Shadowbane tap-4

by Eric Scott De Bie

  From the dimming light through the cracks in the wall, Kalen realized some time had passed. The Luskan day wore on, a morass of chaos around their moment of peace. He had things to do and he couldn’t sit here with Myrin all day-even if he wanted to.

  He thought she’d fallen asleep, but when he shifted, Myrin’s lips parted. “I know what happened,” she said. “To Umbra, I mean.”

  Kalen nodded. “What?”

  “I didn’t kill him. At least, I don’t think I did,” she said. “He died long ago, but the thing inside him-a piece of me, left for me to find-preserved him. But that piece is like a treasure chest I don’t remember how to open. I just don’t.”

  “A piece of you?” Kalen asked. “Who left it? Do you know?”

  “I think-” Her voice was heavy with sleep. “I think I did.”

  Her breathing fell into regular rhythms.

  He thought about what Myrin had said-about what she had told him and what she had almost told him. He thought about trust and being a better person.

  “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment.

  He slid aside to let her lie alone on the bed, took a pair of manacles from his belt and bound her wrists behind her back.

  By day, the Whetstone seemed almost habitable, without the jangling noise and smoky darkness that filled it by night. It made a much worse meeting place at such times, but Eden’s hint to meet here had been clear.

  “If possible-and I’m by no means allowing that it is,” Eden said from across the smoke-tainted table. “You look worse than last we met.”

  Toytere certainly felt awful. He itched all over, particularly in his arm. He hadn’t slept well in days, thanks to awful dreams of stalking the streets, constantly thirsting for violence. Still, he would remain in control, however much he wanted to rage and strike at someone. And, oh gods, how he wanted to leap across the table and tear out Eden’s throat with his teeth.

  “You be speaking your piece,” he said shakily, “or this meeting be done.”

  “Indeed.” Eden smirked unprettily. “But about Kalen-you seemed surprised.”

  “You knew Little Dren was in the city,” Toytere said. “Yet you didn’t be mentioning your familial tie. ’Tis a dangerous game you be playing.”

  “Not as dangerous as you’d think,” Eden said. “You’ll reconsider our bargain?”

  “That seems unlikely.” Toytere scoffed. “I told you, deal’s off-”

  “My dear halfling,” Eden said. “You’re not seeing the full picture.”

  She drew from her robe a yellow-stained scroll.

  “What be that?” Toytere asked.

  “Something that came into my possession only this night,” she said. “A cure.” Toytere’s mouth dropped open. “But-”

  “You have the Fury, halfling,” she said. “Your resolve is remarkable, but the disease is greater than you. You have a day, perhaps another, but soon you’ll go mad and perish. Unless-” She tapped the scroll on the table. “Well?”

  Toytere felt like a rat caught in a snare.

  “One day, you’ll see yourself the way I see you,” Myrin had said.

  His wrist ached something fierce. He felt boiling anger inside.

  “What must I do?” he asked.

  Eden smiled. “Only that which you wish to do,” she said. “Kill Kalen Dren. But first-let me show you what this scroll offers.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  26 KYTHORN (EVENING)

  Scorching daylight dims and twilight falls.

  Time to feast.

  A male one crushes a female one against the wall of an alley.

  They grunt and cry out-hungry for one another.

  We hunger for them, too.

  Then comes the call-a keening, screeching, rending snarl that rips through us. We cry out, we scream. The other-Murmur-it surges forth. We fight it. We wrestle it back with talon and stinger and mandible.

  “What the Hells?” says the male one.

  The female one screams.

  We surge forward, but the call comes again-bidding us come. We will.

  But first.

  We coalesce. We become.

  The two ones are trapped.

  We feed.

  “I don’t know about this,” Rhett said for the tenth time.

  Kalen shrugged and kept on.

  Myrin snored where he’d slung her over his shoulder.

  Night had fallen as they set out and the rats of Luskan had come out of their holes. Cloaks over their faces, Kalen and Rhett became just another pair of kidnappers. None blocked their path through the city.

  Getting past the wall was easy enough. A jar of alchemist’s fire tossed to the north had drawn most of the Guards’ attention and they’d stolen past amidst the distraction. Kalen had knocked only one man senseless. Now they were half a league from the city.

  “I have a poor feeling about this, saer,” Rhett said.

  “Just stay quiet,” Kalen said. “We’ll find some horses-wait.”

  Glittering steel appeared in the dark, followed by shields bearing the image of a moon reflected in water-the sigil of Waterdeep. “Hold!” a man cried.

  The shields formed a ring around the two men, pressing them back-to-back. Myrin nudged into Rhett and she murmured. “Mmm, that’s it. Right there.”

  Kalen turned to Rhett. “Draw steel,” he said, bracing to run.

  “Belay that,” came an all-too-familiar voice.

  The ring of shields parted for a lithe woman in plate armor and a black cloak. She drew off her helmet, letting flow a cascade of black hair. She was pretty enough that a man might hesitate to take her seriously. Once he witnessed her cold temperance and efficiency, however, he’d never make that mistake again.

  “Valabrar Hondyl!” Rhett rapped Vindicator’s pommel in salute, then bowed.

  Kalen remained standing. “Araezra,” he said.

  “Kalen.” Araezra “Rayse” Hondyl wore a weary expression. “I guess it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it?”

  “Stand aside, Araezra,” Kalen said. “Let me take her out of here-to Waterdeep or at least Neverwinter. Arrest me then.”

  “Like Hells.” Rayse shook her head. “I’ve taken a beating in the Guard for aiding you before, Kalen. You think I picked this cursed quarantine duty myself?”

  “You’re not taking me in,” Kalen said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Don’t worry,” Rayse said. “You won’t.”

  At her wave, crossbows rose and fingers tensed on triggers.

  “Wait!” Rhett said, raising his hand. “There’s another way.”

  Rayse looked over at him, her face carefully calm in the face of imminent bloodshed. “You,” she said. “You’re that noble lad-Hawkwinter, is it?”

  “Aye, Lady-er, Sir!” Rhett inclined his head. “Trusty Rhetegast Hawkwinter-until my discharge, that is.”

  “What are you doing?” Kalen asked, but Rayse put up a hand to stay him.

  “Speak then,” she said wearily. “I’d surely like to stain this ground with as little blood as possible. Gods know Luskan’s red enough as it is.”

  “The plague,” Rhett said. “We can stop it.”

  “What do I care about the plague?” Rayse said. “I’m here to keep the quarantine until it goes away on its own.”

  “And a good job you’ve done,” Rhett said. “What if one of us carries it?”

  That got the guards to fall back a pace, murmuring among themselves.

  “We’ll make sure it doesn’t escape the city,” Rhett said. “We’ll stop it here, before it endangers all of Faerun.”

  Rayse and Kalen looked at one another. “How’s that?” the Valabrar asked.

  “Boy,” Kalen warned.

  Rhett bowled over his protests. “Give us a fortnight and we’ll cleanse Luskan of the plague, and we can all go home.”

  “A fortnight,” Rayse said, her expression dubious. “Our scouts say everyone in Luskan will be dead of hunger by then.”

  �
�Then we’d best hurry, eh?”

  Rayse stared at him, then at Kalen. “Your squire makes a fine offer,” she said. “Is this acceptable to you?”

  “He’s not my squire,” Kalen said. “And yes, unless I’ve another choice.”

  “You don’t.” Rayse nodded to her men, who parted to allow Kalen and Rhett to head back toward the city’s walls.

  Rhett saluted and turned to Kalen. “I’ll carry Her Majesty back, if you like.”

  “Kalen,” Rayse said. “Do I even want to ask why you’re carrying a drunken lass over your shoulder? Wait, is that Myrin?”

  “Mmm, not the darkness,” Myrin murmured. “Don’t cast it there”

  Kalen rebuffed Rhett, hefting the woman toward Rayse instead. “Will you take her away from here?”

  But Rayse was already backing away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “She might have the plague, for all I know. You all might.”

  “We don’t,” Kalen said.

  “So you say,” Rayse said. “I should have had you feathered on sight. I could be stripped of my rank just for talking to you.”

  “This is important, Rayse,” Kalen said. “Please.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  Kalen nodded, only then handed the mostly unconscious woman to Rhett, who grunted as he took her dead weight.

  Rayse was looking at him appreciatively. “Fine upstanding lad, turned criminal by just a glance at the legendary Shadowbane. And now he carries your sword. Typical.” She paused, thinking. “I seem to remember another boy you turned to your dastardly ways.”

  Kalen winced as though she’d struck him and Rayse’s face turned apologetic.

  Rhett, standing a little apart, cocked his head to listen.

  “I’m sorry, Kalen-I didn’t think …” Rayse put a hand on his shoulder. “You should know, what happened to Vaelis was not your fault.”

  Kalen didn’t want to think about that. He was bone weary and hungry as well. “Farewell, Rayse,” he said. “If we see each other again, I promise I’ll surrender.”

  They turned and walked back toward Luskan, the Guard nervously shadowing their path to make sure they attempted no flight.

  Behind them, Rayse sighed. “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.”

  “Ay,” Myrin slurred when they arrived at the Drowned Rat. “I can walk my own self.”

  Kalen gave Rhett a warning look, but the lad set her down regardless. “Wouldn’t be proper,” she said with a smile, “returning to my castle not on my own two feet.”

  She almost fell-would have, had Kalen not caught her. They fumbled in one another’s arms and Kalen smelled the wine still thick on her breath.

  “I’m really quite angry at you, you know,” she said to Kalen. “You and your tight little hindquarters.” She looked down under his arm. “Mm-hmm. Yes.”

  Rhett took Myrin’s arm. “We should get her back into bed,” he said.

  “My head hurts,” Myrin said. “Just thought I’d inform you.”

  Kalen pushed through the door to the tavern, then stopped dead a few paces into the common room. Every Dead Rat in the gang was gathered and all eyes turned toward them.

  “Oh,” Myrin said with a drunken smile. “Well met, everyone!”

  Toytere stood in the center of the chamber, his thumbs hooked in his belt. When he saw them, his face turned pale. “I”-he said-“I didn’t reckon you be coming back.”

  Kalen understood immediately. “Toytere, what have you done?”

  Rhett felt it too. He drew Vindicator. “What’s going on?”

  “Aye!” Myrin broke away from Rhett and stumbled toward Toytere. Kalen ran forward and caught her. “What’s going on, Toy?”

  He took a hesitant step toward her, half-raising his hand, then stopped and shook his head. “I want you to be knowing, me dear lady,” he said. “I never did want this thing.” He nodded to Sithe. “Get the girl.”

  Kalen shouted a word of warning, but it was too late. The genasi surged across the floor and swept her axe at Rhett. Vindicator caught the blow, but Rhett staggered away. Sithe turned toward Myrin, her axe high.

  Betrayed.

  “Myrin-” Kalen reached for his daggers, but something hard struck him in the gut. He fell to his knees, his strength instantly gone. He looked from the point of a rapier blade protruding through his side to the halfling who had stabbed him.

  “You be bringing this on your own self,” said a seething Toytere in Kalen’s ear.

  Toytere lunged at him with a hiss, knocking him to the floor. The halfling clambered atop his chest, a broad dagger in either fist. They looked more like meat carving knives than weapons of war.

  Kalen struggled, but Toytere slashed a knife across his left hand, stilling it. The halfling slammed the pommel of one of his knives into Kalen’s face in a shower of white sparks. Toytere struck him again and again, pounding the sense from his head, roaring with every blow. He cried out for his sister, cried out for vengeance, and finally just cried out with no words at all.

  Dimly, in the depths of a shrinking world, Kalen heard Myrin calling his name. He couldn’t get to her. He couldn’t even move.

  Toytere heard it too and her voice seemed to shake him from his rage. “There be no escape for you, me good son,” he said. “You hark? That be your friends dying-except Myrin. That girl be bought and paid for. I be but the means.”

  Kalen had failed her-failed them all.

  “I be deciding which ear to be taking first,” Toytere said. “The left?” He stabbed one knife to the left of Kalen’s head. “Or the right?” He stabbed the other down, closing Kalen’s head between rusty steel.

  “Mebbe the nose,” Toytere said, pulling out a third, even bigger knife. “Or mebbe we let fate do the deciding, no?” He grinned wickedly. “Then I’ll feed. Yes … feed.”

  And he tossed the blade into the air over Kalen’s face, letting it spin end over end.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  26 KYTHORN (NIGHT)

  Myrin was drunk. She couldn’t think clearly, Nor could she move with anything like coordination. When Toytere spoke, she almost laughed. When Sithe lunged across the chamber and sent Rhett flying, then turned to her, she saw it as a hazy dream. When Toytere leaped on Kalen, awareness shocked through her and she came to her senses.

  Everything seemed to happen at once.

  Myrin drew her wand-her hand seemed to move so slowly-but Sithe was there, her axe sweeping down. Somehow, she’d known the genasi was coming and snapped the words of her shielding spell. The black axe clanged off the shield.

  “No point to fighting,” Sithe said. “Yield.”

  “No,” Myrin replied. “I don’t think I will.” Her wand cracked and thunder surged forth.

  The genasi sailed through the air, borne on a trail of darkness, to land on her feet five paces distant. She staggered, knocked partially off balance. She seemed genuinely surprised-and pleased. “You are not as weak as he thinks you are,” she said. “I will enjoy-”

  Rhett slashed Vindicator at her from behind, but Sithe flowed out of the way and lunged at Myrin. The bolt of force Myrin had meant for Toytere turned on Sithe instead, but the dark warrior batted it aside with her axe. She pointed to Myrin and black chains sprung into being around the wizard, but they evaporated in the searing radiance of Vindicator.

  Rhett stood on the other side of Sithe, his sword leveled in her direction. “Fight me, demon!” Silver light flowed from Vindicator and encircled the genasi like a halo.

  “Demon?” Sithe touched the light and it flowed around her fingers, dissolving into her darkness. “I should have killed you before, boy, when first you proved the fool.”

  Rhett lunged at Sithe, but he had to duck aside as a hurled dagger clanged off his breastplate. Myrin had forgotten all about the gathered Dead Rats, but now they stalked forward: an army of cruel faces and rusty blades. Rhett turned to face them, one man against twenty. They swarmed him, cutting and stabbing, and he vanished into the crowd. Wi
thout his attention, Vindicator’s halo around Sithe faded.

  Wizard and genasi faced one another, alone and with no protectors.

  “We only want you, Myrin Darkdance,” Sithe said. “You’re killing the others.”

  Myrin spun her wand in a tight circle, conjuring a ball of fire in her open hand. This she hurled in Sithe’s direction, but the genasi dodged aside.

  “You can end this at a word,” Sithe said. “Is your pride worth both their lives?”

  Myrin spread her wand in an arc, stretching the fire after the fast-moving genasi. In a heartbeat, a wall of searing flame cut the battlefield in two. The Dead Rats stood on one side, quite removed from the fight. Sithe seemed a silhouette carved in sharp lines of darkness. Then she vanished in a burst of darkness.

  Myrin felt a shocking warmth on her skin and glanced down at her left forearm. A new rune had appeared there-a new spell she had seen in Umbra’s visions. To her arcanist’s eye, it looked like a wall of fire.

  Myrin looked up from this wonder and cast about for the genasi, but she might as well have ceased to exist. She cast about for-“Kalen!”

  The halfling was perched over Kalen, striking him over and over again like an animal savaging its prey. Blood flew along with curses and roars of rage.

  Had she been wrong, to think he could be better than he was? Could anyone?

  Myrin summoned a bolt of force, picturing the halfling’s head as its target. She didn’t want to kill him-had never wanted to kill anyone-but to protect Kalen, she would.

  The air at her back shivered, displacing around something that was suddenly there. Myrin threw herself forward and whirled, the way she had seen Kalen do a thousand times. Sithe’s axe passed within a hair’s breadth of her face. As she dodged, she swung her wand under her arm and cast blindly. Magic exploded into flesh. With a curse, the genasi staggered back. Sithe clutched at her stomach and a trickle of black blood came from her mouth.

  Myrin couldn’t believe she had dodged or that she had actually struck Sithe. From her uncomprehending wince, the genasi couldn’t believe it either.