Shadowbane tap-4

by Eric Scott De Bie

  Myrin stiffened. Not another hunter-not now! Ever since she could remember, someone had been hunting for her. Worse, that meant this attack on Clan Ironhand was all her fault.

  The dark woman rose, setting her cloak rustling in the smoky wind. Beneath the folds of the garment, the woman bore a long-handled axe. The black blade was pitted and jagged, pure murder in the crude form of a weapon.

  “Please,” Myrin said. “Your quarrel is with me alone. Leave these others-no!”

  The dwarves chose that moment to charge the dark woman from all sides, weapons leading. Seven stood against her.

  Too few.

  The woman stood unmoving until the first dwarf came within two paces. Then she swayed toward him, bringing her axe scything out from under her cloak. It whipped over her head and struck just below the dwarf’s raised maul. The serrated blade cut straight through the haft and slashed on, sending the weapon-along with the dwarf’s hands-flopping bloodily to the ground.

  The dark woman stepped back, following the weapon’s momentum into the second brave-and foolish-dwarf. This one caught the dwarf full in the chest, but his brigandine deflected the potentially mortal blow. Still, the strike put him down, blood spurting from a deep gash in his chest. The axe whirred through the air, singing its own deadly song.

  She parried one charging dwarf, who stumbled back cursing at the force of her blow. Fluidly, she lashed out with her rear foot to catch another dwarf full in the face with a crunch. His legs shot out from under him, and he flipped backward to land in the dust.

  An unscathed dwarf managed a thrust with one of his two short swords, but the blade cut just wide of her flank. She slapped her arm down to catch the sword against her hip then turned sharply. The motion tore the blade from the dwarf’s hands and brought her deadly axe across to take the dwarf’s head off at the jawline. The brutal steel cleaved flesh like air.

  The dwarf she’d parried-along with his two surviving companions, one of them bleeding profusely from the face, the other handless-staggered away. The woman wore a stony expression as her axe spun to a halt, the haft slapping against her free hand. She’d killed or maimed four hardened warriors in the span of two breaths, and her eyes had never left Myrin.

  “Demon!” Naros charged forward, his holy symbol raised. “Begone from this place! Back to the Abyss with you!”

  The woman glanced at him blankly.

  Two dozen dwarves armed with swords, axes, and hammers encircled the central campfire. Elder Naros stepped forward.

  “If Moradin does not frighten you, perhaps steel will.” He raised his warhammer. “You may be a fiend with that blade, but we will overwhelm you.”

  The woman still had eyes only for Myrin. She raised her axe and the surviving dwarves shuddered. Idly, she set her weapon spinning like a whip over her head.

  Myrin hadn’t the least idea what this creature was or who might have sent her. She didn’t know what the woman meant to do to her, but she had no choice.

  “Stop,” Myrin said. “I surrender! Harm no more of my friends!”

  “Ironhand!” Naros cried, ignoring Myrin’s attempt at bargaining. “Attack!”

  These dwarves fared little better than the first group.

  The woman moved among them like a threshing wind, her axe flailing about. The dwarves launched blow after blow against her, but none landed. She moved aside from some; others were turned aside by the haze of darkness that swelled around her. She was a zephyr of death in the smoky night air.

  The dark woman strode through the horde of attackers like a wraith and raised her axe over Myrin. “Lady!” Naros shouted.

  Magic flowed from Myrin without conscious thought. She thrust up her wand and the axe struck a shield of light that appeared between them.

  The woman pulled the axe back, nodded in acknowledgment, then kicked Myrin in the belly. Myrin staggered back and collapsed, wheezing.

  The woman strode forward but Naros stepped in her path. He struck the woman’s axe with his hammer and she fell back. “Flee!” he cried. “Flee, my lady!”

  Myrin forced herself to one knee, gasping for the breath that had been knocked from her body. She had to do something-had to end the fight.

  A spell came to her, then, rising unbidden from the depths of her mind. She didn’t recall ever having cast it herself, but she knew where she had seen it cast. A year past, in Fayne’s memory, Myrin had watched the spell conjure crippling terror in a foe’s mind. If Myrin could remember how to cast it, perhaps she could shock the dark woman into stillness. But the spell was so black and terrible. How could she-?

  The dark woman knocked Naros’s hammer out of his hands and drew her axe up. The dwarf glared up at her, defiant to the end.

  No choice. Myrin shaped the awful spell around her gray-white wand. “Your worst fear to unmake you!” she declaimed in the horrid Abyssal tongue.

  A ray of blackness struck the dark woman and for an instant Myrin felt a surge of relief. But the woman wasn’t stunned-she wasn’t even slowed.

  Then the niggling pain in Myrin’s head flared and she realized that she was seeing into the woman’s mind.

  Inside was nothing.

  Myrin stood on the precipice of a sheer, shattering vastness. No warmth-no life. Only herself and the void. She fell to her knees, blood trickling from her nose.

  The dark woman looked back at her and her lip curled slightly. She kicked the clan leader away then spun her axe overhead as the rest of the dwarves rushed her. She brought the weapon down in a thunderous swipe upon the ground, and a black whirlwind sent the dwarves flying.

  Black manacles appeared around Myrin’s arms and legs and an irresistible force drew the wizard forward. Myrin struggled as the woman grasped her by the throat.

  “No fear in the darkness,” the woman said. “No pain in the void.”

  The world shivered around them and Myrin could feel the woman drawing her in-over the precipice into emptiness.

  A single thought intruded, like a faint ray of hope. Myrin couldn’t explain why her mind flowed this way, but flow it did, and she spoke even though no one could hear.

  “Kalen,” Myrin choked out. “Kalen Shadowbane.”

  Her voice vanished into nothingness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  21 KYTHORN (EVENING)

  Luskan.

  A seeping, lice-ridden sore, the so-called City of Sails squatted on the Sea of Swords, oozing its corruption into land and water alike. The ground itself reacted against Luskan as a body might to a boil, growing chapped and barren for a league in all directions. One could smell the city at that distance-a sickly mixture of rancid meat, old dust, and shit, which only grew thicker as one approached.

  As dusk fell, a lone rider approached, his gray cloak flying out behind him in a trail of dust. He held no illusions about the city-in fact he knew it better than most. He knew enough not to return, and yet he had no choice.

  Kalen Dren never did seem to have much choice.

  Ever a hole, Luskan had suffered two blows near a century past: The pirate kings had clashed with painful consequences for the city, and then the Spellplague struck. The city existed now as a mere mockery of what it had been. In the Year of Deep Water Drifting, Luskan was its own small nation, ruled by thieves and madmen.

  Greasy smoke from half a hundred chimneys formed a haze over the city as forbidding as the thick walls around it. Every morning, the walls were hung with the remains of fresh victims of the city, grisly totems that drove back invaders without needing a single living defender.

  Lately, Luskan had acquired another line of defense: a contingent of Waterdhavian Guard stood sentry around the city. Summer was, after all, plague season, and if Luskan suffered a new malady, the Guard’s strict quarantine would keep it contained.

  It was, in short, the last place any sane traveler would ever want to go.

  The lone man rode with eyes fixed upon the rotting city. His sword gleamed, an eye-in-gauntlet sigil etched on its hilt. Kalen felt vague w
armth through his glove at its touch, and he knew that the blade would have burned any other man. But thanks to his spellscar, he could barely feel even the deepest of cuts. To him, this pain offered only dull distraction-the niggling reminder that he was no longer worthy of his sword.

  He could bear that.

  He thought of the note-the scrap of parchment folded up inside his leather breastplate, close to his heart. He thought of the hand that had written it and of the single word-Luskan-scrawled in blood across the neat handwriting. Inviting him-challenging him. “Come and find her,” those six letters had implied. “If you can.”

  Kalen Dren came with a purpose and would not be swayed.

  Not if he had to kill every single son of a bitch in the godsdamned city.

  As the sun dipped, signaling the last hour before the shifts changed, relief filled the guards on duty at the isolated cliffside gate at the south end of the city.

  It was a small gate-more a flaw in Luskan’s wall, actually, broken open during the earthquake that had ripped through the region twenty or so years past. Accessible on foot or by boat, it stood beside a precipitous fall into the churning waves of the Sea of Swords. Locals called it “Cliffside Cranny” for its forbidding location and narrow opening. Nevertheless, folk had used it to smuggle captives or exiled nobles in and out, at least until the Waterdhavians erected a crude barricade to seal the gap, leaving a tiny space at the very top.

  Rhetegast Hawkwinter, the younger of the two guardsmen, yawned and sighed as dusk brought blessed cool air. Luskan was experiencing a heat wave the last few tendays, one that did not show signs of stopping. The half-elf-Rhett to his friends-had received his first gauntlet not two tendays past, and ye gods, had life in the Guard proved both uncomfortable and a bore.

  “Another day in service to the Lords, another day sitting on our haunches.” Rhett stretched. “That was a long shift. I, for one, look forward to a bit of the watered ale they foist upon us back at the camp. I thought it ghastly at first, but-Carmael? Are you even listening?”

  The second of the Trusties-an irritable Cormyrean expatriate by the name of Carmael-was poring over dispatches from Waterdeep: orders, wanted notices, and the like. His cragged face remained passive and his eyes kept to his work.

  Rhett was accustomed to this sort of benign neglect. The Guard was hardly the glorious, romantic pursuit he’d been led to believe. He rather suspected his father, Lord Olivar Hawkwinter, had set him on this path not to build character as he’d claimed, but rather to make an attempt on his life through monotony. Still, Rhett was determined to make the best of it.

  “Sir Carmael, methinks that lass back at the camp-Este? The one who washes our weathercloaks?” He winked. “Methinks she has her eye on your noble visage.”

  The older man glanced over, then shook his head. “Belt up, Trusty,” he said, annoyed. “Or at least wait until you’re back in the privacy of your own bunk.”

  “Hmm!” Rhett saw a letter written in a lady’s hand half-concealed among Carmael’s papers. “Ah ha! And what is that, Sir Oh-So-Chaste? Methinks-”

  “Enough!” Carmael rose to his feet, fists clenched.

  “Ah ha!” Rhett beamed. “Love is ever a cause for fisticuffs. Have at thee, Sir!”

  “Stay those tongues and fists.” A guardsman with three gauntlets on his breastplate-the mark of a Shieldlar and their superior officer-appeared out of the faltering light. A good man who took his job seriously, Duth Galandel had little use for idle soldiers.

  “Hail, Sir,” the guardsmen said together.

  “Belt up, both of you,” Galandel admonished as he took a seat on a jutting stone. “Duty’s not ended.”

  The Trusties saluted-a smart rap on the hilts of their swords. Carmael went back to his papers. Rhett latched onto the Shieldlar as a new source of relief from the tedium of sentry duty.

  “Sir, I-” Rhett paused. “That is, if you don’t mind the question.”

  Galandel shrugged. “Ask.”

  “Sir, why are we guarding this gate?”” Rhett looked down the steep path. “We haven’t seen a sign of anyone trying to escape. Not that I blame them: they’d have to circle the city half a mile to reach the open road, where the Guard is stationed anyway.”

  The Shieldlar leaned against the wall and looked up at the moon. Selune was waning, but her tears were bright tonight. “It only takes one to break the quarantine, Hawkwinter.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Rhett bowed his head to that logic. “It’s-it’s just that we haven’t seen anyone even try to leave in a tenday!” he said. “Wouldn’t it make sense to reassign me to the main gate, where more folk try to get out? I’ll be of more use there.”

  “And this reasoning of yours,” Galandel said. “It has nothing to do with a certain raven-haired Valabrar in command there?”

  Rhett smiled innocently. “Sir, I don’t know what you mean.”

  Really, who in the Guard wouldn’t want to take orders from Araezra Hondyl-in battle or otherwise? The Valabrar was one of the best-looking women in Waterdeep-possibly in all the Sword Coast. And she was his own age, just about. Though she’d risen high in the ranks, she had seen no more than a handful over a score winters. Perfect.

  “No one’s going to come out this gate,” Rhett said firmly.

  “Perhaps not,” Galandel said. “And if anyone tried to break in while we left this smuggler’s gate unguarded?”

  “Sir!” Rhett chuckled. “Only a lunatic would do that.”

  The clatter of hooves on the salt-rimmed stones drew their attention. Galandel sprang to his feet with the grace of a seasoned warrior.

  “What’s that?” Rhett asked.

  “A lunatic.” Galandel reached for his steel.

  Across from them, Carmael was on his feet, his mighty scimitar drawn and ready.

  They saw the horse first: a muscular dun with flanks lathered in sweat. Like as not, the steed had run all day. That in itself was mad-one false step on the narrow path would send horse and rider tumbling into the sea.

  The rider in the dark cloak stole their attention. His hood partly hid his face, but Rhett could see one of the rider’s eyes in a flash of lightning-its color that of a gray diamond. The man wore a helm, its faceplate raised.

  The man raced up the path and reined his steed to a halt. The horse reared, driving the men back. When he came back down, the rider stared at them the way a hunting dog might gaze at a trio of waterfowl.

  “Stand aside.” The man in black’s chill voice brooked no argument.

  Galandel strode forth to face him, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Halt and stay steel in the name of the Lords,” he said. “This city-”

  “I won’t ask again.” The man pushed aside his cloak, which rippled in the wind, revealing the long handle and silver pommel of a sword strapped to the side of the saddle. Rhett saw an eye-in-gauntlet sigil on the hilt.

  Now that he had drawn closer, they could make out the man’s face. A tenday’s worth of stubble covered cheeks like boiled leather, and the man’s sharp nose was slightly crooked as though it had been broken some time before. It was the gray eyes, however, that stabbed into Rhett’s mind and lingered.

  Rhett looked at Carmael, stunned. The older guardsmen returned his gaze in disbelief, then seemed to remember something. He reached among his papers, and drew one out. His face paled. “Sir?” Carmael said to Galandel.

  Rhett glanced across at the paper: an artist’s rendering of a dark-haired man. Opposite, there was an image of a featureless helm with two slits for eyes. Between the two was some sort of symbol-a gauntlet like that of the Guard’s ranking sigils, but with a stylized eye drawn in the center. Beneath it all lay one word in block letters. A name.

  Rhett sucked in a breath. “Bane’s blazing balls,” he said. “Shadowbane!”

  The guardsmen drew steel.

  Kalen Dren had hoped to find the Cliffside Cranny unguarded, but alas, three guards stood before him: Shieldlar Galandel, a Trusty called Carmael, and a half-elf
boy he didn’t know.

  And they were in his way.

  Kalen laid his hand on Vindicator’s hilt. The blade felt hot even to his numb fingers. Why had he brought the sword, if it hated him so badly?

  Unsurprisingly, the Shieldlar refused to back down. Duth Galandel was a good guardsman-he and Kalen had been friends of a kind. It would be a shame to kill him.

  Carmael showed Galandel a wanted notice. Kalen sighed.

  “Shadowbane!” said the youngest guardsman. He fumbled with his crossbow, while Carmael smoothly sheathed his scimitar and drew his own crossbow.

  “The city of Luskan is under quarantine by Order of the Waterdeep Guard, Shadowbane,” Galandel said. “What possible madness could have brought you here?”

  “Madness,” Kalen repeated.

  In his mind’s eye, Kalen saw a gold-brown face wreathed in hair like blue fire. He remembered the last words she said to him-pleading with him to follow her-and then the bittersweet missive she had left him. It was the same note that he had in his pocket, a note that told him not to follow-and said she had given him a gift.

  Myrin.

  He could not change course.

  “Perhaps it is madness,” he said, “but I will see it done.”

  “The Hells you will,” Galandel said. “Kalen Dren, you are under arrest for crimes against the citizens of Waterdeep: murder, assault, intimidation, destruction of property, and impersonation of a legal guardian of the city.”

  The youngest of the guardsmen stiffened at the recitation of these crimes, but Kalen kept his focus on Galandel. “This is your duty?” he asked.

  “It is,” Galandel said.

  Kalen nodded. He had expected no less.

  He climbed down from his steed. With one hand, he unbuckled his sword and its scabbard; then with the other, he slapped his weary horse on the rump. The exhausted steed whinnied-a sound blasphemously loud in the quiet night-and made its way back down the loose path. Odds were, he wouldn’t need the animal again.