Bladesinger - Keith Francis Strohm [31]
"Chaul," the figure called out from the hall once again.
Yulda sighed at the artifice. Durakh knew her true identity. Indeed, the priestess had been the one to suggest the idea in the first place, and now they played an elaborate game for form's sake. The witch couldn't wait until the day when she would walk triumphantly through the decimated ranks of the wychlaran and reveal to them that their undoing came at her hands. The delicious agony she would see marked upon the faces of the weak-willed fools she had betrayed would make this infantile cloak-and-dagger game worthwhile.
She gestured and silver sigils writhed and flared across the door of her chamber before it creaked open, stone grating on stone. Yulda stood up to greet her guest, placing the crystal back on her desk.
Durakh Haan wore a grim face as she entered the room. Yulda regarded the cleric carefully, measuring each tic of the priestess's eyes and each indrawn breath. She was searching, calculating, as she always did with someone she deemed a threat, for some advantage, a heartbeat's span of warning that might allow her to prevail if something unexpected were to happen.
The priestess's eyes were a smoky gray, set deep within a harsh, square-jawed face. A wide-bridged nose and thick, sloping forehead easily proclaimed Durakh's orc blood, though the effect was softened somewhat by high-set, delicate cheekbones and full lips. Three scars, faded to a dull purple with age, crisscrossed the cleric's chin, traveling in ragged lines down toward her rough-skinned throat. The half-orc's hair flowed in thick brown waves around ridged ears and spilled into the folds of her robe. A thick chain hung down from the cleric's neck, suspending a circular onyx disk with a silver Orcish rune inscribed upon it.
If Durakh took offense at such obvious scrutiny, she gave no indication. The cleric bowed her head slightly upon entering and sat upon the simple chair Yulda offered. The door swung closed behind her.
"You summoned me," the cleric said, and though Yulda listened to each word carefully, she could hear no indication of irony or contempt-just a simple statement of fact. Durakh's voice was deep-timbred and rich, though Yulda would never use the word warm to describe it. To her ears, it sounded hollow and cold-like stone in winter.
An apt description for the young priestess.
A nameless sense of menace surrounded the priestess, a sense of the deep, dark places of the land, lying always in shadow. Yulda couldn't quite suppress the shiver that ran up her spine.
"Yes, I did summon you," the witch said, though whether to remind Durakh or herself, she couldn't be sure. "We have been preparing for more than a year. Are our forces ready?"
Yulda asked the question casually, in an almost friendly tone, as if the answer meant nothing more to her than if she had inquired about the weather. Her gaze, however, remained riveted on the cleric. Failure was an option.
For her part, the half-orc returned Yulda's stare before answering, though the witch knew Durakh well enough to see the telltale signs of tension in her lieutenant. It was clear to the Rashemi that Luthic's cleric felt uncomfortable beneath the lidless gaze of her missing eye-a fact that caused Yulda a fair degree of satisfaction.
"Our army is ready," Durakh answered after a moment's hesitation, "though you have caused quite a stir among the goblins with your latest… gift. Razk nearly-"
"May the gods