Shadowbane tap-4

by Eric Scott De Bie

  “Someone must continue the quest, even if it is endless.” Kalen put his hand on Rhett’s shoulder. “I’ll do what I must here. If Tymora smiles, we will meet again.”

  “Right.” Rhett gave him a bright, hopeful look. ““Farewell, master. Even if you would not teach me, I did learn much from you.”

  Kalen smiled wanly.

  Rhett gave him a smart salute and took his leave.

  Myrin waited in what must have been the Drowned Rat’s stables back when horses served a purpose in Luskan other than food. Now, the area was a storage shed where the Dead Rats crammed broken pottery, blunted weapons, and scraps of leather-all sorts of useless bits the man-rodents couldn’t bring themselves to throw out.

  She sat in the middle of the room, her hands gripping the tome spread open on her lap. Rhett heard her first, rather than saw her. He recognized the sniffling she made all too well. Tears gleamed on her cheeks with a blue light all their own.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

  “Not at all.” Myrin wiped her eyes and turned a page. “I’m almost ready.”

  “Almost ready for what?”

  “To cast this.” She indicated a spell in her book. “I saw it in one of Umbra’s memories and I wrote it down.”

  “You remember how to cast it?”

  “More or less.”

  “What does that mean?” Rhett asked. “More or less-as in, ‘this will take a few tries’ or as in ‘O gods, we’re all going to die’?”

  Myrin gave him a look that indicated she was having none of his humor just at the moment. “Sorry,” he said. Then, more seriously: “What do we do now? Do we just pretend what happened between us-that kiss-didn’t happen?”

  “I don’t know,” she said without looking at him. “Do you want to do it again?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Rhett said. “You clearly want Saer Shadowbane, not-”

  “What I want is for people to stop telling me what I want.” Myrin murmured an arcane phrase and dark magic flowed around her, sending a chill through the dusty air.

  “What sort of spell is this?” Rhett asked.

  “It opens a door to the shadow world,” Myrin said. “Distances are different there. A tenday’s journey might take only a day-walking. I estimate four days to Westgate … or five. Assuming, of course, we don’t get eaten by shadow beasts.”

  Rhett shivered, as much at Myrin’s casual assessment as at the way her eyes seemed black in the light of her magic.

  Lines of darkness traced themselves across the floor, arcing around Myrin to form a great black rune beneath her. Shadows rose and coalesced into the outline of a dark portal like a mirror that shimmered in the air. Through it, he saw the same stable in which they sat, but it was even shabbier. Through the open stable door, he saw a city in ruins.

  “There we are,” Myrin said. “Ready?”

  Rhett looked back toward the stable’s door in his own world, hesitating. “Maybe I should stay,” he said. “He needs me.”

  “I know the feeling.” Myrin laid a comforting hand on his.

  He sighed. “Is it always this hard?”

  “With Kalen? Always.” Myrin smiled. “We’ll have another chance.”

  He shivered, but perhaps that was only the cold of the shadow door.

  “Right,” he said, clutching her hand tight.

  They stepped through and were gone from Luskan, into another world entirely.

  On the roof of the Drowned Rat, Kalen saw the last flickers of Myrin’s magic whisk her and Rhett away from the city. Part of him was pleased-at least his purpose in coming had been met. Part of him, however, felt like it was being torn away.

  He felt that he was not alone and nodded. “Have you come to finish what you started?”

  “No purpose.” Sithe slid out of the night to stand beside him. “Toytere is dead. You are my new master.”

  “Not Shar?” Kalen asked.

  “My goddess stands behind me,” Sithe said. “She does not guide my path.”

  Kalen nodded. He could understand that.

  “She is gone,” Sithe said. “The wizard.”

  Kalen nodded. He felt Myrin’s absence like a severed limb-a tingling nothingness that he could not set aside. “You think I’m wrong in sending her away.”

  “Casting aside your most powerful asset, when you need her most?” Sithe shrugged. “I think you fear to tell her the truth more than you fear to endanger her.”

  “You say that as though I give a good godsdamn what you think.”

  Sithe nodded, as though pleased with that answer.

  “Myrin told me something, before she left.” Kalen pulled open the pack at his feet. “ ‘So much, and all for nothing.’ And somehow, you know what she meant.”

  “I know something of nothing.” Sithe touched the axe lashed across her shoulder. “But I do not think you want to talk.”

  “No.”

  Sithe looked at him a long moment. Then, without a word, she drew one arm out of her cloak. “Hold out your arm,” she said.

  Kalen did as she asked. Sithe drew off one of her vambraces only to slide it onto Kalen’s arm. At her nod, he presented the other and she girded that one in turn.

  “Not armor, but the blessings of power,” she said. “You have earned them.”

  Kalen nodded. He felt the wrathful might in the vambraces fueling his arms.

  “The storm will begin with first light,” Kalen said. “Whatever has brought this plague-this Fury-to Luskan, it thrives on chaos. It delights in seeing us divided, stealing around nervously, never knowing where and when it might strike.”

  “You mean to change this,” Sithe said. It was not a question.

  “Where there is order, chaos will starve.”

  “Why?” Sithe asked. “Why not go with her? You have no love for this city.” Kalen stretched out his hand and laid his fingers on the object on top of the pack.

  “Because I am not a man who can stand by and do nothing,” he said. “Because darkness and shadow must be pursued down every path, no matter how dark.”

  “No matter how dark,” Sithe said.

  Kalen nodded.

  “You said earlier,” he whispered, “that you wanted to meet me.”

  “Shadowbane.” Sithe nodded, a gesture almost imperceptible in the darkness.

  He raised his prize from the pack-a tarnished helm with slits for eyes.

  “Here I stand.”

  He donned his helm.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  27 KYTHORN (HIGHSUN)

  "Oi!” the nympher said, clasping the blanket to her otherwise bare body. “Ya gives that back now, ya hear!”

  The mark-Vel Lightfinger, a lowly member of the Bloodboots-clutched his gang-issued footware to his chest and ran down the creaky steps from her window. The damned nympher had lured him in like a first-day fool. And while he’d managed to stab her backup thug for good and all, the crazy woman had plucked up a morningstar from out of nowhere with the express purpose of bashing out his brains.

  He jumped the last eight feet, then shoved on his boots with a hopping gait. Getting nails, splinters, or glass in his bare feet where they could fester would be just as bad as having his brains bashed out.

  “Tluin you, little blade!” the woman cried from above. She seized a brick and sent it sailing at his head. He barely dodged.

  “Tluin you right back, an’ twice bloody!” he shouted.

  Four of his fellow Bloodboots sat waiting in the alley below. They laughed as he limped up, still securing his breeches.

  Luskan was sour today. The market stood mostly empty as folk hid from the plague. To Vel and his lads, the Fury was a myth and nothing to fear. They’d gone out that night, looking for fun and they’d found it: a mugging here, some senseless violence there, and a whole bottle of wine some poor sot had “misplaced” that evening. Drunk, Vel had spent his copper on the damned nympher, despite his friends’ protests. Now he’d got what was due.

&n
bsp; “We’ll get that hrasting nympher,” he said. “Jab me blade so far up her-” He trailed off when he saw their eyes look past his shoulder. “What?”

  A man stood before them, wrapped in a tattered gray cloak and stitched leather armor. Gleaming from his behind the faceplate of his reinforced helm, his cold white eyes-seemingly without color of their own-offered the grim promise of pain to come.

  “Go back to your tavern,” he said. “Shadowbane’s streets are closed.”

  “Shadowbane?” Vel spat. “Hrast that! Get him, boyos!”

  The five Bloodboots drew their various blades and clubs.

  Shadowbane swept his arms wide and two long daggers bristled from his fists. Had they seen his lips behind the helm, they might have seen him smile.

  Corr, one of Vel’s friends, stepped past. “Don’t know who you’re pushin’, you-!”

  Shadowbane took him down in three quick moves. One side step to dodge Corr’s lunge, a knee to the groin, and a dagger pommel to the chin. Corr was on his back.

  “Kill that crazy tluiner!” shouted the half-elf Callused Nai. “Kill him!”

  He’d taken down one easily enough-now it was three: quickblade Devis, the half-elf Nai, and the extremely stupid half-orc they called Duns the Dull. Vel hung back, still tying his belt. This proved fortuitous for Vel.

  Shadowbane lunged to one side and let Devis stumble past. He dived into Nai, who came second, and sent him staggering. Duns raised his weapon, but a fast kick caved in the side of the half-orc’s knee and the spiked club swung wide. Shadowbane rose and clapped his dagger pommels over Duns’s ears. Head crushed between Shadowbane’s weapons, the half-orc toppled senseless to the ground.

  Nai and Devis came at him again. Shadowbane kicked Devis in the chest, knocking him back, then lunged at Nai, his daggers scything. The half-elf cursed and parried awkwardly. His short sword spun away into the shadows of the alley. As though with a sixth sense, Shadowbane gathered both knives in one hand and ducked Devis’s blade, which was stabbing for his back. He caught Devis’s arm as it thrust over his shoulder and hurled the man into Nai. Both of them tumbled to the ground, groaning.

  That left Vel staring at Shadowbane, who stood before him, his cloak swirling, and his two daggers in one hand. Shadowbane dropped the second of his daggers back into his primary hand and stalked forward.

  Vel was aware of a wetness in his trousers and thought he shouldn’t have bothered putting them on. He dropped his jagged knife and raised his hands.

  Shadowbane saw that a small crowd had gathered in the market to watch the melee. “Your lucky day,” he said to Vel.

  He turned back toward the stairs to the nympher’s building. His boots flashed with blue light and he leaped up to scale the side of the building like a hunting cat. The woman with the morningstar gasped and took cover in her room as he approached.

  Once Shadowbane had gained the top, he peered down into the market, his cloak billowing on the wind. “Now hear this,” he called. “I am Shadowbane, king of the Dead Rats, and here and now, I tell you that Luskan is under my protection.”

  That provoked a few startled gasps and gaping mouths. It was not easy to elicit a rise from the jaded folk of this city.

  “You have heard of Luskan’s plague,” he said. “I come to tell you, there is no plague.” Guarded cheers met that, but Shadowbane held up a hand. “It is far worse.”

  The people stared at him, shocked and rapt.

  “A darkness haunts these streets,” he said. “It preys upon those who venture out alone-it strikes the weak and isolated. Until it is defeated, you will no longer be food for it. You will stay in your homes and taverns-in your holes and hovels. Armed bands of my Rats will bring you rations. No one else is to appear on the street.”

  Those words-an enforced quarantine-rippled through the square.

  “There will be a kingmaking ten days from now,” Shadowbane went on. “On the seventh day of Flamerule, you will choose a king to protect this city. Until a tenday hence, however, no man or woman shall walk these streets without my express permission and none shall raise a hand to another. I shall repay any violence done with greater violence.” He raised his chin. “You will abide by these rules.”

  “Ah, Bane boil an’ belch ya up, madman!” cried one man.

  A chorus joined the protest. The people of Luskan cried out in confusion and anger against Shadowbane and his claims. They decried his authority, brandished weapons, and shouted expletives.

  “Very well,” he called. “I fully expected to do this by force.”

  Shadowbane leaped down into the crowd, his cloak billowing, and the battle was joined.

  29 KYTHORN (EVENING)

  The candles burned low in Krot’s butcher shop. Dark-skinned and big, Krot wore his stoic Chultan heritage well, but today he veritably shook with excitement. He couldn’t sleep tonight-not with the stories of the mad king of Luskan filtering through the streets.

  “You hear?” Krot said. “Is madman, you know? Fights hundred men, so they say, and he wins. Is king of Luskan by deed if not word, they say.”

  Ansie, his wife of convenience and coin, stuck out her tongue at that. “Must be a bloody legend, Krot-now give us something to eat, dear? You be saving, no?”

  “Isn’t nothing,” he said with a shrug. “The Dogtooths, they take the rest.”

  “Not yet, we haven’t.”

  The door to Krot’s shop pushed open, admitting three filthy men in jerkins of matted fur. Their leader-a many-times scarred man with a spiked collar around his neck-leered at Krot and Ansie. “You been holding out, Chultan,” the Dogtooth said. “You gives it here or we take what we like.”

  Krot reached slowly for the war pick that hung on a hook, but one of the Dogtooths threw a knife that thunked into the wall an inch from his fingers.

  “Ah-ah,” said the leader. “None of that now.”

  A gloved hand appeared around the handle of the still trembling knife and wrenched it from the wall. A man in gray stood among them, naked steel in his hands. None had seen him coming and his sudden appearance evoked loud gasps.

  “It’s him!” said Krot. “Shadowbane!”

  Ansie gaped.

  “Go back to your tavern,” he said to the Dogtooths. “You get one chance.”

  The scarred leader of the Dogtooths stepped forward, eager to prove himself. He puffed out his chest. “Tluin you-”

  The air rippled and a woman appeared in the chamber, her axe spinning. The haft slammed into the lead Dogtooth’s face. He flipped over in the air to land on the floor, clutching at his shattered jaw.

  The other gang members drew back as the woman stepped toward them. Her eyes and skin were black as coal. Lines of darkness curled along her skin like veins. Her face bore no expression, but she stepped toward them hungrily, her ugly axe turning in her hands. She bent, curled and ready, like a poised snake.

  “Sithe,” Shadowbane said. “Remember what I said of mercy.”

  The woman hesitated. “Very well.” She straightened and drew back toward the wall.

  “Return to your tavern with this message,” Shadowbane said. “Luskan is my city, but I plan give it to over to a king on the seventh day of Flamerule. Until then, violence will be met with violence, pain with pain, death with death.” He hurled the blade back at the leader of the gang. It sank into the floorboards next to his hand. “Understand?”

  The Dogtooths did not need to be told again. They hurried out of Krot’s butcher shop without a glance backward.

  The big butcher turned toward Shadowbane. “Eldath’s blessing upon-you? Saer?”

  Shadowbane had bent over, supporting himself with a hand on the wall. His other hand grasped his chest. “Heh,” he said, blood in his teeth. “The big one at our last stop hit hard, eh?”

  “You should have dodged,” Sithe said.

  “No argument.” He spat blood on the floor. “You ready for what’s next?”

  The dark woman stared at him as though he had aske
d a ridiculous question.

  Krot looked at Ansie, then at the two visitors to his shop. “You-?”

  “Stay inside,” Shadowbane said. “Rats will come with food. Wait.”

  “Rats?” Krot blinked at him, perplexed.

  “Wait,” Shadowbane said again.

  They pushed out the door into the night, leaving Krot and Ansie staring blankly after them. “What did he mean, you think?” he asked. “He couldn’t mean-”

  Within moments, the door opened again, admitting three weasel-faced men with the red sashes of Dead Rats. One of them twitched his nose, then stalked forward. “You be Krot, aye?”

  “Aye,” the big man said.

  “Compliments of Shadowbane.” The man gave him a glower, then plopped a sack on the counter. They left.

  Tentatively, Krot opened the sack and gasped at its contents: half a loaf of bread, dried meat, and a hunk of cheese. The Dead Rats had given it, free of payment or favor. Ansie stared at the generous prize without comprehension. Krot started weeping.

  “King of Luskan!” he said. “King of Luskan!”

  2 FLAMERULE (NIGHT)

  Shanyi had experienced worse days in Luskan. Though, as she lay huddled under a heap of blood-stained clothes in the wardrobe-one eye blackened, an arm broken, bleeding from a gash across her cheek, and hiding as best she could as people screamed all around her-none of those days came readily to mind.

  Duulgrin’s consort certainly had it better than some of the Dustclaws. She trembled to think about the screams outside the wardrobe and … and the other sounds. She trembled also at the bellows that roared through the corridors and at the heavy clashes of a maul against the walls. Swish and crack-swish and crack.

  Duulgrin was angry again.

  The last tenday or so at the Dustclaws tavern had been worse than any in the previous year. Shanyi had come to Luskan like many others: not because she’d wanted to, but because she’d had no choice. Neverwinter held only vague, tentacled nightmares for her, and she could not go back there. Trying to get to Waterdeep had ended with her beaten and left for dead in a ditch by the road. Coming here had been just another instance of the same pattern in her life: find the nearest, biggest, scariest man she could, slip into his bed, and hang on for protection. With Duulgrin, she thought it had worked.