Writer's Note: Welcome to the concluding part of the Shifting Target series! I'm astonished that so many of you (by which I mean any) have stuck with it this long. It was never my intention to write a War and Peace length fanfic. It just sort of ended up that way. Special thanks to Nimloth of Thay, Nikoru Sanzo and Karona_False_god for your support.
While I was writing parts 2 and 3, I tried to make them work as standalones (more or less), but to do the same with this one I'd need to recap huge swathes of context. I had a go, but it didn't work. This story needs at least passing familiarity with the series in order to make sense.
The Ashes of Urst Natha
Boos and jeers rang out from the crowd as Duke Silvershield pulled away the blue velvet cloth with a flourish. Torchlight gleamed from the statue's eyes, against a backdrop of glittering stars. His latest attempt to win over the people of Baldur's Gate was magnificent but it wasn't enough.
This statue of Gorion's Ward he had commissioned was nine feet tall and solid marble. Freya's cold stone face was a familiar sight in Baldur's Gate these days. There were tributes to her everywhere. Some were even larger than this one, but this was by far the most expensive. The Duke had paid for it out of pocket, complaining privately that they ought to be building statues of his daughter Skie instead. Not his hated, vulgar, common daughter-in-law who had wed Skie while roaring-drunk without his knowledge or permission.
The public were not blind to his lack of sincerity.
"Murderer!" the familiar cry rang out. Two of the Flaming Fist pushed forward into the crowd, but it was too dark to find the heckler.
"Freya was the best thing that ever happened to this city!"
"We know it was you what killed her!"
Silvershield slunk resentfully behind his captain of the guard. Uncomfortable creeping guilt tightened once more around Captain Corwin's heart. She forced herself to look up at the statue.
The artist had created an unnervingly accurate likeness of Freya, the Hero of Baldur's Gate. Or as she had preferred to be known in life, the Bitch of Baldur's Gate. The people had forgotten this last part though, as they had forgotten most of Freya's glaring flaws. Despite her lycanthropy she had been popular with the mob. So loved, in fact, that when Duke Silvershield had her arrested for Skie's murder it had almost triggered civil war.
In death the charismatic werewolf was practically worshipped in the city as a god. Her beautiful chiselled face, and winning wolfish grin were set in stone wherever you went. Even the Flaming Fist, whom the Bhaalspawn had briefly led before her untimely demise, had insisted on raising a great stone effigy of her. Much to Corwin's dismay.
"It wasn't my fault," she muttered. She told herself this every day as she passed under Freya's grinning statue on the way into work. "I'm sorry you're dead. Even if you were an arsehole."
Her final conversation with the hero had been horrendous. Corwin had known deep down that, much though Freya might have regretted her marriage to Skie once she'd sobered up, she would never have killed her wife.
Corwin had known that Freya was innocent but jealous fury had got the better of her. She'd said things she could never take back, when what she ought to have done was unlock the cells and run away with her.
Suddenly her trained eyes caught sight of a hooded shadow slipping through the throng. Someone was pushing her way toward Duke Silvershield with unnatural ease. Raising a bow in front of the angry crowd was likely to lead to a catastrophic misunderstanding, but Corwin gave the signal to herd their leader back to his estates, losing sight of their pursuer at the street corner.
Yet somehow, when they reached his quiet, moonlit gardens, they found their stalker perched on the steps waiting for them.
"Who are you?" barked Corwin. "Show yourself!"
The stranger lowered her hood to reveal deathly pale skin, mean little fangs and sharp, predatory eyes. Yet upon closer inspection, it turned out that the vampire was no stranger after all.
"Jaheira? You're alive?"
"Obviously not," the vampire replied raising an arched eyebrow. She turned to the Duke, who backed away.
"Begone monster before I run you through!" he blustered.
"There's no need for that. I have something for you," Jaheira informed him briskly, holding out a thick paper parcel.
Silvershield reached out for the hefty package but Corwin intercepted it. She glared suspiciously at the messenger and opened one corner. There was a smell of tanning oils and a hint of golden fur.
Adrenaline and nausea struck Corwin like a tidal wave. She closed the package hastily, glancing anxiously around. If her fellow officers were to know, or even guess at its content, all three of them would be strung up by the statue before dawn.
"Oh gods," she whispered, "You sick... fuck you! I will see you staked for this!"
She made a move to grab her, but the undead messenger pushed her to the ground with impossible strength. Corwin dropped her parcel as she fell. The Duke picked it up curiously. He lifted the tear that his captain had made in the wrapping and stiffened.
"Is this your notion of humour?"
"Not at all," replied Jaheira sweetly. "It is a consolation gift from Mistress Bodhi, Irenicus's sister. You once said that if Freya failed your daughter again then Skie would wear her flayed fur as her funeral shroud. Well… here it is."
The Duke hurled the package at her in a fit of impotent rage.
"Get out of my city and take this disgusting… thing… back to your masters!"
"I wouldn't advise that," Jaheira warned him. "They won't like it."
Duke Silvershield grimaced. He had not forgotten Irenicus's irresistible power. Only the Hero of Baldur's Gate had been able to put up any sort of meaningful fight against him, and she was currently folded up in the parcel as a fur coat.
"Very well," he conceded.
"You cannot possibly be serious!" cried Corwin, blanching.
"I have a new wife to think about, and you have a young daughter," the Duke muttered. "Skie is gone and Freya was our only hope of getting her back. We'll put the coat on Skie, and then bury her in the family mausoleum before anyone sees it."
"You're going to bury your daughter…" Corwin began, then eyed her officers who were listening with ill-disguised curiosity. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "You're going to bury your daughter in her own wife's skin?"
"Think of it as laying a married couple to rest together," the Duke replied repressively. He took a shuddering breath and resigned himself. "I do not like this any more than you do, but I fear our options are limited."
Jaheira smiled, bearing her pearly fangs. It was a good thing she'd got hungry on the road. Otherwise she wouldn't have snacked on that rider from Suldanesselar, and Silvershield would know that Irenicus was dead.