by John Shirley
Leaving Nastra crouched on the stairs, he climbed back to the upper realm. He hardly remembered going up the stairs, passing the hot door and, regaining the fourth level, entering his private cell.
There, on his bed, lay Finner. He was dead. Laid out, his rags smoothed, but not enough to hide the gouts of blood where he’d been struck through with a blade.
Pinned to the halfling’s shirt was a note, almost illegible: We tested sord blade witout yu. Work good! It was signed with a bloody fist.
He knelt by Finner’s side and closed the steward’s bulging eyes. After a moment, his body trembling, Ravon rose to his feet. Rage filled him, flooded his mind, released his shackles. Where had he been these many months? Where had the fight gone, and the old Ravon Kell? He shook his head, as though clearing away a dream. The surge of power in his body, in his heart, told him he was ready now, to fight. All he needed was a sword.
A movement at the door. Nastra stood there. Her gaze went to Finner’s body. “He didn’t deserve that,” she said. To his astonishment, she was holding out her ring of keys.
Ravon strode out the door, snagging the keys as he went by. His steps were long but deliberate as he stalked past the cell blocks, his mind afire. He might not be able to fight Cannith or the demons or the hag, but there was one enemy he meant to settle with, and by Dolurrh, nothing was going to stop him.
When he got to the bowel room, no one was there except a couple of goblins, who backed away from him when they saw the expression on his face. Using the blue key he’d seen Nastra use, he opened the drawer where she’d locked in the sword.
Its weight was solid and lush in his hand. But he had no time to admire the forge’s handiwork. He bellowed out Stonefist’s name. Over the groaning of the forge’s ugly heart, he heard his voice echo. The goblins crouched out of his way as he rushed into the corridor.
“Stonefist,” he bellowed, “you ugly son of a sovereign bitch!”
He roared the gnoll’s name again and again as he stalked down the halls with a warrior’s tread, his footfalls deliberate, balanced, deadly. He knew how to enter battle. He remembered from the old days, which were not so very old, being only six months ago, back when he was Captain Ravon Kell, of his majesty’s army. That Ravon Kell was back.
As he passed the twentieth cell block, a dwarf stood at the entrance. She nodded to him, pointing to the door far down the passage. Ravon understood. The forge master was on the rim. The forge master was out there throwing off slaves.
He flung open the door, letting the first light of day into the gloaming prison.
Stonefist was on the outside rim thirty yards away. Several large orcs kept him company. At the sound of the door opening, Stonefist let go of a human slave, letting him sink into a terrified puddle.
The gnoll turned to face Ravon. “Hah, Captain!” He noted that Ravon was armed. “You like sword, yes?”
“Yes.”
Ravon had not moved from his place near the door.
Stonefist backed up slightly to keep his distance as the rim bore him slowly forward. “You like fight my orcs?”
“When I’m finished with you,” Ravon said, “then I’ll fight the orcs.”
A slow grin crawled across the gnoll’s face. Waving the orcs to stand back, he pulled a great curved blade from his belt, rumbling, “Stonefist finish you.”
Ravon stepped from the doorway onto the inner rim as it moved in Stonefist’s direction. He paced slowly backward, keeping distance from the gnoll as the two rings conspired to bring the combatants together. Between the rings was a furrow that would grind off a misplaced foot.
At the top of the forge a few artificers had emerged from the keep to look on.
Ravon hoped they would allow the fight to proceed. To fall from an artificer’s bolt of power was the eighteenth way to die, and not unmanly, but not the noble end of hand-to-hand combat with an enemy like Stonefist. He stepped over the gap between the rims.
The outer rim was as broad as two gnolls lying end to end, but still there was little room to maneuver.
Ravon found his balance, feeling the sword in his hand like a magical extension of his arm. “The Demon Lords will teach you to lick their boots, Stonefist. Maybe you’re too dumb to know that.”
Stonefist grinned wolfishly. “Death hag and demon lord work for Stonefist! They open pipe to the fire. After pipe open”—he spread his arms wide—“it stay open. Nothing can close it, so artificers say. We no need hag or demon, then.”
A double cross. Impressive, Ravon had to admit.
The forge master went on. “Stonefist invite hag up to rims and shove her in.” Grinning, he pointed to the lethal gap. Then, raising his curved blade, he beckoned with a long arm. “Come to Stonefist.”
Ravon didn’t meet his opponent’s eyes. In the stories, you boldly held the enemy’s gaze, but in a fight you watched his chest for the first sign of movement, to gain a split second advantage.
A twinge from Stonefist betrayed a back-handed swipe, and Ravon’s sword was there to greet it. He felt the shudder of the blow ring in the bones of his arm. He spun away and then around again, pricking the gnoll’s upper arm.
Stonefist didn’t feel it, not yet. But it riled him. “How Finner like new sword?” He lunged, missed, lunged again, as Ravon backed up.
Ravon feinted toward the gnoll’s left side, then sliced his sword right. Stonefist sprang back. The gnoll was solid on his feet, and strong, but his blade was not as long as Ravon’s. The forge master would die. But he was stronger than Ravon, so as much fun as the foreplay might be, it was time to finish it.
Behind Stonefist the orcs watched uneasily. They’d be the next fight, Ravon knew. He wasn’t going to walk away from this battle, but he’d take a few of them with him.
Stonefist was swaying, warming up for his next lunge. “I give your eyes to the goblins for a meal!” he brayed.
Ravon shook his head. “But Stonefist, that would be vulgar.”
“Vulgaaar!” Stonefist yelled in joy and rushed forward. Ravon jumped onto the inner rim. Then, the movement of the rim taking him past Stonefist’s position, he hopped back on the outer one.
Now behind Stonefist, and before the gnoll could turn, he swung the great sword in an arcing slice at the creature’s neck, knocking his head half off. It lay on his shoulder, the stump erupting with thick blood. Absurdly, Stonefist tried to put it back on, managing to tip it back into place. The forge master staggered around to stare at Ravon.
The gnoll stood as still as a rock outcropping, his gaze lit with understanding.
Ravon kicked a boot forward. “For Finner,” he said, connecting hard enough to send Stonefist staggering backward. The gnoll teetered on the edge of the forge for a moment, then plummeted.
A roaring noise. The artificers sending a bolt of searing wind, no doubt. But then the roaring continued, and as Ravon became more aware of his surroundings, he saw that every window, door, niche, outcropping, ramp, and hole held a slave or five, and they were all cheering. The orc guards, who had started to approach Ravon, looked up in alarm.
The real battle of the genesis forge began at that moment as dwarves, gnomes, humans, halflings, and all the rest surged onto the rings, tearing the guards apart and throwing the pieces after their master. From above, the artificers sprayed bolts into the throng, burning many, but seeing the sheer number of slaves scrambling up the sides toward them, they retreated.
The traveling rim Ravon stood on had come around to the back side of the forge, and Ravon looked for a new way to enter the forge. He had another duty to discharge. Now that he was alive, after all.
Inside, chaos ruled as the cell blocks emptied, their occupants armed with pieces of wood, old iron implements, and broken bottles. Ravon heard the roar of dwarves taking command, directing the melee, even as their meaty arms swung improvised weapons against orcs and goblins. Carnage filled the halls, but Ravon stalked through, heading for the north stairs.
The shrieks and cries of battle
receded as he rushed down, fumbling with Nastra’s keys, looking for the red one, finding it. He inserted it into the hot door. Then down again, this time in silence, or in as much quiet as could exist in a manifest zone poised over the Lake of Fire that was Fernia.
When he arrived in the cavern, he was sweating heavily but still stoked from the combat. The churning madness of Khyber stirred his thoughts. That was good. When facing death, it was best not to be in one’s right mind.
He shouted, “Death hag! By the Devourer, by the Dark Six! Death hag!”
Mists swirled around him. He bellowed again. “I bear a message for the lovely hag!”
The room stilled, as though his ears were stuffed with straw. He pivoted, looking in all directions, hating, like any warrior, not to hear his enemy, not to have every sense alert.
From behind came a singsong voice. “Sweet meat.”
He spun. The death hag leaned over him, tall and spectral.
“I bear a message.” He let his sword drop to the ground. If she would only listen.
“Speak your last words,” she breathed, with breath like a month-old carcass.
“Listen until the end, hag, for your master will want to know.”
“Oh, bold, bold.” Her eyes rolled back and came around again. Ravon had to admire the trick.
The witch crooned, “I shall take your blood with especial pleasure. Sip, sip.”
By Dolurrh, she was ugly. But he held her terrifying gaze and said, “I’m a bitter man. You may not find my flesh to your liking.”
“I shall eat your tongue first, then decide.”
He devoutly hoped she would kill him all at once and not save him for the occasional cannibalistic treat. He must remember to enrage her to that point. He’d always had a knack for annoying people.
Ravon hastened to say, “Here is the message from Stonefist. The baron of Cannith doesn’t need you or your demon lord. Once you open the pipe, it will stay open. Cannith will ignore you. You’ve been duped.”
The hag grabbed his shoulder, her nails strong as meat hooks. “Stonefist would not say so to such as you.”
“You’d be right except I was in the process of killing him when he let it slip.”
The hag screamed, smashing him down to his knees. “Where is Nastra?”
“I don’t keep track of her. Sorry.”
The death hag looked over his shoulder, peering into the caldron of smoke, watchful, perhaps desperate. Turning back to him, she yanked his hair, pulling his head back to expose his neck. “Bitch, bitch, bitch!” she howled.
“Know what you mean.” His head was bent so far, he thought his spine would snap. He managed to spit out, “But the elf has her good points.”
The witch hunched over him, her face very near, her breath vile. “You do not fear me, manling?”
With all that was left of his voice, Ravon whispered, “Not so much.”
And he didn’t. He was wholly occupied with trying to figure out what number his death was going to be at the hands of the hag. Was it the three hundred and eighth way to die, or the eight hundred and third? By Dol Dorn’s mighty fist, it was important to know.
By the time he decided both were wrong and was wildly recalculating, he found himself lying flat on the trembling ground, no one else in sight.
The death hag had gone.
Well. Perhaps his innate charm had won out.
As Ravon raced up the stairs, he felt the treads shaking beneath his feet. Splinters of stone fell from the ceiling.
The pipe. They were opening up a portal to Fernia after all. They didn’t believe him. The hag didn’t … but the shuddering continued, worsening. He barely got through the hot door as the stair collapsed behind him.
Summoning his last strength, he raced up the remaining flights. Somewhere above him the fight raged on, but even a battle could not drown out the booming roar of what was coming.
Charging through the halls, he bellowed, “Out, out! It’s coming apart. Get outside!”
The forge itself heaved from side to side. And grew hotter with every minute.
Fernia was coming up. Not in a controlled pipe, he decided. It was coming in a flood, an eruption. It would blow the forge sky high. “Out, get out!” he roared as the slaves started to heed him. He grabbed a dead orc’s pike and struck down a pair of goblins coming at him from a side hall. “Out!”
Then in a general stampede, those who yet lived raced from the corridors, cells, and crannies of the forge, heading for the door out. Bodies lay everywhere, orcs draped over dwarves and goblins over halflings, as though in a last embrace. The slaves rushed outward and Ravon followed.
Once in the clearing, he looked back to see gouts of fire erupting from the forge’s window slits, and a pillar of purple smoke spiking up into the sky from the artificer’s keep.
Even orcs gave up on the fight and stared. Then in a mass surge, they and everyone else turned and raced for the jungle.
Ravon noted a different group standing on one side of the dense forest. A large group of soldiers with their pack beasts also stared at the thundering, shuddering forge.
In their midst stood a lord, by his dress—a regal figure with dark hair and a chain of office around his neck. The expression on his face was one Ravon would never forget.
“Merrix d’Cannith,” a voice spoke at his side. He couldn’t see anyone. But it was Nastra’s voice. “He came to see the forge open. Not fall to ruin.”
“Hate to see him disappointed,” Ravon murmured. The ground shook violently, as one side of the forge collapsed in a deafening crash.
Nastra went on. “I can extend my cloak around you. Perhaps invisible is best under the circumstances?”
Ravon saw that a large orc was making his way toward him. “If you wouldn’t mind, lady elf.”
“Not that I care about you,” she said. “Never think that.”
The orc began to lope in his direction.
“Of course not. But we might fight our way to the coast. In case of drow. Orcs. Other riffraff. Two swords are better than one.”
“Indeed,” Nastra allowed.
In a swirl, the orc grew fuzzy to Ravon’s eyes. The orc spun around, searching for his vanished prey. After a moment it stalked off.
Ravon felt Nastra bend an arm behind and slowly draw a sword from its sheath. She pressed its hilt into his hand.
The air split with a gargled roar. As they watched in frozen wonder, the top of the forge blew off in a gout of fire and iron. The sound engulfed the world. It was an angry blast from Fernia—but not to enliven the genesis forge, not in a controlled pipe. An eruption, sent by the minions of a demon lord to wreak death on his betrayers.
Baron d’Cannith beat a hasty retreat into the jungle as pieces of flaming iron, molten rivets, and doors red as newly poured ingots fell from the sky.
After the blast, nothing remained but a crater where the genesis forge had been. The jungle was set alight in places, but the eruption was done.
Ravon and Nastra turned and ran from the burning clearing. He let her lead the way, admiring her speed.
Catching up to her at last, he said, “We’ll find your family. When we get to Khorvaire, we’ll find them.”
A quick glance at him. “Not that you care.”
He shrugged. “Not in the least. But I figure I owe you.”
She smiled. “A promise, then.”
“Call it that.”
They plunged deep into the jungle of Xen’drik, watchful for orcs, drow, stray goblins, Cannith’s men, and a score of other enemies. It was a world Ravon Kell remembered well. It was good to be back.
Kay Kenyon, nominated for the Philip K. Dick and the John W. Campbell awards, began her writing career (in Duluth, Minnesota) as a copywriter for radio and TV. She kept up her interest in writing through careers in marketing and urban planning, and published her first novel, The Seeds of Time, in 1997. She is the author of numerous short stories and lives in Wenatchee, Washington, with her husband. You can rea
d a first chapter of her books at www.kaykenyon.com.
ARENA OF SHADOWS
A TALE OF EBERRON
SARAH ZETTEL
Kalev Shadowfall was having a bad night.
It had started out well enough. Gaining entrance to Duke Arisor’s palace had proven trivial. This was peaceful, ordered Fairhaven, after all. The duke trusted the queen’s law and the governor’s vigilance. Kalev only needed to bribe one guard to leave one gate in the outer wall open. After that, he had scaled the palace’s ivy-covered wall so swiftly not even the nesting sparrows stirred. The laughter and music from the grand reception in the ballroom covered any stray sounds he made, and the hired patrol tromping through the gardens had completely failed to look up to see the extra shadow moving across the stones. Duke Arisor had become too cavalier about his own safety of late. He was not the first of Fairhaven’s prosperous citizens to assume that because the city was well-ordered, it was essentially safe. It was but one of his mistakes.
Another was selling information too sensitive to be allowed out of the capitol.
A few drops of oil and a thin blade had popped the next-to-useless lock on the study’s window. Velvet draperies blocked off the sight of Kalev slipping down from the sill.
Kalev remembered thinking it was too easy as he stepped lightly down, not even rippling the drapes. He remembered wishing for a little challenge to add zest to the evening.
He also remembered thinking, Be careful what you wish for.
Because when Kalev peered between the drapes to make sure the study was empty, he saw a sprawling wreck of overturned furnishings and scattered papers surrounding the mutilated remains of a man dressed in emerald silk lying facedown in a large pool of blood.
Kalev swallowed his shock and made himself wait for a slow count of one hundred. No movement disturbed the gory scene. Kalev crept into the darkened room and crouched beside the man to ascertain that he was in fact as dead as he looked. That didn’t take long. The back of the corpse’s scalp was torn open, exposing the bloody skull beneath. The neck and shoulders had been shredded, leaving strips of flesh and silk dangling across the floor. The man’s arms were broken. The smell of fresh slaughter coated the inside of Kalev’s nostrils and left its sick, sweet taint on the back of his throat.