Son of Thunder (24 page)

Vell stood alone outside the protective silence. He succeeded in grabbing one of the werebats, and he squeezed its neck until its huge rodent eyes went dim. Ignoring the other werebats, he leaped into the silence. The world within was deceptively calm. Werebats swooped around the edges, testing its limits and baiting those within it, baring their sharp teeth and begging the barbarians to rage and rush out into danger. The night outside writhed with the bat swarm. An occasional night hunter bat darted into the silence but was swiftly dealt with by the weapons inside. The radius of Keirkrad’s spell no longer felt like safety or comfort. Their attackers would soon overcome the fragile barrier.

With communication nearly impossible, the group had difficulty forming a strategy. Kellin drew her father’s enchanted sword and passed it to Rask, who dropped his battle-axe to the ground. The barbarians fanned out around the incapacitated Keirkrad. Before long, the silence dissolved, and the cacophony of the outside world assailed them.

Immediately, bats and werebats swept in. Kellin unleashed her ear-piercing shriek again, deafening a host of bats and stunning a number of the werebats. Thanar launched a strong wind that filled outstretched wings and sent numerous bats flying backward, crashing against trees. Vell snatched a werebat from midair and drew it into a tight hug, crushing it with the full force of his strength against his scaly body. The warriors swung their weapons, but only Thluna with his club and Rask with Kellin’s sword were able to harm their attackers. The bat swarm filled the air, confounding the senses with their loud shrieks. The horrific mass teemed inward so the defenders could hardly move without their limbs brushing against hairy bodies or leathery wings.

It was a doomed effort. More werebats appeared above, then swooped down and wrapped their claws around the webbing that bound Keirkrad. Before anyone could turn to his aid, the shaman was lifted into the trees and away.

The other werebats followed, vanishing swiftly. The defeated Thunderbeasts were left to hack their way through the thick bat swarm, till at last it dissipated with the first light of day.

The stink of bat guano assailed Keirkrad as he was deposited on a rickety wooden platform in some uncharted corner of the High Forest. For a long time he lay on his back, staring up at the tree tops and the impassive sky beyond, silently calling on Uthgar for aid. At last the webbing around him melted away, though his hands remained stuck to his sides and his mouth was still glued shut. Two figures arrived and pulled him to his feet. One was female and one was male, and both were slight, with coppery skin and elf ears.

Elf werebats, Keirkrad thought, but in this form, they did not look like the elves he had met around Grandfather Tree. Something in these faces was twisted and batlike.

The werebats gripped Keirkrad firmly by the arms and led him across a crude wooden walkway built in the heights of the trees, concealed from view below by thick undergrowth. Bats, large and small, flitted through the trees around him. Perhaps some of them were werebats too, Keirkrad thought. This was a disgusting place, caked with guano, peopled by creatures with scant interest in cleanliness: a rank parody of Ghostand, the Tree Ghosts’ village among the trees.

The two werebats led Keirkrad to the middle of a larger platform and let him drop to his knees.

“What have my children brought me?” spoke a strange, high-pitched voice.

On the surrounding trees, Keirkrad noticed crude trophies. Among various animal remains, he identified a hybsil’s antlers and desiccated elf ears nailed into the bark. At the end of the platform sat a werebat perched on a crude wooden throne amid piles of offal. Its vast wings were folded against its middle. It was naked but covered with matted fur, and its face was a hideous amalgam of bat and man: a snarling mouth with sharp teeth and grossly oversized ears. Two red eyes stared at Keirkrad.

The werebat stepped from its throne and walked over to Keirkrad, its long toenails clicking against the wooden floor.

“Shaman Seventoes,” it pronounced. “What a boon they have brought me. And they had no idea who you were! What luck! What luck!”

It leaned in closer to Keirkrad, bathing him in its foul breath. A pink tongue snaked out to lick its long rodent teeth.

“Do you remember me, Thunderbeast? I am now called Heskret, but I had another name. We met in battle. Have you forgotten? Beneath Thranulf’s Height. Do you remember?”

The werebat transformed before Keirkrad’s eyes. His wings drew into his sides and vanished, his face twisted and contorted, and the fur vanished from his chest and revealed human skin. A white-haired man stood naked before Keirkrad, and on his shriveled upper chest was a huge tattoo, one that Keirkrad recognized all too well. It was the crude form of a hulking bear.

The Blue Bear! Every barbarian believed that the most hated Uthgardt tribe had utterly perished in the fall of Hellgate Keep. Keirkrad remembered the man who stood before him—a war chief whom he and Gundar had battled long ago. The fighting was long, with many casualties on both sides, resulting in a costly victory for the Thunderbeasts. It was whispered that the Blue Bear war leader feared to return to face punishment from his chief and vanished into the forest to seek penance from Malar.

“Do not misunderstand,” said Heskret, now speaking with a human voice. His blue eyes locked onto Keirkrad. “I am not Blue Bear, though I was Blue Bear. My former tribe proved weak and perished, but my new tribe lasts still. Now I serve nothing but the Black Blood.”

He walked closer and planted a finger on the strands of webbing that held Keirkrad’s mouth shut. But instead of removing the obstruction, Heskret made a fist and punched the shaman in the side of the head. Weak and exhausted, especially at his advanced age, Keirkrad tumbled sideways, his head slamming hard into the wooden floor. When Heskret unsealed his mouth, all Keirkrad could do was drool blood onto the floor.

A clawed finger stroked Keirkrad’s cheek. He knew without looking that Heskret had taken his werebat form again.

“You have lived how long now?” Heskret snarled, leaning closer till Keirkrad could feel his warm breath on his face. It stank of raw meat and rot. “They say Uthgar prolonged your life so grotesquely because he had some destiny in store for you. I wonder if this is what he had in mind.”

Keirkrad cried out as he felt sharp teeth take a chunk out of his cheek.

Tremendous winds pelted Ardeth, Royce, Gunton, and Gan as they slowly navigated a high mountain pass. A vicious thunderstorm had slowed them; the gray mists above had let out their store, dropping a sudden deluge that turned the mountain slopes into slides of pure mud. The foursome lost much time hunkering in sheltered spots, and their object, Mount Vision, had disappeared into the haze. The wind howled so loudly that they could barely hear each other, their clothes were soaked through, and all the while they looked over their shoulders for Elaacrimalicros to drop out of the rain clouds.

While the rain was at its worst, and they took refuge in a hollow at the base of a steep cliff, a black figure stopped at the mouth of their cave, barely visible in the gloom. Everyone grasped weapons, and Ardeth pointed her crossbow at the intruder.

Through the rain, they saw the outline of huge wings. The wings disappeared as the strange creature approached, and a copper-skinned elf stepped out of the murk, dressed in animal leathers. Short and slender even for an elf, his dark hair was matted and unkempt. His red-streaked hazel eyes darted back and forth before settling on Ardeth.

“Ardeth of Llorkh?” he asked, barely audible over the raging winds outside. His voice was high-pitched and raspy, decidedly not like any elf any of them had encountered before.

“Yes,” Ardeth answered cautiously.

“I smelled your scent on the wind. I am here on behalf of the Mayor of Llorkh.”

“Thank the gods,” Royce gasped. “I didn’t suspect Geildarr would have contact with the wood elves.”

The elf let out a disgusted grunt as his answer.

“You’re a werebat,” Ardeth said. “From Heskret’s tribe. Geildarr told me there was a chance he could recruit aid from your folk.” There was no relief in her voice, only suspicion, and she kept her eyes locked on his face, scanning for any insincerity.

“My name is Halzoon,” the elf said, looking at the group, his neck twitching. “I am to offer myself as your guide.”

“No deva, but a winged savior nonetheless,” said Gunton.

“Where are you guiding us?” asked Ardeth.

“Three great phandar trees in a triangle, alongside the Heartblood River. That is what you seek.”

“How do you know this?” asked Royce.

“Heskret extracted it—” he drooled and chuckled, “—from an Uthgardt shaman.”

“You know the best way to the Sanctuary?” asked Royce. “These passes are difficult to navigate.”

“Forget the passes,” the werebat hissed. “Forget them! I know a better way.”

“We don’t have wings,” huffed Gan.

“Not above the mountains, goblinoid. Below them.”

“There are tunnels?” asked Royce.

“Yes,” Halzoon said, rubbing his cheek against his shoulder. “Many tunnels, all through the mountains. Dwarves built them long ago. Harpies made their nests there. But not any more.”

“How do we get in?” asked Gunton. “It’d be a far better option than waiting here for Elaacrimalicros to eat us.”

Halzoon pointed upward. “An entrance farther up the mountain. Winds are terrible up there, but with care, you should make it.”

“Thanks be to all the gods,” Royce said. “I’d hug you if you didn’t stink of guano.”

The elf werebat chuckled at Royce’s joke. “I will lead you,” he said. “Heskret commands it.”

“What was his name?” Ardeth demanded.

“Whose name?” asked Halzoon.

“The barbarian shaman you captured,” she said. “What was his name?”

“His name was Keirkrad.” A cruel smile crossed his face and he let out a high-pitched cackle. “We were lucky to get that one. Heskret was pleased. He had some unfinished business with that one.”

“Keirkrad,” she repeated. The answered satisfied her, and she lowered her crossbow.

The ingress on the mountain that Halzoon described was higher and more remote than anyone expected. Ardeth and her companions summoned every scrap of will and endurance to climb through the driving rain and the roaring wind to reach shelter again. They found a knee-high drop onto an enclosed platform, its base full of water, and a stone passageway leading into the mountain.

“Fascinating,” said Gunton when they ducked into the dry passage. “A landing platform. The dwarves who lived here must have used flying mounts, just as they do in the Great Rift.”

Ardeth lit a torch, and by its light they could see the fine stonework of the passageway. Dethek letters were inscribed in the wall and from them, Gunton translated the name of the place: Onthrilaenthor.

“Ancient mines,” said Royce. “Built by dwarves, but with a clearly elf name. Most curious. How far is our destination?” he asked Halzoon.

“Two, three days,” the werebat said. “I don’t know why you want to go there. I know the place, and there’s nothing to say about it.”

“We have a key,” said Gan, holding up the axe.

Halzoon scratched his head, uninterested.

“And you know exactly where we’re going?” asked Gunton.

Halzoon nodded. “I scouted these tunnels for Bloodmaster Heskret. I know the way.”

“I can only hope that a werebat will have good senses underground,” said Ardeth.

“We Antiquarians have experience in tunnels as well,” boasted Royce, but Halzoon soon humbled Royce and Gunton. He led the foursome through a maze of ancient tunnels, shored by the occasional stone pillar. The werebat frequently stopped to sniff the air or turn an ear to a vacant passageway, apparently navigating on sheer instinct. Some of the tunnels were coursing with wind from the outside, while others were silent as if they’d not been visited in millennia.

Halzoon was a strange creature. He was more bat than elf, clearly. His posture was stooped, and he was a mass of tics—he could not keep still for a second, scratching, twitching, and sniffing.

“You said there are harpies here,” said Ardeth as they climbed down a twisting staircase deep into the bowels of the mountains.

“No,” Halzoon answered.

“But you said…”

“Harpies lived here, but no more. Scared off, they left and are all gone.”

“What scared them off?” asked Gunton.

“The dragon.”

“Dragon?” Royce said. “You mean Elaacrimalicros?”

“No!” Halzoon insisted. “Onskarrarrd.”

“Who?”

“Deep dragon. He moved here after the fall of Ched Nasad last year. Onskarrarrd lairs down below.”

“Tremendous,” said Royce, dropping his voice to a whisper. “We’re evading one dragon above, only to intrude on another one below. You might have mentioned that.”

“No worry,” said Halzoon. “He is sleeping now.”

“How do you know that?” asked Ardeth.

Halzoon pressed an ear to the wall. “Can’t you hear?” he asked. “He’s snoring!”

“You should have mentioned this,” Royce said, new anxiety in his voice.

“Why, human?” asked the werebat. “Would you have preferred to stay out there?” He squeaked with laughter.

The Uthgardt pushed their way through the High Forest with new urgency. The Star Mounts drew ever closer, cold and forbidding, and their clouds spread out to douse them all with hard rain.

No one said much since Keirkrad had been taken. They wondered whether the werebats had been hired—most likely by the Zhentarim—to capture one of them for interrogation, perhaps to learn where they were going.

“Malar,” spat Thluna. “Blast his hide.”

As they pushed through the pouring rain, Thluna vividly remembered a single day on the cracked earth of the Fallen Lands. All their troubles seemed to stem from that day. The wizard Arklow had spoken of creatures called the phaerimm, monsters of magic who could ensnare the mind of any creature. Thluna had feared that would be their fate—the Thunderbeasts would be made vassals to another foul power.