With everyone back on their feet, they left the contact chamber. The audience chamber was empty. “The Binder must have freed them, sir,” Bob said. “He’ll want their support to help him become the next Warden.”

  “Hold on, now,” Julius said. “I thought we just slew the Warden. Where’s the glory if they’re just going to replace him?”

  “It’s not so simple,” Calvin said. “Their devil will insist they choose the new Warden through mortal combat. We’ve initiated a civil war that could potentially wipe out over half of their number. That’s the point.”

  “And we need to get out of here before we’re caught in it,” Pelias said.

  Calvin nodded. “Let’s move.”

  The former cultists led the way out, staying ahead by fifty feet or so. Calvin warned his crew to stay alert in case they had to fight their way out, but it didn’t come to that. When their guides encountered Hark’akuy cultists, they told them of Waska’s death and instructed them to gather with the rest of the cult to participate in choosing the next Warden. Much to Arg’s disappointment, that worked every time.

  “I didn’t bash nearly enough cultists,” he complained as they hiked down the mountain.

  “Go back once they’re done fighting,” Finzor suggested. “They’ll be weak. I bet you could wipe ‘em out all on your own.”

  “That’s not as fun,” Arg grumbled, but he wasn’t grumpy for long.

  Terry cried out as Hark’akuy fell upon the thieves from behind. Calvin cursed. The cult had followed them after all. Forty cultists poured out of the trees. From behind their ranks, a Binder yelled, “Bring me their heads!” The cultists were already exchanging blows with the thieves. Arg let loose his battle cry and raced into the enemies, Julius following close behind. Shale and Pelias hung back, pelting the cultists from a distance with arrows and throwing daggers. Calvin drew his sword and started toward the fight, but pain spasmed through his injured leg, and he stumbled. Bob pulled him to his feet.

  “Sir, you’re in no condition to fight.” The other former cultists stood behind him. They’d drawn their scimitars, but they didn’t engage in the fighting.

  “I’m fine.”

  “We can’t win this fight, sir. We should leave while we can.”

  “We’re not abandoning our crew.”

  Bob lowered his voice. “They’re not really part of the crew, though, sir.”

  Calvin scowled and pressed on. He thinks I only care about protecting the negotiators. He doesn’t understand. I have to—

  A curved blade burst through Terry’s back, gleaming with his blood. The thief screamed and fell as the cultist pulled his scimitar from the wound, a triumphant sneer on his face.

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  The yellow sunlight filtering through the trees shifted to red. Calvin’s stomach twisted, warning against what he was about to do, but he ignored it. “ATTACK!” he screamed, throwing himself into the fray. Bob and his fellows joined obediently, and Pelias redoubled his efforts. Those already fighting had managed to defeat twelve of the cultists. Arg was right in the middle of them, having a grand time with Julius right alongside him, but the thieves who still stood all bore severe injuries and frantic expressions.

  Calvin drove his sword into a cultist’s gut, then shoved him against the guy behind him, and both fell to the ground. Bob and the others fell upon their former cultmates, confusing them. The Binder turned and fled, having lost half of his force, and many of the cultists followed suit. The thieves sank to the ground to bind up their wounds, but Arg and Julius chased after them to deal a few more blows.

  Calvin dropped to Terry’s side. Blood welled up from the wound, his chest heaving raggedly. His eyes found Calvin’s face, and he smiled, his lips stained red, streams of blood leaking down into his whiskers. “Chet,” he croaked, “you… save… me…” He wheezed and fell back. Despite the blood and the beard, he looked like a sleeping child. Then his chest stopped moving.

  “No, no, no!” Calvin shook the body, trying to wake him up, trying to bring him back. Losing Edwin was one thing, but Terry, his old friend…

  His stomach twisted more tightly than it ever had before. He cried out in pain and fell to the ground beside Terry’s body. Part of him knew the physical pain would stop if he pushed aside the grief, but he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t.

  Once-meaningless memories came flooding back to him. Memories from before Tikray. The memories of Chester Nimblehawk. His early days as a street urchin, working with Terry to steal food. Building his crew. Borris, Mike, Harold, and Terry. They’d had other names before Tikray, too. What were they? He remembered sitting around the card table with them, laughing, planning jobs, becoming brothers. He remembered the invitation from the thieves’ guild, and how he’d demanded they accept his crew, too. He and his crew had been unstoppable.

  Except once. The earl’s mansion. It was meant to be their biggest job ever. The earl was meant to be out of town. Chester had left Terry outside to keep watch in case he returned. He’d led the rest of his crew right into the earl’s personal chamber. Instead of an empty room full of riches, they’d found the earl in conference with several cloaked figures. The earl had seemed strangely subservient.

  The twisting intensified, accompanied by several sharp pinches that felt like they might rip his stomach open. Calvin yelled in pain and let the memories slide back into the deep recesses of his mind. He couldn’t take it.

  “Is it his leg wound?”

  “Yes. I told him it was worse than it looked.”

  “Maybe I should just try a little healing?”

  “No! That would only make it worse. He’s severely allergic to divine healing. With the state he’s in, it might kill him.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “Carry him, and quickly. More Hark’akuy will come soon.”

  “This is getting less glorious by the minute.”

  “We promised you gold, not glory.”

  Arms lifted Calvin off the ground, pulling him away from Terry. He reached feebly for the body, groaning, but the arms were too fast, too strong. The ground rolled beneath him, dragging Terry up the mountain. The trees raced to plant themselves as additional barriers to his friend. Calvin curled up against the pain and moaned for the arms to let him chase his friend up the mountain, but they paid him no heed. They just bounced him up and down like a crying baby.

  The torment seemed to last hours, and it only stopped when all the trees had gone, replaced by long grass on an open field. Had the mountain moved, too?

  The arms dumped him on the ground. He rolled up into a ball and cursed the day he’d agreed to take Terry on this mission.