Mel Odom - The Lost Library of Cormanthyr

The lich waved to the shelves. "A pittance against all that is actually here."

"Yet a fortune to me," Krystarn countered. "I would learn from you, as I have offered."

"I have no need of an apprentice. I do not intend to forsake this unlife."

"As you have made so clear."

Shallowsoul regarded her, and a cold smile curved his tattered lips baring his teeth even more. The drow thought she even heard the flesh crack and split. "I want you to kill the ranger, Baylee Arnvold."

"How?" Krystarn challenged.

The lich brought a bag onto the desk. Four gold bands big enough to go around Krystarn's head encircled the bag. Even as the bag lay on the desk, the cloth jumped and moved. "Do you know what these are?" He tossed one to her.

At her knowing touch, Krystarn could feel the magic within the band. "No."

"You've seen skeleton warriors, I presume?" Shallowsoul asked.

"Yes." Krystarn's stomach tightened at the thought, and the announcement confirmed the suspicion she had about the gold bands.

"These are control bands for the four skeleton warriors in this bag." Shallowsoul tossed the bag across. "Do you know how to use them?"

Krystarn caught the bag of holding. "I've been told once you're wearing a band, you have control over the skeleton warrior."

"Their souls were captured and placed within those bands," Shallowsoul agreed. "Those particular four were once enemies. I killed them, stripped their souls from their dying bodies, and enchanted them within those bands. They've been there for hundreds of years."

The bag shifted in the drow's grip. The gold bands felt chill against her skin.

"Choose three of your men and take them with you." Shallow-soul crossed the room to a stack and took down a weathered wooden staff. "This staff has already been charged with enough magic to take yourself and the three you've chosen to the forgathering. There are two charges. One to open a dimensional door to take you there, and the other to bring you back again."

Krystarn caught the staff, folding it readily into her grip.

"Go now," the lich ordered, "and do not fail me."

Questions filled the drow's mind, but she uttered none of them. She had learned never to question Shallowsoul. The lich brooked no such thing. She inclined her head again, taking one last glance around the room to memorize it, then turned and walked away. She deliberately chose another path, hoping the lich thought she'd merely gotten turned around.

Two steps forward, her eyes hungrily devouring the texts around her, searching for a clue as to what the pages might contain, the air in front of her suddenly rippled. Shallowsoul's grating bone laughter flared to harsh life around her. Then the dimensional door pulled her through.

In one cold, falling eye blink, she stood back in the tunnel. A wave of dizziness overcame her as the last of the lich's laughter faded away.

One of the males reached out to aid her.

Regaining her balance, Krystarn drew one of the short daggers secreted in her corset and raked a cruel line of blood across the male's cheek. Even as he reacted, trying to step away from the blade, Krystarn stepped forward and shoved the dagger up under his nose, hooking the tip into one nostril to freeze the male into place. A trickle of blood ran down his upper lip.

"Do not forget your station," she warned. "I've killed drow women for less, much less a member of an imperfect gender."

"Forgive me, Malla. I only forgot-"

"There is no forgetting around me," Krystarn said.

"Yes, Malla."

"Step back." When the drow warrior moved back, Krystarn flipped the dagger slightly, cutting through the male's nostril and creating a slit almost a half-inch long.

To his credit, the warrior said nothing, though his ebony face grayed in pain.

Krystarn put her dagger away, secreting it once more. "Do not ever let me think you see me in a moment of weakness," she told all of the men. "I shall not be weak because that would only encourage the craftiest among you to try to slip a blade between my ribs. And I do not intend to lose any more of you than I have to." So far, only two of her warriors had died in the tunnels surrounding the library's hiding place.

The wounded man stepped back into the military formation, ignoring the blood that streamed down his chin and dripped to his tunic.

"Captain Vnk'itn, we are traveling again. Get your men into a bag of holding."

The captain waved his arm and one of the men produced a large bag of holding from a backpack. He held it open while the man next to him climbed inside and disappeared without a sound.

"Also," Krystarn told her captain, "I want yourself and two other men whose nerve will not fail to stay with me." She grasped the staff Shallowsoul had given her and waited for her orders to be carried out.

It would be good to get back to the business of taking lives. Lloth would be pleased. The ranger was as good as dead.

"What would the Waterdhavian Watch want with you, Baylee?"

The ranger shook his head at Serellia's question as he lounged in the shadows by a tree overlooking the table where Cordyan Tsald sat with one of her companions. The female watch lieutenant's name was already being passed rapidly throughout the forgathering after the axe throwing event.

"The only tie I have there is Golsway," Baylee answered. He watched a brief fluttering of leathery wings take to the air from a branch near Cordyan's head. Xuxa, what have you learned?

A lot of silly intrigues that are currently in vogue in Waterdeep, the azmyth bat answered. But nothing regarding you.

Baylee watched the woman, eating as unconcernedly as if she had a right to be there. He smiled. In a way, he found her behavior curious. And she had chosen the right way to set all the tongues wagging at the forgathering. As well liked as he was by most rangers who knew him, Baylee also knew he had people who disliked him, if they didn't count him as a definite enemy.

Aymric held up an arm. Xuxa landed neatly on it, hanging upside down. "A reward, dear Xuxa, for your daring efforts." He offered her a small piece of apple nut crunch.

Gossip collecting, you mean. Still Xuxa took the offered treat.

"They are deliberately not talking about you," Serellia stated.

"Well," Karg rumbled, standing beside them, "after the display I'm told she put on at the axe throwing contest, everyone else is talking about you."

"They came at you straightaway, my friend," Aymric pointed out. "If they had a fell purpose in mind, they would have waited for you outside the forgathering."

"Even then, that would not have been a wise move," Karg said. "Our sentries spotted them a full two hours before they arrived and had word sent back to Myndhl. He's in charge of security this year, you know."

Baylee did know. Myndhl was a forest runner like Vaggit, and several areas in the Dalelands named Myndhl as an outlaw. His largesse didn't necessarily stem from the coffers of Zhentil Keep as Vaggit's did. Many times over the years, Myndhl's victims had included the wealthier houses around the Dalelands whose only crime was success. As such a wanted person, Myndhl's security systems were elaborate.

"Then I suppose there's nothing to be done for it," Baylee said.

"What do you mean?" Aymric asked, peering through the branches.

"I'll go down there and kill the man sitting with the lieutenant," Baylee replied. "Then she'll talk."

"You're kidding," Karg rumbled.

"Yes." Baylee started out from the tree, aiming straight for the table where Cordyan and her companion sat. Heads turned as he passed by, and he knew that most of the rangers at the forgathering knew what was going on.

"Then what are you going to do?" Serellia demanded, rushing up to walk with him.