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Sins of Our Fathers II - New Art Uploaded - 1/25
- Thread starter Destan
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trexmaster
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Funeris said:
I don't need any excuse to BUMP an excellent SH
trexmaster
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What ?
This thread's on second page ?
That's Heresy !
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This thread's on second page ?
That's Heresy !
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Destan
Citizen of Val Hor
Chapter Nine
The story thus far:
The Brothers of Olgotha departed in different directions shortly after defeating the demon Ral within the Sorrow Elf’s barrow.
Baden Dost rode toward Axemarch, to ascertain the status of his clan.
Amelyssan and Vath fled from the wolven westward across the Weedsea, and were killed by ankhegs beneath the plains.
John, Raylin, and Kellus accompanied Anar von Girval, a paladin of Lathander, northward to the town of Lonely Heath. There, Anar left them in pursuit of a man known as Guntir Sharpnose. The three companions struck southward toward Val Hor in the hopes of locating the Archmage Destan the Grim. While en route, John was killed by a spider wasp amidst the shadowy boles of the Boarswood.
Raylin and Kellus were found, near death, by Calahen clansmen. The clansmen carried the two adventurers to Val Hor and deposited them with Brother Daladon, a feratu demon posing as a priest of Lathander. Mariadon, Archbishop of Lathander and friend to Destan, rescued Kellus from his interrogation at the hands of the feratu. The demon was allowed to exit the Cathedral.
Seven days have since passed, and no word has yet arrived in Val Hor as to the fate of the missing Brothers…
***
His Grace Mariadon, Archbishop of Lathander, was a man well past his prime. But, by Helm, Kellus silently swore, the man can set a torrid pace. Kellus struggled to keep apace with the Archbishop as they wound their way through the sunlit corridors of the Morninglord’s Cathedral.
Mariadon was talking, and Kellus did his best to listen. “…first concerned with Daladon when I noticed he had missed two consecutive morning services. Very odd, that.” Mariadon turned his head toward Kellus without slackening his stride. “Brother Daladon never missed a service.”
If Raylin also had trouble matching the elder cleric’s gait, he did not show it. The clansman’s face was troubled by thoughts, but untouched by perspiration. “Your Grace,” Raylin began, the honorific sounding odd in his own ears, “if you knew Daladon to be an imposter, why did you allow him to leave?”
Kellus grimaced. Raylin had pressed the Archbishop on the issue of Daladon’s “escape” numerous times – not all of them tactfully. The Larrenman, Kellus thought, still felt the loss of his favorite longsword; the weapon was one of many items Daladon had given the Calahen mercenaries when Kellus and Raylin had been deposited at the temple’s steps.
“I have told you, Master mac Larren,” Mariadon answered with infinite patience, “I had my reasons. And soon – very soon – I will show them to you.” The Archbishop stopped before a set of bronze doors set within the rear wall of the Cathedral. “First, however, you must attend to other matters.”
Kellus knew Raylin well enough to recognize his growing anger. Kellus turned quickly to Mariadon. “Your Grace, our strings have been pulled by people we have not met for causes we do not understand. It is an ill thing to be treated in such a manner.”
Mariadon smiled softly. “Brother Kellus, have not you asked your superiors about the treatment you have received?”
“I have.”
“And?”
“Bishop Thularr ordered that I obey your wishes in this, as in all things.”
“Ordered?”
“Requested.” Kellus frowned. Helm’s clerical hierarchy was not known for their leniency; subordinate priests were ordered, not asked. At least, such was the way of Helm years ago before Kellus forsook his vows. He found that he disliked the apparent freedom now extant within the Church; Kellus’ recent wanderings had given him a lifetime’s worth of ambiguity.
“Bishop Thularr is a good priest,” Mariadon chided, “and a better man. If you do not trust me, then trust him.”
“I trust you, Your Grace.” Kellus meant it. “As does Raylin. But we have many unanswered questions.”
“Such as?”
Kellus looked to Raylin before answering. “The question remains - why did you allow the feratu demon posing as Brother Daladon to leave your Cathedral?”
“Faugh!” Mariadon waved a hand, causing motes of dust to swirl within the sunlight streaming downward from paned windows overhead. “That question has just been asked, and I have given my answer. Ask another.”
Raylin stepped forward. “Our possessions - those that were given to the Calahens. We would like to have them returned to us.”
“Those items were paid to the clansmen that brought you here and, I might add, saved your lives in the process.” Mariadon searched Raylin’s gaze with his own. “I will see they are replaced. Yes?”
“When I was born, Your Grace, my mother’s birthing blood was caused to spill onto the blades that were stolen from me. Her body now nurtures the growing things within the prairies of my homeland.” Raylin’s voice was low but steely. “The swords cannot be replaced, and it pains the spirits of my fathers to know a Calahen dog now wields them.”
The Archbishop stared at Raylin for a long moment. “Then I ask your forgiveness, Raylin mac Larren, as does my Church. The Archmage Destan has many friends within the traders and trappers that visit this city. I will ask him to relay your concerns to such men, in the hopes they might locate the Calahens and purchase-”
“They sang songs over his body.”
Mariadon blinked. “Eh?”
Raylin’s teeth were clenched, his jaw iron. “The Calahens. They sang songs over the body of our friend John. I would have them sing another tune, and soon.”
“Those thoughts, my friend,” the Archbishop rejoined softly, “are best left to lay fallow. There is much evil in the world without men creating more.”
Raylin nodded as if accepting the point, and Kellus – for a brief moment – was relieved. But when the ranger next spoke, there was no forgiveness in his heart; children of the Weedsea cast aside such an emotion when still beardless. “‘Alone on the field, when the sun does fade, stands a son of Larren, all debts paid.’”
The Archbishop suddenly showed his years. Kellus was amazed – Mariadon seemed to plummet into old age in the span of a few heartbeats. When next the Archbishop looked at Raylin, his eyes were…pleading? No - anguished. “I know those words, my son - ‘tis a marching song of your people, is it not?”
“A victory song.”
Mariadon sighed. “A eulogy.”
The sounds of Val Hor’s markets drifted through the thick stones of the Cathedral, making the sudden silence more keenly felt. Mariadon shook himself, as a man awaking from an unpleasant dream. “Forgive me. This morning is for glad tidings, and I would not be the one to ruin it.”
The Archbishop did not wait for Kellus or Raylin to reply. Rather he turned, grabbed the handles of both doors, and pulled them inward.
Sunlight flooded the hall, blinding and brilliant.
“A friend,” Mariadon breathed as he squinted into the dawn. “A friend awaits the both of you.”
***
Baden believed he could squeeze juice from a diamond and water from a rock. On his naming day he had bear-hugged his father into submission, and all Axemarch dwarves knew the strength of his father Banidon’s arms. Baden was strong, even for a dwarf, and he had yet to meet a man who could force the back of his hand downward to a tavern table.
So he was surprised - and more than a little upset - when he found himself struggling for breath, helpless as a snake-entwined rat, within the embrace of Raylin mac Larren.
“Put. Me. Down.”
Raylin ignored him for some time, and Baden felt his head begin to spin. The dwarf considered boxing Raylin’s ears between both palms, but thought such an action would make for a poor reunion.
Kellus, laughing, stepped forward. He pried Raylin’s fingers apart and both men – Helmite priest and Larren clansman – stepped back to study their short friend.
Baden took a moment to catch his wind, face as red as Axemarch’s most notorious drunkard. “Ye damned brute. Tryin’ to crack me ribs, were ye?”
“Cracked, are they?” Raylin’s eyes sparkled in the dawn’s light.
“No.”
“Then I was not trying.”
Baden stepped forward with half-a-mind to press Raylin’s face into the turf underfoot. He squinted upward at the unshaven clansman. “Ye smell nice, Larrenman - so I let ye cuddle me for a bit.”
Kellus’ embrace was firm but quick, almost perfunctory. “We have missed you, old dwarf.” The Rhelmsman stepped back, and his face shone with delight – an odd emotion on the priest’s normally impassive countenance. His next words, when they came, were barely audible. “By Helm’s Shield, we have missed you.”
Baden, suddenly self-conscious, toed the dirt like an errant schoolboy. “Well, lads, I ran into a bit o’ trouble between there and here.” His beard split in a wide grin. “Nothing that couldn’t be dealt with, mind you.”
“I had hoped,” Kellus replied, “your journey would have been blessedly uneventful.”
“I don’na know about no blessings, but events it had a’plenty.”
***
Baden glanced upward as clarion notes sang outward from hidden belfries overhead.
Most churches upon the Valus rang bells at the slightest provocation. The musical sounds sent peasants to their fields and called them home again; bells ushered in the dawn and warned of dusk’s imminence. They marked the commencement of celebrations and the end of mourning. Days, nights, weeks, months – all were neatly divided by such sounds.
Yet, here, nestled within a rear courtyard of the Valudian Cathedral, Baden realized Lathander’s temple used chimes, not bells; the calls that came from the towers above were more song than clangor. The dwarf liked their music, surprised as he was at the thought. Lathander’s chiming was airy and light as birdsong. “That’s a big building, and a good sound.”
Raylin spared at glance at the Cathedral’s massive vault before looking back at Baden. “Nothing gets by you, huh?”
Kellus’ wave encompassed the temple and its outer grounds. “This is the seat of Archbishop Mariadon. A good man.”
“So yer fellow Helmites have accepted ye back into the fold?” It was more statement than question, as if Baden had never given any thought to an alternative. The dwarf jerked a thumb at the Cathedral. “Serves as a better shelter than a lean-to by the Duskingford, does it not? Tell me - does it leak?”
“No, it doesn’t leak.” Kellus guided both his friends toward a marble bench set between two birch trees. “But this is not Helm’s house; it is Lathander’s. My god is not as widely worshipped here as He is in Rhelm. His own abode is rather smaller.”
“Not Helm?” Baden chewed on his whiskers, face unreadable. “You switched gods?”
“No,” Kellus laughed, “I am with Helm - again. His Grace Mariadon has given Raylin and I rooms within Lathander’s Cathedral, for the Temple of Helm lacked the space.”
“Lathander? That’d be the god o’ that apple-bearded paladin Anar.” Baden collapsed onto the marble pew. “What do his folk have to do with us?”
“We do not know.” Raylin folded his arms and watched while Kellus joined Baden on the bench. “Mariadon won’t answer our questions.”
Baden digested this latest information, then wearily rubbed his forehead. “By the gods, I have headache.”
“Yes, gods can do that to a man.” Kellus’ smile faded. “We are to meet with His Grace and the Archmage Destan this evening.”
Raylin smirked toward Baden. “Be ready - your headache is bound to grow.”
As if in agreement, Lathander’s chimes grew louder.
“Is Anar here as well?”
“No.” Raylin squatted, plucked a blade of grass, and placed it between his teeth. “We have not seen the paladin since we departed from him at Lonely Heath.”
“Aye, I heard from a half-elf named Wilan Whitefletch that he had seen you there. Such words were glad tidings on a day that had few of them.”
“Then you have met Wilan?” At Baden’s nod, Kellus continued. “He seems a good sort, as do Anar and Mariadon. Yet I cannot help but feel we are on the outside looking in, and ‘tis through their festival we now wander.”
Baden grunted. “Damned straight, and I like it not. Have you met with this Archmage?”
“Not yet. Perhaps he will have some answers for us.”
Baden’s look indicated he put little faith in such a hope. “Archmages and Archbishops – to the forge with the lot o’ them. Them uppity folks can wait. First I would see the damned elf and his half-troll mount; last I saw Amelyssan he was being carted away on Vath’s back like a sack o’ grain.”
The dwarf, shrouded in his own merry memories, did not notice the suddenly downcast expression on Kellus’ face. “And then,” Baden continued, voice light, “and only then – take me to whatever tavern John’s now infecting. If I know that damned Pellman, he’ll have me drunker than a two-copper harlot before we sit down with Dust…Duston?”
“Destan.” Kellus’ voice was hushed.
Baden caught the change in Kellus’ tone. His head snapped upward with a start. He stood. “I would know the tale.”
Kellus slowly shook his head. “Baden, tonight would be a better time to-”
Baden drew Borbidan’s axe and laid it on bench next to Kellus. When next he spoke, his tone was as hard and cold as the dwem-forged weapon. “Kellus. You will tell me, and you will tell me now. And you will tell it true.”
Raylin knelt in front of Baden, eyes on a level. “Vath and Amelyssan have not arrived. Yet.” The last word was added almost as an afterthought.
“They should have been here by now.”
“I know, friend.” Raylin’s face showed his pain. He placed a hand on Baden’s shoulder. “I know.”
The dwarf shook off the clansman’s hand and returned his gaze to Kellus. “And John? What of the bard?”
Kellus returned Baden’s stare, unflinching. “John is dead. He was killed east of Axefall. In the Boarswood.”
Baden half-sat and half-collapsed onto the bench, his axe sliding off the marble to fall within the cropped grass underfoot. The twinkling chimes of Lathander, once so soothing, sounded different, now. Moments passed – pained, quiet moments – and then the chimes faded to silence. Their song was finished.
***
“We are here to see the Archmage.”
A tall, thin man returned Mariadon’s look, evidently unimpressed by the priest’s station or his words. “I ain’t heard nothing ‘bout no meeting.”
Mariadon remained silent, his face stern. “Open the gates.”
“If I do, Cleaver’ll have me by the balls.”
“If you don’t, I will.” Baden stepped forward to look upward at the sullen guardsman. “And I’m closer.”
The man measured Baden with a glance before eyeing the Archbishop once more. “Destan said nothing ‘bout a meeting.”
“Likely he forgot.” Mariadon pursed his lips with growing frustration. “The man forgets to wear sandals, for the love of the Morninglord.”
“This is true.” With a last, lingering look at Baden, the guardsman turned. “Open ‘em, Rett! Do it quick-like!”
Sounds echoed from beyond the portcullis. The gate lurched into life, lifting upward in a slow but steady climb. The groan of metal on metal was loud and, for a time, prevented any hope of conversation. A clank announced the gate had been locked in the raised position. “Head across the courtyard and through the-”
But Mariadon was already pushing past the guard. Kellus, Raylin, and Baden followed in his wake.
Destan’s compound, located in the heart of Val Hor, was both the smallest and the ugliest of the Seven Towers of the Valudian Archmages. Whereas its sisters had been gracefully built with an eye toward architecture or mystery, Destan’s estate seemed to have been fashioned with an eye toward one’s purse. Its outer wall was short and thick, fashioned of red rock only found within the Kax, and surrounded a courtyard which was everything the Cathedral of Lathander’s inner grounds were not – overgrown, uneven, littered with windblown leaves and half-eaten apple cores.
Within the courtyard stood groups of rough-looking men, crowded about open firepits like beggars near soup kitchens. Their looks were dark and suspicious, their clothes tattered and threadbare. Baden spat as he crossed the yard. “An ugly bunch, to be sure.” The dwarf made no attempt to lower his voice.
Mariadon surveyed the onlookers as if seeing the men for the first time. “They are capable. And loyal.”
Baden shrugged as the party entered the shadow of the central donjon. “I thought a fancy archmage would have all manner o’ wizards and odd creatures to guard him.”
Mariadon smiled. “Most wizards do not like Destan, friend dwarf.”
“Why?”
“He’s an ass.”
Mariadon pulled up before a gate set in the south wall of the main keep. “Open the gates!” A moment passed. The Archbishop sighed, evidently annoyed. “Open the-”
A dwarf suddenly appeared at the gate, his face cloaked in shadow and caked with dried grease. No, not a dwarf – a human midget. He smelled of swill and sorrow. The man stood on his tip-toes and lifted a bar. “Not so loud, not so loud – yer hurtin’ my head.” The midget pointed to his ears as if Mariadon might not otherwise understand.
Mariadon turned toward the Olgotha Brothers. “The three of you must walk with me, where I walk. You may hear things, see things – pay them no mind. There is a path open to us, the only path. We will walk it. Yes?”
“Yes,” came the reply from three voices in unison.
It turned out to be a long walk.
Baden, who prided himself on his sense of direction, felt lost after what-must-have-been the twentieth turn. The keep itself was not large – Baden had seen its dimensions from the courtyard – but the corridors within seemed like the twisting tunnels of some burrowing creature. The dwarf was fairly confident the four of them repeatedly strode through the same hallways, crossed the same thresholds – but always from different directions.
Baden began to regain his confidence; Mariadon was leading them in a deliberately haphazard fashion to make the keep appear larger than it was. Or, Baden thought, suddenly wary, to prevent them from easily escaping. “Stop.”
Mariadon did.
“Why do you take us down hallways we have already walked? Get us to this Archmage, if that be yer intent, and put an end to this foolishness.”
The Archbishop frowned. “Master Dost, I assure you – we have not retraced our steps once since entering.”
“No? Then beyond that next turn – I suppose there won’t be another hallway that slopes down only slightly? There won’t be another hallway that goes past three doors on the left, two doors and an archway on the right? There won’t be another hallway that has fourteen buttresses along its length before the left wall leans slightly outward due to poor construction?” Baden crossed his arms, somewhat pleased with himself.
“No, there won’t.”
Baden walked forward, rounded the corner, and stared face-to-face at a massive iron door.
- Brilliant.
Stuff it, Ilvar.
Mariadon walked past him and placed a hand flat against the door. It swung open, revealing a large, oblong room. A giant bightwood table sat atop a thick carpet, styled purple in the manner of Genn weavers. Lanthorns hung from silver chains, the air perfumed and slightly clouded from their smoke.
The room was empty.
“Where is the Archmage?” Raylin, voice suddenly steely, let one hand fall to the hilt of his borrowed sword.
“Through there.” Mariadon nodded toward a stone wall opposite them, just on their side of the now-opened iron door.
Kellus, without a word, stepped through the illusion. Mariadon followed.
Baden, alone in the corridor with Raylin, shared a long look with his Larren companion. “Wizards.”
“Wizards,” Raylin agreed.
They stepped through the wall as one.
***
Destan’s meeting room – the true meeting room, as it were – was nothing like the illusionary one had been. It was cramped, small, and stunk of guano. A number of bats hung from rafters overhead, and a handful of cracks rent the masonry in the shadowy corners nearest the low ceiling.
Kellus stared at the old man before him. He was sitting in a chair, on the far side of a rickety table, a half-drained decanter of some golden fluid in front of him. His robes were as grimy and thin as his beard. All things considered, he looked more a beggar than an archmage. “Greetings, Archmage Destan of Val Hor. I am Kellus Varn the Younger, a Rhelmsman, and a Priest of the Protector-God Helm.”
“Why, hello!” Destan smiled and scrambled to his feet. “I knew your father. He was a good man.”
Kellus was silent.
The archmage turned to his companions. “You must be Raylin mac Larren. Your blades are welcome in this house and within our ranks.”
“My blades are currently held by some arse-sniffing Calahen thieves.”
Destan blinked. “Well, then, I shall have them returned to you. At once.”
Baden stepped forward. “I’m Baden-”
“-Dost, once warrior of Axemarch, now nil-thain. I held your Dwarfking Droggi in high regard. I trust his son is well.”
“He was when I left.”
Destan nodded, studied Baden for an uncomfortably long moment, then turned toward the far corner. “Come forward, friends.”
Two figures stepped from the shadows, as dissimilar as honey and stone. One was a lithe elf – thin lips, pointed nose, long flaxen hair. The other seemed a walking suit of spiked armor. “The elf is Mellish of the Galo Gamadel. The half-troll is the Cleaver.”
Baden snorted. “The Cleaver?”
Destan nodded. “Indeed.”
“Tell him he can remove his helm.”
Cleaver stepped fully into the light. His voice, when it came, made Vath’s rumbling sound nearly falsetto. “The helm stays where it is, dwarf. I wear it whenever battle is promised.”
“You expect a battle tonight?”
“Tempus willing.”
Kellus sighed. “We have many questions, Archmage. May we sit?”
“Of course. And, please, call me Destan.”
Kellus sat, adjusted his mace on his belt, and leaned forward. “First, we have friends that have not yet arrived. We would ask that you locate them, if you may, so that we may offer what aid we can.”
“They are dead.”
Raylin shook his head. “John is dead. Vath and Amelyssan might yet live.”
“I am sorry, but no. The elf and the half-troll died upon the Weedsea. Or, more truthfully, beneath it. I am sorry.”
“How do you know this?”
“I know it. As do you.”
Kellus rubbed his chin. “I believe you.”
“Good,” Destan replied, “because there is much that you must accept from me on faith alone.”
***
Faith, Kellus thought, had always been the most difficult gift to give.
Or, rather, not always. Once, Kellus had been a stalwart, promising acolyte in the Church of his father. Once, Kellus had believed every word in the iron-plated books of Helm. Once, Kellus had believed his God would Protect those who protected others in His name.
But that had been before the death of his father. Before an errant bolt had ricocheted off a stone wall and lodged itself within his father’s throat.
What kind of a Protector God would fail to protect his own chosen priest?
That was a hard question. It was made harder when Kellus, himself barely more than a child, cradled his dying father’s head in his lap. It was a question that, truly, had no answer. And it was a question that, simply by asking it, destroyed the child-man Kellus had been.
In short, he had lost his faith.
Gone was his faith in Helm, gone too was the respect for his own father. His father, Kellus thought, had been a fool. He was duped, like so many were, into believing the Gods cared. The Gods did not care. The Gods had never cared. The Gods would never care.
A man should place his faith in those things that have meaning to him, in his mortal life, until his days finally – thankfully – come to an end. A mace – this has meaning. A horse, armor, a man’s wits – these have meaning. These are the accoutrements of the faithful, of those who would not be fools.
Kellus departed Rhelm the morning after his father’s death. He gathered his things, including the breastplate of his father, and left. He did not attend the funeral, never set foot within the Church, did not say farewell to his mother who, even then, was losing herself.
But a surprising thing happened. His clerical power to heal, to bless, to purify – these remained with him. He no longer believed in Helm, and yet he could perform miracles attributed by so many to divine power. How could this be? Kellus had only one answer – he believed in himself. He had faith in his own powers. As a man. And each time he cast a spell, each time he shielded himself from harm, each time he cast light onto the spiked head of his mace – his understanding was strengthened, his faith was solidified, his doubt was erased. Helm drifted further from him until, soon, the God became a memory of a misspent youth.
Kellus sought to teach others of this understanding. He assisted laborers with their work, he healed sick children, he knitted broken bone and he fed starving peasantfolk. He would do all of things, and never would he demand more than one thing in return: Those who would benefit from his power must recognize that it came from him, not from Helm, not from any God, but from a man.
Kellus was a man, and man was a God.
Certainly there were those who would not forsake their misplaced faith. They would watch, and Kellus would watch, as a sick child died. They would weep and tear at their breasts as Kellus stood by and allowed birthing mothers to bleed their life away. So be it. Life was filled with harsh lessons, and he would not assist those who refused to understand this. The world was filled with fools; he would not be one to increase their number. Let them perish and lessen, until only the strong – the true faithful – remained.
And thus did Kellus, formerly a priest of Helm, live his young adulthood. Always traveling, always moving, always offering aid to those who would simply recognize the powerlessness of the gods. Many times he was nearly killed by grieving folk, many times he was run out of town. But just as many times he left thorps and hamlets with the seed of man’s own might, with the kernel of faith in man’s own power. He was a missionary of man.
Only now, after seeing the horrors of the Abyss, did Kellus again realize that the Gods were real. He had looked into the face of Baphtemet and known – known in the very core of his soul – that the mere existence of such a creature was proof of the immortal. Where there was an Abyss, there must be a Heaven.
Faith, by definition, never requires proof. But Kellus, by definition, was never a normal priest.
He had erred by forsaking his faith. He had erred when he allowed peasant children and bleeding mothers to die. He would now spend his life paying for those sins. So when Destan asked for their faith, Kellus was ready to give it. And did so. This cause, this prophecy they were only know beginning to understand, would kill him. Kellus was never one to avoid a truth. By killing Ippizicus, Ral, and Baphtemet – he had firmly planted his feet on a path toward his own destruction.
It was nothing less than he deserved. Indeed, he welcomed it.
***
“…so you claim we are the persons spoken of in this Prophecy?”
Destan nodded slowly. “You are. All the signs and portents are there, for one who would read them. You have slain the Black Three – Ippizicus Child-Eater, Ral the Torturer, Baphtemet the Liar. Those fiends were but a precursor to Loroth’s impending invasion.”
“An invasion of the Valus?”
Destan shook his head. “An invasion of the world. He would make a wasteland and call it his abode. There are many that will follow him, unwilling or no. Demons and devils, both – Loroth transcends their feuds, for all fiends see a Black Paradise in his machinations.”
“The feratu that posed as Brother Daladon – he is within Loroth’s employ?”
Destan shrugged, “Perhaps not directly, but I do not doubt the demon’s aims coincide with those of the Witchking. As do the aims of the Dreth, the Wolven, and others. These are black creatures, corrupt in the core, and they wish to dance their dance upon the bones of the world. They have waited a millennium, they have waited since the collapse of the Dezimond within the red stones of the Rorn. Now is their time.”
“Or so they would believe,” Mariadon added, somewhat dryly.
“Yes, yes,” Destan waved a hand, “so they would believe. But there are those of us who would prevent such a thing.”
Raylin swiveled his gaze about the room. “More than us, I would hope. Yes?”
Baden coughed into the sudden silence. “No disrespect, but we don’t seem much of an army.”
“Because we are not.” Mariadon leaned forward to address the dwarf. “We are but a vanguard. Our numbers will grow, even as the threat coalesces upon the mainland. We must do what we can, with the resources we have, in the time we are given.”
“And then?” Baden replied, unbowed. “What shall we do when the Witchking raises his banners? I’ll grant you that the Larrenman is fine in a pinch, and Kellus has shown his ability upon the field. But we are nothing against demons.”
“Need I remind you that you already killed three of them?” Destan smiled.
“Tell me - are the creatures known as Dreth considered demons?”
“They are.”
“Then we have killed more than three." Baden ignored the surprised looks from Raylin and Kellus. "But you speak of armies, and Witchkings, and other things that are like to turn my beard the color of snow.”
Mariadon nodded slowly. “It is no easy task. Destan and I do not know what will happen if we throw ourselves against this evil. But we do know, friend dwarf, what will happen if we do not.”
Baden thumbed his eye. “Let me guess: we will die.”
“The world will die.”
Kellus frowned. “Enough.” He glanced from Baden to Mariadon and, finally, to Destan once more. “The question is not what can we do if the black banners are raised in the Rorn; the question is – what can we do, now?”
“For starters,” Destan murmured, chuckling, “we can kill the feratu that Mariadon allowed to escape his Church.”
Raylin’s eyes narrowed as he turned toward Mariadon. “Finally, I hear wisdom in this room. I said allowing the feratu to escape was a mistake. I said it then, and I say it now.”
“No,” Destan held up a finger, “not a mistake. A risk, certainly, but we will be forced to take many of those.”
Kellus placed a hand on Raylin’s forearm. “Explain yourself, Archmage.”
“Feratu are masters of trickery and disguise. Their talents lie both with illusion and a primitive form of shapechanging. They can assume the forms only of those creatures they kill. And, as time progresses, their disguise weakens. Their flesh sloughs off, their coloring changes, the sound of their voice becomes slurred beyond recognition.”
Raylin folded his arms. “That is no answer.”
But Destan was still talking - “Their deception extends into the field or the arcane. They are exceedingly difficult to scry, for example. Even with intimate knowledge of an individual feratu, it remains difficult. Even for one such as myself.”
Raylin angrily shook off Kellus’ restraining hand. “More reason why we should have gutted the demon when he was in our grasp!”
“It was the holiest day of Lathander, friend,” Mariadon interjected, softly, “and I would not have stained the flagstones of my Church on such a glorious morning.”
“But,” Destan quickly spoke, “even Mariadon would have done as much – if it were the right move to make. It was not.”
Baden rubbed his eyes and yawned. “I am thinkin’ the Larrenman makes more sense than the both of you. Mayhaps you should have let him skewer this demon-”
Cleaver leaned forward for the first time since they had sat. His eyes bored a hole into Baden. “Feratu can hide from magic. They can hide from your eyes, dwarf. But,” the half-troll tapped the faceguard of his helm, “they cannot hide from me.”
“Huh?” Baden was too perplexed to offer anything more in the way of a retort.
“Cleaver,” Destan offered, “has extraordinary powers of scent. A feratu can mask its appearance, its voice, its movements. But its smell is unique.”
Kellus stared at Cleaver. “You followed him.”
The armored behemoth nodded. “I followed him. To his lair.”
Raylin looked from Cleaver to Destan. “There are others?”
“Many, many others. A whole nest of them. Here, within Val Hor.”
Mariadon drummed his fingers. “I loved Brother Daladon, friends. I accepted him into the Church from the hands of his own mother, and I held his head as dawn’s light touched his eyes on the morning he first swore the vows of a Sunpriest. I wanted nothing more than to destroy the fiend that had destroyed my child. But we needed to know where the others of his abyssal ilk were hiding.”
“And now,” Destan added, quite needlessly, “we do.”
“Where?” Raylin bristled like a hound ready for the hunt, waiting only for its master’s hand to lift the bar and throw open the kennel gates.
“An old lumber warehouse. Not far from here. In the shadow of the Arena of Storms.”
“When?”
“Now, if you prefer.”
Raylin stood. “I prefer.”
***
Raylin stood within a company of men hand-picked by Destan for the evening’s work. Those assembled were not warriors accustomed to the glories of pitched battle, or the stratagems of siege warfare. No – they were thugs, and brigands, and killers. But they were on their side, in this, loyal to the Archmage for whatever reasons men such as them give their loyalty to another.
Raylin studied their faces in the silence before the storm. They were hard faces, unshaven, dirty. He knew their type because, in many ways, he was one of them; certainly his own face must have looked much the same. What little love these men had in their lives was purchased with a few silvers thrown into the lap of a harlot. They would not offer mercy, and never would they ask for it. A man was only as good as the arm that held his blade, and cowardice amongst his fellows was a fate feared more than death. These hard-bitten souls that Destan had managed to cull from the wineshops and forests of the Valus reminded Raylin of many of his clansmen near the Blackswamp of his homeland; men such as these were never soft, because softness spelled death.
By the gods, Raylin silently swore, it felt good to be among them.
Night had embraced the city. The Valudians who had been drinking away the evening had, by now, returned to their homes. Or, perhaps, fallen asleep beneath their trenchers. The city’s avenues would be only sporadically patrolled by white-liveried watchmen; most of the lantern posts would have been snuffed. It was a time for thieves, for harlots, for the foolish and for the brave. It was a different city at night, darker in more than simply illumination.
At a nod from Destan, the company filed through the compound’s gate.
They moved quietly – these ruffians of Destan’s and the Brothers of Olgotha. Their footfalls were quiet, the clink of their armor a whisper-thin melody in the blackness. Down alleys and through secondary streets, around the dry fountains of better times, past the husks of half-burned buildings and abandoned houses.
Cleaver led them, moving surprisingly quietly for one encased in so much steel. The half-troll stopped occasionally, lifting his nose into the cold night air. His route was purposefully haphazard, deliberately disjointed. Their small troupe would disappear down alleys, wait for one hundred heartbeats, then reappear to commence their walk once more.
No one spoke. No one needed to.
All knew what they would soon face. Feratu were not children. And though the fiends’ powers lay with disguise and trickery, they remained demons nonetheless. All this Destan had told them. The feratu would be trapped – gods willing – within the warehouse. They would know the promise of escape had been denied to them. It would be a hard fight, and deadly.
Raylin would have it no other way. He had sliced the air within Destan’s courtyard with his borrowed blades, becoming as accustomed as he could to their balance. He had rolled his shoulders and his neck, cracked his knuckles and stamped his feet into the deepness of his boots. The Larrenman felt his thirst for blood growing, deep in the back of his throat; John’s death, and the deaths of Amelyssan and Vath, had hardened into a veritable gastrolith within the pit of his stomach.
Raylin wished to hurt, to maim, to kill. The feratu would offer him that. He demanded nothing less. How could he fear to battle demons, when he himself had become one?
Cleaver stepped into a stone gazebo that rested within the shadow of the Arena. Raylin and the others quickly crowded around him into the confined space. Their breath made the air smoky. They were one entity, one creature, a predatory cat prowling the near-deserted streets of Val Hor. Men were coiled, ready, muscles tense and blades well-oiled.
Cleaver lifted both hands and removed his helm.
His face, Raylin saw, was a wreck.
The half-troll made Vath look as pretty as a peasant lass in comparison. The color of his flesh was hard to discern in the darkness, but appeared as black as it did red. His hair was matted and tangled, his teeth broken. Cleaver’s upper lip appeared like some gray-skinned grub, and his lower lip had been sliced, and stitched, some time ago; it was a scar, now, a line of ruined flesh that gave the half-troll the regrettable countenance of a frowning beast. Raylin could have fit the pommel of his dagger into either of the half-troll’s nostrils.
“We are here,” Cleaver rumbled, from deep within his chest, as his eyes found Destan in the darkness.
“Aye,” Destan breathed. The Archmage looked differently, now, as if he had drawn on the arcane powers at his command to wrap him in their ephemeral embrace. Gone was the doddering old man, the flippant elder statesman. “You know your place.”
“Aye.”
“Take these three,” Destan nodded toward Raylin and his companions, “to the rear of the warehouse.”
“I would have Mellish as well.”
Destan looked from Cleaver to the elf crossbowman. "Mellish, I would ask that you accompany Cleaver.”
Raylin assumed Mellish’s answering sneer indicated his acquiescence.
Destan looked from Cleaver to Raylin, let his gaze drift to Baden and Kellus. “You have a hard task. You must watch the rear of the place. There is one backdoor, but the adjoining building is connected, so you must watch that doorway as well. You must kill everything and anything that comes through those doors. Do not spare a single creature, regardless of its guise. Do you understand?”
Raylin answered for all of them with a curt nod.
“There are many men in there with the feratu. Hired men, black of heart and deed. Treat them as you would the demons themselves. There is to be no mercy, not from you. I will capture one, perhaps more. Such is not your task.”
Kellus drew his mace from his belt. “It shall be as you say.”
“The rest of you,” the Archmage whispered to his remaining cadre, “will come with me. Stand clear of me. I will begin things with fire, as is fitting. Once, twice, four times will I send a glowing bead through the cracks in the front of the warehouse. Then – and only then – may you move forward. Kill everything, everyone. You have your partners; stay with them if you can. The fires will banish the darkness, so mark your foes and do what it is you do best.”
A gaunt, pockmarked man with the pale skin of Gordian heritage nodded. “We shall.”
Destan nodded, shared a last look with Cleaver, then led his hand-picked followers away from the gazebo and into the night.
Raylin felt Cleaver measuring him with his black eyes. “Larrenman, you will stand with the priest. There are two doors; you two shall guard the closest one. The dwarf and I will be at the other.”
“And the elf?” Baden spat as he drew his axe, content – for the time – to allow the half-troll to give the orders.
Mellish’s lips curled into a condescending smile. “Worry about your own task, bearded one, not mine.”
Baden shrugged. “Don’t let yer ghost get uppity if I piss on yer grave.”
Cleaver pulled on his helm. “It is time.”
***
Baden padded forward slightly behind Cleaver toward the rickety door at the rear of the warehouse. He paused, watched the half-troll take his position, then stood opposite him. Baden considered unslinging his shield, then thought better of it. He would need to kill, and kill quickly, if the retreat from Destan’s fire became a rout; he could do more damage with two arms than just the one.
Behind him, perhaps thirty paces down the deserted alleyway, Kellus and Raylin took their own position. The two of them, Baden saw, faced one another just outside their own guarded door.
The fight promised to be similar, at least tactically, to battles Baden had fought as a young dwarf in Axemarch. The dwarves would use the knowledge of the lower tunnels to their advantage against the rûcken hordes. Often one corridor would be marked as the killing path, and the clan’s enemies would be beaten and herded toward it. At the exit, near one end, a handful of chosen dwarves would wait to kill those creatures that fled along its length. The ambushing dwarves were not always the best warriors; they were, however, those who harbored the most hatred in their hearts against whatever foes they faced.
- Demons.
Baden blinked. Even now, at times, he forgot the presence of the elf-spirit Ilvar. How many?
- Many.
How close?
- Close.
Baden growled audibly and ignored Cleaver’s glare. Be specific, damn you!
- I am trying. The walls make it difficult, Baden. Four. No – five. Clustered on the far side of the building.
Baden nodded. He held up a hand in the darkness between him and Cleaver and showed the half-troll five fingers. “Demons,” he mouthed silently.
If Cleaver understood, or even cared, he did nothing to show it.
Baden sighed and risked a glance behind them, toward the far side of the alley. Mellish had – somehow – managed to climb to the lower roof of what appeared to be a condemned tavern. The elf was barely visible with Baden’s darkvision, crouched low with his crossbow held in front of him. Moradin, hear me – when this gets messy, please guide that damned pointer’s shots so as not to hit me in the rump.
BOOM!
Baden nearly dropped his axe at the sound of the explosion. He had seen Axemarch runemagi send fireballs at their enemies, but those had been relatively quiet acts of magic. Not so this. In quick succession another, then a third and fourth explosion erupted from the far side of the warehouse. The night sky became an angry red welt, flicking and cracking with the fire that must, even now, be spreading.
Baden glanced upward, studied the bloody false sunrise, then adjusted the grip on his axe. It was images such as those, he knew, that would stay with a man until the end of his days. He hoped such a memory would recall the success of this night.
Hell, he hoped he’d still be alive to remember it in the first place.
Cleaver had his falchion in both hands, held before him, point low. The half-troll placed his back against the wall of the warehouse, and Baden did likewise.
The sounds of fighting reached them within moments, at the far side of the warehouse. By all indications it was fierce and deadly – there were very, very few cries of pain. Moans and screams only came, Baden knew, when men had an opportunity to recognize their death.
Baden felt the tension within his stomach tighten. It was always this way, for him, before battle. He had last felt it when marching forward to duel Pandios of Margive on the Causeway of the Moon Goddess. He realized he had forgotten how sickening it could be.
Thus, the dwarf was somewhat amazed when he saw the wide and leering grin that shone even through the rims of Cleaver’s cheek guards. “Do you smell it, dwarf?” The half-troll tilted his head and sucked in the night air through his nose.
Baden licked his lips, spat out the whiskers of his beard. “Smell what?”
“Fear.”
The door burst open.
The story thus far:
The Brothers of Olgotha departed in different directions shortly after defeating the demon Ral within the Sorrow Elf’s barrow.
Baden Dost rode toward Axemarch, to ascertain the status of his clan.
Amelyssan and Vath fled from the wolven westward across the Weedsea, and were killed by ankhegs beneath the plains.
John, Raylin, and Kellus accompanied Anar von Girval, a paladin of Lathander, northward to the town of Lonely Heath. There, Anar left them in pursuit of a man known as Guntir Sharpnose. The three companions struck southward toward Val Hor in the hopes of locating the Archmage Destan the Grim. While en route, John was killed by a spider wasp amidst the shadowy boles of the Boarswood.
Raylin and Kellus were found, near death, by Calahen clansmen. The clansmen carried the two adventurers to Val Hor and deposited them with Brother Daladon, a feratu demon posing as a priest of Lathander. Mariadon, Archbishop of Lathander and friend to Destan, rescued Kellus from his interrogation at the hands of the feratu. The demon was allowed to exit the Cathedral.
Seven days have since passed, and no word has yet arrived in Val Hor as to the fate of the missing Brothers…
***
His Grace Mariadon, Archbishop of Lathander, was a man well past his prime. But, by Helm, Kellus silently swore, the man can set a torrid pace. Kellus struggled to keep apace with the Archbishop as they wound their way through the sunlit corridors of the Morninglord’s Cathedral.
Mariadon was talking, and Kellus did his best to listen. “…first concerned with Daladon when I noticed he had missed two consecutive morning services. Very odd, that.” Mariadon turned his head toward Kellus without slackening his stride. “Brother Daladon never missed a service.”
If Raylin also had trouble matching the elder cleric’s gait, he did not show it. The clansman’s face was troubled by thoughts, but untouched by perspiration. “Your Grace,” Raylin began, the honorific sounding odd in his own ears, “if you knew Daladon to be an imposter, why did you allow him to leave?”
Kellus grimaced. Raylin had pressed the Archbishop on the issue of Daladon’s “escape” numerous times – not all of them tactfully. The Larrenman, Kellus thought, still felt the loss of his favorite longsword; the weapon was one of many items Daladon had given the Calahen mercenaries when Kellus and Raylin had been deposited at the temple’s steps.
“I have told you, Master mac Larren,” Mariadon answered with infinite patience, “I had my reasons. And soon – very soon – I will show them to you.” The Archbishop stopped before a set of bronze doors set within the rear wall of the Cathedral. “First, however, you must attend to other matters.”
Kellus knew Raylin well enough to recognize his growing anger. Kellus turned quickly to Mariadon. “Your Grace, our strings have been pulled by people we have not met for causes we do not understand. It is an ill thing to be treated in such a manner.”
Mariadon smiled softly. “Brother Kellus, have not you asked your superiors about the treatment you have received?”
“I have.”
“And?”
“Bishop Thularr ordered that I obey your wishes in this, as in all things.”
“Ordered?”
“Requested.” Kellus frowned. Helm’s clerical hierarchy was not known for their leniency; subordinate priests were ordered, not asked. At least, such was the way of Helm years ago before Kellus forsook his vows. He found that he disliked the apparent freedom now extant within the Church; Kellus’ recent wanderings had given him a lifetime’s worth of ambiguity.
“Bishop Thularr is a good priest,” Mariadon chided, “and a better man. If you do not trust me, then trust him.”
“I trust you, Your Grace.” Kellus meant it. “As does Raylin. But we have many unanswered questions.”
“Such as?”
Kellus looked to Raylin before answering. “The question remains - why did you allow the feratu demon posing as Brother Daladon to leave your Cathedral?”
“Faugh!” Mariadon waved a hand, causing motes of dust to swirl within the sunlight streaming downward from paned windows overhead. “That question has just been asked, and I have given my answer. Ask another.”
Raylin stepped forward. “Our possessions - those that were given to the Calahens. We would like to have them returned to us.”
“Those items were paid to the clansmen that brought you here and, I might add, saved your lives in the process.” Mariadon searched Raylin’s gaze with his own. “I will see they are replaced. Yes?”
“When I was born, Your Grace, my mother’s birthing blood was caused to spill onto the blades that were stolen from me. Her body now nurtures the growing things within the prairies of my homeland.” Raylin’s voice was low but steely. “The swords cannot be replaced, and it pains the spirits of my fathers to know a Calahen dog now wields them.”
The Archbishop stared at Raylin for a long moment. “Then I ask your forgiveness, Raylin mac Larren, as does my Church. The Archmage Destan has many friends within the traders and trappers that visit this city. I will ask him to relay your concerns to such men, in the hopes they might locate the Calahens and purchase-”
“They sang songs over his body.”
Mariadon blinked. “Eh?”
Raylin’s teeth were clenched, his jaw iron. “The Calahens. They sang songs over the body of our friend John. I would have them sing another tune, and soon.”
“Those thoughts, my friend,” the Archbishop rejoined softly, “are best left to lay fallow. There is much evil in the world without men creating more.”
Raylin nodded as if accepting the point, and Kellus – for a brief moment – was relieved. But when the ranger next spoke, there was no forgiveness in his heart; children of the Weedsea cast aside such an emotion when still beardless. “‘Alone on the field, when the sun does fade, stands a son of Larren, all debts paid.’”
The Archbishop suddenly showed his years. Kellus was amazed – Mariadon seemed to plummet into old age in the span of a few heartbeats. When next the Archbishop looked at Raylin, his eyes were…pleading? No - anguished. “I know those words, my son - ‘tis a marching song of your people, is it not?”
“A victory song.”
Mariadon sighed. “A eulogy.”
The sounds of Val Hor’s markets drifted through the thick stones of the Cathedral, making the sudden silence more keenly felt. Mariadon shook himself, as a man awaking from an unpleasant dream. “Forgive me. This morning is for glad tidings, and I would not be the one to ruin it.”
The Archbishop did not wait for Kellus or Raylin to reply. Rather he turned, grabbed the handles of both doors, and pulled them inward.
Sunlight flooded the hall, blinding and brilliant.
“A friend,” Mariadon breathed as he squinted into the dawn. “A friend awaits the both of you.”
***
Baden believed he could squeeze juice from a diamond and water from a rock. On his naming day he had bear-hugged his father into submission, and all Axemarch dwarves knew the strength of his father Banidon’s arms. Baden was strong, even for a dwarf, and he had yet to meet a man who could force the back of his hand downward to a tavern table.
So he was surprised - and more than a little upset - when he found himself struggling for breath, helpless as a snake-entwined rat, within the embrace of Raylin mac Larren.
“Put. Me. Down.”
Raylin ignored him for some time, and Baden felt his head begin to spin. The dwarf considered boxing Raylin’s ears between both palms, but thought such an action would make for a poor reunion.
Kellus, laughing, stepped forward. He pried Raylin’s fingers apart and both men – Helmite priest and Larren clansman – stepped back to study their short friend.
Baden took a moment to catch his wind, face as red as Axemarch’s most notorious drunkard. “Ye damned brute. Tryin’ to crack me ribs, were ye?”
“Cracked, are they?” Raylin’s eyes sparkled in the dawn’s light.
“No.”
“Then I was not trying.”
Baden stepped forward with half-a-mind to press Raylin’s face into the turf underfoot. He squinted upward at the unshaven clansman. “Ye smell nice, Larrenman - so I let ye cuddle me for a bit.”
Kellus’ embrace was firm but quick, almost perfunctory. “We have missed you, old dwarf.” The Rhelmsman stepped back, and his face shone with delight – an odd emotion on the priest’s normally impassive countenance. His next words, when they came, were barely audible. “By Helm’s Shield, we have missed you.”
Baden, suddenly self-conscious, toed the dirt like an errant schoolboy. “Well, lads, I ran into a bit o’ trouble between there and here.” His beard split in a wide grin. “Nothing that couldn’t be dealt with, mind you.”
“I had hoped,” Kellus replied, “your journey would have been blessedly uneventful.”
“I don’na know about no blessings, but events it had a’plenty.”
***
Baden glanced upward as clarion notes sang outward from hidden belfries overhead.
Most churches upon the Valus rang bells at the slightest provocation. The musical sounds sent peasants to their fields and called them home again; bells ushered in the dawn and warned of dusk’s imminence. They marked the commencement of celebrations and the end of mourning. Days, nights, weeks, months – all were neatly divided by such sounds.
Yet, here, nestled within a rear courtyard of the Valudian Cathedral, Baden realized Lathander’s temple used chimes, not bells; the calls that came from the towers above were more song than clangor. The dwarf liked their music, surprised as he was at the thought. Lathander’s chiming was airy and light as birdsong. “That’s a big building, and a good sound.”
Raylin spared at glance at the Cathedral’s massive vault before looking back at Baden. “Nothing gets by you, huh?”
Kellus’ wave encompassed the temple and its outer grounds. “This is the seat of Archbishop Mariadon. A good man.”
“So yer fellow Helmites have accepted ye back into the fold?” It was more statement than question, as if Baden had never given any thought to an alternative. The dwarf jerked a thumb at the Cathedral. “Serves as a better shelter than a lean-to by the Duskingford, does it not? Tell me - does it leak?”
“No, it doesn’t leak.” Kellus guided both his friends toward a marble bench set between two birch trees. “But this is not Helm’s house; it is Lathander’s. My god is not as widely worshipped here as He is in Rhelm. His own abode is rather smaller.”
“Not Helm?” Baden chewed on his whiskers, face unreadable. “You switched gods?”
“No,” Kellus laughed, “I am with Helm - again. His Grace Mariadon has given Raylin and I rooms within Lathander’s Cathedral, for the Temple of Helm lacked the space.”
“Lathander? That’d be the god o’ that apple-bearded paladin Anar.” Baden collapsed onto the marble pew. “What do his folk have to do with us?”
“We do not know.” Raylin folded his arms and watched while Kellus joined Baden on the bench. “Mariadon won’t answer our questions.”
Baden digested this latest information, then wearily rubbed his forehead. “By the gods, I have headache.”
“Yes, gods can do that to a man.” Kellus’ smile faded. “We are to meet with His Grace and the Archmage Destan this evening.”
Raylin smirked toward Baden. “Be ready - your headache is bound to grow.”
As if in agreement, Lathander’s chimes grew louder.
“Is Anar here as well?”
“No.” Raylin squatted, plucked a blade of grass, and placed it between his teeth. “We have not seen the paladin since we departed from him at Lonely Heath.”
“Aye, I heard from a half-elf named Wilan Whitefletch that he had seen you there. Such words were glad tidings on a day that had few of them.”
“Then you have met Wilan?” At Baden’s nod, Kellus continued. “He seems a good sort, as do Anar and Mariadon. Yet I cannot help but feel we are on the outside looking in, and ‘tis through their festival we now wander.”
Baden grunted. “Damned straight, and I like it not. Have you met with this Archmage?”
“Not yet. Perhaps he will have some answers for us.”
Baden’s look indicated he put little faith in such a hope. “Archmages and Archbishops – to the forge with the lot o’ them. Them uppity folks can wait. First I would see the damned elf and his half-troll mount; last I saw Amelyssan he was being carted away on Vath’s back like a sack o’ grain.”
The dwarf, shrouded in his own merry memories, did not notice the suddenly downcast expression on Kellus’ face. “And then,” Baden continued, voice light, “and only then – take me to whatever tavern John’s now infecting. If I know that damned Pellman, he’ll have me drunker than a two-copper harlot before we sit down with Dust…Duston?”
“Destan.” Kellus’ voice was hushed.
Baden caught the change in Kellus’ tone. His head snapped upward with a start. He stood. “I would know the tale.”
Kellus slowly shook his head. “Baden, tonight would be a better time to-”
Baden drew Borbidan’s axe and laid it on bench next to Kellus. When next he spoke, his tone was as hard and cold as the dwem-forged weapon. “Kellus. You will tell me, and you will tell me now. And you will tell it true.”
Raylin knelt in front of Baden, eyes on a level. “Vath and Amelyssan have not arrived. Yet.” The last word was added almost as an afterthought.
“They should have been here by now.”
“I know, friend.” Raylin’s face showed his pain. He placed a hand on Baden’s shoulder. “I know.”
The dwarf shook off the clansman’s hand and returned his gaze to Kellus. “And John? What of the bard?”
Kellus returned Baden’s stare, unflinching. “John is dead. He was killed east of Axefall. In the Boarswood.”
Baden half-sat and half-collapsed onto the bench, his axe sliding off the marble to fall within the cropped grass underfoot. The twinkling chimes of Lathander, once so soothing, sounded different, now. Moments passed – pained, quiet moments – and then the chimes faded to silence. Their song was finished.
***
“We are here to see the Archmage.”
A tall, thin man returned Mariadon’s look, evidently unimpressed by the priest’s station or his words. “I ain’t heard nothing ‘bout no meeting.”
Mariadon remained silent, his face stern. “Open the gates.”
“If I do, Cleaver’ll have me by the balls.”
“If you don’t, I will.” Baden stepped forward to look upward at the sullen guardsman. “And I’m closer.”
The man measured Baden with a glance before eyeing the Archbishop once more. “Destan said nothing ‘bout a meeting.”
“Likely he forgot.” Mariadon pursed his lips with growing frustration. “The man forgets to wear sandals, for the love of the Morninglord.”
“This is true.” With a last, lingering look at Baden, the guardsman turned. “Open ‘em, Rett! Do it quick-like!”
Sounds echoed from beyond the portcullis. The gate lurched into life, lifting upward in a slow but steady climb. The groan of metal on metal was loud and, for a time, prevented any hope of conversation. A clank announced the gate had been locked in the raised position. “Head across the courtyard and through the-”
But Mariadon was already pushing past the guard. Kellus, Raylin, and Baden followed in his wake.
Destan’s compound, located in the heart of Val Hor, was both the smallest and the ugliest of the Seven Towers of the Valudian Archmages. Whereas its sisters had been gracefully built with an eye toward architecture or mystery, Destan’s estate seemed to have been fashioned with an eye toward one’s purse. Its outer wall was short and thick, fashioned of red rock only found within the Kax, and surrounded a courtyard which was everything the Cathedral of Lathander’s inner grounds were not – overgrown, uneven, littered with windblown leaves and half-eaten apple cores.
Within the courtyard stood groups of rough-looking men, crowded about open firepits like beggars near soup kitchens. Their looks were dark and suspicious, their clothes tattered and threadbare. Baden spat as he crossed the yard. “An ugly bunch, to be sure.” The dwarf made no attempt to lower his voice.
Mariadon surveyed the onlookers as if seeing the men for the first time. “They are capable. And loyal.”
Baden shrugged as the party entered the shadow of the central donjon. “I thought a fancy archmage would have all manner o’ wizards and odd creatures to guard him.”
Mariadon smiled. “Most wizards do not like Destan, friend dwarf.”
“Why?”
“He’s an ass.”
Mariadon pulled up before a gate set in the south wall of the main keep. “Open the gates!” A moment passed. The Archbishop sighed, evidently annoyed. “Open the-”
A dwarf suddenly appeared at the gate, his face cloaked in shadow and caked with dried grease. No, not a dwarf – a human midget. He smelled of swill and sorrow. The man stood on his tip-toes and lifted a bar. “Not so loud, not so loud – yer hurtin’ my head.” The midget pointed to his ears as if Mariadon might not otherwise understand.
Mariadon turned toward the Olgotha Brothers. “The three of you must walk with me, where I walk. You may hear things, see things – pay them no mind. There is a path open to us, the only path. We will walk it. Yes?”
“Yes,” came the reply from three voices in unison.
It turned out to be a long walk.
Baden, who prided himself on his sense of direction, felt lost after what-must-have-been the twentieth turn. The keep itself was not large – Baden had seen its dimensions from the courtyard – but the corridors within seemed like the twisting tunnels of some burrowing creature. The dwarf was fairly confident the four of them repeatedly strode through the same hallways, crossed the same thresholds – but always from different directions.
Baden began to regain his confidence; Mariadon was leading them in a deliberately haphazard fashion to make the keep appear larger than it was. Or, Baden thought, suddenly wary, to prevent them from easily escaping. “Stop.”
Mariadon did.
“Why do you take us down hallways we have already walked? Get us to this Archmage, if that be yer intent, and put an end to this foolishness.”
The Archbishop frowned. “Master Dost, I assure you – we have not retraced our steps once since entering.”
“No? Then beyond that next turn – I suppose there won’t be another hallway that slopes down only slightly? There won’t be another hallway that goes past three doors on the left, two doors and an archway on the right? There won’t be another hallway that has fourteen buttresses along its length before the left wall leans slightly outward due to poor construction?” Baden crossed his arms, somewhat pleased with himself.
“No, there won’t.”
Baden walked forward, rounded the corner, and stared face-to-face at a massive iron door.
- Brilliant.
Stuff it, Ilvar.
Mariadon walked past him and placed a hand flat against the door. It swung open, revealing a large, oblong room. A giant bightwood table sat atop a thick carpet, styled purple in the manner of Genn weavers. Lanthorns hung from silver chains, the air perfumed and slightly clouded from their smoke.
The room was empty.
“Where is the Archmage?” Raylin, voice suddenly steely, let one hand fall to the hilt of his borrowed sword.
“Through there.” Mariadon nodded toward a stone wall opposite them, just on their side of the now-opened iron door.
Kellus, without a word, stepped through the illusion. Mariadon followed.
Baden, alone in the corridor with Raylin, shared a long look with his Larren companion. “Wizards.”
“Wizards,” Raylin agreed.
They stepped through the wall as one.
***
Destan’s meeting room – the true meeting room, as it were – was nothing like the illusionary one had been. It was cramped, small, and stunk of guano. A number of bats hung from rafters overhead, and a handful of cracks rent the masonry in the shadowy corners nearest the low ceiling.
Kellus stared at the old man before him. He was sitting in a chair, on the far side of a rickety table, a half-drained decanter of some golden fluid in front of him. His robes were as grimy and thin as his beard. All things considered, he looked more a beggar than an archmage. “Greetings, Archmage Destan of Val Hor. I am Kellus Varn the Younger, a Rhelmsman, and a Priest of the Protector-God Helm.”
“Why, hello!” Destan smiled and scrambled to his feet. “I knew your father. He was a good man.”
Kellus was silent.
The archmage turned to his companions. “You must be Raylin mac Larren. Your blades are welcome in this house and within our ranks.”
“My blades are currently held by some arse-sniffing Calahen thieves.”
Destan blinked. “Well, then, I shall have them returned to you. At once.”
Baden stepped forward. “I’m Baden-”
“-Dost, once warrior of Axemarch, now nil-thain. I held your Dwarfking Droggi in high regard. I trust his son is well.”
“He was when I left.”
Destan nodded, studied Baden for an uncomfortably long moment, then turned toward the far corner. “Come forward, friends.”
Two figures stepped from the shadows, as dissimilar as honey and stone. One was a lithe elf – thin lips, pointed nose, long flaxen hair. The other seemed a walking suit of spiked armor. “The elf is Mellish of the Galo Gamadel. The half-troll is the Cleaver.”
Baden snorted. “The Cleaver?”
Destan nodded. “Indeed.”
“Tell him he can remove his helm.”
Cleaver stepped fully into the light. His voice, when it came, made Vath’s rumbling sound nearly falsetto. “The helm stays where it is, dwarf. I wear it whenever battle is promised.”
“You expect a battle tonight?”
“Tempus willing.”
Kellus sighed. “We have many questions, Archmage. May we sit?”
“Of course. And, please, call me Destan.”
Kellus sat, adjusted his mace on his belt, and leaned forward. “First, we have friends that have not yet arrived. We would ask that you locate them, if you may, so that we may offer what aid we can.”
“They are dead.”
Raylin shook his head. “John is dead. Vath and Amelyssan might yet live.”
“I am sorry, but no. The elf and the half-troll died upon the Weedsea. Or, more truthfully, beneath it. I am sorry.”
“How do you know this?”
“I know it. As do you.”
Kellus rubbed his chin. “I believe you.”
“Good,” Destan replied, “because there is much that you must accept from me on faith alone.”
***
Faith, Kellus thought, had always been the most difficult gift to give.
Or, rather, not always. Once, Kellus had been a stalwart, promising acolyte in the Church of his father. Once, Kellus had believed every word in the iron-plated books of Helm. Once, Kellus had believed his God would Protect those who protected others in His name.
But that had been before the death of his father. Before an errant bolt had ricocheted off a stone wall and lodged itself within his father’s throat.
What kind of a Protector God would fail to protect his own chosen priest?
That was a hard question. It was made harder when Kellus, himself barely more than a child, cradled his dying father’s head in his lap. It was a question that, truly, had no answer. And it was a question that, simply by asking it, destroyed the child-man Kellus had been.
In short, he had lost his faith.
Gone was his faith in Helm, gone too was the respect for his own father. His father, Kellus thought, had been a fool. He was duped, like so many were, into believing the Gods cared. The Gods did not care. The Gods had never cared. The Gods would never care.
A man should place his faith in those things that have meaning to him, in his mortal life, until his days finally – thankfully – come to an end. A mace – this has meaning. A horse, armor, a man’s wits – these have meaning. These are the accoutrements of the faithful, of those who would not be fools.
Kellus departed Rhelm the morning after his father’s death. He gathered his things, including the breastplate of his father, and left. He did not attend the funeral, never set foot within the Church, did not say farewell to his mother who, even then, was losing herself.
But a surprising thing happened. His clerical power to heal, to bless, to purify – these remained with him. He no longer believed in Helm, and yet he could perform miracles attributed by so many to divine power. How could this be? Kellus had only one answer – he believed in himself. He had faith in his own powers. As a man. And each time he cast a spell, each time he shielded himself from harm, each time he cast light onto the spiked head of his mace – his understanding was strengthened, his faith was solidified, his doubt was erased. Helm drifted further from him until, soon, the God became a memory of a misspent youth.
Kellus sought to teach others of this understanding. He assisted laborers with their work, he healed sick children, he knitted broken bone and he fed starving peasantfolk. He would do all of things, and never would he demand more than one thing in return: Those who would benefit from his power must recognize that it came from him, not from Helm, not from any God, but from a man.
Kellus was a man, and man was a God.
Certainly there were those who would not forsake their misplaced faith. They would watch, and Kellus would watch, as a sick child died. They would weep and tear at their breasts as Kellus stood by and allowed birthing mothers to bleed their life away. So be it. Life was filled with harsh lessons, and he would not assist those who refused to understand this. The world was filled with fools; he would not be one to increase their number. Let them perish and lessen, until only the strong – the true faithful – remained.
And thus did Kellus, formerly a priest of Helm, live his young adulthood. Always traveling, always moving, always offering aid to those who would simply recognize the powerlessness of the gods. Many times he was nearly killed by grieving folk, many times he was run out of town. But just as many times he left thorps and hamlets with the seed of man’s own might, with the kernel of faith in man’s own power. He was a missionary of man.
Only now, after seeing the horrors of the Abyss, did Kellus again realize that the Gods were real. He had looked into the face of Baphtemet and known – known in the very core of his soul – that the mere existence of such a creature was proof of the immortal. Where there was an Abyss, there must be a Heaven.
Faith, by definition, never requires proof. But Kellus, by definition, was never a normal priest.
He had erred by forsaking his faith. He had erred when he allowed peasant children and bleeding mothers to die. He would now spend his life paying for those sins. So when Destan asked for their faith, Kellus was ready to give it. And did so. This cause, this prophecy they were only know beginning to understand, would kill him. Kellus was never one to avoid a truth. By killing Ippizicus, Ral, and Baphtemet – he had firmly planted his feet on a path toward his own destruction.
It was nothing less than he deserved. Indeed, he welcomed it.
***
“…so you claim we are the persons spoken of in this Prophecy?”
Destan nodded slowly. “You are. All the signs and portents are there, for one who would read them. You have slain the Black Three – Ippizicus Child-Eater, Ral the Torturer, Baphtemet the Liar. Those fiends were but a precursor to Loroth’s impending invasion.”
“An invasion of the Valus?”
Destan shook his head. “An invasion of the world. He would make a wasteland and call it his abode. There are many that will follow him, unwilling or no. Demons and devils, both – Loroth transcends their feuds, for all fiends see a Black Paradise in his machinations.”
“The feratu that posed as Brother Daladon – he is within Loroth’s employ?”
Destan shrugged, “Perhaps not directly, but I do not doubt the demon’s aims coincide with those of the Witchking. As do the aims of the Dreth, the Wolven, and others. These are black creatures, corrupt in the core, and they wish to dance their dance upon the bones of the world. They have waited a millennium, they have waited since the collapse of the Dezimond within the red stones of the Rorn. Now is their time.”
“Or so they would believe,” Mariadon added, somewhat dryly.
“Yes, yes,” Destan waved a hand, “so they would believe. But there are those of us who would prevent such a thing.”
Raylin swiveled his gaze about the room. “More than us, I would hope. Yes?”
Baden coughed into the sudden silence. “No disrespect, but we don’t seem much of an army.”
“Because we are not.” Mariadon leaned forward to address the dwarf. “We are but a vanguard. Our numbers will grow, even as the threat coalesces upon the mainland. We must do what we can, with the resources we have, in the time we are given.”
“And then?” Baden replied, unbowed. “What shall we do when the Witchking raises his banners? I’ll grant you that the Larrenman is fine in a pinch, and Kellus has shown his ability upon the field. But we are nothing against demons.”
“Need I remind you that you already killed three of them?” Destan smiled.
“Tell me - are the creatures known as Dreth considered demons?”
“They are.”
“Then we have killed more than three." Baden ignored the surprised looks from Raylin and Kellus. "But you speak of armies, and Witchkings, and other things that are like to turn my beard the color of snow.”
Mariadon nodded slowly. “It is no easy task. Destan and I do not know what will happen if we throw ourselves against this evil. But we do know, friend dwarf, what will happen if we do not.”
Baden thumbed his eye. “Let me guess: we will die.”
“The world will die.”
Kellus frowned. “Enough.” He glanced from Baden to Mariadon and, finally, to Destan once more. “The question is not what can we do if the black banners are raised in the Rorn; the question is – what can we do, now?”
“For starters,” Destan murmured, chuckling, “we can kill the feratu that Mariadon allowed to escape his Church.”
Raylin’s eyes narrowed as he turned toward Mariadon. “Finally, I hear wisdom in this room. I said allowing the feratu to escape was a mistake. I said it then, and I say it now.”
“No,” Destan held up a finger, “not a mistake. A risk, certainly, but we will be forced to take many of those.”
Kellus placed a hand on Raylin’s forearm. “Explain yourself, Archmage.”
“Feratu are masters of trickery and disguise. Their talents lie both with illusion and a primitive form of shapechanging. They can assume the forms only of those creatures they kill. And, as time progresses, their disguise weakens. Their flesh sloughs off, their coloring changes, the sound of their voice becomes slurred beyond recognition.”
Raylin folded his arms. “That is no answer.”
But Destan was still talking - “Their deception extends into the field or the arcane. They are exceedingly difficult to scry, for example. Even with intimate knowledge of an individual feratu, it remains difficult. Even for one such as myself.”
Raylin angrily shook off Kellus’ restraining hand. “More reason why we should have gutted the demon when he was in our grasp!”
“It was the holiest day of Lathander, friend,” Mariadon interjected, softly, “and I would not have stained the flagstones of my Church on such a glorious morning.”
“But,” Destan quickly spoke, “even Mariadon would have done as much – if it were the right move to make. It was not.”
Baden rubbed his eyes and yawned. “I am thinkin’ the Larrenman makes more sense than the both of you. Mayhaps you should have let him skewer this demon-”
Cleaver leaned forward for the first time since they had sat. His eyes bored a hole into Baden. “Feratu can hide from magic. They can hide from your eyes, dwarf. But,” the half-troll tapped the faceguard of his helm, “they cannot hide from me.”
“Huh?” Baden was too perplexed to offer anything more in the way of a retort.
“Cleaver,” Destan offered, “has extraordinary powers of scent. A feratu can mask its appearance, its voice, its movements. But its smell is unique.”
Kellus stared at Cleaver. “You followed him.”
The armored behemoth nodded. “I followed him. To his lair.”
Raylin looked from Cleaver to Destan. “There are others?”
“Many, many others. A whole nest of them. Here, within Val Hor.”
Mariadon drummed his fingers. “I loved Brother Daladon, friends. I accepted him into the Church from the hands of his own mother, and I held his head as dawn’s light touched his eyes on the morning he first swore the vows of a Sunpriest. I wanted nothing more than to destroy the fiend that had destroyed my child. But we needed to know where the others of his abyssal ilk were hiding.”
“And now,” Destan added, quite needlessly, “we do.”
“Where?” Raylin bristled like a hound ready for the hunt, waiting only for its master’s hand to lift the bar and throw open the kennel gates.
“An old lumber warehouse. Not far from here. In the shadow of the Arena of Storms.”
“When?”
“Now, if you prefer.”
Raylin stood. “I prefer.”
***
Raylin stood within a company of men hand-picked by Destan for the evening’s work. Those assembled were not warriors accustomed to the glories of pitched battle, or the stratagems of siege warfare. No – they were thugs, and brigands, and killers. But they were on their side, in this, loyal to the Archmage for whatever reasons men such as them give their loyalty to another.
Raylin studied their faces in the silence before the storm. They were hard faces, unshaven, dirty. He knew their type because, in many ways, he was one of them; certainly his own face must have looked much the same. What little love these men had in their lives was purchased with a few silvers thrown into the lap of a harlot. They would not offer mercy, and never would they ask for it. A man was only as good as the arm that held his blade, and cowardice amongst his fellows was a fate feared more than death. These hard-bitten souls that Destan had managed to cull from the wineshops and forests of the Valus reminded Raylin of many of his clansmen near the Blackswamp of his homeland; men such as these were never soft, because softness spelled death.
By the gods, Raylin silently swore, it felt good to be among them.
Night had embraced the city. The Valudians who had been drinking away the evening had, by now, returned to their homes. Or, perhaps, fallen asleep beneath their trenchers. The city’s avenues would be only sporadically patrolled by white-liveried watchmen; most of the lantern posts would have been snuffed. It was a time for thieves, for harlots, for the foolish and for the brave. It was a different city at night, darker in more than simply illumination.
At a nod from Destan, the company filed through the compound’s gate.
They moved quietly – these ruffians of Destan’s and the Brothers of Olgotha. Their footfalls were quiet, the clink of their armor a whisper-thin melody in the blackness. Down alleys and through secondary streets, around the dry fountains of better times, past the husks of half-burned buildings and abandoned houses.
Cleaver led them, moving surprisingly quietly for one encased in so much steel. The half-troll stopped occasionally, lifting his nose into the cold night air. His route was purposefully haphazard, deliberately disjointed. Their small troupe would disappear down alleys, wait for one hundred heartbeats, then reappear to commence their walk once more.
No one spoke. No one needed to.
All knew what they would soon face. Feratu were not children. And though the fiends’ powers lay with disguise and trickery, they remained demons nonetheless. All this Destan had told them. The feratu would be trapped – gods willing – within the warehouse. They would know the promise of escape had been denied to them. It would be a hard fight, and deadly.
Raylin would have it no other way. He had sliced the air within Destan’s courtyard with his borrowed blades, becoming as accustomed as he could to their balance. He had rolled his shoulders and his neck, cracked his knuckles and stamped his feet into the deepness of his boots. The Larrenman felt his thirst for blood growing, deep in the back of his throat; John’s death, and the deaths of Amelyssan and Vath, had hardened into a veritable gastrolith within the pit of his stomach.
Raylin wished to hurt, to maim, to kill. The feratu would offer him that. He demanded nothing less. How could he fear to battle demons, when he himself had become one?
Cleaver stepped into a stone gazebo that rested within the shadow of the Arena. Raylin and the others quickly crowded around him into the confined space. Their breath made the air smoky. They were one entity, one creature, a predatory cat prowling the near-deserted streets of Val Hor. Men were coiled, ready, muscles tense and blades well-oiled.
Cleaver lifted both hands and removed his helm.
His face, Raylin saw, was a wreck.
The half-troll made Vath look as pretty as a peasant lass in comparison. The color of his flesh was hard to discern in the darkness, but appeared as black as it did red. His hair was matted and tangled, his teeth broken. Cleaver’s upper lip appeared like some gray-skinned grub, and his lower lip had been sliced, and stitched, some time ago; it was a scar, now, a line of ruined flesh that gave the half-troll the regrettable countenance of a frowning beast. Raylin could have fit the pommel of his dagger into either of the half-troll’s nostrils.
“We are here,” Cleaver rumbled, from deep within his chest, as his eyes found Destan in the darkness.
“Aye,” Destan breathed. The Archmage looked differently, now, as if he had drawn on the arcane powers at his command to wrap him in their ephemeral embrace. Gone was the doddering old man, the flippant elder statesman. “You know your place.”
“Aye.”
“Take these three,” Destan nodded toward Raylin and his companions, “to the rear of the warehouse.”
“I would have Mellish as well.”
Destan looked from Cleaver to the elf crossbowman. "Mellish, I would ask that you accompany Cleaver.”
Raylin assumed Mellish’s answering sneer indicated his acquiescence.
Destan looked from Cleaver to Raylin, let his gaze drift to Baden and Kellus. “You have a hard task. You must watch the rear of the place. There is one backdoor, but the adjoining building is connected, so you must watch that doorway as well. You must kill everything and anything that comes through those doors. Do not spare a single creature, regardless of its guise. Do you understand?”
Raylin answered for all of them with a curt nod.
“There are many men in there with the feratu. Hired men, black of heart and deed. Treat them as you would the demons themselves. There is to be no mercy, not from you. I will capture one, perhaps more. Such is not your task.”
Kellus drew his mace from his belt. “It shall be as you say.”
“The rest of you,” the Archmage whispered to his remaining cadre, “will come with me. Stand clear of me. I will begin things with fire, as is fitting. Once, twice, four times will I send a glowing bead through the cracks in the front of the warehouse. Then – and only then – may you move forward. Kill everything, everyone. You have your partners; stay with them if you can. The fires will banish the darkness, so mark your foes and do what it is you do best.”
A gaunt, pockmarked man with the pale skin of Gordian heritage nodded. “We shall.”
Destan nodded, shared a last look with Cleaver, then led his hand-picked followers away from the gazebo and into the night.
Raylin felt Cleaver measuring him with his black eyes. “Larrenman, you will stand with the priest. There are two doors; you two shall guard the closest one. The dwarf and I will be at the other.”
“And the elf?” Baden spat as he drew his axe, content – for the time – to allow the half-troll to give the orders.
Mellish’s lips curled into a condescending smile. “Worry about your own task, bearded one, not mine.”
Baden shrugged. “Don’t let yer ghost get uppity if I piss on yer grave.”
Cleaver pulled on his helm. “It is time.”
***
Baden padded forward slightly behind Cleaver toward the rickety door at the rear of the warehouse. He paused, watched the half-troll take his position, then stood opposite him. Baden considered unslinging his shield, then thought better of it. He would need to kill, and kill quickly, if the retreat from Destan’s fire became a rout; he could do more damage with two arms than just the one.
Behind him, perhaps thirty paces down the deserted alleyway, Kellus and Raylin took their own position. The two of them, Baden saw, faced one another just outside their own guarded door.
The fight promised to be similar, at least tactically, to battles Baden had fought as a young dwarf in Axemarch. The dwarves would use the knowledge of the lower tunnels to their advantage against the rûcken hordes. Often one corridor would be marked as the killing path, and the clan’s enemies would be beaten and herded toward it. At the exit, near one end, a handful of chosen dwarves would wait to kill those creatures that fled along its length. The ambushing dwarves were not always the best warriors; they were, however, those who harbored the most hatred in their hearts against whatever foes they faced.
- Demons.
Baden blinked. Even now, at times, he forgot the presence of the elf-spirit Ilvar. How many?
- Many.
How close?
- Close.
Baden growled audibly and ignored Cleaver’s glare. Be specific, damn you!
- I am trying. The walls make it difficult, Baden. Four. No – five. Clustered on the far side of the building.
Baden nodded. He held up a hand in the darkness between him and Cleaver and showed the half-troll five fingers. “Demons,” he mouthed silently.
If Cleaver understood, or even cared, he did nothing to show it.
Baden sighed and risked a glance behind them, toward the far side of the alley. Mellish had – somehow – managed to climb to the lower roof of what appeared to be a condemned tavern. The elf was barely visible with Baden’s darkvision, crouched low with his crossbow held in front of him. Moradin, hear me – when this gets messy, please guide that damned pointer’s shots so as not to hit me in the rump.
BOOM!
Baden nearly dropped his axe at the sound of the explosion. He had seen Axemarch runemagi send fireballs at their enemies, but those had been relatively quiet acts of magic. Not so this. In quick succession another, then a third and fourth explosion erupted from the far side of the warehouse. The night sky became an angry red welt, flicking and cracking with the fire that must, even now, be spreading.
Baden glanced upward, studied the bloody false sunrise, then adjusted the grip on his axe. It was images such as those, he knew, that would stay with a man until the end of his days. He hoped such a memory would recall the success of this night.
Hell, he hoped he’d still be alive to remember it in the first place.
Cleaver had his falchion in both hands, held before him, point low. The half-troll placed his back against the wall of the warehouse, and Baden did likewise.
The sounds of fighting reached them within moments, at the far side of the warehouse. By all indications it was fierce and deadly – there were very, very few cries of pain. Moans and screams only came, Baden knew, when men had an opportunity to recognize their death.
Baden felt the tension within his stomach tighten. It was always this way, for him, before battle. He had last felt it when marching forward to duel Pandios of Margive on the Causeway of the Moon Goddess. He realized he had forgotten how sickening it could be.
Thus, the dwarf was somewhat amazed when he saw the wide and leering grin that shone even through the rims of Cleaver’s cheek guards. “Do you smell it, dwarf?” The half-troll tilted his head and sucked in the night air through his nose.
Baden licked his lips, spat out the whiskers of his beard. “Smell what?”
“Fear.”
The door burst open.
Baron Opal
First Post
Sweet. A pleasant birthday present. Thank you Destan.
Baron Opal
Baron Opal
trexmaster
First Post
Woot ! An update ! And a massive one too !
Thanks Mister D. !
Going to read now...
Thanks Mister D. !
Going to read now...
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