Dark Vengeance (12 page)

Maharla wouldn't heal me.

My father's only daughter, Thirdblood of Evendoom, and she refused to do her duty, out of sheer spite. And cast me out, with the battle still raging, to hide her crime.

Treachery forgotten in the rush to deem me the greater offender.

Blasphemer, outcast . . .
less than Nifl.

Because I wouldn't kill myself, they think I'm a monster.

Suddenly Taerune was awake and panting in the darkness, staring up at the rough ceiling of the cavern overhead.

A cave out in the Wild Dark.

Where she was lying alone, on her back, fully clad and wrapped in a blanket, some distance from the other Ravagers who snored or sleep-sighed gently around her.

Far enough away that her sobbing awakenings wouldn't rouse them.

Out here where hungry monsters slithered or stalked. Where she was safer, among the lawless Ravagers—almost every one of them a dirty, ruthless rampant who'd not seen a willing, yielding Nifl-she in too long a time to rightly remember—than she'd be in Talonnorn.

Yes, she was safer out in the Wild Dark, sleeping with the Ravagers, than in her own palatial bedchamber in the tall, spired heart of the Eventowers.

She lifted her left arm and gazed at the blade the human Orivon Firefist—the best slave she'd ever had, tall and strong Hairy One that he was—had fashioned and fitted to the stump of her arm.

She was safer because of this, too.

She turned it, sharp and deadly. Part of her, now.

The Consecrated say this makes me a monster. So all Talonar call me “monster.”

And so I am.

I
am
a monster. Yet we Niflghar—we're
all
monsters.

 

Black flames swirled up around him as Jalandral Evendoom strode grandly away from the steps that ascended to his throne, and started putting on a show. The spellblade in his hands moaned again, and spat more black flames. Pity they did so little against the defenses of the spellblade being wielded against him.

Olone
damn
Morluar Raskshaula for defying him and starting this—but he, Jalandral, was damned if he was going to let old Raskshaula go on making him angrier and angrier.

No. If he had to die, he was going to do it his way. Jaunty, smiling, with a jest or two and a sneer or six. Just as that grinning old highnose on the other side of yonder spellblade had been doing to
him.

“Well, now, bright bauble of House Raskshaula,” he drawled, lifting his chin as he advanced, Lord Morluar's calm old face quite close now, “have at you again. Olone has just whispered to me that she's quite pleased with me, so—”

“Indeed. She said those very words to me, too,” Raskshaula replied with a smile. “And followed them with some more: I thought he was going to whimper and wet himself before your blades have even struck a handful of sparks off each other. Yet it
seems he
can
stand up unaided, Lord Raskshaula, if you just give him a little, ah, aid. From time to time.”

“Blasphemer!”
Jalandral snapped triumphantly, making his eyes flash and the fire of his sword flare up in a perfect echo. “You—”

“No, Evendoom,” another Consecrated said loudly, using magic to make her older, dagger-sharp voice carry. “
You
are the blasphemer, to claim Olone spoke with you personally when She did no such thing. We Her priestesses are attuned to Her; we can see, hear, and feel Her every nearby manifestation. None of us did, High Lord. Which means you are a liar.”

“And Lord Raskshaula is not?” Jalandral snarled, feeling anger surge in him again, almost chokingly this time.

“Morluar Raskshaula has been Lord of House Raskshaula for a long time. We
know
he is a liar, and he confirms—not disappoints—our expectations. He did not name himself High Lord of Talonnorn, Evendoom.
You
did.”

Jalandral stared at the priestesses beyond the flames, and they looked back at him. Eyes gleaming.

Then he turned and looked at Lord Raskshaula. Who stood courteously awaiting him again, blade grounded.

The bastard.

Jalandral did not spare a glance for the Nifl on his other flank. They would be waiting just as eagerly. Hoping for his blood.

He was all alone in this.

Or not.

Damn, he should have done this the moment Raskshaula had challenged him, before all the hurling of grand words. So he could have painted it as just and fitting treatment for a lawbreaker.

“Klaerra!” he called sharply.

Silence. Nothing happened.

He put a smile onto his face, took a slow and showy step toward his challenger, and flourished his spellblade, turning the black flames roiling up and down it to a bright ring of little flames around its tip.

A tip that he moved sharply, dragging the little sputtering ring through the air. Did his signal have to be so obvious? Or was Klaerra deserting him, too?

“Klaerra,” he snapped, in a clear command, flicking his sword again. Raskshaula took a slow, deliberate, and showy step of his own, bringing himself that much closer to Jalandral.

Nothing happened. Again.

Bitch. Disloyal, gloating old bitch.

With a snarl the High Lord bounded forward and tried to strike Raskshaula's blade aside, the spellblades ringing merrily off each other as the old lord parried with ease, fluid and graceful in his shiftings as Jalandral started battering him from all sides, leaping and thrusting like a Nifl gone oriad, surrounding him with a ring of thirsty, leaping steel.

That Raskshaula, smiling faintly, turned away as calmly as if the ever-darting Evendoom spellblade's assaults were so many showers of yeldeth drift-spores.

“Klaerra,” Jalandral snapped again, through clenched teeth, as he felt his wind and his strength sagging once more.

He stepped back, to draw in a shuddering breath—and saw the ring of flames obey at last, racing across the throne room amid a mewling of alarmed Nifl cries, to engulf Lord Morluar Raskshaula before he could do more than half turn to see his peril.

The old lord staggered, tried to run—the ring of flames moving with him, which meant Klaerra was directing it personally—and then started to reel and darken, his hair flaring up and his spellblade spitting sparks as he fought to try to call up shieldings that would drink the flames.

Unable to keep a widening grin off his face and not caring, Jalandral pointed the Evendoom spellblade at Raskshaula and fed him dark, ravening flames, trying to batter the shieldings the old lord did have active, and hamper him in—

I, Olone, am displeased. With these flames I aid Jalandral. Hail, Jalandral, High Lord of Talonnorn!

That whisper was a thing of flame, and so both vast and gusty,
swirling heavy upon every ear. Jalandral recognized Klaerra's voice, but then, he knew who was behind this; how many of these young Consecrated of rival Houses could hope to do so? To them, this
would be
Olone, and—damn!

In winning the moment for him, Klaerra was weakening him from now on. When the priestesses—and the damned crones, too!—came crying to the High Lord with “Olone says this” and “Olone has always decreed that,” it would be hard indeed to thwart their wishes, and—

Then, in an instant, all the flames were gone, and Jalandral found himself cowering in a dark corner of his own mind, staring into the horrified face of Klaerra, even as she stared back at him.

Together, they were both aware of one thing: neither Klaerra nor anything any Nifl in the throne room had done had snatched away the ring of flames.

Leaving behind a repeating, swiftly fading echo of just four of Klaerra's words:
I, Olone, am displeased.

Staring at the crisped, slowly toppling thing of bones that had been Lord Raskshaula—and then over at the Consecrated on his right, all toppled senseless, strewn about like so many discarded shes' playdolls—Jalandral Evendoom, High Lord of Talonnorn, raised his spellblade dazedly in front of his face and stared at its naked steel, the black flames quite gone.

He had no idea how to bring them back. His eyes—and his unscathed hand, passed down the flat of the blade—were telling him they were no more, yet the sword was insisting to him that they were raging.

Jalandral blinked, fought back sudden tears, and wet himself.

Out in the Dark the jests they are few
Proud boastings and darings a Nifl may rue
Of Olone's holy power priestesses sang
No power there but talon and fang
So Talonnorn stays and Talonar ways
Our Hateful shelter all of our days
Out in the Dark amid promises cold
No Nifl alone has a chance to grow old

—
Talonar tavern song

T
error passed, leaving him feeling empty and sick.

Jalandral found himself on his knees in a puddle of his own shame, with Talonar advancing in an uncertain arc in front of him and to his left.

Their weapons were out, gleaming and glittering, and some had smiles above them that were less than nice. Hastily he found his feet, risking a glance to the right as he moved in that direction. Thankfully, no one stood menacing him there; the Consecrated were still strewn senseless.

He was alone, all contact with Klaerra lost. He had no feeling that Olone—if it
had
been Olone, and not a trick of Klaerra or some
unseen crones or priestesses seeking to make the High Lord their cowering puppet—was still watching.

Leaving Jalandral like all other Nifl: knowing that there was no one to care for his skin, nor guard it, save himself.

Well, then . . .

“Olone has touched me deeply,” he snarled, finding himself hoarse and unsteady of voice, both at once. “We spoke together in my mind, and she has confirmed me as rightful High Lord of Talonnorn. Away steel, all of you, or be cast out as blasphemers!”

He drew himself upright, spread his arms wide to flourish his ruined spellblade and seem tall and grandly confident, and added, “All who gainsay me, scheme against me, or seek to harm me in any way incur the divine displeasure of Olone, and are accursed everywhere even before I banish them from our city!”

Malicious triumph was fading fast in Talonar faces before him, and everyone was lowering their blades and stepping back. Jalandral fought down a sigh of relief and raised his voice again, feeling it gather strength and regain more of his usual faintly mocking tone with each word.

“I, Jalandral, High Lord of Talonnorn, hereby declare
all
of House Raskshaula outlaws and traitors. All that they own, even to the buildings where they dwell and the garments now clothing them, are forfeit to Talonnorn. Any who aid or shelter them will share their fate.”

Swinging the spellblade almost lazily, he added, “Olone's holy blessing shatters Talonar tradition. I will fight no more duels of this sort. Henceforth, all who dare to defy me will be hounded out of the city, and hunted down and slain like cave-rats. Their homes and coins become Talonnorn's, and their kin become slaves or—if they manage to reach the Wild Dark—outcast. Dispute amongst us wounded us and was barely noticed, even when we grew so weak that lowly Ouvahlor could storm our cavern and wound us sorely. Wherefore Olone has raised me, enthroned, over you.”

He strode along the line of chastened Niflghar, pretending not to see blades being hastily sheathed and scepters lowered, until he
reached the last dark elf. Whereupon he spun around to regard them all with his best cruel smile and said with soft, menacing promise: “
Try
not to disappoint me.”

 

Orivon Firefist trudged on warily into endless gloom, rough walls of rock curving close at hand. He'd forgotten the damp, spicy many-molds smell of the Wild Dark, but it was all around him now, along with the droppings and old bloodstains and even cracked and gnawed bones of the little scuttling things that dwelt where the sunlit lands of the Above met the uppermost dark vastnesses of Below.

And died, under the jaws of things he'd thankfully not yet seen . . . though that did not mean—he whirled around for perhaps the hundredth time, his favorite sword out as he shot a glance at the rock ceiling above first, but saw nothing following him.

Nothing but a brief, gleaming movement that might have been a body hastily sinking down behind rocks, or a peering eye hastily shut against his scrutiny.

Orivon let silence fall and then deepen, but heard no breathing or movement except his own. Which was worth a shrug, ere he turned back the way he'd been heading.

He was lost, of course.

He'd never had any maps—Old Bloodblade had been map enough for them all—and knew only that he had to descend, and head in
this
direction (more or less, not that the winding, rough-walled caverns and passages allowed anything more precise) to reach Glowstone.

Eventually.

If something didn't eat him first.

Not that his reception in the Ravager-moot—if it still
was
a Ravager-moot, and there were any Ravagers left to meet anywhere—bid fair to be any more welcoming than the treatment accorded any human slave on the loose.