Ghostwalker - Erik Scott De Bie [32]
"Wait!" Arya managed as she struggled to climb to her feet.
Startled, as though he had not noticed her, Walker turned to regard Arya. His collar was pulled up high and his face was half concealed, but Arya took careful note of his features-they were the only things she could focus upon. His pale skin and black cloak contrasted starkly in the moonlight. He was dark in dress and wild of hair, as though he were a demon come to Faerun. Arya, however, could only see the light of his eyes. At first, his presence had been terrifying, but she found that as she looked on him, she became less and less afraid. There was something about him, something that told her he was important, a key to the entire unfolding mystery.
And there was something she could see in his eyes-a call waiting to be answered, a terrible vengeance…
Then Walker's eyes vanished into shadow as he turned away. Arya tried to follow him, but her vision swam. He was gone.
Staggering, off-balance, and with her head splitting, Arya managed to limp back to the Whistling Stag, where she could hear the sounds of raucous laughter issuing from the windows. She ignored it as she pressed through the doors and made her way up to her room.
For Arya knew two things: that her business with the dark stranger was not finished for the night, and that she would need her blade.
CHAPTER 6
26 Tarsakh
Walker strode away from the alley, his mouth set in a frown. He did not have far to go-Quaervarr had perhaps five dozen buildings and only three main streets. Few would be out of their homes after nightfall, and none would spot him as he glided between shadows.
Not that he would have cared even had he been watched. He was thinking of the woman with the auburn hair.
He had come upon the struggle in the alley by coincidence as he stalked through Quaervarr, and any other day he might have passed by without interference. Why had he saved her? He had no idea who she was. He'd never seen before, but that was not surprising. Strangers often came through Quaervarr; he himself was a stranger, in a sense.
Had he acted out of a sense of justice? Walker scowled. Justice was antiquated and meaningless-he had only to think of the murder of his father, a devotee of Tyr, for evidence. Still, the choice had not felt random; it had not been whim. Had the sight of the woman sparked feelings in him, feelings long since buried? His pulse quickened.
Walker turned to the spirit of Tarm for guidance, but his father's face was impassive. Whatever answers Walker was going to discover would come from within, where he was empty.
Using techniques perfected over long years of practice, Walker put it as far as he could out of his mind. His memory of the auburn-haired woman remained vivid, and it burned, almost indignantly, from its place in his subconscious, but he paid it no attention. He focused his attention on the task at hand-Torlic, the warrior known in Quaervarr as the "Dancing Blade."
Walker's hand went to his arm, where an old stab wound throbbed.
Torlic's was a large townhouse, built in the early days of Quaervarr and expanded later. Over the last twenty years, Torlic-a razor-thin half-elf with a penchant for the rapier-had built himself a substantial base in the Quaervarr watch, thanks to Dharan Greyt. Torlic was first lieutenant to Unddreth, though not because of his personality or any friendship with the hulking captain of the Watch. Torlic was also known for his paranoia and regularly posted his underlings to guard his own house, rather than to patrol the streets.
There were no guards that night, though, Walker observed. It seemed unlike a man such as Torlic to be unprepared, so Walker was wary. Mithral sword in its scabbard, the ghostly warrior stalked toward the house on a roundabout path, through the shadows, just in case any guards were watching from behind the darkened windows.
Leaving the front entrance behind, Walker slid along the worn logs of the outer wall and searched for a back entrance.
He could have tapped into the ethereal