Dark Vengeance (29 page)

In a deep, dark doorway, the wildblades and merchants of the Araed who'd been watching his struggle out of the temple now looked at each other, shrugged—and then a few of the younger, bolder ones darted out across the street, plucked up the fallen Jalandral, and dragged him back to their refuge, peering down the deserted street at the temple fearfully and often.

They made it inside with their prize two scant breaths before a few dazed, limping Consecrated came stumbling out of the temple gates, and peered around. They were seeking Jalandral Evendoom, with knives in their hands.

 

“I need the Hunt
now!
”

House Spellrobe Vlakrel's snarl rose almost to a shriek, and he glared at the ring on his finger as if it were the face of a hated foe. “High Lord Jalandral Evendoom promised me the Hunt would come at my call—and I'm calling!”

The voice only he could hear replied, and Vlakrel screamed in frustration—though his cry was nothing amid the raw, desperate howls of dying, despairing Oszrim warblades, as the raudren swooped.

“I don't
care
if you can't find him; his order remains unchanged—and
I am invoking it!
Send the Hunt to me, and send them
now!
I—”

Vlakrel's terrified eyes darted wildly around the raudren-filled Outcavern, seeking some way to make this petty
dolt
in House Evendoom budge from sneeringly denying him. Then he thought of something, and spat it at the ring.

“And how strong will your neck be, when Jalandral—ah, of course,
High Lord
Evendoom to you—gets his hands on it? After the force that I'm facing, a force that's using trained or magically
compelled raudren as their forefront blades, gets past me and attacks Talonnorn itself! When I might have been able to turn it back or defeat it here in the Outcaverns, if I'd had the Hunt here in time? And Jalandral learns that it was
you
who prevented that?”

Whatever response Vlakrel heard made him smile broadly, say crisply, “
That's
better. I'll see that you're properly praised,” and then relax with a great sigh.

Which saved his life. The abrupt slumping of the spellrobe's body carried him
just
below the reach of a diving raudren; it swerved, ran out of cavern to fly in, and banked sharply along the cavern wall, scraping along the rock rather than slamming thunderously into it.

 

“He's alive,” the wildblade carrying Jalandral's shoulders said, “but that's about it.”

“Bring him,” a merchant ordered curtly, flinging open a door to reveal steps; the usual stone ramp, leading down into darkness.

“Oh?” the wildblade asked, hefting his half of the High Lord's dangling, blood-dripping body. “And who made
you
High Lord?”

The merchant calmly drew a belt-knife and put its tip against the bulge under the front lacings of the wildblade's breeches. “I haven't time for crones' I'm-prettier games, just now,” he announced calmly. “Bring him.”

The wildblade nodded silently, and the merchant started down the ramp. After a moment, the two wildblades carrying what was left of the High Lord followed, bearing their burden very carefully.

The other merchants filed down the ramp in their wake. The last one paused long enough to tell the other six wildblades who'd been in the doorway, “Stay here. If any priestesses come looking for the High Lord,
don't
say he's in here. Just invent some other pretext for killing them. Try to do it without other Consecrated seeing you; you'll last longer, that way.”

“We're not stone-stupid, you know,” one of the six replied.

“What's in it for us?” another wildblade, who was resplendent in a fine purple cloak, asked the merchant.

“Ah,” he replied, “but it seems you
are
stone-stupid, after all. Why even ask? The answers are: obey, and you live and gain a steep salary from the High Lord's purse; and fail to obey, and we'll kill you now, with one of the many means of doing so we've bought that you are thus far obviously unaware of. Oh, and
try
not to be stupid enough to ask me what any of them are.”

In the silence that followed, the merchant nodded to them all, stepped onto the ramp, and closed the door.

It was three long breaths later before the purple-cloaked wildblade asked, “Why?”

The oldest of the three wildblades broke his silence, looking scornful. “Because he'll kill you with one of them the moment you ask what they are, to show the rest of us he wasn't bluffing.”

“And how do you
know
he wasn't bluffing?”

“He's a merchant of the Araed successful enough to live to be as old as he is. You can't bluff your way through half a lifetime unless you're a priestess or the lord of a House. And the times are good.”

The wildblade who'd asked sighed in exasperation. “Just killing Nifl is easier.”

“You're not the first to say
that,
” said the oldest wildblade. “Now look innocent, everyone: Consecrated, yonder, coming through the door!”

 

“Can't—” Nurnra panted, running like the wind but lacking enough of her own to speak clearly, “Can't . . . hide from raudren anywhere!”

Oronkh, who was huffing and gasping like a drowning pack-snout as he pounded along in her wake, answered with only a nod.

“So might as well”—the sharren added, over her shoulder, as she dodged the last rock and sprinted out onto the open floor of the central cavern—”run to the Hairy One! You and he, fighting back to back, just might keep us all alive!”

Oronkh shot one look at the human, standing alone with swords in both of his hands, awaiting four swooping raudren, and then put his head down and ran. There didn't seem much point in shaking his head in disbelief; the Hairy One was already doing so, for him.

 

“The High Lord is still within the Altar of Olone, treating with the Consecrated of the Goddess,” the Nifl guardlord said icily, “and I am
not
going to interrupt him.”

“But—”

“But he left
us
in charge. Doing nothing while an army floods into the very streets of our city and starts butchering Talonar at will—because we're waiting for Lord Evendoom to return, utter commands that might have saved Talonnorn had they been given much earlier, and then pat our heads and behinds in thanks, and sit down with us to watch our own unfolding doom—is not
my
idea of ‘staunchly serving Talonnorn.' Is it yours?”

“You trust an
Oszrim
spellrobe?”

“Can you not set aside the sneerings we were all taught to perform, and do the task we were given? I believe we cannot afford
not
to trust this Vlakrel, proud fool that he may be. If his claims are correct, he may already be dead; if he has deceived us, we shall see to it that he dies. Why would he invent an attack? If he intends this as a trap, I hardly think the Hunt can be overcome by anyone
he
could arrange to have waiting for them!”

“Attend, all!” a new voice called from the door, sharp and loud. “Reports from the temple! Magic is spewing from its very gates!”

“What?”

“I knew it! Those oriad
bitches
—”

“What sort of magic?”

“Is the High Lord inside?” an undercommander's voice cut through the rest, sounding almost eager. “Is it treachery?”

“We know not Lord Evendoom's whereabouts,” came the
cold reply, “and he may very well still be in the temple. Yet we very much doubt treason's involved; many new-slain Consecrated are strewn about the gates and forechambers. Our warblades have just entered the temple, to learn what's befallen.”

“So we're left with a dark choice. This is treachery, whereupon
we
must deal with it; the Hunt can't fly into a
temple!
Or it's not treachery, but rather an attack that seeks to slay the High Lord and the Consecrated together, at one stroke! This could very well be the work of the same foe this Vlakrel is fighting in the nearest Outcaverns, in which case the Hunt should be streaking into those caverns just as fast as they can fly!”

A general uproar arose, out of which came a chant of “The Hunt! The Hunt! The Hunt!”

“The Hunt, indeed!” the guardlord bellowed, his voice overriding all others. “Hasten, and give them these orders: they are to fly to the ring Lord Evendoom gave to the spellrobe Vlakrel, and exterminate any invaders they find! They are then to fly around the city, through the nearest Outcaverns, seeking to learn if we are encircled by a foe! Any sighting of a serious force of enemies must be reported back to us
at once,
before the circuit is complete, so that we may be ready for whatever gets past the Hunt! I want no glory-seeking, no reckless heroics; just savage any attackers as swiftly and mercilessly as possible!”

“And who made
you
High Lord?” the undercommander snarled. “I—”

Whatever else he'd been intending to say was lost forever, then, in his helpless dying gurgles. The guardlord's sword was sharp and handy, and his temper was even shorter than the distance to the undercommander's throat.

 

The three raudren had become four.

Large, muscular, and bare of armor, he must look like an inviting meal.

Inviting enough to lure the largest raudren he'd ever seen—a
great gliding brute of a beast, almost twice the size of the smallest of the three who'd already been after him—to fly out of the darkness, undulating eagerly.

Eager for a meal, curse them!

Orivon growled and headed for the rocks on one side of the cavern—as fast as he could trot without sheathing either of his swords or turning his back on the beasts for an instant.

They were coming for him, diving down even now—no!

The latecomer, the fourth one, larger than the rest, was bumping the others aside!

With low growlings, or hummings, or whatever—so low-pitched that they set Orivon's teeth to rattling, inside his head, and the rocks around to clacking and clattering—the raudren disputed with each other, as the large one shouldered one after another aside, swinging back and forth in the air to do so.

Orivon reached the rocks and started dodging among them, trying to keep on fleeing just as fast as he'd been in the open cavern, to reach the greater protection of the deeply fissured cavern wall.

He turned, slipped—almost getting wedged between two boulders—and saw that largest raudren driving the others back in a swirl of bulk, tail, and fangs. They gave it reluctant room to circle once, over the cavern of Nifl and half-gorkul and Thorar only knew who else, to begin its deadly dive.

Silent and massive, it descended, gliding through the air with the other three raudren following.

“Thorar be with me,” the forgefist snarled, turning and leaping the last little distance, up a slope of loose and rolling stones, to reach the deepest rock cleft. It looked
just
large enough to take his shoulders, and deep enough to get himself into, no deeper.

Hastily he backed himself into it, and braced himself with blade out, so a raudren seeking to bite him would have to impale itself. Not that so puny a steel fang would be much trouble to a raudren.

“Come, death,” Orivon growled, “here I wait!”

The descending raudren loomed, large and dark, not hurrying.

Sudden shouts rang out, echoing from the far end of the cavern, and bright magic erupted with a roar in the air behind the last raudren.

The forgefist winced, shielding his eyes, and could just make out, in the fading glow of that dying magic, many Niflghar streaming into the cavern. Warblades of Ouvahlor!

“Thorar!” he swore in disgust. As if in reply, bright rays of magic sped from among the onrushing warblades, to—

Orivon slammed his forearm over his eyes, the bracer of Yathla's ongoing silence cold and hard against his nose.

—burst in a blinding brilliance that hurled torn and rent raudren, flanks blazing, spinning across the chamber in all directions.

Hey, now!
Yathla of Evendoom's voice was sudden, loud, and peevish in Orivon's head.

Am I missing something?

For grand words and promises
Mean nothing at all
solemn treaties or none
If they are not backed
by vigilant war-readiness
And an utter lack of hesitation
in plunging into great slaughtering battles

—
Orlkettle saying

T
hree ruined raudren spattered the rocks, but Orivon Firefist had no time to watch that, nor even to answer Yathla Evendoom—as the foremost, largest raudren blotted out everything in front of him, rushing in to crash against the stone wall.

The cavern-stone shook, and dust and pebbles rattled down around the forgefist as the great living darkness bulged almost to touch his face. Grimly he held tight to his two blades, thrusting into that reaching bulk lower down. He'd locked them together hilt to hilt, and then thrust them together point to point, to make them into one blade—and it sank deep as the huge raudren bit at him furiously, teeth shrieking on rock.