by Ed Greenwood
The Hunt rider inclined his head. “Then good hunting.” He made a sound in his throat like a muffled screech and the darkwings sprang into the air, its great claws slicing air just in front of their chins, and was gone, the great beats of its wings—and of the other darkwings, flapping in its wake—hurling up dust and small stones that stung their faces.
They all turned away, to face the black barrier. Only Clael looked back at the distant, dwindling Hunt.
He looked back several times, each glance more wistful.
“And now?” Lord Evendoom asked Lord Maulstryke calmly.
“And now, we wait.” Maulstryke strolled a little way along the black wall and then stopped, turned, and added, “Erlingar. Fear no blade of mine until we’re both back in Talonnorn.”
“Likewise,” Evendoom replied.
Clael looked from one lord to the other, suppressed a shiver, and then peered fearfully into the darkness all around them. Not for the first time.
22
Important Things Happen
It always seems to involve bloodshed
And much tumult and breaking of things
Whenever important things happen.
—The Words of Dounlar
The smoke drifting down the street was thick now, quelling some of the roared insults and ranting. The screams came just as often though, amid the clash and clang of swords and tools and kitchen knives.
“Imdul!” Urgel called, as he smashed a House steward across the side of the head with the hilt of one of his blades, driving the rampant’s jaw down to meet his upthrusting knee. The steward crashed to the stones unregarded.
“Gel!” his slender friend called back, out of the gaping hole that had been a shuttered window. “Out in a trice!”
The mask maker nodded, gasping for breath, and whirled around to look in all directions for approaching trouble. It had been a desperate fight just to stay alive in the rioting mobs. Everywhere in the Araed Nameless were looting and burning—and raping in the brothels, too; Urgel had passed one where pleasure-shes were frantically hacking and stabbing rampants in the ruins of what had been their front display windows.
Urgel was well beyond being sick of it all, but there was nowhere safe to hide or get clear of the fighting—and at least in the streets he and Imdul could try to kill every crone and priestess they saw. That would be some good, out of all this mess.
Imdul came out staggering, his arms wet with blood to the elbows.
“All right?” Urgel asked.
“Oh. Aye, none of this is mine.” The poisoner shook his head wearily. “It’s going to be a long time mending Talonnorn—if Ouvahlor leaves us alone to try.”
“A long time,” Urgel agreed grimly—and then set his teeth and lifted the blades he held in both hands, as a fresh mob of howling, running Nifl came around a corner and swept down on them.
“Inside!” Imdul snapped. “Back inside, where I was! They’ll trample us, out here!”
They hastened, ending up fighting like oriad Nifl against a veritable whirling forest of swords that caught up to them before they could get through the door.
And then the mob swept on, leaving behind only a few reeling, shouting Niflghar hacking angrily at each other.
“No fit place to stay, in there,” Imdul said. “It’s afire, down the far end. We’d best get on.”
They had to hack and thrust their way to the next corner, where it seemed a dozen duels were all going on at once where the streets met. In the midst of that frantic fray the two friends came face to face with Tarlyn, who shouted, “Ho! What price soothing rumors now? Or Hairy Ones as conquering champions! I hear Lord Oszrim’s dead, and Lord Dounlar, too!”
“Olone take us all,” Urgel growled, wearily—just as someone ran Tarlyn through from behind, a bright sword bursting out of his chest.
The handsome Nifl stared at them, aghast and dying, spitting bubbling blood as he tried to say something—and failed.
As he slid forward onto his face and into oblivion, Urgel and Imdul roared their rage and burst over his sagging body, to hack apart his slayer.
It was a fat shopkeeper; their blades thrust and slashed at him at will as he sobbed and whimpered his way to his knees.
“Why did you do it?” Urgel roared into his face. “Why slay a fellow Talonar?”
“H-husband,” the shopkeeper coughed, trying to raise a pointing finger to indicate Tarlyn’s sprawled body. “He ’n’ my wife. Olone-dung, him …”
Rage draining away, Urgel and Imdul stepped back, looked at each other—and then were flung aside, screaming, as a wall of ravening magic blasted down the street, hurling all Nifl before it.
Their longtime comrade Clazlathor came down the blood-slick way, the glows of that ravening spell still curling around his hands, and the giant Nifl Munthur strode with him.
“Imdul? Urgel?” the spellrobe called at the gaping windows and doors all around. “Has anyone seen the mask maker? Imdul?”
Clazlathor’s spell had heaped a great mass of broken bodies against the front of one building at the street-moot, and they trod on limbs and torsos to get past, never knowing that some of the remains were those of Imdul and Urgel.
Far down the street behind them, there came a great groan that slowly grew into thunder, as a building collapsed. The great crash drowned out a few feeble screams.
The last of the deadly magics faded away at last. After the silence started to stretch, and a dagger flung across the cavern awakened no lightnings or gliding wraiths, a wincing, staggering Old Bloodblade dared to come out of the cleft, lift his head, and call, “Anyone still alive? Anyone?”
Far across the cavern, Sarntor struggled to his feet, spitting blood, and mumbled, “For now.” Two other Ravagers managed to rise, and the four gathered in a grim little ring, looking around at all the dead.
“Are we trapped here, doomed to starve?” Sarntor asked, waving a weary hand at the black dome. “One last magical thrust at us?”
“No,” Old Bloodblade replied, touching three deeply-set buttons in the ordauth sphere he was cradling.
The black dome faded slowly away.
“We must go,” he added. “Someone obviously knows we’re here, and will probably be along to finish off any survivors—and that’d be us.”
“Indeed,” said Lord Maulstryke pleasantly, striding forward out of the darkness beyond the cavern, with a spellblade beginning to glow in his hand. “That finishing off doesn’t look like all that formidable a task, either.”
There were two other Nifl behind the robed Talonar Lord. The Ravagers saw Lord Evendoom give the third Talonar a meaningful glare, and the spellrobe acquire a look of real fear as he reluctantly advanced in Maulstryke’s wake.
“Mine,” one of the Ravagers mumbled, and limped forward to face Maulstryke, drawing a dagger and a battered sword as he went. Sarntor made as if to follow, but Bloodblade laid a restraining hand on his arm. The other Ravager was too far away for Bloodblade to reach, and also set off across the strewn dead toward Lord Maulstryke.
Who strolled to meet the first Ravager, and then did something swift and deft; the Ravager barely had time to cry out before he was falling. The second Ravager charged, and was greeted with a stone-cold smile and the words, “Greetings. I am Ohzeld Maulstryke, Lord of my House—and I am your doom. In the name of Shoan Maulstryke …”
That last word had barely left his lips by the time the spellblade in his hand burst through the Ravager’s throat and neck and withdrew again; the outcast Nifl toppled in a welter of blood.
“Well, now, Talonar Lords, you’re a long way from home,” a new voice observed jauntily. “Have you run out of slaves to butcher at last?”
Daruse gave the three Talonar a mocking smile as he came out of the side cavern, with a human, an Evendoom she, and the eye-patch-wearing Lharlak right behind him.
“Daughter!” Lord Evendoom cried, extending his arms welcomingly.
The stare Taerune gave him was cold. “I was your d
aughter. Until you spurned me. I suppose it’s the hand of expediency that turns your heart my way again now—yes?”
Maulstryke chuckled. “Ah,” he said pleasantly, as the badly wounded Sarntor broke free of Bloodblade and charged. The spellblade left Maulstryke’s hand to fly and fight by itself, striking aside Sarntor’s swift and deadly lunge so Maulstryke could almost leisurely draw and thrust a belt dagger up through Sarntor’s jaw from beneath. “I may enjoy this after all.”
Bloodblade was turning the sphere in his hands over and over, pressing buttons rapidly. Sidestepping Sarntor’s clawing, dying hands as the Ravager fell, Maulstryke pointed at Bloodblade and snapped, “Clael!”
The spellrobe raised his hands and wove a swift spell—just as Bloodblade did something that made the sphere click loudly and stepped back from it, leaving it hanging in midair.
Lightnings streamed from each of Clael’s fingers, leaping at the sphere—and vanishing, swallowed by it. A part of the sphere glowed green, and spat out a tongue of white radiance that grew into an upright, glowing white door floating in midair.
“Clael!” Maulstryke snapped again, sounding angry this time, and the pale-faced wizard frantically worked another spell, leveling a pointing finger at Bloodblade.
A crimson beam sprang from that shaking finger and hissed across the cavern at the stout Ravager. Just before it reached him it was plucked aside, curving sharply around to race right into the glowing door. Wherein it, too, vanished without a sound.
“Very pretty,” Daruse commented, hurling a dagger hard at Clael. Lord Evendoom pointed his spellblade and triggered a beam of magic from its tip that melted the whirling knife in midair. Lharlak had flung a dagger of his own, just behind Daruse’s but arcing higher; it flashed past the beam—and plunged home in one of Clael’s eyes.
Screaming, the spellrobe fell.
Mouth tightening, Lord Maulstryke hefted his spellblade and advanced purposefully on Old Bloodblade.
The Ravager leader drew his own sword, and then a dagger to match, kicked aside a fallen Ravager’s arm to give himself clear footing, and waited.
“I have never seen such a fat, ugly Niflghar in my life,” Maulstryke observed with a sneer. “No wonder you’re outcast; Holy Olone must find you revolting.”
“Whereas I,” Bloodblade replied calmly, “have never seen such a twisted, decadent city as Talonnorn, where a few Nifl enslave the rest, exalt themselves as Lords or priestesses, and devote their lives to the pursuit of beauty—and thinking up new ways to be nasty to their fellows. Fortunately, we’re not in Talonnorn now. You stand in my domain, Ohzeld Maulstryke.”
“You know my name. Interesting.” The spellblade lifted out of Lord Maulstryke’s grasp, rising point-first to menace Bloodblade, and Maulstryke calmly reached his now open hand back behind him to receive his own spellblade. It slid free of the fallen Clael to come streaking through the air.
“I knew your mother—twice or thrice,” Bloodblade replied with a grin. “And she was twice the rampant you’ll ever be.”
He moved his empty hand deliberately from left to right—and the glowing door slid through the air and swallowed the spellblade that had belonged to Shoan Maulstryke. “Are you ready yet to face me blade to blade?” the Ravager asked mildly. “As true Nifl fight?”
The spellblade reached Lord Maulstryke’s hand—and he snarled and sprang forward, the blade singing and flaring into a fell glow as it swept down viciously. Darts of glowing magic raced from its cutting edge at the Ravager—only to be snatched aside into the door.
Blades met, Bloodblade’s shrieking with the strain as the spellblade flared red-hot—but the Ravager swayed back to let the bound blades carry to his right, and reached over them almost delicately to slice the fingers of Maulstryke’s sword hand. Sparks spat as the dagger struck rings, Maulstryke screamed—and when he hauled his blade free and brought it back across in a slash that forced the Ravager to step back, two severed fingers tumbled in its wake. Their rings flared, spun free—and raced into the glowing door.
Orivon strode steadily across the cavern, to get between Evendoom and Maulstryke—but Taerune’s father made no move to help Ohzeld Maulstryke. He stood watching, spellblade grounded, looking past the human as if Orivon did not exist.
[NO, Orivon. Leave him be!] Taerune’s mind-voice was frantic, almost a shout. He nodded to let her know he’d heard, and heeded, giving Lord Evendoom a glower that was cooly ignored.
Face twisted in pain, Maulstryke stepped back and switched hands, wringing his wounded one. Blood flew. Bloodblade stepped forward—and the Talonar lord rushed him, swinging the spellblade in a wild flurry of slashes, its magic flaring brightly around them. Bloodblade stood his ground, the two blades clashing and crashing together.
Sparks showered from the ringing spellblade, and seemed to swirl and gather as if about to build into something—but drifted inexorably to Bloodblade’s glowing door, and were swallowed.
“You were … lucky, Ravager!” Maulstryke snarled, as their blades rang and rebounded, clashed again and whirled. “I was trained by warblades who’d not have trusted you to fetch their boots!”
“That would have been wise of them,” Bloodblade grinned, though he was starting to gasp for breath—and caught the darting Talonar spellblade on his dagger. This time it was his sword that slashed in, to sever more fingers.
“Still,” he added jovially, as Maulstryke staggered back, shouting in pain and shedding more fingers, “I can’t help but wonder what they trained you in. It certainly wasn’t blade-work.”
More magical rings drifted toward the door. Maulstryke made a clumsy grab for them, but Bloodblade’s thrusting blade forced him into a frantic parry, and drove him back, out of reach of the rings as they reached the door and … vanished.
The door started to sing; it was growing larger and brighter. “It seems my little pet here is hungry,” Bloodblade commented, pressing forward. “Let’s see if we can’t feed it more of those pretty rings of yours …”
He lashed out, Maulstryke grimaced and brought one arm up to shield his maimed hands—and Bloodblade’s thrust sank down under it to skitter off a concealed Maulstryke codpiece and plunge deep into a thigh beside it.
Maulstryke groaned and started to sag, smashing Bloodblade’s sword away with desperate back-and-forth parries that he retreated behind, still doubled over.
Lord Evendoom smiled at that, turned, and started striding purposefully back out of the cavern. Orivon started after him, breaking into a trot—but Daruse and Lharlak burst past the human, running like vengeful gales after the fleeing Talonar. Evendoom heard their onrushing boots and looked back. His face tightened—and a jet of flame sprang from the tip of his spellblade. He swung it around behind him and kept it there, propelling himself into the air and away.
The jet of snarling flames carried him swiftly out of sight and far beyond their reach.
Puffing, the fat Ravager took two running strides and launched himself at Maulstryke from above, sword and dagger held ready before him. He came crashing down on the wincingly held spellblade and bore it to the ground, Maulstryke sobbing in pain, and then rolled, forcing the Talonar lord apart from his weapon. Then he rose, plucked up the spellblade, and threw it into the glowing door—which promptly doubled in size, shooting up with a roar.
“The problem with Haraedran Lords,” Bloodblade told Maulstryke slowly, between panting breaths, “isn’t killing them. It’s dealing with all of the magics they wear and carry and drag around, that avenge their worthless carcases after you’ve rid the Dark of them. Now, I see you still have some fingers …”
Sobbing, Maulstryke drew a dagger and stared vainly at the few rings he had left. Those that had evidently held means of escape were gone, and he stared at Bloodblade in despair as the fat Ravager lumbered forward.
Then he turned to run, slipping and stumbling on the Ravager corpses. Bloodblade drove the tip of his sword into Maulstryke’s behind, hooked his dagger through Maulstryke’
s belt, hauled the sobbing, feebly kicking Talonar lord around to face the glowing door—and rushed him forward at it, freeing his sword to slice Maulstryke’s throat just before the Talonar half-stumbled, half-fell through it.
And the door exploded.
In a deep cavern walled in glistening ice crystals larger than Nifl heads, priestesses chanted, their fervor gaining speed and force as Lolonmae of the Ever-Ice embraced a column of ice taller than she was, thrusting her bare body against the ice as mist curled up from her, meltwater ran down her limbs, and the deep glow of the Ever-Ice brightened beneath all their bare feet.
The Ever-Ice was coming, the Ever-Ice was heeding, its great slow and chill power flowing into them, the might of all Niflheim becoming theirs—
And then Lolonmae, holiest of them all, broke off in the midst of her gasping prayer, to fling back her head and stare around with her sightless eyes.
Priestesses stared at her, startled and aghast.
Lolonmae waved impatiently at them to remain still and silent. She seemed to be listening to something they could not hear, feeling something.
“Blessed of the Ice,” Ithmeira dared to whisper, “can you tell us—?” Lolonmae looked at her with eyes that could not see her, and murmured, “Something’s happened! Something important!”
She turned then, striding briskly away from the ice column she’d been embracing, and commanded, “Semmeira! Cast a farscrying! It’s Talonnorn again—the Wild Dark near it! Old magic!”
“But Exalted, the ceremony! We—”
“Semmeira,” Lolonmae said mildly. The Daughter of the Ice leaped to obey her.
“Run!” Orivon shouted desperately at Taerune as she flung herself down among the Ravager corpses. What seemed to be a towering ball of sparks leaping in all directions expanded above and behind her, and the fat, jangling, trinket-shedding bellowing ball that was Old Bloodblade Barandon came hurtling down the cavern, waving arms vainly, and—crashed into Orivon.
