Shadowbane tap-4

by Eric Scott De Bie

  “And fresh,” Toytere said, lifting the skull. “Hapless fool be breathing not a month gone.” He patted the bleached skull sympathetically. “Nary a hint of rot, neither.”

  “The Fury,” Kalen said. “It was here.”

  “Dancing gods on high!” Toytere spat. “What burns flesh but leaves bones?”

  “Magic,” Myrin said without hesitation.

  “You sound quite sure,” Kalen said.

  “There are spells,” Myrin said.

  “Spells you be knowing?” Toytere asked.

  She shrugged, a gesture neither of the men apparently found encouraging.

  The halfling crept into the shadowy interior of the lower deck, prodding at the piles of rubbish with his cane. Myrin watched as he uncovered skeleton after skeleton much like the first. All lay contorted as though in terrible fear. Myrin sniffed but could smell only dust and the sharp tang of animal dung. No sign of rot or putrescence.

  Across the way, the halfling bent to inspect each skeleton in turn, and each time he came up with jewelry gleaming in his hands: rings, earrings, necklaces, and the like.

  “Pardon,” Myrin said, “but how do pilfered riches help us investigate the plague?”

  “Me lady, they do not,” Toytere said. “But more coin means more the Rats can do … for Luskan, no?”

  “Oh.” That made sense. “Kalen, are you-?”

  Kalen was staring at a space roughly in the middle of the destruction. There, Myrin saw a small furry creature about the length of her forearm: a rat. It peeked up from a mess of matted, oily fur, its eyes gleaming red.

  “Myrin,” Kalen said. “Back away.”

  “Aw,” Myrin said. “It’s adorable! Look at its little eyes!”

  A second rat had joined the first. Together, they looked up at Myrin and Kalen with something like curiosity in their eyes. Myrin couldn’t help but wonder if they might be useful for certain magical experiments. She chose not to share this observation.

  Then, as they watched, greenish spittle leaked from the rats’ mouths. Sickness.

  “I’ve seen one like that before,” Kalen said. “Trapped in a closet with a skeleton.”

  “Oh,” Myrin said. “No sudden movements, right?”

  Kalen nodded slowly and they began to back away.

  More rats were appearing out of holes in the floorboards and from among the skeletons. They gathered in a mass in the center of the room-a teeming swarm, all of them looking at the two humans. Hungrily.

  “What you all be about?” Toytere burst into their midst, carrying a sack full of gold and jewelry. “I can-the dead walk!” He faced the horde of rats, dropped the bag, and grasped his cane in both hands.

  As one, the rats drew back and hissed. Kalen raised his blades.

  “They’ve stopped being adorable,” Myrin said. “Bit scary now, actually.”

  The rats surged toward them.

  For the first time, Kalen regretted parting with Vindicator. He had two daggers-one that was Waterdeep Guard issue, the other of fine dwarven steel-but they hardly seemed adequate against a horde of rats.

  Nonetheless, he stepped in front of Myrin, his blades ready. Three rats leaped at them and he sliced them to pieces. “Go,” he said over his shoulder. “Get back to the deck.”

  “Hardly.” Myrin snapped her wand at the swarm, sending a fan of flames into the thick of the rushing creatures. Rats burst into crackling flames, falling away from Kalen. “You run, if you’re afraid.”

  Kalen couldn’t quite suppress a smile. “Good,” he said.

  “Good,” she agreed.

  He defended Myrin as she slashed her wand at the rats again and again, sending them sailing back with bursts of flame and thunder. He kept them at bay with blade and boot, killing rat after rat as it surged through the deadly swath of Myrin’s magic. Finally, the creatures fell back, unwilling to launch themselves into certain death.

  They made a fine team, Myrin blasting the swarm, Kalen slaying the stragglers. For a moment, he thought they would win-until he saw rats mustering in the hundreds. He braced himself and opened his mouth to tell Myrin to flee.

  Then the halfling joined the fight.

  Hissing in challenge, Toytere leaped in front of them both, a slim rapier scraping from his cane. The blade whistled as it cut through the air. Bolstered by the sound, Toytere slashed into the oncoming horde. His momentum diverted the rats, sending dozens rippling back along their path. Ugly things of more bone and fur than flesh, they chattered madly as they scrabbled. But more boiled up to take their places, and the halfling staggered back. The wave of rats overwhelmed him, scrabbling all over his body. A loud hiss emerged from Toytere’s mouth, or perhaps that came from the rats. Toytere slavered, his eyes wild.

  “Toy!” Myrin cried. Rather than a fan of flames or crack of thunder, she summoned forth an arrow of magical force-the same spell she’d cast at Sithe on the deck-which blasted a huge rat away from Toytere’s leg, allowing him to stagger free of the swarm’s clutches.

  “Can you get to him?” Myrin asked.

  Kalen thrust his blades into a rat and looked. The vermin flowed like a living river between him and the halfling. “Yes,” he said. “But if I do, you’ll be on your own.”

  “Don’t worry,” Myrin said. “Get to him and get down.”

  Kalen looked to her quizzically, his eyes widening as burning runes spread out across her face and down her arms. Fire surged around her hands.

  He ran and leaped, his boots flashing with fire. The magic sent him sailing over the stream of rats, and he slammed into Toytere, knocking them both to the floor. He covered the small body with his cloak.

  Fire flared from Myrin in an arc that slashed through the air barely a hand’s breadth over their heads. A hundred voices screeched as the flames cut through the swarm like a scythe. The magical force spun across to cleave two of the support beams of the main deck before finally bursting out the far wall to soar heedlessly over the sea. Smoldering bits of rat corpses rained down in the scythe’s wake.

  Kalen had never seen Myrin do anything quite like that before. It filled him with trepidation and excitement. Gone was the timid girl he’d known a year ago.

  Toytere wriggled out from under Kalen. “Me thanks, Little Dren.”

  A few paces away, Myrin stood tall, her hair drifting on the hot winds of her magic, her eyes blazing. Her mouth curled into an unsettling smirk, as though inflicting that sort of destruction pleased her considerably. She saw them looking and her dangerous look went away, replaced by a beaming smile.

  The swarm roiled, half its number twitching and dying on the floor. The surviving rats milled aimlessly, hissing and wailing. Kalen thought their voices sounded entirely too human. That chilled him.

  “Er,” said Toytere. “Perhaps we be running, no?”

  Suddenly, all around them, creatures rose from the rubbish-strewn hold. Rats streamed from holes in the deck, from fallen barrels and shattered boxes, from ceiling beams. They dwarfed the first swarm-if Myrin had slain a hundred rats, a thousand now surrounded them, creeping from all sides.

  The three of them ran.

  As Kalen made for the stairs, he slipped on a bloody rat corpse and staggered. When his knee hit the floor, a cough rose up in his chest and stayed him. Toytere reached back to grasp his wrist. He flashed a grin full of sharpened teeth.

  Teeth.

  Kalen looked over his shoulder. The rats gnashed at him, looking to bite and savage and infect. He remembered his first day in Luskan and the Dustclaw who’d gone insane. He saw again the welts on the man’s back in the alley.

  That was it. That was how the Fury spread.

  “We have to warn-” Kalen winced when Toytere clasped his wrist hard. The halfling’s eyes were wild. Kalen understood. “No,” he said.

  “Oh, aye,” Toytere said. “This be for Cellica.”

  He pulled Kalen forward and planted his left fist-weighted with an iron knuckle duster-into Kalen’s face.

  The wo
rld shattered into darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  23 KYTHORN (MIDNIGHT)

  Up on the deck, Rhett Hawkwinter again tried to speak to Sithe. The genasi seemed like a patch of deeper darkness against the night-a blur in his eye. He kept trying to break the silence, but words failed.

  Finally, the eighth time, Sithe turned her face a fraction toward him. “Speak.”

  “A question, Lady of Darkness,” he said. “Since we’re just sitting here.”

  She nodded slightly.

  “What are you doing with my master?” he asked. “In the duels, I mean. I can fake sleep as well as the next man. I know he takes Vindicator and meets you on the roof.”

  Sithe stared out into the darkness, as though Rhett didn’t exist. Abruptly her lips parted. “He had an apprentice.”

  Her voice came so suddenly that Rhett jumped up from where he’d been sitting and readied Vindicator. The significance of the words hit him then. “What do you mean?”

  “I can see it in the way he treats you-the way he fights,” Sithe said. “He hesitates to take you for a squire, because he had one and failed him. Recently.”

  “You must be mistaken,” Rhett said. “Saer Shadowbane would have told me.”

  “You remind him of a past he tries to forget, as does she,” Sithe said, nodding toward the cargo hold. “He is drawn to you both-the woman especially-and yet he flees. He uses me as a means to escape.”

  Perhaps it was anger at the implications, but Rhett spoke without thinking, his words sharp. “And in what way does he use you, lady?” he asked. His mind reasserted itself and he added: “I mean, why do you do it? Do you … enjoy him?”

  Sithe turned her dark eyes on him and he thought for a heartbeat that her lips quirked toward a smile. “He has the potential to be somewhat greater than he is,” she said. Then her axe was in her hands and she spoke a single flat word: “Prepare.”

  “Prepare for-?” he started.

  A fiery scythe burst out the side of the ship, trailing ashen bodies of rats into the sea. War had broken out on the abandoned derelict.

  Glancing behind her as she climbed the steps toward the deck, Myrin saw only Toytere. “Wait,” she said. “Where’s Kalen?”

  “If he be falling behind, we can do naught.” The halfling seized her hand to draw her on. “Come, me lady. We-”

  “Perhaps you don’t know this about me, Toy,” Myrin said. “But I’m stubborn.”

  She reached into him through their touching flesh. For a heartbeat, she was Toytere-she went into his mind and pawed at his memories. She saw herself through a spyhole in her chambers at the Rat, saw Toytere scheming with Sithe. He was speaking to a woman with eyes of two colors, to whom Toytere meant to betray Myrin.

  Blue runes erupted on Myrin’s face as she stole his magic Sight. Warmth flowed from Toytere into Myrin, like gushing blood of which her skin drank deeply. She was tempted to hum to activate the visions-as Toytere did-but realized she had no need. She could use the Sight freely, without the same crutch.

  She saw, in an instant, how Kalen lay in the hold below, unconscious. The rats swept over him. She watched them cover him, as he reached vainly toward the stairs. Toward her.

  That would come to pass if she did nothing.

  Myrin shook her head and pushed Toytere away. “Run,” she said to him.

  The halfling gaped at her. “Me Sight. You’ve taken-how dare you!”

  Myrin grasped his wrist as he raised his swordcane. “I know what you did, Toy,” she said, her eyes burning with magic. “I know what you mean to do to me.”

  Toytere’s eyes went wide as gold coins. “You-”

  “I know, but I don’t care.” Myrin bent and kissed him on the forehead. “One day, you’ll see yourself the way I see you.”

  The halfling blinked. “What?”

  Without another word, Myrin turned back to the hold. The halfling lunged out to stop her, but Myrin had sapped his strength in taking his Sight and he couldn’t hold her. The wizard dodged rats and broken boards, guided by the halfling’s sixth sense. No wonder Toytere had been covered in beasts but hadn’t been bitten or even scratched.

  In the hold, Kalen lay unmoving as rats piled atop each other beside him. The creatures had not yet fallen on him, but Myrin knew she had only a moment.

  The rats were hideous. Their mangy fur barely hid scarred and mottled skin. Greenish ichor dripped from their fanged mouths. In their red eyes, Myrin saw reflected the impending murder of herself and all she knew and loved.

  Worse still, the cacophony of squeaking voices seemed to utter a single, surprisingly coherent word. Perhaps she heard it in her head: “Feed.”

  Toytere’s Sight flared in her mind. She saw-for a heartbeat-something huge and towering: a swarm of creatures not quite rats or spiders or bats, but a nightmare mixture. They wore skin of mottled crystal and their eyes held only darkness.

  When the world returned and she stood again in the hold, the rats had begun swarming over Kalen. She was almost too late.

  Almost.

  Myrin cupped one hand and swirled her wand above it, as though mixing cream in a bowl. Fire flowed from the end of the wand into her hand, building around itself until she held a roiling ball of flame. She ran forward, hurled the fireball into the heart of the swarm and threw herself over Kalen, covering him with her body.

  Fire exploded and a shock of force ran through the hold. Waves of heat rushed over Myrin. She gritted her teeth against the destructive force of her own spell. Pieces of rat sailed down in all directions and sizzling blood painted the walls and floor.

  Myrin held Kalen tight as the flames rushed around them, staring into his grey eyes. He wrapped his arms around her and she sheltered in his embrace. Her spellscar spoke to his-just as his longed for hers-and in her mind’s eye, she saw wings of blue fire fold around them.

  If this was death, it wasn’t so bad.

  “Stand aside!” Rhett declared, Vindicator raised in two hands. “I need to get down there! They need me!”

  Sithe stood impassive, her axe at the ready.

  Smoke poured from the hold-the leavings of a massive fire in close quarters. A shadow emerged. Rhett rushed forward, only to find the halfling, who was limping.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Where are-?”

  “Away from me, boyo.” Toytere shoved past him toward Sithe. They exchanged a look and the halfling nodded meaningfully.

  “Wait.” The skin on the back of Rhett’s neck prickled. “What’s happening? Toy?”

  Sithe broke away from the halfling and turned toward Rhett. He saw, in the way that she shifted her hands on her axe, that she was preparing to charge.

  Rhett’s heart pounded and Vindicator glowed brighter.

  Was this it? Saer Shadowbane had spoken of a coming betrayal-had the halfling slain them in the hold and now Rhett was the last one left? Vindicator or no, he wouldn’t last a single breath against Sithe. He readied himself nonetheless. If he was to die, he would make Kalen proud.

  Then he heard footsteps among the smoke. Sithe’s axe lowered.

  “Watching gods jest,” Toytere murmured.

  It was Kalen, limping up the steps, an unmoving Myrin in his arms. Both were covered with blood and soot, but Kalen’s eyes gleamed like polished diamonds through the smoke. His gaze was reserved for Toytere.

  Kalen fell to one knee as soon as he came out of the hold and Rhett hurried to him. He set Vindicator on the deck and reached out to steady Kalen. “Saer?”

  “Take her.” Kalen pushed Myrin into his arms.

  Rhett accepted the wizard awkwardly, relieved to see she yet breathed. He concentrated, summoning the paladin’s healing, and let vitality flow into her. “Kalen,” she murmured, and nuzzled closer to his chest.

  Unhindered, Kalen retrieved Vindicator from where it lay on the deck. He pointed the blade at Toytere. “We have business,” he said.

  “That we do,” the halfling replied. “Now-”

 
Sithe rushed toward the three of them, her axe alight with black flames. Rhett staggered back, unarmed and with only Myrin to shield him. Kalen raised Vindicator.

  Sithe passed right through them, her form wavering like mist. She stepped onto the stairs and brought her axe down into the midst of the rising tide of rats that had followed Kalen. Sithe’s power drove them back with a burst of dark flame.

  “Gods!” Rhett fell back, startled, Myrin crushing the breath from his lungs. He wrapped his arms around her, determined to shield her from the rats.

  Kalen joined Sithe, Vindicator burning with silver fire in his hands. Even Toytere rushed forward, his blade singing, thrusting through a rat that bore down on Rhett and Myrin. Together, the three warriors slashed at the rats, until the creatures relented and flowed back into the hold.

  Silence reigned on the ship. All panted or thanked their respective gods that things hadn’t gone worse. Rhett whispered a short prayer to Torm and Sune-his two patrons-and added thanks to Tymora for good measure. Only Sithe seemed unfazed by the whole ordeal, twisting her axe idly as she peered down into the hold.

  The silence was shattered by a grand shout: “That was amazing!”

  Myrin seemed to have recovered. She threw her arms around the halfling.

  “Uh?” Toytere looked startled-then stunned when she kissed him. “What-me?”

  “You saved us!” she said. “Down in the hold, attacking those rats like that! You had no chance, yet you struck anyway.”

  “Oh.” Toytere regained his composure. “Well, it was rather heroic, no?”

  Dumbfounded, Rhett looked at Kalen, who returned the confusion. Rhett thought he understood Kalen’s troubles with Myrin just a little better.

  Myrin whispered something in Toytere’s ear and the halfling’s eyes momentarily widened. The wizard released him and he stared after her, confused and perhaps a little afraid. He held one hand up in front of his chest, tracing the air with his fingers as though grasping for a point. Finally, he just smiled.

  “Well, a good night, no?” said Toytere. “Almost like that time-ah!”