Fallarond called a halt. Outside this enclosed world, the clean darkness of night had settled on the land, but within the oppressive gloom of the endless corridors of the Madwood, witch-lights flickered, obscuring vision, blurring all but the nearest of the titanic trees. The company fed on the rich elven loaves and the clear water the Deathguard had brought with them.
Ardal warned Vaddi softly, “Don’t sip at the streams here. To drink in the Madwood is to invite a painful death—or worse, hideous transformation.”
Ezrekuul swam around and around slowly in a wide pool of the river, uneasy and unsettled, like a caged beast. All the while the Madwood hung back on the edge of shadows, as though at any given moment it would launch itself at the small band. “Are we still in Eberron?” breathed Nyam beside Vaddi.
“What do you mean?”
“All the distasteful tales I have heard of this jungle come back to me now. It is said that it is more closely linked than any other realm to Mabar, the Realm of Eternal Night, an alternate plane where all is darkness, shunned by light. Mabar can fuse itself to the Madwood, pouring its necromantic energies into it. When this happens, it is possible to enter Mabar itself. Reckless traders have done it, in search of Mabar crystals.”
“Mabar crystals?”
“Items of black power. They would be treasured by the Claw, ideal for its black workings and control of the undead.”
“You think we have crossed into this realm?” said Vaddi, gazing about him at the walls of supernatural darkness that surrounded them.
“No. But the two planes must be very close to a conjunction. Elf magic could open a gate to it. Or close it.”
“The Murughel?”
Nyam shrugged. “They are reckless, I think. Mabar crystals would serve their evil designs well.”
“If they have taken Zemella to this Mabar realm, we will follow them,” Vaddi said. “I would follow her to Khyber itself if I had to.”
He had not noticed Ardal near at hand. The Valenar spoke quietly. “Your loyalty to her is deep, is it not?”
Vaddi stiffened. He nodded slowly. “No more so than your own, I imagine.”
Ardal’s expression was unreadable. “Yes. My life for hers.”
Nyam could see the growing emotional turmoil in Vaddi. This was neither the time nor place for an argument to break out. “Ardal, how close are we to Mabar? It could hardly be darker than this pit.”
Ardal rose, preparing to leave. “Not too close, but in the Madwood, it is never far from reach. It will snare you if it can. Like the jungle, it is alive.”
Nyam groaned as he got up. “Well, not even I could sleep in this place. Trudging onward would seem our only course.”
Led by the creature in the river, the company moved off again. Underfoot the weeds grew more and more matted and tangled, like emaciated fingers, clawing and rending, exerting every effort to wind around the feet of the company. Elf swords hacked at them and they writhed back, repulsed by the glowing wooden blades. Vaddi felt his own weapon, the gift he had been given, slicing through these horrors, but its light was clouded as he used it, as if poison worked upon it. The river dropped lower, and as it did so, the trees crowded in, smaller ones replacing the titans of the jungle edge, although above them other thick branches spread out like the gnarled arms of demons, poised to fall.
Vaddi could see forms and faces in the knotted trunks, baleful eyes, scarlet and hate-filled. Roots shifted, moving weed-smeared rocks. Undergrowth rustled, briars swung, unfurling, but the swords cut and chopped in a ceaseless, uniform movement as the company defied the malevolence of the jungle. From the river, Ezrekuul pointed ahead. Again the waters dropped, splashing over a wide fall to tumble a dozen feet or more into another pool. Beyond this the river divided, one tributary branching to the right, the other to the left. Each looked oily black and foreboding.
The company picked its way down the slippery left bank of the waterfall, taking great pains not to brush up against the undergrowth that tried to force them over the lip and into the gray cauldron of the pool. Nyam’s feet betrayed him and he felt himself nudged outward by a branch that had lifted itself out of the moss, but a firm hand gripped his arm and swung him back on to the ledge before he could plummet. It was Tallamorn, the necromancer.
“Your wounds were not mended so that you could enter the service of the Madwood,” he said.
“My thanks,” said Nyam, though uneasy at the touch of the strange Aereni.
At the bottom of the climb, Ezrekuul swam to them. “That way,” he said, indicating the right hand tributary, “is Naalbarak. Leads away from ruins.”
Vaddi gazed in distaste at the river. It seemed to flow no more steadily than mud or pitch, wisps of eerie mist seeping up from its slick surface. As he studied it, he heard its voice, a sibilant whispering, like some blasphemous chant, redolent with evil and terror.
“The River of Whispering Evil,” he said, recalling the Naalbarak’s name.
“We’ll not go that way,” said Fallarond.
“I fancy we’d have to stuff our ears with mud if we did,” muttered Nyam.
They all turned their attention to the other river. This flowed immediately under a tangled mass of branches and undergrowth that had wound itself into a tunnel within the darkness of the jungle. The turgid waters, no less thick and sluggish than the left branch, surged into this tunnel, which was like a wide drain. Around its mouth, weed and mold flourished. As the company edged toward it, they saw the gaping orifice as if it were a mouth, above it two deep black slits in the branches like eyes.
“We are to enter there?” said Nyam.
Fallarond pointed with his blade to the undergrowth and branches that had packed up around the tunnel, creating a solid wall, utterly impenetrable and fathomless. “It would take a lifetime to cut through that. The only way is in.”
“Leads to the outer stones of ruins,” Ezrekuul said. He splashed to the pool’s side. “Beyond to east. Safer in tunnel than outside.” He hesitated a moment, only his wide eyes above the water, then stood and said, “Hark!”
Vaddi swung round. He could hear distinct sounds in the coiling darkness—vague howls, partially smothered by the trees. The groaning of wood, the shriek of spirits, perhaps.
At the rear of the company, a Deathguard cried out, and as one they all turned. One warrior was clawing at his neck, where a serpent-like root had wrapped itself around it, choking the life from him. His companions hacked at the writhing monstrosity, but the warrior was dragged into the thick undergrowth. A mass of roots and branches swung out like a many-fingered claw, and two others were snared in the barbed tangle. Swords rose and fell, chunks of root and branch flying in all directions as the Deathguard smote the attacking horror. All around them, other branches swung down, and the very earth came alive as if with immense maggots as the roots closed in. It was too late to save the three warriors who had become trapped, and their helpless bodies were pulled away into the enfolding darkness, their awful cries smothered. The company was forced to back off, ever nearer the tunnel beyond.
In the face over the tunnel Vaddi saw the black eyes open, the balefires within them glowing with a malefic power. There could be no greater deterrent than entering the mock mouth below those eyes, but with three dead behind them, there was no alternative. Vaddi cursed and ran forward. He smote at the sides of the tunnel with his elf blade and fire blazed from it at once. The eyes above squinted in pain and for a brief moment the mouth of the tunnel twisted, as if in pain. Roots and fronds fell from the sides of the tunnel as Vaddi hacked violently at them, the anger inside him welling up.
Fallarond took his lead from Vaddi and joined him, also cutting into the overhanging vegetation. Between them they had cut enough away to widen the mouth so that they could pass through and along the bank of the river rather than drop down into it. Their blades glowed, and around them in the womb-like curve, roots and filaments withdrew from them. Nyam and the remainder of the company entered the tunnel, and without another word, they moved on. A tiny wake in the center of the river showed where Ezrekuul still swam.
“How far?” called Fallarond.
“Little now,” said the creature.
Behind them, silhouetted in the grayness of the tunnel entrance, a number of shapes squirmed and flapped, distorted and hunched. Whether they were trees or humanoid, it was impossible to tell. Their numbers grew, but something in the tunnel held them back so they did not follow. Instead they emitted furious shrieks, their voices ghastly, their cries murderous.
“Ignore them!” Ardal snapped. “Move on.”
As the company did so, they felt the shuddering of the wooden walls around them, as though something huge was pressing against them from both above and the sides. The tunnel may have formed a temporary haven from the horrors that the Madwood had unleashed, but around it, the nightmare inhabitants of the jungle were swarming, and they were not content to remain outside. They were attempting to rip their way in.
Zemella opened her eyes on darkness so crushing that it weighed her down like several tons of earth. She was in a solitary stone cell, far below the ground where her captors had brought her, but it may as well have been sunk into the depths of Khyber itself. These cursed Murughel had done their treacherous work well. Her hands were bound, and the leather strips that held her were steeped in sorcery. Whoever controlled this band of Murughel was powerful, a mage of some kind.
They had taken her at sea, locking her away with chain and spell until their craft had broken the waters of the eastern seaboard of Aerenal, so they were not to go to Shae Thoridor after all. The knowledge had come as a blow to her. When the Murughel had taken her ashore, she knew by instinct that they had reached the very edge of the Madwood. In Valen Bay, they were met by more of their kind. No one had spoken to her, not even to taunt her. Their leader was cunning, well familiar with elf powers, and the cleric was by now far away.
She was no longer sure why she was here. She was so far from Vaddi that the cleric would be able to deceive him and turn him back upon the course he had originally set for him.
They must intend to kill me, she told herself, unable to avoid the thought. They dare not set me free. They know that the Finnarra would hunt them down, but why here, the Madwood?
Once ashore, she had been hooded, dragged along for a day or more, but she knew by the sounds and the smells that she was being taken deeper and deeper into the Madwood. Then it must be to a sacrifice! Her blood would be used to invoke dark powers in the Madwood.
I will not allow them to spill my blood, she thought. I will die first! By my ancestors, I swear it.
She sagged down in the darkness, head buried on her chest in despair. How? How could she achieve this? They would be watching her. Even here, in the total night of the cell, they would be watching.
Far above her, in another room lit faintly by cold fire, two shapes sat at a stone table, looking out across a vista of thick treetops, above which gray fog curdled. The hooded leader of the Murughel was like a statue, his lidded eyes fixed on the pale figure before him.
Caerzaal smiled grimly his white face vivid, even in this poor light. “So the flies have entered the jungle. Whichever way they turn now, they must stumble into its web.”
“A score of them, no more.”
Caerzaal leaned forward, face hardening. “Is the peddler with them?”
“He is.”
Caerzaal’s sharp teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “A minor issue, but it will please me to deal with that one. How long before they find us?”
“The Madwood has swallowed them. We may not know until they reach these ruins, but the Murughel are ready. I have mustered two hundred of them. Fifty will be given to the Wood after we have what we want.”
Caerzaal scowled. “A high price in warriors. To become one with the Wood, its slaves.”
“Your prize, Caerzaal, is greater.”
“Yes, that is so.”
“And the serpent god, Sethis? You still intend to invoke him?” The hooded one looked across from their high vantage point to a stepped pyramid beyond. Fires burned in braziers on its flat top, and a score of Murughel warriors kept guard there.
Caerzaal laughed coldly. “Of course. The Valenar bitch will be the bait that draws the Orien youth. With what he carries, he will be powerful. It will take the power of Sethis, my servants, and your Murughel to best him. But at the end, when the boy is exhausted, I will have him bound, and what he carries will be mine. And you,” he added, a long finger stabbing at the Murughel’s chest, “will know what power really is. The Emerald Claw will praise your part in this. You will know new joys and pleasures that you have not yet dreamed of.”
The hooded one did not smile. He turned, scouring the misty roof of the jungle and the skies above it. “Did you sense something pass?”
Caerzaal studied the night like a hound scenting its prey. “In the skies? Who knows what flies above the Madwood? Its servants are many. Some are better not seen.”
The hooded one nodded, but he remained uneasy. Whatever it had been, it was no small thing.
Several hours into the journey, Fallarond called a halt. Ahead of him, daubed in the wavering glow of their swords’ light, a number of flat stones formed a crude bridge across the river. Ezrekuul came to the bank and gazed up at the Deathguard.
“How far to the ruins?” said Fallarond.
“Not far, not far,” said the creature.
Above and outside, the sounds of pursuit had faded, although none of the company believed for a moment that the servants of the Madwood were not tracking them there. Everything had gone silent. Even the river moved without sound, slow as treacle, black as tar.
Fallarond turned to the company and indicated the way they had been travelling. “If any of you wishes to go back, now is the time. Once we cross the river, we are set on our course.”
The Deathguard remained motionless, their silence a polite dismissal of his suggestion.
“What about you, peddler?” said Fallarond. In the poor light his skull face looked even more horrifying.
It is suicide, Nyam thought, and they know it, but they are prepared to die for Zemella and Vaddi. Some will die. I don’t have their powers, but I won’t desert him now.
“Let’s get going,” he said.
Fallarond stepped onto the stones. They were slick and treacherous, but the company passed over them to the other side of the narrow river, its southern bank. Once they were all assembled, Fallarond called Ezrekuul to him again.
“What lies outside these tunnel walls? Can we cut through?”
“Cut through? Why? The river take you to the first ruins.”
“They will be waiting for us. If we go to the city through the jungle, we will improve our chances of surprise.”
“But we would be fully exposed to the Madwood,” said Ardal. “We’d be fortunate to get a hundred yards.”
Fallarond shook his head. “Not if Ezrekuul helps us.”
The creature shrank back into the river. “What you want of me?”
“When we cut through, summon others like you, those who were dryads. If they give us their aid, we will do all we can to release you from bondage. We are not without power. It will be difficult and some may die in the attempt, but you and those who aid us will at least have a chance for freedom.”
Ezrekuul seemed reluctant, but he heaved himself out of the water and onto the bank—a bedraggled, diminutive figure of despair, waiting.
Fallarond used his sword to begin the arduous task of cutting into the wall of the tunnel, and helped by his fellow Deathguard, sliced through root and branch until a long gash had been made. It took a while to lengthen, but eventually they cut through to the jungle beyond. Fallarond sent the complaining creature through, then waited.
When Ezrekuul came back, he was pointing excitedly into the cloying darkness beyond. “A handful come,” he whispered, “but worse things beyond ring of light. Madwood hungers.”
“Nevertheless, go ahead,” said Fallarond, easing out into the jungle.
Moments later the entire company emerged, swords held before them like torches. Their glow spread but encountered a wall of darkness more intense than any natural nightfall. They could hear vague whisperings within it, sibilant sounds, redolent with evil and suggestive of torment. Overhead the trees were like frozen giants, breathing but unmoving, needing only a word to set them in motion against the company, but their resolve held.
Vaddi and Nyam stood close to each other, and only by a determined effort did Vaddi not clutch at Erethindel. He sensed that here it might turn against him, its power overwhelmed by the monstrous will of this dire place. As he studied the shadows, he made out a number of blurred figures crouched down on all fours, their bodies scaled, their heads batrachian. They had bulbous eyes that barely reflected the light and long, spatulate fingers, incongruously clawed. Nature had been warped in them, contorted by the powers of the Madwood and its lunatic sorcery, but they had not come to attack the company.
Ezrekuul spoke for them. “These”—he hissed—“clay of Madwood. But will guide you.”
“They must shield us from the jungle and whatever it sends against us until we get to the ruins.”
“Other creatures like you in Madwood,” Ezrekuul went on. “These have seen them, smelled their blood. Already corrupt. Elves drawn to dark powers. Secreted in ruins of city of serpent god, Sethis. If you had come to them from river, trap would have sprung around you.”
“Why does the Madwood not attack them?” said Nyam.
“Who knows what black pacts have been sealed in this place?” said Ardal. “The Murughel may well serve the Madwood.”
Fallarond turned his gaze upon the huddled creatures in the shadows. “You have a chance to win freedom and a return to true light, or will you taste the scorching of our swords?”
The gruesome company shrank back further, croaking and muttering, but the thought of some kind of salvation from their symbiosis with the Madwood stirred a last vestige of hope within them. Ezrekuul pushed through them and led the trudge through yet more dismal realms.
Nyam leaned close to Vaddi and Ardal and said, “I know nothing of this city and this serpent god. What is he?”
Ardal’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Old tales say that Sethis is another aberration, partly of dragon blood. Whatever dragon spawned him was somehow trapped and then died here in the Madwood, a victim of its evils. It trawled into Mabar to escape being absorbed by the Madwood, but from out of that realm, Sethis, the great worm, writhed forth in the agonies of his birth. The city of Khamaz Durrafal, once ruled by elves, fell victim to the Madwood, its people horribly changed, just as the naiads and dryads of the jungle were changed. But the Madwood had them build a temple to Sethis, the blind worm, and when it was done, they were sacrificed to it. None survived.”
“And Sethis?” said Nyam.
“He is said to have returned to Mabar, but there are tales among the Aerenal that at certain times, the worm god is still summoned and sacrifices are made to it.”
Nyam and Vaddi exchanged glances, but mercifully the darkness masked their horror at this revelation. They concentrated on the way ahead, trying not to let the oppressiveness of the jungle crush their will to go on, but they felt it being leeched from them.
Ezrekuul’s strange company fanned out ahead of them, and there were sounds of conflict and muted argument, interspersed with distant howls and groans. They came to a rise in the jungle floor, and Fallarond sensed a falling away of the land, a shallow valley. Ezrekuul pointed to it.
“Southern wall of city lies there. Battlements empty. Murughel farther north.”
Tallamorn spoke. “We are followed! There is a great disturbance in the aura of the jungle. It may be one huge mass or many creatures. They creep like tendrils towards us. Not allies, but the worst of the Madwood’s denizens.”
The company tried to see back into the pulsing darkness, but it was as though a thick curtain had been thrown across the jungle. Behind it, they sensed what was drawing upon them, a force of awesome dimensions, as though the entire jungle itself heaved and bellied forward, impatient to smother them.
“Must go!” said Ezrekuul. “Must go!”
“If we can get on the battlements without being discovered,” said Fallarond. “We will have an edge.”
Without another word, he led them into the valley, everyone keeping close, aware that on both flanks the shapes of Ezrekuul’s creatures shadowed them. It was not long before the ruined walls of Khamaz Durrafal loomed out of the darkness, their stones broken, choked with creepers and the clawing talons of dense undergrowth. As they clambered up the walls and onto their flattened top, they heard again the surge of pursuit, like an invisible black wave rushing toward them.
“City keeps it back—for a while,” said Ezrekuul. “Avert eyes from what comes. Elves go mad at sight before. Black sorceries crackle like lightning fires.”
The company said nothing, winding its way over the wreckage of stone and column, through collapsed archways and tumbled buildings that had not seen habitation for untold centuries. There were glyphs and scrawls, bizarre sculptures and statues, but none that anyone recognised. All belonged to an age beyond time, falling now into dust and dissolution. Even the Madwood appeared to have left this rotting domain to itself—at least in this crumbling section of the city.
“Heart of the city,” said Ezrekuul. “Huge, flat-topped pyramid. Hollow. In its bowels … way to Sethis.”
“Where are the Murughel?” said Fallarond.
“Send brothers. They look.”
“Aye. Bring word.”
Ezrekuul hopped off, lost to sight almost at once. While he was gone, the company ate the last of its food and drank the last of the water, knowing that it could be the final meal that any of them enjoyed.
“What is our strategy to be?” whispered Nyam.
“We need to know where Zemella is,” said Vaddi. “If we can get to her and free her, we’ll need to go back before the Murughel can overpower us. A lot depends on the help we get from these creatures. Do you trust them. Ardal?”
“I think so. If they had wanted to betray us, they would simply have let the Madwood take us. Ezrekuul must have persuaded enough of them to rebel.”
“What about that?” said Nyam, jerking a thumb back at the oncoming horror from the jungle, though it had fallen silent, as if the city walls had withstood its flow.
“The ancient powers of the city contain it, but I suspect that will not last. We must free Zemella and be gone from here before the dam bursts. If not, it will simply swallow everything here like a tidal wave. The Madwood is not to be reasoned with, any more than you would reason with an ocean storm. Even the dragons could never control it.”
They said little more, trying to rest and gather their strength for what lay ahead. All the time they felt that, at the edge of the poor light, something crouched, eager to pounce on their first movements. When something did at length slip from out of the darkness, they were alert, as one, but it was Ezrekuul.
“The Murughel leaders are close to the pyramid of Sethis. They have their own guards, but most of their forces are watching the place in the Madwood where they think you will emerge. We have not seen the Valenar girl, but there are chambers under the place where the leaders wait. Perhaps she is there.”
Fallarond nodded. He turned to Vaddi and Ardal. “It is the most likely place for them to have imprisoned her.”
“Then let’s begin there,” said Ardal. “If we take their leaders, everything else will follow.”
Like phantoms, the company moved out. Fallarond followed Ezrekuul, who squeezed his way through and over the ruins, taking the small band deeper and deeper into the city, down in its weed-choked canyons, through its broken walkways, across courtyards where flagstones leaned upward and where the ever-probing roots had taken their remorseless hold on everything. In the surrounding ruins, on either side, the other creatures moved forward, silent as clouds.
“Ahead,” said Ezrekuul, ducking under an overhanging lintel. “Up stairs another parapet. Beyond it, place where Murughel leaders wait. Guards at foot of stairs.”
Fallarond persuaded him to create a diversion with his unseen companions, a distraction that would buy precious minutes upon the parapets. When Ezrekuul had gone to carry out these instructions, Fallarond called his company on, slowly rounding the last of the columns. Beyond, they saw the stairs and the two Murughel who guarded them. One of the Deathguard took two arrows from his quiver, the points of which were tipped with light, the same energy that imbued the elf blades.
Stepping out from cover, the elf warrior released the two arrows in succession, the speed of his movement defying the eye. The two Murughel were knocked off their feet by the impact of the arrows, each of which had found an eye and driven straight through the skull. Fallarond was first to the fallen, and with rapid strokes of his blade he removed their heads. Almost at the same moment, some distance to their left, they heard a commotion, a dismal wailing, like the sound of souls in torment. The creatures had begun their diversion. In response to it, there came sounds from up on the parapets.
Motioning for the company to follow, Fallarond led them up the stairs, silent as a cat. As they climbed, a bank of cloud shifted aside to reveal three bright moons, and they realized that once they were on the flat top of the building, they would be exposed by their brilliance. They could no longer rely on the cover of the Madwood and its enclosing embrace.
On the battlements, hunched down, they spread out. As they looked up over the wall, they could see a level area, in the center of which a few columns supported the last of what had once been a massive roof. Whole sections of this had fallen in, but in the protected remains of the building, a group of figures had gathered. There were a number of Murughel, one of whom was hooded. Beside him stood another, taller figure. Even in this light, Vaddi was able to recognize his white face, his scarlet eyes.
“Caerzaal,” he breathed.
The Deathguard moved as a unit, each of them unleashing a dozen arrows in a blur of movement. Vaddi and Nyam were staggered at the speed at which they drew and fired. In a matter of seconds, scores of the energy-tipped missiles had fallen in a steady stream on the Murughel that lined the parapets of the building. Many were pierced fatally and toppled into the darkness. Others fell back inside, wounded, while some were spared death only to turn and face a second wave. Vaddi, Nyam, and Ardal leaped from cover and ran at the enemy, the Deathguard close behind them, unleashing a final hail of arrows before they, too, drew their swords.
Caerzaal and the hooded Murughel leader raced from the flat roof, crossing a narrow bridge that led up on to the higher top of the pyramid beyond it. There were other Murughel lining it, and they closed in to protect their masters. Vaddi’s sword ripped into the first of the Murughel, cleaving him from skull to breastbone as he used all the ferocity his anger could muster. Beside him, Nyam used his own blade to deadly effect, sweeping two of the Murughel off the span and down into the hungry darkness far below. The creatures fell in silence, like rag dolls torn apart by the fury of the offensive, but something unseen in the depths fed noisily on the fallen.
The Deathguard followed their initial assault so swiftly that they closed off the span to the pyramid and cut down almost all of the Murughel upon the building. They formed a semi-circle and waited for the next wave to follow. As they did, Vaddi, Nyam, and Ardal raced up to the pyramid’s vast, flat top. In its center was a gaping, circular hole, like the maw of a monstrous beast, a shaft that plumbed the deeps of the world. Beyond this huge orifice, waiting like priests caught in some act of worship, Caerzaal and the hooded Murughel stood, framed by the glow of moons that now flooded the whole area. On all sides of the pyramid, the Madwood seemed once again to close in, the vague shape of its bizarre skyline shifting, edging forward, forming a shadow audience that overhung events below.
A few last Murughel stood on either side of the abyss, barring the way around it.
“Vaddi d’Orien!” called Caerzaal. “I had no idea you were so reckless. Look around you. You cannot win. You are outnumbered ten to one.”
“I think not,” said Vaddi, gritting his teeth in an evil grin.
Beside him, Nyam was surprised by the sheer power that was almost dripping from the youth. He had become possessed by it. Nyam saw a terrible danger in this, but there was no time for deliberation.
On the steps below, the Deathguard unleashed another flight of arrows, cutting down a fresh wave of Murughel who had come up from the lower city to defend their masters. Although they killed and maimed scores of them, the Deathguard were hard pressed to hold the steps and were being forced back up them in fierce sword fighting, but they did hold, refusing to give an inch once they had reached the top of the stair. Below, the Murughel crammed together, trying to use their massed ranks as a battering ram to force their way up, but the Deathguard’s blades ripped and tore into them, scattering each successive line.
“Such a sacrifice,” Caerzaal taunted. “You should be with me, Vaddi.”
“Where is the girl?” said Ardal, his eyes blazing.
“She is not for you,” said Caerzaal.
Nyam had been looking around the pyramid’s top, beyond the huge orifice. He pointed to a small, square opening. “That must lead below.”
“She may be there. I’ll see,” said Ardal, and before anyone could stop him, he dashed across the slabs, cutting aside a Murughel who attempted to bar his way.
“I’ll go with him,” said Vaddi.
“Wait!” said Fallarond, gripping his arm. “It may be a crap. We must deal with these.”
He nodded to Caerzaal and his grim companions. Behind him, the Deathguard still held the stair, though the heaving mass of Murughel forces threatened to break through the small company at any moment.
Vaddi, desperate to find Zemella, would have ignored Fallarond, but the Murughel around the pit also moved forward, determined to overcome Fallarond and his remaining force. Swords clashed anew as the battle was joined, and this time Vaddi. Nyam, and the others found themselves fighting a more resolute enemy. These Murughel seemed empowered with demonic energy, fuelled by the sorcery of Caerzaal and his hooded companion. The night air sizzled with light, fire from the swords caught and held on the shields and blades of the Murughel. Vaddi tried to see the opening down which Ardal had disappeared but dared not let his attention waver. He needed all his power to stave off the flashing blades that sought to hamstring him. He knew that Caerzaal’s design was still to capture and not kill him, and that alone gave him an edge.
While the conflict on the pyramid raged, filling the night sky with crackling light and fire, Ardal went deep down into the bowels of the building, his glowing blade lighting the gloom. He came to a corridor, and a Murughel warrior stepped out of the darkness, partially surprised by the Valenar’s silent appearance. A second’s advantage was all Ardal needed. He sliced the Murughel’s head from his shoulders.
Along the corridor, two more guards met him, and again he had the advantage of surprise. He ripped open the first of them, but the other turned, meaning to flee. Ardal flung a long dirk, and the sheer force of the throw took the blade clean through the neck of the Murughel, snapping the spinal cord. The warrior stumbled into the wall, falling to his knees. Ardal was on him in seconds, cleaving his head open with merciless fury.
A few yards farther on was a door, slightly ajar. Ardal heard soft voices and saw a dull glow beyond. Pausing only for a moment, he pushed his way in. Two Murughel garbed in long robes flung up their hands in a shower of scarlet sparks. Their hasty spells exploded impotently against Ardal’s blade, and in a blur he rammed it into the guts of the first, elbowing him aside before exercising a swift backward slash of his blade that severed the head of the second Murughel.
Zemella was tied to the heavy chair on which she sat, wrists behind her.
“Ardal!” she gasped.
In spite of their situation he grinned as he went to her and began carefully severing her bonds. “Can you fight?”
Nodding fiercely, she stood up, massaging her wrists. She winced as the pain of the returning circulation hit her. “Murughel sorcery! Their spells restrained me.” She paused, like a hound scenting the air. “Is Vaddi d’Orien with you?”
Ardal’s face betrayed no sign of emotion. “Yes, he’s above, destroying Murughel with the best of them.” But even in this poor light, he saw her catch her breath.
“Does he carry the talisman?”
Ardal nodded.
“He should never have come here! The enemy seeks him and the talisman. If they claim both—”
On the pyramid above, the Deathguard had at last been forced back from the stair head. Sheer weight of numbers had shoved them on to the flat top of the pyramid as the Murughel, spurred on by their grim masters and utterly careless of their own destruction, pressed forward. Fallarond and his Deathguard formed a solid knot of defense, close to the very lip of the pit. To Vaddi their position seemed helpless.
Mad with frustration, he watched as Ardal and Zemella emerged from the opening and onto the pyramid. Ardal unslung his bow and released half a dozen arrows as he and the sorceress ran to their companions. His arrows had a deadly effect, but the Murughel swarmed like flies in spite of the huge losses they had suffered. Zemella unleashed a bolt of white light that blasted several assailants asunder. Half blinded by the glare, Vaddi redoubled his own efforts, recklessly carving a path through the Murughel. Then he was closer to Zemella, whose teeth were barred in a feral grin.
She was but a few yards away when Vaddi saw Ardal stumble behind her, his own look of horror mirrored in Zemella’s eyes as she turned to see what had happened. Ardal had dropped to one knee, but he staggered up. A length of steel, a barbed javelin, protruded from his side. His fingers, already bloody, groped at it with ebbing strength.
“No!” cried Vaddi, leaping forward.
He pushed past Zemella and stood over the fallen Valenar, lifting him to his feet, hardly conscious of the blazing white bolt of light that Zemella had flung about them to drive back their attackers. He watched despairingly as waves of agony broke over Ardal’s face.
“It’s no use, Vaddi,” he gasped. “The steel is in deep. If it stays in me, I die. Remove it and it will be the same. Protect Zemella.” He stumbled again.
“You’ll not die here!”
“Save Zemella. My life for hers, as I told you.”
Vaddi could see the light in Ardal’s eyes fading. The Valenar’s life was trickling away like water. Vaddi swung round. Zemella was behind him, eyes filled with tears.
“We must help him!” Vaddi cried, but beyond her, Fallarond was frantically urging them both back to the group. It was the only place they could hope to defy the Murughel now.
Zemella reached out and gripped Vaddi’s hand, tugging him reluctantly away from the fallen Valenar. Ardal had slumped forward, head on the stone as if in prayer. They both knew he was already dead.
They rejoined the company and prepared for a final, desperate defense, but the assault eased and the Murughel drew back, their own numbers severely depleted. They formed a wide semi-circle around the Deathguard, surrounding them. From across the huge pit, Caerzaal’s voice pierced the sudden lull in an incantation, but it was not to the jewelled skies that the vampire prayed.
“Sethis!” said Fallarond. “Caerzaal is summoning the serpent god.”
“Then they mean to sacrifice us all,” said Nyam. “Vaddi included.”
Zemella’s fist flared, a white glow of defiance. “They’ve killed Ardal. Let him be the last.”
Vaddi’s attention switched to the darkness of the pit and the stones around it. To his amazement, the Murughel who were wounded, several dozen of them, some critically, dropped their weapons and shields from suddenly nerveless fingers. They staggered, stumbled, and crawled to the very lip of the pit. Expressionlessly, like zombies raised from their graves, they gathered around the pit, and then at a command from their hooded leader, they simply fell forward into the darkness.
“Sethis!” said Tallamorn. “It is below us. I feel it writhing.”
“Ardal!” cried Vaddi. “We must not let him be used.”
Fallarond reached to restrain him, but Vaddi broke the circle and made for the body of the fallen Valenar. Nyam rushed after him, and a wedge of Deathguard, led by Zemella, followed. In moments they had ringed Ardal’s form, lifted him up, and bore him back to the main body of the Deathguard. None of the Murughel had moved. Their own ranks were motionless, the warriors lined up like statues, all their attention on the pit.
Vaddi felt Fallarond’s withering gaze. “You put all our lives at risk!”
Before he could retort, a voice cut through the night air. “Vaddi d’Orien!” came the taunting cry of Caerzaal. “Give yourself and what you carry to me now, and all your companions will walk free. We will make you a god! You will know power beyond imagining.”
Vaddi cursed under his breath. “I have to use the horn,” he said, fingers reaching inside his shirt for it. “I have no other choice.”
“Wait!” said Zemella, pushing his arm away. “That is what he wants! If you use the horn now, the power will be warped. It will flow into his designs! He will control you, and you will be damned. Vaddi, you must trust me in this.”
Vaddi stared at her in frustration. “Then what can we do?”
“It rises!” said Nyam.
In the pit they heard a tremendous rushing sound, as though all the air from the subterranean depths was being forced upward. It presaged something far more terrible, for the shuddering of the stone around the company warned them that Sethis was responding to the invocation.
Vaddi turned and glared across the vast mouth of the pit to where Caerzaal and his hooded companion waited. Vaddi could see the scarlet eyes of the vampire, lit with triumph and eager for blood. Within him, Vaddi felt a fresh surge of fury, and more of the supernatural chains that Cellester had set about him snapped like dry twigs.
I am an Orien, with Orien powers freed.
With a howl that would have challenged the cry of a demon, Vaddi released this welling power.
“Vaddi!” screamed Zemella, for the youth had disappeared.
“What in Khyber—” gasped Fallarond, looking about him in fear.
“There!” said Nyam. “Beside the vampire!”
Vaddi had transported, made the brief leap across the void, and appeared beside the hooded Murughel. The latter reacted swiftly, blocking Vaddi’s sword thrust that would have run Caerzaal through. The Murughel brought the haft of his own sword down, intending to knock Vaddi senseless with a blow to the temple, but the youth ducked away, using his new power to accelerate his movements. He beat away the Murughel’s sword and rammed the point of his own blade into the hood, the blade grinding on neck bone and cutting it in two, but the Murughel still moved, flinging a ball of light from his free hand.
Vaddi dodged as the light fizzed past his ear and splattered apart on the stones behind him. Again Vaddi drove his blade forward and this time the head of the hooded Murughel swung forward on the creature’s chest. Caerzaal kicked the crippled Murughel aside and stood before Vaddi with his own sword raised. It glowed faintly red, as though the blood of its many victims had been trapped inside it, giving it greater power. The blade wove a dazzling pattern, blurring in a cloud that made it seem as though a dozen such blades cut the air.
Behind him, Vaddi heard a shrill scream and knew that Sethis had emerged from the pit. He dared not look back. From beyond Caerzaal, a score of his own warriors came forward out of the darkness, more silent and death-like than the Murughel.
“You have no advantage, Vaddi,” said Caerzaal as his blade clashed with the elf blade in a cloud of hissing sparks. “Hand me the horn. I will send Sethis back and set your friends free.”
Vaddi was only too aware of the immense bulk of Sethis as it boiled up from the depths, its massive head blocking out the moonlight, weaving this way and that, now several scores of feet above the rim of the pit. Beyond Sethis, the remaining rows of the Murughel still waited in statuesque silence, as if mesmerised. Behind them, creeping forth from the darkness of the jungle, the Madwood’s own regiments of creatures slid, hopped, and crawled up the stairway to the pyramid, eager to pay homage to the horrific god of the depths.
Vaddi pulled open his shirt and took out the horn. He held it up, and in the gleaming light of moons and stars, Caerzaal’s face lit up with crimson fire, a look of intense lust in his eyes.
“Shall I defy us all and give it to Sethis himself?” said Vaddi.
“No!” screamed Caerzaal.
Vaddi realized he had struck a nerve. Perhaps there was a way to defy the Emerald Claw. He drew back his hand, Erethindel held high, and made as if to toss the horn into the pit.
“Vaddi, don’t release it!” came another cry.
It was Zemella, Vaddi turned for an instant, his glance taking her in at the edge of vision, shaking her head frantically. In that second, Caerzaal struck, his sword swinging across and striking a glancing blow that rang against the horn itself.
Vaddi felt a tremendous charge of energy, his fingers, hand and upper arm rendered numb. The horn was torn from his grip and flew back toward the pit. Caerzaal staggered forward, eyes riveted on the sacred object as it hit the paving slabs and rolled onward. Vaddi did not turn to see what had happened. Instead he ran his blade up under the rib cage of the vampire with such force that he lifted him from the ground. As Caerzaal’s body fell backward, the elf blade firmly held in place by the sheer power of the strike, he pulled Vaddi over with him, and they crashed down to the stone. Vaddi’s face was inches from that of the vampire. His eyes still gleamed with malice, as though the dreadful strike had merely scratched him.
Erethindel rolled to within inches of the lip of the pit. As he struggled, Vaddi saw Nyam and Zemella standing rigidly, not daring to move while the questing head of Sethis hovered. He saw it like a titanic cloud above them, swinging this way and that, eyeless but with an open mouth the size of a cave, triple-ringed with needle-like teeth. It exhaled a foetid breath worse than any sewer, a gust that swept the company further back. Somewhere behind them, Vaddi heard the voice of Tallamorn lifted in a chant.
Vaddi realized that Caerzaal could not control Sethis while locked with him. The beast must be confused, for the huge serpent head still swung this way and that, momentarily indecisive. For all its size, Vaddi guessed, it must lack a real brain, relying on the power of its callers to guide it in this alien light!
He heard the Deathguard adding their voices to that of the necromancer, and as their combined chant swelled, Sethis swung round, now facing the Murughel and the swarming denizens of the Madwood beyond.
Fallarond raced across the stones to where Vaddi was being drawn closer and closer into the embrace of the vampire. Caerzaal, drenched in blood from the wound inflicted upon him, laughed as he locked his arms about Vaddi and tried to drag the youth’s neck down to where he could sink his fangs into it. Vaddi could hardly move. He strained to call upon his powers to snap free, but Caerzaal, too, had access to immense supernatural power.
Something dragged at his shoulder, and Vaddi was hauled partially aside. There was a blur of light descending in an arc of stars. Caerzaal screamed, the sound almost deafening Vaddi.
Fallarond had pulled him aside sufficiently enough to use his sword, and with the blade had cut clean through the neck of the vampire. Caerzaal’s scream ceased as the head sprang away in a bloody fountain and skittered across the stones before coming to rest in a pool of its own gore. For a while Vaddi still felt the vile grip of the vampire’s arms, but Fallarond hacked them ruthlessly aside, freeing the youth.
“The horn!” cried Vaddi as he lurched to his feet.
Both turned. They saw where the horn had come to a stop, so precariously close to the lip of the pit. A few feet from it, the scaly body of Sethis still wove from side to side, but the beast, now directed by Tallamorn’s sorcery, had focused its attention and its appetite on the forces below. The massed ranks of the enemy, fronted by the remaining Murughel, waited in apprehensive silence. Instead of coming to witness a sacrifice, they were to be that very sacrifice. Sethis opened its immense mouth and dipped down, sucking up a score of hapless victims, the rows of teeth closing over its writhing feast.
Vaddi realized that Fallarond was reluctant to go to where the horn had fallen. The Deathguard commander nodded to him, but as the youth sheathed his weapon and prepared to fetch the horn, another vast shadow fell across this nightmare arena. Instinctively Vaddi and Fallarond ducked down as that shadow lowered over them. They heard members of the Deathguard letting loose arrows up into the night sky at whatever new horror the Madwood had unleashed.
Vaddi saw then what had come. It was not of the Madwood’s making. It was a soarwing.
Perched upon its shoulders, hunched forward, directing the aerial monster, was its rider, only partially glimpsed, but surely Aarnamor. In spite of its huge bulk, the soarwing glided gracefully overhead, swooping down with deliberate intent. Its claws were huge and could have lifted a man with ease, but it was focused on one thing only—Erethindel. Too late Vaddi realized its purpose and ran forward. The underbelly of the soarwing struck him a glancing blow, enough to bowl him from his feet. As he struck the stones, he saw the claw tip curl around the horn.
Then it was lifted, gone from sight. The soarwing swerved to avoid the massive bulk of Sethis and rose up into the darkness of the night.
“Two riders!” cried Fallarond, helping Vaddi to his feet.
Vaddi gazed upwards in fury. “Two? Then the second was Cellester. He has part of his prize.”
Zemella and the Deathguard were beside him as he watched the soarwing swallowed up by the darkness.
“Are you hurt?” said Zemella.
Vaddi shook his head. “Erethindel has been taken.”
She stared coldly into the night, a look that would have put terror into hearts of many an enemy. “Then we will retrieve it,” she said, “but for the moment we must get away.”
Vaddi looked around and saw Nyam, who was staring in confusion across the stones to where the decapitated body of Caerzaal had fallen. But the body was not still. It spasmed then began to crawl, fingers dragging it through leaking blood, inch by inch toward the severed head. Vaddi watched as Nyam walked calmly toward the animated horror and stood over it. His face grim but set with determination, he cut up the body. Beyond him, the undead warriors that Caerzaal had brought drew back and dispersed, shrinking from the power of the elves’ fiery blades. When Nyam completed his grisly task, he went to the severed head, lifted it by its long strands of hair, and hurled the thing into the pit.
“We must leave this place quickly,” said Fallarond.
Vaddi saw the body of Ardal and several other Deathguard, all of whom were being carried by survivors.
Tears welled in Zemella’s eyes as she looked upon the fallen warrior. As the company made its cautious way to the far side of the pyramid, away from the mayhem that Sethis still created among the enemy host, he walked with her, not knowing quite what to say to her.
“He gave his life to save me. Others of the Deathguard have fallen, too. You all risked everything, and we have lost the horn, too. You should have left me!”
Staggered, he shook his head. “No, never. We would not have done that. Was Ardal your betrothed?” He blurted the question before he had time to check himself.
She looked as if the words stabbed her heart, but she shook her head. “No. Nor was he my lover. But he wooed my sister, Herrenwen. She loved him. She teased him, but in time, they would have wed.” A tear fell from her cheek as she spoke.
“We must bear him back to Valenar,” said Vaddi.
She nodded. “Herrenwen will be devastated. Their marriage was foreseen many years since. The future is tainted.”
Their attention was snared by events behind them and they closed ranks, shielding themselves from any potential pursuit. Sethis had at last emerged fully from the pit. Well over a hundred feet long, the colossal worm crashed down on the flat pyramid and undulated with frightening speed toward the massed creatures from the jungle. What few Murughel that had survived fled. They trampled their own company and toppled from the heights of the buildings.
Tallamorn stood with arms raised, continuing the powerful working that sent commands to the monster, using every vestige of necromantic energy to divert it away from his companions.
A Deathguard scout, who had gone beyond this far edge of the pyramid, reported back to Fallarond. “The Madwood has been stirred into a frenzy. It has withdrawn from the city but not gone away. We dare not enter the jungle here.”
“Then we wait,” said Fallarond. “Find cover.”
“What of the worm?” said Vaddi.
“There is feast enough for that monster without turning upon us. Even one such as that can be sated. Tallamorn’s power will return it to its lair.”
“And Ezrekuul?” said Nyam. “Surely he and his kind will have fled deep into the heart of the Madwood. We’ll not be able to rely on them, I fear.”
“Perhaps,” said Fallarond, “though I hope you are wrong. Without them, our testing has barely begun. The Madwood has been stirred like a hornet’s nest. Its entire expanse will be awake to us by now.”
Exhausted, Vaddi and Nyam fell into a fitful sleep in a sheltered overhang below the apex of the pyramid. The elves took turns at watch as they themselves rested. During the deep reaches of the night, Tallamorn heard the return of the immense worm. He drew again upon the necromantic energies in this place to control the beast, which had evidently sated its vile appetite in the Madwood. He directed the monster to the pit and let it slide silently and swiftly back into its gaping lair, heedless of anything around it. Satisfied that it had indeed returned to whatever hellish dimension had spawned it, the necromancer did not disturb his companions.
Later Fallarond stirred, with dawn yet an hour or more away. He studied the jungle beyond the pyramid and central citadel. By the uninterrupted light of the moons he could see the havoc wrought by Sethis as the monster had surged out into the city, smashing a path through the ruins, leaving a distinct trail in which the corpses of numerous inhabitants of the Madwood had been pulverized and heaped to either side. The Deathguard commander gasped as he realised how vast an array of these creatures had been out there.
“Sethis has returned to its lair,” said Tallamorn. “It is sated for now.”
“Then we must leave with all haste.”
Fallarond had the company readied. They prepared to go back into the ruins, carrying Ardal and their dead with them.
“Which way?” said Nyam.
Fallarond stood at the top of the steps that ted down from the pyramid. “We will try to head northwest to the border of the Madwood where we entered it. Sethis has caused so much destruction that the jungle’s denizens must have withdrawn well away from here. We may be able to slip past them before they regroup.”
No one objected. They were all drained by the events of the night, their brief rest only partially renewing their energy. Vaddi walked beside Zemella, wanting to talk to her, but the entire company felt hushed by the oppressive atmosphere of the Madwood. Instead, they made their cautious way down into the ruins, for the moment following the havoc that Sethis’s passage had caused. In the darker shadows of the smashed buildings, shapes shifted and writhed, but nothing emerged to harass them.
The wide swath that Sethis had cut through the city led north, and only now could the company see the true nature of some of the horrors that would have beset them. Many were abominations that shunned the light, as warped and twisted as the worst spawn of Voorkesh, while others were beyond even those levels of corrupted living matter. There were a few dead Murughel among the fallen and scores of creatures not unlike Ezrekuul. In the early morning, steam rose from their carcasses.
At the wall of the city, itself reduced to a low heap of rubble for a hundred yards or more, the company paused, listening to the Madwood beyond and its unnatural silence. To their right, the first hint of dawn light edged the treetops like a bloodstain. The Madwood seemed to crouch, waiting for some signal.
“There!” said Tallamorn, pointing to the cloaking darkness ahead. “The jungle is yet alive. It does not mean us to pass.”
The Deathguard readied their bows.
“Wait!” said Vaddi. “It’s Ezrekuul.”
He was proven right, for in a moment the hunched figure of the creature slipped from the shadows and came forward, face screwed up in a grimace. He bowed low before Tallamorn. “We wait.” He pointed back with his root-like arm to the murmuring darkness at the jungle’s edge. As the company studied it, they could see others there, reluctant to come out into the growing light. Some were similar to Ezrekuul, others were far more misshapen, but all had the distinct taint of the Madwood.
“You will guide us out of here?” said Tallamorn.
“You promised. Return us to light. Free us from Madwood curse.”
“I did,” said the necromancer. “None who wishes to leave shall be neglected.”
“Many died this night,” said Ezrekuul. “Sethis fed. Madwood forced back. Now ablaze with anger. Wants revenge! Must go quickly, while jungle licks wounds. Now jungle fears you, but won’t last. Soon … aftermath comes.”
“Then lead us,” said Fallarond.
Ezrekuul needed no second bidding, skipping away to the jungle’s edge. Shadows parted and as the company took its first precarious steps into the twisted trees. Beyond, still cloaked in darkness, the Madwood and its horrors yet brooded. Fallarond led the way, elf blade held high. The company took their lead from him. The green glow of the blades was a clear deterrent to whatever stalked them.
As they climbed out of the deep valley where Khamaz Durrafal had been built, with the early sun’s rays trying in vain to pierce the thickening tree cover, there was further evidence of the mayhem unleashed by the giant creature. Huge trees had been ripped open and smashed flat, tangled in roots, vines, and creepers—some of which were still twitching, groping like claws for the darkness, as though eager to snare any prey that came within reach. The Deathguard had to use their swords to hack their way through the worst of it, splitting tendril and bough alike, drawing back from the treacherous ooze that gushed from the wounds. There were dead and maimed jungle dwellers here, large and small alike, but no one looked upon them for long.
Ezrekuul did not lead the company along any of the river courses, saying that in their energies would be too much of the Madwood’s strength. Better, he said, to keep to the jungle itself, where the company could use fire and light to best advantage should an attack come. Thus they made their way steadily through the rest of that day away from the city and the wreckage left by Sethis.
During the darkest part of the night they paused once so that the company could eat what little food was left. As they rested, massaging their aching limbs and fighting back the strange lethargy that this place cast over them like a cloak, Ezrekuul grew more and more agitated.
“Some of companions fled,” he told Fallarond.
“Do they not trust us?”
“Trust, yes, but we are followed. Madwood wakes. Behind us the dark wave.”
“Dark wave?”
“All that moves, crawls, or writhes … gathers. Comes like tide. Will surge around us, swamp us, choking, rending.”
“How far to the edge of the jungle?” said Tallamorn.
“Not far. You must be swift.” There was a look of intense sorrow in the eyes of the strange creature. “We hold it.”
Vaddi knew what the creature was saying meant suicide for his kind, but Ezrekuul was gone before anyone could protest. Moments later the silent beings of the jungle had eased back from the company and reformed behind them. Somewhere beyond, welling up from the heart of the Madwood like poison from a running wound, came the dark wave, Ezrekuul and his companions would surely not contain it for long.
Fallarond led the company forward, urging them to ignore the sounds that were growing like the gathering of a storm. Onward through the jungle they sped, conscious now that the very roots and undergrowth about them were springing to renewed life, eager to delay them or ensnare them if they could. The company was hampered by carrying their dead, but they forged on to the boundary of the jungle, the Deathguard taking turns to carry their burdens.
At last they came to a dip beyond which they could see the edge, but time was slipping away from them. The dark wave was rustling and rushing toward them on three sides, the very trees bending forward like eager giants, branches outspread like arms to gather in their living fare. Ezrekuul and his fellows had done their best to stem this tide, but there was no sign of them now.
For a moment everything fell silent. The company froze, chests heaving with effort. Salvation was but a hundred yards away, but the fist that was the Madwood’s revenge waited only for them to move before it fell.
“Vaddi, Zemella, Nyam!” said Fallarond. “Run! We will cover you.”
“We’re not leaving you!” snapped Vaddi.
Zemella stood so close to Vaddi that their arms were almost interlocked. If I am to die now, he thought, linked thus to her, then I am content.
“Then we fought for no reason. We gain nothing!” snarled Fallarond. “You must go. You must get out and search for the horn!”
There was no time to deliberate. The jungle rose up now, a filthy, black curtain in which countless horrific faces leered at them—ghastly, twisted faces, teeth gleaming, eyes ablaze with madness, claws forming from the very substance of the dark.
The company fled, racing across the last of the undergrowth. To their horror they found the way ahead was not clear. More shapes rose up from the very last of the jungle, a solid wall of bodies, Fallarond would have rushed upon them, elf sword blazing, but a voice checked him.
“Drop down, brother of Shae Thoridor!”
“Bowmen!” shouted Nyam.
It was so, for a hundred or more elves were just past the farthest trees. They unleashed a withering hail of arrows above the heads of the company into the heart of the dark wave. Light fizzed and cracked as energies clashed. There were shrieks and screams, but not one of the company dared look back. Again and again the bowmen released their spell-tipped arrows.
Fallarond led the charge through the last trees. As the Deathguard broke through into daylight, the bowmen withdrew swiftly. Across a shallow stream they all fled, out on to the grassy hillside beyond and into the fresh morning light. They turned their eyes back to the Madwood. The entire jungle writhed and twisted, as though it floated on an undulating sea, wracked by tides and waves, pulling itself this way and that, but it could not advance beyond the stream, though the ground heaved and burst as root after root groped for the victims that had evaded it.
The sounds from the forest were awful beyond imagining, like the death throes of a leviathan. Vaddi hugged Zemella as though shielding her with his very life. He turned to find his eyes inches from hers. Hugely embarrassed, he released her.
She smiled then leaned forward to kiss him in the blink of an eye, but in that fleeting kiss he felt a supercharge of power.
“Are we free?” cried Nyam beside them, again wheezing as if his chest would burst. “I cannot go another step.”
“Yes, Nyam,” said Fallarond. “Thanks to these Tairnadal.”
“Tairnadal?” Vaddi asked.
“Elves from Aerenal’s northern steppes,” said Zemella, “though how they came here mystifies me.”
Satisfied that the Madwood had done its worst and could not pursue them out on to the clean sward of the hillside, the company, led by the Tairnadal, climbed higher into the fresh wind.
The leader of the newcomers came to greet them. “I am Aramil of the Valaes Tairn.”
“We owe you our lives,” said Fallarond. “How did you find us?”
“The horses,” said the armor-clad northerner. “You were kind not to force them to bear you into that foul place. When you set them free, they came back to us, who bred them. You chose well when you bought them. They told us what you had done and where you had gone.”
Fallarond held out his hand, and the two elf commanders clasped arms in a rare display of friendship. “It is not often that the Tairnadal and those of Shae Thoridor put aside their differences,” said Fallarond, “but we are in your debt.”
“All Aereni should be united against that foulness,” said Aramil, looking down upon the darkness of the jungle.
“Elf pride,” muttered Nyam, nudging Vaddi.
The latter grinned but decided on a discreet silence.
Aramil pointed to the crest of the hill where more of his warriors waited. These were mounted, and they had with them the steeds that had originally brought Fallarond and the company to the Madwood.
“We must return to our city,” said Fallarond, “and in haste, for we have other enemies to pursue.”
“We will not detain you,” said Aramil, “but know this. It was foolish for you to come near this jungle. It will dream of you and of ways to find you and repay you. It has strange allies in many places. Even beyond Aerenal, I suspect.”
Fallarond nodded. “I promise you, our business with the Madwood is done.”
“Then may the Undying bless you and your endeavours,” said Aramil.
With little more than a cursory wave, he turned his warriors aside and soon they were racing across the hills, back to their high steppes.
Soon afterward, Fallarond’s company spurred back to Shae Thoridor.
Sfarrag put aside the empty goblet, wiped his greasy beard on the back of his hand, and rose. Here, in the shadowed confines of the backroom behind the main bar of the drinking hall, secreted by friends who had been seduced by his gold, the dwarf had remained at bay, knowing that the Deathguard of Shae Thoridor were hunting him. Since the debacle above the city when he had been party to the cleric’s abduction plan, the dwarf had kept a very low profile, waiting for the opportunity to rejoin Vortermars. Until then, Sfarrag was spending his nights in an old, abandoned courtyard, tucked away like a fox in its den, away from the long reach of the hunters. He possessed enough magic and skill to trick the eyes of many and had survived in this foreign land for longer than most.
Cautiously he slipped out of the building and into a narrow side alley, blending with the darkness. The moons were partly hidden by cloud, and the dwarf picked his moments to scuttle for cover. Only the most observant of watchers would have seen him. He reached the leaning gates of the old courtyard, paused for a final look about, then went inside. Around him the partly ruined storehouse rose up, obscured by creepers and ivy, ignored by the busier folks of the city. He yawned, eager to curl up in his makeshift bed of straw, and made for the rotting door to the cellar where he was holing up.
As he came to its overgrown portal, something soft dropped over his head and shoulders, light as a spider’s webbing. He swung round at once, reaching for his axe, but the more he moved, the more the webbing clung to him. Seconds later he was jerked from his feet, netted like a fish. He squirmed and writhed, but the net tightened, squeezing him into a tighter ball, like a moth wrapped up in a giant spider’s cocoon. He knew it was no giant spider, for he had checked this place scrupulously before using it.
He was swung up off the ground, dangled like a pendulum, washed now by moonlight as three golden orbs slipped from cloud cover and mocked him. By their glow he could see the sparkling shards of the Rings of Siberys high overhead. It was the last thing he saw for a while. A sudden darkness smothered him as the net fell to the ground and he was dragged off. Somewhere along that unpleasant journey he lost consciousness.
When he regained it, he was again hanging upside down, though no longer in the net. Both his ankles were tied tight with a wire-like cord and he was suspended from a beam high overhead. Below him he could feel the heat rising from a brazier. He kept very still. The elves had him.
“You are Sfarrag,” said a voice somewhere nearby. In the gloom of the chamber he could see nothing. By its tone, it was an elf and one used to giving commands.
“What if I am?” he said. “I’ve the protection of the city. I’m a legitimate trader.”
“I know what you are, dwarf. Don’t waste my time. Do as I ask and you’ll be spared. Otherwise I’ll have you lowered into the fire.”
The dwarf grunted but knew his situation was impossible. “What you want?”
“Who is your master?”
“I’m my own master.”
“I said, don’t waste my time,” came the voice, and the dwarf felt himself being lowered another foot or two. The heat threatened to singe his thick mop of hair. “You were part of the abduction attempt.”
“Yes, yes. But I only had a small part in it. The cleric paid well.”
“Cellester?”
“Aye, that was his name.”
“You also serve Vortermars.”
“When it suits me.”
“You await his return?”
“Aye.”
“When?”
“Sometime before dawn, though he’ll not dock in Shae Thoridor.”
“Will you earn your freedom?”
Sfarrag fell silent for a moment. This must be a trap. They had him and knew him for an enemy. They could kill him at a stroke, but they must want something.
“I’ll not betray Vortermars. You may spare me for it, but he wouldn’t. Better that you kill me now.”
“There is no need for betrayals. All I want from you is for you to arrange a meeting with Vortermars. We wish to secure his services ourselves.”
“He wouldn’t trust you.”
“Perhaps not. But you will arrange a meeting.”
“If that’s the price of freedom.”
“If you fail us in this or seek to betray us, we will find you again, and it will not be a simple death by fire.”
The dwarf was lowered again, but firm hands gripped him and swung him away from the brazier. He was upended and released from his bonds. He massaged his ankles, aware that he was missing his axe. Two elf blades hovered inches from his hide. A number of Deathguards observed him, their skull-like faces made more garish by the scarlet glow of the fire.
From out of the shadows, another figure emerged. The dwarf knew him at once. He shrank back, knowing now that his cause was indeed hopeless.
“Greetings, wily dwarf,” said Nyam Hordath.
Sfarrag said nothing.
“I have been abroad in Aerenal since our recent meeting,” said the peddler. “You would not believe the things I have seen. Have you visited the Madwood?”
The dwarf scowled. “Only fools go there.”
“Then count me a fool,” Nyam grinned. “Let me show you something.”
He lifted from a table a smalt earthenware jar, out of which a solitary plant grew. Even in this hot light it had a sickly pallor, like a thick, bloated tongue, drained of blood. As the dwarf stared at it, the thing wriggled this way and that, like a finger seeking a grip.
“What is it?” whispered Sfarrag.
Nyam held it up close to Sfarrag’s face. The writhing plant swung toward the wide eyes of the dwarf.
“I brought back some seeds from the Madwood. This is what they produce. The plant grows very rapidly—the more so when it has affixed itself to a victim, taking it over, digesting it and transforming it. We don’t know for sure. We haven’t tried it out yet. Revolting, isn’t it?”
Sfarrag shrank back, but two swords pricked his back. “Keep it away from me!”
“Of course,” said Nyam, casually tossing the plant out of the pot and on to the brazier. To Sfarrag’s horror, the thing shrieked and tried to writhe from the coals, but their intense heat enveloped it and it exploded in a green cloud. The stench that it exuded was vile, and the dwarf put his hand to his mouth, gagging.
Nyam held out his palm to reveal a number of spiky seeds. “I brought quite a few more of them. Once planted, you’d be amazed how soon they grow.”
“Yes, yes!” Sfarrag snarled. “I take your point. There’s no need for this. I’m always prepared to bargain. You know that.”
“Indeed. Then we can rely on you now.” Nyam slipped the offending seeds away in a pocket.
“You want to meet Vortermars?”
“I do,” said Nyam. “I am sure he wouldn’t dream of coming ashore to speak to me—especially after recent events. I propose that you take me to his ship, the Sea Harlot. Just me.”
“Why?”
“I want to commission him. He will no doubt laugh and suspect foul play. He has known me for a long time. We have done business before. He has earned the displeasure of the Deathguard by aiding the cleric, and I believe he may have had dealings with the Emerald Claw.”
“Don’t know about that.”
“Don’t be coy, Sfarrag. The Deathguard have long ears, and there is little that transpires on Aerenal they don’t know about. Vortermars has forfeited his right to trade in these waters, Fallarond here will alert the authorities, unless Vortermars deals with us.”
“What you want from him?”
“His ship. Her cover. In exchange for turning a blind eye to recent events. The abduction attempt.”
“You put a high price on your importance.”
Nyam smiled. “Not at all. I am merely a spokesman, but that is the deal. You arrange a meeting, and Vortermars has asylum for as long as he wants. And you, most fortunate of underlings, get to remain a dwarf, though you may find the climate in Khorvaire healthier than Aerenal hereafter.”
Sfarrag glared at the brazier, where the last vestiges of the ghastly plant fizzed to nothing. He nodded.
“Sometime before dawn I think you said?” Nyam smiled.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have you keelhauled and your bloody remnants fed to the sharks?” snarled Vortermars.
Nyam Hordath sat back and grimaced. He was aboard the Sea Harlot in the cabin, the ship riding easily at anchor several miles offshore from Shae Thoridor. Sfarrag had been as good as his word for once and arranged the meeting. Nyam had come alone, though Vaddi had argued fiercely with him that it was far too risky, but Nyam’s stubborn insistence had won out. In the first wash of dawn light, his grin was pale and not a little sickly.
“Come, Vortermars, you and I have been freebooters for a long time. Since when did we start slitting each other’s throats?”
Across the table, the pirate returned his stare, seemingly burning with anger But suddenly his weather-beaten features split in a grin. “Curse it, I have to admire your nerve, Daal, Bereth, or whatever your name is.”
“Nyam Hordath.”
“Aye, well, you never lacked for gall. And I’m supposed to be swayed by your arguments, eh? You think I’ll believe you’re in with the Deathguard? You say they want to commission my ship, eh?”
“Vortermars, you and I are always pawns in the greater games, but we look after our own interests first. Isn’t that so?”
The pirate laughed. “Go on.”
“We are opportunists. You were given an opportunity back in Pylas Maradal—abduct the Valenar sorceress and transport her for the cleric. You carried out your part of the bargain. The Valenar are not pleased, but the real villain of the piece is the cleric. I assume you owe him no further allegiance?”
“Why should I, eh? He’s not been back.”
“Nor will he, I think. He has flown to his master. You have been paid for your part in the deal?”
Vortermars said nothing.
“I assume you are a free agent once more. The Deathguard have not put a price on your head. Not yet.”
“They want this cleric, eh?”
“Yes. They have retrieved the girl.”
Vortermars shrugged. “She’s of no interest to me. Seems to me the cleric was more anxious to snare the boy, eh? The girl was no more than bait. What’s so special about him, eh? What’s he got?”
Nyam chuckled. “Nothing that concerns you, but the cleric and his master have stirred up a hornet’s nest. Vaddi d’Orien and the girl are together in Shae Thoridor. They make a formidable team, given their powers.”
“Yeah, it took a lot to control her.”
“She has powerful allies—not the least of which are the Deathguard.”
“Word is they saved you from the Stillborn.”
“They did. And have done more. This business of ours will conclude matters.”
“You say I’ll have immunity, eh?”
“It will be part of the deal.”
“So what d’you want?”
Nyam leaned forward. “We think the cleric has fled to Xen’drik. He cannot be allowed to go free. The Valenar and their families demand satisfaction. They want the cleric and whoever commissioned the abduction brought before them. The Undying Court would probably not sanction action—not openly anyway. You know how they are, and we have no idea how great a force is mustered in Xen’drik.”
“Force?” said Vortermars.
“We assume the cleric is working for a powerful master. If we are to go to Xen’drik, we need to be shielded. What better way than to go as pirates? Who sails the seas as freely?”
Vortermars leaned back thoughtfully. “I see. You want to send a small force into Xen’drik, and you want to use my ship to cover you, eh?”
“The rewards will be significant.”
“Journey like that, I’d want a big payoff.”
“Of course. Quite apart from total absolution from your part in the abduction, you will be rich, Vortermars. I mean rich, the sort of rich that freebooters such as you and I have dreamed about since we were knee high.”
Vortermars’s eyes narrowed, but Nyam could see the gleam of lust in their gaze. “Go on.”
“You have only to land us on Xen’drik’s shores. There will be no need for you to involve yourself in any conflict, and once we have dealt with the cleric—”
“Presuming you’re successful.”
“Yes, yes. Then we will need returning here.”
“When do I get paid?”
“There will be a substantial advance, of course.”
Vortermars guffawed. “There’d have to be! What if your expedition to Xen’drik falls flat on its face? You’re likely to be squashed like flies, once you land. I’ve contacts with the barbarians there, but inland? I’d rather visit the Mournland!”
“Arrangements will be made to pay you, whatever happens to our expedition.”
Vortermars stood and paced the narrow cabin, his head bent to avoid the low beams above him. “I’m an old hand at this, Hordath. You and me both, eh? I smell a trap. Wouldn’t you?”
“Probably. But you and I are small fish. I assure you, the elves are concerned with bigger game. Trust me.”
“Honor among thieves, eh?”
“Quite so.”
“So what’s to stop me from dumping you overboard now and running with the next tide?”
“Probably the blockade awaiting you at the mouth of the inlet. It’s not only the Deathguard who have a stake in this. One of the Valenar, Ardal Barragond, came here in pursuit of the girl. He died.”
“Ardal Barragond? From Pylas Maradal? From the Finnarra warclan, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Then there’ll be a reckoning. Blood will have blood, eh?”
“Oh, yes. My guess is you’d rather it was the cleric’s than yours?”
Vortermars sat down and pondered for a while. “You always did drive a hard bargain.”
“I’d disappoint you if it were otherwise, eh?”
An hour before dawn they laid Ardal Barragond and the Deathguard warriors who had died in the Madwood in their final resting place in Shae Thoridor. Vaddi and Zemella stood to one side, watching as the Aereni warriors murmured their last prayers, heads bowed in the soft morning light. They were gathered in a small grove at the rear of Fallarond’s retreat, under the dissipating shadows of the trees, which themselves seemed bent in recognition of the passing heroes.
Vaddi and Zemella slipped away back into the cool corridors of the building.
“I still think it was headstrong of you to enter the Madwood,” she told him, a mild look of rebuke on her face.
He groped for the words to explain himself, even more daunted by the thought that elves had died on that quest.
“You are the custodian of Erethindel, Vaddi. You should have put its safety before anything else.”
“I could not leave you to the Emerald Claw. The thought of you—”
“I am flattered,” she said, though she did not smile, “but we are now in a worse predicament.”
“You are safe.”
“I am not important!”
There is nothing more important to me, he wanted to tell her.
“What do you plan to do now?” she went on, arms folded across her chest, as if setting a barrier between them.
“I have to recover the horn. Nyam’s plan is a risky one… ”
“True enough, but what if he does not return? What if the pirate sends back his head?”
Vaddi grimaced. “Somehow I don’t think even Vortermars would do that. Nyam is a curious character.”
“He has sacrificed much to help the Keepers. Since his family died, he has served us as loyally as any elf.”
“I never really did believe he would betray me, though part of Cellester’s deceit was to have me think so.”
“Vortermars would betray you. His allegiance is to himself alone. You need to understand that, Vaddi.”
“Yes, Nyam said the same thing.”
“We’ll need to sleep with one eye open on this crossing to Xen’drik—assuming Nyam’s negotiations are successful.”
His jaw dropped. “You don’t mean you’ll be with us?”
It was her turn to scowl. “Why not? If it was not for me, Ardal would be alive and Erethindel would still be in your keeping. You don’t expect me to sit here white you sail off to Xen’drik. What do you think I am?”
“But there’s no need—”
Quick as a striking snake, she slipped her sword from its sheath and wove a blurred pattern in the air. “No need! You think you’re better equipped for this expedition than me? Draw your own blade. Show me that you are better qualified than I am!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous! I’ll carve you to pieces!”
“Zemella!” The voice cut through the air every bit as effectively as her sword had done.
She swung round, face still clouded with outrage, to face Fallarond. He stared at her now with an expression of deep sadness. “This is no time for childish quarrels! We still grieve for Ardal Barragond.”
Humbled, she lowered her sword.
“Nyam will be here soon,” said the Deathguard.
“If he’s still alive,” she muttered.
“He is,” said Fallarond, a smile almost lightening his usually stern features. “Word has come from the quayside.”
He left them, closing the door behind him.
Zemella sheathed her sword. “I am sorry,” she said, looking away.
“You don’t have to prove your worthiness with a sword to me. I’ve seen you at work with it.”
“It’s not something I enjoy,” she replied, suddenly studying him. “No one should enjoy killing, Vaddi.”
“No, of course not.”
“I saw you fight, too. I saw a different Vaddi, not this shy young man stumbling over his words.”
He grinned and managed to hold her gaze.
“You are very fast, Vaddi. Very dangerous. What do you feel when you kill?”
It seemed a strange question. “I don’t know. As you say, it happens very swiftly. I feel anger, but I know anger must be controlled. It diminishes skill.”
“Do you feel pleasure at striking down evil?” She came closer to him, her eyes fixing his. “Knowing that the powers that threaten you are being torn, shredded?”
He backed a pace, confused.
“And when it is me you fight for, cutting down those who would harm me, what do you feel? Joy? Satisfaction?”
Still he did not answer.
“Well?” she snapped, her face inches from his.
“Yes. I am glad to destroy those who would harm you.”
She drew back. “I have seen it in you, Vaddi. The killing lust.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she raised a hand, cutting him off.
“It is another way the darkness uses us. You must be on your guard even more than the rest of us. There is power in you. You bear a dragonmark, your veins pump dragon blood through you, and you are the bearer of Erethindel. Such a combination in the wrong hands could be catastrophic. It is what our enemies crave. It is what Caerzaal sought, and it will be what Cellester’s master wants.”
“Then I will be cautious.”
“You may not know when these powers are flowing in you— or how to control them. If you allow your anger to have its head, succumbing to the seduction of a berserker fury—”
“I’m on my guard.” He stepped closer to her. “But if you are in danger, then I am more likely to fall into such a trap. Any threat to you, the very thought of your being harmed, draws that madness from me.”
It was her turn to step back.
“Perhaps you should stay here,” he said again.
She would have rejoined the argument, but the door swung open, flooding in light and the windswept shape of Nyam.
“Well, it is done!” he beamed. “Our ship is commissioned.” He strode toward them, waving his feathered hat this way and that. “Vortermars saw sense. Rather than offend the Aereni, he’s agreed to take us to Xen’drik.”
“For a price?” said Vaddi.
“Oh, yes. A pirate to the end.” Nyam’s face dropped. “You would not believe how much it’s costing me.”
“Tell us anyway,” said Zemella.
He waved this away, but she pressed him. “Tell us, Nyam. What have you offered him?”
“If you must know …”
“We must know,” Zemella said.
“Well, during the long course of my own … experiences, I have amassed a not inconsiderable sum—and valuable items that Vortermars could hardly not wish for his own.”
“You are emptying your own pockets to finance this expedition?” said Zemella. “How noble of you! Why is that? What do you expect to gain?”
“My dear girl, what do you take me for?”
She stared almost mischievously at him. “In Pylas, we say a pirate may shave his beard, but he remains a pirate.”
“Surely you’re not saying you don’t trust me?”
Vaddi was laughing softly. “She doesn’t trust any of us, Nyam. She thinks I’m going to lose my head and become possessed. One sniff of blood and I’ll become a demon.”
Zemella turned on him. “Be wary of such scorn.”
“No, of course. You are right.”
“If you have doubts about me, Vaddi,” said Nyam. “I understand. All I can say is that I have done my best to serve you. But you know little about me and my past. It is not a glowing one. I have spent most of my life picking through the ruins of war and the conflicts of war’s aftermath. We are said to be in a new age of peace and restoration, but how many victims of the War are benefiting from it? We have become jackals, many of us, survivors using our wits to glean even a meagre living. You, Zemella, have lost a great friend in Ardal, but to lose a wife, your children, this is something that teaches you the true nature of sorrow. Had my sons lived, they would be Vaddi’s age. Not such fine warriors as he, perhaps, but sons to be proud of. Their loss has diminished me and not a day goes by that I am not reminded of it. They cannot be replaced, not fully, but neither the War nor their passing has robbed me of loyalty and compassion. Nor love, for that mutter.”
When he stopped speaking, a strange silence clung to the chamber.
“We’d better prepare to sail,” Nyam said, abruptly turning on his heel and quitting the room.
Vaddi could hardly move, but he knew he had crossed over another bridge in his curious relationship with the peddler.
Zemella had also been moved by Nyam’s words, knowing that it could not have been easy for him to express them so openly. “You heard him.” She grinned. “So we sail. Together.”
Zemella found it difficult to contain her frustration at the lengthy haggling over the arrangements for the Sea Harlot’s sailing. It was almost midday before the craft slipped out of the harbor of Shae Thoridor bound for Xen’drik. Vaddi and Zemella had to leave the captain’s cabin while Nyam, Fallarond, and Vortermars thrashed out an agreement. The main bone of contention now was the crew. As far as the pirates were concerned, they wanted the security of having a large contingent on board, but if the Deathguard were to sail in force, there would be precious few places for Vortermars’s freebooters. It was the promise of loot that won the day, and Vortermars at last settled for a skeleton crew, barely enough to be able to sail away from Xen’drik after the landing and to return to take the Deathguard off once the quest was done.
“The waters off Xen’drik are choked with dangers,” Vortermars insisted. “You’re putting my ship and all my men at risk.”
“Then you’ll have to hug the shoreline,” said Nyam, “until we’re ready to leave. There are enough coves to shelter in.”
“You ever been to Xen’drik?”
Nyam shook his head. “I confess I have not.”
“Well, it may not be as foul a place as the Mournland, but it’s as bad as the Madwood, eh? Barbarians pick over its bones. Strange energies seep up from every rock and stone. Even stranger things roam its lands. I’ve visited its shores and a few of its small ports. Wouldn’t repeat half the tales I’ve heard of the interior. I don’t hold out much hope of seeing you return.”
“But you’ll wait.”
“Aye. A month, as agreed. Not an hour more, eh?”
“My agents in Pylas Maradal will lead you to your reward,” said Nyam, “even if you have to leave without us.”
Thus it was agreed and the Sea Harlot sailed. Her decks were filled with Fallarond’s disguised Deathguard, fifty of his finest warriors, many of whom were also excellent sailors, used to the trim lines of the Aereni warships. At the bow of the craft they set a seer named Gonardal, whose understanding of the sea and control over its mysteries were revered. Using his powers, he shrouded the craft in mists that kept it from the prying eyes, both undersea and aerial, for they were heading into waters where sinister forces were known to gather. The Sea Harlot cleared the waters of Aerenal and picked up speed, as though borne away by a supernatural current.
“This is a dangerous game,” Zemella said as she watched Vortermars go below. She still found it hard to suppress her anger each time she set eyes on the pirate.
“He will be the first to die if there is treachery,” Vaddi said.
She saw the earnestness in his look and softened for a moment. Before she could say any more she heard Nyam approach. “What, exactly, have you paid the pirate?”
He wore a pained expression. “A small fortune,” he said. “Stashed away in Pylas Maradal over the years. No matter! What would I do with it?”
“What do you know about the cleric’s master?”
“I suspect we are dealing with someone who is attempting to bind Xen’drik’s dubious powers. If it’s an army he is forging, it would be volatile, needing enormous control, hence his desire for the horn.”
“When we reach the coast,” said Vaddi, “what will be our next move?”
“Wherever this sorcerer is,” said Nyam, “will be known to the people in Xen’drik. There are barbarians who roam there, renegade elves, other strange races. Word of this power will surely have reached them. We will find his seat of power.”
“We’re basing our mission on the hopes of possible rumour?” Zemella scowled.
“You have a better idea?”
Zemella said nothing.
“Will he use the talisman?” said Vaddi. “Even without me?”
“He may try.”
“If he does,” said Zemella, “it will be disastrous. He’ll unleash something over which he has no control.”
Fallarond came to them, his eyes fixed on the heaving swells of the ocean. “One of the lookouts reports something out there.”
They saw Vortermars standing at the starboard rail, face clouded with uneasiness, and went to him.
“Strange currents on all sides,” he said. “Weird way these waves rise and fall, eh? Don’t like it.”
“The Thunder Sea is aptly named,” said Fallarond. “There’ll be many such storms on this crossing.”
“What’s coming isn’t from the skies,” Vortermars growled. “It’s from below the waves. If it’s what I think, you’re going to need all your elf powers to fight it.”
Fallarond went swiftly to the prow, where Gonardal was studying the mists and the surging waters. The waves parted around the sharp prow in twin lines of boiling foam as the Sea Harlot raced westward.
“We have company,” said the seer, “and they grow restless at our intrusion in their waters.”
“Sea creatures?”
“Sahuagin. Many of them.”
Vaddi turned to Zemella, having heard the exchange at the prow. “What are sahuagin?”
“Sea devils—humanoid, but with fins and claws. Usually they remain in coastal waters, but they have no love of elves. If they have our scent, they may well attack.”
“Do you think Cellester’s master has sent them?”
“Doubtful. They are a threat to all shipping on the seas to Xen’drik.”
Nyam stood beside them, looking even more uncomfortable than usual. “I think what is relevant is the sheer weight of numbers. We seem to be surrounded.”
The entire crew, Aereni and freebooters alike, were at the rails now, arrows nocked to bows and swords drawn in preparation to repel a powerful assault. Out in the mists on all sides, just as Nyam had foreseen, dark shapes lifted from the tossing seas and light gleamed on the scales of reptilian heads. The sahuagin were indeed gathered in numbers, their mouths opening and closing slowly, revealing their razor teeth. Scores of large packs seemed to be circling the ship, rising and falling, supremely confident in their superiority.
The sahuagin wasted little time in studying the ship. As one, their host closed in, the sea thick with them. The crew, Aereni and pirates alike, loosed arrows into them, but for every arrow that took out one of the sea creatures, two others seemed to replace it. Dozens evaded the rain of arrows and swarmed up the sides of the Sea Harlot, wielding long, spiked weapons in their vicious claws. In no time at all, the defenders found themselves caught up in a ferocious battle for their lives.
Vaddi and Nyam fought side by side, their swords a blur as they cut at these demon-like spawn of the sea. The sahuagin, taller than Vaddi and the Aereni, had green and black striped skins, scaled and armored like lizards, with a sharp-ridged spine and a wide mouth filled with needle-like teeth. They ripped and tore with their talons, using their terrible clawed feet to devastating effect. Beside Vaddi, Zemella wove a spelt and cast it like a vivid net of light around them. The huge eyes of the sahuagin screwed up tightly against the light, blinded by it. Vaddi and Nyam were quick to take advantage of this, cutting ruthlessly into their dazzled foes, who swung about wildly but ineffectively.
Gonardal also flung bolts of white light about the crew, protecting them, the beams cutting into the sahuagin masses like molten flame. Such deadly destruction did not halt the invaders, however, and they continued to swarm upon the ship. In the seas below, their numbers were vast, as though they had sent an entire army to attack the ship.
Vaddi’s eyes were streaming as the spell held, but he watched as Vortermars and Fallarond fought shoulder to shoulder, common allies in the heat of this encounter. Vaddi gasped as the pirate’s cutlass slashed and hacked with extraordinary dexterity, here severing a sahuagin head, there an arm or leg, the pirate shouting out his cries of defiance as he fought. Vaddi could see that Fallarond was equally as formidable in his use of his glowing blade, though he fought in silence, his skull-face hiding his emotions.
The sahuagin themselves shrieked maniacally as they fought, and where they pulled down an Aereni or a pirate, snared in their nets, they ripped their victims to bloody shreds, mocking their remaining foes with their victories. Their hatred of the elves was a living thing, and their will to overrun the ship was absolute.
Vaddi was glad of the power of his elven blade, for its light gave him an edge. He fell the fury in him growing as he fought, and he took renewed strength from it, carving a bloody path to the ship’s rail, dispatching sahuagin to either side in a frenzy of slaughter. Zemella was never far from his side, using both the light and her own blade to murderous effect.
“Keep together!” she shouted to Vaddi. “If they surround you, I’ll not be able to protect your back!”
Vaddi did as bidden, for only the quick action of the Aereni bowmen spared him a wounding as three sahuagin loomed on him. He lost track of time in that crimson mayhem, whirling and spinning, carving a path along the rail in a frenzy until he felt Nyam’s touch.
“Hold, Vaddi! You’ve killed them!” said the peddler, indicating the three closest of the dead sahuagin at Vaddi’s feet. “No need to carve them into strips!”
Vaddi shook the rivulets of sweat from his eyes and paused, chest heaving. He saw then that the sea devils had drawn off—at least for the moment. Like a wave they had come and so had they poured back into the sea. However, the waters were still thick with them, their huge eyes still fixed on the Sea Harlot, but as they waited, Gonardal sent his spells at them, blasting them where they swam. Many sank underwater for cover.
Zemella came to Vaddi, about to speak, but they both swung round when they heard a hideous shriek near the stern of the craft. Arriving there with Nyam, they saw that Vortermars had snared one of the sahuagin in a noose and had roped the creature tightly by the neck, dragging it onto the deck. It was the sahuagin that had shrieked, cursing its captors in a vile torrent of abuse, using a distorted but recognizable form of the Common tongue.
Vaddi watched as Vortermars approached the sahuagin with great care, for those claws, at both arm and leg, still swung about in dangerous arcs, capable of eviscerating a man in one sweep. Other nooses snaked out from the pirates and soon the sahuagin was trussed up tightly like a fowl about to be cooked. Vortermars placed his cutlass edge against the throat of the creature. Its eyes blazed as if they would burst from the sheer power of its hatred.
“Do I give your head and entrails to the tritons, you filthy scum, eh? Eh? Or should I allow you a quick death and toss your corpse back over the side to your mates?”
The sahuagin spat something in its own bubbling tongue.
“Tell me what I want to know and you’ll go back to them with your throat cut, no more than that, eh?”
Vaddi watched as Fallarond stood close by, content to let Vortermars deal with the captive.
“Who sent you?” said Vortermars, never for an instant taking his blade from the sahuagin’s neck. “Who paid you to attack us, eh?”
“We are sahuagin!” snarled the creature, squirming as if it could free itself. “These seas are ours!”
“Who sent you?” Vortermars repeated, drawing blood with his blade.
“We are our own masters! Our community fights for itself! You’re in our seas, elf-loving pirate trash!”
Vortermars stood over his victim for a long moment, gazing at him. Then, to Vaddi’s surprise, the pirate leaned hard on his cutlass, killing the sahuagin in one swift move.
Before Vaddi or anyone else could speak, Vortermars turned to them. “No point him lying about it. The sea devils weren’t lent by whoever you’re hunting. We’re in their seas, that’s all.”
Fallarond nodded. “Their hatred of elves would be enough for them to attack.” He turned to the rail. “This may not be over yet.”
Vaddi and his companions all returned to the rail, each of them studying the still heaving waters. Vortermars had his dead captive flung out into the waves, where swift claws took it below. Countless scores of the sahuagin still followed the ship, but no second attack was yet forthcoming.
Vortermars leaned far out, cupping his hands around his mouth. “You’ve felt the blast of our spells!” he shouted. “Count your dead! Ten times more will die every time you try and climb aboard this ship! Go your way and let us pass?”
For answer, a steel lance came driving up from the sea, but Zemella had been watching and she deflected it with a ball of light. The lance dropped harmlessly into the water, melting as it fell. Vaddi sensed that this had the desired effect on the sahuagin, as if they understood that the Sea Harlot housed no ordinary foe. They did not press an attack, but as the craft ploughed on westward, the sea creatures were never far from her sides.
“The sea devil wasn’t lying, eh?” Vortermars grunted to Nyam and Vaddi. “If they were in this for someone else, they’d have been at us again, thick as fleas. But they’ll need watching, eh? Night and day.”
The enormous chamber was thick with shadows, gloomy and sepulchral. Far below the surface of Xen’drik, hidden away in the innermost heart of this fallen city, the dusty vault echoed to the rare sound of footsteps. A lone figure, draped in a cloak that merged it with the darkness, moved uneasily through this region, pausing at a huge door that had long since been bent back on its hinges. Beyond the cracked threshold in another even larger chamber, only the tombs waited. Them and one other. This creature rose up from its bed of dust and shuffled forward to meet the cloaked one. They were like two graveyard phantoms greeting each other across a haunted landscape, the air sterile and dead, the stone around them like the long rotted bones of a titanic corpse.
“Cellester,” came the soft voice of the gargoyle-like figure. “You have come back to us at last.”
The cleric stared at the homunculus in distaste. “Where is your master?”
“Zuharrin has much work to do. He has little time to spare. He has sent me to greet you.”
Cellester grimaced, barely masking his loathing of this creature. “I must see him.”
“Have you fulfilled your role? You seem to be alone.” The little figure’s eyes widened. “I do not see the Orien youth.”
“Zuharrin will have him soon enough.”
“Words will not be sufficient,” said the homunculus.
Cellester pulled from his robe an object wrapped in leather. “I have baited the hook, and the fish has taken the bait.”
The homunculus shuffled back, eyeing the leather-bound object with deep suspicion. “What is it you hold? I feel its hot power.”
“The Crimson Talisman,” said Cellester. “Shall I reveal it to you?”
“No!” cried the homunculus, shaking with fear. “Put it away!”
“Take me to Zuharrin. He will have no reason to doubt my success.”
“Where is the youth?”
Cellester slipped the leather back inside his cloak. “Coming. He cannot bear to be apart from the Talisman. He will come to claim it. He has no choice.”
As the sun sank into the western clouds, its last rays completely smothered, the Sea Harlot eased into the offshore currents close to the coast of Xen’drik. There was a deep uneasiness aboard, as crew and passengers looked across the turgid waters at the shadowed coastline. Above them the clouds piled in, pack-like, eager for the night, fuelled by the vapors and smokes of the massive land mass.
Vortermars pointed to the blackness ahead. “Coast here’s carved up by rivers and creeks. Biggest of them goes right into the heart of the continent, but it’s a risky way to enter Xen’drik.”
He looked out at the dark waters around them. Although the sahuagin had followed them for a long way across the Thunder Sea, they had not attacked again. They were no longer to be seen, but the company felt there was always a danger that they would return.
Beside him. Fallarond and the others studied the coast. “You told us earlier that you have contacts here,” said the Deathguard commander.
“Aye. Barbarians. They fear nothing. They’ve small settlements. I trade with them, but I’ll not sail the Sea Harlot into their port, eh? They’d swarm over her like rats! I know an islet or two offshore where we can lay up. You can go ashore in our light craft.”
Fallarond turned to Vaddi. “You have a strategy?”
Vaddi glanced at Zemella. “Once we’re ashore, we have to try and locate the horn. I’m not sure—”
Vortermars laughed. “I have a suggestion.”
Zemella scowled at him.
“What is it?” Fallarond asked the pirate.
“Like I said, there’s a lot of creeks. I’ll take you to one. Hide yourself in its upper reaches, eh? Disguise yourselves good and proper, I’ll have some of my crew visit the barbarians in Thargang— a little village a ways into the jungle. Maybe someone will have got word of this sorcerer, eh? Xen’drik’s a big place, but they’ve got long ears in Thargang. Need to have. Survival, eh? Or profits, comes to the same thing, eh? They’ve contacts with Storm reach in the north. You elves aren’t the only ones with spy networks. If there’s word, I’ll have it sent on.”
“If you send anything but help …” said Zemella.
Vortermars laughed softly. “Don’t worry. I’d be a fool to risk getting my hands on the rest of Nyam Hordath’s fortune, wouldn’t I? Xen’drik can keep what it has. Anything that comes out of that black hell bears a curse, eh? You’d all do well to remember that. No, I’ll wait up at the islet. One month. No more. After that. I sail.”
Soon the company was climbing down into three long, narrow craft, filling them with their number. Each craft was manned by two of the freebooters, but they said little, morosely carrying out their instructions from Vortermars. Without further ado, the Sea Harlot swung away along the coast, heading for a rash of small islands a few miles from shore. The three longboats, oared by the Deathguard, slid across the water, blending into the darkness.
Once close to shore, they headed slowly along it, until the pirate at the prow of the leading craft indicated a deeper darkness, a gash in the coastline that was the promised creek. Its banks were choked with thick vegetation, but in this moonless night they were as pitch, gently tossing their branches in a mimic of the sea’s undulations. No sooner had the three craft turned up into the creek than those fronds seemed to close in, shutting out even more light. The shores on either side fell silent, the waters equally still.
Vaddi turned to Zemella, wanting to reach for her hand, but she seemed to be steeling herself against the subtle waves of evil that lapped at their craft. She held her sword before her like a torch, though it was cold, its power dormant. No one spoke, not even whispered.
They rowed their way through overhanging boughs, ducking to avoid their clammy touch, and beyond to a narrow tributary of the creek. It brought them to a mud flat, black as tar, and the pirates had them beach the craft. They hauled the boats ashore, sliding all of them save one smaller one under the trees where they would not be seen.
“We go back to Vortermars,” said one of the pirates to Fallarond. “Wait here until word comes from Thargang.”
“How long?”
“By dawn.”
The pirates wasted no more time in getting back into the smaller craft and were soon rowing steadily back down the creek.
Vaddi looked around, though he could see little in the gloom. “This place has a strange feel to it. It’s so silent, as if all life has left.”
Nyam grunted. “Don’t count on it. Not all the giants are dead, and the drow live here.”
Fallarond nodded. “That is so, although these jungles are very thinly populated. Xen’drik is vast, but our enterprise depends on absolute stealth. We would do best to avoid the eyes of all who dwell here.”
“How?” said Vaddi.
“You won’t like it,” said Zemella.
“What is it?”
She bent down and scooped up a handful of the black mud. “This. We cover our exposed skin in it. Blend with the scenery.”
Nyam groaned, sniffing at the strong stench of the mud. “Is it absolutely necessary?”
“It will make it difficult to see us. You’d be surprised how easily one can see bit of pale skin even from far away.”
“She is right,” said Fallarond.
Nyam watched in horror as the others began the odious task of smearing the black mud over their hands and faces and even parts of their clothing. His long hair and thick beard masked most of his own features, but reluctantly he smeared on the mud and stood beside them, looking more beast than man, only the white of his eyes showing. Vaddi laughed at his predicament.
“You don’t look so good yourself.” Nyam snorted. “Nor do you smell too pretty.”
After that the company could do little but settle among the trees, blending with the bizarre terrain as they waited out the night. Vaddi and Nyam dozed, getting what little sleep they could before the coming journey. Around them the silence seemed to thicken, almost as if the entire company had fallen deaf. No bird or bat flapped above the treetops. Nothing stirred the murk of the creek.
When dawn found them it was so pale that the light hardly changed. Oppressive gray clouds sat heavily over the coast. In a half sleep, Vaddi became aware that vague sounds were coming from the creek. He gazed through the straggling fronds to see the prow of a small craft, two men hunched over in it. One of them steadied the craft, while the other came ashore, bent over, apparently sniffing at the mud flat like a hound. It was one of Vortermars’s pirates and he looked up at the forest, straining for a sign of the Deathguard.
Fallarond showed himself, though for a moment the pirate jumped back in horror, for the elf made a gruesome figure, smeared as he was in mud, as if shaped from nothing else. But the man recovered himself, grinned, and came forward.
“You have word from the town?”
“I do. I spent the night there among the barbarians.”
Vaddi, Zemella, and Nyam joined the group.
“You’d fool the worst of them, that’s no lie,” said the pirate approvingly.
“What have you learned?” said Fallarond.
“No word of the cleric, but there’s rumors of a dark power haunting the southern jungle. They know about it in Storm-reach, and word’s come down the grapevine to Thargang. Said to be powerful. Seems to be centered in a ruined city called Azzahareb. Used to be some place. Built by giants. Men found it and rebuilt some of it.”
“Where is this city?”
“This here creek will take you to the foothills of the mountain range where you’ll find it. Go south for a day. Then you got to climb the passes up to it. It spans a whole lot of peaks and valleys. Word is, in days gone by its towers looked out across the Thunder Sea toward Argonnessen. Always watching its enemies.”
“What of this ‘dark power?’ ”
“Locals whisper the name Zuharrin. The barbarians fear him. They reckon he walks freely in the darkness below. They say he consorts with all manner of horrors, makes pacts with demons, sacrifices his own servants …”
Fallarond turned to Nyam and those of his warriors who were nearest. “I have not heard this name.”
Nyam was concentrating on something. “Zuharrin? No, it means nothing to me. Not that I recall.”
“Like I said, he’s said to haunt Azzahareb. With a big following. Xen’drik’s a good place for secrets.”
“Nothing of the cleric?” said Vaddi.
“The barbarians don’t know of him, but servants of the sorcerer are said to use soarwings to go about their business. In the north, they are said to flock. If your cleric is here, he is likely in Azzahareb.”
“These barbarians you trade with,” said Fallarond, “were they suspicious of you and your questions?”
“Why should they be? They offered the information freely enough. They’re happy to trade with Vortermars. In their interests to protect him and his trade.”
“Do they know we are here in Xen’drik?”
The pirate shook his head and smiled grimly. “Nah. Vortermars won’t betray you, if that’s what you’re worried about. He told me and the rest of the crew to treat you like gold. No one knows you’re here, and covered in that muck, no one will! The barbarians wouldn’t expect anyone to be mad enough to seek out Azzahareb. They keep well clear of it.”
“What of Zuharrin’s forces?”
“Who knows? Whoever haunts Azzahareb keeps well to himself, but no one who’s come near the place has come back. Some treasure hunters outta Stormreach went in lookin’ for some locals and whatever they could bring out. No one’s seen them in months.”
“Very well,” said Fallarond. “Go back to your captain. We will be with you again in one month. Here, in this same place.”
The pirate nodded, turned, and rejoined his companion. Moments later they were rowing swiftly out into the creek and through the fronds seawards.
“This Zuharrin will assume no one would dare steal upon him,” said Fallarond. “He must feet doubly secure in his stronghold.”
“Let’s not waste any time,” said Zemella. “I’ve had more than enough of skulking. Time to take the fight to them.”
Fallarond sent out runners to study the terrain as the company moved on. The land rose gradually, the jungle unbroken, the light no less dismal. After several days’ travel through the jungle, they reached a place where the creek was nothing more than a spring, dribbling almost soundlessly from a narrow crack in a low wall of stone, the edge of the foothills. The jungle thinned out, but the company kept to its edge under cover.
Higher up the slope above the company, two figures were watching. They were armed men, their heads encased in leather helmets, their keen eyes looking out for the slightest movement below. One of them muttered something under his breath. Down in the narrow valley, at the first of the stunted trees, he had seen something move. Then another.
“Something approaches!” he hissed to his companion, pointing with his short sword. There was no response from the other, who had flattened himself up against the bole of a tree, though his eyes seemed to be fixed on that same spot below.
“D’you see, Karg? How many?”
“Too many to count. What are they? We must report this.” He turned, gripping the arm of his companion, but it was stiff and unresisting. “Hurry! We must—”
The other’s eyes were wide, but they wore a shocked, frozen look of horror. He was dead, pinned through the neck by an arrow to the tree.
With a curse, the warrior sprang back and turned, intending to flee, but as he did so, the ground rose up before him, leaves and earth tossed aside by the frightful apparition. Before he could respond, a sword plunged deep into his vitals. A single gasp escaped his lips as he sank to his knees. The last thing his eyes saw before they closed in death was the skull face of the Deathguard scout. The latter pulled his blade free of the corpse and spent a few minutes searching the surrounding trees.
Behind him another of the scouts waited. “Any more of them?”
“No.” They left together, circling the edge of the jungle, listening for further signs of enemies.
Down in the valley, emerging from the trees, Fallarond and the company moved up and along the declivity of a narrow incline that led into the foothills. The commander had drawn his blade and his warriors had all nocked arrows to their bows as if they knew an attack was imminent. Vaddi, Zemella, and Nyam were kept at the heart of the company, though Zemella complained softly, eager to use her blade on anything that dared show itself.
“And you warned me against unleashing my battle lust,” Vaddi teased her.
She glared at him. “Better a fight than this accursed waiting.”
“Be silent,” said Fallarond.
As he turned back to the trail ahead, the two ridges on either side of them seemed to erupt. Dozens of warriors leaped forward, wielding swords, axes, and spears, a mixed band of men wearing armor that seemed purloined from a dozen battlefields. Their intent was obvious as they bore down upon the Deathguard.
Fallarond’s men were too well trained to panic. They formed ranks in a rough diamond shape and seconds later unleashed a hail of arrows. Vaddi was once again staggered by the speed at which they drew and loosed, drew and loosed, again and again. Each Aereni archer sent half a dozen arrows into the oncoming horde, and with terrifying precision, each arrow found its mark.
The oncoming warriors fell, those who were not pinned by an arrow tumbling into their stricken comrades. What had begun as a tide on two sides turned into instant chaos. There was worse to follow for the attackers. Behind them, on the two ridges that they had quitted, the Aereni scouts appeared, some dozen of them. With no less speed or accuracy than their fellows in the valley, they began picking off any of the assault force that still stood.
Vaddi drew in his breath, sword swinging idly. “Dragon’s teeth! Not one of them left alive. There must be close on a hundred dead. In … how long?”
Zemella grunted, evidently unmoved. “They were poorly organized.”
Nyam grinned through the muck of his disguise. “I’m sure you’ll get a chance to use your sword before too long.”
Fallarond’s eyes flashed within mud-blackface. “None must get away from here and report back to Azzahareb.”
One of the scouts came down from the hill while his companions ensured that there were no survivors. “There were a few sentries up in the hills,” he reported to Fallarond.
“You have dealt with them?”
The scout bowed.
“Well done,” said Fallarond. “Retrieve what arrows you can, then rotate the scouts.”
His orders were carried out at once.
“We must hug the landscape as best we can. There will be few trees to hide us from now on.”
The others fell into place as the company resumed its quick march up into the foothills. Vaddi looked back at the valley below. The sprawled corpses attested to the fact that there had indeed been a battle—or rather a slaughter—yet even as he looked, the corpses seemed to melt before his eyes, becoming part of the terrain, indistinguishable from it. He turned to remark on this to Zemella, but she was murmuring under her breath.
Nyam winked at him. A spell, he mouthed. To cover our tracks.
Vaddi nodded, wondering what else was to emerge on this nightmare journey.
In the more open terrain, they made quicker progress. Through the cloud and vapors that clung to the terrain, they could now see the lower slopes of a mountain range. Its crags and scarps were uniquely shaped, as were the lands spread out below it. Strange structures poked up from the rocks and soil, remnants of the bygone ages. Steel and tangled metal leaned skyward like the bones of huge mechanical beasts, their purpose long forgotten. Black-winged birds flapped around them, squabbling with each other, but none came close to the company. Pools of oil and scummy water dotted the land for mile after mile, and wisps of greenish mist webbed everything.
Overhead, through an occasional break in the clouds, shapes swooped and dipped, some huge and saurian, others smaller, none clearly visible. But the magic that cloaked the company seemed to do its work well.
Ahead of and around them, the scouts remained watchful. They were moving south now, parallel to the mountains, as the pirate guide had told them. Throughout the day, mile upon monotonous mile, they kept up the pace, until the weak sun began its dip to the western skyline. Beyond the company, the low gorge became recognisable as a road, smashed and ruinous, apparently a one-time route to the fallen piles of an ancient settlement.
“Is this Azzahareb?” said Zemella.
“An outpost, I think,” said Nyam. “The pirate told us we have to climb up through the passes to the city itself.”
Fallarond joined them. “The scouts report that the way is clear. We can rest at the edge of these ruins. There is a pass near at hand, steep and treacherous, but it will take us to the city. Once we have eaten, night will be upon us.”
“A good time to go up,” said Vaddi.
“I agree,” said Fallarond.
Moving on, they soon found themselves surrounded by what seemed to have been a city built by giants. It had been totally wrecked by some ancient and dreadful conflict that must have pre-dated the Last War by centuries. It was as though giant engines had mashed their way through it, heaping up whole rows of buildings, burning and melting the structures, fusing their steel into fantastic shapes, their mutated spars poking up at the night sky. Among that colossal debris, pallid light flickered, sizzling with magical currents, though purposeless, lashing out mindlessly at anything that moved. It would be far too dangerous to enter such streets. The city was not alive, but there were warped powers within it, energized like the mind of a madman.
Vaddi made to speak to Zemella, but something in her expression checked him. It was not difficult to read the stress there, the sure knowledge that they were going forward on a hopeless quest. Despondency would be as dangerous an enemy as the denizens of this bleak terrain.
Deep down in the heart of the crumbling city of Azzahareb, in a citadel erected by giants eons before men spread like ants across Khorvaire, the acolytes of Zuharrin gathered in one of many restored throne rooms. Once it had been magnificent, its lofty columns bright with sculptures of the highest order, its tall glass windows brilliant with color. Now lush carpets again stretched across its immense floors, matched in glory only by the vivid inlays of the polished tiles. Tapestries and finely woven curtains hung from the beams in celebration of the majesty of those who ruled here. The immense domed room was no longer the pride of an empire, although there were signs of its former glory. The fallen debris of years had been removed, the columns polished, and the furnishings redecorated. Huge candles, thick as the columns, burned atop golden braziers, while marble statues and wooden carvings from across all of Xen’drik had been assembled.
The focal point of this new expression of power was a gigantic throne, carved from a single immense tree trunk, set with demons and demigods from ages long gone. Wooden serpents and winged beings gazed out from jewelled eyes at the grand room almost as though alive. Indeed, the spells that clung to the wood and the smoldering censers around it writhed in the air, humming with powerful magic. Most potent of all was the figure that sat in the throne, dwarfed by it yet resplendent in dark robes, his face serene but deeply majestic, ageless but vital.
Zuharrin surveyed the gathering before him. His servants lined the rim of the hall, pike shafts and shields flashing in the light from the braziers. They represented an army that had been a longtime in the building, an army that waited in the city, sworn to serve Zuharrin and to die at his command, controlled by magics he had unearthed from this ancient city and set upon them all like chains. Beyond the dais where he sat, a score of dignitaries had come before the sorcerer, each of them in a warrior’s uniform, a token of their own great power.
He stood, a smile passing over his thin lips, his green eyes sweeping them with a glance like steel. “The time draws near,” he said, his voice cracking tike a whip in the motionless air. “You are almost all gathered. From all realms of Eberron you have come, and again I do homage to your alliance.”
Zuharrin bowed to his guests. He was the focus of power here in ancient Xen’drik, the one who had delved deepest into its dubious energies, the one who would bind them into a weapon surpassing anything seen for millennia, but it served his purpose to let his underlings think themselves near his equal. For now.
“It will soon be time to release T’saagash Mal. Our crusade will begin.”
One of the armed warlords stepped forward with a curt bow. “My Lord Zuharrin, you spoke to us once before of a powerful weapon, a talisman that would aid us in this great crusade.”
“Erethindel, the horn of dragon blood. Yes.”
“You have this artefact?”
Zuharrin smiled and turned to his right. A block of obsidian marble stood at the foot of the throne dais. Across it had been draped a rich velvet hanging. The sorcerer went to this and lifted back the folds of the velvet to reveal the object beneath. Green light crackled with a sound like the burning of logs. Strange, alien sigils had been cut into the surface of the marble, protective charms against the latent power in the object they surrounded. There, motionless yet redolent with its own power, the Crimson Talisman rested.
“It is said that the elves carved this, but that is only part of its history,” Zuharrin told the lords as they eased forward to get a better view of the revered object. “Dragons had a part in its birth.”
“Yet,” came a voice from beyond the warriors, “it is of no use to any of us, yourself included. Zuharrin, without its wielder.”
Zuharrin scowled for a moment, the air around him curdling like a thundercloud, but as he saw the tall figure of the latecomer, his frown turned to a knowing smile. “Welcome,” he said. He drew the velvet drape back over the horn.
“My apologies for my lateness. It has been a prolonged and arduous journey.”
“We are glad to have you with us,” said Zuharrin, and the other lords bowed politely.
“You have secured the Orien youth?” said the latecomer.
Every eye was fixed on the sorcerer. Zuharrin smiled again, and in that smile was more than a hint of dreadful resolve. “He is drawn to the Crimson Talisman as a moth is drawn to fire.” He nodded at one of the tapering flames of a huge candle beyond them, where a cloud of moths fluttered perilously close to its light. “Soon he will be here.”
“He will serve us?” said one of the lords.
“He will resist, but not for long. He has no concept of true power. Xen’drik has given me its deepest secrets. I will bend the Orien youth to my will until the only release he has will be to direct the powers within him and Erethindel into T’saagash Mal. Once the youth is snared, he can never break the chains. He will be no more than a vessel, doomed to remain so.”
“Where is he now?” said another of the lords.
“He sailed with an escort of Aereni Deathguard bound for these shores, but his ship was attacked by the sahuagin. There was a fierce conflict, which alerted my servants. The unwitting boy sails directly into our hands.”
There was a brief murmur, then a lord spoke. “To what end? Surely if he sought to oppose us, he would require an army.”
“The youth and those who aid him are naïve,” said Zuharrin. “They have no concept of our powers. Indeed, they know nothing of us. I have been served by a cleric, who until recently travelled with the Orien youth. Vaddi d’Orien comes to Xen’drik seeking him, thinking it is the cleric who holds the talisman. A strong company of the Deathguard is, Vaddi d’Orien assumes, all he needs to pry the talisman back from the cleric.”
The warrior lord who had been the last to join them stepped forward, drawing his sword and putting its point to the marbled floor. He leaned on its crosspiece. “The boy’s family has been a blight on my success for a long time. He is the last of them. If this youth needs bringing to heel, it will give me much pleasure to ride out and drag him here.”
Zuharrin shook his head. “Let him find his own way. Azzahareb will be open to him. It will be a simple task to snare him, and once we have done so, we can begin the last chapter of the working. T’saagash Mal will rise, and all your armies will benefit from his powers. Across every continent, to the far reaches of Khorvaire itself, even beyond your own Karrnath.” He looked to the tall warrior.
The latter grunted and put away his sword.
“You will have an altogether new understanding of power. Believe me, Kazzerand.”
The company moved up the steep-sided gully and into the foothills above the broken city of giants. Below them, spread out in a wide black stain, the outpost of the city pulsed faintly with its warped powers like a wounded beast. They could see far down into its fathomless, canyon-like streets, some choked with debris, weird lights glowing within them as if strange denizens loitered there, ever waiting to draw into their webs whatever morsel of life should chance upon them. This once proud metropolis, mountainous and immense, had been home to thousands, but now it had been reduced to a nightmare realm, refuge of supernatural powers.
They turned back up the gully and went farther into its shadowed confines. No moons lit the way and no light penetrated the deepening gash into the mountainside. If there had been a stream here, it had dried up or been diverted down into the black heart of stone below. A damning silence pervaded all once more and only a few of the elves’ swords lit the way. On either side the stone walls were pocked with caves like windows so that it seemed to the company that it was passing through not a natural canyon but another deep street in a city beyond known time, yet nothing stirred in its walls. It was like passing through a mammoth graveyard of forgotten gods, where tomb after tomb crumbled reluctantly.
Zemella leaned close to Vaddi, clutching his arm. “You know what it will mean if we are trapped?”
He nodded, bemused by the scale of the walls.
“We must die before we let Zuharrin triumph. On its own, Erethindel will not be enough for him. He needs you alive. If there is any danger of his succeeding, you must perish and us with you.”
“I told you,” he said, attempting a grin, “that I would not let you die.”
“You may have to. You may have to strike the killing blow. And I you.”
His eyes widened in horror at the suggestion. “Don’t speak of such things,” he said. “We—”
“We have to agree now. A pact, Vaddi. You and I will strike each other down, if we fail. We must. If we fall into Zuharrin’s hands, a new age of terror will begin. We cannot let it happen.”
She is right, he told himself, but I could never do it.
As though reading his mind, she touched his face lightly with her fingers. “We must do this, Vaddi. We have a duty that goes far beyond our own longings. The dragon blood within us calls us to this.”
He felt his heart racing. Briefly his lips brushed her fingers. She smiled and he nodded. “So be it.”
“They are coming.”
Zuharrin sat back, eyeing the man before him with little trace of emotion on his chiselled features.
Cellester, hollow-eyed and exhausted, stood before his master, though he knew that it was no more than a projected image that he looked upon. “It is as I promised. The Orien boy is bound to the talisman.”
“I will allow them to believe that they have come upon me unawares, and I will open the citadel to them. Already my servants have begun the Great Working. The Horn of Erethindel has been prepared in the Chamber of the Demon Gate. For all your failings, Cellester, you have done well.”
The cleric kept his head bowed, eyes on the stone floor.
“When this is over, I will no longer hold you to my will. You will be free of me, if you choose, but think carefully. Would you rather risk your fate in a world that will change when the new powers arise or be a willing part of the changes? You have served me until now because I have forced you to do so. I would rather have you as a willing servant. You could achieve greatness in what is coming. Think on it. For now, just do as I have bidden at the Working. Betray the Orien youth a final time. Cripple him as you did for so long in Khorvaire.”
Cellester looked up a few moments later but the sorcerer’s image was gone. He knew it was pointless to disobey him. Zuharrin had long gained a terrible hold over him. He sagged down, exhausted, seeing again in his mind that night when he had first been subjected to Zuharrin’s power.
Deep in the northern fortress of Marazanath, in an area where the troops gathered to drink and unwind after the day’s labors, Cellester had revelled with them, easing the strains of another hard session of exercises and mock battles. Anzar d’Orien’s soldiers were kept permanently readied for battle. Indreen, wife of the lord, had died no more than a week since, and Cellester had felt her death like a knife blow to his own vitals. He had sought to submerge his misery in a frenzy of exercise and revelry with the toughest of the soldiers. They welcomed his company, for there was no fitter, more accomplished warrior than he. They trained hard that day and drank harder that night. It was long gone midnight when the cleric lurched into the narrow street, head spinning, mind almost unhinged. Somewhere along the way, he collapsed, unable to drag himself home, but he was found and taken indoors.
Those who took him were, he was later to discover, servants of Zuharrin. They brought him round and filled the room with strange incense, drugs that softened his mind even further, until he became like a child, pliable and pathetic. They used his misery against him, bringing its full force to bear.
“She is dead,” they whispered, like ghouls at a graveside. “Indreen is dead.”
He repeated the words over and over, tears streaking his face.
“Lost to you forever.”
He repeated this, too, his body wracked with sobs.
“What if this is not so? Death can be no more than the leaving of one room and the entering of another. Death is a transient thing. The Deathless know this. The Undying Elves know this. The Emerald Claw knows this. You, too, know this.”
Cellester looked up, mind whirling, confused but trying to make sense out of what they were saying to him.
“She could be yours,” said a seductive voice in the miasma of the room. “Death has freed her from her marriage vows. Raised again, she would be free. Indreen could be yours.”
“For a price,” said another. “Will you pay it?”
It was done in moments. He hardly knew what they were about. They drew his blood in a pact that swore him to the service of Zuharrin. They took it and through their vile workings bent him to their master’s will in exchange for that grim prize. They would, they vowed, raise the fallen Indreen.
In the morning, waking in the street, Cellester realized what he had done, but it could not be undone. His arm bore the long scar where they had opened him. In his rooms, he washed it carefully, but it throbbed. In time to that painful flow, he heard a voice from the night. We will raise her for you, cleric, but if you fail to obey, we will raise her and give her to the Claw. She will become a handmaiden to our queen.
The threat of those words had hung over him for the years that followed. Now, in this dismal chamber in Azzahareb, he heard them again, and he knew, beyond doubting, that Zuharrin had the power to do the dreadful thing he promised. There was nothing else but to obey.
“Either the sorcerer feels very secure in his retreat,” said Fallarond, eyeing the crags that loomed high on either side of them, “or it is a trap, but the scouts discern no movement.”
“How far to the city?” said Nyam. “Have they seen its walls?”
“Aye. It hangs from the cliff like a gigantic bee’s nest, but it is silent, shut in. There are no doors, and the nearest windows are far up. No doubt it is hung with spells.”
“I have seen creatures of the air,” said Nyam. “Soarwings and the like.”
Fallarond nodded.
“Have they seen us?” asked Vaddi.
“Our own cloaking spells deceive their eyes.”
They moved on, dawn yet hours away, climbing the last slopes of the gorge to the very roots of the mountainside from which the city of Azzahareb had been carved. When they came to it, they stood in momentary stupefaction at its scale, for it was truly gargantuan. Gazing up at its shadowed form, the company could see that it was the work of long-dead artisans, giants or demons or some beings long-gone from a time stretching back millennia. If there was a door at the base of those towering cliffs, it fitted so perfectly with the atone that its lines were hidden from the eye. But there was deep sorcery here. Like the humming of the city far below, with its pulsing supernatural energies, this place reeked of power, dark and deadly.
“How do we get in?” whispered Vaddi. “We could traverse this range for a score of miles.”
Fallarond pointed upward. “The windows. Untold centuries ago, the giants of this city must have used them to look out toward the coast. Surely that was the purpose of Azzahareb.”
“You mean to go up there?” said Nyam. “I suspect we will need to elicit the aid of the soarwings.”
Fallarond shook his head. Instead he turned to a group of his bowmen. They stepped well away from the base of the cliff and, as one, released arrows that had web-thin cord tied to them. High up into the shadows those arrows rose, with enough force to bury their steel points into the rock. Like ghosts the bowmen moved up the wall. They reached a precarious ledge and gained enough purchase on it to be able to fire a second wave of arrows upward. When they had finished their work, a ladder woven from the thinnest of cord dangled from the near-invisible heights above.
Nyam grimaced at it. “Even a spider would blanch at the thought of climbing up this.”
Vaddi grinned. “Would you rather we beat upon the door and woke all Zuharrin’s guardians?”
“No, no, I’ll climb. But you’d better be close behind me. If I should slip, it’ll be up to you to hang on to me.”
“You won’t slip.”
Fallarond led the way, with several of his warriors, then Nyam, Vaddi, and Zemella. The remaining Deathguard were behind them, the last of them pulling in the makeshift ladder as he climbed. High up over the hidden terrain they climbed, the night breeze buffeting them, its coldness suggestive of dark magic. They focused on the climb, shutting out the hostile air and the occasional sounds from the skies where unseen shapes flitted and swooped.
Dwarfed by the scale of the fortress, ant-like, they reached a high window in the vast wall. It would have been a tall but narrow slit in the rock to a giant, with a cramped balcony, but to the company it loomed over them like a high cave. The night air swirled about them as they clambered over the crumbling balustrade, the sound of the wind dolorous and mournful overhead, but they ignored it and slipped into the mass of the edifice. Their blades’ soft glow lit the interior, casting blurred shadows among the vaults of a long, winding passageway that seemed more weathered than constructed. Their footfalls echoed softly in its huge dimensions.
There were signs of habitation, for on the high walls, inscriptions had been carved, though in a language unknown to even the Aereni. The floor was as smooth as polished glass, with no hint of dust, as if kept pristine. Deeper within, there was no hint of sound, light, or movement, but the company eased along the sweeping corridor, which fed them downward in a gradual spiral toward the guts of the mountain citadel, countless hundreds of feet below them. Carved faces the size of houses leered at them from the stone walls—the glaring visages of giants, demons, and other grotesque beings, mocking and intimidating in their silence, as though a single word would spring them into life.
At the very core of Azzahareb, in the heart of the mountain range from which it had been carved, was an immense chamber, hollowed out of the bedrock by the giants in ages past. Its curved walls were riddled with veins of minerals that gleamed with inner fires, standing out tike vibrant arteries, as if this chamber were a living entity, throbbing with its own supernatural life, the heart of a titanic demigod. Curved walls soared upward, lost in stone buttresses and vaults where the light could not reach. Statues hundreds of feet high lined the walls in a semi-circle, and on one side of them a circle of stone, itself even higher than the statues, dominated the entire scene. Blocks the size of small buildings framed this perfect circle, a masterpiece of masonry, their surfaces riddled with embossed sigils and carvings, a flowing tapestry of divinities and spirits from the history of this most ancient of places.
The circle contained within the frame of stone blockwork was a solid wall, its surface perfectly flat and unblemished, as if cut by a god. It had been in shadow for timeless centuries, but the huge braziers now lit in the chamber threw it into strong relief. Those who gazed upon the wall saw hints and intimations of movement within it that deceived the eye and threatened to jar the brain. A dreadful power was locked up there, stirring, edging to the light.
Opposite the huge circle, between two of the tallest statues, a balcony overlooked the chamber, its former balustrade swept away, revealing its floor to the host. Upon this, a dozen armor-clad warriors stood on either side of a great doorway, huge broadswords clutched in their mailed fists. Some distance below, spread in an arc along the curved wall under the balcony, was a long dais, its steps running down into the chamber. On this dais were assembled the warlords that Zuharrin had summoned from across the world. They gazed at the bizarre splendor about them, drinking in the mysteries of the ages, aware of the potential power locked within this place.
Above them, appearing on the balcony like a wraith, the figure of Zuharrin appeared. Although dwarfed by his surroundings, unquestionable power flowed from him, and when he spoke, his voice carried effortlessly down to the warlords and to the massed ranks of his own warriors, now visible at the feet of the array of statues across the chamber.
“Behold, the Chamber of the Demon Gate!” he called, directing a golden staff at the huge circle of stone on the towering wall opposite. “Created millennia ago by the powers who chained the demon forces, locking them deep down in the uttermost regions of the world. Soon the greatest of them, T’saagash Mat, awakens!”
The warlords watched him, stirred by his words. Even Kazzerand, most powerful of them, was impressed by the magnitude of this chamber, its suggestion of power. He heard a slight sound behind him and twisted round. At the center of the chamber, rising from its paved floor, a small column of stone was rising up from below to stand at waist height. Vivid green light cloaked the top of it, a force that crackled and flickered with the ancient powers of this forbidding place. As the green haze cleared a little, the watchers could see a single object resting on the surface of the column. It was the Crimson Talisman, Erethindel.
“Here is the key!” called Zuharrin, his voice sharp and clear. “It will unlock the Demon Gate. The dragon blood from the talisman will open the way for T’saagash Mal and the new dawn.”
The Orien boy, mused Kazzerand. Where is he? Has he been taken? All this comes to nothing without him.
Vaddi was worming his way with his companions down into the bowels of the citadel. Fallarond urged them forward with great caution.
“This silence disturbs me,” Nyam whispered.
“There are many beings below us,” said Fallarond, his senses attuned to the elements of this place. “I feel them, gathered in great numbers. There seems no other life elsewhere in the city. Attention is focused below. If there is an opportune moment to breach the heart of the city, it has come.”
“There are many, you say?” said Vaddi.
“Many hundreds.”
“And the talisman?” said Zemella.
Vaddi answered softly. “It is there. I can feel it from here.”
“How easily can you locate it?” said Fallarond.
“Easily enough.”
“They want you to be joined with it,” warned Zemella. “It is the whole purpose of this. This Zuharrin must believe he can match your power, even when you take up the horn.”
“Can he?” Vaddi asked her.
“There is a terrible energy in this place,” she said. “Something stirs here that has been asleep for untold centuries. Zuharrin will use it, but we have something he has underestimated.”
“Which is?” said Nyam.
Zemella grinned. “Me, peddler. Vaddi and me and Erethindel.”
“As we draw closer, shield your minds,” warned Fallarond.
“Win our way to Erethindel,” said Vaddi. “Whatever powers it has will be unleashed to bring this place down. Whatever the cost.”
He looked into Zemella’s eyes as he said it, recalling her words of earlier. She nodded.
“Whatever the cost,” agreed Fallarond. Beside him Nyam scowled, but he, too, nodded.
They moved onward and downward and still there was no guard, no hidden spell to challenge them. The darkness closed in, the walls of the mountains enfolding them as if they had wandered into the shadows of another world, a domain of perpetual night. It was difficult to suppress the feeling that the rock around them was alive, tuned in to their movements, listening to them. Time seemed to stretch out endlessly. Ahead the passage widened even further, becoming a stairway, curving ever downward in a spiral to the core of the city.
Vaddi motioned the company to a halt. “Erethindel,” he whispered, and the word hovered in the air like a spell. “Below us.”
“There is a huge chamber, carved from the rock,” said Fallarond.
“The horn is there,” said Vaddi, hand tightly gripping the haft of his elf blade. He felt Zemella’s fingers take his left hand. He held them tightly, praying that she could not feel his fear, his dread of this place.
“Stay together,” said Fallarond. “As a unit.”
The Deathguard lifted their bows, arrows nocked. Slowly, inch by inch, the company lowered themselves down the wide stairs, each one as tall as a wall, yet cloaked in shadow. Below them they saw an open doorway, some thirty feet tall with thick columns on either side, wreathed in demonic art, gargoyle faces that leered, their eyes gleaming in the torchlight from the massive chamber beyond. At these columns the company halted, studying the bizarre scene below them.
In the chamber, lit by scores of tall braziers, the statues of a distant age reared up into the hidden distance of the dome, it was so vast as to seem like the open night sky, shrouded in cloud and darkness. Opposite the company, a huge circular wall, framed by stone blocks, rose up between two of the statues, whose stone arms and claws seemed to cling to it. Though cut from naked bedrock, they were disturbingly life-like, as if no more than a whispered spell would shake them into frightful life. The stone face of the circular wall shimmered in the ethereal glow, more like the surface of a deep pool than rock.
Vaddi drew back a step, sensing the animate nature of that wall. It was no more than a curtain, draped over some primeval pit, but his attention was snared by what stood in the centre of the chamber a hundred paces away. It was a single column, no higher than his waist, bathed in the protective green glow of sorcery. On the flat top of the column was the Crimson Talisman.
Is it to be this easy? Do we just cross the chamber and snatch it? He looked at his companions and could sense that they were asking themselves the same questions. This must be a trap, yet.
Fallarond nodded toward the horn. Time froze for a moment and then Vaddi nodded. Still gripping Zemella’s hand, he led the rush into the chamber. The company remained banded together, those on its wings aiming their bows at shadows in preparation. They had crossed a third of the distance to the column when the shadows surrounding them came to life.
From all around the chamber, out of the cover of the huge statues, warriors erupted, hundreds of them. Whether they were men or demons, no one could say, for their armor completely shielded them and their helmets covered their heads, only their eyes visible. They carried broadswords and pikes, maces and axes, and they bore down upon the company in a circle that they meant to close like a fist.
Fallarond’s Deathguard had been trained to fight such opponents and had been ready since the moment they entered Azzahareb. They loosed the first wave of arrows and without exception they tore through the armor of the attackers. As quickly as the first wave died, a second followed, and within the space of a few moments the Deathguard had unleashed a dozen arrows each, hardly one failing to bring down a target, but vast numbers of the enemy were massed here. They closed the circle.
Fallarond shouted a command and his warriors stung their bows over their shoulders and drew their blades. The air hummed with spells as they flashed, their light mingling with and crackling against the powers in the glow from the braziers. The company met the onslaught with a unified roar, and for the first few moments of the battle they repulsed the attackers, their weapons slicing through sword, metal and bone with sickening ease. A mound of dead cluttered the chamber, impeding the progress of the assailants.
In the resulting chaos, the company was able to move closer to the column and the horn. Vaddi cut again and again with his weapon, seeing in the faces of the enemy a kind of dementia, wild eyes that blazed like the feral eyes of the inhuman, as alien as any of the horrors he had encountered on his journey from his native land. He felt the upsurge of his own bloodlust, needing to loose it, but wary of Zemella’s warning. Whether these creatures were undead or otherwise cursed by necromantic power, he could not say, but it was as though he fought against slavering wolves, more beast than man. They were careless of pain or death, cutting and thrusting like automatons.
It is not my death they want, though. Not one has tried to kill me.
Vaddi relaxed his defense, allowing the warrior facing him to swing an axe at him. Vaddi was right. The blow passed by him and the axe bit into the floor, sparks showering his feet, but he knew that the others were not protected, and he could see the ferocity with which the enemy attacked them. Already some of the Deathguard had fallen.
The carnage was dreadful, for countless scores of warriors, heedless of death, choked the floor of the chamber, their blood pooling, slippery and dangerous underfoot. Vaddi was trying to get a view of the talisman when he felt a tremendous blow strike him across the lower forearm. His sword fell from his hand, which felt suddenly very cold, as if it had been dipped into the ice water of a glacier. He bent to retrieve the weapon at once, but something crashed into the side of his head, knocking him sideways. He felt Zemella’s fingers torn from his grasp. He heaved himself to his feet, other blades spinning a defensive web around him.
He saw through dazed eyes a huge warrior, the man who had struck him, beating back the blades of the Deathguard. But in those eyes, Vaddi saw a grim hint of amusement. This was no undead, no vampire. He was human. His broadsword, which had numbed his arm and almost knocked him senseless, was of a familiar cast. It was a northern blade. Karrnath! How could that be?
Zemella! his mind cried. He twisted and turned amid the growing press of bodies, for the conflict had become ever more constricted. He could not see her, but he felt her. She was somewhere behind the huge warrior, who was himself easing back into the mass of his warriors, broadsword cleaving the air before him, warding off the Deathguard who tried vainly to break through his powerful defense. Vaddi saw Nyam make it to his side.
“Who is that?” Vaddi asked.
Nyam, parrying the onslaught of another attack, cursed under his breath. “He’s Karrn.” He warded off another cutting blow. “Warriors from … all … over.”
“Where’s Zemella?”
Nyam had no time to reply as a huge wedge of the enemy drove in between Vaddi and the warrior from Karrnath. Almost at once the attack halted.
The Deathguard, whose numbers had been cut in half, formed a defensive wall around Vaddi and Nyam, their chests heaving, their arms dropping with exhaustion. In spite of the immense damage they had done to the warriors, countless scores stilt surrounded them, ready to close in, for the kill. Instead they eased back, stepping over the mangled corpses of the numerous slain.
“Vaddi d’Orien,” said a voice. From out of the press, the huge warrior from Karrnath stepped forward, bloody sword pointed toward the youth. “You are a credit to your father. You fight as well as any man who ever wore the Orien unicorn.” He removed his war helm.
Nyam gasped. “Kazzerand.”
“Indeed.” The warrior grinned. “And you, peddler, have fought nobly. But we have no need of you or these Aereni.”
“Where is Zemella?” said Vaddi.
“Alive and unharmed,” said Kazzerand. “She is in safe keeping.”
He pointed with his blade, indicating the balcony opposite the circular wall, high up and overlooking the carnage below. Vaddi saw at once that Zemella was a captive there. Two black-armored warriors gripped her arms, preventing her from casting a spell, but it was the tall figure beside them that drew his attention. This must be Zuharrin. He was dressed in a flowing robe the color of night, which shimmered and rippled, uncomfortable to look at. His head, elongated, seemed almost insect-like, the eyes even from here like the orbs of a demon. Whatever powers this being trafficked in had long since drawn him into their influences. Whatever Zuharrin had once been, he was no longer human.
When he spoke, his voice rang out clearly over the chamber, sharp and as cruel as a predator’s claw. “Welcome, Vaddi d’Orien. Now that we finally meet, the work can begin in earnest. See the talisman that you crave. It is before you. Take it. It has always been yours.”
Zuharrin’s warriors had been slowly pulling back from the center of the chamber. As they did, the single column with its glowing prize again came into view, but Vaddi stared at it as though it were a serpent.
“Be careful,” whispered Nyam. “His influence over it will be great, and he has Zemella.”
Fallarond, his breastplate slick with the blood of those he had slain, eyed Vaddi. “We will protect you to the last. Take the horn.”
Vaddi moved forward until he stood beside the column. He could feel the intensity of the horn’s power, as if it called to him.
“Don’t touch it!” The voice of Zemella struck him like an arrow, and he drew back. Looking up at her, he saw another movement on the balcony beside her, and his heart truly knew despair. For he recognized the figure there.
It was Cellester.
Vaddi’s instincts drove him to attempt the abrupt transportation that would send him in the blink of an eye to Zemella’s side, just as he had transported himself in the Madwood, but his dragonmark was cold. He focused his energy on it, closing his eyes and exerting as much power as he could, but his skin might as well have been devoid of the mark. Something made him look up and he stared into the eyes of the cleric. Realization came to him then.
Cellester was suppressing his dragonmarked powers, as he had done for so many years in Marazanath and then on the journey south. Vaddi’s efforts to use them were impotent. Here, where they were needed most, they were useless.
Zuharrin stood at the very edge of the broken balcony, his eyes blazing in triumph. “Take your birthright. Claim it!”
Zemella tried to struggle in the grip of the two huge demonic warriors, but they held her fast.
“Obey me,” said Zuharrin. “If you do not, I will have your Valenar sorceress carved into a dozen pieces before your eyes!”
Vaddi felt another power intervening as his hand, still numb from the blow of Kazzerand’s sword. His hand stretched for the talisman. He was unable to prevent it, as if Erethindel were dragging him to it. He knew that Zemella would curse him for his weakness, but he could not see her harmed. Zuharrin had him at his mercy. But the talisman itself was working on him, in spite of his resistance.
His fingers were through the green mist and closed around the horn. Vaddi lifted it, holding it at arm’s length and gazing at it like one drugged. He could feel its powers, stronger than ever before, coursing into him, filling his veins. His anger was like fire, his nerves raw to its heat. Across the hall, the circular wall rippled like a mighty curtain, as if cut from fabric, not from stone.
Twice more the huge wall shook and then dissipated as though its presence had been no more than an illusion. Revealed beyond was a perfect circle of darkness, as if it gaped on the outer limits of the space beyond all worlds, but no stars glinted in that darkness, no Rings of Siberys, and no sound emerged from its infinite depths. Every eye in the chamber was locked on this vision.
Vaddi felt the horn working, drawing blood from him into itself. He was powerless to prevent it. Unlike the other times that he had used it, he knew that something else was controlling it, focusing its energy. He tore his eyes from the circle of blackness and stared up at Zuharrin. The sorcerer’s demonic face wore a victorious gaze, for in this place he was at last realizing his dream of power. It was he who mastered Erethindel’s secrets here.
In the circle of utter night, light coalesced, spinning to reveal what seemed to be a monstrous tunnel dug into the infinity of whatever dimension had been opened. The walls of the tunnel were like the curved workings of a titanic worm or serpent, as if they burrowed down into, not space now, but the heart of a world. Khyber! Vaddi knew it instinctively. Far, far down in that abyss, something stirred. He could discern a vague figure thrashing in pain or fury, wrenching at the bonds that secured it.
“T’saagash Mal!” said Zuharrin, and the name carried across the vast chamber to every ear.
As one, Zuharrin’s warriors fell to their knees and then bent to touch their faces to the stone floor, remaining in this position of genuflection. The garish light from the pit bathed them, and in its vile glow they transformed, shifting into fat, reptilian figures, fanged mouths agape, croaking and belching out a nightmare litany to their master. The Deathguard held their swords before these horrors, as if their glow could ward off the vision in the pit. Kazzerand and the other lords drew back, but they were eager to watch the developments.
From Erethindel, blood dripped over its lip and splashed on the stone below. The flow became a trickle, snaking its way across the floor toward the circular opening in the wall. Zuharrin was murmuring a soft incantation. As the blood crossed the brink of the dark opening, the figure in the depths shook itself and a roar came up from the distance. Something flashed down there, like molten fire. The demon T’saagash Mai was free of his chains. As the watchers gazed at the beast, it began to grow in size, coming up the long tunnel like a swimmer underwater rising to the surface. As it came, its huge size became apparent. A dozen writhing arms, claws shining hotly in the fire-glow, reached for the chamber.
The Deathguard looked away. Appalled at what had happened, Vaddi tried to cast aside the horn, but he could not. He felt it draining more and more of his blood, his vital energies, power from beyond him. T’saagash Mal would burst into the world and he would draw into himself the powers of old. They would not stop him. They would feed him! Zuharrin’s sorcery had unlocked the key to this perversion. Power crackled and sizzled like an electrical storm, colossal in its scope, mocking the paltry efforts of those who would hold it back.
Vaddi tore his eyes from the scene and looked in despair at Zemella. She, too, was aghast at what was transpiring, forcing her own eyes away from the monstrous form of the demon as he rose, gigantic and implacable.
Beside her, no more than a shadow in the proceedings, an afterthought, the cleric stood immobile, no trace of emotion on his own face, but his eyes looked into Vaddi’s now.
Vaddi met that gaze. Yes, he uses his power against me, just as he did on our journey. How? How can he have such power over me?
Even as the thought hit him, Vaddi felt something within him snap then shift aside, as if he were sloughing off a dirty garment. Cellester’s powers, as suddenly as they had snapped into place, had been withdrawn.
I have freed you, came a voice inside Vaddi’s mind. Act quickly.
Vaddi read something in Cellester’s eyes and understood. The cleric had rejected his master’s work. There was no time to ponder why. Up on the balcony, standing in shadow, a minor piece in the sorcerer’s moves, Cellester reached forward with both hands and gripped Zuharrin behind his arms, locking them.
“Go to Vaddi!” he shouted to Zemella.
The two warriors holding her were completely unprepared for the cleric’s action, and stunned by it, their own grip on the Valenar girl weakened. She kicked and elbowed her way free of them, pulling a sword from the scabbard of the first and ramming its point up into his vitals. The creature hissed in agony and was flung back over the edge of the balcony to fall on the floor below. In the confusion, the other made to draw his blade, but Zemella had sliced into his thigh too quickly for him, and he toppled forward to meet the returning swing of her blade, which opened his face in a bloody line from crown to chin.
Zuharrin screeched in fury, but Cellester held him firm.
Down below, Fallarond had seen what had occurred on the balcony. In one flowing movement he unslung his bow, fitted an arrow, and sent it into the stone of the wall inches below the balcony where it lodged. Dangling from it was a length of the thin cord that the Deathguard had used to scale the walls of the citadel. Zemella needed no second bidding. Lithe as a cat, she leaped, bent down, and gripped the cord. In one flowing movement she swung outward and began her descent.
Kazzerand, also watching, swore and stepped forward, sword swinging. He would meet the Valenar girl at the foot of the dangling cord.
Vaddi, partly freed of the sorcerer’s powers, called to the fallen sword he had dropped. Like a live thing, it rose up from the floor, green light vibrant about it. In a blur it shot through the air like a hurled javelin. Its point caught Kazzerand under the breastplate, just below his heart, and his armor was powerless to stop the plunge of the blade as it tore into him, splitting his heart in two, tearing completely through him and beyond, finally clattering to the stone in a steaming pool of blood and flesh.
Kazzerand’s mouth opened, as if he would shout out his defiance of this act, but no sound emerged. He collapsed onto his face.
Zemella climbed down the cord and joined Vaddi. Not giving him a moment to protest, she gripped the talisman, her hand closing over it and his hand. She swung them round to face T’saagash Mal together. The demon had risen to stand at the very threshold of the chamber his many arms weaving a grotesque pattern in the air, black powers cracking like whips.
On the balcony, Zuharrin shrieked in fury and smashed aside the hands of the cleric in a blast of scarlet light. Cellester was flung back like a rag into the shadows behind him. Zuharrin turned to him, face ablaze with anger.
“Do your worst,” said Cellester through waves of pain. His robes smouldered, his arms burned and blistered to his elbows, his hands a bloody ruin. He could not rise. He was utterly spent.
“Oh, I will,” said Zuharrin. “You have no idea.” He turned back to the scene below.
Zemella felt her own blood being drawn into Erethindel now, combining with Vaddi’s. It seemed impossible that there was so much of it, but she realized that both she and Vaddi were no more than vessels for something else. This was not their body fluid but dragon blood, drawn through them by the horn from some other source, its flow governed by ancient magics.
The blood that flowed down from them stopped at the lip of the vast opening and ran around the rim, highlighting the bizarre statues there in a blaze of crimson light. The opening shivered tike the hide of a great beast. Behind it, the shape of the demon halted its progress. Then it screamed.
It was tike the fall of a world. Not pain, not the rigors of a mortal wound, but the howl of infinite frustration. The dragon blood that ringed the opening had sealed it anew. T’saagash Mal could not pass.
The demon rammed his fists at the invisible fabric that stood between him and freedom. The air shimmered like glass. Vaddi and Zemella could feel it vibrating, twisting to the intense pressures the demon was bringing to bear. They felt waves of power emanating from behind and above them as Zuharrin threw his own energies into the conflict. Bolts of white light struck the surface of the opening, but they exploded against it, dissipating in steaming gobbets of fire.
Vaddi was bathed in sweat, his whole body weakening with each blow struck. He saw the enemy warriors, changed now into obscene, hopping monsters, rise up from their obeisance and prepare to attack. Fallarond responded at once, drawing the last of the Deathguard in a protective circle around Vaddi and Zemella. Once again, a bloody conflict raged. In wild desperation, the demon warriors pressed forward, heedless of their own destruction, and one by one, Fallarond’s indefatigable Deathguard were hewn or pulled down by the webbed claws of the massed creatures.
“Hold fast!” cried Zemella.
Vaddi felt his fury growing. He focused that madness, forged it into a blazing light, and was about to hurl it along the course of the bloodstream toward the demon, but he checked himself, hearing again, like a faint echo, the voice of Cellester. He focused on the cleric and flung the light bolt up at the place where he had fallen.
He watched as Zuharrin snarled in contempt, the bolt passing him. Vaddi could see the sorcerer redoubling his own efforts to break T’saagash Mal’s seals. It was only a matter of time before he triumphed. Vaddi felt himself weakening, succumbing to the intense pressure.
Vaddi saw his bolt strike Cellester, whose face writhed in agony at the searing pain. To his amazement, the cleric did not collapse, instead using the power of the bolt to reanimate his own flagging strength. Struggling to his feet, calling upon one last surge, he propelled himself forward, slamming into the back of the sorcerer. There was an explosion of brilliant light and Cellester was tossed like a straw doll over the lip of the balcony and down on to the flagstones below. He landed with a sickening thud, but Zuharrin had also been flung aside, and Vaddi could see that his powers had been deflected by the detonation. A wayward bolt struck the column beside the huge opening. It rebounded, tearing into the balcony and blowing it to fragments.
Zuharrin was catapulted out into the chamber. Vaddi watched as he landed across the very dais on which Erethindel had rested, his back smashed to ruin. Something in the dais, a residue of the horn’s energy, perhaps, seeped into him and held him. He lay there, arms twisted and broken. Blood seeped from his mouth, eyes, and ears. A figure stood above him, the green glow of an elf blade in its fist.
Vaddi and the company watched as Fallarond drove his sword down, pinning the sorcerer through the heart, the blade going deep down into the stone beyond. The body of the sorcerer shuddered and convulsed, and its sides ripped apart. Black fluid gushed out, encircling the corpse. It rose up and coalesced into a dozen bizarre shapes, like statues carved from thick oil. These slithered on incomplete limbs to the circle of the pit, coming together and merging into one mutated shape. It flapped brokenly at the stone surface.
T’saagash Mal screamed anew. The demon beat for a last time at the curtain that held him then one of the clutching talons reached through, closing on the malformed thing that had boiled out of Zuharrin’s broken body, squeezing it. Thick black droplets dripped through the claws, then T’saagash Mal fell back, tumbling once more into the deeps that had kept him for so long.
All around the hall, the last of the demon warriors became like headless things, their control lost. Their armor melted from them, and their swords turned to dust. The last of the Deathguard stood back, no longer needing to defend themselves.
Vaddi and Zemella felt something within Erethindel ease back like the slow withdrawal of a wave on a shore. Together they set the horn down upon the column, then they were in each other’s arms, holding themselves up, almost spent by their efforts. Beyond them, the dark circle on the wall closed once more, becoming cold stone.
The multitudes of transformed demon shapes in the hall, deprived of a focal point, swarmed like an infestation of rats out through the openings beyond the huge statues, like sewage floating away on a current, down into the furthest regions of Azzahareb, far from the light. For a long time the frightful sound of their passing came up from below.
Afterward Vaddi felt an arm on his shoulder and looked up through a haze of pain. Fallarond gazed down at him. “It is done,” he said softly.
Vaddi looked around at the piled dead, the smouldering ruins of the demon warriors. Among them, not one of the lords from Khorvaire bad survived. To his horror Vaddi saw that all but a handful of the Deathguard had perished.
“Nyam!” he gasped, breaking free of Zemella. “Where is he?”
Both Fallarond and Zemella looted about them, but at first they could not see the peddler. He was not standing.
Vaddi stumbled across the chamber, searching the fallen bodies, calling out the name of his friend. At last he found him, almost buried under one of the many-heaped mounds of the dead.
“Nyam!”
There was a groan of response then movement. Nyam slowly eased himself up on to an elbow. “Sovereigns, Vaddi, have I given up all my wealth to Vortermars for this? I can’t go on—”
Vaddi laughed, tears of relief springing from his eyes as he hauled on the peddler’s hand, dragging him out from the carnage.
“No need, old friend. It is over.” Vaddi helped him to his feet, but it was clear that Nyam had been only slightly wounded, both in the arm, the thigh, and across the side of his face.
“I’ll sleep for a month,” the peddler grunted.
“If that is what you desire, you shall,” said Vaddi.
Fallarond and Zemella joined them.
“We must quit this place soon,” said Fallarond. “We must rendezvous with the pirate and leave Xen’drik. Zuharrin has been destroyed, but who knows what other horrors lurk here? But before that, we must honor our fallen.” He indicted the Deathguard who had given their lives in the venture.
“Can we make a tomb of this citadel?” Vaddi asked. “Would it be a fitting place of rest for them?”
Fallarond looked sadly at the fallen bodies of his fellow Deathguard. “I think it would. What has occurred here today will be long remembered. Let us use this very chamber. Seal it up as we leave and wall our fallen safely in. Their presence will purge the last of the evil from this place.”
While Vaddi and Fallarond spoke, Nyam limped across the chamber, himself looking with sorrow at the bodies of the fallen Deathguard. How they had fought? He came to the remains of Zuharrin’s body, but it was like a broken statue, cracked open to reveal a hollowness within. It had been no more than a vessel, a convenient housing for the essence of the sorcerer. What had been snatched away by T’saagash Mal might have been that essence. Zuharrin had found his place in Khyber.
Nyam moved away, seeing another smashed figure under the shadow of the wrecked balcony. It was the cleric. This was no shell. His corpse was all too clearly flesh and blood, subjected to a grim ending when he had fallen from the heights. The eyes were open, but whatever vision they gazed on in death had given them the look of madness. An arm had been out flung from the blood-spattered robe, the fingers of its hand clutched around something, Nyam bent down and prized those fingers open. Discreetly he removed the object they had been clutching and slipped it out of sight in his own robe.
As he turned to go, the broken hand clawed at his arm. Nyam stared down in horror as something, a faint light, glowed in the cleric’s dead eyes. Bloody lips pulled back and whispered words through a crimson froth.
“Never … meant harm … to the boy.” Intense pain pulled at the cleric’s face as the distant light receded. “Deceived … him. And you. But also … Zuharrin. To … thwart him.”
Nyam nodded. “Be at peace, cleric.”
“Loved … her. Always. Indreen. Indreen, I … saved your son …”
Nyam knelt, one hand on the object he had taken from the cleric, and saw the final darkness close over him.
None of the others in the hall were aware of this exchange. Nyam rose, saying nothing of it as he returned to his companions. He saw that Zemella had taken Vaddi’s hand. Both were slick with blood, though little of it seemed to be their own. In Zemella’s other hand she bore Erethindel. It was cold now, lifeless as stone.
“What of the Crimson Talisman?” Nyam asked.
“Vaddi must bear it,” Zemella gave it to him.
“I will never call upon its power again,” Vaddi said. “I see now why the elves wanted it sent far from their lands. It is dangerous beyond understanding. Too dangerous for one to carry.” He slipped it into the folds of his shirt.
She cocked her head on one side and grinned at him. “You think so?”
“I think so. It will need at least two of us to watch over it. Always.”
“That sounds like a major commitment,” said Nyam, his smile full of familiar mischief.
“Yes, but I cannot command you,” Vaddi told Zemella, a sudden uncertainty rising within him.
She laughed. “Perhaps. But I agree with you. It will take two. Always.”