Shadowbred_ The Twilight War Part 39

"Where do they lead?"

"Nowhere. Most of them are dead ends. The Nessarch doesn't care if the prisoners produce any ore. They're just here to work until they die."

"Most of them are dead ends? What are the rest?"

"What?"

"You said most of them lead nowhere. If I die here, boy, you'll go with me. Think!"

Phraig must have heard the truth in Riven's words, for his eyes showed fear. The shouts from the approaching guards were drawing closer.

"Now, boy!"

"There's a shaft at the end of the northwest work tunnel. It's old. No one knows how deep it is."

"We go," Riven said. He would figure something out when they got there.

A shout from behind them said, "Here they are! Here!"

Riven whirled to see a half-elf in the tabard of a Watchblade pointing at them and shouting over his shoulder. He bore a blade but no torch.

Riven flung his punch dagger-awkwardly, since the weapon was not balanced for throwing-and struck the half-elf in the thigh. The guard grunted and turned to run, but Skelan ran him down, knocked him over, and while the man shouted to his comrades, broke his neck with a hard twist.

But the damage was done. Riven could hear the guards approaching. The light from their lanterns fell on the walls.

"Move!" Riven said.

"He is unconscious," Vyrhas said.

Riven cursed and checked the old man's body. He was alive but there was no way they would escape carrying his unconscious form.

"You cannot make it out," Phraig said.

Riven's glare shut the boy up. "We need time," Riven said to the shadowwalkers.

They understood. Skelan said, "I will give you some. Go."

The shadowwalker took a position at the intersection of the tunnels and melded with the darkness. He had not even frowned at the idea of sacrificing himself.

Riven did not like it, but there was little else to do.

"Lead us, boy," he said to Phraig, and drew his other saber. "Fast."

Vyrhas bore Endren. Riven and his team rushed through the corridors. His saber kept Phraig at a run. They darted down corridors, Riven's light leading the way. The remaining shadowwalkers moved in front of them and behind.

After a few moments, they heard shouts and the sound of combat behind them. Riven froze, turned. The c.h.i.n.k of steel, the shout of men. He almost ordered his whole team back to rescue Skelan, but thought better of it.

"Keep moving," he said. He did not intend for the sacrifice to be in vain.

They reached a rough-hewn work tunnel. The sounds of combat had faded but the shouts and bootstomps had not. The guards were still after them.

A few mining tools lay scattered about and loose rock dotted the floor. At the end of the corridor, a hole in the floor opened like a mouth. They approached it cautiously, gasping, sweating.

Riven pointed his sunrod down the shaft. No bottom was visible. He dropped the rod and it fell and fell. After a time, its light vanished.

"They say the miners found it when they constructed the mine," Phraig said. "They say it leads to the Underdark."

Riven ignored the boy. "Can you climb with him?" he asked Vyrhas, the largest and strongest of the shadowwalkers.

"Yes," Vyrhas said. "But not fast."

Riven knew the guards would not follow them down the shaft. They would follow it to the bottom and find a way out from there. Perhaps magic would function farther down in the mine, making escape easy.

"Start downward," he said to his team. To Phraig, he said, "This is where it ends for you, boy."

The young guardsman held up his hands. "No. I did what you asked."

"Just doing my job," Riven said, and brandished his saber. Phraig would have run but Dynd blocked his retreat. "Don't!" the boy gasped.

Riven held his saber before the young man's face. "Those words are scant comfort when you're on the wrong end of them, aren't they?"

Before Phraig could reply, Riven slammed his pommel into Phraig's cheek. The boy fell like a sack of turnips. Riven hoped the boy would rethink his course when he awakened. He did not mind killing or worse, but he despised anyone who purported to do so only because it was their job.

Shouts sounded from down the corridor. Light bobbed from lanterns. He lowered himself over the edge of the shaft and started down after the shadowwalkers.

[image]

Cale materialized atop a two-story building. The entire first floor was flooded. The kraken's body filled his vision, filled the harbor, filled the city. It shrieked and the sound nearly knocked him flat. More fire and lightning fell from the wizards flying overhead.

Cale spotted a woman and two adolescent children, a boy and a girl, perched atop the steep roof of a three-story shop. Cale could not save everything, but he could save something, and would. He stepped through the shadows and materialized in their midst.

The woman screamed and the children recoiled.

"There is nothing to fear," Cale said as the kraken shrieked and destroyed a building across the street. Shouts from all around, screams. The kraken shrieked again.

Cale stepped near the family, pulled the shadows about them, and stepped through the darkness to the uppermost tier of the city.

Before the stunned woman and her children could do anything more than marvel, he shadowstepped back to the building on which he had found the family and looked about for others trapped by the kraken's rampage. A block away, one of the kraken's tentacles wrapped around a spire, flexed, and pulled it down.

Cale spotted an elderly man struggling in the churning water. He walked the darkness to him. The man grabbed at him in a panic, taking them both under. Cale pushed him away, surfaced, and used the shadows to move them both to safety.

The man, soaked and shaking, said in a trembling voice, "The G.o.ds bless you."

And so it went for a half-hour that felt like a lifetime. While the Watchblades, wizards, and priests of Yhaunn fought the kraken, managed the panic, and tried to save their city, Cale pulled more than two score citizens from the creature's path, and the shadowwalkers did likewise. Throughout, Cale kept an eye on the Hole, waiting for Riven.

"Come on," he said, willing Riven to emerge. "Come on."

[image]

Voices sounded at the top of the shaft. Lantern light trickled down. Riven and the shadowwalkers froze in silence, tried to merge with the stone.

The beam from a lantern shone down the shaft, scoured the sides. It fell on Riven, on the shadowwalkers.

"There!" said a voice. "There!"

More shouts and the tw.a.n.g of crossbows. A bolt skipped off the stone near Riven. Another. One sank into Dynd's thigh. He grunted with pain, slipped, but held his perch.

"Faster," Riven said. "Faster!"

But he knew they were too slow. Endren was slowing Vyrhas and the smooth walls made climbing difficult. The crossbows continued to sing. Bolts skittered off the walls. Head-sized chunks of rock joined them, crashing and bouncing down the shaft's sides. One clipped Dynd on the shoulder. He lost his grip and started to fall but Shadem grabbed him by the wrist and planted his hand on the stone. Both men slipped a body length, but both steadied themselves.

More rocks fell, coming like rain. One whizzed by Riven so close he felt the wind of its pa.s.sage. Another shower of bolts whizzed around their heads.

"You're all dead men!" shouted one of the guards, and the rest laughed.

Riven could not argue the point. They were dead if they kept climbing. And they had no other choice.

Riven steadied his footing, steadied his heart, and took his magical knife from his belt pouch. The magic it held usually caused its edges to glow red, but it lay dark in his hand, inert in the magic-dead Hole.

"Let go," he shouted to the shadowwalkers.

They eyed him across the shaft, their tattooed faces dark in the lantern light from above.

More bolts sizzled down the shaft. One nicked Vyrhas. He grunted with pain. Endren slipped, but Vyrhas held him.

"If it's deep enough, the magic may work before we hit bottom. I'll use my ring. You use the shadows. It's all we have."

The shadowwalkers shared a look, nodded.

Riven pushed himself away from the wall and went into a freefall. The air roared past his ears and he plummeted downward into darkness. He held his holy symbol in his right hand, the dagger in his left, willing its dark blade to spark back to life.

From somewhere far below, he saw a dim light. His sunrod. The bottom.

He cursed as the bottom rushed up and his dagger blade began to shine.

[image]

Cale saw Riven's team materialize out of the shadows outside the Hole's entrance. They bore a body and they were missing one man. Either they had not gotten Endren out, or one of them was still in the mine. Cale cursed and rode the shadows to their side.

He saw that Riven was alive and the relief he felt surprised him. Dirt and blood covered the a.s.sa.s.sin. Vyrhas carried the limp body of a gray-haired man dressed in filthy, tattered clothes. Cale a.s.sumed him to be Endren and could see that the man was bleeding. A b.l.o.o.d.y rag wrapped the stump of his wrist. Shadem and Dynd both bore wounds but seemed unharmed. Skelan was missing.

The darkness swirled around them and Nayan, Erynd, and Dynd stepped from the shadows.

"What happened?" Cale asked.

"Guards," Riven said. "Skelan bought our escape. He's not coming out."

"h.e.l.ls," Cale cursed.

Nayan put a hand on Cale's shoulder. "It is our honor to die in service to the Shadowlord."

"The h.e.l.ls it is," Cale said.

The kraken shrieked from down in the bay, the city rumbled, and spell explosions lit the sky. Cale decided that he had done all he could for Yhaunn. The city would drive off the kraken sooner or later, or it would not.

Cale took Endren by the hair and pulled back his head. The man's eyes fluttered open, rolled back in his head.

"You'd better be worth it," Cale said, and intoned a healing prayer. The energy flowed into Endren and his breathing steadied. To Nayan, Cale said, "Take him to the Wayrock and await us there. If we don't return, get him to his son. Riven, you're with me."

"The Shadovar?" Riven asked.

Cale nodded and pulled the darkness about them. The shadowwalkers did the same.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

11 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms.

Cale and Riven stepped through the shadows to Selgaunt, to an alley off Rauncel's Ride. Cale strode onto the street, shadows pouring from him, and stalked up to Stormweather's gate.

"Mister Cale!" said one of the house guards whose name Cale did not know.

"Where is the hulorn?"

The man seemed so surprised by Cale's appearance and tone that he could not speak. His eyes moved from Cale to Riven.

"Where is Lord Uskevren?" Cale repeated. "Now, man."

The house guard said, "At the palace, with Vees Talendar and the Shadovar amba.s.sador."

"At this hour?" Cale asked.

The guard shrugged and said, "Is all well, Mister Cale?"

"No," Cale said.

He had visited the hulorn's palace many times in his life. He pictured it in his mind, drew the shadows around him and Riven, and transported them.

They materialized on the walkway before the palace's main entry. He and Riven drew blades and took the stairs two at a time. They pushed through the palace's double doors and the graying chamberlain, Thriistin, appeared from a side room. He appeared to be awake, though ...

His eyes widened with surprise. Cale knew Thriistin but they had not seen one another for some time. Four Helms emerged from concealed watchposts around the doors, blades bare.