Cry of the Ghost Wolf: Neverwinter NiChosen of Nendawen, Book III Read Online Free

alarm or gone for help. More hobgoblins topped the rise and began working their way down. All wore armor and carried weapons. On the cliff tops behind her she heard more.
    “This is all unnecessary, you idiot girl,” said Maaqua. “I have no desire to hurt you.”
    “So you knocked me unconscious and threw me in a hole as a way to show your hospitality?”
    Hweilan could feel her right arm—the one holding Maaqua and leaking blood—beginning to tremble. She could no longer feel her fingers on that hand. She had to end this quickly, one way or the other.
    “Let me go,” said Maaqua, “and we can discuss this in a more courteous fashion.”
    Hweilan pressed the point of her whistle knife a bit harder, just enough to break the skin. “Talk now or you can explain it all in the Hells.”
    A bit of steel entered Maaqua’s tone. “You’ll be right there with me.”
    “Talk.”
    “I am Maaqua, queen of the Razor Heart and disciple of Soneillon. Do you really think I bow to the threats of that upstart fiend sitting in Highwatch?”
    Hweilan had no idea how long she’d been out. Had the attack from the thing wearing her mother’s body been yesterday or today? She had no idea. But she remembered the thing’s words to Maaqua all too clearly.
    We know where you are. Bring us the girl, and we’ll let you live
.
    Hweilan did her best to tighten her grip around the old hobgoblin, but she could feel her strength waning by the moment. “Explain your actions then, old crone,” she said.
    “
You
left me no choice. Had you and that big oaf with the club surrendered—like any person would when surrounded by an army!—had you come nicely, you’d probably all be sitting by a fire now. Instead we had to … subdue you.
Think
, girl. If I really wanted you dead, you’d be dead already.”
    “Then why—?”
    “I said
think!
That, that … 
thing
managed to apparate on my doorstep. Mine! This entire valley has more spells and wards on it than your grandfather’s hounds had fleas, yet that walking mound of goat dung managed to get through them. Even after it left, I had no idea if we were being watched or if it was about to come back with forty of its brothers. I had to make it
look
like we were capturing you and your friends until I could figure out how that thing got past my wards, past the … chink in my armor.”
    “And …?”
    “And I found the chink and … unchinked it.”
    “So you came to get me out and apologize? You really expect me to believe that?”
    Maaqua gave a low chuckle. “Can you smell it yet?”
    “Smell?” Hweilan’s tongue felt oddly thick, and now that she thought about it, her head was filled with a new scent. Strong enough that she could taste it on the back of her tongue. Almost like …
    “A bit like pine smoke, yes?” said Maaqua. “Only sweeter.”
    Pine smoke … it set off a flood of memory. Midwinter celebrations in Highwatch. The servants spent a day decking the feast hall with pine boughs and holly from the mountains and knotted wreaths of sweetgrass from the steppe. The ladies twined mistletoe in their hair, and the knights drank to the health of the High Warden over goblets of bilberry wine. At midnight, the darkest time of the darkest night of the year, the priests would hurl the pine boughs into the sacred hearth. The flames caught in the green pine and flared in tiny, very bright flames, which the priests said burned in defiance of the cold and dark. In the warm light of the hall, Hweilan had always thought the thick smoke seemed more blue than gray, and she could smell it in her hair for days afterward. It was that smell filling her head now. With every breath the scent filled her head more and more.
    “The arrow,” said Maaqua. “Poison.”
    Hweilan was looking up at the old hobgoblin, her wispy mane turned dark by the sky. Looking up? When …?
    She couldn’t remember falling. But the swiftly fraying threads of her reason knew she was lying on the ground.