Dark Warrior Rising

by Ed Greenwood

  “Rest would be good,” she agreed instead, watching Orivon collect blades and whips back into a bundle. He must have noticed that her gag and the severed ends of the lash were thrust through her belt, revealing that she’d freed herself, but he said not a word.

  Over many, many Turnings of plying her whip, she’d noticed that some humans did that. Watched and smoldered, where a Talonar Nifl would have coldly confronted. Or perhaps being a slave taught that slow, patient anger.

  The firefist turned and straightened. She’d forgotten just how large he was, how … muscled. Hulking. “Right, we’re seeking a cavern where we can hide from the Hunt and rest, and I can affix a blade to your stump. So, Lady Evendoom, give me your wisdom,” he said formally. “Whither?”

  Taerune shrugged. “Deeper into the Wild Dark; where else?”

  He pointed at the lip of the ledge, silently ordering her to climb down first. She shrugged again, nodded, and swung herself over the edge.

  The climb was easy, even under the tiny stingings of the little stones his boots dislodged onto her, the drift left behind by the dust of the spells that had smashed stalactites off the ceiling. Taerune was soon down in the tumbled stones, surrounded by bodies. Swift gouging-beetles were already swarming over some of them, eating holes in leather and flesh alike.

  Orivon joined her with a grunt of distaste—and then waded into the gnawing frenzy, bringing his fists down like hammers on the beetles until he could reach flasks and pouches and belts, and tug them free. Food, and drink, and—

  “See anything that might be a map?” he asked, waving a hand to indicate all the dead, across the cavern. There was nothing approaching hope in his voice.

  “No,” Taerune told him truthfully. “I can tell you now that there’s nothing here. Unless the Ravagers are more different from Talonar than I’ve been told.”

  Orivon gave her a frowning look. “Oh? Different how? Couldn’t there be a map on every dead Nifl here? A scrap of cloth? A folded parchment in a pouch?”

  His longtime tormentor shook her head. “Maps can’t be flat.”

  “What?” Orivon’s growl was disbelieving. “Of course they can. Why, in Ash—in my village, the elders scratched them in the fireside dirt with a stick. And the grand maps, the ones that lasted, were burned into tabletops with fire coals. They held the coals with tongs, and marked the rivers, the …”

  His voice trailed off under Taerune’s sad smile.

  “The Blindingbright,” she half-said, and half-asked, “is land with sky above it, and nothing below—yes? Except graves you dig, and caves, and us.” She swept her hand through the air, as if running it along a gently undulating ledge or tabletop.

  Orivon nodded.

  The Niflghar shook her head. “So simple. Here in the Dark, there is always something above you, and something below, not just what lies this way or that way. Flat maps are useless, unless perhaps in assigning bedchambers to guests in the Eventowers.”

  “So what does a Nifl map look like?”

  “In Talonnorn, either a … a volume of air enspelled so colored sparks float in it, marking the locations of features—or a sphere made up of stacked layers of metal discs, graven with features of the Dark. The layers are held apart, thus, by spines of metal they slot into, but it can all be pulled apart and collapsed into, ah …”

  “A thick heap of metal discs, like shields stacked on a forgefist’s ‘done’ table,” Orivon growled. “So, not flat.”

  “Not flat,” Taerune agreed, smiling that real smile again.

  “So how do merchants—and armies—find their ways through the Dark, then? I can’t see the Hunt flapping along trying to fit together a metal ball in midair!”

  “Nor can I. Mainly, they stick to ways they know. In their heads.”

  “So, if we find, say, some traders, and follow them …”

  “We’ll reach wherever they’re heading for. Talonnorn, Ouvahlor, or wherever. Two ‘ifs’ arise. If there are any traders to find; I fear all this fighting has driven them away until they hear it’s over. And, if traders go to the Blindingbright, I’ve never heard of it. Ravagers go there. All we have to do is find some Ravagers—and somehow avoid having them kill us. We’re from Talonnorn, and they’re raiding Talonnorn just now, remember?”

  “While warbands from Talonnorn and Ouvahlor swarm all over the Immur trying to kill each other,” Orivon growled. “Would any of them have one of these metal maps?”

  “Possibly,” Taerune said dryly. “If you see to the trifling detail of killing them all, I’ll take care of trying to read the map. What say you to that?”

  15

  For the Greater Glory of Olone

  Uncounted thousands I have slain, and will again, For the greater glory of Olone.

  —Ashardyn’s prayer

  The way was narrow, and there was much tension among the four Talonar clambering cautiously up through the rocks;

  Shoan foremost, Reminder behind him, then Jalandral, and behind him Gentle, all warily carrying spellblades that glowed more brightly than the glimmerings of their personal wards. Then the tunnel abruptly opened out into one of the largest caves Shoan had ever seen. A little smaller than the one that held Talonnorn, perhaps, but this one didn’t have a city filling the middle of it.

  It looked like the rib cage of a slaughtered pack-snout, lines of ragged ridges curving down into the sides of a great stone bowl, the stalactites few but gigantic, some of them meeting the far more numerous stalagmites jutting up from the ridges, to form huge columns. A few inky pools of water lay tranquil here and there down the cavern, as it stretched away to the right, curving out of sight, and the eerie glows of candlemoss clung to cracks and ledges high on the cavern walls. There was no sign of habitation or even a trail, but every Talonar knew this cavern’s name, even though most of them had never been there: Longdeath.

  The size and location of Longdeath had made it a frequent battleground, where Nifl armies clashed to decide the dominance of faiths, cities, and rival rulers. Longdeath was where the Outcaverns ended and the Wild Dark began.

  Shoan Maulstryke had never been this far from Talonnorn before—it was rare for Houses to risk their heirs in forays this far from gathered family might, with so many scores to be settled and murderous Nifl ambition even among kin—so he climbed a nearby spur of rock that let him look far down the cavern. Lazy mists were drifting above some of the larger pools, but he could see nothing else moving … or of interest.

  He shrugged and rejoined the others, who’d halted at the lip of the tunnel.

  “Alerted every watching thing of our arrival?” Jalandral asked lightly. Shoan ignored him, turning to ask Gentle, “Still no trace of the Evendoom traitor?”

  It was Reminder who shook her head. “Her magic still hides her from us. The slave, we can sense clearly.”

  “Near, now? Far?”

  “Near. So no shouting—and quell the glowing of your blades, Firstbloods.”

  “‘Near’ as in: here, in this cavern?” Shoan asked sharply, hefting his spellblade and dulling its glow not a whit.

  The two priestesses looked at him expressionlessly, then at each other. “We shall go a little apart—up there—to work a certain ritual that should give us all clear answer to that,” Gentle announced. “Try not to slay each other, House heirs.”

  Shoan and Jalandral looked at each other across perhaps six strides of broken rock, faces carefully blank, and lifted their blades in brief and casual salute to each other. Then they turned in smooth unison and saluted the priestesses.

  Who trudged up to the height they’d indicated, a long-shattered stalagmite right beside a bulging column that had broken off horizontally to form a level platform of sorts. There they turned to watch the two heirs, spread their hands and then touched their breasts and then spread their hands again in the customary prayer to Olone. Unbuckling their spellblades, the two laid them aside, quelled their wards in unison, and together began to cast a long and complicated ritual.


  They were well into it, incantations flowing as their hands shaped fluid gestures in the air and their fingers sprouted fleeting flames and glows, when a dark figure suddenly burst into view high above their heads, swinging around the flank of the great stone column on a line.

  The two Firstbloods lifted their spellblades—and were blinded by sudden wand-blasts that made their wards and spellblades flare into full raging radiance as their magics struggled to stand against the fury sent against them. Rooted to the spot with sparks swirling around their knees, they could barely see what happened next.

  The Nifl on the line hurtled around the pillar, spiraling down. The taut cord in his wake quivered and came free, trailing a few rocks—and then, with a deep and suddenly growing roar, a great avalanche of rocks fell from a hitherto stone-choked rent high in the column, thundering down to smash the two priestesses flat, and then burying them.

  “Ha-ha!” a rampant’s voice roared out, from somewhere high in the column. “Beautifully done, Sarntor! Olone’s short two Holy shes, for sure! I’ve yet to find a ward that can defend against being landed on by the weight of a thousand Niflghar!”

  “Bloodblade, will you stop gloating?” another male Nifl spoke, from about the same spot, exasperation riding his voice. “There’re still two House heirs standing there, protected by wards and spellblades and Olone only knows what-all else! Two of your precious wand-blasts they took, yet stand untouched!”

  “Untouched for now,” Sarntor called, from the stones at the base of the pillar, untying the line he’d sprung the stone fall with. “I’ve never yet found a wardshield that can hurl back shaft after hurlbow shaft! You did bring your hurlbow, Lharlak?”

  “I wear my hurlbow, youngfang. Ho, Daruse! Did you remember yours?”

  “I do believe I did,” another, deeper voice replied pleasantly, from the mouth of the tunnel the two heirs had taken to reach Longdeath.

  Sparks dying away around their ankles, Jalandral Evendoom and Shoan Maulstryke whirled to see who’d spoken—and found themselves gazing at a grinning, ragtag Ravager with an eye patch, who lifted one hurlbow-adorned arm lazily to indicate the rocks behind the two heirs. They turned to look where he indicated—in time to see Ravagers bob up into view from behind various rocks, in a long arc of ready bows and ruthless smiles.

  “Olone spew!” Shoan gasped—as Jalandral sprang past him, in a hard and desperate sprint right up the heap of boulders where the priestesses had stood.

  Shoan stared after the Firstblood of Evendoom for only a moment, and then started running too.

  “Ha-ha!” Old Bloodblade bellowed joyously. “Get them!”

  Hurlbows sang and twanged, and heirs’ wards flared as shaft after shaft struck—and was slowed until it hung motionless … and then fell harmlessly in the wake of the sprinting Firstbloods, as the two heirs moved on and their wards moved with them.

  “Well, now! I’ve got to get my hands on one of these fancy wards!” Old Bloodblade said. “Perhaps after one of these purebloods is too dead to need it longer …”

  Loose stones spinning and clattering underfoot, Jalandral reached the sudden tomb of Gentle and Reminder, and was unsurprised to see a ribbon of bright blood wending its way out from under some of the largest boulders. If luck was with him, no Ravagers would be waiting on the far slope of this now-buried height, or beyond.

  “Wait! In Olone’s name, I beseech …”

  The thin, sobbing voice seemed to come from the very stones at his feet. Not slowing, he vaulted another boulder—and saw Gentle lying crushed and half-buried under a great flow of stones, blood spewing from her mouth and pleading agony in her eyes. “Aid! I beg you, Evendoom!”

  Jalandral ran on, giving her a merry smile and wave. “I’d tarry,” he called back, “but Olone’s stern orders forbid. We’re on a divine mission, remember? Olone expects!”

  “By the Ice!” Aloun gasped, staring wide-eyed into the bright whirling of the whorl. “It’s … it’s magnificent!”

  Luelldar nodded in grim satisfaction, saying nothing, devoting himself wholly in these beautiful moments to being a Watcher of Ouvahlor. He had already murmured the magic that would sear these moments unfailingly and vividly in his memory, to be called forth whenever needed.

  Or whenever he just wanted to see again what was unfolding in the whorl before his eyes right now: Klarandarr, the mightiest spellrobe of Ouvahlor and of all the Dark—possibly the greatest wizard ever—standing stern and tall in black, flapping robes, hands caressing and intricately weaving the very air as they trailed trembling lines of glowing flame, shaping a titanic spell.

  A slaying magic, of many rings within whirling rings of teeth, all facing the same way and made of pure magic, intended to bite through stone, wards, and flesh alike. A spell that Klarandarr let build into a shrieking frenzy … and then hurled, as a Nifl child throws a stone, into a waiting whorl-maw, a vortex he’d raised earlier that would spit it out—Luelldar turned his head to look at the second whorl he’d raised—into the very wards of the old, dark-spired abbey of Coldheart, rising almost to touch the cavern roof above it, in the great cave that held the city of Arnoenar, falling away in its own magnificent myriad spires and domes in all directions from the holy high place of the Ever-Ice.

  Purple and then crimson those wards flared as Klarandarr’s unwelcome bolt of magic sheared into them, biting deep. The whirling rings slowed, melting visibly as they shed bright tatters of magic—but bored on, the wards flashing brighter and brighter as they …

  Broke and failed, letting Klarandarr’s striking magic slice into the spires within the wards, and bite even deeper.

  Chortling now despite himself, Luelldar bounced up and down in his chair, watching those old dark spires start to topple and shatter.

  “This one,” Shoan Maulstryke snarled, “is yours!”

  Jalandral grinned savagely and spun away from the Ravager whose throat he’d just slashed open, in time to drive his moaning, flickering spellblade into the armpit of the Ravager Shoan had crotch-kicked in his direction.

  That Nifl shrieked, hacking at him vainly with a sword that was too short to reach the Evendoom heir—unless he pushed forward, impaling himself more deeply on Jalandral’s blade.

  Which Jalandral now twisted, causing the Ravager to sink down, squalling in agony, to where he could easily receive Jalandral’s boot in his throat. Jalandral kicked hard, but didn’t trigger the toe-blade that would have ended the young Nifl’s life in an instant. A crushed throat and broken neck slew just as surely as steel, and he didn’t want Shoan to know he had toe-blades … just yet.

  Only the youngest five Ravagers had been fleet enough to chase down the fleeing Firstbloods, so when Shoan and Jalandral had been brought to bay some six side-caverns beyond Longdeath, they found themselves facing the least experienced, most reckless Ravagers. Younglings lacking wards and spellblades, with poor armor and worse training. Enthusiasm only forges so far.

  Wherefore this gargling, dying Ravager was the last, and the two Talonar heirs now found themselves gazing at each other across a few strides of smooth rock, in an unfamiliar cavern out in the Wild Dark, with no foes or escorting priestesses to keep them apart. At last.

  “Slaughtering time,” Jalandral whispered, eyes bright and eager.

  Eyes locked in menacing promise, the Firstbloods of Evendoom and Maulstryke grew slow, mutual grins, like bloody-jawed wolves. Hefting their spellblades, they stepped slowly toward each other.

  Whereupon Aumaeraunda, Holiest of Olone said commandingly inside their heads, the voice of her will stone-strong and steel-sharp: OH, NO, YOU DON’T, HEIRS OF EVENDOOM AND MAULSTRYKE.

  Jalandral and Shoan stiffened as one, swaying as they fought against the sudden steely presence in their minds. They were being forced to lower their swords, to step back … their jaws worked as they tried to curse and snarl, and were prevented even from that.

  FOOLS AND RAMPANTS YOU MAY BE, BUT YOU ARE ALSO REACHING SWORDS OF TALONNORN—AND TALO
NNORN HAS NEED OF YOU YET. FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF OLONE. YOU WILL DISCOVER THAT YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO OBEY ME UTTERLY. WHICH IS AS IT SHOULD BE.

  Jalandral fought with all his strength to raise his spellblade and step forward again, to break the tightening control in his head. Shoan was doing the same, he saw; the Maulstryke’s body was also trembling, his face also frozen in the first creases of pain but prevented from twisting into a full grimace.

  It’ll be our eyes next, Jalandral thought. Or our lungs, if she tires of our defiance and just wants us gone. He was lurching along at her bidding, muscles burning and spasming in protest as the distant Aumaeraunda forced him to sheathe his spellblade and begin to walk on down the unfamiliar cavern, Shoan at his side.

  Around a bend, stiffly stumbling, and up a rocky slope—more easily, as both of the heirs abandoned their struggles against her—to stop and stand silently on a high vantage point: a lip of rock overlooking a larger, wider cavern.

  The Firstbloods could still move their heads and eyes with perfect freedom, and did so, watching small slithering things moving furtively in the rocks around them—and two much larger creatures trudging quite openly along the cavern floor below.

  A hulking human, and a one-armed yet still beautiful Nifl-she: Orivon Firefist and Taerune Evendoom.

  “Klarandarr struck at Coldheart not out of any challenge to the faith of the Ever-Ice,” Luelldar explained patiently, “but purely because the Revered Mother—and other senior priestesses of that abbey, too—regarded him as a threat to their personal power and influence, and took it upon themselves to craft a spell to slay him.”