Avenger botm-3

by Richard Baker

  Mirya sighted and shot with her crossbow in the sudden space opened in the fight; the weapon was the wrong tool for the job, but maybe it would distract the creature for a moment. Her quarrel took the first runehelm square in the middle of its visor, and actually punched through the armor. To her surprise, the monster staggered, drops of thick black blood streaming from beneath its steel-plated face. It reached up to try and dislodge the quarrel-and Brun Osting leaped in with a snarl of pure rage, hewing off its weapon arm at the shoulder. As the creature crumpled, the brewer went to work on its neck, and managed to take off its head with several vicious chops.

  “The visor protects a weak point!” Hamil called. “Good shooting, Mirya! Do the same to the other one!”

  As quickly as she could, Mirya worked the mechanism of her crossbow, and laid in another bolt for the second runehelm. This one advanced remorselessly on Sarth, shrugging off everything the sorcerer could throw at him until Sarth melted its iron visor with another intense blast of flame. The creature flailed blindly until Hamil climbed up its back and surgically planted his dagger between its skull and its spine. The runehelm crumpled to the ground without a sound.

  Mirya set down her crossbow and hurried over to Geran’s side. He was slumped in an awkward position, crumpled over his right arm, his left arm still stretched out above his head by the fetters. “Geran, wake up!” she cried, kneeling beside him. “We’re here to get you away from this place.” She gently turned his face up to peer into his eyes; he groaned, his eyes fluttering open. His right arm fell away from his chest as he stirred.

  His right hand was missing.

  Mirya recoiled in horror, covering her mouth to stifle a scream. “Oh, no,” she moaned. A simple dressing covered the stump, and around its edges small patches of blackened skin showed around the wound. She couldn’t bear to look at it. This is what I’ve done to the man I love? she berated herself. He trusted you, Mirya Erstenwold, and look what it’s cost him! You put him in the power of his enemies, and they’ve maimed him!

  “By Bane’s black heart,” Hamil swore viciously. “The bastards!” His face dark with fury, the halfling threw down his knives and hurried up with the sergeant’s key ring, fumbling for the lock to the fetters. In a moment he had it open, and Geran fell forward into Mirya’s arms as he was released.

  “Geran, I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault-” she cried. Tears streamed down her face. She buried her face against his neck, and gave herself up to her tears-grieving for the harm done to him.

  “What did you think would happen if you gave me up to Rhovann?” he said hoarsely. His face was pale and pinched with pain, but he rallied enough to shrug her aside, and reached for Hamil’s hand to pull himself upright. “I wish you’d just told me he had some hold on you. I would’ve protected you and Selsha from him.”

  Mirya drew back, mortified. He knew that she hadn’t wanted to do what she did, but he still hated her for it. “Geran, I-” she said, trying to find words through her tears.

  “Mirya was enchanted, Geran,” Hamil said. “Whatever she did was no fault of hers.”

  “Enchanted?”

  “I examined her and discovered the lingering impression of the spell not an hour ago,” Sarth said.

  Geran met Mirya’s eyes, and bowed his head. “Of course. I should have known. I’m sorry that I thought anything else.” He reached out to her; she hurried back and draped his arm around her shoulders, supporting him as he shuffled out the cell’s open door.

  “Can you walk?” Mirya asked him.

  “I’ll damned well walk out of here,” he replied. “Let me fetch my belongings there, and we can go.”

  Hamil hurried over to grab Geran’s clothing, while Brun checked on Lodharrun. The brewer shook his head, and came back to lend Mirya a hand with Geran. Then the small band hurried back out of the council prison.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  15 Ches, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)

  Geran didn’t recall much of the next half hour. Despite his brave words, he was hardly steady on his feet, and he wasn’t far from simply passing out in pain. His missing hand burned as if he’d thrust it into a brazier full of hot coals and left it there; needlelike jolts of agony raced up his arm with every beat of his heart. In the guardroom Sarth unleashed a hellstorm of shrieking fireballs, scouring the chamber clear of the Council Guards clattering down the stairs to hinder his escape. Mirya ushered him through the corridors of the Council Hall and out into the driving, cold rain of an early spring thunderstorm. Icy water on his bare back and shoulders shocked him into wakefulness as they crossed to the old tailor’s shop behind the Council Hall. He caught one glimpse of orange smoke billowing out of broken windows and doors blown from their hinges before Mirya urged him down into the cellars. Brun Osting followed, then Sarth and last of all Hamil.

  “Keep going!” the halfling called. “No point lingering here!”

  They hurried through the buried streets, passing through several cellars and dusty old passages until Geran was no longer certain of where they were. Mirya knew where she was and guided him along. He felt his legs growing steadier under him as they went along, and when they finally halted in an old wine cellar, he was able to stand up straight and push the pain of his injury to one side of his mind, focusing his thoughts on what to do next. The rest of the band filled in behind him and Mirya; Hamil took up a post by the passage they’d just used, looking and listening back the way they’d come.

  Brun brought his belongings over, and set them down. “Your things, Lord Geran,” he said.

  “My thanks, Brun. I’ll remember who came to fetch me out of Marstel’s prison.” Geran clapped the big brewer on the shoulder with his left hand.

  Sarth reached into a small pouch at his belt, withdrew a small vial, and unstopped it. “Drink this, Geran,” the sorcerer said. “It’s a healing potion. I took the liberty of providing myself with a couple before we left Thentia. It should help a little with the pain.”

  “I appreciate your foresight,” Geran said. He took the vial and drank down the contents. The elixir felt like warm mead in his mouth, sweet but heady. It left a glow in his stomach, and a flood of fresh strength filled his limbs. A deep, vital warmth seemed to gather at his right wrist, almost too hot to endure, and he grimaced as the potion did its work. When the magic faded, he felt much better-still a trifle weak in his stride, perhaps, but he was no longer hunched over his wounded arm. He was tempted to peek under the bandages that swathed the stump, but decided not to; the dressing was secure, and he didn’t want to redo it.

  Sarth smiled as he saw Geran’s posture straighten and some of the pain fade from his face. “I wish there was more I could do,” he said.

  “Good,” said Mirya. “Now get yourself dressed, and we’ll see you out of Hulburg. We’ve a few ways to slip out of town without being seen.”

  He shook his head, trying to ignore the trembling in his limbs. “I’m not leaving. We still have a job to do in the Shadowfell, and Kara is counting on us to see it through.” In fact, based on what he’d seen through the runehelm’s eyes, Kara and the Shieldsworn were in dire danger.

  “But you’re in no condition for a fight!” Mirya protested. “What more do you expect of yourself?”

  “There is no dishonor in withdrawing, Geran,” Sarth told him. “We will see to what must be done.”

  “Trust me, I have little stomach for fighting right now, but Rhovann showed me Marstel’s army and his runehelms surrounding the Shieldsworn. Destroying Rhovann’s hold over his runehelms might be the only thing that can save them. I mean to cross into the shadow and finish what I started-the sooner, the better.”

  His companions were silent for a moment. Finally Hamil nodded. “All right. We’ll see you to where you need to go, and help you do what Aesperus told you to do. But you’re to leave the fighting to Sarth and me.”

  He met Mirya’s eyes. After a long time, she nodded too. “Very well. Sometimes wisdom comes disguised as foolishness
, and this might be one of those times.”

  Geran looked at the bundle of clothes, and frowned. “I’m afraid I’ll need some help getting dressed,” he said.

  “Of course,” Mirya said. While Hamil and Sarth waited, she helped him with his shirt and buttons, held the right side of his breeches as he pulled them over his smallclothes, pulled on his boots for him, and then helped him shrug on his jacket. They shared an awkward grimace when he fumbled at his belt before she leaned close to cinch it for him. The difficult part was his scabbard and baldric, which were rigged to ride on his left hip for a right-handed draw. Mirya solved the puzzle by putting the baldric on him backwards, then unhooking the scabbard and turning it around. The sword hilt was a little farther back around his hip than Geran would have liked, which would slow his draw. But then again, he hardly felt like he was up to a duel at the moment.

  “I’m ready,” he announced. “It’s now or never.”

  Hamil looked at him dubiously. “Can you fight left-handed?”

  “A little. Daried used to make me train with my left hand from time to time. Many bladesingers are ambidextrous, or very nearly so, and he thought it was important that I learn as much of the technique as I could. But I’m hoping that you and Sarth can handle any trouble we meet up with.”

  “I’d better come with you,” Mirya said.

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea-” Geran began.

  “Nor am I, but I’m coming nonetheless,” Mirya interrupted. “You said yourself a few moments ago that you had no certain idea of what to expect. Well, I might very well be able to help, especially if Sarth and Hamil find themselves too busy to aid you with whatever you might have to do. And don’t you dare tell me it’s too dangerous, when you’re set on trying it injured as you are.”

  I think she has you there, Hamil remarked to Geran.

  The swordmage stood his ground, then sighed. “All right. The shadowcrossing will work as well for four as it would for three. Besides, I doubt that there’s any place in Hulburg that’s truly safe tonight, so I might as well have you where I can keep an eye on you. But you must promise to do whatever I ask you to, without hesitation. The Shadowfell is no place to be trifled with. Brun, you’d better do what you can to gather whatever loyalist bands you can find and avoid any serious fighting until it’s the right time to strike.”

  The brewer frowned. “How will I know the moment?”

  “Watch the runehelms, I guess,” Geran replied. “Now be on your way, or you may be pulled into the shadow with the rest of us when we make the crossing.” Brun gave a sharp nod and backed away. Ducking under a low archway, he hurried off into the tunnels.

  “Do you want the scrolls?” Hamil asked.

  The swordmage shook his head. “If Sarth is willing, I’d rather save the scrolls in case something goes amiss.” After all, if they used up the scrolls and Sarth were incapacitated or killed, they’d be unable to return to the Shadowfell if some other work of Rhovann’s demanded their attention.

  “I am willing,” Sarth said. He indicated the old cellar around them with a motion of his horned head. “Shall I perform the crossing here? We will translate into a shadow analogue of this cellar. You may prefer to be in the streets above when we make the crossing.”

  “Here is fine,” Geran decided. “We might as well stay out of sight as long as we can.”

  “Then gather close to me, take one another’s hands, and be still. The crossing itself is not perilous, but we have no way of knowing what awaits us on the other side.” Sarth waited until Geran, Hamil, and Mirya were arranged as he liked, then drew a large vial from beneath his robes and poured black, acrid-smelling ink in a rough circle around them. Replacing the vial’s stopper, he took his rune-carved scepter and murmured words of command, pointing its tapered end at the splatter of ink on the floor. Under the influence of his magic, the ink flowed and shaped itself into glyphs of power. Geran didn’t recognize them, but that didn’t surprise him; he’d seen that Sarth’s learning was not the learning of Myth Drannor. As each glyph took its final form, the dark ink shimmered with a violet glow. Sarth chanted softly as he worked, shaping the circle. As the diagram approached completion, the tiefling stepped carefully inside its bounds to stand close beside his companions, and gave Geran and the others a warning glance without breaking the words of his spell.

  Mirya stiffened next to Geran, and clutched at his arm. In the cellar around them the light was changing, growing dimmer in some strange way that did not change their ability to see. The flickering shadows dancing on the walls and ceiling from Sarth’s glowing runes began to take on an unsettling, viscous appearance, sliding and flowing over the brick and timbers like liquid oil. Sarth’s chant approached its end, and the tiefling completed the last glyph of the circle surrounding them. The whole design pulsed once; Geran felt a strange lurch or pull on his stomach from a direction he couldn’t define, and the circle went dark.

  The cellar seemed almost the same … but Geran could see at once that the doorways were subtly crooked, the rubble and debris heaped a little higher, the air colder and more still. Mirya shivered against him, and he put his left arm around her shoulder, drawing her close. “What is this place?” she murmured.

  “The shadow world,” said Geran. “Sometimes called the Shadowfell, or the Plane of Shadow. It’s an imperfect echo of our own world, existing alongside us but rarely touching our world. In some ways we’re exactly where we were when Sarth began his spell. But if you were in the cellar we’ve just left, you would have seen us disappear into thin air.”

  “I see that you are familiar with the Shadowfell,” Sarth observed.

  “During my days as a Coronal Guard, I was part of a small company sent into the Shadowfell to retrieve an elven artifact stolen by the shadar-kai,” Geran answered. “I never mastered the crossing ritual, but I learned what I needed to know about this realm and its perils.”

  “Perils?” Hamil asked.

  “The powers of darkness are very strong here,” Sarth said. “This is where the restless shades of the dead wander when they refuse to pass on to their final judgment. And there are old, hateful entities that lurk in the deepest shadows. They are best avoided.”

  “I can imagine,” the halfling muttered. “Well, let’s get on with this, then. Where is Rhovann’s citadel?”

  Geran studied their surroundings, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom that seemed to press in around them. “My guess is the shadow copy of Griffonwatch. It’s the strongest, most secure place in Hulburg, so it stands to reason it would be here as well. Mirya, where’s the closest access to the streets from here?”

  Mirya shook herself and pointed to the corridor leading north. “There’s a door not fifteen yards down that hall that lets you into the cellar of the old Black Eagle guildhall.”

  “Good.” Geran allowed Hamil to lead the way, and followed after Sarth. The door proved to be a little farther than Mirya remembered, but then again, that might have been the disconcerting proportions of the Shadowfell; distances were not as constant here as they were in the daylit world. When they finally found it, the door was stuck fast. It took Geran and Sarth pushing together to force it open. Inside, a rickety staircase led up to the ground level in the middle of a burned-out shell of a building. Through a gap in the floor over their heads they could look up and see a starless night sky above. Despite the lack of streetlamps, moon, or stars, there was a faint gray luminescence that gave them just enough light-or a lessening of shadow, anyway-to see by. Silently they climbed up and made their way out into the street. They weren’t far from the Winterspear, at the north end of Fish Street.

  “Look at the castle,” Hamil said softly.

  Geran found that the dim gray gloom didn’t hide things with sheer distance the way a normal night might have. Over the ramshackle rooftops and ruined walls of shadow-Hulburg Griffonwatch’s black crag towered, noticeably narrower and steeper than it would have appeared in the normal world. He follow
ed its battlements up to the Harmach’s Tower at the top, which leaned precariously over the cliff’s edge. Pale swirls of lambent light played about the castle’s upperworks like a purple aurora.

  “Rhovann’s defensive wards,” Sarth observed. “Interesting. The spells with which he guards the castle are visible in this plane.”

  “Come on,” said Geran. “Kara’s waiting for us, and we’ve already lost hours.” He led the way as they turned left and headed north-if such directions had any meaning in the Shadowfell-through the ruined districts on the west bank of the Winterspear. These neighborhoods had been razed long before in the daylit world, and he was somewhat relieved to see that they were much the same here. Wiry tufts of pale grass and thorny brambles grew out of great mounds of rubble, intersected here and there by the crooked silhouette of a surviving wall. Sarth conjured a small, ruddy orb of light that bobbed along a little above him. It did little to brighten the gloom that surrounded them, but Geran decided that it raised his spirits a little, and it wasn’t so bright that it would be seen from any great distance. Once or twice as they hurried along the rubble-strewn street he thought he heard ominous scuttlings or whispers from the mounds of debris around them, and he noticed that Hamil kept a wary eye on the shadows nearby. Geran chose not to say anything to Mirya; he didn’t want to needlessly alarm her if it turned out to be nothing, since she was unsettled enough already.

  They came to the small court where Keldon Way met the foot of the Burned Bridge. The bridge wasn’t there. The old stone piers were still where they belonged, but the newer wooden trestle that had been built atop them was missing. “What in the world?” Mirya murmured. “Now how do we cross?”