Dark Warrior Rising

by Ed Greenwood

  “If it was just the Consecrated, inside the walls of their temple, I’d agree with you,” Lord Evendoom said heavily. “Olone governs those of Olone, and all that. But it’s more than that—much more.” He held up both of his forefingers, regarded the one on his left hand, and said, “The Eldest of my House has made it much more, oriad bitch that she is.” He waggled that finger. “She cast a spell right across this city, that every priestess and crone saw—and so has dragged every crone of all our families into it. The fighting won’t be staying inside the temple walls. It’s erupting within all our walls, whether they’ve drawn dagger yet or not. If your crones—or yours—don’t hurl their holy spells first, someone will hurl holy spells at them … and we’ll have Talonnorn ablaze.”

  He folded his left forefinger down, and turned to look at his right forefinger. “All of you know of this spell Maharla Evendoom cast, do you not? What she said?”

  “I do not,” said Lord Raudreth Oondaunt, but he was the only one amid the murmurings of the other lords.

  “Every priestess and crone across our city heard and saw Maharla’s spell—and believe me, Lords, when I catch up to her, her life will be swiftly and painfully brought to an end! They saw my daughter, whom Maharla made Nameless and outcast, and a human forge slave who escaped during the Ouvahlor attack, standing together in a cavern of the Wild Dark with some Ravagers. They heard Maharla declare this man a champion of the oppressed!”

  Lord Maulstryke, who’d kept stonily silent up until that moment, snickered and said, “I tremble. Erlingar, are your wits wandering lately?”

  Lord Evendoom didn’t even bother to look at his longtime rival. “As some of us seem unable to comprehend the seriousness of this one spell, let me repeat the words Maharla used when declaring this Dark Warrior her champion. She called him ‘Foe of the decadent Houses who practice misrule over Talonnorn! One who seeks peace between Ravagers and the City of the Spires! Nameless Nifl, Ravagers, and all who are oppressed by Evendoom and Maulstryke, Dounlar and Raskshaula, Oszrim and Oondaunt, this is your champion!’”

  Up and down the table, lords blinked and frowned. “This is serious,” Lord Oszrim rasped, and there were nods.

  Maulstryke chuckled again. “It would be, if anyone were ever foolish enough to think of heeding Maharla Evendoom. Erlingar, they laugh and ridicule her—almost as much as they do you, for not slapping her oriad head off her shoulders when she had the temerity to strip your Taerune of her name! You should have waded into your unhousebroken shes then, swording any crone who dared stand up to you, defied them all, and kept your daughter! Then you’d still have an heir!”

  Lord Evendoom rounded on Lord Maulstryke so swiftly that every lord at the table flinched. “What do you mean?”

  In the tense silence that followed, he asked very quietly, “Just what do you know of the fates of my Firstblood and Secondblood, Ohzeld?”

  Lord Maulstryke drew himself up in his seat, as pale as his questioner, and said with a smile that held no love nor mirth, “I know nothing certain, Erlingar, and assure you that I have taken no hand in anything touching on either of your heirs. Yet was it not this same Maharla who banished your daughter, and then sent forth your Secondblood into the Wild Dark, after your Firstblood had set forth with mine? And has the Dark delivered any of them back to you, or even any word of them?”

  “No,” Lord Evendoom said shortly. “Yet I take your warning. Maharla is a danger to us all. Yet I burned the Talon not over her, but for what she’s unleashed on all of us: this Dark Warrior. A powerless figurehead, perhaps, but a rallying point regardless, and so a danger.”

  Lord Naerlon Dounlar laced his fingers together, and said with a touch of weariness, “We are beset with so many dangers. Evendoom, I accept that this is a threat more immediate than most—and that even if he musters a puny force, Ouvahlor can turn around and thrust at us once again while we’re dealing with him. What I would hear from you, before I say yea or nay, is what you want from us.”

  Evendoom nodded. “Fairly said. I want us all to arm for battle. Warblades assembled, our most difficult crones and spellrobes ordered out on patrol with them into the Wild Dark—and the moment they’re gone, we send a dozen warblades each to the temple, and swiftly scour it out. Then each of us decides which of our crones could best serve Talonnorn by meeting with personal ‘accidents,’ and forthwith arrange those accidents. Let Maharla Evendoom be on all our lists.”

  There was more than one grin around the table, as Lord Evendoom swept on. “Then we meet again, and set our spellrobes to working together—to thoroughly farscry the Wild Dark for the Ravagers, any creeping forays from Ouvahlor, and this Dark Warrior.

  “I like it,” said Lord Raskshaula. “Count Raskshaula in.”

  “Thank you, Morluar.” Lord Evendoom looked around the table. “Naerlon?”

  Lord Dounlar shrugged. “I think this Dark Warrior is a ruse, but I like your scheming in the name of dealing with him. Dounlar stands with you.”

  “I,” Lord Oszrim rasped, “have a question.”

  Lord Evendoom spread his hand in a “say on” gesture.

  “Why can’t our crones just pray to Olone the right way—and snatch this human slave out of whatever cavern he’s currently despoiling, and hurl him into our laps?” Oszrim demanded. “My best spellblade rides my hip, here; I can bury it in him as often as you need me to. Why all the mustering and the spellrobes? What are you really up to?”

  “Arousing your suspicions, of course,” Lord Evendoom sighed. “I’ve told you what I intend, Lorloungart—and I’ve told you all I intend.”

  “I still don’t see why the spellrobes. I mistrust spellrobes working together, for any reason. What if they take it into their heads that Talonnorn would be better off without Lords, and turn and blast us all? How would we stop them?”

  “How indeed?” murmured Lord Oondaunt. “I must confess, Erlingar, the spellrobes worry me, too. Could we not strike that element from your scheme? Or discuss it again at this next meeting you propose, after we’ve rid ourselves of our troublesome crones and the worst of the priestesses?”

  “We could, Raudreth,” Evendoom replied. “I withdraw my suggestion about the spellrobes.”

  “I have another concern,” Lord Maulstryke said flatly. “I want it understood that with the lone exception of Maharla Evendoom, no one is to strike down any crone not of their own house. I want no feuds arising out of this. Moreover, we must be very careful when in the temple, and at all times when dealing with priestesses. I don’t want the wrath of Olone flattening Talonnorn, and all of us with it.”

  “Well said,” Lord Oondaunt murmured, and there were some nods around the table.

  “One more thing,” Lord Maulstryke added.

  “I am unsurprised,” Lord Raskshaula murmured.

  Maulstryke’s gaze turned very cold. “Do you mock me, Morluar?”

  “I mock everyone, Ohzeld, including myself. For hundreds of Turnings I’ve done so, now. Try to get used to it.”

  Lord Maulstryke shook his head, sneering dismissively, and added icily, “I wish to point out why our host’s stated reason for assembling the spellrobes is either mistaken or a ruse—and in either case, must never happen for the reason he has just stated.”

  The glance Lord Evendoom gave Maulstryke then was inquisitive, not hostile. Lord Maulstryke met it for a moment, and then looked around the table and said flatly, “No wizard can touch this Dark Warrior with their spells, or anyone, at a distance out into the Dark. Or even perceive where he is. The Wild Dark has its own crawling magics, that twist and confuse when one gets sufficiently far from one’s foe. Moreover, the Evendoom traitress has her Orb with her, to shield them both.”

  “She can do that?” Lorloungart Oszrim snarled. “Breasts of Olone! What have my crones been hiding from me, I wonder?”

  Several Lords rolled their eyes.

  “Well, it’s never too late to wonder, I suppose,” Lord Raskshaula murmured to the ceiling.


  20

  Not Dangerous Enough Yet

  Am I not dangerous enough yet?

  Or must I slay all of you, to impress?

  —The Deeds of Raularr, Hero of the Niflghar

  Old Bloodblade lifted one eyebrow. “Well?”

  Lharlak and Daruse shrugged and smiled in almost perfect unison.

  “Yon Hairy One knows not what he wants to do,” Daruse said. “He’s none too happy she told us all he was a champion called the Dark Warrior; ’twas news to him.”

  “So much I’d gathered for myself,” Bloodblade said, his voice dry.

  “Yet we do have a certainty for you to chew on, Barandon,” Lharlak put in, adjusting his eye patch. “This Orivon certainly isn’t some cunning schemer who already has some dark plan up his sleeve, and intends to use us without telling them what he’s up to.”

  Daruse nodded. “One thing: we can trust this human. He means what he says.”

  “That might not be a good thing,” Old Bloodblade grunted, but he was smiling.

  Lords stiffened around a table in the Eventowers, and looked sharply at their host—who looked just as alert and alarmed as they were. They could hear distant shouting and a rising, jangling singing sound that all of them knew was the cry of a magical ward under sudden great strain.

  “If you’ve secondary wards,” Lord Evendoom snapped, “awaken them. Those are some of my spellrobes, doing the shouting.”

  Glows and singings erupted around the table, errant sparks racing through empty air to shape auras about swiftly moving arms. Someone screamed just outside the room, the whistle of the wards rose into a wail that was part moan and part earsplitting shriek—and the doors of the room all burst open, evoking curses and the flashes of hurriedly drawn spellblades.

  Through one door, out of a whirlwind of howling ward-magic, a spellblade streaked into the room, flying point-first. It flashed up to Lord Maulstryke, reversed itself smoothly in the air, and slapped its hilt into his hand.

  As the screams and howlings died away, leaving an eerie silence in their wake, five of the Lords of Talonnorn watched Ohzeld Maulstryke reel in his seat, as white as the fangs of a darkwings.

  Trembling, his mouth working, he managed to say, “My Shoan is no more.”

  In deepening silence he sat, struggling to control his face. It seemed to take a very long time before it settled into a calm mask that looked at Evendoom and asked gently, “Do I have your leave to butcher Maharla Evendoom as I see fit?”

  Lord Evendoom nodded grimly. “Yes.”

  Without another word, Ohzeld Maulstryke rose, bowed to Evendoom, and strode out, the spellblade pulsing in his hand.

  Klaerra’s ward flickered as some prowler in the Dark blundered too near—and then hastily scuttled away again.

  Staring up at its glow, they lay together on their backs, bare and sated, on stone made soft and warm by the ward beneath them.

  Jalandral smiled. “You’re scheming again; I can tell by your smile.”

  That smile widened ere Klaerra murmured, “There are many spells I must teach you yet, to make you truly a blade to change and rule Talonnorn, and to cleanse House Evendoom into true greatness.”

  “I’m not dangerous enough, yet?” Jalandral’s tone was mocking.

  “Not quite,” she replied with a smile.

  In a swift, lithe surge he rolled atop her, putting his hands lightly around her neck, both his thumbs hooked under her Orb just enough to lift it away from her throat.

  “Aren’t you afraid,” he asked, his eyes very large and dark as their noses almost touched, “that once I’ve learned the magic I want from you, I’ll just … remove an old crone who now knows me too well, and might want to leash me for the rest of my life, and use me as her sword on others?”

  “Afraid, no,” Klaerra told him calmly. “Disappointed if you serve me thus, perhaps.”

  She put her hands over his and pushed on them, tightening his grip on her throat.

  “I was old and tired,” she whispered, “when you were a drooling toddler. If I can see Maharla gone and our blood on the road back to greatness, I’ll be happy to breathe my last. The tenderness you’ve shown me this Turning has been a delight I’d thought never to taste again. Jalandral, kill me whenever you feel the need. Only let me make you stronger first. Much stronger.”

  Jalandral gently thrust her hands away, releasing his grip on her throat. He shook his head gently, in bemused wonder. “You are so much deeper in your scheming than I’d thought. So tell me why I must be ‘much stronger.’ Is it to humble scores of Talonar crones? Impress every warblade, so none will dare stand against me? Hmm?”

  “If it even seems possible that you may unite and rule Talonnorn, there will be some who will hurl everything they have at you to prevent that. Klarandarr of Ouvahlor, for example.”

  “And who is Klarandarr of Ouvahlor?”

  “The greatest Niflghar spellrobe the Dark has ever known—perhaps the greatest we ever will know. Yet he’s not the greatest threat.”

  “Oh? Ah! Olone, of course.”

  “No. Olone aids those who triumph, and only watches all others. The greatest threat to you are the oldest crones of the rival Houses of Talonnorn. Not the Eldests in rank, mind; I mean the old and wrinkled wise ones. Like me.”

  “Oh? You mean they’ll teach spells to their own champions, to send forth against me?”

  “They’re already hard at work on that; you’re not seeing their champions in battle yet only because they don’t know it’s you they have to defeat. I spoke rather of the hidden weapon they can wield to doom us all. The weapon they alone know how to awaken.”

  Jalandral crooked an eyebrow. “Are you going to tell me?”

  He moved his hips as if to thrust into her, but Klaerra did not smile.

  “That Which Sleeps Below,” she whispered.

  “The Ghodal? You’re trying to frighten me with a nursery telling?”

  “I’m trying to shatter the jaunty arrogance you believe armors you, Jalandral Evendoom. The Ghodal is real, and some of the crones of our city know how to summon it. Haven’t you ever wondered why we hadn’t all erupted over this or that insult, with the Hunt and our spells and so many warblades and all the feuds, and butchered each other in the streets, long before you were born? ’Twas the Ghodal, and knowing that other Houses could take you down with them, if ever they felt threatened enough.”

  It was Jalandral’s turn to whisper. “You’re serious.”

  Klaerra nodded. “You have so much more to learn. Don’t kill me quite yet.”

  Taerune looked younger when she was asleep—younger and terrified, as if some monster were clawing at her in her dreams. Her eyes moved under closed lids, roving desperately this way and that.

  Orivon reached out a hand to rouse her, and then drew it back without touching her. If he robbed her of slumber, it was gone for good, and for all he knew she might always sleep this way.

  Yawning, he peered again at her blade, half-protruding from under the cloak that was draped over her. He’d thrust it into one of her own boots, wadded up the House Evendoom robe he’d had from the spellrobe, and stuffed the boot full, around the blade, so (he hoped) the steel would stay in, and she’d not harm herself or anyone else while sleeping.

  “She’ll do no harm,” Daruse murmured in his ear. “Be at ease—and stay that way, please; we’d speak with you privately, yonder.”

  “‘We’?” Orivon muttered—and reared back, startled, as Lharlak was suddenly grinning at him from inches away, the eye patch-wearing head rising up almost out of his lap.

  “We mean you no harm,” Daruse muttered. “We just want to know where you stand on certain things—and what you know of this Evendoom lady you travel with.”

  “As to that second question, you could just ask me,” Taerune said flatly from below them, her eyes suddenly wide open and fixed on him.

  Lharlak and Daruse drew back, spreading their empty hands to show they intended no harm.

&n
bsp; “And as to your first question,” Taerune added calmly, “I’ll listen to Orivon with interest.”

  Her Dark Warrior grinned at that. Through another yawn, he asked the two Ravagers, “Can’t this wait until I’ve slept?”

  “It can,” Daruse said simply, retreating.

  Taerune gazed steadily at both Ravagers, something approaching defiance in her eyes. As Orivon rolled himself into his cloaks beside her, she stretched her arm out over him protectively.

  Daruse gave her a grin and made the Ravager signs for “acceptance” and “self on guard watch.” Turning away, Lharlak at his shoulder, he sought the deeper darknesses.

  Taerune watched them go, the Orb at her throat glowing slightly, and mouthed a silent curse. Or two.

  “Remember,” Taersor said sternly, “sword all but the most junior priestesses—and every one of them who defies us, too.”

  “What? But the temple cooks are the bes—”

  “You can spare the cooks,” Taersor snapped. “Hurlbows ready? Right! Forward and fire!”

  The two armored guardians flanking the tall and splendid gates of the Place of the Goddess wore armor that showcased their striking beauty more than it protected them. Yet that armor met the sudden hail of streaking shafts with the sudden glows of powerful wards, that turned aside onrushing death even as it ate away at the shafts, so only drifts of dust struck the ground and temple wall.

  The warblades had expected no less, and trotted steadily forward, reloading the bows strapped to their forearms. The two armored Holy-shes exchanged terrified looks, and cast swift and longing glances back into the glow of the open temple behind them. Death was coming for them—but the wrath and damnation of Olone awaited if they fled from it …