Bladesinger

by Keith Strohm

  At that, shapes loomed out of the shadows around Yulda—wide-bodied, multi-legged monstrosities whose mandibles clacked together hungrily.

  “Yes, my pretties,” she cooed softly to the giant spiders, “it is time.”

  With a single command, she sent the monstrous arachnids scurrying down their thick, silken strands of web. The creatures’ eyes caught and reflected the light from below, gleaming as they descended toward their prey.

  As the door to the undertomb burst open, Yulda summoned a bright, greenish light that surrounded her body in a sickening nimbus of power. Stepping forward, wrapped in her hag illusion, she floated idly in the air above the bridge.

  “Welcome to my home,” she shouted at the stunned intruders, magically amplifying the strength of her voice. “Too bad you won’t be alive to enjoy its comforts!”

  Her laughter echoed in the cavern.

  Time slowed down for Taen.

  Between the moment when tall humanoid figures began to pour out of the undertomb door and the shrill, dark voice reverberated in the cave, an eternity seemed to pass. The half-elf watched in horror as broad-shouldered, long-limbed beasts with greasy yellow skin and long, tangled hair ran toward them, cutting the air with great sweeps of their thick-boled wooden clubs. A wave of foul odor wafted ahead of the beasts, stinging Taen’s nose with the stench of rotten meat, rancid sweat, and offal; he nearly retched from the malodorous assault but managed to hold himself together.

  From behind him, Borovazk shouted. “That voice—is Chaul, the Hag of Rashemar.”

  Taen could not spare long to gaze up at the where the sickly light pulsed, but when he did so, the half-elf caught sight of the green-skinned creature. It floated idly above them, shrieking out imprecations and dire threats. He would have cast an offensive spell at the beast, but the ogres were almost upon him.

  Without preamble, time snapped back in step. Quickly Taen turned to the side, allowing both Roberc and Borovazk to meet the onrushing monsters. Though the beasts had the advantage in numbers, the width of the bridge worked in the defenders’ favor—the ogres could not bring more than three of their warriors to bear at any given time. By now the Rashemi ranger and his halfling companion fought like an efficient construct. The moment that the wave of ogres crashed into them, they set to work. Borovazk struck high, wielding his warhammer and axe with consummate skill. His first swing shattered an ogre’s club. The beast took a step back as its hard wood weapon splintered beneath the crushing blow. That gave Roberc all the advantage he needed. The halfling sidestepped a sweeping blow from another ogre and darted forward, slicing deeply into the open flank of the now-weaponless creature. Blood spurted from the wound as Roberc’s sword cut corded muscle and thick tendon, stopping only as it met bone.

  The wounded ogre roared in pain, hopping back further. One of its companions stepped forward, filling the gap. Taen knew that they couldn’t win a battle of attrition—despite his friends’ battle skills. More humanoids emerged from behind the open door, crossbows held at the ready. Several had begun climbing the stalagmites on the bridge, obviously searching for a better vantage point from which to loose bolts.

  To his right, he could sense Marissa gathering her power. The druid walked behind the furiously engaged halfling and touched him with her staff. Immediately Taen could see his skin harden, becoming thick and rough like the bark of a tree. Confident that his friends could hold the line for a few more moments, the half-elf took stock of the goblins’ emerging positions and loosed a spell of his own. A ball of fire exploded behind the ogres. Goblins shrieked in pain and fear as the conflagration decimated their ranks. Two of the ogres also roared with anger as part of the magic flame licked their backs.

  The half-elf would have cast a second spell, but Roberc stumbled backward from an ogre blow, almost knocking Taen over. The fighter cursed with obvious frustration. Luckily for the him, the halfling had caught part of the attack on his shield—which now hung uselessly on his arm, bent backward beyond hope.

  Seeing his master falter, Cavan leaped forward, forestalling the ogre’s follow-up attack. The war-dog danced neatly out of the path of the ogre’s club and bit the beast on its thigh. Seeing an opportunity, Taen drew his own sword without thinking and cut downward as the monster lifted both arms to crush the animal worrying at its legs. His elven sword cut a long swath into the ogre’s belly; blood, guts, and other effluvia came spilling out as the beast fell backward.

  “My thanks,” Roberc said as he finished unstrapping his ruined shield and jumped once more into the fray.

  Taen had no time to acknowledge the halfling. Three crossbow bolts hissed past his head, and a fourth would have pierced his leg if he hadn’t seen it hurtling out of the shadow at the last moment. He flung himself sideways, twisting his hips so that his legs spun over the missile in mid air. It was a defensive move he hadn’t used in quite some time, and the half-elf’s body protested as it landed back on the ground. There was no time to falter, however, as Taen’s ogre opponent reached out a meaty hand grab him. Long fingers latched on to his shoulder with the strength of steel; he could feel his bone quiver beneath the excruciating pressure of the beast’s grip.

  Unable to bring his sword to bear, Taen beat his fist against the ogre’s arm, trying to break the hold. It didn’t work. Slowly, inexorably, the half-elf felt himself being drawn toward the ogre’s chest. Once there, the beast would envelop him in a crushing hug that would grind his bones to dust.

  The words to a spell fluttered in his mind. Taen shouted them out loud, but the pain of the ogre’s grapple distracted him, and the spell’s energy dissipated harmlessly into the air. The half-elf knew that he had only moments in which to free himself.

  Suddenly the ogre pitched sideways, releasing his iron grip. Taen fell backward, his left shoulder nearly numb. Marissa stood beside him, the tip of her staff glowing faintly. The monster roared at the sight of the staff and dived forward, trying to rip the artifact from her hands. Taen called out a warning, but he soon saw that it wasn’t necessary. Marissa quickly retracted the staff. Overbalanced, the ogre tripped and stumbled forward. The druid stepped to the side deftly, planted the staff against the ogre, and pushed.

  The beast tumbled sideways, rolling over the lip of the bridge and plunging into the darkness below.

  Taen rolled to his feet and returned to the battle, relief at Marissa’s safety flooding through his body, combating some of the fatigue that threatened to slow down each parry and swing of his sword. The soaring melody of the Song accompanied him into the fray with a strength that he had not experienced since his days as a tael. He settled into the Song, wanting to abandon himself to it completely, but he kept waiting for that dreadful moment when it would drag at the core of his being like a blood-hungry vampire, so he fought his enemies under an uneasy truce with the Song building within him.

  Behind him he could hear the druid shouting words to another spell.

  Marissa watched the intricate dance of Taenaran’s swordplay and marveled, not for the first time, at the half-elf’s fluid style, the lithe interplay of body and steel, moving and weaving with an almost unearthly grace. Where Borovazk and Roberc met the ogres’ powerful attacks with an almost equal ferocity, the half-elf seemed to flow with his opponent’s energy, blending with it instead of meeting it head-on.

  To an unschooled observer, it would look like nothing more than a playful dance, a choreographed piece of theater with no application to the real world, but Marissa saw within Taenaran’s flowing movements the deadly art of the bladesinger. She’d seen the half-elf use his training in battle before but never like this. Marissa knew the shame that he carried within him, knew that such a burden often caused the young half-elf to fight his trained battle instincts. The result was usually a stilted attack, something that resembled the art she had seen a few times before in her life—like a pseudo-dragon resembles a full-grown wyvern—but never quite matched its purity.

  Something had clearly changed for the half-el
f—had been changing ever since they started off on this journey, if Marissa was honest. In combat, at least, he seemed no longer to be two persons—a gifted acolyte of an ancient and revered art, and a dishonored exile struggling to find peace—inhabiting the same skin. The druid saw in his uninhibited sword work what he must have been before tragedy and guilt had crippled him. The vision made her smile—not for the destruction Taenaran wreaked, but for the healing that so obviously had taken place.

  A furtive movement off to her side caught Marissa’s attention. She spun to face it just as a swarm of giant spiders dropped down onto the bridge from the darkness above. The druid cursed as the fat-bodied arachnids scuttled forward on long, spindly legs. She had been too busy focusing on the battle in front of her, not paying attention to any danger which might present itself from above.

  She called out a warning as the bloated spiders attacked. One of the monsters leaped toward her, attempting to knock her down with its thick body, which looked to be nearly three feet in diameter. Marissa spun out of the creature’s path and brought her staff down on its head. Blood and gore sprayed the bridge as her mystic weapon struck the spider with a meaty thump. The wounded monster let out a horrifying screech and scuttled backward, spinning madly in pain.

  Another arachnid darted forward quickly, nearly tripping the druid. She dodged wildly out of the way, breathing a quick sigh of relief as it bit nothing but the air, mandibles clacking together harshly. Marissa’s celebration was short lived, however. Two more spiders crawled over the side of the bridge. The druid managed to call fire down upon one of them. It shrieked and died almost instantly, its long legs curling inward as its body smoked and smoldered on the bridge. Its companion, however, scurried around the corpse, finally interposing the bulk of its body between her and her companions. Before she could react, three more of the creatures followed suit. She called out once more to her friends, but the press of the remaining ogres and goblins pinned them to their own defensive ground.

  As one, the spiders attacked.

  Two of the creatures scuttled forward and caught the druid’s staff in their barbed mandibles. Desperately, she tried to shake them off, but their arachnoid strength was too much for her. The remaining two leaped forward. This time, the druid could not avoid them. One of the spiders bit down hard on the flesh of her neck. She screamed once in pain and felt the beast’s deadly toxins flow, mixing with her blood. Fire burned within her breast.

  Immediately, her vision swam. Horrified, she could feel the poison sapping her strength, sending shuddering spasms like shockwaves through her muscles. Dimly, she recalled the words to a spell that would burn the toxin from her system. Marissa called out the words to the spell just as another spider bit down hard upon her thigh. The fragments of her spell blew away like a candle snuffed by the wind.

  “Taenaran,” she managed to cry out before the darkness took her in its shadowed arms.

  Taen heard Marissa’s cry.

  The half-elf ducked beneath the club of the last remaining ogre and looked behind him. He was horrified to see the gathering of spiders surrounding the beleaguered druid. The shock of it shattered the strains of the Song. Energy fled from his arms and legs. They felt heavy, weighed down by fatigue and fear and sorrow.

  “See to her,” Borovazk shouted and barreled into the lone ogre, forcing the creature back a single step.

  Taen gazed at the battered and bloody Rashemi ranger just for a heartbeat before running toward the druid. Even from here he could see the angry purplish-red tracks wending toward her heart from the wounds on her chest and leg.

  Poison!

  Taen knew that he had only moments to scatter the spiders and let the druid drink from one of the potions he had with him. Pushing his body beyond its limits, the half-elf leaped into the air. He sailed in a wide arc, one that he knew would carry him over the menacing bodies of two spiders—

  Only to rebound off of an invisible barrier.

  The half-elf fell to the ground at the same moment that he witnessed Marissa do the same. He would have screamed her name, but the fall had sucked the wind out of him. Desperately he pounded against the wall, using both sword and spell, hoping to bring it down, all the while watching the spiders cover Marissa’s body with their disgusting webs. Though the invisible barrier flickered and flared several times beneath his assault, the mystic wall held.

  Within moments, the spiders had secured Marissa and began to scuttle up in to the shadows, crawling quickly up their nearly invisible strands of web. Taen shouted separately to his companions for help. In silent accord, Borovazk and Roberc plunged their weapons into the remaining ogre. It fell to the ground, shaking the bridge. At its demise, the few remaining goblins shrieked in fear and fell back into the undertomb.

  Quickly Borovazk dropped his weapons and drew his curved long bow. With surprising speed, he loosed two arrows. The feathered shafts hissed into the shadows, pursuing the retreating spiders. Taen watched them cut through the air like hunting falcons—only to veer quite suddenly to the left, as if swatted by an invisible hand.

  Taen cursed and fell to his knees.

  Above him, spiders carried Marissa’s web-covered form into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Year of the Serpent

  (1359 DR)

  Thunder rumbled among the storm-wracked sky.

  Chill rain fell like a hail of arrows upon those tael still battling in the forest clearing. The senior apprentices fought hard, their bodies carried forward in a complex dance of deadly steel. Loud gasps of breath echoed in the clearing, cutting through the silence left behind by the harsh clamor of blades, the ring of steel upon steel.

  Despite a bone-deep fatigue that threatened to slow and paralyze muscles worked hard to the point of failure, Taenaran was enjoying himself. An opponent’s sword snaked toward him on his left side. Without breaking stride, he flicked his own blade in a downward stroke at the incoming attack. As the weapons met, he raised his right foot and twisted his hips, using the initial momentum of his parry to carry him into a sideways flip. The maneuver allowed him to avoid a second opponent’s incoming sweep toward his legs. He slid to the left, and his two opponents attacked each other.

  Such was the way of alu’dala, the water battle. Alu’dala was an ancient exercise, a group combat where each participant met and blended with the attacks of all others near him. The purpose of the exercise was not so much to vanquish opponents as to flow with the energy each attack created. Among masters, the alu’dala could last days.

  Taenaran would be satisfied if he made it through the next few candle lengths. At first, the rain had been a welcome gift, cooling off his overheated body. Now the frigid water mixed with his own sweat, running into the half-elf’s eyes and making it difficult to see the whole battlefield. He barely avoided the slashing attack of a long-muscled apprentice to his right. With an inward curse at his own lapse of concentration, he sucked down a lungful of air and rolled across the rapidly muddying ground, bringing his own sword up to attack the nearest opponent. It was a difficult maneuver, one that required a great deal of coordination. The fact that he executed it perfectly brought a smile to his face—and a grimace of dismay from the defending apprentice, who obviously hadn’t expected the half-elf to succeed quite so spectacularly. Even though the apprentices’ blades were not honed to combat sharpness, they could still do some damage. Taenaran’s sword slipped beneath his opponent’s guard and pierced the elf’s skin. The wounded apprentice fell backward just as one of the masters called out his elimination from the exercise.

  Taenaran had little time to worry about his erstwhile enemy, as two more swords whipped at him from behind. He spun quickly, knocking both blades away in a precise parry that brought a murmur of approval from the junior apprentices and those senior tael who had been eliminated from the alu’dala.

  The half-elf felt his face begin to flush. For many years, he had endured the whispered comments, the biting insults murmured behind covered faces
or concealed within seeming compliments or worse. It wasn’t uncommon for some of the other apprentices to target him specifically during exercises such as the alu’dala, purposefully trying to overwhelm the younger but stronger half-elf. If the masters saw any blatant harassment, they were quick to put a stop to it. Much more went on, however, behind the el’taels’ backs. It was nice to receive the occasional acknowledgement of his skill.

  It was even nicer, the half-elf thought, to have Talaedra witness it. Although he couldn’t see the young elf maiden, and he didn’t dare take a moment to look for her silver-haired beauty among those assembled, Taenaran knew that she was watching.

  He didn’t have too much time, however, to bask in the accolades. Both opponents, the only two remaining besides himself in the alu’dala, began to weave a deadly coordinated attack, seeking to draw his blade too far away during a parry so that the other could strike at his unprotected flank. He took a moment to gaze at the two enemies before him and cursed silently. Andaerean and his never-far-from-him companion, Nardual, were two of the most active antagonists during his time as an apprentice. It had been clear from very early on that the golden-haired, bronze-skinned Andaerean somehow took umbrage at Taenaran’s presence among the tael. It didn’t help that his Uncle Faelyn worked with the haughty elf apprentice privately to hone his skills. Nardual, however, never seemed to hold a personal grudge against Taenaran. He simply followed his elder companion—though out of a misguided sense of loyalty or a lack of imagination, Taenaran never knew.

  He did, however, have his suspicions.

  The half-elf managed to catch the sly smirk that spread across Andaerean’s face before the elf lashed out with a booted foot. Taenaran’s instincts cried out for him to dodge the hasty kick, but years of training had helped him identify the real threat. Nardual’s weapon slashed to Taenaran’s right, perfectly aligned to strike the half-elf in mid dodge. Instead, he took the brunt of Andaerean’s attack, catching the elf’s boot with his free arm and wrenching his opponent off balance. Nardual’s sword whistled about a hand’s width from Taenaran’s shoulder.