A. Hartley - Will Power

I have to say that most of these carefully thought out justifications of my actions came to me after I had already confessed all to Renthrette, but I like to think that I had already recognized them intuitively. In fact, it probably had more to do with Renthrette’s earnest face, bent so close to mine that I could feel the breath from her lips on my skin, but why split hairs? In any event, I told her: quickly, in a whisper, and with one eye on the door, but I told her everything.

If it had not done so already, her allegiance switched in a heartbeat. “And they are all alive!” she gasped, joy breaking out all over her. “Lisha and Orgos and Mithos?”

“Yes. But be quiet! Part of the story I told Sorrail is true. There is a large Stehnite force mustering in the forest, but they know they can’t assault the city. They built Phasdreille, after all, and they know that storming the main gate will get them nowhere. The breach in the walls is largely blocked, but it is still their best chance of getting in. Sorrail and the rest of them know this, of course, and will have it heavily defended. The only chance for the Stehnites is to significantly reduce or distract that guard. That, I’m afraid, is the task dumped on me, and because I didn’t want it in the first place, I expect you to help. I know that makes no sense, but people in pain are permitted to abandon logic. If I’m in, you’re in.”

“We can’t do it alone.”

“We won’t have to, supposedly,” I said ruefully. Part of me had hoped she would denounce the plan as foolhardy, in which case I could have abandoned it and still say I’d tried. I should have known better.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked, a flicker of animation coming into her eyes.

I looked at her, sighing pointedly. She misread the gesture as being a symptom of my discomfort, and began pushing pillows under my painfully bruised back. I began talking, hoping to stop her ministrations before she did real damage. “Orgos and a company of Stehnites-the people you call goblins-are making their way to a secret entrance into the city. It is narrow and can only be opened from the inside, but it seems that the ‘fair folk,’ or whatever we’re supposed to call them now-the Arak Drül, I suppose-are unaware of it. We have to let them in. If the king and his ‘fair’ friends do know of the entrance, we will find out very quickly, I would think, but Orgos assures me that all will be well. So that’s that settled.”

“Where is this entrance?”

“There is an abandoned Stehnite necropolis beneath the city-”

“A what?”

“A goblin cemetery. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? A real holiday jaunt. Apparently we are supposed to go there-limp, in my case-and find some tomb which is actually the entrance to a tunnel under and out of the city. Having avoided being seen by the inevitable legions of guards with the aid of some device they seem to have forgotten to pass on to me, we then open the tomb, greet our companions warmly, and destroy the forces of darkness. Or, in this case, light. ‘And be home in time for supper,’ I think the original orders read,” I added dryly. I had already gone through a pretty bleak time with Sorrail and his men, and the plan that the Stehnite chieftains had produced, with Mithos and the others nodding gravely in the wings, now seemed an even bigger death trap than it had at the time.

“Can you stand?” asked Renthrette.

“I suspect so,” I replied miserably, “but I choose not to.”

“Come on. We have work to do.”

She slid the door bolt back and had her hand on the handle when the door exploded inward, throwing her heavily against the wall. I rolled panic-stricken from my couch as a man stepped into the room. He was hooded, but his posture somehow conveyed both strength and agility. It also seemed familiar. When he spoke, all doubt in my mind vanished. The assassin from the alley had caught up with me as he had promised. “Well, Mr. Hawthorne. So nice to see you again. And in the company of the Lady Renthrette, I see. Sorrail will be shocked.”

Renthrette had fallen facedown, but she was turning over quickly and her hand was fumbling for her dagger. He kicked at her wrist, a single, explosive snap that sent the knife skipping across the floor. I made a movement toward him, but he turned easily, ready for me, idly remarking to the prone Renthrette, “How quickly you people change allegiances.”

“And what side would you have us on?” I demanded, stalling.

“No side,” he remarked simply. “I want you dead.”

A bit of a conversation killer, a remark like that, and maybe not just conversation. He passed his right hand across his chest and his fingers flexed oddly, like a magician performing a sleight-of-hand trick. Then he doffed his hood with his left hand, revealing the thin, balding features of Lord Gaspar, and drew his right arm back close to his head.

Part of me wasn’t surprised, not because I had suspected Gaspar of being a highly proficient murderer, but because I hadn’t liked him much. Not much of an insight, I know, but enough to make my next action a tiny bit more efficient. I lunged at him headfirst before the missile could leave his poised hand, crunching into his midriff just below his ribs. He gasped and fell back, but he was surprised more than winded, and his recovery was virtually instantaneous. The guards had, of course, taken my weapons-not that I could fight an assassin on anything like even terms in this condition if I’d had an entire armory to select from. He stepped back from me and I barely stopped myself from falling facedown. Renthrette was gathering herself into a crouch by my side, but he watched her from his place by the door and seemed smugly unconcerned. In his right hand he now brandished a length of fine chain which ended in a cluster of thin spines and razor blades. He was whirling it round faster and faster like a lasso, so that it whined thinly in the air.

“Just a scratch, Mr. Hawthorne,” he smiled, “that’s all it will take. One skill we have perfected since the time of the first goblin wars is the art of poison. This is a distillate from Briesh root. Very fast, very painful.”

He smiled again. His skin seemed to stretch transparent over his skull and his deepset eyes twinkled like polished stones. The pitch of the sound rose as he spun his weapon faster and advanced upon us.

Renthrette and I shrank back. He had raised the chain so that the weapon hummed like a swarm of bees over his head, and now he backed us into the cold stone wall. I spared a glance at Renthrette; she was standing now, straining back to stay out of the range of the poisoned blades that cut the air in front of our faces, but her jaw was set and resolute. For a moment my heart leaped, thinking she had a plan and was on the edge of action, but then I saw the truth: She was steeling herself for death. The realization brought a thin yelp of terror to my lips and she turned quickly to look at me, perhaps hoping to see an idea in my face, a promise that Reliable Will, Hawthorne the Resourceful, had one more trick up his sleeve. I checked my sleeves. Nothing. Gaspar took another step toward us and his mouth buckled into a small and satisfied smile. This time the Pale Claw would have their way.

Suddenly the door behind Gaspar opened inward and a sentry armed with towels and sponges stepped in. It took a second for him to react, but his hand went instinctively to his sword. Gaspar swung the chain wildly at the astonished guard, who raised one thoughtless arm to protect himself. A cut opened up along the edge of his wrist and he fell back clutching it. Gaspar turned hurriedly to us again but he was already off balance and Renthrette had moved sideways. Gaspar let out a few more inches of chain and spun the weapon faster. Renthrette sucked her breath in and slid down the wall toward the door. Gaspar paid out more chain and the deadly circle expanded. I wondered if I could time a lunge at him between the passes of the poisoned razors, but I felt the wind of it on my chest, heard it like some lethal mosquito in my ear, and my courage failed me. Renthrette, though, moved again, edging toward the still-open door. Gaspar grimly let out a few more inches of chain. Almost immediately there was a sharp thud and, in the silence that followed, a quavering tone, like the fading end of a bell’s peal. The needles and blades of Gaspar’s weapon had bitten hard into the wood of the open door.