18 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) Somewhere north of Waterdeep
The floor dropped out from under Dahl’s feet, the air around him evaporated, and the only thing he could be sure of was the weight of Farideh slumped against him. But with his next heartbeat his feet slammed into a stone floor, the air condensed around him once more, cold and clammy, and there were six shadar-kai men standing around them, looking startled. “Gods’ books,” Dahl spat, and he dropped Farideh to her knees. He drew his sword and cut at the nearest of the shadar-kai-the blade slashing deep into the scarred, gray skin of the man’s arm, opening a vein. The shadow-damned creature looked down at the blood pumping from the wound, surprised. A wild grin spread across his face, thrilled by the sensation stirring up his nerves, anchoring his soul to his body a little firmer.
Dahl cursed. One didn’t wait for shadar-kai to bring the fight, and one didn’t count on a surrender.
Dahl moved quickly, taking out the fellow behind the wounded shadar-kai with a quick, fortunate strike to the side of the head. Still spraying blood, the wounded one pulled a pair of sharp sickles and with a crazed yell hooked both around toward Dahl’s back. Dahl twisted, slamming the hilt of the sword into the man’s face.
All around him, the sound of blades being pulled from scabbards, chains being unhooked from carriers, bodies primed for violence and eager for the pain of that violence, set into motion. He glanced around as he wrenched one of the sickles out of the wounded shadar-kai’s hand. They were all grinning.
Farideh was still on the floor, fingers curling against the stone, eyes on the backs of her hands. Gods damn it, Dahl thought, stepping between her and the shadar-kai. He flung the scythe at an approaching guard, a thick brute with a missing eye. He didn’t even flinch as it hit his collarbone. A long spiked chain slithered over the floor beside him, twitching as if preparing to strike.
It lashed out, but Dahl was ready. He leaped out of range and into the reach of another shadar-kai, this one shaved bald and pierced all over with silver barbs. He caught Dahl and slung him down to the stones, so quick Dahl couldn’t stop his head from smacking the floor.
Up, up, up! he shouted to himself. His head was spinning and the pain was intense, but it was nothing compared to what would come if the brutal shadar-kai got ahold of them. The chain struck him hard in the ribs as he pushed up, sending a lightning bolt of pain through his chest. One elbow buckled, but he kept moving, twisting up to face the shadar-kai who’d thrown him and slamming his elbow into the side of his knee. The pain lit the man’s face, and the dagger that was arcing toward Dahl slowed, enough to give the Harper a chance to sit up and get out of the way of the chain that hit its owner’s ally instead. Dahl’s sword finished its work.
But, Hells, there were still too many. He looked around, past the advancing thug with his chain, past the swordsman shifting around Dahl’s side, past the fellow who’d knocked him down, now holding a pair of sharp-bladed carvestars in hand, ready to throw. There had to be an exit, a way to retreat, but even then, could he get Farideh-
A crackling gust of magic streaked through the air and devoured the carvestar as the guard threw it. An explosion of metal shards and sparks made the guard flinch back. Farideh stood now, eyes wild, the powers of the Hells suffusing her arms and tinting her veins black. She hissed another unholy word and Dahl scuttled back, as several bolts of burning brimstone streaked out of nothing to hammer at the three guards.
The big fellow turned on her, but when his chain lashed out, she stepped into it-and vanished, reappearing at the guard’s back. She threw another bolt of bruised-looking energy. Dahl took advantage of the guard’s surprise and punched his dagger through the seams of the shadar-kai’s leather armor, deep into his belly. The chain slipped from the man’s grasp.
He heard Farideh’s shouts of Infernal and the sound of one of the swordsmen crying out and hitting the floor. When Dahl turned she was bleeding from one nostril and a cut on her arm below where the sleeve of her shirt had torn loose like a flapping sail, but the heel of her hand was also slamming into the philtrum of her assailant. The shadar-kai’s head snapped back, but he kept his feet.
“Adaestuo,” she hissed, and the pulse of energy came again, bursting out through her palm and over the man’s face. He screamed-that horrid scream the shadar-kai had, half pain and half mad laughter-and dropped the sword, stumbling back into Dahl and his dagger. Dahl cut the creature’s throat, ending his ecstasy.
“Oghma, Mystra, and lost Deneir,” Dahl said, panting. His ribs ached, his elbow was screaming, his head pounding hard. He couldn’t take another fight like that. He scanned the room-no more shadar-kai, but stairs up to some other level ahead and a path behind him into the torchlit gloom.
He sheathed his sword and took hold of her unwounded arm, dagger in the other hand. “We have to get out of here.”
She didn’t budge. “You have to get out of here.” She tore her sleeve at the elbow, wadded the cloth up and pressed it to the side of his head. Only when he took it, only when her hand came back smeared scarlet, did Dahl realize how much he was bleeding.
He cursed and pressed the cloth harder to the wound. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll find somewhere to lie low. There’s got to be-”
“No.” She looked from one exit to the other. “You shouldn’t have followed, Dahl.”
“Followed?” Dahl squinted, the wooziness of blood loss catching up. “You came here on purpose?”
“It’s not what it looks like.”
“It had better not be-it looks like you’re a godsbedamned Shadovar agent. Where is this place?”
“Whatever it is, it’s not safe for you to be here. Please. Trust me, I-” She jerked her head toward the sound of footsteps echoing down the stairway. “Karshoj,” she hissed. “You have to go. Before someone finds you.” She drew her sword and pushed him toward the dark corridor.
“I’m not leaving you!”
“You are, because they aren’t going to kill me.”
“What in all the planes are you-”
“Gods damn it, run!” The shadows of approaching bodies slunk down the stairs like the fingers of a reaching hand. And though a chorus of old instincts shouted at Dahl to stay, to draw his sword, to find out what in the Hells was going on, to protect her or stop her or something, Dahl had enough sense to know he wasn’t going to do any of that while bleeding from the head, Farideh fighting him every step of the way.
Farideh shoved Dahl hard toward what she hoped was the exit, and ran back to the circle of dead guards. It had to look like she’d come alone. It had to look like she’d done this, whatever the consequences. She drew her sword and bloodied it with the mess of one guard’s belly wound. Kept the rod in her off-hand. Didn’t dare look after Dahl as six guards-humans this time, but still armored in the same spiked and studded armor the shadar-kai had favored-came into view.
You can do this, Farideh thought, drawing herself up and trying to look dangerous.
The guards considered her, considered the dead shadar-kai. Considered the sickly looking light dancing around Farideh’s rod. But they didn’t move.
Not until the seventh, a man in robes of emerald so deep and dark they might have looked black were he not flanked by the guards in ebon armor, came up behind. The guards parted for Adolican Rhand, and Farideh’s heart stopped dead in her chest.
“You?” she said, suddenly no more dangerous than a stunned deer.
Adolican Rhand smiled at her, his blue eyes piercing and predatory, even if his next words were innocent enough. They always were, she thought.
“Ah, your mistress didn’t tell you,” he said. He clucked his tongue-at Farideh or at Sairché’s omission, she couldn’t say. “Nor did she mention that you planned to sacrifice half a dozen of my guards.”