The Temple of Yellow Skulls Read online

  Teldorthan appeared in the door behind Shara, bright eyes watching. If Shara did use the hammer on him, Albanon thought, at least there would be someone to pull her off his broken body. Swallowing again, he crossed the yard. “Shara,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Albanon.” Her answer was frosty. “What do you want? I’m busy.”

  “I came—” he began, but the words came out weak. Hesitant. Albanon closed his mouth around them. This is your fault, he reminded himself. Face up to it!

  He straightened his back and held his head high. “I came to apologize for what I said last night. You have more experience in judging people than I do. And if I said something that insulted the memory of your father, I’m sorry.”

  Shara snorted. “So you brought an audience with you. Good choice.” She jerked her head toward Kri. “Who is this?”

  Albanon winced and looked back to Kri. The old cleric just shook his head and kept his lips pressed tight together; one hand rested lightly on Splendid’s muzzle to keep her from interrupting. Albanon swung back to Shara. “His name is Kri,” he said. “He’s an old friend of Moorin’s and he’s come looking for our help.”

  Shara’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You’re apologizing because you want something from me, is that it?”

  “No!” said Albanon, then winced again. “I mean, yes, we need you, but I wanted to apologize anyway. I was stupid. I should have listened to you instead of just whining because I was disappointed. I’m sorry.”

  “And about telling me not to come back to the tower?”

  Albanon put a hand over his heart. “Absolutely.”

  “Humph.” Shara looked him up and down, then gave her hammer a twirl. “You’re lucky Teldorthan gave me a place to sleep last night and hot iron to beat my frustrations out on this morning.” She pointed the hammer at him. “You’re going to listen to me, right?”

  “Right.” Relief spread through Albanon like the rising sun. He gave Shara a tentative smile and nearly staggered when she smiled back. “Come with us and I’ll tell you why Kri is here. There are some questions we think you might be able to answer.”

  Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Me?” she asked.

  “You,” said Kri. “But not here—no offense, master smith.”

  Teldorthan waved the apology away. “None taken.” He looked to Shara. “You’re welcome back any time, lass. You work harder than my apprentices when you’re angry.”

  Shara laughed and turned to pass the hammer back to him. “Payment for taking me in.” She twisted her head to look over her shoulder at Albanon as she undid the thongs of the leather apron. “I’m surprised Uldane didn’t come with you to watch the excitement.”

  Albanon blinked. With Kri’s insistence on talking to Shara, he’d scarcely thought about the halfling. “I thought he’d be with you.”

  “He left the Blue Moon before I did last night,” said Shara. “I assumed he’d gone back to the tower and you’d let him in.” She shrugged and pulled off the apron. “I think our argument might have upset him. He might act carefree, but I know him. He doesn’t like to have friends fight. He’ll be around somewhere, I guess.”

  “Ah, about that,” said Teldorthan, juggling Shara’s hammer while he reached into a pocket stitched onto his own apron. “One of the apprentices found this stuck in the door this morning. I didn’t want to give it to you until you’d calmed down.”

  He produced a scrap of paper and handed it to her. Shara glanced at it—and Albanon saw her face turn deep red and her smile twist into a grimace. She crumpled the paper in her fist, then, almost as an afterthought, flicked it at Albanon. He caught the paper and spread it out.

  Shara,

  I know you’re staying here tonight. I’ve met some people and decided to go off with them to do some exploring. When you and Albanon talk again, tell him I dropped by the tower around dawn and borrowed some supplies from the pantry. I didn’t want to wake him up. He forgot to set the wards again.

  By the way, I think you were wrong about Hakken Raid. I like him. Back in a few days!

  Uldane

  Albanon looked up. “I didn’t know anything about this!”

  Shara was breathing heavily through her nose, nostrils flaring with each breath. Her hands twitched into fists. “The little weasel,” she said. “Of all the …” She closed her eyes, took one last deep breath, and tension—most it, at least—went out of her body.

  “He can take care of himself,” she said with an unnatural calm. “If he wants to go off on his own, that’s his choice.”

  “It’s possible you were wrong about Raid after all,” said Albanon cautiously.

  She shot him a sharp glance, then looked back at Teldorthan. “You were right. I didn’t need to see this when I was angry.”

  The dwarf gave a short laugh. “I like you, Shara, but I’m not stupid.” He turned and went back into the smithy, bellowing as he walked. “Back to work, you eavesdropping rascals! Only idle hammers make no noise!”

  Uldane led his pony off the flat-bottomed ferry and on to the dock, then looked back across the river to Fallcrest. It seemed to Raid that he looked almost wistful. He urged his own mount—a great black stallion he’d broken with his own will and sweat—over to the halfling. “Your friends will be fine without you,” he said.

  Uldane blinked and smiled. “That was a lucky guess at what I was thinking.”

  “Hardly a guess. You can lie without giving anything away, but when you’re not paying attention your face is an open book.” Raid leaned across his saddle horn, the thick, scarred leather of his armor creaking with the movement. “I don’t see you missing this sad little outpost of a town, but I think your friends would be another matter.

  “I’ve adventured with Shara for so long that it feels strange to be going anywhere without her,” Uldane confessed. He looked back to Fallcrest once again. “Maybe we could find her and convince her to come along—”

  Pressure flashed behind Raid’s eyes, but he just shook his head. “We’re on the road now, Uldane. I don’t want to turn back and lose the day.”

  “And I don’t want to divide the loot any further!” shouted Dohr. The half-orc and Tragent were already on the road beyond the ferry dock, their horses prancing and eager. “Let’s go.”

  Raid reached out and patted Uldane’s shoulder. “She’ll be fine without you for a few days, won’t she? Is she going anywhere?” The halfling shook his head and Raid added, “Think of it this way: You’ll have stories to tell that she won’t have experienced herself.”

  Uldane’s eyes lit up. “That’s true. And maybe some interesting treasure to show her, too!”

  “I imagine we’ll find things no one has seen before,” Raid said solemnly, “or at least not for a very long time. Are you ready to go now?”

  “You bet.” Uldane clicked his tongue to his mount and the pony trotted off the dock. Dohr whooped and slapped the reins against his horse. The horse broke into a gallop. Uldane laughed and urged his horse to greater speed as well.

  Then, as if the beginning of their journey to the Temple of Yellow Skulls was some kind of race, Uldane, Dohr, and Tragent were all thundering down the road, hooting and calling to each other. Raid smiled and looked back at Fallcrest himself.

  In his mind, it was already a smoking ruin through which he strode, feared and adored, under the gaze of the Chained God’s Eye.

  He nudged his horse. The beast obeyed instantly, charging after the others. Raid leaned low over its neck, low enough that he could see its eye rolling in terror of him. “Faster,” he said and the rhythm of its hoof beats increased. The pleasure of its obedience washed through him, and by the time he caught up to—and passed—his hirelings, Raid was smiling again.

  The Blue Moon was busy with townsfolk taking their midday meal and tankard, but Albanon found a table for himself, Shara, and Kri in a relatively quiet corner. The cleric looked around them with narrowed eyes. “We should go back to the tower. What we have to discuss shou
ldn’t be heard in public.”

  Shara grunted. “Swinging a hammer all morning works up an appetite. I need something to eat. Just keep your voice down.”

  Kri’s eyebrows rose at the response. Albanon’s stomach clenched at the thought of what the old man might do, but Shara just locked eyes with him and, after a moment, the harsh set of Kri’s mouth softened and he nodded. “Respect my wish for discretion and we can stay.”

  “Good.” Shara signaled the serving maid.

  Albanon looked from Kri to Shara and back again. “What just happened?”

  Kri glanced at him, face already hardening once more. “She has spirit. I approve.”

  “I fought you before I knew you were an old man. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “You wouldn’t have fought me if you’d seen that I was old?”

  Albanon’s mouth opened and closed as he looked for an answer that wouldn’t make him sound like a coward. Shara leaned forward, chin on her hands. “I want to hear the story behind this.”

  “Oh, you’ll like it,” said Splendid from around Kri’s neck. “Go on, apprentice—tell her.”

  “Maybe Kri would rather—” Albanon began, but the old cleric just lifted an eyebrow and cocked his head back at him. Albanon grimaced and launched into the story of what had happened when he’d returned to the tower. He tried to keep it as short as possible, but Splendid would have none of it. Her interjections, Kri’s dry comments, and Shara’s laughter stretched the tale out until the serving maid appeared with platters of cold meat, cheese, bread, and pickled vegetables.

  The moment that the food was on the table and the serving maid was out of earshot, however, Kri reclaimed the story. As Splendid crept down off his shoulder to inspect the food, he lowered his voice and hustled the narrative on to the point where they’d realized that the vial containing the Voidharrow could have been stolen by the death knight. “Albanon thinks that because you fought alongside the death knight, you may have been in a position to see if he had the vial,” he said. “Think. It was about half a hand span long and gold on both ends. The last time I saw it, there was a light chain attached at one end. Maybe the death knight wore it around his neck.”

  Shara took a bit of bread and cheese and chewed without saying anything. Albanon couldn’t quite place the expression on her face. A little bit angry. A little bit thoughtful. A little bit … afraid? He sat forward. “Shara, what do you know?”

  She swallowed, her mouth twitching. “You have to imagine that final battle with Vestapalk,” she said. “Our pursuit of Nu Alin and then the stolen dead glass amulet had led us to an ancient underground necropolis. When we confronted Vestapalk, he had the death knight in his grip, ready to crush him, with the rest of us helpless to avoid a blast of his poisonous breath. The whole cavern was shaking from whatever ritual the death knight’s lich master was performing with the amulet. There must have been an even lower cavern beneath us, though, because in all the shaking the ground under Vestapalk collapsed. Of course, he had wings, so it was no danger for him, but that moment as he tried to get airborne, it left him vulnerable. The death knight had already wounded him but I had the opportunity to deal the death blow. I took it.”

  Albanon remembered the moment well: Shara standing on the edge of the crumbling ground, then gathering herself and leaping for Vestapalk’s exposed belly. Her sword had flashed in the dim light of the necropolis as she whipped it around in a mighty strike. Vestapalk had tried to block the blow with the death knight’s body, but he’d failed. Shara’s sword had skimmed just past the unwilling shield and ripped a long, deep gash in the dragon’s belly. Vestapalk had gone down in a spray of blood, wings collapsing, body plummeting into the newly opened chasm. Shara would have plunged after him except that the death knight, leaping from the falling dragon’s loosened grasp, had caught her in his leap and carried them both to solid ground.

  “You killed Vestapalk,” the eladrin said. “You saved the death knight, then he saved you.”

  “Yes and no,” said Shara. “Yes, the death knight and I saved each other. But I don’t think it was just my blow that killed Vestapalk. When Vestapalk tried to use the death knight as a shield, I only just missed hitting him. It was so close that I sliced through his belt pouch.”

  She held her hands perpendicular to each other, and slid the fingers of the right past the palm of the left—then paused and looked at Kri and Albanon. “I saw your vial. It was in his pouch. The chain caught on my sword and pulled it free.”

  “It fell?” Kri asked, his voice thin.

  Shara hesitated, then shook her head. “My blow broke it against Vestapalk’s scales.”

  Kri had looked aged and frail when Albanon had first uttered Nu Alin’s name. Word that the vial had been shattered left him seeming as pale and brittle as a sheet of overworked parchment. His entire body sagged. The color drained from him. Silence fell over their table, made all the more shocking by the happy noise around them.

  Without another word, Kri rose.

  Shara seized his wrist. “I don’t think I killed Vestapalk. I might have inflicted the wound, but it was whatever was in that vial—the Voidharrow, if that’s what it was called—that finished him off. I only caught a glimpse of it, but it didn’t just splash into his wound—it ran into it like water running down a funnel. It pushed its way into him. That’s when he screamed. That’s when he fell out of the air.”

  Kri looked at her for a moment, then wrenched his wrist from her grasp and walked out of the alehouse. Albanon stared at Shara. “How come you didn’t tell any of us about this before?”

  “I wasn’t sure what I saw. I didn’t know that vial came from Moorin’s tower. The stuff in it killed Vestapalk—that’s all that matters.”

  A chill passed over Albanon. “I don’t think it is. Splendid, watch the table.” He went after the cleric. Splendid muttered in confusion behind him while Shara called to the serving maid and assured her that they would be back to pay for their meal.

  He found Kri outside, face raised to the sky. His eyes were closed and one hand gripped the holy symbol of Ioun that he wore around his neck. Albanon paused, uncertain of whether he should interrupt the cleric while he was praying. Shara emerged from the Blue Moon a moment later and stopped beside him.

  “What do we do?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” said Albanon.

  “We go back to the spot where you last saw this Vestapalk.” Kri let go of his holy symbol and looked at them. His eyes were hard and determined. “I need to see his body.”

  “Why?” asked Shara. “He’s dead.”

  Kri’s mouth tightened. “Is he? Did you see his corpse?”

  “He must be,” said Albanon. “I saw him fall. I saw the way he fell.”

  “And Shara saw the Voidharrow flow into his body,” Kri said.

  “I saw it kill him,” Shara pointed out. “No one screams like Vestapalk did unless he’s dying.”

  Kri opened his mouth to speak, looked around, and seemed to think better of it. He drew both Albanon and Shara off the street and into the shadow of the Blue Moon’s walls. “There are things more painful than death,” he said somberly. He looked at Albanon. “I told you that the creature, Nu Alin, was once a man named Albric. The Voidharrow made him what he is.”

  The chill returned to Albanon. “Vestapalk could have been turned into something like Nu Alin?”

  “Only Ioun sees all. The rest of us must discover the truth for ourselves. This necropolis where you confronted Vestapalk—where is it? How far away?”

  “It’s in the Old Hills north of Thunderspire Mountain, about four days journey east of Fallcrest,” said Shara. The warrior looked shaken. “Vestapalk could still be alive?”

  Fear and anger fought each other in her voice. Albanon could guess why. The way he felt about Nu Alin was the way she felt about Vestapalk. The dragon had slaughtered her father and her friends. She’d thought her vengeance against the monster was done. To discover that it mig
ht not be, that Vestapalk might still be alive, must have been like a knife twisting inside her. He reached out for her. “Shara—”

  She jerked away from his hand. “We need Uldane. If Vestapalk is still alive, he needs to know. He needs to be a part of this.”

  “There’s no time,” Kri said. His words were cold. “It’s been a month since the Voidharrow was released. We need to find out what’s become of it without delay.”

  Shara glared at him. “But Uldane—”

  “Uldane travels without you. You need to travel without him.” Kri looked at both of them. “Make what arrangements you have to while I find a mount. We leave Fallcrest immediately.”

  “Immediately?” Albanon said. “Today? It won’t be daylight for much longer by the time we’re on the road.”

  “Then we travel in the dark and let Ioun guide our steps,” said Kri. He paused, his expression softening briefly. “I understand your tredpidation, Shara. I pray that Vestapalk is dead.”

  “And if he isn’t?” asked Albanon.

  Shara squeezed her hands into fists. “Then we kill him all over again.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Low whistles and chirps heralded the hunters’ return, echoing down from the heights of the chasm. Members of the tribe lifted their heads to listen, then responded with their own chirping chorus. Here in their nest—newly established though it might be—there was no need for stealth. They were under the protection of the Great One just as he was under theirs. Though he slept, his majesty protected his loyal tribe. No predators would approach knowing that the dragon was there!

  Within the rocky crevice he had claimed as his own, Tiktag woke to the sound of the hunters’ welcome. He twitched aside the hanging flap of rough leather that served as a door and listened intently to the calls—the night’s hunting had been good—then snatched up his staff and scurried out to meet the hunters.