Darkwell

by Douglas Niles

  None of them slept well. Tristan and Robyn spent the night in lonely grief, each mourning the loss of their close friend. For the others, too, the combination of death among them and the universal death around them made for miserable rest.

  Even so, dawn found them ready to move on again, if only to alleviate the stiffness and chills of a night spent sleeping on a bed of stones. They wasted little energy in conversation as they wrapped their meager bedrolls and started to load the horses. Tristan, looking nervously around the chill grotto, wondered what new horrors the day could offer.

  Once again it was Canthus who saw the first sign of attack. With a sharp bark, the hound called their attention to the sky.

  “Look out!” cried the king. “Look to the sky!” His sword came instantly to his hand as if moved by a will of its own, and he raised it to meet the diving winged creatures above them.

  A flock of birdlike forms swirled downward from the clouds, numbering two score or more. Many veered away from the narrow hollow, but several continued to dive right toward the party. They made no sound as they swooped in to the attack.

  “What are those things?” wondered Pawldo aloud, swiftly nocking and drawing an arrow.

  One of the creatures swished over Tristan’s head, and he thrust at its belly but missed. He stared, amazed, at the staglike head of the creature and its black, cold eye sockets. Its pointed, misshapen antlers appeared deadly, as did the sharp claws on the monster’s feet.

  Pawldo loosed an arrow that darted through the wing of one of the creatures. The thing made no sound but settled awkwardly to earth, where Canthus set upon it with a growl and a flash of white fangs. The two creatures rolled across the ground in a blur of feathers, fur, antlers, claws, and teeth, until finally the moorhound stood with the monster’s neck in its mouth. With one final shake, the dog cast the corpse aside.

  Many of the winged creatures landed at the lip of the little grotto, perching like vultures waiting for the kill. Others swooped in aggressively to the attack. Yazilliclick and Pawldo sent arrows after these intruders, but the missiles whizzed harmlessly past their intended victims. Finally, in order to conserve arrows, they held their fire.

  Tristan ducked as one monstrous bird flew over his head. Then he slashed savagely upward and sliced off its wing, killing the beast with one quick thrust as it flopped to the ground. Once again the Sword of Cymrych Hugh sang joyously in his hand.

  “Rock!” Yak grunted from somewhere nearby.

  “Yes, rock,” Tristan panted, too distracted by the fight to pay attention to the firbolg.

  “Rock … kill!”

  Suddenly the giant pitched a stone the size of a man’s head at one of the monsters perched on the rim of the grotto. The missile struck the creature in the chest, and it disappeared in a cloud of feathers.

  Newt buzzed into the air and sank his teeth into the tail-feathers of one of the creatures, but the monster twisted and raked at him with its claws. Several more of the bird-things swarmed around the little dragon, and Newt disappeared with a shriek. He did not become visible again until he was safely on the ground, watching the battle from a vantage point between Robyn’s ankles.

  A shrill whinny of terror jerked Tristan’s attention to the horses. Horrified, he saw Pawldo’s pony pitching and rearing while three of the bird-things clung to its back. Their talons tore through the pony’s skin, and then another of the monsters landed and drove its ghastly antlers into the poor steed’s chest. With a squeal, the little horse fell heavily to the ground, where the beasts attacked with their sharp teeth.

  The king raced toward the scene, with an inarticulate cry of rage. Before he reached the dying pony, he saw one of the creatures tear through the animal’s breast with its razorlike teeth. It pulled forth a pulsing, bloody chunk of flesh, the pony’s heart.

  Immediately the other horses whinnied in terror, rearing and kicking frantically. Avalon sprang high, and a sharp kick of his forelegs knocked one of the monsters from the air. The stallion leaped upon the thing and pounded it to a pulp with his hooves. At the same time, half a dozen of the beasts swarmed around the chestnut mare. In seconds, she joined the pony on the ground, screaming as cruel teeth, claws, and antlers tore into her body.

  Tristan reached the steeds and drove the monsters away with sharp swipes of his sword, but the mare kicked weakly and could not rise. All four of her legs were ripped badly, and one of her eyes had been poked out. Crying in pain, she lay upon the rocks, breathing quickly and heavily. With a sob, Robyn stepped forward and cut the mortally wounded horse’s throat with a swift strike of her scimitar.

  They looked around and saw that the entire flock had finally settled to the ground around the rim of their little shelter. Perched in sinister silence, the creatures chose vantage points beyond the range of Yak’s rocks or the arrows of the halfling and the sprite. Now they resembled vultures more than hawks, with the hunched and patient appearance of carrion eaters. Their skeletal heads and sharp antlers added a surreal touch to the scene.

  “Why don’t they make some noise?” groused Pawldo. “At least they could screech or something!”

  “And why did they stop attacking? Not that I’m complaining, of course!” The bard looked up in puzzlement.

  “I suspect because they can’t maneuver well in here,” suggested the king. “The hollow is too small for them to attack from all directions.”

  “Wh-what are they—are they?”

  “Corruption!” Robyn’s voice was bitter but certain. “They are a living, breathing desecration of life itself, like that bear with the head of an owl. The god that is killing the vale is not content with the mere destruction of life. He must twist and pervert it to his own ends.” And then her voice rose to a scream.

  “He must be destroyed!”

  The flock shifted nervously, several monsters flapping their wings or stepping awkwardly to a new perch. But they quickly settled back to their vigil.

  “So they can’t maneuver in here. That makes me wonder how we’re going to get out,” Pawldo reflected.

  “That gully you mentioned last night,” Robyn said to Tristan. “Could we get down it? And is it narrow and deep enough to keep these deathbirds from following us?”

  “It’s possible, but the horses could never make it. Even Canthus might have a hard time.”

  “What about waiting right here until they go away?” asked Tavish.

  “That won’t work,” Robyn answered quickly, then told them about her experience with the deathbird that had waited three days for her to emerge.

  “Can we cross the open ground out the front and fight our way to the woods?” the king wondered aloud. The answer was obvious to all of them. Though the confines of the grotto provided them temporary shelter, they would be torn to bits if they gave the flock ample room to attack. The gully began to look like the only solution.

  “Mayhaps we can try the descent and get the things to follow us. One of us can wait behind and spook the horses. The steeds might have a chance to get away, at least.” Tavish offered the only real possibility.

  “Let’s try it,” agreed the king, trying to ignore the ache in his heart. “I’ll stay back with the horses.”

  “No! Let me do that. You lead the way down the gully!” Pawldo argued hastily, albeit reluctantly. They all knew that the last one down would be in grave danger.

  “Thanks, old friend. But no, I will do this myself. Now get ready to go!” Tristan felt some small measure of pride in his role. Perhaps this was a way for him to begin his atonement.

  The white stallion stood silently, watching them, and Tristan had the eerie feeling that Avalon had understood. He went to his steadfast mount and wrapped his arms around the horse’s solid neck, leaning sadly into his broad flank. “Run for me, boy. Run like you’ve never run before! You can make it!”

  They unsaddled the mounts and loaded food, water, tinderboxes, and an assortment of supplies into their own packs. Tristan and Tavish each took a length of sturdy r
ope, after they tried and failed to convince Yak to coil the strands around himself. The giant snarled and backed away, and only the soothing strains of Tavish’s lute kept the firbolg from bolting from the camp. After he saw the companions lifting their backpacks, he tried to mimic them, however, and eventually they succeeded in loading a heavy saddlebag onto the firbolg.

  “The gully is back here. It’s more of a narrow chute, actually.” Tristan led them through a crack in the rock walls to the head of the gully. They saw a narrow, rock-filled slide dropping steeply for several hundred feet. Far below them, the black waters and gaunt trees of the Fens of the Fallon stretched into the distance. To the far north, they could barely see Myrloch, covered with a thin haze and lying flat and lifeless in the valley.

  The one consolation of the route was the steep, high sides of the chute. Its twisting floor would make attack by the flying predators very difficult.

  “I’ll lead,” Pawldo offered. “My king, stay back until all of us have gotten a good start. Then scatter the horses and come after us. Good luck, sire!”

  “And to you.”

  Tristan stood as Pawldo started down the chute, followed by Tavish. The hefty bard immediately lost her footing and started to slide toward Pawldo, but Yak reached down with one brawny paw and grabbed her by the collar. Thus steadied, the bard worked her way carefully over the loose rubble with the sure-footed firbolg beside her. Newt and Yazilliclick used their wings, flying slowly down the chute and staying near the ground. Finally Robyn came to the edge of the gully.

  She looked back at the horses. “Do you think they have a chance?”

  “Yes … a chance. No more than that.”

  She reached forward as if to embrace him but hesitated and then placed a hand on his shoulder. “Now, go, and good luck to you!” she whispered, then started down the chute.

  Already he could hear Pawldo and Tavish shouting, trying to attract the deathbirds. Several of the creatures soared like vultures overhead, observing the party’s progress, as Tristan stole back to the horses. He waited while several more of the creatures took to the air. Finally the whole flock, still silent, took off and circled toward the chute. If the horses had a chance to escape, this was it, now while the deathbirds couldn’t see them!

  “Go!” he hissed, slapping the gelding on the rump. The black horse bolted toward the wide entrance to the grotto. You, too! Off with you!” He stared at Avalon but did not strike him. The stallion looked at him quizzically, then suddenly turned. With a kick of his hooves, the great white steed blazed after the gelding.

  The king raced through the cut and started down the chute, slipping and sliding on the stones in his haste. He ignored the cuts on his hands, desperate to join his companions and lead the deathbirds away from the horses.

  Then he looked up and jerked to a horrified stop. The creatures, as a flock, soared over his head back toward the hollow! In moments, they drifted out of sight behind the rocky shoulder of the hill, back toward the camp and the courageous steeds.

  The screaming of the horses followed the companions all the way to the bottom.

  The fabric of the myriad planes of existence is a material of many parts. When a single panel grows weak, the whole grows weak as well. When a portion tears away, a void is created and chaos reigns.

  The stuff of the fabric is the stuff of the gods. And now a tear in the fabric began to open in the Realms, where the Moonshae Islands served as a tiny portion of the whole.

  The death of the goddess sent a soft ripple through the ether that connects the myriad planes. The gods of chaos greeted the news with delight, the gods of law with concern. The former would try to rip the fabric asunder, the latter to patch it. The gods of neutrality cared little about the opening of the void. They would seek to prevent it from growing but would not strive to close it.

  But Bhaal, dark god of chaos and evil, the most base of aspects, had claimed a place in this void before the other gods could act. Now Bhaal tore the fabric wider.

  Other deities sought to stem the disaster, led by Chauntea, benign goddess of health and nature, but the force of Bhaal’s black evil drove them away. Other gods, led by Tempus, stormy god of war and favorite of the northmen of the Moonshaes, strove to contain the hurt, so that it would not spread to the rest of the Realms or the planes beyond. They built and strained, creating barriers of strong magic to cast in the murderous god’s path. But even they were daunted by the force of Bhaal’s evil and the power of his base in the Darkwell. By moving the center of his essence into the well, Bhaal could project more of his energy into this struggle than the gods who fought him from other planes.

  If the fabric was to be saved, the gods knew the acts that saved it would not be godlike in origin. Bhaal had insulated himself from them, and they could not stop him.

  It remained for someone of the isles themselves, a hero of mortal nature, to stem the tide.

  t is given to some mortals, to those of great faith and loyalty, to know some of the secrets of the gods. To those of such faith, and even greater loyalty, a deity might reveal secrets of awesome portent and supernatural might. And to mortals of the greatest obeisance, and the greatest skill, the greatest of mortal knowledge is imparted.

  Hobarth, devotee of Bhaal, was one such: a cleric who had given all his life to the service of his dark god and who had attained the greatest levels of knowledge and skill. Among the knowledge that had been revealed to him was an understanding of the nature of the planar fabric, and an ability to use that fabric to suit his own ends. Now Hobarth did just that.

  He abhorred the sea and despised the thought of crossing it upon mortal conveyances such as boats, so he employed his knowledge to step through the very fabric of worlds, into other, darker realms. Here he walked among beasts of unfathomable evil. These monstrous beings paid him no mind, for they recognized him as one who was cut from the same timber.

  A thing these nether planes lacked made them very desirable to the cleric: They lacked oceans and seas. Hobarth gladly picked his way among seething mountains of lava and great islands of oblivion, all the while rejoicing in the absence of water.

  Finally he stepped again through the fabric of the planes, into the world we call the Forgotten Realms. He had arrived at his destination in good time, and dry, for he found himself standing in the valley upon Oman’s Isle below the Iron Keep. He looked toward the vastness of Iron Bay and knew that Ysalla and her legions had not yet arrived. Yet the fortress stirred with activity, as refugees crowded within and ranks of soldiers marched out. Ships of every variety crowded the bay, all filled with northmen seeking the sanctuary of the keep.

  Little did they know how much they needed that sanctuary, or how illusory it would prove. For of them all, only the cleric knew that the sahuagin swarmed in a deadly mass toward the fortress, and that the dead of the sea came rapidly in their wake.

  Black water soaked their leggings, and each step became a struggle against the clutching mud. Now Tristan led the way, hacking the tendrils of ropelike vines out of their path, trying to pick a route connecting the few dry patches of ground.

  Inevitably their path through the Fens of the Fallon took them across more water than land. Making the situation even more uncomfortable was the fact that the air temperature had been dropping steadily, and the inescapable water was icy cold.

  “They’re still there,” whispered Tavish, looking toward the sky from her position behind the king.

  The news came as no surprise to Tristan. The shrill, panicked cries of the horses still echoed in his mind. He pictured, all too vividly, Avalon’s white flanks streaked with the stallion’s own red blood. He shuddered at the thought of monstrous teeth slashing through the stallion’s breast to tear out that proud heart. But then the flock of bird-creatures had returned to their original quarry, and now they circled above the party as they marched through the dismal wetland.

  Angrily Tristan hacked at another of the dead branches that entwined them. In the fens, as in the rest of
the vale, the trees had died, shedding their leaves and leaving a putrid stench of rot. A heavy scum coated the brackish water, and each footstep brought noxious gases bubbling from the muck on the bottom.

  At least the predatory creatures in the air did not dive. The interlocking branches overhead apparently prevented them from flying to the attack.

  Tristan stopped to catch his breath, worn by the exertion of slogging through the mud and water. His boots, long since soaked through, numbed his feet more with each step. The spindly branches offered little protection from a biting north wind, and as the king paused, the air knifed through his garments and brought an involuntary shiver.

  Canthus, beside him, stepped in front of his master and then stopped, his ears raised and his nose carefully sniffing the air. He, of all of them, seemed best able to cope with the cold and damp.

  Tristan looked to the rear and saw Tavish leaning weakly against a tree. The bard unsuccessfully attempted a smile, and the king noticed her mud-spattered leggings and cape. Her lute, slung over her shoulder, had somehow managed to stay clean. She, too, shivered as a sudden gust of wind iced across them.

  Pawldo slogged slowly up to Tavish, grasping branches and tree trunks to pull himself along. The water, knee-deep on the humans, sloshed to the halfling’s waist. Pawldo looked at the king, and Tristan saw that his lips were blue and his teeth were chattering uncontrollably.

  Yak lumbered slowly behind Pawldo, apparently having more difficulty ducking under the low-hanging branches than he did with the mud and water. Robyn came last in line.

  “I’m worried about Pawldo,” murmured Tristan, speaking to Tavish.

  “I’m f-fine!” The halfling had overheard.

  “You’re starting to sound just like Yazilliclick!” The king spoke sternly before turning back to Tavish. “Do you think Yak could carry him for a while, at least until his legs are dry?”