Sentinelspire - Mark Sehestedt [91]
Now that it was in his sight, it stopped coming up the path. It stayed near the last of the large boulders on the path, running through the dust and pebbles and twisting on its back, then flipping back around. Almost like it was hurt or having a fit of some sort.
You watch like a starving hawk, Sauk had told him earlier. Talieth says there may be trouble soon. Don't you let so much as a bat get past you.
Bats don't go through our tunnel, Janas had told him. It was true. The bats that haunted so many of the caves and crevices of the mountain never entered the tunnel leading to the Fortress.
If one does and you don't see it, Sauk had responded, it's your life, Janas. Anything gets past you, and you'll answer to me.
Janas had heard what the half-orc had done to Chiganis. There were truly very few Blades of the Old Man who frightened Janas, but the half-orc was one of them.
The thing on the path continued to thrash in the dirt. The first raindrops began to patter into the dust.
Janas slid his short sword out of its scabbard. Holding it under his cloak so that another lightning flash wouldn't gleam off the blade, he rose from his hiding place and began a careful advance down the pathway. He risked a quick glance around the canyon and back toward the leering face of the tunnel. Nothing in sight but that thing on the path and wind-tossed sand.
As he drew closer, the little thing skittered back down the path a short way, then stopped and resumed its odd twitching. Janas stopped near the large boulder. It was more flat than round-a large shard broken from the mountain in a past earthquake, most likely-and slightly higher than his waist. He placed his free hand on it and squinted at the moving shape.
Definitely a lizard. Not much bigger than a bird, though it had large claws and a tail that looked stumpy, as if it was growing back. It had a fanlike skin of some sort between its limbs. It continued its thrashing, twisting and turning its body, sometimes even flopping onto its back.
"Like the damned thing has an itch it can't scratch," Janas said to himself. "Or like it's a fish out of water."
"Or a worm on a hook," said a low voice from behind him.
Janas gasped and whirled, bringing his short sword up and out. He had a brief look at a club or hammer descending upon his face. There was a brief flash-lightning or pain?-then darkness.
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Berun knelt beside the corpse. His cloak gathered in the darkness so that he appeared no more than a strangely shaped boulder next to a dead man.
Perch pattered up to him, back to his usual self. He looked up at Berun and chittered.
"Well done, Perch," Berun whispered. He reached out and the lizard climbed up his arm to burrow under the hood round his shoulders.
Berun's hands were shaking. He'd just killed a man. And not in defense. Not really. He'd lured the man out into the dark and smashed in his face with the hammer. The sound of the bones shattering had reminded Berun of a green branch snapping, but the shock of the blow the hammer had sent up his arm… that had been the worst. That's what put cold fear into his gut.
He was scared. Not because he was infiltrating one of the most fearsome fortresses east of Thay. Not because men were waiting to kill him. No. Berun was scared because after all he'd been through, after all he'd done to make sure Kheil stayed dead, here he was, back where he had reveled in his life of murder, and he'd just killed a man. Killed him. Felt the blow ending a man's life.
And Berun had enjoyed it.
The sprinkle of rain increased, falling down the mountain like a shroud drawn over a man's last glimpse of life. Berun couldn't stop his hands from shaking.
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Lurom didn't like the outer tunnels during thunderstorms. The thunder itself wasn't so bad. But the roar of the rain and the howl of the wind amplified through the stone passageways so that the caverns seemed to hum a malevolent tune. He turned to Ferluk, his fellow guard. "You think we should check on Janas?"
Ferluk didn't move from