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Authors: Ed Greenwood

BOOK: Dark Warrior Rising
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That Ravager was already awake but cowering. Bloodblade roared into his face, shook him like a helpless child—and then thrust a sphere of ordauth into his hands.
It was Bloodblade's greatest treasure, and the spellrobe gaped at it for all the time it took one lightning bolt to stab across the cavern at him—and blast the magical thing he held into full arousal.
And from it a ward rose like a black and sighing wall, all around the cavern, rising into a great dome overhead that sealed the Ravagers off from the rest of the Wild Dark.
It did nothing at all to the fire, lightning, life-sucking wraith-things, whirling blades, and hungry jaws still raging around inside it.
 
 
The black wall brought utter silence as it entombed them; the snapping lightnings, bursts of flame, and shouts and screams were all suddenly—gone.
Taerune and Orivon blinked at each other, and then rolled over. The outcast Evendoom rose a little unsteadily from where she'd been lying flat on her face on cold stone and called, “Daruse! Lharlak! I know you're hiding behind your usual rocks, to listen in on all we do. Well, what we do is going to be nothing until we know what happened back there.”
She turned and waved back at where the main cavern full of sleeping
Ravagers had been, and a solid, smooth black wall that looked like ordauth was now. “So, what happened back there?”
Daruse and Lharlak rose into view rather sheepishly, drawn swords in their hands, and shrugged.
“Sudden tumult,” Lharlak offered, “and then—a full ward, just like that.”
“Something bad,” said Daruse. “That looked like a family of wizards attacking. Never seen the like.”
Orivon got up. “So what do we do now?” he asked, trying not to sound as angry as he felt.
“You're asking
us
?”
Taerune shrugged. “We hope to learn things even from clever Niflghar.”
That made the two Ravagers grin. They came a little closer, their swords still ready in their hands.
“Suppose,” Daruse suggested, “you tell us what you so purposefully—and stealthily—came into this cavern to do. You who were so yawningly tired such a short time ago.”
Taerune put the only hand she had left on one hip, and the flange of her new hand-blade on the other, and regarded them, lips narrowing. “I'd prefer that this have remained a private matter between Orivon Firefist and Taerune Evendoom, but perhaps it's better that there be witnesses, at that, to tell Orivon that this is no ruse on my part.”
Daruse inclined his head like a priestess saluting a crone. “Here we are: witnesses, two by number. What's no ruse?”
“An oath-swearing, before the Goddess, of my loyalty. So he'll trust me.”
Orivon looked at Taerune, and then at the two Ravagers. “What is this oath?”
“A blood pact that binds Niflghar upon their honor, before the Goddess,” Lharlak replied. “Among Nifl, it's believed that breaking such a promise angers Holy Olone, who soon strikes down dead the offending Nifl, or twists them forever into beast shape, Nifl no longer.”
Orivon looked at Taerune. “This matters to you?”
“Very much. If it will make you believe you can trust me.”
“Then let's do it.”
 
 
It had been some time since the High Ledge had heard boasting and triumphant laughter; the surviving Hunt were scared young Nifl terrified
of the next orders they might receive, that could send them out into the Wild Dark to their deaths.
Wherefore they were sitting glumly, trading quiet gossip about the tumult they could see unfolding in the streets below, and hoping it would mean no summons to do anything before their shift ended, when a sudden spell-glow blossomed on the empty ledge in front of them, and out of it stepped two unfamiliar Nifl.
The Hunt members rose, frowning, their hands going to their swords. Unfamiliar the two arrivals might be, but they bore glowing spellblades in their hands, and the Three Black Tears of Maulstryke on the breasts of their splendid robes. The tall one had the manner of one used to being obeyed.
“You will take us,” this tall Nifl commanded, “to a certain cavern out in the Dark, that my companion here will direct you to.”
The leader of that shift of the Hunt did not trouble to keep the sneer on his face out of his voice. “No
Maulstryke
will ever order the Hunt what to do and what not to do!”
The air flickered, and a third figure was suddenly standing beside the other two, also holding a spellblade. This arrival was disheveled, but had a face every Hunt rider knew.
“That's why the order to take Lord Maulstryke out to this cavern he seeks is coming from me,” he said calmly. “And I'll be accompanying him and his pet spellrobe. I'm missing some heirs, too.”
The Hunt found themselves gaping at Lord Erlingar Evendoom.
 
 
“Before Olone I swear this,” Taerune whispered, as softly as a kiss, and bent her lips to the blood filling Orivon's palm.
“You do the same, with hers,” Daruse muttered, from beside him.
“Before Olone,” he said roughly, “I swear this.” And he kissed the blood in her palm. It was sweeter than he'd expected, with none of the iron tang of his own.
Taerune smiled at him. “'Tis done,” she said lightly, “but your blood must not be wasted.” And she bent her head and lapped it.
Orivon shuddered.
I feel … aroused.
[Of course.]
Taerune's whisper was warm in his mind.
[It always feels thus. Drink mine in health, and welcome.]
Orivon growled as he bent over her hand to do so, and Daruse and Lharlak both chuckled.
“You know,” Lharlak remarked, “it really was terribly interesting over behind yon rocks. Did you not find it so, friend Daruse?”
“Now that you mention it, I
did.
Let us return thither for a time, and leave these two misfits from Talonnorn to their own devices. I'm sure they'll find
something
to do, while we all wait for Bloodblade to turn his little toy off again.”
 
 
The din was deafening.
Nifl shouting, snarling insults, screaming in agony, and slamming every sword, dagger, pot, tool, or stool they could find into each other and everything that stood in the way of lashing out at every other Nifl who stood near. The streets of Talonnorn were choked with Talonar hacking at everyone—crones, priestesses, and each other.
“
Die,
motherless Olone-kisser!” a drover snarled, towering up suddenly over her with a snout-goad in his hand. He swung it viciously, splintering the door frame Naersarra Dounlar ducked back through, and roaring with rage as he shouldered through that opening and swung again.
Naersarra had found herself in a kitchen, its floor littered with broken crockery and slick with fresh blood. The first things that came to hand were the jagged shards of a huge, shattered bowl, so she snatched them up and flung them in the drover's face.
The second thing was a cleaver, and she flung it into his throat while he was still cursing, half-blinded by the shards.
He gurgled and started to die, kicking at the air as he went down. Naersarra clung to a pillar and sobbed for breath. A sudden roar of jubilation rose outside, and she heard raw-voiced rampants nearby take it up, laughing as they called, “Hear that? They got Oszrim! Hacked apart, Lord high and bloody Lorloungart Oszrim! Dead as dung! Ha-
ha
!”
There was a splintering crash in another room, a scream, and then a panting crone reeled into the room, disheveled and bloody, and Naersarra found herself staring at Baerone Maulstryke.
“Don't—” Baerone gasped fearfully, fighting for breath. “Don't kill me!”
“Won't,” Naersarra assured her, just as breathlessly. “This has—the city's gone
oriad
! All this … must be stopped!”
Baerone stared at her, nodding, and then seemed to crumple. “They'll butcher every last one of us!” she sobbed. “They care not who
they slay! I've even seen armed
gorkul
in the streets, hacking and hewing! We
must
stop this!”
“Agreed! But how?”
“Maharla's champion?” Baerone asked bitterly. “The Dark Warrior, striding the streets?”
“And where is he? Or his army?”
“He's a fiction, and no more than that!” Baerone stormed, her eyes wild. “And Maharla Evendoom is to blame for all this! She moved the Lords from shaking their heads at the oriad Consecrated, a-slaying each other inside their temple, to being afraid they'd lead an uprising, and had to be butchered!”
“And they were right, weren't they? This
is
an uprising! I'm just afraid that the Lords will gather their wizards around them, and hurl death at us all, using spells to heap the Araed with our bodies!”
“And destroy Talonnorn? Just what do they think they'll have left to rule?”
“That's just it, Baerone: they're Lords. They
don't
think.”
 
 
“I don't like the look of that,” the Hunt rider muttered, as the darkwings beneath them squalled and tried to flap away. He fought it down to a claw-skittering landing in front of the smooth black barrier. “Stinks of magic.”
Lord Maulstryke looked at Clael, saw his miserable nod, and said crisply, “This is the place. Set us all down.”
The Hunt rider nodded curtly, and waved his hands to signal the other riders. Then he waved at the barrier. “What is it?”
“Magic, of course,” Maulstryke said flatly, and looked at Clael again. “Any of our doing?”
The spellrobe, who was white to the lips and busy licking his lips and peering at the dark caverns all around, shook his head. “N-no. This is beyond anything we can do.”
“Are you saying you have no spell to shatter it?”
“Yes,” Clael whispered reluctantly. “That's what I'm saying. This is
old
Nifl magic, beyond what anyone of Talonnorn can do now.”
“Then we'll wait.” Maulstryke turned back to the Hunt rider. “Return to the High Ledge, and await our call.”
The Nifl lifted a cold eyebrow, and pointedly turned to Lord Evendoom,
who nodded and said calmly, “Be guided by Lord Maulstryke's suggestion as if it was an order from me.”
The Hunt rider inclined his head. “Then good hunting.” He made a sound in his throat like a muffled screech and the darkwings sprang into the air, its great claws slicing air just in front of their chins, and was gone, the great beats of its wings—and of the other darkwings, flapping in its wake—hurling up dust and small stones that stung their faces.
They all turned away, to face the black barrier. Only Clael looked back at the distant, dwindling Hunt.
He looked back several times, each glance more wistful.
“And now?” Lord Evendoom asked Lord Maulstryke calmly.
“And now, we wait.” Maulstryke strolled a little way along the black wall and then stopped, turned, and added, “Erlingar. Fear no blade of mine until we're both back in Talonnorn.”
“Likewise,” Evendoom replied.
Clael looked from one lord to the other, suppressed a shiver, and then peered fearfully into the darkness all around them. Not for the first time.
Important Things Happen
It always seems to involve bloodshed
And much tumult and breaking of things
Whenever important things happen.
—
The Words of Dounlar
T
he smoke drifting down the street was thick now, quelling some of the roared insults and ranting. The screams came just as often though, amid the clash and clang of swords and tools and kitchen knives.
“Imdul!” Urgel called, as he smashed a House steward across the side of the head with the hilt of one of his blades, driving the rampant's jaw down to meet his upthrusting knee. The steward crashed to the stones unregarded.
“Gel!” his slender friend called back, out of the gaping hole that had been a shuttered window. “Out in a trice!”
The mask maker nodded, gasping for breath, and whirled around to look in all directions for approaching trouble. It had been a desperate fight just to stay alive in the rioting mobs. Everywhere in the Araed Nameless were looting and burning—and raping in the brothels, too; Urgel had passed one where pleasure-shes were frantically hacking and stabbing rampants in the ruins of what had been their front display windows.
Urgel was well beyond being sick of it all, but there was nowhere safe to hide or get clear of the fighting—and at least in the streets he and Imdul could try to kill every crone and priestess they saw. That would be
some
good, out of all this mess.
Imdul came out staggering, his arms wet with blood to the elbows.
“All right?” Urgel asked.
“Oh. Aye, none of this is mine.” The poisoner shook his head wearily. “It's going to be a long time mending Talonnorn—if Ouvahlor leaves us alone to try.”
“A long time,” Urgel agreed grimly—and then set his teeth and lifted the blades he held in both hands, as a fresh mob of howling, running Nifl came around a corner and swept down on them.
“Inside!” Imdul snapped. “Back inside, where I was! They'll trample us, out here!”
They hastened, ending up fighting like oriad Nifl against a veritable whirling forest of swords that caught up to them before they could get through the door.
And then the mob swept on, leaving behind only a few reeling, shouting Niflghar hacking angrily at each other.
“No fit place to stay, in there,” Imdul said. “It's afire, down the far end. We'd best get on.”
They had to hack and thrust their way to the next corner, where it seemed a dozen duels were all going on at once where the streets met. In the midst of that frantic fray the two friends came face to face with Tarlyn, who shouted, “Ho! What price soothing rumors now? Or Hairy Ones as conquering champions! I hear Lord Oszrim's dead, and Lord Dounlar, too!”
“Olone take us all,” Urgel growled, wearily—just as someone ran Tarlyn through from behind, a bright sword bursting out of his chest.
The handsome Nifl stared at them, aghast and dying, spitting bubbling blood as he tried to say something—and failed.
As he slid forward onto his face and into oblivion, Urgel and Imdul roared their rage and burst over his sagging body, to hack apart his slayer.
It was a fat shopkeeper; their blades thrust and slashed at him at will as he sobbed and whimpered his way to his knees.
“Why
did you do it?” Urgel roared into his face. “Why slay a fellow Talonar?”
“H-husband,” the shopkeeper coughed, trying to raise a pointing finger to indicate Tarlyn's sprawled body. “He 'n' my wife. Olone-dung, him …”
Rage draining away, Urgel and Imdul stepped back, looked at each other—and then were flung aside, screaming, as a wall of ravening magic blasted down the street, hurling all Nifl before it.
Their longtime comrade Clazlathor came down the blood-slick way, the glows of that ravening spell still curling around his hands, and the giant Nifl Munthur strode with him.
“Imdul? Urgel?” the spellrobe called at the gaping windows and doors all around. “Has anyone seen the mask maker? Imdul?”
Clazlathor's spell had heaped a great mass of broken bodies against the front of one building at the street-moot, and they trod on limbs and torsos to get past, never knowing that some of the remains were those of Imdul and Urgel.
Far down the street behind them, there came a great groan that slowly grew into thunder, as a building collapsed. The great crash drowned out a few feeble screams.
 
 
The last of the deadly magics faded away at last. After the silence started to stretch, and a dagger flung across the cavern awakened no lightnings or gliding wraiths, a wincing, staggering Old Bloodblade dared to come out of the cleft, lift his head, and call, “Anyone still alive? Anyone?”
Far across the cavern, Sarntor struggled to his feet, spitting blood, and mumbled, “For now.” Two other Ravagers managed to rise, and the four gathered in a grim little ring, looking around at all the dead.
“Are we trapped here, doomed to starve?” Sarntor asked, waving a weary hand at the black dome. “One last magical thrust at us?”
“No,” Old Bloodblade replied, touching three deeply-set buttons in the ordauth sphere he was cradling.
The black dome faded slowly away.
“We must go,” he added. “Someone obviously knows we're here, and will probably be along to finish off any survivors—and that'd be us.”
“Indeed,” said Lord Maulstryke pleasantly, striding forward out of the darkness beyond the cavern, with a spellblade beginning to glow in his hand. “That finishing off doesn't look like all that formidable a task, either.”
There were two other Nifl behind the robed Talonar Lord. The Ravagers saw Lord Evendoom give the third Talonar a meaningful glare, and the spellrobe acquire a look of real fear as he reluctantly advanced in Maulstryke's wake.
“Mine,” one of the Ravagers mumbled, and limped forward to face Maulstryke, drawing a dagger and a battered sword as he went. Sarntor made as if to follow, but Bloodblade laid a restraining hand on his arm.
The other Ravager was too far away for Bloodblade to reach, and also set off across the strewn dead toward Lord Maulstryke.
Who strolled to meet the first Ravager, and then did something swift and deft; the Ravager barely had time to cry out before he was falling. The second Ravager charged, and was greeted with a stone-cold smile and the words, “Greetings. I am Ohzeld Maulstryke, Lord of my House—and I am your doom. In the name of Shoan Maulstryke …”
That last word had barely left his lips by the time the spellblade in his hand burst through the Ravager's throat and neck and withdrew again; the outcast Nifl toppled in a welter of blood.
“Well, now, Talonar Lords, you're a long way from home,” a new voice observed jauntily. “Have you run out of slaves to butcher at last?”
Daruse gave the three Talonar a mocking smile as he came out of the side cavern, with a human, an Evendoom she, and the eye-patch-wearing Lharlak right behind him.
“Daughter!” Lord Evendoom cried, extending his arms welcomingly.
The stare Taerune gave him was cold. “I
was
your daughter. Until you spurned me. I suppose it's the hand of expediency that turns your heart my way again now—yes?”
Maulstryke chuckled. “Ah,” he said pleasantly, as the badly wounded Sarntor broke free of Bloodblade and charged. The spellblade left Maulstryke's hand to fly and fight by itself, striking aside Sarntor's swift and deadly lunge so Maulstryke could almost leisurely draw and thrust a belt dagger up through Sarntor's jaw from beneath. “I may enjoy this after all.”
Bloodblade was turning the sphere in his hands over and over, pressing buttons rapidly. Sidestepping Sarntor's clawing, dying hands as the Ravager fell, Maulstryke pointed at Bloodblade and snapped, “Clael!”
The spellrobe raised his hands and wove a swift spell—just as Bloodblade did something that made the sphere click loudly and stepped back from it, leaving it hanging in midair.
Lightnings streamed from each of Clael's fingers, leaping at the sphere—and vanishing, swallowed by it. A part of the sphere glowed green, and spat out a tongue of white radiance that grew into an upright, glowing white door floating in midair.
“Clael!” Maulstryke snapped again, sounding angry this time, and the pale-faced wizard frantically worked another spell, leveling a pointing finger at Bloodblade.
A crimson beam sprang from that shaking finger and hissed across
the cavern at the stout Ravager. Just before it reached him it was plucked aside, curving sharply around to race right into the glowing door. Wherein it, too, vanished without a sound.
“Very pretty,” Daruse commented, hurling a dagger hard at Clael. Lord Evendoom pointed his spellblade and triggered a beam of magic from its tip that melted the whirling knife in midair. Lharlak had flung a dagger of his own, just behind Daruse's but arcing higher; it flashed past the beam—and plunged home in one of Clael's eyes.
Screaming, the spellrobe fell.
Mouth tightening, Lord Maulstryke hefted his spellblade and advanced purposefully on Old Bloodblade.
The Ravager leader drew his own sword, and then a dagger to match, kicked aside a fallen Ravager's arm to give himself clear footing, and waited.
“I have never seen such a fat, ugly Niflghar in my life,” Maulstryke observed with a sneer. “No wonder you're outcast; Holy Olone must find you revolting.”
“Whereas I,” Bloodblade replied calmly, “have never seen such a twisted, decadent city as Talonnorn, where a few Nifl enslave the rest, exalt themselves as Lords or priestesses, and devote their lives to the pursuit of beauty—and thinking up new ways to be nasty to their fellows. Fortunately, we're not in Talonnorn now. You stand in
my
domain, Ohzeld Maulstryke.”
“You know my name. Interesting.” The spellblade lifted out of Lord Maulstryke's grasp, rising point-first to menace Bloodblade, and Maulstryke calmly reached his now open hand back behind him to receive his own spellblade. It slid free of the fallen Clael to come streaking through the air.
“I knew your mother—twice or thrice,” Bloodblade replied with a grin. “And she was twice the rampant you'll ever be.”
He moved his empty hand deliberately from left to right—and the glowing door slid through the air and swallowed the spellblade that had belonged to Shoan Maulstryke. “Are you ready yet to face me blade to blade?” the Ravager asked mildly. “As
true
Nifl fight?”
The spellblade reached Lord Maulstryke's hand—and he snarled and sprang forward, the blade singing and flaring into a fell glow as it swept down viciously. Darts of glowing magic raced from its cutting edge at the Ravager—only to be snatched aside into the door.
Blades met, Bloodblade's shrieking with the strain as the spellblade
flared red-hot—but the Ravager swayed back to let the bound blades carry to his right, and reached over them almost delicately to slice the fingers of Maulstryke's sword hand. Sparks spat as the dagger struck rings, Maulstryke screamed—and when he hauled his blade free and brought it back across in a slash that forced the Ravager to step back, two severed fingers tumbled in its wake. Their rings flared, spun free—and raced into the glowing door.
Orivon strode steadily across the cavern, to get between Evendoom and Maulstryke—but Taerune's father made no move to help Ohzeld Maulstryke. He stood watching, spellblade grounded, looking past the human as if Orivon did not exist.
[NO, Orivon. Leave him be!]
Taerune's mind-voice was frantic, almost a shout. He nodded to let her know he'd heard, and heeded, giving Lord Evendoom a glower that was cooly ignored.
Face twisted in pain, Maulstryke stepped back and switched hands, wringing his wounded one. Blood flew. Bloodblade stepped forward—and the Talonar lord rushed him, swinging the spellblade in a wild flurry of slashes, its magic flaring brightly around them. Bloodblade stood his ground, the two blades clashing and crashing together.
Sparks showered from the ringing spellblade, and seemed to swirl and gather as if about to build into something—but drifted inexorably to Bloodblade's glowing door, and were swallowed.
“You were …
lucky,
Ravager!” Maulstryke snarled, as their blades rang and rebounded, clashed again and whirled. “I was trained by warblades who'd not have trusted you to fetch their boots!”
“That would have been wise of them,” Bloodblade grinned, though he was starting to gasp for breath—and caught the darting Talonar spellblade on his dagger. This time it was his sword that slashed in, to sever more fingers.
“Still,” he added jovially, as Maulstryke staggered back, shouting in pain and shedding more fingers, “I can't help but wonder
what
they trained you in. It certainly wasn't blade-work.”

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