Shadowstorm (28 page)

“But we stand in the light,” one said.

“Aye,” echoed Regg, nodding approvingly at the young warrior. “That we do.”

Abelar nodded. “I’d have your swords with me but I will not order it. Any man may ride for Saerb and meet up with the rest of our company. There is no shame in it.”

“Bah,” said Regg, and turned a circle on Firstlight. “All are with you.”

Abelar looked into the faces of his men, took their measure. None looked away. None looked hesitant.

Pride and hope lightened him. Lathander had provided him countless blessings, none more important than the men and women who rode with him.

“Roen, I want you with me,” he said. “But a priest must see to the fallen.”

Roen nodded. “Driim, see that the dead are laid to rest.”

Regg added, “Knest and Morrin, you are Driim’s hands.”

“There is honor in that work,” Abelar said, and Driim, Knest, and Morrin nodded, though they looked crestfallen.

Abelar whistled for Swiftdawn. She came running and he climbed into the saddle.

“The rest of us ride,” he said.

“Like the Hells are at our heels!” Regg shouted. “Ride!” Trewe blew a clarion blast and the entire company thundered off under the light of the noon sun.

ŚŠŚ<§>Ś ŚŠŚ

Cale, Magadon, and Riven materialized on the rise overlooking Elgrin Fau. They said nothing. The task before them was too big for words.

Below, the ruins crowded close to the shadow-shrouded earth. The light from the gate flashed its mockery into the darkness. Cale imagined the army of wraiths gathered around it, waiting for word from him.

“They will want to know he’s dead,” Riven said.

Cale nodded. “That will wait. First, the dragon.”

“Now?”

“We wait a day,” Cale answered. “No longer.”

He remembered Magadon’s expression as he had opened the mind of the gnome woman. He remembered the words Magadon had said to him days before—lam falling, Cale, slippingaway with every moment. He remembered the black streaks in Magadon’s mindblade. He could not waste time.

He held his holy symbol in hand and cast one healing spell after another on his comrades. By the time he finished, they were mostly hale.

“Eat,” he said to them. “Rest. Tomorrow will be harder than today.”

Riven chuckled at that.

They camped on a rise overlooking Elgrin Fau. The next day they would face Furlinastis.

<5>

Gobitran’s head felt like it had been hit with a warhammer. Each beat of her heart sent a stab of pain from her temples to the crown of her skull. Her ears rang like war gongs. She opened her eyes, tried to sit up, but the room spun wildly. She swallowed and tried to keep down her last meal.

The shadow giants were already gone. None had stopped to help her. No wonder, considering the tortures she sometimes put them through.

They had left her for dead, and she would have been so but for the magical iron ring she wore that regenerated her flesh. The Divine One had given it to her.

The skin of her scalp still tingled. She felt still the echo of the half-fiend’s violation of her will, of his mental fingers rooting through her mind, sifting through her knowledge, sorting through her memories.

She had never felt anything like it before, but she had fought, had kept her secret tucked away in the dark corner of a dark hole, just as the Divine One would have wished.

She sat up, endured the nausea, and wiped the drool from her mouth.

The shadows coalesced in the room and the Lord Sciagraph formed from the pitch. His presence dominated her vision. His deep voice filled her ears.

“You have done well, Gobitran. You have well served both me and the Lady of Loss.”

She licked her lips and crawled forward to clutch at the hem of his leather robe. She inhaled its smell, his smell. “You are Shar’s Shadow, Divine One, and I am your servant.”

“You preserved the secret? The mindmage discovered nothing?”

She pressed his robe against her cheek and turned her head to look up into his dark face. His black eyes looked down on her, pierced her. She wondered why he did not already know the answer. Surely he had scried the events in the chamber.

“He and the Maskarrans learned only what you wished, Divine One. They destroyed your simulacrum and think you dead. They know that Furlinastis the Cursed holds what is rightfully yours.”

“How did they respond to that revelation?”

Gobitran looked up, not understanding the question. “Lord Sciagraph?”

The Divine One grabbed her by her topknot and jerked her off the ground to face him. She winced at the pain but dared not

protest. The Lord Sciagraph’s smooth, impassive features belied the anger in his eyes.

“I have sought the dragon for millennia. You have assisted in this in recent centuries.” He shook her by the topknot and she swung like a pendulum. “How did they respond to the dragon’s name? Did they know it?”

She did not understand how he could know so little. Was he not the Divine One, Shar’s Shadow, the Lord Sciagraph? She tried to nod but could not. “Yes, Lord Sciagraph. They knew the name. The one-eyed Maskarran cursed when I named the dragon. The tall one knew the dragon and where he was to be found. He knew. Scry them, Divine One. See where the dragon has hidden from you all these years. Kill him and take back what is yours.”

The Lord Sciagraph’s eyes grew thoughtful and he dropped her to the floor.

“I cannot scry them,” he said softly. “The Shadowlord cloaks them, just as he cloaks Avnon Des and the dragon. They cannot be found. They are ghosts.”

His fist clenched and Gobitran bowed her head in fear of his anger. He said, “I can only wait, confined to this spire.” He shook his head and placed his palm over the adamantine and amethyst holy symbol he wore on a chain around his neck.

“The servants of the Shadowlord trapped a part of me in the dragon. The servants of the Shadowlord must free it now.”

“Curse the Lurking Lord,” Gobitran said.

“It is appropriate that matters stand thus, Gobitran,” the Divine One said. “The Maskarran will serve me in ignorance and when they realize their folly, their despair will be sweet to the Lady.”

“I hear her voice in my dreams of darkness,” Gobitran said. The Divine One lifted her to her feet. “As do I, Gobitran. Come, we must prepare. The Shadowstorm is at hand. My imprisonment is nearly at an end.”

Hurried boot steps in the hallway carried through the study door. Tamlin looked up from his desk.

A brisk knock sounded on the door and Thriistin’s urgent voice called out, “Hulorn! Hulorn!”

“Enter,” Tamlin said, and rose from his desk. His hands shook. He crossed them behind his back as the door to the study opened.

Thriistin stood in the archway, breathing heavily, his gray hair mussed, his shirt partially untucked. “What is it?” Tamlin asked, alarmed.

Thriistin spoke between gasps. “You must come to the walls, my lord.”

Tamlin found his own breath difficult to draw. “The walls?”

Thriistin nodded. “The Saerloonian army is arriving.”

Tamlin’s mouth went dry. “Arriving? So soon? How? We have received no word of a march, merely a marshal—”

The bell of the Tower of Song rang, repeated peals that did not signal the hour but instead signaled a citywide alarm. The huge gongs of Lliira’s Temple of Holy Festivals joined it and kept time. Soon all of the bells, chimes, drums, and gongs of the city’s temples sounded in unison. Tamlin’s heartbeat pounded in his ears more loudly than all of them.

“You must see for yourself, my lord,” Thriistin said. “Lord Rivalen is already about.”

Mention of the Shadovar ambassador helped calm Tamlin. He took a deep breath, steeled himself. “Captain Onthul and Rorsin have been notified?” he asked Thriistin.

“Captain Onthul, yes,” Thriistin answered. “Rorsin, I do not know.”

“Send a messenger to him immediately. Where is Lord Rivalen now?

“The Khyber Gate, my lord. At Rivalen’s order, all refugees at the gate were granted entry and it is now sealed. A carriage awaits you outside the palace.”

“Very good,” Tamlin said, and managed to keep his voice calm. “Go, Thriistin.”

The chamberlain bowed and scurried off. The moment Thriistin turned the corner of the hallway, Tamlin took a moment to quiet his heart and compose himself. When he had a grip on his emotions, he quietly and quickly spoke the words to a series of spells that warded him against harm. He went to his desk, collected his weapon belt and rapier, buckled it on.

As ready as he would get, he put on a brave face and walked the halls to the carriage. A few servants within the palace watched him pass. They asked no questions—word must have spread already—but he saw the fear on their faces.

He stepped out of the double doors of the palace just as the warning bells of Temple Avenue rang their last. A lacquered carriage awaited him in the circular cobblestone drive. The driver stood beside the open door, awaiting him.

Tamlin took a step forward and his legs went weak under him. He caught himself on the stone banister that lined the wide stairway. The driver pretended not to notice. Tamlin gathered himself and descended the stairs to the carriage.

“My lord,” said the driver, and assisted him in.

He climbed inside, wondering what in the Nine Hells he would see when he reached the walls. The driver took his position on the bench, slapped the four-horse team with the reins, and the carriage lurched into motion.

The moment he cleared the palace grounds, he perceived the fear and tumult in the streets. Squads of armed Scepters and Helms bustled down the avenues toward the walls, strapping or pulling on helms, vambraces, and gauntlets as they went. Fearful residents hurried through the streets, heads down, as if braced against a storm. Shopkeepers gathered here and there before their storefronts, speaking with animated gestures to their neighbors. Wagons and carts sped recklessly down the thronged roads. Tamlin’s driver showed little interest in slowing for pedestrians.

“Do not run anyone down!” Tamlin barked at him through the window.

The rattle of the wheels on the cobblestones muffled the driver’s reply but he slowed the team. Uncertainty filled the eyes of those who stared into Tamlin’s carriage as he passed.

Presently they reached the Khyber Gate. Armored men and women, all bearing crossbows and blades, dashed up the gatehouse stairs and took station along the wall beside their fellows. Sergeants barked orders at them, moved along the forming lines. Artillerists manned the four swivel-mounted ballistae above the gate. Tamlin eyed the gates. Despite the spells, despite the added bands of iron, they still looked fragile to him.

Tamlin spotted Prince Rivalen atop the wall, staring out at the field beyond. A second Shadovar, smaller in stature, stood beside him. The darkness swirled around both.

Some Scepters near Tamlin shouted, “The Hulorn is come!”

Tamlin nodded at his troops and tried to appear unafraid.

Rivalen and his Shadovar companion turned and saw him. Where Rivalen’s eyes glowed golden, the second Shadovar’s eyes glowed like iron. Rivalen raised a hand in greeting and Tamlin answered likewise. The shadows swirled around both Shadovar and in a blink they stood before Tamlin.

“Gods, man,” Tamlin said, startled.

Scepters around him cursed with surprise.

Rivalen bowed slightly and gestured at his companion. “Hulorn, this is my younger brother, Brennus. I summoned him the moment I received word of the Saerloonians’ arrival. Shadovar troops are not yet available, but they are on the way. Meanwhile, I thought some assistance better than none.”

Brennus’s iron-gray eyes fixed on Tamlin. “Greetings, Hulorn. My brother speaks highly of you.”

Tamlin felt himself color. “Well met, Brennus Tanthul. Any assistance is welcome, especially that of the Tanthuls. Prince Rivalen has been an invaluable aid to me.”

Rivalen inclined his head.

“So I have heard,” Brennus said.

Two tiny, gray-skinned creatures with eyes the color of Brennus’s stuck their bald heads out of Brennus’s black cloak. With their leathery skin and blunt features, they looked carved from clay. Tamlin recognized them as homunculi, tiny constructs.

“Greetings, Hulorn,” they said in unison, their voices annoy-ingly high pitched. “We also are Tanthuls.”

“My homunculi,” Brennus explained. The naked, sexless creatures climbed his cloak and took perch on his shoulders. “I dabble in such things.”

“Things?” the homunculi asked angrily. They stuck their tongues out at Brennus.

Rivalen studied Tamlin. “You are warded. That is wise.”

“Not well, though,” Brennus observed, likewise eyeing Tamlin up and down.

“Well enough for now,” Rivalen answered. “There is time yet.

Tamlin did not ask how Rivalen and Brennus could have sensed his wards. The spellcraft of the Shadovar no longer surprised him. He felt inadequate before them—as a leader, as a mage, as a man.

“Come,” Brennus said. “You should see your enemy.”

Tamlin nodded, started forward.

Rivalen put a hand on his shoulder. “If I may, Hulorn.”

Tamlin understood, nodded.

The darkness coalesced around them and Tamlin felt a sickening lurch. When the darkness parted, he found himself standing atop the wall, flanked by the Shadovar Princes. He wobbled for a moment before finding his balance. What he saw caused him to wobble still more.

On the field outside, beyond the range of any of Selgaunt’s weapons, an army gathered. Hundreds of men stood arranged around Saerloon’s standard. Tamlin could not see the details of the pennons in the distance but he knew Saerloon’s symbol well—a single human eye of white, surrounded by a black border,

with a pupil made up of two tall, slim gray towers with a gold key between them.

As Tamlin watched, another score of men under Saerloon’s colors materialized from nothingness. Then another score, another, then another. He looked to the Shadovar for an explanation.

“A teleportation circle,” Brennus observed. “Powerful magics.”

“Cadellin Firehands?” Rivalen asked.

Tamlin did not recognize the name and Brennus shrugged. His homunculi mimicked the gesture. He said, “Possible. But Lady Merelith has the resources of the churches of Mystra and Azuth at her disposal. She is using them well.”