Tol’chuk called to him just as they rounded a corner and found themselves racing along the crumbling stone of the ancient tower. “They come from both directions!”
As if the og’re’s words had cleared his ears, Kral suddenly heard the clatter of boots and yelled orders arising from both behind and in front. Troops were working to pin them in the passage.
Kral shifted his ax in his bandaged palm. “There!” he yelled as he spotted the glint of brass. They rushed to the door as the calls of the men grew clearer around them. Kral tried the latch. Locked.
He backed and raised his ax.
“No,” Tol’chuk said. “Let me.”
The og’re took a few steps back. Then, with an earshattering roar, he flew at the door. His legs, thick as tree trunks, shot his rocky shoulder like a battering ram at the door. The collision sounded like thunder in the narrow hallway.
Kral gasped a bit. He had not thought an og’re could move so fast.
Tol’chuk bounced off the door. Dented, the brass door had bent but still held fast, crooked on its hinges. The og’re pushed back to his feet, rubbing his shoulder. “Stubborn door,” he muttered as he stood. The hallways now lay silent around them. Both the inhuman roar of the og’re and the loud crash had given their pursuers pause. But for how long?
Throwing back his shoulders and shaking the kinks from his neck, Tol’chuk crouched for another run at the door.
“Hold on there,” Kral said. He grabbed the iron handle with both hands, and rather than pushing, he yanked on the handle. The door had dented inward enough that the locking bar was bent and loosened from the frame. Kral struggled with it, iron scraping stone. “Lend me your back,” he groaned as he pulled. Kral’s boots began to slip on the stone.
Tol’chuk wrapped his claws around the top of the handle beside Kral’s fingers. Together, they hauled on the door, arms trembling, backs arched as they fought the stone’s hold on the door.
Finally, with a loud screech of metal, the door popped open, throwing both of them to the floor. Just as they fell, an arrow shot over the tops of their heads, almost grazing Kral’s scalp. It struck the wall and clattered to the floor. Kral and Tol’chuk glanced at each other, then rolled through the open portal to the tower stairs beyond.
The armsmen were wary, but the arrow was a sign that their fears were fading. They would soon be upon the intruders.
“I’ll guard the door,” Tol’chuk said as he reached and yanked the bent door back in place. Iron again scraped stone. “It be their strength of arm against mine to open it.” Tol’chuk took a wide-legged stance, the handle gripped in both his claws.
Kral clapped the og’re on the shoulder. Knowing his back was well protected, he raised his ax and started down the stair.
Tol’chuk called to him. “Be wary. This tower stinks of blood and fear.”
“I’ve my ax and my arm,” Kral mumbled. “They’ll cut me a swath to Meric.” His stride ate up three stairs with each step as he rushed toward the root of the tower. As he ran, the stones called to him with ancient cries and the clash of swords. He ignored their song, refusing to be overwhelmed again. Only despair lay behind the tower’s music.
He reached the bottom of the stairs, his boots splashing in water, and ran toward the flickering light from a chamber ahead. Only when he was a few steps away did he slow and ready himself. He ran the haft of his ax up and down his palm, heating his grip and his blood. He remembered his ancient teacher Mulf and the stories the old man would tell when well into his tales of his own battle with the d’warf armies. Amid drunken flourishes, Mulf had instructed the young Kral in the ways of battling d’warves. He could still hear the old man’s slurred words. “They have two hearts. Belly and chest. Difficult to kill with a sword’s thrust. But an ax, my boy—ah!—now that is a weapon to fight a d’warf.” The old man had then lifted his long white beard and made a slicing motion across his exposed throat. “Cut his head from his body, then two hearts make no difference.” His ancient master’s laughter carried him forward into the cellar chamber.
Kral burst into the room, boots sinking quickly in the icy mud. The roar on his lips died to a squeak as he saw what lay within the cellar chamber.
Meric, burned and bloody, hung from shackles on the wall. The elv’in’s eyes did not even turn in Kral’s direction; they were fixed on the play of forces in the center of the chamber. And Kral quickly found his attention drawn there as well.
Half sunk in the mud stood the d’warf from his dreams, a wrinkled pale slug of a creature. Ice hung from the folds of his flesh, and his feet were trapped in frozen mud. His arms were raised in supplication above his head—not to the gods in heaven but to an inky stone sphere that hovered above his raised fingers. Flames of darkness crackled over the sphere’s surface.
Kral stared, frozen, unable to move, as if he too were trapped in ice. Just the sight of such mindless evil numbed his body. If he could have moved his limbs, he would have fled; but unable even to breathe, he just stood with his ax half raised.
It was as if a black sun had risen from some netherworld.
As he watched, the sun began to set, lowering toward the raised hands of the d’warf. Black flames blew lower, lapping along the d’warf’s skin. Kral saw his nemesis’ face contort with fear and agony. Then the sphere swelled with darkness and descended upon the d’warf, swallowing up the pale creature.
Kral knew it was not just magick that lay within the darkness, tormenting the d’warf, but something so foul that the mountain man’s spirit quailed against its mere shadow. If he could have closed his eyes, he would have.
As he stared, the darkness swirled and tightened around the d’warf, seeming to sink into his wrinkled flesh. In only a few heartbeats, the blackness had drawn fully into the toadish figure, leaving only a few wisps of darkfire dancing along his foul skin. The sphere was gone, and in its place stood the same squat d’warf, no longer pale of flesh, but black as the darkest midnight, a shadowy statue carved by a depraved hand.
Somehow Kral knew that the d’warf was no longer flesh, but some type of foul stone—the same ore as composed the bowl Mogweed had stolen from Vira’ni. He remembered the twin lords’ name for it.
Kral’s lips formed the word: ebon’stone.
As if his silent word was heard, the d’warf’s eyes snapped open. The eyes raged red with an inner fire. Lips of stone parted to reveal yellow teeth. “How nice of you to join us,” a voice whispered up from the statue’s throat. Stone flowed again, and a beckoning arm raised. “Come join your friend.”
Kral recalled the few words he had shared with the d’warf lord atop the dream tower. He knew the creature that spoke through that stone throat was not the same d’warf. Something else had merged with the creature as surely as the stone had merged with the d’warf’s flesh.
Raising his ax, Kral heard his own voice tremble. “Who . . . who are you?”
Meric seemed finally to notice the mountain man’s appearance. “Flee, Kral! You cannot fight this . . . this creature!”
The elv’in’s voice, though, freed something within Kral. His heart, weak with fear, suddenly hardened to rock. His fists clenched the haft of the ax, his knuckles whitening. A d’warf, black or not, was still a d’warf—and could surely die like one!
Giving no warning, Kral rushed the foul creature. His ax swung in a deadly arc. The d’warf could not even raise a stone arm in time to block his blow. Mulf had taught him well, and Kral knew where to strike.
With all the strength of his shoulder and back, Kral swung his ax into the neck of the d’warf. The shock of the impact jolted up his arm, numbing his limb and raising a gasp of surprise from the mountain man. Kral rolled to the side and twisted his ax for a second strike.
The d’warf still stood where he had been. In streams of darkness, stone flowed, and the creature raised an arm to rub at its neck. “Thank you. That felt good. My stone skin is still hardening, and a few more strikes like that will temper my ebon’stone flesh qui
te well.”
Kral raised his ax, determined to hammer his way through the magick stone, but as the numbness in his arm finally faded, he noticed the change in balance of his weapon. He glanced at his ax. The blade was gone. He held only an empty haft. Near the feet of the d’warf, he spotted where his ax head lay shattered in fragments upon the thawing mud. Its hard-forged iron and finely honed edge were now just shards.
The d’warf lord smiled at Kral’s shocked face. “It seems your usefulness in this matter has ended. Oh, well, we will have to make do with what we have.” The creature’s arm began to rise.
Meric called weakly to him. “Kral, run!”
It was too late.
The d’warf pointed his arm at Kral, and darkfire burst forth like a black fountain from his hand. As if the flames themselves were fingers, the fire clutched Kral’s neck and lifted him off his feet. He was thrown to the wall and pinned with his toes dangling above the mud. The fingers of flame dug into his flesh, reaching for his bones.
“No!” Meric yelled.
“Enough of your noise!” the d’warf scolded.
As Kral’s vision dimmed, he saw the stone d’warf raise his other arm and point it at the elv’in. Darkfire burst forth to grip Meric’s neck just as tightly as Kral’s.
“Now let’s finish what I began earlier,” the d’warf said, his eyes flaming with burning blood. “The Black Heart has shown me the foolishness of hope, burning away my ridiculous notions of resistance. I shall teach you each the same. You both shall serve the Dark Lord faithfully as his newest ill’guard soldiers.”
His rasping laughter chased Kral into oblivion.
20
“DO YOU BELIEVE him?” Mycof asked, unable to restrain a tremble from his whispered voice. Even the mere uttering of the Black Heart’s name struck a chord of terror that shook his placid demeanor.
Ryman glanced to his brother, his neck slightly bent in Mycof’s direction. “Surely he lies to save his skin,” he answered, but Mycof heard the hesitation in his twin’s voice and saw Ryman’s left eye twitch.
This nervous display further set Mycof’s teeth on edge. “Still, it is one thing to slink behind the d’warf’s back, but to betray the . . . the . . .” Mycof could not even speak his name. “What if the man does not lie? Do we kill him and risk it?”
Ryman’s hand fingered the hidden dagger in its wrist sheath. How he itched to plunge it into this sallow-faced elemental’s heart. He stared at the little man holding a goatskin satchel in one hand and a few strands of red hair in the other. How dare this rabble ruin his finely crafted plot to eliminate any rivals to the hunt! Whether this man could lead them to the wit’ch or not, he refused to share the Sacrament with such filthy vermin. The man’s clothes were drab and worn, to say nothing of his tangled hair, crooked teeth, and cracked, yellowed fingernails. Ryman suppressed a shudder. To share the intimacies of the hunt with one such as this! Ryman pulled free his dagger. Never!
Mycof placed a finger on Ryman’s arm, fearing any rash action from his brother. “Remember your words earlier. The best plans are carried out with a cold heart.”
Ryman remained silent for several heartbeats, then lowered his dagger. “Yes, you are correct. My words were most wise.” Still, Ryman did not sheathe his dagger. Shifting his position on the pillows, he leaned toward the man standing before the dais. “Now how are we to know these old hairs are from the wit’ch, as you claim?”
His question had been meant to upset their adversary’s tight resolve. It failed. The man just maintained his half smile. “Take me to your master here in the Keep,” he answered. “He will judge the truth of my words. He is a seeker, is he not, one skilled at sensing the magick in others?”
The dagger in Ryman’s hand trembled. How he wanted to carve that grin from that foul face. Yet he forced his wrist to steady. This one may be a skilled tai’man player, but Ryman was a master of the board. “Give us a few strands, and we will take it to the seeker.”
“I would prefer to show him the proof myself. Only I know where the wit’ch hides.”
“And what do you wish in exchange for this knowledge?”
“Only my life and a boon from the Black Heart: a small reward of magick as payment for my work, a small pittance of the vast magick he wields.” The man then lowered his voice. “And it is a mighty magick, too. I have seen those who have gone against the wishes of the Dark Lord . . . even in minor matters.” The man shook his head sadly. “I can only imagine how he would treat a greater betrayal.”
Mycof again touched his brother’s arm. “Perhaps it’s best if we take him to the d’warf,” he whispered.
Ryman’s fingers clenched on his dagger. “If we take him to the d’warf, then Torwren will know we were planning to thwart him. Either way, we put ourselves at risk of punishment.” Ryman sensed that the trap he had so artfully set was now closing in on him.
“I would rather suffer the wrath of the d’warf,” Mycof countered, his shoulders shuddering, “than face the ire of the Black Heart.”
Ryman sat undecided on his pillows. Was there another way out of this tangle? In the past, he had been in worse situations upon the tai’man board and, through sly plotting, had eventually achieved a victory. Of course, then he only risked his pieces. Here, he played with his life. Now he would need all his skill.
Ryman’s eyes searched the room for some answer. They settled on the ebon’stone perched on a crate. His left eye twitched. He sensed an answer might lie within that bowl. If they could bypass the d’warf and take this matter directly to the Black Heart himself, then by the time the d’warf learned of the twins’ betrayal, they would have the Dark Lord’s sanction as a barrier between them and Torwren’s wrath. Ryman’s lips thinned. “I have a new plan,” he said, his usual humor returning. “We have no need to disturb our master here in the Keep.” He nodded toward the bowl. “With that, we can take the matter directly to the Black Heart.”
The slightest gasp escaped Mycof’s lips. Ryman allowed his grin to grow a bit wider. He always enjoyed it when an unexpected move on the tai’man board shocked his younger brother. But even more, Ryman relished the surprised look on his adversary’s face. The fool did not know with whom he matched wits.
“H-how?” the man stammered. “How do we use the bowl to speak to him?”
“Blood,” Ryman answered, again delighted by his opponent’s look of horror.
“Whose?”
“Any elemental’s blood will suffice.” He raised the dagger. “Yours will do nicely. Since, as you so boldly announced, you are an elemental.”
The profoundly sick look on the man’s face actually raised a chuckle from Ryman. How he loved a good game of tai’man—especially when he won.
NO FURTHER YELLS rose up from the depths of the tower. Tol’chuk was certain he had heard Meric’s voice a moment before. Grinding his teeth in frustration, he stood by the brass door. Should he go investigate the fate of his companions or maintain his post?
The Keep’s troops had long given up attempting to draw the door open. After only a few failed tries at yanking the door loose, they had pulled back, swearing and yelling that the door was soundly locked and would not budge. Someone had called for a battering ram. Someone else had called for them to wait the thieves out since the tower had no other exit. “Starvation will drive their sorry arses out of there or kill ’em for us,” someone had finally declared—and so the matter had been decided. It seemed none of the troops were all that anxious to chase the armed men into the crumbling tower anyway.
As Tol’chuk had waited, his keen ears had occasionally heard some murmuring or spats of raucous laughter from beyond the brass door, but no further assault was made.
He slowly unwrapped his claws from the iron latch. He saw no good reason to maintain his post, and the silence from below wore on him like the gnawing beak of a mountain vulture. Tol’chuk started down the curving stairs. He had promised Elena to watch after her companions. He would not fail her.
He sped silently down the steps, fearing to alert whatever lay below. As he reached the last step, his wide-splayed feet splashed in the water covering the floor. He paused, his ears cocked for any evidence he had been heard. Faintly, a moaning arose from the chamber ahead. Steeling himself against what he might find, he continued forward. The air had grown colder, more than the darkness and the sunless halls warranted.
He edged toward the opening and peeked inside. It was best to know what he faced before he burst into the room. His eyes grew wide at the sight.
A squat figure painted in black oil stood in the center of the chamber with its arms raised. Twin fountains of dark flames flowed from the creature’s hands to pin his two companions to the wall. Meric and Kral writhed under the grip of the black magick’s touch. Horrified, Tol’chuk pulled back around the corner. He had to stop this somehow. This he knew! At the sight of his companions so foully trapped, he needed no tugging from the Heart of his people to call him forward—yet the fiery hooks had again blown to flame in his chest.
One claw clutched his thigh pouch. The Heart seemed to burn through the hide. What was he to do? Would the magick of the heartstone vanish as it had before?
Suddenly, as if to chide him for his doubts, a rat ran across his foot, half swimming in the brackish waters covering the floors. Out of instinct, he began to kick it away when he noticed its crooked tail. As it swam away toward the cellar door, Tol’chuk saw it was the same rat that had carried the Heart’s magick for a brief time. Frowning at it, he wondered if it had somehow followed him.
Seeming to sense the og’re’s scrutiny, the rat glanced back at him. Its eyes glowed in the dark hall, the ruby red of the heartstone. With a shock, Tol’chuk realized the rat still harbored a trace of the Heart’s magick. The animal chittered at him, scolding him, then swung around and crawled into the cellar chamber.
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