Dark Vengeance

by Ed Greenwood

  As the thunder of vibrating rock grew louder and stronger all around them, Taerune tried the same tactic Orivon had, leaping high and slicing with all her strength, but her bone guard spun back out of reach. It plunged after her as she fell, stabbing viciously—but was parried by Orivon at the last instant as he hurled himself across the room to smash aside its blade. As that rusty sword clanged off the ceiling, Orivon landed hard on shattered bones, chest-first, and slid helplessly on, into the wall.

  Taerune rolled away in the other direction, wasting no time in watching the bone guard chase the sword Orivon had struck from its control. She was too busy dodging the other two skeletal guardians and trying to scramble across the shaking floor to the gate that had spawned them.

  The gate that was now an empty frame she wasn’t sure if she dared to dive through.

  The gate whose destruction she knew would destroy the bone guards, too. If only they had some useful magic . . .

  The guardians were little more than whirling bones, remains kept together by magic, not bones still joined by the joints living Nifl possessed. Skulls floated above shoulders, that in turn floated above arms—arms that could wield swords without grasping them, somehow, swinging those blades with the cold strength of a strong Nifl rampant or whirling them like chain-flails.

  Smashing the skulls destroyed them, Orivon had just shown—and if they lacked a sword to wield, they could do little more than belabor the face and body of a foe with bony arms that annoyed, and could perhaps blind, but did no greater harm.

  The floor bouncing under her hard and rapidly now, Taerune rolled onto her shoulders and kicked upward, desperately, driving a blade aside and winning herself time to roll again, this time to her knees, with the gate only a temptingly small distance away, and—

  Orivon came crashing down in front of her nose, both hands locked around a skull that he drove hard against the vibrating floor.

  Old Nifl bone shattered satisfyingly, and the flailing skeletal arms collapsed into mere bouncing, lifeless bones. Evidently her former slave had got to the disarmed bone guard before it had reached its errant sword.

  That left two, and Taerune spun around on her knees with her blade up before her, seeking the whereabouts of those two guardians in the now thundering and shaking chamber.

  They were as high above her as they could get, moving from above the gate she’d been thinking of racing for, to above Orivon. As he rolled over, they descended menacingly, their whirling blades foremost.

  It was Taerune’s turn to defend the human who’d so ably rescued her. Thrusting herself up from the floor, she thrust out her blade into the whirling steel of the nearest bone guard, trying to shove it sideways into its fellow guardian.

  Steel rang off steel numbingly, the rusty sword disintegrated into dust and shards, and Taerune fell, off-balance, across Orivon. Who cursed as the other bone guard came down on them both, and then frantically grabbed hold of the blade he’d fitted to Taerune’s missing forearm and thrust it up to defend them both, twisting her like a straw doll.

  She cried out in pain—but the bone guard’s rusty sword rang off that steel and exploded into shards like the other one had, and that gave Orivon time enough to fling Taerune’s body up into the second bone guard, temporarily scattering the bones it was made of, and then launch himself up through the whirling heart of the other bone guard, plunge two fingers into the eyesockets of its skull, hug the skull to his chest—and crash to the floor with all his weight atop it, shattering it.

  That bone guard sighed back into lifeless bones, too, leaving only one swordless guardian—a guardian still drifting back together after Taerune had slammed through the midst of it. She was groaning on the floor, holding her flank and glaring at Orivon, but he raced right past her to get his hands on the skull, before it could rejoin the rest, wrestle it to the ground, and pummel it with his fists until it broke apart.

  In their sudden lack of skeletal foes, Orivon and Taerune looked at each other and managed wry grins.

  “If you tell no one about throwing me right through a dancing skeleton, I’ll forgive you these bruised ribs,” the outcast Talonar lady told her former slave, speaking almost severely.

  “We have agreement,” Orivon told her, reaching for her far more gently than he’d done just a breath or three earlier. “Are they truly . . . gone?”

  Taerune shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt to stomp on the biggest bones—all but one. Keep a thighbone to thrust through yon gate. I don’t entirely trust it.”

  “Do Talonar Niflghar entirely trust anything?” Orivon teased her.

  “Only the truly stupid ones,” she replied tartly, taking up a bone she judged long enough and thrusting it through the open space in the gate. Nothing happened, but she tried her blade next, before daring to insert her hand and undo the latch.

  The gate yawned wide, and Taerune Evendoom turned to the Hairy One she’d once flogged so often, smiled, and indicated the dark passage beyond the gate with a flourish. Warm and damp air was rising from it, and the thunder of vibrating rock that was loud everywhere else around them seemed somehow muted when wafted up to them on that air. “The yeldeth caverns await.”

  “Should we expect other guards? Traps?”

  “No traps; they have slaves bringing food through here constantly, remember? Overseers, yes, but such are usually old, weak, or disfigured Nifl, armed with whips. A few have daggers, but it’s discouraged.”

  Orivon nodded. “Ah. If a slave snatches one . . .”

  Taerune nodded back.

  Orivon took up his swords again and shouldered his way through the gate. There was a strong, nose-prickling smell he remembered, faint but growing stronger with every step he took. Yeldeth.

  He looked back over his shoulder. Taerune was holding her side, but was walking right behind him. She gave him a slight smile.

  “Of course I’m coming,” she said, before he could ask. “You, I almost entirely trust.”

  Orivon grinned. “Likewise.”

  He went on down into the darkness, the passage becoming a smooth, damp ramp down into the soft warmth of the yeldeth caverns. Whimpers arose ahead of him, and he stopped and peered.

  The pale faces and staring eyes of young, bony, naked humans looked back at him. “Where are the overseers?” he asked them.

  “You’re—”

  “Human? Yes. Where are the overseers?”

  “Gone. Fled. When the rumblings started. They left us to die.”

  Orivon nodded and strode forward, picking his way carefully as he waded in the soft, deep, clinging fungus. Most of the slaves shrank back from him, whimpering in utter terror. When they saw Taerune behind him, sword-armed and sleek, every inch an elegant Nifl-she, most hid their faces, or tried to burrow into the yeldeth and hide.

  Orivon went on a long way, from cavern to cavern, until he was beginning to despair. The four could be long dead, of course, or killed after they got here and fed to gorkul . . .

  Then he blinked. Was that a face he knew?

  “Brith?” he called, as gently as he could. “Brith?”

  “Firefist?” came the disbelieving, weeping response.

  Dung-worms loomed up, dark and vast, and then rushed together, striking his shieldings hard enough to make the not-quite-completed shell flicker, shrink in on itself a little, and then . . . hold.

  Around him, Talonnorn had vanished, blotted out by all the vast, pressed-together maws that were so busily biting and gnawing.

  Klarandarr’s shieldings collapsed a little more under that hungry onslaught, but kept him—thus far, at least—from being bitten into small, bleeding fragments.

  As the spellrobe sat down to think, the incomplete shell gave way a little more—and then, suddenly, it was too late for leisurely thinking, as the shell became a small sphere around him, and he was being battered and hurled about and then . . . swallowed whole.

  One of the largest dung-worms had won the struggle over him, and closed its jaws over him completel
y.

  Swirling about in the juices of its mouth and then gullet, tumbled and churned, Klarandarr of Ouvahlor pondered his situation.

  When the shell failed, his flesh would begin to melt in this churning bile, even before he drowned. Yet if he freed himself by causing the shell to burst violently, destroying the dung-worm, he’d be hurled into the air, probably stunned—and defenseless against all the other dung-worms.

  What he needed to do was craft and then cast a translocation that was linked to the destruction of the shields, so their bursting would cause him to be whisked away before harm could come to him.

  Yes, that was it. Hurled and churned about in the innards of the dung-worm, the still-shielded Klarandarr allowed himself a smile, and set to work.

  Klaerra Evendoom’s scream ended suddenly, as her head burst.

  The watching merchants had just time to see that much before the spell that had overloaded her claimed the rest of her body—and it exploded.

  Spattered by the grisly wetness that had been Klaerra Evendoom, the awed merchants of the Araed saw the priestesses and crones topple over—stunned or struck unconscious—all around the room.

  Awe became fear, and amid general cursing most of the traders sought the door.

  “I’m getting out of this place before it becomes our tomb!” one shouted, elbowing others aside viciously to be the first out.

  When he tugged on the handle of the closed door, it toppled, too, its dark shadow descending before he quite realized what was happening.

  He had just time to gape up at it before it fell on him, crushing him like a rotten fruit.

  “Too late,” the old merchant Ondrar commented laconically, watching fresh blood—Araed merchant blood—run across the floor. “Perhaps too late for us all. Talonnorn may already have become one big tomb.”

  The rumbling of their haste was done, the spell that had brought them broken. Freed, the gigantic dung-worms slithered away, wandering aimlessly.

  They were uncomfortable so close to so many others of their kind, nettled that they’d been used despite not really knowing how, and filled with an instinctive revulsion for staying in the spot they’d all been summoned to. So they drew back from that meeting of mouths, turned, and glided away over rubble and along streets, heading in all directions.

  The largest titan, a worm longer than any caravan that had ever been seen in Talonnorn, was halfway across the great cavern when it shuddered, convulsed—and exploded with a wet roar, spewing a bright star high into the air, and sending one last rumbling across the cavern like an inexorable wave.

  Close enough to the cavern ceiling to touch it, that star winked once.

  Then it faded, though no one happened to be watching. The winking was the flashing translocation of Klarandarr, snatching himself safely back to Ouvahlor.

  The deep, rolling wave of the explosion struck the Eventowers, proud seat of House Evendoom and the High Lord of Talonnorn, and made its grand stones shudder.

  Slowly, with seeming reluctance but then with building speed, the tallest and most splendid Evendoom tower toppled over, smashing through the front wing of the mansion on its way to the ground . . . and leaving nothing of the soaring heart of the Eventowers but rubble.

  Nifl and human slaves all sounded alike when shrieking in terror.

  Orivon winced, flung out a hand to keep Taerune from falling—the blade he’d fashioned to replace her left forearm was closest to him, and he preferred not to be sliced open—and waited for the rumblings to die away.

  Then he stretched out his other hand to Brith, and asked, “Want to see Orlkettle again?”

  Brith stared back at him, and then burst into sudden tears and swarmed up that arm to bury himself against Orivon’s chest, weeping uncontrollably. Orivon stroked his back—his whip-scarred, bony young back—awkwardly, and then called roughly, “Reldaera? Aumril? Kalamae?”

  Someone else started crying, far down the yeldeth-shrouded tunnel, but no one came.

  Taerune Evendoom leaned close. “You should take them all, Orivon. All of the human children. How can you not?”

  Orivon looked at her, face stern, and then nodded slowly and echoed, “How can I not?”

  It took some time to retrieve all the young Hairy Ones, for they were almost as scared of Orivon as they were of Taerune, but in the end, carrying all the yeldeth they could manage, they reluctantly allowed themselves to be led up into House Oondaunt. They came out into the great cavern weeping and staggering dazedly.

  “Claz,” Munthur rumbled, from the window. “Come. You should see this.”

  Clazlathor the spellrobe sighed and got up from his desk. He was just beginning to hope that Klarandarr of Ouvahlor—for who else could that spellrobe of such peerless, terrible power have been?—would leave some part of Talonnorn standing, and a few Talonar still alive . . . and now . . .

  He joined his friend at the window. More than a head taller than most Nifl, Munthur could see farther, but for once what he was staring at was laid out clearly before Clazlathor’s gaze, too.

  Ouvahlan warriors were roaming and pillaging at will; there were seemingly no Talonar left to resist them. A handful of tall, spired homes still stood between the long line of devastation and the Eventowers, but where the tallest Evendoom tower should have stood, proud and dark against the cavern sky, there was nothing but a little dust, drifting in the air.

  Nearer, just now emerging from the litter of rubble that had recently been the front gates of House Oondaunt, were a Nifl-she and . . . a straggling line of naked Hairy One younglings!

  Clazlathor chuckled sourly. “So, the last doom is come. Even the slaves are getting out.”

  Beside him, Munthur rumbled wordless agreement—that broke off abruptly when his friend clutched at him in astonishment.

  Someone else had emerged from the rubble, swords in either hand. “That’s . . . the Dark Warrior,” the spellrobe said in disbelief. “So he got his vengeance after all; nothing left of proud House Evendoom but corpses and dust.”

  Munthur blinked. “Our High Lord’s dead, then?”

  Clazlathor shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares? He’s High Lord of nothing, now, anyway. There’s naught left for the conquering Ouvahlans to stay here for; after they plunder, they’ll go back to their city, leaving this place to the eaters-of-dead, outlaw Nifl, and Ravagers.”

  “Another Glowstone or Lightpools,” Munthur rumbled. “The Consecrated of Olone won’t like that.”

  “They’ll soon be dead, if they say so,” was the grim response. “The lucky ones are dead already.”

  “Orivon!” Taerune said warningly. The forgefist peered over the heads of the children, seeking to see what had alarmed her.

  She was facing toward one of the mansions the spellrobe hadn’t blasted, that stood between the path of rubble he’d caused and the Eventowers.

  Nifl rampants were emerging from a gate in the unscathed walls of that high house now, with swords in their hands.

  “Run nowhere,” Orivon told the children firmly, as he started tramping past them. “Stay here, and keep together. Lady Taerune will protect you.”

  Taerune turned her head sharply at those words, frowned at him, and then nodded slowly, bringing up her sword in salute.

  Orivon gave her a tight, silent smile and strode past her, hefting his swords as he walked across the sea of rubble to meet the Niflghar. A dozen warblades, in dark armor, with good blades, they were, and they were already heading toward him.

  “Dark Warrior,” one of them called as he strode steadily nearer to them, “did you do all of this? Are you come here to throw down Talonnorn?”

  “No,” Orivon told him firmly. “This is none of my doing. Ouvahlor struck here, and warriors of that city are still looting in your streets. I came for these children, snatched from my village by raiding warblades of Oondaunt.”

  The warblades came to a halt, in an arc facing him, swords up.

  Orivon stopped, too, raising both of his swords.

>   “So,” he asked them calmly, “are you going to try to kill me?”

  They stared back at him coolly. Then one of them—the one who’d hailed him—shook his head.

  “No, Dark Warrior. We have no dispute with you. We, too, would take up sword and fare forth to rescue our children.”

  Silence fell. Orivon nodded. The warblades started to turn away, but another of them added, “We want none of your blood, and nothing you bear—unless you happen to have one treasure we seek most.”

  “Oh? And what might that be?”

  “The head of Jalandral Evendoom.”

  Orivon smiled. “That’s a treasure I’m also tempted to seek, but we Hairy Ones are generous. If you find it, know this: it’s all yours.”

  The warblades laughed grimly, raised their swords in salute, and headed off across the rubble in another direction.

  Orivon watched them go, and then turned back to Taerune. For some reason, he suddenly couldn’t stop smiling.

  Jalandral Evendoom was hurrying as fast as he could, slipping and sliding in dark and unfamiliar tunnels. He’d never much cared for the Outcaverns, with their lurking monsters and their utter lack of willing Nifl-shes and good wine and other Talonar to show off in front of—and he didn’t think much of them now.

  He was High Lord of nothing, with Talonnorn a lawless ruin behind him, and all of this magic was heavy.

  He’d got out of the Eventowers just in time, and if it hadn’t been for the back tunnels, to the Hidden Gate, he’d probably still be in there—dead, crushed under more fallen stone than all the slaves left in Talonnorn could lift away.

  Instead, he was still alive—for now, at least—and wearing dozens of deadly rings that flashed and tingled restlessly as he went, with no less than six belts buckled around him, all of them hung heavily with pouches and sheaths that bore scepters and wands and all sorts of enchanted oddments. A baldric-sling across his back held more than a dozen healing stones and a talking head sculpted of smooth metal, whose true purpose he had no inkling of, but whose magic glowed more brightly than anything else he was carrying. Yes, noble Houses of Talonnorn certainly loved their magical fripperies, and the ability to blast anyone who disagreed with them.