Crypt of the Shadowking (20 page)

They found a low rise that dropped off into a rock-strewn ravine. A clear stream flowed swiftly in the ravine’s bottom, toward the Chionthar, now three leagues to the south. Mari, Caledan, Ferret, and Tyveris formed a semicircle on the top of the knoll, backs to where Morhion and Estah stood with the horses. Caledan reached for his sword and Mari her crossbow. Ferret gripped a dagger in each hand; Tyveris was ready to fight with fists alone. Even Estah clutched a small knife, though all knew she was loath to use weapons. Morhion seemed calmest of all, waiting and watching.

“There he is!” Ferret exclaimed, pointing with his knife. They watched as a figure clad in jet-black robes appeared atop a ridge, striding toward them. The assassin moved with uncanny swiftness, and Mari had to force her hand to remain steady on the crossbow. In moments the black-robed man was ascending the low knoll where the companions stood. Mari waited until she was certain the figure was within range. Then she fired.

The crossbow bolt whistled through the air, landing with a sickening thunk directly in the chest of the assassin. The figure stumbled backward, clutching at the arrow with a black-gloved hand, then toppled to the ground.

“He’s dead—” Ferret started to say, but then he choked on the words as the assassin rose and started back up the hill. A gust of chill wind whipped over the knoll. It caught the heavy cowl of the assassin’s robe and then tore it aside, revealing the attacker’s horrible visage.

“By all the gods!” Tyveris swore. “What is it?”

The figure that approached them was not human. The beast’s face was misshapen, covered with thick, iron-gray scales. Two obsidian-dark tusks curved like scimitars from its maw, and a single, serrated onyx horn sprang from its brow. But most revolting of all, where the creature’s eyes should have been, there were only two shallow depressions. It could not see. Rather, it swung its head from side to side, taking in air through its two slit-shaped nostrils.

It followed them by scent, Mari realized, not by sight. “I have read of creatures such as these,” Morhion said in a low voice. “It is called a shadevar.”

Ferret let loose a dagger, but the shadevar lifted a hand. Razor-sharp talons sprang from its fingertips, shredding its black leather gloves. The creature batted the knife away. Uncannily, it did not need eyes to fight.

Then the shadevar was upon them. The horses neighed in terror as it lunged. Mari barely ducked those deadly talons as the creature swung at her. Caledan brought his sword down hard on the shadevar’s arm. The blade sliced through the thick black robe, then bounced aside, barely scratching the beast’s metallic scales.

Almost carelessly, the shadevar struck back toward Caledan. His swing had left his side unprotected, and now the creature’s talons dug deep, cutting through leather and flesh as though they were butter. Caledan cried out in pain, stumbling backward.

Suddenly there was a pounding of hooves as Caledan’s mount, Mista, lunged forward. The gray mare reared onto her hind legs, then brought her forehooves crashing down on the shadevar full force. The creature tumbled backward, rolling halfway down the hill. It lay still for a moment, then slowly it stirred and began to crawl up the slope.

Caledan groaned, sinking to the ground in Estah’s arms. He clutched his side as blood welled up thickly through his fingers. Mari fumbled with her crossbow, her hands numb. It took Ferret’s help to get it loaded again. Tyveris was chanting a prayer to his god, a powerful ward against evil, but Morhion held up a hand, interrupting him.

“Do not waste your breath, monk,” the mage said. “The shadevar’s magic will smash your ward as if it were made of glass.”

“I suppose you have a better idea?” Tyveris growled.

Morhion lifted his hands, the queer, dissonant language of magic tumbling from his tongue. The shadevar was on its feet again, picking up speed as it lumbered toward them. The mage pointed a finger directly at the creature’s feet as he spoke the last word of the spell. There was a clap of thunder, and then the earth beneath the shadevar shook, tearing apart. The creature stumbled on the edge of the pit that had opened just behind it, but somehow managed to keep its balance. It took another step forward.

The hiss of a crossbow bolt sliced through the air, and the shadevar clutched at a shaft protruding from its throat. The force of the blow knocked it backward. The shadevar lost its balance and tumbled into the rift in the earth that the mage’s magic had created.

“Kalgaval” Morhion shouted, and the rift groaned shut, sealing the shadevar deep inside. The sound of thunder faded.

“Is it… is it dead?” Mari asked in a weak voice.

The mage shook his head. “No. It will take far more to slay the shadevar. Look.” He pointed. Already the earth was churning. The creature was trying to dig its way out.

“We have to flee,” Tyveris urged. He lifted Caledan to his horse. Estah had bound his wound with a makeshift bandage, but already it was stained crimson. Caledan’s face was pale.

The others mounted, then guided the horses down the steep slope toward the ravine. “We must ford the river,” Morhion shouted to the others. “By its nature the shadevar cannot cross water. Its magic prevents it.”

The horses splashed across the stream, clattering up the far bank. Mari cast a look over her shoulder. There was nothing there.

The companions rode hard into the westering sun, their shadows stretching out on the land behind them.

They made camp in a hollow beneath a low hill as the purple veil of twilight descended over the land. Morhion arranged several flat stones around the camp’s perimeter, and on each he set a leaf, a blade of grass, or a bit of moss. He spoke several words in the eerie, fluid tongue of magic, and a pale green nimbus sprang to life around each of the stones.

“I suppose a few glowing rocks are going to keep that foul creature away?” Tyveris asked the mage skeptically. The Tabaxi had never placed great stock in sorcery. He didn’t much care for the trickery of wizards.

Morhion shrugged, his face impassive. “Speak your prayers if you think it wise, monk. No ward I might conjure would be strong enough to keep the shadevar at bay. This enchantment will disguise our camp, that is all. To anyone outside the nimbus, it will seem as if there is nothing here but a patch of grass and wildflowers. But I would be the first to say this is a temporary solution.”

Tyveris grunted, as if this confirmed his low opinion of wizardry.

They had laid Caledan gently on a cloak on the ground. His head was foggy from loss of blood and the hard ride, but he seemed to have control of his senses.

“I am really far too old for this lunacy,” he said through gritted teeth. He cried out in pain as Estah removed his shirt.

“I see this isn’t the first fight you’ve ever lost,” Man commented. His lean, muscular chest was crisscrossed with a dozen scars, pale white lines that stood out sharply against a dusting of dark hair.

Deftly and efficiently Estah cleaned the dried blood from the wound with a cloth soaked in hot water steeped with medicinal herbs. The shadevar’s talons had cut four furrows into Caledan’s flesh. Luckily the gouges were not so deep as all the blood indicated. When the wound was clean, Estah carefully pulled out her silvery medallion bearing the likeness of the goddess Eldath. She held it in one hand, while the other hand she placed over the wound. The medallion emitted a faint, sweet humming, and Caledan felt a strange tingling sensation in his body.

When Estah lifted her hand away the blood and pain were gone. The marks had closed; already scabs had formed over the cuts. Caledan shook his head in amazement. It was not the first time Estah had used the medallion of Eldath to heal one of his wounds, but its power in the healer’s hand was miraculous.

“It’s going to leave a scar,” Estah said.

Caledan didn’t care. “What’s one more?” he returned. Estah rummaged in his pack, handing him a clean shirt. The evening air was cold.

“Now there remains only one question,” Morhion said. The mage sat on a low stone, leaning on a staff of ashwood before him. “Who is it who is so eager to see you dead, Caldorien?”

“I don’t understand,” Estah said in confusion. “Isn’t it Ravendas who commands the shadevar?”

Morhion shook his head. “Ravendas does not possess the power to summon a creature of such fell magic. There are few, if any, sorcerers among the Zhentarim who would have the ability to gain mastery over a shadevar. The shadevari are ancient creatures, as old as the world itself by some accounts. As far as I know, their kind has not walked the land in a long age. Once they were thirteen in number. Some scholars argue it was the evil god Bhaal who created them, but that is not so. He discovered them, but even then they were already ancient, as ancient as time itself. For thousands of years they served Bhaal, but eventually even the Lord of Murder in all his power could not control the shadevari. It was Azuth, the High One himself, who banished them far from the worlds of both humans and gods.”

Morhion directed his piercing gaze toward Caledan. “Whoever the creature serves, he is a lord to be feared, that is certain.”

The companions ate a cheerless meal as the stars appeared one by one in the sky. They took turns keeping watch during the night, but as Morhion had hoped, dawn came without any evidence of the shadevar. The creature’s inability to cross water seemed to have worked to their advantage.

All that day, they pressed their mounts as the gray-green plains slipped by. Caledan’s wound still ached dully, but thanks to Estah’s medallion the pain was fading. Shortly before noon they came upon another small river flowing toward the Chionthar. They guided their horses down the riverbed for a half league before climbing the far bank. There was no sense making their trail obvious for the shadevar.

The sun was beginning to sink toward the western horizon and the light had taken on the thick amber hue of late afternoon when the Harper guided her horse next to Caledan and Mista.

“So how are you feeling, scoundrel?” she asked him. The wind blew her thick dark hair from her shoulders, the sunlight setting its auburn highlights afire.

“You’d better be careful, Harper,” Caledan said wryly. “That sounds dangerously like concern in your voice.”

She started to nudge her mount away, but he reached out to grab the bridle of her chestnut gelding. Their horses came to a stop. The others riding ahead seemed not to notice. “I just wanted to say… I just wanted to say thanks for worrying about me, all right? It’s been a long while since anyone’s really done that”

Mari was silent for a long moment. Finally a smile touched the corners of her lips. “Don’t mention it, scoundrel.” She nudged her mount’s flanks, and the chestnut broke into a trot, catching up with the others. Caledan followed after.

“I don’t know, Mista,” he said to his mount as they rode. “There’s simply no understanding women sometimes.” The gray mare snorted, giving a sudden sharp kick, and Caledan had to clutch her mane tightly to keep from being thrown out of the saddle.

‘Traitor!” he said through clenched teeth. “You females always stick together, don’t you?” The gray tossed her pretty head in defiance, and Caledan swore under his breath. That was all he needed—another headstrong female to make his life miserable.

Thirteen

The lord steward Snake slipped the dim crystal into its velvet-lined box. His servant, the shadevar, had just made a disturbing report. Snake was going to have to take action, and he would need Ravendas’s help. But first he had to decide how much to tell her.

He paced across his private chamber to a window high in the tower of the city lord and gazed out over the night-mantled city. A thousand lights glowed below him. This was the time of evening when Snake felt most alert and alive. The sunlight only caused him pain of late, and during the hours of brightness he felt constantly weary, his mind dulled. He hated the daytime. It had been that way ever since his ascent upward from the sewers below Iriaebor.

He closed his eyes, and for a moment he was back in the sewers, crawling through the dank pipes and foul-smelling Passageways.

After escaping the dungeons, he had fallen, and the fall left his body broken and dying. But then he had made a bargain and become whole—no, more than whole. The blood sang through his veins, and a strange tingling in his fingers bespoke his new power. He remembered journeying in the darkness beneath the city, wondering what had happened to him in that cavernous, crimson-lit chamber deep in the heart of the Tor.

This is impossible, Snake, he recalled saying to himself over and over. You should be dead. Dead! You are going mad….

But gradually another voice had intruded on his thoughts, growing in power, drowning out his panic. It was the voice that had spoken to him when he lay dying at the chasm’s edge. Now the voice whispered in his ear, giving him understanding, purpose—reminding him of the bargain. Eventually his own thoughts drifted into nothingness. After that the voice was everything.

Finally he had crawled through a sewer grate into a dank alley of the Old City. Though the daylight was dim and gray, it seared his eyes all the same. He had been down in the blackness below for too long. He cowered in a shadowed alcove until twilight. Then he moved through the city streets once again.

He was desperately hungry. Once he had been a thief, and that instinct still pulsed within him. He came upon a baker who was just closing his shop, and slipped inside. Just as he confronted the rotund baker, he realized he had no weapon. But his hand moved instinctively. The baker’s shout of protest was silenced in a dying gurgle as a livid bolt of emerald brilliance crackled from Snake’s fingertips. The green fire burned a hole through the man’s heart. The baker slumped to the floor with a look of horror on his face.

Snake stared at his hand. It was unmarked by the fire. The tingling of power was stronger now. His head spun as if he were drunk. Slowly a smile spread across his face. Then he stepped over the baker’s body, picked out several loaves of bread, and began to eat. All the while the voice whispered in his ear….