The Eye of the Chained God (19 page)

This time, he waited for the touch of the divine in vain. There was no warmth, no sense of the divine. All he felt, and it might have been his own imagination, was a slow itching, as if something crawled through his veins. Bahamut did not answer him. Did not or would not. Or perhaps, Roghar thought, could not.

“Roghar!” called Uldane from outside the stable, then his voice echoed as he came inside. “Roghar, where are the horses? We’re ready to go.”

The paladin flinched and grabbed his gauntlet, pulling it on to hide the blood that smeared his wrist. He stood just as Uldane came searching along the row of stalls. Uldane frowned at him. “What have you been doing?”

Roghar scowled back at him. “Giving thanks,” he lied. “Can I not have a moment to commune with my god?”

“It would be better if you communed while we rode. People are starting to forget they’re afraid of Albanon. We need to go.” He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “You haven’t even gotten them saddled yet!”

“Then make yourself useful and help me. Gather their tack. We’ll be gone faster.” Roghar grabbed his horse’s
saddle blanket from where it hung over the stall and threw it across the animal’s back. As Uldane turned away, he exhaled and squeezed his eyes closed, fighting down a churning fear he knew he couldn’t outrun.

There were two times during the day that Albanon found his memories of Winterhaven particularly hard to bear. The first was in the evening as he prepared himself to enter the trance that served eladrin in place of sleep. Memories of the power he had wielded chased themselves around the dark corners of his mind and a fear grew that madness would creep up on him once more as he dreamed.

The second was in the morning. For about twenty heartbeats after he emerged from his trance, he’d be at peace. Then he’d remember that Splendid and Immeral were no longer with them and his sense of peace would evaporate. Various emotions would rush in to fill that void. Sorrow. Fury. Determination to put an end to Vestapalk’s cruelty—and to Tharizdun’s hold on him. Sickness at what his friends’ deaths had brought out in him. Guilt at what he’d done.

On the third morning after they’d left Winterhaven, guilt and sickness came together like a physical blow that made his head spin and his throat clench with nausea. Albanon lunged away from their little campsite, drawing calls of concern from Tempest and Uldane, and retched into a clump of bushes. He thrust the vile thought away and stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

He found himself facing Roghar across the bushes and winced. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t …” He gestured weakly at the vomit-streaked leaves. “Did I?”

“No,” said Roghar in a low rumble. “You didn’t. Thank Bahamut for that.”

“I didn’t know you were there.” Although he should have guessed, Albanon realized. Ever since they had left Winterhaven, the paladin had been taking himself a short distance from the camp to pray at dawn and dusk. He’d been quieter and more withdrawn, too. Albanon couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Roghar sing the way he used to. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who carried emotional scars from the events in the village.

He stretched out a hand—not the one he’d wiped his mouth with—and offered it to Roghar. “We’ll get through this together. We’ll stop Vestapalk.”

The dragonborn hesitated for a moment, then wrapped his hand, still cased in a gauntlet, around Albanon’s. “How much farther?” he asked bluntly.

Albanon glanced in the direction that his internal urge—growing steadily stronger the farther they traveled—was taking them. Away through the trees, the ground rose into the first steep slopes of the Cairngorm Peaks. They’d left the road behind and spent the previous day travelling through foothills. That day, and for as many succeeding days as it took to reach their mysterious destination, they would journey through the mountains. Unless they had good fortune, there was every chance they might find
themselves forced leagues out of their way to get around some obstacle in the empty wilderness.

That the wilderness was empty was, perhaps, a blessing. They hadn’t seen any sign of plague demons since leaving Winterhaven. Albanon wasn’t sure whether to be pleased at that, especially in a region that was so sparsely populated to begin with, or even more worried. All evidence to the contrary, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Vestapalk’s minions were out there somewhere. Waiting for them.

“Not far,” he told Roghar. “I hope.”

Roghar responded with a grunt. “Good,” he said—and he dropped Albanon’s hand, turning to stride back to the camp without another word or glance. Albanon blinked and stared after him.

Later, with the sun almost at its noon height, the eladrin nudged his mount over beside Tempest’s as they rode around the grassy flank of a mountain. “Have I done something to offend Roghar?” he asked quietly.

Tempest raised a narrow eyebrow. “Besides almost vomiting on him?”

“Other than that.” Albanon looked at Roghar’s back—the paladin rode in advance of the rest of them. “He’s been curt with me the last couple of days and it’s only getting worse. You’ve known him the longest. What’s bothering him?”

“I wish I knew,” she said, “but it isn’t just you. I’ve seen him surly, but never for this long.”

“Do you think it’s because of what happened at Winterhaven?”

“He’s seen worse—or at least as bad. The attack on Fallcrest. What we found in Nera before we came back to the Vale. When something bad happens, he seeks refuge in Bahamut for a while, then he comes back stronger than ever.” Tempest turned her head and studied Albanon for a long moment. “I think you’re doing better than him right now.”

“If I’m doing better, then he’s in really bad shape.” Albanon attempted a smile but it withered on his lips. He sighed. “I never thought I’d actually miss Splendid this much.”

“It surprises you, doesn’t it? I miss Immeral. Not much of a talker, but his wilderness skills would come in handy right now. I can’t help thinking we’d be moving a little faster if he was here.”

Albanon shrugged. “We’ll get through. Uldane’s trying but I think he always depended on Shara.”

“Possibly.” Tempest rode a little farther in silence before she said, “Am I the only one who was hoping we’d find signs of her and Quarhaun? Thair said they went north from Winterhaven, too.”

“They could have gone anywhere. ‘North’ covers a big area and I doubt that Shara would have left anything behind to mark their passage. We could pass by one of their campsites and never see it.”

“First Shara and Quarhaun leave us, then Splendid and Immeral.” Tempest gave a wry smile. “At this rate, there won’t be enough of us together to face Vestapalk.”

The observation put a new twist into Albanon’s already knotted stomach, but the grim humor of it made his
lips twitch. Before he could answer, however, there was a whinny and a scuffle of hooves from ahead as Roghar reined his horse in sharply. He turned the beast around and came back to them. “There’s smoke rising beyond the next ridge.”

“Forest fire?” asked Albanon.

“Not dense enough,” said Roghar. “It looks more like the smoke from a lot of individual fires.”

They all exchanged glances. “A camp,” Belen said.

Roghar nodded. “A big one. Albanon, which way do we go?”

He raised his arm without hesitation and knew by Roghar’s sour curse that he was pointing right at the heart of the rising smoke. “Maybe the camp is our destination,” said Uldane brightly.

Albanon barely had to think about it—the answer rose in his mind. “It isn’t,” he said. “We have farther to go.”

“Dismount,” said Roghar. He swung down out of the saddle. “We’ll leave the horses and go up the ridge on foot. We may be able to go around it, but I want to have a look at what we’re dealing with.”

Among the trees, Uldane took the lead, pointing the way for the others to follow so they made as little noise as possible. The climb wasn’t difficult but their caution made it slow. Albanon got a good look at the smoke Roghar had described before they began their ascent and well before they reached the top of the ridge, a shift in the wind brought the scent of the camp that lay beyond. Wood smoke, cooking food, leather—the smells of any
normal established hunting camp. What reassured the wizard even more, however, was the sound of children’s laughter drifting on the breeze.

He wasn’t the only one who drew hope from the laughter. Uldane looked pleased, while Tempest relaxed visibly. Belen, however, tensed, and Roghar’s face tightened. “What’s wrong?” Albanon asked him.

“People fight to defend their children like nothing else,” he said. “Be careful.”

They stayed low to the ground as they emerged from the trees and crept across the exposed top of the ridge. Flat on their bellies, they stared down at a camp that filled most of the hollow below. There were perhaps fifteen large tents of hides lashed over bent poles and enough people moving around—including children at play—that Albanon estimated the camp could easily have a population of one hundred and fifty inhabitants.

Many of those in the camp were human, but not all. Some of the figures moving among the tents had an easy grace and a casual swiftness that reminded him of hunting cats. Indeed, when he looked more closely, he saw their features had a catlike cast with flat noses, large eyes, and sharp teeth. Shifters. And a camp of mixed humans and shifters meant …

“Tigerclaw barbarians,” he murmured aloud. He turned his head to look at the others. “What are they doing this far away from the Winterbole Forest?”

“Thair said Tigerclaws were scavenging around Winterhaven,” said Uldane. “Maybe these are the same ones.”

“The question is,” Roghar said, “do we go into the camp and hope they’re feeling friendly or try to slip around them without being noticed?”

Belen answered before any of the rest of them could. “We go into their camp,” she said decisively. “You never sneak around the Tigerclaws. It suggests that you have some reason for being stealthy. We want them to know we’re here.”

Albanon felt Tempest, on the ground beside him and at the outside of their watching pack, stiffen. “Too late,” she rasped. Albanon twisted to look at her—and found a spear point gleaming just a handsbreadth from his nose.

On the other end of the spear, a Tigerclaw shifter bared her teeth at him.

A
nother barbarian had his spear pressed to the back of Tempest’s neck, keeping her facedown on the ground. Albanon’s back was to the others, but he could see the shadows of at least four more figures on the ground. The Tigerclaws had positioned themselves so that not even their shadows would give them away until they were ready. He swallowed.

“We mean no—” he began, but the spear point twitched a little closer.

“No speech, no spells,” growled the shifter warrior. “Hold your tongue in your mouth, eladrin, or I’ll cut it out and you can hold it in your hands.” Her amber eyes, pupils slit like a cat’s, flicked over the prisoners. “Why are you spying on the Thornpad clan?”

Once again, Belen spoke up. “We travel with caution in unknown territory,” she said with more formality than Albanon had heard from her before. “We saw signs of
the camp ahead and didn’t want to ride blind. We have no intention to spy or to interfere with your clan. If you let us cross your range, we’ll ride on without disturbing the Tigerclaws further.”

A snarl rose from somewhere behind Albanon. “They would say that, Cariss. We heard them plotting to avoid us.”

“We heard them discussing their situation, Hurn. It didn’t sound to me like they were going to hide from us.” The warrior’s gaze shifted again. “You, human woman. How do you know so much about dealing with Tigerclaws?”

“I was part of the Fallcrest Guard,” said Belen. “On the rare occasions when representatives of Tigerclaw Chief Scargash visited Fallcrest, I was their escort.”

“You kept watch on them to ensure they behaved in civilized lands,” said the hard voice of Hurn.

“No,” Belen answered and although Albanon didn’t dare turn to look at her, he could hear strain in her voice. “I kept watch on the civilized people of Fallcrest to be sure they didn’t offend the Tigerclaws.”

A couple of the unseen Tigerclaws chuckled at that. Cariss gave the ghost of a smile. The point of her spear retreated slightly, allowing Albanon to look around at last, and she gestured for the warrior keeping Tempest down to let her up. Albanon met Tempest’s gaze as she turned and recognized the considerable control it was taking to keep her temper in check. Cariss appeared to have dismissed both of them already. Her attention was on Belen, who seemed to have taken on the mantle of
leader of their party. “Do any of you carry the taint of the Abyssal Plague?”

Belen blinked. “No.”

“How do we know that’s the truth?” demanded Hurn. He was a shifter like Cariss, but taller and wider with a nasty scar that twisted his mouth into a permanent scowl.

Belen nodded to Roghar. “He’s a paladin of Bahamut. He’ll swear it.”

All of the Tigerclaws looked to Roghar. The dragonborn lifted his head. “We have fought plague demons from Fallcrest to Winterhaven. We are enemies of the one that spreads the Abyssal Plague. In Bahamut’s name, we will destroy him.”