by Tim Waggoner
“I am Quarran Delletar, Secundar of Clan Delletar.” The way he spoke his family’s name told Lirra that he expected her to recognize it, but when it was clear she didn’t, he went on. “You have our thanks for standing up for the honor of our clan, though it was unnecessary. We are perfectly capable of defending our name.”
His tone was gruff, and his gratitude obviously grudging. There was also an edge of challenge in his voice, as if he was angry with Lirra for what she’d done. She glanced over at Quarran’s two companions and saw their expressions were neutral.
They’re waiting to see what I’ll do, she thought.
She inclined her head in acceptance of his thanks. “It was my honor, Secundar Delletar. Those soldiers needed a lesson in manners, and as a veteran of the Karrnathi military, it was my duty to see that they received it.”
Quarran’s gaze strayed to her left arm and then returned to her face. “You have an unusual … skill. There are those who would look askance at such talent, but my people are practical first and foremost. We have a saying: ‘A tool is only as effective as the one who wields it.’ You wielded yours most effectively, and with restraint. I appreciate restraint. I believe in control, and I loathe waste.”
He seemed to consider for a moment before reaching into a vest pocket and removing an iron token shaped like a coin. He flipped it to Lirra and she caught it easily. She examined it and saw that on one side was a design of a pick and shovel with their handles crossed, and on the other side was a series of runes she couldn’t decipher, but which she recognized as Dwarven letters.
“That’s a token of Clan Delletar. If you ever have need of assistance, show this to any trader in Karrnath, and you shall receive aid. Any cost incurred by their assistance will be covered by my family.”
Lira wasn’t sure when or if she’d ever have need to redeem the dwarf’s token, but she had no desire to offend him, so she tucked it into one of her uniform pockets.
“Thank you, Secundar. You are most gracious.”
“Not at all, Lady …”
The question hung in the air, and Lirra didn’t know how to respond to it. She didn’t want to give her real name, but she also didn’t want to lie to Quarran. Still, she had little choice. But as she struggled to come up with a false a name to give the man, Ranja stepped in.
“She is known as Lady Ruin,” the shifter said.
Quarran raised an eyebrow at this, but then he slowly smiled at Lirra. “It suits you, my lady. Good travels to you.” He nodded to Ranja. “And you as well.”
The dwarf started to turn, but before he did, Lirra said, “One more thing, Secundar.”
He paused and gave her a questioning look.
“Why did you and your friends stop in here? It’s a humble tavern, to say the least, and the stew leaves more than a little to be desired.”
Quarran laughed. “You humans lack the discerning palates of dwarves. This tavern serves the best stew in the entire country—and they charge almost nothing for it!”
Chuckling, Quarran turned and walked off. The other two dwarves rose from their table and joined him, and the three departed the tavern without a backward glance. The patrons of the Wyvern’s Claw once more went back to their conversations, but they were hushed, more than a few men and woman tossed furtive glances Lirra’s way, and once or twice she heard the words Lady Ruin pass their lips.
She turned to Ranja, but the shifter just grinned.
“My people have a saying, too: ‘A name is what your friends call you.’ ” She glanced in the direction of the table that had been broken when Lirra flung the loudmouthed soldier through the air. One of the servers was busy clearing away the splintered remnants of the table and trying not to look at Lirra as she worked. “Lady Ruin has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?” the shifter said. “And you have to admit, it’s appropriate.”
“It’s not exactly the name of someone who wishes to travel unnoticed,” Lirra said, irritated, “but I suppose it will do as well as any other.”
“Fortune smiled upon you this day, my friend. Clan Delletar is one of the most powerful banking families among the dwarves, and they don’t hand out their tokens lightly. You must’ve really impressed them. And it’s not a one-time thing, you know. The token is yours to keep for life, and you can use it as many times as you wish. It’s a very handy thing to have indeed.”
The greed in Ranja’s voice was unmistakeable, and Lirra reached into her vest to pull out the token. “Do you want it? Perhaps we can count it as partial payment for your helping me find Elidyr.”
“I’d love to take it from you, but I can’t. It’s only good for you. Quarran and his friends will soon begin spreading the word among the dwarven community that they gave a token to a woman with a symbiont who goes by the name Lady Ruin. And if anyone else ever tries to use your token, Clan Delletar will make them regret it.”
Lirra didn’t know how she felt about that. It was possible that the token would come in handy somewhere down the line, but she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of the name Ranja had saddled her with being spread throughout Karrnath, and perhaps beyond. Still, there was nothing she could do about it, and she placed the dwarven token back into her vest pocket and decided to forget about it for now.
“All right,” Lirra said. “Now if we can get started?”
The two women crossed the room to the door, Lirra uncomfortably aware of the patron’s gazes following them as they left. So much for keeping a low profile, she thought.
Once on the street, Ranja starting ticking off a list of things they would need.
“We could probably use a pair of horses. And we’ll need packs and other supplies. I don’t know how much silver you have on you, but I suppose I can cover the cost of whatever we buy for now.” She grinned. “Unless we get lucky and can find a dwarven merchant in town. In which case we can start putting that token of yours to good use.”
Before Lirra could reply, she heard shouts and cries of alarm coming from the far end of the street. She looked and saw a mass of people running toward them, and her first thought was that word had gotten out that a woman with a symbiont had been brawling in the Wyvern’s Claw, and the outraged citizens of Geirrid had banded together to come after her. She drew her sword and the tentacle whip uncoiled and slipped free of her sleeve. Beside her, Ranja shifted and raised her claws, a low growl rumbling in her throat.
But the wave of townsfolk broke around the two women as if they were a pair of large rocks in a rushing river, and it was quickly clear to Lirra that the people weren’t interested in her. Indeed, from the way they kept casting glances behind them, it appeared they were running from something.
She felt suddenly strange, almost dizzy. There was a tingling sensation at the base of her skull, and cold nausea filled her stomach. She knew instinctively that something was wrong here—very wrong.
Without waiting for Lirra’s command, the tentacle whip lashed out and grabbed a fleeing man by the arm and yanked him to her. The man was middle-aged, lean, with sun-weathered skin that spoke of a lifetime working outdoors. His simple homespun tunic further marked him as a farmer, probably come into town to buy supplies or sell some of his farm’s products. The man was obviously terrified, so much so that he didn’t seem to be aware that he’d been snagged and reeled in by a symbiont. As a battlefield commander, Lirra had dealt with frightened men and women on more than one occasion, and she used a strong, harsh tone to cut through the man’s fear.
“What’s wrong?” she snapped.
The wild look in the farmer’s eyes persisted, and she commanded the symbiont to give him a shake as she barked her question again. This time the man’s gaze cleared and his eyes focused on Lirra.
“Something awful has entered the town … they look human, but they’re not, they’re …” He shook his head. “I don’t know what they are, but they’re killing everyone they see, and nothing seems to stop them! Not swords, not magic … You have to let me go before they get here!”
During the few moments Lirra had questioned the farmer, the fleeing crowd had diminished, and there were only a handful of people running down the street. Lirra turned to Ranja to ask what she made of the sudden panic when a line of men, women, and children, more than a dozen in all, came into view. Before them stood a smattering of garrison soldiers—several of whom Lirra recognized as those that had been taunting the dwarves in the Wyvern’s Claw. The soldiers fought a retreating battle as they attempted to halt their enemies’ advance, but their efforts were to no avail. They hacked and slashed with their swords, but every wound they inflicted on their enemies refused to bleed and healed within seconds. A number of different races were represented in the advancing line—human, dwarven, halfing, half-elf—but they all shared a similar appearance. Their eyes were completely white, almost glowing, in fact, and the flesh of their faces was scarred and distorted, as if they’d all been through a fire some time before.
Lirra felt a strange recognition upon seeing their misshapen visages. They were aberrations of some sort, tainted by the corrupting influence of Xoriat. The tingling at the base of her skull and the nausea in her gut intensified, and she knew that the sensations were caused by the presence of these bizarre new aberrations.
As Lirra and Ranja watched, the white-eyed men and women made fast work of the soldiers, ripping off limbs and snapping necks without taking so much as a lasting cut from any of their blades. When the soldiers were dead, the white-eyes tossed them aside as if they were nothing more than broken toys that were no longer fit to play with, and the distorted creatures continued marching down the street toward Lirra and Ranja.
Lirra felt a clawed hand grasp her elbow.
“I don’t know about you,” Ranja said in a bestial voice, “but I’d rather not be standing in the middle of the street when those things get here. Let’s go!”
But Lirra resisted the shifter’s urging. She felt a compulsion to stand her ground and fight the oncoming creatures, even though she and Ranja were seriously outnumbered. At a guess there were a dozen of them, and given the way they rapidly healed their wounds, Lirra knew there was nothing either she or her shifter companion could do to stop them. Nevertheless, the feeling that she had to stay here and fight was so strong it was as if her feet were magically affixed to the ground. An instant later, she understood why.
Following close behind the advancing white-eyes, Elidyr saw her and waved cheerfully.
“There you are, my dear! My new friends and I have been looking all over town for you!”
Ranja leaned her mouth close to Lirra’s ear. “Remember the deal we made that I’d help you find your uncle? Well, there he is.”
“Yes,” Lirra said, tightening her grip on her sword. “Yes, he is.”
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Still no word?” Ksana asked.
Vaddon sat upon one of the logs arranged around their campfire, a mug of hot nestleberry tea in his hand. He looked up as the cleric approached and sat down next to him. A metal teapot sat at the edge of the fire, resting in a bed of coals, and Vaddon offered his old friend some, but she declined.
“I’ve already had two cups this morning,” she said. “More than that, and I get jittery.”
Vaddon smiled. “Given your usually placid nature, you being jittery is like another person being half asleep.”
Ksana smiled back. “How many campaigns have we been on together, Vaddon? How many times have we sat around campfires like this, waiting for news—for orders or intelligence—that would tell us it was finally time to act?”
“Too many times to count,” he said. There was a hint of warmth beneath his gruff tone. Ksana might not have been related to the Brochanns by blood, but she was as much a member of the family as if she had been. The bonds forged in battle among Karrnathi soldiers were as strong as any formed by familial relationship, and often stronger. Ksana had stood by Vaddon’s side, as a fellow soldier, advisor, and friend, for more years than he liked to think about. But there was no one he’d rather have by his side during trying times, with the exception of Lirra, and given that his daughter had become possessed by an aberration and had taken leave of her senses, the cleric’s presence was, as always, a great comfort to him.
The Outguard had set up camp on the outskirts of Geirrid, less than a mile from the city. Vaddon wanted to be near the town garrison in case he needed to call upon reinforcements, but he didn’t want to stay at the town’s barracks in order to avoid any of the other soldiers learning about the symbiont project and what had happened to Lirra and Elidyr. A dozen tents were pitched in a circle around the campfire, and about the same number of horses was tethered to stakes not far from camp. Sinnoch remained in his tent—indeed, the dolgaunt hadn’t left it since they’d made camp yesterday, and Vaddon had set Bergerron’s two warforged to stand guard. A half-dozen other soldiers, including Rhedyn and Osten, busied themselves with maintaining their weapons, caring for the horses, or running practice drills to keep in shape.
The rest of Vaddon’s people were out riding across the countryside in search of Elidyr and Lirra, all of them in possession of communication amulets containing psionic crystals. The amulets allowed the wearers to send and receive brief telepathic messages to each other, though the crystals only contained enough power for two or three exchanges before they burned out. Vaddon wore one of the amulets around his neck, and his crystal was larger than the others, allowing it to retain a charge longer. Elidyr had originally created the devices for the Outguard’s use, and the irony that his brother’s handiwork would now be used to track him down wasn’t lost on Vaddon. His own amulet had already seen a significant amount of use that morning.
“I’ve received some reports,” Vaddon said. Each time someone had contacted him, he’d felt a surge of hope that there would be news about Lirra, but he’d been disappointed every time. “None of our people have sighted either Lirra or Elidyr, but they have run across a number of abandoned farms—all of them in a more or less direct line between the lodge and Geirrid.”
“Do you think either Lirra or Elidyr had anything to do with it?”
“There’s no evidence to suggest that, but you know as well as I that coincidences are never to be trusted in a campaign. I’ve ordered a couple of our soldiers to ride to Geirrid and see what, if anything, they can learn there.”
“Do you think Lirra or Elidyr would head for the town?”
Vaddon shrugged. “Who’s to say what either of them will do now? My brother is clearly insane, and Lirra …” He paused and sighed deeply. “She may retain more of her sanity than Elidyr, but her fusion with the symbiont affected her mind as well, and every moment she remains bonded to the foul thing corrupts her further. It’s only a matter of time before she loses her mind as well.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain of that,” Ksana said softly. “Lirra is strong in body, mind, and spirit. If anyone is able to resist the corrupting influence of a symbiont, it will be her.”
Vaddon dearly wanted to believe that Ksana was right, that his daughter would be able to maintain her sense of self and not be overwhelmed by her symbiont. But it was precisely because he so badly wanted to believe it that he couldn’t allow himself to do so. Lirra was his daughter, and it was tearing him up inside that she had become corrupted in body and mind because the symbiont project had failed—a project he was in command of. But if he was to have a chance of freeing his daughter from the parasite that afflicted her, he had to control his emotions and do what had to be done, just as he’d had to on a hundred previous campaigns, on a hundred different battlefields. But this time he would do it for Lirra.
As if sensing his mood, Ksana turned the conversation in a different direction. She nodded toward the two warforged guarding Sinnoch’s tent. “So what do you think of our new recruits?”
Vaddon snorted. “You know how I feel about warforged. I will say this: They were use
ful for flagging down the lightning rail. I ordered them both to stand in the middle of the tracks and wave their arms until the engine stopped.”
Ksana grinned. “And I bet you wouldn’t have been disappointed if they’d been run down.”
Vaddon smiled back. “I’ll admit the thought had occurred to me. Unfortunately, the driver stopped in time.” He glanced over at the warforged. Longstrider stood still as a statue—which, Vaddon supposed, came naturally to his kind—but Shatterfist kept talking to his companion, moving about as he did so, almost fidgeting, in fact.
“Bergerron sent them both to keep an eye on us, but they’ve been ordered to assist us as necessary, and I don’t doubt they will.” Vaddon paused. “I can tolerate the tall one,” he said grudgingly. “He’s quiet, does his job, and doesn’t get in the way. As for the short one …” He shook his head. “He talks too much. I’ve begun to wonder if Bergerron didn’t send that one with me as a form of punishment for bungling the symbiont project.”
Ksana chuckled. “I’ve talked with Shatterfist a couple of times. He’s different then most warforged, but that’s his charm.”
Vaddon turned to face the cleric. “You talked to him? Whatever for?”
“To get to know him, of course. I’ve spoken with Longstrider as well.”
“Why would you want to do that?” Vaddon asked, honestly puzzled. “They’re just constructs. They aren’t alive. There’s no more sense in getting to know them than there is getting to know a horseshoe. They’re tools designed to fulfill a purpose, nothing more.”
“We’ve had this discussion before, Vaddon. You know how I feel. Just because the warforged were created through magical engineering doesn’t make them any less alive than you or I. The gods have many ways of working their miracles.” She smiled. “Or to put it in a way you might better appreciate, there’s more than one way to skin a wolf.”