Tam smiled, and it was genuine. “Are you quite certain? It would be no trouble. I assure you I recall both events in exacting detail—or dozens of similar… shall we say, unfortunate moments from your past.” Tam nudged the body at his feet with the tip of his boot. “Though we shouldn’t stand around until reinforcements arrive for this pack of jackals, so I could just cut to the good parts.”
“I said I believe you.” Tam’s brother rested the butt of his crossbow against his hip, bolt pointing at the cave’s roof. He turned and glanced over his right shoulder. “What do you think?”
“I believe him,” said an amused voice from the shadows near the cave entrance. “However, it would be prudent to be absolutely certain that he’s telling the truth. Perhaps Tam should share that birthday story. After all, the truth is in the details.” Another goblin stepped into what light there was, his body glowing from a faint red protection spell. A good one. The spell winked out.
“Jash Masloc,” Tam said, grinning until his fangs showed.
“Good to see you, Tam.” The mage turned to the others. “Stand down, ladies and gentlemen. Our guests may not be nice, but they are friends.” The mage bowed gallantly from the waist. “Prince Chigaru, Director Kalis—welcome home, such that it is. Your Highness, this wasn’t the welcome you should have received.”
“But it was the one we expected, Count Masloc,” Chigaru said.
“Sarad has a twisted sense of propriety,” Imala noted. “How did you know we were coming?”
“Thankfully, we still have spies close to King Sathrik who can still get messages out.” Jash Masloc smiled. “Even under siege, the goblin court is still the court. Secrets are merely gossip that hasn’t been spread yet. There’s more than one chamber in these caves. We didn’t know which one held your mirror—and neither did these poor bastards—until Magus Silvanus announced your less-than-happy arrival.”
I resisted the urge to shoot Carnades a dirty look—or better yet, tell Tam’s brother to just shoot him. “Our exit mirror got busted,” I said.
“That would explain the… outburst.”
Not more than ten seconds on the other side of the mirror, and Carnades had come close to getting us slaughtered—or worse, captured, tortured, and then slaughtered. Having Carnades Silvanus in our immediate vicinity was going to get us killed before we even got into the city. But if the looks our new goblin friends were giving him were any indication, Carnades would be on his best behavior. He might not know the goblins in the cave with us, but they certainly either knew or had heard of him. Or maybe Carnades just reeked of bigot.
Tam walked quickly toward his brother.
His brother held up a placating hand. “I knew you were telling the truth. I didn’t doubt it for a minute.”
“Yes, you did. At the very least, you doubted my motives.”
Tam’s brother slung the crossbow’s strap across one shoulder just as Tam caught him up in a bear hug.
“Of course, I doubted your motives,” he said with a big grin, returning the hug. “You’re a Nathrach, aren’t you?”
Tam made quick introductions. His brother was Nathair, or Nath to his friends. When Tam had finished introducing everyone else, he turned to Talon.
Oh boy.
More than a few of the Resistance fighters had the fine features of pure-blooded goblins, or the “old families” as I’d heard Tam call those like them. I wasn’t sure telling Nath and his heavily armed playmates that he was an uncle of a half-breed was such a good idea.
Talon knew that as well as I did. The kid sucked in a double lungful of air and held it.
“And this is Talon Nathrach.” Tam smiled and gestured Talon over to him. “My son.”
Talon came forward. Cautiously. Probably one of the first times in his impulsive little life that he’d ever done anything with caution.
Nath did a few seconds of stunned blinking and staring. “A nephew,” he finally managed. “I’m an uncle.”
“That’s usually the way it works,” Tam agreed.
Stunned gave way to a broad grin. “You’re definitely a Nathrach. You’re damned near as good-looking as I am.”
Talon got a big welcome-to-the-family hug, and I got some dust in my eyes. Yeah, it was dust.
If any of the goblins with Nath had a problem with Talon, they hid it well. They wanted Sathrik off the throne, but had been part of the goblin court until they’d had to go into hiding. These men and women had plenty of practice hiding things other than themselves; contempt for a half-breed would be a snap. I’d be keeping an eye on Talon. Though my eyes would have plenty of company from Tam, Mychael, and Piaras. The kid would be safe, or someone would be sorry.
“All these reunions are nice,” I said, “but shouldn’t we be getting the hell out of here?” I indicated the body at my feet. “It’s been our unfortunate experience that where there’s one pack of Khrynsani, there’s another sniffing around nearby.”
“You heard the lady,” Nath said. He knelt and began to pilfer the body of the Khrynsani closest to him. “Let’s get what we can and get out.”
The Khrynsani should be grateful that we killed them. If Sarad Nukpana had found out that they’d let us escape, they would have all gotten a fast promotion—right to the front of the Saghred sacrifice line. With Nukpana, I couldn’t imagine failure meaning anything except death. Which meant any patrol that came after them would be intensely motivated not to fail.
“This patrol is to report in every hour,” Jash Masloc said. “Their last check-in was about ten minutes before they heard Magus Silvanus, so work fast.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I knelt to see if the dead Khrynsani at my feet had any gifts to offer a less-than-optimally armed elf. Nath and his people were doing a fast and efficient job of not leaving any weapons lying on the ground. Sarad Nukpana made sure his men had only the best. What a guy. As a result of his largesse, now we had the best.
As I moved up to the goblin’s upper torso, a glint of reflected light caught my attention. A chain lay against his neck, and from where his head lay at an angle, a marble-sized pendant had rolled to rest in the hollow of his throat.
No way in hell I was touching that.
“Mychael,” I said. “You better look at this.”
“What is it?”
“Something I’m not touching for all the tea in Nebia.”
He looked and he didn’t get any closer. Nice to know that my instincts were still working, even if my magic wasn’t.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A spy orb.” Mychael called to the goblin mage. “Jash?”
“The leader of every Khrynsani patrol is supplied with them,” he said. “They pulsate when they get close to strong magic,” he explained to me. “It’s how they found our mages in the capital. Only the most powerful can tamp down their magic enough to be non-detectable. The iron ore in the walls of this cave is shielding us now. Sarad Nukpana issued spy orbs for you, Mistress Benares. There are hundreds of various sizes concealed around the city. He knew you’d come, and he wanted to know when and where you entered the city when you did.” Jash Masloc’s dark eyes narrowed. “The Saghred must have gifted you with extreme stealth; I sense absolutely no magic from you. Nor do you have discernable shields.”
I gave him a smile that hopefully didn’t look like the wince I felt. “The rock didn’t live this long without knowing the value of silence. Not to mention, the less between me and my targets, the better.”
I knew I wasn’t going to be setting off any kind of magical alarm inside this cave or out; and even though Tam trusted this Count Masloc guy, I didn’t want him knowing that. Tam didn’t speak up, so I took that to mean he agreed with me.
The spy orb suddenly flashed with a white light, and I couldn’t get my eyes closed fast enough. In addition to spots, I now saw three of everything. Great.
“Shit!” Mychael spat.
“Out!” Jash Masloc yelled to his people, not bothering with quiet. “Go, go, go!”
Mychael grabbed the pendant’s chain with his gloved hand and snapped it from around the corpse’s neck, careful not to touch the pendant. He dropped it on the cave floor and slammed the heel of his boot down on the crystal, leaving nothing but dust.
Welcome to Regor.
Chapter 5
I hated tunnels. Always had, always would. At least I would if we got out of this one alive.
We were getting into Regor the same way Nath and his Resistance buddies had gotten out. We’d go under the city walls. Unfortunately, under meant underground.
I’d noticed that since the Saghred had latched onto me like a love-starved leech, I’d spent entirely too much time underground. Smuggling tunnels, sewage tunnels, dungeons, catacombs, and even your run-of-the-mill spooky basement, which had turned out to be demon infested. Thanks to the Saghred, I’d taken the scenic tour of them all. Though also thanks to the Saghred, I’d managed to survive all of the above. Maybe spending so much time underground because of the Saghred was some kind of twisted preparation for what was shaping up to be the mother of all subterranean excursions.
I swore to myself that if I got out of this alive, anywhere the sun didn’t shine, I didn’t go. No exceptions.
The only sky we’d seen was in the short dash from the cave with Carnades’s mirror to the cave we were now in. It had been a beautiful sunny day. Though the goblins around me had seen the bright blue sky as neither beautiful nor comforting—at least not comfortable. Goblins liked the dark. A lot. I guess somebody had to.
Caves were basically hollowed-out rock. In my opinion, a tunnel of hollowed-out dirt was just a grave waiting to collapse. It wasn’t a matter of if it would happen; it was when. The second time a troop of mounted horsemen thundered by overhead and clots of dirt fell from what passed for a ceiling, I thought that moment had arrived. While being squashed under tons of dirt would take care of all of our problems; it wasn’t the solution I was still hoping for.
