Dark Vengeance

by Ed Greenwood

  He was the former Talonnorn overseer, covered with scars Niflghar of House Evendoom had casually or maliciously dealt him.

  He was the longest-serving whip of House Evendoom, charged with keeping order among the slaves who worked the precious Rift.

  He was the only gorkul to survive being branded and fire-scalded and whipped with chains to the point of death, thanks to the appetites of certain Evendoom crones who delighted in watching death-agonies, and then using spells to snatch their victim back to life.

  He was the gorkul who intended that Talonnorn would pay him back for such cruelties in full, and repeatedly.

  And he was the gorkul who would dare to charge into the great Talonar cavern and take payment, mercilessly and even brutally, rather than cowering in the shadows and daring to strike only at outlaws and caravan stragglers.

  He sneered down at the bloody and broken bodies of the stragglers he and his band had just slain, and over at the five pack-snouts they had thereby managed to remove from the tail of a long and lightly guarded Nifl trading caravan, and plucked up a knife he had left in a throat that had seemed to need it. A moment ago this had been a solid triumph; now, it seemed but a waste of time.

  Grunt Tusks stalked into the midst of his band of followers, and grinned into their bewildered faces.

  “So it begins,” he hissed. “The proudest city still, but the strongest no longer. Soon, Grunt Tusks will feed in the heart of Talonnorn—and the skulls I crack open to scoop warm brains out of will be Evendoom heads. Screaming Evendoom heads.”

  “I know the wards are down,” Jalandral snapped. “You at least should know I’m not the overbold, empty-headed young idiot half Talonnorn likes to think I am! What I want to know is: why are the wards down? Who did this, and why haven’t they been raised again?”

  Klaerra was white to her very lips with fear. “I—I know not,” she whispered, her bloodless lips trembling. “All that our spellrobes have been able to learn is that the wards were almost certainly brought down by a spell that originated within the city.”

  “ ‘Almost certainly’? What good is that? Why’ve they wasted their time on such frippery when they could have been—should have been—restoring the wards?”

  “I . . . High Lord Jalandral, the surviving spellrobes residing in Talonnorn now lack the might to raise the wards. Even if they all worked together, in utter trust and with the best of assistance from us all, they lack the collective power to cast the right spells.”

  “Whaaat?” Jalandral roared, so loudly that the echo of his shout made even him wince. He towered over Klaerra, hand raised to smite her, lifted to slam down and break her bloody neck—

  Weeping silently as she stared up at him, she tore open the front of her bodice and threw her head back, to offer her throat to his fury.

  —And all the anger drained out of the High Lord of Evendoom, as suddenly as it had come, leaving him feeling weak and sick.

  “Oh,” he whispered, sitting down with a jolt beside Klaerra and putting his arm around her. “Oh, dung. Olone be merciful. Dung, dung, dung.”

  After a moment he turned to her. “All our most powerful spellrobes?”

  “Y-yes,” she whispered. “Dead or fled. You are right to feel aghast.”

  Jalandral shook his head, and absentmindedly reached out to caress her bared front, still shaking his head.

  “Ouvahlor will be delighted,” he said mockingly. “And then Yarlys, and then whoever else gets here next. Olone spit . . .”

  He shook his head again. He felt weary and lost, not furious. How could matters go from the triumph of his lordship in the forecourt to this, so swiftly? So Olone-accursed quickly?

  “Klaerra,” he asked, with a calm he did not feel, “what shall I do? You live still because you stand by me when others do not, and your guidance is always good. Guide me now.”

  “Jalandral,” she replied, taking his hands from her breast and gently shifting them up to encircle her throat, “what I am going to say now is not going to please you.” She settled his fingers into a throttling grip under her chin and whispered, “So please, if your anger masters you and you slay me, remember that I loved you.”

  The High Lord of Talonnorn gently drew his hands back from his loyal crone’s throat. Taking hold of her torn bodice, he held it up to cover her. “Go ahead. Anger me,” he commanded quietly. “Speak.”

  Klaerra drew in a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment—he could feel her trembling, under his hands—and then looked straight into his eyes and said, “If you want the wards of Talonnorn restored, you must go to the temple and ask what Consecrated of Olone we have left to do it. Nicely.”

  Jalandral glared at her, face twisting into a snarl, and then spat, “I must?”

  “If you want the wards restored, they have power enough,” Klaerra whispered. “Just enough. If I and some of the junior crones of our House work with them.”

  Jalandral’s eyes narrowed.

  “And I’ll be able to trust all of you?”

  Silent tears were streaming down Klaerra’s face again. “High Lord of Talonnorn,” she whispered, “you must begin to trust someone. Or—forgive me—your death will come sooner rather than later.”

  “Ah, here ’tis. No lurking monsters, no dung nor leavings, no fallen blades. Nothing in all the Dark comes here, look you, but us!”

  The three weary, trudging Niflghar would not have been held in high regard in Talonnorn. Their lives had been long and less than easy, and it showed in their scars and wrinkled faces and hunched, limping walks.

  By what bulged in the packs strapped to their six old, lean pack-snouts, they were the sort of trader known as peddlers. By the state of their clothes and condition of their boots and weapons and everything else, they were less than successful peddlers.

  Yet they had come trudging through the Wild Dark with the calm certainty of veterans who know their surroundings well. The lone lurker on the ledge high above them hesitated. Guides this good might be very useful, after all . . .

  The three peddlers spat into the rocks, more or less in unison, and then belched, broke wind, and started scratching themselves.

  No.

  Not useful enough.

  “Same old cavern,” the rearmost, shortest Nifl said sourly, stepping into just the right spot. “There’s—”

  Grinning mirthlessly, the lurker on the ledge rolled a rock as large as her head over the edge.

  It crushed the shortest trader’s head right down to his jaw without even slowing, smashing his body to the ground and rolling wetly away.

  His two fellows cursed, finding themselves suddenly wrestling with the harnesses of bucking, eye-rolling pack-snouts who were rearing in fear—and who each no doubt outweighed both traders put together ten or more times over.

  “Easy!” one of them tried to croon, his voice higher and louder than it should have been to achieve any sort of soothing. “Easy, there! I—”

  He was the one who chose that moment to stare up at the ledge, to see where the rock had come from so suddenly and silently, and if any more might be ready to follow it—so he was the one whose face the lurker loosed Daruse’s hurlbow into.

  Grinning, she flattened herself down on the ledge to hide from the frightened, frantic stares of the last peddler.

  If she awaited just the right time to strike, taking down a lone and aging Nifl who probably hadn’t been rampant for years should be Olone’s ease itself . . .

  “Trusting others is a weakness,” Jalandral murmured, “for all that Klaerra says not doing so is also a weakness. If I rely on no one but myself, no one can ever let me down. My preparations shall be done right, because I am doing them. Yet powerful magics I cannot do—so I am here. In peril, and again trammeled by the very sorts of lesser, spiteful, and unfriendly failures that brought proud Talonnorn down in the first place.”

  He stood alone in a room whose floor was glossy-smooth black stone, and whose walls were veiled in draperies that hid all the exits. He
could see nothing else of interest; nothing on the ceiling, no furniture, nothing. Not even any cracks or discolorations to meet his eye, as he stood waiting.

  Cold, and bored, and being treated like a servant. Or a prisoner.

  “Olone,” he asked then, raising his voice a little but keeping his tone calm and even reverent, “have you priestesses still, in Talonnorn? Or have they all left this temple and this city, leaving you unserved? I—”

  “Your mockery, Jalandral Evendoom, is even less attractive than your self-assumed title.”

  The voice from behind him was cold, and just this side of openly menacing. Jalandral smiled, and turned to face its source leisurely.

  “Now I feel properly welcome,” he said pleasantly. “Being High Lord of—”

  “Dispense with your airs, Firstborn of Evendoom. We Consecrated of Olone mirror the feelings of the Holy Goddess Herself, and accordingly dislike both your fanciful title and the high-handed behavior that has accompanied it. We do not see a Talonnorn made any greater, or any closer in reverence to Holy Olone, by your office or performance. Many within these walls would prefer your swift elimination. Can you give us good reason why we should not slay you, here and now, while there is still a Talonnorn to rescue?”

  “Yes,” Jalandral drawled.

  “Well?”

  “I prefer not to share my good reasons. When priestesses presume to involve themselves in matters of ruling and city policy, they stray far from their holy duties and their rights—and, I daresay, from the holy favor they profess to seek. I will, however, share my most brutish and immediate reasons for you not to harm me in any way.”

  He strolled a step closer to the priestess. “Spells cast upon my person will unleash enchanted items I am carrying, and many mightier items hidden all over the city—including within these holy walls. Their discharges will utterly destroy this temple, and all Consecrated within it, plus many of you who are elsewhere in the Talonar cavern, if I am harmed or feel displeased or upset enough to trade my life for all of yours.”

  He held out the hand that bore the Evendoom ring, and added, “And whether you choose to recognize me as High Lord of Talonnorn or not, I do happen to be Lord of Evendoom, not Firstborn.”

  “I see.”

  The priestess facing Jalandral was one he’d never seen before.

  She was impossibly tall and slender, possessed a beauty both dark and deadly—and was staring at him with open hatred in her great dark eyes. “Your certainty in correcting me leads me to conclude that you are responsible for your father’s death. Such an act is an affront to Olone and a crime in Talonnorn—or did you begin your office by changing that law?”

  “I had no part in my father’s death, not that it is any business of yours,” Jalandral replied, giving her back icy words for icy words. “Or is it? When he had been absent for so long, and none of the crones of our House could find the slightest trace of him with their most powerful spells, we turned to you Consecrated to try to do so, and shortly received report of a similar failure to find any trace of Erlingar Evendoom. So we came to the sad conclusion that he was with the living no more, and House Evendoom therefore needed his heir to become Lord in his place. An ascension this temple spoke no word against. Are there things about my father’s death, or perhaps his continued life, that Consecrated of this temple know, and are keeping from me? Or is your charge mere passing insult? Ruling Talonnorn is an endless series of tasks and responsibilities that consume much time, and I do not have an infinite supply of it to spare. I came here for a specific re—”

  “We know why you are here, Jalandral Evendoom. You did something that shattered the wards of Talonnorn, and you need us to raise them again. Thus far I have heard nothing from you to indicate why we should aid you in this way, or even a polite request from you regarding—”

  “I can interrupt rudely and make empty and false accusations, too,” Jalandral drawled, clasping his hands behind his back and starting to stroll, “so why not let the coldly hostile negotiations begin?”

  The priestess almost smiled. “Why not, indeed?”

  13

  Watching and Listening

  Bellowing and brawling kill many

  Overly hasty choices slay more than a few

  But watching and listening never killed anyone

  Unless they started too late, or kept at it too long.

  —Orlkettle saying

  “We’re close now, Lady-lass,” Bloodblade growled warningly. He was constantly peering this way and that as they skulked forward along the jutting prow of rock, both in wary crouches. “Best be quiet and careful. If the wards rise again . . .”

  “They would fry our fellows,” Taerune murmured, casting a look back at the handful of Ravagers Bloodblade had managed to rally to foray with him, as they’d traveled the Wild Dark, “and trap us out here on this tongue of rock.”

  “Arrr-uh,” the infamous Ravager war captain agreed. “So hurry.”

  “I’m crawling over rocks as fast as I can,” she replied good-naturedly, “with only one hand. Elbows don’t grip too well.”

  “I can have Arthoun add claws to some harthil—harthem—err, elbow-plates,” Bloodblade offered.

  “No,” Taerune said firmly. “Only Hairy Ones work on my metal-skins, I’ve decided.”

  “Heh,” the fat Ravager agreed a little breathlessly, amid the clinks and clanks of a very fat Niflghar clad in a belted chaos of mismatched plates of salvaged armor and a bristling arsenal of sheathed, scabbarded, and chained-on weapons, clambering over sharp and uneven rocks. “You really mean one particular Hairy One, I’m thinking.”

  “I do,” Taerune agreed. “Now stop crashing around. I can see all I need to see from here.”

  The spur of rock they’d been climbing along jutted out over one end of one of the largest Outcaverns, affording a view down its often-bustling length. They were only a few caves away from the gigantic cavern that held Talonnorn, and this long Outcavern was a main trade route.

  However, it was deserted now.

  No caravans, no Talonar patrols, no daring House younglings out for a thrill . . .

  Good.

  “Empty as the promise of a priestess,” Taerune pronounced crisply. “Let’s get back, and down there.”

  Bloodblade hastily started to scramble and lurch back over the rocks.

  He’d taken to treating her as his commander, though they both knew that without him she’d be walking the Dark alone, or even having to fight off those among the other Ravagers with them whose lust for a Nifl-she—who was both noble and strikingly beautiful, even for an Olone-worshipper, despite the blade that jutted out at the world where her left forearm should be—overrode their prudence.

  Supple and long-limbed, Taerune slithered after the Bloodblade, moving far more quietly than he could. “Down,” he commanded simply, to the waiting Ravagers. “Fast.”

  Without a word they turned and started down the path. A slaves’ mining-walk from long, long ago, it clove the jagged rocks like a smooth ramp, snaking back and forth as it descended. As they went, Llorgar, the Ravager walking just ahead of Bloodblade, turned and asked curiously, “No caravans? And no wards? D’you think half of what we’ve been hearing is true?”

  Old Bloodblade shrugged and turned to Taerune, who echoed his shrug and replied quietly, “I don’t know what to think. My brother Jalandral risen to lord it over the entire city? Public duels among House lords, yet their Houses aren’t openly warring on the streets? The Consecrated of the temple just praying to Olone and ignoring such tumult? Can you blame me for thinking it all wild lies?”

  “No,” Llorgar said simply. “Hrestreen is Talonar, too, and he can’t believe any of it, either. Yet says he’d not be wits-smacked if one tale out of them all is true, though he doesn’t want to be guessing which one.”

  “Precisely,” Taerune agreed, almost fiercely, as Bloodblade’s bristling arsenal of weapons stopped bobbing wildly and they came out onto the flat cavern floor.

>   “No, no,” he grunted, waving his empty hand. His broad, well-used favorite blade was suddenly in the other. “Away from the walls, rampants! We’re lawful traders for the moment, not sneak-thieves!”

  “Oh?” Llorgar asked good-naturedly as they formed a column and trudged out along the center of the cavern, heading for Talonnorn. “And if High Lord Jalandral has some new law that makes traders unlawful?”

  “Then we’ll call ourselves fugitives from Talonar justice and slayers of Jalandral’s guards, and improvise our suitable behavior from there,” Bloodblade said jovially. “I am among the most accommodating of Niflghar.”

  That claim evoked chuckles, up and down the line of Ravagers, and the inevitable exchanges of “How feel you, friend?” and “Accommodating, very accommodating!” as the Ravagers made their customary mock of the airs and speech of city-dwelling Nifl.

  They were still chuckling when the air all around them shivered—and they were suddenly ringed about by many Talonar Nifl.

  One moment the long cavern had been empty, and an instant later it was full of shouting, sword-swinging Nifl, viciously battling each other in a great confusion of identically clad warblades, scurrying and terrified servants, heaped sacks and packs, and motley-clad, obviously poorer Nifl who were striking at the warblades—and being struck down, more often than not.

  “Take no part!” Bloodblade bellowed to his fellow Ravagers, his roar like a deep, ragged war-horn. “To me! Stand and defend, around me! Form a ring!”

  Then in lower tones, he added, “Who are all these brawlers? Blast all Olone- and Ice-bedamned magic! As usual!”

  The Ravagers scrambled to obey, crossing swords only briefly with a blundering few of the arrivals, who seemed bewildered to find themselves in their new surroundings.

  The warblades had the upper hand, and were swiftly winning. By the time the Ravagers had formed their ring, the fighting was done, with one side lying dead on the cavern floor.

  “Lady Evendoom? Taerune Evendoom!” a voice arose then, from among the warblades.