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Authors: Ed Greenwood

BOOK: Dark Warrior Rising
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Often, in those early days, when he'd roared curses and hauled hard on his chains, she'd flogged him bone-deep, used a dagger to slice muscles into uselessness, and even hurled handfuls of salt into his open wounds—only to revive him and heal him with magic.
It had been a long time since she'd cast such spells on him—but then, it had been long indeed since he'd offered her the slightest defiance, either. She liked it more when he seemed eager to receive punishment—and in her delight, dealt out less pain.
They'd come to know each other, far more than he was sure other Evendoom even noticed their slaves, and … well, she had spirit, he'd grant her that. A certain reckless tossing aside of fear, a defiant “well, what of it?” that he admired. She was a fool, but a magnificent fool.
Aye, magnificent—that was the other thing. She
was
beautiful. Achingly, exquisitely beautiful—by Thorar, they
all
were, these Nifl, for all their cruelty and sneering. Sleek, rounded where they should be, with … with …
He shook his head, trying to banish memories of velvet black flesh he'd glimpsed when Taerune and her sisters wanted the thrill of revealing themselves to a slave. Orivon growled as he held up his blade to sight along it. Straight and true. Of course.
He could barely remember what human women looked like. He'd seen none in the Eventowers, and from talk among the gorkuls and nameless Nifl he'd overheard, he knew how short a time human “playpretties” were likely to last when dragged to Talonnorn. They were called “screamers” by most Nifl for good reason.
He might share their fate, in time to come, if ever he displeased Taerune or her fellow Evendooms sufficiently. House Oszrim was reputed to prefer male slaves for bedchamber play, and he'd seen hunger in the cold eyes of the Oszrim brothers when they'd encountered Taerune in the streets and exchanged smoothly cutting insults—or as Taerune termed them later, “the usual pleasantries.”
He
had
to escape Talonnorn, had to get away from these cruel dark elves and back to sunlight and green growing things and …
forgedark,
why couldn't he even remember their
faces
?
There'd been women in Ashenuld, women he'd scampered after and spied upon when they stole off into the deep forest to bathe in the streams. Long, wet hair, curving over drenched, dripping breasts as they murmured pleasure at washing away the stink and grime, standing up in the stream to toss their heads back and—why couldn't he remember their
faces
? Thorar
damn
it!
He brought his hammer down so hard on a new, red-hot forgebar that it shattered, shards clattering everywhere and making Grunt Tusks, even at a safe distance, belch and stagger aside in startlement. Disappointingly,
the gorkul didn't fall into the Rift. Kicking the largest shards aside with complete disregard for the burns he'd acquire—mere adornments on the battered and much-scarred things that his feet had become—Orivon reached for another bar.
Oh, he had gauntlets for handling red-hot metals, and even boots and breeches at the back of his forge floor, near the gates, for wearing on his rare chained journeys through the streets. He was never ordered into them if he was going to the Eventowers through the Evendoom back tunnels, and could barely remember the last time he'd put them on.
Breeches. Boots. What did such fripperies matter, when he lacked freedom?
Just running away, if he smote down Grunt Tusks and somehow avoided the fireghosts and warblades—probably by leaving through the tunnels and then up and out through Eventowers, not trying to win out past the Rift gates—would be futile. The Hunt would pounce on Orivon before he'd drawn a dozen breaths. Even if the Hunt itself was busy elsewhere, gleefully plying their whipswords to slice up and behead some other fleeing slaves, aspiring to join the Hunt was the heartiest pastime of many young, reckless Talonar he-Nifl, and some of them had cavegaunts and even darkwings of their own to ride, and were aching for a chance to prove their worthiness to fly with the Hunt. So how to elude them?
His hammer fell on the bar. And again.
No trader would dare hide him in a pack-sledge or manywheels wagon, no matter how much he offered. Their lives were worth more to them than any payment—and after all, what was there to keep them from taking the fine blades or gold and then straightaway betraying him, and keeping it?
Bahhhrang … bahhhrang …
another blade-to-be, shaping up nicely …
Oh, yes, he had some gold. He'd managed to collect soft gold as forgesplash over the years, and work it together into a lump about as large as both his hands, that he kept coated with pitch and stuck down a crack in the stone floor, under his side tables.
Not that he had anything to spend that gold on, or any chance to buy anything.
Bahhhrang.
The only other wagons that regularly left Talonnorn were the dung carts that took daily loads of excrement out to distant caverns, to be devoured by giant dung-worms: blind, mindless deepserpents that were
thankfully too large to fit through the tunnels to reach the city and gnaw on Nifl—and Nifl slaves—instead.
He'd pondered this possible way out many a time, but it seemed desperate slaves had tried to hide in wagonloads of dung in the past; the wagons and their loaders were guarded at all times by armed and armored Nifl who were both watchful and belligerently suspicious of anyone and everything, probably out of anger at drawing such duty.
Talonnorn had something worse than the Hunt, too, but he doubted they'd unleash it for one fleeing slave. A handcount or more, yes, but not for just one. Once the raudren were loosed, they had to feed—and he knew, from talk he'd overheard, that even the Nifl feared the raudren. He'd only caught a fleeting glimpse of one, frozen by spells and caged, but he knew what they were: flying hunters even deadlier than the darkwings, creatures whose entire bodies were a great leathery wing—a wing with a razor tail and even sharper jaws and claws.
Not knowing any spells, let alone how to cast one that would freeze a swooping raudren, he'd just have to take the chance he'd not have to try to outrun one. Or more than he could count of them, sleek and silent and deadly.
Orivon sighed, gave the cooling bar one last deft tap with his hammer, and held it up to peer at it critically.
Slave tales always claimed it was easy to swarm a Nifl guard, don his armor, and fool everyone thereby—but words were easier to spin than finding any Nifl large enough to have armor that might even begin to cover the shoulders of Orivon Firefist—let alone fooling anyone into thinking this pale muscled mountain of a human was actually a sleek, black-skinned Niflghar. Even saying airily that he was a Nifl trying out a magical disguise would mean having to speak convincingly like a Talonar Nifl, and answer swift questions well enough to satisfy suspicious dark elves who would no doubt have sharp swords ready in their hands.
Moreover, most Evendoom Niflghar—and probably the warblades of all the other Houses as well—wore bracers or amulets that turned away cinders, shards, small missiles, stinging insects. To even touch one he'd need a determined, full-strength attack with a weapon. Tossing rocks or even daggers would accomplish nothing.
Orivon sighed sourly, and turned to put the shaped blade—flawless, as always—carefully down on his sidetable.
It was then that he saw it.
The tall, rune-adorned gates of the Forgerift stood alone in their arched frames, flanked on either side by apparently empty air. As every Talonar who'd blundered too close to them knew, however, that air was alive with invisible piercing spikes and crawling lightnings, a treble barrier of unseen magics that meant sure death even to the most powerful Nifl spellrobes—unless they had the leisure to stand and work spell after spell, exhausting themselves just to fleetingly breach those mighty spellwalls. The Evendoom warblades who guarded the gates wore something—Orivon knew it was their belts, but only because he saw something he hadn't been meant to see—that made the spikes and the lightnings nonexistent for them, but even they were stopped by the third barrier: the solid, invisible unbroken wall of pure force that soared from the very solid rock underfoot up through the air to the lost-in-darkness cavern ceiling, so high above. More than once, Orivon had seen darkwings shatter themselves against that solid air and tumble down in dying ruin, spilling their riders to lesser dooms.
Just now, and suddenly, as he stood staring, the air outside the gates was flickering. Closest to that stirring, the unseen lightnings of the wallspells were becoming visible, gathering and crackling viciously, like a guard-wolf baring its fangs and leaning forward, straining to strike. The gate guards drew their swords and approached warily.
Those flickerings became a sudden flare of orange flame, out of which stepped a Nifl in dark armor unlike any Orivon had ever seen or had a hand in crafting. There was a sword in his hand, and in brisk, calm silence he stepped forward to lunge at the nearest Evendoom guard.
The warblades charged him—which was when orange flames flared behind them, and more unfamiliar armored Nifl burst out of that roiling air, swords thrusting. Some of the guards were dying even before they turned.
Orivon stopped watching the newcomers viciously sword the Evendoom warblades just long enough to snatch up a red-hot pair of forge tongs, so he'd have a weapon against whoever these fools were.
He was hefting the long tongs in his hand—reassuringly heavy they were, too—when the very stone under his feet trembled. The solid stone of the cavern floor.
“Thorar!” Orivon breathed. Anything that could shake the great cavern of Talonnorn was—
The trembling became a real shaking, a long and rolling thunder that threatened to hurl him off his feet.
Orivon strode hastily away from the edge of the Rift, as dust and stones started to rain down on him. He tried to peer past the Great Gates, out into the city proper, but saw only that dust and stones were falling on all of the city he could still see. Which wasn't much, and would have been less had the runes on the gates not been blazing up bright and angry.
The mysterious attackers were gone into the gloom, slaves were screaming up and down the Rift, Grunt Tusks was cursing with more amazement than anything else in his rough deep voice—and as Orivon watched in growing awe, something reared up
under
the stone before him, forcing the gates open from within.
The runes on the tall dark doors became white blazing beacons, hurling light into the tumult that Talonnorn had become.
In their radiance he stared at what now was bursting up out of the solid stone cavern floor, to rear up beyond the gates of the Rift, even taller than they soared: a huge dung-worm, tall and dark and malevolent as it peered about.
Thorar, if it noticed
him
…
That fear was still kindling in Orivon as he stared at the distant Eventowers, now brightly lit by the awakened white glows of their wards, and saw three—
three!
—more dung-worms, truly giant deepserpents that seemed now not sluggishly mindless but full of keen-witted malice. They were rearing up over the towers and turrets of the proud Nifl castle, surging forward.
And then they were crashing down, jaws agape, gnawing and slamming at stone. And the Eventowers were rocking and crumbling, one turret leaning out to begin the long, rumbling plunge to oblivion.
Orivon shook his head in astonishment.
Thorar, it seemed, had answered his prayers at last.
War Comes to Talonnorn
We'll drown in hot blood and leave widows forlorn
Earning bright glory when war comes to Talonnorn.
—from the ballad
“War Comes to Talonnorn”
T
hey were well into the chant, face-down and shivering as they embraced the great dark slope of ice, when Lolonmae threw back her head and screamed.
It was a scream that broke off into wild, uncontrolled shakings and tremblings, so that the scandalized disgust of her fellow novices and underpriestesses turned to alarm—and for some, swiftly hidden delight at an excuse to rise from the frigid ice, all bare, wet, blue, and shivering as they were, and bundle the moaning, unseeing, still-writhing Lolonmae down the long, dark hall to a certain door.
A door that wasn't answered, even when their tentative knockings turned to fearful hammerings—until Exalted Daughter of the Ice Semmeira dared to do what was never done. She flung the door wide, and led the way in.
Temple spells that had been old before the Revered Mother was born made the darkness glow blue-white around the wet, anxious priestesses as they hurried, bare wet feet slapping on smooth stone. Down a shorter, narrower passage to a small round room where the Revered Mother should have been kneeling alone before her private altar of ice …
But was instead sprawled spiderlike on the floor, writhing in the same manner as the stricken novice Lolonmae.
“Revered
Mother
?” Semmeira cried, rushing forward.
Pain-filled yet wryly amused eyes looked back up at her from the floor, and then past her to what swayed in the grasp of a knot of priestesses. “Ah,” the aged high priestess croaked, her voice raw from screaming. “Lolonmae. Of course.”
Semmeira knelt to help the still-trembling Revered Mother to her knees. “‘Of course'?” she dared to ask.
“She felt it, too. Great magic, unleashed—spells strong enough to shake the Ice itself.”
“Are we … under attack?”
The Revered Mother shook her head. “No. At least, not yet. The spells are too distant for that.”
She thrust herself up to her feet, swaying, as the priestesses stared at her. “Yet not so far off that we should not be gravely concerned.”
Semmeira swallowed. “How concerned?”
The Revered Mother gave her a long, thoughtful stare. “We should probably all be wetting ourselves. Not that doing so will be much help.”
 
 
A watch-whorl burst into an inferno of whirling sparks, hurling a headless, blackened crone back in her seat, to slump into eternal silence. Someone screamed, and Maharla and Orlarra snarled in unison, “What's
happening
?”
“Olone preserve us,” Galaerra whispered hoarsely, staring into the watch-whorl she'd hastily backed away from, but hadn't dared flee—nor, to tell the truth, had been able to resist staring into. They could all see what she was staring at: the great heads of dung-worms rearing up to overtop the lesser towers of the very castle they were sitting in.
And plunging down, like great living rams, to smash through ancient stone walls and shake the chamber around them. Dust and tiny stones pelted down on their heads, and all over the room crones of House Evendoom started screaming.
Every watch-whorl was showing the same scene: the Eventowers beset, three dung-worms—no,
more
!—rearing their heads once more to strike, lesser towers slowly toppling or gone already, and Talonnorn beyond a scene of devastation, with plumes of smoke billowing up, distant deepserpents undulating and rising up to crash through buildings, and Nifl fighting Nifl everywhere.
“We're all going to
die
!” an elven crone shrieked.
Another burst up out of her chair, her watch-whorl collapsing into falling, fading motes in her wake, and raced for the door, crying, “They're coming! They'll be breaking into
this
tower next!”
Orlarra raised a hand, face cold and set, but Maharla was faster. Fires flared from her fingertips, tiny beams of flame that streaked across the chamber—and the running crone shrieked suddenly, clawing at a door that would not open, as her personal ward suddenly flared into visibility around her, beset around its edges by Maharla's flames … and already shrinking visibly.
Desperately the crone struggled with the door, her hands flaming with emerald fires of her own—but though it burst into roiling green flames under her touch, it held firm.
Crones all over the chamber stared at their eldest, Orlarra, who was standing with one hand raised, palm out in a “halt” gesture. Whenever emerald magic flared across the door, Orlarra's eyes went emerald too, and her face slowly creased in pain—but the door held, and it was the crone fighting with it who suddenly screamed in agony as her wards collapsed and Maharla's flames claimed her. She reeled, sobbing, ablaze all over, and then sagged to the floor, becoming her own pyre.
Orlarra winced, but turned to Maharla and said, “That was well done.”
“Yes,” Maharla hissed, “and so is
this.
”
The gestures she made then were small and swift. The eldest crone easily repulsed her flames, rage rising to join pain on her face—but Maharla's spiteful smile never wavered, and a jet of flame rose from the burning crone on the floor to race across the chamber and stab the eldest crone of House Evendoom in the back.
Orlarra stiffened, crones gasped and half-rose from their seats all over the room—and a deepserpent head slammed through a nearby wall. The chamber cracked and reeled in a slow thunder of grinding, falling stone and suddenly swirling dust that hurled shrieking crones this way and that.
Orlarra gasped, Maharla's crimson flames gouting from her mouth—and then her eyes burst into spitting, stabbing lightnings. “Olone!” she whispered, wonder joining sobbing pain in her voice. “Oh, Perfect One!”
Her body flared into golden flame that sent Maharla staggering back in surprise and alarm, and she whispered, “Of course. Use me, please!”
And she was gone, only empty air and silence where golden tongues of fire had swirled a moment before.
A sudden hush fell upon the tower, even as dung-worm heads reared up again, looming large and darkly terrible in the watch-whorls.
That golden calm held as dark, mottled monster heads larger than the crones' lofty tower-top chamber raced right at every watch-whorl, the crones frozen at them slack-jawed in terror, watching death rushing to claim them …
They heard the blows of those great heads, faintly, but felt nothing. And in every watch-whorl, dung-worms writhed in agony, rearing back into the air trailing plumes of golden lightning, twisting and shaking from side to side, seeking to be rid of the pain they could not escape …
Vast and sluggish they fell back, coiling and thrashing, their great loops crushing loping pack-snouts and running servants and flattening the walls of the Eventowers gardens—and then the gardens, too.
More than one crone laughed in triumph, peering into her watch-whorl, but that mirth was short-lived. The golden glow in the room faded slowly, bringing down a darkness lit only by the bright eyes of the whorls.
Eyes that were now showing other, larger dung-worms surging out of ruined Talonnorn into the Evendoom grounds, swaying and slithering, gliding through wards that should have crisped them … wards that no longer seemed to be there.
“No!” Galaerra gasped. “How can Olone let this happen?”
“Fool!” snapped old Baraule. “Forget never: Olone tests us always! Those who prevail win brightness in Her eyes!”
Maharla stood alone in the center of the chamber, watching these new menaces, ruby fires dancing and flickering around her clenched fists.
Over the feebly moving coils of the burned dung-worms the new deepserpents came, purposeful, moving forward together. Heading straight for this tower,
this
chamber …
“All of you!” Maharla snapped. “Look at me, think of me—
open your minds to me
! I need you with me!”
And she spread her hands and whispered a Word.
The air itself tingled, every hair in the chamber standing on end, sword-stiff and straining.
Maharla said another Word, and the tingling air went very dark, only the frightened faces of the crones glowing faint and pale as they stared at each other. More than one of them looked enraged.
“How
dare
you! That, Maharla, is only to be used when all else has failed, and the end of our family is upon us!”
“I'm glad you remember the rules so well, Klaerra.” Maharla's eyes
glittered in the gloom like two dark flames, blazing without brightness. “A pity you're too wan-witted to understand that all else
has
failed—yes, just this swiftly!—and if I don't use it, you and I will be sharing in the extinction of House Evendoom!”
It was a sickening feeling, this jostling of minds. Suspicions and dislikes seethed like acid, searing, and more than one crone moaned or mumbled prayers to Olone.
Deepserpent heads towered dark and massive in the lone watch-whorl that was still bright, the one floating nearest to Maharla.
“
Now,
sisters of Evendoom!” she snapped. “Work with me now, or we are all undone!
Strike!
”
Her own mind was full of roaring flames—a flood of conflagration that plucked at those of the other crones, seeking to tug them into the quickening flow, bearing them along to …
“Raaaaaah!”
Involuntarily they cried out together, wordlessly, shouting their rage and fear and pain … and, slowly unfolding, their exultation as bolts of flame snarled out, searing the air, to strike dung-worm after dung-worm, darting into parted jaws to cause great heads to burst, or splashing over snouts and sending fire raging around serpent heads.
The huge monsters flailed about, headless and convulsed, or swayed and burned, seeking to scream but managing only a vast, wet hissing.
Crones slumped all over the chamber, weeping or clutching at their heads. Maharla stood triumphant, arms crossed, watching the dung-worms die.
It had cost the wits of several in the chamber—and she had seen to that. It had stripped the Evendoom wards of much of their power, snatched away from within; even now, she could feel wards all around Eventowers fail and fall in tatters.
Yet the deepserpents were all gone—and so was Orlarra. And anything that left Maharla the foremost crone of House Evendoom, no matter what else happened, could be counted nothing less than a great victory.
 
 
The senior Watcher of Ouvahlor turned from his whorl with a gleeful hiss. “They've done it!”
Aloun had never seen Luelldar this excited; his eyes glittered like sword blades catching firelight. “Their wards are down! Send in our blades!”
For once in his life, Aloun sprang eagerly to cast a farspeaking spell.
 
 
As she left the balcony behind, Taerune's mind was awhirl. Down the stair she sprinted, scabbarded sword in hand, the buckle of its belt flailing her arm at every step, and plunged into the mad tumult of the armory hall.
It was every bit as crowded as she'd expected, as she ducked and dodged her way through the hastily arming Nifl of House Evendoom, furiously snarling warblades, aging uncles, and young Hunt braggarts among them.
Jalandral was laughing, of course, when she caught sight of him, clapping warblades on their shoulders and spitting swift orders into their ears, directing them to this gate and that hall in a manner that could only be deemed gleeful.
“Ha-ha, little sister!” he cried, catching sight of her hurrying toward him. “Blood! Blood at last!”
“And much of it Evendoom blood! Our walls are breached, Dral!
Breached!
And this makes you
laugh
?”
“But of course!” Jalandral's eyes danced with delight. “I've something to do at last! Something important! Something that
matters
!”
“Your
death
will matter to Ravan, yes, and no doubt please more than a few crones, but—
Olone forfend
!”
Taerune's angry words rose into a shout as she pointed. At the far end of the hall, gorkul were lumbering forward, sweating, fearful humans, right behind them. Nifl were at their backs, urging them on with whips and goads. Weapons bristled in every hand, and some of the goads crackled with angry lightnings that shed flickering light enough for Taerune to see eye patches and scars among the Nifl. No disfigured dark elf rampant of Talonnorn would be commanding warriors; these were strangers—Ravagers, or Nifl of a city that did not revere Olone.

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