The Eye of the Chained God tap-3

by Don Bassingthwaite

  “So they keep you out of the valley, but if you stay here, they’ll eventually start preying on you,” said Albanon. “Why not keep moving? Find another place to take refuge from the Abyssal Plague?”

  Hurn snarled at the suggestion. Cariss grunted and said, “The Thornpads will run no further.”

  “As you say, eladrin, my position is not so safe,” said Turbull with a shrug. “I have bent tradition as far as it can be bent. More and there will be warriors who will challenge my leadership.”

  “So what about us?” asked Tempest. “Why were you being evasive about the valley when we asked?”

  Roghar snorted. “Isn’t it obvious? He hoped that by letting us go into the valley we would kill or weaken the perytons so that his people didn’t have to face them.”

  A look of shame crept over Turbull’s face. “It is not the way to treat guests, but at first I hoped that if you were seeking the valley, you might already have some plan or magic for dealing with them. But then yes, I hoped you would deal with the perytons for us.” He swept a hand around to all of them. “There are only a handful of you, but you’re fighting the dragon who spreads the plague. You’re either mighty or mad.”

  Albanon couldn’t argue with that, although he might have decided on “mad” over “mighty.”

  “What about us?” Shara said, nodding to Quarhaun. “You had no idea we were Vestapalk’s enemies. What did you want with us?”

  “Ah,” said Turbull. He sat back. “We had been considering trying to lure the perytons into the open so we could attack them on the ground. Obviously, I didn’t want to risk the lives of my people as bait in the trap.”

  He spoke with such casual bluntness that for a moment it took Albanon’s breath away.

  Shara’s eyes went wide. Her entire body tensed. “Bait? We were going to be bait?”

  Before she could say anything more, Quarhaun put a hand on her arm. Shara turned to look at him and, somewhat to his surprise, Albanon saw the tension in her body ease as she calmed down. It didn’t go away entirely but it no longer seemed as if she might attack Turbull with her bare hands. Quarhaun looked to Turbull. “It is the practical choice. Why sacrifice a friend when an enemy is at hand?”

  The Tigerclaw chief seemed startled, but he nodded. “You are not soft, drow, but you don’t speak with the cruelty of your people, either. I may have misjudged you.”

  “A lot of people do that,” Quarhaun said. Albanon thought his gaze slipped to Uldane for a moment-certainly the halfling shifted uncomfortably-but then Quarhaun glanced directly at him. “It seems you’re speaking for us, Albanon. Everyone’s motivations are out. What do we do now?”

  Albanon pressed his lips together. How had people started looking to him for leadership? He was getting used to it, but it would have been better if he had more experience-or more confidence that what he decided was the proper course of action. It might not have been directly his fault that Splendid and Immeral lay dead in Winterhaven, but sometimes it felt like it.

  He took a deep breath and turned his attention inward to the kernel of the urge that had brought them here. If there was something else it could show him, some hint of what they faced… but there was nothing more than the pull that had been with him for so many days, coupled with the new certainty that the valley was their destination. That was where they would find the means to defeat Vestapalk.

  Albanon sighed and looked up. “We both need to get into the valley,” he said to Turbull. “Instead of trying to trick each other, why don’t we work together to defeat the perytons? Then we’ll take whatever waits for us, you can have the valley, and we may all survive the plague.”

  Turbull turned to Cariss and Hurn. “You know the mood among the warriors. Do you think they’ll go along with this?”

  The two shifters looked at each other. Cariss made a face. “They may fight alongside Albanon and the others, but the drow and the human are known as thieves and Uldane challenged you at the feast. They won’t like it.”

  Turbull drew himself up. “But if I command it?”

  “They’ll fight,” said Hurn, “but if we fail, they’ll blame you.”

  “Then we won’t fail.”

  Albanon twisted around to look at his friends. Their answers were already on their faces in twisted, uncertain mouths and furrowed brows, but all of them-from Roghar to Uldane to Shara-nodded. He turned back to Turbull. “We’re in. We shouldn’t wait. Do we attack tomorrow?”

  Turbull gave him a sly smile. “The perytons hunt by day,” he said. “You’re rested. My warriors are fed. I was thinking of making the journey tonight.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Vestapalk flew through the minds of plague demons. He saw towns devastated and cities under siege. Villages scattered. Tribes absorbed into the swelling, all-encompassing union of the Voidharrow. Plague demons stalked the face of the world. Each one lived within him. He lived within each one.

  And yet he couldn’t find what he wanted. “Where are they?” he roared. “ Where are they? ”

  His voice echoed within the Plaguedeep, silencing the chitter of the demons around him. Fury broke within him. They couldn’t help. All that he saw through their eyes was himself and the pool of Voidharrow that roiled in agitation around him. Useless! He lashed out at those closest to him-not with talon or tail, but with waves of the Voidharrow. The demons shrieked and scrambled to escape. Many weren’t fast enough. A dozen were caught by the crystalline crimson liquid and dragged back into the pool.

  They sank into it, their flesh and bones dissolving, and the pool grew a little larger. The Voidharrow lived within each demon. Each demon lived within the Voidharrow. One day, the Voidharrow might fill not just a pool, but oceans.

  Might. If Vestapalk could find Albanon and the others who stood against him. The power of Tharizdun had entered the world. The god himself might still be chained, but he had found a new channel for a portion of his power-and his anger. The Voidharrow trembled with fear, a trembling that spread through its connections with every plague demon. Vestapalk plunged back into those trembling connections. Albanon and his band couldn’t have simply vanished from the world. The Voidharrow had eyes everywhere. He would find them.

  In his mind, he returned to the area where he had last glimpsed his enemies, in the smoking ruins of Winterhaven, and sought out the nearest demon mind. It was a small, frail thing and when it revealed nothing to him, he crushed it with the force of his will, then moved on to the next. And the next. And the next, passing from mind to mind in sweeping arcs. Where could Albanon have gone? South, back to Fallcrest and the heart of the Nentir Vale? There was nothing for him there but the heaviest concentrations of plague demons. East from Winterhaven toward the Winterbole Forest, Lake Nen, and the village of Nenlast? There were demons there as well. He and his band would have been spotted. North and west there were only league upon league of mountains.

  Mountains, Vestapalk realized, and few if any plague demons. Back in the Plaguedeep, his body roared again in frustrated fury, but in the phantom space of the Voidharrow, he simply reached out and called, Vestausan! Vestausir!

  A heartbeat later, two voices answered him simultaneously. This one hears.

  A twist of his thoughts and he was peering through two sets of eyes at wilderness flashing by beneath. He recognized the marshes of the southern Vale. Turn north, he commanded. Search the Cairngorm Peaks and the Stonemarch.

  This one obeys, answered Vestausan. This one flies, said Vestausir. The double view of marshes whirled as the pair banked. Vestapalk turned his mind back north, searching for any plague demon presence in the mountain wilderness. There was nothing except a great blank space in his vision of the world. He cursed the empty places. Beyond the mountains, orc and goblin tribes had succumbed to the plague, but they hadn’t ventured into the mountains. He could order them in, but their progress would be slow-the servants he had created after Vestagix’s destruction would arrive far more quickly, though they still had a wide territory with
many hiding places to search. Vestapalk swept the mountains again.

  Something caught at the edge of his mind like a broken scale on smooth hide. He paused.

  The creature was no demon, but it carried the Voidharrow. A demon had wounded it and now the plague worked on its body. Its flesh was being transformed-but slowly. Vestapalk recognized the touch of the gods at work. The carrier of the plague had faith and it knew enough of the Voidharrow to attempt to use the power of that faith to fight it. Vestapalk’s excitement flared. He focused his will and pushed through the creature’s nascent connection to the Voidharrow.

  His host gasped with pain and stumbled, but vision opened up around Vestapalk. If he’d been able to take true control of his host’s body, he would have laughed. He withdrew and reached out to Vestausan and Vestausir. Here, he told them, sharing what he’d seen. The pair snarled acknowledgment and beat their wings hard.

  Vestapalk opened his eyes. The pool of the Voidharrow had calmed somewhat, though ripples still shook its surface and made little waves that lapped at the three broken skulls-once golden vessels of power-that lay drained at its edge. Vestapalk sank down into the pool, letting it surround him. “Soon,” he hissed in reassurance.

  In the darkness of the forest, Roghar gasped abruptly, tripped, and went thrashing into a bush. Walking just ahead of the dragonborn, Shara looked back but couldn’t see anything except a dim shape. The growling chuckles of shifters rose from all around them.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to lead you?” came Albanon’s voice.

  “Yes!” Roghar snapped. “It… was a root. Are you going to tell me when to lift my feet?”

  “Easy,” said Albanon defensively. “I was only offering. Stumble along on your own.”

  “Trust him to find the only root on the path,” Quarhaun murmured in her ear. Shara shushed him, but smiled and squeezed the drow’s hand. He squeezed back. Over the last few weeks since they’d left Fallcrest, she’d gotten used to having him lead her when they chose to travel at night. It wasn’t the fastest but it could be surprisingly thrilling. It was also one of the unexpectedly charming things she’d discovered about Quarhaun.

  Somewhere ahead of them, Tempest led Belen and Uldane the same way. Those with nightvision guided those without. Turbull had offered one of his shifters-all of the Tigerclaw warriors could see in the dark as well-as an additional guide, but Belen had refused, saying that outsiders were capable of traveling on their own. It had earned a few laughs from some Tigerclaws, but a grudging respect from others. Belen had surprised Shara, too. The Fallcrest guard scarcely seemed like the same person she’d been when Shara had seen her last. She was more confident, more driven.

  But Belen wasn’t the only one who had changed. Shara heard quiet footsteps approach and another shape loomed in the dark. “It’s me,” said Albanon.

  “I may not be able to see, but I’m not an idiot,” she told him. She dropped her voice. “What’s wrong with Roghar?”

  “I don’t know. He’s been like this since…”

  He hesitated, but Shara could guess what he was going to say. She said it for him. “Since Winterhaven? Uldane told us what happened there. I’m sorry about Splendid, Albanon. I never met Immeral, but he sounded like a good man.”

  “Thank you,” said Albanon. “I’m sorry, too. It was your home. Before the plague demons attacked, hearing you and Quarhaun had been there just a few days before was a bright spot.”

  “Was it really?” Quarhaun asked.

  “Yes. I’ve missed both of you. I’d rather you hadn’t left.” He hesitated a second time. “Uldane said you talked after he found you. Did you talk about… that?”

  Quarhaun actually laughed under his breath. Shara squeezed his hand again, this time hard enough to make him stop. “We cleared the air between us,” she said. “I was sitting in that tent, wondering who the travelers were that the Tigerclaws were honoring with a feast, when I heard something behind me…”

  The sight of the halfling’s startled face as he crawled up under the tent wall had been the last thing she’d expected to see-and the most welcome. But it had also come with a few long moments of simply staring at each other awkwardly, neither certain of what to say. What had eventually come out was a babble of apologies, kept to a whisper so as not to wake the dozing guard outside. If the last words she’d exchanged with Uldane in Fallcrest had been a torrent of angry accusations, their reunion had been marked with tears and self-recrimination. Mostly from Uldane, true, though she’d felt moved as well. Shara wasn’t a born storyteller like some people, but she knew she’d be able to repeat Uldane’s apology word for word until she the day she died.

  “I jumped to conclusions,” the halfling had said. “I judged Quarhaun as a drow before I knew him as a person. Jarren was a great man and my friend, but he’s gone. I know you can’t spend your life mourning him.”

  “Uldane, I’ll always mourn Jarren,” she told him.

  “But you’ll change-and I know that’s good because Quarhaun has changed for you, but I want everything to stay like it was when we were all happiest.” He sighed. “So maybe I’m the one who needs to change. So many people have died because of Vestapalk and this stupid plague. I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you for loving someone else. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?” He went over and pulled off Quarhaun’s hood. “Can you forgive me, too?”

  The effect of the apology was somewhat spoiled because Quarhaun was gagged under the hood, but the drow nodded vigorously, then twisted around and gestured for his bonds to be cut. Uldane had freed them both, but he also took the time to tell them everything that had happened and exactly what their situation was.

  “I had thought staying in the tent and waiting for him to come back from talking to you and Turbull was the hardest thing I’d ever done,” she told Albanon. “Until we heard the Tigerclaws coming back. With no idea how things stood, we had to go back to pretending to be helpless. That was hard.”

  “Why didn’t you just run?” Albanon asked. “You could have gone out the back of the tent and been away before anyone knew you were missing.”

  “Uldane told us not to,” said Quarhaun. “He said the Tigerclaws would just hunt us down and that it would be harder for you afterward. Confronting Turbull directly and demanding our release was his idea.”

  Surprise forced Albanon’s voice higher. “Uldane said not to run? Uldane?”

  “I can hear you, you know,” Uldane called from up ahead. “And you don’t have to act all shocked about it. Like I told Shara, people can change.”

  “I just didn’t think it would be you!” Albanon called back.

  Uldane’s huff of indignation was loud enough to carry. Tempest laughed and so did some of the Tigerclaws.

  Roghar crashed into another bush in the darkness. “By Hota’s eye!” said Turbull out of the shadows. “Will someone guide the dragonborn!”

  “No one touch me!” The dim figure that was Roghar thrashed its way out of the bush and dropped into a defensive crouch. “Stay back!”

  “Roghar?” Albanon said with concern. Shara heard him leave her side. All around them, the faint sounds of the Tigerclaws moving through the woods ceased. She heard Tempest murmur to Belen and Uldane, then move back to her friend as well.

  “What’s happening?” she whispered to Quarhaun, but the drow put a finger to her lips. Albanon and Tempest were both speaking softly as they approached Roghar. It sounded like they were the only ones moving. She heard Roghar draw a ragged breath.

  “I need a moment,” he said. “I need to pray.” His voice trailed off, but Shara thought she heard him say something about holy light or something similar.

  Albanon must have heard more. “I’m going to make a light, Turbull,” he said sharply. “Roghar needs it.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer from the Tigerclaw chief. A glow sprang to life, shining from the end of Albanon’s staff. At any other time, Shara might have called it dim, but it seemed like a blaze in the darkness
. It lit up Albanon’s and Tempest’s faces-grave with concern-and shone over Roghar. Shara realized that what she’d taken for a fighting stance was actually a weary slump. Roghar looked exhausted. Tempest crouched down beside him.

  “Take a moment,” she said. “Pray if you need to.”

  The paladin nodded. He slipped his shield from his arm and turned it around so that the symbol of Bahamut painted on its surface faced him, then he leaned his head against it. His face vanished in the shadow, but Shara could see his teeth flash as he murmured. His big frame seemed to shake with the weight of his prayer.

  Then a new white light shimmered into existence. It appeared to condense out of the air and skip along the surface of Roghar’s armor. Shara had seen the radiant light of the gods before-the paladin had summoned it and so had Kri before he turned on them-but as it hovered over the suffering dragonborn in the darkness of the forest, it seemed more a sacred and holy thing than ever before. She wasn’t an overly religious person and the simple expression of faith made her want to drop to her knees. Half-glimpsed in the shadows, she saw some of the Tigerclaws touch talismans and amulets, their eyes wide.

  The holy light lingered a moment longer, then sank into Roghar, passing right through his armor. He drew another breath, this one sharp but strong, and raised his head. His eyes were clear again, his gaze calm and steady. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We should hasten on. I’ll accept a guide. Albanon, you can dismiss the light.”

  “You can keep it for now,” said Turbull. The shifter stood on the edge of Albanon’s illumination with Cariss and Hurn to either side of him. All three looked a little awed. “There’s nothing nearby we need to worry about alerting.”