Dark Vengeance

by Ed Greenwood

  Defenders, of course. Talonnorn would never be undefended. Who could possibly think otherwise?

  Yet there, in front of his eyes, were Ouvahlan fools aplenty who would never live to become warblades, rushing forward like children pursuing a prize.

  Klarandarr shook his head. They had been dupes from the first, unwitting sacrifices to Talonnorn—but to not even defend themselves, or expect the obvious!

  As the last winking lights of his arrival faded around his feet, he glanced up and down the ledge again. The charred Nifl body lay just as it had since his first sight of it. Nor had anything else moved or changed.

  Good.

  He looked past the distant fighting Nifl this time, to coldly survey Talonnorn and so appraise his location. It took him only a moment to announce aloud, to himself, “This will serve.”

  It was a bad habit, he knew, but when one is always alone, trusting no one, who else does one have to speak to?

  Smiling faintly—after all, he felt only a touch of ruefulness—Klarandarr drew two palm-sized gems from separate pouches on his belt. Extending his arms up and spread before him, he let go of them.

  Rather than falling to shatter or bounce on the ledge, the two gems hung in midair and commenced to glow, pulsing slightly.

  Taking a step back from them, so he was almost touching the curving cavern wall, he unhurriedly began to cast many powerful, crackling spells to link the gems.

  Lines of humming golden spell-glows built in the air around him as he worked. It seemed like no time at all before he was crafting the last one.

  Then, and only then, he looked beyond his work again, to where the fighting was still going on.

  “The distraction has worked,” he murmured in satisfaction. “The force led by the foolish priestess has drawn forth the Hunt and shattered it, and they themselves are now beset and distracted. Leaving Klarandarr, and Klarandarr alone, to humble Talonnorn utterly.”

  He smiled tightly, gestured—and the lines of force all turned to hungry blue-white flame.

  Luelldar suddenly stiffened, above a whorl that lit his face with sudden fire.

  “Klarandarr!” he announced. “Aloun, you’ll be needing new whorls, three at least; play them off this one. Quickly. We need to see what he’s intending to hurl his spells against.”

  “Why, Talonnorn, of course,” Aloun exclaimed, reaching out to bring new whorls into being.

  The Senior Watcher of Ouvahlor gave him a look of disgust. “So much is obvious. Our task is to observe with a little more precision. After all, if I told you to keep an eye on Ouvahlor, would you just use your whorls to stare at our walls from a distance?”

  “No, I’d try to spy on Coldheart, right away,” Aloun chirped.

  “And what success have we had, trying to see into the altar with Olone’s risen power streaming out of it?”

  “Oh. Ah. I see your point.”

  Luelldar rolled his eyes. “Progress,” he observed with a sigh. “Solid progress. I suppose.”

  Klarandarr smiled at the ready, risen force of his magic, and at what he could see of Talonnorn, and calmly said the single, soft word that unleashed the spell.

  The dark towers of Talonnorn loomed taller and taller quite quickly; Orivon was in a hurry. He needed to catch these slavers before they—

  Sudden blue-white flames erupted among those towers, bursting out of nowhere to roar toward the roof of the cavern. Blinding, hungry, crackling with force—if not heat—that he could feel on his face, even this far away.

  The fleeing Nifl ahead skidded to various uncertain halts, aghast—and Orivon pounced on them, spun them around with ungentle hands, and snarlingly ordered them to go back and unlock the fetters of their slaves.

  “B-but they’ll kill us!” a slaver wailed, waving at the raging battle back at the cavern’s edge.

  “I will kill you if you don’t,” Orivon snarled, afire with fresh fury. “Right here and right now!”

  He was suddenly trembling with rage—what if the four children he’d come for were burning right now, in those flames?—and leaned forward to slash at the one slaver who’d started to sneer and draw steel.

  His swift, deft slash sliced a finger off that Nifl’s sword hand.

  The bracer on his arm quivered then, as Yathla silently made it spit warning beams of flame, little lines of fire that winked out menacingly right in front of each slaver’s nose.

  Moaning in fear, the Nifl all obeyed him, turning back toward the chained slaves.

  19

  Talonnorn in Peril

  Yet for all their doomsaying

  I cannot believe that in my lifetime

  Talonnorn shall ever be in peril.

  Yet given the sneering weaklings

  Who lord it over Houses now

  If ever I die defending my city

  Then Talonnorn will be in peril.

  —legendary Talonar saying,

  attributed to Aumdryn Maulstryke

  Klarandarr of Ouvahlor raised one hand to gesture, eyes on the flames roaring up out of Talonnorn.

  With a flourish, he made an intricate sign in the air . . . then frowned. He repeated the gesture, with great precision this time, omitting the flourish.

  His frown deepened. The distant flames hadn’t moved where he’d directed them to; it was as if he was using no magic at all.

  After a moment, he shrugged, and set about casting another spell, taking great care over its crafting. Done and fine.

  He raised his hand and made the gesture again. Then again, irritation sharpening into anger in his eyes. There was still no response.

  He let his anger spill out of his mouth in a wordless hiss, then slowly smiled, shrugged, and murmured, “Well, getting blood on one’s hands is always more satisfying.”

  Spell-lights blossomed around his feet—and he was gone from the ledge.

  “On,” Orivon snapped, pointing at the battle raging back at the edge of the cavern, “and if any of you are thinking of running off in side directions, be well aware that I can throw these. Quite well.”

  He waggled the knife meaningfully, and then waved both of his arms energetically, as if he could sweep the slavers back to the fray. Fearfully, they started to hasten.

  Neither they nor the lone human driving them on saw the figure that suddenly appeared right behind them, on the stretch of cavern floor they’d just left, but facing in the other direction.

  The moment Klarandarr’s boots were on the cavern floor rather than the high ledge of another cavern, he was walking toward Talonnorn. As he strode along, he gestured again, and some of the many tongues of flame obeyed him.

  With the very beginnings of a smile playing about his lips, the greatest spellrobe in all Niflheim walked on.

  As suddenly and silently as he had appeared, the sinister spellrobe was gone from the ledge.

  “Come,” Nurnra hissed fiercely, “before anyone else decides to appear up there, and block our retreat. We have an urgent appointment somewhere out there in the Wild Dark.”

  The half-gorkul beside her hastened along willingly, but did rumble, “ ‘Somewhere’? Where, exactly?”

  “Anywhere that’s far from Talonnorn,” the sharren replied crisply, “and keeping it will probably also mean keeping our lives. Hurry.”

  Trotting along beside her, Oronkh interrupted his huffing long enough to reply, “I am hurrying, Softfingers!”

  They were most of the way back down the cavern when Nurnra slowed suddenly and pointed off to the side, among the Nifl corpses lying sprawled and silent, among much blood.

  “That was a scepter, once,” she said, stepping over to look down at the broken, fallen body of the Nifl hurled off the ledge by Maharla’s scepter-blast. “I wonder if any magic has survived?”

  “I thought we were fleeing for our lives,” Oronkh growled sourly.

  “We were,” she replied brightly, “but perhaps this is far enough!”

  “You,” he said accusingly, rolling a body over to see if it ha
d any salvageable magic, “are going to get us killed. Quite possibly soon.”

  Nurnra’s large, liquid eyes flashed with wry mirth. “How long have you been saying that?” she asked tartly.

  “Ho, Firefist!” Bloodblade called as Orivon and his reluctant handful of Nifl reached the fray. “Come to lend a hand? Plenty of foes for all!”

  “Many hands, I hope!” Orivon shouted back, before curtly ordering the slavers, “Free them.”

  A few of the slavers had swords or daggers out, and all of them were now wavering uncertainly. Under the forgefist’s menacing glower they burst into sudden activity, grabbing for the keys at their belts and frantically starting to unlock chains.

  “Grab every weapon you can find, and fight!” Orivon barked at the slaves as they stared at him. “Strike at yon targe of Ouvahlor wherever you see it, and at others only if they strike at you! Fight to see the sun again!”

  “The sun!” one slave—a man so emaciated he looked more like a skeleton draped in hairy skin than a living human—sobbed.

  “The sun!” another roared exultantly, and swung the length of chain he’d just been freed from viciously, felling an Ouvahlan.

  Then he dropped that improvised lash in a rattling instant, and pounced on the stunned Nifl. Snatching the dark elf’s dagger from its sheath, he stabbed its former owner viciously and repeatedly.

  Even before the Ouvahlan sagged onto his face, slack mouth leaking a river of gore, the freed slave sprang up with a triumphant roar, waving that bloody dagger.

  Slaves around him roared back their approval and bloodlust, causing the still-unlocking slavers to cower away. Finding Orivon standing right behind them with a wide and menacing smile on his face, they fearfully stepped forward again.

  Aside from the forgefist, Bloodblade and two Ravagers—one of them wounded—were the only Nifl still living who’d fought their way right through the Ouvahlans, to reach what was left of the slaves.

  Which meant they and Orivon were all that stood between the Ouvahlans and outright butchery of the slaves, if the Ouvahlans decided to undertake such a slaughter. At the moment, however, what was left of the army of Ouvahlor was thinking about anything but slaves. They were worried about who had crashed into them from behind, and hadn’t charged right through them, but were still hacking and thrusting at them far too energetically to be ignored for an instant: the main body of Ravagers and House Dounlar Nifl, plus a certain one-armed, outcast noble Talonar lady Orivon hadn’t noticed yet.

  One slaver went down with his own knife driven hard into his neck, but Orivon bellowed at the other slaves to leave the slavers alone. If the fools slew all the slavers before they were freed, Thorar knew if he’d have time and chances enough to find all the right keys and where to put them, with this battle raging and Talonar defenders likely to show up at any murderous moment.

  Most of the slaves were only too happy to claw, punch, and stab at anything wearing the targe of Ouvahlor; the rest cowered. Orivon let the slavers run off again, as the last slave-chains rattled to the ground; if they spread word and fear in Talonnorn, with that fire already raging, all the better; a city in chaos was easier for one lone forgefist to invade than one armed, ready, organized, and calm.

  Snarling or shrieking out their rage, the human slaves went to war, as Talonnorn burned behind them.

  Jalandral Evendoom sat grimly in a cellar as breathless Talonar merchant after breathless Talonar merchant brought word to him. All babbled excited variations on the same news: magical flames “out of nowhere” were raging all over the city.

  Still drenched in sweat, Jalandral’s mood was dark, even though he’d just been wholly and painlessly restored to health, by means of healing stones provided by the Araed merchants who’d rescued him.

  He shook his head. “What now? Some fool of a spellrobe is doubtless doing this, to try to seize rule over Talonnorn on behalf of his House, but I must finish off the Consecrated while—”

  “No,” the old merchant Ondrar snapped. “Stop the flames.”

  Jalandral stared at him. “But I don’t even know—”

  “Stop them, Lord,” Ondrar ordered, several others nodding in silent unison. “This is why we kept you alive.”

  Jalandral sprang up, and started to pace. “I need Klaerra,” he snarled. “I don’t even know how to trace spellrobes, if they’re not actually working a magic when I go looking for them. And what if I’m seeking the wrong villain entirely? What if the fires are mischief of the Consecrated? I need—”

  The old merchant held up a hand to stop him, right in Jalandral’s face. While the High Lord was blinking at it, he turned his head and gave a calm order to three other merchants. “Bring them.”

  As those traders hurried out, Ondrar turned back to Jalandral. “Sit, High Lord,” he commanded, without a hint of irony. “Compose yourself. Look regal.”

  Jalandral barely had time to make his face calm again before the three merchants returned, dragging a trio of young, frightened priestesses who bore bruises and fresh blood; one of them was bleeding freely enough to leave a thin trail in her wake. All were tightly chained and gagged, and all were weeping with pain and fear. The merchants handled them without respect for holy rank or gender, and halted them in a line facing Jalandral, upright, holding them upright by firm grips on the backs of their necks.

  Ondrar stepped up to the three young Consecrated, gave them each a glare, then waved at the seated High Lord of Talonnorn.

  “Tell him what he needs to know, and answers to what he asks,” he ordered, “and speak no spell nor call upon holy aid, or we will rend you!”

  Through their gags, the priestesses could be heard to weep in fresh and energetic earnest, but they did manage to nod, one after another, and their gags were sliced off.

  The old merchant gestured, and each priestess was borne to the floor by her handler, and made to kneel facing Jalandral. The merchants then sat on the lower legs of the Consecrated and bent the priestesses back over their laps, so that each frightened she was arched over backward—with their captors holding daggers to their throats.

  Jalandral avoided delay, threats, and pleasantries, but merely started asking questions. “Are these flames your doing, or the work of any Consecrated of Olone?” he snapped.

  Shapely throats swallowed. “N-no.”

  “Then who?”

  There was fresh weeping, and when Jalandral roared, “Well?” One of the priestesses dared to whisper that she could not tell, that none of them could, without casting holy spells.

  “No,” Ondrar snapped.

  “Yes,” Jalandral snapped right back at him. “I am Lord here, Lord of Talonnorn—and Talonnorn stands in peril! All else must be set aside and ignored in the face of our paramount need to defend our city!”

  The oldest merchant stared at him with cold, suspicious eyes for a long, long time before turning to glare at the Consecrated who’d spoken.

  When he replied to her, every word was cold and hard and flat, like a stone dropped to earth.

  “Cast your spell.”

  Orivon Firefist was ducking and twisting in the heart of a clanging, thrusting storm of deadly steel—and he was happier than he’d been in a long time.

  Slaying anyone or anything didn’t please or excite him, but harming Niflghar, and thwarting their causes and their arrogant rule over anywhere, that pleased him deeply.

  Though he hated Talonnorn and all its ways with a burning, unfailing passion, he was enough of a Talonar to hate rival Ouvahlor, too—and here were Ouvahlan warblades within reach of the blades he’d forged, and standing up to him. Earlier it had seemed as if they were on the verge of fleeing, disheartened by the ruthless yet merry efficiency of the handful of attacking Ravagers, but now something—probably something magical—was making every last one of them glare with eyes that burned with zeal, and attack with an alacrity and a ferocity Orivon had never seen anywhere before.

  Ravagers were dying, now, and though it seemed to the forge-fist a
s if he’d felled far too many Ouvahlans for any still to be standing, he was beset on three sides and being forced back, step by step, toward the heaped corpses of the slaves who’d died still in their chains.

  A warblade almost as tall as Orivon—now there was a rarity!—came leaping in at him, heedless of other darting Nifl blades, and Orivon managed to set the blade in his right hand ready against his own thigh just in time.

  As Orivon parried the tall Ouvahlan’s sword with the sword in his left hand, the charging Nifl impaled himself on the ready sword, shrieked in astonished pain, and clawed at the forgefist in agony as he started to writhe and fall. To keep at least one blade aloft to defend himself with, Orivon kicked out with his leg and twisted, swinging the dying Nifl around in front of him as a barrier whose thrashings forced the other Ouvahlans pressing Orivon into stepping back or stumbling and falling themselves.

  Orivon shed the tall Ouvahlan—who was now struggling to gurgle up blood and scream at the same time, and was managing a horrible wet choking sound—from his blade with a jerk, and stepped back forcefully, to gain himself some room.

  His hip bumped solidly against someone else’s, and as he twisted to hack at whoever it was, his sword was caught right at the guards by another blade, and Orivon found himself staring into the face of—Taerune Evendoom.

  He faltered for a moment in astonishment, during which her fierce grin at him turned to a look of alarm directed over his shoulder. Then she flung the blade in her hand, and Orivon whirled around in time to see the Nifl she’d flung it into the face of staggering backward and jostling the Ouvahlan beside him off-balance, too. Which left just the one on Orivon’s extreme left to deal with in an instant, so he did.

  When he turned back to Taerune, she was two or three paces away, fencing with the blade he’d made and affixed to the stump of her left forearm, a seeming lifetime ago, and snatching opportunities to peer back in his direction.