Dark Vengeance Read online

  Ringil reeled in mock horror, clutching at his heart and flinging his arms up wildly. “Strike me deep!” he gasped. “Wound me sore!”

  Then he winked and added, “Fine flashy dross.”

  The rasping voice of Old Authra cut through the ripple of chuckles that followed. “What news?”

  The peddler nodded. “Plenty to tell, plenty to tell. There’s a new king in Rond . . . the Silent Stone split apart and the witch Harresse stepped up out of the grave she’s lain in underneath it these seven-score years; she’s none too pleased, and most folk are fleeing Duncrown right now . . . and the nightskins are raiding again: they hit Tlustal and then Ormyn not so many nights back.”

  “Then they’ll come here, as sure as the sun rises,” Authra snapped, glaring all around as if nightskin raids were the fault of all her neighbors.

  There were many murmurings of dismayed agreement—that stopped in an instant when Orivon Firefist’s deep, level voice floated across the crowd.

  “How many nightskins? Did they use any magic? Swords, or spells?”

  Ringil blinked at the source of those questions. “Ho, you’re a big one, aren’t you? Thinking of fighting them?”

  “Yes,” Orivon said firmly.

  Orl-folk stared at him in the darkening square as if he’d turned to a nightskin himself, right before their eyes.

  The peddler shook his head doubtfully. “Not sure as anyone knows how many ran through Tlustal, but in Ormyn they were ten-and-seven strong, and waved swords. They had those capture-hoods that make the poor hooded ones obey them instead of running off, but that’s all the magic I heard about.” He peered thoughtfully at Orivon’s burn-scarred torso and leather breeches. “You really thinking of fighting them?”

  Orivon nodded.

  Their eyes met for a long, silent moment ere the peddler said, “You’re not from Orlkettle. Where, then?”

  “Ashenuld,” was the flat reply.

  Ringil’s eyes narrowed. “Ashenuld’s lost, a ruin—because of the nightskins. How is it Ashenuld fell, but you stand here alive?”

  “I was taken by nightskins,” Orivon replied, “and spent years in the Dark Below. A slave.”

  Frowning, Ringil took a step closer to the half-naked giant, and the crowd parted silently to let him. “I knew Ashenuld well,” he said quietly. “Who are you?”

  “Orivon. Orivon Ralla’s son.”

  Ringil’s face changed, and everyone who saw it knew that he had known Ralla well, too.

  “Well, now,” he said roughly. “Well, now . . .”

  “If the nightskins come,” Orivon said firmly, “I will take up my sword and fight them.” He looked around at the Orl-folk silently staring at him, and added, “If you’ll let me, I will make swords and spears and daggers for every last one of you, and we will string chime-strings, and practice gathering to fight in the dark; where to stand, which doors to guard, where to watch from. No one should ever be taken by any nightskin, ever again.”

  “You had a sister,” Ringil said softly. “She was born after you were . . . snatched. Kalamae.”

  Orivon took a step forward of his own. “You knew her?”

  “I sired her,” the peddler whispered. “I . . . your mother and I . . .” He shook his head. “She was never the same, after they took our little Kala.”

  He held up his hand for silence, but the Orl-folk were already giving it, hardly breathing as they watched the peddler and the forge-giant standing, silently regarding each other.

  “I knew your father,” Ringil said slowly. “He was a good man.”

  He turned abruptly and strode through their mutely parting ranks to the stone dome beside the village water-trough. Plucking it and his cap up to lay bare the signal-fire laid ready beneath it, he struck steel from his wrist-bracer and blew the dry tinder into a little blaze. Then he beckoned Orivon with a wave of his hand.

  As Firefist walked closer, he heard the peddler chanting something that made the nearest Orl-folk draw back in awe. A charm, a tiny magic that made the flames rise up like a swiftly sprouting plant.

  Ringil’s chant changed; he was now repeating “Kalamae” often and insistently . . . and as Orivon came to a stop beside the peddler, a face formed in the fire.

  “Kalamae,” Ringil whispered one last time, bringing his chant to an end. He looked at Orivon and murmured, “This is how I remember her. She’ll be older now . . . if she lives still.”

  Orivon stared. Dark-eyed and long-tressed, it might have been his mother. A younger Ralla, without scars and lines of pain and worry . . .

  The beautiful face swam away, lost back into rushing flames, and those flames started to die. The exhausted peddler wiped sudden sweat from his nose, and abruptly became aware that the villagers were backing away, some of them shivering, and staring at the forge-giant beside him.

  He turned, looked, and saw why.

  Orivon Firefist’s calm face might have been carved from stone, but his eyes were blazing brighter than the flames of the Orl signal-fire had ever been.

  The elder Watcher of Ouvahlor shrugged. “Something happened in that cavern that none of us saw. We cannot watch everything, everywhere, and who would think to search so close to the Blindingbright? Probably he killed them; certainly there is no trace of them in Talonnorn now.”

  “I am not concerned with your past failings,” the Daughter of the Ever-Ice said curtly. “What matters is that Blessed of the Ice Lolonmae desires to know—know, beyond doubt or speculation on anyone’s part—the fates of the Ravager leader who calls himself Old Bloodblade, and the Lady Taerune Evendoom.”

  “And your own spells have told you nothing, Semmeira? Or is it easier, rather than casting them, to just trot down here and seek to lord it over the Ever-Ice-anointed Watchers of Ouvahlor? To try to bully us into doing your work?”

  Old Luelldar’s voice had deepened, and his eyes were glowing blue-white with the chill of the Ever-Ice.

  Standing on the far side of the glowing watch-whorl, the junior Watcher, Aloun, fought to keep a smile off his face as he saw the priestess flinch back from his superior, awed by the holy power manifest in the elder Watcher despite her fury.

  “You dare to defy—”

  “I dare nothing. I expect a polite request for assistance, which I will of course render. Semmeira, your hunger for power and delight in misusing it—like a whip, or bludgeon, to batter those around you—is an affront to the Sacred Ice around us. Cease in this behavior, for the sake of Coldheart—and of Ouvahlor.”

  “You presume to lecture me on what affronts the Holy Ever-Ice?”

  “I ‘presume’ nothing. I lecture you because someone must. Your holy sisters of Coldheart are far too tolerant; your ambitions have time and again weakened our victories and soured our diplomatic successes. Hear me now, if you listen to nothing else I say at all: we have no need for tyrants among us; we have the fools of Talonnorn for that.”

  Her eyes blazing with rage, the tall priestess sprang forward in a swirling of black robes, both hands clawing at Luelldar.

  Who stood like a stone statue and endured one ringing slap, then moved with the speed of a striking tomb-snake to snare both of Semmeira’s wrists.

  She shrieked—in fury, not fear—and struggled, spitting full in his face and jerking and arching her body wildly to try to tug free. To no avail.

  “Let—me—go!” she hissed into the Watcher’s face. He stared silently into her eyes, the blue glow in his own seeming to grow brighter.

  She screamed at him, but still he stood unmoving, eyes boring into hers. His eyes were brighter.

  Abruptly she looked away, snarled—and turned her head sharply away, twisting it back and down, to bite him.

  Her teeth sank deep and drew blood, but his grip held. After more thrashings, she spat Luelldar’s own blood into his face and snapped, “Set me free, Watcher of Ouvahlor. Please.”

  A long breath later, she tried more gently to pull free, found herself still in a stony grip, and sighed. />
  “Luelldar, please. I . . . Consider me tamed. I . . . I hear your words. I will heed them.”

  “Truly? Or only for as long as it takes for you to convince me to let go of you?”

  Bosom heaving, the Exalted Daughter of the Ice stared into the now-bright blue glow of the elder Nifl’s eyes for what seemed to Aloun to be a very long time. Slowly, as Semmeira stared at the risen power of the Ice, her face changed.

  Then Aloun heard her whisper, “Truly. If I again seem . . . overly ambitious, send word to me, and I shall return here. For more taming.”

  Despite himself, Aloun’s jaw dropped open; he couldn’t help but stare in amazement.

  Mustn’t! This could mean my death!

  He fought to look away, but saw . . .

  The elder Watcher let go of her slowly and carefully, as if he were handling a sculpture of fine and delicate glass. Nodding once, Luelldar murmured, “Exalted Daughter of the Ice, we are always honored by your presence.”

  That “we” made Semmeira’s eyes dart to Aloun, but by then he had wisely—just—bent his head, and busied himself with shaping the watch-whorl to hunt another place the Watchers had been ordered to observe.

  Nodding to Luelldar, she turned in silence, sleek and shapely in her robes, and departed. She looked back, just for a moment, at the door.

  The elder Watcher was still standing as still as any statue, watching her, the risen power of the Ever-Ice glowing deep blue and awful in his eyes.

  It was some time before Aloun dared to ask, “Luell? Am I to peer at other caverns near the one that leads to the Blindingbright for the bones of the Talonar noble and the Ravager? Or go on to Dlanathur’s reques—”

  “Seek the Lady Evendoom and Bloodblade, and so shall I. Blessed Lolonmae shall have every assistance we can give.”

  “And Semmeira?” Aloun knew he was being too daring, but it was a teasing he just couldn’t resist.

  The elder Watcher turned slowly to face him, his eyes still blue with dimming Ever-Ice power, and his face like cold stone.

  He took a menacing step closer, and Aloun felt the first cold stirrings of fear.

  Then, very suddenly, the elder Watcher of Ouvahlor grinned. “Well, now,” he asked the watch-whorl between them, “who would have thought Exalted Daughter of the Ice Semmeira so hungrily craves punishment?”

  Then his glee fell off his face as quickly as it had come, and he looked up warningly at Aloun and said, “You, junior Watcher of Ouvahlor, had best be very careful. Go nowhere alone, and tell no one at all anything of what you just saw. That particular priestess will murder you in an instant if she thinks anyone will learn what she just revealed. Go and lock yon door. Now. Before we gaze again into any whorls, I think it’s time I taught you the spell that lets you plunge through one, and be taken away. Your neck may soon thank you for it.”

  “The Araed is quiet,” the Nifl spore-trader Taerel commented, turning from the doors of the Waiting Warm Dark to stroll back to his seat. He was one of only three patrons in the place just now.

  The dancer to whom he’d thrown a thumb-gem, to dance just for him, broke her provocative pose on his table in a fluid rippling of her body that made him stare and smile in admiration.

  Yaressa was worth it.

  Yaressa was always worth it.

  “The Araed is ever quiet, these days,” she replied, shifting into a slow, eye-catchingly supple dance, “since Ouvahlor attacked us, and priestesses slaughtered each other at the temple, and House-lords fell. And no wonder; so much of it lies in ruin, with cave-rats and longfang-vipers gnawing the buried bones of the unclaimed dead! Not even counting all the fled or dead slaves, I doubt the Araed now holds a tenth the Nifl it used to. Truly, Olone has turned her face from us.”

  Taerel snorted. “Olone doesn’t naethyng know there is a place called Talonnorn. Talonar may like to think our city stands at the center of all Nifl thought, society, and attention, but we are just one city among many, and a damaged, wayward city at that. Here, Olone is a name for priestesses and crones to use to justify their latest cruelty, and no more. If we’re lucky, no more. If ever the Goddess bends her interest full upon us, we’ll all be too terrified—and doomed—to worry about how populous the Araed is. Or the vaunted greatness of Talonnorn, either.”

  Yaressa had frozen in her dancing, but smoothly began to move again. “For a moment,” she said softly, “I thought you blasphemed, denying Olone, but . . .”

  Taerel shook his head. “Oh, no, mistake me not! Olone exists and is mighty in her power. It is her priestesses, at least those here in Talonnorn, who I sometimes deny. I deny that they have the faintest real idea what Olone wants for us, and expects of us. I think, all too often, they and the crones think of what they want the rest of us to do, and command us in Olone’s name to do it.”

  “This same complaint has been heard for a long, long time, in Talonnorn and elsewhere,” the dancer replied. “Yet have you any evidence for thinking so—beyond your evident dislike of the Holy of Olone?”

  “Ouvahlor attacked us, Talonnorn was plunged into strife and chaos—and the priestesses and crones were as astonished and unprepared as all the rest of us,” Taerel pointed out. “Olone had warned them not at all. And why? Surely not because she did not know. Which means they themselves don’t believe in her—or that she should govern them—enough to often, and wholly, consult with her. They mouth empty prayers and turn their interest elsewhere. Listening to Olone is no longer something they fervently do, if they do it at all. If they seek Olone’s counsel only in the very jaws of doom, she will not deem them devout, or worthy of saving. And behold, Talonnorn was not saved.”

  Yaressa nodded, her eyes intent upon him. “So tell me, wise trader,” she asked in a low voice, leaning close to him. “What is Talonnorn’s way out of this? Jalandral’s call for one lord over us all, to rule with the Holy of Olone as mere advisers?”

  Taerel shook his head. “His grasping for power is bolder than the worst excesses of the crones. Its only virtue is that even the most stone-witted Talonar can see it for what it is, and judge accordingly. Yet he may be the cleansing flood, that the city will embrace and then turn away from, back to the Goddess.”

  “And if he is not? Or we cleave to him and turn not away?” Yaressa asked softly, her lips almost touching his.

  Taerel drew her forward, from the table down into his lap. “Then we are doomed,” he said quietly.

  “So, tell me now: how much will it cost me for us to share our own little doom, together?”

  2

  A High Lord for Talonnorn

  Let Ravager quake and Ouvahlan flee forlorn

  For fear of bright and mighty Talonnorn

  Let sneering end and terror dark be born

  Riseth one lone lord o’er all Talonnorn!

  —Talonar chant

  “Whose head is it this time?” Clazlathor asked grimly, not bothering to rise from behind his desk.

  The giant Nifl at the window shrugged. One forever-staring severed head being paraded through the streets on a longlance looked very much like another to him.

  “Does it matter?” he grunted. “The lord of some House or other; high and mighty Jalandral will reap them all before he’s done.”

  The spellrobe at the desk made a sour face. “That’s true,” he granted. “I wonder if he started reaping with his father?”

  Munthur shrugged to indicate he knew nothing of Erlingar Evendoom’s fate, could do nothing to uncover it, and he dared not make it his business anyway, and peered out the window again. Then, slowly, he turned back to Clazlathor with a dark frown deepening on his face. “I liked Erlingar Evendoom,” he growled. “A proper Lord of Talonnorn, to be sure. Knew where you stood with him.”

  The spellrobe sighed. “And now the city knows not his fate—nor that of Faunhorn Evendoom, or Jalandral’s brother and sister, either. They’ve all just . . . vanished.”

  “A lot of foes of Jalandral Evendoom seem to have vanished,” Munthur sai
d slowly. “I’m thinking we’d best get used to it.”

  “As it’s the new way of things in Talonnorn?” Clazlathor asked. “I have a problem with that. Not only do I not want to have to be Jalandral Evendoom’s eager, bright-eyed friend with my every waking breath, I can see a day when Jalandral rules a Talonnorn that holds only a handful of living Niflghar: the few eager friends he hasn’t yet quarreled with.”

  “Most of the Araed has sided with him.”

  “Most of the Araed will side with anyone who promises to humble the Houses and so treat we ‘common’ Nifl better. They just haven’t realized yet that they’re trading six lords who fought each other more than they fought anyone else, for one lord who will lavish all his brutal attention on his citizens: the very same ‘most of the Araed.’ ”

  “Many of the younger crones are praising and aiding Evendoom, too.”

  “Of course they are. Ambitious malcontents always want to see those in power over them thrown down. They’ll find things will get rather warmer for them when that’s happened—leaving them as the most powerful. And again, our so-sly Jalandral having no one to lord it over but them. Then they’ll start enjoying the same treatment he gave those they so gloatingly watched destroyed.”

  Munthur grinned wryly. “For you, life is an unending series of cruel treacheries and deceptions, isn’t it? So should we be doing our utmost, just now, to slay Jalandral Evendoom?”

  Clazlathor shook his head. “Let him rebuild Talonnorn first, and do battle with the Holy of Olone. They’ll probably manage his slaying, but he should be able to bring them down to the level of we mere mortal Nifl, first. Even Jalandral Evendoom has his uses.”

  Munthur’s grin widened. “You don’t much care what you say, do you?”

  The spellrobe shrugged. “I don’t much care if I live or die, now. The Talonnorn I loved has been smashed, hurled down, and lost forever, and most of our friends with it. To say nothing of the Nifl-she I loved.”

  “Oh? One of the dancers at the Dark? Or the lasses at the—”

  Clazlathor’s coldly murderous look brought Munthur’s words to a halt in an instant. “Draurathra, the Eldest of Raskshaula,” he snapped. “If you must know.”