Dark Vengeance (15 page)

Orivon stopped, turned, and looked back.

A heap of his discarded armor, yonder the bright fresh face of rock shattered by the sleeth . . . his other sword!

He couldn't trick the sleeth twice with the horn of rock, and didn't dare rush into its pincers without armor. Which meant he had to get behind it, to where he could leap onto its back or neck, close to that central head, and do his slaughtering
very
quickly. If he couldn't manage that, he wouldn't be the one doing the slaughtering.

Back beyond where his armor lay was a rising, rugged slope of broken rocks. If he could trick the sleeth into climbing it
there,
while he waited higher up, off to the side over
there . . .

Not a good battleground, but then he couldn't choose caverns—and if he somehow managed to outrun the spiderlike monster and get out into the passages, he would be fleeing into the unknown with no place to hide, and no way to trick the sleeth into missing where he was.

Orivon started to run, not worrying about silence. He needed that other sword, and a few of the smaller pieces of armor—and he needed to get them before the sleeth got
him.

It was charging again, rushing forward with surprising speed. Both pincers were held aloft and back, ready to slam down on him, and it was snarling now, a wet, burbling snarl of bloody spittle and pain-driven, burning rage. Orivon reached the first piece of fallen armor, plucked it up without slowing, and heaved it to one side. He didn't want the beast to blunder into the heap of armor and realize his tricks.

It clanged, bounced, and then clattered to a halt—and the sleeth slowed, suspiciously.

Damn!

Curses of Olone!

It heard Orivon, as he skidded to a hasty stop and caught up some armor plates from the little heap, and came after him.

He swore aloud, and snarled to Thorar, “Must I be my own foe-distraction, too?”

The sleeth answered him with a roar, and launched itself forward. As it came, it brought its pincers crashing down on the rocks, let them rebound, and slammed them down again.

And again.

Amid their deafening crashings, Orivon snatched up all the armor he needed, retrieved the second sword, and scrambled up the rocks to his chosen spot.

Still furiously smiting bare rock, the cave-sleeth charged up the rocky slope. When it was past him, Orivon launched his own charge, running and then leaping high.

He came down jarringly on that last neck, got an arm around the head—and then had to fight to turn the sword and drive it through the forest of clashing fangs. The moment it was in, he kicked and twisted, keeping hold of the neck but hurling himself around and down.

One of the pincers slammed into him anyway, numbing his hip and tumbling him helplessly away through the air, sword torn
from his grasp. The other pincer crashed down on the rocks, hammering them repeatedly in agony as the sleeth thrashed about, shuddering and shrieking.

He'd wounded it sorely, but was it dying?

The forgefist watched the pain-wracked beast writhe and hit out blindly.

It seemed to be growing more feeble, but that could just be weariness, not death coming on.

Orivon glanced quickly around to make sure no
other
beasts of the Wild Dark had heard all this and come running, but saw nothing but rocks and heaped bones and treasure. Plus plates of his own discarded armor.

He hefted one of those plates and threw it at the sleeth's snarling, gore-drooling mouth—the hilt of his blade was still protruding from it—but the plate struck some of the fangs and glanced off; the creature didn't seem to even notice it.

It
was
growing weaker, though.

The pincers were coming to rest on the cavern floor, the spiderlike legs rising and falling more slowly as it turned in one direction, and then, almost aimlessly, turned back.

Orivon drew his favorite sword and took a few steps closer to the monster. He should just walk away and go on, while he still had only bruises and a few cuts and broken ribs, but he'd heard tales of beasts that could heal as they slept, and then go forth as good as new to hunt their foes—and not just the folk of Ashenuld and Orlkettle had told such stories; Ravagers who knew the Dark well had told a few.

He had to—

The sleeth reared up, shuddering all over, gave a great roaring bellow that echoed around the cavern walls, and then sank into a long, raw groan. A groan that ended when the monster slumped down, its spider-legs tilting at odd angles, to sprawl belly-down on the cavern floor.

Cautiously Orivon stepped nearer, sword held ready.

Was this a ruse?

Another piece of armor, bounced off that last head, elicited a brief muttering growl and a great shudder, but no rise off the stones. Orivon took a deep breath, stepped in between the pincers, and jumped onto the central neck with both boots, coming down hard.

The beast pitched under him, giving forth a wet, bubbling roar, and one pincer lifted a little—before it slumped down into silence again.

Orivon put the point of his sword in under the lowest of the sleeth's overlapping bony neck-plates, and then leaned on it.

The warsteel sank in, the beast quivered—and then the head vomited out a huge rush of gore and sank down into it.

Orivon hastily scrambled back along the neck to keep from falling, and then sighed, turned, and started carving.

He wanted his second sword back.

 

One of the eldest warblades of Ouvahlor came back to her, bowed low, and made the gesture of Reverence to the Ice. “The battle-din has ceased.”

“I am not,” Exalted Daughter of the Ice Semmeira replied icily, “
quite
deaf yet. Have you anything
useful
to report?”

The veteran—one of only four, among all the untried younglings she'd been given—went a little pale around his mouth, but otherwise showed no sign of anger. “We have found warning sigils—heralding the lair of a strong dangerous beast—by the entrance to the cavern where the fighting was befalling.”

“So we go around that cavern, without delay,” the priestess told him airily, “and on to Glowstone. Our fighting and slaying shall be done there.”

The warblade bowed again, turned, and hastened away to give the orders.

Semmeira watched him go, idly lashing the palm of her hand with the whip she'd brought along to use.

At last.

She let the smile she felt inside slowly show on her face.

Ah, but she enjoyed command.
Doing
things in the name of the Ever-Ice, reaching out with power to take ever more power.
This
was what she was made for.

And should have been doing long ago.

 

Kryree's hands trembled as she fitted the last of the interlocking plates into place, rose from her knees, and held out the spherical map to Erlingar Evendoom.

“Thank you,
lesheel,
” the Lord of Evendoom told her gently, to calm her; her large and dark eyes were full of fear, and her face pale for the same reason. Kryree and Varaeme had been his pleasure-shes for a very long time, and were not unfamiliar with either his moods or Evendoom matters—but they were not used to wearing armor and walking the Wild Dark.

He touched the intricate spherical map with both fingers, and murmured the word that would make it float and glow. It was one of the oldest Evendoom family treasures. Rare and irreplaceable, of course, but then so were loyal living Niflghar, it now seemed . . .

“We should be close to Glowstone's nearest watchpost by now,” Faunhorn murmured, coming up to stand at his shoulder and point. “We must be
here,
yes?”

“Yes,” Erlingar agreed. “Pity the thing doesn't show the way to Nrauluskh, to let us go
around
Glowstone and on, seeking no one.”

“Pity it doesn't show the way to a huge store of weapons, loyal-to-Evendoom Niflghar to wield them, and endless food and shes, too,” Faunhorn said dryly. “If only we had one of the more expensive maps.”

Those words didn't strike Lord Evendoom as all that amusing, but then Faunhorn
never
made jests, and so couldn't be expected to proffer good ones.

Not that he had need to.

Lord Evendoom was under no illusions as to why such a large handful of Evendoom warblades had accompanied them out into
the Wild Dark. Perhaps a dozen admired Erlingar, and were loyal to him because of that or because he was the reigning Lord of House Evendoom.

All the rest were here because of the one Evendoom even rival nobles admired: Faunhorn. Principled, merciful, dignified, and somehow
stylish
in everything he did, or had ever done.

If Faunhorn stood shoulder to shoulder with Erlingar Evendoom, then so did they; if Faunhorn turned on Erlingar, so would they, without an instant's hesitation.

Right now—armed with the old family map that showed the caverns of the Dark in a sphere immediately around Talonnorn—they were all out in the Wild Dark rather grimly heading for Glowstone.

Where Erlingar hoped to find and hire the Ravager leader Bloodblade, to keep them all alive as he guided them somewhere well away from Talonnorn. To distant Olone-worshipping Nrauluskh, or perhaps even more distant Olone-venerating Oundrel; cities where nobles were many and weak, and merchants almost as numerous and as strong. Yet cities that had no love at all for murderers who hunted victims inside their gates.

With Bloodblade as their guide, Erlingar's handful just might manage to reach the relative safety of one of those cities before Jalandral's forces—or his private flying Hunt, or spellrobes working for Jalandral—found them.

Jalandral's agents were out there hunting for them right now.

“Make for that cavern, to stand guard and rest?” Faunhorn asked, pointing. Erlingar nodded, and reached out to take the sphere and quell its magic.

Kryree and Varaeme were on either side of him in an instant, murmuring wordless comfort and reaching to take and disassemble the map-sphere.

“You are so
troubled,
Lord,” Kryree whispered, her eyes now more full of concern for him than fear.

Lord Evendoom managed a crooked smile. “My son wants us all dead,” he murmured, shaking his head in disgust. “The last of my children . . .”

He spun around to look at Faunhorn, and asked, “Were
we
ever this inexplicable to our elders? I can't bring myself to believe so, no matter how I try.”

“Our elders never knew Talonnorn invaded, or its temple torn asunder by Consecrated fighting Consecrated,” Faunhorn said gently. “What they thought of us privately, I cannot say. Other than to observe that some of the elder crones of our House thought of us not at all.”

“If scant comfort can warm me, I bask in your words,” Erlingar said wryly, and held out his arms.

His brother gave him a wry smile to match his own, and they embraced. Faunhorn had always been true, the Evendoom everyone could trust.

Just as Jalandral had always mocked and given insolence.

It was out of respect for Faunhorn, who had suggested that Kryree and Varaeme remain untouched, that none of the warblades had done so much as kiss either pleasure-she, after they had tremblingly offered themselves to all the rampants.

Everyone knew that they were not along to bed with Erlingar at every rest, but because Lord Evendoom knew no other way to safeguard their lives. Six of their fellow pleasure-shes lay sprawled in their blood back in Talonnorn, casualties of one of Jalandral's latest attempts to have his father slain.

Latest, but not last. They had fled Talonnorn with Jalandral's hunters closing in. At their first stop to rest, out in the Dark, Faunhorn had told the warblades that he had not come along merely to save his own skin, but because it was imperative they all survive for a time to come, when Talonnorn would need them. Probably to refound it, for the Talonnorn they all knew was lost; Jalandral was dragging it down into bloody doom, and House Evendoom with it.

Now, with Kryree and Varaeme on their knees disassembling the map-sphere into its separate metal plates, the two Evendoom brothers walked slowly across the cavern, into the heart of their silent, listening warblades.

“I do not know my son any longer,” Erlingar told Faunhorn grimly. “I thought his purring indolence, his love of shes and pranks and posing, all leaned for support on Talonnorn unchanged around him; a Talonnorn strong and proud and prosperous. And now Jalandral seems hungry to twist, remake, or hurl down all; he's become the sort of Nifl who would awaken That Which Sleeps Below just to work change.”

Faunhorn nodded gravely, but said nothing at all.

“I thought Klarandarr of Ouvahlor was Talonnorn's worst foe,” Erlingar told his brother, “but I was wrong. Jalandral of Evendoom is the one who will destroy us all.”

If you must to Glowstone away
Guard well behind you
As sleepless you stay
For Glowstone blades keen
And Glowstone blades fast
Spill blood in rivers
that run but don't last
For Glowstone throats await
Thirsty but not few