Downshadow

by Erik Scott De Bie

  “I did that to shut you up.” Kalen’s eyes were cold. “What were you doing there?”

  “I—” she said. “You don’t understand …”

  Kalen scowled. “Never mind,” he said. “You’d only lie anyway. Just … just shut up.”

  “You could kiss me again,” she thought of saying, but stopped with a shiver. Kalen’s face was hard and his eyes were those of a warrior. Those of a killer.

  No use being ingratiating or alluring. She would just keep her mouth shut for now.

  A woman in armor ran past, and when they heard the muffled voices inside Lorien’s chamber, they recognized Araezra Hondyl.

  “Gods,” the valabrar said. “What happened?”

  “Murder—gods above!” a man said. “Lady Nathalan … oh, gods, her closest friend!”

  “Did you see it? You saw the murder?”

  “Nay, but … Vigilant Dren. He was here, you could …”

  “Dren?” The valabrar sounded shocked. “Kalen Dren, my aide?”

  “Time to go,” Cellica murmured. She’d wedged herself into the alcove near Kalen’s leg, and she darted out.

  Kalen, shoving Fayne roughly along, followed her around the balcony to look down into the chaotic courtyard. Cellica was looking for Myrin, Fayne realized. Kalen was just glowering.

  “Are those yours?” Kalen demanded, waving at the intruders.

  Fayne could only shake her head, completely at a loss. Whoever had sent these men to the temple, it hadn’t been her.

  Near the entrance, Kalen saw a knot of guardsmen and Watchmen rallying around Bors Jarthay. The commander—whose drunkenness had been mostly an act—knocked one man out with his handflask pipe and drew a surprisingly long blade out of his billowing shirt. Commander Kleeandur was there too, barking orders to cut off exits and trap the chaos inside.

  “I don’t see her!” Cellica cried.

  The more Watch that arrived, the fewer rogues remained. But the nobles began dueling, and that perpetuated the brawl. Lady Wildfire, surrounded by a dozen noblemen fighting over the right to protect her, tired of the commotion, brained one of the lordlings with her jeweled purse, and fled of her own power. Talantress Roaringhorn was conspicuously absent, and dozens of nobles cried out in search of one another amidst the din.

  Kalen saw black-garbed figures slipping out of the courtyard, hooded ladies in their grasp. They moved south into the temple plaza.

  Cellica followed his gaze and pointed at the kidnappers. “What are you going to do?”

  Kalen pushed Fayne roughly at the halfling and took his helmet in his hands. He slid it over his head.

  “Kalen, you have no sword,” the halfling said. “You can’t—”

  He pulled the daggers from his belt. He looked across the courtyard as though judging the distance to one of the high windows.

  “Wait, Kalen!” Fayne caught his hand, and he glared at her. His eyes burned. She swallowed a sudden rush of fear. “You … saved my life,” she said.

  “You stupid girl!” Kalen slammed his fist, dagger and all, into the wall beside her head. The blade rang against the stone, deafening her. “What the Hells did you think you were doing?”

  Fayne was stunned. “Kalen, I—”

  “Shut up. I’m tired of it,” he said. “You’re a spoiled child playing games. Just a stupid fool who thinks there aren’t consequences to your pranks—that people don’t die.”

  “Kalen,” Cellica said, casting her eyes down, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment.

  Fayne trembled. “Please don’t,” she said. “Please, Kalen—I’m sorry!”

  But Kalen’s eyes were cold. “Begone,” he said. “I want nothing to do with you. Now, pardon,” he said as he locked his helm in place, “but I have someone worthwhile to save.”

  He ran for the opposite end of the courtyard, leaping from table to table around battles, his enchanted boots guiding him. Screams went up in the courtyard from startled nobles, and a few wary Watchmen fired crossbows in his direction. The bolts cut through his cloak and one cut open his left arm, but he did not falter. When he gained the far window, he paused and looked back—his colorless gaze cut into Fayne. Then he turned, cloak swirling, and was gone.

  Fayne, shocked, pulled herself away from Cellica. She drew out her wand—the wand she could use to hide herself from the world, as she had always done—and glared.

  “I’m sorry,” Cellica said. The halfling rubbed her hands together. “Kalen … he—wait!”

  The halfling staggered as Fayne turned her gaze on her and whispered a word of dark magic. Cellica pawed blearily at her face and seemed unable to see Fayne, who had pulled away and hurried down the stairs toward the brawl. Her longer legs meant Cellica could not catch her.

  As she went, she growled. “Didn’t warn me about this, Father.”

  Avaereene paused when they had run two blocks, to see how many of her men followed. It didn’t matter—she held the wealthiest prize in her own arms—but every noble lass taken prisoner was more coin for the Sightless.

  She was pleased to see that a dozen had escaped, carrying half that many girls among them. Not all of her men had made it, but desperate men were plentiful in Downshadow she could always hire more.

  The lead man stopped at her side. He carried an unconscious Hawkwinter in his arms, head hooded, moaning up a squall through her gag. Though the face was hidden, Avaereene knew all the nobles in Waterdeep by figure as well as face. She had an excellent memory.

  “Where, mistress?” asked her lieutenant.

  They were panting from exertion. Avaereene wasn’t breathing hard—she wasn’t breathing at all, as she hadn’t had to for almost a century.

  “The sewers—keep a low cloak,” she said. “I shall follow with haste.”

  The man nodded and directed the other stealthy kidnappers to follow him. Downshadow men, all of them, and useful enough, even if scarred and ugly.

  “Hasn’t the spellplague warped us all?” she murmured. She thought of the horror lurking inside her and grinned. “Some more than others.”

  Avaereene stepped into an alley, where she found her employer stepping out of a bank of shadows. His cowl hid most of his face, but she knew he was a half-elf. And while he was not dead, neither was he alive. He was something like her.

  “Well accomplished,” he said, indicating the girl in her arms. “Give her to me.”

  “The gold, first.” The blue-headed girl started to moan in her arms as Avaereene began to draw the life from her like a sponge from a pool of water. “Or she dies.”

  His face held no emotion. “Very well.” He gestured, and a pouch appeared from his sleeve, heavy with coin. His black eyes never left the girl’s face.

  Instinct told Avaereene to grasp the reward while it was there, but pragmatism stayed her.

  “Such a curious thing,” Avaereene said. “To pay so much for a girl with no family or connections. I do not even know who she is, and I’ve spent more than a century in Waterdeep.”

  Her employer reached out silently and stroked the girl’s temple with his gloved hand.

  Then he looked up, over Avaereene’s shoulder, and she swore she saw his face for half an instant. His lips had drawn back in a hideous grimace, and his teeth seemed very long.

  “Shadowbane,” he hissed, more like a serpent than a man. “Damn that sword!”

  “What?” Avaereene asked, but he was gone as though he’d turned to dust.

  He had not taken the sleeping girl, but he had snatched the coins back from her. Avaereene snarled in anger and resolved to slay the first thing she saw.

  A pair of her thieves came upon her. “Mistress?” one asked. “Mistress, what—”

  Avaereene tossed the first one aside with a flicker of her will—he shattered against the alley wall. That made her feel better, and appeased the hungry magic within.

  She thrust the sleeping girl into the arms of the other one, who looked frozen in terror, and peered down the street. Sure enough, a man
ran toward them, glittering steel in his hands, gray cloak trailing behind him. He followed on the heels of four more thieves carrying three noble girls.

  “Kalen,” the girl murmured as she stirred in the thief’s arms.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Well met,” Kalen said as he caught the nearest thief by the arm.

  The man turned and Kalen drove both daggers into his chest. The thief stiffened, blinked rapidly several times, then fell with a choked gasp as Kalen—hands free from the blades he left in the scoundrel—caught the woman he carried.

  No time. He set her aside, ripped the curved sword from the thief’s belt, and ran forward.

  Ten paces farther, two men carried a bulky noble lass in a green gown between them. They cursed and fumbled, pushing her back and forth. Finally, the smaller of the men—an ugly, warty dwarf—took her, and the freed thief—a half-orc—turned to face Kalen.

  The brute bristled with metal nails that stood out from his skin like ghastly pierced rings or jewels. The half-orc hefted a stout buckler on his left arm and a length of barbed chain in his other hand, and opened his mouth to challenge.

  Kalen didn’t slow—he leaped to twice the half-orc’s height in the air, driven by his boots. The brute looked up as Kalen hissed down toward him, sword plunging, deadly as a hawk.

  The half-orc interposed his buckler between himself and the airborne knight. Kalen’s thrust, backed by all his weight, shattered the stout wood—but snapped in two as well. The half-orc howled in pain as shards of wood flew into his face, putting more shrapnel in his flesh than before. The broken scimitar blade tumbled away.

  The half-orc, infuriated, swung his chain at Kalen, who interposed his left arm. The chain enwrapped it greedily, barbs barely short of striking his helm. The slashing razors would have split his face open like a boiled egg. The barbs sank instead into his flesh, deep enough that he could feel them prickle. The chain-wielder grinned and Kalen realized his misfortune.

  “Tymora—” Kalen managed, before the half-orc jerked the chain and slammed him against a building. Pain swept through his stunned consciousness, and he sank down.

  The half-orc wrenched him over and he flopped like a limp doll to the cobblestones. The impact ripped through him, but he was still alive and still conscious.

  “Stlarning Watchman.” He also growled a few Orcish words Kalen knew to be curses.

  “Come!” shouted the dwarf, pausing near the half-orc and struggling to hold the kidnapped girl. “No time!”

  “Wait,” said the bruiser, and he reached down to seize Kalen’s neck.

  The noble girl, by chance, kicked the half-orc in the shoulder and his attention wavered.

  It was just a heartbeat, but it was enough.

  With a roar, Kalen rammed the jagged, shorn-off hilt of the thief’s scimitar into one half-orc ankle. The creature howled in pain and faltered on his feet. As the brute teetered, Kalen wrenched the hilt upward and jammed it into the half-orc’s groin. Black blood spurted forth and the creature gave a high-pitched squeal like a stuck pig.

  Kalen rose, the half-orc’s discarded chain hanging from his arm, and faced the dwarf thug who held the struggling girl. Kalen looked down at the chain, the barbs cutting into his arm. Without wincing, with barbs ripping out his flesh, Kalen unwrapped the chain.

  This second thief looked somehow familiar.

  “Wait!” he said, putting up his hands as though to surrender. “It’s you! Shadowbane!”

  Kalen hesitated. He recognized this one from Downshadow—this was the dwarf he’d let flee. Apparently, he hadn’t learned aught.

  The dwarf thrust his forearm forward, and a tiny arrow concealed in a handbow in his sleeve streaked through the air. Kalen batted it aside with the barbed chain.

  Kalen leaped forward and split the dwarf’s chin with a rising right hook. The thief slammed into the wall and Kalen caught him. With an expert twist of his wrist, he wrapped the blood-soaked chain around the dwarf’s neck and pulled. The ugly man’s eyes bugged, making his face even more hideous.

  The noble girl had managed to free her hands and doff her hood and gag. “Thank—” She saw the strangling thief, saw the way Kalen spat and growled like a murderous wolf, and she froze, horror-stricken. “What—what are you doing?”

  Kalen ignored her. The dwarf fought for breath and Kalen pulled tighter on the chain.

  The noble lass put her hands to her throat, found a scream, and split the night with her terror. Then she fled, shouting for aid.

  Not all saviors are angels, Kalen thought. And not all killings are pretty—or quick.

  The thief sputtered and slapped at him impotently.

  “Kalen,” came Myrin’s voice, whispering seemingly on the night’s mists. She spoke softly, yet he could hear her as plainly as if she stood next to him.

  Was this truly her voice, or his imagination? Did that matter?

  Kalen released the chain, let the dwarf collapse retching to the ground, and ran.

  The night had grown misty of a sudden, and Kalen knew magic was at work. The thieves were hiding their escape, trying to throw him off, but Myrin’s voice led him.

  He saw another kidnapper who carried a barefoot girl over his shoulder. Kalen outran him and dived, slamming into the man’s back. Kalen rolled so the thief did not fall on him and hoped he had picked the right direction to catch the captive. Sure enough, she landed atop him, and wild silver-white hair tumbled down.

  He pulled off the girl’s hood, and the shocked eyes of Talantress Roaringhorn stared into his. The magic that changed her skin black had failed, leaving her flesh very pale, but her hair was still long and white. She managed to spit out her gag, and she blinked at him, confused.

  Then a smile spread across her face. “My … my hero!”

  Kalen growled in frustration and thrust her aside. Her captor had risen and was plunging a rapier down at his chest. Kalen rolled away, then back against the blade, wrenching it out of the thief’s hand. He kicked the man’s legs out from under him, toppling him to the ground. Kalen rose and put the man out with a kick to the jaw.

  “Kalen!” came Myrin’s cry—louder this time. Talantress hadn’t seemed to hear it. Kalen turned toward the source of the sound and saw a greenish glow: magic.

  Kalen seized the thief’s fallen rapier. He coughed, opened his helm halfway to spit blood, then sealed his mask. He strode on.

  “Wait!” Kneeling, Talantress caught his hand and held him back.

  Calmly, Kalen snaked his hand around and unbuckled his gauntlet. It came free, and Talantress hit herself in the chest with it and fell on her overprivileged rump.

  “Wait!” Talantress cried from the ground. “Come back right this breath!”

  He continued his run, hobbling a bit more slowly after the punishment he’d endured. Young Lady Roaringhorn got up and gave chase, but he paid her no mind. He plunged into the mists, following Myrin’s voice and the green glow.

  The fog swelled thicker than before, but Kalen pressed on. He was nearing the source, he realized, but he quickly lost his bearing and swam, blind. His body was aching, his lungs heaving, and his heart raced to put him down. He clutched his left arm, which was in agony. He felt as if the half-orc were sitting on his chest.

  “Not yet, Eye of Justice,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Not yet.”

  He channeled healing into himself, praying that he had proven himself once more worthy, but no power came. He gritted his teeth and pressed on.

  Kalen stumbled through an empty, gray-black world. Mist swirled around him.

  “Myrin!” he choked. He felt that he would fall at any breath. “Kalen,” came her voice, leading him forward. “Kalen …” He staggered ahead, stolen rapier ready for any attack, but found only mist.

  “Show yourself!” he challenged. “Cowards!”

  As though in response, the mist parted, and Kalen saw a woman from whose cupped hands the mist flowed. A green glow suffused her fingers—magic. Beside her stood a thief
who looked more terrified than anything else, and in his arms was a limp girl in a red dress.

  “Something’s countering my casting,” the woman murmured in a deep, rasping voice that didn’t match her slim body. She seemed an ordinary human woman, but the voice was that of a beast. “It’s the girl. Somehow, even dazed, she’s—”

  “Then we stop her!” The thief drew a hooked dagger and raised it over Myrin.

  “No, you fool!” the woman roared.

  Kalen ran forward and stabbed the thief through the chest. Stunned, the man looked down at the blade, then at a panting, heaving Kalen. He toppled, loosing Myrin as he went.

  Kalen dived to catch her. She weighed little in his arms and he cradled her tightly.

  An arcane word, in a voice like a grinding gravestone, stole his attention. He looked up at the woman to see her gloved, clawlike hand reaching for his face. A finger touched his brow.

  Power seized him—cruel power that sucked the life out of his limbs. Lightning arced through Kalen, lashing every stretch of bone and sinew, stealing the strength from his muscles. He fell to his knees.

  “Well,” the woman said in her corpselike voice. “This is what happens, Sir Fool, when you cross wills with the most powerful wizard in Waterdeep.”

  She raised her hands and began to chant a spell that Kalen could only imagine would be his doom. Flames and shadow flickered around her hands, like the fires of the Nine Hells.

  And so it ends, he thought.

  His eyes blurred and he sank toward peaceful sleep.

  Myrin’s eyes opened and blue light flooded the alley.

  TWENTY-SIX

  In the strange flash of light, Myrin saw Kalen first, kneeling and helpless, and then the woman—the dead woman wearing the false face—looming over him.

  “No,” she said in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. She lunged forward and grasped Avaereene by the arm, trying anything she could to stop the slaying magic. She wanted to steal the magic away, rip it from Avaereene so it could not touch Kalen. And she did exactly that.

  The fires darting around Avaereene’s fingers faded, flowing instead into Myrin’s hands, which lit with fierce blue light. The wizard opened her mouth and stammered.