The Captive Flame botg-1

by Richard Lee Byers

“We’ve got an adept!” Medrash shouted. He meant a giant shaman capable of magically pushing the spires around to serve as ponderous but powerful weapons.

  Though few dragonborn possessed a knack for spellcasting, the Daardendriens had brought along one of the exceptions, an old fellow with a scarred snout and bronze scales who wore six wands sheathed on his belt like a collection of daggers. He drew one carved of alexandrite, greenish in the light here, pointed and spiral-cut to resemble a unicorn’s horn. He stabbed it at the advancing column and snarled words of power.

  The spire kept coming. As Khouryn tried to predict its course and poised himself to dodge as need be, he thought, I’ll bet Jhesrhi could stop it.

  At which point it did stop, and he decided he hadn’t given the dragonborn sorcerer enough credit. Then the pillar shredded apart, the demolition proceeding from top to bottom as quickly as a sword stroke.

  It filled the air with much more ash than before. Khouryn felt like he was choking on the stuff, and his smarting eyes were so filled with tears that he could barely see.

  Balasar coughed. “The giants have learned a new trick.”

  It hurt, but Khouryn forced himself to take a deep breath anyway. So he could shout. “They’re coming! Be ready!”

  A dragonborn started to curse, and then the obscenity warped into a scream. If not for the warning, Khouryn might never have noticed another spire gliding in on his left.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t too hard to dodge if you did see it coming and had somewhere to go. But he winced to imagine such a weapon plowing and crushing its way through a close formation of infantry.

  He jabbed it with his spear as it shuddered past. He didn’t really expect the attack to accomplish anything, and as far as he could tell it didn’t. The pillar didn’t fall over or anything like that.

  The dragonborn wizard began another incantation. Peering through the murk of floating ash, Khouryn saw that the magus had swapped out the alexandrite wand for one made of rose red phenalope. He jabbed it insistently at the ground as he recited, in a manner that reminded Khouryn of someone ordering a dog off a piece of furniture.

  The spire crumbled. That had the unfortunate consequence of setting even more ash adrift in the air, but the wizard wasn’t done. He recited a final rhyming couplet, and all the gray-black flakes and particles fell to the ground like they’d become as heavy as lead.

  The sorcerer smiled a fierce reptilian smile of satisfaction. Then an arrow as big as the one that had felled the bat punched into the center of his chest. He collapsed, the red wand tumbling from his hand.

  Khouryn spun around and saw his first ash giants.

  Technically speaking. About twice as tall as the dragonborn, with gray, hairless flesh, cadaverous faces, and deep-set black eyes, they appeared to be an offshoot of the race known as stone giants in other parts of Faerun. It was hard to credit that so many big creatures-six at least-had hidden themselves so well and sneaked so near before being detected. But their natural coloration no doubt helped, and they’d smeared their bodies with ash to camouflage themselves even better. And the limited visibility aided them too.

  Balasar half roared, half hissed a battle cry and rushed the nearest. Sword glowing, encircled by floating phosphorescent runes, Medrash charged just a stride behind him. Their clan brothers spread out to flank other foes.

  Khouryn doubted that either the adept or the archer had advanced to fight hand-to-hand, so he held back and tried to spot them. He located the bowman first, peeking out from behind a boulder and, by the looks of him, waiting for a clear shot at Medrash.

  Khouryn charged. A giant sweeping a greatclub back and forth drove three dragonborn into his path, and he veered around them.

  The archer didn’t notice him coming until he’d nearly closed the distance. But then the hulking creature turned, drew his arrow back to his shoulder, and let it fly.

  Khouryn covered up with his shield. It was well made and enchanted as well, and even an oversized arrow streaking from an enormously powerful bow failed to penetrate it. But the impact jolted it back against his body.

  He couldn’t let the shock make him falter. The giant was already reaching for another of the arrows stuck in the ground. Khouryn hefted his spear and threw it.

  It wasn’t meant to be used that way. It was too long and heavy. But he was strong even for a dwarf, and he’d practiced when none of his men were around to watch and decide that if an officer thought casting one’s spear away was a sensible tactic, they should consider using it too.

  The giant tried to dodge, but the spear still pierced his thigh. Blood flowed, looking redder than red on his gray skin in that gray place.

  The archer yanked the weapon out. That made the wound bleed more copiously, but it would keep him from tripping over the spear as he moved around. Meanwhile, Khouryn dropped his shield, pulled the urgrosh from his back, and pounded on.

  The ash giant resumed reaching for an arrow. Then he registered just how close Khouryn had gotten and snatched up the greatclub leaning against the boulder instead.

  The club was a length of wood as tall as a man, with sharp chunks of flint jutting from the top. The giant swung it in a low arc. Khouryn hopped backward, and the end of the weapon whizzed by a finger length in front of him.

  It was time to rush in close, where the larger combatant’s reach became a handicap and the smaller one found it easier to strike. But unfortunately, the archer seemed to understand that as well as Khouryn did, and the wound in his leg wasn’t doing much to impair his mobility. He retreated, and that gave him the time and room to shift the greatclub back into a threatening position. Khouryn had to stop short to keep from running onto the jagged flint sticking out of the top.

  The giant advanced and attacked with short, vicious strikes that kept the club between Khouryn and himself. As Khouryn gave ground, he waited for the archer to overcommit, to open his guard or throw himself off balance. It didn’t happen.

  To the Abyss with it, then. Khouryn stopped retreating and so invited an attack. The greatclub whipped at his head. He ducked beneath the blow, jumped back up, pivoted, and chopped at the weapon at the end of its stroke, in that precious instant before the giant could put it in motion again.

  The axe blade cut the rock-studded crown off the club. It also broke the giant’s grip on what remained, and he fumbled to regain a firm hold on it.

  Now! Khouryn charged up to the giant’s legs and cut repeatedly. Blood gushed, and the archer fell forward.

  He wasn’t done, though. He tried to heave himself around, presumably to jab at his foe with the stub of his broken weapon or simply seize him in his enormous gray hands.

  But Khouryn found a vital spot before the ash giant located him. He reversed the urgrosh, stepped in, and thrust the spike between two ribs. It punched deep enough to reach the heart. The giant made a croaking sound, shuddered, and then slumped motionless.

  Panting, wiping giant blood off his face, Khouryn turned to see how the rest of the battle was going.

  Not too badly, he decided. A few of the dragonborn had fallen, but two of the giants’ frontline fighters had too. At the moment, the adept looked like the most serious problem. Either he’d emerged from hiding on his own, or Medrash and Balasar had finished their first opponent and flushed him out. Then they’d charged him.

  They hadn’t reached him though, because he’d turned the solid ground beneath them into loose ash and cinders, and they were floundering in it like it was quicksand. Meanwhile, the adept stood with his arm stretched out to the remaining spire. Moving slowly for now, but accelerating as it started to come out of its turn, the column was looping around to make a run at the two dragonborn.

  Fortunately, the adept was fairly close. Khouryn charged.

  The giant heard or glimpsed him coming. He turned, growled words of power, and lashed his arm like he was throwing a stone.

  In reality, he was throwing several. Appearing in midair, the conjured barrage hurtled at Khouryn, who threw up
an arm to shield his face.

  Some rocks missed. One bounced off his helmet with a clank. Two others cracked against his mail, stinging him but doing no actual harm. He ran on.

  The shaman backpedaled and slashed his hand through the opening zigzag pass of another spell. But he was so focused on self-defense that he lost control of the spire. As Khouryn understood it, the peculiar landforms rarely fell over when they wandered around on their own, but that wasn’t the case here. The pillar was moving as the giant wanted it to move, and deprived of his psychic guidance, it toppled.

  Happily, it wasn’t yet close enough to land on Medrash and Balasar as it crashed to pieces, and a moment later they succeeded in dragging themselves out of the soft ash. Both were now covered in the stuff, and the filth made an odd contrast to the pearly radiance of Medrash’s sword and the glyphs of light still hovering around his body.

  The two dragonborn and Khouryn advanced on the adept. We’ve got this, Khouryn thought. It’s been a hard fight, but we’re going to win.

  Backing away, the shaman reached inside his horsehair tunic and brought out a gray, gleaming egg-shaped object. He raised it over his head and chanted. Power groaned through the air. But that was all that happened, and Balasar laughed a short, derisive laugh.

  As if in response, something bellowed. Khouryn looked over his shoulder.

  Big gray creatures were bursting out of the pocket of ash the shaman had created, and the piles and drifts the fallen spires left behind. The things were as big as ogres, and lizardlike, but something about their shapes made Khouryn think of bears as well. Diseased bears, for sores and pustules dotted their scaly hides.

  One of the lizard things charged Balasar. Khouryn took a stride toward his friend, then saw from the corner of his eye that a second creature was racing at him. He pivoted to face it.

  It lunged, jaws open wide to reveal a mouth full of blisters and slime. It snapped, he sidestepped, and its fangs clashed shut on empty air.

  But drops of its slaver spattered his exposed skin and, smoking and popping, burned him. Snarling at the pain, grateful that none of the viscous stuff had landed in his eyes, he cut at the creature’s head.

  The urgrosh split hide and flesh and cracked the skull beneath. But it wasn’t enough to kill the lizard-bear. It turned and sprang at him, and he dodged and chopped at it again.

  It still wouldn’t go down, and then the ground crumbled beneath his feet. As he plunged down into the powder, he realized that the adept had played the same trick on him that he’d used on Medrash and Balasar. He also realized he couldn’t defend himself while half drowning in the dry, hot quagmire. All the lizard thing had to do was lean down and nip his head off.

  It started to. Then Medrash rushed in on its flank and cut its neck. His luminous blade bit deep, and the beast collapsed.

  Then Medrash stuck his sword in the ground. He had to grab Balasar to heave Khouryn out of the ash, because Medrash’s off hand was useless. A different lizard thing had torn away his shield and shredded the arm that supported it. The wounds fumed and made a sickening sizzling sound as acid continued to eat its way into his flesh.

  “Heal yourself!” Khouryn said.

  Medrash swayed. “The others…”

  “You can’t help anybody if you pass out!”

  “You’re right.” Medrash pressed his good hand to the injuries and recited a prayer. Light shone between his fingers.

  Meanwhile, Khouryn surveyed the battlefield, then cursed. The advent of the lizard creatures had shifted the balance of power disastrously. He and the dragonborn likely could have handled either them or the ash giants, but not both together. Half the Daardendrien warriors had fallen already, and the rest were hard pressed.

  “We have to make a run for it,” he said.

  Medrash gave a curt nod, and then he bellowed, “Retreat!”

  Retreating was particularly difficult for him and Khouryn with most of the enemy between them and where they wanted to go. But, miraculously still unscathed, Balasar came to fight alongside them, and that helped. Together they killed one lizard-bear, lamed another, and scrambled away faster than it could follow. The adept filled the air around them with embers, but the sparks only singed them a little before they sprinted clear. Maybe Medrash’s circle of runes protected them.

  Then Khouryn felt the slant of the ground beneath his feet. He and his friends had reached the slope, anyway.

  Eventually, they reached the top too, and at that point Medrash stopped running and glared back at the pursuing giants and lizard things. Balasar and Khouryn stopped to stand to either side of him.

  The paladin shouted, “I’m right here! Kill me if you can!” Khouryn could tell the declaration carried a charge of divine power. Even though he wasn’t the target, the words echoed inside his head. They certainly set hooks in several of the enemy, who left off chasing other dragonborn to veer toward Medrash. And his two companions.

  “Now how is this a good thing?” Balasar asked. Then an ash giant pounded up to him, and he caught the first chop of a stone axe on his shield.

  He probably riposted too, but Khouryn didn’t see it. He had to turn and contend with a giant of his own.

  The next few moments were a frenzy of bashing, hacking giant weapons and the blades that leaped and darted in reply. Chanting a prayer, Medrash began to shine like his sword. Lacking any comparable mystical resources of his own, Khouryn simply kept in constant motion and used every skill and trick he’d mastered in training yards and battles across the East.

  Somehow it kept him alive until Balasar yelled, “Everyone’s gone past us!”

  Medrash thrust the point of his sword into the ground. “Torm!” he bellowed. Brighter light flared from the weapon. Khouryn didn’t feel a thing as it washed over him, but it slammed giants and lizard-bears reeling backward.

  Which enabled the three defenders to break away. As they turned and ran, the glow in Medrash’s sword, the radiance shining from his body, and his ring of floating runes all winked out together. Which likely meant that for the moment, he’d exhausted his ability to channel his deity’s power.

  Below them, one of the guards they’d left with the horses was still waiting, still holding a string of the animals ready. Balasar, who’d evidently noticed that it took a dwarf a bit of time to clamber up into the saddle, picked Khouryn up and dumped him there before springing onto his own mount.

  Medrash swung himself onto his horse. The guard started to do the same. Then something cracked, and he collapsed, his head abruptly misshapen inside his dented helm. Blood gushed from under the rim. Khouryn realized one of the giants had thrown a stone with lethal force and aim.

  The guard appeared beyond help, and the riders spurred their steeds and left him sprawled in the dirt. They had to. Because giants and lizard things were charging down the slope like a wave rushing at the shore.

  For the next several heartbeats, Khouryn wondered if reaching the horses was actually going to be enough. It was possible that the giants with their long legs could run just as fast, or the lizard creatures for that matter. Or one of the rocks whizzing through the air could kill or lame a horse.

  But he and his comrades gradually pulled ahead, and one by one the giants gave up the chase and shouted after them. Khouryn didn’t speak their language, but the mockery in their tone was unmistakable.

  And maybe they deserved to feel superior. Because when Khouryn and his companions caught up with the dragonborn who’d ridden away before them-the warriors whose lives they’d bought with their seemingly suicidal rearguard action-they saw there were only three of them. That meant Clan Daardendrien had lost twenty-five of its finest.

  Balasar looked around at what little was left of their war band, then made a spitting sound. “And we never even got to the scout on the bat!”

  *****

  Hasos glared at Aoth. “A man is dead!” the noble said.

  “I regret that,” Aoth replied. “But war really is coming. Threskel is moving mor
e and more of its strength to the border. You’d better get used to the idea that before this is over, a lot of men will be dead.”

  “The other farmers are afraid to work the fields.”

  “All the more reason to help me stop the raiders in their own territory before they slip into yours and hurt people.”

  Hasos’s mouth twisted. “We’ve been though this, Captain. I won’t provoke the Threskelans into attacking any more aggressively than they are already. I won’t risk men I may need later.”

  Aoth studied Hasos. Please, he thought, show me a sign that this whoreson sent the killers after me. Do it and I’ll arrest him, take sole command of all the soldiers hereabouts, and worry about justifying my actions to the war hero later.

  But the scene before him didn’t change. He could depend on his fire-kissed eyes to see through darkness or mirages, but providing some intimation of a man’s secret thoughts was a more difficult trick.

  Of course, it was entirely possible he was staring at the wrong man anyway. He wanted Hasos to be guilty. It would make life simpler, and he didn’t like the aristocrat any better than Hasos liked him. But that didn’t mean the Chessentan really was sheltering dragonborn assassins.

  “All right,” said Aoth, “you keep your men patrolling your own lands, I’ll keep sending mine into Threskel, and maybe together we can keep any more peasants from catching arrows. Now, if we’ve talked about everything you wanted to discuss, I have something too.”

  Hasos scowled like he wasn’t done witlessly trying to blame the plowman’s death on the sellswords’ incursions into enemy territory. But then he evidently decided to let it go. “What’s that?”

  “I need to walk this keep from top to bottom.”

  “Why?”

  “Obviously, my lord, if the Threskelans lay siege to Soolabax and succeed in getting inside the walls, your residence will become crucial to our defense. So I need to be familiar with it. I should have looked it over before this, but I had even more urgent things to do.”

  “I suppose I can have someone show you around. Or do it myself, if you think that would be better.”