The creature was gone. Even so, Ravon waited a few beats before standing up to face Nastra. He swayed for a moment, temporarily weakened by having been in the death hag’s proximity.
Spying him, Nastra’s look revealed her dismay. The forge’s secrets, or most of them, were now exposed. Her eyes flicked toward the vanished death hag. Then she waved him toward the end of the cavern where the stairs gave on to the audience chamber.
They stood face to face, eyeing each other. “So,” Nastra muttered. “You know.”
Ravon looked at Nastra’s stringy face and stooped shoulders. Her visits with the death hag had eaten away her life force, until all that was left was this pitiful, wasted creature. He spoke in a stunned whisper. “You’re going to unleash the Demon Lords.”
“Not exactly.”
His temper surged, and he pushed her against the stairwell wall. “No? Isn’t the hag’s master a demon lord?”
With surprising strength, Nastra pushed him away. “Nothing can unleash the Demon Lords. They are banished forever.”
Ravon grabbed her arm, this time holding on with a fierce grip. “But they aren’t. They’ve already found a way to unleash themselves. They’ve got you, Nastra, damn you to the Hells.” He twisted her arm behind her back and she winced in pain. “I ought to kill you. The world would thank me for it.”
“Go ahead,” the elf whispered. “See if that stops the forge!”
Brutally, he threw her against the wall and stepped away, unable to execute her as she deserved. Through his contempt, he asked, “Why, Nastra? Why help the bastards?”
She slid down the wall into a crouch. In the gloaming light from the few brightglobes, she looked a bit like a hag herself. “For love.”
He stared at her.
“The high lord of Cannith has my family. He’ll kill them, mother, father, brothers, cousins. Merrix d’Cannith has already slain my sister.” Her voice went very quiet. “Back when I first refused.”
“Nice story. But you’re not that important. Cannith could use any servant base enough, greedy enough, to do his bidding.”
“Dragonmarked,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I’m useful. My aberrant dragonmark. It shields me-just enough-from the powers of Khyber.” She looked blackly up at him. “Even Stonefist can’t survive down here for long. If you’d come much closer, you would understand.”
He watched her carefully for signs of cunning. But oddly, he believed her. She had a gift. A twisted, awful one. And Cannith had tortured her family to be sure she used it.
“I’m sorry,” he heard himself say. And he was, woefully sorry, about the hellish forge, the pact with the demons, and even Nastra’s family. But pity was useless. It was anger that he needed. A righteous anger. He gazed into the smoke-laden cavern, imagining how all of Fernia would be harnessed for a new and bloody war. He felt something small and burning flicker in him, but wearily, he pushed it away.
Leaving Nastra crouched on the stairs, he climbed back to the upper realm. He hardly remembered going up the stairs, passing the hot door and, regaining the fourth level, entering his private cell.
There, on his bed, lay Finner. He was dead. Laid out, his rags smoothed, but not enough to hide the gouts of blood where he’d been struck through with a blade.
Pinned to the halfling’s shirt was a note, almost illegible: We tested sord blade witout yu. Work good! It was signed with a bloody fist.
He knelt by Finner’s side and closed the steward’s bulging eyes. After a moment, his body trembling, Ravon rose to his feet. Rage filled him, flooded his mind, released his shackles. Where had he been these many months? Where had the fight gone, and the old Ravon Kell? He shook his head, as though clearing away a dream. The surge of power in his body, in his heart, told him he was ready now, to fight. All he needed was a sword.
A movement at the door. Nastra stood there. Her gaze went to Finner’s body. “He didn’t deserve that,” she said. To his astonishment, she was holding out her ring of keys.
Ravon strode out the door, snagging the keys as he went by. His steps were long but deliberate as he stalked past the cell blocks, his mind afire. He might not be able to fight Cannith or the demons or the hag, but there was one enemy he meant to settle with, and by Dolurrh, nothing was going to stop him.
When he got to the bowel room, no one was there except a couple of goblins, who backed away from him when they saw the expression on his face. Using the blue key he’d seen Nastra use, he opened the drawer where she’d locked in the sword.
Its weight was solid and lush in his hand. But he had no time to admire the forge’s handiwork. He bellowed out Stonefist’s name. Over the groaning of the forge’s ugly heart, he heard his voice echo. The goblins crouched out of his way as he rushed into the corridor.
“Stonefist,” he bellowed, “you ugly son of a sovereign bitch!”
He roared the gnoll’s name again and again as he stalked down the halls with a warrior’s tread, his footfalls deliberate, balanced, deadly. He knew how to enter battle. He remembered from the old days, which were not so very old, being only six months ago, back when he was Captain Ravon Kell, of his majesty’s army. That Ravon Kell was back.
As he passed the twentieth cell block, a dwarf stood at the entrance. She nodded to him, pointing to the door far down the passage. Ravon understood. The forge master was on the rim. The forge master was out there throwing off slaves.
He flung open the door, letting the first light of day into the gloaming prison.
Stonefist was on the outside rim thirty yards away. Several large orcs kept him company. At the sound of the door opening, Stonefist let go of a human slave, letting him sink into a terrified puddle.
The gnoll turned to face Ravon. “Hah, Captain!” He noted that Ravon was armed. “You like sword, yes?”
“Yes.”
Ravon had not moved from his place near the door.
Stonefist backed up slightly to keep his distance as the rim bore him slowly forward. “You like fight my orcs?”
“When I’m finished with you,” Ravon said, “then I’ll fight the orcs.”
A slow grin crawled across the gnoll’s face. Waving the orcs to stand back, he pulled a great curved blade from his belt, rumbling, “Stonefist finish you.”
Ravon stepped from the doorway onto the inner rim as it moved in Stonefist’s direction. He paced slowly backward, keeping distance from the gnoll as the two rings conspired to bring the combatants together. Between the rings was a furrow that would grind off a misplaced foot.
At the top of the forge a few artificers had emerged from the keep to look on.
Ravon hoped they would allow the fight to proceed. To fall from an artificer’s bolt of power was the eighteenth way to die, and not unmanly, but not the noble end of hand-to-hand combat with an enemy like Stonefist. He stepped over the gap between the rims.
The outer rim was as broad as two gnolls lying end to end, but still there was little room to maneuver.
Ravon found his balance, feeling the sword in his hand like a magical extension of his arm. “The Demon Lords will teach you to lick their boots, Stonefist. Maybe you’re too dumb to know that.”
Stonefist grinned wolfishly. “Death hag and demon lord work for Stonefist! They open pipe to the fire. After pipe open”-he spread his arms wide-“it stay open. Nothing can close it, so artificers say. We no need hag or demon, then.”
A double cross. Impressive, Ravon had to admit.
The forge master went on. “Stonefist invite hag up to rims and shove her in.” Grinning, he pointed to the lethal gap. Then, raising his curved blade, he beckoned with a long arm. “Come to Stonefist.”
Ravon didn’t meet his opponent’s eyes. In the stories, you boldly held the enemy’s gaze, but in a fight you watched his chest for the first sign of movement, to gain a split second advantage.