Ravon noted a different group standing on one side of the dense forest. A large group of soldiers with their pack beasts also stared at the thundering, shuddering forge.
In their midst stood a lord, by his dress-a regal figure with dark hair and a chain of office around his neck. The expression on his face was one Ravon would never forget.
“Merrix d’Cannith,” a voice spoke at his side. He couldn’t see anyone. But it was Nastra’s voice. “He came to see the forge open. Not fall to ruin.”
“Hate to see him disappointed,” Ravon murmured. The ground shook violently, as one side of the forge collapsed in a deafening crash.
Nastra went on. “I can extend my cloak around you. Perhaps invisible is best under the circumstances?”
Ravon saw that a large orc was making his way toward him. “If you wouldn’t mind, lady elf.”
“Not that I care about you,” she said. “Never think that.”
The orc began to lope in his direction.
“Of course not. But we might fight our way to the coast. In case of drow. Orcs. Other riffraff. Two swords are better than one.”
“Indeed,” Nastra allowed.
In a swirl, the orc grew fuzzy to Ravon’s eyes. The orc spun around, searching for his vanished prey. After a moment it stalked off.
Ravon felt Nastra bend an arm behind and slowly draw a sword from its sheath. She pressed its hilt into his hand.
The air split with a gargled roar. As they watched in frozen wonder, the top of the forge blew off in a gout of fire and iron. The sound engulfed the world. It was an angry blast from Fernia-but not to enliven the genesis forge, not in a controlled pipe. An eruption, sent by the minions of a demon lord to wreak death on his betrayers.
Baron d’Cannith beat a hasty retreat into the jungle as pieces of flaming iron, molten rivets, and doors red as newly poured ingots fell from the sky.
After the blast, nothing remained but a crater where the genesis forge had been. The jungle was set alight in places, but the eruption was done.
Ravon and Nastra turned and ran from the burning clearing. He let her lead the way, admiring her speed.
Catching up to her at last, he said, “We’ll find your family. When we get to Khorvaire, we’ll find them.”
A quick glance at him. “Not that you care.”
He shrugged. “Not in the least. But I figure I owe you.”
She smiled. “A promise, then.”
“Call it that.”
They plunged deep into the jungle of Xen’drik, watchful for orcs, drow, stray goblins, Cannith’s men, and a score of other enemies. It was a world Ravon Kell remembered well. It was good to be back.
ARENA OF SHADOWS
A TALE OF EBERRON
Kalev Shadowfall was having a bad night.
It had started out well enough. Gaining entrance to Duke Arisor’s palace had proven trivial. This was peaceful, ordered Fairhaven, after all. The duke trusted the queen’s law and the governor’s vigilance. Kalev only needed to bribe one guard to leave one gate in the outer wall open. After that, he had scaled the palace’s ivy-covered wall so swiftly not even the nesting sparrows stirred. The laughter and music from the grand reception in the ballroom covered any stray sounds he made, and the hired patrol tromping through the gardens had completely failed to look up to see the extra shadow moving across the stones. Duke Arisor had become too cavalier about his own safety of late. He was not the first of Fairhaven’s prosperous citizens to assume that because the city was well-ordered, it was essentially safe. It was but one of his mistakes.
Another was selling information too sensitive to be allowed out of the capitol.
A few drops of oil and a thin blade had popped the next-to-useless lock on the study’s window. Velvet draperies blocked off the sight of Kalev slipping down from the sill.
Kalev remembered thinking it was too easy as he stepped lightly down, not even rippling the drapes. He remembered wishing for a little challenge to add zest to the evening.
He also remembered thinking, Be careful what you wish for.
Because when Kalev peered between the drapes to make sure the study was empty, he saw a sprawling wreck of overturned furnishings and scattered papers surrounding the mutilated remains of a man dressed in emerald silk lying facedown in a large pool of blood.
Kalev swallowed his shock and made himself wait for a slow count of one hundred. No movement disturbed the gory scene. Kalev crept into the darkened room and crouched beside the man to ascertain that he was in fact as dead as he looked. That didn’t take long. The back of the corpse’s scalp was torn open, exposing the bloody skull beneath. The neck and shoulders had been shredded, leaving strips of flesh and silk dangling across the floor. The man’s arms were broken. The smell of fresh slaughter coated the inside of Kalev’s nostrils and left its sick, sweet taint on the back of his throat.
Kalev reached out and prodded the stiffening hands, checking the rings until he found the one he was looking for: the sigil of peridot and onyx that belonged to Duke Arisor.
Snickt.
Kalev spun to face the door, drawing his right-hand dagger from his sash, and found himself face to face with a dark-haired, bejeweled woman wearing a formal gown of topaz silk.
Her startling violet eyes darted from Kalev to the dead duke, the ransacked study, and to Kalev again.
The woman opened her mouth. Kalev crouched, ready to spring across the corpse and muffle her scream.
“Blast!” she exclaimed.
The woman shoved the door shut and strode into the chaos, kicking up papers around her ankles. Kalev, for one of the few times in his life, found himself startled past the ability to move.
The woman went straight to a massive bookshelf that, like the unfortunate Duke Arisor, lay toppled on its face. She dug her fingers underneath its edge and strained.
“Help me!” she snapped.
Kalev blinked. “Aren’t you concerned I might be the murderer?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “If you’d done that”-she jerked her chin toward the duke’s gruesome remains-“you’d be covered in blood. You’re not. If you were one of that lot downstairs, I’d’ve noticed you.” She looked Kalev pointedly up and down. His long black coat, black breeches, black tunic, gloves, and boots would indeed have stood out sharply in the ballroom. “And you’d’ve summoned the guard. You haven’t. So, you’re probably here to steal, which doesn’t bother me, as long as we’re not after the same thing.”
“Admirably practical.” Kalev bowed his head. She was wrong about his reason for being there, but there was no immediate need to point that out. Kalev stowed his dagger, stepped lightly to the other side of the shelf, and crouched down.
“On three, then,” he said. “One, two, three.”
A blur of midnight dropped down between them.
Kalev fell back, rolled over his shoulder, and came up on his feet, his dagger in his hand once more and a flush on his face for failing to look up in time like some lazy guard.
A stinking, humanish creature dressed in rags sewn with bones landed beside the duke’s corpse. One hand brandished a notched short sword, the other clutched what looked like a golden statue of a cyclops. It bellowed wordlessly, revealing a mouth full of black teeth.
Skulk! Kalev leaped backward.
“Grab it!” shouted the woman.
“What?” cried Kalev, his voice embarrassingly shrill.
The woman snatched up a broken chair to swing at the skulk’s head. The skulk ducked, howled, and raised its blade.
Then it jerked around and jumped head-first out the window.
The woman dived after it, arms outstretched. She missed by bare inches and sprawled full-length on the floor, sending up a flurry of papers.
A heartbeat later, shouts rose through the open window. Kalev shoved the curtains open and looked down at the crowd of guards gathered below. Some hared off into the darkness, presumably on the trail of the skulk, which had already vanished. The rest stayed put, probably waiting for orders.