Waterdeep by Troy Denning Read Free Book Online Page A

be afraid of him - and that was an invitation for mutiny.
    Dalzhel and Fane followed close behind. By the time they reached the gatehouse, the scream was no longer audible. A dozen men had gathered in the stairwell, standing in a line running up to the second floor. Their torches cast a flickering yellow light on the walls.
    The men did not even notice Cyric when he arrived, so Fane bellowed, “Out of the way! Stand aside!”
    When the onlookers made no move to obey, Fane muscled a path up the stairway. Cyric and Dalzhel followed, eventually reaching a doorway. Five men stood inside, staring at a crumpled form in the center of the room. A dark pool was spreading about their feet, and the barest whisper of a croak came from the shape on the floor.
    “Let your betters have a look!” Fane ordered, pushing his way into the crowded chamber.
    Cyric and Dalzhel shadowed Fane into the room. “Put a stop to that moan,” Cyric ordered. “And nobody walks alone tonight”
    Fane obeyed immediately, delivering the stroke of mercy with an unnerving lack of emotion.
    A man standing in the doorway growled, “And come morning, I walk out of here!” The speaker was Lang, a lanky fighter skilled with both sword and bow. “I didn’t sign on to fight ghouls.”
    Dalzhel immediately pulled his sword on the mutineer. “You’ll do as you’re told, and nothing else!” he said. Cyric moved to Dalzhel’s left and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him. If this came to blows, they would stand or fall together.
    “I’ve had too much danger and not enough loot, myself!” cried Mardug, who stood in the room behind their backs. “I’m with Lang!”
    A muted chorus of agreement rustled down the stairs.
    “Then you’ll go with Lang to the Realm of the Dead,”
    Dalzhel said evenly, turning and swinging his sword. He slapped Mardug in the head with the flat of his blade. The mutineer dropped to his knees.
    Lang drew his blade and lunged at Dalzhel’s back. Cyric intercepted the attack and easily parried it with his short sword, then kicked Lang in the stomach and sent him crashing into the doorjamb.
    Before Lang could recover, Cyric touched the tip of his sword to the mutineer’s throat. “On any other night, I would finish you,” he hissed, trembling with exhilaration. A bloodlust such as he had never known was coursing through Cyric’s veins, and it was all he could do to keep from pushing the sword forward.
    “But we’re all upset by the deaths of our friends,” Cyric continued, “so I’ll make this allowance.”
    The hawk-nosed thief let a heavy silence hang in the room for several moments then turned to Dalzhel. “Lang and Mardug can leave now,” he said, speaking loudly so the men on the stairs would hear him. “Anybody else who wants to leave can join them. Everybody that’s still here at dawn is with me until the end.”
    “Aye.” Dalzhel turned to the two mutineers. “Be gone before the commander changes his mind.”
    The two men took their leave and pushed their way down the stairs. Nobody else moved to join them.
    Cyric remained quiet. When he had lifted his sword, a powerful bloodlust had invaded his body, but it still hadn’t died away. If anything, it had grown stronger. Although he had never felt any compunction about killing, this was something new to him. Not only did he want to draw blood, he wondered how he would sleep if he did not.
    After several moments of silence, Fane asked, “What are we going to do?”
    “About what?” Cyric asked absently.
    “The murderer,” Fane replied. He used his toe to turn the body over, strangely fascinated by its grotesque wounds. “We’ve got to find him.”
    “That might be foolish,” Dalzhel said, grimacing at the way Fane played with the body. “If we send men to look for the murderer, we’re exposing them to attack.”
    Cyric and his lieutenant were thinking along the same lines. During his life, Cyric had known many evil men. Not one was capable of what he