Dark Vengeance (23 page)

“I do,” Taerune agreed. “Now stop crashing around. I can see all I need to see from here.”

The spur of rock they'd been climbing along jutted out over one end of one of the largest Outcaverns, affording a view down its often-bustling length. They were only a few caves away from the gigantic cavern that held Talonnorn, and this long Outcavern was a main trade route.

However, it was deserted now.

No caravans, no Talonar patrols, no daring House younglings out for a thrill . . .

Good.

“Empty as the promise of a priestess,” Taerune pronounced crisply. “Let's get back, and down there.”

Bloodblade hastily started to scramble and lurch back over the rocks.

He'd taken to treating her as his commander, though they both knew that without him she'd be walking the Dark alone, or even having to fight off those among the other Ravagers with them whose lust for a Nifl-she—who was both noble and strikingly beautiful, even for an Olone-worshipper, despite the blade that jutted out at the world where her left forearm should be—overrode their prudence.

Supple and long-limbed, Taerune slithered after the Bloodblade, moving far more quietly than he could. “Down,” he commanded simply, to the waiting Ravagers. “Fast.”

Without a word they turned and started down the path. A slaves' mining-walk from long, long ago, it clove the jagged rocks
like a smooth ramp, snaking back and forth as it descended. As they went, Llorgar, the Ravager walking just ahead of Bloodblade, turned and asked curiously, “No caravans? And no wards? D'you think half of what we've been hearing is true?”

Old Bloodblade shrugged and turned to Taerune, who echoed his shrug and replied quietly, “I don't know what to think. My brother Jalandral risen to lord it over the entire city? Public duels among House lords, yet their Houses aren't openly warring on the streets? The Consecrated of the temple just praying to Olone and ignoring such tumult? Can you blame me for thinking it all wild lies?”

“No,” Llorgar said simply. “Hrestreen is Talonar, too, and he can't believe any of it, either. Yet says he'd not be wits-smacked if one tale out of them all is true, though he doesn't want to be guessing which one.”

“
Precisely
,” Taerune agreed, almost fiercely, as Bloodblade's bristling arsenal of weapons stopped bobbing wildly and they came out onto the flat cavern floor.

“No, no,” he grunted, waving his empty hand. His broad, well-used favorite blade was suddenly in the other. “
Away
from the walls, rampants! We're lawful traders for the moment, not sneak-thieves!”

“Oh?” Llorgar asked good-naturedly as they formed a column and trudged out along the center of the cavern, heading for Talonnorn. “And if High Lord Jalandral has some new law that makes traders unlawful?”

“Then we'll call ourselves fugitives from Talonar justice and slayers of Jalandral's guards, and improvise our suitable behavior from there,” Bloodblade said jovially. “I am among the most accommodating of Niflghar.”

That claim evoked chuckles, up and down the line of Ravagers, and the inevitable exchanges of “How feel you, friend?” and “Accommodating, very accommodating!” as the Ravagers made their customary mock of the airs and speech of city-dwelling Nifl.

They were still chuckling when the air all around them shivered—and they were suddenly ringed about by many Talonar Nifl.

One moment the long cavern had been empty, and an instant later it was full of shouting, sword-swinging Nifl, viciously battling each other in a great confusion of identically clad warblades, scurrying and terrified servants, heaped sacks and packs, and motley-clad, obviously poorer Nifl who were striking at the warblades—and being struck down, more often than not.

“Take no part!” Bloodblade bellowed to his fellow Ravagers, his roar like a deep, ragged war-horn. “To me! Stand and defend, around me! Form a ring!”

Then in lower tones, he added, “Who
are
all these brawlers? Blast all Olone- and Ice-bedamned magic! As usual!”

The Ravagers scrambled to obey, crossing swords only briefly with a blundering few of the arrivals, who seemed bewildered to find themselves in their new surroundings.

The warblades had the upper hand, and were swiftly winning. By the time the Ravagers had formed their ring, the fighting was done, with one side lying dead on the cavern floor.

“Lady Evendoom? Taerune Evendoom!” a voice arose then, from among the warblades.

“Down steel, but be ready,” Bloodblade snapped to the ring of Ravagers as he and Taerune shifted and peered, trying to see the speaker.

“Who . . . ?” Taerune began, and then saw the face of the grandly dressed rampant who was pushing through the warblades toward her, with similarly garbed kin at his shoulders. “Barrandar Dounlar!”

Rival Talonar Houses are not friendly, and she and Barrandar had never much liked even the look of each other, but there was clear relief and even respect on the face of the eldest surviving Dounlar heir as he hastened forward, his brothers at his shoulders as they came out from among their own warblades, and on, bloody blades in hand.

“Let them in,” Bloodblade growled, a stride before the three Dounlar would have walked right into the unmoving ring of Ravagers.

“What would you, with me?” Taerune asked calmly, pitching her voice loudly enough for everyone nearby to hear.

“I . . .” Barrandar Dounlar seemed suddenly uncertain, darting glances at his brothers; Garlane, the nastiest, and the younger one . . . Andralus, that was his name. Then he spoke in a rush.

“Lady Evendoom, we would like you to lead us. Lead us all.” On either side of Barrandar, who was paling in embarrassment, his two brothers nodded.

“Lead you in what?” Taerune asked warily, wondering if, a moment from now, she might have to fight all of these Dounlar to the death.

“To rally loyal Talonar, against the oriad new High Lord of the city. Your brother, Jalandral Evendoom.”

 

Hairy Ones can flee far and fast.
There was what felt like grudging admiration in Yathla Evendoom's voice, deep in his mind.

“I only hope I'm not lost forever,” Orivon Firefist replied, trudging along yet another unfamiliar crevice, and watching things that looked like spear-long centipedes, with spiders at both ends, racing away from him up the rock walls. “With the map gone . . .”

You have me. I can always feel what direction Talonnorn is. More or less.

“More or less,” Orivon grunted, ducking low under a narrow place where two jutting points of rock almost met. “Well,
that's
a comfort.”

A little less sarcasm, swaggering human hero. I fry foes for you, remember?

“Endlessly?”

Alas, no. That's why I unleash my flame so seldom. Too much fire, and . . . no more Yathla.

So sad was the voice in his mind that Orivon found himself on the verge of tears as he came out of the narrow way into yet another dark, silent, and unfamiliar cavern. And stopped.

All he knew was that he was somewhere out in the Wild Dark, trying to circle around Glowstone and reach the ways between
Glowstone and Talonnorn that Bloodblade had led his now-lost Ravager band along, before Ouvahlor had come after all Ravagers. That had been a hectic time, and Orivon's will had been bent on surviving, and getting back up to the sun, and Ashenuld. He only hoped he'd recognize the caverns Bloodblade had led them through, when he stumbled out into them.

If, that is, he hadn't crossed them already.

 

Oronkh rose with a grunt, the finger he'd just swiped across a darkened stone underfoot and then licked still held out in front of him.

“Aye, man-sweat. This is the way he went.” He looked at Nurnra, who stood with her slender sword drawn, looking warily up and down the cavern. “You
sure
you want to tail this Hairy One as he wanders lost across all the monster-slithering, Nifl-army-roamed, Ghodal-gnawing Wild Dark?”

The sharren gave him her most alluring smile. “I'm sure, Manyfangs.” She struck a pose, knowing full well how attractive she looked, even before her longtime business partner growled longingly, deep in his throat. “Aren't
you
interested? Yes, he's not a Nifl-she panting to be under you, but he's a Hairy One with darksight, he fights like a war-hero, and things
happen
around him. He's obviously down here for a reason, and I want to know what it is. Before, perhaps, it's too late. In the meantime, he's undeniably
entertaining
.”

Oronkh shrugged. “Hairy Ones are always entertaining. They stop my knives so prettily, fountaining blood and collapsing so fetchingly, they go down under slavers' whips faster and more clumsily than anyone else, making for much comedy, they—”

“Oh,
chain
that jaw of yours!” Nurnra tossed her head, magnificent hair swirling, and strode on through the rocks. “Let's be after him!”

“Let's not,” Oronkh growled, staying right where he was, “until you've answered me something. 'Tis fool-haunched to travel the
Dark
talking,
alerting every lurking and skulking thing of your approach and making too much noise to hear them moving to where they can best pounce. Aye?”

The sharren halted, spun to face him, and nodded. “So ask.”

“So what's your
real
interest in him, Softfingers? There's something more than mere entertainment, and I'll be disappointed sure if it's just that he's a rampant and not a Nifl, and
you
want to be under
him
.”

Nurnra rolled her eyes. “The half of you that's gorkul is obviously the
lower
half.” She took a step nearer the half-gorkul and wrinkled her nose in distaste. “The smell, the
hair
. . . no, Oronkh, Hairy Ones are not for me. Yet I've tasted human blood before—slaves—and can drink it safely. If I can somehow control my gorge, and seduce him, I do wonder: is his blood
strong
? Will I be able to feed on him for years without killing him? What a thing that would be, freeing me from the need to seduce or convince with coin, or attack . . .”

“Whereas mine sickens you.”

“
Truly
sickens me, Oronkh. Not only does it fail to sustain me, it's unsafe for me—for which I am deeply thankful to whatever gods there may be. For that keeps you safe from me.”

The fat, tusked half-gorkul nodded, turned to look down the passage toward where the human was presumably somewhere ahead of them, and asked quietly, “But what if I don't want to be safe from you?”

The sharren stood like a silent statue for a long breath, and then a second one. Then she retraced her steps through the rocks, as softly and smoothly as if she'd been made of drifting smoke, and lifted a gloved hand to stroke his cheek.

“Oronkh,” she whispered, “you don't have to be.” She slid deft hands inside his vest, slowly drew it open, and kissed his chest.

“Softfingers,” he rumbled, “this is perhaps not the best place to—”

“Be safe?” Her eyes glimmered up at him from somewhere close to his belt. Below which something was bulging to thrust insistently at her, through his worn and filthy leathers.

Glimmered, and then winked.

Oronkh shook his head, smiled, and growled, “You win. As usual.”

 

Vlakrel stopped so abruptly that the Ozrim warblades behind him almost walked right into him.

“They've stopped moving,” he snapped.

The warblades ahead of him halted and turned to hear what he'd say next, joining their fellows of the rear guard in a ring around the spellrobe. Who promptly mumbled something magical, and closed his eyes.

Vlakrel might be the most treacherous and vicious Niflghar ever to serve House Ozrim, but he was their commander, and one of the two most powerful Ozrim spellrobes. He'd returned from his private audience with High Lord Evendoom afire with zeal, almost tremblingly eager to lead them out into the Wild Dark after the Bloodsucker and the Misbegotten. Whose heads commanded high prices, whether or not their bodies were still attached.

They all knew that Vlakrel—and with him, House Ozrim—would rise greatly in the estimation of the High Lord of Talonnorn if they succeeded.

The Bloodsucker was the rampant-meltingly beautiful sharren Nurnra, who'd seduced Nifl beyond counting—not a few of whom had vanished forever, or had been left longing for her return to their arms, and seeking her out when they dared.

The Misbegotten was the half-Nifl, half-gorkul knife-trader and sometime slayer-for-hire Oronkh, a wily and unlovely crossbreed whose very existence was a soiling affront to Olone, and whose swindles were legendary.

They almost always worked together, notorious criminals of the Dark who had cheated Talonar merchants for years. They seemed to know when goods were owned by, and traders were working for, the ruling noble Houses of Talonnorn, and to seek
out such prey over other opportunities. Wherefore the bounty on their heads—and Jalandral's eagerness to reward Vlakrel. If things went awry, the spellrobe had told them all, he had been given the means to summon Jalandral's flying Hunt, to come swooping out into the Wild Dark to him and fight on his behalf.

Which meant that this foray was the closest thing under Olone's smile to a certain success.

Vlakrel's eyes snapped open, and his sharp, ratlike features assumed their usual gloating sneer. “They must have decided to sleep,” he said. “So we go on, as swiftly as we can without making overmuch noise, to perhaps take them unawares. Speak only if peril demands.”

He waved at the warblades impatiently, and they silently and impassively re-formed their line and started walking again. Veterans all, they already had a lot of experience in creeping up on foes.

 

Lolonmae stared right into Luelldar's eyes through the whorl, her gaze as deep and steady as if she could see his every thought and memory, and correctly anticipate what he would think of next, too. The priestesses all around her were staring at him, too, but Luelldar paid them no attention at all. Even if he could have torn his eyes away from those of the Revered Mother, he had no desire to do so.