Shadowbane

CHAPTER THREE

21 KYTHORN (NIGHT)

Past the barricade,Kalen climbed down and rolled to his feet on the dusty ground in Luskan. He moved immediately into the shadows of a nearby building that had once been a tavern, but was now half-burned, rotted, and boarded up. Kalen crouched among the ashen detritus and waited, keeping as still as he could.

Galandel’s sword had bitten deep, but Kalen hardly felt it-his spellscar took care of that. It was his curse that stole much of the feeling from his body. Though he grew stronger every day, became faster, felt less pain and punishment than before, one day it would prove too much. His body would become a stone prison-his lungs ceasing to draw in air, his heart shuddering to a stop. He’d brought the curse on himself, through a stupid mistake he had made years ago. And he lived with the numbing malady every day since. One of these days it would kill him; in fact, a year ago, it almost had. Until Myrin-

Myrin.

All he knew was that Myrin was in Luskan and that he had to find her. He hadn’t seen her in a year, and they hadn’t parted on the best of terms. But as soon as he’d heard she was in trouble, he hadn’t hesitated. That had been four days ago-four days’ hard ride from Waterdeep. He didn’t know who had her, so he’d have to break some heads to find out.

No one had come in or out of the tavern. He drew his dagger and knocked the pommel against the wall, then hunched back down to wait.

Sure enough, a pair of toughs appeared, drawn to the sound. They were grubby, lank-haired men-one a half-orc-with a number of pins and spikes driven through their ears and noses to demonstrate their toughness. He also recognized their symbol: hands or paws in various stages of decay-from fleshy to rotted to skeletal-strung on a chain and worn around the neck like a pendant. These were Dustclaws.

Well, one gang was as good a place to start as another.

The Dustclaws inspected the wall, looking for the source of the noise. One of the thugs peered through the cracks in the barricade, then snuffled and shrugged. The senior one-the half-orc-slapped the back of the man’s head and pointed to the door from which they had emerged. They entered, passing inside walls of chipped brick and a roof of rickety boards that rattled in the sea breeze. They hadn’t seen Kalen, and that lent him the advantage.

Quickly, Kalen rose from hiding and followed the Dustclaws. Kalen recognized the worn quill-and-scroll sign of Flick’s Fancies, a scribner house. He’d spent quite a bit of time there as a boy, taking those chores the proprietor (Felicity, though no one called her that twice) gave him and occasionally filching ink and paper from her cabinets. He found it ironic that the scribner’s letters had vanished over the years while the image remained.

Flick’s bore a gang marking, to denote territory: a gold coin with what looked like horns on the outside. Kalen didn’t recognize the symbol, though it reminded him of the sigils of both Tymora, goddess of luck, and her sister Beshaba, goddess of misfortune.

Kalen looked north into the heart of Luskan. The buildings that lined the worn cobbled streets looked entirely too familiar. He recalled countless sweaty midnights and freezing dawns spent perched on buildings or hiding in holes.

Voices emerged from the scribner’s-those of Flick herself and of another that Kalen recognized quite well. One of the luck goddesses was smiling, it seemed.

This might be difficult without Vindicator. He wondered if it had been a mistake to leave the sword behind. Still, after what had happened three months before, sending the crack running along the blade … No. He would not miss it.

“Focus,” Kalen murmured. “Make of myself a darkness, in which there is only me.”

Cold clarity crept back in, drowning out the anxieties born that awful day. He had come to Luskan with a clear purpose. Myrin needed him and he would not fail her.

He thought back to the structure of the shop: ways in, ways out … Ah. Yes.

Ebbius the Rake drummed his pointed fingers on the countertop. His devil’s tail swished around like that of an anxious cat. He popped out the cork half stuck in the rum bottle in his hand and took a long swig. When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and grinned. “Now, now, me lovely, be reasonable,” he said to the woman behind the counter.

“Reasonable?” Flick crossed her arms. “Why don’t you bugger off and have your bully boys take their turns tluinin’ you with your own tail. That sound reasonable, eh?”

“Hmm-tempting, but not today, methinks,” he said.

“Nay, today you’ve got to shake me down for coin, is it?”

“That’s the notion.”

Ebbius smiled outwardly and swore inwardly. The tiefling’s infamous charms seemed not to work on the foul-mouthed Madam Flick. Pity, really. So many others fell to just a smile or a glare. He supposed the muscle he’d brought along would just have to do: two thugs out of the Dustclaws, one a particularly ugly half-orc, the other a human doing his best to match. He hadn’t bothered to learn their names.

By her face, Flick wasn’t the least bit afraid of the tiefling or his men. “Like I told you, fiend-born,” she said with a flash of her perfect white teeth, one part of her appearance she prided herself on. “I paid the Coin Priest a tenday past, and t’isn’t no call for more until month’s end. So take your meat-shields and piss off.”

As he took another pull of his rum, Ebbius rubbed one of the two horns that spiraled up from his red-skinned head. Much as he’d expected. He glanced at the Dustclaws and cocked his head toward Flick. The scarred half-orc reached across the counter and caught Flick around the throat. With a flex of his arms, he wrenched her off her feet and slammed her onto the counter. Flick struggled, but the other thug caught her arms.

“I paid, you Tymora-lovin’ dastards!” she shouted. “Get your godsdamned hands off-”

Ebbius silenced her by putting his knife to her lips. “Lady, gracious lady,” he said. “Best take Shar’s own care with your next words. Because I’ve had about as much insult from you as I’m like to take.” The tiefling grinned, exposing every one of his dagger-sharp teeth. “The blessings of the Lady don’t come so cheap and a great disaster is coming to Luskan soon.”

“Already here.”

Ebbius drew his blade back and slitted his luminous eyes. He looked from one of his men to the other. “Who said-?”

With a cry of shock and pain, the half-orc leaped high in the air. He clasped his foot, which trailed blood in its wake.

“Bane’s breath-” Ebbius started, then staggered away as the human thug slammed into him and fell to the floor, crying out in pain.

The tiefling looked down where the Dustclaw had been standing and saw the gleam of a long dagger blade protruding from the crack between the misshaped floorboards. It vanished as he watched, snaking back into the darkness beneath. He bent down, squinting-there, through a wide crack, he saw what looked like a white diamond, gleaming in the dust-filled light.

Then it blinked.

“Black hands of a thousand watching gods,” Ebbius said.

The floorboards erupted and a dark figure rose from below, elbowing aside the splintering wood. His black-gloved hand caught Ebbius by the throat and pulled him close to a weathered face with scarred cheeks, a long-ago broken nose, and colorless eyes.

Worse, Ebbius knew him. “Gods,” he said. “Is that-?”

The man threw him back against the counter. The tiefling lost the world for an instant, his fingers scrabbling at the countertop to steady himself. What was happening?

The half-orc struggled back on his feet, but he went down fast when the attacker punched him in the ear with his open hand. The ugly human got up, limping, but one black boot shot out and struck him in the nose. His face became a mass of blood as half a dozen piercings cut into his flesh, and the hapless thug collapsed.

Ebbius shook his head, just in time to see the demon of a man pull up the half-orc by the collar and punch him with the pommel of his dagger once, then twice. The brute fell back, nose spurting, and groaned his way into unconsciousness. The cloaked attacker glared over his shoulder at the tiefling.

“Little Dren,” Ebbius said. “Fancy seeing you again-”

Something heavy slammed into the back of his head with a loud crack. Wetness dripped down his cheeks, and he knew no more.

Kalen drew back his blood-spattered fist from the half-orc’s battered face. It had felt entirely too good, splitting the Dustclaw’s grayish skin with a punch. He looked over his shoulder.

“Little Dren,” Ebbius said, staring at him dazedly. “Fancy seeing you again-”

A stout club came down on the tiefling’s head. His dagger slipped his hand and stabbed into the floorboards, followed shortly by Ebbius himself sagging down the counter into a heap. The rum bottle rolled free, tracing a half circle before it came to rest near his outstretched foot.

Flick stood behind the counter, grasping the cudgel she had just smashed over the tiefling’s head. She regarded Kalen warily. “Well met,” she said.

“Well.” Not turning to her, Kalen awkwardly took the dagger from his stiff fingers and sheathed it, then flexed his hand in the black leather glove.

“My thanks.” She lowered her club. “Even so, you’ve brought a deal of trouble down on my house, boy, attacking these bleeders like this.”

“Indeed.” Kalen strode across to the mangled human thug, who was still murmuring, and kicked him in the stomach to silence him. “You want me to rough you up-make it look better?”

“I’d rather just pay.” She grimaced. “Donate to the cause, that be.”

“Cause?” Kalen asked.

“Church of Tymora-or maybe it’s Beshaba. None can say for sure,” Flick said. “Settled in five years back, started handin’ out bread and soup and ale to the poor, which is everybody. Really tryin’ to save the city.”

“Save it or squeeze it?”

“Either. Both.” Flick narrowed her eyes. “You’re really him?”

“Who?” Kalen waved a hand in front of Ebbius’s face. The tiefling was very, very out. He hoisted the tiefling over his shoulder. “Thugs’ll wake up in the length of a song or two. You should get out of here before then-it’s not safe.”

Flick shrugged. “I look like a blushing maid to you?”

If Kalen remembered little else about Flick from more than a decade ago, he knew she could convince anyone of anything. The woman was steel cloaked in silk.

“Farewell.” He got to his feet and stepped around the counter toward the alley.

“Wait. You’ll need this.” Flick pressed Ebbius’s half-emptied bottle of rum into his hand. She appraised him shrewdly, hands on her hips. “You didn’t have to do what you did, Little Dren, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful.” Then she smiled her familiar toothy grin. “But get out of my shop, you hrasting scamp.”

Kalen stared at her a moment, then nodded grimly. “I won’t be back.”

He pushed through the door into the alley. The reek of vomit and mostly dried blood assailed his nostrils, but he put the smells out of his mind. Two hours here, and he’d already grown accustomed to the stench.

Little Dren.

He didn’t like returning to this city for many reasons, but the biggest was who-what-he’d been. He didn’t want to go back to that, but if he had to, he would.

Bending low, Kalen set Ebbius against the wall then leaned back on his haunches, considering. He uncorked the bottle Flick had given him and reversed it over the tiefling’s head, pouring a flood of dark liquid over his horned head. Then he rose and started pacing before the tiefling, prowling like a hunting cat.

In a breath, Ebbius sputtered into wakefulness. He coughed and reached up to his head. “Ow, what the Hells, Little Dren? This any way to treat an old friend?”

“The girl.” Kalen cracked his knuckles.

“Girl? What girl-gah!” He cried out when Kalen smashed the wall next to his ear with his fist. “Crazy blaggard! What the-”

Kalen studied his numb hand. “Tell me about the girl.”

“Trying to scare me won’t wash, hark? You and that Flicking bitch can just-ah!”

Kalen punched again, this time closer and harder. His fist met the wall with an audible crackle. Still, he felt nothing.

The tiefling glared at him, all defiance. “You won’t hurt me. You could have killed my men, but you didn’t.” Ebbius’s tail flicked around contemptuously. “Sorry, Little Dren-if that is you-but I know you too well.”

“You knew a boy,” Kalen said. “You do not know me.”

With that, he plucked up Ebbius’s darting tail and slammed it into the wall. Bone cracked, and the tiefling howled. “Well, well, very well!” Ebbs cried. “What do you want?”

“I told you,” Kalen said. “I’m looking for a girl taken about four days back. You’d remember her. Slim, about a score of winters, blue hair.”

“Blue hair? Boyo, now you’re just fantasiz-ahh!” His words cut off in a cry of alarm when Kalen grasped his left hand as though to slam it into the wall next. “Blue-haired girl. Of course. I heard things.”

Kalen clenched Ebbius’s hand tighter. “Things?”

Ebbius swallowed sharply. “Blue-haired girl, traveling with a dwarf caravan. Ambushers killed some dwarves, took the lass prisoner. That’s all I know.”

“Was she hurt?”

Ebbius shrugged. “She’s just some girl. Why do you care?”

His words cut off when Kalen grasped him by the collar and shoved him back against the wall. The tiefling raised his hands over his face to ward off Kalen’s blade before it got to his face. “Ai-ai! Don’t be sore! Just being plain!”

“Where is she?” Kalen demanded. “Who took her?”

The tiefling shook his head. “Don’t know.”

“Where?” Kalen slammed his fist into the wall next to Ebbius’s ear. Bone crunched and cracks spread up the stone.

“I don’t know!” the tiefling cried. “Godsdammit, I don’t know!”

Kalen believed him-not merely because of the clarity in Ebbius’s eye, but also because of the darkening stain on the front of the tiefling’s breeches. Ebbius was too afraid to lie. Disgusted, he dropped the soiled tiefling to the ground.

Once again, anger had risen in him-anger so foolish it had broken his hand. The old monster was scratching to come out. He made an effort to suppress it.

Leaning against the wall, Kalen loosed a sigh. “Who has the power to do this?”

“What?” Ebbius coughed, grasping his throat. “What do you mean?”

“Myrin isn’t weak and dwarves don’t travel unarmed.” He turned to Ebbius. “So I’ll ask one more time: Who has the resources to get this done? One of the Five?”

“One of ’em, perhaps.” Ebbius narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth. “The Dustclaws out of South Shore. Bruisers break anything if the coin’s right-windows, doors, heads, what-have-you. Leader’s a half-orc, name of Duulgrin. Nasty piece.”

“I know all about the Dustclaws.” Kalen remembered them from his boyhood: eight or ten of the toughest brutes in the city. They must have grown in power and number in his absence. He gestured back to the building. “Your hired hands are Dustclaws.”

“Right, right,” Ebbius said. “Crush ’n’ grab’s their game. That clan of dwarves got beat pretty fierce, which fits the Dustclaw way of doing things. Maybe they did it.”

“But they didn’t,” Kalen said.

“Could be.” The tiefling shrugged. “Could be the Dragonbloods.”

“The Shou, you mean?”

Ebbius nodded. “The old garrison on Blood Island-it’s a regular empire now, as much as is possible in Luskan. The Dragon could have done it.”

“Their leader,” Kalen said. “Is he an actual dragon?”

“Nobody knows.” Ebbius spat and wiped his mouth. “That one’s paranoid as a closet moondancer in shady Netheril. You get his true name, you tell me, aye?”

Kalen nodded “That’s two of the Captains. There are three more.”

The five powerful chieftains who called themselves “Captains” had ruled over Luskan for over a century. The moniker hearkened from back when the city still had a real government, when the rulers had been genuine seafaring pirate kings. The name stuck by tradition.

“Master of the Throat,” Ebbius said. “Pretty thing like yer girl make a fine consort.”

“Not him,” Kalen said.

“Necromancers get lonely too.”

“Not. Him.” If it was the necromancer, then Myrin was already dead. And worse.

Ebbius shrugged. “Spinners wouldn’t do it.”

“Spinners?” Kalen frowned. Flick had mentioned the church of Tymora.

“New outfit, the Coin Spinners,” Ebbius said. “They moved into the old temple, became one of the Five a year or so back. More like an armed camp than a church-they do food ’n’ beds, not kidnapping. ’Course it’s a front, but isn’t everything? You’d like ’em.”

Now Kalen understood the significance of the painted gold coin with the horns marking Flick’s shop. It was the Coin-Spinner’s mark. “Do the Spinners serve Tymora or Beshaba?”

“What do I know about gods?” Ebbius countered.

“True.” An uneasy certainty came over Kalen as to the identity of the fifth gang in power. “What about the Rats?”

“The Dead Rats, aye,” Ebbius said. “They’re the fifth, as always.”

The Dead Rats had a reputation even in Luskan for treachery and ruthless dealing, and they were notorious throughout the North. Their legendary blessing-some of the gang became more like rodents than men when the moon grew full-was the stuff of legend in the streets. He wasn’t sure if it was true.

“You used to run with them, didn’t you?” Kalen asked.

“No, no,” Ebbius said. “You’re thinking of some other tiefling. No blood oaths for Ebbius the Rake, nay. You know what they do when you try to leave the gang? Give you a curse, then chew you up so bad-”

“I’ve seen their leavings,” Kalen said. “So did they do it?”

“The Dead Rats,” Ebbius mused. “Can’t say as they took this girl of yours, but they certainly could’ve done. Top enforcer’s a black-hide, name a’ Sithe.”

“Sithe.” Kalen shivered. “Black skin-is she a drow?”

“Nuh-uh. Can’t say for certain, but she’s sumfin’ dark, she and that axe of hers. You steer clear of her, lest you’re none too fond of your head these days.”

Kalen nodded. “Dustclaws, Dragonbloods, the Dead Rats, the Coin-Spinners, and the necromancer and his pets.” At least he had some names to start his search. “And you squeeze for the Tymorans.”

“Now where’d you get an idea like that?”

“Flick might have mentioned it.”

“Bitch.” Ebbius managed a little smile-his confidence was coming back. “Work for meself, Kalen-you know that.”

Kalen shrugged. “Well, whoever’s filling your pocket, you’ll trouble Flick no more. If I hear about retribution, I will find you.”

“Oh, I’d not worry about that.” Ebbius bared all his teeth. “You’d best watch your own back. You leave me sore like this, there’ll be mirth for all, I promise you that.”

“Best not leave you sore then.”

Kalen seized the tail anew. Ebbius wailed, but Kalen clapped a hand over his mouth. He focused his will, forcing power to gather. His hand glowed with the healing touch given to a paladin and the bones knit back together. The blessing even soothed the breaks in his hand.

“Damn,” the tiefling said. “Say, you all right?”

It was getting harder, healing at a touch. This time, it was a miracle he managed it without a blinding headache. Not that he could show Ebbius any weakness.

“Did any of this really happen?” Kalen leaned close and sniffed. “Or did you take a bath in rum and piss yourself as you imagined it?”

The tiefling glared. “They’ve truth-speakers, you son of an orc’s whore!”

“And you’ll be quick to tell them all about the information you divulged.”

The tiefling’s glare was positively murderous. “What happened to you, Kalen?” Ebbius asked. “Thirteen years back, we’d have shared this rum and bickered over that bitch’s coin. Found a god or two?” He sneered. “Or perhaps it be this blue-haired girl, aye?”

Kalen punched Ebbius across the face. The tiefling’s horns cracked against the alley wall and he fell, senseless.

Flexing his fist, Kalen considered. Ebbius had given him only a little to go on, but Kalen suspected one of those names he’d dropped was dead on for who had Myrin. He had to assume the Master of the Throat didn’t have her, or she was dead already. That left the Dustclaws, the Dragon and his Shou, the Spinners, the Dead Rats with their dark enforcer, Sithe. The name resonated in his mind for some reason.

“Time to light some fires,” he said.

He left the alley.

The red one wakes slowly, clenching his head. His skin is tough and the color of burned meat. He props himself up on the alley wall, inspecting the blood on his hand.

Red blood.

Hot blood.

It smells like the sweetest of sweetmeats.

“Son of a-” He flicks his fingers, sending blood speckling across the stone. “Sodding Little Dren. Soon as I tell …”

He looks this way. We hide in the shadows.

We wait.

We hunger.

The door opens and two other ones appear. A big one with big teeth. Another one. They are weak. They shed blood. We chitter. We hiss with hunger.

The tusked one speaks. “Ebbs. You up?”

“Dammit, Little Dren.” The red one shakes his head. “We’ll get that tluiner!”

The words mean nothing. A name. Names have no taste.

We hunger. We cannot wait.

We surge forth.

The puny metal-studded one cries out as we take him.

The other ones cry out. They call for help. Help will not come.

The red one escapes, many of us clinging and biting. He will be ours.

We have the big one. He struggles. We feast. His screamsbecome gurgles formed deep in his throat.

We leave his bones.

The red one backs against the wall. He searches for a way out.

There is none.

We swallow him.