Unbroken Chain: The Darker Road

CHAPTER ONE

IKEMMU, THE SHADOWDARK

5 MARPENOTH, THE YEAR OF DEEP WATER DRIFTING (1480 DR)

"You can’t kill a ghost.”

Ashok appeared on Ikemmu’s vast guard wall and whipped his spiked chain above his head. Flesh and feeling returned to his incorporeal body, and he brought the weapon slashing down to tangle with a pair of bright katars.

The owner of the deadly push-blades, Cree, used them to drag Ashok to the edge of the thirty-foot wall. The dizzying height would have terrified a human, but Ashok and Cree were shadar-kai. Dancing close to the edge got the blood pumping in Ashok’s veins and brought a surge of energy to his limbs. He let Cree pull him almost to the brink before he abandoned his weapon and dived for Cree’s legs to unbalance him.

As usual, the young shadar-kai was quicker. He yanked his katars free of the slack chain and jumped aside. Swinging overhand, he aimed for Ashok’s exposed neck, but he stopped the blades before they cut flesh.

“I’ve seen that trick before, remember?” Cree spoke the words haltingly. He was out of breath, as was Ashok.

Ashok rolled over onto his back and kissed the edge of Cree’s katar. “You have a good memory.” He sprang to his feet. “But someday I’ll get to you before those blades reach my neck.”

“Keep boasting,” Cree’s brother, Skagi, drawled from a few yards down the wall. “Only way to slow that one down is to hack off his legs.”

“Don’t worry. Even crawling, I’d still outpace you, Brother,” Cree said cheerfully. He sheathed his katars.

Ashok watched the brothers exchange insults, but he had to agree with Cree. The two brothers couldn’t have been more different in their builds and fighting styles. Cree was smaller and wiry. He kept his close-cropped brown hair shaved at the temples to display a pair of curved blade tattoos. When he fought, he aimed to end the battle quickly, before his opponent had a chance to feel the blade slip between his ribs.

Skagi was his brother’s opposite. Built like a block of stone, Skagi towered over most of his opponents and used blunt force to bring them down. A field of green tattoos covered the exposed upper half of his body, a wild forest that depicted chains and spikes wound together. His scarred lower lip gave him a grisly smile that his enemies rightly feared.

“What about it, Ashok?” Skagi said. He drew his falchion. “Did this pup take all the fight out of you, or are you ready for a real match?”

Ashok stood at the edge of the wall. The cave breezes ruffled his long gray hair. Beneath his bone scale armor, sweat cooled on his skin. His heart still beat wildly from the force of the sparring match. Tense muscles demanded an outlet for the energy. He wanted to take on both brothers. He’d done it once, not far from this same spot, when he’d first come to the city of Ikemmu. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Taking deep breaths, Ashok reined in the wild impulses shivering through his body. Asserting that deep control was its own kind of pain, as sharp and reviving as a dagger slash to the skin but not nearly as damaging. Ashok used that pain the way all shadar-kai must-to stay alive.

When he was in control of himself, Ashok grinned at Skagi. “Another time,” he said. “Neimal wants us.” He pointed down the wall behind Skagi, where a shadar-kai witch clothed in gray and black robes stood surrounded by guards. She gestured to them imperiously.

Neimal was visible from any point on the wall by the sword she held in her hand. Purple fire danced along the blade, reacting to the portal set into the cavern wall several yards away. Strangely, Neimal had not yet activated it to admit the caravan that approached the city from the Shadowfell above.

As he followed the brothers to where the witch stood, Ashok looked out over Ikemmu, the city of towers. Four spires rose in the distance: the towers Makthar, Pyton, Hevalor, and Athanon. His gaze lingered on Athanon, the soldiers’ house and the domain of Uwan, the city leader. Though the city appeared calm, with the shadar-kai and the trader races mingling as usual, Ashok felt an inexplicable restlessness, as if the city itself were waiting for something. He didn’t know what it was, but he’d sensed the feeling grow over the past several tendays.

Cree nudged him. “Something wrong?”

Ashok forced a careless grin onto his face. “Afraid you might have bruised my tender neck?”

Cree scoffed. “You know I’m not. You look weary, and you haven’t been weary for eight months. What’s wrong?”

Ashok’s smile turned rueful. He’d forgotten that Cree was often more perceptive than his brother. “Last night, I had strange dreams.”

“What sort of dreams?” Cree asked.

“I don’t remember,” Ashok said. “But I thought I heard someone screaming.…”

Cree’s expression reflected Ashok’s concern. “Do you think it’s the nightmare?”

Ashok felt an involuntary surge of excitement at the mention of the demon horse he’d trained and released back to the Shadowfell. “I don’t see how,” Ashok said. “As you said, it’s been eight months since we saw the beast.”

“Maybe you should ask Uwan about it,” Cree suggested.

“Uwan has more important things to worry about than what goes on in my dreams,” Ashok said.

Cree started to reply, but Ashok motioned him silent. They were within earshot of Neimal and the other guards on the wall. The witch looked more agitated than usual.

“The caravan is overdue,” she told them. “The guards at the upper portal sighted a dust storm coming fast across the plain. They believe the caravan is somewhere in the middle of it.”

“Send a patrol out after it,” Ashok said. “If we can get to them, we can guide them through.”

“No,” the witch said. “If you get turned around in the storm, you’ll end up as lost as they are. Tuva and Vlahna lead the caravan; they know to dig in and wait out the dust. We will wait for them.”

Ashok wanted to argue. He relished the idea of pitting himself against the fierce dust storm, but he knew better than to cross the Sworn of the Wall. He suspected Neimal hadn’t forgiven him for eluding her and her guards during his attempted escape all those months ago. Now that he held the rank of Guardian, he could come and go as he pleased, but he was still wary around Neimal.

Suddenly, the witch stiffened, and her black eyes lost focus. Ashok stepped forward, but Neimal raised the flaming sword, warning him off.

“Don’t touch her,” Cree said. “She’s connected to the minds of the guards at the portal. If you distract her, she won’t thank you for it.”

Skagi chuckled. “He means she’ll cut you into tiny pieces.”

“The caravan is here,” Neimal said. Her voice sounded strained. Her head jerked, and she swung her blade up involuntarily, as if attacking a ghost.

“What is it?” Ashok demanded, losing patience.

“The shadows have broken free,” Neimal said. “Cages are empty-they’re attacking out of the storm.” The witch drew a shuddering breath.

“What’s she talking about?” Skagi said.

“The shadow beasts,” Ashok said. Whatever the caravan captured-the beasts must be loose. He turned and sprinted for the gate. “Open the portal!” he shouted to Neimal.

He didn’t see the Sworn raise her sword, but the keystone at the top of the portal arch glowed, illuminating the sword of Tempus, god of war, carved upon it. The portal activated with a flash of purple radiance.

The warriors closest to the gate teleported to the ground and ran for the portal at Neimal’s shouted command. Ashok joined them. He and three other shadar-kai still in their incorporeal forms were the first to reach the arch. Ashok didn’t wait to see if Cree and Skagi followed him. He knew the warriors would be close at his back. He waited for his body to take on substance again, unlooped his spiked chain, and charged through the portal.

He came out on the Shadowfell plain into the remnants of the dust storm. Wind gusts ripped across the dry, cracked earth, blinding him with choking grit. The portal guards were nowhere in sight. Ashok pulled up the hood of his cloak and lifted his tunic to cover his mouth and nose. To his left, not far away, he saw an overturned wagon, its wheels spinning and its contents scattered over the ground. Spare wagon wheels, horse tack, tent cloth, and weapons lay everywhere, some splashed with blood. Beyond that was an empty iron cage used to house the shadow beasts for transport. Two of the shadar-kai caravan crew used it as cover. The guards from the wall ran over to them, but Ashok stayed where he was.

In the distance, indistinct shapes loomed on the plain-more wreckage and the curled-up humps of corpses-but some of the shadows moved, prowling the remnants. Ashok gripped his chain and started toward these.

“Watch behind you!” a voice cried out-one of the caravan guards. Ashok spun, but there was nothing there. The dust was too thick to see beyond a few yards.

In that breath, Cree and Skagi burst through the portal, weapons drawn.

“How many are there?” Ashok called to the caravan guard.

The man stood up, and from his bearing, Ashok knew he must be one of the caravan masters, Tuva. The other guard, a woman, rose up beside him. Vlahna.

“Four spectral panthers,” Tuva told Ashok. “They’re like ghosts-they come out of nowhere in this damned dust.”

The man had a loud, deep voice that Ashok heard clearly over the roar of the wind. Darker than most shadar-kai, he had broad shoulders and wore a heavy suit of shadowmail that made his upper body look all the more massive.

Standing next to him, the woman looked like a child. She had short white hair that the wind tossed around her face. A solid band of tattoos covered her eyes like a mask and tapered down her cheeks in the shape of spiked chains. She carried a weapon similar to Ashok’s, but she’d wound the spikes around her left arm, which was covered in reinforced bands of brown leather, in addition to her armor, to protect her flesh.

“You’re the only ones left?” Cree said. Ashok heard the tension in his voice. He knew Cree wasn’t afraid but was holding himself in check, as Ashok was.

As they all were.

The caravan masters exchanged a glance. “We can’t be sure,” Vlahna said. “All of us were scattered.”

“Including the portal Guardians,” Ashok said, nodding toward the archway.

“Only one way to find them,” Skagi said, twirling his falchion. Ashok could practically feel the energy radiating from the big man’s body.

“Spread out,” Vlahna said, “but keep one another in sight.” She nodded to the shadar-kai who’d come through the portal with Ashok. “Stand guard here while the portal’s open.”

Tuva turned away, and a spectral panther landed on the overturned cage.

“Get back!” Ashok screamed. He brought his chain up-his arm seemed to move in slow motion. The panther bunched up its hindquarters and sprang, wrapping massive paws around Tuva’s shoulders. The shadar-kai went down hard under the weight of the beast. Ashok’s chain soared high and missed them both.

“Watch our backs!” Ashok moved into a line with Cree and Skagi on either side of him. The brothers fell back, forming a small perimeter.

Vlahna ran to Tuva’s aid. She slashed the panther in the back of the neck with her spikes and darted away as the beast roared and swiped at her. Three-inch claws laid open the armor at her thigh and dug into flesh. Tuva rolled away and drew a greatsword. He held his left hand to a gash at his neck.

To his left, Ashok heard Skagi shout a warning and teleport to avoid another leaping panther. The beast landed in their midst, its claws digging into the earth for balance. This time Ashok snapped his chain out and looped it around the panther’s neck. He turned to find Cree and had a glimpse of the man slashing a katar at a third panther that appeared in front of him. A layer of thick dust caked the panthers’ dark coats. The gritty air hampered Ashok’s vision.

Tuva was right, Ashok thought. They’re all ghosts.

Ashok’s panther jumped and swung its graceful body around in midair. Not wanting to release the chain, Ashok let himself fall. The beast dragged him across the ground in an attempt to shake off the chain, but Ashok wrenched the weapon back and let the spikes dig in and do their work.

Frenzied, the beast rolled over on its back and bit at the spikes. The flesh at its jowls tore-all Ashok could see were the whites of its eyes. A wailing howl issued from the beast’s throat, and the panther surged up and charged him again.

Madness drove the creature. Ashok could see it in its eyes. The Shadowfell panthers had the power to become insubstantial-it took specially designed, enchanted cages to hold them. The creatures should have run from the dust storm, not come back to attack them all. They were looking for death.

Skagi reappeared beside Ashok in his corporeal form. He drove his falchion into the leashed panther’s flank. The beast dodged aside before the weapon could penetrate too deep, but the strike slowed it down, and Ashok kept his grip on the lethal spikes.

“The fourth one’s out on the plain,” Skagi said. “I saw her when I teleported. She took a swipe at me before she realized she was hunting a shadow. She’s a big one, but she’s just watching us right now.”

“Biding her time,” Ashok said, his voice strained with the effort of keeping the panther in check. “She’s waiting for the others to wear us down.” He looked for Cree, but the dust clouds obscured that battle. Tuva and Vlahna kept the other panther at bay, but they both bled from multiple wounds and were already tired from fighting the beasts earlier.

Ashok ripped his chain away. He gripped the spikes now covered in blood, hair, and flesh. The panther stumbled from the pain of the punctures and the gash Skagi had opened on its flank, but it wasn’t down yet.

“Think you can finish this one?” Ashok yelled at Skagi.

The shadar-kai was already coming in for the attack. He absorbed a claw swipe against his shoulder to land another stab to the panther’s rib cage.

“What, you’re giving me your scraps now?” Skagi bellowed. He batted aside claws with his falchion, severing two amid the creature’s howls.

“Help Cree when you’re done.” Ashok teleported to the open plain before Skagi could retort.

He wanted to find the big one.

In the aftermath of the storm, the dust-covered wreckage of the caravan lay strewn about the plain for miles. Ashok limped back to the portal, bleeding from a torn calf, his chain stained with the last panther’s lifeblood. He saw the other three corpses near the overturned cage. More guards had come through the portal to tend to the wounded. Tuva and Vlahna as well as three more caravan guards had survived the storm.

The brothers stood a little ways off from the activity. Skagi wore a sullen expression.

“Told you,” he said, nudging Cree and pointing to Ashok’s gore-covered chain. “He went and stole all the fun we might have had hunting that queen she-cat.”

Ashok grinned, but he noticed Cree wasn’t smiling the way he usually did at his brother’s temper.

“What’s amiss?” he said.

“Neimal says we’re to report to Uwan right away and tell him what happened out here,” Cree said, adding, “We didn’t know where you’d gone. For all we knew, that she-cat might have been dragging your corpse back to feed her cubs.”

Cree’s tone took Ashok by surprise. “You had a battle of your own,” he said. “Or would you have taken on two at once, a katar for each?” He tried to keep it lighthearted, but he knew he sounded defensive.

“And you made sure I had help,” Cree said, nodding to his brother. “Why didn’t you let anyone help you, and why didn’t you wait a breath or two for us before you went charging off through the portal?”

“Is that what’s worrying you, Cree? That for once I might have been faster than you?” Ashok wrapped up his bloody chain and hung it from his belt like a trophy. “Maybe you need more training.”

Cree took a step forward, but Skagi got to Ashok first.

“I’ll take your other leg out from under you, pup,” he growled. “Then we’ll see how well you swing that pretty necklace around.”

Tuva and a couple of the guards glanced over at them. Cree put a calming hand on Skagi’s arm. “Enough, Brother. Ashok’s trying to bait us,” he said quietly. “He’d rather fight than confess what’s on his mind.”

Skagi looked at him with narrowed eyes, but Ashok, shaken by Cree’s insight, didn’t reply. Finally, Skagi sniffed and stomped away.

“Well, come on,” he muttered when neither Ashok nor Cree moved to follow. “I won’t keep the Watching Blade waiting, will you?”

“Go on ahead,” Ashok said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Cree nodded and left to follow his brother. The guards gathered up the caravan debris. Absently, Ashok picked up a dusty wheel and threw it into the back of one of the few intact wagons. Blood covered the ground where Ashok stood, but he couldn’t tell if it was shadar-kai or panther blood. Luckily, Cree and Skagi had appeared unscathed after the battle. The panther claws hadn’t penetrated their armor.

Their accusations cut Ashok deeper than he wanted to admit.

Ashok had admittedly gotten caught up in the fighting frenzy, but that wasn’t unusual for his race. Over the last few months, as he adjusted to his role as a Guardian, he’d cultivated restraint in his fighting and adapted to working his deadly chain with allies nearby. He hadn’t intended to leave Cree and Skagi behind. He’d focused on the battle in front of him, and he’d known, when he ran after the big panther, that his companions would come through their battle. That, not his own safety, had been his prevailing thought.

A high-pitched cry from the plain distracted Ashok from his thoughts. More survivors. He sprinted north in the direction of the sound. He ran until the wreckage ended and there was only the open plain scrolling away in broken ridges to the horizon. A line of dim gray clouds riding low overhead reinforced the perpetual twilight of the Shadowfell. Earth and sky were dismal mirrors of each other. No kindling trees or scrub grass grew on this stretch of land. The unbroken sameness blurred his vision and made him squint, disoriented, into the distance.

The wind whistled sharply, and Ashok thought he might have imagined the cry for help. He was about to turn back when the sound came again, echoing like death’s shriek on the wind. The cry shuddered through Ashok’s body, and he stumbled and fell.

He knew that sound.

Ashok staggered to his feet. He absorbed the shooting pain in his leg where the panther had wounded him, and he used it to lengthen his stride back toward the portal. He wanted to lose himself in the pain, to block out the piercing, malignant summons that issued from somewhere deep in the Shadowfell.

The nightmare was calling to him.

After eight months of peace, the beast sought Ashok again. It had followed the inexplicable connection between them back to the city where once they’d both been prisoners.

It craved blood. Ashok wondered if the nightmare had found the corpse of the she-panther out on the plain. Did it smell Ashok’s hand in the killing?

He tried to ignore the cry. The nightmare’s shriek, the smell of blood permeating the caravan wreckage, all of it took him back to that terrible hole in the ground-his former home.

Ashok had come from an enclave of shadar-kai that, to keep their souls from fading, had lost them in the process. They kidnapped a caravan party from Ikemmu, then tortured and killed most of its members. Only the witch Ilvani survived, rescued by Ashok and his companions. Ashok had betrayed his enclave that day, but he’d reclaimed his soul.

To escape from that place, Ashok and the nightmare had forged a path of destruction through the caves that had obliterated a good portion of his enclave. He didn’t regret what they’d saved that day-the lives of Skagi and Cree, Chanoch, Vedoran, and Ilvani-but Ashok would never forget the screams of his people as they died. He heard them now in the nightmare’s scream.

There had been so many lives saved, but so many more lost. Chanoch and Vedoran-those comrades were gone now-one to the shadows, the other dead by Ashok’s hand.

Ashok went through the portal without speaking to anyone. When he came out into the Shadowdark, the nightmare’s scream finally ceased. Ashok stood for a moment in the silence and waited for the memories and the smell of blood to fade. His own wound distracted him, and Ashok knew he would have to seek healing at Tower Makthar before he could present himself to Uwan.

He passed through the gate, which was open to admit what was left of the caravan. His eyes sought Neimal up on the wall, but when he found her, Ashok was surprised to see not one witch but two-Ilvani stood talking with Neimal near the gate.

He tried to catch her eye, but she was absorbed in conversation with Neimal. She’d been like a ghost these past few months-he’d never seen her except from a distance, as now, and she hadn’t sought him out.

Just as well. Ilvani had her own nightmares to haunt her, more painful and terrifying than Ashok’s beast. His presence would only remind her of them.

Ashok risked another glance up at the two witches. By chance, Ilvani’s attention wandered, and she turned and caught Ashok’s gaze.

Seeing her face, Ashok felt a displacement, as if he’d gone back in time. The city spiraled away, and he was seeing Ilvani for the first time, eyes burning out of deep skull sockets, a broken body in a cage. He remembered that look on her face, the same look she wore now. Something was terribly wrong.

“Ilvani,” he called out to her, but she was already backing away from Neimal, retreating. She moved down the wall and abruptly teleported to the ground. Ashok caught up with her while her body was still transparent, a spirit drifting between the burned-out houses near the wall. He reached for her arm, but his hand passed through her.

She jerked away from him as if he had touched her. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she snapped. Shadows swirled around her body. “You look when you’re not supposed to look-that’s how your eyes get burned.”

“I’m sorry.” Ashok forced himself to slow, to keep his distance from her. He’d forgotten that talking to Ilvani was often like groping for a candle in a dark room. He was always running into walls. “I want to know what’s wrong. Can’t you tell me?”

“Can’t I tell you? Can’t I lift you down?” She covered her ears with her hands. “If everyone would stop talking all at the same time, you might hear everything.”

The shadows faded as her body took on substance. Ashok noticed deep circles under her black eyes. Though she wore a light nightdress beneath her cloak, she looked as if she hadn’t slept in a tenday. Blood stained her palms, and thick dust streaked her clothes and hair. The implications of her appearance hit Ashok like a fist.

“Gods, Ilvani, were you out on the plain just now?” he demanded. “In the storm?”

She laughed bitterly. “Now you sound like Uwan. ‘Little raven, don’t wander away.’ ‘Little snow rabbit, you might get hurt.’ ”

“I want to help you.”

Her face softened a bit. “You can’t help everyone,” she said. She gestured to his bleeding leg. “You should look after yourself.”

She walked away from him then, and Ashok knew better than to follow her.