Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

digging in to send it flying in the direction Grimalkin had headed. The horse seemed glad to have a reason to gallop and in fact proved quite adept at ducking through the traffic between us and our quarry. When the road cleared for a spell, it was faster than ever: a bolt of white lightning that claimed the street for its own and permitted me to overtake Grimalkin before he could make himself scarce down another alley. My mount pulled up before the dwarf with a whinny.

A few seconds later, Strife was a few inches from Grimalkin’s nose.

“Let’s return you to The Singing Nixie,” I told him while he lowered his axe in defeat. “Get you dried off and in your clothes before I question you…you deserve more dignity than you afforded me in the Nightlands. Not to mention the ladies of the Nixie, who deserve payment for a new window.”

Soon enough, (and a long conversation with a very angry madame later, my advocate from before sadly nowhere to be seen), I stood with Grimalkin’s axe in my folded arms and my back to the door of Cloyenda’s tiny room. His expression sour not just due to his capture but to the fact that I made him dress in front of me to assure myself he had no concealed weapons, Grimalkin looked at the head of his axe but only very seldom forced himself to peer into my face.

Upon eyeing the equipment he dragged from beneath the bed to don while we spoke, I could not help but note, “So you at least told the truth—the Scepter isn’t here.”

“Aye, and I’d think you’d be relieved to know the precious relic of your god isn’t sitting under an elvish whore’s dusty bed.”

“It has less to do with her heritage or her profession than the dust, truth be told…and the general disrespect. You look at the most sacred artifacts and see only money.”

“And you look at money and mistake it for nothing.”

“Far from it…all property, all things, are Weltyr’s alone. When he chooses to allocate such gifts to his servants, the wise servant should be grateful. He most certainly should not take more than he is given. Such a betrayal against one’s master is sure to be punished in time.”

“Weltyr’s no master of mine,” grumbled the dwarf.

“Those who deny him are but his blindest slaves. But come, Grimalkin, hurry and dress so you can take me to the Scepter.”

“I’ll dress as fast or slow as suits me, human…but no matter how fast or slow I go, it won’t help you get what you’re after. I don’t know where the blasted Scepter is.”

I searched his face for a hint of falsity and found there nothing deeper than the same dislike he always displayed when we discussed anything of any nature. “What do you mean, you don’t know where the Scepter of Weltyr is?”

“I mean just that, you oaf! I mean that the Scepter is with Hildolfr…and Hildolfr and I have parted ways, in case you couldn’t guess.”

Mouth widening somewhat, I glanced down at myself and the suit of armor for which the old man had paid. “Parted ways, did you? But I thought you had a buyer in Rhineland.”

“Aye, I did…the government of Rhineland would have paid handsomely for it, as they do for all such relics of magical inclination.”

“But you weren’t sent here specifically for the theft?”

“By someone else, no…but an earth-spirit sent me a dream that great fortune awaited me in Cascadia, so off I flew.” While my ears perked at mention of a prophetic dream, the dwarf continued, “I bumped into Branwen, and we into you…you know the rest of the story.”

“Yet, I don’t. What caused you and Hildolfr to split up?”

“That blasted Scepter, I should think!” Straightening up from fitting his feet into his boots, Grimalkin, now mostly dressed, rested against the edge of the bed. I enjoyed a rare moment wherein he deigned to make eye contact, and in the depths of his dark eyes there blazed a very real fever. “There’s an enchantment on that thing—no, a curse—that drives men mad with jealousy! There must be. I’ve never seen someone grow more unreasonable than Hildolfr when he had that thing in his hand. Frosted over at once, and kept dead bloody silent until we were on the surface again.”

Rubbing my jaw, I offered, “Hildolfr is always a very quiet man.”

“Not this way, though. He waited until we were out of the Nightlands to announce that he was taking the Scepter and there wasn’t a bloody thing we could do about it. He said we could come with him and reap rewards or go our ways and perish.”

Shock washed through me to hear this claim. I had suspected something was the matter with Branwen’s story about her change of heart…now, I understood that she had been outraged by this turn of events, and had descended back into the Nightlands to see if I still lived in order to court me to her scheme of revenge. Ignoring the bitter emotions such a notion caused and tucking the matter away for later, I asked the dwarf before me, “What did Hildolfr intend to do with the Scepter?”

“I traveled with him a few days while we picked up his horse. Then we spent a night in an inn in some dead-end little town north of here. By the time I awoke, the bastard had vacated his room and left in the night.”

“Is that so?”

“It is, though I can’t tell you anything that’ll convince you it is. That’s up to you…I suppose you could take the gold as proof, assuming you believe me when I say it came from him.”

A familiar anecdote was then told to me. Grimalkin awoke at The Weeping Willow the next morning to find Hildolfr had gone on without him to whatever destination Hildolfr had in mind. He had also found, however, that Hildolfr had paid for both their rooms—and left behind, in the empty room, a small