The Howling Delve

Chapter Twenty-Five

Cesira heard the servant calling her from the foot of the stairs. Since the explosion, none of them had dared venture into Dantane’s tower. While the druid appreciated having a place where her privacy was guaranteed, she’d come to the tower for a very different purpose.

The stones formerly connected to the tower’s ceiling were chipped and broken, forming rough crenellations. The tower had become her battlement—Cesira perched on one cloven stone in hawk form, gripping the ruined surface with her sharp talons.

The servant had come to tell her about the party approaching the house, but Cesira’s keen eyes had already spotted them on the road.

Cesira spread her wings and let out a cry, just to hear her voice echo into the twilight. She glided to the floor and transformed, standing barefoot in the center of the ruined tower as her vision gradually returned to its human limitations. She strode to the stairs and called down to the servant.

Show them in when they arrive, she said. After that, you’re dismissed for the night and the day to follow. Tell the others.

“My lady?” was the man’s timid, confused reply.

Lord Morel and I will not be in residence, Cesira said. Go quickly.

“Yes, my lady.”

My lady, Cesira repeated to herself. Gods help her. She had to get out of Amn. The audience she was about to endure would be her last in this wretched city, she vowed.

If she survived it.

The screams of night hunters greeted Kall’s ears as he waited outside Varans chamber. “Hurry, Meisha,” he said.

“Were coming.” Meisha stepped out into the passage, guiding the old wizard by the arm. He stumbled on legs unused to walking, but Meisha steadied him, whispering to him constantly, coaxing, encouraging, as one might handle a child—or a wild beast.

“Unwelcome,” Varan murmured as they walked. “Unwelcome, unwelcome you all are. You’ve never died before, none of you …” He snagged Kall’s arm suddenly. “But you will,” he hissed.

Gently, Meisha disengaged Varan’s hand and wrapped it around her arm. “Be easy, Master. We will bring you more work, more magic.”

“Broken,” Varan muttered. He lowered his gaze to his feet as he shuffled forward. “I’ll fix them all eventually.”

The net was still draped over the end of the tunnel when Kall and Meisha arrived. Laerin and Morgan lay flat on their bellies before it, watching the battle in the portal chamber. Dantane and Garavin waited some distance behind.

“How many?” asked Kall when Morgan crawled back to them.

“Dozen and a half,” said Morgan. He did not sound pleased. “They fight good.”

Laerin was equally subdued. “Your friend is with them,” he said. “The man from your party.”

Kall nodded. He should have been prepared, but it still felt as if he’d been hit with a fist. For a moment, he found himself at a loss as to how to proceed.

“The whole room’s like a bottle. Meisha and the wizard can fill the room with killing,” suggested Morgan, “before we set a foot inside.”

“But it gives the boy, Aazen, no time to explain himself,” Garavin said.

“Some of us are more concerned with not getting murdered,” said Dantane coldly. “If we act now, I can fill the room with lightning before they slay all the bats. It will buy the refugees more time as well.”

“They’re bound to have magical protection,” Laerin pointed out. “A wizard of their own, at least.”

“Dantane will single him or her out,” Kall decided. “But Garavin’s right. I want to talk to Aazen.” Dantane cursed, but Kall ignored him, addressing Meisha instead. “That’s how it’s going to happen. After I’m through, you’re free to fill the room with fire, just leave Varan here. He’ll be safe enough.”

Meisha nodded. Kall watched her guide Varan to a protected nook down the tunnel while the others gathered at the tunnel mouth. The sounds of battle were fading.

Kall drew his sword and sliced away the net. A pair of men saw him coming through. They raised bows, but a voice barked out, “Hold!” before they could fire.

“My thanks for that,” said Kall amiably as Aazen pulled his sword free of a deep bat’s body. He wiped the gore across the creature’s furred chest. “For a moment I feared you’d come to kill me.”

“We’ve come for the wizard,” said Aazen. “Give him to us, and your companions can leave unmolested.”

“And the folk who’ve been plying your father’s newest trade for these last years? What will their fate be?” Kall asked.

“Does it matter?” Aazen countered. “My only interest now is Varan. Let him go, Kall. He is too far gone to care what company he keeps, so long as he is allowed to continue his work. He’ll be safe with us.”

“Too many people have enjoyed your fathers version of ‘safe’ over the years, Aazen,” said Kall. “Yourself included. We both know neither of us is getting out of here without fighting our way out. Your father sent you to kill me.”

“Yes,” said Aazen.

“He’s done it before. But you couldn’t betray me then, and I don’t believe you’ll betray me now. Why not come with me this time, old friend?”

“You still don’t understand,” said Aazen. “My choice was made a long time ago. I cannot disobey my father. He is all I have.”

“You had me!” Anger and long-buried resentment sparked to life within Kall. “You could have started a new life. You could have escaped him.”

“As you escaped your father?” Aazen said coldly. “Where has your freedom—the freedom I won for you—brought you, Kall? Right back to Amn and the arms of the merchants, right back to the edge of death, only this time, I won’t be there to save you.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Oh, but it is,” said Aazen bitterly. “Our deeds are unforgivable, I grant you. I have no illusions about my life. But your father was as ruthless a murderer as mine.”

“No.”

“His actions sprang from the same darkness of heart. Why do you think friendship blossomed so easily between them? They were two similar creatures who came into conflict with one another.”

“My father was nothing like Balram!” Kall spat.

“He was brought down, crippled long before death, but if he’d been left unchecked, his cruelties might have come to rival Balram’s. Yet you’ve devoted your life to avenging him and restoring what he lost through his own folly. You never gave half so much thought to Haig’s legacy, did you? How terrified you must have been to even face his memory.”

“You know nothing of Haig.”

“But I know you, Kall. You stand before me in a cage as complex and binding as my own, and you have the gall to promise to free me?” Aazen laughed. “We are both trapped. We can only claw at each other from our prisons. The loser in this contest may end up being the fortunate one.”

“Is that the way it’s to be, then?” said Kall sadly. “Is that what you truly want, Aazen?”

The question seemed to stir his friend, and for a breath something faltered in Aazen’s gaze. Kall took a step forward, but Aazen recoiled, falling behind the men with bows. “Kill him,” he said clearly.

At close range, the arrows were a blur. Kall only saw the twin jets of flame. The missiles burned up in mid-flight.

Meisha materialized next to Kall, her eyes red as she stared down the bowmen. His friends appeared in a swarm as Dantane’s invisibility cloak fell away.

Garavin swung his maul, smashing aside the bows. Their bearers fell back out of reach of the massive weapon and broke their protective flank around Aazen. Borl ran alongside his master, snarling and herding them into a corner of the room.

Morgan and Laerin fought side by side with swords and daggers. They formed a rough wall for Meisha and Dantane to cast spells behind while Kall separated from the group and chased after Aazen.

Two heads of white-gold hair met him as Isslun and her twin crowded him from Aazen’s other side.

“Never turn down two at once,” sang Isslun as the twins attacked in unison. She slashed high, almost lazily, aiming for Kall’s throat. Her sister ducked under the strike and came up in a burst of speed at his guard.

Kall crouched, sweeping aside Aliyea’s blade. “How you survived the years since our last meeting”—he came up under her sword, forcing her to follow him back to his feet—“is a mystery.” He danced to one side, spinning so that Isslun was between him and Aliyea’s attack. “They’ve been hard years, though, haven’t they?” he taunted. He slashed his sword in a mimic of Isslun’s strike, tracing the line of a white scar running along the womans jaw. Isslun flinched, and Kall came at her. He shifted his grip, changed the direction of his swing and cut a much deeper line across Isslun’s stomach. She let out a shocked gasp, clutching at her abdomen.

Aliyea shouted her sisters name in rage. She drew a dagger from her belt and hurled it over her sister’s shoulder as Isslun crumpled to the floor. Kall spun away, but the fang sunk into his arm, and pierced through to the other side of the muscle. Pain ran a fire trail up his arm. Kall dropped back, kicking out with his foot to sweep Aliyea’s legs out from under her as she charged him. She fell, but she grabbed the dagger hilt protruding from Kall’s arm as she went down.

Kall felt muscle tear when the blade came free sideways, carving a hunk of flesh from his arm. Aliyea’s eyes glinted maliciously as he cried out from the pain. She gripped the dagger with both hands and raised it above her head.

The dagger burst into flame. Aliyea’s eyes widened. She released the burning weapon with a yelp of pain. In one movement, Kall snatched it out of the air, turned, and plunged it through a gap in her armor. The fingers of his maimed arm came away blistered from the fire. His stab wound bled liberally, making him lightheaded, but he had no time to bind it. The cavern swirled with fighters, far more of them foes. He jumped to his feet and over the twins, making his way to Garavin, who stood closest.

Near the rim of the chasm, the dwarf danced atop the ring of stones encircling the pit, swinging his maul angle-out, like a pendulum, to keep three Shadow Thieves at bay. Despite his heavy tread, the dwarf moved among the rocks as if he strode through mist, using his weight to lever the maul.

In the end, two of the men leaped forward. The man to Garavin’s left swung a light flail in imitation of Garavin’s maul.

Garavin feinted toward him but broke to the right, striking the second man a quick, snapping blow across the kneecap. The man’s leg went out, and he was down, scrabbling on the rocks to keep from falling into the pit.

The distraction allowed the dwarf to focus on the flail. The spiked ball wrapped around the handle of his weapon. The chain cinched tight.

Instead of grappling with the larger man, Garavin relinquished his weapon to keep his footing. The man yanked his maul away. Garavin clasped his holy symbol and mouthed a fast prayer. The triumphant smile disappeared off his opponent’s face. The maul turned upright, floating in the air as if held by invisible hands.

The man gaped at the rotating weapon. The maul shot out over the chasm, dragging the flail chain and its owner with it. The thief lost his grip on the weapon and pitched headfirst into the dark.

Garavin snagged his maul and the flail before they fell, turning with both weapons to the second man on the rocks.

He brought the maul around as the man swung an axe blade in a reverse chop aimed at Garavin’s chin. The dwarf blocked the blow, but the weight of both weapons was too great, and the impact of the axe drove him back hard. He skirted the lip of the chasm. The axeman lunged forward to try to force him the rest of the way into the pit.

A blast of hot air caught the dwarf from behind, pushing him forward. He smashed the maul through the axeman, clipping his opponent in the ribs. Bones cracked audibly, and the man fell back. Garavin threw a quick salute skyward, where Meisha hovered above his head.

The cavern’s ceiling was alive with aerial battle. Dantane and Meisha flew around each other, using stalactites for cover as they engaged the Shadow Thief wizard and his two protectors—a younger man and woman who appeared to be apprentices. Their hands moved in frantic, mimicking circles, weaving spell-shields for their master.

Meisha hurled her last two stilettos. The blades caught fire as they spun through the air. One burning missile caught the woman in the thigh, forcing her to break rhythm to put out the flames licking her robes.

“Dantane!” Meisha cried but the wizard was already casting. With one palm atop the other, his fingers flush in a rough X shape, Dantane yelled, “Krevatcya, dannan shae!”

The woman let out a desperate shout, but she couldn’t get the spell out in time. A ball of black energy formed under Dantane’s hands and streaked down to hit the other wizard in the chest, ruining whatever spell he’d been preparing. Instead of dissipating, the black energy mass crawled along his skin, trailing electrical sparks that singed his robes. The wizard tried to claw the ball off, gasping when his hands met a jolt of painful electricity.

Meisha spared Dantane a glance, but the wizard wasn’t looking at her. He’d paused to witness the effects of his own spell. The black energy sizzled along the wizard’s flesh. Dantane seemed detached, analytical as he watched it.

Thumb-sized teardrops of flame appeared, one above each of the fingers of Meisha’s open palm. She murmured an incantation, and the flames began to spin in a circle like tiny stars. They shot across the cavern, peppering the wizard’s apprentices with tiny firebursts. Protection spells flickered and peeled away as the wizard continued to grapple with the dark, killing energy.

Meisha grabbed the stalactite for leverage and swung around the base. She started to drop down and felt a painful coldness shoot up her leg. Whirling, putting her back to the stalactite, Meisha saw another thief crawling along the walls, his hands and feet covered with the same sticky climbing aid Talal had taken from the halfling. He held a barbed whip in one hand and a blade between his teeth.

Meisha put a hand over her thigh where the whip had ripped away cloth and flesh above her boot’s cuff. She was in the crossfire of the wizard and the whip-wielder now, and the man’s whip obviously bore some type of enchantment, for her leg was rapidly going numb with the cold.

She looked below. Morgan was nearest, but he bled liberally from a gash across his eyebrow. He ran below her to aid Garavin.

Her mind worked rapidly. Meisha pointed at the man on the wall, holding her arm out almost perpendicular to her body, affording him an easy target. He took the bait.

The whip snapped out, circling her arm, driving its barbs in deep. Cold spasms shot up to her elbow. Meisha clenched her teeth against the pain and called the fire. She prayed it would be enough to siphon off the cold. She pictured the whip in her mind—the shape, the coil of rope and spines when it lay at rest, then up, into human hands, ready to strike, to steal her life-force …

Fire filled her veins, coiled out from her trembling finger. She sent a jet spiraling along the whip’s length, all the way up the thief’s arms. The fire whip slashed across his face, leaving a red line between his nose and his ear.

The man shrieked and raised his hands to his face. His grip on the ceiling faltered, and he fell to dangle above the tumult by his legs.

Meisha did not linger to see if he would drop. Her arm fell uselessly to her side, aching with the pressure of a thousand needles. She pushed off the stalactite with her good leg and flew to a corner, putting her back to the wall for some cover.

The battle below was growing more and more desperate. For all their skill, they were outnumbered. Where was Dantane?

Then Meisha saw him, flying up from the ground. He intercepted a stream of missiles from the wizard, who’d managed to rid himself of the black energy but not its effects. The electrical ball had burned his robes away at the chest, exposing singed hair and blistered skin. His face trembled with rage. Dantane smiled and cast another spell.

“Dantane!” she cried.

“Are you all right?” the wizard asked when he flew up to join her. He came in at an angle to examine her leg.

“Forget it,” said Meisha. “The arm’s worse. I can’t cast, not for a while.”

“We don’t have that long,” Dantane replied. He rummaged in a pocket of his robes.

“Were not going to make it.” Meisha leaned her head back against the wall. She was sweating. So hot… .

Dantane pressed a vial between her limp fingers. “Drink this. Stay here,” he said. “I’ll get to Kall.”

Meisha started to ask what that would serve, but she saw something across the cavern that stole the breath from her body.

Talal, clutching one of her boot daggers—she hadn’t even known it was missing—was sneaking up behind one of the men fighting with Laerin. The half-elf saw the boy in time to check his own swing, a blow that would have cleaved through his opponents skull and likely taken Talal’s head as well.

“Fool,” Meisha whispered, a sob in her throat.

White-faced and shaking, the boy reared back and stabbed the Shadow Thief. The boy wasn’t strong, but he had four years of pent-up hatred and grief driving the blow. Meisha didn’t see where the blade penetrated, but the man stiffened. Blood trailed from the corner of his mouth. Laerin danced to the side to avoid being borne to the floor with the body. He was just in time to catch Talal as he, too, pitched forward unsteadily. Laerin pushed the boy behind him.

Across the cavern, Kall saw Dantane flying toward him. He pulled his blade out of a Shadow Thief and moved to meet him, but another figure rose up in the wizard’s path. Kall stepped aside, expecting Dantane to hurl a spell at the fool. Then he saw the tattered robes, the wild hair… .

“Varan!” he heard Meisha shout, but the din of battle reduced her cry to nothing.

Dantane saw the wizard too late. He tried to pull up, but flew straight into an invisible wall. The impact sent him reeling backward. He lost control of the flight spell and fell to the cavern floor at Varan’s feet.

The fire beast howled in triumph. In his mind’s eye, he forced the wizard to crawl to the man lying prone on the ground.

Bring them, the beast thought. He bore down on the link between his mind and the wizard’s, pressing mental tongues of flame against Varan’s will. He enjoyed reducing the wizard to little more than a dog, herding his prey to exactly where he wanted them.

Embrace our bond, the beast cooed, and heard the silent screams of the wizard trying to resist the mental command. Join me, and witness power unimaginable. I know your thoughts. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? Who would deny such a dream?

The wizard sobbed pitifully, and the beast reached out to stroke him again with fire and claws. He gloried in the ensuing screams, as the wizard went to carry out the beast’s will.

Kall broke into a run, heedless of the danger. Cold dread welled up inside him. He swept aside a blade that came at his flank and kept going. He was almost to Dantane when pain exploded in the back of his neck.

Kall went down in a protective crouch. He swung around and saw the halfling reloading his sling. Aazen motioned the halfling back and stepped to block Kall’s path. Behind him, Varan rolled Dantane’s unconscious body over, feeling inside the wizard’s robes. He removed the portal key and turned. Kall saw his face clearly for the first time.

Varan looked terrified.

Kall sprang up. He raised his weapon to cut a path, but Aazen was there, his blade ringing off Kall’s enchanted sword. “I need him alive,” Aazen said, shoving Kall back.

“He’ll kill us all!” Kall swung the blade high, angling it at his best friend’s head. He did it without thinking, putting killing force behind the blow.

Aazen ducked, maneuvering to attack from Kall’s wounded side. Kall twisted and blocked, but was forced to retreat a step away from Varan.

“That’s it, Kall,” said Aazen, stalking forward, inviting Kall to continue his attack. “This is exactly how I need you to be.”

Kall swung again, bewildered. Had Aazen gone mad as well? “Meisha!” he shouted. If she could get Varan’s attention, get through to him, they might have a chance.

Varan took the key and crawled to the dark pit. Tears streamed from his good eye, and he clutched the empty socket, making pitiful mewling noises as he moved.

“Please, don’t!” Varan cried as he approached the edge of the chasm. He stared down into the dark, his terror magnified by whatever he saw. “Don’t make me!” He grabbed the pouch at his neck, as if to tear it away. His hands locked into claws around the bag, and he screamed. With a violent motion, he reached inside the pouch and pulled out something small and black. Fumbling, he pressed the object against his empty socket.

It was an eye, Kall realized, but it was no human orb.

Black, with thready gray veins bulging from the sides, the eye was too large for the space Varan intended. Kall watched, sickened, as the wizard forced the organ into place with a howl of agony.

Varan lifted the stolen portal key in his other hand and slammed it down against the rocks. Words of power, dredged up from some unwilling place deep inside him, spilled out into the darkness.

The cavern began to shake in great, wracking tremors. Light flared, a halo that burst from the chasm, momentarily blinding everyone in the cavern. Meisha tried to fly, but a falling stalactite struck her out of the air. The blow knocked her senseless. She dropped, straight toward the pit.

Kall saw her fall, saw her body disappear into the green light. He cried out in wordless grief that manifested in a jarring blow against Aazen’s sword.

She was gone, Kall thought. He hadn’t been able to save her after all.

Grief melted into rage. Kall batted aside Aazen’s unresisting blade and knocked him to the floor. For a moment, he fought the urge to keep going, to run his blade through Aazen’s heart. “Kall!” Morgan cried.

Chest heaving, Kall tore himself away from his friend’s prone body and ran for the chasm. The cavern was still shuddering. The tremors seemed to come from deep below ground. More stalactites and rock shook free of the ceiling and dropped in a deadly rain. He dodged a spear that plunged to the floor where he and Aazen had just been fighting. Aazen had gotten to his feet and was looking to his own remaining men, issuing commands Kall could not hear over the rumbling.

Kall made it to Dantane. He hauled the wizard up into a sitting position. Varan had collapsed on the stones.

Dantane opened his eyes. They widened—he grabbed Kall by his uninjured forearm. “ ’Ware!” he cried.

Kall reversed his blade, stabbing backward blindly, but Garavin was already there, using his maul to pluck a Shadow Thief off his feet like a rag doll.

“We have to go!” the dwarf shouted over the rumbling. “The place’ll come down on our heads.”

“Tunnel’s blocked!” called Laerin from the far side of the cavern. He held Morgan by one shoulder, Talal the other. They limped across the room to join the group. The Shadow Thieves left alive had ceased their attacks in light of the greater danger. “It’ll take a while to clear it.”

“We don’t have any time,” said Kall.

“It’s another portal,” Dantane said, pointing to the glowing green halo, which had formed over the chasm rather than the shaft above. “The wizard wanted someone to go through it.”

“Like Hells,” said Morgan. “I say we go back through the shaft—take our chances with the Shadow Thieves.”

Kall stared down the chasm. “Meisha’s down there,” he said. “She may still be alive. The rest of you use the key to activate the other portal once I’m gone, but I’m going through this one.” Garavin called Borl to his side. “I’ll take my chances with ye,” he said simply.

“As will I,” said Laerin.

Morgan spat. “Don’t be believing him!” he said. “He’s just doin’ it to make me look bad.” He faced the portal reluctantly. “Let’s go then, if we’re goin’.”

Kall helped Dantane to his feet. One by one, they stepped off the stones, into the green light, until only he and the wizard remained.

“What about him?” asked Dantane.

Kall knew he meant Varan, but Kall stared across the room at Aazen. He’d gathered his remaining forces under a protected shelf of rock near the blocked tunnel, but even that meager cover was cracking, coming apart like the rest of the cavern.

“He’s on his own,” said Kall. “So are you, Dantane, if you leave now.”

The wizard shook his head. “I haven’t gotten my reward yet. I go with you.”

“Suit yourself.” They stepped off the edge, into nothingness.