Shadowbane tap-4

by Eric Scott De Bie

  The swarm kept coming.

  Kalen landed beside Sithe and immediately lashed out with his knives, cutting down a spider that leaped at the genasi as she lashed at six of its fellows. Blood spattered them, but it was demon blood, not his or Sithe’s.

  “Myrin!” Kalen shouted. “Spells!”

  Brilliant light flashed, as of the rising sun. A cloud of spiraling, glittering sparks showered among the swarm, sending hundreds of creatures shrieking wildly into burning oblivion. Those who survived turned on their fellows dazedly, scrabbling at one another with fang and claw.

  The creatures gushed from the tunnel, filling the chamber with gnashing, roaring bodies. The pestilence flowed around Sithe, even as she lashed out at it. She stood among an enormous circle of dead, growling in challenge.

  The swarm kept coming.

  “Fight on!” Kalen cut a demon spider down with a swipe of his blades.

  “Down!” came a cry.

  Sithe thrust out an arm and hauled Kalen to the floor, just as a scything blade of flame shot over them and tore into the horde. Creatures died by the scores as the fire slashed through them, then bounced off the far wall with a roaring clang and spun another rending path through Scour. Kalen saw it spinning toward them and kicked Sithe aside just as it cut through where they had lain together.

  “Gods!” Kalen shouted to Myrin. “Look where you aim-” He trailed off. “Gods.”

  Myrin hadn’t been hesitating in those first moments. Rather, she’d spent that time layering spells on herself. Now she floated a hand’s length off the ground, blue flame flowing around her rune-covered limbs. Bolts of magical force flashed from her seemingly without direction to strike at lunging beasts. Her hands worked independently, sending blasts of thunder or flame to strike as many as possibly at once. With every spell she cast, a new blue rune appeared on her skin. Her orb floated on its own in front of her face-the cloud within had erupted into a great storm.

  He was able to steal only a glance at Myrin before he was slashing and thrusting and stomping with all the force he could muster.

  “Do you see it?” Sithe asked as she cut a swath through the horde with a burst of dark force. “Do you see what I have seen in her?”

  Kalen let a smile slip across his mouth. “I think I always did,” he said.

  The swarm squealed in anger and-Kalen thought-fear. It withdrew, leaving them hacking already wounded stragglers, or else at the empty air. The swarm dispersed into a hundred smaller packs of creatures and backed up against the walls, as though considering whether to press the attack.

  “So it fears,” Sithe said.

  “If it fears,” Kalen said, “then it can die.”

  The swarm drew in on itself, the composite creatures scrambling on one another and climbing onto the wall. Some clung to the ceiling, folding their wings on themselves; others spread acid-bedewed wings as though testing them for the first time. Stingers and claws clicked and made ready.

  “What is it doing?” Myrin called from the center of her magical storm.

  “Down!” Kalen shouted.

  The swarm burst toward them like a great hammering hand. Kalen threw himself wide enough that it struck him only a glancing blow. Still, it sent him flying. Sithe was not so fortunate. The fist of Scour struck the genasi full force, burying her under a thousand biting, tearing creatures. He heard her screaming, a sound that filled him with dread.

  “Sithe!” Myrin unleashed flame in a vast arc like dragon’s breath. Hundreds died, but the swarm as a whole merely turned its attention on her. An arm of creatures swept her aside like a doll. Only her shield of fire kept them from devouring her in that instant.

  With a roar of helpless anger, Kalen rolled away from the swarm, but a huge crimson spider-thing lunged on him like a pouncing cat. Mandibles clicked at his face, tearing his cheek, and he buried one of his daggers in the soft spot between its head and body. The blade struck in the spider’s carapace, however. When he kicked the corpse away, he lost one of his weapons.

  No matter.

  He rolled to a halt against a pile of the charred beasts and pushed himself to one knee. His cloak flowed over him, casting him in shadow. Blood dripping from his cut-open face, he surveyed the battle with a quick glance, back and forth.

  The swarm coalesced in the center of the chamber, a seething hive of black bodies with crimson talons and stingers. Nearby, Sithe flailed among the biting, rending hordes, screaming as they scrabbled at her. Her armor-her dark faith-had vanished from around her. Kalen realized he was not seeing Sithe, but rather the woman she was underneath-a real woman, beneath the armor of hate and loss. Her axe lay fallen at her side and she beat at the creatures with her hands and feet.

  “Sithe!” he shouted, drawing the swarm’s attention. “Flee!”

  She looked up at him, her black eyes swimming.

  “Get out of there, Sithe!” Kalen said.

  The genasi nodded sharply and shut her eyes. A scream wrenched itself from her lips, then abruptly-with a great suction of air-she vanished, taking dozens of the creatures with her. Gone.

  Kalen looked desperately around. “Myrin!”

  “Kalen!” A cry issued from-he realized with a chill-the middle of the swarm.

  He could see her now, a flicker of blue at the heart of the horde of demon creatures. Her fiery shield was holding, but it no longer consumed the creatures. They had adapted, however that was possible. Now it was simply a matter of cracking her shell. To that end they piled on one another like bees, stinging with their barbs and hammering with their talons. Kalen could barely glimpse Myrin at the center of the flaming shield-she was screaming.

  “No more,” he said. “No more!”

  He looked down at the dagger in his hand. Such a little thing, that shard of steel, though it had killed scores of these accursed things. It was not the weapon of a proper warrior, but then, he was no such man either. He was the hand of vengeance.

  Gray flames sprung from the dagger and he ran at the swarm.

  The beasts, preoccupied with their magically warded quarry, began to turn. He kicked off the floor, his boots glowing with blue fire, and with a roar, he plunged his dagger into the heart of the swarm.

  Fire exploded from his blade, coating the monsters in liquid flame. Caught in his own blast, Kalen tumbled back, disarmed and burning. The fire spread to nearby demon-spawn, dancing like a voracious thing that lived only to eat.

  “The fire exists to consume,” Sithe had said. “It has no other purpose.”

  Much of the swarm fell away from Myrin, retreating back toward the deeper tunnel. Kalen could see her through the teeming cloud of death, kneeling in the middle of her sphere of flame and he caught his breath. Runes coated her from fingers to shoulder, from shoulder to hip, from hip to toe. Her face was alive with a blue glow, and her eyes pulsed with darkness.

  “Away!” Myrin cried in a voice not quite her own. “Away!”

  The orb floating before her turned jet black.

  “Myr-” Kalen started.

  Darkness roared outward, sending demonic beasts flying. Kalen was thrown away as the chamber went absolutely black.

  After a heartbeat, Kalen realized the blackness must not be death. He determined this because, if it was death, then death hurt more than he had expected and he had expected pain.

  First, he was on fire, but he put that out without much difficulty.

  Also, he heard the scuttling of fiendish creatures, so he knew Scour yet lived. How hurt it was, he could not say, but he knew that lying there offered an invitation to strip him to bones. He had to move. Where, though?

  “Feed,” he thought he heard a voice whisper. But perhaps he had imagined it.

  “Myrin,” he whispered. He reached out with his spellscar to sense her, but he found nothing. “Are you-?”

  A blue circle appeared in the air, half a dozen paces from him-Myrin’s orb, floating of its own accord. It shed a soft light, more like a guiding beacon than a torch. He managed
one knee but not the other-his left leg wasn’t obeying his commands. Using his other limbs, he crawled through the darkened chamber toward the orb.

  Myrin lay below the orb, so still Kalen feared for a moment that whatever she had done had drained the last of her strength. Her blue runes seemed to shimmer dimly. She stirred as he came close and when he put his fingers to her cheek, her eyes opened. She looked so weary, her eyes shot through with blood and her lids lined with deep wrinkles in black hollows.

  “What-what happened?” she asked.

  “You did.” Kalen pointed to the orb. “Your spell … that summoned …”

  “Oh.” Myrin looked at him dazedly. “But I don’t know a spell like that. At least …” She touched at her throat, and there, just below her right jawline, he saw a shimmering black circle illuminated in ink on her skin. “I didn’t.”

  He shivered, though he couldn’t say exactly why.

  A familiar stir in the air presaged the reappearance of Sithe. The genasi panted and wheezed, falling immediately to her knees beside them.

  “Sithe,” Kalen said, reaching for her. “Are you-?”

  She swatted away his hand. “Very well indeed,” she said.

  “You sound awful,” Kalen observed.

  “Spoken in a voice free of hurt.”

  “True.” Kalen wiped blood from his chin. If not for his toughening spellscar, he suspected he would lie twitching on the floor. “Can you dispel this darkness, Myrin?”

  “My orb is maintaining it,” Myrin said.

  “Lilten’s orb,” Kalen said.

  The woman gave a noncommittal shrug. “Let’s see-” She focused on the orb, raising her hand toward it. After a moment, as though it struggled with her, the orb dimmed and dropped like a stone to her hand.

  The oppressive darkness lifted as the torch on the floor-miraculously unscathed by the battle-flickered back into existence. At first, the chamber looked empty and Kalen had the briefest moment of elation.

  Then he saw it and his heart knew fear.

  The mass of buzzing, hissing monstrosities rose up like a mountain before them. Even as he watched, bulges of the demonic beasts emerged to represent limbs. Finally-and perhaps worst-the swarm flowed to form something like facial features.

  “Scour … Murmur …,” the swarm said in their minds. “We have dreamed. A world afire.”

  The three hardly understood, but the creature’s majesty forced them to silence.

  “We are your prince,” it said in a hundred echoing voices. “We are the harbinger.” The swarm made a cacophony of clicking noises that might have been laughter. “This world will feed us. You will feed us … Shadowbane.”

  It wasn’t fair, but Kalen didn’t think about that. They were all going to die, but he didn’t think about that either. He did not think about Scour, or Myrin, or Sithe-not even himself. The chamber, Luskan, all of Faerun-all of it vanished.

  He was the thief and the paladin both. He was Shadowbane.

  A single voice spoke in his heart, telling him what it needed. What it demanded.

  He answered.

  Gray flames surrounded him, forming the suit of armor that was the manifestation of his faith. The steel that was his steel-the helm that was his helm.

  Slowly, Kalen raised his hand high over his head as though saluting the swarm demon. He reached toward the heavens and opened himself wholly to the Threefold God.

  There was no blade in his hand. He was the blade.

  He was the destroyer.

  A god’s instrument to destroy a demon prince.

  He was the protector.

  The drive to destroy was also the need to defend.

  He was the guardian.

  Silver fire lit in the air above him and he felt the familiar weight of a familiar bastard sword in his hand. One that, at last, did not burn him as he touched it.

  He knew without looking that his prayer had been answered.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  8 FLAMERULE (MIDNIGHT)

  His thoughts vanished and he moved in a seemingly frozen world.

  Vindicator, the sword of his soul somehow restored, slashed down and across, burning a score of Scour to ash. He bent low with the momentum, his body moving in perfect balance, and brought it up the other way, ripping away at the demon swarm.

  With a roar, Scour slammed a composite limb into him, but hundreds of demons shrieked off his armor to no effect. Calmly, he stepped aside like a breath of wind and slashed the arm in two. Every strike he made against it-every bit of its life that slipped away-made the next strike deeper.

  He struck again and again, dodged and struck. He did not think, not in the depths of his ardor-not in the burning light of his god. He struck and struck until it was ended.

  Vindicator cut and burned until Scour lay in quivering pieces on the floor.

  A hand touched his shoulder and he cut before he felt it. Vindicator smashed into a jagged black axe, knocking it to the floor.

  Shar’s daughter stood unarmed before him.

  He said nothing, only pulled back his sword for another strike. He knew exactly how to defeat her-exactly how to water the earth with her blood.

  Then she appeared-the daughter of another goddess-and laid her hands alongside his cheeks. “Kalen!” she said. “Kalen, wake up!”

  He did not know this name.

  He drew back the blade, but a crystal in her hand flashed, thunder cracked, and he landed on his backside, five paces distant.

  The ardor of the Threefold God fled him and-with it-the deepest secret of all.

  Kalen found himself sitting on the blood-smeared floor, the hilt of silver-burning Vindicator in his hand. He stared dazedly at the sword. Hadn’t it been destroyed? How had he come by it?

  And more to the point, what had he done?

  Scour lay in dozens of pieces, its multiple creatures limping uncertainly.

  Myrin fell to her knees at Kalen’s side. “Are you well?” she demanded, feeling at his head. “Are you you?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Myrin breathed a sigh of relief. “As thick-headed as ever.”

  Kalen might have spoken, but she pulled him forward and kissed his forehead. That was all that needed to pass between them.

  “It is not over,” Sithe said.

  The genasi stood just removed from them. Her skin was torn in scores of places. Her clothes hung limp and ragged. She pointed.

  Kalen saw, with a chill, what she meant. The beasts that had made up Scour were attacking one another, deriving sustenance from the demonic blood they spilled with their bites. Each creature that died fell among half a dozen of its fellows, which started twitching. New beasts grew from the corpses and even from the rock itself-those parts touched by the blood of the abyss.

  “I can feel them in my head-they will return,” Sithe said. “Unless the pestilence is contained, it will never be over.”

  “So we burn them,” Kalen said, knowing that would not work. “We can-”

  Sithe shook her head. “It is not such a bad life I have lived, to see a god’s work,” Sithe mused. “And to know I was worthy of it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Myrin said. “What are you saying?”

  “Wait-” Kalen started to rise.

  “It is the only way.” Sithe tossed her black axe into his chest, knocking him back to the floor. “Take care, Helm’s Champion.”

  Myrin blinked, finally understanding. “Sithe, wait!” she said. “We can find you a cure-in Waterdeep, or Silverymoon! Don’t-”

  “I wish I had worn your dress, Myrin Darkdance,” she said. “Just once.”

  With that, she strode away from them, toward where the beasts were milling about, fighting with one another. The nearest leaped on her and dug its talons into her leg. Another, weakened by the attacks, leaped for her face, but she caught it instead on her arm. She walked on, unhindered.

  “Stop!” Myrin cried, tears streaking her face. “Sithe!”

  The v
eins in his neck bulging, Kalen tried to rise, but he had no strength. His god’s power had left him a hollow shell.

  Sithe kept walking as more and more vermin coated her. Five, six, ten, a dozen, two dozen-all the survivors of Scour leaped upon this fresh source of food, who’d so foolishly walked into their midst. They jabbed her with their stingers, over and over. They feasted: Kalen could hear the crunch and pop of pieces of Sithe’s ears, nose, and eyes. The dark genasi’s flesh crystallized as they watched, the corruption spreading from every bite. Panting, she walked on.

  Finally, when Sithe had accumulated the rest of Scour to her, she fell to her knees. Her chest swelled rapidly and her breath wheezed.

  Sithe’s face changed then-something Kalen had never thought possible. The slit of her mouth spread through the black leather of her face and she smiled.

  “I have come, Brothers,” she said, her mouth half crystal. “Feast with me.”

  The air split with a great wrenching as all swept toward Sithe for a moment.

  Then she and the demons were gone.

  For a long time after, Kalen sat among the desiccated corpses and bloody stains in the center of the battlefield, drained of all strength and emotion.

  Scour was finished. The last corpses of its merged demon-spawn began to rot away into dust. If any had escaped … He didn’t know-nor did he care. Still, he waited.

  Myrin understood, but she wished she didn’t. She wished, for the first time she remembered, for ignorance. She didn’t want to remember this. “Kalen-”

  “She’s coming back,” he said.

  They breathed together in the empty chamber, broken and bloody.

  Silence and death surrounded them.

  “Kalen.” Myrin put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Any moment now,” Kalen said.

  Myrin put her arms around his neck.

  EPILOGUE

  8 FLAMERULE (DAWN)

  Eden sat in her personal altar chamber, in the center of the floor. She had bashed the divan to shards, overturned the altar, and dashed her scrying bowl to pieces. Her platinum coin lay on the floor by the corner, where she had thrown it.