It was late afternoon before some festival to some druid or cleric. Harp couldn’t care less, but it looked as if every wife and daughter from the quarter had turned out to buy a chicken.

“Must be the festival of the chicken,” Harp muttered, earning dark looks from the two scabby men at the table next to his. The pub was only half full, and the two goons had been paying too much attention to him. Harp sighed. If years of hard living hadn’t been enough to dull his senses, he wasn’t sure what would.

“You blokes need something?” he asked in as amicable a tone as he could muster.

The bigger man grunted. “You look familiar.”

That was nothing new to Harp. Whenever he went into a town, a certain element noticed him. Or rather they noticed the spiderweb scarring across his face and hands. The scars had faded since the Vankila Slab, but the white lines were still noticeable, particularly if his skin was tanned from days at sea on the Crane. If someone recognized the distinctive

scarring, it meant they were familiar with a particular kind of necromancy. As soon as recognition clouded their eyes, Harp hated them for it.

“I don’t think so.” Harp said evenly. It usually played out in one of two ways: The idiot got the hint and shut up, or he insisted on continuing the line of inquiry, in which case Harp usually had to punch something, which wasn’t a good idea. It wasn’t a good idea because Avalor was due to arrive at any moment. It particularly wasn’t a good idea because Boult wasn’t there to back him up. In all the brawls inspired by Harp’s scars, Boult had always been there to back him up.

The men exchanged glances. “You sailed on the Marderward.”

That was not what Harp was expecting. Since they had made no assumptions about his scars, he wasn’t sure what to say to them. But just the mention of the Marderward made him want to get blinding drunk.

One of the men raised his glass. “To Captain Predeau.” And his comrade raised his glass too.

Harp took a big drink. “May the scars of his victims never heal.”

“Hear! Hear!” the men said appreciatively.

Harp took another drink. “May his enemies tremble at the sound of his name.”

“Hear! Hear!”

Harp drained the last of his ale. “May the cries of the children he orphaned never be silenced!”

The big man set down his glass. “Something tells me you’re not speaking well of the dead.”

“Hard to do when the dead ain’t well,” Harp said as he stood up abruptly and shoved back the table.

The men were on their feet at the same time, fists raised and fury in their eyes. The well-dressed gnome who had been drying glasses behind the bar appeared

out of nowhere and thrust himself between Harp and the other men.

“You have a visitor,” the gnome said firmly to Harp. “Through there,” he added, pointing to a door behind the bar. “And if you gentlemen will take your seats, I’ll refill your pints on the house.”

Harp bent over to pick up his pack, happy that the world wasn’t spinning as he made his way across the floor. Since he’d got out of prison, he’d spent way too much time in places like the Broken Axe, throwing words around with men like that.

The back room was a dimly lit storage room, packed with jars of pickled food and barrels of ale. A light was coming from under the door on the other side of the room. Harp opened it, half expecting to see the alley. But the dirty cobblestone streets and shabby storefronts were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Harp was standing in the middle of an old-growth forest. He was surrounded by black-barked trees with strands of long red leaves that whispered in the wind. There was the distinctive slant of the shadows and the buttery light he remembered from the harvest season of his childhood. Harp heard a rustle in the underbrush and spun around. On the other side of the clearing was a great tawny stag with reddish horns branching from its head. It paused when it saw Harp, and leaped into the undergrowth.

Enjoying the quiet noises of small animals hidden in the underbrush, Harp followed the stag and saw a narrow path winding through the trees. He tried to remember the last time he enjoyed the quiet of a forest, but it had been years, before he was imprisoned in the Vankila Slab. He had spent too much of his adulthood in the city.

The path rounded a bend, and in the clearing in front of him, he saw an auburn-haired, copper-skinned elf alone at a mahogany table that was simple in design but polished to a glossy shine. Dressed in unadorned gray robes, the elf s

hands were folded on the table, and his eyes were closed as if he were meditating. A roughly hewn staff rested against the table beside him.

It was Avalor, Treespeaker of the Wealdath Forest and member of Queen Anais’s privy council. And father of Liel, Harp thought, again wishing he were drunker than he was. Avalor didn’t move or give any sign that he recognized Harp’s presence. In fact, he seemed to be in some kind of a trance. From his reputation, Harp knew Avalor was an older elf, although his unlined face and lean body betrayed no signs of aging.

When Harp reached the table, Avalor opened his eyes, rose to his feet, and extended his arm. Harp shook his hand, and the elf looked into his face and smiled gently. Staring into Avalor’s bright green eyes, which were very much like Liel’s eyes, Harp relaxed. The knot of tension in his belly faded away.

“Please sit, Master Levesque,” Avalor said, nodding to a chair.

“Harp,” Harp told him. He’d not used his surname for a long time.

“Thank you for coming,” Avalor said. “I have wanted to meet you for a while.”

“Is this … Are we in the Feywild?” Harp asked, taking a deep breath. The air smelled of honeysuckle and freshly turned earth.

“No, no,” Avalor said. “It’s just an illusion. We are actually in the barkeep’s rather unremarkable garden. Much less pleasant. But we are alone, and the high walls keep away prying eyes. So you may speak freely. I thought we would be more comfortable. I have a keen dislike for the city.”