by James Wyatt
“Our agents are transporting it here now.”
“Excellent. And second?” Thuel was quick, efficient. He liked to get the information he needed and move along. Despite his relaxed appearance, he was in constant motion.
“Our concerns about the western border have proven justified.”
Now Thuel turned to look Kelas square in the face. “The barbarians?”
Kelas nodded. “Several of the Carrion Tribes have joined under one chieftain’s banner, and they have already started eastward.”
Thuel brought his hands up, putting one finger to his lips in thought. “Several tribes,” he said. “How many tribesmen are there in this army?”
“They number in the tens of thousands.”
That provoked the reaction Kelas was looking for—Thuel clutched the arms of his chair and leaned toward him, eyes wide. “They’ll annihilate the Reaches!”
“Yes,” Kelas said. He would let Thuel reach his own conclusion. There was only one possible conclusion.
“And they won’t stop there. They’ll be at our border in no time.”
“Without doubt.”
Thuel sat back in his chair. His eyes darted around the room, chasing his thoughts. Kelas could guess at those thoughts. The logical course was to send aid to the Reachers, reinforcing their border so the barbarians never got close to Aundair. But so soon after the debacle at Starcrag Plain, the Reachers weren’t likely to welcome Aundairian troops into their lands—they would suspect Aundair of trying to reannex the Reaches. It was no secret that Aundair still considered the Eldeen Reaches its western province.
But the Reachers’ attention would be focused on the west. They had been mollified by Queen Aurala’s assurances that the attempted invasion of Thrane had occurred without her knowledge or approval, and the public execution of the general responsible, Jad Yeven. The Aundairian border would be poorly defended by little more than a token force. With the full support of the queen, Aundair could strike with enough force to sweep through the Reaches and meet the barbarian horde in full strength.
“The chieftain who leads them,” Thuel asked, “what do we know of him?”
“His name is Kathrik Mel. He inspires tremendous loyalty in the barbarians, an almost religious fervor.”
“He’s a demon?”
“I don’t think so. The Ghaash’kala call him a sak’vanarrak—it translates as something like ‘fiend-touched.’ A Karrn scholar coined the word tiefling. I think he’s some mixture of fiend and mortal, more like a savior than a god.”
Thuel frowned. “Their savior, our damnation.”
Damnation—that was a strong word. But then, Thuel had been very vocal in his support of the Treaty of Thronehold, very eager to stop the hostility between Aundair and its neighbors. Outspoken in his condemnation of Haldren, who attacked the Reaches after the signing of the treaty. It made sense for him to describe a return to war in such stark terms. “Is there anything else?” Thuel asked.
There was so much more. But the time would come for that. “No,” Kelas said.
“I’ll advise the queen. Thank you.”
Kelas rose and left the room. The hall felt cold after warming his blood by the fire.
Cart had never been particularly good at sneaking. The adamantine plating of his body tended to clank, if only slightly, when he moved in certain ways, and it made crouching behind cover hard for him. More than that, it ran counter to his training and his attitude toward battle. Enemies were to be faced and slain.
But practical concerns sometimes forced him into unfamiliar ways. He was the lone warforged in a camp full of soldiers. He was known as a traitor and thought to be dead. If anyone saw him, there would be fighting, and he didn’t want to fight the soldiers who blindly followed Kelas’s orders. There was at least the possibility they might overwhelm him with sheer numbers, and in any event there would be a large number of needless deaths.
So he draped himself in a voluminous cloak, trying to hide his nature, and moved as quietly as he could through the camp to Phaine’s tent. The elf had chosen a spot near the Dragon Forge to pitch his tent, far closer to the crystal prison than Cart would have wanted to be. It was also, apparently, closer than anyone else in camp was willing to sleep. No other tents stood within fifty yards of Phaine’s. Also to Cart’s advantage, once he reached the wall of the forge and started creeping along it, the hissing steam and occasional bursts of flame covered any noise he might have been making.
Ashara had an easier task, given her prominent position in the camp. First, she ensured that Cart was armed, and found a sword for him to give Gaven and a shirt of chainmail she would bring for him to wear later. Then she left the camp, promising to provide an escape route for Cart and Gaven—a way to scale the cliff near Phaine’s tent. From the top of the cliff, it would be a simple matter of evading or disabling a handful of guards and disappearing into the foothills.
A growl of pain from the tent ahead of him told Cart that Gaven was still alive, at least. He felt a surge of anger, on Gaven’s behalf as well as his own. The blow had been quick and precise, and Cart had been only vaguely aware that Phaine’s hand held the blade that had nearly killed him. He would repay that strike.
Gaven yelled again, and Cart sprang into action. He seized the pole supporting the nearer end of the tent and heaved it upward, ripping two pegs from the ground. The canvas billowed up, and in a flash he saw Phaine standing over Gaven, a blood-tipped dagger in his hand. Cart swung the pole into the elf’s gut, doubling him over and tangling him in canvas and rope.
With the sword in his other hand, he hacked at the ropes holding Gaven to the chair, careful not to cut into flesh. The tent flew free, and Phaine wasn’t there.
“Look out,” Gaven said. His voice was weak and his throat raw from shouting.
Cart whirled and brought the sword with him, cutting a wide arc through the air. Phaine leaped back, almost out of reach, but the point of the sword still sliced into his upper arm and across the leather armor that covered his chest.
The weight of the sword pulled Cart off-balance, and Phaine sprang into the gap in his defenses. The elf’s blade found the softer substance between the metal plates of Cart’s arm, making him nearly lose his grip on the sword. Cart pushed Phaine off him and dropped the unwieldy weapon, yanking his own axe from his belt. Fury nearly blinded him, shutting out Gaven and the rest of the camp. He saw only Phaine.
The elf circled warily, wearing a smirk that only intensified Cart’s rage. “I don’t know how I failed to kill you before, war-forged,” he said. “But I never repeat my mistakes.”
“In all my years, I’ve never encountered a more loathsome, honorless, traitorous scum.” Cart swung carefully, sizing the elf’s reactions without leaving himself open. Phaine was amazingly quick on his feet, his movements a shadowy blur.
“Thank you,” Phaine said. He darted to one side, and his blade was at Gaven’s throat. “I wish I could say I held you in such high esteem.”
Cart cursed himself. He’d been careless, oblivious to the field of battle while he focused on his enemy. He let the head of his axe droop to the ground. He’d hoped to be a hero, but proven himself a fool.
Gaven’s hand shot up and grabbed Phaine’s wrist, pulling the blade away from his throat. With a grunt, Gaven heaved Phaine forward, dragging the elf over his lap and slamming a fist into his gut while he passed over. Phaine landed in a crumpled heap on the ground.
“Give me the sword,” Gaven said. Cart saw that he’d worked his hands free, but his feet were still bound to the legs of the chair.
As Cart stooped to retrieve the sword, he saw Phaine vanish, and an instant later he felt Phaine’s blade slide between his armored plates. Strange lights danced in the darkness at the edge of his vision, and his thoughts clouded. With a final surge of effort, he lifted the sword and swung it and his axe together. It was a solid blow—he felt both blades hit flesh. Phaine’s body dissipated into wisps of shadow, and then he was gone.
> Cart held both blades at the ready, waiting for the elf’s inevitable reappearance. Pain raged in his chest, but he managed to fight back the darkness in his eyes, clear the shadows from his mind. A moment passed—nothing. He stepped over to Gaven and handed him the sword, still watching—still nothing. Gaven cut the rest of his bonds and stood beside him, holding his sword in both hands, but the elf did not reappear.
A shadow took form amid the pulsing light of the Dragon Forge’s fires, and Cart and Gaven both whirled to face it. It was not Phaine. The enormous form of Malathar the Damned rose up from the forge, smoke and steam billowing around him, his blazing eyes fixed on Cart and Gaven as he leaped into the air.
Gaven crouched, preparing to cleave into the dragon’s bones when it drew near enough. Then he lurched forward, gasping with a jolt of pain. He tried to resume the stance, but he was favoring one leg.
“Come on!” Cart shouted, pulling at Gaven’s arm. Gaven gave a fierce shake of his head. “Not before I’ve dealt with him.”
“You’re mad.” Cart managed to pull Gaven back a few steps before the half-elf wrenched his arm free. “You’re in no condition to fight him.”
The dragon-king wheeled in the sky and dived toward them.
“I have to!” Gaven cried.
“Not now. It’s suicide!”
Gaven turned and fixed his gaze on Cart’s eyes. “If I leave here without that dragonshard, I might as well be dead.”
Darkness coiled and congealed in the dragon’s mouth, then burst forth in a spray like black fire. Cart rolled away from the brunt of it, but the blast drove Gaven to his knees. A purple-black light coursed along the edges of Gaven’s clothes, festered inside the many wounds on his skin, and sparked in his hair. He lifted one leg, but he didn’t have the strength to rise.
Shouts arose in the camp beyond the Dragon Forge, and Cart saw soldiers emerging from tents, donning helmets and seizing their weapons. Malathar circled around in the air for another attack. Cart stooped over, wrapped an arm around Gaven’s legs, and lifted the half-elf to his shoulder. Gaven went limp, and Cart ran.
He started for the cliff near Phaine’s tent, where Ashara had said she would provide a way up. He scanned the cliff face as he ran, looking for a rope or any other indication of Ashara’s presence. He saw only the sheer blue crystal jutting up and out from the jagged edge of the cliff. Had she been hindered or captured?
A rope dropped from inside the crevice between the crystal and the rock, above the strange metal strands that linked the crystal to the forge. He saw a glimpse of Ashara’s face, wide-eyed and pale, before she pulled back into the shelter of the gap.
“The excoriate cannot leave here alive,” the dragon-king said, its whispery voice somehow louder and more intense though still eerily voiceless.
Cart didn’t know or care whether Malathar was addressing him or the gathering soldiers. As he seized the rope, another surge of eldritch fire washed over him. It was at once searing hot and deathly cold, numbing his senses and his mind to everything but the burning pain. He shielded Gaven with his own body as best he could, but he felt the strength siphoned from him—his arm dropped from the rope and he staggered under Gaven’s weight.
“No!” Ashara called from above him. He wanted to raise his head, to reassure her, but he couldn’t.
Cart’s head drooped and touched the azure crystal, itself alive with black flame. He heard the voice of his despair in his mind, the same voice that had addressed him in the worg’s temple.
It is no use. You cannot hope to fight him, and you cannot escape him.
Cart lacked the strength of will to argue.
You and Ashara can’t stand against Malathar the Damned, dragon-king of Rav Magar! And Gaven is nothing more than dead weight.
“Cart! Up here!” It was Ashara’s voice, desperate with fear. He lifted his head and saw her face in the crevice again, her hand reaching down to him. “Take my hand!”
“Take her hand, Cart—the hand of a friend.”
It was the softest sound, so utterly unlike the dry voiceless whisper of the dragon-king or the rasp of his despair—it was the rustle of silk, almost too fine for his rough senses. A writhing coil, bright in the blue, moved within the crystal, and he took Ashara’s hand.
“We need to get out of here before he does that again!” she shouted.
“No!” Cart cried.
Malathar slammed down behind him, shaking the earth. Bone claws raked across his back, scrabbling at him as Ashara helped him climb, clumsily trying to pluck him from her grasp.
Wordlessly, the paired voices of the crystal—the silken rustle and the harsh rasp—fought for his attention, but Ashara’s hand held him, tight and strong, and he climbed up beside her. The crevice was narrow, and for a moment he feared he wouldn’t fit, but Ashara took Gaven from his shoulder so he could work his way through into a wider channel.
Malathar spewed one more eruption of unholy fire. The flames licked at the edges of the gap, and a few made it just inside, but the crystal inhaled the greater part of the fire. Cart saw it shimmer along the outside, and seep like rain inside.
“He shouldn’t have done that,” Ashara said, her eyes wide with fear. “He should know that. His fury blinds him.”
Cart heaved Gaven over his shoulder and Ashara took his hand again, pulling him deeper into the fissure, away from the raging dragon-king. He stumbled blindly after her, her touch the only respite from the pain. She led him up a spiraling ledge around the crystal column, glancing from time to time at the crystal as if she were afraid it might lash out at her.
They reached another crevice where the rock jutted closer to the crystal, and Ashara peered through. “It’s clear,” she said. “Can you get through?”
It would be a tight fit. “I’ll try. You go first and I’ll hand Gaven through.”
Gaven’s broad shoulders had trouble, and Ashara winced as the rock scraped the skin of his chest. But then he was through. Ashara staggered under Gaven’s weight but let him down as gently as she could on the ground beyond.
“You’ll never make it,” she said, her brow creased.
“Stand back.”
Ashara obeyed, and Cart pounded his fist against the edge of the rock. The adamantine plating on the back of his hand was harder than the stone, and soon chips were falling free and the gap grew wider. On his third try, he made it through and found himself in the smooth stone chamber, the temple where they’d found the worgs before.
“I thought we collapsed this chamber,” he said.
“Kelas refused. Make of that what you will.”
A week ago, that news would have surprised him. Now that he’d seen what Kelas was capable of, it made perfect sense.
“Now rest a moment and let me see to Gaven, then I’ll help you.”
Cart dropped to his knees then eased himself down on the ground. Ashara crouched beside Gaven, murmuring softly and touching a wand to the half-elf’s wounds. Cart watched skin knit itself together at her command, blackened flesh fade to angry red and then its normal tanned color, the lines of pain slowly disappear from Gaven’s face. Before she was finished Gaven opened his eyes, started at the unfamiliar face and then smiled as the healing washed through him. When she was done, he looked better than Cart had seen him since his first arrival at the canyon.
Ashara turned her attention on Cart then, putting away her wand and laying her soft hands on him. He could feel her coaxing his substance back to wholeness, weaving him together. Her touch was a soft caress, gentle and cool. She called him friend. He reached out to run a finger along the line of her jaw, as soft a stroke as his clumsy hand could manage.
She looked up, startled.
“I’m sorry, Lady—”
“No, no.” She seized his hand before he could pull it away, and cupped it to her cheek. “You surprised me, that’s all. I don’t mind.”
Cart’s hands looked like armored gauntlets, but they could sense touch like the rest of his body. His fingers w
ere not very sensitive to details of texture, but he could distinguish hot from cold, tell a sharp blade from a dull one, discriminate between rough and smooth or soft and hard. He could tell that her face was warm, smooth, and soft, as were the hands that held his in place. He had never felt anything like it before—it was warmer than silk, and softer than the hands of a dying soldier clutching his to hold back the pain.
Her eyes were moist and bright when she finally released his hand and turned her attention back to his wounds.
CHAPTER
40
Lake Galifar is to the west, the Blackcaps to the south,” Aunn repeated to himself. He turned the directions Marelle had pointed—first west, then south. The forest seemed thinner to the south, so he walked that way.
His mind felt addled. Marelle had brought him from the western edge of the Towering Wood to the south of Aundair—they must have traversed nearly a thousand miles in a matter of moments! He tried to review the night’s events, but his memories of them were shrouded in fog. At some point, he reasoned, the eladrin must have shifted him between worlds, drawing him in to the Faerie Court of Thelanis and dropping him back in a different place. How long had he really been gone? Nursery stories warned of travelers disappearing into the Faerie Court and emerging a hundred years later, convinced that only a week had passed.
A thorn-studded thicket marked the edge of the forest. Aunn pushed through and found the morning sun, then turned west to get his bearings. There was a shimmer on the horizon that might have been Lake Galifar, farther away than he’d hoped. The tip of the Blackcap range also jutted up just to the south of west, and he followed the line of mountains around to the south.
There was a storm over the Blackcaps—a very strange storm. For miles around, the sky swirled with black clouds, but beyond that vortex it was bright and clear. At the center, lightning flashed in a roiling mass of red and violet cloud, brilliant bolts striking down to the ground every few seconds. That could not be a natural storm.
It has to be Gaven, he thought.
