In the Claws of the Tiger

by James Wyatt

  “Holy power, eh?” Auftane murmured, stepping backward out of the creature’s reach while its attention was focused on Janik.

  “Got any of that in your wands there, Auftane?” Janik said. Even as he spoke, though, he saw the dwarf using his fingertip to trace symbols on the wooden shaft of his mace. As Janik feinted and parried the fiend’s much heavier sword, Auftane stepped forward again, swinging another powerful blow at the creature’s tigerlike head.

  This blow mattered, Janik was sure—the dwarf’s mace crackled with power as it connected, and Auftane carried his swing through in a stream of crimson. The fiend staggered and snarled. It kept its feet, but Janik had the clear sense that it lacked the strength to roar.

  He took the opportunity to drive his sword into its gaping mouth. He placed the strike perfectly, and the blow should have killed the fiend in an instant, but somehow, the blade refused to cut. He might as well have been stabbing the creature with a feather.

  Snarling, the fiend bit down on Janik’s blade, holding it tightly between its teeth. In the instant before Janik realized what was happening and he released his grip on the hilt, the fiend swung its shield into Janik’s ribcage with crushing force, sending him sprawling backward to the ground. It spat the sword onto the ground and stepped forward, raising its cruel blade over its head.

  A blast of brilliant light engulfed the fiend, accompanied by a deafening clap of thunder. When Janik’s vision cleared, he saw the fiend still standing over him, but its sword had slipped from its hand and its eyes were rolled back in its head. Behind it, he could see Mathas standing near Dania, looking with satisfaction at the result of his lightning spell. The fiend slumped to the ground, joining its companion in oblivion.

  “Sea of Fire,” Janik muttered, struggling to his feet. “Let’s not do that again. Suppose there are more of those?”

  “Someone blew that horn,” Auftane said, handing Janik his sword.

  “You’re right,” Janik said as they walked over to Mathas and Dania. “I think I heard the same horn three weeks ago, if that’s possible.”

  “Low sounds like that can travel quite far,” Mathas said.

  Dania looked puzzled. “Could Krael have been that far ahead of us?” she asked.

  Janik buried his fingers in his hair. “If they were really traveling day and night without ever stopping, I suppose they could.”

  Dania used her foot to roll the nearer fiend onto its back, looking at its tigerlike face matted with blood. “So these things attacked Krael and his party here, probably three weeks ago, when you heard that horn, Janik. The skeleton soldiers probably fell quickly, and the necromancer died.”

  “But Krael and the warforged escaped,” Janik said, scowling.

  “That seems most likely,” Mathas said. “Although perhaps they were captured.”

  “What I most dislike about this,” Dania said, “is the horn. Somebody blew it, obviously, which means more of these fiends are probably in that tower. But more to the point—”

  “Somebody was meant to hear it,” Auftane said.

  “Exactly,” Dania said. “Which suggests we’ve just found an outpost of a little fiend kingdom.”

  “Janik,” said Auftane, “how far are we from Mel-Aqat?”

  “From Mel-Aqat?” Janik pulled the sheaf of parchments from his pack and produced his map. He held his little finger up to the map, then compared it to the map’s scale. “About a hundred and fifty miles,” he said.

  “A hundred and fifty miles of barren desert,” Mathas added. “Probably three weeks of travel.”

  “Three weeks …” Auftane mused. “And you heard the horn three weeks ago, right?”

  “You think the horn could be signaling someone in Mel-Aqat,” Janik said. “I think you might be right.”

  “You recognized these fiends?” Auftane asked. “From your last visit there?”

  Janik took a deep breath and let it out slowly, rubbing his hand over the stubble on his chin as he collected his thoughts. “I recognized them from texts,” he said, “not from experience. The earliest descriptions of Mel-Aqat describe giant statues of people with the heads of tigers, so naturally I’ve done some research about what those were supposed to depict. You remember in Stormreach, when we were talking about the Tablet of Shummarak? About the great war that supposedly raged between fiends and dragons in the first age of the world? Well, the legends describe those fiends—or at least some of them—as having the heads of tigers.”

  “Rakshasas,” Mathas said. “I have read of them as well.”

  “Exactly,” Janik said. “The most powerful of these rakshasas were called rajahs, their rulers, and they were ultimately bound within the earth—”

  “By the couatls,” Dania interrupted, “the allies of the dragons. They sacrificed themselves to bind the fiends forever.”

  “Right,” said Janik. “But the servitors of the rajahs were not all bound or destroyed. Several ranks or breeds of these fiends served the rajahs. Some wielded powerful magic. A black-furred variety served as scouts and assassins. And there was a warrior caste, called zakyas. I’m guessing that’s what we have here.”

  He paused, running his hands through his hair. “It is possible that Mel-Aqat was a place where one of the rakshasa rajahs was imprisoned.”

  “What?” Dania turned to face Janik.

  “I’m beginning to see some of the pieces of the puzzle here,” Janik said, staring at the tiger-headed demon on the ground. “I don’t know how they fit together yet, but I think I see some pieces.”

  He furrowed his brow in concentration.

  “Some of the most ancient texts that mention Mel-Aqat—the same ones that describe the statues of these demons—call it the Place of Imprisonment. I’m certain that the ziggurat at the heart of the ruins is the locus of that imprisonment. That ziggurat is the one structure still standing in the city, and we could not find a way inside it on our last visit. So I have considered the possibility that your church is correct, Dania, and we released this rakshasa rajah from the Place of Imprisonment on our last visit. But I don’t think that’s the case, partly because we never got into the ziggurat.”

  Dania’s face was flushed. “Unless the Ramethene Sword was a key of some kind,” she said, “and removing it from its place opened the prison.”

  “That might be possible—if it weren’t contradicted by every extant text about the Ramethene Sword,” Janik snapped. “If your carefully reasoned theory had any validity, you would expect to see descriptions of the sword as a key, or a linchpin, or a keystone, maybe a cornerstone. Instead, it’s described—as one would expect for a weapon of war—in terms of its capabilities as a weapon. It’s the Sunderer, the Fleshrender, the Axis of Destruction. You are too hasty to assume the worst, Dania. But the most important reason I don’t believe we released the rajah is that the world would have noticed by now. By all accounts, these creatures possess power to rival the Dark Six, and little subtlety. If one had been released into the world three years ago, I’m fairly confident that Stormreach would not still be standing, at the very least.”

  Dania looked unconvinced, but Janik ignored her to continue his train of thought.

  “That said, I suspect that the possibility of Mel-Aqat being the Place of Imprisonment for one of these fiend lords is not irrelevant to what we’re doing here. Dania said that Krael and Maija were looking for the Tablet of Shummarak in Karrnath. I told you before that the Tablet is an ancient inscription that describes what we’ve just been talking about—the fiends that ruled the world in ancient times, and the couatls that imprisoned them in the earth. Thanks to Krael stealing the most important books from my library, I have no idea whether there’s a specific connection between the Tablet and Mel-Aqat, but it seems pretty obvious there’s a general connection. Both of them are connected to these ancient fiends.”

  Auftane interrupted. “So you think Krael and Maija were looking for the Tablet so they could use it to free the fiend imprisoned at Mel-Aqat?”
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  “I think that’s possible, yes,” Janik said. “Although I still have no idea how much Maija is involved in all of this. I only know what Dania told me.”

  “We have no evidence that she is here with Krael,” Dania said. “Assuming she’s still alive, she would have slowed the party down.”

  “Unless she was also riding in the palanquin with that necromancer,” Mathas added.

  “Not very likely,” Janik said. “No, I don’t think Maija is here. But the other piece is these zakya warriors. Again, I think there’s some connection to Mel-Aqat, but I’m not sure what it means. We’re relatively close to Mel-Aqat, close enough that the horn might have been meant for someone there. But we didn’t see any fiends there last time. So does that mean that the imprisoned rajah has been freed, and these zakyas are serving him? But then what’s Krael doing here?”

  Janik heaved a deep sigh. “Oh, it makes my head ache. This is the sort of problem best addressed in a quiet library, not out in the wild.”

  “And what are we going to do about that horn?” Dania added, casting a wary glance toward the tower nearby. They were mostly shielded from the view of anyone in the tower, but they had hardly been careful about hiding since the first attack of the rakshasas. “Do you think we should attack the tower, Janik?”

  “I think it all depends on what’s in there. Mathas?”

  “Of course, Janik,” Mathas said. “I will require some time.” He turned toward the tower and closed his eyes, beginning a low chant and tracing complex symbols in the air with his hands.

  Janik turned to Auftane. “You did something to your weapon that made it more effective against them. What was that? I felt like I was stabbing them with a spoon instead of my sword.”

  “Like many creatures of evil,” Dania said before Auftane could answer, “these fiends are susceptible to holy might. Without that power behind your blows, your sword could not pierce their defenses.”

  “So we know Dania’s black-and-white interpretation of events,” Janik said, looking at Auftane. “I want to hear yours, Auftane. You’re no paladin. What did you do to your mace?”

  “Well, Dania’s interpretation is correct,” the dwarf replied. “More or less. The world is full of opposing powers, and it’s simple enough to find one power to use against another. When you’re fighting a creature of cold, you make your weapon fiery. And when you’re fighting fiends, you make it holy.”

  “But how do you do it?”

  Auftane laughed. “That’s what I do. Everything has magic in it—it’s just a matter of adjusting it to get the effect you want. It’s relatively easy to do, if you only need it to last a short time. With enough time and the right materials, you can make it permanent.”

  “So you could do it to my sword?”

  “Sure,” the dwarf said, “for about an hour and a half.”

  “Long enough for us to clear out that tower.”

  Mathas made a last dramatic gesture and fell silent, standing like a statue with his eyes closed. The others watched him in silence for several moments, then he began to speak.

  “I didn’t see anything between here and the tower,” Mathas announced. “There’s not much to the tower at all—from this side it looks mostly intact, but if you go around the other side, the walls are crumbled away. There’s one more fiend by the doorway, it looks like—yes, there’s another one perched on a ledge higher up, looking toward us. With an enormous horn. I think that’s all, just those two.”

  “Go ahead and send the eye around in a wider circle,” Janik said. “Let’s make sure there aren’t more hiding in the hills.”

  “Very well,” the elf said. After a short silence, he said, “No, nothing. Looks like we’re clear.”

  “Great,” said Janik. “Let’s go get those two.”

  “Wait, Mathas,” Dania said. “Can you see if there’s a way for us to approach the tower under cover? Can we circle behind somehow?”

  “Hold on,” Mathas said. “I’m not sure … yes, perhaps. If we start going that way—”

  Without opening his eyes, Mathas pointed away from the tower, to where a shallow gulley ran down from the level spot where they stood.

  “—we should be able to come around more or less from behind. I think we can get fairly close before we come into view.”

  “Excellent,” Dania said.

  “Good thinking, Dania,” Janik said. “Are we ready?” Mathas’s eyes fluttered open, and he nodded.

  “Here,” Auftane said, “let me have your sword.”

  Janik’s left hand dropped to the scabbard at his belt before he realized that he still held the blade in his right. He wiped it clean on the dead necromancer’s robe before handing it, hilt first, to the dwarf.

  Auftane took the sword, holding it gingerly in his hands. He dipped his thumb into a small jar he had produced from one of the many pouches at his belt, and began tracing glyphs and symbols on the blade.

  “It was faster when he did it before,” Janik said with an apologetic glance at Mathas, who grinned.

  “I can do it faster, but it takes a lot out of me,” Auftane said, continuing to trace symbols on the sword and sounding a bit distracted. “In the thick of battle, it’s worth it. Since we have the time, I might as well take it.”

  “Fair enough,” Janik said.

  A quarter of an hour later, they were making their way up another gully toward the back side of the tower. As Mathas had described, the ancient tower was now little more than a single, curved wall facing the north. The fiends had erected a wooden ladder leading up to a small ledge marking what must once have been the tower’s roof. There was barely enough room for the creature that stood up there, and it kept one hand on the wall as if ready to catch itself in case the ledge crumbled beneath its feet. The zakya kept its eyes glued to the north, clearly still expecting Janik’s party to emerge from hiding in that direction.

  They came into view of the tower within a stone’s throw of the two fiends. Mathas started the battle by engulfing them in a white blast of frigid air. Frost caked their armor and fur as they roared in surprise and pain. Janik and Dania rushed forward and the zakya on the ground ran to meet them, while the one on the upper ledge made its way quickly but carefully down the ladder, the rungs slick with ice.

  Before the second one finished its descent, Janik and Dania had flanked the first zakya and sent it sprawling on the ground. Janik gave an admiring glance at his sword, which no longer felt like a blunt implement. Whatever Auftane had done had proven quite effective—his second blow had pierced straight to the fiend’s heart, killing it instantly.

  Seeing its companion felled so quickly, the second fiend checked its headlong charge and approached more warily, careful to avoid getting between Janik and Dania. Auftane reached them at the same time as the zakya, swinging his mace into its hips as it focused on Dania, hacking with its sword and slashing with its shield. Roaring in fury, the creature turned its full attention to Auftane, pushing him backward—but leaving its own back exposed to Janik’s sword. Janik aimed his next blow carefully, finding his opportunity when the zakya overextended its arm to hack at the nimble dwarf. He slid his blade into a gap in the creature’s armor at its shoulder, and it stumbled, roared weakly, and collapsed.

  “You said something about making this magic permanent?” Janik said to Auftane, admiring his sword once more.

  Auftane laughed. “Time and money,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’re not likely to have the time or the right materials until we’re back in Stormreach.”

  “Too bad,” Janik said. He wiped the blade on the fur of the second rakshasa, still crusted with frost, and slid it back into its sheath.

  With the tower cleared of its guards, Janik led his friends out of the tower and into Menechtarun, the great golden desert. The dry scrub that had been growing more sparse since they left the riverbank disappeared completely. The dry earth became sun-blasted sand, and they found their footing much less stable. With each step, their feet sank and s
lid in the sand, slowing their progress to a crawl. The Fangs of Angarak rose up on their left, and Janik steered their course toward the more solid—and, he hoped, less arid—ground of the foothills.

  They saw no more towers and no more zakyas. The sand crawled with snakes and scorpions—some of them almost as large as Auftane—but most of them slid or scuttled away as Janik drew near at the front of the group, and the more aggressive specimens were quickly dispatched. After fighting armor-clad demons, even a dwarf-sized snake did not seem threatening.

  Each night, Mathas erected his magical hut, its walls seemingly formed of sand bricks. The quiet desert grew noisier at night as unseen creatures emerged from their hiding places to hunt in the cooler air and cover of darkness. Janik continued to sleep fitfully, spending hours lying in his bunk listening to the sounds outside and the slow breathing of his companions. He rarely rose to look out the door any more—partly because he doubted any serious threat, and partly because he didn’t want to risk another confrontation with Dania.

  Mel-Aqat loomed larger in his mind with each passing day. They would reach the ruins in a matter of weeks. What would they find there? Had they indeed released or awakened some ancient fiend that had reestablished a kingdom of demons in the ruins and the surrounding desert? Would Krael be there, perhaps already engaged in the ritual that would shatter the spiritual bonds of the couatls and release the rakshasa rajah from the Place of Imprisonment? Was it possible that Krael had already succeeded?

  And what about Maija? He did not expect to find her at Mel-Aqat, of course, but he held on to the possibility that he might find some clue there about what had happened to her.

  Perhaps even a way to bring her back to him.

  Passing days stretched into passing weeks, and then … they arrived. Just as the days seemed to blur, one into the next, in a haze of desert heat and endless sand, Mathas spotted giant stone blocks half-buried in the desert sand.