Shadowbane tap-4

by Eric Scott De Bie

  Kalen raised the sheathed sword horizontal and level with his face and put his left hand on Vindicator’s hilt. The two crossbows wavered.

  “Hold!” Galandel shouted, raising one hand.

  They stood among the crags, the only sounds the gentle lapping of waves below and the tense creak of leather-wrapped fingers on crossbow triggers.

  “Kalen,” Galandel said softly. “Kalen, stand down, and no harm will befall you.”

  “You know I cannot.” Kalen released the hilt of Vindicator to pull his helm’s visor shut.

  With a grim nod, Galandel drew his sword and readied his shield.

  The Shieldlar circled Kalen, studying him. Walking slowly in the other direction, Kalen let his cloak drift on the sea winds, holding the sheathed sword between them. Wielding it in his left hand still felt a little awkward, but his right hand hadn’t worked well since a dwarf assassin had broken it a year back. And he couldn’t feel any pain, but then, with the sickness growing, he couldn’t feel much of anything in his body.

  Nothing but a growing rage that swallowed his earlier restraint. He wanted to hurt one of them. Hurt all of them. Badly.

  He pressed his numb fingers into Vindicator’s hilt, letting its fire burn up his arm. He might not be worthy of the weapon, but the warmth reassured him.

  As Galandel charged, Kalen closed his eyes and focused on his sword. He drew.

  A flash of light, dazzlingly bright under the stars, half-blinded the guardsmen. It seemed as though Kalen held a shard of the sun. One of the crossbows fired, but Kalen swept aside the bolt with his scabbard and parried the dazzled Galandel with his grey-burning sword. Their steel rang in the twilight, blades locked high.

  Galandel broke the lock first, and struck high to low. Kalen parried again, his blade pointed tip-down to let the Shieldlar’s sword rake down its length. Kalen stepped back, ready to ward off another strike, and the senior guardsman did not disappoint. He followed his strike up with two more thrusts. Kalen’s second parry slipped a hair, and Galandel’s blade cut into his opponent’s leather gauntlet and drew blood.

  Kalen looked down at his wound. The blood on his arm seemed to belong to someone else-someone far away. With his spellscar affliction, he could be cut to the bone and it would only itch a little. He looked up from his hand to Galandel, standing three paces distant. He dropped his lacquered scabbard, set his right hand on Vindicator’s pommel so he held the sword in both hands, and leveled the blade at the Shieldlar’s eyes.

  Galandel came on. This time, Kalen parried wide and braced himself just in time for the coming shield bash, which hit his shoulder. Kalen fell to his back, rolled, and kicked out at Galandel’s leg. The Shieldlar cursed and staggered. Seizing the initiative, Kalen tumbled back to his feet and lunged forward, setting Galandel firmly on the defensive.

  They traded blows, parry following counter following parry, in balance, moving faster and faster, and then-suddenly-Kalen struck through Galandel’s defenses. The two junior guardsmen gasped. Galandel’s sword flew harmlessly wide-missing the parry-and his shield whipped around to knocking Kalen away just a touch too late.

  Gripping his right arm, Kalen fell back without his sword. Galandel moved a step and panted. The wind whistled between them.

  Then Kalen’s head rose. Galandel’s shield slipped, revealing a sword struck through his shoulder-Kalen’s sword. He fell to one knee, his teeth gritted in pain. Carmael cried out in shock and raised his crossbow. Kalen stepped forward, drew a long dagger, and put it to Galandel’s throat. He hoped the guards could see his willingness to take it that far.

  But the youngest guard stepped between them, sword lowered. “Wait! Hold!”

  Kalen hadn’t expected this. Keeping the gasping Shieldlar under his knife, he appraised the youngest guard. He had bright red hair, a flowery scent that spoke of rich blood, and the build of a lordling raised from childhood with a toy sword in his hand. Kalen saw nothing to indicate why he would step between two veteran combatants, let alone shield a known criminal.

  “Make a move, boy,” Kalen said.

  The half-elf nodded. “We’re here to keep folk in the city, not out. I mean, we discourage it, but if you need to enter, then enter, and Tymora’s good luck to you.”

  Slowly, Kalen inclined his head.

  “Rhett-what are you doing?” Carmael hissed. “This man is a wanted criminal. We’re not just going to let him go!”

  “Let him go into Luskan?” the boy-Rhett-countered. “Isn’t that what we do with criminals anyway? Let them fend for themselves in there?”

  “Stupid boy!” Carmael roared. “You’re aiding a proscribed villain!”

  “No,” came a weak voice-that of Galandel. “No, the lad’s right.” He looked up to Kalen. “Go then. Whatever quest drives you-go.”

  Kalen cast his eyes back to the two Trusties. With a scowl, Carmael lowered his crossbow. Kalen dropped his dagger from Galandel’s throat and sheathed it at his belt. Rhett shivered, but when Kalen gave him a nod, he returned the gesture.

  That had taken bravery-and stupidity. A dangerous combination.

  Kalen passed between the guardsmen, toward the barricaded cliffside gate.

  “Your sword,” Rhett said, pointing to Vindicator, still buried in Galandel’s shoulder. “Don’t you need it?”

  He considered it, looking down at his scalded hands. He had not felt worthy of the sword since his failure with Vaelis, months ago. Now … perhaps it was time.

  “Keep it,” Kalen replied. “I stopped being worthy of that blade a long time ago.”

  He leaped onto the city wall, his boots flaring with blue fire as they carried him aloft. Within two breaths, he had scaled to the top of the barricade and slipped between it and the stone. He squeezed through the cranny and vaulted into the fallen city.

  He hit the ground running.

  Rhett and Carmael tore off their helms and rushed to their superior, who coughed and clutched at the sword Shadowbane had left in his shoulder. Rhett reached for the weapon, but Galandel slapped the hands away.

  “Don’t pull it out, lad,” he said. “What do you think’s holding all the blood in?”

  Rhett backed away. “But doesn’t it hurt, Shieldlar?”

  “Oh, it hurts like Shar’s sharpened teeth on Cyric’s-gah!” He gritted his teeth and turned to Carmael. “Fetch a healer, Trusty-and right quick.”

  “Shadowbane,” Carmael murmured. “Can you believe it?”

  “Believe you’ll be mucking out latrines with your beard by sunrise if you don’t get that godspissed healer.”

  Carmael tapped the hilt of his sheathed sword in salute and ran for their horses.

  “Bold thing you did there, boy,” Galandel said with a grimace. “You could be hanged for disobeying orders-or probably just whipped and discharged. Dishonorably.”

  Grimly, Rhett nodded. It was the stupidest thing he had ever done in his young life, and yet, it didn’t feel wrong. “You didn’t want to fight him.”

  “We were comrades and I know what kind of man he is.” The Shieldlar gestured to the city. “Tymora’s blessing and Chauntea’s soothing kiss on any who get in his way.”

  Though he nodded, Rhett knew that wasn’t why he’d helped Shadowbane. But the unyielding resolve in his almost colorless eyes …

  Rhett would remember those eyes.

  In the depths of her scrying pool, the priestess saw a man in black sliding down the wall and into the city of sin. The halfling had been right-a crusader had come.

  “Kalen Dren,” she murmured. “Come to play my game, have you?”

  She saw his image, but only for the briefest of breaths before it dispersed. She would need a closer scrying focus to see him more clearly, but that she could get. She whistled and a servant opened the nearest door to her sanctum.

  “Call for Logenn,” she said. “I’ve a task for him.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  21 KYTHORN (NIGHT)

  Past the barricade,Kalen climbed down and ro
lled to his feet on the dusty ground in Luskan. He moved immediately into the shadows of a nearby building that had once been a tavern, but was now half-burned, rotted, and boarded up. Kalen crouched among the ashen detritus and waited, keeping as still as he could.

  Galandel’s sword had bitten deep, but Kalen hardly felt it-his spellscar took care of that. It was his curse that stole much of the feeling from his body. Though he grew stronger every day, became faster, felt less pain and punishment than before, one day it would prove too much. His body would become a stone prison-his lungs ceasing to draw in air, his heart shuddering to a stop. He’d brought the curse on himself, through a stupid mistake he had made years ago. And he lived with the numbing malady every day since. One of these days it would kill him; in fact, a year ago, it almost had. Until Myrin-

  Myrin.

  All he knew was that Myrin was in Luskan and that he had to find her. He hadn’t seen her in a year, and they hadn’t parted on the best of terms. But as soon as he’d heard she was in trouble, he hadn’t hesitated. That had been four days ago-four days’ hard ride from Waterdeep. He didn’t know who had her, so he’d have to break some heads to find out.

  No one had come in or out of the tavern. He drew his dagger and knocked the pommel against the wall, then hunched back down to wait.

  Sure enough, a pair of toughs appeared, drawn to the sound. They were grubby, lank-haired men-one a half-orc-with a number of pins and spikes driven through their ears and noses to demonstrate their toughness. He also recognized their symbol: hands or paws in various stages of decay-from fleshy to rotted to skeletal-strung on a chain and worn around the neck like a pendant. These were Dustclaws.

  Well, one gang was as good a place to start as another.

  The Dustclaws inspected the wall, looking for the source of the noise. One of the thugs peered through the cracks in the barricade, then snuffled and shrugged. The senior one-the half-orc-slapped the back of the man’s head and pointed to the door from which they had emerged. They entered, passing inside walls of chipped brick and a roof of rickety boards that rattled in the sea breeze. They hadn’t seen Kalen, and that lent him the advantage.

  Quickly, Kalen rose from hiding and followed the Dustclaws. Kalen recognized the worn quill-and-scroll sign of Flick’s Fancies, a scribner house. He’d spent quite a bit of time there as a boy, taking those chores the proprietor (Felicity, though no one called her that twice) gave him and occasionally filching ink and paper from her cabinets. He found it ironic that the scribner’s letters had vanished over the years while the image remained.

  Flick’s bore a gang marking, to denote territory: a gold coin with what looked like horns on the outside. Kalen didn’t recognize the symbol, though it reminded him of the sigils of both Tymora, goddess of luck, and her sister Beshaba, goddess of misfortune.

  Kalen looked north into the heart of Luskan. The buildings that lined the worn cobbled streets looked entirely too familiar. He recalled countless sweaty midnights and freezing dawns spent perched on buildings or hiding in holes.

  Voices emerged from the scribner’s-those of Flick herself and of another that Kalen recognized quite well. One of the luck goddesses was smiling, it seemed.

  This might be difficult without Vindicator. He wondered if it had been a mistake to leave the sword behind. Still, after what had happened three months before, sending the crack running along the blade … No. He would not miss it.

  “Focus,” Kalen murmured. “Make of myself a darkness, in which there is only me.”

  Cold clarity crept back in, drowning out the anxieties born that awful day. He had come to Luskan with a clear purpose. Myrin needed him and he would not fail her.

  He thought back to the structure of the shop: ways in, ways out … Ah. Yes.

  Ebbius the Rake drummed his pointed fingers on the countertop. His devil’s tail swished around like that of an anxious cat. He popped out the cork half stuck in the rum bottle in his hand and took a long swig. When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and grinned. “Now, now, me lovely, be reasonable,” he said to the woman behind the counter.

  “Reasonable?” Flick crossed her arms. “Why don’t you bugger off and have your bully boys take their turns tluinin’ you with your own tail. That sound reasonable, eh?”

  “Hmm-tempting, but not today, methinks,” he said.

  “Nay, today you’ve got to shake me down for coin, is it?”

  “That’s the notion.”

  Ebbius smiled outwardly and swore inwardly. The tiefling’s infamous charms seemed not to work on the foul-mouthed Madam Flick. Pity, really. So many others fell to just a smile or a glare. He supposed the muscle he’d brought along would just have to do: two thugs out of the Dustclaws, one a particularly ugly half-orc, the other a human doing his best to match. He hadn’t bothered to learn their names.

  By her face, Flick wasn’t the least bit afraid of the tiefling or his men. “Like I told you, fiend-born,” she said with a flash of her perfect white teeth, one part of her appearance she prided herself on. “I paid the Coin Priest a tenday past, and t’isn’t no call for more until month’s end. So take your meat-shields and piss off.”

  As he took another pull of his rum, Ebbius rubbed one of the two horns that spiraled up from his red-skinned head. Much as he’d expected. He glanced at the Dustclaws and cocked his head toward Flick. The scarred half-orc reached across the counter and caught Flick around the throat. With a flex of his arms, he wrenched her off her feet and slammed her onto the counter. Flick struggled, but the other thug caught her arms.

  “I paid, you Tymora-lovin’ dastards!” she shouted. “Get your godsdamned hands off-”

  Ebbius silenced her by putting his knife to her lips. “Lady, gracious lady,” he said. “Best take Shar’s own care with your next words. Because I’ve had about as much insult from you as I’m like to take.” The tiefling grinned, exposing every one of his dagger-sharp teeth. “The blessings of the Lady don’t come so cheap and a great disaster is coming to Luskan soon.”

  “Already here.”

  Ebbius drew his blade back and slitted his luminous eyes. He looked from one of his men to the other. “Who said-?”

  With a cry of shock and pain, the half-orc leaped high in the air. He clasped his foot, which trailed blood in its wake.

  “Bane’s breath-” Ebbius started, then staggered away as the human thug slammed into him and fell to the floor, crying out in pain.

  The tiefling looked down where the Dustclaw had been standing and saw the gleam of a long dagger blade protruding from the crack between the misshaped floorboards. It vanished as he watched, snaking back into the darkness beneath. He bent down, squinting-there, through a wide crack, he saw what looked like a white diamond, gleaming in the dust-filled light.

  Then it blinked.

  “Black hands of a thousand watching gods,” Ebbius said.

  The floorboards erupted and a dark figure rose from below, elbowing aside the splintering wood. His black-gloved hand caught Ebbius by the throat and pulled him close to a weathered face with scarred cheeks, a long-ago broken nose, and colorless eyes.

  Worse, Ebbius knew him. “Gods,” he said. “Is that-?”

  The man threw him back against the counter. The tiefling lost the world for an instant, his fingers scrabbling at the countertop to steady himself. What was happening?

  The half-orc struggled back on his feet, but he went down fast when the attacker punched him in the ear with his open hand. The ugly human got up, limping, but one black boot shot out and struck him in the nose. His face became a mass of blood as half a dozen piercings cut into his flesh, and the hapless thug collapsed.

  Ebbius shook his head, just in time to see the demon of a man pull up the half-orc by the collar and punch him with the pommel of his dagger once, then twice. The brute fell back, nose spurting, and groaned his way into unconsciousness. The cloaked attacker glared over his shoulder at the tiefling.

  “Little Dren,” Ebbius
said. “Fancy seeing you again-”

  Something heavy slammed into the back of his head with a loud crack. Wetness dripped down his cheeks, and he knew no more.

  Kalen drew back his blood-spattered fist from the half-orc’s battered face. It had felt entirely too good, splitting the Dustclaw’s grayish skin with a punch. He looked over his shoulder.

  “Little Dren,” Ebbius said, staring at him dazedly. “Fancy seeing you again-”

  A stout club came down on the tiefling’s head. His dagger slipped his hand and stabbed into the floorboards, followed shortly by Ebbius himself sagging down the counter into a heap. The rum bottle rolled free, tracing a half circle before it came to rest near his outstretched foot.

  Flick stood behind the counter, grasping the cudgel she had just smashed over the tiefling’s head. She regarded Kalen warily. “Well met,” she said.

  “Well.” Not turning to her, Kalen awkwardly took the dagger from his stiff fingers and sheathed it, then flexed his hand in the black leather glove.

  “My thanks.” She lowered her club. “Even so, you’ve brought a deal of trouble down on my house, boy, attacking these bleeders like this.”

  “Indeed.” Kalen strode across to the mangled human thug, who was still murmuring, and kicked him in the stomach to silence him. “You want me to rough you up-make it look better?”

  “I’d rather just pay.” She grimaced. “Donate to the cause, that be.”

  “Cause?” Kalen asked.

  “Church of Tymora-or maybe it’s Beshaba. None can say for sure,” Flick said. “Settled in five years back, started handin’ out bread and soup and ale to the poor, which is everybody. Really tryin’ to save the city.”

  “Save it or squeeze it?”

  “Either. Both.” Flick narrowed her eyes. “You’re really him?”

  “Who?” Kalen waved a hand in front of Ebbius’s face. The tiefling was very, very out. He hoisted the tiefling over his shoulder. “Thugs’ll wake up in the length of a song or two. You should get out of here before then-it’s not safe.”