The Eye of the Chained God

by Bassingthwaite, Don

  Somewhere ahead of them, Tempest led Belen and Uldane the same way. Those with nightvision guided those without. Turbull had offered one of his shifters—all of the Tigerclaw warriors could see in the dark as well—as an additional guide, but Belen had refused, saying that outsiders were capable of traveling on their own. It had earned a few laughs from some Tigerclaws, but a grudging respect from others. Belen had surprised Shara, too. The Fallcrest guard scarcely seemed like the same person she’d been when Shara had seen her last. She was more confident, more driven.

  But Belen wasn’t the only one who had changed. Shara heard quiet footsteps approach and another shape loomed in the dark. “It’s me,” said Albanon.

  “I may not be able to see, but I’m not an idiot,” she told him. She dropped her voice. “What’s wrong with Roghar?”

  “I don’t know. He’s been like this since …”

  He hesitated, but Shara could guess what he was going to say. She said it for him. “Since Winterhaven? Uldane told us what happened there. I’m sorry about Splendid, Albanon. I never met Immeral, but he sounded like a good man.”

  “Thank you,” said Albanon. “I’m sorry, too. It was your home. Before the plague demons attacked, hearing you and Quarhaun had been there just a few days before was a bright spot.”

  “Was it really?” Quarhaun asked.

  “Yes. I’ve missed both of you. I’d rather you hadn’t left.” He hesitated a second time. “Uldane said you talked after he found you. Did you talk about … that?”

  Quarhaun actually laughed under his breath. Shara squeezed his hand again, this time hard enough to make him stop. “We cleared the air between us,” she said. “I was sitting in that tent, wondering who the travelers were that the Tigerclaws were honoring with a feast, when I heard something behind me …”

  The sight of the halfling’s startled face as he crawled up under the tent wall had been the last thing she’d expected to see—and the most welcome. But it had also come with a few long moments of simply staring at each other awkwardly, neither certain of what to say. What had eventually come out was a babble of apologies, kept to a whisper so as not to wake the dozing guard outside. If the last words she’d exchanged with Uldane in Fallcrest had been a torrent of angry accusations, their reunion had been marked with tears and self-recrimination. Mostly from Uldane, true, though she’d felt moved as well. Shara wasn’t a born storyteller like some people, but she knew she’d be able to repeat Uldane’s apology word for word until she the day she died.

  “I jumped to conclusions,” the halfling had said. “I judged Quarhaun as a drow before I knew him as a person. Jarren was a great man and my friend, but he’s gone. I know you can’t spend your life mourning him.”

  “Uldane, I’ll always mourn Jarren,” she told him.

  “But you’ll change—and I know that’s good because Quarhaun has changed for you, but I want everything to stay like it was when we were all happiest.” He sighed. “So maybe I’m the one who needs to change. So many people have died because of Vestapalk and this stupid plague. I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you for loving someone else. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?” He went over and pulled off Quarhaun’s hood. “Can you forgive me, too?”

  The effect of the apology was somewhat spoiled because Quarhaun was gagged under the hood, but the drow nodded vigorously, then twisted around and gestured for his bonds to be cut. Uldane had freed them both, but he also took the time to tell them everything that had happened and exactly what their situation was.

  “I had thought staying in the tent and waiting for him to come back from talking to you and Turbull was the hardest thing I’d ever done,” she told Albanon. “Until we heard the Tigerclaws coming back. With no idea how things stood, we had to go back to pretending to be helpless. That was hard.”

  “Why didn’t you just run?” Albanon asked. “You could have gone out the back of the tent and been away before anyone knew you were missing.”

  “Uldane told us not to,” said Quarhaun. “He said the Tigerclaws would just hunt us down and that it would be harder for you afterward. Confronting Turbull directly and demanding our release was his idea.”

  Surprise forced Albanon’s voice higher. “Uldane said not to run? Uldane?”

  “I can hear you, you know,” Uldane called from up ahead. “And you don’t have to act all shocked about it. Like I told Shara, people can change.”

  “I just didn’t think it would be you!” Albanon called back.

  Uldane’s huff of indignation was loud enough to carry. Tempest laughed and so did some of the Tigerclaws.

  Roghar crashed into another bush in the darkness. “By Hota’s eye!” said Turbull out of the shadows. “Will someone guide the dragonborn!”

  “No one touch me!” The dim figure that was Roghar thrashed its way out of the bush and dropped into a defensive crouch. “Stay back!”

  “Roghar?” Albanon said with concern. Shara heard him leave her side. All around them, the faint sounds of the Tigerclaws moving through the woods ceased. She heard Tempest murmur to Belen and Uldane, then move back to her friend as well.

  “What’s happening?” she whispered to Quarhaun, but the drow put a finger to her lips. Albanon and Tempest were both speaking softly as they approached Roghar. It sounded like they were the only ones moving. She heard Roghar draw a ragged breath.

  “I need a moment,” he said. “I need to pray.” His voice trailed off, but Shara thought she heard him say something about holy light or something similar.

  Albanon must have heard more. “I’m going to make a light, Turbull,” he said sharply. “Roghar needs it.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer from the Tigerclaw chief. A glow sprang to life, shining from the end of Albanon’s staff. At any other time, Shara might have called it dim, but it seemed like a blaze in the darkness. It lit up Albanon’s and Tempest’s faces—grave with concern—and shone over Roghar. Shara realized that what she’d taken for a fighting stance was actually a weary slump. Roghar looked exhausted. Tempest crouched down beside him.

  “Take a moment,” she said. “Pray if you need to.”

  The paladin nodded. He slipped his shield from his arm and turned it around so that the symbol of Bahamut painted on its surface faced him, then he leaned his head against it. His face vanished in the shadow, but Shara could see his teeth flash as he murmured. His big frame seemed to shake with the weight of his prayer.

  Then a new white light shimmered into existence. It appeared to condense out of the air and skip along the surface of Roghar’s armor. Shara had seen the radiant light of the gods before—the paladin had summoned it and so had Kri before he turned on them—but as it hovered over the suffering dragonborn in the darkness of the forest, it seemed more a sacred and holy thing than ever before. She wasn’t an overly religious person and the simple expression of faith made her want to drop to her knees. Half-glimpsed in the shadows, she saw some of the Tigerclaws touch talismans and amulets, their eyes wide.

  The holy light lingered a moment longer, then sank into Roghar, passing right through his armor. He drew another breath, this one sharp but strong, and raised his head. His eyes were clear again, his gaze calm and steady. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We should hasten on. I’ll accept a guide. Albanon, you can dismiss the light.”

  “You can keep it for now,” said Turbull. The shifter stood on the edge of Albanon’s illumination with Cariss and Hurn to either side of him. All three looked a little awed. “There’s nothing nearby we need to worry about alerting.”

  “You’re sure?” asked Albanon.

  Turbull blinked as if waking and some of the awe faded. He bared his teeth. “Keep it,” he confirmed gruffly. “If nothing else, we’ll move faster if the day-eyes can see where they’re going.” He turned away, then glanced over his shoulder. “Paladin, if you can offer a blessing before the battle, we’ll take it.”

  “What I have to offer is yours as long as I have it to offer,” Roghar said. He no
dded to Albanon. The eladrin, looking relieved, moved up to where Belen and Uldane were waiting. Shara would have gone too, but Quarhaun kept hold of her.

  “Have I told you the drow saying about never trusting the word of devils or dragons?” he asked quietly.

  “No, but why? Roghar might be a dragonborn, but he isn’t a dragon.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Dragons and devils never tell the whole truth. They always speak in conditionals. Why didn’t Roghar just tell Turbull yes?” Quarhaun moved close. “Don’t say anything to the others. Maybe I’m wrong. Watch your friend, my love. Something isn’t right and sometimes it takes someone who has been away to see that.”

  A shiver crawled up Shara’s back.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  They reached the valley while dawn was still only a pale glow in the east. Albanon paused at the height of the narrow trail—little more than a deer trail, really—and looked down into the lush bowl. The trees that filled most of it had turned from green to a mix of red, yellow, and brown with autumn, but still retained enough leaves to partly hide the few open clearings. Water splashed and gurgled in a broad, spring-fed pool off to his right.

  In the distance to his left rose a tall, stern rock face, exactly what he had imagined when he’d so casually dropped it into his lie. Or what he thought he had imagined. During the night’s long, dark march, he had started to wonder if that detail hadn’t been so random or casual after all. If Tharizdun’s influence had drawn him north, perhaps the thought of the rock face had been the Chained God’s doing as well. A way of making sure they found this place.

  “What are you thinking?” Tempest asked, stopping beside him.

  “I thought I’d feel something,” he said. “We followed the urge. We’ve made the journey. I thought there would be something more. A sense of completion. A feeling of familiarity.”

  “Shining lights? An ethereal choir?” she said with a slight smile. He wrinkled his nose at her. The smile grew wider. “What do you feel?”

  “Uneasy. I don’t like this place.”

  “What about the urge?”

  He didn’t even have to think about it. “Still there. This isn’t over yet.” He lifted an arm and pointed right at the cliff. “There.”

  “If you look closely, you can see the peryton nests,” said Hurn from behind them. He reached past and pointed. “Those dark shadows high up on the rock? Those are the ledges on which they perch.” The shifter gave them both a shove. “Now move. We need to be in position before the sun comes up.”

  Their position turned out to be in one of the wider clearings in the valley, a low, rock-strewn knoll. Turbull and most of his warriors were already there. The Tigerclaws stayed under the cover of the trees for the most part, hiding their numbers in case the perytons happened to rouse earlier than expected. Three shifters at a time would break from cover, dashing out onto the knoll to labor with swift intensity before running back so another group could take their place. Curious, Albanon watched their activity as he and the others skirted the clearing to join Turbull. A small fire ring had been assembled from stones picked off the ground and wood laid for a fire by a shifter who always kept one eye on the looming cliff. The other two shifters labored at something like a giant auger, twisting a stout shaft of wood into the ground between them. One shaft was already embedded in the ground with roughly a double handspan still exposed. The Tigerclaws finished planting the second shaft as the wizard watched, pulling a double-ended handle off the shaft and passing it to a new team who carried a third shaft.

  The second shaft wasn’t as deep into the ground as the first. Turbull grunted as they approached him. “The ground is too rocky,” he said. “Too late to move now, though. We won’t get another chance.”

  “What is that?” asked Quarhaun.

  “A stake-bore,” Belen answered. “The Tigerclaws use it when they put up their tents.”

  Turbull glanced at the human woman. “You learned that from Scargash’s emissaries?”

  Albanon saw Belen’s face tighten as she tried to conceal the secret of her knowledge. “One of the younger warriors took me hunting and showed me how to put up a tent.”

  That earned a leer from Hurn. “I bet he did.”

  Cariss slapped the hunter across the back of the head. Turbull just shrugged and turned back to the clearing. “Why are you setting up a camp?” Albanon asked him.

  “We’re not setting up a camp. We’re setting up a trap.” The chief pointed. “The stakes aren’t for a tent. They’re for tying people to the ground.”

  Uldane yelped a little. “Why would you want to do that?”

  Albanon guessed. “To keep them from being carried away,” he said. “A peryton is strong enough to lift a person up in its talons. If this looks like a camp with sleeping people, the perytons will investigate—but they might just as easily try to snatch someone up.”

  “So whoever is out there gets to be the worm on the hook?” Uldane made a face. “I don’t like this plan.”

  “The stakes are a safeguard,” said Turbull defensively. “That’s why they have to be in deep enough that they can’t be pulled out. The rest of us will hide around the edges of the clearing. As soon as the perytons come in, we attack.” He smiled, showing his teeth. “We pin them down and slaughter them.”

  Shara regarded him with a hard expression. “And would you have been so quick to attack if Quarhaun and I were your bait?”

  The smile wavered. “The situation has changed. You’re not our prisoners. The ones who sit in the open to draw the perytons will gain much respect.”

  She snorted in disbelief. “So it will be some of your Tigerclaws?”

  Turbull’s smile closed and compressed into a thin, hard line. “If necessary. But I said the perytons are wily. If we want them to come close, we need to use something that will attract and hold their attention. They’re supposed to have a favorite prey.”

  “Let me guess. Young women?”

  “No.” Turbull turned and looked at Albanon, then at Quarhaun. “Elves.”

  Quarhaun scowled. “I’m not an elf. I’m a drow. And Albanon is an eladrin. If you think we’re going to risk our lives—”

  “I’ll do it,” said Albanon. He took a deep breath and met the gazes around him. Quarhaun looked startled. Tempest looked frightened. Roghar looked at him with pride and approval—naturally the paladin would approve of a selfless act. Albanon carried on before he lost his nerve. “Eladrin are cousins to elves. If I’m the best choice to draw the perytons down, I’ll do it.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Shara. “Roghar and I are better equipped to defend ourselves. Wouldn’t you be better off staying back and using your spells from a distance?”

  “If the perytons really are that wily, they may recognize your sword or Roghar’s armor. I don’t need either of those things. My magic is just as effective close up.”

  “But can you control it?” said Tempest.

  The question put a knot in his stomach. “Yes,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. I’m not going to give in again.” He turned to Quarhaun. “But I wouldn’t mind some help, and two ‘elves’ would be a more effective lure than just one.”

  The drow’s eyes opened wide, baring white orbs in his jet black face. “Unlike you, I’m not suicidal. Besides, if the perytons are smart enough to recognize swords and armor, they’re smart enough to recognize I’m no elf.”

  “You hadn’t heard of perytons before. I’m reasonably certain they’ve never seen a drow. At the very least you’ll confuse them and give the others a better opportunity to attack.”

  “ ‘At the very least,’ ” Quarhaun repeated drily. “You make it sound so noble. No.”

  “I think Albanon’s right, Quarhaun,” said Shara. “You can defend each other—and this is going to get us closer to defeating Vestapalk. We spent weeks wandering around the north when Belen had the clue to finding him all along.” She stepped closer to the drow. “We can’t keep working alone.”


  Quarhaun’s expression wavered, but he still didn’t answer. Albanon decided to try one last appeal. In Elven, he said, “Do you remember the Temple of Yellow Skulls, when Vestapalk had infected us with the Voidharrow so he could turn us into two of his demon exarchs? We were both almost lost until Kri came. I’m the one who made him use his prayers and the light of the gods to purge the Voidharrow from both of us. Without me, you wouldn’t be here.”

  Quarhaun gave him a narrow glare before replying in the same language. “You’re trying to call in a debt from a drow?”

  “No. I’m calling in a debt from you. You say you’re different. I thought maybe you’d like the opportunity to prove it.”

  “I don’t think I need to prove myself. I could still say no.”

  Albanon smiled slightly. “But you won’t,” he said. “If you were going to, you would have already done it. You are who you are.”

  “May spiders nest in your scrolls,” Quarhaun growled at him in Common. He turned to Turbull. “You have more bait for your trap,” he said sourly. Turbull nodded. Shara gave the drow a smile and took his hand. Quarhaun turned his scowl on her, but Albanon saw his fingers grip tight around hers.

  Then Uldane stepped forward. “There are three stakes,” he said. “I’ll go out with Albanon and Quarhaun.”

  All of them looked at him in surprise. “You don’t have to do that,” said Turbull. “One of my warriors can go.”

  “Bundle me up in a cloak and I can pass for an elf more easily than a shifter can,” Uldane insisted. “Besides, if Quarhaun is willing to do it, I should, too.” He looked at Shara and Quarhaun. “I still feel like I owe you after driving you away.”

  “You don’t owe us anything,” Shara said. “You’ve already apologized.”

  “Then let’s say I feel like I owe myself.” He picked up the light pack he had carried from the Tigerclaw camp and pulled his cloak out of it. “The sun’s coming up. What are we waiting for?”

  It didn’t take long to draw the perytons’ attention.