Oath of Vigilance

by James Wyatt

  Albanon remembered the demon’s strength when, in the form of a halfling even smaller than Uldane, it had grabbed and held Tempest, digging its fingers into her neck. He remembered the cracks around the halfling’s eyes where the red liquid oozed and glowed, and the terrible wounds all over the body, filled with the same substance. And he remembered the demon flowing out of Tempest’s nose and mouth as she lay dying. He could not echo Kri’s hope, as much as he longed to be the kind of hero the priest had described.

  Albanon conjured a light at the tip of his staff to illuminate their path to the tower’s gaping entrance, knowing it would attract attention to them but unwilling to consign Kri to stumbling in the darkness. An overgrown gravel walkway led from the cove up to the crumbling tower. Swallowing his fear, Albanon led the way, holding his glowing staff high. Shadows seemed to flit at the edge of his light, sinister shapes manifesting in the darkness but never venturing close enough to be clearly seen.

  “They say the Tower of Waiting is haunted,” Albanon said.

  “Do they?”

  “It was a prison once, more than a century ago, a place where the Lord Warden would put members of noble families who were too powerful or important to be killed. Supposedly some young princess was arrested on charges of demon worship and locked up here, but she hanged herself—or some say the demon she served appeared and killed her himself. Come to think of it, I’ve heard a lot of stories about her, most of them pretty sordid.”

  “And hers is the ghost they say haunts the tower?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is often a nugget of truth to such stories, Albanon. But there is rarely more than a nugget. Vigilance demands discernment, the ability to sort the truth from the exaggerations and elaborations.”

  Albanon frowned, feeling puzzled. “But we are not here to deal with a ghost.”

  “Aren’t we?”

  “Well, I did wonder if perhaps the demon has used this place as a lair long enough to be the nugget of truth behind the ghost stories.”

  “Exactly. That kind of reasoning will get you far.”

  Albanon shrugged. “I’m not so sure. The demon broke into Moorin’s tower looking for the vial of the Voidharrow that Moorin inherited from the order. If it had been in Fallcrest long enough to start ghost stories, why wait until this year to attack Moorin?”

  “One way or another, there are three hundred years during which the demon’s activities and whereabouts are a mystery, between the time that Sherinna first encountered it and when it appeared in Moorin’s tower. If it was not in Fallcrest, where was it? Wherever it was, why did it wait until this year to recover the Voidharrow from Moorin’s tower?”

  “What have you learned about the Voidharrow, Kri? What is it?”

  “Another time, young wizard.”

  Albanon stopped and turned to face Kri, his feet crunching on the gravel. “No,” he said. “Moorin kept information from me all the time. ‘You’re not ready, my apprentice,’ ” he said in a mocking singsong version of his old mentor’s voice. “No more secrets. I’m ready for whatever knowledge you have. You have to share it—both our lives could depend on it.”

  Kri looked taken aback by the passion of Albanon’s appeal, and Albanon almost apologized out of reflex. But he held his ground, trying to look confident and mature, ready for whatever terrible secrets the priest might decide to bestow on him.

  Finally Kri nodded. “I apologize for giving you the impression that I was trying to shield you from any of the reality of what we face. In truth, I was just thinking that this was perhaps not the best spot for this particular conversation, and the urgency of our errand makes it also not the best time.”

  Albanon felt his face redden. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m a little sensitive about that.”

  “Of course you are,” Kri said, clapping his shoulder. “Moorin held back your growing power in so many ways. Please know that I don’t want to do that to you. You deserve all the power you can claim—and the knowledge that will help you attain it.”

  “Thank you, Kri. Moorin taught me a great deal—”

  “Of course, of course.”

  “—but you’re right. He was holding me back. Nothing is going to hold me back anymore.”

  “That’s exactly right,” Kri said. “Nothing can.”

  A shadowy form loomed up right behind Kri, great black wings rising up behind the priest like a dark angel. Crimson eyes smoldered like hot coals in its face, and veins of scarlet crystal flowed through its body, suffusing the whole creature with dim red light. Albanon yelped and loosed a bolt of arcane force that struck the monster and tore wisps of its shadowy substance away.

  Kri’s eyes widened in surprise, but his body froze as the shadowy demon’s hands clutched at his head. At the same time, a second creature swooped out of the darkness at Albanon, stretching huge, dark claws toward him. Albanon felt irrational fear surge through him, chilling his body and setting his pulse pounding in his ears.

  The demon seemed energized by his fear, and some part of his mind that clung to rational thought in the face of it could discern how the creature was drawing on his fears and shaping them into a weapon to wield against him. Understanding the process didn’t help him face it, however, when his nightmares took shape before him, where a moment before the shadowy demon had stood.

  He saw a towering figure, rippling with muscle and covered in skin like the thorny flesh of a rose’s stem. Its face was covered with a mask made from a beast’s skull, but the demon’s smoldering red eyes peered out through the mask at him. Enormous antlers rose from the figure’s skull, and it clutched a hunting spear with a jagged head like a whaler’s harpoon. The baying of fey hounds surrounded him, and Albanon’s fear sapped the strength of his legs out from under him. He scrambled on the ground, trying to get away from the nightmare huntsman.

  “Albanon, my son,” the huntsman said, “you are a disappointment to me.”

  Albanon spread his fingers and bathed the figure in fire, but it strode forward as if completely oblivious to the flames, its flesh showing no signs of scorching. It lifted the spear and aimed the terrible point at Albanon’s heart.

  A burst of light like the dawning sun exploded around Albanon, tearing through the huntsman in front of him. As Albanon stared, its thorny flesh came off its bones in long ribbons as it howled its agony. Then it was only the shadowy demon again, and it appeared significantly diminished by Kri’s radiant assault.

  The light drove Albanon’s fear away as well. He found his feet and drew in a breath, sensing in an instant the location of both demons—no, all three—another one was approaching. He paused a moment, until the third demon was close enough, then engulfed them all in an inferno of arcane fire that spread out from his outstretched arms and washed harmlessly around Kri. The demon nearest him crumbled away to ash, leaving a scattering of red crystal dust in the air that blew away in the wind.

  The two remaining demons scattered to the edges of Albanon’s light, gathering their strength or reassessing the threat that he and Kri posed. Albanon laughed at them and sent another magic bolt streaming into the nearer demon. “You don’t want to fight us,” he said. “You can’t handle us.”

  As if in response, the two demons flew near each other and seemed to flow together, combining their substance into one larger form. As Albanon watched, the form twisted and changed, taking on the likeness of the demon they’d fought at Sherinna’s tower.

  “They chose something we both fear,” Kri said.

  “Less emotional impact, but probably more physical power,” Albanon said.

  “Good thinking. So we don’t let it get close enough to exert that power.”

  As one, Albanon and Kri unleashed a firestorm of devastation on the demonic figure. Lightning crackled over its limbs, fire erupted in the air around it, thunder crashed and battered it, and divine radiance tore at its substance. As spell after spell erupted around it, it took a few slow, pained steps closer to them, then topple
d to the ground. Its hulking body melted into the two smaller shadows, then their shadowy forms dissolved, leaving only crimson liquid, like crystalline blood, that pooled on the ground and then seeped away.

  “And that,” Kri said, “is the power of the Order of Vigilance.”

  Albanon laughed, exhilarated from the sensation of all that power coursing through his body. “That is the doom that awaits all the creatures of this abyssal plague,” he said.

  Kri stared darkly at the blasted circle of earth where the demons had died. “All will perish,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Shara stared in terror at the apparition before her. It was Jarren—not as she remembered him in life but as she dreamed of him in her worst nightmares, his insides torn out by the claws of the dragon, his neck broken and his head lolling, his eyes fixed on her. “You fled the battle,” he said, his voice harsh and rasping. “You left us to die.”

  “I—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Tears streaked her face and her sword clattered from her hand onto the road by her feet.

  He stepped closer, reaching a hand toward her hair. “I loved you, Shara,” he said. “I put my life in your hands.”

  “I know. I didn’t mean to flee. We—Uldane and I, we rolled away from the dragon’s breath, toward the river. We didn’t know—none of us knew the river was so far down!”

  “I trusted you, Shara. And now you’re giving your love to him?” Jarren’s bloody finger pointed behind her.

  For a moment, Shara didn’t know what he was talking about. Then she remembered that Quarhaun was behind her, and all at once she realized where she was and what she was doing. They’d been attacked—

  And the thing in front of her wasn’t Jarren’s ghost. It was a demon, preying on her fear, giving form to her worst nightmares and using them to weaken her.

  She roared in fury as she snatched her sword up from the ground and whirled it through the apparition of her lover. The ghost’s eyes widened in shock at this new betrayal, but Shara ignored its face, concentrating on the movement of her blade. She sliced and stabbed until no semblance of Jarren remained, just a gaunt creature of shadow with glowing veins of liquid crystal. Then even its shadowy substance dissipated and the red crystal turned to dust, scattered on the ground.

  Only then did she see Uldane, standing behind where the creature had been, daggers in his hands and a grin on his face.

  “I wondered when you were going to snap out of it,” the halfling said. “But now we’d better help Quarhaun.”

  She whirled around and saw the drow standing transfixed, staring at two smears of shadow in the air that reached dark claws toward his head. “Quarhaun!” she shouted. Her sword cut into both demonic shades, and Quarhaun seemed to come to his senses.

  Quarhaun’s sword burst into purple flame as his face twisted with fury and he lunged at the nearer of the two shadows that had held him entranced. Shara found herself wondering what he had seen, what terrible fear had paralyzed him, even as she helped him destroy the creature that had pillaged his nightmares. Two more shadowy figures appeared on the road, reaching their claws toward her, and she felt them in her head, trying to sift through her mind.

  A racket on the bluff above her jolted her back to full attention, and she looked up to see a dragonborn sliding down the bluff, bouncing and rattling down the steep slope with a sword in his hand and a roar in his throat.

  “Roghar!” she cried, delight at seeing her friend driving away the last tendrils of fear that had worked themselves into her mind.

  Quarhaun looked up as well, then gave her a quizzical glance. “A friend?”

  “Yes,” she said. Her joy gave strength to her sword, and the demons fell back from her assault. “A paladin of Bahamut and a strong ally. These demons are doomed.”

  “If he doesn’t kill himself on the way down,” Quarhaun muttered.

  Shara laughed. Then Roghar was beside her, hewing into the demons as divine light flared around him. The demons seemed particularly perturbed by that radiance, which tore at their shadowy substance and even seemed to make Shara’s sword bite more easily into them. Two demons at once reached their claws toward Roghar’s head, and he paused for a terrible moment as Shara watched the fear creep into his eyes. Then he shook his head and renewed his attack, undaunted by whatever vision of terror they had presented to him.

  A moment later, a bolt of eldritch fire streaked down from the road above them, and Shara glanced up to see Tempest looking down at her. The fire slammed into one of the demons and consumed it, sending the last shreds of its substance hurtling down over the bluff. Quarhaun glanced up as well and cocked an eyebrow when he saw Tempest’s curling horns.

  “A tiefling warlock and a paladin of Bahamut?” he said. “An unusual pair.”

  Roghar and Shara maneuvered into a position that kept their friends sheltered from the demons’ attacks, coordinating their movements with quick, simple signals. Shara smiled to herself at how good it felt to fight alongside someone skilled and reliable.

  Sorry, Uldane, she thought. It’s not the same.

  Shara and Roghar kept the demons at bay, their blades hacking and slicing into their shadowy forms. Uldane darted around past them to cut at the demons, then back behind the protection they offered, shouting encouragement to everyone as he went. Quarhaun and Tempest riddled the demons with blasts of fire and bolts of dark lightning. In moments, the last demon dissipated into wisps of shadow and a scattering of red crystal droplets.

  Laughing with the sheer pleasure of it, Shara threw her arms around Roghar. “The paladin rushes in to save the day!” she said. “Your timing was perfect.”

  “Well, I was in the neighborhood,” Roghar said.

  “And thought you’d drop in?” Uldane said with a grin.

  Roghar dropped to one knee to embrace the halfling as well. “That was pretty terrible.”

  “I thought it was funny,” the halfling said.

  Tempest made her way down from the overhanging bluff and embraced Shara. “It’s good to see familiar faces,” the tiefling said. “Trouble seems to be afoot in Fallcrest.”

  “Do you know what’s going on?” Shara asked her.

  “Not yet. We just arrived and found the Nentir Inn in flames. We were circling around to investigate when we heard sounds of a fight.”

  “I heard the sounds,” Roghar said, thumping his mailed fist on his armored chest with a clang. “And rushed to the rescue.”

  “And a good thing you did,” Shara said. “We were outnumbered, and Quarhaun is still recovering from our last fight against these demons.”

  “So you would be Quarhaun,” Roghar said, extending a hand to the drow.

  Quarhaun looked down at the dragonborn’s extended hand for a moment too long before he clasped it. “I am,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Shara said. “Quarhaun, this is Roghar, and this is Tempest. We were thrown together on a past adventure.”

  “And now it appears that all our various adventures are connected,” Roghar said with a scowl. He squatted down and poked at a tiny pool of red crystalline liquid left behind by one of the demons.

  “Don’t touch it!” Shara and Tempest exclaimed together.

  “It’s inert,” Roghar said. “I think it’s … dead, I guess.”

  “More of Vestapalk’s spawn,” Shara said. “Transformed by the Voidharrow.”

  “Vestapalk?” Roghar said. “The dragon? I thought you killed it.” Roghar had been at her side that day, in the ruins of Andok Sur, when her blade had opened the dragon’s belly and sent it hurtling down into a chasm opening beneath it.

  “I killed it,” Shara said. “Or at least I dealt it a mortal wound. But I also provided the means for its resurrection.”

  “What?” Tempest said.

  “When I cut the dragon, it had the death knight in its claws. I cut open the death knight’s belt pouch as I swung at the dragon, and a vial full of glittering red liquid came out. It was absurd, really, a coinci
dence that only an evil god’s tricks could have orchestrated. The liquid spilled out of the vial and flowed into the dragon’s wound. The Voidharrow, Kri called it.”

  “Kri?” Roghar asked.

  “A priest of Ioun,” Uldane said. “He showed up at Moorin’s tower looking for that vial of the Voidharrow, which the death knight stole from the tower.”

  “The demon that … that took me,” Tempest said. “It was looking for the Voidharrow, too. And it was made of the same substance.”

  “That demon is serving Vestapalk now,” Shara said. “And helping the dragon spread what they called an abyssal plague. We’ve only seen them once—and actually, that’s where we met Quarhaun. The dragon’s minions had captured both Quarhaun and Albanon, and the dragon tried to transform them both with the Voidharrow.”

  “And since then,” Uldane said, “we’ve encountered all kinds of demon creatures that have that same crystal stuff.”

  “We’ve fought them all over the Nentir Vale,” Shara said.

  Roghar scratched his chin. “It appears that this threat isn’t confined to the Nentir Vale,” he said. “We discovered a droplet of this Voidharrow in Nera.”

  “Then Vestapalk’s reach has grown wide indeed,” Shara said.

  “Not necessarily,” Tempest said. “The substance was in the keeping of a little cult of the Chained God. There was no other evidence of a connection to Vestapalk. It could have come from the same source as the vial the death knight carried.”

  “Kri did say that the Voidharrow was separated,” Shara said. “Some of it was carried east, I think he said, while the rest was passed down until it came to Moorin. So maybe what you found came from that eastern portion.”

  “So what is it?” Roghar asked. “Where did it come from?”

  Shara looked around and saw a circle of scowling faces. “More immediate questions first,” she said. “What’s happened to Fallcrest? And is there any safe place in the town where we can rest, or do we need to make camp at a safe distance outside?”

  “Let’s try the bridge,” Roghar said. “I have a feeling the Nentir Inn was set ablaze as a lure.”