D&D - Mystara - Penhaligon Trilogy 02

by The Dragon's Tomb - Heinrich, D. J (v1. 1)

  Little light filtered through the rainy gloom into the alley. Fortunately, the way was clear of debris. Jo sidled down the alley, her fingers touching the coarse saw-cut boards of the building behind her for reassurance. She could just make out Braddoc’s form less than five steps away. His battle-axe glinted once or twice. A faint light spilled into the alley from around the back corner of the rendering hall, and Jo and Braddoc stopped just short of the light.

  From around the corner came shouts, curses, and cries of pain mingled with the sounds of clashing weapons and armor. Jo paused, trying not to breathe the foul air. She wiped a few dripping strands of hair from her face and wished the rain would stop. Jo was close enough to make out words, and she heard one man yell, “Scurvy dog—!” before the sickening thud of a club against flesh cut the words short. His curse ended in a cry of distress. Jo waved her hand at Braddoc, and then she and the dwarf stepped around the corner and into the light.

  The tableau that met Jo’s eyes was one she had seen many times in Specularum. Three men surrounded a fourth. They were one of two things. Thieves? she thought quickly No, not in this part of town—nothing to steal. Thugs then—thugs sent to do some sort of “persuasion.”

  The man in the center had fallen to his knees and was doubled over in pain. His sword lay in the slick mud, rain splattering down upon it and burying it. He reached out to grab it. One of the other men—a big, burly brute of a man, naked from the waist up—hit the injured man’s hand with a cudgel; Jo thought the beast was half ogre. The wounded man screamed, and the two other men surrounding him raised their weapons. One carried a heavy, ironbound staff, while the other had a sword.

  Jo and Braddoc charged forward. Jo drew Wyrmblight in a flashing arc over her head and shouted shrilly toward the half-ogre, “Come on, you mole-brained monster!” Braddoc meanwhile positioned himself between the injured man and the two human thugs. One of them pushed the other and yelled, “Run!” He leaped away, but tripped on the injured mans sword and sprawled to the muddy ground.

  The other ruffian jumped toward his comrade, warding Braddoc away with his brandished sword. The dwarf’s teeth gleamed fiercely as he stepped nearer to the sword’s tip. Scrambling to get up, the fallen thug ran headlong from the scene as his comrade swung his sword to engage the dwarf. Braddoc attacked, smashing the sword back with a solid swing of his axe and following through with a jab to the belly. The man stumbled backward a pace before returning the blow, his teeth gritted in a grim smile. Braddoc narrowly deflected the sword with the head of his axe and fell back to regroup, his hands stinging. He was just deciding to swing low for the bandit’s vulnerable legs when he ran briefly against the half-ogre’s tree- trunk calf.

  Looking up, Braddoc saw with a startled gasp that Jo was swinging Wyrmblight in a horizontal arc toward the half-ogre’s exposed belly. But the beast man was more nimble than he looked. In one quick motion, the half- ogre backed up and kicked the dwarf away from his foot as though he were kicking a small dog. As Braddoc crashed into a pile of crates on the opposite side of the alley, the tip of Wyrmblight cut shallowly into the half-ogre’s fleshy stomach. Ignoring the gash, the nearly naked monster stepped toward Jo. He was close to eight feet tall and covered with coarse, wiry hair. Golden hoops dangled from his nose and ears. He snarled, and short tusks gleamed in the lamplight.

  The half-ogre swung the cudgel and almost caught Jo across the jaw. She ducked just in time, nearly falling on the slick mud of the alley. The rain seemed to be tapering off, and she hoped that would prove a blessing. The brute is fast, she thought as she spun away from a second blow. So much for tales of slow, stupid ogres!

  Catching a foothold on the slick cobbles, Jo swung Wyrmblight in a high, overhand arc. Again, the ogre stepped back to avoid the blow, but Jo had anticipated that. The razor-sharp tip of the sword dug easily into the top of the bulging belly and exited underneath. Blood spurted from the wound and hit Jo. A sudden wave of sick excitement swept over her, and she wanted to strike the ogre again. She felt momentarily repulsed at her own blood-lust, then pushed the thought aside. She swung Wyrmblight horizontally, aiming to split the brute’s belly with one blow.

  The half-ogre’s cudgel landed squarely against her stomach, and a wheezing groan escaped Jo’s lips. The stroke had sneaked past her guard and underneath her own stroke. Jo stumbled backward, feeling a pain in her side as she tried desperately to draw a breath. The rasping inhalation told her that her ribs were only bruised, not broken. Gamely, she held Wyrmblight before her, one hand on the pommel, the other clutching the blade in the center. Her eyes blinked rapidly, trying to see in the falling rain.

  The brute stepped toward Jo and raised his cudgel. Jo gasped another breath and clutched the sword hilt with both hands, preparing for the blow. The cudgel came crashing down, catching the razor edge of Wyrmblight. The force reverberated through the sword, into Jos hands, and on through her arms. In pain, Jo crumpled to her knees. If she’d had breath to spare, she would have screamed.

  The half-ogre brought the cudgel up over his head, preparing the same blow to smash his adversary into the paving stones. He raised his hairy arms high overhead, and his bulging, bleeding belly shook. I can’t survive another blow like the last one, Jo thought in desperation.

  She drew Wyrmblight s pommel downward and flipped the tip up. The half-ogre’s arms began to descend, the cudgel following. Jo grabbed Wyrmblight by the middle of the blade and thrust upward awkwardly. The blade’s tip caught the half-ogre’s belly and punctured through the exposed flesh. Jo stood and used the force of her body to thrust upward, twisting Wyrmblight as she rose. “For Flinn!” she muttered through bared teeth.

  With a growling shriek, the half-ogre dropped his club, which glanced off Jo’s shoulder. He s taggered backward. Jo held on to Wyrmblight and watched in sudden, vicious satisfaction as the half-ogre’s entrails stuck to the sword. The massive creature rolled unevenly to the ground and was still.

  As she tugged Wyrmblight free from the viscera, Jo saw Braddoc Briarblood charge the remaining thug, the corner section of a crate still clinging raggedly to the dwarf’s shoulder. Braddoc’s battle-axe flashed, cleaving squarely into his adversary’s elbow. Jo watched in morbid fascination as the forearm dangled from a bit of sinew before dropping with a thud to the muddy ground. The man blinked once, stupidly, then collapsed. Braddoc stepped forward and touched the thug’s neck. Satisfied that he sensed no pulse, the dwarf turned to Jo.

  “Are you all right?” Braddoc asked matter-of-facdy.

  Jo coughed a little and drew her breath. “Yes,” she said, though her breath was labored. She leaned against Wyrmblight and stood a little straighten Her breathing grew easier, and she looked past the half-ogre.

  The thug who had been fighting Braddoc lay facedown in a puddle of bloody water, his sword beneath him. Jo blinked, aware that the rain had finally stopped. At least we won’t have that to contend with on our way back to the inn, she thought tiredly. She turned her attention to the injured man she and Braddoc had rescued.

  The man groaned and touched his bruised face. Jo put her hand on Braddoc’s shoulder for support, and the pair approached cautiously. The man struggled to his feet, holding his bleeding head. “Thank you,” he said in a voice hoarse with pain. “I don’t know what I’d’ve done . . .”

  As the man’s face turned to the light, Jo’s eyes went wide. It’s him! she thought wildly. He’s shaved the moustache and goatee, but it’s him! What’s he doing in Kelvin? He’s supposed to be in Rifllian! Jo knew the answer even as she finished the thought: The tiny village hadn’t offered enough interest to a lecherous miscreant like him. The pain in her side throbbed, a roar filled her ears and drowned out the rest of Brisbois’s words, and Jo clenched her teeth.

  She stepped defiantly toward him and spat, “You!” Her eyes flashed in rage. She let the man stare at her, let recognition dawn slowly in his hazel eyes, before her hand flew out, slapping him brutally across the face.

  The old
she-wolf moved through the thick evergreens, soft now with spring growth. The branches were gentle on her scarred black hide, which was thin with the loss of her winter pelt. She bent her head to the ground, every now and then snuffling the wet needles. She whined, then continued her search.

  Karleah Kunzay pricked her ears at a minute noise, a noise she would never have heard in human form. A rabbit, her wolf senses informed her. She lifted her head and scented the air, casting about for the rabbit s location. A moment later she pinpointed its whereabouts; she focused her golden eyes on the underbrush before her.

  Ah, there it is! Her wolf lips curled, rippling over canines still white and sharp. She lunged, and the chase was on. The cottontail, fat with spring food, dodged beneath a branch and scampered for denser cover. The wolf leaped the branch with no space to spare, conserving precious energy, and dived after the rabbit.

  The cottontail veered to the left, and the old wolf smiled. A young one, she thought, and none too smart. A wilier rabbit would have headed right, toward the thorn bushes. This one had chosen the bottom lands near the stream. The wolf whined and panted as she raced after the rabbit. She’d catch it near the stream, for the undergrowth there was sparse and would offer little cover.

  The rabbit broke through to open ground and squealed in fright. In a single bound the wolf caught up to her prey. She extended her jaws, her lips drawn back in a snarl. The young cottontail paused, trembling, for a moment, then kicked out with its strong back legs. The blow met the wolf squarely in the face, and Karleah rolled off balance into the soft spring earth.

  She gained her feet and lunged toward the rabbit. Instantly the cottontail fled toward the stream, and the wolf snarled. Another mistake! thought Karleah. The young rabbit should have retreated to the dense brush. The old wolf leaped after the rabbit. The cottontail zigged and zagged, squealing in fear, but to no avail. The she- wolfsjaws snapped down on the soft flesh.

  “Ouch! Karleah, that hurts!” The words came out in a funny, strangled hybrid of rabbit and Common. The wolf relaxed her powerful jaws and dropped the transforming Dayin Kine to the ground. His long ears shrank, his body grew, and his soft fur disappeared and was replaced by naked skin. Brown rabbit eyes gave way to the summer- sky blue irises of a young and innocent boy. He blinked and looked up at the wolf standing above him; the wolf panted heavily, her saliva dripping onto the boys skin. He wiped it off hastily and made a face. “I hate it when you do that!” he complained.

  The wolf sat down. Karleah looked at Dayin through her golden eyes, and her wolfish appetite whispered what a morsel the eleven-year-old boy would make. But she calmly ignored the lupine cravings.

  “What’d you think, Karleah?” Dayin asked brightly. “Did I do good? It took you longer this time to catch me”

  Karleah whined and prepared to speak. She had spent years learning how to contort her lips, tongue, and vocal cords in order to speak Common while in wolf form. She said slowly, painfully, “Better, yes, boy, but . . . still bad.” The wolf whined again and licked her lips, striving for control. “Could have . . . killed you.”

  Dayin sat up and threw his arms around the old she- wolf. “Oh, Karleah!” he cried. “You’d never hurt me!” He ruffled the wolf’s black fur and added, “Besides, I’ve got one of my spells back, and I would have used it on you. See?” The boy threw his hands up in the air, and a brace of white doves suddenly appeared above his head. They fluttered away to a nearby branch and peered down at the boy and wolf. He added happily, “And I get birds now, and not feathers. I never knew how to do my spells right until you showed me.”

  The wolf growled low, then let out a series of barks.

  Dayin watched Karleah closely, trying to fathom the wolf language. He said, “I think I understand, Karleah. You want to know about my spell returning, right?”

  “And . . . when,” the wolf choked out the words in Common. Her tongue stuck, and it was a moment before Karleah could straighten it.

  The boy lightly stroked Karleah s fur and then said, “It was either yesterday or the day before when I tried the spell again. You know how you asked me to try my failed spells several times a day?”

  The old wolf nodded, and Karleah’s mind drifted for a moment. It had been terrifying to discover at the dragon’s lair that much of her spell-casting ability had been drawn away, and even more frightening that it hadn’t returned by the time they’d reached the castle. The discovery of Dayin s inability to cast the only two spells he knew—producing doves or roses from thin air—had somewhat mollified Karleah. She’d begun to fear she’d grown too old for spell-casting.

  In the sanctity of her valley, Karleah’s ability to change into a wolf was the first power to return, as though its magic was somehow more deeply rooted in her being than the memorized spells she had lost. The return of that one ability almost made up for the loss of most of her other magical powers. Unable to teach Dayin anything other than the rudiments of magic, she concentrated on teaching him how to change into an animal, a power that could only be learned for a single animal. The wolf shook her head. Why the boy had chosen a rabbit to be the only animal he could transform into, she didn’t know. Her wolf half reminded her that Dayin’s choice had its advantages, and Karleah recalled the taste of rabbit hair. She whined a little.

  “Well, I tried and tried and tried,” Dayin answered. “And one day it just worked.” The boys face went blank with concentration, and then he threw up his hands a second time, this time clapping them. A shower of rose petals of all colors rained down on the boy and the wolf.

  “’mpressive,” the wolf said low.

  Dayin shook his head. “I never get this spell right. I did this for Jo back in Flinn’s cabin. Wanted whole flowers but all I got then was petals, too.” He distractedly rubbed his arm.

  The wolf, attracted by the boys movement, instinctively sniffed at the inside of Dayin s elbow. Her lips curled back, and her cold nose nudged the boy, searching for his other elbow. Dayin, brow furrowing, let her sniff his other arm. Through her golden eyes Karleah saw for the first time the tiny, circular scars marking the boy’s skin, scars several years old. Her sensitive wolFs nose quivered at the strange, lingering odor of the inner elbow’s skin. The she-wolf growled and backed away, the hairs on her shoulders standing on end.

  “Karleah?” Dayin cried. “What’s wrong?”

  “Dress,” the wolf said. “Return . . . home, now.” The black she-wolf turned and slipped away into the long- needled pines surrounding her. There was not even a whisper of noise to mark her passing.

  The wolf loped through the trees populating Karleah’s valley. She wandered her territorial range, stopping now and then to leave her scent. She had to work off a little of the terrible excitement that had gripped her at the sight of the boy’s scars. An answer to what had stolen her magic was beginning to fall into place, to congeal in her mind, but she was still missing some vital clue to complete the explanation. The she-wolf whined in impatience as she continued her roaming. The answer was there, if she could only find it! Finally, footsore and weary—forgetful of the hunger that had gripped her—she headed back into the valley that sheltered her home.

  Her wolf paws rustled through the evergreen vail vine, a creeping plant that provided Karleah’s valley with its first line of defense. Would-be trespassers were caught by the tenacious vines, which telepathically transmitted images of the captives’ lives to Karleah. Flinn, Jo, Braddoc, and Dayin had all entered her valley last winter. Even in winter the vines had yielded complete information of everyone— except Jo, whose blood had been tainted by that of the abelaat. The wolf growled low, sensing a piece of her puzzle before her.

  The old wolf stopped, scratched her ear, and yawned. Think! The answer’s here, she admonished herself. Jo had been bitten by an abelaat, a beast from another world. Karleah mused. There was a certain advantage to living through such an attack: the poison in the creature’s saliva rendered the person immune to most forms of scrying or other magical detection
. The vail vines hadn’t registered Jo’s presence because, to them, she wasn’t even there.

  Knowing she was on the verge of discovering the final clue, Karleah moved on, her paws rustling through the vines. She stopped suddenly. Her wolf brows wrinkled in a semblance of a human frown. The vines, she thought, why, the vines told me nothing of Dayin, either!

  The wolf leaped forward, intent on reaching home. She entered the thick grove of pines that surrounded her cabin. The web of magic she had long ago spun in these woods still remained strong, enfolding her house in otherworldly shrouds of darkness and silence. As she plunged into the magically warded woods, the spells took effect; Karleah was suddenly lost in a world without sight or sound. As often as she had passed through this enchanted grove, Karleah was still troubled and dizzied by the black silence. She sympathized with first-time visitors to her home. Only through long practice could she now cut straight through the grove to her cottage without getting trapped by the magicks; those who stumbled into the woods uninvited wandered about in endless, panicked circles, unable to find a way out. Some few, truly despicable folk, had actually starved in that small woodland.

  The old she-wolf emerged from the inky region of the pines into a bright, sunlit glade. There her home stood, a cottage built of stone with a thatched roof and two tiny windows. The door was open and waiting in welcome.

  Karleah willed herself to shapechange. Her arms and legs grew longer, the wolf hair dropping to the forest floor and disappearing with a slight snap. Her tail disappeared. Her muzzle shortened while simultaneously her head grew rounder and took on a human cast. She took a step forward on what had been her forepaws, and almost fell over. Karleah looked down at her human hands and frowned. “I hate when that happens,” she grumbled.