Dreams of Steel

Chapter Sixty-Three

It took the imp Frogface five days to locate his mistress. Then he waited till the attention of Overlook's master lapsed before he made his way inside. He entered with trepidation. Longshadow was a powerful sorcerer, dreaded in the demon worlds.

His entry disturbed no one. Overlook's defenses were meant to stop shadows from the south. He found his mistress in a dark cell beneath the fortress's roots, her drugged mind in a cell of its own, deep inside her brain. He debated. He could forget her. He could help and maybe win his freedom. Freeing her was not within the specific orders she had given him.

He stretched out beside her, bit a hole in her throat, drank her blood. He cleansed it and returned it.

She wakened slowly, sensed what he was doing, let him finish. He closed the wound. She sat up in the darkness. "The Howler. Where am I?"

"Overlook."

"Why?"

"They mistook you for your sister."

She laughed bitterly. "My act was too good."

"Yes."

"Where is she?"

"Last seen near Dejagore. I hunted you for a week."

"And they couldn't see her? She's getting stronger. What about Croaker?"

"I've been hunting you."

"Find him. I want him back. I can't let him reach my sister. Do anything you have to to stop that."

"I'm forbidden to take life."

"Anything else, then, but keep them apart."

"You don't need help here?"

"I'll handle... You're free to roam here?"

"Pretty much. Parts are sealed behind spells only Longshadow can penetrate."

"Search the place. Tell me what everyone is doing. Then find Croaker and my sister."

The imp sighed. So much for gratitude.

She caught the sense of the sound. "Do it right and you're free. Forever."

"Right! I'm gone."

She waited for her captors to come receive their surprise. As she waited she heard the whispers of darkness carrying from the nearby plain. She caught some of what was said, began to taste the fear that plagued Longshadow.

She could not just sit there like a trapdoor spider, waiting. Longshadow and Howler were sleeping. She should go.

The very stones of Overlook had been hardened against sorcery. She melted her way out, for those stones would melt before they yielded.

The lower levels were dark. Surprising. Longshadow feared the dark. She climbed slowly, wary of ambushes, but she encountered no one. She grew nervous as she approached the light.

Nothing waited there, either. Apparently. Was the fortress deserted?

Something was wrong. She extended her senses, still detected nothing. Onward and upward. And more nothing. Where were the soldiers? There should be thousands, constantly scurrying like blood in the veins.

She spied a way out. She had to descend a stairway to reach it. She was halfway down when the attack came, a wave of little brown men carrying cruel halberds, wearing armor of wood and strange, ornate animal helmets.

She had a spell prepared, a summoning that taxed her limits. She struck a pose, loosed it. It broke a hole in the fabric of everything. Sparks of ten thousand colors flew. Something huge and ugly and hungry started through, tearing the hole wider. Steel left no mark upon its snout. Its snarls chilled the blood. It ripped itself out of the womb of elsewhere and flew after the garrison. Men screamed. It ran faster than they did.

Soulcatcher walked out into the night blanketing Overlook. "That will keep them busy." She looked north, angry. A long walk lay ahead of her.