“Few hundred years back,” Dennet explained, “way before even the Cleansing War,[41] bunch of idiot humans got it into their heads to cut down the dwarf population. Thought we had whole galleries brimming with gems buried under our mountains and wouldn’t believe otherwise. A whole damn fleet of the buggers sailed out of Tal Horam and came here, figuring if they could break the capital they’d break the dwarves. Idiots didn’t realize how hard it is to crack a mountain, or that it’s even tougher to crack us.”
Dennet chuckled wickedly. “They lost all but a couple of their ships, then put their tails between their legs and limped away back home. That was the last time anyone’s come against us in force. For all that Den-Furral has stood since well before the Merging, back when things were every race for itself, no one has ever breached its defenses.”
“Well, sitting right on the harbor and being carved out of a mountain does make for a pretty defensible position,” Birch observed. “Can’t make catapults large enough to fit on a ship that will do any damage to those walls, and you can’t land a force large enough or near enough to really storm the place.”
“Yeah, those idiots noticed that right away,” Dennet said, chuckling again. “Hard to make out from here, but there are a few levels of battlements that can be used to drop all manner of unpleasantness on attackers who reach the land.” As he looked out at the harbor, his smile slowly faded, and wrinkles creased his forehead in concern as he stared through his own distance-viewer.
“What’s wrong?” Birch asked.
“We’re close enough that a guide should be coming out to meet us,” Dennet replied. “There’s some nasty reefs in a place or two that help protect the harbor, and they’re supposed to send someone out to guide us in along the safe path.”
Alerted by that observation, Birch turned a fresh eye on the docks. He peered through the spyglass for a moment, then lowered it again. His eyes burned in the swiftly encroaching darkness, illuminating the railing in front of him with a pale, fiery light.
“That’s not all that’s wrong. There’s not a soul in sight. No one on the docks, no one on those two ships,” he said softly, pointing to the only other ships in the harbor. “Not a soul.”
Then Birch knew why the stone fortress looked familiar; the deadly stillness brought recognition even as it threatened to bring back memories.
Deep within Hell stood Dis, the only city in Hell since the Great Schism had sundered the immortal plane into its separate halves. The outer walls formed a circle so immense that, standing in one place, the stone face disappeared from sight in either direction before it curved inward noticeably. The walls were at least as tall as the outer defenses of the dwarven fortress before him, and they stood just as silent and desolate. Hell had no need for defenders to man the walls.
Yet for all its size, within the walls there was little in the way of houses for any sort of habitation. Demons had no need of sleep ─ although they sometimes entered periods of a sort of hibernation for months or even years at a time ─ and if the damned souls condemned to live in Hell required sleep, no living man had seen it firsthand to report it. Instead, the inside of Dis was a hodgepodge of enormous palaces built by the demons as signs of power. Birch had spent the better part of a year sneaking through the immense city, and he knew that demons kept others of lesser power as their servants. The insides of those edifices were made up of torture chambers, throne rooms, and other rooms whose only purpose was to enlarge the size of the building to make it appear more grand. All were decorated in a grisly, horrifying manner that was beyond all but the darkest of mortal nightmares.
“Birch?”
Birch whipped his head around and just avoided meeting James’s eyes as the Yellow paladin stepped back from him. Birch turned and realized the others had all joined him in staring at the silent city. He’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t noticed the captain had put out a longboat to take soundings and guide the larger ship safely to the docks.
“Sorry, I was… remembering,” Birch said, his voice taut as he shook the remaining images from his mind. James nodded, knowing he could never truly understand what went on in Birch’s mind.
“We’ve signaled the fortress, and it seems we’re getting some sort of response,” Garet said, pointing one massive arm toward a light that was blinking intermittently in one of the highest windows in the fortress. “They haven’t responded to our attempts at Darek’s Code[42] and we’re too far away to try semaphore, so we have no way of actually talking with them yet, but at least we know someone’s up there.”
“But why is he, or they, up there and not out here?” Birch asked. “What are they afraid of?”
Nuse leaned on the rail, his arms thinner than even the smallest of the stout wooden bars. He peered intently at the blinking light, then turned to look at Birch.
“We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”
- 2 -
Danner and Flasch made it back to the barracks that night without anyone the wiser, but Danner was still shaken by what they’d heard. Or rather, he was shaken by what he alone had heard. Flasch maintained that the voices in the room were speaking some strange language he couldn’t understand, but to Danner the words made perfect sense. He wouldn’t have noticed anything strange if Flasch hadn’t pointed it out.
But that was a mystery to be unraveled in its own time. Right now, Danner had to worry about someone marking him for death. He realized it should be nothing new, because the Coalition had already made two attempts to claim his life, but those had faded into the background during the immediacy of his training, and he’d all but forgotten they were a problem. This, however, was something immediate, and there was no way he could just forget about it.
He slept fitfully that night, his dreams filled with a faceless shadow that hissed at him, whispering words of death as it stalked him through the halls the Prismatic chapterhouse. When he awoke the next morning, Danner’s sheets were drenched in sweat and his eyes were bloodshot.
Danner filled his friends in on what he’d overheard, expressing his certainty that not only was someone seeking his life now, but that it was none other than one of The Three. The six of them squatted in a circle between two bunks after breakfast while the other trainees were busy cleaning their equipment and making their beds.
“The dark voice, the one that talked the most, mentioned having a brother,” Danner rationalized. “The Three are the only demons who have that sort of relationship.”
“Actually, there was a pair of sisters in Heaven before the Great Schism,” Marc interrupted, “and the spirits of Sin and San are supposed to be related.” He saw the others staring at him, and he avoided Danner’s glare. “I read it in a book. But… um, no one really is interested in that now, are they? Okay, carry on then.”
Danner shook his head.
“Whatever. But he mentioned someone he called ‘the paladin,’ which I think refers to my uncle Birch,” Danner continued. “That means they know he’s hunting them, and they’re probably setting a trap. And someone with him is working for the demon, too.”
“There’s another thought there, too, Danner,” Michael said quietly. They turned to look at him. “If the demon is here inside the home of the Prismatic Order, he’s probably taken a human form. We all know they can do that,” he added, pointedly not mentioning the incident with Alicia, since they were all thinking about it, “and he could very well be someone we know, or even someone of importance. One of our fellow trainees, one of our instructors. San, it could even be a member of the Prismatic Council for all we know.”
They stared at him in silence, realizing he was correct.
“You’re not getting any creepy, jeeby, demon vibes off any of us, are you, Danner?” Flasch asked, only half joking. Danner shook his head.
“I think I’d recognize the feeling if I spent any amount of time with someone like that,” he said. “The only bad feeling I get around you is when you haven’t bathed.”
“Very funny.”<
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“He’s not the only one,” Garnet added with a smile.
“Can we not pick on Flasch right now?” he asked plaintively. “It’s not my day.”
“So whose day is it then?” Marc asked.
“Yours.”
Danner held up a hand to silence them.
“Alright, here’s the deal,” Danner said. “We need to keep our eyes open and look for anything strange. Trebor, I think under the circumstances you might consider going a bit more active with your kything. You can scan pretty much anyone with that, right?”
He nodded, but looked uncertain.
“What is it?”
“Well, when I was kything your mind while we were sorting out that whole mess with Alicia, I noticed something weird in there.”
“Gee, something weird in Danner’s brain?” Flasch asked. “Do tell.” In what had almost become a ritual, Garnet reached over and cuffed Flasch upside the head.
“Seriously. Most people, even if they know what it is I’m doing, can’t hide their thoughts from a deep kything. Now admittedly, I’m not the world’s greatest at that particular skill, but while I was peeking around, I got the feeling that you could lock me out completely if you but half tried,” Trebor said. “It was so weird, it felt totally alien.”
“So what’s your point?” Danner asked finally.
“That if I have that problem with you, there might be others out there I can’t kythe with,” Trebor explained. “Or it could just be something lacking in my skills that I’m only just now noticing. I don’t know.”
Danner sighed thoughtfully.
“Well, you should know if it happens, right? If so, we’ll just keep a more mundane lookout on whoever it is and hope to verify their humanity that way.”
He paused.
“Oh, and speaking of your kything, any hints as to what’s coming up?”
Trebor nodded.
“It’s time for us to start combat training,” Trebor said. “We’re still to be broken up in our respective training groups, but now they’ll be adding in a daily cycle of armed combat and a cycle of unarmed combat.”
“Why bother with unarmed? Isn’t that just a lot of kicking?” Flasch asked.
This time, Garnet didn’t bother cuffing him. Instead, he put his hand on Flasch’s chest and gently pushed him. Flasch lost his balance and fell back from his squatting position into the wall. His head snapped back and hit with an audible thump, and Flasch winced in pain.
He regained his balance somewhat shakily and held his head in his hands. “That’ll teach me to keep my mouth shut.”
“I doubt it,” Garnet said dryly.
Just then they heard Morningham’s voice echo through the barracks.
“Alright, you worthless slugs, get outside and in formation. It’s time you sissy-nannies learned how to protect yourselves in case a big scary monster comes to bite you.”
With a quick smile to Trebor, Danner stood and grabbed his gear. He strapped his war belt around his waist as he ran down to the courtyard. He hoped Flasch would never change, otherwise their group would be a lot less fun.
- 3 -
Moreen swayed with the motion of the ship, her stomach queasy. Any minute now, she knew she would probably be sick for what had to be the hundredth time this voyage. She no longer even tried to make it to the railing, and instead, the captain of the ship had given her a large bucket which she could then empty at her leisure.
She slid into one of the two chairs on either side of the table, which was bolted to the deck of the cabin. Moreen no longer knew how long they’d been at sea, but she was more than ready to find land if only for a moment. She wondered if she’d ever walk straight again.
Behind her, she heard the door creak, and she turned to see Brit entering the cabin, his stocky body showing little difficulty moving with the swaying of the ship. Moreen supposed it was because his legs were spaced wider and his weight was lower to the deck.
“Do ye be feelin’ better, lass?” Brit asked gruffly.
“Not so you’d notice,” Moreen replied with a slight smile. “I think it’s been a full day, so I’m overdue for another fill of the bucket.”
Her seasickness made it impossible to even look at food, but Brit insisted she ingest more than just water or she’d waste away to nothing.
“Why donna we just hang ye over the side for the rest o’ the voyage,” Brit teased her. “That way ye’ll not have t’ be forever filling and dumping that poor bucket.”
“Why don’t we drop you over the side and test the theory on how poorly dwarves swim?” Moreen said tartly.
“’Tis no theory, lass,” Brit said and barked a laugh. “Dwarves do sink like the very stones we do mine, and we do have about as much chance of swimming. It do be the bones, ye see. Dwarves be more dense than men, an’ we canna swim t’ save our hairy hides.”
Moreen shrugged, then regretted the motion as her stomach tilted queasily.
“How much longer will we be out here?” she asked when she felt it was safe.
“The captain did estimate us at two days from Den-Furral,” Brit replied. “Can ye last that long, lass?”
Moreen frowned thoughtfully.
“Two days?” She sighed, then shook her head. “If I must. I just hope Birch is okay.”
“Ye know, the trader from Ankor mightena been right,” Brit said cautiously. “He did say he saw a few paladins boardin’ the ship next to his, but he was no sure about seein’ a man with burnin’ eyes. This could no be where he be going.”
“I think he was right, Brit,” Moreen replied calmly. “The demon flew to the north, and I’m sure Birch and the demon are connected somehow. And I have to start somewhere.
“I just hope Birch is okay,” she said again.
Chapter 29
Nothing is more perfect, more ordered, more beautiful, than stone.
- Dwarven Proverb
- 1 -
Danner groaned as he picked himself up from the ground. His fingers smarted where his trainer had rapped his knuckles with a bowkur, causing Danner to drop his own practice weapon. His arms burned after only an hour of practicing, and he finally felt sympathy for every soldier in the history of mankind for the hours of practice they must have endured. Knowing he was getting used to the weight of his bowkur did little to ease Danner’s mind. Danner had once thought himself at least passing decent with a sword, but now…
Beside him, a Red paladin was likewise getting to his feet, but the smile on his face was marred by a blush of chagrin. Danner might feel bad about losing to his trainer, who was supposed to be beating him, but the paladin next to him was probably regretting the luck of the draw that had given him Garnet as a trainee.
Garnet’s size made him an able wrestler, and he claimed his younger brothers had given him ample opportunity to practice. When it came to armed combat, however, Garnet’s father, Garet, had apparently taught his son quite a bit about various forms of weaponry, especially working with a sword and shield, the preferred arms of most paladins. Garnet’s bowkur was an enormous, wide-bladed hand-and-a-half sword, its dimensions perfectly in proportion to Garnet’s immense size. Danner didn’t think he could even swing his friend’s practice weapon, much less wield it effectively, but to Garnet it seemed no heavier than a light rapier. He certainly wielded it so, moving the wooden blade with more speed than most men could with weapons a fraction of its size and weight.
Michael was the next best swordsman of their group, using his great height to his advantage against his opponents. But while he was a fair hand with a sword, the towering trainee was perhaps more dangerous without a weapon in his hand at all. Michael had learned a vicious form of ground-fighting in his youth and readily pinned or threw all but the most skilled of his opponents. He was adapting his skills to the hand-to-hand combat their instructors utilized, which included techniques designed to counter enemies with claws, multiple limbs, razor-sharp teeth, and a host of other traits that only a demonic opponent might possess.<
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Danner lifted his bowkur from the dust. His sword was a wooden saber with a blade only slightly thicker than a real sword would have. Quality bowkurs were built of oak, maple, or ash wood and were filled with a heavy metal, giving them the approximate weight of the blade they imitated. They were also built slightly bulkier, to keep the wood from cracking or chipping during practice.
“Again, de’Valderat, and this time keep your grip a trifle looser, otherwise I’ll knock your sword from your hand and leave you defenseless,” his instructor said, bringing Danner’s attention back to his training.
At the paladin’s cue, Danner assumed a fighting stance that was a rough approximation of his instructor’s and raised his blade. He advanced and attacked slowly, with the paladin calling instructions on which move he was to try next. Danner was feeling proud of himself by the time they stopped. While he was clearly out of practice, the training he’d had with Maran years before was quickly coming back to him, and he was picking up the techniques for managing a shield.
Next to him, Garnet was engaged in yet another duel with his instructor. Garnet’s experience had let him skip the slower training Danner and the other trainees were forced to endure, and it was clear his friend was already better than most paladins. He watched Garnet parry his opponent’s lunge, then return with a blow that was pulled just short of stabbing the paladin through the throat.
The paladin saluted, signifying the end of yet another bout.
“Well then, jo’Garet,” Morningham’s voice boomed from almost directly behind Danner, who jumped at the sudden noise. “It seems you already know a thing or two about blade work. Your daddy teach you that, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” Garnet replied, saluting the approaching paladin.
“I guess you fancy yourself a pretty damn good fighter then, huh?”
“I’m better than average, sir, but I’m sure I’ve a lot to learn,” Garnet said calmly.
“Think you’re better than me, boy?” There was a strange challenge in Morningham’s eye, and Danner didn’t understand why Garnet was being so singled out.
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 35