Shadowstorm_ The Twilight War Part 24

She went in the opposite direction of the sounds, picking her way through quiet halls, parlors, and finally down the rear stairs to the dining hall.

"It will all be fine," she whispered to Elden.

Sobs shook him. She was crying, too. She had not noticed. "It will all be fine."

She hurried through the kitchen. Screams, shouts, and the light from the fire carried through the windows. Elden buried his head in her neck and whimpered. The puppy squirmed.

She looked out a window. She saw fighting near the barracks, men moving around the stables, and a few small combats here and there on the grounds. The wind blew embers and sparks from the fire, making the sky look aflame. Battle cries sounded from everywhere. The dead littered the grounds. Men on horses moved among the carnage, shouting, killing.

To Kaesa, it looked like an image of the h.e.l.ls. She maneuvered Elden so he could not see it.

She looked out the window to her left and saw a clear path between the village and the stables. The fire cast little light there and patches of shrubs and trees would provide cover. If she could make it to the stag woods, she knew a place she could hide. They would never find her.

Her legs felt weak and she feared they would fail her. She was breathing but did not seem able to gulp enough air. Elden's fingernails gouged her skin. She asked Lathander for protection and said, "Here we go. Be silent, now."

She cut across the kitchen and down the rough stairway that led to the large root cellar. The smell of spices and loam filled the air. She felt her way through the large, dark cellar until she reached the stairs that led outside. She climbed them, listened for a moment with her ear to the door. She heard only her heart, only her breathing. She shouldered open the door and ran. Panic lent her speed. She stumbled but did not fall.

A surprised shout greeted her exit. Someone had spotted her. A soft scream slipped between her lips. Tears flowed down her face. Elden held her so tightly around her neck she could hardly breathe.

"Stop, woman!" said a man's voice.

She did not stop, but she heard footsteps, heavy breathing, and the clink of mail behind her. Elden was crying on her shoulder. The men behind her-more than one-were closing.

She made up her mind. She swung Elden around in mid-stride, threw them both to the ground, and brandished her blade, intending to do what Erthim had commanded. She held her blade above her head.

"I am sorry, Elden."

Elden's innocent eyes went wide and he mouthed her name.

She hesitated.

A hand closed on her wrist and jerked her arm almost out of its socket. She screamed.

"I said stop stop, wench," growled a man's voice in her ear.

She felt a pinch in her back and lost her breath. Her vision went blurry for a moment. She looked at Elden, smiled, but he stared at her with terror in his eyes. She looked down, surprised to see the b.l.o.o.d.y end of a sword's blade sticking out of her stomach. Warm liquid filled her mouth. She tried to speak, to tell Elden that everything would be fine, but her voice failed her.

Elden screamed and Kaesa fell.

Reht exited the manse, b.l.o.o.d.y, tired, and pained with a few sword cuts. He would be d.a.m.ned to the Abyss, however, before he would stoop to asking Vors to heal him. The estate was secure. Corpses dotted the grounds. A few pigs, freed from their sties, rooted at the bodies. Reht's men moved about in groups of two and three, searching for survivors, collecting loot. A line of men, women, and children from the village sat in the gra.s.s, hemmed in by several of Reht's men.

The relative quiet, after the din of combat, was marked.

Reht had not found the boy. He did not relish explaining his failure to Forrin.

Smoke from the burning barracks had reached the stables and panicked neighs and stomps sounded from within. He could hear several horses beating against their stalls. He turned to the man nearest him.

"Get someone to calm those horses and get them out of the stables. All of them come with us."

Reht knew Saerbian horseflesh to be among the finest in Sembia. He would have at least something to show for tonight's slaughter. To another man, he said, "Get a headcount and report back.

Reht guessed he had lost fewer than a dozen men, but the combat had been so dispersed that he could have lost more.

Norsim and Rolk came around the corner of the house. Norsim roughly pulled a small boy along behind him. Spotting Reht, he waved his other hand.

"We have him, commander!"

Reht grinned like a fool.

"Norsim's luck has held," Vors said with a chuckle.

Blood and dirt covered Norsim's tabard. The boy stumbled along beside him, lunging from time to time for the small brown bundle that Norsim's companion, Rolk, held in his hands. Norsim shook the boy by the arm as he approached Reht.

"Be still!"

The boy cowered and was still.

"We caught him in the arms of a woman," Norsim said. "She called him 'Elden' before we finished her. And he's the face of an idiot."

Reht grabbed the boy by the chin and pulled his head up. Tears streaked his face. Fear filled his eyes. His eyes were too close together and his tongue stuck out slightly between his lips. His brown hair stuck out in all directions.

"Are you an idiot, boy?"

"Bowny back," the boy said through his tears, and pointed at the puppy Rolk held.

"What is your name?" Reht asked the boy. "Tell me and I will give you the dog."

The boy swallowed, looked from Reht to the puppy, back to Reht. "E'don."

That was good enough for Reht.

"Give him the dog," he said to Rolk.

Rolk held it out and Eldon reached for it. Vors s.n.a.t.c.hed the puppy from Rolk's hands, grinned, and twisted off its head. He threw head and body at Eldon's feet.

"There he is, boy," the war priest said, and laughed.

Elden screamed in horror and threw himself against Norsim. He buried his face in Norsim's trousers and sobbed. "Papa," he wailed. "Papa, Papa, Papa."

"Your papa is never coming," Vors said, still laughing. "Never."

Reht lunged at Vors and punched him squarely in the face. The priest fell on his a.s.s, blood pouring from his nose. He growled, spit blood, started to stand, but Reht put a blade at his throat.

Behind him, the boy's words deteriorated into incoherence, into an awful animal wail of despair.

"Get the boy out of here!" Reht said over his shoulder. He put his foot on Vors's chest and pressed him flat to the ground.

"One time is all you get, priest. Do something contrary to my orders again and you'll bleed from more than your nose."

Vors snarled, daubed at his nose, and grinned. He said, "This is the only time you point a blade at me and live."

Reht backed off a step.

"Raise that axe when you stand. Do it. I'll add you to the corpses."

Vors climbed to his feet, his hand on his axe. His eyes burned with hate but he did not raise his weapon.

Reht had figured as much. No one who tortured a small boy could be anything more than a coward when faced with a determined man.

"Bind the boy," Reht said to Rolk and Norsim. "Execute anyone still alive. Take the horses and whatever foodstuffs we can carry. We ride within the hour."

He still had a few hours of darkness left before sunrise. He wanted the dawn to find him and his men as far from the Corrinthal estate as possible.

CHAPTER TEN.

26 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms Cale sweated shadows. The spire loomed before them. The thick chains anchoring it to the basin creaked under the strain, a sound like muted screams. The spire appeared carved from a single block of rough black stone, as if a mountain had been uprooted, pared down, and hollowed out. Undead shadows clung to its sides like bats to the roof of a cave.

Thousands of malice-filled red eyes stared down at Cale, Riven, and Magadon as they approached. Below them, the churning sea of pitch vomited up another shadow. It streaked past them and took station on the side of the spire.

Cale could channel enough of Mask's power to control or destroy dozens of shadows, but he could not manage the thousands hugging the spire.

To Magadon, Cale said, Mags, be ready with light Mags, be ready with light. As much as you can for as long as you can As much as you can for as long as you can.

Magadon nodded, eyes wide.

Before them loomed an archway large enough to accommodate the giants. Similar openings appeared on all sides of the spire. Two giants flanked the arch ahead of the three companions. Both wore helms and mail, and held bare swords as long as Riven was tall. Shadows clung to them and they eyed Cale, Riven, and Magadon with poorly concealed hostility.

Dim green light lit the smooth-floored chamber beyond the archway. A crowd of giants was gathering within.

As if on command, the undead shadows surrounding the sides of the spire swooped down in a long cloud.

"'Ware!" Riven shouted.

Riven, Cale, and Magadon had their blades up and ready but the shadows swooped past them and darted through the archway, for a moment blotting out the light coming from within the chamber.

They blew out a breath as one.

Esmor said to them, "There is nothing to fear here."

Cale almost laughed.

Murgan only glared at them in silence.

I hope you're certain of what you're doing, Cale, Riven said. If this goes bad, it will go very bad If this goes bad, it will go very bad.

Cale was not at all certain of what he was doing. He had only a loose idea in his mind of what he would do when he saw Kesson Rel. He needed to see the lay of the room and Kesson's location in it. But he knew they would not get a better opportunity.

Just be ready, he said to Riven.

Riven nodded, murmured a prayer to Mask as they walked. His saber blades leaked shadows. He pulled his magical spell-storing stone from his belt pouch and tossed it into the air before his face. It stayed aloft and orbited his head.

"What are you doing?" Murgan asked, in the lazy tone of a dullard.

"Mind your own affairs, dolt," Riven answered.

They walked through the archway and into the round chamber beyond.

The eyes of two score giants fixed on them. Darkness trailed around the great creatures, just as it did from Cale. Undead shadows blanketed the walls. Cold radiated from them. Cale glimpsed a few dark-cloaked humans moving among the throng, their expressions sly. Immense archways before them and to their left and right opened onto adjacent corridors and chambers.

A mosaic on the floor formed a great purple circle ringed in black. The giants had taken care not to stand upon it. The purple disc motif reappeared throughout the a.s.sembled giants and humans on tattoos, necklaces, armbands, tabards, shields, holy symbols.

Cale recognized the symbol, though he did not understand its presence in the spire. Rivalen Tanthul had borne a similar symbol.

Shar.

Statues of the Lady of Loss, cast in dull black metal, stood around the perimeter of the chamber. Some showed Shar in her guise as a lithe human woman armed with daggers. Others showed her in a long cloak, her face hidden within a hood. Cale was reminded of the statues he had seen long ago outside the Fane of Shadows.

The ceiling soared above them to a height of fifty paces. A wide balcony of black stone jutted from the wall opposite them, about halfway up its height. A glittering purple cloth lay draped over the bal.u.s.trade.

Cale, Riven, and Magadon stopped abruptly. Murgan pressed close behind them.

On the balcony, looking down on the a.s.sembled crowd, stood the man who had stolen divinity from the G.o.d of Thieves. He looked cast from metal himself.

Ivory bracers and earrings contrasted markedly with skin the color of obsidian. He stood a head taller than Cale and ribbons of shadow curled languidly about his form. Cale made him as a shade.

Black horns, curled like a ram's, sprouted from his bald head. His angular features showed no emotion as he unfolded membranous black wings and met Cale's gaze. His eyes were as dark as holes.

Shadows boiled from Cale's flesh. Weaveshear vibrated in his hand.

That is Kesson Rel? Magadon asked. Magadon asked.

That is him, Cale answered.

A wild-eyed female gnome stood at Kesson's side, holding the hem of his leather cloak off the floor. Her long red hair stuck out in spikes. She shifted on her feet and eyed Cale, Riven, and Magadon with undisguised eagerness.

To Cale's surprise, he felt nothing. Not awe, not fear, not anger. Kesson was just another mark that Cale had been hired to kill. His pay would be Magadon's soul.

"Forward," Murgan said. "Stand in the shadow of the Divine One."

Esmor and Murgan ushered them in further and the rest of the giants crowded close. The humans standing amongst the giants-Cale guessed them to be priests of Shar-slithered through the crowd, encircling the three companions.