by Paul S. Kemp
Riven said, “They’re in the northern Trade Lanes, in the slum warrens near Cart City. They’re heading toward the Underdark tunnels that lead north out of the city.”
“You’re sure?” Cale asked.
Riven nodded and replied, “That’s consistent with what the slaad described to me back at the Crate and Dock.”
“Wagons … lizard pens …” the guide continued.
“Hold him for a while longer,” Cale said to the guide. “We need to be sure.”
Magadon nodded, his eyes still showing only whites.
They waited.
“They’re reaching the end of the cavern,” Magadon said. “Tunnels ahead. Lots of torches and lanterns … goblin runners. It’s a caravan assembly point but I only see one closed wagon. There are many heavily armed duergar, and four in no armor. I don’t see the gray-eyed slaad.”
“Cut if off, Mags,” Cale said.
“Wait …” Magadon said. “The unarmored duergar are gathered around Azriim. To judge from his hands and perspective, it looks as though Azriim is in the form of a duergar himself, or something similarly short. He’s handing them wands. He’s looking toward a tunnel, gesturing. I think they’re preparing to move out.”
“Cut it now, Magadon,” Cale ordered. “We know enough.”
The guide nodded distantly and shook his head as though to clear it. Exhaling heavily, his eyes returned to normal. He looked exhausted.
Cale patted Magadon on the shoulder while he said to Riven, “That must be the caravan they described to you.”
“Agreed,” Riven replied. “Two of the three slaadi are there, along with the squad of duergar.”
“Where then is the gray-eyed slaad?” Cale asked of no one in particular.
Magadon shook his head. Riven shrugged.
Jak already had pocketed his pipe and pulled on his pack.
“I still don’t get it,” said the halfling. “The slaadi are with the caravan, but they want us to attack it?”
“An ambush?” Magadon offered.
“Possibly,” Cale replied, “but I’d wager it’s more complicated than that. Remember that they can teleport away anytime, if they’re willing to risk it. They might just be with the wagon to make it look believable, planning to get out of there when we appear.”
Magadon tilted his head, conceding the point.
“Either way,” Cale continued, “baiting us to attack the caravan is only a ploy, not the real play. So we follow it and them, hidden, but hold our steel until I say otherwise. There’s something else going on here.”
Magadon stood and shouldered his pack. Riven did the same. Cale looked to the assassin.
“You know the way to the area Magadon described?” he asked.
“I’ve been there,” Riven answered softly.
“Then we’re following you,” Cale said. “Mags, when we get close, you take us to the tunnel the caravan is heading down. Let’s move.”
They sprinted through the torchlit streets of Skullport, dodging carts and slaves, mercenaries and mages, bugbears and orcs. With Magadon running easily beside him, Riven led them north through the brewing district—rich with the acrid smoke of distilleries and fermentation casks—and through the slums—rich with the stink of filth, sewage, and rotting garbage—until they reached a flat, open area of Skullport dotted with rothé pens, coopers’ shops, large tents, wheelwrights, and other services related to caravannering.
Smoking torches on tall iron stands lit the area as brightly as a surface city street at night. The hemp highway did not reach that far north, and the ceiling soared away into the darkness above. To Cale, the area appeared to be the mirror image of Skullport’s wharves, but with wagons and carts instead of ships, teamsters instead of sailors, and dark tunnels instead of dark water.
“Cart City,” Riven said, over his shoulder.
Cale saw where the area had gotten its name. The place was thronged with beasts, wagons, carts, humans, and various humanoids, all busily loading and unloading goods and slaves for transport in caravans. Cale did not care to ponder the dark destinations to which the slaves would be taken.
Squads of kobold and goblin laborers flitted frenetically through the area, carrying rope, barking orders, herding rothé and pack lizards. The sulfuric smell of forge smoke and the heavy pungency of animal dung filled the air. The voices of the mass of caravanners merged into an indistinguishable murmur that rose toward the ceiling like smoke.
Jak elbowed Cale and pointed to the ceiling far above. There, framed by stalactites as thin as spears, two glowing Skulls supervised the area from on high, preventing the nascent chaos from erupting into violence. Cale felt the incredible weight of their gazes as they passed over him, the pull of Weaveshear at his waist, and a brief flash of concern that the magic in the blade would draw the Skulls’ attention as surely as a lodestone drew iron shavings. But it did not, and Cale and his companions continued on, unmolested by Skullport’s guardians.
To their right, a caravan of eight carts was assembling, the carts forming up, the teamsters yoking a recalcitrant pack lizard or two. A score or so of armed orc and hobgoblin guards eyed them coolly. A large hobgoblin in a chain shirt aimed a crossbow in Cale’s direction, smiling a mouthful of pointed teeth. Cale slowed and stared. The hobgoblin lowered the weapon, offered Cale a hard smile, a mock salute, and shared a laugh with the other guards.
Meanwhile, Magadon and Riven pushed and elbowed their way through and around the street traffic, hurrying toward the looming, sloping face of Skullport’s northern wall. The guide seemed to know exactly where he was going. Jak and Cale trailed after them.
They stopped in the middle of a packed earth road, twenty or so paces before the rough stone facade of the cavern’s wall. The street traffic broke around them like a wave.
Ordinarily, the fact that Skullport existed in a huge cavern was easy to forget. The city was so large and the darkness so thick that Cale had not seen a wall or ceiling in cycles. But standing before the craggy face of the city’s northern border, he remembered that Skullport existed at the whim of the gods of the earth and stone, in a fragile bubble nearly a league below the surface. He thought it likely that if Azriim and the other slaadi succeeded with whatever they were planning, Skullport’s bubble would burst.
And Varra would suffer the same fate as the city.
“Which way, Mags?” Cale asked. “Riven?”
Ten or more large cave mouths opened at ground level in the cavern’s wall, each easily large enough to allow a cart’s passage. In fact, the last wagon of a caravan was vanishing down the leftmost tunnel at that very moment.
Riven shook his head.
“The slaad wasn’t specific enough,” said the assassin. “I don’t know which tunnel.”
Stepping forward out of the heaviest of the traffic, Magadon knelt on his haunches and stroked his chin, looking from one tunnel to the next, as if searching his memory. Wheel ruts scored the packed earth in front of each tunnel, and Cale couldn’t tell them apart. Innumerable smaller tunnels opened at all heights along the rough rock face but Cale ignored them as impassable for a cart. Bats and stirges wheeled in the air above.
“This way,” Magadon said, standing and nodding in the direction of the third tunnel from the left.
“You’re certain?” Cale asked.
“Yes,” the guide said, and that was good enough for Cale.
But apparently not for Riven.
“Let’s make certain,” the assassin said. He grabbed a passing goblin laborer by the scruff of its homespun shirt and lifted it from the ground. The creature squeaked in agitation, legs flailing.
“Quiet,” Riven ordered it.
The goblin ceased squeaking and instead hissed at Riven through its stained fangs.
“Puts me down, human,” it said in a high-pitched voice, its Common rough and awkward, “or I’ll finds you asleep and cuts out your other eye.”
Riven scowled and the creature recoiled. The assassin produced thr
ee gold pieces from his pouch and flashed them before the goblin’s eyes. The creature grabbed at the coins but Riven pulled them out of reach.
“What’s it you wants, one-eye?” the goblin asked.
Cale looked around to see whether they had drawn attention. To his alarm, he saw that one of the Skulls had moved nearer to them to observe. It floated above them, its empty gaze seeing everything.
“Riven….” Cale said, gesturing toward the ceiling.
Riven’s gaze followed Cale’s. Seeing the Skull, he slowly lowered the goblin to the ground, but kept his grip on its shirt.
“These are yours,” Riven said to the creature, again flashing the coin while eyeing the Skull sidelong, “when you tell me what I want to know.”
A cunning look came across the goblin’s red-skinned face. It rubbed its hands together greedily.
“Asks me, hole-in-face.”
Riven said, “Less than half an hour ago, a single wagon went into the tunnels. It had a score or more of gray dwarves as guards.”
The goblin nodded and said, “Me sees that one.”
“Which tunnel?” Riven asked, giving the goblin a shake.
“You gives more,” the goblin replied.
Riven’s gaze went hard.
“I’ll give you two more,” he said.
The creature smiled in satisfaction, and licked its lips. Riven took out two more coins and held them before the goblin’s face.
“And I’ll drive each of these through your eyes and into your braincase, you little vermin. Speak, now.”
The goblin’s eyes went wide.
“That one,” it said, and pointed toward the tunnel that Magadon had indicated.
Riven released it and flung the coins into the crowd. The creature let out a shriek and scrabbled after the gold.
Above, the Skull turned away from them and floated back to its high perch.
“Wanted to be sure, Mags,” Riven said to the guide, by way of apology.
“Keep moving,” Cale said, and they hurried down the tunnel, all the while under the watchful gaze of the Skulls.
The stink of the duergar drove Azriim to distraction. He thought they must bathe once per month, at best. And their clothing! He wondered how anyone could long tolerate the coarse mushroom-fiber tunics and lizard-skin leather trousers they wore. Even their armor, while obviously well-crafted, looked boxy and inelegant.
He consoled himself with the knowledge that soon all of the gray dwarves would be dead. He hadn’t even bothered to remember their leader’s name, only that the foul creature was an ally of Kexen and served Zstulkk Ssarmn. In fact, the whole clan of duergar to which the guards belonged had pledged its service to the yuan-ti slaver.
Pulled by two of the sure-footed, pony-sized cave lizards endemic to the Underdark, the lone wagon in the caravan rumbled its way north through the twisting but smooth-floored tunnel. Stalactites hung from the low ceiling, and ledges and curtains of stone marked the walls. Phosphorescent lichen lit the road ahead. Water dripped from the ceiling to pool in the recesses of the floor, natural cisterns to quench the thirst of travelers.
Thirty-three duergar—including Azriim in the form of a duergar—guarded the enclosed cart. Dim glowballs hung in rope nests from the sides of the wagon, bouncing with each bump in the road, lighting the caravan like a beacon. Within the cart lay the bait: the magical items Azriim and his broodmates had stolen from the Xanathar.
Four of the gray dwarf warriors walked point perhaps thirty paces in front of the cart, crossbows cocked and loaded. The remainder of the duergar warriors stomped loudly along beside, before, and behind the cart, axes and hammers bare, scowls visible even through their beards. The four duergar mages, each armed with a wand provided to them by Azriim (and taken from the Xanathar’s stash; Azriim enjoyed the irony), moved amongst them.
Dolgan, in the form of the Amnian ship’s captain who had commissioned the caravan, paced along beside the cart, looking as dull-witted as usual. Azriim lingered near the rear of the troop, eyeing the walls above and listening for noise from behind. He knew where Ahmaergo had set up the ambush—less than an hour’s travel ahead—but he couldn’t be certain how, when, or where Cale and his companions might appear. As best he could, he wanted to time their appearance with that of the dwarf’s ambush. With a combat between two of the most powerful, influential factions in Skullport taking place in a main trade tunnel not far from the city, and with ample magic use occurring, Azriim thought it a virtual certainty that the Skulls would appear in force. By his estimation, Skullport’s guardians would appear quickly once the combat began in earnest. He simply wanted Cale and his companions to find themselves in the middle of the hell storm. Watching them die would have been a joy. But alas, it would not be. Azriim and his broodmates would remain on the battlefield only until the Skulls began to show.
Smiling, he reached out with his consciousness, connected to Dolgan, and continued through the tunnel ahead, until he felt contact with Serrin.
Serrin, dressed in the flesh of one Maxil, a human male warrior in service to the Xanathar and late of Skullport, crouched with his “comrades” in the darkness of one of the many narrow side tunnels that opened off a main cavern. An entire network of thin, winding tunnels intersected in the large, open cavern that Ahmaergo the dwarf called the killing field. It was in that cave that Ahmaergo intended to ambush the caravan.
The dwarf had assembled a sizeable force of mercenaries, mages, and even four trolls. All were protected with wards cast by priests of Bane allied with the Xanathar. The dwarf’s force waited in hiding in multiple separate groups near the mouths of several of the side tunnels. When the trap was sprung, they would catch the caravan in a crossfire of quarrels and spells.
Or at least that is what Ahmaergo planned. Serrin would have none of it, of course. He and his broodmates would manipulate the would-be ambush to make it unfold as they wished. Afterward, they would use their rods—in Serrin’s case, a replacement rod provided by the Sojourner—to teleport away.
He shared his tunnel with six men armored in mail hauberks and armed with crossbows and swords. A gnome mage stood with them, an illusionist, and his glamour had rendered them all invisible. A troll hulked at the mouth of the cave, its respiration as loud as a bellows, the stink from its green, warty skin as foul as a sewer.
“Demons’ teeth,” whispered one of the warriors near Serrin, looking down the main tunnel from which the caravan would approach. “I’d just as soon get this thing going apace.”
Playing his part, Serrin offered a disingenuous nod.
“Aye. Move your arses, boys,” he whispered to the empty tunnel, “and let’s get to it.”
The soldier thumped him on the shoulder at the same moment that Serrin felt the familiar tingle of psionic contact at the base of his brain—Azriim. He gave no outward sign of the contact.
Is the dwarf’s force in position? projected Azriim.
They are, Serrin answered, and I am with them.
Notify Dolgan before the ambush is sprung, Azriim said. Dolgan?
I’ll alert the caravan when Serrin alerts me, Dolgan replied.
Azriim’s satisfaction was palpable even as he sent, The attack must not be allowed to take the caravan by surprise. Once it begins, draw out the battle as long as possible, and ensure that magic is cast in abundance. We make for the provenience of the mantle when the Skulls begin to appear.
Understood, Serrin answered, and Dolgan too projected an acknowledgment.
What of Cale and his companions? Serrin asked before Azriim broke contact.
Serrin wished to see the one-eyed assassin die, and die slowly, for what the human had done to him back in the farmhouse outside of Selgaunt.
I will backtrack down the tunnel to ensure that Cale and the others do not miss the festivities, Azriim replied. Remain ready.
Azriim cut off contact with Serrin. Satisfied that all was in order with his plan, he gradually let himself lag behind the caravan. The duergar di
dn’t seem to notice his absence, and when he reached a satisfactory distance away from the rear guard, he whispered an arcane word to render himself invisible. He knew that Cale and his companions had not preceded him down the tunnel. In his guise as Thyld, Azriim hadn’t told the assassin which tunnel exactly the duergar caravan would take. Accordingly, the humans could only have watched the northern tunnels and followed after.
Pleased with himself for covering all contingencies, Azriim shifted form from duergar to slaad and prowled back down the tunnel.
Cale, Riven, Magadon, and Jak sped down the tunnel. The floor was smoothed, presumably to allow easy passage for carts, but they still had to skirt occasional stands of stalagmites and pools of still water. Mindlinked by Magadon, they traveled in near silence, brushing over the rock of the Underdark without even a rustle, the only sound that of their respiration and the occasional flutter of startled bats. Cale kept his hearing, heightened when he was in darkness, attuned to the passage ahead.
They traveled without light, fearful that luminescence would betray them to the duergar guards. Cale knew it must have been difficult for Riven to see by only the faint luminescence of the orange lichen, but the assassin kept up the pace and did not complain.
They traveled for nearly half an hour and still saw no sign of the slaadi, or the caravan. Magadon stopped twice to examine the tunnel for signs of passage, but the hard rock floor didn’t allow him to confirm that the caravan—that any caravan—had recently passed through.
It cannot be far, Magadon said. It will be moving much more slowly than us.
Cale nodded and swallowed his concern that they may have picked the wrong tunnel. Magadon had never yet led them astray. If the guide said they were in the right tunnel, then they were in the right tunnel.
Make certain, Mags, Riven said.
Magadon looked to Cale and Cale nodded, ignoring Riven’s frown.
The guide put his fingers to his temples and a corona of white light flared around his head. His eyes rolled back in his head as he made contact with Azriim and looked through the slaad’s eyes.
