by James Lowder
The retreating orcs had reached the south bank. Vrakk waited for the slowest of his troops to stumble to safety before he put two fingers to his lips and whistled. The shrill sound rang out even over the thunder of the charging refugees.
As one, the orcs shouted a vile curse directed at the Lord of the Dead: “Cyric dglinkarz haif akropa nar!”
Though the insult was nearly impossible to translate—at least with its original venomous hatred intact—it was enough to know that the slur involved Cyric and the forefathers of the ores’ most hated foes, the dwarves. From the mouths of Vrakk’s troops, though, the five words were a magical trigger. The instant the orcs finished the curse, the center supports of both bridges exploded.
The whole length of the Force Bridge shuddered. As Fzoul and the Zhentarim mages had predicted, the Shou gunpowder that was the heart of the magical trap sent up a huge fireball. The blast incinerated the Zhentish at the front of the mob—the lucky ones, anyway. Shards of granite whistled through the air like sling stones and cut down others. Then the center of the bridge collapsed into the river, taking with it half the refugees. The scene on the Tesh Bridge was much the same—the frantic mob trying to turn back upon itself, the bridge dissolving beneath them into a rain of stone and mortar.
All along the south bank, the ores howled at the devastation, at the score upon score of battered corpses floating amongst the shattered ice floes. Once, Vrakk and his soldiers had served those same people, offered up their lives to prove their loyalty. Yet the orcs hadn’t left their bestial roots so far behind that they could contrive any answer but this for the slight offered them by the city and the human god they’d adopted as their own.
Horrified, Rinda turned away from the carnage, from Vrakk. “I—I should go.”
The general grabbed her by the arm and spun her to face him. “They take away our honor,” he said. “They take away everything to give to Cyric, and he not care. Zhentish deserve this.”
“No one deserves that kind of death,” Rinda hissed. She pulled from his grasp.
“Don’t stop in Dales,” the orc noted. “Not be too safe there until giants and goblins break up army.” He tossed something toward Rinda. It landed at her feet, clattering loudly on the tower roof. “That medal King Ak-soon gave me for fighting in crusade. Bring it to Cor-meer and show it to him. He take care of you.”
“I can’t take this, Vrakk,” Rinda said.
The orc grunted. “Monsters don’t wear medals.” Stiffly he turned to watch the carnage.
Rinda scooped up the medallion, the Special Order of the Golden Way, granted only to the victorious generals of Azoun’s crusade against the Tuigan. “I’ll keep it safe for you,” the scribe said, then hurried from the tower.
As she began her long, lonely journey south, Rinda said a silent prayer that all the Zhentish dragged into depravity by Cyric’s schemes—human and orc alike—might find their way back to civilization. Though the diamond holy symbol she wore made it impossible for Oghma to hear that wish, she knew the God of Knowledge would answer it, if he could. Until that wish came true, Rinda would find the strength to safeguard the Cyrinishad, to prevent the madness it contained from spreading beyond the ruined walls of Zhentil Keep.
XIX
NIGHTMARES
Wherein Gwydion the Quick faces the unremembered terrors of his mortal life, Kelemvor’s prison undergoes some unwelcome alterations, and Cyric pays the price for trying to remake the world in his image.
Gwydion stood on the brink of Dendar’s cave. Orange steam swirled around him like some manifestation of the suffering that had settled over the City of Strife during the uprising. Animate fragments of denizens and shades lay everywhere, twitching, crawling, crying out. The heart of the battle raged nearby, at the gate to Bone Castle. Angry shouts and panicked orders echoed from the diamond walls, lingering over the River Slith and the field of rubble beyond. The noise drowned out the hiss of the Night Serpent’s breathing as she slept in her vast lair, contentedly gorged on the world’s unremembered nightmares.
“Mistress Dendar!” Gwydion shouted. He stepped closer to the first line of mammoth stalagmites. Tiny, lurking things scurried between the stones and watched him with hungry curiosity.
“Go away,” came a voice heavy with disdain, thick with sleep. “As I told the other lackeys: the prince must fight his own battles. My answer is final.”
“I’m not here to get you to rescue Cyric,” Gwydion called. He fought to keep the fear from his voice, to still the trembling of his gauntleted hands. “I want you to help us overthrow him.”
Dendar shifted on her bed of bones. Two eyes, large and sickly yellow, appeared in the cave’s gloom. “Overthrow him?” she asked. “Why should I ever want to do that?” Her slitted pupils narrowed as she moved closer to the cave’s mouth, and her forked tongue tested the air. “Ah, Gwydion. I never expected to see you here again—and girded like a knight Well, well.…”
“Help us now, and the gods will be fair to you hereafter.”
“Fair to me?” the serpent scoffed, bloody fangs glistening. “Come now, spiritling. I was here before the gods, and it’s my place to harbinger the end of it all—the world, the universe, all of that and the gods, too. The pantheon can have no hold over me.” She yawned. “Now leave me be. It’s hard enough to rest with all that clatter and crash going on.”
“No,” Gwydion said. The steel edging the word surprised even him. “The siege of Bone Castle must end quickly, before the suffering here grows any greater. All I ask is for you to release some of the nightmares you’ve hoarded. Let them free to drive the denizens away from the walls.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Dendar hissed, her sibilant voice filled with malice. “What do I care for the suffering of the dead?”
Gwydion raised Titanslayer high over his head. “I’ll take them if I must.”
Ever so slowly, the Night Serpent turned her head until one eye hung over Gwydion like a full moon. “I’m no fairy tale dragon to be threatened by that pin you carry. You insult me by thinking so.”
The warning in Dendar’s words rang clear to Gwydion, as did the unspoken demand for an apology. Yet he did not lower his blade, did not retreat a step from the lair’s threshold. Something inside him wouldn’t allow it. Instead, Gwydion lashed out with Titanslayer, slicing away a single midnight-black scale from the Serpent’s hide.
The scale exploded and stretched into a fully formed nightmare. Ghostly and luminescent, the night-terror writhed in the air for a moment, then descended upon Gwydion. It slithered across his mind, drawing him into a horrifying scenario:
A half-human beast stalked Gwydion down a darkened alley. The shade could hear the thing padding behind him, its claws clicking on the cobbles with each loping step. The narrow street was endless, and its high walls were slick with something—blood, Gwydion realized with a shudder. There were no doors in the wall, no windows to crawl through. The only way to escape was to run.…
Run? Gwydion smiled at that And as soon as the realization dawned on him that he could flee from the beast, the alley vanished from his mind. The nightmare had released its hold on him.
The victory was short-lived, though. A bone-rattling tremor rumbled through the wastes, and the hillside itself seemed to shift, to rear up. Then a monstrous shadow swept over the knight.
Dendar had opened her cavernous maw.
The Night Serpent knocked Gwydion into her mouth with a flick of her tongue. He rebounded off one gigantic, crimson-stained fang; its tip cut open his breastplate as if it were threadbare cloth. The fang didn’t catch his flesh, but the impact sent him tumbling uncontrollably through the air.
Gwydion landed in the foul mire beneath Dendar’s tongue. Using Titanslayer as a crutch, he levered himself to his feet—only to be knocked onto his back again a moment later when the Serpent tried to force the tiny morsel farther down her throat. The whole world rose and fell as Dendar tossed her head back. All the while, her black tongue swept th
rough the darkness overhead, making the soup of greasy spittle and half-digested bones slosh up Gwydion’s legs.
Fear clutched at the knight, born on the cold chill that crept up from the Serpent’s stomach. That chill settled over Gwydion’s heart, and with it came the sense that some unknown but utterly familiar horror lay in wait for him in the belly of the beast.
Dendar threw her head back again. The marshy surface pulsed beneath Gwydion, and he rolled backward a few paces. He tried to catch himself, grab hold of some bump in the Serpent’s mouth, but the sharp ridges on his riven breastplate made it difficult to move. Each time he lifted his arms, the jagged edges scraped awkwardly against his greaves.
With as much strength as he could muster, Gwydion drove his enchanted blade into the soft ground underfoot. Sparks pushed away the darkness in spurts as the blade sank deeper, though Gwydion almost wished he’d been spared the terrible vista. Gruesome bits of denizen flesh and spatters of gore hung all around him. Eyeless skulls bobbed along in the mire underfoot, grinning at the futility of his struggle.
He hadn’t intended the blow as an attack, merely a way to anchor himself until he could decide upon a plan. Yet no sooner had Titanslayer pierced Dendar’s flesh than a terrific howl rolled up from her throat.
For the first time in her eons-long existence, the Night Serpent screamed.
Nightmares filled Dendar’s mouth like bile. They sailed around her huge fangs, raced along the edges of her forked tongue. Silver as moonlight, spectral and utterly silent, the phantasms descended upon Gwydion. With filthy claws and debauched mouths they tore at his armor. Piece by piece, plate by plate, the god-forged mail was stripped away.
The knight couldn’t fight back, couldn’t raise a fist to defend himself as the horrible visions pressed in close. The nightmares tried to pry his fingers apart. When that failed, they insinuated themselves into his mind, stoking the fear that burned like wildfire through his thoughts:
Gwydion plummeted through an endless midnight sky. Around him lightning streaked silently through the void. Nothing could stop his fall. Ever. He opened his mouth to scream, but like the lightning, he, too, was mute.…
The weight of the damp earth pressed down on Gwydion. He tried to move his arms, but couldn’t. He wasn’t paralyzed; his fingers could flex a little, just enough to feel the coarse loam packed around him, the worms and the slugs crawling through the ground. They’d buried him alive! Gwydion struggled, but that made it worse, brought the earth down like a giant’s fist. Then the tiny carrion beetles arrived, hundreds and hundreds of them.…
From atop a high tower, Gwydion watched the sun rise in an azure sky over the peaceful city of Suzail. He hadn’t slept well the night before, but such were the burdens of his title. In the streets below, merchants threw open their shops to the women and men out to buy their day’s supplies. Soldiers, Purple Dragons from his old regiment, patrolled the crowded alleyways, though their presence wasn’t really needed, not since Gwydion had become monarch of the rich and expansive kingdom. Children filled the parks and boulevards with their happy cries, their shouted games—until the shadow passed over the sun.
Dendar filled the sky, her dark scales turning the day to night. She rose, bloated with the world’s nightmares, and swallowed the sun. The laughter and bustling cheer of the city turned to screams of terror. The cool spring breezes became the chill of eternal winter. Ice covered the harbor, splintering the ships like tinder. It spread over the land. Gwydion tried to shout a warning, but it was no use; the men and women and children were overcome, dark shapes trapped in the blanket of silver-white ice.
As the killing frost scaled the high tower walls, Gwydion heard Dendar laugh, her sibilant voice carried on the wind blowing over the dead world. “The last nightmare to feed me was yours.…”
Gwydion trembled like a frightened child, but the phantasms could not loosen his grip upon Titanslayer. Horrible though they were, the terrors belonged to other men and women.
The Night Serpent writhed in pain as the magic from the enchanted blade seeped into her jaw. She howled again, vomiting up more nightmares. Visions of living dead men and knife-wielding lunatics, utter isolation and sweaty, crushing mobs swirled around the knight. But like their brethren, these silent phantasms failed to weaken Gwydion’s resolve.
Finally Dendar drew forth a particular haunting, an unremembered nightmare that had plagued Gwydion often during his mortal life. Unlike the other visions, this one moved with purpose from its prison in the Serpent’s gut. It slithered, base and familiar, straight toward the knight, and the other horrors parted for it like timid schoolchildren before a well-respected master.
The night-terror drove its grimy fingers into Gwydion’s heart. And from the instant the haunt insinuated itself into his flesh, his life-grip on the sword began to slip.
The dirt road known as the Golden Way stretched out before and behind Gwydion. To either side of the trade road, the once-beautiful countryside lay burned and lifeless, the crops and villages trodden under by the hearty ponies of the Tuigan barbarians. Scavengers—both human and bestial—picked through the rubble, looking for some morsel of food to sustain them on the blasted plain.
A small party of the nomad horsemen clustered on a ridge up ahead, watching for the vanguard of King Azoun’s ragged Army of the Alliance. Gwydion smiled and crouched lower in the gully. They hadn’t seen him yet. Good. He’d be able to run back and warn the king before the army stumbled into an ambush.
As the young scout turned, he heard a shout. He glanced back to see the three Tuigans kick their mounts into a gallop. Short bows drawn, firing even as their horses flew over the uneven hillocks, the barbarians came.
Gwydion’s heart began to flutter, almost in time with the thundering hoofbeats. Escape seemed unlikely, but then, everyone had bet against him in those races on the Promenade, when he outran the horses from Lord Harcourt’s cavalry unit. You’re Gwydion the Quick, he reminded himself. Now’s your chance to prove it.
Gwydion sprang forward, but his legs had suddenly gone numb from the knees down. He fell onto his chest.
A few Tuigan arrows hit the ground around the crippled scout, and he glanced over his shoulder once more. The barbarians had halved the distance to him—and now that they were closer, he could see that the riders were monsters. Their faces were leering skulls, their hands clawed and furred like lions’. Their saddles were fringed with the scalps of captured soldiers. Necklaces strung with eyes and tongues hung around their necks.
Gwydion knew then that these riders weren’t just harbingers of death. They wanted his soul, not his life.
With fumbling fingers, the scout tore off his boots and rolled up the breeches from his numb legs. Had he been hit by an arrow or paralyzed by the painless bite of some snake? There were no wounds on his feet or calves. He rubbed his legs, trying to press some life back into them, but the numbness spread up to his hips.
The Tuigan-monsters were almost upon him. The ground trembled beneath their charge. Gwydion, waves of panic washing over his mind, tried to move his leg, force it to bend. At his touch, the flesh came away from the bones, soft and yielding as clay.…
Gwydion’s left hand fell away from Titanslayer, and his right began to open. In his mind, at least, the battle was over. If he couldn’t run, there was no hope, no way to escape.
The smaller haunts took hold of the knight’s legs. Slowly they pulled him toward the hellish pit that was Dendar’s stomach. Gwydion barely recognized his plight, engulfed as he was in the familiar terror of his nightmare. He no longer saw himself captive in the Night Serpent’s mouth, no longer saw the spectral things that floated around him. Gwydion knew only that the cold hands of annihilation gripped him and he could no longer flee.
Something stirred inside him then, a fiery ember of belief that warmed his cooling resolve. He didn’t have to run from the battle—no, shouldn’t run from the battle, at least until he’d tried to make a stand. His honor demanded he fight back. The
other shades ground beneath Cyric’s heel demanded the same. He’d been entrusted with a god’s enchanted blade, and he’d given his word to use it well.
As if they could sense the steel of resolve shoring up the knight’s flagging spirit, the nightmares redoubled their attack. Joined by Gwydion’s personal night-terror, they gave their all in one last desperate attempt to draw him away from his sword. The haunts wrapped themselves around his arms and legs. They blinded him with their wispy hair, throttled him with their bony fingers. Yet even their unearthly might could not force Gwydion to release his hold on Titanslayer.
For a moment Gwydion saw the unreal scene with astounding clarity, true sight far beyond any sensation granted him by Gond’s helmet. The shield of his duty would turn aside the worst horrors the phantasms could muster. So long as he kept to his oath, he was beyond their grasp.
Stricken, the nightmares withered before his gaze. They skirled away into the darkness like phantom bats, banished to Dendar’s stomach once more.
All except Gwydion’s personal night-terror.
That ghastly image lingered, staring at the shade with the features of the dream-Tuigan. The face had been wrought from horribly twisted memories of the barbarian scouts he’d outrun in the crusade, and to Gwydion it was nothing more or less than the face of death itself. The unremembered nightmare had secretly ruled his last eight years of life, driven him from the Purple Dragons, devoured his honor. It had even followed him beyond the grave, becoming a fear of more permanent annihilation. Now, though, the knight recognized the terror for what it was.
“I know you,” Gwydion said. “I won’t ever run from you again.”
The nightmare vanished, and Dendar sank to the ground. “Enough,” the Serpent said mournfully. “I’ve no more weapons to wield against you. I will do as you demand.”
The Night Serpent opened her cavernous mouth, and light from the red sky poured in, coloring the grim terrain. Cautiously Gwydion uprooted Titanslayer. He made his way past the Serpent’s fangs, over her smooth lips. Of his armor, only his sword belt remained, gnawed thin in places, but still sound enough for use. Spittle covered his breeches, and his padded doublet hung in tatters. The plate mail was gone; in forging the armor, Gond hadn’t reckoned on the power of nightmares.