Dawn of Night (17 page)

Eight men emerged first. Four wore red tabards, chain mail, and red plumed helmets—Hillsfarian guardsmen, no doubt. The other four were clad in plate mail and hard looks—likely returning Xanathar agents. The Hillsfarian guards held bare swords in one hand and glowing sunrods aloft in the other. The Xanathar’s agents bore cocked and loaded crossbows. Their eyes and their crossbow sights swept across the chamber, passing over and past the darkness-cloaked slaadi.

Wait for all of them to come through, Azriim projected, sensing the eagerness of his brood-mates.

Moving quickly and saying little, the eight men formed a protective arc of flesh and steel before the still-glowing archway while the rest of the caravan began to follow them through. Two creaking wagons emerged, each pulled by two giant, surefooted, subterranean lizards as large as ponies. The wagons, tightly crammed with slaves—chained elves, half-elves, and dwarves mostly-were little more than wheeled cages with an attached driver’s beiich. The slaves wore the hopeless expressions of the damned. They must have sensed that the underground hell they’d just entered was to be their final stop. A fat teamster drove each of the slave wagons, guiding, prodding, and cursing at the lizards, which answered with hisses and flicked tongues.

After the slave wagons were through, six more crossbow-armed guards stepped through the portal and flanked them to either side, eyeing with wary gazes both the shadows of the cavern and the forty or so demi-human slaves destined to toil and die in Skullport’s darkness. The slave wagons and guards moved forward to make room while two more wagons began to emerge through the still glowing portal.

These last two wagons, each also pulled by a pair of giant lizards and manned by a single driver, piqued Azriim’s curiosity. He craned his neck to see.

Both were built of duskwood, completely enclosed, and visibly locked at the rear door. They looked like giant chests on wheels. Several more armed men accompanied those wagons, including, at the rear, a huge man whose enameled black armor sported on the breastplate a great eye, surrounded by eight smaller, lidless eyes: the symbol of the Xanathar.

Azriim silently “tsked” the armored man’s weatherworn over-cloak and un-shined boots. He decided then and there that the human was a poor dresser and no doubt would go unmissed when he died.

With the emergence of the two enclosed wagons, the portal began to dim, fading first to rose, and finally dying to nothing more than a wall.

That is all of them, Serrin said without a hint of eagerness.

Beside Azriim, Dolgan’s respiration came fast and hard.

The armored human moved up and down the assembled caravan and barked orders in oddly accented Common. Men stiffened at his passage, lizards snarled, and slaves averted their gaze or cowered.

The caravan, clustered together like wine grapes, prepared to move out.

Azriirn played out the anticipation just a moment longer, then—

Now, he projected, and began his mental count to two hundred.

As one, the slaadi stepped out from behind the stalagmites. Azriim pointed the Sojourner’s wand at the armored human, spoke the arcane word of command, and discharged a searing stroke of lightning from the diamond tip. The bolt hit the human squarely in the breastplate, drove him backward five paces, knocked him prone, and left him belly-up and smoking on the floor. The

energy arced to another nearby guard, blew out his eyes before killing him then arced to another, and another, sending each into a spasmodic, burning death. Finally, no doubt drawn by the iron of the cage, the lightning bolt found its way into one of the slave wagons and alternated from one to another of the wretched demi-human slaves, sparing all of them a life of servitude by painfully killing each in turn.

Before the stunned guards could effectively respond before they could do more than utter shouts of warning, scan the darkness for their attackers, and wildly fire a few crossbow bolts—Dolgan and Serrin called upon their innate magical abilities and fired fist-sized balls of fire from their outstretched claws. Both of the fireballs struck the cavern’s floor in the midst of the bunched caravan and exploded into gorgeous spheres of heat and flame. The screams of the humans were lost in the explosion as the fireballs roasted the caravanners and giant lizards alive, incinerated the surviving slaves in their cages, and knocked over, but did not set aflame, the two enclosed wagons. The temporary inferno dried the damp from Azriim’s skin, for which he was grateful.

Hold, Azriim projected to his brood-mates, and took a moment to survey the destruction. He had not yet reached a mental count of ten. The attack had gone as smoothly as he had hoped.

The heavy, sweet scent of cooked human flesh filled his nostrils. Black smoke churned from corpse and wagon alike, pooling around the stalactites above. Nothing was moving. Men, weapons, and animals lay cast about the chamber floor like so much flotsam. Except for the crackle of a few small fires—one of the slave wagon wheels and several of the corpses were burning cheerily-all was quiet. Scavengers would begin to arrive soon, Azriim knew, attracted by the stink of dead flesh. The Skulls too might soon arrive, attracted by the expended magic.

Ensure that they are all dead, Azriim said to his brood-mates.

Serrin and Dolgan bounded out of hiding and down into the carnage.

And eat nothing, Azriim added for Dolgan’s benefit. The big slaad slouched with disappointment but did as he was told.

Serrin and Dolgan moved from corpse to corpse, stabbing or slicing the throats of any of the guards, teamsters, or slaves that did not seem suitably charred. Dolgan sometimes patted one of the human’s heads, as if to apologize for not eating the brains.

Azriim followed his brood-mates to the slaughter at a more leisurely pace. He savored the ease with which they had dispatched the caravan nearly as much as he savored the feeling that his plan was coming together. The Sojourner would be pleased. The transformation to gray would be Azriim’s reward.

He picked his way through the dead and wreckage to one of the enclosed wagons. The fact that it had not burned suggested that it was warded with magical protections. With a grunt, he pulled the lock from its setting and tore the rear door from its hinges. The slab of wood exploded with a blue flash, sending a jolt of power through Azriim’s body: a magical trap. He nearly cursed, more annoyed than injured—though his hands did sting-and tossed the door atop two corpses that lay nearby. He knelt down on his haunches and looked inside.

Within the wagon, thrown into disarray by the explosions, lay swords, several staffs, a scroll belt stuffed full, several gem-tipped wands wrapped in cloth, and three chests. One of the chests had broken open and was bleeding platinum. Azriim called upon his innate ability to detect dweomers and saw that most everything in the wagon except the currency was magical. A hurried examination of the second sealed wagon revealed much the same. Both were stuffed full with magic items and wealth destined for the Xanathar. Some of the agents carried magical goods as well, Azriim saw. Most such items had survived the inferno.

The beholder would not leave un-avenged the loss of so many men and so much magical treasure.

Azriim could not contain his grin. The situation couldn’t have been better.

Assist me, he projected to Serrin and Dolgan, who had finished their macabre task. We are taking it all.

After stepping through the gate, Cale, Riven, Jak, and Magadon found themselves standing in the midst of a stand of towering elms, blinking in the light of the midday sun. Compared to the gloom of the Plane of Shadow, the light of Toril’s sun was nearly blinding. Here and there, the sun’s rays cut through the elms’ canopy in a shower of beams.

And hit Cale like crossbow bolts.

His exposed skin felt as if it were being stabbed with sewing needles. His senses too felt duller, his hearing less keen, and his sight less sharp. While his skin was still dusky, the protective sheath of shadows was gone. He had known that while he stood in the light, his shade abilities would be lost to him. He hadn’t known that he would feel somehow less substantial. Faerűn’s

sun melted a part of him away, as surely as if he were made of ice.

Gritting his teeth at the pain caused him by the light, Cale threw the hood of his cloak over his face. Only then did he notice that his regenerated hand was gone. He stared at the stump of his wrist, not quite shocked, but simply uncomprehending. He felt the memory of his hand as though it still sprouted from the end of his wrist, but it was not there.

Surreptitiously, so as not to draw attention from his comrades, he moved his hand into the darkness cast by the bole of an elm. He felt a tingling in his forearm and within those shadows, his hand rematerialized. He flexed the fingers, twisted the wrist, and it felt normal. He moved his arm back into the light, felt a sharp stab of pain in his wrist, and his hand again disappeared. He moved it back and forth for a moment, enduring the dichotomous sensation, and marveling at the appearance and disappearance of flesh and bone on the end of his wrist.

Was it flesh and bone? he wondered.

He realized in that instant that he was half-a-man whether he stood in light or shadow. The transformation into a shade had taken something of his soul but given him back his flesh; when the sun re-lit his soul it took a tithe of flesh as recompense.

Fitting, he thought, and immediately chided himself.

He recognized in his thoughts the beginnings of self-pity. Words floated to the front of his mind, something his favorite language teacher once had said to him back in Westgate, when Cale had thought his life a hard one: “Self-pity is an indulgence for artists and noblemen. Don’t spend any more time with it than you must. Hear what it says, learn from it if you can, then move on.”

Cale prepared himself to do just that. He was both shade and man. And a man could not stand forever in the shadows.

With that, he braced himself, threw back his hood, and endured the pain caused him by the sun. He welcomed it the way an Ilmaterite welcomed suffering-a way of purifying the soul through the pains of the body. The sun would be the instrument of Cale’s agony, and the instrument of his purification.

“Cale! We’re home!” Jak said. “You did it.” The halfling fairly capered about the undergrowth. He stopped and stared at Cale, apparently noticing his discomfort for the first time. His smile faded. “Are you all right?”

Cale, keeping his stump hidden by the sleeve of his cloak, nodded and said, “I’m all right, little man.”

Jak recaptured his smile.

“Good,” he said, then he let himself fall backward onto the grass. He spread his arms and legs out wide and soaked up the sun. He inhaled deeply the fragrance of the air. “Smell that? The air here reminds me of my family’s faru in Mistledale. Have you ever been to the Dalelands, Cale? I’ll take you sometime. You can try my mother’s cooking.”

Cale nodded, though he could imagine Jak’s mother’s expression upon seeing a yellow-eyed, shadow-wrapped creature walk through her door.

Magadon stood ten or so paces away with his eyes dosed and the palm of one hand pressed against the bole of an elm. He looked as though he was drawing strength from it. He held his bow in his other hand. The guide must have felt Cale’s gaze. He opened his eyes, looked over to Cale, and smiled softly.

“This elm is over ninety winters old. It has seen much in that time.” He studied Cale closely, cocked his head to the side, and said, “Your eyes appear normal now.”

Cale was surprised and pleased, but knew that the man behind those eyes was far from normal.

“Nothing has changed,” he said, “at least not really.”

Cale knew that the moment he stepped back into darkness or shadow, he would again look like the creature he was.

“No?” Magadon asked, looking at Cale’s sleeve, at his wrist.

Jak sat up and followed Magadon’s gaze. Riven looked on with interest as well.

Cale stared at Magadon for a moment before blowing out a sigh. The woodsman missed nothing. As though unveiling a shameful secret, Cale held up his arm and pulled back his sleeve to reveal the stump.

“Your hand!” Jak exclaimed and leaped to his feet.

Cale debated with himself for a moment before saying, “Yes, but watch.” He put his stump into shadow. His hand, with its slightly duskier skin, reappeared. Streams of shadows took shape around it. “It’s there in darkness or shadow, gone in the light.”

“Like bad dreams,” Jak whispered, before blushing in embarrassment at his words. “Sorry,” he said.

Riven wore a hard expression that Cale couldn’t quite read. Before Cale could figure it out, the assassin looked away, pulled his borrowed pipe, tamped, and lit.

“There’s an idea,” Jak said softly. Still eyeing Cale’s wrist, he pulled out his own pipe. To Riven, Jak said, “You, Zhent, cannot come with us to Mistledale, since you’re an ungrateful bastard who insulted my mother’s potato soup.”

“I insulted your potato soup,” Riven answered, smiling around the stem of his pipe.

While his friends were thus engaged, Cale let his sleeve fall back over his stump. He looked out of the copse and into the sun. His eyes stung and began to tear up.

He turned back and asked Magadon, “Where are we, Mags?”

“We’re home, Cale,” Jak said as he struck a tinder-twig and lit. From around his pipe stem he said, “And burn me if I ever want to go back to that place. No offense, Cale.”

Cale caught Riven’s sidelong glance. This isn’t home anymore, the assassin’s eye said, and we’ll be going back to the Plane of Shadow soon enough.

Cale offered Jak a half smile and said, “No offense taken, little man.”

“I might be able to offer a bit more specificity than Jak,” Magadon said with a grin.

The guide patted the elm near him as though it was a pet, and walked past Cale out of the shade of the copse and into the full light of the sun. He took off his hat, shaded his eyes, and looked across the plains.

“We are on the southern plains between the Gulthmere and Starmantle,” Magadon said. “We’re two days away from the city.”