The Mark of Nerath: A Dungeons & Dragons Novel

by Bill Slavicsek

  “The Voidharrow,” the tiefling said, staring down at him with a strangely emotionless expression. “I sense its presence upon you. Give it to me. Now.”

  Kalaban thought about the glass vial in his belt pouch. Was that what this body thief was after? Rage welled up in the knight-commander. How dare this creature demand what was rightfully his! He brought the blade of his sword up and knocked the rod aside just as it unleashed a stream of hellish fire. The flames scorched the stone floor to the left of Kalaban’s head, but all he felt was a sudden wave of intense heat. He kicked out with one mailed boot, catching the tiefling in the stomach and driving her back.

  He rolled away from the fire that still burned on the floor and got to his feet even as the tiefling regained her own footing. She unleashed the power channeled through the rod and another gout of flame exploded toward Kalaban. He caught the fire on the blade of his soulsword, diverting the heat and energy before it could reach his body.

  The jerky motions and momentary pauses before the tiefling acted made Kalaban overconfident. He assumed that the tiefling would continue to project her next course of action before she did anything, as she had been doing both in this form and in the halfling form he had met earlier. The tiefling surprised him, however, by suddenly launching herself directly at him. Before he could react, she hit him in his armored chest with the fist holding the arcane rod. Energy danced from the rod to his armor, and the unbelievably powerful force of the blow hurled him into one of the nearby statues. He heard the stone crack as he struck the statue and crumpled to the ground. Pieces of stone and dust rained down from the many cracks crisscrossing the legs of the minotaur hero depicted above him.

  Kalaban remembered the sounds as the helmed horrors fell before this creature back at Kalton Manor. He tried to focus as the body thief moved again. She was on him before his head had cleared or he had gotten his limbs to fully function. She brought the rod down, hard, knocking the helmet from his head and driving him into the stone floor.

  “I tried to do this another way,” the tiefling said, each word emerging at a slightly delayed cadence. “But let’s face it …” A strange smile spread across the tiefling’s face, as though whoever controlled the body wasn’t yet completely familiar with how the muscles worked.

  “… I am so much more comfortable with this approach.”

  And the tiefling brought the rod down.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  60 THE SHINING ROAD, NIGHT

  Uldane climbed down from his horse and bent to examine the corridor ahead. In the light cast by the sunrod tied to a loop on his shoulder, Uldane could see the telltale signs of a perilous section of trapped corridor arrayed before him. Space between the tiles that paved the road indicated the potential for the stones to open. Whether these openings would reveal hidden compartments or deep pits, he was certain that they promised danger and destruction.

  And excitement, too, although Shara wouldn’t want to hear him say that.

  He never could understand why his friends weren’t quite as eager to open the next door or leap across the next chasm as he was. He found the simple act of discovery, of finding out what was behind the next curved corridor or inside the mysterious crate, to be extremely rewarding. It was why he had become an adventurer in the first place. But everyone was always asking him to think or take a deep breath or get behind the big fighter with the sword and shield. Where was the fun in that? Uldane wanted to be at the front of every encounter, the first to see into the next chamber or experience the thrill of meeting a new monster. That was exciting!

  Erak moved to stand beside Uldane. He stood silently for a few moments, looking at the same stretch of corridor that Uldane was studying, and then he asked, “What do you think?”

  Uldane’s face lit up at the question. “I’ve found the trigger mechanism for this particular section of the trap,” the halfling rogue said excitedly. “See there? That tile and that tile and that one over there? Those are pressure plates. Step on one of those, and it activates the trap.”

  “And what does the trap do?”

  Uldane shrugged. “Got me,” he said. “Could unleash a rolling boulder to crush us. Or maybe poison darts will shoot out of the wall. There’s really only one way to find out.”

  Uldane drew his short sword and moved to within an arm’s length of one of the tiles he had identified as a pressure plate. He raised his sword high, preparing to hit the pressure plate with its tip.

  “Uldane?” Erak asked calmly.

  “Yes?”

  “Should we step back or move to the side or something?”

  “Hmm? Oh, yeah. That’d probably be a good idea.”

  Erak waved the rest of the companions back, and they each took a position against one of the corridor walls. Uldane glanced back and waited for Erak to signal him. When Erak nodded, Uldane’s face broke into a wide smile.

  “Let’s see what happens,” Uldane said, and he poked the stone tile with his sword. “This simulates what would happen if one of us had accidentally stepped on the tile.”

  The stone tile sank slightly into the floor as Uldane poked it. He drew back the sword and the tile snapped back to its original position. At the same time, the carved face of a minotaur, set into the wall about twenty feet farther along the road from the pressure plate, began to glow. Specifically, the stone orbs that were its eyes glowed with a pale blue light. Other than that, nothing happened.

  Uldane stepped back to look around. He seemed disappointed as he shrugged and said, “Well, that wasn’t very exciting.”

  Suddenly, a number of loud clicks echoed from the corridor ahead. The tiles that Uldane had noticed earlier, the ones with the spaces between them, slid open, revealing three separate five-foot-wide holes in the floor. Puffs of dust billowed into the air as each hole was exposed. At the same time, two more carved minotaur faces lit up as their eyes flared with arcane energy.

  And that was it.

  “Well, that wasn’t very exciting, either,” Uldane said dryly. “I was expecting so much more out of a place built by minotaurs.”

  But what happened next, Uldane would agree later, was much more exciting than he had anticipated.

  A tall metal construct slowly rose out of each of the three holes. Each was cylindrical in shape, about six feet tall, and made of a coppery metal that reflected the light of Uldane’s sunrod. As the metal cylinders rose out of the holes, metal arms unfolded from each cylindrical body. They were long and flat and appeared to be extremely sharp. Like blades set around a central spoke. And then the blades began to spin.

  “Uldane,” Shara said with a bit of annoyance in her tone, “you can turn those things off now.”

  “Right, right,” Uldane said absently as he watched the twirling blades in utter fascination. “I’ll get right on that.”

  “Now Uldane!” Shara commanded, drawing her greatsword as the three spinning blades started to move toward them.

  Uldane saw that the blades spun like a child’s top, although he couldn’t see what was making them move. Probably magic, he decided, which he never found to be quite as interesting as a clockwork construct or a complicated system of gears and pulleys. Still, even magical traps had rules. All Uldane had to do was figure out what the rules of this particular trap were, and then he could find a way to disable it. Provided, of course, that the twirling blades didn’t kill him or his friends before he figured it out.

  The spinning blades closest to Uldane began to chart a zigzag course across the tiles toward the companions. The whirling metal arms were a blur of motion, no longer identifiable as separate components. Uldane was certain that if the whirling blades hit him, they’d cut through him like a hot knife through soft butter. The thought didn’t actually frighten the halfling. Nothing ever did. But it suddenly made him feel a little peckish.

  As the first of the spinning blades rotated toward him, Uldane tumbled to the side and rolled under the blur of coppery metal.
The blades spun around the center spoke at a height of about three feet, so by staying low the halfling was able to avoid being hit by the sharp metal. He sprang to his feet, checking to see where the other two spinning contraptions were. They were moving in zigzag patterns, one on each side of the passage, about ten feet or so from the walls. As Uldane studied the spinning blades, he noticed that they were doing something new now. In addition to spinning around the central spoke, the blades were now climbing up and down the spoke as well, making it impossible to simply duck under them as Uldane had just done.

  “Clever,” the halfling said.

  “Uldane!” Shara called as she stepped forward to meet the first of the whirling blades. “Less appreciation, more disabling!”

  “Right, right,” Uldane said, dodging toward one of the carved minotaur faces with the glowing eyes.

  The halfling rogue examined the life-sized bas relief of the minotaur face. It was set into the wall, about seven feet above the floor. It was extremely lifelike, as though a minotaur had pushed its face into the stone from behind. Maybe that’s how they made it, Uldane thought. He studied the jutting horns that extended from the proud forehead. He poked at the eyes that looked like half-orbs of stone but that glowed with pale blue light. He admired the bulging muzzle, the flaring nostrils, the powerful teeth. And then he noticed the metal ring clasped firmly within the minotaur’s teeth. It was covered with runes that also glowed, but the light here was softer, etched into the lines of the runes, and almost imperceptible compared to the light cast by the eyes. Uldane leaned back and put his hand to his chin as he considered his options.

  Shara tried to block the spinning blades as the first contraption bore down on her. Sparks flared on the blades and across the length of her greatsword, and then she was hurled back by the strength of the impact. Darrum leaped into the space between the oncoming blades and where Shara had fallen, spinning his twin hammers as if trying to match the speed of the whirling metal arms.

  “Uldane, if you have a solution, now is the time to use it,” Erak commanded as he prepared to deal with the second contraption. Roghar moved to stand beside the revenant, while Falon and Albanon moved around and looked for another way to help out.

  “Yelling at me isn’t going to make me go any faster,” Uldane complained as he turned back to examine the carved face. He reached out and grasped the metal ring. It was comfortably warm to the touch. He lifted it, and was suddenly reminded of the knocker on the door of Lord Padraig’s manor back in Winterhaven. He let the ring drop, but it didn’t make a loud sound like a knocker.

  “Halfling!” Roghar bellowed as the spinning blades scraped across the front of his shield. “Time is running out!”

  Uldane, his face scrunched in deep concentration, grabbed the ring again. This time, he turned the ring. It took all of the halfling’s strength, but he was able to twist it to the right until he heard a distinct click. The pale blue light in the eyes immediately winked out, and the contraption slicing toward Darrum and Shara stopped spinning. Its blade arms fell limp at its sides, and then, without any motion to balance it, the central spoke tipped over and crashed to the ground.

  “Who’s the best?” Uldane asked, turning to face his companions with a big smile across his face.

  “Uldane!” Erak shouted. “There’s still two more!”

  One of the metal contraptions, the one that had just been weaving toward Albanon, was now spinning back down the passage, heading directly for Uldane.

  And the other two glowing minotaur faces were across the width of the passage, set into the other wall.

  Uldane wasn’t afraid. Not exactly. But he also wasn’t sure if he could reach the right carving before the spinning blades cut into him.

  And that would certainly ruin the good time he was having.

  61 THE SHINING ROAD, NIGHT

  Falon’s mood went from jubilation as the first of the whirling contraptions stopped spinning and fell over to extreme fear as the other two seemed to spin faster and move with more purpose. The contraption in front of Roghar and Erak pushed forward, forcing the dragonborn and the revenant to leap back to avoid the unrelenting sweep of the spinning blades. The third contraption, meanwhile, had reversed its course and was now bearing down on Uldane. The halfling was against the far wall, apparently trying to decide if he could run across the passage before the spinning blades reached him and tore into him. Falon didn’t want to have to take that bet.

  “Did you see what the halfling did?” Albanon asked as he raised his staff high.

  “He turned the ring, I think,” Falon replied.

  “Do you think you can do the same?”

  “Turn the ring? Sure.”

  “Then go!”

  Falon moved as close to the wall as he could and began to run toward the remaining two carved faces with the glowing eyes. As he did so, he heard Albanon speak in a low voice as the eladrin began to cast a spell. A cloud of frosty air arced from Albanon’s staff and hit the ground beside the spinning contraption that was almost on top of Uldane. When the cloud touched the stone floor, ice spread out in a burst pattern from the point of impact. Immediately, the spinning contraption slipped and slid along the ice, crashing into the wall beside Uldane and falling over.

  The blades continued to spin, however, striking sparks along the stone and rocking itself almost upright as each blade scraped across the ground. Uldane didn’t wait to see if it would right itself. He leaped over the patch of ice and ran toward the carved face with the glowing eyes on the far wall. Falon matched his speed and ran toward the closer carving. They reached their respective carvings at the same time, just as the whirling contraption regained its balance on the ice and began to spin toward them.

  “Turn to the right,” Uldane called.

  Falon nodded, grasping the metal ring and turning with all of his might.

  Both carvings let out resounding clicks at the same instant. As the glowing eyes in each carved face faded, the remaining two contraptions stopped spinning and crashed to the ground.

  “Got it,” called Uldane triumphantly.

  Falon smiled at the halfling. He couldn’t help it. The little rogue’s mood was contagious.

  “Maybe we should give you a medal,” Shara muttered as she pulled herself back to her feet.

  “A medal? You think so?” Uldane asked with wide eyes. “I think I’d like a medal.”

  “We’ll get right on that,” she said gruffly, but Falon thought he saw a smile in her deep blue eyes.

  “Onward?” Falon asked.

  “Onward,” Erak agreed.

  62 THE AVENUE OF GLORY, NIGHT

  Magroth strolled the ancient Avenue of Glory, marveling at what the minotaurs had managed to raise up during the heyday of their underground kingdom. The stoneguard followed behind him, its great footfalls resounding in the large, open space beneath the mountain.

  “I was never able to gather any of the real monstrous races under the Nerath banner,” Magroth said out loud, talking to the stoneguard as though it could understand him. “Made the human and dwarf populations squeamish. Yes, I did subjugate the dragonborn and the tieflings, but no one really thinks of them as monstrous. Not like the minotaurs. Or the trolls. What I would have given to have had a couple of tribes of giants at my disposal!”

  Magroth paused, stopping to listen to sounds up ahead. Something heavy and metallic clanged in the distance. As the echo began to recede, he heard the crackle and roar of fire. Then there was more clanging, as though something heavy was being struck against a metal shield over and over again.

  “Come, golem,” Magroth said, suddenly intrigued. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

  The Mad Emperor made no attempt to be stealthy. Even if he had wanted to, the resounding pounding of the golem’s heavy footfalls would have made it impossible. But Magroth had no need for stealth. He was confident in his abilities and unafraid of anything that might be loose beneath Thunderspire Mountain. He approached two figures locked in b
attled beneath a statue that had seen better days. It was cracked across the middle and appeared to be ready to fall apart. Neither of the combatants even bothered to look up, so stealth wouldn’t have mattered in the least.

  Magroth saw that one of the two figures was Kalaban, his knight-commander. The other was a female tiefling who was bashing Kalaban’s head over and over again with a heavy metal rod. The Mad Emperor imagined that such a beating must have been quite painful, but he was reasonably sure that Kalaban, being a death knight, wouldn’t be too damaged when the tiefling was finished. He studied the tiefling as he got closer, noticing the lack of expression on her face and the strange tilt to the way she held her head.

  Not even bothering to use his staff, Magroth made a casual gesture with his open hand and muttered a word of power. Lightning streaked from his hand and crackled through the tiefling’s body. The force of the attack repelled her from her position over Kalaban, and she slid across the stone floor, leaving behind skid marks of dancing lightning that showed her path before dissipating like mist.

  “Get up, Kalaban,” Magroth said, “this is no time to be lying about like the prize pig before the slaughter.”

  The tiefling sprang to her feet, showing remarkable recuperative abilities despite the devastating attack that Magroth had hit her with. He saw a fire deep within her eyes, an expression that hadn’t been there when he first examined her. He also noticed that the hand that held the rod was torn and bloody, and a strange crimson substance that wasn’t blood was also oozing from the wounds. Actually, it was expanding and contracting out of and back into the wounds, as though the substance was breathing.

  “The thief will give me the Voidharrow,” the tiefling said in clipped, emotionless words. “You will not interfere.”

  Magroth saw, from the corner of his eye, that Kalaban was struggling to his feet. He kept his gaze locked on the tielfing as he replied, “If I had more time, this could turn out to be a fascinating exchange. But I have places to go and rituals to perform. So, you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t trade villainous remarks with you. Another time, perhaps.”