by Alex Irvine
She squatted and tapped Remy on the shoulder. “Now you know us. Here’s what we know about you. You were traveling from Avankil. You were attacked by stormclaw scorpions. You killed several of them. After they killed your horse and you slipped into your fever, something else came along and ate the horse.”
“You should feel lucky it didn’t eat you,” Lucan said from the other side of the campfire. He was an elf. His dress, leathers, and muted colors marked him as a ranger with long experience in the trackless wilderness of the Dragondown. Iriani, sitting quietly at the edge of the campfire’s light, also had the elongated, angular features that bespoke elf blood, but his aspect was more human. A half-elf, Remy thought. They were known to be drawn to the magical arts. Iriani had acknowledged Kithri’s introduction with a nod in Remy’s direction but had not yet spoken.
Already it was brighter, the shadows were shorter, and Remy realized with a shock that it was not evening but morning. He sat up and thought that he might attempt to get to his feet.
“How long have I been …?”
“Before we came along, who knows?” Kithri said. “A day, probably. And another half day since we found you. Probably other travelers passed during that time but didn’t think you had anything worth taking.”
“She and I disagree about that,” Lucan said.
“Lucan and I disagree about everything,” Kithri said. “It passes the time.”
“If there are stormclaws around, probably there’s a ruin nearby,” added the cleric Keverel. “They tend to congregate in such places. I believe this road dates from the times of Bael Turath, before the great war. There could have been an outpost …” He trailed off, looking around. “The land reclaims what the higher races abandon.”
“Higher races,” Kithri said drolly. “Speak for yourself.”
“Wonder if there’s anything to be gained from having a look around for that ruin,” Lucan said.
“Depends,” Biri-Daar said. “Are you taking our mission to Karga Kul seriously, or are you adventuring?”
“You say adventuring like it’s a bad thing,” Kithri said.
“Wait,” Remy said. He was having trouble following everything they said; it seemed like he was still feeling the effects of the venom. “I have to get to Toradan,” he said.
“It’s that way,” Kithri said, pointing down the road. “Maybe five day on foot. Not that it matters. If you go walking alone in this desert, you won’t live a day.”
“My errand is urgent. I—I thank you for saving me, but the vizier of Avankil will—”
“String you up by your thumbs? Run a ring through your nose and lead you around his chambers? Put you to work in the kitchen?” Kithri winked, but Remy had no time or patience for jokes. He was frightened and confused and very conscious of the time he had lost on his task for Philomen.
“Please,” Remy said. “I have to take this to Toradan.” He showed her the box. Reflexively his fingers traced the runes carved into its lid.
“What exactly is the errand?” Keverel asked. His fingers traced the outline of his holy symbol, a silver pendant worked in the gear-and-sunburst motif of Erathis. “What does the box contain?”
“I don’t know,” Remy said.
“No one told you?”
Lucan tsked. “Never take anything anywhere for anyone unless you know what it is,” he said.
“And why they want it to go where they want it to go,” Kithri added.
“I already did,” Remy said. “And now that I’ve said it, I have to do it.”
“Admirable,” said Biri-Daar. “It is too rare that one finds that kind of commitment. But unless you want to walk the rest of the way by yourself,” the dragonborn went on, “you’re going to be traveling with us for a while. And scorpions are hardly the worst things you’re going to find out here.”
Having no choice, Remy went, at least until he could think of a better plan. He wasn’t going to get a horse from them unless he stole it, and he didn’t think that he could steal a horse. When he was a child, he’d stolen things here and there, but to steal a horse from a party of adventurers in the wilderness … for one thing, they would hunt him down and kill him if they could. For another, it was wrong.
So, with the option of theft removed, Remy turned with Biri-Daar’s group—it was clear that the dragonborn, a paladin of Bahamut, was the leader of the group—and followed the road back toward Crow Fork. The sun burned down and morning haze lifted, replaced by the glimmer of mirage at the horizon. “Sometimes,” Iriani said, “you can see the mountains in a mirage. Then when you see them with your own eyes, you fear that it’s magic.”
Remy guessed that he wouldn’t mind seeing the mountains whether by magic or other means. Anything to get him out of the wastes. Around them, flat, salt-stained sand stretched to the horizon, broken only by the occasional small heave of a hill or protruding stone. No bird sang, no lizard crept. If life was there, it kept to itself.
Like stormclaw scorpions, perhaps, hiding under the earth until they emerged from their ruined lair in the cool and darkening evenings.
The welts left by their stingers still puckered angry and red on Remy’s legs and the back of his left hand. He had survived. He felt stronger, not just because of his five companions but because he had fought off stormclaw scorpions. They had not killed him. Whatever came next on the road—before he could finally get to Toradan with Philomen’s box—Remy felt that he was ready for it.
After the first day of travel, trying to keep up with a party on horseback, Remy was also more than ready to get a horse again. Biri-Daar’s idea was that they would see what was on offer at Crow Fork Market, which they would reach the next morning—“If you can keep your pace up,” she added with what on a dragonborn’s face passed for a smile. “If not, it’ll be two days.”
As night fell they built a fire. “Just like last night, except this time you’re not rolling around sweating in your sleep,” Kithri joked to Remy. The evening meal was dried fruit, cheese, and bread; they’d had meat that morning, and would again the following morning. Then, with any luck, they’d arrive at Crow Fork Market and replenish their supplies before continuing the trek.
“Where are you going again?” Remy asked at the end of the meal.
“Karga Kul,” Lucan said. “The great cork stuck in the bottle that would pour the Abyss out into this world.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Remy said with a grin.
“It is,” Biri-Daar said. “I was hatched there. It is the city of my dreams, the city I would grow old in. The city I would die in, if I had to die somewhere.”
“Listen to Biri-Daar talk about dying,” Iriani chuckled. “She’s yet to meet the foe that can nick her sword, and yet she thinks about dying. You dragonborn.”
“Bahamut will decide,” Biri-Daar said.
At the mention of the god’s name, Remy caught a gleam of pale light beyond the glow of the campfire.
“You better hope something interesting happens between now and Karga Kul,” Kithri said. “And by interesting, I mean something that ends with some kind of booty. Otherwise you’re going to owe Biri-Daar for a horse. She’s not forgiving when it comes to debt.”
“I’m not going to Karga Kul,” Remy protested. “I must get to Toradan.”
“Then go right ahead back the way we came. Give the stormclaws and the hobgoblins our greetings,” Kithri said.
Remy stewed. He knew he wouldn’t survive the road to Toradan on his own. Kithri was right about the hobgoblins. They controlled everything on the map between the few points of civilization, of which Avankil and Karga Kul were the largest. Even the substantial towns such as Toradan were on constant alert against hobgoblin incursions, and the roads between settlements were heavily preyed upon by the creatures native to the wastes.
“Erathis has brought us together, Remy,” Keverel said. “Whatever worldly errand you contemplate, remember that the gods dispose and we must follow.”
Again, as Keverel mentioned the god
’s name, something shone briefly just beyond the light. “Did you see that?” Remy asked. He pointed into the dark, in the direction of the gleam.
The others looked that way. “See what?” The elf-blooded had better night vision; Lucan stiffened as he caught sight of something.
“Stay close to the fire,” he said, as a chilling cackle came out of the darkness.
“Hyena,” Keverel said. He was shoulder to shoulder with Remy. “How did you see it?”
“There was a gleam when you said the god’s name,” Remy answered. He had the presence of mind not to use the name, since he was not a worshiper. Some gods looked dimly on hearing their names in the mouths of unbelievers.
The leather grip of Keverel’s mace creaked as he brought it up. “Then it’s no ordinary hyena,” he said over the cackling, which got louder and seemed to come from several directions at once. “It’s a cacklefiend. There will be gnolls with it as well, and perhaps worse than gnolls. Erathis!” he called out, holding up his holy symbol.
Light washed out from the symbol, washing over the hulking shape of a cacklefiend hyena. It was nearly man-high at the shoulder, with a row of serrated spines where an ordinary hyena had bristles down its back. Its fur was mottled green, gray, and black. Behind it loomed the hyenalike humanoid silhouettes of gnolls.
“This is why I hate the desert,” Kithri said.
“Me too.” Lucan unsheathed his sword, which gave off a silvery light similar to the glow of Keverel’s talisman. Iriani too created light, with a complicated pattern of snapping fingers that popped small flares into life over their heads. The cacklefiend ducked its head and chuckled demoniacally, swaying its head back and forth as the gnolls skirted the perimeter of light, timing their rush to the cue the cacklefiend would give.
It was a tricky situation for the members of the party used to having an advantage because of their superior night vision. The gnolls had it too, and the cacklefiend could see the way demons did because it was a demonic perversion of a hyena. So one advantage Lucan, and Iriani were accustomed to had vanished because of circumstance and opponent—yet for Remy and the others, the campfire and the various glares of magical light were a leveler. They could see the cacklefiend and the gnolls perfectly well, or at least as well as the enemy could see them. And the first thing Remy saw after Iriani’s light flashed into being was the gleam of Kithri’s throwing daggers, flickering their way to their target out at the end of the gnoll grouping. She was trying to prevent the gnolls from spreading out and surrounding them. In the uncertain light, Kithri’s attack—unusually for her—wasn’t fatal. The gnoll, a burnished steel dagger hilt sticking out from its shoulder and one of its ears carved to a flap, charged. The rest followed, the giggling cacklefiend skipping around to flank the party and keeping to the edge of the firelight.
Biri-Daar stood to meet them, Keverel and Lucan flanking her. Behind them, Iriani and Kithri used the campfire itself as a defensive structure. Remy stayed up with the fighting front rank, not sure what he should do but knowing that when push came to shove, he was more good with a sword than he was dancing around and waiting for a clear shot from a distance.
There were perhaps a dozen gnolls. Lucan cut down the first as it got within range of a sword stroke, while it was still raising the chain-slung morningstar it carried. The spiked ball thudded into the packed earth between his feet. Biri-Daar took a single step forward and broke the charge, knocking a gnoll aside with her shield while slashing another to the ground. The gnolls hesitated, sidestepping away from her into Lucan’s blade and the crushing head of Keverel’s mace. Light shone more fiercely from the cleric’s holy symbol as the misbegotten enemy drew closer, and Biri-Daar’s sword too glowed with Bahamut’s power. Remy saw that, and was nearly distracted enough that when a gnoll bore down on him, its weapon a steel bar that thrummed past Remy’s head with the promise of a backswing that would shatter his skull, he barely reacted in time. But his training both casual and formal, from Quayside brawls to those first precious lessons in the courtyard of the Keep of Avankil, took hold; before he could think about what to do, Remy had stepped inside the sweep of the gnoll’s brutal mace, pivoting along with the backswing until his head was practically in its armpit—at the same moment the blade of his sword scraped along its bottom rib as he spitted it with the momentum of its own charge.
He looked up to see the cacklefiend slavering not six feet away. It chuckled and raved, and the drool from its yellow-toothed maw hissed and crackled when it dropped to the bare earth. The clashes of blade against steel reached him, but Remy did not look. The enemy that he could see was the only enemy he could fight, and to turn his back on that enemy would bring only death. His sword caught on the gnoll’s ribs. He wasn’t going to be able to get it out in time. The cacklefiend’s eyes glowed with a hunger sharpened in the Abyss. It sprang as Remy kept hauling on the hilt of his sword, throwing his other arm up as he wished for a shield. Anything. Even an armored sleeve.
A blast of magical energy from an angle behind Remy and above his head knocked the cacklefiend off to one side. It hit the ground, legs splayed, and skidded. Iriani came into view, brewing another spell between his two hands as Kithri kept watch on his back with throwing daggers fanned out in one hand and a short sword in the other. Like a marketplace magician, Kithri flicked the daggers one and two at a time without ever seeming to move her hand.
She couldn’t keep all of the gnolls away, though. One of them had outflanked their position, Remy saw as he finally dragged his sword free of the dead gnoll. It was behind Kithri, behind Iriani; Biri-Daar and Lucan were still back to back against the main group of marauders. He could not see Keverel.
“Behind you!” Remy shouted. At the same time he broke toward the gnoll as it leaped over the campfire. Behind him, the cacklefiend got its feet under it and tensed to spring again.
The gnoll landed within reach of Kithri and dealt her a two-handed blow that she partially deflected at the cost of her own sword. Its blade snapped and the head of the gnoll’s mace glanced across the top of her helm. Kithri went down, and in the firelight Remy couldn’t tell how badly she had been wounded. The gnoll was poised for another blow, this time at Iriani, whose focus was still and solely on the cacklefiend. Remy hit the gnoll from the side, his blade cutting through its leather cuirass and deep into the muscle below. The gnoll roared and tried to bring the butt of its mace down on Remy, but he danced away. The mace thudded into the ground and Remy thrust over its guard, feeling the point of his sword strike home at the base of its neck.
Rearing back with this death blow, the gnoll swept upward with its mace, catching Remy in the pit of the stomach and knocking him flat on his back. His mouth was open but he could make no sound, couldn’t breathe. It felt as if the mace had caved in his ribs. He rolled over onto his side and looked for his sword. As he put his hand on its hilt he looked up to see the cacklefiend bat Iriani aside and keep coming toward him.
He got to his knees but could not stand. The cacklefiend came closer. Off to his left, Remy heard the crunch of Keverel’s mace splintering bone. He saw Lucan come at the cacklefiend from the side, plunging his sword down into its back. It rounded on him, snarling, and bit into the edge of his shield. Smoke poured from its mouth as its saliva ate away at the wood and steel of the shield. It shook its head like a dog with a rabbit, unbalancing Lucan and knocking him down. He still held his sword and struck out at it, opening a wound on its snout. Blood ran and mixed with the acid that dripped from its open mouth. It shook its head, spattering Lucan with blood and saliva.
The elf started to scream as the cacklefiend’s fluids ate into his skin and burned holes through his armor. He dropped his sword and shield, trying to strip his tunic and jerkin before the rest of the blood could get through them.
The cacklefiend laughed, high and maddening. It came after Remy again.
He still could not get to his feet. The dying gnoll had knocked the wind out of him so badly that he still couldn’t draw a full
breath. Lucan was screaming Melora, Melora, Melora, drawing on the strength of his god to keep the pain from driving him mad. He got his jerkin off and stood barechested, burns showing across his arms and face. Past the cacklefiend, Remy saw him run around to the other side of the campfire.
No. He couldn’t believe Lucan would abandon the fight. Remy got one foot under him and found the strength to point his sword at the cacklefiend. Iriani was stirring. Kithri lay still. Keverel spoke an incantation and energy flowed through Remy, loosening his throat as the clash of armor and weapons lessened in intensity. Remy glanced from side to side. On his right, Iriani scrambled to his feet.
On his left, Biri-Daar was surrounded by the sprawled bodies of gnolls, her face wreathed in smoke from her mouth and nose. She struck down the last of them and stepped over it to finish off the cacklefiend … but Remy wasn’t sure she would get close enough before it got to him, and he had nothing to protect himself against its corrosive blood.
But he would die trying, if it came to that. Aided by Keverel’s blessing, he got his feet under him and stood to meet it. It tensed to spring.
Two arrows, one after the other faster than Remy could follow, struck it in the chest, an inch apart just inside the joint of its right shoulder. Bolts of eldritch power peppered it from Iriani’s side. Keverel was running to its other side, winding up with his mace as Biri-Daar came on behind him.
For me, Remy thought. They’re doing this for me. A new kind of strength rose in him. He raised his own sword and stepped forward. Another arrow from Lucan’s bow buried itself in the cacklefiend’s neck. One of its feet slipped. Keverel got to it first, bringing his mace down on its head with a crunch. Blood splattered onto the ground and across the font of the cleric’s mail shirt. He raised the mace again.
