More silent than the faint breeze passing through dead limbs, Shantu slipped through the darkness. His passing seemed to bring even more intense blackness, an increase in the night’s oppressive cloak that was not imaginary.
Ever southward the beast hunted. Not once had it noticed the spoor of a quarry worth its efforts. Most of the animal life had been driven from the vale, and the few pathetic creatures Shantu detected could not attract the beast’s interest, though scarcely a creature that breathed escaped the stalker’s keen senses.
But the spoor of a rabbit, a squirrel, or even a deer did not interest the beast. It hungered for grander game, for prey whose killing would serve the dark purposes of Bhaal.
At last Shantu found such a worthy quarry. The scent came faintly from the distance, in the blackest part of the night. The beast did not pause to confirm the spoor as a normal hunter would. Instead, Shantu sprang to the south, toward the source of the signal that had triggered the displacer beast’s hunt.
Now Shantu became a black streak, a tireless shape slipping through the dead forest at startling speed, yet making no more sound than the flight of a night owl. And as the monster ran, its mouth gaped more broadly than ever. The curved fangs seemed to grin in anticipation as Shantu raced toward the kill.
Mother, give me the patience and the strength to forgive him. Allow me to welcome his help, to use his strength to fight for your cause.
And give me the might that I may work your will and restore your body to you, that I may tend you as my destiny calls. Please, my mother the earth, answer me. Give me some sign that you live and recognize me.
But there was only the awful, lonely silence of the night.
haal relished the concentrated evil of the Darkwell as he observed the actions of his minions. He sensed Ysalla marshaling the sahuagin and their mindless servants, the dead of the sea.
He knew that the cleric, Hobarth, now worked his way north through the wasteland of the vale on a mission for his master. In a few days, Hobarth would reach the sea, and there an important phase of Bhaal’s plan would begin.
And Bhaal, too, was aware of his children. He heard the hissed reports of his perytons as they flew to and from the well. They swirled above in sweeping flocks, observing and protecting the periphery of his domain. Savage and dimwitted, the perytons would serve as admirable guards and warriors in the defense of their master’s domain.
Thorax, the owlbear, lumbered aimlessly through the wilderness. Bhaal had no worries about this creature. Though stupid, it was equally ferocious. Soon it would find victims, and the legend of its horror would begin.
The god of murder sensed, most palpably, the bloodlust of the king of his children, Shantu. The displacer beast had found the spoor of a victim, and Bhaal waited eagerly for the battle and the kill that was sure to follow.
For Shantu was the greatest of hunters, made of blood and muscle and senses among the most deadly to be found on this world and augmented by a spirit and instinct for cruelty that came from planes far below the Forgotten Realms. Shantu was ultimate stealth, implacable cruelty. No creature of the Realms could match its keen instincts for surprise, its utter fearlessness, and its arcane, other dimensional power.
And soon, Bhaal knew, Shantu would kill.
Daryth moved softly into the night, anger tearing at his soul. But even the turmoil of his emotions could not still the native caution of his movements, and each step over the broken ground fell with care.
The forefront of his mind roiled with thoughts of Tristan. How he had admired his king! He would have served him for life! He would gladly have sacrificed his own life to save that of his king, or the king’s lady.
But even as this knowledge tormented him, the back of his mind counseled caution and alertness. Though the Calishite walked rapidly over rough ground in inky darkness, most of his steps fell in utter silence. His ears remained alert to any sign of warning from the dark, and his scimitar rested loosely in its sheath at his side. In an instant, the blade could become an extension of his arm, offering sudden death to any threat.
His dark figure picked its way carefully along the faint trail, avoiding cracked boulders and rotted, festering trunks. He had no destination in mind, but simply a desire to distance himself from Tristan. Daryth didn’t know how long he paced or how far he had come, but eventually he halted, trying to decide what to do next. Should he spend the night here? His pride balked at the idea of returning to camp. Tristan had sent him away. So be it. But should he stay here in the darkness? He immediately discarded that idea and turned his footsteps back toward their darkened camp. He would claim his horse, and leave.
Angrily he slipped back along the trail. The route led mostly upward, though he hadn’t been particularly aware of walking downhill when he had left the camp.
But he was not lost. Even in the blackest night, with a complete lack of landmarks, the Calishite would have been capable of making a very accurate guess as to his location. Now, though the night was dark, he remembered many landmarks along the trail to confirm his direction.
He moved as quickly as he could while still maintaining silence. Inevitably his haste drew an occasional scuffing sound as his boot slipped along the side of a rock, or a dull crack as he stepped on a dried twig. These slight sounds concerned him little, however, since all he had seen thus far told him that Myrloch Vale was now completely lifeless.
Soon he detected a break in the consuming darkness before him, and in a few more steps, he recognized the silvery glow that could only emanate from the Sword of Cymrych Hugh. Tristan, you fool! His thoughts raged. It’s not enough that we camp within a few paces of the trail. Now you have to announce our location with that confounded glow!
And then, as he came closer, he heard voices, though he saw Pawldo and Tavish curled in their bedrolls. Tristan was speaking, and someone else replied.
Robyn! She was safe! Somehow she had found their camp. Daryth stole closer, suddenly tentative. Where had she come from? How would she treat the king whose betrayal had sent her away in the first place?
The Calishite reached the bole of a thick tree and peered carefully around it. Tristan’s sword leaned against a rock, casting its illumination on the little clearing. The king stood beside it, an expression of anguish on his face. Daryth could not see Robyn, but he could hear the ice in her voice.
“Don’t speak of love to me now, or faith. I saw enough of that at Caer Corwell!”
“You condemn me for a single mistake! It was the woman. She bewitched me! Any man can—”
“Any man? You are the High King of the Ffolk, Tristan, the man who would have been my husband! Don’t talk to me of what any man would do!”
“But I love you! She meant nothing to me! I don’t even know who she was, or how she—”
“Don’t know?” Robyn was incredulous. “You seemed very well acquainted to me!”
Tristan groaned and turned from Robyn. “By the goddess, I’d give anything to take back that night!” The king stalked away, but then stopped and spoke more softly. “Still, we must work together, don’t you see? You had no chance out here by yourself!”
“Perhaps. But I had no desire to be out here with you. However, you’re right. Our best chance of success is to cooperate.” Robyn’s voice contained no hint of forgiveness.
“What are you planning to do now that we’ve reached the vale?” Tristan asked.
“I will tell you when we reach the well. First we must negotiate the terrors of this defiled vale.”
“But …” Tristan’s attempted argument faded before it even began. “Very well,” he sighed, defeat resounding in his tone.
Daryth whirled away, disgusted by Tristan’s voice. He leaned against the tree, breathing heavily. How could you have fallen so? he wondered. He accused Tristan and then tried him in his mind, and in the verdict, found him wanting. Clenching his jaw in suppressed anger, Daryth stumbled blindly away from the camp, back down the trail to the north, his horse forgotten. He could not
bear the thought of confronting Tristan or facing Robyn now. Perhaps, in the morning, he would feel differently. But in his heart, he suspected that something very fundamental to his life had changed.
Once again this night, Daryth of Calimshan became a thing of the darkness, slipping cautiously and quietly through the dead forest, pausing to listen for any sound. He searched the air with his nose, sniffing to see if he could discern any alarming scent among the overpowering odors of rot and decay.
Then he moved again, with no destination save distance. He desired only to leave the couple that he loved, to leave them and their pain far behind. Occasionally he moved more quickly than caution warranted, but he caught himself at such moments. Then he would stand motionless in an open area and for several minutes listen and smell the woods around him.
Once he climbed a rounded rock to stand solidly upon its smooth crown, watching and listening with the patience of a stalking predator. It was at this moment that he began to suspect he was not alone in the forest.
He stood for nearly five minutes like a frozen statue atop the boulder beside the trail. No scent came to his nostrils. No sound reached his ears. Yet the hair at the nape of his neck slowly prickled upward, and he found himself whirling around to stare into the impenetrable blackness.
Something was out there!
Daryth touched the haft of his scimitar, reassuring himself with its smooth feel. The keen blade carried its own enchantment, not as potent as the Sword of Cymrych Hugh but still sharp and deadly. He resisted the impulse to draw the weapon. He could have it in his hand the same moment he desired it, so quick were his reflexes, but it would serve him no purpose now as he tried to discern the nature of the threat.
Carefully, silently, the Calishite lowered himself to the ground and started again along the trail, moving farther into Myrloch Vale. Now he moved with utmost stealth, creeping slowly, not making the slightest whisper of sound. Yet he could not escape the disturbing suspicion—no, the knowledge, he corrected himself—that something was out there in the darkness.
After a hundred paces, Daryth froze again, but again no signal reached any of his senses to confirm the existence of a threat. Yet he needed no confirmation, so utterly convinced was he that some dire creature lurked in the darkness.
And that dire creature was almost certainly stalking him. As he moved farther, the prickling on the back of his neck remained. He hastened his steps, ignoring the faint sounds he made as he broke into a trot, and still the feeling stayed with him. He stopped suddenly and listened, but again he heard no sound from the blackness surrounding him.
Daryth made a full circle back on his trail, but he was able to detect no single direction the threat came from. Instead, it seemed to be everywhere at once, indefinable in its nature but awesome in its might. The Calishite told himself that he was imagining things, that in fact there was nothing here to menace him except his own frayed nerves.
Indeed, the sudden arrival at camp of Robyn, added to his confrontation with the High King, had certainly agitated him to the point of anxiety. Now he was in a strange, admittedly terrifying place, in darkest night! It only seemed natural that his nerves would play games.
Considerably relieved, he started again down the trail and soon came to a narrow gorge where high rock walls loomed close on either side of the trail. He could not see them in the blackness, but a sudden coolness in the still air around him told him of their presence as surely as if his eyes had confirmed it. In a few minutes, he had passed through the gorge and entered the dead forest again. He noted that the path was more level here, as though it had finally emerged from the foothills and entered the vale proper. The stench of rotten plant life assailed him even more intently, and he thought sadly of the pain Robyn would feel as she entered this bleak region.
Daryth’s temper had calmed, and he began to think of returning to the camp. The others would be asleep, and in the morning he would be able to face them both and still retain his composure. Indeed, this was a plan that offered him some hope, and even promised the chance to get some rest.
And then a low growl emerged from the darkness. Instantly Daryth dropped into a catlike crouch as his blade sprang into his hand. He held the scimitar before him, horizontal to the ground so that the keen blade was ready to slice into an unseen attacker. The faint glow of the enchanted weapon barely penetrated the thick darkness.
Every sense of his body grew taut as he strained to see and hear. He tried to reconstruct the sound he had heard. It had been faint, but not because of distance. Fear thrummed through him—fear such as he had never known. It became a dread panic that rooted his feet to the ground and clouded the already hazy senses of his eyes and ears. The pounding of his heart echoed through his brain and seemed to reverberate into the forest itself.
Whatever was out there growled again, and Daryth could sense it feeding upon his fear. The growl had been soft and deep, not like a bear—indeed not like anything he had ever heard! Swiveling, still catlike, on the balls of his feet, he tried to look around.
Suddenly he knew that the thing out there was some kind of cat. It had aspects of a great feline in its growl, and Daryth began to picture a massive cat-body crouched to spring. But it was more than this, he knew as well. This threat was not just a cat, but a catcreature of great, all-encompassing evil that defied all laws of animal creation.
Slowly, forcefully, Daryth struggled to gain control of his frayed nerves. He recalled the basic lessons he had learned, many years ago, in the Academy of Stealth: Fear is a state of mind. As such, it can be conquered by a stronger state of mind.
The Calishite suspected that the teacher of this lesson had never felt fear such as he now felt. Nonetheless, he concentrated on the discipline of that lesson and others that had helped him to master his body’s more primitive urges. Slowly he felt the pounding of his heart subside. His hands, mercifully, did not shake. And most important of all, his mind began to free itself from the paralysis of terror.
The thing would attack him, Daryth sensed, but it seemed to be in no hurry. Perhaps he could improve the odds by the time the assault came. The first order of business was to choose the ground for the fight.
Daryth felt the presence of open woods on all sides, naught but gaunt, barren trunks to protect his back. Slowly, carefully, he sheathed his weapon and reversed his direction, remembering the rocky walls that had loomed on either side of the trail. The narrow gorge lay close behind him.
For several minutes, he glided through the night as quickly as caution would allow, until he felt the cool reflection that told him he had entered the narrow gorge. He stopped for a second, and though he heard no sound of pursuit—he had not expected to—the presence of the unseen menace still lurked out there in the blackness.
Daryth backed against the wall, taking care to move in complete silence. He forced his breathing into a slow, rhythmic pattern and tried to relax when he at last leaned weakly against the cold granite.
Something stroked across his shoulder and he gasped out loud, whirling instantly and drawing his weapon in the same motion. The blade cast a faint glow across the rocky wall, and he saw that it was a trailing tendril of dead moss that had startled him. Cursing silently, he again turned his back to the wall and stared at the small circle of light around him.
Though he knew that the light made him more visible to anything lurking in the darkness, he did not sheathe the blade. It would take too long to regain his night vision, he assured himself. In reality, the dim circle was the only comfort he had in the terrifying night, and he could not bring himself to relinquish it.
Calmer now, he tried to take stock of his assets. Besides his blade, he had a coil of sturdy rope around his waist and a small pouch containing various picks, wires, and probes. He wore the smooth gloves he had discovered in Caer Allisynn, which contained wire picks of their own. He knew that lockpicks would be of little use to him now.
And he had his belt, a pouch of drinking water, a small box of tinder, a
flint, and a short, sharp dagger. Most of these items rested in a compact pack in the small of his back, though the dagger was concealed in the back of his right boot.
Of them all, only the scimitar seemed to offer immediate help. He still held the weapon before him, the blade across the height of his body. The magical light of its enchantment gave him a sense, inflated perhaps, of power. The weapon had been crafted of hardened steel, ensorcelled by some forgotten weaponsmith so that its edge remained keen, its point sharp, and its strength unfailing.
He had always intended to name it, Daryth recalled now—something grand and heroic. The proper name had never really occurred to him, and he had decided to wait until it did. Now he saw the weapon gleam and curve before him, and he saw it as a larger version of an animal’s claw or fang—a weapon he found himself facing, or suspecting that he faced, now.
“Cat’s-Claw,” he whispered. The blade seemed to glow with a warmer light, as if the cold steel had been warmed by the naming. Daryth sliced the air in a back-and-forth motion, and Cat’s-Claw floated like a feather in his hand.
Then he saw the eyes.
Two great yellow orbs stared at him from the darkness, beyond the protective glow of Cat’s-Claw. Each seemed as large as a melon, slitted with a long, evil pupil. They remained upon Daryth, unblinking, as the Calishite leaned back against the wall. He imagined the fetid breath of the creature on his face, and it seemed to suck his very spirit away.
For a second, Daryth felt his knees grow weak and he began to sink to the ground, but as quickly as it began, the impulse passed and he stood firm again. He would not kneel before this vision from hell!
The eyes continued to bore into him, and he felt the cold bile of terror rising in his throat. Again the growl came from the darkness, pushing him against the cliff with an almost physical force. Still holding Cat’s-Claw before him, Daryth groped at the cracked face of granite with his left hand, discovering several wide ledges. He studied each of these with his fingers, not daring to turn away from the staring eyes until he had completed his exploration.
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