Troy Denning - The Obsidian Oracle

“What?” Agis demanded. “You’re giving up?”

“For now,” the head acknowledged. “After the way Fylo screamed when I bit his throat, we don’t have long before the Joorsh arrive. Now be still, and I’ll bite you free.” Wyan floated over to Agis’s side and began gnawing on the rope.

When the line slackened, the noble began to untwine himself. “That’s enough,” he said.

Wyan drifted away, waiting patiently while the noble untied his legs and stood.

“Don’t come too close,” Agis said. “I don’t trust your change of heart.”

“Of course not. You know me better than that,” sneered the head. “But it will be easier to take the satchel from you than from the giants.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Agis replied.

Fylo came over to join them. The giant looked only a little better than he had a short time ago, though he had apparently recovered enough of his balance to stand on his own. “What now, friend?” he asked.

“We leave,” Agis answered, glaring at Wyan suspiciously.

“I’m the least of your troubles,” sneered the head, looking away.

Agis followed the head’s gaze and saw that Mag’r’s young assistant, Beort, had finally tracked down his master. The youth stood in the gateway, staring at Agis and the others.

“Where’s Sachem Mag’r?” he demanded.

“Not here.” Fylo shrugged and looked around the compound.

The boy pointed at Agis. “He must be here. That’s his prisoner.”

Fylo seemed at a loss to answer, so Agis spoke up. “The sachem told him to watch me.”

The youth scowled at Fylo, then asked, “Who are you, ugly?”

“Me Fylo,” the half-breed answered, his tone sharp.

“I’ve never heard of any Fylo.…”

The youth let his sentence trail off and backed out the gate, his eyes going wide. Fylo tore a crystal from the wall and started to hurl it after him.

“No! He’s just a child,” Agis yelled. “Besides, attacking him outside the compound would raise the alarm anyway. Just pick me up, and let’s get out of here.”

The giant did as asked and limped out the gate. Once they were outside, the noble saw Beort scrambling toward the far end of the compound, where Chief Nuta continued to expound on the evils of keeping the Oracle past the proper time. The young giant was screaming for help, and Joorsh warriors were already turning to see what was wrong.

“Where go?” Fylo asked, his eyes searching the citadel for a likely escape route.

“In your condition, there’s only one way out of here,” said Wyan. “You’ll have to go through the gate.”

Fylo’s eyes went wide. “Sachem Mag’r smart,” he objected. “Put guards there.”

“Wyan’s right,” Agis said. “Neither one of us is in any condition to be climbing over walls or down cliffs. I’ll tell you how to get past the guards on our way.”

By the time they reached the path descending into the courtyard, Chief Nuta was leading a dozen giants after them. The pursuers were still near the back of the citadel, but their angry shouts echoed throughout Castle Feral. In every corner of the fortress, exhausted Joorsh warriors were rousing themselves from their campsites and looking toward the source of the disturbance.

Fylo remained calm, as the noble had instructed, and brushed his hand over his beard. Agis grabbed onto a greasy braid of hair and clung there, with Wyan hovering close by. Then, without looking back toward his pursuers, the giant picked up a large boulder and lumbered down into the rubble-strewn gateyard.

On the other side, two weary sentries guarded the great breach where the gates had once hung. They seemed more puzzled than concerned by the commotion above. Although they had risen from the stone blocks on which they had been sitting, their heavy clubs still leaned against the shattered remains of the wall. One of them was not even watching Fylo, but instead kept his attention fixed on something outside the castle, in the Bay of Woe.

As Fylo approached with his burden, the sentry watching him raised a puzzled brow. The half-breed ignored him, keeping his eyes on the ground and attempting to trudge out the gate without having to give an explanation.

The sentry, a thick-waisted giant with the tattoo of a goat on his forehead, held out a hand to stop Fylo. “What’s going on up in the castle?” he asked.

“Beastheads,” Fylo answered.

The second guard, who was almost gaunt by comparison to the first, looked away from the Bay of Woe. “We know they’re beastheads,” he said in a sarcastic voice. “What are they doing?”

Fylo met his gaze, as if to answer, and swung the hand holding the boulder. The blow caught the guard completely by surprise, connecting beneath the ear, exactly where Agis had instructed Fylo to aim. The giant’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his knees buckled.

As the unconscious sentry collapsed, his partner reached for his club with one hand and clamped his other on Fylo’s shoulder, spinning him around. “What are you-”

The half-breed hurled his boulder at the sentry’s foot, and the question erupted into a pained howl. Fylo ran for the causeway, following the path the granite ball had cleared earlier as it blasted across the debris-covered apron. Although he was not a fast runner, his clumsy gait was more than adequate to escape the sentry hopping after him.

As Fylo lumbered across the narrow isthmus, Agis poked his head from behind the giant’s beard. “Well done!”

That was when the noble saw what the gaunt sentry had been watching in the Bay of Woe. The battered Shadow Viper lay a short distance from the causeway. Without a shipfloater, it rested up to its gunnels in silt. Otherwise, the ship sat on an even keel and looked reasonably dustworthy, despite its pock-marked decks and snapped masts. Dozens of slaves stood along the rail, watching Fylo’s escape with envious eyes. Now that there was no longer a sentry watching them from the gate, a few were probing along the side of the ship with their plunging poles, looking for a place shallow enough that they could wade ashore.

“Take me to the ship, Fylo,” Agis ordered.

The giant stopped and turned to face the derelict, but made no move to go out to it. “You say run to other side of Lybdos!” he objected.

“I know, but I can’t abandon those slaves,” Agis said.

“Can’t carry them,” Fylo said. “Too many!”

“You’re not going to carry them,” the noble replied. He glanced toward the gate and saw that they were in no danger of being caught by the thick-waisted sentry. The giant was still trying to hop across the wreckage, using his club as a cane. Agis returned his attention to the ship. “The Shadow Viper can escape by itself. All it needs is a shipfloater.”

“You?” scoffed Wyan. “From what I’ve heard of your talents, the ship won’t make it out of the bay before you collapse.”

“I’ll get us started,” Agis replied. “After that, Tithian will have to take over.”

“Tithian!” Fylo blurted. “Him not here!”

“He’s in my satchel,” Agis replied. As an afterthought, he added, “At least I hope he is.”

“He is,” Wyan reported. “I saw him while you and I were scuffling over the bag. He’ll be thrilled to help, I’m sure.” He smiled, a strange twinkle in his eye. “I’ll go tell the slaves to ready their plunging poles.”

With that, Wyan floated ahead to prepare the crew. Fylo stepped into the silt, shaking his head as he waded after the disembodied head. “This too dangerous,” he said. “Head-thing only help slaves so you let Tithian out of sack.”

“Yes, I know,” Agis replied. “But it makes no difference.”

“Does too!” Fylo countered. “Can’t trust Tithian.”