by James Wyatt
“Would you care to explain that spectacle?” Haldren said to Darraun as Gaven drew near. His voice was a threatening whisper.
“Well,” Darraun said, “a hobgoblin challenged Cart to a kind of wrestling match, which Cart won. Then he beat a bugbear, then people were lining up to challenge him. Then Gaven-”
“Relax, Haldren,” Gaven interrupted. “We kept our mouths shut, and no one here cares a damn who we are or who wants to find us. Looks like you two got what we need. We stayed out of trouble and had a little fun. No harm done. Let’s get on our way.”
“I will be the judge of what incidents are important or otherwise,” Haldren said. “And I will remind you, Gaven, that I am in command of this expedition.”
Gaven took a step toward Haldren and looked into his weathered face. “I don’t like taking orders, Haldren. I’m not a good little soldier. I never obeyed my father. And the fact that you orchestrated my escape from Dreadhold doesn’t mean that you own me.”
Haldren’s face went purple with fury as he returned Gaven’s stare. “Perhaps it would be best if you continued to think of yourself as a prisoner, then. I wouldn’t want you getting ideas that you are free to travel about as you please. You are part of this expedition whether you like it or not.”
His eyes rested on the pommel of the sword slung on Gaven’s back, as if he were noticing it for the first time.
“Where did you get that sword?” he whispered.
Gaven reached over his shoulder and drew the blade out of its sheath, without moving away from Haldren. “You like it?” he said. “Senya got it for me in Shae Mordai.”
“Senya?” Haldren whirled on her. “You armed this madman?”
Senya stood her ground to Gaven’s surprise-and, evidently, to Haldren’s as well. “I thought it would help our cause if he didn’t get torn to shreds by another pack of displacer beasts,” she said.
Haldren’s fury was palpable as he turned back to Gaven. “Clearly, I underestimated you. I took you for an idiot with nothing in your mind but the Prophecy, and now even Senya is doing you favors. But listen to me, Gaven-all of you, listen well. This isn’t about the Prophecy or Vaskar’s dreams of godhood. It’s about my destiny, and I will not be denied what is due me. If you think for a moment of standing in my way, I will crush you. Any of you,” he added, with a glance toward Senya. “Don’t question whether I can or really will.” He thrust a finger into Gaven’s chest. “I will snuff your life like a candle.”
In his mind, Gaven saw himself bringing his sword around, cutting right into Haldren’s belly so he would die slowly and in great pain. The hand holding the sword tightened, the muscles flexed, his other hand itched for a grip on the smooth leather of the hilt. Something held him back, though. Perhaps it was just his better judgment, or the stares of the goblins who were circling them, watching the argument even if they couldn’t understand the language. But some part of Gaven’s mind whispered words of the Prophecy.
Gaven growled as he slid the sword back into its sheath. He took some pleasure, at least, in seeing the briefest flinch cross Haldren’s face as the huge blade swung past. Several people in the crowd groaned with disappointment.
Gaven pushed his way through the encircling goblins and strode toward the gate of Grellreach. “Lead on, then, Haldren,” he said.
CHAPTER 13
Haldren led them a short way outside of town, then gathered them into a circle. Gaven brooded as he walked, and the others seemed happy to share his silence. “What’s our next destination, Lord General?” Cart asked. The warforged was the only one who didn’t seem subdued after the confrontation, and Gaven wondered what he had thought of Haldren’s threats.
Haldren didn’t answer. He seized Senya’s hand in his left and Darraun’s in his right and began the now-familiar chant of his spell without waiting for the others. Cart and Gaven quickly closed the circle. Senya clung fiercely to Gaven’s hand before Haldren completed the spell that yanked them through space once again.
They stood in a mountain valley, barren rock stretching up on two sides. The bands of red and gold in the cliff faces suggested that they had not traveled far from the Torlaac Moor with its outcroppings of similar stone. Haldren gazed upward at something behind Gaven, so Gaven spun around, pulling his hand from Senya’s grasp.
A towering ruin loomed before them, what had once been a grand city nestled among the mountains. A broken wall formed a ring at the head of the valley, each end blending seamlessly into a cliff wall. A gate was built into the wall on a massive bridge straddling a dry river bed. Colossal statues flanked the gate, mostly crumbled away but still showing traces of what looked like gnome features. The carvings were odd, and Gaven stared at them for a long moment trying to puzzle them out.
“Paluur Draal,” Haldren announced. “We are high in the Seawall Mountains now, in land claimed by Zilargo. This city is one of the most important ruins of the ancient goblin Empire of Dhakaan in Khorvaire. Scholars from the Library of Korranberg have explored and catalogued it extensively, but they say there are many secrets yet to uncover.”
“And what are we doing here?” Gaven said.
“We are looking for a map,” Haldren said. “Specifically, one that will point us to the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor.”
“So if this is a Dhakaani ruin,” Senya said, “why are there gnomes guarding the gates?” She was staring at the same carvings that had puzzled Gaven.
“Those carvings were originally hobgoblins, or perhaps bugbears. However, several races inhabited Paluur Draal over the centuries-kobolds, humans, and gnomes most recently. By the time the gnomes settled here, the original statues were worn to mostly smooth pillars, so the gnomes carved them again in their own image.”
“And where are we going to find this map?” Gaven said.
“We’re going to look for it, as I said.”
“Out here?”
Haldren didn’t answer, but started walking toward the gate. Cart followed on his heels, with the others trailing more slowly after.
Heavy drops of rain began to fall as they entered the ruins, forming tiny craters in the dry earth. Gaven glowered up at the slate gray sky with a sense of satisfaction. Anger brewed like a storm in his mind, furrowing his brow and hunching his shoulders, and the rain seemed like a proper complement to his mood. He flexed his hands and arms as he walked, itching for a fight-for anything that would let him give vent to his frustration. He was tempted to attack Haldren outright, but he doubted he could take the sorcerer, Senya, and Cart by himself. He wondered which side Darraun would take.
So intent was his glare at Haldren’s back that he barely saw the ruined city as they walked through it. He had an indistinct impression of stone buildings in varying states of ruin, none too different than what they’d passed in the fields outside Grellreach. They wandered along streets paved with shattered cobblestones and clambered over piles of rubble that blocked their way, and slowly made their way toward the cliff face at the back edge of the ancient city.
But Gaven noticed no details, took in none of the grandeur. His attention was solely on Haldren’s back, imagining his new blade striking the sorcerer down. Despite his rage, Gaven couldn’t swallow striking anyone in the back. He’d draw the sword, call for Haldren’s attention, give the man a moment-no more-to ready himself, then bring the blade across and down. No. A quick death would be too good for Haldren. Gaven imagined summoning the fury of the storm itself, lightning falling to blast the sorcerer’s smug grin from his face.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Gaven could feel the burning tingle of the storm coursing through him. He smiled and opened his mouth to call for Haldren-
A mountain troll emerged from a fissure in the cliff face. The troll’s gray hide was covered with warty bumps like gravel. It was three times Gaven’s height when it reared up, bellowing a rumbling roar, then it shambled forward using one rubbery hand to help it over the slippery ground, a splintered log held in the other hand.
At la
st! Here was the chance Gaven had been craving. The attack of the displacer beasts had caught him unprepared, the argument with Haldren had filled him with rage; but now he had a sword in his hand and a reason to fight. Gaven looked up at the enormous creature. A grim smile lit his face, and lightning flickered above them.
Then the creature’s smell-a mix of carrion and excrement-hit him and nearly knocked him off his feet. Gaven was glad for the sword in his hand but nervous about his lack of armor. He circled to one side and let Cart take the brunt of the troll’s initial charge.
With a word, Gaven made crackling lightning erupt along his elven blade. He ran forward, put all of his rage and frustration into his swing, and brought the sword around in a wide arc. The blade bit deep, and the lightning coursed up the creature’s body. It howled in pain. Gaven glanced behind it-and noticed two smaller trolls emerging from the cave entrance. Perhaps that first roar hadn’t been anger but a command, summoning the creature’s followers to its aid.
“More on the way!” Gaven shouted.
The mountain troll’s club came at him, and Gaven ducked, feeling the wind from the massive limb sweep over him. His attack had drawn the troll’s attention. Either that, or the creature was smart enough to recognize an unarmored foe as a soft target. Following the big troll’s lead, the other two moved in.
Gaven looked up at the trolls surrounding him. The big one was twice the size of the other two, but even the smaller ones were head and shoulders taller than him. Their claws reached for him even as the mountain troll raised its club.
Gaven kept his sword up, batting aside the smaller trolls’ tentative slashes and grabs. The trolls stepped back, and Gaven dodged as the massive club came crashing down. He knew he couldn’t outlast them in a hand-to-hand fight. They were too big, too fast, and too damned strong.
He focused his mind and chanted the syllables of another spell. Gaven’s body erupted in violet flames, and the rain hissed into steam as it touched him. All three trolls recoiled.
The mountain troll turned from Gaven with a grunt and swung its club hard into Cart. The warforged took a couple of steps back, then shook off the blow and renewed his assault. Senya darted around the mountain troll’s feet, finding its most vulnerable spots, the weaker parts of its thick, stony hide, and slashing at them with her light blade.
The two smaller trolls overcame their initial shock at the appearance of flames around Gaven, and one took a swipe at his back. The claws raked his skin, but the troll roared in pain as the violet flames engulfed its claws, searing its rubbery flesh. Both trolls backed away. Gaven brandished his sword with a roar of his own, and they scurried further back, unwilling to be seared by Gaven’s fire.
“Gaven!” shouted Haldren.
Gaven tumbled and rolled back the merest instant before an eruption of flame struck the trolls, Even so, it seared him badly-the flames around his body burned the trolls that attacked him, but did nothing to protect him from other fires. He got back to his feet in a fury. Haldren had cast the spell, he was sure, and didn’t seem to mind that Gaven had been caught in the blast. Despite his rage, Gaven had to admit that the spell had been effective. Both smaller trolls lay on the ground, their unmoving bodies charred black from the flames, and the mountain troll showed signs of serious injury. It could have been much worse.
Thunder rolled overhead, and Gaven leaped at the giant troll, channeling all his anger into each swing of his blade. It dropped to one knee, nearly overwhelmed, and Senya ran up its back to drive her sword into the base of its skull. The troll fell hard, throwing Senya to sprawl on the ground, but it did not move again. The fight was over. As Gaven tried to catch his breath, silence fell back over the ruins of Paluur Draal.
Gaven whirled on Haldren. “So what is it, Haldren? Are you dragging me along to help you on your fool’s quest, or do you want to get rid of me?” He stood nose to nose with the old man again, and grabbed a fistful of Haldren’s shirt. “Because if you want to get rid of me, I’ll go. There’s no need to kill me.”
“Don’t be absurd, Gaven.”
“Absurd? You nearly blasted me into the fires of Fernia!” “Hardly,” Haldren said.
Gaven suddenly felt like a small child getting a scolding, and his anger boiled. He pulled Haldren up so his toes just dragged on the ground. “I’m not an idiot, Haldren.”
“Of course, Gaven.” No trace of fear came through in Haldren’s voice. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you, certainly not kill you. I simply realized too late that you had moved into the area of my spell. I did try to warn you.”
Gaven realized that his threatening steps toward the retreating trolls had taken him closer to the center of the fiery blast, so Haldren’s excuse might have been true. That possibility did little to diminish Gaven’s rage, though. He pushed Haldren away and stalked over to Darraun, who crouched on the ground beside Cart.
It seemed the troll had gotten one good blow in before it fell. Cart’s left arm looked badly hurt-or did it hurt? Gaven realized he had no idea if the warforged felt pain. In any event, Darraun ran his hands over the damaged arm, and his touch straightened bent plates and knotted broken cords back together. It was amazing and strangely fascinating-although, he realized, it wasn’t too different in principle from the way a healer’s magic knit flesh and bone back together. That was just a magic he was more used to seeing.
While Darraun tended to his injuries, Gaven traced a finger in a groove that ran through the stone on which he sat. He didn’t like to watch a healer’s magic when it was his flesh being knit together. A flash of light drew his eyes up to Haldren, who had just cast a spell to brighten the darkness inside the cave from which the trolls had emerged.
“Finished,” Darraun said, and he rose to join the others, who were gathered around the cave entrance, staring upward.
Gaven started to get to his feet, but the groove he’d traced caught his attention. He had run his finger along a straight part of the groove, but it was not straight for long-it traced the outline of Kraken Bay.
“Behold!” Haldren announced, sweeping his arm across the cave entrance. “The sixteen gods of Dhakaan!”
Gaven brushed a thin coat of mud away from the stone, his heart racing. He glanced up at Haldren, but the sorcerer was completely absorbed in the spectacle within the cave. He looked back at his work, smiled, and tried to sweep mud back over the map he had uncovered.
Darraun looked over Haldren’s shoulder at the cavern beyond. The cave might have been natural in origin, but the ancient builders of the place had carefully enlarged it, hollowing the ceiling and smoothing the walls. The debris of a thousand years and the more recent remnants of the trolls’ habitation littered the floor, but as Darraun’s eyes followed the arches up he realized that the grandeur of the ancient city was far better preserved here than anywhere else they had been so far.
Sixteen enormous figures stood around the far wall, their stone heads near the ceiling and their feet a troll’s height above the floor. Most of the figures were proud hobgoblins, dressed in archaic armor and carrying ornate weapons. Two loomed taller than the others, bugbears with their hairy hides and fang-filled mouths, and one goblin crouched near the center of the frieze, half the size of the burly bugbears. As Darraun looked, Haldren started naming them.
“On the left end is Norrakath the Hunter, who slew the great serpent and roped in the sea with its corpse. When humans first came to Khorvaire, they identified him with Balinor.”
Norrakath was a fearsome bugbear, leaning on a bow that seemed to be made of the bones of some beast-perhaps the ribs of the great serpent. He was a far cry from any representation of Balinor Darraun had ever seen, though the god of the hunt was sometimes depicted as a half-orc. Balinor smiled in every depiction Darraun had seen. Norrakath, on the other hand, snarled like a beast.
Haldren continued. “Beside him is Uthrek the Keeper. He was so fearsome a god of death that the early humans adopted him completely into their beliefs, though his Goblin name disappeared
. He remains the evil god of death, the Keeper.”
Uthrek was so gaunt as to be almost skeletal, perhaps intended to be an undead hobgoblin. Darraun had seen the Keeper depicted in similar fashion, but he was more commonly shown as a grossly fat human, hungry for the souls of the dead and a god of greed as well as death.
“Kin to Uthrek, beside him is Korthrek the Devourer, likewise adopted into human myth as one of the Dark Six.” The god of the stormy sea was a hobgoblin with the many-toothed jaws of a shark.
“Next is Tauroc the Hammer, god of the forge. Obviously identified with Onatar.” Darraun was used to seeing Onatar depicted as a dwarf, but he could easily see the similarities between this hobgoblin smith and the burly Onatar. The god’s hammer, in particular, appeared the same as in many modern depictions of the god.
“Then we have Kol Korran, or I should say Rantash Mul, the Thief.” Darraun started in surprise-this hobgoblin bore no resemblance whatsoever to any depiction of Kol Korran. Perhaps modern humans valued trade more highly than the ancient hobgoblins did, because Rantash Mul was sickly, sinister, and unpleasant. Kol Korran, by contrast, was usually shown as fat and cheerful.
“Next is Dukash the Lawbringer, sort of a culture hero of the Dhakaani. I’m afraid we humans neutered him when we identified him with Aureon. His exploits as a hobgoblin are something to read about.”
Darraun could see the contrast. Aureon was the god of knowledge as well as law, and he was usually depicted as a somewhat frail, elderly wizard-sometimes even as a gnome. Dukash, in contrast, was the most vibrant figure before them now. He looked ready to leap out of the frieze, and his craftiness shone in his eyes.