James Wyatt: Oath of Vigilance

“I lived here,” Tempest said. Her voice startled them both-she hadn’t spoken since she entered the tavern. “For a little while.”

Roghar studied her face, but couldn’t read any emotion in her expression. Her eyes were turned toward the crater at the top of the hill.

Travic nodded. “Then you know what I’m talking about.”

“I know.”

Tempest fell back into silence, and Travic, apparently lost in his own reverie, led them off the street through a doorway draped with a tattered curtain.

The space inside had once been a grand entrance hall for a stately home. The morning sun poured down through an open skylight, warming the ancient stone and illuminating every corner of the room. A graceful stairway swept halfway up the wall on one side before dissolving into rubble. A moldering tapestry that might once have been a carpet hung askew over another doorway opposite the stairs, the hinges of the original doors still visible at its sides. A pile of straw and rags in the far corner must have served as a bed, though it was too thin to offer much protection from the hard marble floor.

As Travic had said, no sign of violence marred the scene. If gnolls had attacked this place, Roghar thought, they would have torn the curtain they came through, for starters. They would have killed the residents of the home, and gnolls prefer to kill in ways that leave blood all over the floor, the walls, and sometimes the ceiling.

“Who lived here?” Tempest asked.

“Their names were Marcan and Gaele. An older couple, humans in their fifties. Marcan was a cooper, but he lost his arm at the same time as they lost their children, about fifteen years ago. Gaele earns a pittance washing clothes and linens.”

Roghar growled, a low rumbling deep in his throat. “So the weak become prey for the ruthless,” he said.

“Indeed.”

“That’s not what it looks like to me,” Tempest said. “Maybe they found a better place to live. I don’t see anything here that I’d take with me if I left.”

“If they had simply moved, I’d have heard about it,” Travic said.

“Are you sure?”

“I spend a lot of time with the people on this street. They know me and trust me. I was with Marcan and Gaele when they lost everything. They’d share the joy of a new home with me.”

“Then I say we venture into the ruins and look around,” Roghar said. “Maybe we’ll find a threat other than gnolls lurking there.”

“I’m confident we will,” Travic said. “The gods will guide us.”

Travic led the way back out to the street and up toward the crater where the jewel of Nerath, the emperor’s glorious palace, had once stood. They passed more makeshift homes like the one Marcan and Gaele had claimed, marked by curtains hanging in empty doorways or clothes hung in broken windows to dry. Here and there, a potted plant lent a splash of color to the barren stone walls.

The closer they got to the crater, though, the more infrequent such signs of habitation became. Fewer buildings could boast four walls and a roof, and soon Roghar was helping Tempest clamber over rubble that choked the street. The few sounds of human activity faded, replaced with the scurrying noises of vermin and the occasional snarl of a larger scavenger picking through the ruins.

“Look over there,” Travic said.

Roghar shielded his eyes from the morning sun and followed Travic’s pointing finger. It took him just a moment to find what the cleric had seen-the mangy pelt of some beast, hung like a banner on a crumbling wall a few dozen yards away. “Gnolls,” he said.

Travic nodded and slid his mace out of the loop at his belt. Roghar drew his sword and adjusted his grip on his shield, glancing over his shoulder at Tempest. She still seemed distracted, distant, but she held her rod resting on her shoulder, ready to blast any enemies that appeared out of the ruins.

Roghar led the way, picking his way carefully through the rubble. Gnolls were not known for laying traps and deadfalls near their lair, not least because they’d be likely to stumble into their own traps in the madness of their hunting fury. Even so, the ruins could hide any number of dangers, from lurking scavengers to unsafe floors. As he neared the wall with its grisly banner, he slowed his steps in a futile attempt to move more quietly, but for all his efforts every step was a grating symphony of crunching gravel and clanking armor.

Despite the noise, no gnoll appeared behind the wall, no spears or arrows shot out at him. With a glance over his shoulder to make sure that Travic and Tempest had kept up with him, he ran the last few yards and fell into a crouch at the base of the wall. He signaled the others and they froze in place, crouching low to take whatever cover the rubble afforded. Roghar cocked his head and listened.

Wind stirred through the ruins, making the pelt rustle against the ancient stone. Claws or teeth, still attached to the pelt, clattered against the wall. Somewhere far off, he thought he heard a flute playing high and sweet. But nothing stirred behind the wall.

Slowly, as quietly as his armor would allow, he rose from his crouch and peered over the crumbling edge of the wall. The building was a gnoll den, certainly. Filthy piles of furs and grisly trophies decorated the space defined by the broken ruins of four stone walls. Gore-stained bones, some gnawed and broken, littered the center of the space. Dried brown blood was smeared on what walls remained, in patterns he imagined the gnolls found artful or symbolic in some way. But he saw no gnolls, and none of the fierce hyenas they preferred as pets.

Gesturing the others forward, Roghar stepped around the crumbled wall. The stench of death assaulted his nostrils, and he silently thanked the wind that had carried it away from him earlier. He moved carefully about the den, peering around the other walls, straining his ears for any sign of life.

“It’s abandoned,” Travic said.

Roghar looked down at the gory mess in the middle of the room. Maggots writhed on the bones, fighting over what meat was left on them. He glanced around again, his eyes taking in details he’d missed the first time-shiny black beetles scurrying among the furs, a spider the size of his fist perched on an ornate web in one corner. He nodded. It was possible the gnolls were simply out hunting, but the place definitely gave him the sense that no one had been there for days, perhaps weeks.

“Just like the house,” Tempest said. “Just like Gaele’s house.”

Your father?” Kri said, his eyes wide.

Albanon nodded slowly. “The Prince of Thorns, yes.”

“You’re not smiling.”

“You don’t know my father,” Albanon said. “Or do you?”

“No, no. In all my years and for all my study, this is my first visit to the tower where the Order of Vigilance began. My first visit to the Feywild at all, actually. So what kind of reception should we expect?”

Albanon frowned. “A very cold one. He was not pleased with my decision to study in the mortal world.”

Splendid alighted on his shoulder. “He should have been proud,” the little dragon huffed. “Moorin was the greatest wizard in all the world.”

“The world’s greatest wizard is not good enough for the Prince of Thorns,” Albanon said. “In his mind, even the lowliest eladrin mentor would have been preferable.”

Kri stroked his beard. “Well, a cold welcome is better than an armed one, I suppose.”

“Don’t insult him, or the one could turn into the other.”

“Understood,” Kri said. “We’ll make our audience as brief and as polite as possible.”

“Brief is good,” Albanon said. He stared at Splendid. “Polite is essential. Even if he says things about Moorin that are … less than complimentary.”