Jenna Helland - The Fanged Crown

“What? Knitting is a useful skill. Cooperage, definitely handy. No offense, Verran, but that’s just …”

“Boult, enough.” But Verran had already moved away into the gloom. “It’s not his fault,” Harp whispered angrily.

Boult jutted out his jaw unapologetically. “Maybe not, but it’s still unsettling.”

“Fine. Be unsettled in the privacy of your thick skull. He’s just a kid. I’m sure he didn’t ask to be that way.”

“Oh, it’s just a family trait? Like curly hair?” Boult hissed.

Harp shrugged noncommittally. “Well, in a way.”

“In what way?” Boult demanded.

“His father was a warlock,” Harp said softly, watching as Verran inspected a row of shelves at the far end of the room. “Maybe that has something to do with it.”

“If his father made a bargain with something dark, then he would get the power, not his son,” Boult informed Harp.

“Unless giving power to Verran was part of the bargain,” Harp replied, suddenly feeling uneasy. He’d hadn’t had a chance to ponder his conversation with Verran on the beach or consider the implications of what Verran had told Harp about his father.

“Maybe,” Boult said. “Or maybe Verran’s making all that up. Maybe he’s the one who asked for the bargain. Maybe he made up the story about his father.”

“And maybe this is all speculation,” Harp said. “It could be … something else entirely.”

“Let’s hope so,” Boult replied as Verran called to them from across the dusty room. He was standing near a low table that was still set with empty wooden bowls and cups filled with water. A rotting haunch of meat hung over a cold pile of ash in the fire pit.

“Dinner ended abruptly,” Boult said. “I wonder what happened at lovely Cardewton? Did Avalor tell you what its lovely leader reported, Harp?”

“No, and I’m sure whatever Cardew said at court bears little resemblance to the truth.”

“But Liel knows,” Boult said gruffly.

“And we’ll ask her. But be patient,” Harp said. “Let her get some clothes, clean the blood off herself. She’s not going anywhere.”

“Patience is an excuse for the dull-witted,” Boult retorted.

Harp opened his mouth to reply, but changed his mind. Between Liel and Verran, he had too much on his mind to banter with Boult. Having found Liel, he wasn’t sure what to do next. If there were more hints to Cardew’s plans here, Avalor would want to know what they were. But Avalor would also want his daughter safe in the Wealdath. Usually he could count on Boult for solid advice, but after Boult’s revelation about Cardew, he wasn’t sure the dwarf was thinking clearly either.

They headed to the door at the west end of the building, which opened onto a scrubby patch of ground. Nearby was a small shack with a padlock on the door, and there was another cluster of lean-tos near the outer wall. While Verran wandered over to check out the huts, Harp slammed his boot against the door of the shack. The entire frame splintered as the door went flying back and clattered against a weapons cabinet, knocking several swords to the dirt.

“Why even bother with a lock?” Harp said, looking at the splintered remains of the door.

The men replenished their bolts, and Harp checked the small selection of swords, most of which were rusted or slightly bent. There was only one that looked promising—a long sword with a golden hilt. An engraved serpent curled around the blade, and there was an empty space on each side of the pommel where jewels had been removed.

“Feel better?” Boult asked as Harp hefted the sword in his hand, sizing up the length and weight of the weapon.

“Isn’t having a sword always better than not having a sword?” Harp asked.

“It depends on your definition of having.”

Harp recognized a warning in Boult’s tone. “Do you have something you want to say?”

“Maybe.”

“Then just get it off your chest, dwarf.”

“I have doubts that Cardew could mastermind anything as complex as an omelet, let alone run such an operation in Chult from his precious little estate in Tethyr.”

Harp was genuinely surprised. “We know what Cardew is capable of. Why would such a thing be beyond him?”

“He’s capable of lying. He’s capable of having someone else do his dirty work. He’s capable of taking orders. That’s what we know.”

“You don’t think he organized the Children’s Massacre?”

Boult snorted. “No, I’ve never thought that.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“I have my theories.”

Harp gestured impatiently. “The skillet’s not getting any hotter, Boult. Throw on the butter and go.”

“All right, but you won’t like it.”

“Just tell me.”

“Remember I told you about the attack on the road outside the Winter Palace. Well, here’s what I didn’t tell you: the assassins were elves.”

“Elves? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Not if the Branch of Linden set up the attack. But there’s others—”

“The elves in Tethyr are solidly behind Avalor. He’s had their allegiance for years. Are you implying that Avalor—”

Someone tapped lightly on the doorframe, and they both jumped.

Kitto cleared his throat, “Liel wants to talk to you,” he said.

A late afternoon rainstorm forced them to take shelter inside the small hut that Liel had shared with her husband. The mud-and-straw walls were intact, but there were gaps between the floorboards and holes in the roof where the rain came through. Birds had nested in the thatch; they twittered and rustled as the wind lashed against the hut.

Before the storm came, Kitto had boiled a pot of water over the open fire pit outside. They sat on logs set around the fire by the colonists and drank tepid tea in mugs that Verran had found in the common building. With their packs pushed up against the driest wall, they sat on the floor and waited for Liel to speak. A crack of lightning crashed into the jungle nearby, but she didn’t seem to hear it. She passed the cup from one hand to the next, staring intently into it.

“Things had been wrong with Cardew and me for a while. He spent all his time at Anais’s court, maneuvering for position and playing the political games he loved so much. I left him and went back to living at my father’s house in the Wealdath. After several months, Cardew came to me full of apologies. He had news of a venture in Chult, a venture that Queen Anais had handpicked for him. He was so excited, and it sounded like the perfect chance for us to do something together, to build something up—away from the intrigue of the queen’s court.

“Cardew told me that we were going to Chult with a large contingent of adventurers and their families. But when we arrived in the jungle, it was just me, Cardew, and a handful of men and half-orcs. They were mercenaries hired from Baldur’s Gate, and as soon as I saw them, I knew they weren’t planning to make a home. We sailed to Chult in two different ships—Cardew and I on one ship, and the mercenaries on another. I first saw the men while we were standing on the beach as the ship sailed away. And I knew that Cardew had lied to me about what was going on in Chult.

“Minutes after we landed, a man was bit by a sand scorpion and died there on the beach. Another was almost killed by something ten feet into the jungle. I thought about leaving them and trying to find my way to Nyanzaru, but I wasn’t even sure which direction to go. And I still had hopes that Cardew hadn’t lied to me intentionally.

“The next day one of the half-orcs drank water from a muddy stream and began choking. I tried to help him, but he suffocated on his own tongue. I don’t know where Cardew got the coin to pay the mercenaries’ fees, but it must have been extensive. Nothing deterred them, not even after the first night when something came into the camp and dragged away another man.