Uneasy Alliances tddts-7

by David Cook

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Chapter 4

  Where Duty Lies

  Thunder rolled distantly, and Noph shaded his eyes against the lightning flashing across a stormy sky. A dark rain lashed his cheeks, and he felt warm blood running down his face. Some of it trickled into his mouth, and he tasted its salty tang.

  "Noph!"

  Harloon was calling him, struggling in the grasp of a club-swinging ettin.

  "I'm coming, Harloon!"

  The youth bent to push the tall bushes and grass of the lonely moor away from his legs.

  They wouldn't move.

  "Noph!"

  Noph pushed again at the grassy covering over his legs. He opened his eyes, not to the wind and rain of his dream-inspired moor, but to another darkness, one filled with pain. Someone was whispering urgently in his ear.

  "Noph, are you all right?"

  "Yes… no… I… I can't move my legs."

  "Damn! Wait a minute."

  Noph heard the scrape of a tinderbox, and a faint, flickering light illuminated his surroundings. He was lying on top of a pile of rubble. Blackness stretched around him as far as he could see. Before him knelt Shar, an ugly gash across her forehead. She had torn a strip of cloth from her shirt and, winding it around a piece of wood, was busy fashioning a makeshift torch.

  Noph looked down at his legs. They were pinned beneath a large block of stone, but oddly enough, he felt no pain, only a curious sense of dissociation, as if everything were happening to someone else and he was an impartial observer. He lifted a hand to push back hair from his face and felt dried blood crusted on his scalp.

  Next to him, he could see a shapeless pile, as if someone had carelessly thrown down a bundle of washing. The bundle stirred and moaned, and he saw it was Entreri. His skeletal arm had come partially out of its wrappings, and the assassin stared at it, moaning and rocking back and forth.

  The sight of Entreri, usually so cool and detached from those around him, in such a state jarred Noph back to full consciousness. He reached down and tried to push the stone from his legs, but it was too much for him. Shar stuck her torch in a crevice and came to his aid, but after a moment, she, too, admitted defeat.

  "Wait here," she said in a low voice. "I'm going to see if I can find the others."

  She took the torch and climbed away over the rubble, leaving Noph and Entreri in the dark. They saw her light bobbing in the distance, and then it disappeared. For an endless space, Noph lay still, listening to water dripping somewhere and to soft moans of pain and horror from Entreri. Then, just as hope was at its lowest ebb, Shar's light reappeared. In a moment, the female pirate was at his side, accompanied by Kern and Trandon.

  "Where's Ingrar?" asked Noph.

  Shar shook her head. "I don't know. We couldn't find him."

  Trandon and Kern pulled at the stone block pinning Noph's legs; with a grinding sound, it moved and rolled away. But though the obstacle was gone, Noph found he still could not stand or even shift positions. Kern knelt by him, examining his limbs.

  "Your legs are broken, Noph. I'm going to heal you." He placed a hand on the injured legs, murmuring a prayer. Noph felt a power run through him and sensed strength returning. He flexed his legs and stood cautiously, with Trandon's help.

  "What about him?" He turned to the assassin, still lying semiconscious on the ground.

  Trandon looked thoughtfully at the little man's body. "Are you sure you want to heal him?" he asked Kern.

  The paladin sighed and nodded. "We must succor the fallen, even if they're enemies."

  Trandon shrugged and bent over the dark figure. His fingers spread out on Entreri's forehead, stroking it while he muttered words of arcane power. The little man stirred and sat up suddenly. His dark eyes sparkled in the torchlight. He looked at his arm, and with a shudder that ran through
his entire body, rewrapped it, holding it close to his body.

  "Can't you fix… that? " Noph asked the fighter, gesturing to Entreri's arm.

  Trandon shook his head. "There's something about it that defeats me. My magic won't take. It's part of him-what the forge has made of him." He looked at Entreri with something akin to pity and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm afraid that's going to be permanent."

  Artemis shrugged off the gesture with an air of irritation. "Where's Ingrar?"

  "We don't know," said Shar quietly.

  While Trandon had attended to Entreri, Kern had healed the cut on her brow, and she now looked as normal as it was possible to look in such surroundings.

  Entreri picked up the torch in his good hand. "Let's go look for him." He started off down the mound of stones and dirt. Kern stared after him, then looked at the other three, shrugged, and followed after. Shar and Noph followed.

  They seemed to be in a cavern, the dimensions of which were not entirely clear. Stones from above had crashed through the roof and blocked access to some areas. The company searched where they could, but without success. Then, out of the dark, Shar gave a sudden exclamation. Before them, dim in the torchlight, was the figure of the blind mercenary.

  He was standing, facing away from them, apparently uninjured but not responding to their calls. Only when they came up to him did he reply.

  "Are you all right?" asked Trandon while Kern ran a hasty eye over the young man's form, searching for injuries.

  "I'm fine." Ingrar seemed no more disconcerted by their present surroundings than he'd been by anything since they first entered the labyrinth of the bloodforge. He gestured forward. "This way out, I think. I can smell fresh air through there."

  The others saw he was pointing to a dark tunnel at one side of the cave.

  "How does he do that?" Noph muttered uneasily to Sharessa. "This is getting very strange."

  The pirate nodded thoughtfully. "I know. I don't understand. Ever since we started looking for the bloodforge, he's acted like he's possessed." She shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Well, not much choice now but to follow him."

  With Entreri and his torch leading the way, they entered the dark opening followed a tunnel that slanted steadily upward. After walking for several hundred yards, they came to a broad flight of steps leading farther up.

  "Wait a minute." Noph sank down to rest at the foot of the stairs. "I'm sorry, but I've got to rest a minute. I don't think I'm over what happened back there."

  The others sank down beside him. Entreri bit his lip and stared impatiently at them but finally sat on the lowest step, from time to time glancing up the staircase.

  Kern turned to Trandon. "Now that we're all here," he said, his voice cold, "perhaps you can explain what you've been playing at."

  "Yes," added Shar. "I thought we had only one magic-user in this group." She jerked a thumb at Kern. "So what were all those fireworks back at the altar?"

  Trandon drummed his fingers for a moment in thought. His staff, which he'd evidently clutched when he fell, lay beside him.

  "All right," he sighed. "I was sent on this expedition by the Council of War Wizards of Cormyr."

  "What?" exploded Kern. "What in the name of Tyr did the War Wizards want with this business? And furthermore," he growled before the fighter could answer, "since when have you been working for the War Wizards? You told us you worked with the Hammers of Tyr recruiting paladins."

  Trandon rubbed his chin in evident embarrassment. "To answer your second question first, I don't work for the War Wizards; I'm a member of the Council of War Wizards and have been for a number of years. Given the circumstances of Lady Eidola's kidnapping, that wasn't information I was anxious to spread about. I was at Piergeiron's wedding purely as a social courtesy, but as soon as his bride was stolen, I contacted other members of the council, and they agreed I should join the expedition to find her.

  "The council became concerned when Khelben determined that the kidnappers came from the Utter East and that a bloodforge was somehow involved. We had heard of these artifacts and their tremendous power, though no one on the council had ever seen one. Vangerdahast didn't want someone wielding that kind of power about Faerun without anyone keeping track of it." He paused and glared at Artemis, who looked back coolly without speaking.

  "Just a minute," interrupted Sharessa. "What are you both talking about? Where's Cormyr, and what's this council? And who's Peergarion?"

  "Cormyr's a kingdom in Faerun," supplied Noph. "Piergeiron is the ruler of the city of Waterdeep, where I come from. My father's a lumber merchant there," he added, rather unnecessarily.

  "Don't your rulers have bloodforges?" asked Sharessa.

  "Of course not," replied Trandon. "As I understand it, they're peculiar to the Utter East-the Five Kingdoms, if you prefer that term. But if a ruler in Faerun were to acquire one, or to form an alliance with a realm that possessed one…"

  "… the donkey dung would be in the fire," finished Noph.

  "Exactly. No one could stop a power that could create armies out of thin air."

  Shar shook her head impatiently. "What about the cost? The cost of using the bloodforge, I mean. You may have heard how these things affect the rulers who use them. I've heard stories about the mage-kings of Doegan since I was a baby, but I never believed them until now."

  Trandon shrugged. "Take my word for it, there are plenty of rulers, or would-be rulers, in Faerun who'd gladly pay such a price."

  "Okay, but who are the War Wizards?"

  Kern made a noise between a grunt and a hiccup. "The War Wizards are a lot of busybodies who think that because they're wizards, they have the right to poke their snouts into everything that passes under the sun."

  "Well," observed Trandon pacifically, "let's just say we felt we had a legitimate interest in the outcome of this affair."

  "We might be a lot better off if you'd told us you were a wizard," Noph half shouted. "Couldn't you have used wizardry back in Undermountain? Maybe you could have saved Harloon…" His voice choked as he remembered his dead friend.

  Trandon sighed and placed a hand on Noph's shoulder. "Believe me, Kastonoph, I did everything I thought I could. Maybe I could have done more. Harloon and Abie's deaths are something I have to live with now. But I didn't want to tip my hand. And you must agree that when I did use my powers, it was at a time we really needed it."

  "And the result," observed Entreri, speaking for the first time in the debate, "is that we're here." He stood and stepped a pace nearer the now-revealed wizard. "I don't like surprises. And I don't much like wizards," he said flatly. "Is there anything else that anybody's keeping secret?" His eyes swept the party. When no one spoke, his lips creased in what might have been taken as a smile. "All right. The Fallen Temple has the bloodforge.

  But if we hurry, we may be able to get it back."

  "Get it back? Are you insane?" Shar was on her feet, pointing to Artemis's injured arm. "Have you forgotten what that thing did to you?"

  Entreri turned his back on her and went up the stairs. In a moment, the rest of the party followed.

  The stairway rose in a steady line for perhaps a hundred feet, then leveled off in a broad landing. Three doors opened onto it, and Ingrar, without the slightest hesitation, entered the right-hand one. Entreri, apparently equally confident, followed him, with the rest of the adventurers trailing behind him.

  This tunnel rose in a steady spiral, the slope gentle but wearing on pirate and paladin alike, suffering as they still were from the stiffness and aches from their fall. Nonetheless, their spirits rose as they sensed they were coming closer to the surface.

  "We must be almost there," gasped Shar. As she spoke, a flicker of red light flared against the side of the tunnel before them, and a wind blew down the passage, carrying with it the smell of something burning.

  A moment later, the companions found themselves standing in a doorway whose great wooden doors had been wrenched asunder. Trandon and Kern stepped
forward and pushed the wreckage aside, and the group stepped through. They were in the interior of a temple; that much was clear from the great altar with its now-familiar image of the mage-king. The doors on the opposite side of the building stood open, and Noph, longing for a glimpse of the sky, ran to them. His strangled cry brought the others behind him. In awe, they stared out upon the scene.

  Eldrinpar was burning. From the temple doors, standing atop a vast pyramid, they gazed out at the doomed city. Flames lit the dawn and flickered against the horizon. Spirals of smoke wafted upward, tendrils of black that seemed to reach into the greater darkness of the early morning sky. From time to time, a new building, ignited by the great heat of the fires, burst spontaneously into flame. The companions could hear a confused din of cries, screams, and shouts borne on the hot breeze.

  From their vantage point above the city, they could see crowds of citizens fleeing through the streets. Pursuing them were bands of fiends, who ensnared them with paw and claw, sometimes slaying, sometimes capturing the unfortunate Doeganers and bearing them off to an unthinkable destination.

  Not a word was spoken among the companions for some time as they stared, horrified, at this orgy of death and destruction. Then Sharessa pulled her eyes from the scene and faced the others.

  "Come on! With a lot of luck and some fighting and wizardry, we can probably get to the harbor. Once we're out to sea, I doubt any of those things will follow us. They're too busy making meals out of these people."

  Entreri turned toward her. The rising sun showed the dark circles beneath his eyes. Raising his injured arm, he pulled the cloth from it. The others shuddered at the sight of the bones that clicked and moved without sinew or muscle.

  "I don't plan to go anywhere," the assassin observed, "until I have that forge." His voice rose in power and ambition. "Imagine what would be mine if I could learn to control the power that did this to me!"