In an instant the elder peryton turned and plummeted toward the ground. The dive was silent. No calls, no wild screeches, just a sudden, sharp descent. The other airborne peryton rose as the elder came down. Shara would have leaped to her feet right then, but Turbull seized her wrist under her cloak. “Hold!” he commanded as instinct checked her movement.

Fortunately the trio out on the knoll didn’t hold back. The false campsite exploded in a whirl of action as Albanon and Quarhaun threw aside their cloaks and jumped up. With a scream of fury, Quarhaun hurled a blast of crackling black energy at the diving beast, while Albanon thrust up his staff and sent a spray of fire toward the perytons on the ground.

The elder screeched as she twisted aside. Quarhaun’s blast missed her by less than a swordslength. The grounded perytons likewise threw themselves away from Albanon’s fire. He only managed to catch one, the edge of its wing trailing through the flame. Feathers singed and smoking, the monster whirled up into the air with an angry scream.

Even if they were startled by the counterattack, none of the perytons fled. They spun around Quarhaun, Uldane, and Albanon in an angry, bloodthirsty storm, forcing them apart with darting feints and buffeting wings. The ropes and stakes that were intended to keep them safe hampered them as they tried to dodge. Quarhaun loosed another blast without hitting anything. The peryton he had been aiming at turned in the air and plunged for him—

Additional titles in the
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® novel line

The Mark of Nerath
Bill Slavicsek

The Seal of Karga Kul
Alex Irvine

Oath of Vigilance
James Wyatt

The Last Garrison
Matthew Beard

Also by Don Bassingthwaite

LEGACY OF DHAKAAN
The Doom of Kings
Word of Traitors
The Tyranny of Ghosts

THE DRAGON BELOW
The Binding Stone
The Grieving Tree
The Killing Stone

The Yellow Silk

The Mistress of the Night
 (with Dave Gross)

THE ABYSSAL PLAGUE TRILOGY
The Temple of Yellow Skulls

THE EYE OF THE CHAINED GOD
The Abyssal Plague Trilogy, book 3
©2012 Wizards of the Coast LLC

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Hasbro SA, represented by Hasbro Europe. Stockley Park, UB11 1AZ. UK.

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v3.1

ORIGIN

The Gates of Madness
James Wyatt

The Mark of Nerath
The Abyssal Plague Prologue
Bill Slavicsek

THE PLAGUE STRIKES

The Temple of Yellow Skulls
The Abyssal Plague Trilogy, book 1
Don Bassingthwaite

Oath of Vigilance
The Abyssal Plague Trilogy, book 2
James Wyatt

The Eye of the Chained God
The Abyssal Plague Trilogy, book 3
Don Bassingthwaite

THE PLAGUE SPREADS

Sword of the Gods
Bruce R. Cordell

Under the Crimson Sun
Keith R. A. DeCandido

Shadowbane
Erik Scott de Bie

In the shadow of empires, the past echoes in the legends of heroes. Civilizations rise and crumble, leaving few places that have not been touched by their grandeur. Ruin, time, and nature claim what the higher races leave behind, while chaos and darkness fill the void. Each new realm must make its mark anew on the world rather than build on the progress of its predecessors.

Numerous civilized races populate this wondrous and riotous world of Dungeons & Dragons. In the early days, the mightiest among them ruled. Empires based on the power of giants, dragons, and even devils rose, warred, and eventually fell, leaving ruin and a changed world in their wake. Later, kingdoms carved by mortals appeared like the glimmer of stars, only to be swallowed as if by clouds on a black night.

Where civilization failed, traces remain. Ruins dot the world, hidden by an ever-encroaching wilderness that shelters unnamed horrors. Lost knowledge lingers in these places. Ancient magic set in motion by forgotten hands still flows through them. Cities and towns still stand, where inhabitants live, work, and seek shelter from the dangers of the wider world. New communities spring up where the bold have seized territory from rough country, but few common folk ever wander far afield. Trade and travel are the purview of the ambitious, the brave, and the desperate. They are wizards and warriors who carry on traditions that date to ancient times. Still others innovate, or simply learn to fight as necessity dictates, forging a unique path.

An extraordinary few master their arts in ways beyond what is required for mere survival or protection. For good or ill, such people rise up to take on more than any mundane person dares. Some even become legends.

These are the stories of those select few …

PROLOGUE

The first time Vestapalk, as a young dragon, had flown high, he’d felt like the world belonged to him. Not in the sense of boundless opportunity, the way lesser races seemed to mean it, but in a way that woke something in his dragon heart. The world belonged to him. From horizon to horizon, everything below was his to possess, nurture, or destroy as he saw fit. And the higher he flew, the more the distant horizons expanded and the more his territory presented itself.

Oh, he had been a naïve wyrmling. His quest for power in the years since had nearly killed him more than once. But he was still flying and his territory was still growing. Soon the world would truly belong to him.

In distant Nera, a human woman fled from him down a dark alley. She did not realize he only drove her into a trap. Vestapalk shifted his focus so that the woman ran toward him, lurking near the alley’s end.

Outside the gates of a shadowed dwarf town, he gripped a struggling guard with four wiry legs and chewed on his shoulder with sharp teeth. The dwarf screamed. Other guards appeared. Vestapalk leaped from his original prey straight into the midst of the would-be rescuers. He bit a second and raked claws of red crystal across the face of a third. None of them would die, not as such. They had his saliva and fragments of his claws in their wounds, though. They were infected.

In a hut in a lush, wet forest, he stared in horror at the spindly, gnarled horror his arm had become. Four fingers had fused into two thick digits. The pus had drained from his red sores to reveal lumps of crystal that couldn’t be scratched away—when he tried, his skin just tore to show more crystal and something hard and black like living stone beneath. He could feel more sores all over his body bursting whenever he moved. There was something in his mind, too. Some presence, watching him. Watching through him.

“More than watching,” Vestapalk said through those distant lips, and the man in the hut screamed at the words that were not his own. No one responded to his cry. The village was empty, its other inhabitants fled.

Find them, Vestapalk said directly into the mind of his new minion. But do not kill them—not all of them at least. Bite them. Cut them. Open wounds. Make them as you are.

“Yes,” said the creature in the hut. It rose on thick legs, the last rags of its humanity sloughing off with every step.

On a ship three days from the nearest port, Vestapalk listened as sailors who had nowhere to flee to whispered of murder and mutiny. The captain was sick with the plague. Maybe not just any plague—there had been rumors in the last port of a sickness that transformed sufferers into monsters. Demons. They were calling it the Abyssal Plague. If they wanted to reach their next port, the mutineers said, they had to act now. Throw the captain overboard. Aye, and anyone who showed signs of sickness. Vestapalk smiled to himself. It was too late for that. Shadows clung to him as he drifted into the circle of mutineers, touching each sailor with light, darting taps. Eyes went wide and color drained from faces. Vestapalk didn’t know what visions of fear filled their minds, but it didn’t matter. The demon that had been their captain flexed its taloned fingers and lashed out at the would-be mutineers.

When the vessel arrived at its destination, it would be a plague ship. Vestapalk’s horde would continue to grow.

From a marsh where lizardfolk fled from a horde of crystal spiders with humanoid eyes, to a forest village where elves battled creatures formed of living flame around crystalline crimson hearts, to an ancient city whose inhabitants hid while juggernauts big as houses stalked the streets—Vestapalk roamed the world that would soon be his in both name and substance. Just a thought was enough to extend his awareness to any of the multitude of demons his plague had birthed. His horde shared the touch of the alien Voidharrow that had transformed him from a mere dragon to something far, far greater. They were of the Voidharrow. He was the Voidharrow. Where they were, he was. And he was everywhere.

Except the one place from which he had so far been thrown back.

The scope of his perception collapsed with that thought. Vestapalk tumbled back into his own body.

The noise of the Plaguedeep returned to him first. The chittering, shrieking, and roaring of hundreds of plague demons gathered at the heart of his power, all traces of the beings they had been gone. The soft, seething hiss of the Voidharrow as it ate into the bones of the world—less of a sound and more of a sensation at the edge of his awareness. The irregular boom and crackle of the unbound elements upon which the Voidharrow had already done its work. Vestapalk let the sounds wash over him for a moment, then he opened his eyes.

Not so long ago, the Plaguedeep had been the crater of an active volcano, where tubes of magma stretched like arteries deep into the world. But the Voidharrow transformed more than just living flesh, and Vestapalk had spewed vast quantities of it into the roiling molten rock. Until the crater had become a great shaft, where boulders and columns of stone floated like air, lightning oozed like mud, and wind howled in gales so furious they were thick as waves of water.

At the very bottom of the Plaguedeep, the Voidharrow collected in a pool of liquid crimson crystal shot through with ribbons of silver and flecks of gold. Vestapalk rode the surface of the pool, embraced and supported by it. Sluggish ripples spread across the surface, deceptive in their motion—they didn’t radiate out from Vestapalk, but instead stirred slowly toward him. The Voidharrow knew its master.

So did the plague demons. As if they could sense the anger and frustration within him, they grew quiet. Where they lurked in niches and tunnels, along ledges, and clinging to the softened rock of the shaft walls, they went still. The incessant fighting, the constant struggling to establish position in an ever-shifting hierarchy stopped. Eyes of a hundred varieties set in heads of all shapes and sizes turned to Vestapalk. For a moment, he saw himself as they saw him: still draconic in form but lean, all hide and muscle, his flesh contracted around his bones. Scales that had once been brilliant green carried a tinge of red. Red showed too in the spurs of crystal that had erupted around his joints and in the translucent spikes that rose along his spine.

When he flexed, Voidharrow flashed between his scales like embers in a fire. It was within him, dripping like venom from his jaws and filling his eyes. It consumed him. It sustained him. When dry scales sloughed from his hide, it welled up to form glittering new scales in their place, as the old scales squirmed with brief pseudo-life on the shifting surface of the pool.

The plague demons looked at him with hunger and desire. And fear. When he snarled at them, they flinched as one and dropped their gazes in submission. Or rather, most of them dropped their gazes. On the far side of the pool, a bulky figure stood tall. It met Vestapalk’s gaze, then stepped out from among the plague demons clustered around it.

Most of the demons were bone thin, as if their flesh had been fuel for the transformation wrought by the Abyssal Plague. A few were muscular and solid. Churr Ashin was bigger even than them. Plates of crystal armor spanned his shoulders, running down his arms and along his spine. His movements were ponderous. Each slow jump as he made his way along the rough, crystal-studded rocks that formed a kind of stepping stone pathway out into the pool threatened to dump him into the Voidharrow. A few demons watched him, hope for a spill naked and malicious on their faces.

Churr disappointed them. The massive creature was one of Vestapalk’s exarchs, anointed with the Voidharrow by Vestapalk’s own tongue. He had the strength and power to crush any lesser demon’s skull in one meaty fist. He’d done it more than once.

His voice, when he spoke, was a rumble. “Fallcrest.”

Vestapalk regarded him through narrowed eyes. “Yes,” he said after a long moment. His own voice had changed along with his body. He could hear two voices in every word he spoke. One belonged to the dragon he had been. The other, sharp and crystalline, belonged to the Voidharrow. “Fallcrest.”

It was not so much that he had been denied by the town, that his plague demons had been killed, that the town had resisted the plague. Other towns had resisted—for a time. Demons had been killed. Fallcrest was different. It was personal. The folk of the town had done very little. It had been the same small band that had countered him time and time again. He knew their names. Albanon. Uldane. Shara. Tempest. Roghar. Quarhaun. Kri. And he knew they were in Fallcrest, lending their swords and spells—and their improbable luck—to the town.

They’d tried to kill him, although they’d succeeded only in uniting him with the Voidharrow. They’d killed Raid, the first of his exarchs, and two of them had even resisted his attempts to make them into exarchs as well. But most recently, they’d killed Nu Alin, the ancient bodystealer who had been herald to Vestapalk and Voidharrow alike, as he led an attack on Fallcrest. Vestapalk had sensed his destruction as a human might have experienced the sudden loss of a finger.

Had Churr sensed it as well?

He shifted in the Voidharrow, reversing the course of the slow ripples across the pool. “Why?” he asked.

A look of concentration crossed Churr’s small-eyed face, as if he was trying to remember what he had planned to say next. Few of Vestapalk’s demons had much intelligence. The transformation seemed to burn it away, leaving most with only a feral cunning. Churr had the size and strength of a juggernaut, but the muscles might have filled his head for all the wit he showed. “Send me,” he said at last. He thumped his chest hard. “Crush!”

“You think you could crush Fallcrest?” said Vestapalk. The Plaguedeep remained silent as the other plague demons watched the exarch confront his master.

“Nu Alin failed,” the big demon said.

“You wouldn’t?”

Churr straightened, squeezing a massive fist tight. “Kill who killed him.” He pumped his fist in the air. “Kill who killed Nu Alin!”

His voice rose in an echo through the Plaguedeep. The watching demons responded, a few at first, then more, hooting and howling their enthusiasm. But not all of them were caught up in the madness. Vestapalk looked around at those who remained silent. Once again, they turned away from his gaze. Vestapalk drew back his neck so that he glared down at Churr.

“No,” he growled.

“No?” Churr demanded. He pounded his chest with both fists. “Small things kill Nu Alin. Churr Ashin crush small things.”

So that was how it was, Vestapalk realized. In the never-ending struggle for primacy among the plague demons, slow-witted Churr had come to believe that only by killing those who had killed Nu Alin could he assert his own power. For a moment, he was tempted to loose the huge demon on Fallcrest just to see what Albanon and his band would do.

But it was possible Churr Ashin might actually kill them. The continued existence of those who dared think of themselves as his enemies nipped at him like a mite burrowing under his scales. Against the great wave of the Abyssal Plague sweeping over the world, their resistance meant nothing. Vestapalk was still dragon enough, however, that hate gathered, rolling and stinging, in his belly. When the time came to destroy his enemies, he would do it himself.

He lowered his head until he glared into Churr’s eyes. “No.”

Churr stumbled back, hopping from one stepping stone back to the next—then he stopped himself and met his master’s gaze for a second time. “Vestapalk says no,” he said, loud enough to make his words echo, “because Vestapalk is afraid.”

A hiss and a stir swept around the watching plague demons. Vestapalk sensed their unease and their eagerness through the Voidharrow. In a hierarchy of raw power, no one was immune to being challenged. Denied the chance to advance himself by killing Nu Alin’s killers, Churr Ashin was prepared to take on the only other demon that outranked him.

And in the instant it took Vestapalk to recognize that, he realized something else: Churr was more cunning than he’d believed. One of Churr’s thick hands had reached behind his back and jerked out something wedged under the crystal plates there.

In the ruddy light of the Plaguedeep, a golden skull gleamed between his fingers.

Vestapalk didn’t bother to glance to the corner of the shaft where the gold skulls that had once been the treasure of the Temple of Yellow Skulls sat heaped like so much trash. There was no doubt that Churr had stolen one of them, probably while Vestapalk’s mind had roamed across the world. Nor was there any doubt what he intended. Each gold skull contained the essence of a powerful demon of the Abyss, and was a source of great energy. Vestapalk had drawn on them to empower the transformation of his exarchs and again to create the Plaguedeep itself.

Churr Ashin raised the skull swiftly to his mouth and drew a deep breath, sucking at the power within.

Except nothing happened. Vestapalk gave Churr a moment to realize his ploy had failed.

Then he lunged.

Even without the power of the golden skull, Churr’s size, strength, and crystal armor made him dangerous. Vestapalk struck in a rush. His snapping jaws closed on Churr’s free arm and bit it off at the elbow. His shoulder slammed into Churr’s chest, knocking him back. Vast wings, glittering red with crystal and droplets of the Voidharrow, swept out and beat down, giving Vestapalk enough momentum to bowl his rebellious exarch onto his back.

The golden skull flew from Churr’s hand, bounced off one of the stepping stones with a clang, arched over the Voidharrow pool, and landed spinning on solid ground. Plague demons nearby scattered as if the thing were poison.

Churr tried to fight back. He punched with his remaining hand, a blow that might have put a hole in a stone wall. Vestapalk twisted and the punch slid past him. A foreleg raked down and severed the muscles of Churr’s shoulder and chest. His powerful arm flopped back uselessly. He tried to kick, but Vestapalk bent his lean body double—as if his bones had become as fluid as the Voidharrow—and gripped Churr’s legs with his hind feet. The weight of Vestapalk’s entire body resting on top of him brought a gasp even from the massive demon.

Vestapalk turned his head to spit out Churr’s arm. “You are cunning,” he said, looking back to his struggling captive, “but not cunning enough. It takes strength greater than yours to draw on the skulls. Their power responds only to greater power. Vestapalk’s power.”

Churr glared at him, rage blinding him to pain. “You are afraid.”

Vestapalk roared into Churr’s face, his talons clenching the demon’s flesh. “This one fears nothing! Those who killed Nu Alin are of no concern. They will be overrun. They will be a part of the Voidharrow as everything will be a part of the Voidharrow!”

Shrieking howls filled the Plaguedeep, the plague demons mimicking his fury as it spread through the connection between them. Even the pool of the Voidharrow grew agitated. He snapped his teeth in Churr’s face. “This world belongs to Vestapalk now,” he snarled, “and Vestapalk is the Voidharrow.”

His tongue emerged from his mouth, wet and glossy. It darted across Churr’s face, leaving behind a smear of Voidharrow. Vestapalk smiled. “As are you.”

He opened his mouth and, just as Churr had over the golden skull, drew breath.

The demon convulsed as a glittering red mist emerged from between his lips and streamed up to Vestapalk’s muzzle. A thin scream went with it. The convulsions lasted only moments, then Churr fell back, his eyes dull and glazed. The scream faded away to nothing.

Vestapalk didn’t stop inhaling, however. If he were a mortal creature, his lungs would have burst. But he was far from mortality. The wisp of mist became thicker as the substance of Churr’s flesh—transformed and empowered by the Voidharrow—began to sift away. Vestapalk stepped back from his former exarch’s body and opened his jaws wider. His drawn breath became a gale, shredding Churr’s remains until they flowed into his maw like liquid. Like the Voidharrow itself.

When the last traces of Churr Ashin’s existence were a few shards of red crystal, Vestapalk closed his mouth and let out a slow exhalation. He lifted his gaze to the demons around him.

They fell silent instantly, their eyes dropping. Vestapalk snorted and slid back into the pool. Noise slowly returned to the Plaguedeep as the demons returned to their chitterings and brawlings, their primitive battles for meaningless supremacy.

A wave of the Voidharrow washed from the pool over the floor of the shaft to pick up the fallen gold skull and carry it to Vestapalk like a piece of wood on the tide. He ignored it, his thoughts turning in another direction. Churr Ashin had shown him something valuable: Albanon, Shara, Kri, and the others who defied him were a distraction.

He’d spoken nothing less than the truth when he told Churr his enemies were doomed. Their end would come whether he took a role in it or not. The idea of letting the Abyssal Plague take them in time didn’t sit well with him, though. It was too easy for those who declared themselves his enemies. He might task another of his exarchs with dealing with them, but they were scattered—and what was to say that they might not try to turn against him as Churr had?

He might take control of another demon, seeing through its eyes, inhabiting its body, and using it to destroy his enemies. But no, Churr had been able to steal the golden skull while his mind flitted between demons. Something worse might happen if his focus was beyond the Plaguedeep for longer. Vestapalk needed something else. Some proxy he could trust that wouldn’t require his constant attention, but that would fill his need to have a hand in the destruction of those who had so thoroughly defied him.

A wild squealing distracted him. Across the pool, a demon had claimed a red and knobby club almost bigger than it was: Churr’s severed arm had survived the destruction of his body. The creature waved the arm around like a trophy, occasionally beating it against the ground for the amusement of the larger demons. Churr’s fingers still grasped and clawed against the indignity as if life yet remained in the limb, much as Vestapalk’s own shed scales writhed when they fell.

An idea sprang fully formed into Vestapalk’s mind. He raked a claw across his belly and plucked away an old loose scale. Voidharrow flowed to replace it, but Vestapalk watched the scale as it twisted for a few moments like a fat, red leech. In the back of his mind, he could feel its struggles as if it were an extension of his body. Of his whole being. He laughed out loud. “Yes,” he said to himself. “An avatar for Vestapalk, to walk the land and strike his blows.” The pseudo-life of the scale was temporary, though. An avatar would require true life, a complete form. He scooped the golden skull out of the Voidharrow and stared into its empty, gleaming sockets. “This one has need of your power.”

The being imprisoned within the skull wailed in terror and despair as Vestapalk opened his mouth once more.

CHAPTER ONE

Six days after the attack, Fallcrest still smoldered. By day, thin quills of smoke streaked the sky. By night, red embers crept like worms through blackened beams, leaving more than one of the town’s defenders on edge with memories of the flaming demons that had ignited the devastation.

The destruction could have been worse. When orc hordes had spilled over the Nentir Vale decades before, Fallcrest had been sacked and pillaged, reduced from a thriving city to a frontier town. Its recovery had been slow. Many of its streets still had gaps and tumbled piles of rubble where structures had never been rebuilt—gaps that became natural fire breaks. In a more crowded town or village, entire blocks might have burned in the inferno. In Fallcrest, every third house—or more—had survived the demon-brought flames.

Which wasn’t to say they were all still occupied. Those townspeople whose homes were still inhabitable sought out the safety of numbers. And of the buildings that stood in Fallcrest’s lower town, most were as empty as the ruins around them.

Those in the upper town, where the great bluffs that split Fallcrest formed one side of a strong defensive perimeter, were packed. Crowds spilled out of them and into the streets, finding shelter under tents or in rough shacks built from rubble. The crowds weren’t solely the folk of Fallcrest either. A trickle of refugees from the surrounding areas of the Vale had been arriving since the plague had taken hold, turning into a flood as the demons born of the plague swept across the countryside.

Common wisdom said isolation was the best defense against a plague—but most plagues didn’t bring nightmare creatures searching out new victims to infect and transform, adding to their own numbers in an expanding wave.

“More stones here!” called Roghar. “And more mortar, too!”

Below the growing wall on which the dragonborn stood, townsfolk-turned-laborers leaped to follow the order. Although, Roghar considered on second thought, perhaps “leaped” wasn’t the right word. “Lurched” might be more appropriate, or maybe “struggled.” Six days of combing the ruins, cleaning the streets, and attempting to put a shattered town to rights had left the survivors exhausted. Every face was streaked with sweat and grime. Every step was a dragging shuffle. The euphoria of victory over the invading plague demons had given way to grim reality.

One facet of that reality was the need to shore up Fallcrest’s defenses. The wall around the upper town was in good repair but the attack had showed that the roads up the bluffs from the lower town were a weak point. For decades, Fallcrest had depended on the steep ascent to deter enemies, but the plague demons were like no mortal enemy. Fearless and tireless, the steep road meant nothing to them. Some had even clawed their way up the sheer cliff itself. Fallcrest needed a new wall—an internal wall at the brow of the escarpment—and a new gate to hold the top of the road.

With no special place in the town, no family or home of his own, Roghar had taken on Fallcrest’s need and started working. He’d set aside his sword and armor, commandeered a workforce, and in just a few days, had the rough beginnings of a stout gatehouse in place at the most commonly used road, the stubby wings of a low wall unfurling to either side of it. The other two roads were already sealed off. Fallcrest had provided the material in stout timbers and soot-blackened stones taken from ruined houses or from the old city walls toppled almost a century earlier. If the townsfolk were reluctant to scavenge their broken homes at first, they soon took pride in what rose out of their work and sweat.

They also found pride, Roghar suspected, in the willingness of a paladin of Bahamut—one of the heroes who had fought off the plague demons—to labor alongside them. When workers were tired, it seemed like there were always fresh ones ready to take their places. For his part, Roghar tried to make sure he was always the first at the walls in the morning and the last to leave when the torches guttered low. He was larger than the largest of the townsfolk, an inspiring figure in burnished bronze, the fine scales of his leathery hide shining as he worked.

Of course, it had only been six days. Whether he or the townsfolk could keep up the punishing pace was a question that pulled at the back of Roghar’s mind.

Still, it was better than doing nothing.

“Roghar!”

He turned at the call and saw Uldane skipping across the uneven top of the wall. The halfling moved with sure-footed agility, bounding lightly from stone to stone in spite of the waterskins that hung off him like swollen fruit. Without pausing, he shrugged off one of the skins and tossed it to Roghar. It hit the dragonborn’s palm with a wet smack and shimmied under his thick fingers. Roghar could feel the delicious cool and was, for a moment, sorely tempted to guzzle it down. He contented himself with pulling the stopper and taking a quick gulp before passing it on to the nearest worker. Uldane passed him a second, then a third, then a fourth skin. Roghar redistributed them all. Uldane shook his head.

“You’re just a paragon of virtue, aren’t you?” He held up the last waterskin. “This is mine. You can’t give it away. I’m only sharing it with you.”

Roghar smiled at that. “Bahamut doesn’t require his faithful to deny themselves.”

“Well, you look like you’re trying to.” Uldane passed the skin to him.

“I reward those who have earned it.” He aimed a stream from the neck of the skin into his waiting mouth—and nearly choked in surprise on wine instead of water. He spluttered and licked his blunt snout.

Uldane gave him a wide grin. “So do I. Don’t you dare give that skin back until you’ve drunk your fill, Roghar.”

The paladin took another drink, then paused. “Where did this come from?”

Uldane actually looked offended. “Do you really think I’d take something from someone in Fallcrest right now? That would be like stealing from a beggar’s bowl!”

“Where?”

“Buried in the stores of the Glowing Tower, so it practically belongs to us. Or to Albanon anyway.” He slouched back, his arms crossed. “And he’s not going to notice any more than he’s noticing anything right now.”

Roghar regarded Uldane thoughtfully as he directed another jet of wine down his throat. Then he wiped his snout and handed the skin to Uldane. “You’ve noticed it too?”

“It’s hard to miss, isn’t it? We were going to go after Vestapalk. We were going to cut the head off the snake and end the plague. Instead …” Uldane shrugged. “We’re building walls. I mean, not that it isn’t a fine wall, but why are we trapping ourselves behind it?”

A proverb of Bahamut’s priesthood rose to Roghar’s tongue: The shield is enough for many. Not everyone was capable of carrying the fight to the enemy. Building the wall was as useful as striking beyond it.

The proverb didn’t escape his mouth. Instead he said, “I know what you mean.” He took back the wineskin before Uldane had a chance to drink, swallowed, and looked down over the empty, smoking streets of the lower town spread out below. Down there on the Market Green, he, Uldane, the warlock Tempest, and the wizard Albanon had destroyed the ancient bodystealer Nu Alin, the very first of the plague demons created by the foul substance known as the Voidharrow.

The creature’s death had been the end of the attack—the end of the battle for Fallcrest as the remaining demons scattered without his command to drive them on. The four of them had returned to the upper town in triumph, filled with plans to strike out after Vestapalk. They even had a clue where to find Vestapalk, thanks to lingering collective memories held by Belen, a human defender of Fallcrest who had been possessed by Nu Alin before his destruction. Vestapalk, their ultimate enemy, had taken a lair in a volcano west of Fallcrest, beyond the Ogrefist Hills that formed one edge of the Nentir Vale, using his command of the Voidharrow to transform it into something he called the Plaguedeep. Belen had experienced the knowledge through her communion with Nu Alin and the rest of the plague demons while possessed. They could go after him and end the threat once and for all.

Except that only hours after their celebration, Albanon had pleaded for more time to study their enemy. Before the attack, he and his treacherous mentor, the old priest Kri, had only just returned to Fallcrest after venturing into the Feywild to a tower that had belonged to the founder of an order dedicated to countering the Voidharrow. Albanon had brought back books and scrolls. If he could take a day to study them, he said, maybe they could find some advantage over Vestapalk and his demonic forces.

One day had turned into two and then six. Enough time for Roghar to muster workers and build a gatehouse while they waited on the eladrin wizard. Enough time that they could have reached Vestapalk’s doorstep by already.

The longer they waited, the more obvious it became that Albanon didn’t want to go.

“When do you think he’ll be ready?” Roghar asked Uldane.

The halfling joined him at the edge of the wall. “He’s not studying.”

Roghar looked down at him sharply. “You mean right now or never?”

“Right now. He’s over that way,” Uldane gestured vaguely into the upper town, “helping Tempest distribute more useful stuff than wine to people who need it … I don’t know about never. Never is a long time.”

“Uldane,” Roghar growled.

“Not in the last couple of days, at least. I know he asked us to stay out of the study at the top of the tower, but I peeked in a couple of times. He wasn’t there but I don’t think anything has been touched since the evening before yesterday.” He looked up at the dragonborn. “Whatever he’s doing, he’s not looking for answers in those books and scrolls.”

Roghar clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth together. “We need to talk to him.”

“Do you think …” Uldane hesitated for a moment before pushing the words out. “Do you think it’s because of Shara?”

The paladin considered his answer before he spoke. Although she had stood shoulder to shoulder with him and the others in the past, the warrior Shara had not taken part in the final fight against Nu Alin. Instead, she had slipped away, turning from the defense of Fallcrest in pursuit of her own vengeance against Vestapalk. The murder of her friends and family—among them her father, Borojon, and her love, Jarren—by the dragon haunted her. She’d left at the side of her new lover, Quarhaun—a drow, as hard and cruel as the hatred Shara held for Vestapalk.

Roghar couldn’t find it in himself to support her decision. Nor did he think Albanon was particularly wracked by grief, certainly not to the point of delaying their departure from Fallcrest. The guilt that crept into Uldane’s eyes whenever Shara’s name was mentioned, however, was painful. He was one of her oldest friends and he’d been with her when Vestapalk had slaughtered their companions. He’d also been the last to speak with her. To argue with her, in fact. His harsh words, accusations that Shara dishonored the memory of Jarren by loving Quarhaun, had been the wedge that split their friendship.

“I think,” Roghar said carefully, “that none of us should let the choices Shara made hold us back. We have a greater duty now. Shara went looking for Vestapalk, too. If we’re looking for him, maybe we’ll find her along the way.”

“Just her?”

Uldane didn’t mention Quarhaun by name, but Roghar knew exactly what the halfling meant. Roghar had no love for the drow, either. He wrinkled his muzzle and looked back out over Fallcrest’s lower town. “There is no peach without a—”

Figures moved among the ruins, running hard along a rubble-strewn road. Roghar squinted, trying to make them out. “Uldane,” he said, “look there. Just where the Blue Moon Alehouse used to be.”

Uldane eyes were sharper than his. “I see them. And I see what’s chasing them!” He flung up an arm and Roghar looked where he pointed.

Some distance behind the running figures, more shapes came bounding over the rubble of what had been a gate in the wall of the lower town. Where the figures in the street ran on two legs, their pursuers ran sometimes on two, sometimes on four. The afternoon sunlight flashed on red crystal as the creatures ran and a shift in the wind brought a faint, inhuman shriek to Roghar’s ears.

“Plague demons!” he spat. “Uldane, you said Albanon and Tempest were close? Get them!” He whirled and leaped off the wall, drawing cries of surprise from startled workers.

“You’re going down there?” Uldane called after him. “Armed with what?”

“Bahamut’s warriors may set aside their weapons, but they never leave them.” Roghar reached into a niche and pulled out a canvas-shrouded bundle. The wrapping fell away as he lifted the bundle, revealing his sword and a shield emblazoned with the dragonhead crest of his god. He looked back up at Uldane. “Hurry and I’ll let you come with us!”

“Like you could leave me behind.” The halfling sprinted off along the wall.

Around Roghar, townsfolk were reacting as others caught sight of the pursuit below. Some screamed in fear that the refugees might lead the demons straight into their haven. Hardier souls shouted for members of the guard to go to the refugees’ aid, but the few guards close to the scene only looked at each other in confusion. They would never organize themselves to reach the lower town in time. Roghar slid his arm into the familiar straps of his shield and touched the fingers of his other hand to the holy symbol on the shield’s face.

“I answer your call, O Bahamut,” he growled. “Put speed in my feet and strength in my arm.” He snatched up his sword, flicked away the scabbard, and charged through the half-finished gate. “For Fallcrest!”

“Bless you, eladrin.” The old woman’s gnarled fingers fastened on Albanon’s hand before he could draw away and she looked up at him with weary, but grateful eyes. “May all the gods smile on you.”

Albanon stiffened, but forced himself to answer kindly. “May the gods of light smile on us all,” he answered and slid his hand away, leaving a fat wedge of cheese from the basket he carried in the woman’s grasp. She turned, breaking the cheese in two to share with an even older man.

“You get blessings,” murmured a voice in his pointed ear, “I’m lucky if I get a surly look, although there was one charming child that spit at me by way of saying thank you.”

He answered without thinking. “Maybe some kind of mask or a hood. Or a bag over your head.”

The air seemed to warm around him and he caught a distinct whiff of smoke and sulfur. “You’ve been around Uldane too long.”

Albanon blinked, shook his head, and turned to Tempest. The tiefling stood behind him with her eyebrows arched so high they almost merged with the curled horns on her head. Her thick, fleshy tail lashed the air and her dark red eyes glared at him. A hint of the infernal power she wielded both by heritage and by bargain rose from her.

“Sorry,” he said hastily. “I didn’t mean that. I think it’s Uldane and Splendid both.”

“Pfft.” The little pseudodragon that curled around his shoulders raised her head. “I would never say such a thing.”

“Thank you, Splendid,” said Tempest, her voice as icy as her gaze was fiery.

“A bag wouldn’t cover your tail.” Splendid stretched grandly and rearranged herself.

Tempest’s eyebrows rose even higher. Her lips tightened until they were almost white. Albanon felt himself shrivel under her gaze—until she laughed abruptly, genuine amusement putting a smile on her face.

“You should see yourself,” she said. “Albanon, I’m a tiefling. If I worried about people judging me by my appearance, or what they think of me, I’d never go out my door.”

A flush warmed Albanon’s cheeks. “But friends aren’t supposed to say things like that.”

“I know you didn’t mean it.” Tempest regarded Splendid. “Although I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.”

The pseudodragon let out a derisive snort but didn’t stir from the comfort of her new position. Albanon allowed himself a tentative smile as well. “Still—”

“Still, nothing,” said Tempest, moving on along the street. “Let it go. I’m just glad you agreed to come out of that study. You look like you’ve hardly slept lately. We may need all the help we can get when we face Vestapalk, but too much study has its dangers.” She looked back at him. “I think we can learn that lesson from Kri.”

Albanon’s belly tightened. “That’s not a lesson I’m going to forget,” he said immediately, and perhaps a little too harshly. Tempest glanced at him.

“I’m almost sorry I never met the old priest,” she said. “To come here and win your trust, then to turn on you and his god … you might say it wasn’t his fault, that something he found drove him mad and made him renounce Ioun, but I’ll tell you this.” She paused and faced him, dropping her voice. “In my experience, anyone who has ever been seduced by power gave it the first toehold willingly.”

“I understand what you mean,” Albanon told her.

“Do you? Kri turned to Tharizdun, Albanon. The god of madness and annihilation. The Chained God, imprisoned by the other gods for creating the Abyss. Kri may have started looking for a way to defeat Vestapalk and the Voidharrow, but he ended up trying to set Tharizdun free.”

“I stopped him.”

“But you still spend your time poring over the same books, looking for the same answers.” Tempest searched his eyes. “Let me help you,” she said. “I may not have studied under a wizard, but I’m not illiterate or stupid. Two of us working together can search twice as fast—and we can keep watch on each other.”

“Can you read Elven?” Albanon asked. When Tempest blinked, he shook his head. “I’m careful, Tempest, and I’m searching as quickly as I can. I want to be on the road after Vestapalk as much as any of us. Don’t worry, I’m not Kri.” He smiled, then nodded along the street to a human woman in the light armor of the Fallcrest Guard distributing blankets to refugees. “There’s Belen.”

Tempest turned away, reassured or at least distracted. Albanon let her get a pace or two ahead of him, then slumped and let out a shallow sigh of relief. A sigh that caught in his throat as Splendid murmured, “I’m astounded anyone believes your lies.”

He flinched. He could just see the pseudodragon looking up at him from his shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said calmly.

Her little eyes narrowed. “Twice a liar for denying it. You’re afraid. You’re afraid of Vestapalk. You’re afraid of what you’ll find in the Plaguedeep.”

“I’m not.”

“Three times a liar.” Splendid uncoiled herself from around his neck. “You can’t fool me, Albanon. I’ve known you since you came to the great Moorin as an apprentice. When you decide to tell the truth—to yourself if no one else—I’ll be waiting back at the Glowing Tower.”

Her claws dug into his shoulder for a moment as she leaped, then her fine, leathery wings spread wide and beat against the air. Splendid soared up, banking against the sky and heading back along the brow of the Fallcrest bluff.

The relief Albanon had felt for one brief moment turned into a knot in his chest. Six nights before, he and Kri had returned from a journey to the Feywild and the tower of Sherinna, one of the founders of the Order of Vigilance and Albanon’s own grandmother. Kri’s divinations in the Feywild, an attempt to locate the bodystealing demon Nu Alin, had led them back to Fallcrest and an old ruined tower reputed to be haunted. The ruins had indeed been haunted—not by ghosts, but by a cult of the Elder Elemental Eye, the common name by which Tharizdun beguiled his would-be followers. Something had happened in that dreadful place, though. They went in looking for Nu Alin, who was a priest of Tharizdun before the Voidharrow turned him into a demon, and emerged with Kri raving mad and Albanon a near helpless thrall to his power.

Kri led him through the very heart of the demon attack to the tower that had belonged to Albanon’s murdered master, Moorin. There, where Moorin had been slaughtered, Kri attempted the same ritual Nu Alin once had, utilizing a fragment of ancient crystal to open a gate to the sealed plane where Tharizdun was imprisoned. Unlike Nu Alin, Kri succeeded. The eye of the Chained God peered through the gate and for the first time in hundreds of years, his power had touched the world. Albanon barely recovered himself in time to prevent more than Tharizdun’s gaze from passing through the portal. Using his magic, he changed the gate’s focus, slamming the door on Tharizdun’s prison and opening a new one to summon allies, huntsmen from the Feywild, to fight against Kri.

The embattled priest had escaped through the gate, changing its destination once more and shattering it behind him. He might have gone anywhere, but at least he wasn’t in Fallcrest. Tharizdun remained imprisoned and the world had only the Abyssal Plague to worry about once more.

At least, that was what he had told the others …

No, he told himself before his thoughts could turn in a more dangerous direction. Do not think it. Do not remember it.

Up ahead, both Shara and Belen had lifted their faces to watch Splendid’s flight, then turned to look at him. Albanon put a sheepish grin on his face and hurried to catch up to them. “Sorry, just a little argument. You know how she is.”

Tempest grunted, too familiar with Splendid’s moods not to accept the explanation. Belen gave an uncertain nod, not familiar enough to deny it. She was a hardened woman, a soldier by training, somewhat older in human years than either he or Tempest. She looked awkward with the blankets in her arms, as if she’d rather be keeping order among the crowds of refugees than distributing comfort to them. But then, Albanon didn’t think he’d seen her look anything but awkward over the past few days. He smiled at her warmly and asked, “How are you, Belen?”

“I’m still in Fallcrest when there’s a demon-dragon to kill and I still have dreams of the world dissolving into fire and red crystal ooze. Thank you for asking,” the lieutenant said, her voice like stone. “But when are we leaving?”

He should have been prepared for her bluntness. “Soon,” he told her. This lie came harder, a deliberate falsehood rather than an omission. “I just need to find something that will help us stop Vestapalk—”

“Searching isn’t doing. I see him, Albanon.” Belen ground the knuckles of her free hand against her forehead, her voice harsh.

A burst of anger broke over Albanon. First, Tempest had pushed him, then Splendid … He caught Belen’s hand and dragged it down. “Then you don’t understand what we’re facing,” he said. “This isn’t going to be like breaking up a tavern brawl or bringing down some bandits.” He glared at Tempest. “This isn’t going to be like anything else we’ve gone against before, either.”

Belen’s face wrinkled and she twisted her hand sharply. Albanon’s wrist bent painfully and abruptly he was the one being held. Belen shoved her face into his. “Don’t try to tell me I don’t understand what we’re facing. You never had that thing inside you. How do you know what we’re going to face?”

“Belen.” Tempest’s face was hard, but her tone was calming. The warrior woman scowled, then turned Albanon loose. He stepped back, rubbing his wrist. Tempest looked at him. “Well?” she asked.

“Well what?”

“I think we deserve an answer. How do you know what we’re going to face? Have you found something in those books after all?”

Anger and beligerence faded sharply. “A … little,” he said, fumbling for an explanation. “Not enough to have answers, only enough to know that Vestapalk is more powerful than last time we faced him. And that the Plaguedeep isn’t like anything else in this world. What’s in the books is only a start. Combined with what you and Belen experienced …”

Belen’s eyes narrowed at that and Tempest’s lips pressed tight. There was no levity in her voice when she spoke. “I think what he’s trying to say,” she said to Belen, “is that if we’re going to do something, we have to do it right. When we confront Vestapalk, we want to make sure we end him.” The tiefling gave Albanon a hard look. “Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, absolutely,” he said quickly. Belen’s face flushed with frustration but eventually she nodded.

“Soon?” she said.

“Soon.”

“It had better be.”

Tempest took the warrior’s arm and drew her on to the next clump of refugees without looking back at him. Albanon followed, feeling relieved, but unsettled. Belen and Tempest had formed a unique bond since the attack on Fallcrest—so far as any of them knew, they were the only two beings to have survived possession by Nu Alin. They were the lucky ones. They had each other to understand what they had experienced.

Albanon let his breath out slowly. That Vestapalk didn’t know—couldn’t know—that they’d learned of his location was a powerful draw to action. Belen’s information drawn from Nu Alin’s memories and the knowledge that they could reach his lair in this so-called Plaguedeep with only a week’s journey made Roghar and the others even more eager to be off after the dragon.

It was tempting to let them go. The others were strong—they’d get along without him. It might even be better for them if he wasn’t there. But he had to go. He wanted to go. He had to help stop this.

You can stop it, part of him whispered like a second voice in his head. You have the power. You know how to use it. You might not even need them.

No. He choked off the voices of doubt, desire, and duty that been swirling in his head for days. What he had to do was get back to the Glowing Tower. He needed quiet. He needed time to sort out what he was feeling. Another day. The others would believe him if he told them he needed another day of research. He opened his mouth, drew breath to tell Tempest he was returning to the tower—

“Albanon! Tempest!”

Uldane’s voice brought them all around. The halfling slid to a stop, not bothering to come right up to them. He was already jogging backward, in the direction of Roghar’s gatehouse, as he blurted, “Come with me! Plague demons are chasing travelers in the lower town—Roghar’s going after them.”

He should have kept his voice down. The mention of plague demons brought an instant panic to the refugees around them. People screamed and jostled. Belen cursed. “Get them under control,” Tempest told her. “We’ll go help Roghar.”

“Shadow take them,” the lieutenant snapped. She dropped her burden of blankets and drew her sword. “I’m coming with you.”

Tempest flashed her a sharp-toothed grin and started after Uldane, then looked back. “Albanon?”

He realized that he hadn’t moved. Doubt, duty, and desire rose again like a storm inside him. He wanted to go fight the demons, yet the idea filled him with dread. But how could he abandon his friends?

“Albanon, come on!” said Uldane, hopping from foot to foot.

Albanon clenched his jaw, thrust his basket at the nearest person who didn’t look totally panic-stricken, and gathered his robes for running.

“Let’s go,” he said through his teeth.

CHAPTER TWO

By the time they reached the half-constructed gatehouse, Roghar was already two turns down the snaking road that traversed the bluffs. “He left without us!” Uldane yelped. “He’s going to get to the fight before we catch him.”

Down in the lower town, the fleeing figures of travelers were halfway between the Moonwash Stream and the open expanse of the Market Green. Their bounding, sprinting pursuers had reached the water, and would catch their quarry on the green.

If Roghar was fast, he might reach the Market Green at the same time—but alone.

Albanon’s belly tensed. They could catch up to the dragonborn and face the demons at his side. It would mean risking his own demons, though. He took a breath and held up an arm before Uldane and Belen could rush after Roghar.

“Wait,” he said and stepped to the brow of the bluff. Roghar was almost directly below them, a good seventy-five paces straight down. Albanon focused his will. A spell rose in his mind and he seized it, concentrating on keeping it clear and sharp. At the back of his mind, something tugged at his attention, an urge to tinker with the magic. To alter it, just a little bit, and see what happened. He ignored the urge and used his fingers to sketch symbols in the air that only his wizard’s eyes could see.

It took only moments. The instant the last symbol was drawn, he felt arcane energy surge through him, completing the spell. A shimmering doorway, like sunlight flashing on water, flared to life—once again, invisible to everyone but him. Albanon glanced over his shoulder. “Stand exactly where I am and follow me.”

He turned back and stepped off the edge of the bluff into the shimmering air.

His foot came down, however, on the solid, dusty ground of the road only a few paces behind Roghar. Albanon stumbled for a moment but found his feet and started running after the paladin. A slight grunt signaled the arrival of someone else through the portal. It was followed by another grunt, then by Uldane’s laugh of delight at the magical transport. Roghar looked back without slowing down and grinned.

“I knew you’d make it. Those demons don’t stand a chance.” He raised his head and started to sing a deep, throaty battle hymn, the cadence of the song timed to his pounding charge.

“Does he always do that?” asked Belen as they raced after him.

“You get used to it,” said Tempest.

Beyond the green, the fleeing travelers had glimpsed their rescuers. Some pointed and gestured as if in encouragement to the others, some just kept their heads down. None of them stopped running, though near the back of the group, one tall figure in an emerald cloak shortened his stride to offer assistance to a pair of slender, more stooped travelers—someone more capable and heroic helping those who needed it most. Unfortunately, it meant that those three were closest to the pursuing demons.

And the demons were rapidly closing ground. Albanon tried to keep one eye on the creatures and the other on the ground beneath his feet. The road seemed even steeper that it usually did, his balance thrown by the speed of his descent. Except for Uldane, surefooted and agile as ever, all of them slipped and stumbled on bits of loose gravel as they ran, forcing them to slow more than they would have liked. By the time they reached flat ground, the fleeing travelers were sprinting onto the Market Green with the plague demons leaping and snarling almost at their heels.

The demons would reach the travelers before they did.

“Albanon!” Roghar shouted without pausing in his charge. “We need a spell to distract the demons.”

Albanon slowed as Belen and Uldane flew past him, gauging the distance to the far side of the green. In his gut, he knew he was the best choice for such a task: Tempest’s furious magic was destructive but lacked a wizard’s carefully studied range. His racing heart, however, felt like it skipped a beat. The far side of the green was farther than he could safely throw his magic without stretching the forms of the spell almost to breaking.

Is it really? the whisper in his head thought arrogantly. Or are you just holding back?

He bit his tongue and picked up speed again. “I need to be closer—”

“Do it!” Roghar pointed with this sword. “Look!”

Across the green, the tall traveler had given his slower companions a last push to speed them on their way, then turned to face their pursuers. His sword flashed from its sheath and he threw back his cloak—revealing the fine, sharp features of not just another eladrin, but one Albanon knew.

Immeral, the leader of the huntsmen Albanon had summoned from the Feywild to aid him against Kri, settled into a defensive stance, ready to meet the claws of the plague demons.

Albanon stopped so sharply that Tempest, following behind, cursed as she dodged around him. He put her out of his mind, drawing energy out of the air and shaping it into a tiny, brilliant red fleck above his palm. Under the best conditions, he might be able to hurl the spell halfway across the Market Green. Immeral was half again that far, with the nearest demons even farther. Albanon pushed his will out to the limit of the spell. Then, with breath hissing between his teeth, he forced it beyond.

He could feel the ebb and flow of the world’s magic; he could almost see it as half-glimpsed streams of light and shadow. Up close, it was crisp and more easily manipulated. Farther away, where the demons stood out like clumps of mold in old soup, it was hazier. If he concentrated, he could still manipulate it, though. The formula of the spell offered an easy, reliable path, but Albanon could see almost instantly in his mind’s eye how to improve upon it. He gathered more energy into the fleck above his hand. The heat of it sharpened into pain.

Time seemed to slow. He drew back his hand to hurl the spell. Throw it so. Enhance the fleck’s flight thus with additional magic. Hardly thinking, he calculated angles, trajectories, velocities, the volume of space that he could fill with fire if only he dared to draw on such an amount of energy.

The numbers and calculations closed around him like jaws, biting into his mind. Albanon screamed and flung the fleck of molten magic away even as he staggered and dropped to his knees.

The little fleck flew past Tempest, Belen, Uldane, and Roghar. It gathered speed, turning into a streak of flame as it passed the running travelers, then Immeral, to slam into what had once been the Lucky Gnome Taphouse on the edge of the Market Green.

The former tavern exploded in a vast ball of ruddy fire with a roar that made Albanon’s ears ring. The force of the explosion knocked the plague demons aside and filled the air with an angry swarm of charred wooden splinters and scorched chips of stone. The travelers screamed and stumbled. The demons screeched, their pack breaking apart. Immeral, braced for the demons’ charge, swayed with the blast and swung away to protect his face.

When Immeral turned back, Roghar—his scaled chest heaving and his neck frills flaring—stood with his sword and shield at his left side. Belen took up a position on his right, and Uldane crouched behind them, ready to take advantage of any opening.

Distraction accomplished.

“Albanon?” Tempest crouched down beside him, a look of concern on her face.

“I’m fine,” he said with a voice suddenly hoarse. “Go to the others. They need you.”

The explosion might have thrown the demons into confusion, but it hadn’t stopped them. One, a lithe thing with a wide, distorted head and four eyes of gleaming red crystal, paused in the glare of the burning building. Those crystalline eyes darted between the frightened refugees and their determined defenders, then settled on Roghar and the others. A sound like a knife dragged across slate rose from its throat. The other demons turned to follow its gaze. The lead demon began a slow slink toward its new prey.

Tempest didn’t hesitate. She turned and strode across the green, drawing from her belt the short, thick rod that was a warlock’s chief implement. Albanon wished he had his staff, but he’d left it in the tower that morning, not expecting to need it on a mission of handing out food to refugees.

You don’t need it, the arrogant part of him whispered triumphantly. Look what you just did.

Albanon forced the voice away and pushed himself to his feet. Hands grabbed his arms, helping him stand. The travelers, he realized—then he started as he realized that they were all eladrin, their faces drawn with exhaustion.

“Thank you,” one of them said simply in Elven.

Albanon nodded in return, then jerked his head back toward the upper town. “Up the bluff,” he said in the same language. “Through the gate. There will be people to help you.”

“Corellon and all the gods watch over you.”

If any of the travelers saw him flinch from the blessing or thought it odd that he did, they didn’t show it. Albanon drew a shaking breath and turned back to his friends.

The plague demons were upon them, breaking in an instant from slow stalking to howling charge.

There were ten—no, a dozen—of the things. Most were of the type that resembled strange, skeletally thin beasts, with wide flat heads, chitinous hides, and a spray of large red crystals above their hips. Some were small, no bigger than a hound, and others were the size of panthers. They closed on Immeral and the others with the confident ferocity of much larger creatures.

“In Bahamut’s name,” Roghar bellowed, “your hunt ends here!” He stepped forward to meet the charge of the first demon and it leaped at him. Roghar slammed it out of the air with his shield, the holy white light of the gods bursting from the symbol of Bahamut as he struck. The demon screeched as the light burned it and fell writhing to the ground. Roghar chopped its head from its body.

The beasts swarmed around his friends, slashing with claws that sparkled like crystal and trying to sink jagged teeth into their flesh. The defenders met them with steel that slashed, parried, and blocked. Immeral brought one down with a thrust of a fine longsword. Belen hacked grimly at any limb that came near her—but missed one claw that hooked into the leather of her armor. It jerked her off balance and she fell to one knee. The demon that had hooked her yowled and tried to drag her closer. Uldane ducked right under its arm and pinned the thing’s jaw to its skull with one dagger, then opened its throat with another. Belen scrambled free and just had time to nod to the halfling before the next demon bounded over its packmate’s corpse.

Closer to Albanon, Tempest stood with her legs braced as she hurled blasts of dark and greasy flame from her rod. Each burst of fire seemed certain to hit one of their friends in the heaving knot of battle, but none did. Tempest’s face and eyes all but shone with the intensity of her fury, but her aim was precise. Her blasts singed demons while the warriors held their attention. More than one of the corpses that lay on the ground was seared and smoking.

The demons didn’t break, though. If anything, their ferocity grew as their numbers dwindled. Albanon had fought them often enough to know they wouldn’t give up the attack. They had no fear, no sense of self-preservation. They would attack until they were dead.

Or until the demon that commanded the others was dead.

The pack didn’t consist solely of the beastlike demons. Around the outside of the battle stalked three more humanoid demons, walking on two legs and urging the other demons on with roars that might have been words. When an opening appeared, they struck with one or two of their four thick arms, then ducked back—curiously restrained behavior for plague demons.

“Tempest!” he shouted. “Target the four-armed ones.”

The tiefling’s eyes narrowed. Albanon saw her pause, wait until one of the four-armed demons was momentarily exposed, then make a sharp stabbing motion with her free hand. Her lips moved in a harsh whisper.

Flames burst out of the air above the demon, instantly coalescing into a long, red hot, and very solid metal spike. The burning spike slammed through the demon and into the ground beneath. Pinned in place, the demon howled and tried to pull free. Roghar seized the opportunity, throwing the beasts around him back with a sweep of his shield, then hacking at the pinned demon. His first blow sheared through an upflung arm. His second sank deep into a bony skull. The demon drooped, its dead body still held up by the spike.

Tempest had captured the attention of the other two four-armed demons. They turned on her, spitting and howling in fury. Tempest yelped and hurled another blast of smoky fire at the nearest as it came at her, but the thing charged through the flames without pause. Belen and Uldane, unable to break away from the demons they were fighting, screamed out her name. Big taloned hands rose, ready to slash down.

Break them, murmured the voice inside Albanon. You can do it. Wipe their tainted carcasses from the face of the world.

Albanon clenched his teeth. No. There was no need to force his power. The spells Moorin had taught him were enough. Keeping a tight hold on the magic, he raised his hands and spoke words that seemed to numb his lips. Twin bolts of brilliant blue-white light flashed from his palms, one washing over each demon. Where the light passed, frost grew, across dark hide and glittering red crystal alike.

The leading demon howled in frustration, and then the frost hardened into a sheath of ice. The slashing claws stopped two handspans from Tempest as she stepped back to safety.

The magical cold would only hold for a few moments. He called out another spell, this one rolling off his tongue like thunder. Lightning crackled around him. He forced it into his palm and held it there, feeling the prickling energy move and grow almost as if it were a living thing.

When he released it, the lightning twisted through the air between him and the demon like a blindingly brilliant serpent. Its touch threw the demon back several paces and left it sprawled on the ground, a scorched and smoking corpse.

For a heartbeat everything seemed to pause, then the demons that had been fighting so hard to destroy Roghar and the others were abruptly fighting to get away from them. The final four-armed demon, shaking off the chilling touch of Albanon’s frost, backed away. It snarled nearly as loudly as it had before, but its posture was hunched and defensive. Tempest moved to stand beside Albanon and it flinched back a step.

Roghar’s voice rose above the battlefield on the Market Green. “Don’t let them escape! We need to destroy them while we can!”

His command ended in the scream of another dying demon. From the corner of his eye, Albanon saw Belen, Uldane, and Immeral strike at foes that clawed each other in their frenzy to escape. The last four-armed demon reacted differently, however. With a final defiant bellow, it threw itself at him and Tempest, its arms outstretched.

Albanon’s belly tensed. Seizing the magic once more, he hurled a bolt of pure silvery force straight into the monster’s face. At his side, Tempest loosed another blast of eldritch flame.

The thing crashed to the ground at their feet, its head a burned and blasted ruin. Albanon let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and glanced at Tempest with a triumphant grin.

But she wasn’t smiling. Chest heaving and face flushed from the fight, she still managed to look at him with concern. “When you burned the tavern—I’ve never seen a spell knock you off your feet before. What happened to you?”

Fear he hadn’t felt during the battle crawled up his back. “Nothing,” he said quickly. “I overextended myself. That’s all. I’m fine.”

Her red eyes narrowed, but before she could say more, Roghar roared in victory. Albanon turned in time to see the dragonborn pulling his sword from the last of the demons. Belen stalked the Green, ensuring that every demon was well and truly dead. Uldane skipped up to them, his eyes bright and a lively smile stretched across his face. And Immeral …

Immeral was already before him, his emerald green cloak swirling as he kneeled. “Albanon. Well met, my young prince.”

Albanon felt rather than saw Tempest stiffen, but he had a good view of Uldane’s wide eyes getting even wider. “Prince?” the halfling said as if there weren’t dead demons laid out around them. “You’re a prince?”

Albanon flushed. Immeral raised his eyebrows. “They … didn’t know?” he asked.

“No,” said Albanon. He didn’t even try to look at Tempest.

“You’re a prince?” said Uldane again in wonder.

“After the traitor priest Kri Redshal destroyed the gate that brought my men and me here,” said Immeral, “we needed another way to return to the Feywild. We found horses and rode southwest for the ancient portal between the worlds at Moonstair—only to find that the situation there was direr than in Fallcrest.”

“It didn’t seem so bad when I passed through there a month ago,” Albanon said.

Roghar grunted. “A lot can change in a month. You passed through Moonstair with Kri, didn’t you?”

The tips of Albanon’s ears tingled with shame at the comment—although it seemed they hadn’t stopped tingling since the end of their battle on the Market Green and Immeral’s ill-timed revelation. When they’d returned to the safety of the upper town, the eladrin travelers they had rescued mobbed him and Immeral to the exclusion of the others. When they’d finally extracted themselves and retreated to the Glowing Tower to hear the huntsman’s story, Splendid had swooped down on Immeral as if he were her oldest friend and Albanon a stranger.

It didn’t help that Roghar, Belen, and especially Uldane kept sneaking sideways glances at him as though he would suddenly sprout a royal crown. It really didn’t help that Tempest refused to look at him at all.

If Immeral recognized the confusion his three words—“my young prince”—had brought, he didn’t show it. The other eladrin sipped the last of the wine from the tower’s cellar and nodded in response to Roghar. “A month ago, the Abyssal Plague hadn’t reached the town. We arrived to find Moonstair overrun with refugees, all of them seeking to escape through the portal to the Feywild. Moonstair is a small town on the edge of wilderness. Even a small number of refugees would have been more than it could handle. Add to that the chaos of the plague and raids from the monsters of the nearby forests and swamps and the situation was volatile. To make matters worse, when the portal did open, we discovered there was no escape. The portal was being guarded in the Feywild—the local prince was taking no chances that the Abyssal Plague might be carried into his lands.”

“Could Albanon have ordered the guards aside?” asked Uldane brightly.

“No,” said Albanon.

“You could have tried.”

“It wouldn’t have worked. I’m not that kind of prince.” He didn’t bother adding that the prince under whose charge the portal lay was more stubborn than a stone donkey and that his authority trumped Albanon’s in every way. The prince was, after all, his father.

Immeral revealed nothing of that relationship either. “My men and I were known to the guards. I was able to convince them to allow my men to pass back to the Feywild. I stayed behind. There were eladrin among the refugees. If they could not return home to the Feywild, I could at least see them to safety in Fallcrest. I don’t believe Moonstair will survive. The plague demons started following us two days ago, just beyond the Witchlight Fens. We’re lucky we didn’t encounter more of them.” He glanced at Albanon then shifted his gaze to Roghar. “We wouldn’t have made it if it hadn’t been for you.”

The paladin’s chest puffed out with pride, but at least he had some measure of humility. “We worked together,” he said. “All of Fallcrest has pulled together. There haven’t been any plague demon incursions in the upper town in the last week and precious few in the lower town.”

“I noticed the gatehouse under construction,” said Immeral. “Impressive. Although I was surprised to find you all still here. I would have thought you’d have gone after Vestapalk. What happened?”

The room went suddenly quiet. From where she perched behind Immeral, Splendid raised her head. Albanon resisted the urge to shrink back in his chair. No one said anything and for a moment he even dared hope they’d keep their silence.

Then Belen’s fingers jabbed at him. “Albanon won’t let us leave.”

There was a collective intake of breath from the others but still no one said anything. Albanon caught eyes flicking to him, even Tempest’s. Belen’s face crinkled into a scowl and she glanced around the room. “We all know it. He’s the one holding us back.” She looked at Immeral. “He almost didn’t come with us to rescue you.”

The huntsman’s face remained impassive but Albanon caught the slight motion as his eyebrows pinched together. “My prince?”

“I didn’t know it was you, Immeral,” Albanon said, then winced at his words. “I mean, it didn’t matter who it was. There was never any question of not helping. I just wasn’t prepared.”

“You seem over-concerned with preparation lately.” Roghar’s voice was slow, as if he was trying to find something to say without insulting Albanon. “You ask for a day, then another day, then another while you search for some special way to defeat Vestapalk.”

“I haven’t found anything yet,” said Albanon. “I will find something, though. I know it. I’m still searching.”

Uldane sighed and shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

Albanon’s head snapped around to the halfling. “I am!”

“Lies,” said Splendid softly.

Fire burned in Albanon’s face, from the tips of his ears all the way down his neck. He looked to the one person who had not yet spoken, but Tempest’s face was hard.

“You didn’t want to try pushing the limits of the spell that distracted the demons,” she said. “And when you did, you screamed.”

“I said I overextended myself. It hurt.” He tapped his head. “Here.”

“That wasn’t a scream of pain. I know pain.” Tempest’s face tightened further. “That was a scream of resistance, like you were fighting something off. Over the last few days, I’ve seen you be more careful with your spells than I’ve ever seen any wizard, warlock, or sorcerer. You’re hiding something from us, Albanon.”

He felt his stomach churn. Fear surged through him, but it was fear mixed with a peculiar anger. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he snapped. “Don’t you accuse me after the things I’ve experienced.” He stood and turned his back on them all, storming out of the room and striding up the tower’s twisting central staircase.

Four turns up, he had to pause and brace himself against the wall as waves of nausea swept over him. By the three worlds, what had he just done? What were the others saying or doing now?

Did it matter?

Albanon fought back the nausea, wiped sweat from his face, and continued up the stairs.

The room at the very top of the Glowing Tower had been Moorin’s study. Shelves bearing the trophies of a long life lined the walls. Tables scarred by research stood around the room. It was also, however, where the demon Nu Alin, in pursuit of the Voidharrow, had slaughtered Albanon’s old master, dismembering the body and spattering the whole room in whorls of blood. And it was where Kri had nearly succeeded in freeing the dark god Tharizdun from his dimensional prison.

In his gut, Albanon knew that he should probably have stayed away from the study, but he couldn’t. The room—or something in it—drew him. He’d spread the books and scrolls that he had brought back from the tower of Sherinna—his grandmother and founder of the Order of Vigilance—out on the tables. He’d spent most of the last six days studying them. Or at least making a show of it. To his shame, Uldane and Splendid were right. How much time had he actually spent studying Sherinna’s papers? How much simply staring out the room’s windows at the devastation of Fallcrest or at the litter of sharp-edged reddish fragments that were the remnants of the gate Kri had created to free his mad god? To his wizard’s senses, some of the larger fragments still pulsed with dormant power, not malevolent but simply untapped.

More than once he’d found himself sifting through the fragments. The crystal they had been part of had caused so much trouble. First Nu Alin, then Kri had used it to try to free Tharizdun. In a way, everything had begun with that crystal. Sherinna had recorded the sight of the Voidharrow flowing into the world for the first time through the gate it had created. If Nu Alin had never found the crystal, there would be no Voidharrow. No Abyssal Plague. No Vestapalk—at least not as they knew him. No Plaguedeep. Albanon picked up one of the glittering fragments, a tapered oval no bigger than his thumb, and rubbed its rough surface. How could something so small be a part of so much chaos?

The sound of light footsteps came up the stairs. Tempest or maybe Uldane. Albanon dropped the fragment and turned, ready for a confrontation. The figure that appeared in the doorway, however, was Immeral. The huntsman looked around the room without speaking. Albanon held his tongue. Immeral had been part of the battle against Kri. He’d seen the tentacled creature of darkness Kri had become under Tharizdun’s power. He’d experienced that power first hand.

To Albanon’s surprise, however, Immeral went to one of the tables and ran his hand over a book with the light, reverent touch he’d have expected from a scholar more than a hunter. “Sherinna’s books,” Immeral said.

“Yes,” said Albanon. “How did you know?”

“Her symbol is on the binding, of course.” Immeral’s finger traced an Elven glyph worked into the leather. He fell silent for a moment, then added. “I knew her.”

“You did?” Albanon had never known his grandmother. Until Kri and his father had revealed it, he’d certainly never known she had played a role in the fight against the Voidharrow. “What was she like?”

“Very old when I was very young. I think she enjoyed spending time with a simple hunter’s child. I didn’t know then what she had been. I only found out later how learned and great a wizard she was and how many of our people revered her.”

“I didn’t even know that much for a long time. My father never really talks about her.”

Immeral nodded. “I see little of your father in you, my prince. I see a great deal of Sherinna, though.” He looked up at Albanon. “No one will tell you this, but she succumbed to weakness in her final days. She drove others away from her and became secretive. I believe she was afraid of what they would think of her or maybe of how she’d be remembered.”

Albanon blinked, then ground his teeth together. “Are you saying that I’m—”

The huntsman spread his hands. “I’m saying,” he said in a voice that was as cool and sharp as the point of a dagger, “that I think you have the potential to be as great as Sherinna. I’ve fought at your side. Your spells saved me and my men. But I’m also saying that Sherinna, for all the good she did and all the magic she wielded, was only mortal. So are you. The difference is that Sherinna’s fear and pride took the best of her when she was very old, not when she was only just reaching her prime.”

Breath hissed between Albanon’s teeth. He might have spat a retort, but Immeral didn’t give him a chance. “When I was in Moonstair, I heard stories from other travelers about the effects of the Abyssal Plague elsewhere in the world. There are riots in Nera—they’re burning anyone suspected of carrying the plague. Dwarf communities are sealing their gates. Lizardfolk are going to ground in the heart of the fens and killing everything that moves. There are rumors in certain isolated places that anyone with red hair can spread the plague. Other places blame it on tieflings. And that’s only fear of the plague. They say that where the infection has taken hold, whole regions are empty except for the demons that used to be the people who lived there. If even half the stories are true, the devastation is terrible.”

For the first time, blotches of color appeared in Immeral’s cheeks and fury entered his tone. He leaned close to Albanon. “Your father has blocked the Moonstair portal, but you … You know the source of the plague. You have the chance to put an end to it. Why haven’t you?”

Albanon’s anger left him, replaced by shame. “Don’t ask me that,” he said quietly.

Immeral stepped back. “Then you need to ask yourself who you want to emulate: Sherinna at her best, giving her all to aid others, or Sherinna at her worst, alone because she feared revealing her weakness.” He turned away. “Your friends are waiting below. I’ll wait on the stairs. If you want me to tell them you won’t be coming down, I’ll carry the message.”

Albanon watched Immeral’s back as he strode to the door. The decision before him was the same one he’d wrestled with for six long days—except that Immeral had put it in terms he hadn’t seen before. The only images he’d seen of his grandmother portrayed her as wise and vigorous. He tried to picture her as old and frail, alone with her pride. Perhaps even a little … mad?

He looked around the study, with Sherinna’s books and Moorin’s trophies and the shattered remains of Kri’s foul gate. He tried to picture himself old, surrounded by those same sad relics.

Albanon, Tempest had said earlier, if I worried about people judging me by my appearance, or what they think of me, I’d never go out my door.

“Immeral,” he said. “Wait.” He swept the study with his gaze once more. He needed something, a talisman to remind him of the importance of what he was doing. Moorin’s and Sherinna’s possessions seemed dead suddenly. He bent, scooped up the oval fragment of the gate he had held before, and squeezed its sharp edges in his palm. “I’ll walk down with you.”

CHAPTER THREE

Albanon stood with the cold fireplace of the sitting room at his back and all his friends gathered before him. “I haven’t told you,” he said, “everything that happened while Kri held me in Tharizdun’s power.”

None of the others moved, not even Uldane. Albanon felt the urge to shift where he stood or maybe even to walk around the room. He forced himself to remain still, to focus the way Moorin had taught him to. “You know I saw Shara and left her to face plague demons without helping her. You know I helped Kri fashion the gate he tried to open for Tharizdun. What I didn’t tell you”—he hesitated, the words catching in his throat—“was that I liked it.”

That brought movement. Nothing drastic. His friends seemed to understand that he did not take this lightly. A frown from Roghar. A creased brow from Immeral. Uldane bit his thumb, Belen twitched, and Splendid raised her head as if he’d only just captured her attention. Only Tempest didn’t move at all. Albanon kept his attention on her face and her eyes. A warlock bargained for power with dark and alien entities. If any of the others truly understood what he had to say, it would be her.

“I was mad,” he continued. “Nothing made sense—or rather, everything made sense. I saw things I’d never seen before. I understood things I’d never even wondered about. But most of all, I knew how spells worked. It all became numbers. Mathematics. Volume. Distance. Space.” His heart started to beat a little faster. His head started to whirl. Even talking about the magic of numbers that he had so casually contemplated during those dark hours was almost intoxicating. Albanon took a deep breath and concentrated on Tempest. “By manipulating numbers, I knew I could scorch the fields across half a farm or freeze the Nentir River solid. It was terrifying. It was incredible.”

He swallowed. “I still feel it. I know that if I’m not careful, it could overwhelm me. Part of me wants to just give in and use the magic to its fullest potential. That’s why I’ve been so cautious with my spells.” He glanced at Roghar. “That’s why I resisted when you told me to set fire to the inn. And why I screamed after I cast the spell. You were right, Tempest. I was resisting something.”

The tiefling nodded and a corner of her mouth twitched into a smile. “I thought the way the inn exploded was a little too spectacular for a half-trained wizard.”

She was baiting him, trying to lighten the mood. Another time Albanon might have risen to her taunt. Not now. He shook his head. “So much has been happening,” he said. “Vestapalk almost turned me into a plague demon—I still wake up sometimes feeling like the Voidharrow is in me, reshaping my flesh and bones. Then Kri made me a thrall of Tharizdun. Sometimes I think I’m not quite right anymore.” He swallowed again and looked around at them once more. “Sometimes I’m afraid that I’m still a little bit mad.”

The others were still and silent for a moment longer—just long enough for Albanon to wonder if his confession had truly frightened them. Then Roghar stood up. “I’d be more worried if you weren’t afraid.” He smiled warmly and held out open arms. “If you’re wounded, we’re here to help you heal. This is why you’ve been delaying going after Vestapalk? You could have told us any time.”

Albanon stepped back from the paladin’s embrace. “It’s not the only reason. There’s something else.” He looked at Belen and spoke the words he hadn’t dared speak aloud before. “If we go west after Vestapalk, we’re heading the wrong way.”

Roghar froze, a confused look on his face. Belen’s eyes opened wide, then narrowed. “What do you mean? Vestapalk is west. The Plaguedeep is west. I see it in the memories Nu Alin left in my head. I described the volcano to hunters and scouts who know the land west of the Ogrefist Hills. They recognize the place. They gave me directions.”

“I know,” Albanon said quickly. “I know. I trust you. I’m sure that’s where Vestapalk is. But we need to go north.”

“Why?” asked Tempest.

He pressed his lips together for a moment before answering. “The morning after the attack on Fallcrest, I woke up with a strange feeling right here.” Albanon touched fingers to his chest, just below his breastbone. “I thought it was just my imagination or maybe a bruise, but it’s nothing physical and it’s not imaginary. It’s like being homesick. Somewhere up there”—he pointed and knew in his gut that he pointed absolutely unerringly—“is a place I’ve never been, but somehow I feel like I need to go back there.” He grimaced. “We need to go back there. All of us.”

“Before we go looking for Vestapalk,” said Roghar. Albanon nodded. “How do you know that?” the dragonborn asked.

“It’s like a splinter in your finger. When you first look, all you see is the end of it, but if you poke and squeeze it, you see more.” Albanon abandoned his attempts to stand still. His nerves were twitching inside him and he started to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace. “I focused on it as if it was a spell I was trying to master. Whenever I thought about confronting Vestapalk, it got so intense I felt sick. But if I thought about going north, especially if I thought about all of us going north, it was easier.” He glanced up at the others. “I think that whatever’s out there is something that will help us defeat Vestapalk and the Voidharrow.”

“You said that’s what you were looking for in your books!” Belen growled.

“Because I’d rather have reliable guidance than some weird feeling I can’t explain,” Albanon snapped back at her. The fragment of the gate was still in his hand. He clenched his fist around it, finding something reliable in its hard shape. The others fell silent again. Albanon could hear his own rasping breath.

After a long moment, Uldane raised his voice for the first time. “Halflings have a saying: when the river takes your barge pole, there’s nothing to do but ride the current until you find a new one. Maybe we should follow Albanon’s feeling and see where it leads.”

“But you know where a river goes,” said Tempest. “We don’t know where Albanon’s feeling goes. Or where it comes from.” She met Albanon’s gaze. “Don’t you find it odd,” she said, “that this feeling came on after Kri used Tharizdun’s power against you?”

“No,” said Albanon quietly. “I don’t find it odd at all. That’s the other reason I didn’t mention it to anyone.” He shoved the gate fragment deep into his pouch and took a chunk of half-burned wood from the fireplace. With the charred end, he drew on the wall of the sitting room. “When I search my feeling for understanding, this is what I see.”

He stepped back so that everyone could see what he’d drawn; a jagged spiral spinning into an empty circle. Roghar recognized it before anyone else and hissed.

“The sign of Tharizdun. The eye of the Chained God.”

“Yes.” Albanon dropped the stick back into the fireplace and wiped his hand. “Kri told me something about the origin of the Voidharrow. It’s connected to Tharizdun’s previous attempts to escape his imprisonment—but it sounds as if Tharizdun has lost control of the Voidharrow since then. Maybe helping us defeat Vestapalk is Tharizdun’s attempt to regain control.” He turned to face his friends.

“I know where my feeling comes from,” he said. “The question is whether we follow it north.”

“Do you have any idea what’s waiting for us?” Tempest asked.

Albanon shook his head. “None at all.”

He floated in darkness. There was no sound. No sensation. No hot, no cold. No up or down. If it were not for the feeling of his own hands touching his face and body, there would have been no way of telling where he ended and the darkness began.

Is this what it is like for you, Chained God? He couldn’t tell if he thought the question or spoke it out loud. There seemed to be no difference. Is this what it was like when the other gods shut you away from creation?

Another idea occurred to him, one that sent a thrill of possibility from his head to his unseen toes. Am I with you now?

The answer came upon him in a burst of brilliant light that dazzled him yet somehow did not penetrate the darkness. By its radiance, he saw entities of vast and perfect power come together in judgment against one whose only crime was marring their perfection. He cried out at the majesty of the scene. Or maybe he cried out because he knew it was only a dim reflection of true events and that if he had seen the entities in their full glory, his eyes would have burned in their sockets because he was just a man. Or maybe he cried out at the injustice committed by those too blinded by their own vision to recognize the strength a seed of imperfection might bring to the world.

In any case, he cried out, then cried out again as the one entity that had dared defy all the others was shut away, his vast power chained. And the place where the Chained God was imprisoned was much like the darkness in which the man floated, but with one important difference: the Chained God was not alone. Tharizdun shared his prison with the very source of the imperfection he had planted in the world.

It called itself the Progenitor. Once there had been other things in that imprisoning darkness, an entire world and more. But soon there was only the Progenitor, infinite in scope, assimilator of what had been before, the sum of all things.

He passed eons in the blink of an eye. Both Tharizdun and the Progenitor hungered for release, but the gods had crafted well. The walls of the prison were unbreachable, the prison itself all but forgotten. Tharizdun could only cast his gaze upon the world to which he had given the gift of change and where he was remembered as nothing more than the god of madmen.

But mad is not powerless, murmured the man in the darkness.

No, it was not. The light that wasn’t light shifted and changed and the man saw more. Tharizdun accepted the worship that was offered to him by those who rejected the perfect lies of the gods’ creation. Tharizdun whispered truths to them in their dreams and under his guidance they scoured the world and beyond for the means to break the chains that bound their lord.

They found it in a forgotten fragment of the Living Gate, long shattered, through which Tharizdun had first brought the seed of imperfection into the world.

The man in the darkness shuddered as he felt the excitement of a god. If his mind was not already broken, such eagerness would have shattered it. The fragment was not large enough to permit the escape of Tharizdun and the Progenitor, but the Chained God saw that it might be empowered. He and the Progenitor joined a portion of their beings to create something that might be a vehicle for them both.

When the human priest Albric used the fragment of the Living Gate, the Voidharrow slipped from the Chained God’s prison into the world. But even the schemes of the most patient of gods do not always go as planned. As the product of the union of Tharizdun and the Progenitor, the Voidharrow shared the qualities of both. It had Tharizdun’s desire for escape, but also the Progenitor’s rapacious need for assimilation and dominance. Albric attempted to use the Voidharrow as it was meant to be used—to create a new gate with a reach vast enough to cross all existence and pierce the borders of Tharizdun’s prison—but the Voidharrow rebelled. It took Albric and his followers and made them a part of it. They became the first plague demons.

The Abyssal Plague would have started its spread that day if slaves of the other gods had not intervened. Of the newly created demons, only Albric, now called Nu Alin, survived. The Voidharrow was destroyed except for three small vials. But the other gods still kept their secrets. They would not reveal the nature of the Voidharrow and so their slaves stood guard over it, trying to find their own way over the centuries to the truth of its nature.

They could have asked you.

The Chained God didn’t answer the man in the darkness except with another shift of the lightless light. In his prison, Tharizdun meditated on the mistakes that had been made with the Voidharrow and decided a stronger servant was needed, one who might master the Voidharrow before it mastered him. He fashioned one with dreams and whispers, guiding a dragon along the paths of madness. When the time was right, he brought the dragon and the Voidharrow together. The slaves of the gods tried to stop the union again. They could not. Tharizdun’s plans were subtle, woven in layers upon layers of deception. A seemingly chance sword thrust was actually guided by the Chained God’s intent. The Voidharrow was joined with Vestapalk. He compelled the dragon to a source of greater power and once more the gods’ slaves tried and failed to stop his plans.

But Tharizdun failed, too. The draconic greed that he had inflamed to madness found kinship in the Voidharrow. Vestapalk turned from him, shunning the power offered by Tharizdun in favor of the transformation offered by the Voidharrow. He saw only the world, not what lay beyond. Still, there were layers to Tharizdun’s plans and another priest came closer than ever before to setting him free. Kri Redshal—the man floating in darkness knew the name, though he could not place it—had taken advantage of Vestapalk’s spread of the Abyssal Plague to reconstruct the Vast Gate and open the way for Tharizdun’s return.

Except that Tharizdun had been betrayed. In his moment of triumph, the Progenitor sought to assimilate him, laying a trap that would have bound them together if he’d succeeded in passing through the Vast Gate and back into the world. The substance that was the Progenitor could not survive in the world without binding to something. And what but the power of a god was great enough to permit the Progenitor to make that crossing? Perhaps that had been its secret plot down through all the ages of Tharizdun’s imprisonment: to use him to gain access to a new world and new opportunities for growth. Only ignoble defeat at the hands of a mortal had saved the Chained God.

In the isolation of their shared prison, Tharizdun could do little to avenge himself on the Progenitor. The weight of his gaze on the world beyond, however, had increased. Infinitesimally, perhaps, but it had increased. His vengeance could extend beyond his prison.

The man in the darkness understood. Destroy Vestapalk. Destroy the Voidharrow. More than anything else, that would hurt the thing that had betrayed Tharizdun by denying it the opportunity to expand. He trembled a little. But Chained God, your way to freedom will be destroyed, too. Without the Voidharrow, the Vast Gate can’t be reopened.

The light vanished and a hollow roar filled the darkness—a roar that had no sound, just as the light had no brilliance. Out of the roar came a voice so enormous it rolled through the man’s body like a blow.

Tharizdun might be a prisoner, but he will never be a thrall!

The silence that came after those words was so profound that the man in the darkness could hear his heart beating and the breath that rasped in his throat.

It took him a moment to realize that he could actually hear these things, that they weren’t just tricks of his imagination. Once he realized that, he was suddenly aware of other things as well. Weight. Cold. The slightly sour stink of his body. He was no longer lost in darkness. He’d returned to the world.

It was still dark, though. He tried raising his hands and found them blocked. Cold stone surrounded him at less than a finger’s length on every side. His heart beat faster and he threw himself against the sides of his rocky prison.

The stone answered with a hollow sound.

Something came back to him, some measure of discipline. He was intelligent. More would be gained by thinking through his problem than attacking it blindly. He forced himself to be calm, then began tapping the stone around him with fingers, wrists, elbows, knees—anything he could move. The same sound came back from all surfaces, as if he had somehow been placed in a shell. He experimented with his range of motion and found that twisting his torso offered the greatest possibility.

Taking a shallow breath of the already stuffy air around him, he slammed his shoulder against the stone. His prison shivered. He did it again, putting as much of his weight as he could into the blow. His shoulder ached, but he was rewarded with a faint cracking sound. He struck again. And again. The sound of the stone changed, becaming duller. The cracking noise followed every blow. It turned into a grating as stone scraped against stone.

Then abruptly the stone broke altogether and his shoulder breached open space. Fresh air flowed into his prison. He sucked it in, then focused and drove his entire body forward.

Stone splintered along hidden stress lines and the man tumbled out into freedom. The space beyond was lit only by distant light that peeped like moonglow from high crevices, but to eyes accustomed to utter darkness, it was merely a little dim. The man registered bulky, unmoving shapes around him, a musty odor in the air, the sharp pain of stone shards under his body—then realized he was no longer just “a man.” He had a name.

Kri Redshal looked down at his hands, the dark, wrinkled skin broken by nicks and scrapes. He pushed himself onto his knees and looked behind him. The tall stone statue of a man, its chest broken and ruined to expose its hollow interior, stood over him. A deep cowl hid its face, but its hands were outstretched, the upturned palms carved in the pattern of two jagged spirals. Kri rose, his old bones and joints protesting.

The last thing he remembered—in the mortal world at any rate—was leaping through the Vast Gate and shattering it behind him so that Albanon could not follow. His destination had been random, his only glimpse of it empty darkness. Everything he had once learned as a priest of Ioun, the god of knowledge, told him that such a thing was not possible. Every gate led somewhere. Something had held him between worlds.

He put his hands on the palms of the statue. “Chained God,” he said. “I thank you.”

The voice that answered him was a faint echo of what it had been in the dark place. Destroy Vestapalk. Destroy the Voidharrow.

Kri bent his head. “How?”

You have the key. One comes who will help you turn it.

“How will I know him?”

There was no answer. Kri looked up into the cowl of the statue, but found it had been carved without a face. A blank oval of stone looked back at him. Kri removed his hands from those of the statue and went to explore his new surroundings.

CHAPTER FOUR

They left Fallcrest the next morning. A week of Albanon dragging his feet had given the rest of them more than enough time to prepare for their eventual journey. Supplies were scarce in the crowded town, but horses were surprisingly easy to come by. Tempest suspected that many of the refugees who had brought them into Fallcrest found them to be more of a burden than an asset. Immeral, the most experienced among them in dealing with horses, very nearly had his pick of what was on offer.

“Some good mounts,” he said as he checked the tack of his chosen steed, “but the people here drive a hard bargain considering they may never have the chance to ride these animals again.”

“I don’t imagine they were thinking about riding them,” said Tempest. She put her foot in the stirrup and swung a leg over the back of her horse. “Food shortages haven’t really set in yet. In another week, maybe two, you would have paid a lot more.”

“That’s barbaric,” said Belen.

“Not as barbaric as starving to death.” Tempest shook the reins and urged her horse along the road.

They crossed the Nentir River above the falls and descended the steep switchbacks of the Trade Road down the bluff on the other side. All of them were alert. There might not have been plague demons in the lower town for some time—until the day before, at least—but the defenders of Fallcrest had all but abandoned the western shore of the river. The morning sun cast long shadows across the road and made pits of darkness in the hollows of the bluffs. The road was an ideal place for an ambush. They covered each other as they made their way down, but there was no hint of waiting demons.

Their morning’s ride passed in near silence. The sight of empty farms along the road, crops left to rot in the fields, drove the urge to talk out of them. Tempest studied each one they passed. She couldn’t help herself. It was like watching a public execution, only without the carnival atmosphere. Unlike Fallcrest’s lower town, few farm buildings had been destroyed. Some showed broken windows or doors, but in many the door simply swung loose on its hinges. If she looked closely, she sometimes saw bloody smears, but there were no bloated corpses in the farmyards, no bones in the long grass. The Abyssal Plague didn’t kill. Neither did the plague demons, at least not always. They wounded, they maimed, but more often than not, they left their victims alive to become demons themselves.

Sometimes, it seemed to Tempest, the creatures would rather have killed but were restrained from it as if by some greater power eager to see the plague spread. She knew the name of that power: Vestapalk.

They stayed on the road. The feeling that Albanon followed drew him somewhat west of north, not quite in the direction of the village of Winterhaven, but close enough that it seemed sensible to make that their destination. Winterhaven had been Uldane’s home before he—and Shara—had come south to Fallcrest, and he knew the area well. Sticking to the road meant faster travel and better visibility than cutting across country. By early afternoon they had passed beyond the farms. The trees of the Cloak Wood shadowed the road ahead of them. At another time they might have been in danger of an attack by the kobolds that made the forest their home, but Tempest would have been surprised if they’d seen one of the little creatures. If the demons hadn’t infected the kobolds, the kobolds were almost certainly hiding.

Still, Splendid, who had been curled across Albanon’s shoulder with one eye open like a wary cat, shook out her wings and leaped into the sky. She flew a little ways, then began to glide in wide circles, scouting the way ahead and the countryside around.

Tempest nudged her horse up so she rode alongside Albanon. “I suppose we’re lucky we haven’t encountered any flying plague demons yet,” she said.

“Yet,” echoed Albanon. “Every time we face them, we seem to find something new. Demons of the Abyss appear in every shape and size. Why not demons of the plague as well? Kri thought there was a connection between them. Legends say that Tharizdun created the Abyss—and demons—by placing a seed of corruption in the depths of the Elemental Chaos. We know he had a hand in creating the Voidharrow and that it turns living beings into demons. It’s probably only a matter of time before a victim of the plague grows wings.”

“That’s pessimistic.”

“We don’t have much to be optimistic about, do we? We’re trying to stop Vestapalk by following a gut feeling inspired by the god of madness and destruction.”

There didn’t seem to be much she could say to that. They rode a little further in silence, then Tempest asked him, “What was it like?”

The eladrin snorted softly. “Almost being turned into a plague demon by Vestapalk or being in thrall to Tharizdun?”

“Tharizdun.”

He looked at her. “What was it like being possessed by Nu Alin?”

The question was harsh. Probably harsher than it was meant to be—Tempest saw a flash of shame in Albanon’s eyes—but she didn’t give him a chance to apologize. When her friends had first freed her from the demon’s grip, she’d felt horrified by her experience. Now the memory of it just made her angry. “It made me feel violated. Unclean. I’m never going to let anyone or anything make me feel like that again.” She bared her teeth. “It was like being a puppet. I could feel him inside me, wrapped around my muscles and my bones. He sank right into my mind. I was a prisoner inside my own body, aware of everything but helpless.”

Albanon’s face twisted. “Then you’re lucky.” He turned away from her and stared straight ahead. “When Tharizdun has you, it doesn’t feel like you’re trapped. It feels like you’re perfectly sane and it’s the world that’s gone mad. I wasn’t even aware I was in his thrall. If Kri had exerted more power, I might not have been able to break free. I think I could only do it because we encountered you as we made our way through Fallcrest.”

His words brought a peculiar tightness to her chest. “Me?” she said.

Albanon flushed, red patches bright against his pale cheeks. “All of you, I mean,” he said quickly. Tempest didn’t believe him for a second. The tightness turned into a pleasant warmth and the lingering harshness in Albanon’s manner disappeared as he scrambled for words to cover his embarrassment. “Shara, Uldane. Roghar, I think. I’ll tell you this: if a follower of Tharizdun ever opens his mouth and screams at you, cover your ears. It’s like—”

“—someone pulled the ground out from under you?” Tempest finished for him. The wizard’s discomfort was charming, but drawing it out would have felt like teasing a puppy. It was kinder to play along with his effort to change the subject. “I’ve felt it. Roghar and I confronted a priest of the Chained God in Nerath and she tried the same thing.” She gave Albanon a smile. “I wonder how that scream would work against a plague demon.”

He hesitated for an instant, then returned the smile. “Maybe that’s what we’re going north to find out.” He wrinkled his nose. “Can you picture us screaming at Vestapalk?”

Tempest laughed. “It would take more than us, I think. We’d need an army.”

“How fast can you find one?” Splendid swooped down from above and resumed her perch on Albanon’s shoulder. This time, however, the little pseudodragon wrapped her wings tight around her body and coiled her stinger-tipped tail as if trying to present the smallest silhouette possible. She was trembling, her voice hushed. “There are plague demons watching us.”

“What? Where?” Albanon started to turn to look, but Splendid bumped his chin, closing his mouth and stopping the movement.

“Everywhere,” she said. “In the trees and the underbrush. They’re all around us.”

Tempest risked a glance at the forest lining the road. Autumn had stripped some of the branches bare, but the others wore cloaks of red and brown leaves. The forest floor was carpeted the same way. Good camouflage for the red crystal that sparkled on the hides of plague demons. She looked over her shoulder at the others. Belen, Uldane, and Roghar rode beside each other. That trio seemed no more than typically wary, but riding just a little behind them, Immeral sat strangely stiff in his saddle. The huntsman had the most woodcraft of them all. He’d probably spotted the demons long before. If there were as many as Splendid suggested, he may have decided to keep that information to himself. Once the demons knew they’d been spotted, there would be no further reason to remain hidden.

Without looking a second time at either the trees or her friends, she whispered her suspicion to Albanon. His brow creased. “You’re likely right,” he murmured back. “But what are the demons waiting for? They have us surrounded. Why don’t they attack?”

“I don’t know,” Splendid whimpered. “Just pray that they don’t. There are too many of them!”

Now that she knew the demons were there, Tempest started watching out of the corner of her eye. Over to one side, where a slow breeze stirred the leaves of a tree, she spotted something dark pressed against a branch. And on the ground, she caught sight of a misshapen head peering past a broken stump. A heap of leaves shivered when it shouldn’t have. She swallowed.

“Splendid’s right,” she said. “And Immeral has the right idea, too. We need to keep riding. Whatever reason they have for not attacking, we should make the most of it.” She bit her lip. “But Roghar and the others need to know or they could provoke an attack.”

“I can warn them.” Albanon twisted around in his saddle and reached for his saddlebag as if fishing for something. His gaze, however, went to their friends. Albanon’s eyes narrowed in concentration and one finger flicked back toward the others.

“Don’t react,” he whispered. “Plague demons are watching us. We’re going to keep riding unless they attack. Carry on as if nothing is wrong. Roghar, if you understand, start singing.”

It was all Tempest could do not to look back herself. She kept her eyes on Albanon and the next three heartbeats seemed to stretch on forever.

Then Roghar’s voice rolled along the road. “Oh, there was a knight of fair Belarn and a mighty knight was he—”

“They’re warned,” said Albanon. He pulled a small bundle from his saddlebag and sat upright. “I think Immeral figured it out, too. He nodded at me.”

Tempest looked at Albanon appraisingly. “You didn’t hesitate to use your magic.”

The wizard blinked, then one side of his mouth crooked up in a smile. “It was only a cantrip, hardly a spell at all,” he said modestly, but she could tell he was pleased. He unwrapped the bundle to reveal some cheese. “Something to eat? We’re likely going to be riding for a while.” He broke off a chunk of cheese, but it slipped from fingers that betrayed his nervousness and tumbled to the ground. He cursed heavily, clenched his teeth for a moment, then tried again. “Why aren’t they attacking us?” he muttered.

This one sees them. Visions welled up of a party of travelers, a hundred images gathered from a hundred watching eyes. Eager hunger came with the visions, but it was a hunger suppressed at his command. Vestapalk held a tight grip on his gathered minions. He spun the images in his mind. A kind of triumph rose in him. He’d known his enemies couldn’t remain holed up in Fallcrest like rats in a wall.

He plucked their location from the bestial minds of the demons that watched them, not in words but in a sense of space and direction. He pictured it as if he were flying overhead. Here they are. He considered them for a moment, then swept across the Nentir Vale in his mind to hover over an insignificant village. This is where their road will lead them. Winterhaven. This one knows it.

Across the vast web that was the Voidharrow, another voice answered him. This one hears. Their road leads to death!

In the depths of the Plaguedeep, Vestapalk smiled. In the heart of the Cloak Wood, a hundred demons grinned and watched the travelers pass.

The remainder of their ride through the Cloak Wood became a seemingly unending march. When Roghar’s song finally ended, they rode in silence. The paladin didn’t start another. Even Uldane fell quiet.

Albanon thought about talking to Tempest, but attempting conversation felt forced and false. He tried to think of something to say, but couldn’t. Even their earlier discussion, as uncomfortable as it had been for him, would have been preferable. The afternoon became a slow progression between trees that he dared not look toward, at a pace he dared not alter. Sweat gathered on his back and dripped down the curve of his spine.

One question kept returning: Why didn’t the plague demons attack? They had him and the others outnumbered. They had them surrounded. From the glimpses he caught out of the corner of his eye, the demons were moving with them. Several times, Albanon saw them shifting silently among the trees to take up new positions. He was certain there was one demon with a white scar across its misshapen face and a particular inability to hide itself as well as the others that he saw three or four times.

Why were they holding back? The demons were creatures of raw fury. Even when a greater demon commanded them, they didn’t show such discipline and silent patience. In fact, only once had he seen them so restrained—and that was at the Temple of Yellow Skulls when Vestapalk himself had been present. The tension in Albanon’s back crept up to his scalp. Vestapalk could project his awareness into any demon. He’d done it during the attack on Fallcrest to taunt them. He could be among the watching demons at that very moment. The dragon might be the reason they kept to the trees.

But why? Why?

He tried to force his mind to stillness. The rhythm of the horses’ hooves measured out the leagues, the slow passage of the sun as afternoon sank toward dusk. Clip-clip-clip-clip-clip. One, two, three—

Five. Seven. Eleven. Thirteen. Seventeen. Nineteen. Twenty-three. Prime numbers, the keys to unlocking unlimited arcane power if only he could wrap his thoughts around numbers large enough. Twenty-nine. Thirty-one—

He jerked in his saddle. Around his neck, Splendid hissed in alarm and dug needle claws through his robes and into flesh. Albanon yelped at the pain, but it brought his wandering mind back into focus.

It also brought a sharp look from Tempest.

“I’m fine,” he lied in answer to her unvoiced concern. He cursed himself for letting his guard down. Had he really been so proud of himself for casting a simple cantrip? He tugged gently on his reins. “Slow down,” he said. “Let the others catch up to us. I’ve had enough of riding apart.”

“We’ll present a more compact target if we’re all riding together,” said Tempest.

“I don’t care.”

It took a few moments—long, excruciating moments—for first Roghar, Belen, and Uldane, then Immeral, to join them. Albanon could see the tension in all of them. “How much farther?” he asked Uldane. The halfling knew the road better than all of them.

“You see that bend ahead? The trees continue for about a bowshot on the other side, then the countryside is clear on either side of the road.”

“It’s not that far,” said Belen. The woman’s voice was hoarse. The tension and the lurking presence of the demons seemed to have worn on her more than the others. Her hand was locked around the hilt of her sword and her lips were white where they pressed together. “We could run it. If nothing else, the horses are rested.”

“No.” Immeral shook his head. “That bend is too perfect for an ambush. They could already be waiting for us—and the ones around us now would only have to close in to cut off our retreat.” He looked to Albanon. “Stay the course, my prince.”

Albanon found the others looking at him as well, even Roghar. He tightened his jaw for a moment as he considered their options, then nodded. Belen cursed under her breath, but made no move to ride any faster.

Knowing that the way out of the woods was close didn’t make the bend in the road approach any more quickly, however. Albanon felt as if he were conscious of every sound their group made and equally conscious of the deep silence that surrounded them. Birds should have been calling as the sun sank lower and the shadows stretched out across the road. But all was quiet. Even the horses seemed to realize something was amiss. They became harder to control, their hoofbeats irregular as they danced and shied. Their nervousness brought back Albanon’s. He fixed his eyes on the bend in the road. It came closer. Closer. Closer …

Then they were around it and the late afternoon sun painted the road. A bowshot away lay open countryside.

Albanon glanced at Immeral. The huntsman took his time studying the trees ahead so that they’d covered a third of the distance before he twitched his head in the slightest of nods. Albanon’s stomach rose into his throat. He glanced around at the others and drew a deep breath. “Hold tight, Splendid,” he murmured—then he kicked his heels into his horse’s side and shouted, “Hyah! Hyah!”

All six horses leaped forward in unison and their hooves became thunder on the road. The edge of the woods swept toward them. Albanon leaned low over his mount’s neck, urging the beast to greater speed. He imagined plague demons pouring out of the trees in their wake and didn’t dare turn his head to look.

They burst out of the woods and sped along the road like bolts flung from a crossbow. No one suggested slowing down. They must have run ten or twelve bowshots before Albanon glimpsed Tempest, riding at the head of their pack, rise slightly in her stirrups and glance back. Her eyes widened slightly, and Albanon risked looking back himself.

Nothing moved between them and the dark blotch of the Cloak Wood. The demons had not pursued them. He looked to Tempest again. The tiefling only shook her head and he knew she felt the same confusion he did.

They rode on after the sun had set, pushing the horses as hard as they dared and trusting to the sharp low-light vision of Albanon, Tempest, and Immeral as darkness gathered. The demons were still somewhere behind them. No one was willing to trust that they would stay in the woods. Sometime around midnight, they found an old ruined watchtower a little way off the road and made camp without lighting a fire. When the sun broke the horizon again, they continued on their way.

There was still no sign of pursuit by the demons from the Cloak Wood. Albanon even caught himself wondering if they’d just imagined the lurking creatures, fashioning illusions out of fear and shadows. That only lasted as long as it took him to suggest the idea to Splendid. She gave him a withering glare. “It takes more than shadows to frighten me. Fool yourself if you want to. They were there.”

They reached Winterhaven in the middle of the afternoon. As at Fallcrest, the outlying farms had suffered the most. Unlike Fallcrest, however, the farms of Winterhaven did not look simply abandoned. Roghar studied them as they rode past, then left the group to take a closer look at one farmstead. Albanon and Tempest held spells on their lips, ready to defend the paladin if anything leaped out at him. Nothing did, and Roghar cantered back to them.

“This farm was looted,” he said grimly. “It’s been stripped of anything portable that might be of any use.”

“Survivors from Winterhaven scavenging what they could?” suggested Immeral.

“I don’t think so. There were a lot of footprints—human, not demon—but no hoofprints or cart tracks. Whoever carried goods away from here did it on foot.”

“The Winterhaveners will know more,” said Uldane, but he sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as them. Albanon worried about what they might find in Winterhaven itself. He’d visited the village once or twice during his apprenticeship to Moorin, but never for long. He had rough memories of it as a compact little community, snug behind a good stone wall. In his imagination, he saw that wall stained with soot and blood, its strong gates hanging loose.

His fears were unfounded. Winterhaven’s walls were unblemished, its gates scarred by deep claw marks but still whole and tightly shut. The buildings immediately outside of the walls were empty but they didn’t look like they’d been raided by plague demons or anyone else. From inside the wall, three or four plumes of white smoke rose cheerfully into the sky.

Uldane let out a sigh so deep it seemed like it should have come from a much larger body. “They’re all right,” he said, then he screwed up his face. “Although normally the gate stands open during the day.”

“Are you surprised they’re keeping it closed these days?” asked Roghar. He adjusted his shield so the symbol of Bahamut was more visible and rode closer. “Ho! Gatekeeper! Travelers wish—”

“I see you,” called a gruff voice from atop the wall. Sunlight glinted on the steel of a crossbow aimed at the paladin. On the other end of the crossbow, his head just visible over the parapets, was a dwarf. “What do you want?”

“Thair?” Uldane urged his horse closer to the gate. “Let us in! These are my friends.”

The dwarf lowered the crossbow and peered down, squinting. “Uldane, is that you?” His face broke into a wide, brilliant smile. “By Moradin’s hammer! How about that? Hold on. We’ll get the gate open for you.”

He disappeared from the wall and Albanon heard him calling out to someone. There were sounds of activity from the other side of the gate. Uldane turned back to Albanon and the others. Instead of the confident smile that Albanon expected to see, however, the halfling’s expression was taut.

“Thair is a blacksmith,” he said. “He shouldn’t be watching the gate.”

Belen shook her head. “If Winterhaven is anything like Fallcrest, they’ll have pressed anyone who can hold a weapon into watch duty. Any regular garrison will be exhausted—or dead.”

Half of the big gate swung open and a human man dressed haphazardly in piecemeal armor waved to them. “Inside, quick. We don’t like to keep it open for long.”

It seemed to Albanon that he looked at them and their weapons longingly as they rode past, not with greed or desire so much as with desperation. He gave Albanon and Tempest especially long looks. “Spellcasters?” he asked. Albanon nodded. The man’s eyes opened wide. “A priest?” he added hopefully.

“A paladin,” said Tempest, nodding at Roghar.

The man looked positively giddy as he pushed the gate closed and lowered a massive, ingeniously counterweighted beam across it. Albanon leaned a little closer to Tempest. “I think the people here will be disappointed when we say we’re not staying long.”

“Is our destination still beyond Winterhaven?”

Albanon nodded. He didn’t even have to think about it.

Thair shouted down. “Uldane, go to Wrafton’s! I’ll meet you—my shift is done soon. You’ll find everybody there anyway.”

Uldane answered him with a salute, then gestured for the others to ride with him. “Wrafton’s is Winterhaven’s inn,” he said. “We’ll find answers there. It’s the busiest place in the village.”

Albanon doubted that even the busiest place in Winterhaven was all that busy. After the crush of refugees in Fallcrest, Winterhaven seemed deserted. The smoke they had seen from the other side of the wall rose from only a handful of more than a dozen buildings. There were few people abroad and those who were stared as if frankly surprised that anyone had come to their village. All of them went armed. There were no children and no noises that might have suggested children at play in any of the buildings. In fact, the entire village was eerily quiet.

Even Uldane looked unsettled. He pointed across at a market cart that stood abandoned on one side of a wide square of beaten earth. Spiderwebs had gathered in the corners of the cart’s frame and patchy grass grew around its wheel. “That’s Delphina Moongem’s stall. She sold wildflowers out of it. She’d never let it look like that.”

None of them had anything to say in response.

Wrafton’s Inn was a long stone building with a high slate roof. No stableboy emerged to take their horses. Uldane showed them to the stables himself. Somewhat to Albanon’s surprise, there were several other horses in the stalls, a curious mix of good riding mounts and big beasts of burden. Uldane’s uneasy expression deepened. “I know these horses,” he said. “This one belongs to a farmer who lives just outside the walls. This one belongs to the local lord. Both of them have their own stables.”

“They could have ridden them here,” said Immeral.

“Both of them live within easy walking distance.” Uldane shook his head and led them out. “Come inside—we need to talk to whoever’s here.”

The interior of the inn was as grim as Albanon had imagined it would be. The big common room was as silent as a tomb and nearly as dark, the windows shuttered and the shutters secured with heavy bolts, the latter a recent addition by the look of them. There were people present, but nearly all of them lay asleep across benches or draped over tables. Early in the day to be passed out drunk, Albanon thought, then he realized that the sleepers wore various forms of armor and slept with weapons close to hand. The inn had become a kind of barracks.

The only conscious people huddled in a small knot around the bar, deep in discussion. Several moments passed before one of them looked up and noticed that the newcomers weren’t Winterhaveners. He nudged an older woman next to him. She practically jumped at his touch, then saw them and came over. “How can I help you, travelers—”

Her voice died as she laid eyes on Uldane and for an instant she froze. Then she rushed forward, dropping to her knees and wrapping her arms around the halfling, hugging him and crying. Uldane, a little smothered, did his best to soothe her. “Easy, Salvana,” he mumbled. “Easy. It’s all right.”

“I can’t help it,” said the woman over his shoulder. “It’s just that with so many people gone, seeing someone I know again—” She broke into a fresh round of sobs.

The door behind them opened. Albanon looked back to see Thair coming through. The dwarf’s eyes fell on Uldane and Salvana and he winced.

“Aye, sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you. Things can get a little emotional around here. You should have seen her when Shara came by.”

He might as well have pulled out a bucket of water and drenched them. Albanon blinked and stared at him. So did Roghar, Tempest, and Belen. Uldane pulled himself out of Salvana’s hug to turn and face Thair. “Shara’s been here? Recently?” he asked, his voice cracking a little bit.

Thair’s eyebrows rose. “Just three days ago.” He looked around at all of them. “You mean you didn’t know?”

CHAPTER FIVE

It’s been hard around here lately,” said Thair. The dwarf sat at the center of one of the inn’s long tables, with Albanon, Uldane, and the others gathered close. The sleepers at the table had been cleared away to give them some room, but Salvana and the rest of those who had been gathered around the bar kept their eyes and ears on them. Albanon was fairly certain that more conversations would follow once Thair was done with them.

“It’s been hard everywhere lately,” Belen pointed out.

“Aye, I’ve heard that,” Thair said with a nod. “But it seemed like this cursed plague took hold around Winterhaven earlier. When there were only rumors in Fallcrest, there was near panic here. People were disappearing from the more isolated farms and hunting lodges.”

Albanon held back a wince. That had been Hakken Raid, spreading the beginnings of the Abyssal Plague for Vestapalk while the dragon laired at the Temple of Yellow Skulls. He and Kri had used that time to try and plan a trap for Raid—a trap that had ended in Albanon’s own capture by Raid. How many lives might they have saved by acting swiftly and warning Winterhaven instead?

How many more lives might he have saved by not hiding in Fallcrest for the last week?

Thair seemed oblivious to his unease, however. His eyes had taken on a distant look, as if he stared at horrors he’d rather forget. “We pulled back inside the village walls, of course, but it was too late. Some were already infected with the plague—we didn’t realize then that it passes through the wounds inflicted by the demons—and they transformed among us. We had to kill them, but they weren’t the folk we knew anymore. The people they wounded before they were put down, though …”

He sighed, reached for his tankard, and took a deep swallow of thin beer, the best Salvana had been able to set before them. “We still knew them.”

“You had no priest among you?” asked Roghar. “The holy light of the gods can sometimes purge the plague from the infected.”

Thair’s chuckle was bitter. “We haven’t seen Sister Linara in weeks. She didn’t spend much time in Winterhaven to start with. She loved ministering to those on the outlying farms. We think the demons got her early.” Thair sipped again, then set the tankard down. “At first we only saw the demons at night, so we thought it was safe to leave the village during the day. We found out that wasn’t true. After that, we went out in squads, gathered all the crops we could and drove any livestock we could find back into the village. We’ve been living well enough, but it’s not much of a life.”

“If that’s the case,” said Uldane quietly, “it seems like there should be more people around.”

“Not everyone wants to live under siege.” Thair gestured around the inn. “We’re the ones who are too stubborn to leave what we’ve built—or too weak or too stupid. Everyone else fled in various groups to look for sanctuary in Fallcrest.” He dropped his voice. “If Salvana asks whether you’ve seen anyone safe in Fallcrest, I suggest you lie.”

Albanon nodded numbly along with the others. Had he heard of any refugees from Winterhaven in Fallcrest? Granted there had been other things on his mind, but the town was so packed with people that there must been some from Winterhaven.

On the other hand, he hadn’t heard Uldane mention any and surely the halfling would have.

Nor did he now. Instead, all he asked was “Shara?”

“She stopped for a night about three days ago, like I said. It looked as if she’d been travelling and sleeping rough—not that that’s anything to worry about with her. Borojon taught his daughter well. It seemed like she was just looking to take a night indoors.” Thair’s face tightened. “Her and her … friend.”

“Quarhaun,” Uldane said. His voice turned hard. “The drow.”

“Aye,” said Thair. “There were a lot of strange looks when that one came walking through the gate behind her. Some of us remember the drow raids. Shara vouched for him, though. Said he was a friend and could be trusted.”

“She’s taken up with him.”

“That was obvious. They were acting like first loves. The two of them together got even more strange looks than the drow alone.” The dwarf shook his head. “Jarren hasn’t been gone that long.”

Uldane gave a bitter, angry smile. “That’s what I tried to tell her.”

“He was a good man,” said Thair. “Drow are … drow.”

Albanon glanced at Tempest. None of the rest of them had known Jarren, Shara’s betrothed. Vestapalk had slaughtered him along with her father, and their deaths were the source of her single-minded desire for revenge against the dragon. In truth, she didn’t talk much about him. It seemed as if she preferred to keep her grief to herself, expressing it through her rage. The revelation that the relationship between her and Quarhaun had become romantic—as well as physical—had been a surprise to them all. To Albanon it seemed almost natural in some ways. The drow wanted revenge on Vestapalk as well, partly for the death of a number of his people, but mostly for Vestapalk’s attempt to transform him into a demon.

Albanon didn’t think much of the way Shara had run off with Quarhaun, leaving the rest of them behind, but it was her life, not his. Uldane, however, took a more personal view of it. And it seemed like he’d find matching views in Winterhaven.

Or perhaps not. Thair shrugged and reached for his tankard again. “But I’ll say this for that drow: he treated Shara well. Everyone can change. Maybe she changed him. She looked as happy as I’d ever seen her with Jarren.”

The angry smile froze on Uldane’s face. For a long moment, he didn’t move at all. Then he got up and walked out of the inn. “Uldane?” Thair called after him. “Uldane!” He looked to Albanon and the others. “What was that?”

“Uldane had words with Shara before she left Fallcrest,” said Tempest. “About Quarhaun and Jarren.”

“Ah,” said Thair. He took another swallow of beer. “I suppose that would explain why Shara didn’t mention him at all. Everyone thought it was strange that they weren’t together. After Borojon and Jarren were killed, Uldane was the one who saw her through the rough times. We always thought they were inseparable.”

“Trust a drow to make problems,” Roghar said. “Thair, where did Shara and Quarhaun come from?”

“They came out of the east,” the dwarf said promptly. “I saw them arrive. I asked Shara about it, too. She said they’d been travelling along the southern edge of the Winterbole Forest. Still looking for that dragon. We were just a stop on their search.”

The friends glanced at each other. “Which way did they go when they left?” asked Roghar. “West? Southwest toward the Ogrefist Hills?”

“Northwest to the Cairngorm Peaks. When Vestapalk first appeared in the Nentir Vale, that’s where he came from.” One of the men who had been standing around the bar sat down in Uldane’s vacated space. “Pardon the intrusion. I’m Ernest Padraig.”

“Lord Padraig,” said Thair somewhat indignantly. “You’re still the ruler of Winterhaven, my lord.”

Padraig’s lips twitched. “Desperate times, Thair,” he said. “A lord whose rule doesn’t extend beyond the village walls doesn’t inspire much respect.” He looked at the rest of them with sharp, if weary, eyes. “I apologize for not speaking to you earlier—Uldane I know, but I wanted to take the measure of the rest of you while you talked to Thair. There are two favors I ask of all decent travelers coming to Winterhaven in these times.”

“Name them,” said Roghar without hesitation.

A raised eyebrow joined Padraig’s twitching lip. “Nothing heroic, paladin. I just ask that before you leave us, you take a turn on the walls to give some of my people a chance to rest. As you can see, we’re stretched thin.”

“You seem to have done a good job of defending Winterhaven so far, my lord,” said Belen.

“Luck more than anything else.” Padraig held up a hand to forestall Thair’s protest. “The plague demon attacks have waned lately. Either they’ve gone in search of easier prey or they’ve decided it’s not worth trying to break down walls to get the few of us who are left. Possibly both.”

“We noticed that some of the farms outside the village looked like they’d been scavenged, and not by demons,” Roghar said. “Are there others in the region? Bandits living off the land?”

Thair grimaced. “Tigerclaw barbarians from Winterbole. Rare enough to see them here, but these didn’t even act like themselves. Usually Tigerclaws come in bands of roaring raiders that try to overwhelm a place. These were more like thieves, slipping by silently. They didn’t even make an attempt on Winterhaven.”

“Scouts?” suggested Immeral.

“Scouts do their best not to be seen,” said Padraig with a shrug. “These Tigerclaws didn’t seem to care if we saw them or not. They scavenged the farmsteads for a few days, then disappeared again.”

“Are they still in the area?”

“They could be two valleys over and we wouldn’t know it. But that’s the other favor I ask travelers.” Padraig leaned over the table. “Tell what you’ve seen on the road. Tell me what’s happening in Fallcrest or anything beyond the Vale you know of. We’re starved for news. Anything you’ve seen or heard, tell me—no matter how small or worrisome. If we’re going to hold out here, we need information. Tell me, then go seek your rest.”

Albanon glanced at the others, lingering on Roghar. There didn’t seem to be any point in telling Padraig about their own quest into the north—or their very direct involvement with Vestapalk and the plague—but there were other things they could tell him. Roghar gave him a slight nod. Albanon looked back to Padraig. “Let’s start with the Cloak Wood. The plague demons may have left Winterhaven, but they haven’t gone very far.”

Night crept closer. It wasn’t necessary to wait until dark blinded those—or most of those at least—within the walls, but it would be easier.

He kept those he had selected to fight with him quiet and still. They were his weakness, the thin scale in the hide of his intentions. He would have done without them if he could have. But then if he could have, he would have descended on the village in a great rush of glittering wings, smashing buildings and scattering villagers in search of his prey. He ran a tongue along his muzzle at the thought of such mayhem and dug his claws into the soft ground as if into flesh.

Anticipation weakened his control for a moment. Around him, demons growled and stirred.

“Silence,” he hissed. “This one orders you to silence.”

The demons subsided, unwillingly it seemed. They anticipated blood and destruction now. Holding them within his will was more difficult.

He made them an offering. “Tonight, there will be no restraint. Tonight, you kill”—he felt their attention, his promise bringing them to rein—“except for these. Their deaths belong to this one.”

He forced the images of his prey once more onto what passed for the demons’ minds. The eladrin wizard. The tiefling. The halfling. The dragonborn. Along with the images, he impressed threats of what would happen if he was disobeyed.

The demons went still and he felt their submission. Once again, everything grew quiet. He watched the sun sink, red as the Voidharrow, beyond the walls of Winterhaven.

Albanon took the first of two watches over the night. With the sky clear except for a few swift-moving clouds and the moon rising bright, he could see almost as well as he could during the day. An elf woman of Winterhaven, Ninaran, walked the walls opposite him, and Tempest and Immeral would take the second watch. Two people to see in the dark at any time—most of the villagers remaining in Winterhaven were humans and halflings, dependent on torches and lanterns to get by in the night. If he and the others hadn’t arrived, Thair would have had to pull a second watch duty. Small wonder the dwarf had been happy to see them, Albanon thought.

There were six others on the walls with him and Ninaran. Seven if Splendid, perched in her usual spot around his neck, counted. If anything happened, an alarm would bring the full force of the village charging to the rescue. To Albanon that still seemed like a feeble response to whatever might come knocking in the night. He paused by the gates and peered out into the darkness.

The countryside lay quiet and still, a deceptively peaceful landscape broken by abandoned farmsteads and thick copses of trees. Above it, the night sky went on and on. It was intimidating in its vastness. The scattered clouds served only to emphasize how huge and deep it was. Philosophers and sages wondered what mysteries and secret powers lay beyond the multitude of cold, distant stars. Albanon felt like he already knew. The draw to the north was a physical ache inside him. He raised his eyes to the vault of the night.

The eye of Tharizdun looked back at him. The Chained God’s gaze was merciless and heavy, a void that consumed the stars themselves. Go, it seemed to command him. Go now and find what waits for you.

Albanon squeezed his staff in his hands and clenched his teeth until they hurt. “No,” he snarled. “I go at my own pace by my own will, not by yours!”

Something brushed his cheek, dry and scaly. “Have you fallen asleep?” demanded Splendid’s acid voice. “It’s cold. Keep moving.”

The weight of Tharizdun’s gaze vanished. Albanon opened eyes he didn’t remember closing and took a slow breath. The night was only the night. The stars were only the stars. He forced his cramped hand off his staff and reached up to scratch Splendid under her chin.

She twitched back for a moment before leaning into the scratch. “Ahhh,” she said. “That’s more like it.” The pseudodragon rubbed her body against his neck and shoulder, her scales rubbing almost—but not quite—painfully. “You need to do that more often.”

Albanon chuckled. Splendid loved her simple pleasures. “If you had your way, I would wear my fingers down and you’d want me to keep going.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She wriggled around, stretching her neck out to look at him. “Moorin knew how important it was to stop and relax sometimes.”

His fingers slowed. “Moorin didn’t face what I do, Splendid.”

“Didn’t he? Moorin was a member of the Order of Vigilance, training you to take his place. He was the guardian of the captive Voidharrow, something so secret he didn’t even tell me about it. He still found time to forget his responsibilities and enjoy life.”

“I don’t remember that.”

Splendid snorted and pulled away. “Apprentices never remember the good times. Ungrateful wretches.”

Albanon smiled. “I like you too, Splendid.” She sniffed and turned her head away, but her forepaws kneaded his chest affectionately.

A boot scraped on the stone behind Albanon. The wizard knew who it was before he turned around. Only one person deliberately dragged his foot that way to announce his presence. “Uldane,” he said, “you don’t have to be up here until later. We couldn’t find you, so we put you on the second watch with Tempest and Immeral.” He turned around.

The halfling looked miserable. He also looked dusty, as if he’d just crawled out of some long neglected hiding hole. His eyes were red-rimmed. “Albanon, do you think I was right to tell Shara she betrayed Jarren by taking up with Quarhaun?”

It seemed like it was going to be a night for hard questions. Albanon leaned on his staff and thought before he answered. “How exactly is Shara betraying Jarren?”

“She can do better than Quarhaun!”

Albanon gave Uldane a level look. “That doesn’t sound like betraying Jarren. What’s wrong with Quarhaun?”

“He’s arrogant. He’s rude. He uses people.” Uldane began pacing back and forth on the narrow walkway. “He doesn’t give a muskrat’s whisker about anyone!”

“Except Shara.”

The halfling glared at him. “Quarhaun’s a typical drow,” he said. “You’ve never heard his stories about growing up in the Underdark, have you? Lies, treachery, assassination—it’s enough to scare the smallclothes off you, and he acts like it’s all normal.”

“Shara sees something in him, though.”

Uldane’s expression twisted and he spat on the stones at Albanon’s feet. “You sound like Thair.” He turned toward the stairs down from the wall. Albanon grabbed his shoulder.

“Wait,” he said, holding tight as Uldane tried to shrug him off. “How would you describe Immeral?”

Uldane raised an eyebrow, looking puzzled at the turn in questioning. “Brave. Loyal. Respectful.”

“Not to his face,” said Albanon. He turned Uldane loose. “What if you were talking about him behind his back.”

“I wouldn’t—” This time Albanon raised an eyebrow. Uldane shrugged. “Formal,” he said. “Stiff. Cold. Distant.”

“So a typical eladrin.”

“Yes,” Uldane agreed, then winced as he remembered who he was talking to. “You’re not like that.”

“I know,” Albanon said, “but it took some time living away from the Feywild before I was comfortable with it. Maybe Quarhaun needs time away from the Underdark with people he knows he can trust.”

Uldane made a face. He fidgeted where he stood, walked back and forth a couple of times—then stepped up to the parapet and punched it. Albanon turned to look at him in surprise. The halfling’s face deepened into a scowl and he shook a hand with blood oozing from split knuckles. “I still don’t like him,” he said harshly.

“I don’t think you have to,” said Albanon, but he froze even as the words left his mouth.

Out in the dark countryside, something flashed in the moonlight. He moved to the parapet and leaned out, peering into the night.

“What?” said Uldane, turning to stand alongside him. “Do you see something?”

“Maybe.” The shifting clouds gave the illusion of movement to every shadow. The pale moonlight erased color at a distance, but the flash had seemed distinctly and disturbingly crystalline. He stared at the place he had seen it. Or thought he had seen it. When the flash came again, he realized it was much closer than he’d believed. A plague demon, one of the big four-armed kind, stood half-hidden beside the trunk of a tree only a little more than a bowshot beyond the wall. Fear made a sour taste in his mouth. He cursed under his breath and searched for more.

“What do you see?” asked Uldane.

“A demon.” He fixed his gaze on a suspicious shadow, waited until the moonlight caught it, then cursed when it did. “Another one.” The tips of his ears prickled. “There won’t be just two of them. They’re out there.”

“Do we call the alarm or just hope they leave us alone like the ones in the Cloak Wood?” asked Splendid from his shoulder.

“We call the alarm. It isn’t just about us tonight.” He looked around for the other watcher on his section of the wall, an older merchant named Bairwin who handled a sword like he knew what to do with it and who carried a hunting horn for just this moment. Just as he did, though, the moon broke through the clouds, washing Winterhaven with cold, bright light.

In the sudden radiance, a full two score demons stood revealed, the crystals growing from their hides glittering darkly. “Goblin kisser!” yelped Uldane.

Albanon saw Bairwin grab his horn and raise it to his mouth, but there was no need to sound an alarm. As if the bright moonlight had been a signal, the demons howled and charged. The sound was like a sword punching through Albanon’s chest. To anyone down in the village, there could be no doubt as to what was taking place beyond the walls.

He had no chance to look back and see, however. The horde came bounding, leaping, and running across the short distance separating them from Winterhaven. Smaller bestial demons like hounds took the lead, but one massive figure stood out in the midst of the charge: a four-armed demon larger than an ogre and twice as broad. Crimson crystals grew to form armor not just across its shoulders, but in a thick plate over its skull as well. Powerful legs thrust against the ground, propelling the demon forward—straight toward the village gate. The gate was strong and the beam bracing it heavy, but Albanon had a vision of both flying to splinters at the impact of this living battering ram.

Along the wall, Bairwin cursed and fumbled as he tried to fit an arrow to his bow. Uldane looked down at the throwing knife in his hand, then up at Albanon, his eyes wide. The wizard clenched his jaw. “I know,” he said. “It’s going to take more than arrows or knives to stop it.”

He darted along the wall, ignoring Splendid’s frightened leap from his shoulder, so that he stood directly over the gate and right in the demon juggernaut’s path. He didn’t allow himself the luxury of considering what might happen if he succumbed to the mad urge to expand the magic—he had enough to fear already. Holding his staff tight, he thrust it over the wall and shouted the carefully formed words of a spell. Arcane energy poured through him and through the staff, bursting from it in an invisible blast of force that betrayed itself only as ripples in the air.

The spell slammed into the demon like the blow of a titanic hammer. The huge creature flew backward, bowling over half a dozen lesser demons. When it hit the ground, it lay still and Albanon thought he could see a long, dark crack bisecting the thing’s heavy crystal skullplate. For several heartbeats, the other demons didn’t seem to realize the big one was no longer with them. Albanon might have found the sight of them running headlong into the gates amusing if it hadn’t been accompanied by their bloodcurdling howls.

“Well done, wizard,” said Bairwin. “Well done.” The man’s chest heaved as he struggled to calm himself. Albanon knew exactly how he felt.

“He’s only bought us time.” Suddenly Ninaran, the elf woman, was with them. “Get busy with your bow, you idiot.”

The other watchers had joined them as well, all of them stringing bows or madly cranking back crossbows. From below and behind, Roghar’s voice rose up, demanding to know what had happened. Albanon glanced down the wall. The paladin stood with Lord Padraig, Tempest, Belen, Immeral, Thair Coalstriker, and all of Winterhaven’s other defenders.

“We brought down a big demon trying to ram the gates,” he shouted back. Bow strings twanged around him. Screeches of pain broke the howls of the demons. “There are a lot more, though.”

Padraig’s face hardened. He began calling names and issuing orders. Some defenders moved to stand by the gates. Others raced up the stairs to reinforce the watchers. Albanon turned back to face the demons. They milled around outside the gates like a pack of mad dogs, snapping and clawing at the arrows that fell among them, but showing no signs of dispersing. Those that fell were trampled and shredded without care.

“More spells would be good, eladrin,” Ninaran said between clenched teeth. “Keep them back from the gates.” She loosed an arrow and another demon screamed.

Albanon pressed his lips together, picked his target, and gestured with his staff. Flame roared up in a golden column, leaving two demons writhing on the ground and sending two more dancing back. Ninaran raised a thin eyebrow and nodded approvingly. Albanon felt a small triumph as well. He was in control of his magic. The burned demons weren’t down yet, though. As they tried to rise, Albanon flicked his fingers and a bolt of silvery force flung one of them back to the ground—just as a blast of smoky flame engulfed the other. Albanon turned to find Tempest beside him, rod in hand.

She smiled at him. “I’m not letting you have all the fun.” She pointed her rod into the thick of the demons and loosed another sooty blast.

Her fun, however, seemed like it would be short-lived. The demons were already pulling back. “They’re retreating!” Bairwin said.

A chill passed up Albanon’s spine. The demons were moving away from the walls of Winterhaven, but not as if they’d been driven back by arrows or magic. They still hissed and snapped and snarled, their fury undiminished. It was more as if they were clearing a space before the walls.

“They’re not retreating,” he said softly. “Something is calling them.”

“Calling them back?” said Ninaran. “What is bloody capable of calling back a pack of demons?”

As if in answer to her question, the demon horde split, making an aisle through their numbers. The form that came drifting between them was nearly as tall as the demon that had tried to ram the gates, but thin and almost insubstantial, like the shadow of a tree brought to life. Narrow fingers on long hands and arms stroked the air. The thing’s face was strangely featureless except for a dark slit of a mouth and eyes that glittered like Voidharrow. Red and silver crystal flashed at its core, shrouded by the shadowy stuff of its body. Where it passed, the demons closed in behind it.

Bairwin cursed quietly. “Merciful gods, what is that?”

“A nightmare demon,” Albanon said. “We’ve fought them before. If it touches you, it can bring out your worst fears.”

“If it touches you?” growled Ninaran. “Then unless it can fly, it’s not much of a threat.” She drew back her bow, her arrow trained on the creature’s crystal heart. The movement brought the demon’s head snapping up. Its red-eyed gaze raked the battlements.

And Winterhaven’s defenders started screaming.

CHAPTER SIX

It felt to Albanon as if the village walls were crumbling underneath him and he were plummeting toward the claws and fangs of the demons below. His heart leaped into his throat. His staff slipped out of his grip and he grabbed onto the parapet—the very solid parapet—with both hands. “It’s not real,” he told himself, trying to focus past the terror. “It’s not real.”

But it seemed real. Plague demons were all around him. One howled and swiped at him with bloodstained claws. He ducked, kicked back at the creature out of instinct, and felt his foot connect with flesh. The demon doubled over but kept clawing at him. Albanon pressed up against the parapet and tried to focus his fear-wracked mind on the arcane patterns of a spell.

“Albanon, no!” Roghar’s voice echoed over the cries of the demons. Beyond the creature that menaced him, Albanon saw the paladin come charging up the stairs onto the wall. Roghar thrust his shield before him, the symbol of the platinum dragon shining on its surface. “Bahamut, free him from his fears!”

The power of Roghar’s faith was like a cool breeze. Albanon’s terror wavered, then dissipated entirely. The stone was once again solid beneath his feet and the gibbering demons were once more out of reach. Along the wall, many of Winterhaven’s defenders were struggling with each other while others simply curled up in fear. The creature that had clawed at him, that he had been on the verge of blasting with his spell, was Bairwin. The other man’s eyes were still wide and desperate. What had seemed like demonic howls resolved into frightened screams. “Somebody help me! They’re on the walls. They’re on the walls!”

He threw himself at Albanon once more, but this time Roghar was behind him. The big dragonborn reached out and grabbed his collar, hauling him back and slamming him down hard. The impact knocked the wind out of Bairwin and left him gasping for breath. Roghar stepped over him. “Are you all right?” he asked Albanon.

The eladrin nodded, then twisted around. “Tempest! Uldane!”

“Here.” Tempest crouched below the parapet. Her face was pale and her limbs were trembling, but she had resisted the worst of the nightmare demon’s power. Albanon took her hand and helped her stand. Uldane was a little further along the wall. It seemed he’d escaped the demon’s attack entirely—his face was taut but clear, and he held his own against three fear-crazed men.

But those who’d been affected by the demon’s attack were no longer the only ones on the wall. Other defenders followed Roghar’s example and rushed up from the courtyard to help their stricken friends. Albanon looked back out at the nightmare demon. It stood impassive, though the frenzied pack once more churned around it in a renewed assault on the gate. Its red eyes watched the activity on top of the wall. Albanon’s gut tensed. The nightmare demon was waiting, he realized. Waiting for more would-be saviors to reach the top of the wall before unleashing its terrifying gaze a second time.

“We have to stop that demon,” he said.

“It would be my pleasure,” said Tempest. She pulled away from Albanon and raised her rod high. A harsh and chilling invocation spilled from her lips. At the sound of it, the demon’s eyes snapped to her, but it wasn’t quick enough. A cold white light engulfed the rod—and the nightmare demon. For the first time, the shadowy creature let out a cry, a thin wail of anguish. It flailed its arms and focused its gaze intently on the trio standing on the wall. Albanon felt its power brush his mind, threatening to plunge him into terror once more, but Roghar growled and thrust his shield forward. The might of Bahamut curled around them protectively.

Tempest spun her rod in a tight circle. The light surrounding the demon spun as well, turning into a whirlwind of radiance. The demon’s cries grew higher, more pained, as the rushing light tore at its shadowy substance. It cringed and tried to shield itself, but to no effect. The light burned it, then whirled its ashes away. Tempest’s eyes narrowed. The rod spun more tightly. The swirling light picked up speed, killing the demon little by little. Along the walls, Winterhaven’s defenders emerged from their terror as the creature’s power faded. Down below, the demon horde redoubled their frenzy. They shied away from the radiance of Tempest’s spell but otherwise paid no attention to the nightmare demon as it screamed and fought its death. All of their fury was directed with single-minded intensity at the gates.

A nagging feeling tugged at Albanon. Something wasn’t right. The plague demons didn’t seem to care that they trampled and clawed at other members of their horde, so it shouldn’t have mattered that they ignored the brilliant death of the nightmare demon. Or should it? As the defenders of Winterhaven cheered—Roghar and Uldane among them and even Splendid emerging from whatever hiding spot she’d found to twirl overhead—Albanon tried to focus his thoughts over the chaos. They’d fought nightmare demons before, but never one that had been able to direct its power through its gaze. The creature was powerful and judging from the way the horde of plague demons had drawn back before it, it was powerful enough to command their respect. Powerful enough to be the leader of the horde, surely.

But if it was the leader, the key demon that kept all the others focused on their goal, why wasn’t the horde’s attack falling apart?

Even as he thought it, Tempest’s spell crushed in on the demon. Its shriek rose and broke, then vanished entirely along with the light. A scarred husk collapsed to the ground. Tempest lowered her rod and turned around. Her teeth flashed white. “One demon stopped,” she said.

“No.” Albanon bent down and snatched up the staff he had dropped, gripping it tight. “We’re not done. There’s another demon somewhere, one more powerful than the nightmare demon. It’s the one commanding the horde.”

Roghar let out a curse unbecoming of a paladin. “Where is it, then? It seems like we already have the entire pack right here.”

Albanon stared out into the darkness. Beyond the churning melee before the gates, nothing moved. If another demon lurked in the shadows, it was well-hidden. He searched the horde as it hammered at the gates and scrabbled at the walls, but none of the demons seemed powerful enough to dominate the others. Another of the great juggernauts had appeared, yet this one, though towering tall and lanky, wasn’t as massive as the other that had charged the gates. In fact, the defenders of Winterhaven appeared to be gaining the upper hand. The wall was crowded with men and women thrusting down with long pikes and leaning out over the parapets to loose arrows and bolts into the massed creatures below. Albanon could hear Lord Padraig calling for people to return to the defense of the gate. It was so crowded that, when a lithe demon jumped up onto the tall juggernaut and swung itself high, three pikes clashed together as their wielders tried to skewer it. The demon fell short anyway, but it might have made the wall if the pikemen had not been there, or if the towering juggernaut had offered it actual assistance.

A sudden sickening certainty made the tips of his ears crawl. Where had the second juggernaut come from? What had it been doing during the first part of the attack? “Mercy of the gods,” he whispered. “The lead demon isn’t outside. We’ve let it get inside the village.”

If he’d had wings, he would have flown high and simply dropped into the middle of Winterhaven. But he didn’t—though sometimes his memories of the sensation were so vivid he might have fooled himself into believing that he did—so he built his plan around the next best alternative. Among the minions he had gathered was a demon of particular height and strength. Not so strong as others of its kind or so tall as to be able to reach the top of Winterhaven’s walls directly, but both strong and tall enough to enable another to reach the parapets.

It had only been a matter of waiting until the right moment, when the moon broke through the scudding clouds. Not because the demons needed light to see, but because those on the wall would be sure to see their attackers. The moonlight came and it only took a whisper through the connection of the Voidharrow to launch the attack. On the other side of Winterhaven, howling demons rushed the gate. He’d waited the few moments it took the humans patrolling his stretch of wall to rush away, then ordered his tall minion into position against the stones. His pride wouldn’t permit him to be lifted or carried, so he scaled the demon like a tree, his talons gouging its tough hide. A leap from its shoulder and he had caught the parapet, then swung himself over.

The walls of Winterhaven had been breached.

He dismissed his minion below with a gesture and it moved away. From the direction of the gates came the shouts of villagers and the howls of demons. He guessed the massive creature he had set to lead the attack by ramming the gates had failed. He wasn’t surprised. His prey was in Winterhaven. He had seen the eladrin, Albanon, on the walls. The others would be close to him. Those who had slain Raid and Nu Alin wouldn’t fall to any lesser demon.

“This one prepares,” he growled to the night.

This one is eager, came the reply through the Voidharrow.

He bared his teeth and dropped lightly into the shadows below the wall. His goal lay across the village—not his prey, but the gate. It was possible that the small horde he had assembled would be able to break it down from outside, but not likely. He wanted them inside Winterhaven’s walls. The warning he had delivered earlier would keep them from his prey, but their presence, their slaughter of the villagers, would be a distraction. He’d learned from the destruction of Nu Alin and Raid. He would not allow his prey the advantage of numbers. He would divide them and take them one by one.

Screams from the wall heralded the attack of the nightmare demon and the second wave of the horde’s assault. He paused to look for his prey. The wizard reeled on the wall, the tiefling and the halfling alongside him, as the dragonborn paladin rushed to their aid. All of his enemies accounted for, but all in one place. His eyes narrowed. They would need to be separated.

A door in the building behind him opened.

He turned instantly and caught a glimpse of an old human woman peering out, her urge for safety probably overcome by curiosity at the screams. Her eyes went wide at the sight of him, then he was on her. The great talon on his right hand stabbed up through the woman’s belly and under her ribs. Her wide eyes grew wider. A dry croak emerged from the woman’s throat.

He felt disgust. “This one was made to kill greater creatures than you,” he said and twisted his hand. Life shuddered from the woman’s body. He let her fall inside the door and listened for the noise of others in the house. There was only silence. Stealth was not his primary concern, but the closer he was able to get to Winterhaven’s gate without being detected, the better.

The screams of villagers were replaced by the wail of a demon before he had passed two more houses. On the wall, the tiefling warlock stood with her rod raised and glowing, her attention fixed on a cold, white light that lit the darkness beyond. He felt the dying of the nightmare demon through the Voidharrow and quickened his pace. The creature had done its work, both with its attack and with its destruction. Almost all of Winterhaven’s defenders had rushed up onto the wall to battle the demons on the other side. A man in better armor than most was trying to call some of them back. The lord of the village, perhaps. The commander of its forces, certainly.

He recognized two figures standing close to the lord: an eladrin man and a human woman, both warriors by their weapons and bearing. They had ridden with his prey through the Cloak Wood. Allies of his enemies. He flexed his hands. He had his goal, the reason for his existence, but slaughtering these three would bring added distress to his true prey.

Beyond the trio, only two uneasy looking guards remained to watch over the counterweight that would lift the heavy bar from the gates. The defenders of Winterhaven had grown overeager and overconfident.

He hissed in anticipation and moved out from the shadows.

“What do you mean we’ve let a demon into the village?” said Tempest.

“Everyone’s up here fighting the horde. Who’s defending the gate? Who’s watching the other walls?” Albanon twisted away from the parapet, shoving through the villagers that had crowded in behind him. “Lord Padraig! Lord Padr—”

The warning died on his tongue as he reached the other edge of the walkway and the top of a flight of stairs back down into the village. Padraig was below, looking up, his attention drawn by Albanon’s shouts. Immeral and Belen stood with him. But perhaps twenty paces behind them another figure emerged from the shadows of the inn. Albanon heard Roghar, close behind him, draw a harsh breath of surprise. Their shock must have been plain on their faces because Immeral, Belen, and Padraig spun to look behind them as well.

The figure froze, just for an instant, but the sight of it burned into Albanon’s mind. It wasn’t quite like anything he had seen before. In rough shape, it was something like a dragonborn: draconic in feature but humanoid in body. The resemblance ended there. The creature was almost skeletally thin, its skull long and narrow. A whiplike tail lashed the air behind it and cruel talons extended from its hands and feet. It carried no weapons and wore no armor, but one of the talons on its right hand was enormous, as big as a shortsword and far heavier. The thing bore signs of the Voidharrow, too. Its talons and the straight, spiky horns on its head were red crystal. Crimson veins traced along its spine and concentrated in its tail, which also seemed made of crystal, splintering and reforming with every movement.

Its scales, while tinted with the red of the Voidharrow, were green, and there was a familiar, hateful intelligence in its eyes.

“Vestapalk,” said Albanon.

Somehow the creature heard him over the din of battle. It smiled cruelly. “This one is not Vestapalk,” it shouted back in a harsh male voice. “This one is Vestagix. This one will be your doom!”

He moved. In only heartbeats, faster than Albanon could call a spell to mind, Vestagix had closed the distance between him and the three standing below. The huge talon, completely out of proportion to the rest of his body, lashed out in a wide arc.

Belen grabbed Lord Padraig and dragged him to the ground, both of them rolling out of the way of the terrible claw. Immeral stood his ground. His sword already out, he parried Vestagix’s blow. Crystal rang against steel. Vestagix’s smile didn’t falter. His left hand, the talons smaller but still sharp, raked at Immeral’s belly. The eladrin swayed back to avoid them.

In that moment, the great talon thrust past his guard. It hooked into the flesh of his shoulder. Vestagix wrenched his arm back and the talon tore through flesh and leather armor, shoulder and throat. Blood gushed out. Immeral’s free hand went to his throat as if he could stop the flow, but his sword was already sliding from his grip.

Albanon felt like he was falling, just as he had under the nightmare demon’s attack, except that this was no illusion. The force of the blow had spun Immeral around. As he sank to his knees, his eyes rose. Albanon imagined that the hunter was looking at him, that his gaping mouth struggled to form words one last time. My prince …

Beside him, Roghar bellowed in fury. “Demon!” he roared. “Face me! Bahamut’s strength will drive you back where you came from!” He rushed down the stairs in a clatter of armor.

Vestagix looked from the charging paladin to where Padraig and Belen were rising warily, then bared white teeth and sprinted toward the wall—but not toward Roghar. Before Immeral’s body had collapsed onto its face, Vestagix had disappeared under the walkway above Winterhaven’s gate. Roghar roared again and disappeared after him.

The need to act forced focus upon Albanon’s mind. “Tempest, Uldane—get some people off the wall and back down to the gate!” He didn’t wait for their response, he just followed Roghar. His mind raced along with his feet. What in the three worlds was Vestagix? They’d all seen Vestapalk take control of and speak through plague demons, but Vestagix was different. He didn’t look like any other demon and he didn’t act like he was being controlled. He acted like Vestapalk himself.

A weight settled on his shoulder and needle-sharp claws gripped his skin before he reached the bottom of the stairs. “A wizard’s place is at a distance,” Splendid shrieked in his ear. “Stay on the wall. You’ll be safe there.”

“I can’t see what’s happening on the wall,” Albanon told her, “and I can’t help Roghar if I can’t see him.” He reached the bottom of the stairs and spun toward the gate. The sound of the demon horde outside was intensified below. The thick wood of the gate shook and thundered with every misshapen body that was flung against it. Two human bodies lay before the gate: the guards who had stayed at their posts had fared no better against Vestagix than Immeral.

Roghar had caught up to the intruder though, and it appeared that Vestagix had more respect for his new, heavily armored opponent. The two circled each other like weird reflections, Roghar bright and noble, Vestagix dark and savage. It seemed to Albanon that they knew it, too. There was a hatred in Roghar’s eyes that he wasn’t used to seeing.

“You mock the shape of dragonborn and dragon alike,” said the paladin.

Vestagix sneered at him. “And you,” he said, “have angered one greater than the gods.”

Roghar growled deep in his throat and lunged. Vestagix, still sneering, caught and turned the impulsive thrust with his outsized claw—leaving himself open to a powerful and fully controlled slam from Roghar’s shield. The blow threw him against the gate and Roghar closed in, his façade of anger replaced by deadly focus. The sneer vanished from Vestagix’s face, replaced by a snarl. He pushed off from the gate, slashing at Roghar in a frenzy that drove the dragonborn back pace by pace.

Albanon clenched his teeth and drew a spell close to the surface of his mind. Sliding sideways, he tried to find an opening to cast it, but Vestagix’s whirling attack was too quick. One moment he had a clear line, the next Roghar was between them. Splendid clung tight to his shoulder. “Back away,” she begged. “You can attack from a greater distance.”

He ignored her. Roghar was beginning to look harried. Vestagix had him on the defensive and Albanon knew in his gut he wasn’t going to get his opening. He’d have to risk throwing his spell, even if it meant catching Roghar by mistake. As Vestagix turned around the paladin again, Albanon exhaled, concentrated, and released the spell with a flick of his fingers and a whispered word. Two thin blue bolts streaked at the demon—who sprang back with the same lithe quickness that had been Immeral’s doom. As he leaped, he turned and his tail snaked around Roghar’s sword hand. The flexing, splintering crystal tightened, then jerked. Roghar cursed and clutched at his wrist as both his sword and his gauntlet were wrenched away. They went clattering across the ground. Vestagix glared at Albanon, his red eyes narrowed.

“Maybe you will die first after all, wizard,” he said. Albanon felt sudden fear race through him and groped for another spell. With Vestagix’s speed, it would take only an instant for him to bound across the distance between them.

But the demon didn’t come for him. Instead he turned—and Albanon’s heart dropped as he realized that Vestagix’s leap away from his magic had brought him right beside the counterweight for the gate.

Roghar saw it, too. He charged, his shield held in front of him like moving wall. Brilliant white light burst from the symbol of Bahamut.

Too late. Vestagix seized the carefully balanced counterweight and wrenched it down. The great beam barring the gate soared up. The gate slammed open and a wave of plague demons poured into Winterhaven.

Caught right in front of the gate, Roghar was engulfed by the surge. Bahamut’s light dimmed and disappeared among crimson crystal and demonic flesh.

“Roghar!” came a scream from above. Albanon caught a glimpse of Tempest on the stairs. Flame from her rod blasted into the mob, to no visible effect. She might have been swatting at a cloud of midges. Behind her, Winterhaven’s defenders rushed down from the wall, but like Roghar’s charge, they were too late. Even as the villagers reached the ground, the horde swarmed around Vestagix, hiding him, and spread out to meet them.

Albanon put his back to the nearest wall and tried to choke down his fear and dismay. First Immeral, now Roghar? He saw the plague demons take others, too. The man who had opened the gate for them earlier that day. A woman he had seen in the inn. Thair Coalstriker crushed the skull of one bestial demon with a heavy hammer—only to have another leap over its body and slam into him. The dwarf hit the ground with the demon tearing at his chest and throat. Someone wailed in anguish, the sound rising above shouts and screams and howls.

Rage closed like a fist around Albanon’s heart. He stabbed his staff toward the demon crouched over Thair and a silvery bolt of magical force sent it sprawling. Thair didn’t rise, but Albanon knew there were others he could still fight for. He shook Splendid off his shoulder. “Find somewhere safe,” he told her, then he spread the fingers of his free hand and hissed a word. A wave of flame rolled over a trio of demons, leaving two of them rolling and shrieking as fire consumed them.

Unfortunately the third, though scorched and smoking, remained sufficiently alive to snarl and lunge at Albanon. The wizard brought a column of golden flame rushing up around it, but the damage was done. He’d drawn the attention of the demons. A pack broke free from the horde and raced for him. Albanon clenched his jaw. He blew across the palm of his hand and an icy mist streamed from it, billowing up into a thick cloud around the demons. Yelps of surprise emerged from the mist as the creatures reacted to the cold.

The cloud wouldn’t last long, but it would distract the demons. Quickly, Albanon slid along the wall, trying to get closer to one of the knots of fighting villagers. He wouldn’t last long on his own in an open melee. When the first shape came out of the fading mist, he was ready for it. Another silver bolt darted from his staff.

But the shape that emerged was not one of the demons that had gone in. It twitched to the side with unlikely speed and Albanon’s bolt flickered harmlessly past Vestagix’s skull.

The narrow muzzle twisted in a sharp-toothed grin. “Vestagix claims you.”

Albanon froze, a rabbit before a coiled serpent. Suddenly, he was back among the ruins of the Temple of Yellow Skulls, a captive of Vestapalk as the Voidharrow-transformed dragon inspected him, stroking a claw like smoky red glass across his belly. His death hung over him. Vestapalk had spared him with the intent of infecting him with the Voidharrow. Vestagix seemed to have no such intention. For a moment, everything seemed to slow. A perfect image burned itself into Albanon’s mind of Vestagix as the strange creature—both dragon and plague demon and yet more than either—raised his great talon.

A talon that, Albanon saw, was identical to the one that had stroked his belly. A talon that seemed older, more nicked and worn, than the rest of Vestagix’s bright-scaled body, almost as if that body had been grown from the talon rather than the other way around. A fragment of a long-ago lesson with Moorin rose in Albanon’s mind: the Draconic word for “claw” was gix.

Then the moment shattered as something swept past him and darted straight at Vestagix. Shrieking like a boiling kettle, Splendid swirled around the creature. Vestagix stabbed at her, but the pseudodragon was an agile flyer. “Master, run!” she spat, then dived past Vestagix’s talon. Her tail lashed out and the stinger on its tip sank into his flesh. Vestagix howled, probably more with shock than actual pain. He grabbed for Splendid again, but once more she slipped away from his grasp. She stung him a second time, then beat her wings and climbed away from his claws.

But not from his tail. It snapped up in a blur almost faster than Albanon could follow. Suddenly Splendid was tumbling down, stunned. Vestagix snatched her out of the air. He looked at Albanon and his eyes narrowed.

Then he snapped Splendid’s neck.

He might as well have snapped Albanon’s. The wizard watched Splendid’s broken body slip to the ground. He felt paralyzed, his thoughts and emotions tumbling too fast to make sense. Vestagix coiled to spring. The great talon reached out for Albanon.

Brilliant white light erupted behind him as the horde of demons parted like storm clouds before the sun. Vestagix half-turned to face this new threat—and a glowing shield emblazoned with the crest of Bahamut slammed him to the ground.

Roghar stood over his fallen foe, shining like the Platinum Dragon incarnate. He gave Vestagix no more chance to recover than the demon had given Splendid. Wrenching his shield off his arm, the paladin raised it in both hands.

“Your existence,” he growled, “offends the gods.” The white glow shifted to the shield’s rim as Roghar drove it down across Vestagix’s throat. The shield bit through flesh like the edge of a sword blade. Vestagix’s head rolled away, his eyes wide in surprise.

On the periphery of his attention, Albanon saw a change come over the horde with the loss of their leader. Their charge into Winterhaven seemed to fall apart. Whatever control Vestagix had over the plague demons gave way to sheer blood lust. The demons’ attention flitted from one target to the next. They started fighting each other as much as the defenders of the village. The battle didn’t get any easier for the Winterhaveners, but the tide had turned. The tall juggernaut came sprawling down, hamstrung by a squad of defenders led by Padraig and Belen. Uldane went dancing among the demons, crippling any he could, killing any that fell wounded.

The only thing on Albanon’s mind, though, was Splendid. He went over to where Splendid lay by Vestagix’s outstretched hand. The light that shone around Roghar had faded. The dragonborn jerked his shield out of the ground—there was little blood from Vestagix’s corpse, as if the holy light had seared the stump of his neck. “I’m sorry I wasn’t quicker,” Roghar said. “The demons swarmed over me, but they didn’t even try to attack, even when I fought free of them. It was as if I was just in their way.”

Albanon felt nothing at Roghar’s strange escape. He kneeled and gently picked up Splendid’s body. Her bright eyes were dim. Her delicate wings hung limp. The scales on her chest were torn where Vestagix’s lashing tail had struck.

“She called me ‘master,’ ” he said.

“Bahamut will welcome her spirit,” said Roghar.

The fury that Albanon felt when he thought Roghar was dead reignited inside him, even hotter than before. He dropped his staff so he could cradle Splendid in one arm and still have a hand free. “Step back, Roghar.”

“What?” The paladin looked startled.

“Step back!” The spell was already in Albanon’s mind. As Roghar moved away from him, he let it flow onto his tongue and into his fingers. Lightning chased his gestures. The jagged lines formed a glowing image in the air: a small, sleeping serpent, no bigger than Splendid. Albanon ground his teeth. When the serpent woke, it would strike, but no more than once. That was no aid to the defense of Winterhaven. That was no tribute to Immeral or Splendid.

The solution rose out of the darkness of his anger and grief. You know the way. Kri showed you.

He’d controlled himself, and for what? Splendid and Immeral were dead. Vestapalk’s plague demons might still overrun the rest of them. There was nothing fair or heroic in that. Why control himself any longer?

Madness received him with an embrace both warm and terrifying. The eye of Tharizdun gazed upon him.

The world opened into flows of magic and numbers, the promise of unlimited power if only Albanon could expand his mind to encompass it. The power to burn all of Winterhaven if that was what he desired.

It wasn’t. He pulled back. Fire would grow to fill any volume he permitted, but lightning was different. It needed focus. Squeezing his eyes shut, he twisted the numbers in his mind. He forced himself to conceive of the magic as growing not by squares or cubes, but in linear progression.

Glowing lines and crackling angles sprang to life in his imagination, as if a whole plane of magic had lain dormant there, just waiting for him to discover it. He could have reached across the world. He could have touched the Astral Sea and the domains of the gods! If his manipulation of fire spells showed the power of a spell expanded, this spell showed the power of a spell grown and focused. Albanon’s body trembled with it.

His ears itched at some sensation he couldn’t immediately identify. The sound of fighting had stopped, he realized, though something new had taken its place. Something that wasn’t quite a noise and wasn’t quite a touch, but that licked along his skin like a cat’s tongue. He opened his eyes.

The sound and sensation he’d felt was the crackling play of little arcs of lightning across his body. The serpent of his spell had grown. It surrounded him, towering over the entire village of awed people and staring plague demons. It had sprouted more heads, too, making it more hydra than serpent—and each head looked like Splendid. Harsh laughter, half-strangled by tears, bubbled up from Albanon’s throat. He twitched the fingers of his free hand, plucking at the flows of power. The hydra woke.

And struck.

It was as if a thunderstorm had erupted within Winterhaven’s walls. Bolts of lightning smashed down into the horde, scattering the demons and leaving bright lines seared across Albanon’s vision. Thunder shook the ground. Albanon could hear nothing else, not even the sound of his own voice as he screamed his rage. The lightning fell again and again, reducing some demons to smoking cinders and knocking others back. One bolt, as thick as his thigh, fell on Vestagix’s decapitated body. It clung to the corpse as if it had been hooked into the flesh, making the dead limbs twitch and dance.

Albanon fed power to his spell, the numbers that composed the long lines of the lightning arcs growing continually. The sparks that played across his body grew in power, too, until each one stung his skin and left a red pinprick of a burn behind. Pain was a small price to pay. The demons had recognized the danger he presented. Many ran before the onslaught of lightning, but a few tried to get close to him. He burned one with a carefully hurled bolt. Others got the message and backed off. A handful, more aggressive than the others, remained. One small creature even capered as if to taunt him. Albanon snarled and flung another bolt. The small demon dodged—and too late Albanon realized that it was a distraction. A big four-armed demon leaped on him from behind, wrapping its arms around him to break his spellcasting as it howled into his ear.

“Stop, Albanon! Bahamut’s mercy, stop!”

Roghar’s voice.

No, snarled his anger. It’s another demon trick. You have to throw it off. Possibilities flowed into his imagination, a way to turn the numbers of his magic back on themselves in a burst of force that would hurl his assailant away.

“Albanon! Can you hear me?”

It was Roghar holding onto him, Albanon realized. And the small capering demon was Uldane. His mad fury ebbed, taking the long construction of numbers with it. The last of the lightning and thunder faded like a storm receding in to the distance. Albanon blinked and looked around Winterhaven.

Looked around what remained of Winterhaven. The plague demons were gone, leaving only their dead behind. Theirs weren’t the only lightning-burned corpses, though. Half a dozen human bodies sprawled—charred and smoking—on the ground. One was only a few paces from Albanon, and he remembered the demon that had tried to get close to him. A terrible hollow grew inside him. He pulled away from Roghar and turned in a slow circle. The walls of Winterhaven bore long scorch marks in many places. Most of its buildings were scarred. Three wooden structures were on fire with the flames spreading fast; one stone wall of the inn was shattered to reveal a growing inferno within. Pale, terrified faces peered out of whatever shelter had been available and stared at him.

Four of those faces, maybe even more shocked than the others, belonged to Roghar, Uldane, Belen, and Tempest.

Vestapalk felt Vestagix’s destruction like a sword driven deep into his body. His roar of anguish echoed up the Plaguedeep, sending lesser demons scrambling away and greater demons flinching back. The pool of the Voidharrow splashed and splattered as he thrashed. If a plague demon he was inhabiting died, it was no different than shedding an old, dry scale. The death of Vestagix felt as if a part of him had died as well. Eight foreclaws clenched and gouged stone—seven claws of translucent crystal, plus one of deep red, regrown from the Voidharrow to take the place of what he had sacrificed.

His agony eased. Thought returned. The death was hardly conceivable. Vestagix had been given only a measure of his power but he had shared all of Vestapalk’s cunning. He should not have fallen.

But his proxy’s death was not the end. His vengeance might still be salvaged. Vestapalk sent his thoughts out through the Voidharrow. They settled on a plague demon … in flight from Winterhaven. New rage rushed over him. What could have gone so wrong? Vestapalk tore open the demon’s memories of the battle.

He saw Vestagix struck down by the dragonborn Roghar, felt the demon’s rush of wild ecstasy at being released from Vestagix’s command.

He saw lightning and heard thunder. A bolt struck close and blew him back. He saw Albanon surrounded by crackling, barely controlled power greater than any mortal wizard should have been capable of wielding. The eladrin’s face was twisted in single-minded fury, but his eyes shone fever bright.

The fear that swept over Vestapalk surprised him. It pierced his anger and pushed him out of the plague demon, back to his own body. The same fear, as of an old enemy or a newly discovered weakness, seemed to have penetrated the whole of the Plaguedeep. The red abyss was still. Silent. As if the Voidharrow itself was afraid.

Afraid not so much of the power that had driven back the plague demons as of the all-consuming intensity that had lit Albanon’s eyes—and of what lay behind it. A name rose out of that fear, wrapping around Vestapalk’s mind.

Tharizdun.

Vestapalk hissed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

On the second day—or so he reckoned after an exhausted, dreamless sleep—of his stumbling exploration of the dark place to which Tharizdun had delivered him, Kri found the lantern. A purple glow in the deep gloom had led him through a room of many low obstructions. When he finally reached the glow, he discovered it came from the heart of a tall, rectangular crystal carved with the most blasphemous depictions of the gods. They were shown at a feast, each devouring their worshipers as well as those things most sacred to them. Ioun held a skewer threaded alternately with books and severed heads over a brazier, her eyes bright with hunger and drool running from her mouth.

The carvings were exquisitely delicate. Metal fittings and a large ring at the top of the crystal suggested it was meant to be carried. Indeed, when he lifted it, the purple glow grew brighter until, for the first time, he could see his surroundings.

In the place of his deliverance, only the chamber in which he had escaped from the statue had any light at all. There, light had been transmitted from some distant natural source along what he believed to be veins or tubes of crystal. It gave just enough illumination to allow him to distinguish other statues, some half-formed from blocks of stone, others smashed. It might have been the vast studio of some team of frustrated sculptors except that each statue had the jagged spiral of Tharizdun’s eye somewhere upon it.

Beyond that chamber, Kri had depended on his other senses, a carefully constructed mental map, and a faith that Tharizdun had sent him there for a reason. Touch helped him find curving, tread-worn stairs and new passages. Sound led him to a slowly bubbling cistern of fresh water that tasted of minerals from a deep spring. Smell identified the ashes of old fires in one chamber and the dry tang of ancient embalming spices in another.

The room where the lantern glowed was not far from the chamber of ancient spices, and as Kri raised the crystal, he saw why. The low obstructions in the room were stone coffins. All of them were open, the hollows within slightly rounded so that they resembled so many cold cradles. Shroud-wrapped forms lay within many of the cradles, their heads exposed leaving empty eye sockets staring up at the low ceiling. The skulls were those of dwarves, long tresses or thick beards still clinging to their dry scalps and the leathery scraps of their cheeks.

Kri sensed no malice from the dead, though. This was their sepulcher and nothing more. The central platform where the lantern had rested was a kind of simple unmarked altar. Another dwarf skeleton lay across the stone, and it wore a mantle fashioned of chains, the ends gathered and fastened with seals in the shape of the jagged spiral.

There was also a pick driven through its back and into the altar beneath. The skeleton’s arm was outstretched as if it had been the last one to grasp the lantern or as if it had died reaching for it. Not all had been peaceful in this place of the dead.

Kri took the lantern and went back the way he had come.

The purple glow of the lantern revealed much he hadn’t seen before. In the chamber of ancient spices, jars had been swept from the shelves, spilling their aromatic contents. A stone embalming table showed deep scores in its stone surface, as if some of those laid upon it had been crudely hacked at with an axe or cleaver. The state of disarray matched what Kri had noted in the sepulcher: the entombments farthest from the altar, and presumably relatively more recent, were less sophisticated than those that were older. Some were shrouded, but had not been embalmed. Some were not shrouded at all, merely placed or dumped into the coffins.

Some coffins contained only ancient stains, scraps of clothing, and bits of broken bone, as if the bodies had been taken elsewhere.

When he reached the room that smelled of ashes, he found the ovens, big fireplaces, worktables, and scattered cooking vessels of a large communal kitchen. Peering up the wide chimneys showed no hint of light or open air at their tops. He stirred the ashes with his feet and uncovered charred bones among them. In one fireplace, a large covered cauldron remained where it had been placed untold decades or more likely centuries before. Kri lifted the lid and found exactly what he suspected he would.

A wide hall nearby might have been a common dining area, judging by the moldered remains of wooden tables and benches. A corridor of many doors was lined with small rooms, each containing the jumbled remains of what might have been a bed and perhaps a small table. The mix of large common spaces and tiny individual quarters told Kri what kind of place this had been. He’d dwelled in a few and visited many cloistered communities in his long life—though never one seemingly inhabited only by dwarves. Or one so completely cut off from the outer world.

Or one devoted to the Chained God.

The pinch of his empty stomach reminded him of how long it had been since his own contact with the outer world. He’d find nothing to sustain him in the ancient ruin. A hiss of bitter laughter escaped him. He knew a magical ritual that could conjure food to sustain him, but in the flight from Fallcrest that had saved his life, he had left all of his possessions and gear behind.

You have the key, Tharizdun had told him. One comes who will help you turn it.

But what if that one didn’t come quickly enough?

Kri pressed his lips together, stifling his doubt. Tharizdun had not succumbed to hopelessness in his place of imprisonment. Neither would he. The dwarves must have had some way to get their food, whether they traded for it or harvested it themselves. The cloister had been no short-lived community to judge by the number of dead in the sepulcher. There had to be some exit. And the logical place to find an exit from a dwarf community was up, toward the surface. Toward the vast statue chamber where he had first found himself. He retraced his mental map back to the stairs he had descended and began to climb them once more.

Where the stairs turned, he found the first runes. Unlike most dwarven inscriptions, they weren’t incised, but rather painted. His fingers, brushing the wall on the way down, had completely missed the subtle changes in texture on the stone surface.

Kri studied the runes, raising the lantern high so its dim light illuminated as much as possible. The runes ran the length of the stairs in long blocks, as if a long text had been copied onto the wall. In addition to being painted rather than carved, the runes weren’t in the common style of Davek, the dwarves’ script. Although angular at their heart, there was an unusual sinuousness to them, each character curving back on itself. In fact, entire passages seemed to follow the same twisted pattern. Kri had spent most of his life puzzling out writings that would have confounded a lesser mind, so the curious inscription proved little challenge. He had it figured out within two more turns of the stairs.

It was a prayer to the Chained God, mostly in his incarnation as the Elder Elemental Eye, but invoking all of his epithets: the Patient One, the Black Sun, Undoer, Ender, Anathema, Eater of Worlds. The prayer repeated itself over and over, twisting and regressing as did the characters that spelled it out. It was a meditation on Tharizdun’s message of freedom through the casting down of order—or more precisely, on the freedom brought by change. True change, not merely the superficial alterations enjoined by Avandra, the wanderer’s god installed in Tharizdun’s rightful place. The overthrow of order was only a way to bring the Chained God’s word to the overworked peasant or harassed apprentice who might dream of turning on his master. The truth was more universal: there could be no growth without change and the enemy of change was order. Order, whatever form it took, must be challenged to permit change.

Kri smiled to himself and murmured the words as he continued to climb the stairs. The words echoed in the stairwell and whispers came back to him, a ghostly chorus reciting the prayer.

That such a doctrine, generally seen as a path to madness, served as the guiding tenet of a highly disciplined monastic community would have seemed impossible to many. They would have looked at the evidence Kri had found and concluded that the dwarves had courted disaster from the beginning—that they had delved too deeply within themselves and woken something dark.

Kri would have knocked such fools across the head and forced them to consider the possibility that the inhabitants of the cloister had found exactly what they were looking for. There were many paths to the enlightenment Tharizdun offered. Some followed those paths slowly. Others raced along them.

Some did not know they followed them at all.

“You know as well as I do,” said Moorin, “that divinations are useless where the Voidharrow is concerned. Arcane rituals reveal nothing. Prayers to the gods and their servants go unanswered.” The wizard spread empty hands. “Maybe we know all that can be known about it.”

Kri slammed his palm down on the tabletop, making the dishes and goblets around him rattle. “When did any member of the Order of Vigilance last try to make a serious investigation of the Voidharrow?”

Moorin’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a question we know the answer to, Kri,” he said soberly. “Tavit Nance opened one of the vials containing the Voidharrow and he died a demon along with three dozen innocents. The Order barely contained the plague he unleashed.”

The spirit of argument rose in Kri. “That was four generations ago,” he countered. “And before that the Order didn’t even know the name or true danger of what it guarded.”

The answer to his words came in the hiss of sharply drawn breaths. Around the sides of the table, the other members of the Order of Vigilance—a scant handful of aging men and women of varying races—glared at him. Kri knew immediately that he’d gone too far. He bent his head in acknowledgment. “What happened was a tragedy, but see what came of it. If we do not dare, we will not learn. We’ll sit upon the Voidharrow and tap our fingers until the end of time.”

“If it pleases Pelor,” said the deva Hania, “that is exactly what we will do and consider ourselves successful by it. You swore the same oath all of us did.”

“I’m not Tavit Nance. I have no intention of releasing the Voidharrow. I only want to study it.” Kri looked back to Moorin. “You keep the last vial. Let me visit you. Let me examine it.”

Moorin just shook his head. Kri ground his teeth and touched the symbol of the eye that hung around his neck. “I am a priest of Ioun, god of knowledge. It’s my calling to seek answers.”

Raven Shirai leaned forward and the shadows seemed to shift with her. “And what does the god of knowledge tell you concerning the Voidharrow?”

Kri opened his mouth … then closed it as if he could trap the truth. Except that he was a priest of Ioun and he couldn’t.

“Nothing,” he said at last. “She says nothing.”

The shock of the impact that broke him out of his reverie was as much mental as it was physical. Kri returned to his senses to find himself stretched on the stone stairs of Tharizdun’s cloister, gasping for the breath that a stumble had knocked from his chest. The shame and frustration of that moment many years ago when he’d first begun to doubt Ioun’s power was so fresh that he felt as if he’d stepped directly out of the past.

He pushed himself upright, feeling anew the ache of aging the nearly two decades that had passed. The dim light of the lantern made judging distance difficult, but he thought he had perhaps walked a turn and a half of the stairs during his vision.

Even without his active participation, the whispers of his murmured prayer continued to ripple up and down the curving staircase. The script on the wall seemed to writhe of its own accord. Kri considered the painted characters with new appreciation. “So,” he said, “you draw out the moments of change in my life. Is this a trick of the monks to guard their secrets, or is it Tharizdun’s power, testing the devotion of those who come before him?”

There was no reply, although Kri half expected the text on the wall to twist into some answer, or for the slowly fading echoes to whisper a response. Still, he smiled. “Very well, I will play this game. Words have not yet conquered Kri Redshal, and my devotion is strong.”

This time, something did answer him, though it could as easily have come from within as from without. Once you said that of another.

Kri ignored it. With the purple lantern held high, he began to climb once more. This time he chanted the prayer of the Chained God out loud, letting the echoes of it build and wash over him.

The trees of the valley stretched high. Seen from the valley’s rim, they made an impenetrable, leafy canopy. Seen from below they were pillars rising in a vast green hall. Fortunately, the undergrowth, choked off by the shade above, was sparse. Riding was easy.

“You wouldn’t guess anything had ever happened here, would you?” said Tabisha.

“Most of the trees outside the valley are larger and at least a century older than any inside it,” said Kri. “Most of the trees inside the valley are also of a suspiciously similar age, suggesting they all took root at almost the same time. Furthermore, those scraggly vines climbing that tree toward sunlight”—he pointed—“are twining beans, typically a domesticated species. Their presence indicates that the valley was inhabited at one point.”

“Doesn’t that mean that the Order of Vigilance didn’t scour the valley as thoroughly as the records say? ‘With fire and frost and lightning the area was cleansed, until nothing that walked, crawled, flew, or grew from the soil remained.’ ”

“Twining beans are notoriously hardy,” Kri told her. “Ancient beans in desert ruins have sprouted when soaked in water. Northern tribes depend on them when winter frosts reach into early summer. Your knowledge of botany is lacking. We’ll address that on the journey home across the Midnight Sea.”

Tabisha rolled her eyes. “Thieves don’t need to know about plants.”

“No? Where do you imagine your most common poisons come from? It’s far easier to drain sap from a dominion vine than it is to milk venom from an adder.” He rode a short distance in silence before adding, “You also have to stop thinking of yourself as just a thief. There are so many things you need to know. You’re a member of the Order of Vigilance now.”

“Why Kri, that almost sounded like concern for me.”

He glared at her. “It would shame the Order if I left them a half-trained apprentice.”

Tabisha laughed, a sound like gold coins clinking together. “Then let your wisdom fall upon me as a dotard’s spittle, O my master!”

Kri screwed up his face and turned around in his saddle. “Check the map,” he said sourly. Tabisha was still laughing as she pulled out a scroll. The laughter faded as she checked it and looked around for landmarks that time and searing magic could not obliterate.

“We should be close to the village,” she said.

“Look for foundation stones,” said Kri. “Rectangular formations will show where houses once stood. We’ll use those to orient ourselves.”

They found the first stones quickly—and after that, the patterns of vanished streets even more quickly. Kri couldn’t help wondering if Tabisha was right. Perhaps the Order’s record of their actions in the valley was somewhat exaggerated. Maybe the destruction of the village hadn’t been quite so complete as the histories suggested. He struggled to keep excitement from his face, but his heart beat a little faster at the possibility. By Ioun’s Book of Insight, he prayed silently, let it be so!

Before the bright glow of the sun had travelled more than three finger widths across the canopy of leaves, they stood before the broken stump of the tower from which Tavit Nance had unleashed the Voidharrow and the Abyssal Plague upon the village.

Kri ran his tongue around a mouth gone dry with anticipation. “We name him traitor,” he said quietly, “but so much we know only because of him. Before the Order destroyed the village, they made certain to loot Tavit’s home and workshop of all they contained.”

Then he turned and put his back to the broken tower. “Which one is the temple of Pelor?”

Tabisha consulted the map, a remnant of the Order’s battle against the plague drawn with an archivist’s attention to detail. She turned and pointed to a ruin that rose a sword’s length higher than those around it. She looked a little shaken. “The Order razed Pelor’s temple?”

“It had been desecrated by then,” said Kri, “and the gods were as silent on the actions of the Order of Vigilance that day as they are on the subject of the Voidharrow.” He crossed what had been the village square and mounted the crumbling stone steps of the temple. It had probably been the only building in the village constructed entirely of stone.

Exactly as he had suspected.

“The tower was Tavit’s base,” he said, “but when the Order brought him down as a plague demon, he was in the temple. The more pious members of the Order at the time suggested he was seeking the forgiveness of the gods for what he had done. The more cynical thought it a final act of sacrilege. I remain amazed that it took four generations of the Order for someone practical to wonder if he were actually just hiding something.” He glanced at Tabisha and found her smiling again. “Most temples like this have crypts beneath them. Look for an entrance.”

They found it quickly: a trapdoor tiled in the same stone as the rest of the temple floor and covered by weathered debris that was swiftly cleared away. If Kri didn’t know better, he’d almost have suspected Ioun was guiding them.

Tabisha produced torches and lit them but hesitated. “What if there’s a plague demon down there?”

“Unlikely. A demon would have tried to escape before now.”

“Then what about the plague?”

He touched the symbol of Ioun around his neck and murmured a prayer. White light shimmered around the symbol, spreading to envelop him and then Tabisha before fading. “The light of the gods will protect us.” Kri reached down and pulled open the door. Stale, cold air trapped for a hundred years puffed up to meet them. Kri took a torch and led the way down short, very steep stairs.

The crypt had been constructed as a series of small chambers connected by archways. There were only four or five crypt chambers, hardly the labyrinth that existed beneath older, larger temples, but it was enough. Small caskets, large caskets, niches filled with bones—there were many places where something could have been hidden. Nor had the crypt entirely escaped the violence of the battle that had raged above. The keystone of one arch, along with the stones to either side of it, was deeply cracked. The stone ceiling of the chamber beyond sagged dangerously.

“What should we look for?” asked Tabisha quietly.

“I don’t know,” Kri said. “Something hidden in haste. Be careful—leave that sagging chamber for last. May Ioun’s eye guide us.”

“Or Avandra’s luck.”

They separated, each picking a bone-filled chamber to investigate. Kri poked cautiously through the old remains. He tried to work methodically, to embrace the patience that Ioun taught. Knowledge didn’t come swiftly. The bones were like pages, Kri told himself, each niche a book that would yield its secrets only with careful study.

It didn’t work. After six niches, the books of bones had become slow reading. He could hear Tabisha in another chamber, cursing in frustration as she searched. Maybe those earlier members of the Order had been right. Maybe Tavit Nance had entered the temple just to seek salvation or commit sacrilege. Maybe it had just been a convenient place to make his last stand. What could he have been hiding anyway? Kri had made the long journey, dragging Tabisha along, in hopes of finding some undiscovered insight into the Voidharrow. Something—anything—that might give him more answers about the mysterious liquid crystal substance. But maybe there was nothing more to find.

His jaw tightened. No. He would not give up looking, just because of a moment of doubt. He needed answers and a moment of frustration was not going to stop him. He would empty the crypt before admitting defeat.

But maybe that wasn’t necessary. The histories of the Order said that when he was defeated, the Abyssal Plague had turned Tavit Nance into a demon, but that he had retained a vicious cunning. Kri sat back and tried to put himself in Nance’s place. He had something to hide from the Order—most likely notes, papers, or a book. The crypt would provide a hiding place that was strong and might survive anything the Order did to the village above. But paper or parchment couldn’t be left out in the open in a crypt. It had to be protected from the damp and vermin. It would have to be inside some kind of wrapping or case, but among the bones, a wrapped bundle or a case would stand out.

So why not put it in one of the cases already present in the crypt?

Kri grabbed the nearest casket and wrenched it open. A yellowed skull surrounded by neatly stacked bones grinned up at him. He threw the casket aside, knocking over a pile of bones and sending them rattling to the ground. “Kri?” called Tabisha.

“It’s nothing,” he shouted back to her. “I’m fine.” He whirled around. There were fewer caskets than there were loose bones, but it would still take time to search them all. A lust for discovery was in him. Whatever Tavit Nance had hidden in the crypt, he needed to find it now. He opened another casket. More bones, economically packed to the casket’s top. There wouldn’t have been room to hide anything inside.

Kri felt a flush of triumph. He had the solution to the puzzle. “Tabisha!” he said. “Look for a casket with its bones dumped out beside it. If Nance was in a hurry, he wouldn’t have looked for an empty casket—he would have made room by emptying one.”

He went to work without waiting for her reply. The chamber he was in had no telltale heaps of bones. The caskets were all orderly, undisturbed except for the two he had opened. Kri hurried to the next chamber. Again, all was in order. He bit his tongue. He couldn’t be wrong about this. It made too much sense.

“Kri,” said Tabisha, “I think I’ve found something.”

She stood in front of the arch with the broken keystone, outside of the chamber with the sagging ceiling. Her torch, thrust at arm’s length through the dangerous arch, shed just enough light to glimmer on a small casket of white stone against the far wall and the heap of yellow bones in front of it. Kri’s mouth went dry. He would have plunged through the arch, but Tabisha caught his arm and held him back.

“Let me,” she said.

For a moment, blinding rage filled Kri. This was his discovery. He should be the one to open the casket. He pushed the anger back. “You think it’s trapped?” he asked.

“Not deliberately.” She nodded at the ceiling. “But I don’t like the look of that. A lumbering priest isn’t going to get in and out. A light-footed thief can.” Her glance dared him to challenge her.

Kri studied the ceiling and the arch, trying to recall all he knew of the principles of masonry, then nodded at last. Tabisha handed him her torch. “Hold both of them high.”

Under the double illumination, she slipped through the arch and into the chamber. Her eyes, Kri noticed, weren’t on the ceiling, but the ground. At first he thought she was just trying to avoid scattered bones, but then he saw that the stones paving the floor were uneven. Whatever forces had cracked the arch and weakened the ceiling had heaved them up as well. A misplaced foot on a tilted stone could send Tabisha staggering. The impact of her body, however slight, could jar the precarious balance of the ceiling.

But Tabisha reached the far side of the chamber without stumbling. Using her foot, she delicately swept some of the tumbled bones so she could stand directly before the casket. She bent and examined it. “There are claw marks on the stone,” she said, her voice pitched low.

“Nance’s demon claws.” Kri’s heart soared. “Bring out the entire casket.”

Tabisha looked over her shoulder at him. “It would be easier to open it and just bring whatever’s inside. The latch is torn off—”

“Bring out the casket!”

The echoes of his voice brought grains of crumbled mortar drifting down from the ceiling. Tabisha looked up, hesitated, then twisted back around and heaved up the casket. Her return across the chamber was slow and ponderous. She placed her feet with even more care, possibly because she couldn’t see the floor over her burden. Kri could see the strain in her face and arms. His hands shifted eagerly on the shafts of the torches. By the time Tabisha was only a few paces from the arch, he couldn’t stand waiting any longer. He thrust the torches in among piles of bones to support them and free his hands.

She froze the instant the shadows started to dance. “Kri, hold up the torches! I need to see.”

“Let me help you.” He moved through the arch.

“Kri, don’t!”

He didn’t see quite what happened—his gaze was on the casket—but Tabisha shifted suddenly. Stones grated under her feet. She swayed to the side, unbalanced by the weight of the casket. Kri, startled, stepped back from her.

His foot came down on a bone. It rolled and splintered under him. He stumbled, falling against the side of the arch. The stones creaked, then groaned loudly. Kri threw himself back. Tabisha cursed and leaped forward as the cracked keystone gave way and the arch came crashing down.

Dust filled the air, extinguishing one of the torches and reducing the other to a guttering orange glow. The sound of the collapse left Kri’s ears ringing. He groped for the remaining torch and waved it gently until the flame rose again. The dust dispersed the light, limiting his vision. Kri groped his way forward.

The casket rested, miraculously upright, on the ground just a handsbreadth from Tabisha’s fingers. Tabisha herself lay stretched out on her belly. Her eyes were closed, but the dust that drifted around her mouth eddied with each slow breath. Stones lay across her legs and hips, both the smaller stones of the arch and larger ones that must have tumbled from the ceiling. Kri reached for his protégé.

His gaze, however, slid away from her and back to the casket. Had whatever it contained survived the fall? He should check. It would only take a moment. He shifted and reached for the casket.

Tabisha’s eyes flickered and opened. Her breath quickened. Her voice, when it came, was dull and thick. “Kri …”

He hesitated.

And a voice seemed to slip into his head like a manifestation of his desire. Look inside. You want to.

His hand was on the broken latch. His fingers slipped into the grooves the demon claws had made. On the edge of his vision, he saw Tabisha try to pull herself from the rocks. The attempt ended in a gasp of pain. “Kri!” she called again. He lifted the weight of the casket’s stone lid and leaned forward to peer inside.

Cradled in a nest of crumpled paper, a tiny crystal vial gleamed under the light of his torch. Kri squinted and brought the light closer. There was something inside the vial. Something red and crystalline yet liquid, like blood mixed with honey and shot through with faint specks of gold and silver. The joy of discovery filled him, greater than any he had ever felt.

A sample of the Voidharrow. The last remnants of what Tavit Nance had taken from the Order. No wonder he had hidden it! Kri’s hand actually trembled slightly as he lifted the precious vial from its resting place. He held the very thing the Order had denied him—that his god, by her silence, had kept from him. His mind reeled at the secrets he might be able to learn from those few imprisoned drops.

“Kri, help me!” Tabisha’s plea was sharp with agony. “I can’t get out.”

No one can know about this, said the voice in his head.

“The Order would take it away from me,” Kri replied. He felt a surge of bitter hatred at the very possibility. The Order would probably declare the little vial too dangerous to study and give it to Moorin to lock away. They were too terrified at the potential for change that the vial represented.

Show them, the voice murmured, when the time is right.

Exactly. He would tell them when he was ready to. When he could lay the secrets of the Voidharrow out before the Order and rub their collective faces in them. He rose, clenching the vial in his hand.

Tabisha grabbed for his ankle. “Kri, you have to get these stones off me. Find something to move them. Call on Ioun—”

He pulled away from her and climbed the steep stairs. Tabisha’s voice broke into a scream behind him. “Kri, help me! Kri? Kri!”

The old man blinked eyes that were unexpectedly wet. “Dark master, chained lord,” he said. “You were with me even so long ago. You guided me. You brought change when I needed it.”

The words made his throat and lips burn like leather stretched in the sun. How long had he been praying? How long had he been climbing? His legs ached. The arm that held the lantern was stiff. The fingers of the hand that brushed the wall were raw. His stomach was a void.

Kri didn’t stop moving, though he began to wonder if somehow he had missed the doorway to the hall of broken statues and kept climbing past it. Dread set claws into him. “Chained God,” he asked softly, “is this retribution for sacrificing Tabisha to keep the Voidharrow a secret?”

The trapped thief’s cries had haunted him for years. Initially he hadn’t even been able to look at the tiny vial without thinking of the cost of gaining it. Slowly the guilt had faded, as had his unease at hiding the vial within the shaft of Ioun’s holy sign where it hung around his neck. The only time recently that he’d thought of Tabisha at all was when he’d revealed to Albanon that each member of the Order of Vigilance was expected to train one or two others to take his or her place.

“Have you trained new members for the Order?” Albanon had asked innocently.

Kri had mastered his anguish then. It was not so easy to master it in the same darkness that Tabisha had faced, starving slowly as she must have starved. He fell back on the same reasoning that had given him strength all those years ago: if Tabisha hadn’t died, the Voidharrow would have been revealed to the Order. Her death had been the price of knowledge.

That reasoning, he realized, took on new meaning now. The sense of a need for secrecy that had come on him in the crypt had been Tharizdun’s gaze. The Chained God had made it possible for him to find the Voidharrow.

The Chained God had wanted him to find the Voidharrow. He had been a prisoner of Ioun’s way of thinking. Tharizdun’s gift of change had given him the will to break free, just as the Chained God’s will created the Voidharrow as a means to escape his otherworldly prison. It was all about strength of will.

Kri stopped climbing. Understanding swept over him—understanding of what Tharizdun had shown him in the void before depositing him in the dwarven ruins. Tharizdun’s will had made it possible for him to join with the Progenitor and create the Voidharrow. Even if the Progenitor had turned against Tharizdun, the Voidharrow existed because of Tharizdun’s mighty will.

“And it is the key to destroying the Voidharrow and punishing the Progenitor,” Kri said out loud, and once again echoes rippled up and down the stairs. This time, however, they seemed to come back to him with Tharizdun’s voice.

One comes who will help you turn that key.

A tremor shivered through the rock and ahead of him a sliver of brilliant blue light appeared, as if the vibrations had forced open some hidden door. Hope rose in Kri and he sprang up the stairs as fast as his weak and aching legs would let him. It was a door, with brilliant light and cold, fresh air blowing in from beyond. As Kri thrust his head out into the brightness, he realized with a start that he had been wrong about many things.

From the darkness of the stairs came a final echo. One comes. Be ready.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Smoke lay over Winterhaven like a black, choking fog that persisted despite the breeze and the morning sun. All of the buildings on the north side of the market square—Wrafton’s Inn among them—were on fire. Some efforts had been made to fight the flames before they were abandoned in exhaustion and despair. A few glassy-eyed defenders worked to keep the fire from spreading, but others wandered the village, slowly collecting bodies and committing them to the flames. Wrafton’s had become a pyre. Salvana crouched so close to it that the tears that ran down her cheeks dried before they reached her jaw.

Uldane helped to gather the bodies of the fallen, numbly working through his shock. The corpses of villagers were treated with a sort of reverence, rolled in blankets, put on boards, and carried to the consuming fire. The remains of the plague demons went to the flames too, dragged into the fire with hay hooks and pitchforks.

The dead demons outnumbered the dead villagers, but not by much. Only about half of the villagers had died by claw and fang. The rest, like most of the demons, bore the focused scorch marks of a lightning strike.

Albanon’s magic had saved Winterhaven from the plague demons, but at a terrible cost.

As they brought Thair Coalstriker, his hammer still clenched in his lifeless fist, Uldane saw Lord Padraig standing close to the flames with some of Winterhaven’s other senior warriors. Uldane left Thair with a farmer’s two brawny sons who had taken on the somber task of slinging bodies deep into the fire and went to Padraig. The conversation broke off as he approached. One of the warriors glared at him as if Uldane had personally brought destruction to the village.

Padraig nudged the angry man pointedly, then looked down. “What is it, Uldane?” he asked.

His voice was flat and weary. Uldane found words with difficulty. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know Albanon didn’t mean to—”

“What’s done is done.”

“If you need help rebuilding or reinforcing the gate …”

Padraig stopped him with a raised hand. “Enough, Uldane. There won’t be any rebuilding. We’ve stood our ground as long as we could. We’ll set out for Fallcrest before noon. Winterhaven is finished.”

Uldane felt a flutter in his chest that he hadn’t felt even during the heat of the battle. “You can’t mean that.”

“Or what?” growled the man on Padraig’s right. “Stay and be picked up off? They’ll be back, again and again. There’re fewer of us than ever thanks to you.”

He took a threatening step toward the halfling, but Padraig staggered and grabbed for his shoulder. Not to stop the other man, Uldane realized, but to support himself. A bloody bandage wrapped Padraig’s thigh.

“You’re wounded,” Uldane said. “Was it one of the plague demons? You could already be infected with the Abyssal Plague!”

“No, not one of the demons, thank the gods,” Padraig said. “A splinter long as a knife driven by a lightning strike on one of the buildings.”

Another jab at Albanon. Uldane set his jaw. “You should have it healed. Roghar can do that.” He turned and scanned the smoky square for the paladin. He found him lowering the curled body of an old man into the arms of the brothers by the inn and called him over. Roghar came, greeting Padraig with a deep nod that conveyed both acknowledgment and regret in silence. Uldane grabbed for Roghar’s hand and pointed at Padraig’s thigh.

Roghar’s face tightened. He pulled his hand away from Uldane. “My lord, I can heal your wound if you require it, but I’ve called on Bahamut’s favor too much tonight.”

Uldane swung around to stare at him. “Really?”

Roghar’s snout wrinkled in annoyance at the challenge, but Padraig only shook his head. “Save Bahamut’s favor for those who need it more than I do.”

“Few enough of those,” said the man at his side. “Unless you can bring the dead back to life.”

Padraig nudged him again, but not too hard. The lord of Winterhaven’s gaze remained on Uldane. “You should go, too.”

“Go?” The flutter in Uldane’s chest turned into a wild flapping like an agitated bird. “Go where? What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s nothing more for you here. You and your friends should leave Winterhaven. Emotions run high after a battle.” Padraig nodded to Roghar. “Paladin, thank you for your service in battle.”

“Bahamut demands no less, my lord.”

And with that, Padraig turned away, leaving Uldane to stare after him in shock. The halfling might have followed, but Roghar shifted to herd him in the other direction. “You heard what Padraig said,” he muttered. “We should be on our way. We’ve outstayed our welcome.”

“Outstayed? This is my home!” protested Uldane. “I lived here until a few months ago.” He tugged away from Roghar. “And what do you mean you’ve called on Bahamut’s favor too much? I’ve never seen you turn away someone who needed help.”

Roghar’s jaw tightened. “Just because you’ve never seen something doesn’t make it impossible. Besides, Padraig himself said he didn’t need my healing.” He looked around, then took a firm grip on Uldane’s shoulder and propelled him onward. “Let’s get to the others.”

There was no question of where they would find Belen, Tempest, and especially Albanon. Toward the gate in the center of the area most heavily scarred by lightning, the eladrin wizard sat with his head in his hands. Tempest and Belen stood by him, not so much to give him comfort as to warn off anyone with thoughts of revenge. They looked relieved at Uldane and Roghar’s approach, though it seemed to Uldane that all they’d had to deal with were angry looks. No one was coming close. Though all the other corpses nearby had been collected, three corpses lay undisturbed: Vestagix, Immeral, and, at Albanon’s feet, Splendid.

Roghar wasted no time. “Padraig says we should be on our way.”

“He’s right,” said Belen. “When the Winterhaveners stop feeling stunned, they’re going to be angry. We’re lucky—the stable didn’t catch fire and whoever cleared out the inn before the flames took hold threw most of our gear out along with everyone else’s.” She kicked a little pile of packs with her toe. “I don’t think we’d be so fortunate now.”

“Good,” Roghar said. “I’ll get the horses and be right back.”

Anger boiled over inside Uldane. “No,” he said. “We’re not going yet.” He marched up to Albanon. The wizard raised his face—and Uldane slapped it. “By the gods, what happened? What was that?”

Albanon’s head just dropped again. “I told you about the power I felt while I was under Tharizdun’s influence. That was it.”

That gave even Uldane pause. “You called on the Chained God’s power?”

“It’s not Tharizdun’s power. It’s my power. He just showed me how to use it. All of it.” Albanon scrubbed his fingers and palms across his face. “Vestagix killed Immeral, then Splendid. It put me over the edge. I needed to stop him.”

“Vestagix was dead before you summoned the lightning, Albanon,” said Roghar gently. “I killed him.”

Albanon peered at him, the blue orbs of his eyes bright between long, pale fingers. “He was a part of Vestapalk, some kind of extension of him just like the plague demons are an extension of the Voidharrow. You killed a body. I needed to stop Vestapalk.”

He sighed, dropped his hands, then bent over to pick up and cradle Splendid’s body. Her neck was snapped like a chicken’s. Uldane’s friendship with the pseudodragon hadn’t been deep—she’d been too much like a prim spinster for him to really like her—but even he felt she deserved better than that, especially after risking herself to save Albanon.

“I didn’t see any point in restraining myself when all my restraint had done was let Splendid and Immeral die,” Albanon continued, stroking Splendid’s scales. “I couldn’t let the demons overrun Winterhaven but I didn’t realize how far I might go to defeat them.” He glanced up at Uldane and Roghar. “When you tried to stop me, I thought you were plague demons, too. I came this close to turning the lightning on you as well. I’m never going to let my resistance down again.”

“Don’t say never,” said Tempest. She kneeled down beside Albanon. “That wasn’t you. Maybe it was your power as you say, but I can’t believe it was really you that used it to destroy Winterhaven. You wouldn’t do that. When I was possessed by Nu Alin—when Belen was possessed by Nu Alin—we did some terrible things, but it was him using our bodies to do them. It wasn’t us.”

Albanon looked at her. “But you fought him, didn’t you? I didn’t. I embraced what Tharizdun offered.” He nodded at Vestagix’s corpse. “Am I any different than him or Vestapalk?”

“Of course you are,” said Uldane without hesitation. He meant the words wholeheartedly, but they slipped out before he even realized they were on his tongue. Suddenly, all the others were looking at him. He winced and pressed ahead. “For one thing,” he said, “you regret what you’ve done. Whenever we’ve faced Vestapalk, it’s been clear he only cares about gathering power. Look what’s come out of that—Winterhaven destroyed, Fallcrest barely hanging on, and the Abyssal Plague spreading across the Nentir Vale and beyond. You care about people, Albanon. You held that power in because you didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

Albanon wrinkled his nose. “I wanted to hurt the demons.”

“Don’t talk, just listen.” Uldane was rolling now. His speech was a little fire burning steadily in his belly. He drew his dagger. “When my uncle gave me my first dagger—not just a knife, but a real weapon—he said, ‘Uldane, someday you’re going to have to kill people with this. You might hurt people with it when you don’t mean to, as well. Don’t blame the dagger and don’t blame yourself. It’s a tool. Anyone can have an accident with a tool.’ ”

“An accident with your dagger isn’t going to destroy half a village.”

Uldane flipped the dagger around in his hand and with a quick flick of his wrist sent it skimming past Albanon’s ear, close enough that a few gleaming silver hairs went drifting to the ground. The dagger stuck into a post some distance behind him. Albanon yelped and flinched. Uldane folded his arms and continued, “We all have to live with what we do. An accident is an accident, even if it started as something stupid—”

“That was stupid!” snapped Albanon, running his fingers over his ear.

“I would never have hit you,” said Uldane. “Anyway, the point is you don’t just blame a tool and throw it away.”

“You threw your dagger away,” Belen said.

Uldane glared at her, and then at Tempest as the tiefling added, “I thought the point was that accidents happen when you give sharp things to Uldane.”

“I’m more concerned that Uldane’s uncle was encouraging him to kill people at a young age,” said Roghar.

“Enough!” Uldane stamped his foot angrily. He looked to Albanon. “Do you still feel that urge drawing you north?” The eladrin nodded. “Are we going to keep following it, looking for a way to stop Vestapalk?”

Albanon hesitated then stood up, his mouth set in a grim line. “I want to stop Vestapalk more than ever now.”

“What if you need to use that power against him? You said it was Tharizdun’s influence that showed you how to use it—and you said you thought the urge was something the Chained God’s touch put in you. What if they’re connected?”

Albanon’s expression grew even grimmer. “If I have the chance to turn it against Vestapalk,” he said, “I will.”

“No matter what the cost?”

The wizard froze at the suggestion. He looked down at Splendid, cradled in his arms. Doubt and conflict showed in his face. Uldane reached up and wrapped his hand around one of Albanon’s.

“If you have to think about it, you’re a thousand times better than Vestapalk. You’ll be fine.”

Albanon closed his eyes for a moment and blew out a long breath, then looked up again. “We should burn Immeral and Splendid before we leave,” he said.

“Let me,” said Tempest. She took Splendid from Albanon and carried her over to where Immeral lay. She settled the pseudodragon’s corpse with the huntsman’s arm around her, then stepped back before kneeling to place one hand on the battle-churned ground. Her tail thrashed as she concentrated. Wisps of acrid smoke rose around the two bodies for a moment before exploding into a torrent of flame.

Around the square, villagers turned to stare. Roghar let out a soft hiss. “Now I’d better get the horses,” he said. He slipped away to the stables.

Albanon went to stand close beside Tempest. Uldane watched them, then felt Belen step up beside him. “That was impressive,” she said quietly. “You can be quite the inspiring speaker when you want to be. You have more depth than I thought you did.”

“I know,” said Uldane. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Roghar strode into the stables, facing anyone who looked like they might challenge him down with a cool stare. They all dropped their eyes after no more than a few heartbeats. Even after a battle of demons and lightning, a dragonborn in heavy armor was a sight to make the most unruly troublemaker think twice. There were few enough people in the stable as it was and those who didn’t clear out entirely found reasons to give Roghar a wide berth.

Which made him feel even more frightened and ashamed. Roghar glanced around to make sure no one was watching him, then ducked down into the stall where his own horse waited and drew the gauntlet off his right hand.

Beneath it, the fine scales of his wrist were torn in a raw, irregular circle. Blood pricked the surface in small, shimmering beads. Roghar examined the abrasion closely, making sure the sparkling droplets were indeed blood—and nothing else.

When Vestagix’s lashing crystalline tail had wrapped around his arm in the heat of battle, he’d registered only a moment’s stinging pain. The wrenching of the sword from his grip and the gauntlet from his hand had seemed like more of a blow. In the chaos that followed—a wave of plague demons that had strangely all but ignored him, the furious blow that had ended Vestagix, the storm of Albanon’s magic—he hadn’t given the slight sting of his wrist a second thought. Then he’d recovered his gauntlet and his sword and, in donning the gauntlet, had realized what had happened.

Roghar could almost feel the splintering crystals of Vestagix’s tail against his hide. Raking through his scales. Drawing blood.

Infecting him with the taint of the Abyssal Plague.

He’d lied when Uldane had asked him to heal Lord Padraig, but he couldn’t help himself. Padraig’s wound had been entirely natural. A good dressing and careful attention would heal it. There was nothing natural about what Vestagix had done to him. He wrapped his good hand around his wrist and focused the power of his faith. “Holy Bahamut,” he murmured, “whose Word is Law and whose Shield is Justice. Hear my prayer and cleanse these wounds.”

The warm touch of the divine that normally answered his invocation was slow in coming, like honey flowing on a cold morning. When it did finally enter him, it was sweet but also strangely distant. Roghar held his breath as it grew, then ebbed, beneath his fingers. Albanon had described how Kri had drawn on the holy light of the gods to scour the Voidharrow from his flesh. Roghar couldn’t wield divine radiance in the same way, but he hoped—prayed—that his own healing abilities would be just as effective.

When the warmth faded, he slowly removed his hand from his wrist. The mark of Vestagix’s tail remained, a scar on his scales, but the blood was gone and the raw flesh was smooth. Roghar let his breath out in relief.

Then he caught it again as a single bright red drop welled up between two torn scales.

“No,” he choked softly. “No!” He squeezed his hand over his wrist once more. “Bahamut, close this wound!”

This time, he waited for the touch of the divine in vain. There was no warmth, no sense of the divine. All he felt, and it might have been his own imagination, was a slow itching, as if something crawled through his veins. Bahamut did not answer him. Did not or would not. Or perhaps, Roghar thought, could not.

“Roghar!” called Uldane from outside the stable, then his voice echoed as he came inside. “Roghar, where are the horses? We’re ready to go.”

The paladin flinched and grabbed his gauntlet, pulling it on to hide the blood that smeared his wrist. He stood just as Uldane came searching along the row of stalls. Uldane frowned at him. “What have you been doing?”

Roghar scowled back at him. “Giving thanks,” he lied. “Can I not have a moment to commune with my god?”

“It would be better if you communed while we rode. People are starting to forget they’re afraid of Albanon. We need to go.” He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “You haven’t even gotten them saddled yet!”

“Then make yourself useful and help me. Gather their tack. We’ll be gone faster.” Roghar grabbed his horse’s saddle blanket from where it hung over the stall and threw it across the animal’s back. As Uldane turned away, he exhaled and squeezed his eyes closed, fighting down a churning fear he knew he couldn’t outrun.

There were two times during the day that Albanon found his memories of Winterhaven particularly hard to bear. The first was in the evening as he prepared himself to enter the trance that served eladrin in place of sleep. Memories of the power he had wielded chased themselves around the dark corners of his mind and a fear grew that madness would creep up on him once more as he dreamed.

The second was in the morning. For about twenty heartbeats after he emerged from his trance, he’d be at peace. Then he’d remember that Splendid and Immeral were no longer with them and his sense of peace would evaporate. Various emotions would rush in to fill that void. Sorrow. Fury. Determination to put an end to Vestapalk’s cruelty—and to Tharizdun’s hold on him. Sickness at what his friends’ deaths had brought out in him. Guilt at what he’d done.

On the third morning after they’d left Winterhaven, guilt and sickness came together like a physical blow that made his head spin and his throat clench with nausea. Albanon lunged away from their little campsite, drawing calls of concern from Tempest and Uldane, and retched into a clump of bushes. He thrust the vile thought away and stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

He found himself facing Roghar across the bushes and winced. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t …” He gestured weakly at the vomit-streaked leaves. “Did I?”

“No,” said Roghar in a low rumble. “You didn’t. Thank Bahamut for that.”

“I didn’t know you were there.” Although he should have guessed, Albanon realized. Ever since they had left Winterhaven, the paladin had been taking himself a short distance from the camp to pray at dawn and dusk. He’d been quieter and more withdrawn, too. Albanon couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Roghar sing the way he used to. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who carried emotional scars from the events in the village.

He stretched out a hand—not the one he’d wiped his mouth with—and offered it to Roghar. “We’ll get through this together. We’ll stop Vestapalk.”

The dragonborn hesitated for a moment, then wrapped his hand, still cased in a gauntlet, around Albanon’s. “How much farther?” he asked bluntly.

Albanon glanced in the direction that his internal urge—growing steadily stronger the farther they traveled—was taking them. Away through the trees, the ground rose into the first steep slopes of the Cairngorm Peaks. They’d left the road behind and spent the previous day travelling through foothills. That day, and for as many succeeding days as it took to reach their mysterious destination, they would journey through the mountains. Unless they had good fortune, there was every chance they might find themselves forced leagues out of their way to get around some obstacle in the empty wilderness.

That the wilderness was empty was, perhaps, a blessing. They hadn’t seen any sign of plague demons since leaving Winterhaven. Albanon wasn’t sure whether to be pleased at that, especially in a region that was so sparsely populated to begin with, or even more worried. All evidence to the contrary, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Vestapalk’s minions were out there somewhere. Waiting for them.

“Not far,” he told Roghar. “I hope.”

Roghar responded with a grunt. “Good,” he said—and he dropped Albanon’s hand, turning to stride back to the camp without another word or glance. Albanon blinked and stared after him.

Later, with the sun almost at its noon height, the eladrin nudged his mount over beside Tempest’s as they rode around the grassy flank of a mountain. “Have I done something to offend Roghar?” he asked quietly.

Tempest raised a narrow eyebrow. “Besides almost vomiting on him?”

“Other than that.” Albanon looked at Roghar’s back—the paladin rode in advance of the rest of them. “He’s been curt with me the last couple of days and it’s only getting worse. You’ve known him the longest. What’s bothering him?”

“I wish I knew,” she said, “but it isn’t just you. I’ve seen him surly, but never for this long.”

“Do you think it’s because of what happened at Winterhaven?”

“He’s seen worse—or at least as bad. The attack on Fallcrest. What we found in Nera before we came back to the Vale. When something bad happens, he seeks refuge in Bahamut for a while, then he comes back stronger than ever.” Tempest turned her head and studied Albanon for a long moment. “I think you’re doing better than him right now.”

“If I’m doing better, then he’s in really bad shape.” Albanon attempted a smile but it withered on his lips. He sighed. “I never thought I’d actually miss Splendid this much.”

“It surprises you, doesn’t it? I miss Immeral. Not much of a talker, but his wilderness skills would come in handy right now. I can’t help thinking we’d be moving a little faster if he was here.”

Albanon shrugged. “We’ll get through. Uldane’s trying but I think he always depended on Shara.”

“Possibly.” Tempest rode a little farther in silence before she said, “Am I the only one who was hoping we’d find signs of her and Quarhaun? Thair said they went north from Winterhaven, too.”

“They could have gone anywhere. ‘North’ covers a big area and I doubt that Shara would have left anything behind to mark their passage. We could pass by one of their campsites and never see it.”

“First Shara and Quarhaun leave us, then Splendid and Immeral.” Tempest gave a wry smile. “At this rate, there won’t be enough of us together to face Vestapalk.”

The observation put a new twist into Albanon’s already knotted stomach, but the grim humor of it made his lips twitch. Before he could answer, however, there was a whinny and a scuffle of hooves from ahead as Roghar reined his horse in sharply. He turned the beast around and came back to them. “There’s smoke rising beyond the next ridge.”

“Forest fire?” asked Albanon.

“Not dense enough,” said Roghar. “It looks more like the smoke from a lot of individual fires.”

They all exchanged glances. “A camp,” Belen said.

Roghar nodded. “A big one. Albanon, which way do we go?”

He raised his arm without hesitation and knew by Roghar’s sour curse that he was pointing right at the heart of the rising smoke. “Maybe the camp is our destination,” said Uldane brightly.

Albanon barely had to think about it—the answer rose in his mind. “It isn’t,” he said. “We have farther to go.”

“Dismount,” said Roghar. He swung down out of the saddle. “We’ll leave the horses and go up the ridge on foot. We may be able to go around it, but I want to have a look at what we’re dealing with.”

Among the trees, Uldane took the lead, pointing the way for the others to follow so they made as little noise as possible. The climb wasn’t difficult but their caution made it slow. Albanon got a good look at the smoke Roghar had described before they began their ascent and well before they reached the top of the ridge, a shift in the wind brought the scent of the camp that lay beyond. Wood smoke, cooking food, leather—the smells of any normal established hunting camp. What reassured the wizard even more, however, was the sound of children’s laughter drifting on the breeze.

He wasn’t the only one who drew hope from the laughter. Uldane looked pleased, while Tempest relaxed visibly. Belen, however, tensed, and Roghar’s face tightened. “What’s wrong?” Albanon asked him.

“People fight to defend their children like nothing else,” he said. “Be careful.”

They stayed low to the ground as they emerged from the trees and crept across the exposed top of the ridge. Flat on their bellies, they stared down at a camp that filled most of the hollow below. There were perhaps fifteen large tents of hides lashed over bent poles and enough people moving around—including children at play—that Albanon estimated the camp could easily have a population of one hundred and fifty inhabitants.

Many of those in the camp were human, but not all. Some of the figures moving among the tents had an easy grace and a casual swiftness that reminded him of hunting cats. Indeed, when he looked more closely, he saw their features had a catlike cast with flat noses, large eyes, and sharp teeth. Shifters. And a camp of mixed humans and shifters meant …

“Tigerclaw barbarians,” he murmured aloud. He turned his head to look at the others. “What are they doing this far away from the Winterbole Forest?”

“Thair said Tigerclaws were scavenging around Winterhaven,” said Uldane. “Maybe these are the same ones.”

“The question is,” Roghar said, “do we go into the camp and hope they’re feeling friendly or try to slip around them without being noticed?”

Belen answered before any of the rest of them could. “We go into their camp,” she said decisively. “You never sneak around the Tigerclaws. It suggests that you have some reason for being stealthy. We want them to know we’re here.”

Albanon felt Tempest, on the ground beside him and at the outside of their watching pack, stiffen. “Too late,” she rasped. Albanon twisted to look at her—and found a spear point gleaming just a handsbreadth from his nose.

On the other end of the spear, a Tigerclaw shifter bared her teeth at him.

CHAPTER NINE

Another barbarian had his spear pressed to the back of Tempest’s neck, keeping her facedown on the ground. Albanon’s back was to the others, but he could see the shadows of at least four more figures on the ground. The Tigerclaws had positioned themselves so that not even their shadows would give them away until they were ready. He swallowed.

“We mean no—” he began, but the spear point twitched a little closer.

“No speech, no spells,” growled the shifter warrior. “Hold your tongue in your mouth, eladrin, or I’ll cut it out and you can hold it in your hands.” Her amber eyes, pupils slit like a cat’s, flicked over the prisoners. “Why are you spying on the Thornpad clan?”

Once again, Belen spoke up. “We travel with caution in unknown territory,” she said with more formality than Albanon had heard from her before. “We saw signs of the camp ahead and didn’t want to ride blind. We have no intention to spy or to interfere with your clan. If you let us cross your range, we’ll ride on without disturbing the Tigerclaws further.”

A snarl rose from somewhere behind Albanon. “They would say that, Cariss. We heard them plotting to avoid us.”

“We heard them discussing their situation, Hurn. It didn’t sound to me like they were going to hide from us.” The warrior’s gaze shifted again. “You, human woman. How do you know so much about dealing with Tigerclaws?”

“I was part of the Fallcrest Guard,” said Belen. “On the rare occasions when representatives of Tigerclaw Chief Scargash visited Fallcrest, I was their escort.”

“You kept watch on them to ensure they behaved in civilized lands,” said the hard voice of Hurn.

“No,” Belen answered and although Albanon didn’t dare turn to look at her, he could hear strain in her voice. “I kept watch on the civilized people of Fallcrest to be sure they didn’t offend the Tigerclaws.”

A couple of the unseen Tigerclaws chuckled at that. Cariss gave the ghost of a smile. The point of her spear retreated slightly, allowing Albanon to look around at last, and she gestured for the warrior keeping Tempest down to let her up. Albanon met Tempest’s gaze as she turned and recognized the considerable control it was taking to keep her temper in check. Cariss appeared to have dismissed both of them already. Her attention was on Belen, who seemed to have taken on the mantle of leader of their party. “Do any of you carry the taint of the Abyssal Plague?”

Belen blinked. “No.”

“How do we know that’s the truth?” demanded Hurn. He was a shifter like Cariss, but taller and wider with a nasty scar that twisted his mouth into a permanent scowl.

Belen nodded to Roghar. “He’s a paladin of Bahamut. He’ll swear it.”

All of the Tigerclaws looked to Roghar. The dragonborn lifted his head. “We have fought plague demons from Fallcrest to Winterhaven. We are enemies of the one that spreads the Abyssal Plague. In Bahamut’s name, we will destroy him.”

Albanon winced at that grandiose declaration, but it seemed to satisfy Cariss. She looked back to Belen. “And why do you need to cross our territory to do it?”

“We need … We’re going …” Belen looked at a loss for words. Albanon came to her rescue.

“We’re looking for aid and think it lies not far beyond your camp,” he said, praying that Cariss wouldn’t ask for any further details.

His prayers were not answered. “Where?” asked the shifter.

Albanon tried to put on an air of confidence as he dredged his mind for a response. Something innocent. Something generic. A picturesque image popped into his imagination, vaguely familiar like a half-remembered drawing. “In a valley,” he said, “below a mountain’s stone face.” He pointed in the direction of his urge. “That way.”

This time, Cariss was the one who blinked. The other Tigerclaws stirred and Albanon felt a sudden unease. Had he just described some site sacred to the barbarians? Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut.

But then Cariss silenced the others with a swift gesture of her spear—and lifted the weapon away from him. Her catlike features broke into a smile. “Travelers, you are honest,” she said. “Come with us and meet Turbull, leader of the Thornpad clan. He will be interested to hear your story.”

“That’s not necessary,” Albanon said hastily. “We can just be on our way. We don’t need to bother—”

His words ended in a gasp of pain as Belen put her hand over his and squeezed hard. She returned Cariss’s smile. “We are pleased to accept the honor of your invitation.”

Albanon’s hand was still throbbing as they descended into the Tigerclaw camp, leading their horses and escorted by the six warriors. Cariss and two others went ahead, while Hurn and the remaining two followed. Albanon was certain he could feel the scarred shifter’s glare on the back of his neck.

“I think you might have broken something,” he muttered at Belen. “Was that necessary?”

“Tigerclaws take hospitality seriously,” she muttered back. “What was that about a mountain valley?”

“I needed to say something and it was the first thing that came into my head.”

“Well, try not to say anything else. Just follow my lead.”

“Did you really learn all this from escorting Tigerclaws?” asked Uldane. “We hardly ever saw them in Winterhaven—I never knew they went all the way to Fallcrest.”

“For now, let’s say I did and not talk about it anymore.”

Her tone cut off further questions. Tempest reached down and discretely put a hand over Uldane’s mouth before he could say anything else. He shook it off and scowled at the tiefling, but kept silent. Roghar barely even seemed to register the exchange. He just kept staring straight ahead.

Albanon let his aching hand drop to his side and looked around as casually as he could manage. Most of the clan seemed to have come out to stare at the new arrivals. From what Albanon knew of Tigerclaw barbarians, they didn’t interact with outsiders often, at least not in their home territory in the Winterbole Forest. The more he looked around the camp, though, the more he began to suspect that the Thornpad clan hadn’t occupied this area among the Cairngorms for long. The bent wood frames of the hide tents were green enough that they still oozed sap. The lashing was hardly weathered at all. The ground between the tents didn’t have the hardpacked appearance of long wear.

There was something in the faces of the barbarians as well. Warrior and crafter, women with babies on their hips, even now-silent children—all looked tired, afraid, suspicious, and more than a little haunted.

Albanon had seen the same look on the faces of the refugees crowding Fallcrest.

Some of the watching warriors came up to stride alongside their escort, exchanging quiet words with them. Hurn noticed and shouted them off. The warriors scowled and fell back with hard glances at Albanon and the others.

Cariss led them to a tent that was smaller than others but covered entirely in dark hides. An older shifter, apparently alerted to their approach, waited outside for them. A heavy gold chain hung with talismans of bone, feather, and stone lay against his chest, and his thick gray hair was pulled back and bound by another gold ornament. His arms were bare and criss-crossed with the scars of battle. Two short-handled warpicks with polished steel heads and handles inlaid with ivory hung from his belt. Cariss left them to Hurn and the other barbarian warriors and went to speak with the older shifter in low tones. Albanon tried to catch what they said, but couldn’t hear anything. The watching Tigerclaws were pressing closer and murmuring to each other. Hurn glared around and drove them all back a few paces with a fierce snarl.

The older shifter approached with Cariss half a pace behind him. “I am Turbull of the Thornpad clan of the Tigerclaw tribe,” he said without preamble. He gestured. “Cariss. Hurn.”

“I am Belen of Fallcrest.” The warrior introduced each of them in turn and then added, “We didn’t know the Tigerclaw were here or we would have brought gifts. This is all I can offer.”

Belen drew her sword with a swiftness that brought a cry of surprise from Uldane and set Roghar ducking behind his shield. Albanon instinctively put his back to Tempest’s, ready to defend against reprisal, but the Tigerclaws were staring more at them than they were at Belen. She shook her head at them as she offered her sword to Turbull.

He inspected it and chuckled. “You do know our ways,” he said. “A warrior’s offer of her weapon is always an honorable gift—and one that must always be returned because it belongs to her clan, not her.” Turbull handed the sword back to her. “A fine weapon. You said you escorted representatives of Chief Scargash in Fallcrest. Who?”

Albanon bit his tongue. If Belen’s claim was the lie that it seemed, she was almost certainly going to be caught out now. Miraculously, though, she had an answer. “Asheye of the eastern forests, his son Vinya, and some of their warriors. It was some years ago.”

And to Albanon’s surprise, Turbull nodded. “I have heard that Asheye had Scargash’s trust. He has been dead for three winters. Vinya leads their clan now.”

“Seasons change,” Belen said. “Is a warrior named Dutt still serving Vinya?”

Turbull shrugged with casual indifference. “I hear tales of certain warriors. Dutt is not among them, but maybe he has yet to make a name for himself.” And with that, to Albanon’s immense relief, the leader of the Thornpads appeared satisfied with Belen’s claim—or at least unwilling to admit he didn’t know much about a distant clan. “Come,” he said. “We will eat and you’ll tell me about your journey.”

Albanon’s relief shriveled again. Belen caught his eye as they settled onto woven mats in front of Turbull’s hut and gave him a confident little nod. She still had things under control.

Cariss and Hurn sat with them, along with two other warriors summoned by Turbull so that hosts and guests were in equal numbers and seated in an alternating pattern. Albanon found himself between Cariss and Turbull, with Tempest beyond Cariss and Belen beyond Turbull. Roghar sat beside Hurn and the two big men glared at each other. Albanon threw a warning glance at Uldane, willing him to actually behave for once, but it seemed as if the halfling was already intimidated. He sat quietly, looking around with darting glances.

Food came swiftly—smoking pieces of meat fresh from the fire, bowls of a thick vegetable stew, and some sort of weak beer that smelled of berries. It was presented in belly-filling quantities but Albanon saw more than a few Tigerclaws eyeing it hungrily. He leaned behind Cariss to look questioningly at Belen.

The first thing she said to him was “Sit up. It’s rude to talk behind people’s backs.” Then, once they were both leaning in front of the shifter woman, she added, “Eat what you want. We’re guests.” She nodded to Cariss. “They don’t know.”

Cariss grinned at Albanon, her teeth no less sharp than Tempest’s but somehow more disturbingly predatory. “Eat what you will and leave the rest. Nothing will go to waste.” She picked up a morsel of meat with her fingers and popped it into her mouth.

They ate and drank mostly in silence. Belen was the only one who talked much, discussing the weather and travel conditions with Turbull and Cariss. Albanon and the others limited their interactions to nods, shared glances, and a few nervous words with the other Tigerclaws. After a little while, it occurred to Albanon that the barbarians were just as uncertain around them. That put him a bit more at ease but he remained wary.

When most of the food and drink had been consumed, Belen bent a little closer to Turbull. “The Cairngorm Peaks are an unusual place to find Tigerclaws. Is Scargash expanding the territory claimed by the tribe?”

Turbull sighed before answering. “Scargash does not expand the Tigerclaw territory,” he said. “The Abyssal Plague ravages the Winterbole Forest just as I hear it ravages the southern Nentir Vale. Scargash’s answer is to call the clans together for defense. I believe another tactic is necessary.”

He gestured around them. “The plague demons haunt Winterbole, spreading their disease and their numbers. Here there are no demons. If we remain vigilant, the Thornpads will be safe.”

“We run and hide like rabbits,” Hurn grumbled into his stew.

“Even hunting cats know when to run from a fight they can’t win,” Cariss said sharply.

“Peace,” said Turbull. He looked back to Belen. “Not everyone agrees with my decision.”

“It wouldn’t be popular. But the hunting seems good at least.”

“It is enough,” Turbull said with a shrug.

“Have you considered moving farther into the mountains?” Roghar asked abruptly. “This place is good, but a mountain valley with limited access would be more defensible.”

Hurn paused in the act of reaching for another bowl of stew. The other Tigerclaws froze as well, though Turbull at least recovered quickly enough that it could have passed as a moment’s hesitation. “We have been considering that. There is a place we are scouting that is almost ideal.”

“Almost?” said Roghar.

Turbull waved the question away. “It is Tigerclaw business. Don’t trouble yourself with it.” He looked around the gathered circle. “But now tell me of your travels. Where you’ve been. Where you’re going.”

The change of conversation was so abrupt it left Albanon with a bad taste in his mouth. As Belen, once more taking the lead, launched into an abbreviated version of their adventures, he looked around at the Tigerclaws. All of them seemed to be listening to the story, but except for Turbull, none were actually looking at Belen. Or him, Roghar, Tempest, or Uldane. They’d all suddenly found great interest in their food. Albanon was willing to guess that Tigerclaw tradition frowned on lying to guests, but had no qualms about omitting information. The clan was hiding something.

But then so was Belen. Although her tale was rambling and artless, she hid most of their experiences with Vestapalk and certainly their involvement in the origins of the Abyssal Plague, describing the dragon only as their enemy. Suitably for a warrior, the bulk of her story focused on the details of their battles and that seemed more than enough for her barbarian audience. Her description of the events at Winterhaven brought the attention of the Tigerclaws back to her. They grunted appreciatively—even Hurn—at Roghar’s decapitating Vestagix with the edge of his shield, drawing a nod and the first smile Albanon had seen in days from the dragonborn.

Belen minimized the role he had played in the end of the battle, describing the madness of his lightning storm merely as a powerful spell and hinting that the devastation of Winterhaven had been the fault of the plague demons. When she had finished, Turbull sat back and nodded to the other Tigerclaws. “Learn from this,” he said. “Our enemies won’t always come at us in packs.” Then he sat forward again, his eyes on Albanon. “But what of this urge that draws you north? What have you learned from it?”

Belen hadn’t been able to leave out everything. She had, however, recast the urge planted in Albanon by Tharizdun and his lie about the valley as a vision granted to him by Ioun. Albanon took a breath and did his best to extemporize without actually lying any more than he already had. “Just that whatever we find at the end of the journey will aid us against Vestapalk and the Abyssal Plague. The vision itself is vague. I know there’s a mountain valley and a rock face.”

Turbull looked at him expectantly and Albanon realized that he was waiting for more details. “A … a tall rock face.” As he spoke, the image became more real in his mind. A strange feeling spread through him, as if what he described really was what they were searching for. “Taller than a castle tower. A cliff of pale gray stone.”

“How long is it since you first saw this vision?” asked Cariss.

“A few weeks now. A month perhaps, but no more. I denied it for some time.”

“Why? A call from the gods isn’t something to be ignored.”

Albanon cursed silently. He’d said too much. Why would anyone deny a vision from Ioun? “After the plague demon attack on Fallcrest, I just wanted peace.”

“Peace and denial are luxuries from another time,” said Turbull, “but sometimes they are still possible. You will have peace tonight—you will stay with the Thornpad and continue on your way tomorrow.”

The pronouncement brought two reactions. The Tigerclaws, Hurn and Cariss especially, growled and complained to Turbull, while Albanon and the others glanced uneasily between themselves. Roghar actually rose to his feet. “We should move on,” he said bluntly.

Turbull held up a hand to silence the members of his clan. “Hospitality has been offered. It cannot be called back.” He looked at Belen. “A tent will be prepared for you and later a feast.”

The warrior woman’s confidence seemed shaken. The offer to stay must not have been something she expected. Her eyes went to Albanon.

Tigerclaws take hospitality seriously, she’d said—and as much as Albanon mistrusted the situation, he liked staying on the barbarians’ good side better than offending them. He smiled at Turbull. “We would be honored to stay the night,” he said. “And perhaps you could share your knowledge of the land we’re entering.”

Turbull returned the smile. “Of course.”

They lingered over the food—now cold—for a little longer while a hide tent was erected for them. If the meal had begun with uncertain silence, it ended in uncomfortable quiet. With the exception of Belen and Turbull, conversing in broken fragments to satisfy the demands of etiquette, neither party was in the mood to talk. All Albanon wanted to do was go somewhere private so he could discuss their situation with the others.

Finally one of the Tigerclaw children appeared to whisper a message to Turbull. The clan leader rose, bidding Albanon and the others an effusive farewell until evening, then directed Cariss to lead them away. She obeyed with a swiftness that felt less like obedience and more like a desire to have them away from her. Their passage back through the camp drew no less attention than before but was a good deal quicker.

The tent that had been prepared for them was close to the edge of the camp and somewhat smaller than the others belonging to the Tigerclaw. The bent wood poles were new, but the hides covering them were old and stale with years of smoke; a hole at the peak let in fresh air and light. Cariss saw them through the flap of the door, then left.

Tempest spoke before the door flap had even stopped swaying. “They know something. I don’t—”

“Shh,” hissed Belen. She twitched back the door just a bit and looked outside. Albanon could see over her shoulder as she peered around. Cariss and her warriors might want nothing to do with them, but many ordinary Tigerclaws lingered with curiosity. Belen let the door flap drop back into place. “This is a tent, not a cottage,” she whispered harshly. “Sounds will go right through the walls.”

“I thought the Tigerclaws valued hospitality,” said Uldane.

“Value, yes. Are stupid about it, no. Keep your voices down.”

“Just how do you know so much about the Tigerclaws, Belen?” asked Albanon. “I’ve lived in Fallcrest for seven years and I don’t remember Scargash sending emissaries.”

“You weren’t there all the time, were you? Moorin sent you off on errands.”

Albanon narrowed his eyes. “Even if the Tigerclaws did send emissaries, why would the Lord Warden have assigned one guard to escort them?”

Belen’s face tightened and she blew out her breath slowly. “Fine,” she said at last. She stepped to the center of the tent, farthest from the thin hide walls. “My mother was a Tigerclaw.”

“You have shifter blood?” Uldane said.

“No,” Belen told him. “My mother was one of the human class that the Tigerclaws call the Tamed. She met my father, a hunter, near Nenlast and fell in love. Her clan wouldn’t accept him, so they ran away. She was the one who taught me the ways of the tribe.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?” asked the halfling. “Cariss and Hurn might have treated us better from the beginning!”

“The Tigerclaws don’t look kindly on anyone who leaves the clan. They call them Riven and shun them—and that extends to their descendants.” Belen looked around at them. “Don’t tell anyone this. If the Tigerclaws find out, they might force us to leave.”

“That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing,” Roghar said.

“It would be. They wouldn’t be gentle about it.”

“I think we have more to gain by cooperating,” said Tempest. “Like Albanon said to Turbull, maybe the Tigerclaws can tell us more about what lies ahead.” She nodded to Albanon. “Good thinking.”

“I didn’t want it to seem like we were just giving in,” Albanon said.

Belen nodded. “Turbull will respect you more because of it.”

“It looked more like he was mocking me.”

“You showed cunning. Tigerclaws appreciate those who know when not to fight but who will still try to turn a situation to their advantage.”

“Belen,” said Roghar, “is it possible things have changed with the Tigerclaws since your mother’s day?”

“Not likely. Cetainly not so fast. The Tigerclaws place great importance on maintaining their traditions.”

She seemed almost proud, but Roghar’s suggestion dug into Albanon. “Turbull led his clan away from Scargash and the Winterbole Forest in the face of the Abyssal Plague. It sounds to me like he’s willing to break with tradition when he needs to.”

For a moment, Belen’s expression took on a shifterish ferocity. “Some traditions are inviolable. Turbull will respect you, just as he’ll respect the traditions of hospitality. If he didn’t want us here, he would have sent us on our way.”

“It’s why they want us here that worries me,” said Roghar.

“Turbull will deal fair with us,” Belen insisted. She gestured toward furs and blankets that had been heaped on a low sleeping platform. “We should rest. The Thornpads may not have much but they’ll put out all they do have to honor us as their guests. It’s important we don’t antagonize them.”

“Rest?” Uldane asked. “I wanted to look around. I’ve never had the chance to explore a Tigerclaw camp before.”

“Rest,” said Belen firmly. “We don’t leave the tent until Turbull sends for us.”

Uldane pouted. “He didn’t say anything about that.”

“He didn’t have to. Guests have duties to the host, too.”

Albanon glanced at Tempest and Roghar. One of the surest ways to be certain Uldane would try something was to tell him not to do it. Roghar wrinkled his snout. “I’ll sleep in front of the door.”

Uldane’s pout grew deeper. “I know what you’re trying to do,” he said. “But think about it. Isn’t it to our advantage to know everything we can about the camp in case we need to run? Nobody will see me. It’s practical.” He looked up with hope in his eyes as if expecting the argument to sway them.

“We should move the whole sleeping platform in front of the door,” said Tempest.

Albanon, Uldane reflected while he waited for the last watchful eyes to close, wasn’t the only one who knew how to turn a situation to his advantage without fighting. The way he saw it, if the Tigerclaws respected cunning, they’d love him.

The others hadn’t moved the sleeping platform after all, but Roghar was still stretched out in front of the door. Albanon and Tempest shared the broad platform, while Belen sat with her back propped against it. From where he lay across the tent, rolled in blankets as if sulking, Uldane watched through barely open eyes while the Fallcrest guard’s head nodded down to her chest. She jerked upright once, then her head fell again. He waited a little longer to be certain she was truly asleep, then made his move. Roghar might have thought he was being clever by blocking the door, but the thing with tents was that doorways were basically just a formality. The ground where Uldane had chosen to curl up dipped down in a little pocket. The hides that covered the tent were loose above it.

With a twist and a little wiggle—and a peek to be certain no Tigerclaws were paying attention to his side of the tent—he was under the hides and outside, leaving the bundled blankets behind like the empty cocoon of a newly emerged butterfly.

Uldane paused in the shadow of the tent. The camp was busy as the barbarians prepared for the feast Turbull had ordered. Anyone who had been idly watching the outsiders’ tent had been called away. From where he stood, the halfling could see some of the Tigerclaws dressing a variety of small game and setting the carcasses to grill over fires—the smell of sizzling meat was wonderful. He was tempted to try his luck at snatching a plump looking squirrel.

No, he told himself firmly. He wasn’t going to do anything that stupid. He had wanted to look around the camp and that’s what he was going to do. Eating could wait until the feast. Or until he found something more portable than a whole squirrel, at least. He turned the other way and darted to the cover of the next nearest tent.

Even in the crowded camp, evading notice was ridiculously easy. Boxes, baskets, and bales of goods provided shelter. Tall tufts of grass and weeds around the fringes of the big communal tents gave a slim halfling plenty of hiding places. There was so much activity that even if he did come across an alert Tigerclaw, Uldane had only to wait a few moments for a suitable distraction to present itself. He found the rhythm of the camp and grew bold. When he came across a row of fresh griddlecakes, he helped himself to one and savored its steaming sweetness as he slipped from cover to cover.

In the course of his explorations, he came across a variety of goods of a more civilized make than the Tigerclaw would likely have crafted for themselves, yet of sufficient wear that they weren’t likely acquired through trade. Maybe these were the Tigerclaws that had scavenged the area around Winterhaven after all. They were probably building up resources in the face of the Abyssal Plague, if Turbull’s story of leading his Thornpad clan into hiding was true. He was disappointed to find only two of the massive saber-toothed cats that were the Tigerclaws’ almost legendary war-mounts, but then if the Thornpads had slipped away in secret, maybe they hadn’t been able to bring any more of the cats with them. Or maybe they hadn’t wanted to. It probably took a lot of hunting just to keep the beasts, penned up in a small but stout stockade behind the camp, fed and happy.

Unlike their barbarian masters, the great cats raised their heads and looked straight at Uldane as he stood watching them. They didn’t roar or growl, though, and Uldane wondered if maybe they saw him as less of a threat and more of a bite-sized morsel.

“If you show up at Turbull’s feast,” he told them, “I’m running, no matter what Belen says.”

One of the cats put its head down on its immense paws. The other yawned hugely, exposing fangs longer than Uldane’s entire hand, then, without taking its green eyes off him, slowly licked its muzzle. A little shiver ran up Uldane’s back and he decided it was time to move on.

All in all, the Tigerclaws and their camp were less exciting than he’d hoped they would be. It was really no more interesting than skulking around Fallcrest or Winterhaven and watching people go about their business. Less even because of Belen’s voice nagging in his head. Guests have duties to the host, too.

“Goblin kisser,” Uldane muttered under his breath, kicking at the ground. He’d circled the camp several times and dusk was approaching. Time to head back to the others, he decided. At least he could report what he’d found out about the camp. Maybe he could even try to slip back into the tent and his bundled cloak without being noticed.

Then he noticed something odd.

Most of the tents in the camp were large communal structures, more like longhouses really. A few were smaller, like Turbull’s tent or the one that had been set up for Uldane and the others. The halfling stood at the far end of the camp, facing a very similar small tent—similar except for the hunter who dozed outside the door and for the lack of tall weeds around its walls. The well-trampled plants in the vicinity were only just springing back to life, as if the tent had been erected in just the last couple of days.

Another new tent and one that was, unless Uldane was wrong, under guard. His curiosity was aroused.

One quick look, he told himself. He made his way around to the back of the mysterious tent, looking for the same type of low spot he’d used to escape theirs. He didn’t find one, but the hides in one spot were loose enough that he could pull them up from the ground. He listened for any sound from inside the tent and, hearing nothing, twitched up the loose hides and wriggled his head and shoulders through. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom inside, but when they did—

“Goblin kisser!” said Uldane again.

CHAPTER TEN

I will kill him,” snarled Belen. “I will chop him up into little pieces and make halfling sausages.” She stomped—again—on the empty blankets that should have been wrapped around Uldane.

“Quietly,” Tempest reminded her. The tiefling was all for an angry rant but as Belen had said, a tent was not a cottage. Tempest peered through the narrow gap of the tent door. Twilight had fallen and the busy camp had become restless again as the Tigerclaws waited for the feast to begin. Her tail flicking, she scanned the gathering shadows and the half-concealed hiding spots for any sign of Uldane. “Still nothing,” she said.

Belen ground Uldane’s blanket under her heel. “I shouldn’t have trusted him. If he gets caught …”

“He won’t get caught,” said Albanon. “He’s better than that.”

Belen’s response was less of a word and more of an indelicate body noise. Albanon twitched slightly, but kept a calm expression. His thumbs, however, folded and unfolded rapidly. Tempest knew him well enough to recognize the signs of strain. She let the flap of the door fall and turned back. “We all should have known better than to trust him,” she said. “But Albanon’s right. Uldane won’t get caught. He’ll come back. He’s not entirely stupid—he knows the danger.”

“I’m not certain he does,” said Belen. “The Tigerclaws pride themselves on creative punishment. Ferocity is just one side of their totem spirit.”

“If the Tigerclaws try anything, we can defend ourselves,” Roghar said. He had his sword out, and was occupying himself by polishing the blade.

“Really? Against the whole tribe? Because that’s what we’d be fighting.”

Roghar gave the sword a final buff and slid it back into its scabbard. “If we have to,” he said.

Tempest’s tail twitched again as the conversation she’d had with Albanon just before they’d stumbled across the barbarian camp came back to her. There was definitely something wrong with Roghar. She’d never known the dragonborn to run from a fight, but she’d never known him to seek one out either. “I don’t think we want to do that if we can help it,” she said. “We’re not in trouble yet.”

The words had barely left her mouth before Albanon raised his head and said sharply, “We might be. Listen.”

All four of them paused. In the quiet, Tempest could hear women’s voices raised in song. Belen’s breath hissed. “I know that song. It’s a serving prayer. The feast will start soon.”

Tempest risked another glance through the tent flap—and jerked back. Uldane had run out of time. Outside, Cariss and Hurn were striding together through the camp toward their tent. “The Tigerclaws are coming for us!” she whispered.

Roghar growled and grabbed for his shield as he surged to his feet. Belen cursed. Albanon’s face tightened, but he leaped across the tent and snatched Uldane’s blanket from under Belen’s feet. He shook it, throwing a cloud of dust into the air, then quickly tucked it into the same bundled shape that the halfling had used to trick them. “We tell them Uldane is sick,” he said, standing up.

“That’s not going to fool anyone,” said Roghar.

Albanon’s eyes narrowed in concentration and the long fingers of one hand flicked in the pattern of a simple spell. The blanket began to rise and fall as if a small figure within was breathing. The fingers of his other hand sketched another sign and a piteous moan emanated from the blankets. Albanon looked to Roghar. The dragonborn wrinkled his snout and gave a grudging nod.

And just in time. “Guests of Turbull!” came Hurn’s gruff voice from the other side of the tent door. “Come out!”

Cariss didn’t seem interested in waiting for a response. The tent flap jerked as she pulled it aside. Tempest found herself staring eye to eye with the shifter. Cariss bared sharp teeth. “Try something, tiefling.”

It took effort, but Tempest swallowed her instinct to meet aggression with aggression and stepped back. Cariss scanned the interior of the tent. “Leave your shield,” she said to Roghar. “You won’t need it.” Her gaze came to rest on Uldane’s twitching, moaning blankets. “What’s wrong with the halfling?”

Relief rolled through Tempest. “He’s sick,” she said. “Something he ate didn’t agree with him. Can he just stay here?”

Cariss frowned and started into the tent. Tempest’s relief turned into panic and she glanced at Albanon—just in time to see the wizard narrow his eyes again and twitch his nose. The phantasmal moaning rose to a pained gasp before giving way to the loud and sudden breaking of wind. A horrific stench billowed through the tent, strong enough to make Tempest’s eyes water. Cariss recoiled.

“Maybe a guard to stand watch,” Tempest suggested, trying not to choke on the stink. “Unless it would offend Turbull if Uldane didn’t attend—”

Cariss shook her head hastily and stepped back out of the tent. Tempest was only too glad to follow her. Outside, Hurn was actually grinning. Cariss snarled at him, then gestured for Tempest and the others to follow. Tempest managed to get close enough to Albanon to whisper, “That was foul. Moorin actually taught you that?”

“A child’s trick in the Feywild. Moorin tried his best to make me forget it,” Albanon murmured back. “Where could Uldane have gone? Even if he went to explore the camp he should have come back.”

Tempest could only shake her head.

Roaring fires marked the site of the feast and drove back the chill of the falling night. Once again, Turbull waited to greet them. This time, however, they were shown to a place where they could sit together, still close to the Tigerclaw chief but apart from, rather than mingled with, the barbarian warriors. This time as well, the entire clan was gathered around them. Tempest would have been lying to herself if she tried to claim she wasn’t intimidated.

And yet it seemed to her that there was tension among the Tigerclaws as well. As platters and bowls made their way first around the inner circle, then out to the rest of the clan, the noises of celebration she associated with a feast were subdued. More than once she caught members of the clan tucking away chunks of meat as if hoarding them against lean times. Others, she noticed, ate with abandon, as if knowing that this might be the last great feast for some time. As the meal progressed, the Tigerclaws squatting beyond the inner circle seemed to lose interest in the outsiders that had come among them, focusing instead on the primal act of eating.

The warriors that sat closer to the chief, however, did not. Just as she’d slipped furtive glances at the Tigerclaws, Tempest found that the warriors were glancing frequently at her and the others. She’d look down at her food, then up again to find half a dozen eyes turning quickly away from her.

If the bulk of the clan was concerned about where their next meal would come from, the warriors had something else on their minds. Tempest couldn’t quite tell what that might be, but it certainly had something to do with them.

Turbull himself remained inscrutable. Again, Belen took the lead in speaking with him, but her attempts to turn the conversation to anything more meaningful than the weather, hunting conditions, and apologies for Uldane’s “illness” were rebuffed. Tempest could see that Roghar was getting impatient. Albanon looked uneasy as well—she guessed that Uldane was on his mind. Even Belen had started to look annoyed with Turbull’s evasiveness, though that only made her push harder. Tempest was beginning to feel frustrated herself. Turbull was playing games with them. The shifter wanted something from them, but why didn’t he come right out and ask it? She took her anger out on the roasted leg of a rabbit, sinking her teeth into the dark flesh and tearing it off the bone.

As usual when she glanced up, she caught eyes turning away. This time, however, the eyes belonged to Turbull and they hadn’t been looking at her.

Turbull had been looking at Albanon.

Realization of what the chief had been waiting for struck her. Tempest elbowed Albanon. “You need to talk to Turbull,” she said in his ear. “Belen said the Tigerclaws would respect you for pushing your request for information. I think he’s waiting for you to talk.”

Albanon blinked. His mouth opened and closed, but he didn’t question her. She appreciated that intelligence in him. When the conversation between Turbull and Belen lapsed into a moment’s silence, he leaned forward.

“Before we took our ease,” he said, “we were discussing the land ahead. What do you know of it?”

All movement among the warriors stopped for a moment. Belen glanced sharply at Albanon. Turbull paused, too, but only long enough to sip from a goblet. As he raised the cup, Tempest thought she saw his lips curve in a smile, but when it came down, his face was calm and placid. Tempest felt a quick thrill, knowing she’d guessed right. Turbull’s words confirmed it.

“We appreciate those who honor our customs, but customs without words are a mask without eyes behind it.” He sat back a little. Movement resumed among the warriors, but all of them watched Albanon warily. Turbull gestured with his goblet and a server stepped forward to refill it. “You seek a valley that lies below a mountain’s pale cliff.”

Albanon hesitated, as if about to ask confirmation from the others. Tempest held back a wince. Turbull had waited to talk to Albanon, not the rest of them. The eladrin was on his own.

Maybe Albanon realized the same thing. He stopped himself and looked back at Turbull with confidence. “It’s what I see in my vision. If you could tell us more about what lies beyond your camp, we’d appreciate that as much as we appreciate your hospitality.”

“As it happens,” said Turbull, “just such a valley is exactly what lies beyond our camp. Less than a day’s travel from this spot, a mountain’s stone face looks down on a fine, rich valley.” He nodded into the darkness. “Does your vision guide you in that direction?”

Albanon stiffened. “Yes.”

Among the warriors, Cariss cursed. Tempest saw both her and Hurn look at each other. Turbull’s face was expressionless. “Our scouts have explored the mountains for four days’ journey in all directions. There is no other similar valley in that direction.”

“What do you know about it?” asked Roghar. Tempest couldn’t blame him. Could Albanon’s random lie about their destination actually lead them to something? Albanon put up a hand, urging Roghar and the rest of them to silence, then raised an eyebrow at Turbull.

“Why are you interested in this valley?” he said.

“I didn’t say we were interested in it,” Turbull answered. “We know about it. The hunting is good there.”

Albanon lowered his hand slowly. “When I first told Cariss we were looking for a valley below a stone face, it completely changed her mood. I don’t think we’d be eating and talking if I hadn’t. Since then, every time we’ve brought up that valley, your warriors react. I think you are interested in the valley. Furthermore, I think there’s more to it than you want to say. You’ve said you’re looking for a better place in which to make your camp. If this valley is fine and rich with good hunting, why aren’t you there already?”

Across from them, Hurn’s broad face had sunk into a glower. His wasn’t the only one. Many of the warriors had dropped their food to grab for their weapons. Cariss had bared her teeth and leaned forward like a great cat ready to lunge. Albanon’s comments had struck close. Tempest shifted her own food to one hand and let the other fall down closer to her warlock’s rod.

Turbull remained calm, at least on the surface. His attention stayed on Albanon. “What do you know of the valley?” he asked.

“Only what we’ve told you: that something waits for us there that might help put an end to the Abyssal Plague.” He paused, then added, “In fact, I’ll be fully honest with you if you’ll be honest with me. Something has been guiding us north, but it wasn’t a vision. Until just now, I wasn’t even sure we were looking for a valley. I just made that up.”

Tempest was sure the reaction to Albanon’s announcement was not the one he wanted. Her heart jumped into her mouth. Belen cursed loudly. The warriors erupted into howls of outrage. Beyond Turbull’s inner circle, the Tigerclaws twisted around as one, startled by the sound. Hurn leaped to his feet. Roghar did the same. “They lied to us!” snarled Cariss. “They’ve broken the faith of guests!”

“Be silent!” roared Turbull. The warriors all froze where they were and an eerie quiet descended over the camp. Hurn and Roghar faced each other across a frighteningly small patch of ground. Tempest could see the nostrils of both shifter and dragonborn flaring with each breath they took. Turbull rose and looked around at all of them. “Faith has not been broken—the truth has been offered willingly and truth demands truth.” The barbarian chief looked at Albanon. “You are correct. We have held something back from you as well.”

“I’ll say!” Uldane’s voice rang out of the darkness. The halfling came striding in between the feasters. Ignoring all of them, he walked right up to Turbull. “You’re holding our friends captive.” He turned to Albanon. “Shara and Quarhaun are prisoners here in the camp!”

The first thought to pass through Albanon’s mind was Not now, Uldane! Then Uldane’s words actually sank in. His second thought, and the one that made it out of his mouth was, “What? Are you serious?”

“I’ve just been talking to them. The Tigerclaws are holding them captive in a tent over there!” Uldane pointed. “They’ve been here for days.”

Words failed the wizard. He twisted around and stared at Turbull. The shifter, though, seemed as surprised as him. “You know the drow and the human?” Turbull’s eyes narrowed before Albanon could respond. “No, don’t answer.” He raised his voice, speaking for the benefit of those round them. “These are matters to discuss beneath the hide of a tent. Come with me and we will speak. Cariss and Hurn, you will be my witnesses—”

“Oh, no,” said Uldane. “We can discuss this right here. I want answers and I want them now!” The halfling grabbed Turbull’s wrist as if he could hold him in place.

At the same time, Belen seized Albanon’s arm. “Do something to keep him quiet!” she said. “Turbull is trying to save face. If he loses control of the situation, we’re all dead.”

Albanon glanced around the camp. The Tigerclaws were starting to recover from their surprise. Confusion was giving way to ugly glares, and not just among the warriors. Those beyond the inner circle were also growing restless. Albanon threw a quick look to Tempest and received a sharp nod in return. The eladrin clenched his jaw and stood up, stepping forward to stand by Turbull and Uldane.

“We will listen,” he said loudly and with deliberate formality. “If there is a misunderstanding we can resolve it in private.”

Gratitude flickered in Turbull’s eyes, but Uldane looked shocked. “Albanon, did you hear what I said? They’ve got Shara and Quarhaun—”

“We’ll deal with it, Uldane,” Albanon said under his breath. “Let Turbull go.”

“But—”

“Let him go!”

With a grumble and a curse, Uldane released his hold on Turbull, but glared up at the chief. “If we’re going to talk,” he said just as loudly as Albanon as had, “we’re going to do it in front of your prisoners.”

Turbull’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “If you demand it.” He looked out at the Tigerclaws. “The feast continues. We will return.”

He strode off so abruptly that Albanon was left uncertain if he should follow or not. The looks on the faces of Cariss and Hurn as they stepped out from among the other warriors made up his mind. Albanon grabbed Uldane—not very gently—and hustled him after Turbull as Tempest, Belen, and Roghar followed behind.

“What did you think you were doing wandering away like that?” he said. “We had to cover for you when Cariss and Hurn came for us. We could have been in trouble.”

“More trouble than Shara and Quarhaun are in?” Uldane snapped back at him. He shook off Albanon’s hand. “If I hadn’t gone exploring, I wouldn’t have noticed that there was a tent under guard and I wouldn’t have found them. We wouldn’t even have known they were here. What about that?”

Albanon started to answer, then stopped. Uldane was right. If Uldane hadn’t snuck off, they might have left the camp without knowing how close they’d come to their lost friends. “You talked to them?” he asked instead. Uldane nodded. “How are they? How did they end up here?”

“They ended up here,” said Cariss abruptly from Albanon’s other side, “because we caught them in our camp at night, skulking like thieves. It was a hard fight to capture them alive. If you’d been in the camp when we’d caught you, you’d be with them right now.”

Albanon met her eyes. “I thought Tigerclaws killed trespassers.”

“You expected them to be dead?” Cariss stretched out fingers tipped with sharp claws—claws that actually seemed to grow as Albanon stared at them. “It can be arranged.”

“Cariss!” said Turbull harshly and the warrior lowered her hand. Turbull glared at Albanon over his shoulder. “You are in a precarious position, eladrin.”

The threat raised Albanon’s anger just a bit. “Your position doesn’t seem so safe, either,” he said. “You got us away from the feast pretty quick. What don’t you want your clan to hear?”

Turbull swung around fast and bared his teeth in Albanon’s face. Cariss jerked away from her chief’s anger. Albanon braced himself for a blow or at the very least a roar of fury. Turbull, however, did neither. He closed his mouth, glared at Albanon for a moment, then turned away again.

“I do what I must for my clan,” he said. “Even when I must go against our customs.”

Hurn and Cariss remained silent, their faces troubled. Whatever Turbull was up to, Albanon realized, they were in on it. The wizard looked back at Belen but she only raised her eyebrows in surprise and shook her head. Albanon left Uldane and jogged ahead to catch up with Turbull. “This has something to do with the valley, doesn’t it?”

“I will not talk of these things beneath the sky,” the shifter said.

They were approaching a small tent. A Tigerclaw squatting outside its door looked up sleepily, then jumped to his feet, fully alert at the sight of his chief. Turbull dismissed him with a curt gesture. When the guard had gone, he looked at Albanon. “You enter first. If the halfling has untied your friends, I will not be the victim of an ambush.”

Albanon nodded. The door flap had been tied down with leather thongs. He started to undo them, but Turbull growled and swiped a hand across them. The thongs fell away, sliced clean by his claws. He stepped back again. Albanon pulled back the edge of the flap just a bit.

“Shara? Quarhaun?” he called. “It’s Albanon. I’m coming in.”

He pushed the door aside and went inside.

Seated on the ground, her back against a thick post driven into the ground with her arms still tied behind it, Shara looked up at him. “How’s the food at the feast?”

He couldn’t help smiling. Even bound as a prisoner, Shara held onto her brazen appearance. Thick red hair curled over her shoulders and fell down her back. The Tigerclaws had taken the greatsword that was usually strapped across the warrior woman’s back, but she still wore the light armor she preferred. Albanon turned to Quarhaun. The drow warlock was bound as Shara was with the addition of a hood to cover his head, a common arrangement intended to prevent the effective casting of spells. His head was up now, but he hadn’t spoken. “Quarhaun,” Albanon asked, “are you gagged under—Ow!”

His question was cut off violently as Cariss and Hurn burst through the door, shoving him to the ground. Shara cursed and jumped up—her bonds had been a ruse after all. Quarhaun followed suit, dragging the hood from his head and snatching a handful of dark, crackling energy out of the air. For a moment, human and drow faced the two shifters over Albanon where he lay.

Then Turbull growled a command from outside the door. “Peace! We’re here to talk. Your friends have demanded it.”

“You’ll let us go?” asked Shara.

“We’ll talk,” said Turbull. “Hurn, Cariss, step back.”

The two Tigerclaws relaxed—slowly. After a moment, so did Shara. Quarhaun, however, kept the dark energy playing around his hand. Albanon rolled to his feet. “Easy, Quarhaun,” he said. “They’ve treated us fairly so far.”

“They haven’t been so kind to us.” The drow’s Common carried an accent.

“You came into our camp as thieves,” said Turbull, entering the tent. He stepped to one side of the door. Tempest and the others followed him in. The tiefling, Roghar, and Belen moved to the other side of the door. Uldane, of course, went to stand with Shara and Quarhaun. It occurred to Albanon that he’d seldom seen the halfling look more certain or serious. The argument that had driven him and Shara apart and that had tormented Uldane in Winterhaven had clearly been mended. Albanon could see how finding and saving even the most estranged friends in a camp surrounded by potential enemies might have that effect. They could discuss it later, but for now he was glad they had reconciled.

He rose to his feet, then paused. Three groups had formed inside the tent: the Tigerclaws to one side of the door; Shara, Quarhaun, and Uldane in the middle; and Tempest, Roghar, and Belen on the door’s other side. Which group he joined would send a message to Turbull and might affect how discussions within the tent proceeded. Quarhaun still held onto the dark energy, Roghar had his hand on his sword hilt, and Hurn and Cariss looked ready to fight the first person to make a move. Albanon bit his lip—then went to stand before Turbull.

“I’ve been told,” he said, “that Tigerclaws deal harshly with those who cross them, yet you’ve kept our friends alive. I’ve been told that Tigerclaws honor their guests, but you’re trying to manipulate us. Tradition is important to you, but you’re willing to go against it for the sake of your clan.” He gestured at his friends. All of them. “We’d like to continue on our way, but there’s something you know about this valley. Everything ties back to it. What is it? What’s there?”

Turbull studied him in silence. Cariss’s face tightened and she seemed about to say something, but Turbull shook his head and she held her tongue.

Hurn didn’t. “I don’t like this,” he growled. “I don’t like dealing with outsiders. Especially thieves.”

“You were keeping us alive for something,” said Shara. “I know Tigerclaws. I know what they do.”

“These are unusual times. Desperate times.” Turbull looked back at Albanon. “Answer me this: Were you deliberately trying to deceive us about your destination? Did you really lie about the valley?”

“When Cariss found us, we knew the direction we had to go, but not where we were going. I didn’t think you would appreciate outsiders wandering at random through your territory, so I picked a destination that I thought would be common in the mountains.” Albanon spread his hands. “I didn’t realize that the valley I described would be unique—or that it would have any significance. For either of us.”

“Then there was more than coincidence behind your choice of words.” Turbull gestured. “Sit with me. The others can stand if they wish, but we will speak as men of wisdom.”

He lowered himself to the ground. Albanon gathered his robes and did the same. There was something about sitting that eased the tension between them. Even the others seemed to sense it. Hurn, Cariss, and Roghar relaxed somewhat. Shara nudged Quarhaun and the drow finally released the magic that had been crackling in his hand. Tempest gestured for Belen and the two women came to sit behind Albanon. Turbull nodded slightly in approval, but his eyes remained on Albanon.

“You were right to guess that we are interested in claiming the valley as our territory,” he said. “There is a spring and game in the hills. If the plague spreads, the mouth of the valley can be defended easily. The Thornpad clan will survive.”

“But …” said Albanon.

Turbull nodded and added, “But the valley isn’t empty. Perytons lair on the ledges of the mountain face.”

Shara muttered an oath of disgust. Albanon felt his stomach knot. The others shifted uneasily. Only Quarhaun seemed uncertain. “Perytons? Some kind of monstrous bird?”

“Monstrous, yes,” said Shara. “Birds, no. They’re at least as big as a human and often bigger, with the body of a bird of prey and the head and antlers of a stag.”

The drow snorted. “They sound ridiculous.”

“They eat people,” said Albanon. “Especially their hearts. Over time a nest of perytons can strip a village.” He turned back to Turbull. “You said the valley is less than a day’s journey from here. Don’t they attack your camp?”

“They’ve tried. The first time, we fought them off with spears and arrows. But they’re wily. Every few days, a hunter will spot one circling high overhead or sometimes just perched in a tree, watching us.”

“And why haven’t you gone to the valley and wiped them out?” asked Quarhaun.

Turbull frowned and tipped his head toward Hurn and Cariss. “I said they’re wily. When we came here I had three strong warriors that I trusted. Then I decided to try attacking the perytons. Now I have two.” He bent forward and scratched a crude map in the hard dirt of the tent floor with his claw. “We can’t reach their nests and when they see us, they attack with stealth. They dive with the sun behind them, strike fast, and fly away again. They’re larger than most perytons I’ve seen and there are more of them than usual. I think it’s an older nest, well-established and successful. There are orcs and goblins on the other side of the mountains—plentiful prey, but I can’t imagine they’ll continue to fly so far when a new source of food is closer. It may even get worse. Over the last two days, my scouts say they seem more active and angry, as if something has disturbed them.”

“So they keep you out of the valley, but if you stay here, they’ll eventually start preying on you,” said Albanon. “Why not keep moving? Find another place to take refuge from the Abyssal Plague?”

Hurn snarled at the suggestion. Cariss grunted and said, “The Thornpads will run no further.”

“As you say, eladrin, my position is not so safe,” said Turbull with a shrug. “I have bent tradition as far as it can be bent. More and there will be warriors who will challenge my leadership.”

“So what about us?” asked Tempest. “Why were you being evasive about the valley when we asked?”

Roghar snorted. “Isn’t it obvious? He hoped that by letting us go into the valley we would kill or weaken the perytons so that his people didn’t have to face them.”

A look of shame crept over Turbull’s face. “It is not the way to treat guests, but at first I hoped that if you were seeking the valley, you might already have some plan or magic for dealing with them. But then yes, I hoped you would deal with the perytons for us.” He swept a hand around to all of them. “There are only a handful of you, but you’re fighting the dragon who spreads the plague. You’re either mighty or mad.”

Albanon couldn’t argue with that, although he might have decided on “mad” over “mighty.”

“What about us?” Shara said, nodding to Quarhaun. “You had no idea we were Vestapalk’s enemies. What did you want with us?”

“Ah,” said Turbull. He sat back. “We had been considering trying to lure the perytons into the open so we could attack them on the ground. Obviously, I didn’t want to risk the lives of my people as bait in the trap.”

He spoke with such casual bluntness that for a moment it took Albanon’s breath away.

Shara’s eyes went wide. Her entire body tensed. “Bait? We were going to be bait?”

Before she could say anything more, Quarhaun put a hand on her arm. Shara turned to look at him and, somewhat to his surprise, Albanon saw the tension in her body ease as she calmed down. It didn’t go away entirely but it no longer seemed as if she might attack Turbull with her bare hands. Quarhaun looked to Turbull. “It is the practical choice. Why sacrifice a friend when an enemy is at hand?”

The Tigerclaw chief seemed startled, but he nodded. “You are not soft, drow, but you don’t speak with the cruelty of your people, either. I may have misjudged you.”

“A lot of people do that,” Quarhaun said. Albanon thought his gaze slipped to Uldane for a moment—certainly the halfling shifted uncomfortably—but then Quarhaun glanced directly at him. “It seems you’re speaking for us, Albanon. Everyone’s motivations are out. What do we do now?”

Albanon pressed his lips together. How had people started looking to him for leadership? He was getting used to it, but it would have been better if he had more experience—or more confidence that what he decided was the proper course of action. It might not have been directly his fault that Splendid and Immeral lay dead in Winterhaven, but sometimes it felt like it.

He took a deep breath and turned his attention inward to the kernel of the urge that had brought them here. If there was something else it could show him, some hint of what they faced … but there was nothing more than the pull that had been with him for so many days, coupled with the new certainty that the valley was their destination. That was where they would find the means to defeat Vestapalk.

Albanon sighed and looked up. “We both need to get into the valley,” he said to Turbull. “Instead of trying to trick each other, why don’t we work together to defeat the perytons? Then we’ll take whatever waits for us, you can have the valley, and we may all survive the plague.”

Turbull turned to Cariss and Hurn. “You know the mood among the warriors. Do you think they’ll go along with this?”

The two shifters looked at each other. Cariss made a face. “They may fight alongside Albanon and the others, but the drow and the human are known as thieves and Uldane challenged you at the feast. They won’t like it.”

Turbull drew himself up. “But if I command it?”

“They’ll fight,” said Hurn, “but if we fail, they’ll blame you.”

“Then we won’t fail.”

Albanon twisted around to look at his friends. Their answers were already on their faces in twisted, uncertain mouths and furrowed brows, but all of them—from Roghar to Uldane to Shara—nodded. He turned back to Turbull. “We’re in. We shouldn’t wait. Do we attack tomorrow?”

Turbull gave him a sly smile. “The perytons hunt by day,” he said. “You’re rested. My warriors are fed. I was thinking of making the journey tonight.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Vestapalk flew through the minds of plague demons. He saw towns devastated and cities under siege. Villages scattered. Tribes absorbed into the swelling, all-encompassing union of the Voidharrow. Plague demons stalked the face of the world. Each one lived within him. He lived within each one.

And yet he couldn’t find what he wanted. “Where are they?” he roared. “Where are they?”

His voice echoed within the Plaguedeep, silencing the chitter of the demons around him. Fury broke within him. They couldn’t help. All that he saw through their eyes was himself and the pool of Voidharrow that roiled in agitation around him. Useless! He lashed out at those closest to him—not with talon or tail, but with waves of the Voidharrow. The demons shrieked and scrambled to escape. Many weren’t fast enough. A dozen were caught by the crystalline crimson liquid and dragged back into the pool.

They sank into it, their flesh and bones dissolving, and the pool grew a little larger. The Voidharrow lived within each demon. Each demon lived within the Voidharrow. One day, the Voidharrow might fill not just a pool, but oceans.

Might. If Vestapalk could find Albanon and the others who stood against him. The power of Tharizdun had entered the world. The god himself might still be chained, but he had found a new channel for a portion of his power—and his anger. The Voidharrow trembled with fear, a trembling that spread through its connections with every plague demon. Vestapalk plunged back into those trembling connections. Albanon and his band couldn’t have simply vanished from the world. The Voidharrow had eyes everywhere. He would find them.

In his mind, he returned to the area where he had last glimpsed his enemies, in the smoking ruins of Winterhaven, and sought out the nearest demon mind. It was a small, frail thing and when it revealed nothing to him, he crushed it with the force of his will, then moved on to the next. And the next. And the next, passing from mind to mind in sweeping arcs. Where could Albanon have gone? South, back to Fallcrest and the heart of the Nentir Vale? There was nothing for him there but the heaviest concentrations of plague demons. East from Winterhaven toward the Winterbole Forest, Lake Nen, and the village of Nenlast? There were demons there as well. He and his band would have been spotted. North and west there were only league upon league of mountains.

Mountains, Vestapalk realized, and few if any plague demons. Back in the Plaguedeep, his body roared again in frustrated fury, but in the phantom space of the Voidharrow, he simply reached out and called, Vestausan! Vestausir!

A heartbeat later, two voices answered him simultaneously. This one hears.

A twist of his thoughts and he was peering through two sets of eyes at wilderness flashing by beneath. He recognized the marshes of the southern Vale. Turn north, he commanded. Search the Cairngorm Peaks and the Stonemarch.

This one obeys, answered Vestausan. This one flies, said Vestausir. The double view of marshes whirled as the pair banked. Vestapalk turned his mind back north, searching for any plague demon presence in the mountain wilderness. There was nothing except a great blank space in his vision of the world. He cursed the empty places. Beyond the mountains, orc and goblin tribes had succumbed to the plague, but they hadn’t ventured into the mountains. He could order them in, but their progress would be slow—the servants he had created after Vestagix’s destruction would arrive far more quickly, though they still had a wide territory with many hiding places to search. Vestapalk swept the mountains again.

Something caught at the edge of his mind like a broken scale on smooth hide. He paused.

The creature was no demon, but it carried the Voidharrow. A demon had wounded it and now the plague worked on its body. Its flesh was being transformed—but slowly. Vestapalk recognized the touch of the gods at work. The carrier of the plague had faith and it knew enough of the Voidharrow to attempt to use the power of that faith to fight it. Vestapalk’s excitement flared. He focused his will and pushed through the creature’s nascent connection to the Voidharrow.

His host gasped with pain and stumbled, but vision opened up around Vestapalk. If he’d been able to take true control of his host’s body, he would have laughed. He withdrew and reached out to Vestausan and Vestausir. Here, he told them, sharing what he’d seen. The pair snarled acknowledgment and beat their wings hard.

Vestapalk opened his eyes. The pool of the Voidharrow had calmed somewhat, though ripples still shook its surface and made little waves that lapped at the three broken skulls—once golden vessels of power—that lay drained at its edge. Vestapalk sank down into the pool, letting it surround him. “Soon,” he hissed in reassurance.

In the darkness of the forest, Roghar gasped abruptly, tripped, and went thrashing into a bush. Walking just ahead of the dragonborn, Shara looked back but couldn’t see anything except a dim shape. The growling chuckles of shifters rose from all around them.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to lead you?” came Albanon’s voice.

“Yes!” Roghar snapped. “It … was a root. Are you going to tell me when to lift my feet?”

“Easy,” said Albanon defensively. “I was only offering. Stumble along on your own.”

“Trust him to find the only root on the path,” Quarhaun murmured in her ear. Shara shushed him, but smiled and squeezed the drow’s hand. He squeezed back. Over the last few weeks since they’d left Fallcrest, she’d gotten used to having him lead her when they chose to travel at night. It wasn’t the fastest but it could be surprisingly thrilling. It was also one of the unexpectedly charming things she’d discovered about Quarhaun.

Somewhere ahead of them, Tempest led Belen and Uldane the same way. Those with nightvision guided those without. Turbull had offered one of his shifters—all of the Tigerclaw warriors could see in the dark as well—as an additional guide, but Belen had refused, saying that outsiders were capable of traveling on their own. It had earned a few laughs from some Tigerclaws, but a grudging respect from others. Belen had surprised Shara, too. The Fallcrest guard scarcely seemed like the same person she’d been when Shara had seen her last. She was more confident, more driven.

But Belen wasn’t the only one who had changed. Shara heard quiet footsteps approach and another shape loomed in the dark. “It’s me,” said Albanon.

“I may not be able to see, but I’m not an idiot,” she told him. She dropped her voice. “What’s wrong with Roghar?”

“I don’t know. He’s been like this since …”

He hesitated, but Shara could guess what he was going to say. She said it for him. “Since Winterhaven? Uldane told us what happened there. I’m sorry about Splendid, Albanon. I never met Immeral, but he sounded like a good man.”

“Thank you,” said Albanon. “I’m sorry, too. It was your home. Before the plague demons attacked, hearing you and Quarhaun had been there just a few days before was a bright spot.”

“Was it really?” Quarhaun asked.

“Yes. I’ve missed both of you. I’d rather you hadn’t left.” He hesitated a second time. “Uldane said you talked after he found you. Did you talk about … that?”

Quarhaun actually laughed under his breath. Shara squeezed his hand again, this time hard enough to make him stop. “We cleared the air between us,” she said. “I was sitting in that tent, wondering who the travelers were that the Tigerclaws were honoring with a feast, when I heard something behind me …”

The sight of the halfling’s startled face as he crawled up under the tent wall had been the last thing she’d expected to see—and the most welcome. But it had also come with a few long moments of simply staring at each other awkwardly, neither certain of what to say. What had eventually come out was a babble of apologies, kept to a whisper so as not to wake the dozing guard outside. If the last words she’d exchanged with Uldane in Fallcrest had been a torrent of angry accusations, their reunion had been marked with tears and self-recrimination. Mostly from Uldane, true, though she’d felt moved as well. Shara wasn’t a born storyteller like some people, but she knew she’d be able to repeat Uldane’s apology word for word until she the day she died.

“I jumped to conclusions,” the halfling had said. “I judged Quarhaun as a drow before I knew him as a person. Jarren was a great man and my friend, but he’s gone. I know you can’t spend your life mourning him.”

“Uldane, I’ll always mourn Jarren,” she told him.

“But you’ll change—and I know that’s good because Quarhaun has changed for you, but I want everything to stay like it was when we were all happiest.” He sighed. “So maybe I’m the one who needs to change. So many people have died because of Vestapalk and this stupid plague. I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you for loving someone else. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?” He went over and pulled off Quarhaun’s hood. “Can you forgive me, too?”

The effect of the apology was somewhat spoiled because Quarhaun was gagged under the hood, but the drow nodded vigorously, then twisted around and gestured for his bonds to be cut. Uldane had freed them both, but he also took the time to tell them everything that had happened and exactly what their situation was.

“I had thought staying in the tent and waiting for him to come back from talking to you and Turbull was the hardest thing I’d ever done,” she told Albanon. “Until we heard the Tigerclaws coming back. With no idea how things stood, we had to go back to pretending to be helpless. That was hard.”

“Why didn’t you just run?” Albanon asked. “You could have gone out the back of the tent and been away before anyone knew you were missing.”

“Uldane told us not to,” said Quarhaun. “He said the Tigerclaws would just hunt us down and that it would be harder for you afterward. Confronting Turbull directly and demanding our release was his idea.”

Surprise forced Albanon’s voice higher. “Uldane said not to run? Uldane?”

“I can hear you, you know,” Uldane called from up ahead. “And you don’t have to act all shocked about it. Like I told Shara, people can change.”

“I just didn’t think it would be you!” Albanon called back.

Uldane’s huff of indignation was loud enough to carry. Tempest laughed and so did some of the Tigerclaws.

Roghar crashed into another bush in the darkness. “By Hota’s eye!” said Turbull out of the shadows. “Will someone guide the dragonborn!”

“No one touch me!” The dim figure that was Roghar thrashed its way out of the bush and dropped into a defensive crouch. “Stay back!”

“Roghar?” Albanon said with concern. Shara heard him leave her side. All around them, the faint sounds of the Tigerclaws moving through the woods ceased. She heard Tempest murmur to Belen and Uldane, then move back to her friend as well.

“What’s happening?” she whispered to Quarhaun, but the drow put a finger to her lips. Albanon and Tempest were both speaking softly as they approached Roghar. It sounded like they were the only ones moving. She heard Roghar draw a ragged breath.

“I need a moment,” he said. “I need to pray.” His voice trailed off, but Shara thought she heard him say something about holy light or something similar.

Albanon must have heard more. “I’m going to make a light, Turbull,” he said sharply. “Roghar needs it.”

He didn’t wait for an answer from the Tigerclaw chief. A glow sprang to life, shining from the end of Albanon’s staff. At any other time, Shara might have called it dim, but it seemed like a blaze in the darkness. It lit up Albanon’s and Tempest’s faces—grave with concern—and shone over Roghar. Shara realized that what she’d taken for a fighting stance was actually a weary slump. Roghar looked exhausted. Tempest crouched down beside him.

“Take a moment,” she said. “Pray if you need to.”

The paladin nodded. He slipped his shield from his arm and turned it around so that the symbol of Bahamut painted on its surface faced him, then he leaned his head against it. His face vanished in the shadow, but Shara could see his teeth flash as he murmured. His big frame seemed to shake with the weight of his prayer.

Then a new white light shimmered into existence. It appeared to condense out of the air and skip along the surface of Roghar’s armor. Shara had seen the radiant light of the gods before—the paladin had summoned it and so had Kri before he turned on them—but as it hovered over the suffering dragonborn in the darkness of the forest, it seemed more a sacred and holy thing than ever before. She wasn’t an overly religious person and the simple expression of faith made her want to drop to her knees. Half-glimpsed in the shadows, she saw some of the Tigerclaws touch talismans and amulets, their eyes wide.

The holy light lingered a moment longer, then sank into Roghar, passing right through his armor. He drew another breath, this one sharp but strong, and raised his head. His eyes were clear again, his gaze calm and steady. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We should hasten on. I’ll accept a guide. Albanon, you can dismiss the light.”

“You can keep it for now,” said Turbull. The shifter stood on the edge of Albanon’s illumination with Cariss and Hurn to either side of him. All three looked a little awed. “There’s nothing nearby we need to worry about alerting.”

“You’re sure?” asked Albanon.

Turbull blinked as if waking and some of the awe faded. He bared his teeth. “Keep it,” he confirmed gruffly. “If nothing else, we’ll move faster if the day-eyes can see where they’re going.” He turned away, then glanced over his shoulder. “Paladin, if you can offer a blessing before the battle, we’ll take it.”

“What I have to offer is yours as long as I have it to offer,” Roghar said. He nodded to Albanon. The eladrin, looking relieved, moved up to where Belen and Uldane were waiting. Shara would have gone too, but Quarhaun kept hold of her.

“Have I told you the drow saying about never trusting the word of devils or dragons?” he asked quietly.

“No, but why? Roghar might be a dragonborn, but he isn’t a dragon.”

“That’s not what I meant. Dragons and devils never tell the whole truth. They always speak in conditionals. Why didn’t Roghar just tell Turbull yes?” Quarhaun moved close. “Don’t say anything to the others. Maybe I’m wrong. Watch your friend, my love. Something isn’t right and sometimes it takes someone who has been away to see that.”

A shiver crawled up Shara’s back.

CHAPTER TWELVE

They reached the valley while dawn was still only a pale glow in the east. Albanon paused at the height of the narrow trail—little more than a deer trail, really—and looked down into the lush bowl. The trees that filled most of it had turned from green to a mix of red, yellow, and brown with autumn, but still retained enough leaves to partly hide the few open clearings. Water splashed and gurgled in a broad, spring-fed pool off to his right.

In the distance to his left rose a tall, stern rock face, exactly what he had imagined when he’d so casually dropped it into his lie. Or what he thought he had imagined. During the night’s long, dark march, he had started to wonder if that detail hadn’t been so random or casual after all. If Tharizdun’s influence had drawn him north, perhaps the thought of the rock face had been the Chained God’s doing as well. A way of making sure they found this place.

“What are you thinking?” Tempest asked, stopping beside him.

“I thought I’d feel something,” he said. “We followed the urge. We’ve made the journey. I thought there would be something more. A sense of completion. A feeling of familiarity.”

“Shining lights? An ethereal choir?” she said with a slight smile. He wrinkled his nose at her. The smile grew wider. “What do you feel?”

“Uneasy. I don’t like this place.”

“What about the urge?”

He didn’t even have to think about it. “Still there. This isn’t over yet.” He lifted an arm and pointed right at the cliff. “There.”

“If you look closely, you can see the peryton nests,” said Hurn from behind them. He reached past and pointed. “Those dark shadows high up on the rock? Those are the ledges on which they perch.” The shifter gave them both a shove. “Now move. We need to be in position before the sun comes up.”

Their position turned out to be in one of the wider clearings in the valley, a low, rock-strewn knoll. Turbull and most of his warriors were already there. The Tigerclaws stayed under the cover of the trees for the most part, hiding their numbers in case the perytons happened to rouse earlier than expected. Three shifters at a time would break from cover, dashing out onto the knoll to labor with swift intensity before running back so another group could take their place. Curious, Albanon watched their activity as he and the others skirted the clearing to join Turbull. A small fire ring had been assembled from stones picked off the ground and wood laid for a fire by a shifter who always kept one eye on the looming cliff. The other two shifters labored at something like a giant auger, twisting a stout shaft of wood into the ground between them. One shaft was already embedded in the ground with roughly a double handspan still exposed. The Tigerclaws finished planting the second shaft as the wizard watched, pulling a double-ended handle off the shaft and passing it to a new team who carried a third shaft.

The second shaft wasn’t as deep into the ground as the first. Turbull grunted as they approached him. “The ground is too rocky,” he said. “Too late to move now, though. We won’t get another chance.”

“What is that?” asked Quarhaun.

“A stake-bore,” Belen answered. “The Tigerclaws use it when they put up their tents.”

Turbull glanced at the human woman. “You learned that from Scargash’s emissaries?”

Albanon saw Belen’s face tighten as she tried to conceal the secret of her knowledge. “One of the younger warriors took me hunting and showed me how to put up a tent.”

That earned a leer from Hurn. “I bet he did.”

Cariss slapped the hunter across the back of the head. Turbull just shrugged and turned back to the clearing. “Why are you setting up a camp?” Albanon asked him.

“We’re not setting up a camp. We’re setting up a trap.” The chief pointed. “The stakes aren’t for a tent. They’re for tying people to the ground.”

Uldane yelped a little. “Why would you want to do that?”

Albanon guessed. “To keep them from being carried away,” he said. “A peryton is strong enough to lift a person up in its talons. If this looks like a camp with sleeping people, the perytons will investigate—but they might just as easily try to snatch someone up.”

“So whoever is out there gets to be the worm on the hook?” Uldane made a face. “I don’t like this plan.”

“The stakes are a safeguard,” said Turbull defensively. “That’s why they have to be in deep enough that they can’t be pulled out. The rest of us will hide around the edges of the clearing. As soon as the perytons come in, we attack.” He smiled, showing his teeth. “We pin them down and slaughter them.”

Shara regarded him with a hard expression. “And would you have been so quick to attack if Quarhaun and I were your bait?”

The smile wavered. “The situation has changed. You’re not our prisoners. The ones who sit in the open to draw the perytons will gain much respect.”

She snorted in disbelief. “So it will be some of your Tigerclaws?”

Turbull’s smile closed and compressed into a thin, hard line. “If necessary. But I said the perytons are wily. If we want them to come close, we need to use something that will attract and hold their attention. They’re supposed to have a favorite prey.”

“Let me guess. Young women?”

“No.” Turbull turned and looked at Albanon, then at Quarhaun. “Elves.”

Quarhaun scowled. “I’m not an elf. I’m a drow. And Albanon is an eladrin. If you think we’re going to risk our lives—”

“I’ll do it,” said Albanon. He took a deep breath and met the gazes around him. Quarhaun looked startled. Tempest looked frightened. Roghar looked at him with pride and approval—naturally the paladin would approve of a selfless act. Albanon carried on before he lost his nerve. “Eladrin are cousins to elves. If I’m the best choice to draw the perytons down, I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure?” asked Shara. “Roghar and I are better equipped to defend ourselves. Wouldn’t you be better off staying back and using your spells from a distance?”

“If the perytons really are that wily, they may recognize your sword or Roghar’s armor. I don’t need either of those things. My magic is just as effective close up.”

“But can you control it?” said Tempest.

The question put a knot in his stomach. “Yes,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. I’m not going to give in again.” He turned to Quarhaun. “But I wouldn’t mind some help, and two ‘elves’ would be a more effective lure than just one.”

The drow’s eyes opened wide, baring white orbs in his jet black face. “Unlike you, I’m not suicidal. Besides, if the perytons are smart enough to recognize swords and armor, they’re smart enough to recognize I’m no elf.”

“You hadn’t heard of perytons before. I’m reasonably certain they’ve never seen a drow. At the very least you’ll confuse them and give the others a better opportunity to attack.”

“ ‘At the very least,’ ” Quarhaun repeated drily. “You make it sound so noble. No.”

“I think Albanon’s right, Quarhaun,” said Shara. “You can defend each other—and this is going to get us closer to defeating Vestapalk. We spent weeks wandering around the north when Belen had the clue to finding him all along.” She stepped closer to the drow. “We can’t keep working alone.”

Quarhaun’s expression wavered, but he still didn’t answer. Albanon decided to try one last appeal. In Elven, he said, “Do you remember the Temple of Yellow Skulls, when Vestapalk had infected us with the Voidharrow so he could turn us into two of his demon exarchs? We were both almost lost until Kri came. I’m the one who made him use his prayers and the light of the gods to purge the Voidharrow from both of us. Without me, you wouldn’t be here.”

Quarhaun gave him a narrow glare before replying in the same language. “You’re trying to call in a debt from a drow?”

“No. I’m calling in a debt from you. You say you’re different. I thought maybe you’d like the opportunity to prove it.”

“I don’t think I need to prove myself. I could still say no.”

Albanon smiled slightly. “But you won’t,” he said. “If you were going to, you would have already done it. You are who you are.”

“May spiders nest in your scrolls,” Quarhaun growled at him in Common. He turned to Turbull. “You have more bait for your trap,” he said sourly. Turbull nodded. Shara gave the drow a smile and took his hand. Quarhaun turned his scowl on her, but Albanon saw his fingers grip tight around hers.

Then Uldane stepped forward. “There are three stakes,” he said. “I’ll go out with Albanon and Quarhaun.”

All of them looked at him in surprise. “You don’t have to do that,” said Turbull. “One of my warriors can go.”

“Bundle me up in a cloak and I can pass for an elf more easily than a shifter can,” Uldane insisted. “Besides, if Quarhaun is willing to do it, I should, too.” He looked at Shara and Quarhaun. “I still feel like I owe you after driving you away.”

“You don’t owe us anything,” Shara said. “You’ve already apologized.”

“Then let’s say I feel like I owe myself.” He picked up the light pack he had carried from the Tigerclaw camp and pulled his cloak out of it. “The sun’s coming up. What are we waiting for?”

It didn’t take long to draw the perytons’ attention.

As soon as Albanon, Quarhaun, and Uldane were settled on the ground as if asleep—cloaks covering each of them and hiding the ropes that bound one leg to the stakes—one of the Tigerclaws started the fire, then sprinted for cover. Green wood laid over the tinder sent a thin but solid thread of smoke up into the morning air, a convincing imitation of a night’s fire dying out. Stretched out beneath the trees and bushes with Turbull to one side of her and Tempest to the other, Shara watched the bare rock of the mountain face intently. The rising sun made the shadows of the ledges darker, but she thought she could make out movement.

The first of the perytons took to the air and rose into the dawn light. She caught her breath. Even at a distance, the creatures looked to be the size of horses and in spite of their ungainly antlered heads, they flew like hawks. And they were fast. One moment there was one peryton beating blue-black wings as it flapped skyward. The next there were eight, all of them climbing to circle high above the valley. Shara imagined she could hear the beating of their powerful wings.

She glanced away, back to the three figures on the knoll. Two of her best friends and her lover lay vulnerable. Tempest patted her arm. “I know,” she said. “But they’ll be fine.” Shara nodded, wishing she could be as certain as the tiefling.

Turbull growled softly. “Look at them,” he said, his eyes on the perytons. “They’re magnificent.”

“I thought you wanted them dead.”

“I can still appreciate them.” Raising his hand just a little, he pointed. “See the biggest of them? The female with five-point antlers flying higher than the others? That’s the eldest of the flock—you can tell she’s female from the brown chest feathers. She’ll be the one to assess the situation and decide when—or if—to attack.”

Shara followed his gesture. She had to take the shifter’s word on the color of the big peryton—other than flashes of dark green or blue feathers in the sunlight, the monsters were too far away for her eyes to pick out details—but it certainly seemed as if the creature was studying the situation below. “How long will she wait?” she asked.

“If you suspected an ambush, how long would you wait?” He settled himself more comfortably against the ground. Out on the knoll, Albanon shifted his fingers to let a scrap of red cloth flutter out, a signal that he and the others had seen the circling perytons. She settled herself down as well, but kept her eyes on the high-flying monsters.

When the perytons descended, they came down fast. All of them dropped together in silent grace, but about half—the big elder among them—broke away to remain airborne just above the treetops. The others landed almost softly just beyond the false campsite.

“Down!” murmured Turbull and both Shara and Tempest pressed themselves against the ground. The Tigerclaws had provided them and the others with cloaks stitched from a multitude of variously hued brown patches for camouflage. Shara pulled hers tight around her face, leaving just the smallest opening to peep out of.

For long moments, the perytons on the ground stayed where they had landed. Red eyes slid over their potential prey—she didn’t know how Quarhaun, Albanon, and Uldane managed to keep up the pretense of sleeping—and around the clearing. The monsters moved strangely. Shara had expected them to make quick, darting movements like curious crows or perhaps to throw their antlered heads like wary stags. Instead, they hunkered down like wolves picking out the weak members of a herd. They held their wings partly spread with their powerful legs tensed, ready to propel them into flight. They thrust their heads and necks forward eagerly, and Shara saw something she hadn’t noticed from a distance: sharp teeth, made for tearing flesh, flashed in the perytons’ staglike muzzles. Her fingers curled and bunched the fabric of the camouflage cloak.

One of them took a slow, ungainly step toward the sleepers.

“Now?” Shara breathed to Turbull. None of the Tigerclaws would attack until he gave the signal.

“We want the elder,” he murmured back.

Shara braced herself against the thunder of her heart.

Pace by slow, stalking pace, the perytons moved closer to Quarhaun and the others. They paused frequently, checking the trees as if expecting an ambush. A human might have been more suspicious that their prey was still asleep, but the perytons just looked hungry. Glistening threads of saliva dripped from the jaws of the one in the lead. Less than ten paces from the sleepers, it paused and looked up at its kin circling overhead.

The elder flapped her wings twice and soared a little higher. Shara’s heart skipped. She was leaving. They were losing their chance!

Turbull must have sensed her tension. “Hold!” he said softly. “She’s getting ready to dive.”

Shara’s heart skipped a second time. “Dive? Shouldn’t we attack?”

“Wait for her to commit to it. The others will follow her lead.”

And Shara had thought waiting as a captive in the Tigerclaw camp had been hard. It was all she could do not to spring out as the big peryton spiraled up against the sky. She could hear Tempest whispering next to her—probably not a prayer from the warlock, but very possibly an invocation.

In an instant the elder turned and plummeted toward the ground. The dive was silent. No calls, no wild screeches, just a sudden, sharp descent. The other airborne perytons rose as the elder came down. Shara would have leaped to her feet right then, but Turbull seized her wrist under her cloak. “Hold!” he commanded as instinct checked her movement.

Fortunately the trio out on the knoll didn’t hold back. The false campsite exploded in a whirl of action as Albanon and Quarhaun threw aside their cloaks and jumped up. With a scream of fury, Quarhaun hurled a blast of crackling black energy at the diving beast, while Albanon thrust up his staff and sent a spray of fire toward the perytons on the ground.

The elder screeched as she twisted aside. Quarhaun’s blast missed her by less than a swordslength. The grounded perytons likewise threw themselves away from Albanon’s fire. He only managed to catch one, the edge of its wing trailing through the flame. Feathers singed and smoking, the monster whirled up into the air with an angry scream.

Even if they were startled by the counterattack, none of the perytons fled. They spun around Quarhaun, Uldane, and Albanon in an angry, bloodthirsty storm, forcing them apart with darting feints and buffeting wings. The ropes and stakes that were intended to keep them safe hampered them as they tried to dodge. Quarhaun loosed another blast without hitting anything. The peryton he had been aiming at turned in the air and plunged for him—

Turbull’s grasp vanished and he rose with a shout. “We are the predators!”

Around the clearing, the Tigerclaws came to their feet with answering shouts, but Shara was on her feet and charging across the knoll before Turbull had even finished shaping his words. Her greatsword flashed as she raised it. “Down!” she screamed.

Quarhaun saw her actions—and dropped. The diving peryton passed over him, its claws snatching nothing but air. The monster dipped awkwardly, then it saw Shara, too. She felt the blast of its wings as it tried to straighten its flight and regain its speed and height.

Shara didn’t let it. She roared and twisted her body around between one running stride and the next. Her sword caught the wing of the peryton and sheared through it.

The momentum of the creature spun it around. Shara had to roll to avoid being caught under its bulk as it plowed into the ground, but she came up running. Quarhaun was grinning when she reached him. “Beautiful and deadly,” he said.

“Not the time,” she told him, but she couldn’t help smiling. The tide of battle had definitely turned against the perytons. The air was filled with spears and spells, savage shouts and monstrous shrieks. Tigerclaws and Belen finished off the peryton she’d wounded and brought down another. Two more of the monsters, unable to fly but still dangerous, struck out with their antlers. Roghar and Hurn tried to get close enough to land killing blows while Uldane—the rope slipped from his leg—danced around and flung daggers at the creatures. Other perytons flapped desperately for the open sky as Albanon and Tempest threw silvery bolts and fiery blasts after them. Albanon’s hand swept across the sky, tracking the flight of one, then he flicked his fingers. The air shimmered with invisible force and the peryton dropped out of the sky as if it had been struck by a huge, unseen hammer. Blue-black feathers drifted down after it.

Shara spun around, searching for the elder, and found her circling overhead with two other perytons, the last of their flock. The monsters were screaming, a frightening blend of eagles’ cries and stags’ booming bellows. Those below spread out warily, all faces turned skyward. Turbull came over to Shara. “First blood is yours,” he said, and slid a bloody quill into her hair.

She left it there for the moment. “What do we do now?”

“We wait,” said Turbull grimly. “Any other beasts would flee, but these perytons seem capable of—”

A warning cry from one of the Tigerclaws cut him off. Turbull’s head snapped up. Shara followed his gaze just in time to see two dark forms plummeting down from above—one of them coming right at her. She glimpsed red eyes that shone with vengeful fury.

Then Quarhaun stepped in front of her. He’d drawn his sword, the eerie black blade that focused his warlock magic as Tempest’s rod focused hers. Quarhaun shouted a word and slashed the sword through the air.

The peryton vanished in a sudden burst of shadows, only to reappear in a similar burst about a dozen paces to Shara’s right, much closer to the ground and going just as fast. Shara didn’t think it even had time to spread its wings before it hit the ground with bone-splintering force.

The second peryton spun and turned as it dived, evading spears flung by the Tigerclaws and fiery spells thrown by Tempest. It leveled out, skimming the ground as Tigerclaw warriors leaped out of the way—except for Cariss. The shifter woman stood with her warpick ready and whirled just as the peryton reached her.

It was faster than her. Wings twitched, the feathered body rose sharply, and talons locked around Cariss’s shoulders. Warrior and monster both screamed at the same time, then the peryton was flapping hard and climbing fast.

Turbull howled like an animal and snatched a spear from the nearest Tigerclaw. Taking three long steps, he hurled it after the peryton. The spear flew as fast and true as if it were propelled by magic. The weapon buried itself in the peryton’s body just behind its wings. The peryton’s scream of triumph ended suddenly and the creature dipped in its flight—then recovered and kept climbing.

“Another spear!” bellowed Turbull. “Bring it down!”

“I don’t think it’s going to get much farther,” Shara said. The spear had weakened the peryton. Its wings slowed and it dipped again, fighting to both stay aloft and keep its grip on the struggling shifter beneath it. A moment later, its entire body sagged.

Its talons opened. High over the trees, Cariss cried out as she tumbled free.

“No!” Turbull roared. All around him, the other Tigerclaws were shouting. One voice, however, rose above the tumult—Albanon’s voice, yelling a single, ringing arcane word.

The air around Cariss seemed to flicker, then the warrior was no longer plunging toward the trees but drifting as light as a piece of fluffy down. Shara turned to find Albanon lowering his upthrust staff. Most of the Tigerclaws ignored him in favor of rushing to catch the slowly falling Cariss, but a few slapped the eladrin as they raced by. A slow smile of success blossomed on Albanon’s face. Shara smiled back at him.

She didn’t see the peryton elder until it was too late.

One moment, Albanon was smiling at her. The next, a shadow had fallen over him. And the next, a feathered blur had dropped out of the sky to snatch him up. The attack was so swift and caught Shara so completely off guard that she almost didn’t recognize the monster. It was only when the creature paused, struggling to fly off again, that she recognized the elder’s five-point rack of antlers and brownish plumage. It took her another instant to realize why the peryton was struggling: Albanon, stunned by the ferocity of the attack and unable to resist, was still tied to the stake.

“Spears!” she cried, but at the same time the elder gave a deep bellowing cry and pulled up hard with her legs.

The stake—the last of the three to be driven in—jerked free of the stony ground. Albanon’s staff tumbled to the ground as the elder shot up with the wizard hanging limp beneath her. Quick-thinking Tigerclaws lofted spears toward the creature. Quarhaun and Tempest flung blasts of magic from sword and rod. The peryton elder didn’t try to gain height as the one that had seized Cariss had, though. Instead, she angled up just enough to skim above the top of the trees, momentarily out of sight. When she climbed into view again, she was halfway across the valley and far out of range. Another bellow echoed back on the wind.

For a long moment, that was the only sound, then Tempest whirled on Turbull. “Where is it taking him? We have to follow!”

“It’s taking him to its nest,” the shifter chief said tersely. “It may keep him alive. It may not. We can follow to the base of the cliff, but after that …”

“I’ll climb,” said Uldane as he and the others joined them. He retrieved Albanon’s staff and gripped it tight. “Whether he’s alive or not, I’ll climb. I’m good at that.”

Shara didn’t take her eyes off the elder. The big peryton flew with a speed and strength that none of the others had matched. Did she see Albanon struggle in the monster’s grasp? It was hard to tell. It might just have been the wind jostling his body. She watched intently as the peryton wheeled and dropped down to a shadow that marked one of the larger ledges on the stone face. “There. That’s where the nest is,” she said, pointing.

At exactly the same time, light flashed on the ledge. It might have been sunlight on a mirror or a piece of polished metal, except that it seemed too bright and the white color of the reflected light was wrong. Shara lowered her arm.

“What was that?” asked Quarhaun. “Was it Albanon?”

“Maybe,” Tempest said, shading her eyes to peer at the cliff. “But that didn’t look like fire or lightning. I don’t know what—”

The light flashed again—but this time it burst from the distant ledge in a flare so intense that Shara jerked her head away. Some of the shifters cried out. When Shara looked back, bright spots danced in front of her eyes. The shadow that marked the ledge had been joined by another shadow—a tall black scorch mark on the stone. Nothing moved on the cliff face.

“That wasn’t Albanon,” said Tempest.

The blow from behind was so sharp and so sudden that it drove both breath and wits from Albanon’s body. For a moment, he was only aware of light and shapes rushing around him. Strange pressures pushed against him, almost like falling up if that were possible. The movement seemed to drive hot nails into his chest and shoulders, sending searing pain deep into him.

The pain snapped him back to alertness. He found himself staring down, his head lolling against his chest, and the top of trees flashing beneath him. He jerked at the sight—and more pain seared through him. Then he saw the talons gripping his shoulders, heard the thrum of beating wings and the rasp of labored breath. Smelled the stink of a carnivore—and realized what was happening.

He looked up at the belly and breast of the biggest of the perytons.

Albanon’s first instinct was to struggle, but the peryton felt that and tightened its grip until he gasped. His second instinct was to blast the creature with a spell, but his sudden gasp and the rushing air had stolen his breath again—which fortunately gave him a moment to recognize what a spectacularly stupid idea that would be. The spell of gentle falling he’d used to save Cariss was complex and the effort of casting it had scoured its patterns from his mind for a time. If he were to blast the peryton, he’d fall even farther than the shifter had. Plus the landscape below looked completely unfamiliar. The knoll where’d they’d ambushed the flock was far behind him.

Panic leaped inside him. Were they even still in the valley?

But the peryton banked suddenly—sending another sharp wave of pain through Albanon—and a new but familiar vista presented itself: the stone face of the mountain above the valley. With it, however, came new and horrific sights. There were half a dozen ledges across the stone face, each of them bearing one or two or even three messy heaps of sticks and branches. Nests. Black dung caked the ledges. White bones, cracked by powerful jaws, were scattered among the sticks. Perytons had been nesting on the cliffs for a long time.

Albanon’s captor angled toward the biggest of the ledges, a broad shelf of rock partly sheltered by a high overhang but containing only a single, if very large, nest. The peryton’s wings spread wide and scooped against the air, slowing it and bringing an explosion of new pain to Albanon. The pain lasted only a moment, however, before the peryton opened its claws and let him fall.

He was lucky. He crashed into the piled branches of the thing’s nest and intertwined wood broke his fall. Still, the air went out of his much-abused lungs, and Albanon struggled to draw a breath as he thrashed in the nest.

The peryton loomed over him. Its bulk blotted out the light. Bloodstained talons slammed down across his chest, pinning him. The great, antlered head dipped toward him. Its muzzle peeled back to expose sharp teeth.

Somewhere behind Albanon, white light flashed, drawing the peryton’s attention. “Get away from him,” said an imperious voice.

The peryton’s head snapped back and up to glare at something Albanon couldn’t see. A frightening growl rose in its throat, so low and deep that Albanon could feel it vibrate through him.

“No?” said the voice. “Good.”

The light flared again, a brilliant and blinding storm that washed over Albanon and the peryton alike. The light was at once scorching hot and freezing cold—Albanon felt like it was scouring the flesh from his bones. He heard two screams, one his and one the peryton’s. The monster fell away from him and he could breathe again.

He could do more than breathe, in fact. The deep agony where the peryton’s talons had pierced his shoulders faded. As the scouring light sank into him, it felt as if it was knitting his injured flesh back together. When it faded an instant later, he was whole again. The same couldn’t be said for the peryton. It lay still with wisps of stinking smoke rising from its feathers.

Albanon had experienced that searing, painful healing before. He flipped around in the remnants of the demolished nest and pushed himself to his feet. At the back of the ledge, just in front of a low door that opened out of the rock wall, bright eyes set in a wrinkled, dark-skinned face watched him.

“You weren’t what I was expecting,” said Kri, “but I should have known it would be you.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Albanon reeled. A spell leaped into his mind, but in his surprise the best he could manage was a strangled croak and a couple of feeble gestures. Kri’s mouth pursed impatiently.

“Stop that. I just saved you. If I wanted you dead, I could have let the peryton rip your heart out. Come inside. We need to talk.”

He turned away. Albanon stared at the old man. Kri still wore the same clothes he had when Albanon had last seen him in Fallcrest, but now they were dirty and stained. They hung on his frame. Kri was gaunt, his cheeks hollow, even if his eyes were bright and sharp.

Breath finally came back to Albanon. The first words to pass his lips weren’t a spell, though maybe they should have been. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “The last time I saw you, you were—”

“Fleeing after you defeated my attempt to free Tharizdun from his prison?” the priest said. “Yes. But Tharizdun brought me here. He has a task for me. And for you.” Kri raised an eyebrow. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You felt his gaze. What did you expect to find?”

Aid in the fight against Vestapalk, Albanon started to say, then he stopped himself. Why reveal that to Kri? “You betrayed me,” he said through his teeth. “You betrayed the Order of Vigilance. You drove me mad before and you’re trying to do it again.”

“Trying?” Kri snorted faintly. “I don’t have to try. The eye of the Chained God has fallen on you, Albanon. You’ll never be entirely sane again. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” He turned away, walking through the door. “Come inside. You’ll understand.”

Defiance came over Albanon like a haze. He turned and marched to the edge of the ledge. The valley lay spread out before him—a long, long way down. He closed his eyes as a dizziness he hadn’t felt in the panic of the peryton’s flight made his head spin.

A hand came down on his shoulder. “Jumping would be the greatest madness of all,” said Kri. “You must have come here with Shara and Uldane, at least. I’m sure they’ll try to rescue you. Aren’t you even going to try and fight?”

“I wasn’t going to jump,” Albanon snarled.

“No? Then come away from the edge before you fall over, you fool idiot.” Kri’s hand bunched in the talon-shredded remains of his shirt and dragged him backward several paces. Albanon was reminded that while the priest might be old, he was still strong.

He pushed Kri’s hand off and turned to face him. “What do you want from me?”

“It’s not what I want—it’s what Tharizdun wants,” said Kri with surprising calm. “Believe it or not, you saved him. You saw the Voidharrow that came pouring out of the Vast Gate as Tharizdun tried to pass through. You saw the binding forms that it was taking and you destroyed it. You, Albanon, prevented Tharizdun from being absorbed by the Voidharrow.”

Albanon blinked. “I saved a god?”

Kri waved a hand. “Well, you saved a god that all the other gods despise. And you forced him back into his eternal prison, so he’s not too happy about that. But you did draw his attention. He’s chosen you as part of his vengeance.”

“Vengeance?” Albanon’s belly clenched.

“His vengeance on the Voidharrow. Tharizdun has given me the key. He told me that one would come to help turn it and here you are. Now come inside.” Kri smiled, but not kindly. “You swore the oath of vigilance. You came here looking for a way to end the threat of Vestapalk and the Voidharrow. Don’t you want to know what that is?”

Once more, Kri turned and walked for the door in the back of the ledge. Albanon hesitated, but this time he followed.

Kri had left the purple lantern just inside the door. He retrieved it, then tripped the switch that closed the door. Albanon started and grabbed for the edge of the door, but it closed too quickly for his fingers to catch hold. Kri held the lantern high so its pale illumination fell over the eladrin. “Are you afraid I’m going to try to trick you?”

Albanon made a visible effort to regain his composure, lifting his head and straightening his tattered robe. “You’ve done it before,” he said bluntly. “You had a sample of the Voidharrow the whole time we were fighting Vestapalk. You always intended to betray the Order of Vigilance and recreate the Vast Gate.”

The words actually stung a little bit. “Not always,” said Kri. “But Tharizdun is a patient god.” He turned and led the way out onto the great spiraling staircase. He heard Albanon’s gasp as his silent recriminations gave way to sudden awe.

“Where are we?”

“A dwarven cloister built to honor the Chained God. His memory has not been as forgotten by the world as the other gods would like us to believe.” Kri turned, letting the light fall up and down the stairs. Albanon’s eladrin sight would make the most of its meager glow. “When I first woke here, I believed Tharizdun had buried me deep in the ground. Then he revealed the truth. We are underground, yet high above the world, isolated in every way. What more perfect place for the servants of an imprisoned god?”

“I’m no servant of Tharizdun!”

Kri laughed, the first time he could remember doing so in many days. “Hold to that belief,” he said. “But I meant the dwarves. The original inhabitants of this place.”

“What did you do to them?”

Kri turned to face him. “Use your senses. Smell the air. Do you think I massacred them? Sacrificed them in some insane ritual? They’re long gone, dead by their own hands. We are the only ones here now.”

“They … died here?”

“I suspect some were born, lived, and died here. I’ll show you their tombs. They’re very well preserved.” He started down the stairs again, but Albanon grabbed him.

“How did they get in and out?” the eladrin asked.

“I don’t think they did,” said Kri with a smile. “The ledges are the only way to the outside world that I’ve found. I suspect the cloister was largely self-sufficient and self-contained. The dwarves were devoted to Tharizdun.”

“How do we get out?” Albanon’s voice actually cracked in panic. Kri smiled wider and patted Albanon’s cheek.

“Tharizdun will show us the way when it’s time.” He paused and considered another option. “Unless it’s possible for us to bring about his vengeance against the Voidharrow from in here.”

“No,” Albanon said tightly. “No, it can’t be. We know already where Vestapalk is. After we’d come here, we were going to take whatever we found to fight him.”

“Then maybe the Chained God has already sent us a message. You have found me. It can only be a matter of time before he sends us on our way.” He thrust the lantern into Albanon’s hands. “Carry that. Hold it up so I can see.”

Albanon looked down at the lantern—and almost dropped it as he stared at the blasphemous carvings on the crystal globe. Kri grabbed his hands and wrapped them tight around the lantern. “Study them later. You might learn something,” he told the wizard. “Do you read Davek?”

“Only a little.”

“Moorin neglected your training shamefully. If we’re here long, I’ll teach you. There are fascinating inscriptions on the walls here.” He set off down the stairs.

“Kri,” said Albanon, “how long have you been here?”

“How long has it been since you sent me through the Vast Gate?”

“About two weeks.”

“Is that all?”

Albanon paused, then added, “What have you been … eating all that time?”

Kri froze, then swung around and glared at him. With the purple light of the lantern shining up under his face, Albanon looked even paler than normal. His eyes were wide and frightened. Kri could guess immediately what the wizard had thought. He grimaced in disgust. “You think because I mentioned the dwarven tombs that I’ve turned into some kind of bone-gnawing ghoul? I may serve the Chained God, but I’m not a monster.” He jerked his head back toward the hidden door. “Tharizdun showed me the way to the ledges. Perytons lay eggs like birds. I haven’t eaten well, but I’ve eaten enough.”

Albanon swallowed. “The perytons are dead. We ambushed them in the valley. The one you just killed was the last of them.”

Kri gave him a cold smile. “Then maybe you should reconsider praying to Tharizdun.”

The forgotten cloister of Tharizdun stank of madness. Albanon wouldn’t have considered such a thing possible, but it was true. There was something in the air, oozing from the stone and the shadows, that assaulted his nostrils. It couldn’t have been real. Try as he might, he couldn’t identify the odor. Whenever he tried to, it changed. It smelled like dung or ashes or wet stone or roses. It had to have been his imagination.

It was there, though. Every time he convinced himself that it wasn’t real, it returned with some new and visceral stench so powerful he could feel it sinking into his skin. If he escaped the cloister, he would burn his robes and scrub his skin with sand until it stung.

When he’d ventured into the lonely Tower of Waiting in Fallcrest with Kri in search of the demon Nu Alin, it had seemed like he was descending into an abyss of madness, where insanity lurked just out of sight. In the dwarven cloister it was on full display everywhere he looked. The farther he followed Kri down the long, ever-circling stairs, the more it seemed to emerge.

He might not have been able to read the characters of the inscriptions written on the walls, but sometimes there were drawings with them. He tried to avoid looking at them. He tried to avoid looking at the carvings high in the shadows along the sloping ceiling: every kind of creeping, crawling, and writhing beast he could imagine. All carved in flawless detail. All represented mouth to tail as if consuming the one in front and birthing—or excreting—the one behind. He was fairly certain that Kri, with his weak human sight, wasn’t even able to see them beyond the lantern’s purple light.

The lantern was the worst. Albanon had never considered himself particularly religious, but the scenes of feasting gods carved into the crystal were vile. Even if he didn’t look at the lantern itself, it seemed to him that the carvings caught the light and reproduced themselves in its glimmers. No matter where he looked, ghostly images projected by the lantern floated in the air. Avandra, the wanderer’s god, gnawed on the feet and legs of screaming travelers. Erathis, god of civilization and the cities, ground men and women in a great mortar and pestle. Noble Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon, buried his snout in his worshipers’ entrails. Melora, god of the wilderness and the sea, boiled them in a soup.

And the whispering voice in his head had returned. Look, it urged him. Look and learn. This is how the gods truly are, devouring the lives of mortals while their worshipers offer themselves up. This is the world, everything prey for everything else. Why do you try to deny it? Embrace it. Embrace the power you have and use it to put yourself at the top of the dung heap.

“No!” he spat out loud.

The word echoed along the stairs, crashing back and forth. Kri looked back at him. “Tharizdun’s gaze lies upon this place. You feel it.”

Albanon ground his teeth and said nothing. He lowered the lantern and conjured his own magical light in the palm of his hand.

It flashed and dimmed like a dying ember.

The whisper in his head laughed. You could make it as bright as the sun, you know. Numbers flickered in his mind, equations for volume and brilliance.

He pushed them away and cupped his fingers around the ember-dim light. “It’s enough for me to see by,” he said to Kri.

The old priest shrugged and took the purple lantern from him. If he saw the ghostly images, he gave no indication of it. “As you wish. We’re stopping here anyway.”

Albanon looked up and stared around at a broad chamber full of broken statuary. Dim golden daylight filtered in from high crevices that seemed filled with crystal—dwarven light pipes. In that light, the madness seemed to ebb. Albanon took a slow breath and allowed the light to wink out between his fingers. Kri went over and sat down beneath a statue of a cowled man that looked as if something had broken out of a hollow space within it. Tharizdun’s symbol of a jagged spiral was marked on the palms of the statue’s outstretched hands. Albanon kept his distance. Kri just shrugged and settled himself more comfortably.

“So, my apprentice,” he said. “Tell me the news of the Nentir Vale. Has the Abyssal Plague overrun it yet?”

“I’m not your apprentice,” Albanon said harshly.

“No? It seems to me you’ve grown more in skill and power under my mentorship than with Moorin as your master. I was impressed with your manipulation of the flow of magical energy during our battle.”

A part of Albanon took pride in the praise. He braced himself against it. “That’s not skill, it’s madness. That kind of power is uncontrollable.”

“By which you mean you can’t control it. That’s just weakness. Embrace the madness and you’ll find that the power answers to you.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want me to do?” Albanon asked angrily. “It seems to me that when I did, I was able to swat you around like a moth. And right now, old man, you don’t have the dark power the Chained God’s presence gave you!”

Kri threw back his head and laughed. “Yes! Yes! There you go, that’s exactly what you need to do. Get angry. Let go of your control. Burn something. Melt something.”

A weird flickering light danced across the cleric’s face, as if Kri sat before a fire. It took Albanon a moment to realize that the fire came from him. Flames he didn’t remember summoning licked around his clenched fists. He held his hands up in front of him and the flames flared like torches.

Melting something, thought the voice in his head. That’s new. Focused fire, not increased in volume but in density—

He choked off the voice and concentrated on his hands. The flames flickered and went out. Albanon glared at Kri. “I’m not going to do that.”

“Disappointing. I would have thought you were capable of more. Tell me how your friends are then. Shara, Uldane, Quarhaun—I think we saw Tempest and Roghar back in Fallcrest briefly, too, or have they gone off again? How’s Splendid?”

The question tore open a wound. “Splendid’s dead. Vestapalk killed her with some kind of new plague demon that was smarter and faster than the others, almost like Vestapalk had merged himself with a plague demon.”

“Vestapalk is the Abyssal Plague. The Abyssal Plague is the Voidharrow. The Voidharrow is Vestapalk. When the Voidharrow has consumed enough of the world, there will be very little that Vestapalk isn’t capable of.” Kri leaned back. “I’m sorry to hear about Splendid. I liked her.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t even say her name.” New anger flashed in Albanon. He swallowed it as best he could. “Trying to get here killed her as certainly as Vestapalk did. I know that it was Tharizdun who put the urge to come here into me, but I would have thought even a banished god could come up with someone better suited to killing Vestapalk than you.”

Kri sat up sharply, eyes flashing. “Killing Vestapalk is only incidental to what Tharizdun wants. I told you, our mission is vengeance on the Voidharrow, and I hold the key to its destruction.”

“What’s that?”

Kri stalked up to him and leaned into his face. “I know what it is.” He stepped back. “I spent my life—yes, and the lives of others—in pursuit of true knowledge about the Voidharrow. That’s what drove me from the Order of Vigilance and Ioun to the worship of Tharizdun. He knows the value of change. He doesn’t keep secrets. After I passed through the Vast Gate and since I’ve been here, he’s shown me everything I need to know.”

He turned to gaze up at the cowled statue. “We are told that Tharizdun created the Abyss by planting a crystal of evil in the heart of the Primordial Chaos. That crystal wasn’t a seed of evil—it was a seed of change, drawn from another world where one force, one being, had consumed everything until it was the only thing in its world. It called itself the Progenitor. When the other gods discovered that Tharizdun had introduced change into their perfect world, they imprisoned him with the Progenitor in its world. But over the eons, Tharizdun and the Progenitor worked together. They merged part of their essences and found a way to send that merged essence back to our world.”

“The Voidharrow,” said Albanon.

“Yes,” said Kri, looking back at him. “And no. The Voidharrow was meant to be used with a fragment of the Living Gate—the same fragment we found in Sherinna’s tower in the Feywild—to forge a new gate, the Vast Gate, and set both Tharizdun and the Progenitor free. But the Voidharrow had been twisted by the Progenitor. It took on a life of its own and began to consume our world just as the Progenitor had consumed his. It only needed a suitable host and when it escaped after centuries as the prisoner of the Order of Vigilance, it found one in Vestapalk. The Abyssal Plague is only the beginning. Together Vestapalk and the Voidharrow will consume everything. Everything. That’s why it laid a trap so that it might consume Tharizdun when he tried to re-enter the world. Imagine Vestapalk enhanced with the power of a god.”

A chill had worked itself into Albanon. “So how do we stop it?”

Kri smiled. “The Voidharrow was created by merging the Progenitor’s hunger and Tharizdun’s mighty will. The Progenitor is alien to our world. It can’t exist here—the only reason it does is because Tharizdun’s will holds it together. Extract Tharizdun’s will from the Voidharrow, and it will be destroyed.”

“And how exactly do we do that?”

Kri’s smile faltered. “I have the key. Tharizdun said the one who came would help to turn it.”

“Me?” asked Albanon. “I don’t know anything about Tharizdun’s will. What am I supposed to do?”

“You have power,” Kri said.

“Fire. Lightning. If I want to use it. And it hasn’t exactly been predictable so far. How does that help us?”

“You can manipulate magical flows more directly than that. I’ve seen it. In Moorin’s tower, you fed power back into the prison ward that the Voidharrow formed around Tharizdun and burned the Voidharrow away.”

“I think this would be subtler than that.” Albanon sat down on a hunk of broken statue. “Why can’t we just burn the Voidharrow with fire or the light of the gods, though? Vestapalk is laired in something he calls the Plaguedeep. Belen—she’s a Fallcrest guard who was possessed by Nu Alin until Tempest and I drove him out—saw the place in Nu Alin’s memories. It’s the crater of a volcano west of the Vale, but Vestapalk has transformed it somehow with the Voidharrow. There’s a concentration of it there, a great pool that Vestapalk wallows in.”

Kri sucked in his breath. “Then he’s gone further in his consumption of the world than I thought.” He sat down, too. “Burning will only destroy the portion of the Voidharrow your fire or my radiance consumes. Some of it might escape. If Vestapalk has already turned it against the rocks and stones of the world, it could have reached into the Underdark already. We need to destroy it completely. Drawing out Tharizdun’s will should do that. Wherever the Voidharrow is, it will be affected.”

“What about the Abyssal Plague and the plague demons?”

“That’s harder to say. Without the Voidharrow’s power, the plague will lose much of its virulence, but the demons are creatures of both worlds now. If they survive the destruction of the Voidharrow, they may still be able to infect others. Though probably not as easily.”

Albanon blinked. “They won’t be cured?”

Kri gave him a blunt look. “Those infected have changed, Albanon. The Abyssal Plague has done its work on them. They are what they are now.”

A sour taste came into Albanon’s mouth. “But they were all people once. Can’t we bring them back? You burned the Voidharrow out of me.”

“You had just been turned. There was still time. The people that the plague demons were are dead. Could you bring back the dead from any other plague?” Kri held up the crystal lantern. “We feed the gods, Albanon.”

“Tharizdun is a god, too. Do we feed him?”

“Even Tharizdun—but the Chained God gives us a chance to fight. Without freedom and change, where would we be? Exactly where the other gods want us.”

Albanon stared at the old priest for a long moment, then asked, “Do you really believe that?”

“If I didn’t, I would still be Ioun’s pawn.” Kri looked directly into Albanon’s eyes. “Tharizdun wants the Voidharrow stopped. You want Vestapalk dead. Look into your heart. Has this ever been about the Abyssal Plague? Shara has sworn to kill Vestapalk for what he did to her friends and father. You have sworn to take revenge on Vestapalk for almost turning you into his exarch. If the only way to stop the plague required leaving Vestapalk alive, would you take it?”

Albanon wanted to say yes, but he couldn’t. All the dead of Fallcrest and Winterhaven. Immeral. Splendid. All those dead and lost beyond the Nentir Vale because of the Abyssal Plague. He laid them at Vestapalk’s feet.

“Will destroying the Voidharrow kill Vestapalk?” he asked Kri finally.

“He is its host. It imbues and empowers him. It’s part of him now. I don’t believe he could live without it.”

“Then I think that’s all I can ask.” Albanon looked at the old priest. “I’ll work with you—assuming we can figure out exactly how to separate Tharizdun’s will from the Voidharrow.”

“We’ll find a way. We worked well together before.” He held out his hand.

Albanon shook his head. “We worked well before you betrayed me,” he said. “Before you broke my mind. I’m not going to trust you again, Kri. Don’t act like you’re my mentor.”

Kri let his hand fall. “Fairly spoken,” he said. “We have a common interest, nothing more.” He sat back once again. “So where do we begin?”

Kri might have been mad and a traitor, but Albanon had to admit it was good to talk to someone who really understood magic again. Tempest was intelligent, but a warlock’s understanding of magic was different from a wizard’s, received through pacts and bargains with supernatural creatures rather than hard study. And while Kri was a cleric, drawing his magic from divine sources, he had served the god of magic and knowledge for most of his life. Changing his allegiance to Tharizdun had not taken away what he’d learned as Ioun’s priest. It was frighteningly easy to forget that Kri had tried to kill him and bring a banished god back into the world.

They began with generalities: what resources they had to work with, past instances each had read about that might be vaguely similar to their situation, spells and rituals that might aid in what they needed to accomplish. They moved to specifics: how could two intangibles such as will and hunger combine into a material form in the first place? Kri found chalk or something like it in the ruins while Albanon brushed aside rubble and conjured more light. Soon the floor of the chamber was covered with notations and sprawling diagrams, and Albanon had told Kri everything that he had seen and experienced, including Vestagix and even his own shame at Winterhaven. It reminded Albanon of the happy days of his apprenticeship and long conversations with Moorin—or even of the much shorter period when Kri truly had been his mentor.

None of it, however, got them any closer to an answer. There was always something missing. A gap in the diagrams. A hole in their knowledge. “If the will of Tharizdun is the key to destroying the Voidharrow,” Albanon said finally, “we’re fumbling for the lock like drunks in the dark.”

“To use the languages of alchemists,” said Kri, “we need a catalyst. Something to facilitate the magic.” The priest rose stiffly and bushed the dust from his hands. “We need elements of an exorcism. And, since the Voidharrow will surely resist having Tharizdun’s will drawn from it, an abjuration to hold the two apart. There has to be something else, though. A wedge to split them. A spindle to wind up Tharizdun’s will.”

Albanon stared at the complex swirls of the pale inscriptions that surrounded them. They were like the numbers and formulas that had unlocked his magic before. He could almost feel the madness pushing at his mind. For the moment, he let it be. It was strangely energizing. He felt more alive and alert than he had in days. In his mind’s eye, he could picture the threads of magic that Kri would weave, and which he would in turn pluck and twist, empowering the ritual. But it was exactly as Kri said: they needed something more. Something to turn the key.

He let out a long breath and scrubbed his hands over his face. His mind might have been alert, but his body was weary. Between the excitement of his discussions with Kri and the dark silence of the ancient cloister, it was almost impossible to tell how much time had passed, but his grumbling stomach told him it had been long enough.

“Do you have any eggs left?” he asked Kri. “Or should we go up and investigate the peryton carcass on the ledge? It looked at least partly cooked when we left it.”

The priest made a face. “I’m sick of peryton. I’d like a little change before we resort to it. Do you have a scrap of anything else in your pouches? Dry bread? Old cheese? Yesterday’s sausage?”

“I might.” Albanon dipped his hands into the pouches on his belt, digging through the esoteric bits and pieces that wizards tended to accumulate.

His fingers closed on something cold and hard, with edges sharp enough that they nicked him—and in his memory, he was standing again in the study at the top of Moorin’s tower as Immeral challenged him to confront Vestapalk and the Abyssal Plague rather than hiding from what that confrontation might do to him. He remembered thinking he needed a talisman, something to remind him of the importance of what he had to do. He’d chosen a remnant of the battle that had taken place in that very room.

Albanon drew his hand from his pouch and held out his talisman for Kri to see. A tapered oval of red stone—roughly broken, slightly crystalline, and no bigger than his thumb—rested on his palm. Kri’s eyes opened wide.

“When Tharizdun sought the seed of change,” the priest said reverently, “he reached through the Living Gate to retrieve it. When the other gods bound him, they forced him through the gate. When cultists of the Chained God summoned the Voidharrow to our world, they used a fragment of the Living Gate to open the Vast Gate. The founders of the Order of Vigilance shattered that gate but kept a piece of it to study, until I used it to open the Vast Gate again in Moorin’s tower.”

“And that was shattered, too,” said Albanon. He turned the stone between his thumb and forefinger. “A fragment of a fragment of a fragment.”

“That has known the touch of both the Chained God and the Voidharrow. In Sherinna’s tower, I think Tharizdun called to me through it.” Kri smiled. “Well done, Albanon. We have our catalyst.” He reached for the stone.

Albanon closed his fist around it. “No,” he said. “It stays with me.”

For an instant, Kri’s face twisted into a mask of fury, like a child throwing a tantrum. Then it was past as the priest forced himself to remain calm. “You don’t trust me?” he asked. “After what we’ve just accomplished? I’m not going to try anything. I still need your help to work the magic.”

“And if you find a way around that?” Albanon put the stone back into his pouch. “You said Tharizdun told you one would come who would help turn the key. I’m keeping this until that key has been turned and the Voidharrow has been destroyed.”

Kri’s expression turned cold. “As you will. The words of Tharizdun are fulfilled.” He raised his face to the shadows of the ceiling. “Chained God! Patient One! We are ready. Deliver us from this place!”

Albanon felt a little bit sick. “That’s it?” he asked. “That’s your plan for getting us out of here—”

From the darkened stairs, rolling up from the depths of the cloister, came an echoing boom. Albanon spun around to stare. “What was that?”

“Deliverance,” said Kri. He picked up the crystal lantern and headed for the stairs.

The boom came again, the sound of something heavy striking stone. Albanon ran after Kri. The lights he’d conjured in the chamber winked out as he left them behind. He caught the priest on the stairs just as the boom rolled up for a third time. “If I was anywhere else, I’d say that someone was trying to knock down a really big door.”

“It might be.”

“You said there was no way in or out!”

“I said I didn’t think the dwarves came in and out, but they must have gotten in at some point. A door is the simplest explanation.” Kri shook his head. “You have to use your wits sometimes.”

Albanon resisted the urge to strike the old man from behind. “So there is a door!”

Kri shrugged. “I assume there is. I didn’t look for one. Tharizdun told me you would be coming. Why would I leave?”

A scream of frustration built in Albanon’s throat—then died as he considered Kri’s words. “Either that actually makes sense,” he said, “or I’m going as mad as you.”

“One doesn’t rule out the other,” said Kri.

The booming continued in a regular pounding rhythm as they descended the stairs. Albanon saw doorways opening into other chambers and passages—the cloister must have been vast once. Even as the sound guided them farther and farther down, Albanon felt no urge to go exploring in the madness-tainted place.

The deeper they went, the louder the echoes became. They filled the stairs with a roar of sound. Albanon could feel them in his belly. Even pressing his hands over his ears barely muffled them. The sound was so mind-numbingly loud that it took several turns of the stairs before he realized it had changed. He grabbed Kri’s shoulder.

“We’ve gone past!” he shouted. “It’s coming from above us now.”

The priest nodded and they turned around. It took trial and error before they found that the sound came rolling out of one of the side passages. Kri led the way into a long, high room lined with the moldering remains of barrels. A humble storeroom, except that one of the featureless walls trembled visibly with each impact. Albanon watched grit cascade down the wall as old mortar was pounded into dust. Loosened stones sagged, revealing the shape of a pair of arched stone doors behind. Hope and the anticipation of escape rose in Albanon.

Then the booming rhythm ceased. The only sound was the faint hiss of falling dust.

“They stopped,” said Albanon. He lowered his hands from his ears and waited for the sound to start again.

It didn’t.

“No!” Albanon ran to the wall and slammed his fists against it. “No, we’re here! Tempest? Shara? Anybody?” There was no sign of a response. He turned back to Kri. “Why would they stop?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Cariss had sustained the worst injuries of any of them—deep gouges where the peryton’s talons had gripped her—but once other Tigerclaw warriors had caught her drifting body and brought her back to the clearing, even she wasn’t willing to wait longer than it took to have her wounds cleaned and bandaged. “Albanon saved me,” she said. “Do I honor his actions by hesitating when he is in danger?” She even took charge of the wizard’s staff from Uldane.

In less time than it had taken to battle the perytons, they set out across the valley for the scorch-marked cliffs. The Tigerclaws led the way, bounding through the forest with the grace and speed of animals. Shara, almost as at home in the wilds as the barbarians, and Uldane, very nearly as fast, followed close behind. Quarhaun, Tempest, and Belen came after, moving as quickly as they could.

Roghar brought up the rear, the shield and heavy armor that had saved his life on many occasions encumbering him as he ran. In a short dash, he might have kept up with one of the others. Sprinting in armor was part of his training routine, but one only intended to get him quickly around a battlefield. Over longer distance, he would only exhaust himself.

When Tempest and Belen slowed to keep pace with him, he just waved for them to keep going. “I’ll get there,” he shouted. “The trail’s impossible to miss.”

“You shouldn’t be walking alone,” Tempest called back.

“We just killed the largest predators in the valley. What’s going to bother me?” He banged a gauntleted fist against his breastplate for emphasis.

Tempest and Belen exchanged a glance, then the tiefling shrugged and they carried on. Just ahead, Quarhaun paused to give Roghar a long, thoughtful look. Roghar curled his lips and glared back until the drow had gone on with the two women.

He dropped to his knees in a soft clashing of metal. Alone! Truly alone for the first time in two days. Letting the shield slide from his arm, he pulled off his right gauntlet—and almost sobbed.

The abrasion inflicted by Vestagix’s tail had grown into an oozing wound. His scales were shriveling and falling out, leaving the raw flesh beneath exposed. The veins almost seemed to be rising to the surface. Red and pulsing, they snaked out from the wound to push aside healthy scales. Roghar could feel the infection, too. From the tips of his fingers almost to his elbow, his arm burned with a slow, aching heat.

And was it is his imagination or had his left arm started to burn as well? He didn’t dare take his other gauntlet off to look.

Roghar clamped his hand around his arm just below the wound and squeezed as if he could cut off the flow of tainted blood. “Holy Bahamut, Righteous Dragon,” he prayed just as he had morning and night since Winterhaven, “I beg you to heal this wound!”

The sluggish stirring of divine energy was the same. It answered his call, a new warmth caressing his skin, but he knew in his heart that it wasn’t the same as it had once been. When he opened his eyes, the oozing wound had dried and scabbed a little, but it was still there. His arm still burned.

Bleakness settled over him like a heavy cloak. He’d tried to hold it back for several days, but what difference had it made? The Abyssal Plague had him in its grip. Prayer would not drive it away, only hold it back. And it was only getting worse. The night before, stumbling and exhausted in the forest, he’d briefly felt … something … inside him, like a nightmare intruding on his waking mind.

How long would it be before he lost himself entirely and became one of Vestapalk’s demons?

No, Roghar told himself, he wouldn’t let that happen. He picked up his shield and bent his head before the holy symbol on its surface. “If you can’t heal this plague, Bahamut, then give me the strength to fight it. Let me be myself until Vestapalk is dead, then I will surrender to my fate.” He clenched his burning, infected fist. “I swear it.”

He didn’t wait for his god’s response—it would hurt too much if there wasn’t one. Pulling his gauntlet on again, he rose, picked up his shield, and followed the trampled path of the others through the forest.

By the time he’d caught up to them, they’d reached the foot of the towering cliff. From so close an angle, the ledges where the perytons had nested were nearly impossible to make out. The black scorching from the brilliant burst of light stood out, though. Roghar joined Turbull, Belen, and Tempest as they stood staring up at it. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

“Looking for the best route of ascent,” said Belen. “Uldane thinks there should be a way up that he can climb. Quarhaun says it’s insanity but he’s looking, too. The drow has almost as much feel for stone as a dwarf.”

“Coming from the Underdark, he would.” The words came out gruffer than he’d intended—as so many of his words seemed to lately. It earned him a sharp glance from Tempest. He turned away rather than meet her gaze.

The trees grew thinner close to the base of the cliff, but the underbrush became heavier. Hardy vines clung a short way up the stone face itself. Here and there, they’d been torn back to expose the rock beneath. Where the vines had protected it, the surface was pocked by potential handholds. Farther up, however, it was weathered almost smooth. Uldane would need to find a more sheltered spot or a vein of some hard stone that might have resisted the weather.

If there was still any need to make the climb. The dragonborn cupped his hands around his muzzle and bellowed “Albanon!”

The echoes that rolled back at him were the only response. “We’ve tried that,” Turbull growled. “No answer. Not even a pebble dropped over the edge as a sign.”

“So we could be trying to rescue a corpse?”

Another glance from Tempest. This time it irritated Roghar more than it shamed him. He glared back at his old friend. “It’s a possibility.”

“He could be lying wounded. He might not be able to answer. We’re going after him.”

Roghar wanted to apologize, to tell her that he’d never meant to question whether they’d go after Albanon. Something dark and angry rose inside him, though. Who was Tempest to question him? He tried to fight the feeling down, but it still came out as a derisive snort. Tempest’s eyebrows drew together beneath her horns and she frowned.

Anything else she might have said was interrupted, however, by a shout from along the cliff face. There was a snarl to it, but also an uneasy whine, like a frightened animal—it must have been one of the Tigerclaws.

Long experience adventuring together took over. Roghar and Tempest exchanged a knowing glance and followed the sound. The paladin led with his shield up and a hand on his sword, while the warlock followed a couple of paces behind, her rod at the ready. But they weren’t the only ones to investigate. Belen fell in beside Roghar while Turbull raced ahead. Other Tigerclaws seemed to melt out of the forest and rush past them. Uldane caught up to them. “What was that?”

Roghar shook his head and shoved the halfling back with Tempest. Ahead, the Tigerclaws, together with Shara and Quarhaun, were gathered around something on the cliff face. The shifters were growling and unsettled, for the most part keeping their distance. Shara saw Roghar and the others and waved them forward. Roghar pushed through—and growled as well.

There, vines grew higher than normal on the cliff, but some had been pulled down. What lay beneath was not rough rock, however. The stone surface had been worked smooth and flat—and carved with a jagged spiral.

“The sign of the Elder Eye,” said Cariss. She made a gesture Roghar guessed was meant to ward off evil. “In Winterbole Forest, a few monstrous creatures with an affinity to ice and cold make offerings to it.”

“Packs of Riven, too,” Hurn bared his teeth and spat. “Filthy, feral traitors to the tribe.”

Roghar saw Belen flinch at the mention of the Riven—Hurn’s anger had struck too close to her secret. He tried to change the subject. “It’s the symbol of Tharizdun,” he said. “The Chained God tries to lure worshipers in the guise of the Elder Elemental Eye.”

“And not all exiles from the tribe turn to the Elder Eye, Hurn,” said Turbull. “They turn their backs on the Spirit of Hota, but they don’t become beasts.” His face tightened as he studied the jagged spiral, though. “Elder Eye or Chained God, I don’t like the sign’s presence in this valley. What is it doing here? Who carved it?”

Quarhaun stepped closer to the rock face and his pale eyes narrowed. “The symbol isn’t the only thing here.” He drew his sword, stretched up and placed its tip in the center of the spiral, then pulled the sword carefully down the stone.

Dirt and fine debris peeled away after it, revealing a dark, straight line in the rock. “It’s a seam,” he said. “This looks like the work of dwarves.” He grabbed a handful of vines and pulled them away to expose more of the smooth surface. Shara went to help him. Then Tempest. And Uldane. And Turbull, and Belen, and others. In a short time, all of the vines along that stretch of the cliff face were down.

A pair of arched doors, as tall and wide as fortress gates, stood revealed. No handles or hinges were visible and there was no decoration except Tharizdun’s jagged spiral. More of the Tigerclaws made Hurn’s warding gesture.

“Do you think this is where Albanon’s urge was leading us?” asked Tempest.

“I’m sure of it.” Quarhaun ran his hands over the smooth stone, pushed against the doors without result, then stepped back and looked at the rest of them. “I’ve never known anyone who makes one door into a place that doesn’t make a second one.” He nodded to the cliff overhead.

“You’re going in?” asked Hurn.

“We’re going in,” said Turbull grimly. “Albanon aided us. We aid Albanon. And if we intend to settle in this valley, we need to know all of its dangers.”

A murmur ran through the Tigerclaws at that. Turbull turned and silenced them with a snarl.

“I think a better question might be how do we get in?” Uldane said. “There’s no lock on the doors. I can’t open them.”

Roghar studied the doors and his lips twitched into a smile. For the first time since Winterhaven, he felt like he had a purpose again.

“I can,” he said.

It took longer to find, fell, and strip the necessary trees than it took for Roghar to rig them together with rope into a sturdy frame and suspended battering ram in front of the great stone doors. Personal combat wasn’t the only form of battle that Bahamut’s paladins were trained for. Roghar had never needed to conduct siege warfare, but he thanked the Platinum Dragon he’d found siege engines interesting enough that they stuck in his memory. The work almost made him forget the burning infection in his hands and arms.

Turbull looked at the rough timbers with some doubt. “I’ve heard of such things,” he said. “I’d thought that armies could just take a tree trunk and run it against fortress gates.”

“We would have had to clear a lot of underbrush to make enough room for a charge at the doors,” said Roghar. “This is easier.” He took hold of the hanging ram and used his entire body weight to drag it back, then took a deep breath and drove it forward. The ram’s head slammed into the stone doors with a resounding boom.

“Teams of ten,” he called out. “Five to a side. We work in shifts. This will likely take some time.”

“Are you sure you want to do this now?” asked Belen. She pointed up, not to the ledges, but to the sky. The sun had sunk well into the west, casting most of the valley into shadow and painting the steep slopes of its far side with gold.

“We have enough people who can see in the dark,” Roghar told her. She shook her head.

“That’s not what I’m worried about. If this is some lost shrine or forgotten temple of Tharizdun, I’d rather face it during the day.”

Roghar glanced around, then dropped his voice. “Tharizdun wanted us to follow Albanon here, didn’t he? What do you think we will have to face?” When she didn’t respond, he turned back to the ram, where the first team of ten—Shara and Quarhaun among them—had taken their places. “Ready!” he called. “Pull and … swing!”

The ram slammed against the doors a second time. “Pull,” called Roghar again, “and … swing!”

They quickly fell into a rhythm, the boom of the ram echoing across the valley on a regular basis. The siege engine creaked and groaned but hung together. There was no immediate change to the face of the doors, but that didn’t surprise or deter Roghar. The stone looked tough and if the doors were dwarf-made as Quarhaun suspected, they would likely be thick as well. At least there was no one trying to stop them from breaking in.

Fine cracks spread out from where the ram struck. Chips of stone started to flake away. He changed the teams swinging the ram, but didn’t leave his own post at the back end of it. Quarhaun, sweat glistening on his black skin, came to stand beside him. “What if it’s sealed on the other side?” he asked quietly. “A wall or something.”

“Who would do something like that?” Roghar grunted between heaves. “It’s mad.”

“The symbol of Tharizdun is on the door.”

“If there’s a wall, we break through it, too. Pull and …”

“Roghar!” shouted Uldane.

The dragonborn froze at the urgency in Uldane’s call, but the ram was already in motion. It dragged him off his feet and nearly knocked him down on the rebound. Two or three shifters on either side also tumbled. Those still upright had the sense to drag the ram to a stop. Roghar rolled upright and glared at Uldane, but the halfling was scanning the sky. So were Belen and half a dozen of the resting Tigerclaws. “What?” he said, his anger fading fast, “What is it?”

“Something just flew over. Up high.”

Roghar looked up. A scattering of clouds had rolled in, breaking up the blue vault and scattering the red-gold light of the setting sun. “Another peryton?”

Uldane shook his head. “Bigger. A lot bigger.” He traced a line against the sky, heading west beyond the towering cliff. “It went that way.”

“I saw a long neck and a long tail,” said one of the Tigerclaw warriors.

Quarhaun cursed. “Dragon?”

Roghar didn’t hesitate. He went straight for his sword and shield. Hurn looked at him doubtfully. “Maybe it didn’t see us.”

“It couldn’t have missed hearing us.”

“Then maybe it doesn’t care.”

“I’m not taking that chance. Everyone under the trees. We’ll wait to see if—”

Across the valley, something flickered in the light that fell against the far hills. A shadow, made indistinct by distance—but at that angle, whatever was casting the shadow would have to be low, not high where everyone was watching.

“Scatter!” Roghar commanded. “It’s coming back!”

A few of the Tigerclaws reacted faster than the rest of them and sprinted for cover. They weren’t fast enough. Before they reached the trees, the dragon burst over the top of the cliff and swooped down on them.

Roghar caught a brief flash of green and red, then he threw himself flat on the ground and pulled his shield up over his head. The shouts of the Tigerclaws were drowned out by a rush of wind as the beast skimmed close overhead. One of the shouts rose into a sharp scream, then ended abruptly. Wings thundered on the air. Roghar let his shield fall and rose onto his knees.

The dragon was climbing again. Two of the Tigerclaws who had been running for the trees were bloody corpses, still tumbling across the ground from the force of the lethal attack. Turbull and Shara were both yelling, telling everyone to scatter so there would be no groups to present easy targets for the dragon’s breath. Roghar watched the dragon as it rose into the fading sunlight, then rolled in the air and came back for another pass.

Like Vestagix in Winterhaven, the creature was thin to the point of emaciation, its green scales tinted with crystalline red. More crystals sprouted in spikes from its joints and along its spine and tail. Where Vestagix had taken the size and stance of a dragonborn, however, the monster in the air was similar in size and shape to a true dragon—or at least to a true dragon with two necks sprouting from its shoulders and two long, narrow heads above.

It held the heads together in flight, but as it slowed and approached the ground, they separated. One looked ahead, guiding the flight. The other bent down. Red eyes scanned the chaos below. Roghar saw them fix on several Tigerclaws who, against all commands, were still running close together. The dragon’s chest expanded as it inhaled—

“Beware its breath!” Roghar shouted, coming to his feet. Turbull, Shara, even Quarhaun called variants of the same warning. It did no good.

Green vapor so dense it seemed like liquid blasted from the mouth of the second head. It boiled up into a thick cloud of green and washed over the fleeing Tigerclaws. Sounds of choking came from within the cloud, followed by the distinct thumps of bodies hitting the ground. The green vapor dissipated within moments, but it was already over. The Tigerclaws were down, their faces contorted with the agony of their deaths. Even the plants around them had shriveled from the poison.

Wings that seemed almost too large for the dragon’s body spread wide—more than any other part of the monster’s body, they flashed with veins and fragments of the red crystal—and it wheeled to fly across the stone face. Crystalline talons clutched at the rocks. Some shattered with the force of its grip. Others held. The dragon ended up clinging heads down like some enormous insect to the cliff just above the great doors. Both heads surveyed those below, then curled back. “This one,” roared the head on the right, “is Vestausan!” The head on the left bellowed. “This one is Vestausir!”

The voices, though they came from larger throats, were the same as Vestagix’s. And, Roghar realized, the same as Vestapalk’s. His belly tightened with resolve and he remembered what Vestagix had claimed. He drew his sword.

“Let me guess,” he shouted back to the two-headed monster. “You are our doom.”

The dragon’s double gaze settled on him—and for a moment, Roghar felt as if the creature saw right into him. A shiver of kinship rolled through him. Pain encircled his wrist. The burning in his arms grew hotter and seemed to spread a little higher. One of the heads gave a rattling laugh that might as well have been words. Not your doom, dragonborn. Resolve turned to fear in Roghar’s guts.

It knew.

The double gaze left him, but he still felt frozen. The monster knew he was infected with the Abyssal Plague. It knew that there was no point in attacking because soon he would belong to Vestapalk, too. He watched numbly as its red eyes moved on—one pair to Hurn, the other to Belen.

“Come,” said Vestausan. “Draw closer.”

“See this one in his glory,” hissed Vestausir. “You cannot resist.”

Both Belen and Hurn blinked, their eyes opening wide as if in awe of the two-headed dragon. Like sleepwalkers, they moved toward the cliff face.

“No!” Shara leaped at Belen, trying to tackle her. Belen sidestepped, though, and kept walking. Shara twisted around and grabbed for her leg. “You won’t take them!”

There was a fierce, almost desperate protectiveness in her voice. Stories Shara had told of her first encounter with Vestapalk came back to Roghar—stories of how the dragon had systematically slaughtered her friends, her lover, and her father. Would Vestausan and Vestausir do the same? Would he let them? The fear that held Roghar frozen shattered. Resolve returned, along with rage. If he was doomed anyway, he could at least make his death count.

“Monster!” he called. “Demonspawn! You want someone to fight? Fight me!” He raised sword and shield. “The honor of Bahamut compels you!”

For the first time in days, the power of the Platinum Dragon came swiftly. The symbol on his shield flashed with holy light. One head whipped back to him. The other wavered uncertainly as if the creature was more used to luring creatures into battle than being forced to it. Belen and Hurn stumbled and came back to their senses. The dragon roared in fury. “You dare!”

“More than dare,” Roghar said. “Come to me!”

The monster roared again and leaped from the cliff. It didn’t try to slow its descent, but just dropped straight down like a massive cat, landing on the battering ram and smashing the frame flat. Roghar felt the ground tremble with the dragon’s landing. In the brief moment it took for the thing to recover its balance, Roghar charged. “In Bahamut’s name, your end is here!”

Vestausir struck at him. Roghar threw himself aside—and looked up to discover Vestausan’s jaws waiting for him. He dropped back and teeth that flashed with red crystal clashed just above him. The jaws opened wide again. Roghar brought up his shield but before the dragon could snap at him a second time, a blast of smoky fire broke across its narrow snout.

“Roghar’s not the only one you have to worry about!” came Tempest’s voice. Another bolt of her fire sizzled just past the head, while a streak of Quarhaun’s crackling darkness came at it from the other side. Battle cries rose around him: Shara’s, Belen’s, Turbull’s.

The dragon backed away from him, its heads weaving at the new threats. Roghar scrambled back and rose to his feet. His friends and the Tigerclaws were closing on the monster from both sides. Vestausan and Vestausir darted and ducked, hissing and threatening but never actually striking. So many targets seemed to confuse the creature. Some of the Tigerclaws paused to shake their weapons and taunt it.

“Don’t!” said Roghar. “Just attack. Don’t give it a chance to—”

The warning came too late. The heads struck fast, one to either side. Each rose with a screaming shifter between its jaws. Vestausir flung its prey away and grabbed for another. Vestausan simply crunched down so that blood and severed limbs spattered onto those below. “You would attack this one? Your doom will be slow!”

It lunged—or tried to. The enormous body heaved, then tumbled as its rear legs failed to keep up with its forelegs. Its wings flailed in an attempt to recover and the two heads wove back and forth in consternation.

The wreckage of the battering ram had tangled between the dragon’s hind legs when the thing crushed it, Roghar realized. Then he saw that it was no accident as Uldane, unnoticed in the chaos of battle, came darting out from under the thrashing bulk. The ropes had been skillfully looped around the dragon’s feet and legs like bootlaces tied together.

“All yours!” the halfling said, sprinting for someplace safe.

Roghar almost felt his old habit of singing in battle coming back to him. Almost. His wrist and his arm still burned. His blood throbbed in his head. He squeezed the hilt of his sword and the grip of his shield. Watch over me, Bahamut, he prayed silently, then he shouted aloud, “Now! Attack now!”

He charged, bowling aside Tigerclaws as they fell back. Vestausir’s neck was close. Roghar whirled his sword over his head and chopped down.

The dragon shifted at the last moment. The blade sliced through scales and bit into flesh beneath but the wound was shallow. Vestausir bellowed and lurched sideways, knocking him back. Then the dragon reared up. The massive, flashing wings swept air down on him and the others like a storm gust. With the remains of the ram still dangling from its hind feet, the monster rose up beyond the reach of their weapons. Tempest and Quarhaun continued to blast it with smoky fire and crackling darkness, but they seemed to have no more effect than his own glancing blow.

“More!” Roghar ordered the warlocks. “Hit it with the strongest spells you know!”

The drow and the tiefling exchanged a glance across the battlefield. Each raised a hand into the air, Tempest gripping her rod, Quarhaun his black sword. The greasy fire that had burned around Tempest’s rod changed and became cold and white, like the light of the gods but far harsher. As Tempest chanted hard and chilling syllables, streaks of similar light started to spin around Vestausan and Vestausir. At the same time, the darkness surrounding Quarhaun’s sword seemed to squirm as if taking on a life of its own. The drow hissed and writhing shadows made darker by Tempest’s light gathered around the dragon.

The two heads roared. The vast wings beat hard as the monster struggled to climb higher, but the magic dragged at it, pulling it back down. Roghar found Shara beside him, her eyes flashing as she readied her greatsword. “Don’t waste time on a neck if you can’t reach it,” she said. “Go for the belly while it’s exposed!”

Roghar nodded. The web of magic seemed to tighten. He could feel the chill of Tempest’s spell, smell the deathly stink of Quarhaun’s. “No!” howled Vestausan. “You will not defeat this one!”

“You cannot defeat this one!” shrieked Vestausir—and it twisted toward Quarhaun just as Vestausan turned to Tempest. Twin jaws stretched wide. The creature’s broad chest expanded.

Shara called Quarhaun’s name, but she was too far away to be able to help. Roghar knew what was coming. So did Tempest—he could see it in her face. But he could also see that the tiefling knew she was in an impossible situation. If she abandoned her spell to try and save her life, the dragon would slip free. Tempest’s expression hardened even as the first green wisps drifted from Vestausan’s mouth. Her voice rose in pitch. The light of her spell grew even more intense.

Roghar whirled and drew back his arm. His sword wasn’t one of Uldane’s knives. It was never intended to be thrown—but then the dragon’s belly wasn’t that far above him and even a glancing blow might draw the monster’s deadly breath away from Tempest.

“Bahamut!” he shouted, and he hurled the blade.

“Listen!” said Kri sharply.

Albanon stopped, his voice catching in his throat. For a moment, it didn’t seem there was anything to hear, then he picked out the sounds that penetrated the double-layered stone of the great doors and the wall that sealed them. Roaring. Shouting. Nothing distinct, but enough that he could guess what was happening.

“They’re under attack,” he said—then his voice caught again at another bellow, loud even through the muffling rock and probably deafening outside. He stepped back and stared at the loosened stones of the wall. “Was that a dragon?”

“Vestapalk?” asked Kri.

There was something eager in the way he said the name. Albanon turned on him angrily. “I don’t know! Whatever it is, we have to get out there and help them. Do something!”

“The light of the gods can sear flesh and spirits, but it’s far less potent against rock,” said Kri. “I’ve seen you call forth a blast of force. That’s what we need.” The old priest raised the purple lantern high and considered the wall, then touched the stones. “Here,” he said. “It’s weakened from the other side. Strike it hard enough and you’ll bring down the wall and the door together.”

Albanon looked from Kri to the wall. The stones that had been put up to seal the door were loose enough that the spell he knew would probably bring them down, but the door was another matter. “I don’t know if I can,” he said. “The spell isn’t powerful enough.”

“ ‘Isn’t powerful enough?’ ” asked Kri. He laughed, the sound mingling with another roar from the unseen monster outside. “That’s not a problem and you know it. You’re as powerful as you need to be, Albanon. You said you drove off a horde of plague demons with a lightning storm. I’ve watched you fill rooms with fire. You defeated me while I was filled with the power of a god!”

He’s right, whispered the voice inside Albanon. You know how.

And he did. He barely had to think about it and he knew. It was simple really, easier than increasing the volume of flame or extending the power of lightning. The same amount of force in the original spell, focused into a smaller area, would have a greater impact. Feed more power into the spell, like opening the floodgates in a dam, and the force produced would increase yet again.

Albanon shook his head, trying to dislodge the knowledge that welled up in him. He held those gates closed for a reason. “No. That’s Tharizdun’s way.”

“The Chained God offers freedom from your limitations,” said Kri.

“The Chained God offers madness! I won’t do it!”

The priest shrugged. “Then listen to your friends die.”

Albanon froze, his heartbeat loud in his ears. There was another roar from outside, the loudest one yet. Kri touched the wall again in the same place, then moved away.

The power is yours, said the voice in Albanon’s head. Shape it. Give it purpose. It’s not madness without reason. It’s not madness without control.

Albanon grasped that idea and held onto it. Tempest and the others didn’t need to die. He could help them. Tharizdun taunted him with power, but he could master it. He had to master it. “I’m in control,” he told himself. The spell rose in his mind. Power came with it, his to command. He focused on the spot Kri had indicated. “I’m in control. I’m in control.”

He knew it was a lie with the first words that rippled off his tongue.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The face of the mountain exploded like rotten wood under an axe.

It happened so fast that Tempest barely felt it at first. One moment she was struggling to crush the two-headed dragon with her spell before it could kill her with its poison breath. The next, she was on her back as fragments of stone rained down around her. Roghar’s sword was stuck point down, still vibrating, in the ground close to her. Tempest remembered seeing him hurl it at the dragon in a vain attempt to distract it. Apparently that had been as successful as her desperate spellcasting. Everything seemed strangely quiet—then noise came rushing back and most of it was an agonized double roar. Tempest sat up.

Her friends and the Tigerclaws lay all around her, some still knocked flat, others struggling up like her. The dragon must have been caught by the explosion. A dark hole gaped in the cliff. The doors were open, blasted wide from the inside. Blasted off whatever clever dwarven hinges had held them. One hung askew like a broken shutter. The other was in two pieces on the ground beside Vestausan and Vestausir as the monster thrashed, bellowed, and clawed at the dirt with its forelegs. Venom unreleased before the explosion dripped and sprayed in a green froth from its jaws. Its tail and one hind leg dragged around behind it, strangely misshapen.

Crushed, Tempest realized. The massive stone door had been blown out with such force that it had struck the dragon and broken its bones. Who or what could have struck the doors with that kind of power?

Her answer came striding out through the hole where the door had been. It had tapered ears and silver hair, and for a moment Tempest felt joy. “Albanon!” she cried, and she ran to him, skirting the edge of the battlefield. The eladrin was dirty, but he was alive!

Then she saw his face. Cold. Impassive. His blue eyes were wide and bright, as if he saw things no one else could. Tempest slid to a stop a few paces away from him. A horrible realization struck her, one she should have seen immediately. Albanon wasn’t capable of the kind of magic that had destroyed the dwarven door. At least not on his own—and unlike in Winterhaven, there was no sign of regret or conflict in his expression.

“Albanon, what have you done?” she whispered.

He glanced at her briefly, then turned away, back to the dragon. “Kri,” he called over his shoulder, “it’s not Vestapalk.” He sounded disappointed.

A second figure emerged from the shadows inside the cliff, an old human man with dark, wrinkled skin and short white hair. The back of Tempest’s neck prickled. She brought up her rod, the fire of her power already licking and smoking around it. She’d never met Kri Redshal, but she’d heard more than enough about him from Albanon, Shara, and Uldane.

The traitorous priest only snorted at her. “Know your enemy, warlock.” He joined Albanon. “No,” he said with interest, “not Vestapalk, but certainly some kind of spawn.”

“Like Vestagix.”

“Indeed.”

They might have been discussing the lineage of a prize horse. Tempest looked behind her and found Shara, Uldane, and Quarhaun approaching warily. Roghar was with Turbull, while Belen had joined Hurn, Cariss, and the other Tigerclaws in circling Vestausan and Vestausir. The crippled dragon seemed to have recovered some of its wits. It snapped with both heads at its smaller foes, but the Tigerclaws kept their distance. They kept moving, forcing the monster to turn with them and wear itself down. Neither barbarians nor dragon seemed ready to commit to another close quarters fight, but they didn’t seem ready to retreat either.

Tempest clenched her jaw. There were two forces on the battlefield that frightened her now—but one of them she knew as a friend. She turned back to the priest and the wizard. “Albanon, if you can destroy that thing, do it!”

Blue eyes narrowed. Lightning crackled around Albanon’s fingers. Kri grabbed his arm before he could draw power into the spell, though. “I have a better idea. A test. Take out the gate fragment.”

Albanon blinked, then smiled. To Tempest’s shock, the lightning vanished. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Trust me,” said Albanon. He reached into a pouch and produced a small shard of red stone, placing it on his palm and stretching out his arm. Kri held his hand above Albanon’s. His face tightened in concentration.

“Tharizdun,” he intoned.

With that word, a change seemed to come over the valley. The last rays of the setting sun dimmed. Behind Kri and Albanon, the stone face of the cliff shivered, somehow changing subtly from mere rock to a looming, brooding presence. A strange feeling pressed on Tempest’s mind. Bad things had happened here once. Terrible things.

Vestausan and Vestausir stiffened and whipped around, Tigerclaws and its own broken leg forgotten. “You!” both voices roared, in perfect unison for the first time. Propelled by its good legs and wings, the dragon lunged.

Tempest thrust out her rod and screamed the harsh words of a spell. Flame erupted above the creature, streaking down and taking the form of a red hot iron spike as it passed through its shoulder and into the ground beneath. The dragon screeched and the iron groaned, but the spike halted the monster’s lunge. It didn’t end its furious attack, though. As Vestausan snapped at the iron, trying to get its teeth on it to rip it free, the twin head kept straining to reach Albanon and Kri.

The priest kept up his invocation. “Tharizdun! Chained God! Patient One and Undoer!” he called. “Heed me!” His voice rose from prayer to the complex syllables of magic. Albanon’s voice joined in, but the dragon’s attack seemed to have broken through to Albanon. A hint of fear crept into his face and he threw a wild, desperate glance at Tempest.

That was enough for the tiefling. Whatever Albanon might have done, whatever madness had overcome him, the man she knew was still there. She looked to Shara and the others, to Turbull and the Tigerclaws. “Keep up the attack! Defend them!”

The old priest’s appearance might have been a mystery to the Tigerclaws, but it was clear they saw an ally in the battle. They charged back to the attack. With the lashing tail immobilized, they came at Vestausan and Vestausir from the rear. One brave shifter tried to climb up along the dragon’s back. That was a mistake. Vestausan left off worrying at the iron spike and grabbed for him. Jaws closed on his arm and dragged the screaming shifter down. Heedless of the danger, other barbarians moved in to take his place.

Vestausir was still trying to get at the two spellcasters, though. Tempest waved at Roghar, Shara, Uldane, and Quarhaun. “Take it!” she called, then she sent a blast of fire right at the head’s eyes. That got its attention. She danced back as it swung toward her, trying to draw it even farther from Albanon, and almost bumped into Shara. The warrior steadied her.

“You know that’s Kri with Albanon?” Shara said.

“I know,” said Tempest. “Keep an eye on him.”

Shara nodded and went after Roghar, who had picked up a Tigerclaw warpick to replace his lost sword. They approached Vestausir from either side, forcing the head to waver between them. Roghar feinted and the head swung toward him. Shara leaped in from the other side and hacked at it with her greatsword. Vestausir roared and smashed her to the ground with a sudden twist of its head. At Tempest’s side, Quarhaun cried out and loosed a crackling bolt of darkness. Tempest unleashed another gout of flame.

The dragon roared again, both its heads thrown to the sky. Mighty wings beat the ground, throwing up a storm of dust, leaves, and stone fragments. Albanon flinched at the flying debris, but Kri stood absolutely still, ignoring wind and debris alike as he chanted.

The fragment of stone between their hands erupted in a ruddy light that seemed to drip like molten metal. The light made burning patterns and spattered the ground, the random splashings forming arcane-looking symbols. Kri’s voice rose in a commanding cry. “What was once two shall be again. I divide you!”

The red light flared. Vestausan and Vestausir howled and Tempest saw something strange on the dragon’s face: true terror. The great wings flapped in earnest and the iron spike finally gave way, vanishing in a wisp of smoke as the creature pulled free. The dragon half rose into the air, dumping off those Tigerclaws that had been clinging to its back. But its tail and broken leg—hampered by the remains of Roghar’s battering ram—still dragged at it. The other Tigerclaws retreated, Roghar and Shara along with them. The dragon seemed to weaken, dropping back to the ground as a shadow fell over it.

Tempest blinked. No, she realized, the shadow wasn’t something that had fallen over the creature. It was something that was rising out of its flesh, clinging to it like a haze of darkness.

“What is that?” she murmured to Quarhaun, but the drow only shook his head.

“Tharizdun,” called Kri, “reclaim what is yours!” His free hand made a wide, spiraling gesture.

Vestausir and Vestausan roared again as the darkness began to bleed away from it like smoke drawn into a draft. Thick ropes of shadow flowed together, twisting and compressing into a black thread that snaked through the air and vanished into the ruddy light between Kri and Albanon’s hands. The dragon’s struggle weakened further still.

Where the darkness pulled away, the creature’s bloody and spell-torn scales were left red and crystalline, much like the Voidharrow but more solid and less liquid. For a moment, fear lurched inside Tempest. Was Kri somehow purifying the dragon’s substance? Empowering it?

Then she saw that the crystals themselves seemed to be evaporating. Gaping holes opened like wounds in the dragon’s body, hide and muscles melting away to expose bone—and even bone dissipated, as if eaten away by some unseen force. Tempest watched in awe as Vestausan and Vestausir boiled away like water thrown on hot metal. The two heads roared and shrieked together, until suddenly one head went silent. It still writhed in agony and its mouth still gaped, but no sound came out.

One of the dragon’s forelegs collapsed. The creature fell flat, its cries reduced to mewling. Forelegs that were no more than half-formed stumps scraped at the ground—then it was entirely still. The only sound in the valley was Kri and Albanon’s continued chanting, and even that was mostly Kri. Albanon’s mouth moved, but his eyes were wide in shock. Tempest felt disgust rise in her. “It’s dead,” she called to the priest. “You can stop.”

Kri shook his head and raised his voice again. Vestausan and Vestausir faded even more quickly, like a corpse rotting before her eyes. Beside Shara, Uldane retched and turned away.

Only one part of the body did not disappear. The vast wings drooped and fell, falling like leather shrouds. The crystal that had flashed on them turned clear and evaporated, leaving the flesh in tatters, but the wings stubbornly remained. Only when every other trace of the dragon had vanished did Kri finally fall silent. The red light winked out. The eerie change that had come over the valley with Kri’s invocation of Tharizdun faded, but not Tempest’s feeling of unease.

“Interesting,” Kri said. “Except for the wings, it was formed entirely out of the Voidharrow. What did it call itself?”

“Vestausan and Vestausir,” Tempest told him.

“Ausan and ausir,” said Albanon. His voice was distant, but thin. “In Draconic, ‘first wing’ and ‘second wing,’ just as gix was ‘claw.’ ”

“What just happened?” Shara asked, her voice unsteady. “What did you do to it?”

“We defeated it, of course.” Kri went over to the fallen wings and prodded them with a toe, then looked up and around at the staring Tigerclaws. “Albanon,” he said, “are you going to introduce me or do I need to do it myself?”

The eladrin ignored him. Blue eyes that had been wide and bright when he emerged from the hole in the cliff were dark and haunted as they turned to Tempest. Albanon reached a trembling arm toward her. “Tempest …”

She hesitated for only a heartbeat, then went to him. He all but collapsed in her arms and she guided him to the ground as gently as she could. She wanted to be tender, but anger burned inside her, too. “You idiot. You said you wouldn’t try to use that power again!”

He stared into her face. “I had to. We needed to escape and save you—all of you. All of us.” Albanon’s hand unfolded and he held out the stone fragment she had seen him take from his pouch. It had been red. Now dark veins twisted across its surface, as black as the shadow Albanon and Kri had drawn from the two-headed dragon. “The urge that guided us here was right, Tempest. We have what we need to destroy the Voidharrow now. Kri just proved it. We’re ready to face Vestapalk.”

They camped for the night at the entrance to the valley. Kri tried to persuade Albanon and the others, as well as the Tigerclaws, that they would be comfortable inside the cloister, but Albanon refused to listen to the advice. “I’m not going back in there,” he insisted, clutching tight the staff that one of the shifters had returned to him. “I won’t let anyone else, either.”

No one else wanted to once the wizard had described—with lurid exaggeration—what was hidden behind the cliff face. Tempest went pale. Several of the Tigerclaw shifters made a primitive warding sign against evil.

They made the same sign toward Kri when Albanon introduced him. Kri gave the eladrin a disapproving glance. “Someone has been telling stories when I wasn’t around to defend myself.”

Shara glared at him. “You’re insane and a traitor. That’s not telling stories, that’s warning people.”

“Be civil,” said Albanon to both of them. The wizard was trying his best to appear calm, but Kri could see the conflict in him. Albanon might attempt to deny it, but the power he had embraced in shattering the sealed doors of the cloister was his already. “At least for tonight. Shara, we need Kri to defeat Vestapalk. Kri, the Tigerclaws don’t like Tharizdun—”

“Who does?” muttered Shara.

Kri took a certain satisfaction in seeing Albanon wince and elbow her before continuing, “We’ve earned their respect, but it’s precarious. No preaching.”

He smiled in his best fawning manner. “Of course. You know, you sound exactly like Moorin when you say that.”

Albanon’s scowl joined Shara’s.

Still, Kri did have to admit that the Tigerclaws treated them all with more respect than he’d ever experienced in previous encounters with the barbarians. Their hunters caught food for all of them—an excellent change from peryton eggs—and as the temperature dropped, one of them gave him a cloak left by warrior killed by Vestausan and Vestausir. Kri sat around a fire with the others, Turbull, and some of the remaining Tigerclaws, feeling content for the first time in a very long while. He had pleased his god, or at least it seemed as if he had. With Albanon’s aid, he would be the Chained God’s instrument of vengeance on the Voidharrow. Shara and Uldane’s open glares couldn’t bother him, nor could Tempest and Quarhaun’s mistrustful wariness or the Tigerclaws’ whispering when they didn’t think he could hear them. Even Albanon’s butchered explanation of the nature of the Voidharrow and of how extracting Tharizdun’s will was the key to destroying it failed to grate on his nerves.

Much, anyway. By the gods, the wizard’s old mentor had been sloppy in his training.

When the bulky Tigerclaw named Hurn asked—the third person to do so—exactly what had happened to the dragon after it had been “melted,” Kri couldn’t take it anymore. He sat up.

“Vestausan and Vestausir weren’t ‘melted’ or ‘evaporated,’ ” he said. “The creature was formed out of the Voidharrow and when the will of Tharizdun was removed, there was nothing left to protect it. The stuff of our world attacked and destroyed it. To answer the question I think you’re really trying to ask, it is completely gone. There is no residue of it drifting around the valley, waiting to condense with the morning dew. If your tribe wishes to attempt to hide from the Abyssal Plague in the valley, you won’t be troubled unless more plague demons come.”

The blunt answer earned him a growl from Hurn and a wince from Albanon. “Kri!”

“You said no preaching. I offered an explanation that was clearer than what you attempted.” Kri turned back to Hurn. “Any further questions?”

Hurn looked to Turbull with an angry expression but the shifter chief waved him to silence and said instead, “The Thornpad won’t return here. We’ll seek another refuge.”

“Why?” asked Albanon. “The perytons are gone.”

“And we thank you, but I won’t expose my people to a danger almost as great as the Abyssal Plague.”

Kri snorted. “I told you, there’s nothing to fear in the cloister.”

“The Elder Eye watches,” said Turbull, his catlike eyes narrowing and a trace of a snarl creeping into his voice. “I have no desire to remain under its gaze.”

The cracks in his mask of a wise and calm leader were beginning to show. Kri was tempted to push him, to show him just what Tharizdun’s freedom could offer, but Turbull turned his back on him and spoke to Albanon. “Return to our camp with us and reclaim your horses and the gear you left. We will share what provisions we can.”

“If we’re successful, you won’t need to fear the plague,” said Albanon.

“You know where to find Vestapalk?”

“West and south from here, past the Ogrefist Hills.”

“A hard journey. Harder if Vestapalk sends demons to stop you. You say he can take possession of any plague demon? He sees and speaks through them?”

Albanon nodded. “The Voidharrow connects them. Maybe if we can avoid plague demons, we can keep him from finding us. That might make the journey easier.”

“I know woodcraft,” said Shara. “I can keep us hidden.”

“You?” asked Cariss. “You crashed through the forest like a raging boar last night. If you need to hide, it will take more woodcraft than you have.” She stood up. “Turbull, I will go with them. I owe Albanon my life. I haven’t paid that debt yet.”

The eladrin looked startled and sputtered something about how she owed him nothing, but his protest was drowned out by a curse from Hurn. “Leave the tribe? You will be Riven!” He spat.

Cariss spat back at him. “I’ll return!”

“Hurn, not every Tigerclaw who ventures beyond the tribe has to be declared Riven,” said Turbull. “And not every Riven is a feral monster. They can redeem themselves.” The chief raised his hand to Cariss. “Go. Do what you must.”

Albanon still looked like he wanted to protest, but Belen grabbed him and whispered something to him. He frowned, but then bent his head to Cariss. She nodded back to him somberly.

Hurn still didn’t seem happy. “Vestapalk’s creature found them here, didn’t it?” he said. “How? We’ve seen no plague demons since we came to the mountains.”

“Luck,” said Roghar, speaking up for the first time. The dragonborn sat a little apart from the others, still wearing full armor. “Chance. Maybe it followed us from Winterhaven.”

“We would have seen it,” pointed out Uldane. “It didn’t seem like subtlety was its strong point. I don’t think it would have waited to attack us. Maybe your patrols haven’t been as thorough as you thought, Hurn. Maybe there is a plague demon—it would only take one, right?”

The shifter bared his teeth at the suggestion. The other Tigerclaws looked uneasy. So, Kri noticed, did Roghar. He smiled to himself, then said calmly, “Perhaps a bit of both. Plague demons may have seen you travelling north, then Vestapalk could have dispatched Vestausan and Vestausir to search the region for you. If the beast was spawned in the Plaguedeep, it would have taken time for it to get here.”

The others stared at him. “That seems … reasonable,” said Albanon.

“Of course it’s reasonable,” Kri said, lifting his head proudly. “You don’t need to act surprised. I’m only mad some of the time, you know.”

The stares got a little wider. Those around the fire shifted uncomfortably. Kri rolled his eyes and sighed. “That was a joke.” No one laughed. He shrugged and sat back. “Perhaps not. But then, I imagine you’re all worried about your camp anyway. If Vestausir and Vestausan circled the area before they found us, they likely saw your camp first.”

That provoked a reaction. Hurn jumped to his feet with a howl and cries of dismay erupted from other Tigerclaws around the fire. Turbull looked stricken. Even Tempest and Belen seemed worried. Kri almost chuckled out loud.

Albanon spoiled his fun. “Kri, stop,” he said. “Turbull, he’s manipulating you. If your camp had been attacked, we’d have seen some sign, right? Vestausan and Vestausir probably would have taunted you with it.”

Turbull’s face tightened. “You may be right,” he said. “You may not. Hurn, take a few warriors. Go back to the camp tonight.”

The big shifter left the circle around the fire and raced around the campsite, picking others to go with him. Turbull glared at Kri. “You would find a place among the Riven, Kri Redshal.”

Kri smiled. “Maybe when I’m finished with Vestapalk.”

Albanon rose and came around the fire to crouch next to him. “Kri, maybe you should go away for a little while,” he said quietly. He was trying hard to sound harsh, but to Kri he sounded almost sick—sick and weary. Kri leaned closer to him.

“Stop trying to resist,” he said, then he stood up. “It is time for my prayers. I’ll leave. I wouldn’t want my faith to … disturb you.”

Wrapping his borrowed cloak around him, he put his back to the fire and strode off into the darkness. He remembered seeing a little hollow below a thick stand of trees a decent distance from the campsite, and he headed for it. He would have brought the crystal lantern from the cloister, but some instinct told him that it belonged there, so he’d left it inside the shattered door. Besides, after two weeks in the dimness of the cloister, the pale moonlight seemed brilliant. He found the stand of trees and the hollow and settled himself into the shadows.

His visitor came sooner than he’d expected. Roghar crouched down in a creaking of leather and metal. The glint of distant firelight was visible on either side of the trees in the hollow, but the dragonborn was just a silhouette. “Kri,” he said. There was discomfort in his voice.

Kri could imagine his face, twisted and tight. He chuckled. “You don’t want to be here, do you, paladin of Bahamut? You don’t like the idea of begging aid from the Chained God. But the plague doesn’t give you a choice, does it?”

Roghar’s breath rasped in his throat. “How did you know?”

“Your insistence that Vestapalk’s creature found us by luck. Your unease when Uldane said there might be a plague demon. Your armor—what warrior retires to camp and doesn’t remove even his gauntlets?”

He knew by Roghar’s sharp inhalation that he’d struck a nerve. “How long has it been?” he asked. “How far has it progressed?”

“Since Winterhaven. The wound is on my wrist—it festers and my arm burns. Both arms. I pray and Bahamut slows the disease, but does not take it away.” A sob broke his voice. “Help me, Kri! You used the light of the gods to burn the Voidharrow out of Albanon. Burn the plague out of me!”

Kri smiled in the darkness. “There will be a price.”

Roghar stiffened. “Tell me,” he said. “I won’t betray Bahamut.”

“From the servant of one god to the servant of another, I will not ask you to do that,” said Kri. “But you will owe me obedience. Once only, but when I chose to call on you, you will obey me, no matter what I ask.”

Roghar didn’t relax. “I can’t do that.”

“Then the Abyssal Plague will consume you.” Kri rose.

Roghar’s gauntleted hand closed on his arm. “Wait.”

“Obedience,” said Kri. “Swear it. On your honor.”

Roghar swallowed, the sound audible. “I will obey you. Once only and I will not betray Bahamut, but I will obey you. I swear it in his name and upon my honor as his paladin.”

Triumph tingled up Kri’s neck and across his scalp. The contentment he’d felt earlier returned. He drew his arm out of Roghar’s grasp and put his hands on top of the dragonborn’s scaly head. “Then try not to scream,” he said. “The light I’ll be able to explain if anyone asks, but not screams.”

Once again, the Plaguedeep was silent, but this time it wasn’t Vestapalk’s doing. He had climbed out of the crystal pool and crouched next to it. The demons were hushed, huddled in groups and crammed into niches as if hiding might protect them. Even the slow, seething hiss as the bones of the world were transformed into the stuff of the Plaguedeep had stopped.

Dread consumed the Voidharrow. And because it consumed the Voidharrow, it consumed Vestapalk. And because it consumed Vestapalk, it consumed the plague demons—in the Plaguedeep most of all, but Vestapalk could sense unease and confusion in demons across the world. They wouldn’t understand why the Voidharrow was afraid, though.

Vestapalk only understood a part of it himself. Vestausan and Vestausir were gone. Simply … gone. When Roghar had killed Vestagix, Vestapalk had felt it. He experienced it through the Voidharrow. When Albanon and the priest had confronted his two-headed scion, however, the Voidharrow had recoiled. Vestapalk had seen the beginning of the priest’s invocation of the Chained God, had heard his proclamation: “What was once two shall be again. I divide you!”

He’d felt sudden agony, and then terror, a frantic wrenching that had torn him away from Vestausan and Vestausir and left him thrashing in an already silent Plaguedeep. The Voidharrow shuddered around and within him. When Vestapalk had recovered his senses and reached out to the pair again, he’d found nothing. No trace. No death echo. It was as if Vestausan and Vestausir had ceased to exist.

“What is it?” Vestapalk whispered. “What did they do?”

Tharizdun!

The name echoed through the Voidharrow and with it came a fresh surge of dread. The demons of the Plaguedeep moaned, a sound like someone dying a slow death. Vestapalk ground his teeth, and fought back the dread. “Tharizdun is nothing. This one no longer serves the Eye! Show me the source of this fear. Show me how they destroyed Vestausan and Vestausir.”

There was no response. Vestapalk growled, then roared “Show Vestapalk!”

The sound shook the walls of the Plaguedeep and provoked new shrieks of alarm from the plague demons. The surface of the Voidharrow pool shivered and drew back. Vestapalk didn’t let it retreat. He slid into the pool, diving down into its liquid crystal heart. Show Vestapalk! he commanded again, this time in silence but with no less force.

The Voidharrow shuddered once more—and opened itself to him. If there had been any lingering sense of where Vestapalk ended and the Voidharrow began, it vanished for several long moments. Then it pulled itself away. For some time, Vestapalk drifted in its embrace, contemplating what he had learned before allowing himself to rise.

When he surfaced, the demons of the Plaguedeep had gathered before the pool. Vestapalk reached through the Voidharrow and into them. Into all of the plague demons across the Nentir Vale.

Come, he ordered them.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They found the Tigerclaws’ camp undisturbed when they reached it the next day. Those left behind had glimpsed the two-headed dragon high overheard, but the beast had paid no attention to them. Forewarned by Hurn and the warriors who had gone on ahead, the camp greeted the returning heroes with a mix of joy—which was eagerly returned by warriors finding their loved ones safe—and grief for those who had died in the valley.

Uldane and the others kept themselves apart, but Belen was in thick with the Tigerclaws, apparently enjoying every brief taste of this side of her heritage. Maybe because of her knowledge of their traditions, the barbarians seemed to accept her. At least, most of them did. Uldane saw Turbull watching the woman from Fallcrest carefully. A large number of hostile glares were also directed at Kri, presumably for his manipulation of the Tigerclaws’ fears. Uldane had been on the receiving end of similar looks often enough to recognize trouble simmering on the edge of a boil. He nudged Albanon. “We shouldn’t stay long.”

The wizard nodded and went to talk to Turbull, who in turn called over Cariss. Soon joy and grief alike had turned into leave-taking, all of the humans and shifters of the barbarian tribe crowding around to say good-bye to Cariss. Belen, excluded once more, came back over and joined the others. Her face was set, but her eyes were sad. Uldane slipped his hand into hers. “Better that we go now,” he said. “They would have found out. Turbull already looked suspicious.”

“Maybe my mother taught me too well,” said Belen. She shook herself and stood straight. “Let’s get going. Vestapalk is waiting.”

The sun was halfway down in the western sky before they had their gear gathered and the supplies provided by the Tigerclaws loaded on their horses. No one suggested staying with the barbarians for the night, however, even though smoke from Tigerclaws’ fires was still visible in the distance as the sun set and they made camp.

“Sleep well tonight,” Cariss told them. “Our patrols still guard this area. We’ll be protected. After this, the journey will be more dangerous.”

Except that it wasn’t. In fact, if there was anything remarkable about their journey south and west from the Tigerclaw camp, it was the relative tranquility of it. When they had headed north from Winterhaven, there was no sign of plague demons either. At the time, Uldane had assumed that was due to Albanon’s routing of the horde in the village. But there had still been a sense that they were around somewhere. This time there was nothing. The land was quiet. For the first couple of days, Uldane enjoyed the peace. Then it started to wear on him. Where were the demons? They stayed west of the remains of Winterhaven as they passed from the Cairngorm Peaks into the rolling hills of the Gardbury Downs. The camps and farms in the valleys of the Downs had experienced the first ravages of the Abyssal Plague. If there were any places the demons might have been lurking, Uldane would have expected them to be hiding there. Instead, it seemed even the demons had abandoned the valleys.

He wasn’t the only one to feel that way. The others grew irritable, as well. Cariss was the worst. “Pah!” she grumbled. “Why did I even bother to come? There’s nothing to hide from.”

“There will be,” Roghar said cheerfully. “Don’t doubt it. When we reach the Plaguedeep, there will probably be so many demons, we’ll need to carve our way through.”

The dark cloud that had hung over the dragonborn had melted away overnight. By the time they’d arrived in the Tigerclaw camp that first day after their battles in the valley, Roghar had been back to himself again. Uldane wasn’t exactly sure what to make of that. On the one hand, it was good to see Roghar happy again. On the other, it was odd how quickly his mood had reversed. After a day or so spent exchanging glances and shrugs with the others, Uldane raised the subject of the change with Roghar himself.

“A clean fight,” the paladin had said. “A simple victory. In Winterhaven, we won the battle but lost the village. That affected me more than I realized. In the valley, we triumphed. We killed the perytons, then Vestausan and Vestausir, and we came away with the means to destroy Vestapalk. Bahamut shows us his favor.”

“But we almost lost Albanon and now that Turbull knows about Tharizdun’s cloister, he doesn’t want the Tigerclaws in the valley,” Uldane had pointed out.

“If we hadn’t discovered the cloister, they would have lived under the Chained God’s gaze without knowing it. Another triumph!”

Uldane had almost forgotten how relentlessly optimistic Roghar could be—but then, that was another sign that he was back to normal. On the whole, Uldane was just happy to have the paladin in a good mood again. Roghar was a bright spot in the tension that had settled over the rest of them, a reminder that optimism was still possible when things looked bleak.

On the morning of the eighth day after they’d left the Tigerclaw camp, they turned the horses loose and cached the bulk of their gear near the site of the night’s camp. A bare minimum of food and tools, including ropes and spikes in case they needed to climb, went into light packs. If they didn’t come back for the rest of the gear, they’d never have need of it again. Then Albanon led them up the stony ridge that had sheltered the camp and they all stared at the wide, flat-topped mountain that rose in isolation to the west.

A thin wisp of smoke rose from its summit into the morning sky. In Albanon’s imagination, the plume glittered, as if tiny red crystals rose along with the smoke and steam.

“It doesn’t look like much,” said Uldane. His words died on the cool air.

Albanon looked at Quarhaun. “Can you get us inside?”

“Find me a tunnel or a crevice,” said the drow, “and I’ll get us to the heart of the thing.”

“That’s all we need. That and the luck of the gods.” The plan they’d worked out over the last couple of days was simple, partly by design and partly by necessity. In the memories that Belen retained from her possession by Nu Alin, Vestapalk wallowed in a pool of the Voidharrow at the bottom of the volcano’s shaft, surrounded by hordes of plague demons. If the gods were on their side, they would be able to slip into the Plaguedeep and find a sheltered spot close to the Voidharrow pool. Kri and Albanon would work the magic to draw out the will of Tharizdun, while the others held off the plague demons—and Vestapalk—by any means.

The “by any means” had produced a great deal of soul-searching among the group. Their circle around the previous night’s campfire had been a silent and somber gathering.

Albanon took a deep breath, then raised his staff as if it were a battle standard and pointed at the smoking mountain. “Let’s go.”

The land between the ridge and the volcano wasn’t impassable, but it was rough. Cracks and gullies opened unexpectedly, growing larger and deeper as they approached the mountain’s slopes. Shara and Cariss took the lead, guiding their band across or around the worst of them. Uldane, however, was the first to notice that more than just the surface of the land was changing. As they skirted one large crack, the halfling slowed. “Look at this.”

Albanon saw what he was pointing at immediately: thin veins of red crystal snaked through the dark rock that the crack exposed. Anywhere else, he might have taken it for a concentration of some unusual mineral. But so close to Vestapalk’s place of power, he knew better.

“Voidharrow,” he said.

“I told you, Vestapalk will transform the world,” said Kri. He kneeled down for a closer look at the rock, then narrowed his eyes and pulled a clump of grass up from the thin soil.

Among the roots of the grass, fine red filaments twined like some strange fungus—except that as Albanon watched, the broken filaments slowly writhed and withered. Kri grimaced and hurled the clump away.

As they walked on, Albanon began paying more attention to what was around him rather than just what was ahead. The veins of crystal exposed in the cracks became thicker and more plentiful, never entirely dominant in the rock but certainly eating away at more of its substance. The exposed rock changed in texture, too. Its sharp edges faded away, not merely as if it had experienced long weathering, but as if it had been washed around in the sea for a few hundred years. Some rocks sticking up aboveground looked as though they had been carved out of wax and left to sit in the sun.

Yes, he thought to himself, wax. Or tallow. Something soft and yielding instead of cold and hard. Something that was on the verge of turning from stone into a kind of … flesh. He lifted his staff to poke at a particularly veiny looking blob of stone.

Quarhaun caught his arm. “Best not to disturb things that may be only sleeping,” he said.

Albanon blinked, feeling like someone had just woken him from a dream. Kri’s eyes were on him, but the moment Albanon looked at him, he dropped his gaze. The wizard clenched his teeth. He let his staff fall and said to Quarhaun, “Thank you.”

“Have you noticed how quiet it is?” asked Belen. “Like the Cloak Wood when we rode through it.”

“Too much like it,” said Roghar. He drew his sword. “Shara, Cariss—watch for plague demons.”

“Where?” asked Cariss, gesturing around them. Albanon could see her point. The scattered trees had grown even more scattered. Their thin trunks provided no cover—in fact, they drooped almost as if they were formed of the same almost-fleshy stuff as the rocks. If a plague demon had appeared in this silent, almost alien landscape, they would have seen it instantly.

Then Shara, a few paces ahead, froze on the edge of a crevice. She took a long step back before turning her head just enough to mouth a word at them: here.

Albanon crept forward and peered over the edge. The crevice was one of the deepest ones yet. The sun hadn’t risen high enough yet to cast its rays more than a couple of paces into the shadows, but that was enough. Plague demons, the first they’d seen in days, were packed into the crevice like bees in a hive.

They appeared to be mostly the smaller, beastlike demons, but it was hard to tell. They pressed against each other, their spindly limbs so still and intertwined so closely that they resembled the veins of red crystal in the stone walls. They could almost have been continuations of the veins, and Albanon was struck by the frightening idea that Vestapalk might be growing his demons now, spawning them like maggots from the rock.

He took a slow breath and forced himself to remain calm. The demons hadn’t grown in the crevice—they were transformed beings just like all the others. He could distinguish other body shapes among them, including a couple of the four-armed brutes. They had more likely just taken shelter there against the daylight. Their angled, crystalline eyes were all closed. Their chests moved with slow breathing. Did plague demons sleep?

Shara touched his arm. She pointed into the crevice, then made a sharp slicing motion across her throat. Albanon understood.

Kill them now.

It was tempting. Dozens of plague demons removed from the world. Dozens of demons that wouldn’t trouble them again. Coordinated spells from him, Quarhaun, and Tempest … Albanon pressed his lips together and shook his head, then pointed at the volcano looming close above and touched his eyes.

Vestapalk will see.

It was a danger they had discussed over and over again. It was inevitable that a demon would see them, and through its eyes Vestapalk would discover their presence. Albanon was determined to delay that moment for as long as possible. Shara’s face tightened but she nodded and jerked her head at a way around the crevice. They moved past the sleeping demons in silence, the others also glancing into the crevice as they slipped by. Once they were away from it, however, Tempest leaned close to him. “They were sleeping for the day?”

“It looks like it.”

She frowned. “Albanon, I’m not sure plague demons sleep. We’ve fought them during the day before, like the pack that chased Immeral into Fallcrest. So what were they doing down there?”

The tips of Albanon’s ears tingled. He took Tempest’s hand in his and squeezed it, but didn’t say anything.

The last shadow passed the top of the crevice. In the darkness below, dozens of pairs of eyes flicked open in unison. Dozens of mouths grinned at exactly the same moment.

“Yes,” whispered Vestapalk. “Come.”

Somehow they reached the slope of the volcano without encountering a single active plague demon. They did spot more demons piled into other crevices and gullies, but none of them stirred. Shara’s arm and fingers ached from gripping her sword and she hadn’t even drawn it yet. She forced herself to release the hilt and shook out her hand.

“I don’t like this,” she said, looking up at the volcano’s peak. “What are the demons doing? Why aren’t we being attacked?”

“I don’t like it either,” said Quarhaun. “I don’t like any of this, but if you want a spider’s silk, you have to reach into her nest.” He caught her hand and gently rubbed the crooked fingers. “Where will we go after this? Back to Fallcrest? Nera? I’ve heard of a place called the Dragondown Coast that sounds interesting.”

Shara shuddered. “No more dragons.” She pulled her hand away. “How can you think about something like that right now?”

“When you’re somewhere bad, focus on where you’ll go next.”

“Another drow saying?”

“A halfling saying, or so I’m told.” Quarhaun nodded to Uldane then flashed her a smile, his white teeth dazzling against his jet black skin. “Drow wisdom would say when you’re somewhere bad, focus on how you’ll hurt the people who put you there.”

“Why do I love you?”

“Insidious drow charm.” He caught her hand again and kissed her sword-calloused palm.

“If you’re finished,” said Kri, coming up beside them, “we need to find our way inside.”

Quarhaun dropped her hand. Shara frowned at Kri. “I liked you better when you served Ioun. Occasionally you kept your mouth shut.”

“People who call Vecna the god of secrets have never truly known Ioun,” said the priest. “The Chained God shows his followers freedom of all kinds.”

“The kind where I can put a sword through your belly?” asked Shara.

“Perhaps after we’ve dealt with Vestapalk and the Voidharrow,” Kri said mildly before turning to Quarhaun. “How do we find a tunnel that leads inside?”

“In the Underdark, the easiest way is to find a tunnel that local beasts are using and hope that it doesn’t dead-end in a den or nest. I imagine that holds true for the surface as well.”

“So now we need to go looking for a plague demon?” said Shara.

Quarhaun shrugged. “I honestly didn’t think we’d have any trouble with that part.”

“I don’t think we will,” Belen said. “Look.” The Fallcrest guard stood behind them. They all turned.

Back down the way they had come, spindly figures moved at the edges of crevices and gullies. Roghar cursed. “Did they see us?”

“No,” said Cariss, “I’m certain they didn’t.”

“Then let’s try and find a passage to follow before they do,” Quarhaun said. “Any sign of heavy use around a cave mouth will do—a trail, disturbed dirt, broken plants. Look up the slope as well as down.”

“What if we find plague demons inside?” asked Uldane.

Quarhaun’s chuckle was cold. “I don’t think it’s a question of ‘if.’ ”

He led them around the slope to the left where a shelf of slumping, crystal-ridden stone would hide them from the demons below. Where the shelf ended, he turned along a trough-shaped ravine that went toward the peak. They were still following the ravine when the shrieks of demons fighting broke out ahead.

Shara guessed there were only a couple of the creatures, but the screams were so strange and angry that were she less skilled, she could have believed there to be half a dozen. She stopped. Quarhaun pressed her onward.

“Are we looking for demons or trying to avoid them?” she muttered to him. “Because if we want a place with a lot of demons, we could go back down to those crevices.”

“Too shallow,” said Quarhaun. “If they ran into the interior, the demons wouldn’t have clustered at the surface. We want signs of them, but not too many actual demons.” He motioned for her and the others to stay low, then crept up the side of the ravine and continued climbing the slope alongside it. When the sounds of fighting were closest, Quarhaun went back to the ravine and peered over the crumbing edge. Shara stayed to one side of him, Cariss to the other.

All of the shrieks came from only two bestial demons as they wrestled back and forth over the corpse of some now unidentifiable small animal. Just above them, a low dark opening pierced the side of the mountain, about as wide as Shara was tall and just high enough that she would be able to crawl into it. Dark soil was strewn before it, but Shara scowled.

“Nothing,” she said. “They’ve just dug out a burrow.” Cariss grunted agreement.

The drow shook his head. “Something might have been living there, but that’s more than just a burrow. You can tell by the shape of it, and the way it’s right at the top of the ravine. I think we’ll find it’s bigger on the inside than it looks.”

He gestured for Albanon to come up and join them, then whispered rapidly to the wizard. Albanon nodded. The drow and the eladrin rose to their knees. Their hands wove in the air and words of magic rippled from their mouths. Before the demons even had a chance to look up, they were engulfed simultaneously by a wave of flame and a burst of writhing darkness. Corpses as scorched and withered as old sticks dragged from a campfire fell to the ground on either side of the demons’ animal victim. Quarhaun nodded in satisfaction. “Let’s go.”

They slithered back down into the ravine and approached the hole cautiously. Quarhaun squatted down and peered inside.

“Yes,” he said, “this looks promising.” Before Shara could stop him, he scrambled through. Words of warning caught in her throat. If the hole really did lead deeper, a shout would only echo and warn any demons of their approach.

Quarhaun was back in moments anyway. “We’re lucky,” he said. “This is exactly what we need. Everyone inside. It’s tight but it opens up.”

He held out a hand for her. Shara didn’t hesitate before accepting it and following him.

The first stretch inside the hole was indeed tight and smelled strongly of both animals and demons. Shara had to drop onto her elbows and wriggle through to get her sword, protruding over her shoulder, past the ceiling. Roghar would have a difficult squeeze. When the ceiling rose, however, she found that there was more than enough space for her to stand. The daylight that came through the hole, broken into moving shafts and shadows by the people following her, revealed a long, smooth-floored gallery. Here and there, the light flashed on red crystals embedded in the walls.

“More Voidharrow,” she said.

“You had to expect that,” said Uldane. He produced a couple of long, thin sticks—sunrods—and rapped the gnarled ends against the tunnel wall. The sunrods burst into bright, steady light.

The veins of crystal they revealed were so thick and twisted that they looked like tentacles reaching down the tunnel toward them. Cariss yelped in surprise and flinched. Even Kri’s face tightened.

“Still no plague demons,” Shara said hopefully, but Albanon waved her to silence and cocked his head, listening. She listened, too, and after a moment, she heard what his sharp ears already had. A whispering drifted along the tunnels, not of voices but of bodies jostling close together. A lot of bodies.

No one said anything. Those with weapons drew them. Uldane kept one of the sunrods for himself and passed the other to Belen. They set off toward the sound. When the tunnel branched, they paused and listened again. The sound was louder, underscored with an even deeper, more seething hiss, like slowly boiling sugar syrup. The air grew close and thick, but strangely no warmer. The crystal veins in the wall glowed faintly, a light that had nothing to do with the sunrods.

Quarhaun glanced at Kri and Albanon. The priest and the wizard looked at each other, then Albanon nodded toward the tunnel branch that angled more steeply downward. Quarhaun turned down it—only to pause with a grimace on his face and tread lightly in place for a moment. Uldane pointed his sunrod down at the drow’s feet.

The smooth stone of the floor had taken on the same waxy appearance as the rocks outside. It dimpled under Quarhaun’s boots—and sprang back when he raised them. He bounced and it quivered slightly in response. When he rapped the floor with his toe, though, it sounded like kicking solid stone.

“Keep going,” Kri said grimly.

Shara experienced a strange shift in perception as she followed Quarhaun onto the fleshy floor. Suddenly, it seemed to her that she was no longer following a tunnel, but walking inside the guts of some strange, enormous worm. Or inside Vestapalk if the dragon had grown to the size of a mountain. Albanon said Vestapalk was the Voidharrow and the Voidharrow was Vestapalk. Maybe in a way they really were inside Vestapalk.

She took a deep breath and forced that thought away. All the more reason to destroy Vestapalk. All the more reason to make sure the dragon died, no matter who struck the killing blow or how.

Then a deep shudder passed through the tunnel.

All of them froze. “Quarhaun, did you do that?” asked Tempest.

“No.”

The whispering shifted and changed. It swelled ahead of them, like excitement sweeping a crowd, until it echoed in the tunnel. No, Shara realized, it was no echo. The sound coming from behind them wasn’t excited whispering, it was the rapid skittering of claws on stone.

“Demons behind us,” said Roghar.

“Go!” said Kri. “We have to get into heart of the Plaguedeep. That’s the only thing that matters.”

They picked up their pace, moving quickly along the tunnel. The strange floor absorbed the sound of their footsteps. Shara prayed silently that it might be enough to throw off the demons following them. Another shudder passed along the tunnel, stronger than the first. Strong enough to make Kri stumble. Cariss and Belen helped the old priest to his feet. The tunnel branched again up ahead, this time breaking into three passages. One of them made a steep downward plunge. Quarhaun turned into it without asking. Shara, following behind, turned after him—and almost knocked him over as he froze just inside. For an instant, they were a tangle of limbs, then Shara managed to grab the wall and clutch Quarhaun to her before they tumbled down the slope.

The red eyes of plague demons glittered up at them from below. One of the creatures let out a sharp hiss.

Hands from behind seized both her and Quarhaun, hauling them back into the main passage. “Demons coming up from below!” Quarhaun blurted.

“And above,” said Cariss. The shifter crouched with her warpicks ready, facing the main passage where it angled up ahead. More whispering and skittering came from it.

Without a word, Kri took Albanon’s arm and rushed him into the third passage, their robes flapping around them. Shara and the others followed. Another shudder shook the tunnel and this time, Shara felt the floor drop underneath her. She fell hard to her knees, her sword sliding out of her grasp. Between one breath and the next, the distant whispering of the plague demons rose into a deafening cacophony of screeches, cackles, and roars.

When Shara looked up, the passage had broadened into a small cavern and one wall had fallen away entirely. Not five paces from her, the new cavern opened onto chaos, an abyss of shimmering light lined with flashing red crystals. Boulders hung suspended in the air while lightning oozed in sheets. Wind tore through the gap to buffet her.

Plague demons crawled over every solid and semi-solid surface, so thick that it took Shara a moment to realize that the flashing crystals weren’t embedded in the walls—they were actually the bodies of the writhing demons.

Their bodies—and their eyes. Hundreds, even thousands of plague demons stared into the newly formed cavern and screamed with insane fury. Shara snatched up her sword and threw herself back. Her feet hit a chunk of fallen rock and she stumbled, but strong arms caught and held her before she could fall again.

“Quarhaun!” she gasped, but the arms weren’t the warlock’s. They were familiar, but they were encased in a paladin’s heavy armor. Roghar looked down at her, then turned her loose. Shara stared. The last tremor had done more than turn the passage they had followed into a cavern with a window on madness. Sharp drops now divided the former passage. She stood on a platform of rock perhaps a dozen paces across with Roghar and Uldane. On an even smaller section, separated from them by a drop of twice Shara’s height, were Albanon, Tempest, and Kri. Shara turned the other way.

Quarhaun, along with Belen and Cariss, stared down at her from the edge of the original tunnel—at the top of a sheer face of newly exposed rock more than three times her own height.

“Quarhaun!” she shouted again and it looked like he would have called back to her, but at that moment a shadow fell across the cavern. Shara spun around.

The noise of the plague demons went silent as Vestapalk rose up from the pit. Floating stones laced with the Voidharrow shuddered and came together, melting and growing into a bridge that spanned the abyss. Vestapalk settled onto his new perch like an emperor onto a throne. The dragon fixed them with eyes that were swirling pools of liquid crystal—and as he did so, all of the demons looked at them, too. Thousands of eyes staring at them. At her. Shara shivered and fell back a pace.

“Welcome to the Plaguedeep,” said Vestapalk and all of his demons along with him. “Welcome to your tomb.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The last time Albanon had seen Vestapalk, the Voidharrow had already transformed him. His bulk had melted away, leaving Vestapalk skeletally gaunt, his hide stretched tight over muscles and bones. His skull had become longer and narrow. The Voidharrow had oozed out of him, squeezing up between his green scales and staining them red, dripping from his jaws, and filling his eye sockets with shifting liquid crystal. More crystal had flashed like spurs from his joints and his spine. It had taken the place of his talons. It had run in glittering veins across his wings.

Albanon had seen those wings on Vestausan and Vestausir. He’d left them rotting in a valley among the Cairngorms. Yet Vestapalk still had wings—wings that were now entirely crystal, as if formed completely from the Voidharrow. One of his talons, too, was the perfect red of the Voidharrow, replacing the one that lay with Vestagix in Winterhaven.

But Vestapalk had changed in other ways, too. He had grown larger and the red stain on his scales was almost complete. The spurs on his limbs were as big as sword blades. Strength and power flowed off him.

Deep inside Albanon, that small part of him that remembered his own near transformation into one of Vestapalk’s demon exarchs stirred. He could have served this magnificent creature. He could have been one with him.

The part of him Tharizdun had touched rose as well, sweeping over him in a flash of heat and madness. The Voidharrow had been meant to free the Chained God from his eternal prison. Instead it dared to attempt to take this world for its own! It was his enemy. He would destroy it in retribution for its arrogance.

Adoration and hatred, neither emotion truly his own, clashed within him as Vestapalk settled onto his perch. Albanon’s hand sought out Tempest’s. Fear and dread churned in his belly. Those emotions were most definitely his own.

“Welcome to the Plaguedeep,” said Vestapalk and all of his plague demons. “Welcome to your tomb.”

The dragon’s voice still had the same double quality Albanon remembered, one voice deep and rumbling, the other strange and chiming like crystal. His words brought a scream of outrage from Kri. “He knew we were coming!” The old priest turned on Albanon. His face was flushed and there was spittle at the covers of his mouth. “He knew! Those so-called sleeping demons, the two demons we found arguing in front of the tunnel entrance, the demons that came up behind us in the passage …” Kri turned again and glared up at Vestapalk. “You guided us. You put us exactly where you wanted us!”

Kri’s voice was small in the vastness of the Plaguedeep. Vestapalk smiled at him. “Servant of the Elder Eye, this one knows all your secrets. You come to destroy the Voidharrow. This one will not give you that chance.” His double voice rose to a ringing roar. “Kill them!”

Tempest’s grip tightened on his hand. “Up there!” she cried. Albanon looked where she pointed. High on the wall above them, the dark hole that was all that remained of the passage they’d been following began to glow with flickering, reddish light. Flames appeared within that light—or rather humanoid figures of animated flame appeared, each with a red crystal at its heart.

The fire demons leaped from the hole without hesitation, plunging like streaks of light down to where he stood with Tempest and Kri. Two demons. Four. Six. Eight.

Albanon thought of the gate fragment in his pouch. Maybe he and Kri could still use it, could still work the magic to unravel the Voidharrow. He turned his head and met Kri’s gaze.

For once, the priest’s eyes were hard but calm. Kri almost looked like his old self as he shook his head.

There wasn’t time.

Albanon released Tempest’s hand. The warlock stepped away and readied her rod. Albanon raised his staff as the nearest of the fire demons lashed out at him, its arms stretching and snapping like burning whips.

“Kill them!” roared Vestapalk, and Roghar felt as if an icy hand had gripped his soul. How close had he come to becoming one of the demons obeying that command? Could Vestapalk have turned him against his friends? He’d already betrayed them once. The others might have believed Kri’s lie about how Vestausan and Vestausir had found them, but Roghar knew the truth. It had been his infection that had guided Vestapalk’s creature to them in the mountain valley.

A new loathing came over him—and only part of it was for Vestapalk. He couldn’t have prevented the scrape from Vestagix’s tail that had exposed him to the Abyssal Plague. That had been an accident. But how he had acted afterward? That had been his fault. He’d lied to his friends and kept them in danger because he was too afraid to reveal the truth. He was weak. He’d turned his back on Bahamut and accepted the healing offered by Kri. And he’d left himself open to betraying his friends yet again. Every day since Kri had burned the plague out of him, he’d secretly dreaded what the priest might ask him to do. No matter what Kri promised, Roghar knew the command, when it finally came, wouldn’t be kind.

It left him with a vile choice: keep his word to Kri and risk putting his friends in danger, or hold true to his friends and break the vow he had made in Bahamut’s name.

Or perhaps, he realized, there was another option.

Claws scraped on stone. Up from the edge of the Plaguedeep, a pack of demons came crawling—all of them tough, four-armed brutes with thick crystal carapaces. Shara cursed softly and drew her greatsword. Uldane cursed loudly and drew a pair of throwing knives. “I’ll hit what I can,” the halfling said, “then I’m going for their knees. Try to keep them from falling on me.”

Roghar looked down at both of them fondly. “It’s been an honor to fight with you,” he said. “Tell Tempest I’ll miss her.”

Shara glanced at him sharply, perhaps suspecting something of what he intended, but Roghar was already past her and gathering speed as he charged the demons. “For Bahamut!” he shouted, lowering his shoulder and raising his shield.

“Kill them!” ordered Vestapalk, and his roar seemed to shake the stone of the mountain. On the highest portion of the former passage, Belen’s hand tightened on her sword and she braced herself for the wave of plague demons that would finish her, Cariss, and Quarhaun.

It didn’t come. The demons of the Plaguedeep stayed where they were, caught up in Vestapalk’s domination and watching events unfold with the same intensity as their master. From her high vantage point, Belen could see everything that happened to those below. She saw the fire demons—the same creatures who had destroyed much of Fallcrest—leap from on high and lash out at Albanon, Tempest, and Kri with ribbons of flame. She saw the four-armed brutes climb up to confront Shara, Uldane, and Roghar, and she stared in amazement as Roghar charged into the thick of them. The maneuver bashed one of the demons right back over the edge, but left the dragonborn surrounded. Roghar turned and crouched like a lion at bay, his sword and shield raised, ready to face his attackers.

Belen’s stomach clenched. After the chaos of that terrible night in Fallcrest when plague demons had entered the town and the bodystealer had possessed her, Roghar and the others had been her friends and mentors. They understood what she had been through. Understood her anger.

She’d never spoken the thought aloud, but she knew they hadn’t needed to bring her along on their journey. They could have found the volcano and Vestapalk’s lair on their own. But they had brought her. They’d given her a target for her anger. If she’d had to stay in Fallcrest, she might have gone mad.

“We have to help them,” she said, staring at the battles below. “There must be something we can do!”

“We’ve got our own problems now,” said Quarhaun from behind her. “Vestapalk’s assassins have come for us.”

Belen turned as three shadowy figures came gliding out of the broken passage. So tall they had to bend to pass through the tunnel, they were wispy and insubstantial-looking, with long, narrow hands and fingers that continuously stroked the air. Their eyes flashed with the Voidharrow and crystals pulsed in their thin, nearly transparent chests.

Cariss took a step back and raised her warpicks. “What are those?”

“The stuff of nightmares,” said Quarhaun. “Don’t let them touch you.” He flicked the black blade of his sword and a crackling blast of dark energy flew at the first one out of the tunnel.

Faster than Belen would have thought possible, the creature slipped aside. The blast hissed harmlessly past. Quarhaun cursed through clenched teeth and tried again, this time making a circling gesture with his free hand. Shadows writhed around the creature’s head and it hesitated in its advance—but just for a moment. It seemed to Belen that the thing actually smiled at whatever magic the drow warlock had attempted to use against it.

Then it darted in at Quarhaun and he abandoned magic for sword play. The other two demons flitted past them. Long arms stretched out and shadowy fingers raked the air. Belen ducked away, trying to keep her back to the cave wall. Two sides of the broken passage lay open to long drops, and enough debris littered the ground to make footing treacherous. She didn’t want to avoid the demon only to fall victim to her own clumsiness. The demon clawed at her again. She dodged a second time, then responded with a slash from her sword.

The thing’s wispy, hazy form made it even more difficult to hit than its speed alone. She thought she struck at its side, but the demon twisted and her sword whisked almost right through it. Almost but not quite. She felt the blade slice into flesh. The nightmare demon pulled back, an oozing shallow wound lending solidity to its torso, and circled her warily. The wound didn’t slow it down at all.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Cariss struggling against another demon. The cramped quarters hampered the shifter’s whirling style of fighting and the demon was able to avoid her warpicks with little effort. Her back precariously close to the edge of the passage, Cariss snarled and tried to catch her opponent between the points of her warpicks with a great sweeping attack.

The demon ducked, twisted, and came up behind her. Its long fingers closed almost tenderly on her head. Cariss’s eyes went wide, then she screamed in terror. “Cariss!” Belen shouted.

“Ignore her!’ Quarhaun commanded. “Focus on your own battle!” His sword play was keeping his demon at bay but the creature wasn’t reacting to his attempts to draw it off balance. He lunged.

The demon turned. Before Quarhaun could recover, it had reached out and laid its hand alongside his face. The drow stiffened. He didn’t cry out, but the sword dropped from his fingers. The demon pressed its other hand against his head. He started to tremble.

And Belen was the only one left. No wonder Vestapalk had only sent three of the things instead of overwhelming numbers. He hadn’t needed to send more. She pressed her back against the wall. The demon facing her drifted closer, but stayed out of range of her slashing sword. It could afford to toy with her. She’d need a solid strike to kill it or drive it off. All it needed to do was touch her and she’d plunge into her worst fears.

At least she already knew what that fear would be. It had haunted her dreams ever since the night of the attack on Fallcrest.

A desperate idea came to her. Belen prayed that it might work. It had to work. Gripping her sword tight, she stamped forward suddenly, as Quarhaun had. Her thrust was low and deliberately wide. The demon didn’t even have to dodge it. Its hands shot out and it seized her by both sides of her face. Its touch was cold.

The Plaguedeep seemed to vanish.

She was back in Fallcrest. The town burned around her. Belen could smell the smoke and feel the heat. She heard the screams of the townspeople, the shouts of the other guards. The taunting shrieks of the attacking plague demons. But she couldn’t move or call back in response. Fear held her fast.

She faced herself. Or rather, she faced the version of herself she saw in her nightmares: Belen possessed by Nu Alin.

Her face was hard and tight. Around her eyes, the skin was broken and cracked like a mask of old, dry leather. Red crystal shot through with streaks of silver and flecks of gold showed through the cracks. As Belen stared at herself, the stuff spread. It filled her eyes entirely. It pushed at her skin from the inside, forming massive boils that grew until they burst to expose decayed flesh and bones like worm-eaten wood.

“You are mine, Belen,” said a rasping voice. The silver-red crystal that was Nu Alin’s substance filled her mouth when she spoke. “Your friends have failed. There’s no one to rescue you this time.”

“You’re dead,” Belen said. She tried to speak with confidence but the words came out a whisper. “Tempest and Albanon destroyed you.”

Nu Alin laughed, forcing her corpse’s face into a grin. “You’re the one who’s dead. I can’t die! I just move on to a new body, wear it out, then move on again.” Nu Alin leaned her body close. “But I think I’ll keep your body longer. I like it.”

“You dried up and turned to dust when Albanon and Tempest forced you out of me.” Belen fought against her fear. This wasn’t really Nu Alin, just a nightmare demon. “You can’t exist without a body to inhabit.”

“Yet you were kind enough to bring me a new one,” said Nu Alin.

His substance bulged out of her corpse’s mouth and groped toward her. Belen remembered how it had felt when the bodystealer had first attacked her, his flowing form forcing its way into her mouth and up her nose. He had reached down her throat and into the cavities of her body, wrapping himself around bones and organs until he was in complete control of her. Terror rose in her again. Nu Alin’s tentacle touched her cheek.

She jerked her head around, the first movement she’d been able to make. Nu Alin hissed in annoyance. “Stop struggling! You’ve already lost. I have destroyed you!”

Belen ground her teeth. “No,” she said. “You didn’t destroy me. You’re the reason we’re here. Because of you, I knew where to find Vestapalk.” She turned her head back to glare at Nu Alin. “We can still win.”

Her sword was still in her hand. She thrust it up into her corpse. Into Nu Alin.

Into the nightmare demon.

Cold hands fell away from Belen’s face. Fallcrest vanished, replaced by the Plaguedeep. Her legs felt like they might collapse. She forced them to stay straight. The nightmare demon’s face was stretched out in shock only a handsbreadth from hers. Belen drew her sword back a bit, wrenched it up to a sharper angle, and thrust it in again.

The nightmare demon jerked and went limp. Its corpse was so light, it was almost weightless. Belen shoved it off her sword and stepped quickly over to the demon clutching Quarhaun. The creature seemed almost as lost in the drow’s fear as Quarhaun himself. It didn’t even look up as she drove her sword down between its shoulders. Quarhaun fell away from it with a gasp to lie panting on the ground. Belen whirled to Cariss.

The death of the first two demons must have gotten through to the third somehow. Its crystal eyes blinked. It let go of Cariss’s head and grabbed her shoulders, trying to turn the shifter’s moaning body between it and Belen like a shield. But it was too slow. Belen twisted around and thrust her sword through its side. The nightmare demon gave a high, keening cry and pushed Cariss away to reach for Belen.

She ducked the grasping hands and ripped her sword sideways out of the demon’s belly. Cut nearly in half, it let out one more cry, then toppled backward and over the broken edge of the passage. Belen let her sword fall and grabbed Cariss before the staggering shifter could plunge after it. Still half in a panic, Cariss tried to push her away, but Belen held on.

“Easy,” she said. “It’s over. It’s over.”

Cariss sucked in great gulps of air, breathing hard. “Thank you,” she gasped between breaths. “Thank you. I will tell Turbull that you are worthy!”

Belen frowned. “What?”

Cariss stiffened a little and pulled away. “I shouldn’t have—” she began, then she scowled. “You are Riven,” she said bluntly.

Real fear raced through Belen and she opened her mouth to deny it, but Cariss shook her head. “Don’t shame me with lies. Turbull saw it. No outsider embraces Tigerclaw traditions the way you embrace them. Turbull believes you are a generation Riven from the tribe, maybe two.”

“My mother,” Belen said tentatively. “She taught me.”

“Turbull saw the way you fought alongside us in the valley. He told me to watch you on this journey and if you proved yourself worthy, he would invite you to join the Thornpad clan.”

After the terror of the nightmare demon attacks, the suggestion was like being drenched with cold water. For a moment, Belen didn’t know what to say or how to react—all she knew was that there was a new warmth growing inside her, something that might even erase the scars Nu Alin had left. “Cariss, I never thought something like that would be possible.”

“Turbull is not like any other clan leader,” said Cariss. “He believes you could bring new ideas to the Thornpads without sacrificing tradition. He sees ahead—sometimes even further ahead than Chief Scargash.” She grasped Belen’s forearm above the wrist. Belen recognized a Tigerclaw oath grip and returned it. That brought a smile from Cariss.

“If I don’t escape this place,” the shifter said, “go to Turbull and tell him what I told you.”

“If I don’t escape,” said Belen, “tell Turbull I would have accepted.”

“I hope you realize there’s a good chance none of us will escape,” said Quarhaun harshly. The drow was back on his feet, his face a little drawn, but otherwise recovered. He had his sword in his hand and used the tip of it to flip Belen’s sword back to her.

She caught the weapon but kept it out and ready to use as she looked around, assessed their situation, and found it most … unexpected.

Their triumph over the nightmare demons seemed to have gone completely unnoticed, at least by Vestapalk. A few of the nearest plague demons watched them and shifted restlessly, but all of the dragon’s attention was on the battle still being waged on the lower portion of the broken passage. Magical energy of all kinds flashed as Albanon, Tempest, and Kri traded spells for flaming strikes by the fire demons. A few burned-out husks of demons lay on the ground, but they were the only casualties. Except for scorches on Tempest’s robes and a burned patch in Albanon’s long silver hair, their friends seemed to be holding their own.

The battle on the middle portion seemed to have turned in their favor as well. In spite of his mad rush against the brute demons, Roghar still lived. He and Shara fought back to back, while Uldane danced around the perimeter of the fight, stabbing and crippling the big crystal-armored demons wherever he could. In fact, there were only three of the demons left standing, and even as Belen watched, another went down with its head cleft in two by Shara’s greatsword.

“I don’t understand,” said Cariss with surprise in her voice. “We’re winning. Why isn’t Vestapalk doing more?”

Belen frowned and looked at the passage behind them. One of their sunrods lay just inside its the mouth. Nothing stirred within the shadows as far down the passage as she could see. No more nightmare demons. No more demons of any kind. Yet with all the demons of the Plaguedeep under his control, Vestapalk could have destroyed their entire group easily. “What’s he waiting for?” she asked. “He could smother us and be done!”

“He’s playing with us,” Cariss growled.

Quarhaun muttered a quiet curse. “He’s wearing us down! You heard what he told Kri. He says he knows our secrets, and that we came to destroy the Voidharrow. Look at how he’s watching Albanon and Kri—if he knows how they destroyed Vestausan and Vestausir, he knows they’re the real threat.”

“But why wear us down? Why pick at us with small bands of demons?”

“Probably for the same reason Shara wants to kill him personally,” said the drow. “Pride. Vengeance. He wants to destroy us himself, but we’ve also defeated his creatures every time we’ve encountered them. He wants us tired, not fresh.”

“There’s no honor in an uneven fight,” said Cariss.

“Honor?” Quarhaun laughed. “No drow matriarch would try to destroy a rival House without making sure it was first weakened from within. I think Vestapalk wants to make sure this is a fight he can win. That’s why he split us up.”

Belen stared down at the rest of her friends. “So when Albanon and Kri defeat the fire demons, Vestapalk will attack?”

“I would if I were him.”

Cariss bared her teeth. “Then what can we do?”

Belen’s stomach tightened. “We still have rope, don’t we? Maybe Vestapalk wants us split up, but I don’t. First we get down and join Shara, Roghar, and Uldane, then we do what we planned to all along: we give Albanon and Kri time to work their magic.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The stink of burned hair filled Albanon’s nostrils. Given the many possible stenches of battle, it wasn’t the most awful smell, but it made him want to cough with every drawn breath and every shouted spell. Worse, it came over him in a fresh wave each time he turned his head—and with every fresh wave came the thought that he hadn’t had short hair since he was a child.

It was a completely inappropriate thought for the middle of a life or death battle. Albanon might have suspected he was going mad if he didn’t already know what that felt like.

He flicked his hand and hurled a silvery bolt of force at one of the remaining fire demons. The demon shifted slightly and the bolt tore through its shoulder. It barely left a trace on the flames, just a dark spot that lingered briefly and vanished entirely a moment later. Albanon cursed and brought his staff up to block a fiery arm as it slapped at him. The tendril tip wrapped around the staff, then dissipated, leaving another charred black ring among the many already scarring the stout wood. The demon raised its arm for yet another lashing blow.

Tempest’s voice rose in a scream and a twisting ribbon of darkness rushed past Albanon to strike the demon under its upraised arm. Where it struck, flames withered and were extinguished. It seemed to Albanon almost as if they were sucked back along the stream of darkness. The demon stumbled and dropped to one knee, then its fire winked out altogether. All that remained was a crumbling husk of ash with a sooty crystal, now dark, at its heart. Albanon spared a glance over his shoulder at Tempest. She smiled at him.

“Four down,” she said tightly. “Four to go.”

Albanon grimaced and turned back to the fight. He sent another bolt of force at the next enemy.

At least the fire demons showed no more desire than them to close and turn their battle of spells and flames into a melee. The creatures didn’t die easily—and it didn’t help that fire-based spells had little effect on them, rendering much of Albanon’s arsenal of spells and almost all of Tempest’s completely useless. Albanon had quickly found himself hoarding his store of cold and lightning spells, waiting for the right time to use them. He felt like an apprentice again, hammering away at his opponents with simple magical missiles until they weakened.

But he and Tempest weren’t the only ones hoarding their magic. “Kri! We could use some help.”

“I’m doing my part.” Bright white light flared on the other side of Albanon as the priest hurled a lance of pure radiance at a fire demon. The demon’s flames flickered, but came back. Kri’s prayers could have devastating effects against the demons—Albanon had seen it before—but the old man seemed to be holding his most powerful prayers in reserve.

Albanon bit back a curse. “Do more!”

“Accept the Chained God’s power. You’ll have all the help you need.”

A blast of cold will save you, whispered the voice inside Albanon. The knowledge unfolded before him. There was a spell he knew that would create a cloud of freezing vapor. Enhanced and expanded in exactly the same way as fire magic, it could fill the cavern. Maybe even all of the Plaguedeep. In his mind, Albanon saw the fire demons snuffed out, their ashes as cold as last night’s campfire. He saw plague demons frozen to the walls of the Plaguedeep like grotesque carvings. He saw Vestapalk turned white with frost and the Voidharrow frozen like red ice.

He saw Kri frozen, too—and Tempest. And Roghar, Uldane, Belen, Cariss, Quarhaun, Shara …

“No!” He thrust both temptation and the whispering voice away. To deny them entirely, he thrust his staff at a pair of fire demons standing close together and spoke a word that left his lips cold. A glowing blue speck sped from his staff and streaked toward the demons. It burst as it approached, exploding into a bright mist. The fire demons hissed in voices like wind rushing over hot coals. One of them stumbled out of the mist. The other didn’t.

“Three to go,” said Kri. “That was a waste.” He raised a hand and murmured a prayer. Holy light shimmered around his hand and flashed above the demon that had escaped Albanon’s spell. The creature hissed again, then crumbled into ashes. “Two,” said Kri.

The remaining two fire demons drew back as if realizing they were outnumbered. However, with the middle section high above and the remains of the passage even higher, they were just as trapped as Albanon and the others.

“We’ve got them!” Tempest said triumphantly.

Suspicion nagged at Albanon. He turned away from the retreating fire demons to the Plaguedeep where Vestapalk and all of his plague demons had crouched motionless, watching the spell battle.

They still hadn’t moved. Vestapalk’s gaze was focused on him and him alone.

The tips of Albanon’s ears tingled. This one knows all your secrets, Vestapalk had said. You come to destroy the Voidharrow. This one will not give you that chance.

“What is he waiting for?” the wizard murmured.

“So the sleeper wakes,” said Kri. He turned to face Vestapalk as well. “What is he waiting for? Us. He waits for us. Where are your mighty spells now, Albanon? Thrown away. Are you ready to face him?”

Albanon’s mouth went dry. Vestapalk had manipulated them with the fire demons’ attack. How had he not seen that before? And the others, isolated on the other sections of broken passage? Because they were on the lowest level, he couldn’t see up to where they were. He hadn’t given a thought to them since the fire demons’ appearance. He’d heard Roghar’s battle cry and a scream that might have been Cariss, but those were the only sounds that had registered.

Instinct told him to look up, to see if they were still there, but Vestapalk’s gaze held him. The dragon’s mouth turned up in a predator’s smile. He lowered his head, bringing it closer to Albanon’s level.

“Come, Albanon,” he called. “Come and serve this one as you were meant to.”

The crystal-riddled stone on which the dragon perched twisted around, reorienting itself like a living thing. One end of it stretched down to the ruined passage so that Vestapalk crouched at the end of a long spire jutting into the Plaguedeep. His eyes never left Albanon’s. His double voice reached into Albanon’s mind and rang inside his skull. Come.

Where was the other voice that had spoken to him so often before? Albanon reached out to it—and found silence. Of course. He’d rejected it. He felt his feet move without his will, taking the first long step toward the spire and Vestapalk. “Albanon, no!” shouted Tempest, but it was Kri who grabbed his arm and held him back. The priest’s voice rose.

“He serves another master now—a master who will destroy you!”

Vestapalk’s laughter filled the cavern and found echoes not just in reflected sound, but among the plague demons. The stillness of the Plaguedeep shattered as the laughter spread in shrieking, cackling waves. Vestapalk’s voice rose above it all. “Does he? This one served that master once. The Elder Eye that is Tharizdun guided Vestapalk to power, but Vestapalk found a power greater than the Eye!” The dragon paused and his eyes narrowed, but stayed locked on Albanon. “Who will you serve, eladrin? Follow the Elder Eye and you follow the prisoner of a dead world. Follow Vestapalk and you follow the new god of this world!”

Kri’s voice buzzed in his ear. “It’s a trick. Vestapalk only wants revenge. If you follow him, he’ll just make you into one of his minions—one of his slaves. Tharizdun doesn’t demand service. He offers you power, but also freedom. Follow him and we’ll save the world from the Voidharrow together.” The priest glared up at Vestapalk. “Release him! Let him make his own choice.”

The dragon chuckled again, but lifted his gaze. Albanon felt the dragon’s hold on him vanish as if a weight had been removed from his back. He staggered. Hands caught him.

Tempest’s hands. Albanon looked up and met eyes filled with concern. Tempest didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. He straightened and looked at Kri. “I do not serve Tharizdun—”

Fury passed like a storm across the priest’s face. Vestapalk’s double voice rose in another mocking laugh. Albanon spun to look up at him. “—but I will work with him to destroy you!”

Vestapalk’s laughter vanished, sucked back down his throat. Strangled silence fell across the Plaguedeep.

And was broken again by a call from above. “Vestapalk!” Roghar shouted. “Bahamut stands against you in defense of this world as well. Feel his wrath!”

The paladin thrust his shield forward and blinding white light poured from the symbol of the Platinum Dragon. Vestapalk reeled back, bellowing in agony as the light washed over him. Demons shrieked as if the holy radiance had burned them as well. Against the brightness, Albanon saw ropes thrown over the edge of the level above, then Uldane, Cariss, and Belen were sliding down to join him, Kri, and Tempest. For an instant, he was struck by fear for Shara and Quarhaun, then he saw them just behind Roghar up above.

Tempest touched a hand to his face. “Good choice,” she said, then she stepped away to join the others as they took up defensive positions around him. Albanon looked to Kri. Tharizdun’s priest seemed almost stunned by the turn of events. Albanon grabbed his arm and hauled him close. His other hand dipped into his pouch and produced the fragment of the Vast Gate.

“Let’s make this count, Kri,” he said. He wrapped the old man’s hand over his, the stone fragment squeezed so tight between them that Albanon could feel its sharp edges. The pain seemed to break through to Kri as well. He drew a shuddering breath, glanced once at Albanon with hate-filled eyes, then raised his voice.

“Tharizdun! Chained God! Patient One—”

Vestapalk’s roar drowned him out. Great wings cracked like thunder as they spread wide and Vestapalk launched himself straight at them.

Roghar’s divine light threw Quarhaun’s face into stark relief and all but washed out the shadows that writhed around the drow’s drawn sword. “You’re certain?” he shouted over Vestapalk’s bellow and the shrieks of the plague demons.

“It’s what I swore to do, my love,” Shara called back. She glanced down to the lower level. Uldane and the others were on the ground, racing to Albanon and Kri. She looked back up to Quarhaun. “One,” she said. He raised the sword. “Two.” He braced himself. “Three!”

She sprinted at him. Behind her, Roghar shouted something but it was too late to stop. Quarhaun’s lips formed an arcane word. His sword sliced the air.

Shadows folded around Shara. For an instant, it seemed as if she’d been struck blind. Searing cold snatched her breath away as Quarhaun had warned her it would. The spell was never intended to be used on friends, only enemies—like the peryton he had used it on to save her.

Then light and warmth burst around her again and her running feet were on scales instead of stone. Vestapalk’s scales. On Vestapalk’s back.

Except that the dragon wasn’t sitting still anymore. The scaly hide slid under Shara’s boots. She grabbed at one of the sword-tall crystal spikes growing from Vestapalk’s spine and held on—just in time. Vestapalk’s roar of fury changed to one of confusion. The Plaguedeep spun around her as the dragon bucked and twisted like a wild horse, trying to dislodge the thing on his back. She caught a glimpse of her friends throwing themselves to the ground, then she and the dragon were past them and flying over the Plaguedeep.

“I feel you!” Vestapalk screamed. “I feel you back there. You will die for this!” He beat his wings and started climbing straight up. For a moment, Shara stared up through red mists at a blue sky high above, then she twisted around and managed to get a leg over another of the spine spikes.

“Not before you!” she shouted into the wind. She dragged one of Cariss’s warpicks from her belt and raised it high. “This is for Jarren and Borojon!”

She brought the point of the pick down with all of her strength as close to the dragon’s spine as she could.

Once again, Vestapalk bellowed with agony. His climb faltered, the beating of one wing slowing, and he veered close to a rocky wall. Flapping his good wing desperately, he hit the stone feet first, hung for a moment, then released himself on a slow spiral back down to the depths. The blue sky Shara had glimpsed was replaced with a dizzying view of the Plaguedeep. She pressed herself again Vestapalk’s scales and hung on tight.

As Vestapalk disappeared up the shaft of the Plaguedeep, Tempest thought she saw Shara clinging to his back. She blinked, but the dragon was gone before she looked again.

In its wake, the plague demons came. They poured up over the edge of the abyss and dropped down from above. They were beast demons and four-armed brutes mostly, but a few larger and stranger types as well, like disembodied heads that scuttled on spider legs and things that slithered like a slug, leaving glittering crystal trails behind. All of them had rage in their red eyes.

It was hard to believe that each one had once been an intelligent creature—human or halfling, dwarf or tiefling, orc or gnoll or goblin—transformed by the Abyssal Plague. Tempest clenched her teeth and tried to put that idea out of her head. They weren’t what they used to be anymore. They were killers, ready to slaughter her or Belen or Cariss or any of the others.

“What’s plan?” she asked Belen.

“Keep them back as long as we can,” the human woman said tersely.

“I can do that,” said Tempest. She reached into herself and drew up the most powerful spell she knew, one that hadn’t been suited to fighting the fire demons, but was perfect for this occasion. She gathered spittle in her mouth, feeling it take on heat and a kind of squirming life, then spat it out at the largest of the charging demons. It flew far and fast, more than twenty paces, and spattered into squirming little droplets—fiery scorpions that swarmed over her target and all the demons around it. The charging creatures broke into a frenzy as they tried to beat at the magical bugs.

Unfortunately, there were more demons where they had come from. A fresh surge broke over the edge of the abyss, new demons crushing old demons beneath them.

“Nice try,” said Belen, readying her sword.

Then white light surged past them in an expanding ring, searing every demon it touched and holding the horde back for just a few moments more. Tempest felt a presence familiar from years of adventuring move through her, strengthening her and renewing her resolve. She smiled at Roghar as the paladin stepped beside her and Quarhaun took up a place on the other end of their defensive wall.

“Like old times,” she said.

“If there were old times like this,” he said, “I’m surprised we’ve lived as long as we have.”

The ring of white light faded and the tide of plague demons came at them.

Albanon heard the shrieks of the plague demons. He saw his friends fighting them, a weak wall of steel and flesh and magic against a horde of monsters. But it was as if he saw and heard through layered panes of hazy glass. Everything beyond his body moved at a snail’s pace. The magic had him, moving him with the speed of thought. There was nothing he could do but watch and remind himself that what his friends were doing, they were doing for him.

“Focus!” hissed Kri.

Albanon tried to put his friends out of his mind and lose himself in the patterns of the spell. It was like wading in mud or following a single thread through a tapestry. Nothing Moorin had taught him had prepared him for the magic Kri dragged him into. Divine forces mixed with arcane techniques. The power of gods and mortals reached out and tugged at something that was neither. Albanon was certain it hadn’t been like this when they’d drawn Tharizdun’s will out of Vestausan and Vestausir. It had seemed so easy then. So clear. He and Kri had both known it would be more difficult in the Plaguedeep.

He didn’t think either of them had expected it to be like this. The Voidharrow hadn’t just corrupted the land around the Plaguedeep, it had corrupted the flows of magic. Where normally Albanon might have seen the flow of magic like streams in his mind’s eyes, in the Plaguedeep they were a flood, all mingling together. Simply casting a spell was as easy as dipping a cup into the flood. Trying to pull power through the nodes of Kri’s spellweaving, into the gate fragment, and back out again was like dipping a cup into water and expecting to find it filled with wine.

There was also too much Voidharrow. In the valley, there’d been only one source: Vestausan and Vestausir. Within the Plaguedeep, the Voidharrow was everywhere: bound to plague demons, bound to the land around them, and most importantly bound to Vestapalk. Albanon might have been able to unravel it—if he’d known where to start.

“Albanon, more power!”

“I’m trying!” he snapped.

There was one more thing. In the valley, he’d still been in the Chain God’s thrall, magic and madness flowing through him together.

But the voice that wouldn’t stop whispering inside him was gone, and he had to ask himself if he wanted it back. It had been so easy to draw on the power. No limits except what he could conceive. No restrictions except what he dared. But that had led to problems, too, hadn’t it? He only needed to think of Winterhaven and the desire for power shriveled inside him.

Winterhaven or the look on Tempest’s face when he’d emerged from Tharizdun’s cloister. At the time he hadn’t thought much of it. Now it broke his heart. The disappointment. The fear. Could he do that to her again? Could he do it to himself?

But if he didn’t do it, she would die. All of them would die.

“Albanon!” Kri’s voice was strained. Albanon could feel the priest’s power running into the fragment between their hands. It was stretched to the limit, on the verge of tearing like rotten cloth.

No more hesitating. He plunged down into himself.

The whispering voice, his mad self, was waiting. I knew you’d come.

“Show me what I need to do,” Albanon told it.

Accept me. I am you. Accept me, serve Tharizdun, and I will show you what you need to do.

In spite of himself, in spite of the strain he felt in Kri, in spite of the demons that might overwhelm his friends in instant, Albanon hesitated just once more. Accept his madness. Serve Tharizdun.

And in that moment, everything changed. Out beyond the layered glass of the magic, something came spiraling down through the Plaguedeep to land on the outstretched spire of rock. Vestapalk roared and snapped at a figure on his back. Albanon saw Shara slide down his other side, swinging herself away down the spire in an attempt to reach safety. He saw Vestapalk, one crystal wing dragging, try to snap at her and miss. Then the dragon narrowed his eyes.

He saw the ripple in the Voidharrow as the dragon exerted his will and a pack of the plague demons turned to meet Shara.

The Voidharrow was Vestapalk and Vestapalk was the Voidharrow—and the answer to Albanon’s dilemma. He and Kri had been so rapt in their exploration of the Voidharrow as the fusion between the alien substance of the Progenitor and the divine will of Tharizdun that they’d ignored its mortal host. There weren’t two parts to the Voidharrow. There were three.

Deep inside Albanon, his mad self cried out. It clutched at him, but Albanon brushed it aside. He reached out through the flood of magic and touched the nexus of flows that was Vestapalk.

Ruddy molten light burst out between his hand and the priest’s as power flowed through the gate fragment. Kri gasped and Albanon knew that he understood the truth as well. He joined in Kri’s chant, the words rising to a crescendo and a command.

“What was once three shall be again. We divide you!”

Shara saw the pack of plague demons break away from the horde and come racing up the spire. She slid to a stop on the stone. Beyond the teeming demons, she could see her friends still trying to buy Kri and Albanon the time they needed. But she could also see something the others couldn’t.

Kri’s face was drawn into a deep frown. Albanon’s was contorted as if in pain. There was no sign of the brilliant light that had preceded Vestausan and Vestausir’s destruction. Their spell wasn’t working.

They’d failed.

Hope died inside her and she knew with a certainty that this was the end. Was this what Jarren had felt when he had faced Vestapalk alone? Shara drew her greatsword from over her shoulder. The plague demons were still clambering up the stone spire, but they weren’t her enemy. She looked at Vestapalk, so completely transformed from the green dragon her father and his band had been hired to track down. Vestapalk looked back at her, then let out a slow hiss. He turned his left forelimb so she could see the inner surface. Twelve lines had been carved into the scales. A mark for each adventurer Vestapalk had killed in his life, the dragon had bragged when they’d first faced him.

The last three represented Borojon, Jarren, and a dwarf named Cliffside. Not taking his eyes off Shara, Vestapalk reached up and dragged a talon through his scales, adding a thirteenth mark.

Shara didn’t need to look over her shoulder to see that the plague demons had fallen back. She was alone on the spire with Vestapalk. She raised her sword and Vestapalk flinched. His crystal eyes flashed past her. “No!” he roared.

Ruddy light flared behind Shara. She turned, following Vestapalk’s gaze.

Light like molten metal dripped between Albanon and Kri’s joined hands. The priest and the wizard both gazed at Vestapalk. Their voices rose together.

“What was once three shall be again. We divide you!”

A tremor passed through the Plaguedeep. Not like the shudders that had broken and rearranged the passage while they’d been inside it, but an actual trembling of the world. Vestapalk roared again. Kri and Albanon’s voices returned to the chant and the light began to run even more freely between their fingers.

The plague demons surrounding them paused in their attack. Some of them tried to pull back, but the press of bodies held them in place.

The first shadows rose like wisps of morning mist, separating from the bodies of the plague demons closest to Albanon and Kri. Vestausan and Vestausir had been slow to dissipate, maybe because they’d been more closely connected to Vestapalk. The plague demons took no time at all. The first few shriveled up like scraps of paper thrown onto hot coals, their darkness streaming in thin threads to the source of the molten light.

Then the shadows began to rise more quickly. Wisps became puffs became billows of shadow. The press backward became a mad scramble as plague demons tried to escape. It didn’t help. Shara watched demons collapse as they ran, collapse in the midst of turning away. Demons still in the abyss screeched and skittered madly across the walls, but tendrils of shadow already stretched back to Albanon and Kri. The pair pulled their hands apart to more fully expose the glowing fragment that lay between them and the billows of shadow became a thick stream like black smoke, spiraling down into the fragment.

It didn’t just come from the plague demons either. It drifted up from the rocks and leached out of the air. Veins of red crystal faded to pink, then turned clear—then vanished altogether. All around Shara, stone creaked and groaned like a frozen river in thaw. Rocks broke away from the walls of the shafts and fell in clattering cascades.

An especially loud groan came from behind her. Shara turned to face Vestapalk.

Shadows hung around the dragon like a dark aura, but none of them drifted away. Crystal eyes filled with rage and hate glared at her. “You will not defeat this one,” snarled Vestapalk. “This one will rule the world. This one … has the power of a god!”

“Shara!” shouted Uldane. She glanced over her shoulder. The halfling stood with Quarhaun at the base of the spire. Tempest and Roghar were still with Kri and Albanon, but Cariss and Belen were climbing ropes back up to the passage. Uldane waved for her to join them. “This place could collapse! Come on!”

“Not yet,” Shara called back to him. She could see Tempest and Roghar were unable to get Kri and Albanon to move. The pair was chanting, and even though most of the plague demons had been consumed, shadows were still rising from the crumbling Plaguedeep. She waved to Uldane and Quarhaun. “Go!”

Uldane left the base of the spire, but went no farther than the climbing ropes. Quarhaun didn’t move at all. Shara looked at Vestapalk. The tight aura of shadows around him was starting to fray. He trembled with the effort of holding it—and himself—together. Walking carefully along the creaking spire, Shara moved closer. The dragon snapped at her. “This one is chosen!” he spat. “This one is—ah! Ah!”

His words trailed off into gasps of pain as Kri and Albanon redoubled their chanting yet again. Shadows began to stream from Vestapalk—and as they went, he changed.

The great crystal wings faded away to nothingness and so did one of the talons on his forepaws—ausan, ausir, and gix. The crystal spikes along his spine and the crystal spurs from his limbs faded just as the veins of crystal had faded from the stones of the Plaguedeep. The Voidharrow that had dripped from his jaws dried and disappeared. The red stain left his scales. As the shadow of Tharizdun’s will peeled away from him, Vestapalk became green once more. He coughed and darkness puffed out of his mouth like soot from a blacksmith’s bellows. His head sank down to the stone. Horrified and fascinated, Shara moved even closer. Vestapalk’s head snapped up again.

The sockets that had been filled with eyes of liquid crystal were empty.

Vestapalk bared white teeth, and his nostrils flared. “This one knows your scent,” he said. “This one can still take one more adventurer to the grave.”

He lunged, his long wingless body slithering on the stone like a great lizard. Shara sidestepped his rush easily. Her greatsword came down on his neck just behind his narrow skull.

The blade sliced scales, hide, flesh, and bone as if they were woven of straw. Vestapalk’s eyeless head went bouncing down the spire. His body staggered for a moment, carried on by momentum—then slipped over the edge. Shara leaned over to watch it fall. Down. Down.

Down into thick, rising shadows. A cold wind rushed up the pit and into her face, nearly choking her. Shara pushed herself back and raced down the spire. “Back!” she shouted at Quarhaun and the others. “Get back behind Kri and Albanon!”

The others obeyed her. Quarhaun didn’t. She leaped down the last few paces of the spire and slammed him to the ground.

The great mass of shadows rose up behind her, so thick and solid that it blasted the spire apart. The darkness roared overhead, compressing down into a swirling spiral that sent both Kri and Albanon flying backward. The molten light of the gate fragment vanished, the last shadows of what had been the Voidharrow consumed.

In its wake, the sounds of creaking stones and falling rock were louder than ever. Another tremor shook the mountain and huge slabs of stone went cascading down the shaft. Quarhaun rolled Shara off him and pulled her to her feet. “Out!” he ordered. “Everyone out, now!”

“No,” said a quiet, calm voice. “Not quite yet.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The calm voice belonged to Kri. Albanon rolled over and stared at him. The priest was already standing, his wrinkled face placid. The creak and crash of stones shook the cave, but that didn’t seem to bother Kri at all. “You have something that belongs to me,” he said. He held out his hand. “The fragment of the Vast Gate. Give it to me. Now.”

The others, some still on the ground, some caught in the act of rising, stared at the two of them. Albanon looked down at his own hand, still squeezed tight around the gate fragment, still warm with the light that had poured from it. Somehow it felt different in his grip—a little less sharp around the edges, a little heavier. No, a lot heavier. Before he’d barely been conscious of the fragment’s weight. Now it was heavy enough that he couldn’t have missed it. He sat up and opened his fingers.

His first thought was that someone had switched the fragment for a lump of lead. The stone he held wasn’t just heavy, but as smooth as if it had been tumbled along a riverbed, and it had changed color from red to black. As he stared at it, though, he realized it was the same stone. It had the same tapered oval shape and if the broken edges had become somewhat smooth, they were still there. And the black … the black was the same color as the shadows that had flowed off the Voidharrow.

He’d never really considered what would happen to the will of Tharizdun once they separated it from the Voidharrow. Maybe he’d thought the gate fragment would direct it back to the Chained God’s eternal prison. Maybe he’d thought it would simply dissipate. It hadn’t.

Albanon squeezed his hand around the stone. “I don’t think so,” he said.

Kri’s expression became strained. “It is Tharizdun’s will incarnate. It is the Eye of the Chained God made manifest.”

“You know what it is, then.”

“Of course. I am Tharizdun’s priest.”

“That’s what worries me.” Albanon climbed to his feet. He ached as if he’d been beaten with a bag full of sand. He tried not to let his weakness show. Kri’s calm seemed unnatural, as if he were on the edge of reverting to raving lunacy. Maybe the others sensed it, too. They closed in around him. Over by the climbing ropes, Uldane tensed.

“I think,” Albanon said carefully, “that I’ll hold onto this for a little longer.” He moved to return the black stone to his pouch.

It was the wrong thing to do. Kri’s face twisted with rage. He threw out his hand. “Chained God, hold them!”

Bright white light flared around him. It washed over Albanon, searing his skin and clinging to him like a caul. The arm that reached for his pouch slowed until it barely moved. The others were caught as well, and their movements similarly hampered. Uldane jerked and started forward, but Kri swung a hand toward him. “Stay where you are!” He took a step back, keeping his distance from their struggling forms. His gaze raked all of them. “You remember now who didn’t wear himself down fighting plague demons, don’t you? Remember too that the Voidharrow is destroyed. Tharizdun’s vengeance is complete. I don’t need any of you anymore.”

He reserved a special glare for Albanon. “And you. You would deny the Chained God when he has put power beyond the understanding of most people into your hands. You would turn your back on the gifts he offers.”

Albanon force his mouth to move. “I don’t want … your madness.”

Kri snarled and raised his hand, then stopped. “I want the stone, that’s all. Just the stone. Roghar, bring it to me.” The priest pointed a finger and the caul of light that trapped Roghar faded.

Roghar, however, didn’t move. “No,” he said.

Rage built in Kri’s face. “You swore in Bahamut’s name to obey me!”

Albanon and the others stared the paladin, but Roghar didn’t look back at them. His face stiffened. “I refuse to betray my friends.”

“Then you betray your god!”

“I don’t think Bahamut would want you to have that stone either,” Roghar said calmly.

Kri screamed with inarticulate rage. He thrust out one hand, then clenched it tight. Once again, the holy light of the gods exploded around Albanon, but this time it seemed to explode within him as well. Its radiance burned him from the inside out. The shriek that filled his ears was his own.

“Bring me the stone,” he heard Kri howl, “or Albanon dies!”

He didn’t hear Roghar’s response, but he knew what it must have been, because the burning stopped and he fell into cool dimness. He felt Roghar’s thick fingers pry at his and he tried to pull away. “No,” he said weakly. He forced his eyes open and discovered he was on the ground. Roghar’s face was just above his. “Don’t.”

The dragonborn pulled the stone from his grasp and stood. Albanon pushed himself upright, still too dazed to attempt a spell. Tempest, Quarhaun, and Shara were still caught by Kri’s caul. Roghar advanced on Kri with the stone held out in front of him like a bit of rotten meat. Kri’s eyes lit up. “Chained God!” he whispered in fanatic tones. “Patient One!” He reached to take the stone.

And Roghar swung away from him. “Uldane!” he shouted, and he tossed the black stone to the halfling, then turned back to Kri, his hands curled into fists.

Kri’s gaze went from bright to burning in an instant. He shrieked a prayer and a wave of bright light and deafening thunder hammered into Roghar, throwing him across the cavern and into a wall. Big chunks of rocks came clanging down onto his armor. He struggled weakly but didn’t get up.

“Kri!” shouted Uldane, bringing the priest around again. The halfling stood at the very edge of the cavern, right at the edge of the shaft that had been the Plaguedeep, with one arm extended out over the abyss. His face was as serious as Albanon had ever seen it. “Let us go.”

Kri froze, his eyes flicking from the stone to Uldane’s face, and Albanon guessed he was trying to come up with a plan. The wizard took the chance to climb quietly to his feet. But he wasn’t quite quiet enough—Kri twisted around and pinned him with a sharp glance. Albanon met that gaze, or at least tried to. The madness that burned in Kri’s eyes was uncomfortable to see. He looked away. Kri’s mouth curved into an arrogant smile and he turned back to Uldane.

“Uldane,” he said, sliding closer to the halfling, “I don’t want to hurt any of you. I only want the stone. Let’s show we have faith in each other. Give me the stone now and I swear I’ll let you all go.”

“Release Shara and the others.”

Kri gestured without even looking. The remaining cauls fell away. Tempest touched Albanon’s arm, then went to help Roghar. Kri stretched his hand toward Uldane. “Done. Now give me the stone.”

Uldane shook his head. “I never said I’d do that.” He flicked his wrist and the stone sailed out over the abyss. Kri screeched like one of the plague demons and rushed to the edge to stare after it. Uldane threw himself away. “Somebody finish him!”

Albanon already had a spell on his lips. Focusing his will, he spoke the words and thrust out his hand. The air shimmered.

Kri turned just as the blast of force hit him. His eyes were wide and wild, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth. He flew back into the wide shaft with his robes fluttering around him. The last glimpse Albanon had of Kri Redshal—once a priest of Ioun, once the last member of the Order of Vigilance, once his mentor—was of him foaming at the mouth, screaming for Tharizdun.

Maybe the Chained God heard him because at that moment, a titanic slab of rock split from the wall right above them and plummeted after Kri into the abyss. It crashed against the floor of their little cavern as it fell, sending vibrations through the stone. More rock rained down from the ceiling above. Quarhaun looked up and flinched.

“This time we go!” he shouted. “Everybody up the ropes and no stopping until we’re outside.”

No one objected.

Cariss and Belen waited for them above with fresh sunrods to light the way. The tunnel held as they made their way through it, though they could hear stone collapsing regularly behind them and dust drifted down on them in with the constant threat of a cave-in. As first it seemed as if the tunnel might have become a dead-end—the narrow crawlspace they had first entered had collapsed entirely—but Quarhaun’s sharp eyes spotted hints of light in the cracks of another wall. They attacked the rotten stone with hands and shoulders. It crumbled easily under their assault and before long they’d opened a new entrance, one tall enough to walk out of easily.

They emerged under the light of the setting sun to find the slopes of the volcano radically changed. New crevices had opened and old crevices had split wide. Solid slopes had turned into rockslides. The scrubby, slumping trees that the Voidharrow had tainted slumped even more, the wood so full of holes it looked as if the trees had been attacked by hungry insects. Sinkholes had opened up for leagues around, gaping maws leading to rubble-choked pits. The ridge that marked the spot where they had cached their supplies the night before lay across the nightmare landscape. By unspoken consent, they stopped on what looked like a stable patch of slope. With Vestapalk gone, there was no hurry. Their cache and their bedrolls could wait until the moon rose.

“How far did the Voidharrow reach?” Uldane asked while they sat. “Did we get it all?”

“We got it,” Albanon answered him wearily. “All of it. Every drop. Every last crystal.”

“How do you know?”

“I felt it,” Albanon said. It was the truth. When the last blast of Tharizdun’s shadowy will had risen up from the depths and entered the fragment of the Vast Gate, there’d been a sensation like a door or a gate closing. The Chained God had his vengeance, he supposed. The molten light of the gate fragment hadn’t gone out because he and Kri had ceased their chanting—it had gone out because there was no more Voidharrow.

“What about the plague demons?” said Shara. “That couldn’t have been all of them in the Plaguedeep, could it?”

“It might have been all of the demons in the area. Maybe all those in the Nentir Vale. If Vestapalk guessed we were coming, he might have drawn them in to keep them from frightening us off. Or to lure us closer.”

“Will any that are left still be able to spread the Abyssal Plague?”

Albanon shrugged and sat back. “I don’t know. When Kri first explained to me exactly what the Voidharrow was, I asked the same question. He said he thought they might be able to because the plague demons were beings of both worlds now, but that without the Voidharrow the plague will be less virulent and won’t spread as easily.” He pressed his lips together. “Of course, it turned out he wasn’t entirely right about a lot of things. We might still need to watch out for the Abyssal Plague for a long time to come.”

“What do you think?” asked Tempest.

“I think that no matter what, any surviving plague demons will be a lot less dangerous without Vestapalk to lead them.”

A quiet cough interrupted their conversation. Roghar stood a little below them, with his head bowed and his shield at his feet. “I owe you an explanation,” he said. “And an apology. What Kri said about me swearing to obey him was true.”

None of them said anything. Roghar stretched out his right arm and Albanon saw the shiny flesh of a scar in the scales around his wrist. “Vestagix wounded me in Winterhaven,” said the dragonborn. “I prayed to Bahamut but the scar wouldn’t heal. I knew I was carrying the Abyssal Plague. That’s why I was in a dark mood after Winterhaven. That’s how Vestausan and Vestausir found us—through me. When we found Kri, I knew he could burn the plague out of me, but he made me swear to obey him—once—in return. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry.”

Tempest was the first one on her feet and embracing him. “You idiot. If you hadn’t done it, you’d be a plague demon now and we might never have defeated Vestapalk.”

Quarhaun shrugged. “I thought you were hiding something that night in the valley.”

“You’re a drow—you’re suspicious of everything,” said Shara. She embraced Quarhaun as well. “Is this why you went charging into that pack of demons in the Plaguedeep?”

Roghar’s face tightened. “I knew whatever Kri commanded me to do would force me to chose between betraying you or breaking a vow made in Bahamut’s name. It seemed like dying in battle would let me escape the choice.”

Quarhaun stared at him in disbelief. “You’d never last in the Underdark, Roghar.”

The paladin smiled. “Thank you.” He nodded to the eastern horizon. “The moon’s up. Let’s go collect our gear and see if we can catch our horses. If we can’t, it will be a long walk back to Fallcrest.”

Belen glanced at Cariss, then cleared her throat. “I’m not going back to Fallcrest. Cariss says Turbull has invited me to join the Tigerclaws.”

There was greater surprise at her announcement than there had been at Roghar’s revelation, but more happy congratulations as well. Albanon looked around at the others. “Is everyone else coming back to Fallcrest? The town will need help and protection while it’s rebuilding. There’s plenty of room in the Shining Tower. You can stay there.”

He let his eyes linger on Tempest as he made the invitation and the smile she gave him in return made his heart skip. A little later, as they made their way across the fields of sink holes, she slipped her hand into his.

“You’ve changed from the apprentice wizard Roghar and I met in the Blue Moon Alehouse,” she said.

“I don’t feel like I’ve changed.”

“People look to you to make decisions. You take action when you need to. You’ve gone through more than I have.” She chuckled. “You’ve saved the world from Vestapalk and the Voidharrow.”

“We didn’t have a choice. We were there from the beginning.”

“There’s always a choice. I think you’ve made a lot of good ones.” She squeezed his hand and he felt a flush climb into his face.

“Hey, Albanon,” said Uldane. The halfling pushed his way in between him and Tempest, then turned around and walked backward so he could face them. “I’ve got something for you. I’m tired of carrying it around. It’s creepy.”

He flipped something at him. Albanon stretched out his hand without thinking.

What dropped into his palm was small but unexpectedly heavy. He froze in midstride and stared at the smooth black stone in his hand. “Uldane, this is—”

“Of course it is,” said Uldane with a snort. “Do you think I’d just drop something like that into a hole in the ground? There’s no telling who might find it.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Don Bassingthwaite is the author of numerous fantasy and dark fantasy novels, including the Eberron trilogies The Dragon Below (The Binding Stone, The Grieving Tree, and The Killing Song) and Legacy of Dhakaan (The Doom of Kings, Word of Traitors, and The Tyranny of Ghosts). Don lives with his partner in Toronto, surrounded by gadgets, spice jars, and too many books. Follow him on Twitter @dbassingthwaite.

From the molten core of a dead universe

Hunger

Spills a seed of evil

Fury

So pure, so concentrated, so infectious

Hate

Its corruption will span worlds

The Temple of Yellow Skulls
Don Bassingthwaite

Sword of the Gods
Bruce R. Cordell

Under the Crimson Sun
Keith R.A. DeCandido

Oath of Vigilance
James Wyatt

Shadowbane
Erik Scott de Bie

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