Dark Vengeance

by Ed Greenwood

  It didn’t—and the ring sighed into dust and was gone, leaving another finger bare.

  All that he had left was the Evendoom ring.

  Jalandral gritted his teeth, kicked himself away from the wall he’d sagged against, and called on the ring.

  It fought, resisting his will even as Olone’s tide shoved him back toward the passage.

  “I,” he gasped, gritting his teeth, “am Jalandral Evendoom!” He fought for breath. “Lord of . . . Evendoom.”

  Olone seemed unimpressed, but the ring seemed to hear him. Suddenly it was flooding him with power, glowing bright upon his forefinger. The tide was suddenly nothing; with an ease that it seemed forever since he’d felt, Jalandral trotted through the chamber, along the forehall, and out of the temple.

  He was perhaps forty swift strides away from the temple gates, heading for the nearest side alley, when the Evendoom ring flared into a flesh-searing flame, causing him to shout in pain, and—went out. His blistered finger was bare.

  Memories suddenly surged through him, memories that were not his own but that had rooms he knew in them, the Eventowers. Which meant the shouting, fighting, and lovemaking people crowding through his head, who all looked at least vaguely like his father, must be Evendooms.

  Must be . . .

  High Lord of Talonnorn or not, Jalandral felt overwhelmed by the flood of Evendooms. Overwhelmed, staggering, and then . . . swept away.

  He collapsed, or thought he did, briefly feeling the street hard under his cheek, but was snatched up and away, still lost in a flood of Evendoom pasts, by Olone’s might. It slammed him against hard stone—the front of a building that was far from where he’d fallen—dragged him along it shouting in pain, and then whirled him away to smash into even harder stone.

  At some point during the battering that followed he broke an arm, and then a leg, and then perhaps his other arm—though by then, even with the broken ends of his own bones slicing him across the face, he barely knew what was real and what was . . . wild memory . . .

  “Are they all there, in that same cavern?” Aloun asked, peering hard into an array of small whorls in front of him. “I’ve—whoa! What’s that?”

  Whorls were suddenly on the move, gliding away from under his hands and scrutiny as if an unseen, unfelt breeze was blowing briskly at him.

  Whorls everywhere in the chamber were sliding in the same direction, back behind him. When he grasped one, or tried to, it frayed and shredded under his fingers, pulling away from him anyway.

  There was real fear in his face as he looked to the Senior Watcher of Ouvahlor.

  Luelldar looked up from his own collapsing whorl, sweating, as he gave up his own lost mind-battle to hold it where it was, and said grimly, “Behold the faintest echo of Olone’s power. Were the Ever-Ice not shielding us, in this place, ’tisn’t our whorls that would be falling into nothing and being swept away, about now.”

  · · ·

  The broken-limbed and senseless High Lord of Talonnorn struck one last wall, slid bloodily down it, and lay still, a huddled, bleeding heap.

  In a deep, dark doorway, the wildblades and merchants of the Araed who’d been watching his struggle out of the temple now looked at each other, shrugged—and then a few of the younger, bolder ones darted out across the street, plucked up the fallen Jalandral, and dragged him back to their refuge, peering down the deserted street at the temple fearfully and often.

  They made it inside with their prize two scant breaths before a few dazed, limping Consecrated came stumbling out of the temple gates, and peered around. They were seeking Jalandral Evendoom, with knives in their hands.

  “I need the Hunt now!”

  House Spellrobe Vlakrel’s snarl rose almost to a shriek, and he glared at the ring on his finger as if it were the face of a hated foe. “High Lord Jalandral Evendoom promised me the Hunt would come at my call—and I’m calling!”

  The voice only he could hear replied, and Vlakrel screamed in frustration—though his cry was nothing amid the raw, desperate howls of dying, despairing Oszrim warblades, as the raudren swooped.

  “I don’t care if you can’t find him; his order remains unchanged—and I am invoking it! Send the Hunt to me, and send them now! I—”

  Vlakrel’s terrified eyes darted wildly around the raudren-filled Outcavern, seeking some way to make this petty dolt in House Evendoom budge from sneeringly denying him. Then he thought of something, and spat it at the ring.

  “And how strong will your neck be, when Jalandral—ah, of course, High Lord Evendoom to you—gets his hands on it? After the force that I’m facing, a force that’s using trained or magically compelled raudren as their forefront blades, gets past me and attacks Talonnorn itself! When I might have been able to turn it back or defeat it here in the Outcaverns, if I’d had the Hunt here in time? And Jalandral learns that it was you who prevented that?”

  Whatever response Vlakrel heard made him smile broadly, say crisply, “That’s better. I’ll see that you’re properly praised,” and then relax with a great sigh.

  Which saved his life. The abrupt slumping of the spellrobe’s body carried him just below the reach of a diving raudren; it swerved, ran out of cavern to fly in, and banked sharply along the cavern wall, scraping along the rock rather than slamming thunderously into it.

  “He’s alive,” the wildblade carrying Jalandral’s shoulders said, “but that’s about it.”

  “Bring him,” a merchant ordered curtly, flinging open a door to reveal steps; the usual stone ramp, leading down into darkness.

  “Oh?” the wildblade asked, hefting his half of the High Lord’s dangling, blood-dripping body. “And who made you High Lord?”

  The merchant calmly drew a belt-knife and put its tip against the bulge under the front lacings of the wildblade’s breeches. “I haven’t time for crones’ I’m-prettier games, just now,” he announced calmly. “Bring him.”

  The wildblade nodded silently, and the merchant started down the ramp. After a moment, the two wildblades carrying what was left of the High Lord followed, bearing their burden very carefully.

  The other merchants filed down the ramp in their wake. The last one paused long enough to tell the other six wildblades who’d been in the doorway, “Stay here. If any priestesses come looking for the High Lord, don’t say he’s in here. Just invent some other pretext for killing them. Try to do it without other Consecrated seeing you; you’ll last longer, that way.”

  “We’re not stone-stupid, you know,” one of the six replied.

  “What’s in it for us?” another wildblade, who was resplendent in a fine purple cloak, asked the merchant.

  “Ah,” he replied, “but it seems you are stone-stupid, after all. Why even ask? The answers are: obey, and you live and gain a steep salary from the High Lord’s purse; and fail to obey, and we’ll kill you now, with one of the many means of doing so we’ve bought that you are thus far obviously unaware of. Oh, and try not to be stupid enough to ask me what any of them are.”

  In the silence that followed, the merchant nodded to them all, stepped onto the ramp, and closed the door.

  It was three long breaths later before the purple-cloaked wildblade asked, “Why?”

  The oldest of the three wildblades broke his silence, looking scornful. “Because he’ll kill you with one of them the moment you ask what they are, to show the rest of us he wasn’t bluffing.”

  “And how do you know he wasn’t bluffing?”

  “He’s a merchant of the Araed successful enough to live to be as old as he is. You can’t bluff your way through half a lifetime unless you’re a priestess or the lord of a House. And the times are good.”

  The wildblade who’d asked sighed in exasperation. “Just killing Nifl is easier.”

  “You’re not the first to say that,” said the oldest wildblade. “Now look innocent, everyone: Consecrated, yonder, coming through the door!”

  “Can’t—” Nurnra panted, running like the wind but lacking en
ough of her own to speak clearly, “Can’t . . . hide from raudren anywhere!”

  Oronkh, who was huffing and gasping like a drowning pack-snout as he pounded along in her wake, answered with only a nod.

  “So might as well”—the sharren added, over her shoulder, as she dodged the last rock and sprinted out onto the open floor of the central cavern—”run to the Hairy One! You and he, fighting back to back, just might keep us all alive!”

  Oronkh shot one look at the human, standing alone with swords in both of his hands, awaiting four swooping raudren, and then put his head down and ran. There didn’t seem much point in shaking his head in disbelief; the Hairy One was already doing so, for him.

  “The High Lord is still within the Altar of Olone, treating with the Consecrated of the Goddess,” the Nifl guardlord said icily, “and I am not going to interrupt him.”

  “But—”

  “But he left us in charge. Doing nothing while an army floods into the very streets of our city and starts butchering Talonar at will—because we’re waiting for Lord Evendoom to return, utter commands that might have saved Talonnorn had they been given much earlier, and then pat our heads and behinds in thanks, and sit down with us to watch our own unfolding doom—is not my idea of ‘staunchly serving Talonnorn.’ Is it yours?”

  “You trust an Oszrim spellrobe?”

  “Can you not set aside the sneerings we were all taught to perform, and do the task we were given? I believe we cannot afford not to trust this Vlakrel, proud fool that he may be. If his claims are correct, he may already be dead; if he has deceived us, we shall see to it that he dies. Why would he invent an attack? If he intends this as a trap, I hardly think the Hunt can be overcome by anyone he could arrange to have waiting for them!”

  “Attend, all!” a new voice called from the door, sharp and loud. “Reports from the temple! Magic is spewing from its very gates!”

  “What?”

  “I knew it! Those oriad bitches—”

  “What sort of magic?”

  “Is the High Lord inside?” an undercommander’s voice cut through the rest, sounding almost eager. “Is it treachery?”

  “We know not Lord Evendoom’s whereabouts,” came the cold reply, “and he may very well still be in the temple. Yet we very much doubt treason’s involved; many new-slain Consecrated are strewn about the gates and forechambers. Our warblades have just entered the temple, to learn what’s befallen.”

  “So we’re left with a dark choice. This is treachery, whereupon we must deal with it; the Hunt can’t fly into a temple! Or it’s not treachery, but rather an attack that seeks to slay the High Lord and the Consecrated together, at one stroke! This could very well be the work of the same foe this Vlakrel is fighting in the nearest Outcaverns, in which case the Hunt should be streaking into those caverns just as fast as they can fly!”

  A general uproar arose, out of which came a chant of “The Hunt! The Hunt! The Hunt!”

  “The Hunt, indeed!” the guardlord bellowed, his voice overriding all others. “Hasten, and give them these orders: they are to fly to the ring Lord Evendoom gave to the spellrobe Vlakrel, and exterminate any invaders they find! They are then to fly around the city, through the nearest Outcaverns, seeking to learn if we are encircled by a foe! Any sighting of a serious force of enemies must be reported back to us at once, before the circuit is complete, so that we may be ready for whatever gets past the Hunt! I want no glory-seeking, no reckless heroics; just savage any attackers as swiftly and mercilessly as possible!”

  “And who made you High Lord?” the undercommander snarled. “I—”

  Whatever else he’d been intending to say was lost forever, then, in his helpless dying gurgles. The guardlord’s sword was sharp and handy, and his temper was even shorter than the distance to the undercommander’s throat.

  The three raudren had become four.

  Large, muscular, and bare of armor, he must look like an inviting meal.

  Inviting enough to lure the largest raudren he’d ever seen—a great gliding brute of a beast, almost twice the size of the smallest of the three who’d already been after him—to fly out of the darkness, undulating eagerly.

  Eager for a meal, curse them!

  Orivon growled and headed for the rocks on one side of the cavern—as fast as he could trot without sheathing either of his swords or turning his back on the beasts for an instant.

  They were coming for him, diving down even now—no!

  The latecomer, the fourth one, larger than the rest, was bumping the others aside!

  With low growlings, or hummings, or whatever—so low-pitched that they set Orivon’s teeth to rattling, inside his head, and the rocks around to clacking and clattering—the raudren disputed with each other, as the large one shouldered one after another aside, swinging back and forth in the air to do so.

  Orivon reached the rocks and started dodging among them, trying to keep on fleeing just as fast as he’d been in the open cavern, to reach the greater protection of the deeply fissured cavern wall.

  He turned, slipped—almost getting wedged between two boulders—and saw that largest raudren driving the others back in a swirl of bulk, tail, and fangs. They gave it reluctant room to circle once, over the cavern of Nifl and half-gorkul and Thorar only knew who else, to begin its deadly dive.

  Silent and massive, it descended, gliding through the air with the other three raudren following.

  “Thorar be with me,” the forgefist snarled, turning and leaping the last little distance, up a slope of loose and rolling stones, to reach the deepest rock cleft. It looked just large enough to take his shoulders, and deep enough to get himself into, no deeper.

  Hastily he backed himself into it, and braced himself with blade out, so a raudren seeking to bite him would have to impale itself. Not that so puny a steel fang would be much trouble to a raudren.

  “Come, death,” Orivon growled, “here I wait!”

  The descending raudren loomed, large and dark, not hurrying.

  Sudden shouts rang out, echoing from the far end of the cavern, and bright magic erupted with a roar in the air behind the last raudren.

  The forgefist winced, shielding his eyes, and could just make out, in the fading glow of that dying magic, many Niflghar streaming into the cavern. Warblades of Ouvahlor!

  “Thorar!” he swore in disgust. As if in reply, bright rays of magic sped from among the onrushing warblades, to—

  Orivon slammed his forearm over his eyes, the bracer of Yathla’s ongoing silence cold and hard against his nose.

  —burst in a blinding brilliance that hurled torn and rent raudren, flanks blazing, spinning across the chamber in all directions.

  Hey, now! Yathla of Evendoom’s voice was sudden, loud, and peevish in Orivon’s head.

  Am I missing something?

  17

  Great Slaughtering Battle

  For grand words and promises

  Mean nothing at all

  solemn treaties or none

  If they are not backed

  by vigilant war-readiness

  And an utter lack of hesitation

  in plunging into great slaughtering battles

  —Orlkettle saying

  Three ruined raudren spattered the rocks, but Orivon Firefist had no time to watch that, nor even to answer Yathla Evendoom—as the foremost, largest raudren blotted out everything in front of him, rushing in to crash against the stone wall.

  The cavern-stone shook, and dust and pebbles rattled down around the forgefist as the great living darkness bulged almost to touch his face. Grimly he held tight to his two blades, thrusting into that reaching bulk lower down. He’d locked them together hilt to hilt, and then thrust them together point to point, to make them into one blade—and it sank deep as the huge raudren bit at him furiously, teeth shrieking on rock.

  More stone crumbled away under its onslaught, and the raudren swished its tail furiously and slammed into the cavern wall again, hard enough to make the ve
ry stone around Orivon batter him.

  What is GOING ON?

  Cursing at the battering rather than answering the sharp voice in his head, Orivon pulled his swords back, close against his chest—and when the raudren drew back to deliver another blow, he sprang forward and thrust at it.

  One blade sliced into the snout, and the raudren shuddered, flung its jaws wide, and rammed the wall again, seeking to swallow this elusive, paining prey.

  Leaping back into the cleft just ahead of its stone-shaking arrival, Orivon sprang straight up this time, and then kicked off from the wall to launch himself over the snout.

  He came down atop the raudren with all of his weight behind his swords, and his favorite blade plunged deep into the dark floor of flesh.

  Yellow-black gore fountained—and the raudren went wild.

  Again and again the great beast slammed into the cavern wall, trying to bite the source of maddening pain.

  Not wanting to lose his favorite sword, Orivon hung on grimly to its hilt. During one of its drawing backs, between wall-slams, he leaned down and planted his other sword against the wall, point out and hilt against the stone. The raudren promptly slammed in again, nearly breaking his hand but impaling itself deeply on waiting warsteel.

  Orivon had to let go of that sword, leaving it protruding from the raudren’s snout, but clung with both hands to the hilt of his favorite blade atop the raudren as it writhed under him, twisted in pain, and then swerved out into the cavern, flying fast.

  Halfway to the far wall it stopped racing along and started plunging and bucking in agony, spewing gore everywhere.

  Almost blinded, Orivon kicked and bucked along with the raging beast, his thighs and hips slamming into its hide again and again as he was flung, shaken, and twisted right along with the agonized raudren.

  Raudren blood stings. Orivon cursed and blinked furiously, and in the end sought to wipe his face along the raudren’s rough hide. He succeeded only in awakening Yathla’s wordless mirth, to bubble in his mind, and bruising his nose hard against the raudren, thrice.