“He does not serve the Host as other clerics do. That is sometimes the way of it.” Anzar grilled his teeth, controlling a sudden fury with an effort. His voice dropped, his eyes gazing at some distant incident, a dire memory. “And Cellester has no love of the Order of the Emerald Claw.”
Vaddi’s frown deepened. He knew of this dark brotherhood, as elusive and secretive as rats in a sewer. The worst tales spoke of the Blood of Vol, said to make men immortal, but slaves to terrible powers best left alone.
“Marazanath will fall this night,” said Anzar. “Nothing can stop that now, but there are allies beyond the border in Thrane.” Heavy thunder reverberated overhead, rain driving down like hail. “By land you will be cut off, ringed around, the roads held by our enemies.”
“Then what do you advise?”
“Nothing will be easy, but you must not be taken. What I have given you this night—” Anzar’s eyes flashed to the object hidden within Vaddi’s shirt. “Keep it safe. Get to Rookstack, if you can. The fishermen there are redoubtable fighters. I have friends among them.”
“But, Father, to flee, to leave you—”
Anzar faced the storm, shaking his head. When he turned back, his pale features seemed to have aged, the strain etched on his face like pain. “Your hour has come, Vaddi. Everything you have learned, all your skills, must be tested in this. You must seek your destiny alone. You will only endanger others if you take them.”
Vaddi felt the weight of the storm like an enraged beast readying to tear him limb from limb.
“You are afraid?”
He drew in a deep breath. “Of course I am. How could I not be?”
“You underestimate your powers, and the Claw will not expect you to flee alone.”
They looked at each other for a moment, their sorrow like an open wound. Anzar Thought again of Vaddi’s mother, who had died when Vaddi was barely two, victim to a sudden wasting sickness that had leeched the life from hundreds of House Orien’s fold all those years ago. It had been another legacy of the War.
“You’ll not sneak out like a rat in a sewer,” said Anzar.
“My dragonmark.”
“The Mark of Passage. It defines you, my son, and your gifts. They are latent, even now. You have not been schooled in them, because only you can unlock them. Know this, there is no storm on Eberron, natural or demon-conjured, that you could not ride. The time for you to put that to the test is now, this very night. Out there, in that maelstrom below.”
“Sail from Marazanath?”
“In such a storm as this, who would suspect such a thing? Not even the creatures who serve the Emerald Claw.”
“Father,” Vaddi said, shaking his head, “this is insane! I am immodest enough to admit that I am a very good sailor, and it is true that I have bested more thin a few awful storms north of here, but no one would go out in that.” He indicated the furious storm.
“You must. There is a ship waiting.”
“Waiting?” Vaddi said, surprised.
“In the western cave. You must get ready at once. Travel as lightly as you can. I have made preparations.” Anzar smiled. “There is a ship, a small craft, but one that can weather any sea in the right hands. And one occupant. I said you and Cellester should go alone, but you will not be quite alone.”
Vaddi tried to picture the craft, imagining it tossing and bouncing on the swirling whirlpools within the western cave. One crewman? “Who?”
“Who better than Menneath, son of Drudesh? And unless I’m fed false information, your best friend?”
Vaddi blanched at that. Sons of lords were not encouraged to develop close friendships with sons of a lesser class. But Vaddi and Menneath had struck up a deep friendship as soon as they had learned to walk. They could have been brothers.
“I can’t bring him into this, Father. You think these murderers will hesitate to kill a fisherman’s son?”
“Menneath knows these waters better than the fish! He’d swim through that storm and come ashore laughing. The two of you will be a powerful team, Vaddi. Menneath’s father is from a long line of men of the sea. There is a magic in that line, believe me. You may not know it, Menneath may not know it, but he can take care of himself. None better to guide you westward.”
Cellester spoke above the gusting storm and the shouts from below. “My apologies, lord, for this intrusion.” He was partly in shadow, his frame shaped in a thick cloak, the lower part of his head and shoulders muffled by its folds. Vaddi saw little more than the silhouette of his head, the shaped hair cut short.
“What is it?”
“My lord, the boat…” Cellester’s eyes were like steel, never wavering.
Anzar nodded. They could hear the massed ranks of the enemy coming up toward the battlements for a renewed assault.
“We must leave, my lord. Soon it will be too late!”
He spoke to Anzar as though Vaddi was not present and the youth fell his anger flaring. Vaddi pulled his father away and whispered in his ear.
“I don’t trust him, Father.”
Anzar scowled as he deliberated. Vaddi knew what his father was thinking. The truth was that for some reason Vaddi’s powers were subdued. As a dragonmarked son of House Orien, he should have been able to wield a degree of magical skills, yet he could barely teleport. The cleric’s skills were well tested. He was a match for any veteran knight, and he had been loyal to House Orien—more so than he had been to the Sovereign Host. He seemed to put more faith in men than in the holy sovereigns.
Vaddi could contain his anger no longer. “Father, I need no cleric to hold my hand!”
Anzar looked him over, knowing that he did so for the last time. “I know you don’t, my son, but Cellester’s guidance could be the difference between success and disaster. Speed is of the essence, Vaddi. Go below to where the boat awaits. With Cellester.”
“But—”
“No time! Go! Quickly! They are coming. We cannot hold them for long!”
Something in his father’s voice, in his eyes, made Vaddi hesitate. He knew that this was a pivotal moment in his life, but he was being forced away before he could react. Anzar’s plea seemed to have drawn out the last of his strength. He drew himself upright, holding high his sword, and yelled to his knights to ready themselves.
From the darkness the enemy came in fresh waves, demonic faces leering, weapons thrusting forward. Within moments the battle began again with renewed fury. There was no time for further words.
Before Vaddi had time to think, Cellester pulled him away and they were racing toward the narrow stairway in the nearest tower. Vaddi looked back over his shoulder. Father! But his eyes met only the dispassionate face of the cleric, who motioned him through another doorway and out on to a narrow wall.
“We dare not linger, Lord Vaddi.”
Halfway across the battlement, Vaddi turned to see the last stand of his father and his loyal knights. They were clearly limned in the glow of the fires that were eating into the heart of the citadel. Swarms of the enemy attacked them with sword, fang, and claw. Vaddi stood frozen as he saw Anzar face to face with a black-clad creature, tall and bone white. It wielded a blade that seemed to glow with its own hellish light. In a surrounding crescendo of thunder and victory screams, that red blade sank deep into Anzar’s flesh. Vaddi’s own scream was torn away by the victorious darkness.
Across the chasm, the eyes of the killer met Vaddi’s. The swordsman smiled, his gaze a promise of agonies to come, and in that gaze. Vaddi abruptly understood why the creature was here. The rabble army had come for the hold, but this vampire craved only one thing. The horn.
“We must leave!” shouted Cellester, dragging Vaddi away.
Vaddi blinked back a flood of tears, moving almost blindly down into the vitals of the hold. After what seemed an age, he and Cellester came to a tall cave whose curved dome echoed and re-echoed to the pummelling of the wild tide—wave after wave crashing in from the high entrance, swirling waters spilling over the narrow dock. Lamps flickered against the onslaught of the wind as it funnelled into the space, roaring like a pack of demons. Vaddi saw one frail craft, that of Menneath, bobbing up and down like a cork, its lone occupant waving.