Glen Cook - Shadow of all Night Falling

She did. Claw, who seemed to be asleep, moved one paw as the rat shot past. End of chase.

"Remarkably intelligent animals," Visigodred noted. "So is Billy. Well, here we are. The Register. If Zindahjira and I compliment each other, I'll consider the job. Assuming he'll go along. But there'll be a price."

"I thought so. There always is. But it seems to me that you owe me a favor."

"And you owe me several. That more than cancels out, I'd say. I was thinking you could help me make sure the Horn goes where it's best deserved. Ah. Here we are. Zindahjira." He turned a page, peered at it closely. "Hmm. Uh-huh." One thin finger raced across the page as he read. Then he looked up, smiling. "We'd make a good team if the old windbag could keep his temper under control. But we still wouldn't be any match for Varthlokkur. Not in a heads-up fight. Really, the Princes Thaumaturge are the only men alive who could meet him one-on-one and have a chance."

A shriek interrupted Visigodred. He turned. Tooth and Claw had caught a dwarf between them. The fellow wasn't much bigger than Billy. "Tooth! Claw! Behave!" The cats let silent snarls relax into bored yawns, dropped onto their bellies. Their tails lashed slowly. Their eyes tracked the dwarf as he hurried past.

"My apprentice. What is it, Marco?" Visigodred asked. "And I do wish you'd stop teasing the cats."

The dwarf grinned lopsidedly, as if he had a lot to say about keeping leopards in the house but had to keep it to himself because Visigodred had heard it all before. "There's an owl in the parlor. Wants to see a Captain Ragnarson. Says he's fagged and wants to deliver his message so he can get some sleep. Very polite, for an owl. But if you ask me, he's found Gert up in the tower and it ain't sleep he's got on his feeble mind."

Ragnarson's eyebrows rose. It wasn't every day you met a man who talked to owls. Visigodred smiled. "Show him in, Marco. No, go around the other way. I'll let the cats have you one of these days." To Ragnarson, "A message from Zindahjira, no doubt. But routed through you because of his pride."

"Then Haroun must've made good time. It's a bitch of a trip to the Seydar Sea."

The dwarf returned with a huge owl perched on his shoulder. The bird made sounds in his ear. "He don't like being out in the daytime."

The owl fluttered to the table and stalked over to Ragnarson. It lifted a tufted leg. Bragi tried to avoid its wise, darkness-filled eyes as he removed the message. Then the bird took wing and was gone. Ragnarson examined the parchment, passed it on to Visigodred.

The wizard scanned it. "Ah, he's willing. One small hurrah for greed, Bragi. It's just a matter of negotiation now. And here comes dinner. Make yourselves comfortable. You'll be here a while. Marco! Come back here! I've got a job for you." Visigodred smiled again.

Ragnarson groaned silently, understanding. He and Elana were going to be hostages against the chance that they were working another hoax like the one that had destroyed Ravenkrak.

Visigodred began giving instructions to a terribly unhappy dwarf.

Turran and his brothers gave Iwa Skolovda a wide berth in passing. That city's new masters would have liked nothing better than to have had Storm King heads to decorate pikes over its gates. A day and fifty miles east of Iwa Skolovda, riding hard and with a snowstorm running before them, they happened on an abandoned farmhouse.

"What should we send?" Brock asked as they settled in.

"All we can, here to Fangdred, till we find out where he is," Turran replied. "After we get help from those wizards, we can relax."

That night a heavy snow carpeted Shara and the western Dragon's Teeth. Next night there was another fall, and another the night following, and so on till the end of the week. Travel in East Heatherland, Shara, and the Dragon's Teeth became virtually impossible.

The eighth day brought a change in schedule. Toward sundown, with Turran readying the sending gear, taciturn Brock brewing tea, and Jerrad and Valther out collecting firewood, the air over the cottage was split by an echoing scream. Something hit the roof with a resounding thump, rolled off into the snowdrifts against the north wall. Muted, colorful invective followed, then there was a knock at the door. Turran answered it, found a shivering, grumbling dwarf awaiting his response.

"Damned roc!" the dwarf snarled as he pushed into the cottage. "Sense of humor like you never saw. Likes to watch things fall. Especially when they kick and scream on the way down. Marco's the name. Hey! You! How about some of that tea? I'm free/ing my ass off. You Turran?" he asked, of Turran. "Yeah? Like I said, I'm Marco. From Mendalayas. Visigodred sent me, and a pox on the old sumbitch. All the way to the Seydar Sea, a week with that blowhard Zindahjira, and now the devil's own time finding you guys. Ah. Tea. Fit for the gods. I'll bitch about it in the morning, but it's ambrosia tonight. Look, Turran, the boss sent some junk for you. A map." He produced it. "And this thingee'll put you through to Visigodred and Zindahjira when you want. They're on twenty-four hour watch at Mendalayas. Must be one hell of a broad."

Marco talked and talked. Turran seldom slipped a word in. The dwarf anticipated all his questions. He pointed out the salient features of the land between the farmhouse and Fangdred. He located Mocker, astonishing Turran. The fat man had gotten a lot further than he had expected, having crossed Shara and made it well into the foothills of the Dragon's Teeth.

"This gimmick," said Marco, after taking a last item from his pack, "will give you a permanent view of what your friend is doing. Everything, so have a little respect." It seemed to be a stone, a crystal, a duplicate of the object meant to provide contact with Visigodred and Zindahjira. "The boss would've sent more, but they're all tied up. One for the woman, one for the wizard, one for the Old Man of the Mountain. And another to keep an eye on Zindahjira."

Turran smiled thoughtfully, said, "And one for myself and each of my brothers, no doubt. And still another for you."

The dwarf winked and said, "Let's get on it. It's cold out here, there ain't no girls, and I can't go home where there are till this crap's over. First order of business is a conference. Visigodred and Zindahjira are hanging around waiting for you."

Tooth and Claw nervously patrolled the reorganized study, in no mood for loafing by the fire. Billy lay curled in Visigodred's lap, sleeping fitfully, plagued by unhappy monkey dreams. Perhaps the leopards of his mind were closing on the running ghost of his monkey-imagination. Servants came and went, bringing refreshments and carrying away dirty mugs and dishes, or tending the roaring fire. They were as jittery as the pets. At the table where Visigodred and Ragnarson hunched over one of the wizard's seeing-stones, the tension was doubly thick. Mocker had moved to within fifty miles of Fangdred. And Varthlokkur had shown signs, finally, of getting ready to defend himself. An assassin had been sent out from the Castle of Wind. He and Mocker would meet in a matter of hours.

But hours there were, and worrying before the fact was useless. Ragnarson said as much.

"You're right," Visigodred replied softly, with a tremor. "But it's not the encounter that worries me. We'll get him past the ambush. Zindahjira's studying the terrain now, setting it up. The problem is, how do we do it without getting caught?" He paused, chuckled, continued, "That ham-hand Zindahjira wanted to use a smoke-demon. Might as well write our names in fire on a midnight sky."

Ragnarson, from beneath his brows as he watched the crystal ball, studied Visigodred's face. Behind the gray beard and nonchalance, the wizard was pale. Beads of perspiration glittered on his forehead. Was the dread attached to Varthlokkur really that well-founded? Varthlokkur hadn't done anything remarkable that he could see. He considered hints dropped during his conversation with Haroun the previous evening, via the crystals. Zindahjira was scared silly.