Uneasy Alliances

Chapter 3

The passage was sufficiently large that under ordinary circumstances no one would have felt trapped. However, as Kern had warned them, large blocks of stone had fallen from the ceiling, making their way cramped and difficult. Noph had to assist Entreri in several places, since the little man's arm was still injured from the attack of the shadeling.

The way ran straight for perhaps twenty yards, then bent left and began to descend in a series of sweeping curves. The humid air grew stifling.

Noph could see the glow of Kern's torch flickering on the moldy walls as he descended endlessly down a flight of circular stone steps. Here the effects of Aetheric's rage were much less, but the explorers were disturbed to see several large cracks in the walls, whose ragged edges showed them to be of very recent origins.

"There's a room of some kind ahead," called Kern in a muted voice. The echoes reverberated tantalizingly up the stairway.

The companions reached the bottom of the stairs and stood looking at a black, empty space before them.

No, not quite black, for somewhere ahead of him, Noph thought he could see a faint pulsing glow. The ceiling stretched to an unknowable height and was supported by a forest of stone pillars, intricately carved, that marched into the blackness in ordered rows. The path between them was an elaborate tiled mosaic, scuffed with the tread of many feet.

"Listen," whispered Ingrar. Somewhere out in the darkness, water lapped against stone.

They went forward toward the glow in the dark. Kern led the way now, with Entreri at the rear. Noph thought he detected a faint keening sound above the shuffle of their footsteps and the wash of the waves, which sounded louder now. He also noticed that Ingrar, walking next to Kern, apparently no longer needed the paladin's touch to guide him through the dark.

As if to confirm Noph's thoughts, Shar whispered in his ear. "Ingrar hears the bloodforge." Her voice quavered unexpectedly, and Noph realized with a shock that she was afraid.

Ingrar came to a sudden halt. They were still too far from the glow to see clearly what was causing it. The water and the sound Noph had detected earlier were the only noises in the darkness.

"Can you feel it?" whispered the blind pirate.

Although Noph could see very little, there was an odd tangible quality to the air, almost as if it had grown thicker and was distorting what little vision he had. His skin felt dry to the touch, although sweat dribbled down his brow.

"Hang on!"

Kern's voice spoke behind Noph, the echoes resounding off hidden walls. The paladin was turning from side to side, peering into the darkness.

"Where's Entreri?"

The others gathered in a circle, cautiously exploring by the light of the torches. The little man was nowhere to be seen.

"Curse him in the name of Tyr!" Kern's sword was out and at guard as he stared into the concealing blackness that surrounded them. "Could he have gone back?"

Shar shook her head. "Never. If you think he'd retreat this close to the bloodforge, you don't know him."

Kern stood uneasily for a moment, shifting from one foot to the other while the others waited.

"Well," he said finally, "we'll go on. If something got him, we can't help him, and if he left on his own, I don't want him." He took up a position beside Ingrar and pointed with his sword.

"Let's go."

Ingrar stretched out his hands before him and gestured, almost as if pushing the heavy atmosphere aside, then started forward. Noph could hear Kern, beside the young man, softly chanting a prayer to Tyr beneath his breath.

The rows of pillars suddenly parted and stretched in a great semicircle round a high stone altar. Where the pillars ended, light revealed the wavelets of an underground lake that stretched up to the very foot of the altar. The torches that Kern and Entreri carried flared brightly, then flickered and went out. But they needed no light to see clearly what lay before them.

It lay atop a carved stone pillar before the altar, pulsing with its own internal glow that spread dancing shadows about the pillars and across the water. From it came the high-pitched humming that Noph had detected earlier.

In form, it was a round stone, no more than a foot in diameter. The colors that came from within it mirrored the entire spectrum, a luminous display that shone brightly but without warmth.

Round the altar were carved bas-reliefs. Noph recognized with a shock the same squidlike figure he'd seen in the fountain where he first met the mercenaries, a figure he now knew to be the mage-king.

As the party stared in silence at the bloodforge, a slender shadow slipped from behind the altar. In the unnatural light cast by the forge, they could see the cold, composed countenance of the master assassin, their erstwhile leader.

Entreri's thin face was lit by the glowing bloodforge, its shifting colors casting sharp shadows along the contours of his visage. His eyes matched the glow of the stone as he moved toward it, hand delicately outstretched.

"No you don't." Trandon stepped cautiously to the stone pillar supporting the bloodforge. At the same time, Entreri carefully circled behind the artifact. Trandon stared in fascination at the changing hues and patterns on the surface of the stone.

"How does it work?" he muttered.

"Never mind that." Kern had taken his warhammer from his belt and raised it over his head. "In the name of the true god, I destroy this engine of evil-"

"Kern, no!" Trandon stepped between the paladin and the bloodforge. "We don't know what this thing is. We don't know how to destroy it, or if we should destroy it."

A dry chuckle turned both men about. Entreri stood unmoving, an angry sneer on his lips. Tour concern is unimportant," he snapped. He moved suddenly, and there was a silver flash as a dagger sped from his hand at Kern.

Trandon's staff came up to block it. The dagger struck the wood and stuck there, quivering. "Stop, you idiot! This thing isn't a toy. We must find out how it works!"

Entreri laughed aloud and drew his sword. The stone turned a deep red, and the little assassin's lips seemed to drip blood as he spoke. "It creates armies. Out of thin air." He gestured to the carvings on the altar. "If you're looking for an instruction manual, old man, you've got one right behind you. But I found it first, while you were all groping about in the dark back there. Now you won't last long enough to use it."

Trandon matched Entreri's maneuvering, his eyes flickering in the direction of the carvings that ringed the altar. He paused suddenly, his gaze narrowing. "So that's it. That's what shows you how to use it."

Entreri lifted his sword, the blade gleaming scarlet. He reached up and suddenly grasped the naked blade with his free hand, jerking the sword across it in a hard, sharp motion. He extended his hand, fist clenched tightly, over the stone.

"It's called the bloodforge. It needs blood. It feeds on blood."

There was a hiss as the assassin's blood, squeezed from his slashed hand, dropped onto the stone's surface. To Noph's eyes, aching from the glow, the blood seemed to spread across the entire surface of the forge, shimmering, separating, and recombining in a series of ever more complex patterns. The humming that filled the cavern increased in volume, and from the forge stepped a man.

Yet only half a man. His limbs were twisted and hideously distorted, his neck bent as if broken. One leg was shorter than the other, one arm a tiny withered appendage, while the other ended in a massive knotted fist.

The creature moaned in pain and lunged at Trandon, lifting its good arm against the paladin. Trandon's staff countered the blow, but he was driven back, and the forged creature followed after him, hacking furiously at his opponent with fist and feet.

Kern's warhammer rose again, only to be turned aside, this time by Sharessa's blade. "No, paladin. A fair fight. Let them continue." She grinned impishly at him. "Unless you think you can go through me-in a fight or in a bed. You're welcome to try either."

Noph had drawn a dagger at the first sign of trouble, but now he stood silently looking at the developing conflict, unable to choose a side. Ingrar stood near the bloodforge, his arms dangling. His voice rose in an urgent shout. "Stop this! Stop it at once! There's danger coming! Terrible danger!"

The combatants ignored him. Trandon and the golem were hard at one another; the fighter tried to maneuver his opponent back toward the water, evidently hoping to push him in. Kern and Sharessa were still sparring with one another, only half-seriously but prepared to escalate the fight if need be.

"In Tyr's name!" shouted Kern.

"In Tyr's name," came a mocking echo from the blackness, but not in Kern's voice. There was the sound of running feet along the pillared way they'd come. Kern and Sharessa lowered their weapons and turned to face the noise. Trandon, with a vicious thrust of his iron-shod staff, laid low the forge golem and kicked its body into the underground lake. He joined Noph, who slowly backed up to put himself next to Sharessa.

The glow of the forge showed a group of hooded figures, perhaps a dozen of them. They held swords in their hands, but their faces were in shadow. The foremost one, evidently the leader, stepped forward and addressed the company.

"In the name of the temple of Tyr, I claim the bloodforge. Stand aside."

"Now, wait just a minute…" began Sharessa.

At her side, Kern suddenly lifted his warhammer. "There is no temple of Holy Tyr in this land," he said sternly. "You must be false worshipers to claim his name."

The hooded figure hesitated, then spoke. "We are the true temple of Tyr. The bloodforge is ours by right, with the fall of the despicable Aetheric, who suppressed our temple. We claim it, and we shall take it by force if necessary."

Kern's voice grew in power. "You are false worshipers," he repeated. "You are the Fallen Temple, whose foundations I have sworn to destroy. Begone, or suffer the consequences."

The hooded figures circled slowly around the party, who stood with their backs to the bloodforge, save Artemis, who stared intently at the carvings on the altar. The leader of the cultists raised his blade, tinted red in the glow from the forge. "Let all perish who-"

Artemis stepped forward. His outstretched hand, stained with blood, came down squarely on top of the forge. The keening of the bloodforge rose in pitch until it was almost deafening. Its light waxed brilliant, blinding, surrounding the figure of the assassin in a halo. In the sudden blaze of light, Noph could see beneath the cowls of the cultists. He could see their tattooed faces, their slavering mouths, their bloodshot eyes, desperate for a new sacrifice to their false god.

A bolt of pure light surged from the stone, wrapping around Artemis's arm. His mouth opened as if to command the energy, then turned into a wordless scream of agony. The flesh of his arm seemed to melt and dissolve. He pulled back from the forge and stared at white bones that still, horrifyingly, flexed and scraped in a parody of human action. Entreri stared at the arm for a moment, as if his brain refused the evidence of his eyes. Then his body went limp, and he collapsed by the forge in a heap.

From within the forge came a deep-throated roar. A man emerged-or seemingly a man, though larger than any man could possibly be.

Noph started back from the figure in horror. Like Artemis's first creation, the forge-made man was only half finished. Veins and blood vessels twisted together with muscle uncloaked by flesh. Bones appeared in some places but were hidden in others. The figure screamed, a high-pitched yell of pain and horror, then lunged forward at one of the hooded figures and bore it to the floor. His massive hands, flesh and muscle shredding from them, locked around the false worshiper's throat.

The forge's unholy light continued to blaze and flare. More creatures emerged, horrid mockeries of men and animals, their bodies twisted and crushed. Some could barely move, but crawled forward on knees or stumps of legs not fully grown. One, a mere head and torso, wriggled helplessly backward and fell into the lake with a splash. Another, a skeleton from the waist up but with the lower limbs of a man, seized a worshiper and bit cleanly through his neck before collapsing in a shapeless heap of bones. The cultists hacked and slashed at the deformed warriors, shouting encouragement to each other.

The companions shrank back against the altar in horror at the force Entreri had unwittingly released. Shar knelt over the assassin's body and wrapped his maimed arm in a scarf. She put her mouth against Kern's ear and shouted, "Come on! We've got to get out of here!"

"Where?" The paladin looked about, desperately seeking a means of exit. The forge was no longer spewing forth its mutated creatures, and most of those it had created were either cut to pieces or had lurched off into the darkness, wailing in inhuman voices. A number of the cultists were still on their feet and bearing down upon the company.

"Now! Cut a way past them to the stairs." Shar led the assault with a whoop, followed closely by Kern and Trandon. Noph bent and lifted the unconscious figure of Entreri, surprised at how light the body of the assassin was. Ingrar followed him, one hand on his shoulder, and together they made their way slowly back whence they had approached the forge, shielded by the sword of Shar, the warhammer of Kern, and Trandon's whirling staff.

It was clear that escape was hopeless. Burdened with Entreri's body, the party moved too slowly, and the devotees of the Fallen Temple were too many.

"I can't… keep this… up," panted Shar to Kern.

The paladin continued to wield his hammer, but his arm was growing weary. The bloodstained weapon rose and fell more slowly.

Trandon's hair had escaped from its leather thong and fell freely about his shoulders. The fighter suddenly stepped in front of the others, facing the entire onslaught of the cultists himself. "Get back!" he yelled.

As the others staggered between the columns of pillars, Trandon raised his hands and whispered a word. A great gout of flame spouted forth, catching the leading Fallen Temple worshipers in its blast. Their screams were lost in the roar of the fire as it spread to either side and rose, forming a wall of flame. Trandon turned to the rest of the company.

"Now! Run!" he cried. Recovering from their astonishment, the others turned to flee.

As he ran, Noph looked back. From beyond the flames he could see a brilliant glow where the forge lay. Bolts of magical energy shot from it toward the fire. The wall bulged ominously.

"Look out!" shouted the youth. He tried to run faster, but it was too late. With a terrific explosion, Trandon's wall of fire erupted. Noph saw dimly before him the pillars toppling against one another, like so many ninepins. Stones tumbled from the ceiling; he saw one strike Sharessa, knocking the beautiful pirate to the pavement. In a daze, he realized there was no longer solid ground beneath his feet. He and Entreri were falling. There was a dull roaring in his ears. And then silence.