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Authors: Ed Greenwood

BOOK: Dark Warrior Rising
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Taerune lay for a long time listening, seeking not the stretching silence but the faint sounds of cave creepers or anything else cautiously approaching. Out in the Wild Dark, noises meant battle or the rare yawnings of the earth … which meant possible food. Dead, injured, or pinned and helpless creatures to feed on.
A wounded, senseless human and a bound and maimed Nifl on a ledge, for instance.
The Fear of the Hunted
Taste it as your blade comes out,
The fear of the hunted,
The despairing shout.
Mercy is for fools,
Hesitation for the weak.
Spilling blood makes every sword sleek.
—old Nifl warblade drinking chant
O
rivon groaned. Taerune rolled over hastily and sat up.
He groaned again, one outflung arm twitching. Taerune threw herself into worming her way past him to the swords.
The blade that was lying the right way up, allowing her to easily trap it between wrist and hip and slice through the lash binding her, was right … here …
The lash parted and fell away, freeing her, at about the time she saw Orivon's eyelids flutter. Hastily Taerune crawled back behind him, and put her arm down against her hip as if it were still bound.
She watched him lift a hand to his face, trail his fingers across it, and tap lightly at his eyes. He let his hand fall, sighed, and felt around in front of him, patting the rough stone of the ledge, less than a finger length from his dagger. The dagger he seemed to be searching for …
He can't see!
“Taerune?” Orivon asked quietly. “You're behind me, aren't you?”
She drew in a long, slow breath, saying nothing. So the wardfires had blinded him. This changed everything.
And nothing.
She watched him snarl a soundless curse and feel for the dagger again. He was going to find it, his fingers almost on it … there. Even as he cautiously closed his hand around it and then snatched it up, Taerune replied calmly, “Yes. Yes, I am.”
He turned slowly, dagger in one hand and tracing the stone in front of him with the other.
“You can't see, can you?”
“No,” he said shortly. “Your doing?”
“No. The spellrobe's wards.”
“Ah. And he's—?”
“Dead.” Taerune drew in a deep breath. “I kicked him off the ledge. It sounded like a long fall.”
Orivon nodded. “And his friends?”
“The others—Ravagers, I believe—slew them all. And moved on.”
Orivon nodded again. “If I try to climb down, I'll probably fall too.”
“Not … not if I go first, and tell you where to reach. The climb wasn't that hard.”
Her Dark Warrior grinned bitterly. “Can you tell me the movements of foes, fast enough for me to put a sword through them before they kill me? If I can kill one with a map, you'll have to read it.”
Nettled by his calm, Taerune burst out, “Aren't you
afraid
?”
Orivon turned to look at her, as if he could see her. His eyes looked unharmed, but stared through her, at nothing. “Slaves breathe fear, eat fear, drink fear. Fear is in every thing we do. We have no time to indulge it, for there is always the work. Waiting. And the punishment, waiting if the work gets not done. I learned—very long ago—not to have time for fear.” He was silent for a moment, and then added expressionlessly, “You taught me that.”
A breath later, as she wondered what to reply, he spoke again. “I can see shapes, a little.”
“Good,” Taerune sighed, her relief strong and swift. “Hopefully the spellrobe's wards merely clawed at the darksight spell we cast on you, and as its chaos calms, your sight will ret—
Nooo!
”
Her shout was startled and despairing.
Orivon turned toward the faint, somehow familiar rippling sound Taerune was shouting at, pawing at his eyes in a desperate attempt to see.
And then, a moment before cruel Nifl laughter began to sweep down on them, he heard the deep, wet burbling of an eager darkwings, and knew.
The Hunt of Talonnorn was flying, and here, and swooping down at them!
 
 
For the first time, Jalandral Evendoom and Shoan Maulstryke exchanged meaningful glances that held mutual exasperation, rather than sneering scorn or open hatred.
Their escorts had halted again, hands raised against them in preemptory “halt” signals, to cast another tracing spell. Reminder had woven the last such magic, so Gentle cast it this time. Grounding their swords, the two heirs swallowed sighs, glanced around at the nigh-featureless cavern, and then watched the priestesses work. Both knew they'd have little chance of finding the fleeing Nameless one and her slave without these castings, but that knowledge did nothing to make them enjoy being treated as disobedient—and stupid—children by holy shes whose hauteur far outstripped their own.
And the Olone-exalted shes took so damned
long
in their castings, adding wholly unnecessary implorings of the Goddess and little “face this way, and pose just so” rituals to add an air of mysterious power and importance that fooled no one, and afforded them many opportunities to coldly make clear their disdain for the two Firstbloods. All of this preening, moreover, was presumably being paraded before an unseen audience of worthies back in Talonnorn.
This particular Outcavern was lofty, bare, and of purple-white stone; aside from its choice of two tunnels at the far end from the one they'd entered it by, even a casual glance could tell it held nothing of interest. So Jalandral and Shoan had plenty of time, as the manyfold gestures, elaborate positionings, and ever-holier prayers droned on, to gaze into each other's eyes and wordlessly agree on certain matters.
Their hatred was mutual; each was seeking a chance to slay or at least wound the other—but both were also awaiting opportunities, even if seizing such would mean they must work together, of slaying their infuriating escorts and winning the freedom to fight each other.
The Consecrated of Olone seemed to sense this, or to have learned the Firstbloods' thoughts through magic. From the moment they'd stepped outside the main cavern that held Talonnorn, they had taken care never to get too close to either heir, turn their backs, or allow one rampant to block their view of the other.
“Merely helping us hunt Taerune, my left dancing eyeball,” Jalandral
murmured under his breath, smiling coldly at the last elaborate flourishes of what should have been a simply muttered, over-in-two-instants tracing spell.
The flourishes ended at last, and Gentle closed her eyes, her slender fingers cupping air in an attitude of devout prayer.
As she contentrated, trembling, Reminder warily watched the two heirs. Her needle-slender spellblade was aimed oh-so-casually at Jalandral Evendoom—and Gentle's blade, temporarily in Reminder's other hand, was coincidentally trained upon Shoan Maulstryke.
The Firstbloods' own spellblades could hurl spells but were real swords, not dainty near-needles. Those borne by the Eyes of Olone—as they were so unsubtly being warned—must be delicate arsenals of deadly spells.
So Jalandral and Shoan calmly ignored the swords aimed at them, leaning on their own blades in elegantly posed silence, and waited for Gentle's playacted trance to end.
Which it eventually did, with a gasp and a shiver, a murmured prayer to Olone, and a straightening and sudden turn to point dramatically at one of the tunnel mouths. Whereupon Gentle frowned sternly and commanded overloudly, “We go
that
way.”
“Fair hearing,” Jalandral and Shoan replied in rough unison, nodding. As Reminder returned Gentle's spellblade to her, with the priestesses watching the heirs steadily, the Firstblood of Evendoom drawled, “A question, holy guides: just what, precisely, are you tracing? I understand the magic of the Nameless hides her from you quite effectively, so … ?”
“Olone's secrets,” Reminder informed him stiffly, “are just that. And must remain so.”
“Ah,” Shoan Maulstryke said brightly then, “but Aumaeraunda, Holiest of Olone, has told us the Goddess has ordered her Consecrated
to inform the Houses fully
of all they learn that is vital to the honor or interests of Talonnorn. And as the Holiest herself confirmed this task to be vital to the honor of our city …”
He spread his hands, one eyebrow lifting, his gaze a clear challenge.
Reminder scowled at him, but Jalandral murmured, “Talonnorn watches. Talonnorn
expects.
”
The priestess went pale, eyes glittering in fury, but Gentle came to stand beside her, and said quietly, “You are correct, twice: we are not tracing the Nameless one, whose magic indeed masks her whereabouts from us, and that we should impart truthful answer to you as to what we
are tracing. Know, then, that our spells trace tokens built into the boots of the escaped slave we believe to be accompanying her. The Nameless was neither a crone of her House nor a Consecrated, and so was unaware—as I believe both of you were, until this moment—that such tokens are put into all slaves' boots for just this purpose.”
Jalandral decided it was time to arch one of
his
eyebrows. “Really? And how many other tokens are we all carrying around, for you to use for other secret purposes whenever it suits you?”
“Ah,” Gentle said with the most fleeting of smiles, “as to that, I fear I must remind you that Olone's secrets
are
Olone's secrets—and must remain so.”
 
 
Like a hurtling shadow of talons and great leathery wings, the foremost darkwings of the Hunt raced down upon Orivon and Taerune on the ledge, its bulk blotting out the rest of the cavern, its long neck undulating as it thrust its head out and to the side, poised to scour along the ledge with jaws agape.
“By Olone and Talonnorn,” its rider cried out, hauling it back from that scouring in an angry flurry of flapping wings that slapped the very lip of the ledge, “
these
aren't Ravagers! It's the slave and the Nameless we're seeking! Keep their faces intact, remember; the Eldest wants to see the heads!”
As if in reply, but before any of the other laughing riders on the line of darkwings behind it could shout a word, there came a sudden burst of bright magic in the air—a blast that made the head of the darkwings vanish, and its spasming body, neck flailing blindly and bloodily, crash into the cavern wall just below the ledge.
Again Taerune and Orivon clung to each other, bouncing helplessly as the rock shook under them. Neither of them saw the Nifl dashed to broken-limbed death, or rider and steed rebound off the wall and tumble limp and lifeless down to the littered rocks of the cavern floor below.
Depths from which angry Nifl cries arose, even before the astonished Hunt riders started shouting.
“Bloodblade, what're you
doing
?”
“Oriad-head! Are you
trying
to get us all killed?”
“Ha-ha!” Old Bloodblade roared, stepping away from the overhanging cavern wall into full view of the Hunt above, and triggering his wand again to blast the next darkwings. “I always wanted to do this!”
His target burst into bloody spatters, rider and all.
“By the Ghodal Below and the Blindingbright Above, the wand works!” the aging Ravager roared. “Alathla promised me I could bathe
armies
in flame with this, and she told the
truth
for once! Ha-
ha
!”
Amid his delighted shouts, the third wandburst missed its darkwings but struck the cavern ceiling beyond—bringing a rain of rock onto the heads of the rest of the Hunt, that dashed them down, down to a rolling, buried death far below.
Blinding, roiling dust shrouded the ledge, and in the heart of it Taerune rolled herself hard against Orivon—and awakened her Orb.
It burst from his hiding into her hand, even as she thrust her face against his, and forced her tongue into his startled mouth. She slapped the Orb against their locked-together lips and held it there.
[DON'T move]
she ordered, her mind-voice—boosted by the Orb—sliding into his head like a slicingly sharp silver dagger.
[I'm magically keeping us from coughing or choking, so the Nifl below don't find us. Just—lie here. Please.]
She convulsed against him.
What
—
what's wrong?
Orivon thought, and heard his mind-voice, anger and apprehension warring, roll around both their heads loudly enough to make him wince as swiftly as she did.
[Ignore me. I'm just gagging.]
“Just gagging”? Why?
[Take this not the wrong way, Orivon, but to Niflghar, humans reek.]
Orivon was silent for a time.
I see. Well, to humans, Nifl-shes smell, too. But they taste quite nice.
Taerune squirmed and wriggled on the ledge, seeking to keep their mouths together but to thrust her body as far from him as she could.

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