Stardeep

CHAPTER TEN

Aglarond, Yuirwood Forest

Magnificent yellow pines crowded the edge of the Yuirwood. Their short, forked branches drooped under a burden of snow, instead of turning up like drakes' tails as they did during the summer. The spirelike tops created a jagged canopy above, though from the understory, all that was visible were naked branches ending in tufts of green needles. The cones were savagely spiked, curved like a bee's stinger to catch the unwary.

At ground level, melting snow mixed with the fine detritus of the forest floor, absorbing most of the runoff, but creating occasional muddy sinkholes. Kiril discovered one by stepping directly into it. She muttered a clipped stream of invectives as cold water doused her foot. Not for the first time that day.

Her heavy furs had gone from cozy and comforting in the morning chill to heavy and stifling as the day advanced. Though direct sunlight rarely touched them beneath the pine ceiling, her reckless pace contributed to what seemed an unseasonably warm morning.

Ahead, the crystal dragonet flitted from branch to branch.

Shafts of sunlight sometimes transfixed the creature, making Xet's translucent carapace glow as if afire.

Kiril was suddenly reminded of the time she'd first met the creature. After fleeing Stardeep, she lost herself amid lonely mesas in the southeast. Too much a coward to end her own life, she eked out a living trapping dune rats, working as a bodyguard, and drinking herself into oblivion each night. Eventually, she found a dwarf hermit whose heart craved solitude as much as hers, though for different reasons. Xet had been his lone companion. The recluse, a geomancer named Thormud, recognized her as a potent warrior despite her wasted life. He hired her as his lone bodyguard.

Defending Thormud, she'd rarely drawn the Blade Cerulean. That was a good decade, or as good as she could have hoped for. Alcohol fully claimed her, but she found refuge in a surly attitude and foul language.

As it always did, the world intruded. Kiril accompanied the geomancer on his last escapade, into the Desert of Desolation. Thormud followed a trace of evil infecting the earth. She and the geomancer, and a few others met along the way, cleansed that infection; an Imaskaran war relic was kept safely inactive.

That triumph had awakened something in her. It was the first truly good thing she'd accomplished since her personal downfall. Her victory, the sense she'd achieved something noble, instilled in her a seed of hope.

Hope made people act funny.

She decided she would return to Aglarond, perhaps even to Stardeep, or at least to the hidden realm of Sild?yuir where her people dwelt. She said her good-byes to the geomancer. He gave her a gift-his tiny crystalline dragonet named Xet. Xet bore the shape of a dragon, but he lacked the size and courage to match.

Kiril accepted the gift with her typical lack of grace and then departed, Xet flitting and chiming in her wake.

She headed northwest, toward Aglarond. The dragonet kept her company on the long trek, she had to admit. But as she approached her homeland, dread and shame reemerged, and the memory of her recent success faded.

Hope proved too hard to hold. Habits cultivated over a decade toppled hope's facade.

Almost at the border of the great Yuirwood, she paused in Laothkund. A few days became a few tendays, then a few months. She lost her conviction. She foundered.

Until now.

A ray of sunlight briefly flashed from one of Xet's facets directly into her eyes, startling her out of her reverie. She excoriated the brittle-brained creature. Not that the dragonet cared. Xet seemed determined to remain with her.

Like Gage.

Behind Kiril, the man doggedly brought up the rear. She'd discouraged him, called him terrible names, and even left without telling him. But the clinging bastard discovered her plan and joined her. Her protestations didn't move him except to produce a smile, which only infuriated her. He said he wanted to help.

Right, that's what motivated all thieves, and she knew Gage well enough to know his profession. Still… he had returned the sword-a selfless act accomplished at some personal cost. Gage didn't speak of it, but she sometimes caught him looking at his left hand-it had once borne a dark gauntlet nearly twin to the one on his right. Yet he stayed with her, even now. While she didn't want to dismiss Gage's offer of aid outright, Kiril guessed he merely craved excitement. Hadn't the thrill of danger been the lure and glue that so often drew them both together in the taverns of Laothkund?

Though a companion on the trail wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Kiril snorted. After being so disagreeable when she first realized he followed, admitting she was glad to have his company was the last thing her ego would allow. But it was true. In a very real way, she doubted she would've made it as far as the edge of Laothkund, let alone to the border of the Yuirwood without him. Last night, as heavy clouds stole away the day's remaining light and snow began to fall, they pitched their tents beneath the outer eaves. This morning, they moved northwest through yellow pines, toward the Causeway.

The image of Nangulis, as he had been before his self-sacrifice, bloomed fully realized into her consciousness, instantly becoming the sole focus of her attention. Not for the first time.

Nangulis! Tall, silver haired, with dark eyes of mystery that never failed to enthrall Kiril even after the years they had spent together. Was he returned to life and body? Could any possibility explain such a resurrection? No, she knew it was impossible! Kiril carried a sliver of Nangulis's soul with her even now. But yet. .

Gage had heard her dead lover's name from Sathra's lips. A name displaced in time and forgotten. It could not be active and involved in the theft of the sword imprinted with a life lost. .

Each notion she entertained that might explain such a possibility seemed more ludicrous than the previous. Impossibility heaped upon ridiculousness, until she felt she would go mad.

She groped for her flask and took a drink that temporarily numbed her racing thoughts.

The answers to all her questions lay in Stardeep.

She didn't dare hope those answers might fall from the lips of Nangulis himself. As she pressed him in her arms. She didn't dare imagine that scene, but once entertained, she couldn't scrub away her soul's fondest wish.

Some time later, Kiril paused in her breakneck rush through the forest. Her furs were too damn hot for one moment longer, even in the canopy's shadow. She was tempted to fling off her cold-weather clothing and keep going. But she would need the furs again at night. Which meant she would have to carefully pack them. She growled. Repacking supplies was finicky work, just the sort she hated. But it was now or never, otherwise she would broil.

To her left, Kiril spied a fallen tree-broad, unrotted, and most importantly, free of snow. She removed the heavy pack and balanced it on the log, then shrugged out of her coat.

From behind, Gage called, "Splendid! I could use a break, too." He joined Kiril and threw himself down on the log next to her pack. She noticed with some irritation he had already removed his coat, hood, and single fur glove. Removed and stowed them in his bulky pack while walking behind her, without raising a sweat. She narrowed her eyes, but didn't give him the satisfaction of commenting on his feat.

As she undid the knots securing her pack, Xet lit suddenly on her shoulder, pinching her flesh with its crystal-hard claws.

"Damn it, I told you to warn me before you do that!"

Xet pealed a strangely familiar tone. . when had she last heard it? An image of the dark halls of an Imaskaran ruin to the southeast came to her, with Xet's cry echoing on stone. In that dark tower she had wielded Angul against creatures that deserved the Blade Cerulean's righteous bite …

Xet was sounding a warning.

"Gage-"

He turned to regard her, and the black-fletched arrow only tagged his shoulder instead of finding his heart. He grimaced, flipping backward off the log. He landed on his back behind the fallen tree.

Xet flew up as Kiril spun around. She stared into the thickets of wavering daylight. The dark trunks of pines multiplied in all directions in numbers beyond counting. Where was the archer? There. .

A pulse of dimness, like nights clasp when the sun dipped below the horizon, oozed from every shadow. But darker yet, a squirming ball of gloom bounded across the forest floor, ricocheting between the unmoving pine boles.. . aimed right at her. Kiril dropped and the shadowy missile struck the log. A burst of fire with flames the color of coal arced in all directions. Kiril cried out in relief, until she spied several more shadows racing toward her.

"Blood!" she swore, rolling to her feet.

From behind the log, she heard Gage mutter, "Sathra! Why would she. .?"

Her head jerked around. Too bad-no time to ask the thief how Sathra could be attacking if she were dead, as he had told her in Laothkund. If they both survived, she would skin the truth out of him.

The racing shadows resolved into humanoid silhouettes, each merely a dark outline cast on reality.

Kiril drew Angul.

Truth's clarity burned away the darkness all around her. searing her consciousness in the bargain. Doubts, worries, and pains of mind and body were cauterized in the absolute conviction of Angul's steel. The Blade Cerulean flamed triumphantly in her welcoming grip, its star blue fire belling out and banishing shadows in every direction.

The three silhouettes resolved into charging men wielding daggers and slender swords. She held back Angul's sure retributive strike; she retained hold of her mind by the barest of threads, enough to ask the sword, "Nangulis? Are you in there?"

The blade answered only by wrenching itself around in her grip, shearing off the crown of the man who charged her. Certainty of purpose beat up from the blade through her skin as it always had, like heat. Whether or not Nangulis walked again, Angul remained as he always had been: judge, jury, and executioner of what he knew to be right.

A dagger sprouted in the throat of a second attacker. He burbled and fell at her feet. Gage was flinging daggers from behind the log. The last attacker was turning, an expression of uncertainty breaking to fear, even as she strode forward and swept Angul through him from neck to navel.

From nowhere, the air cracked, louder than anything she'd ever heard.

The breath was drawn from Kiril's lungs, and Gage fell to one knee, gasping. Halos of shadow spun around both of them, off kilter and wobbling like a swarm of ethereal wagon wheels. A voice, far-off and airy, was audible over the ringing in Kiril's ears. An arcane voice. A voice in the midst of calling down more destruction.

She leaped just as the air convulsed again, even louder. She landed face-first in muddy snow, but her legs churned for purchase and her left hand groped for Angul's hilt. The blade pulled her to her feet despite the absolute silence that had descended. Blood seeped from her ears. The sword did not comprehend failure. The weakness of her flesh was something he would not tolerate.

Ahead, a clearing in the woods surrounded a bare hillock, mostly free of the night's snow. Upon the bald hill's crown was a woman. She was sheathed in black fabric and obsidian jewelry that pierced ears, nose, and eyebrows. Even in the full light of day, shadows curled and scampered around her like negative flames in a stiff wind. The darkness whispered, but the words were too faint for Kiril to make out.

The woman gestured to Kiril, inviting her into the open. Kiril accepted the challenge.

Gage saw Sathra of the Shadow Tongue appear on the bald hill. "Queen of Air, why doesn't she give it up?"

The crime lord of Laothkund apparently valued a prize as potent as the Blade Cerulean too much to allow it to slip away. Gage could understand that. But he wouldn't have guessed the woman would track them into the wilderness.

"Bitch of Dark Corners!" he hissed when he saw Kiril charge toward the slope. He'd told Kiril he'd already dispatched the crime lord. . now she'd know he'd lied.

A branch snapped, then two more. Something lacking grace lumbered through the trees, heading directly for him.

He was running low on blades! Gage pulled a throwing knife from the felled attacker lying across the log, simultaneously drawing a dagger. He tensed, seeing a dark figure moving closer through the trees.

It was … a man sustained by shadow. Not a man hiding in shadow, like the three who'd first attacked. No, this one was dead, but animated by tendrils of darkness that clawed and writhed across his body. It was someone he'd met before.

Stolsin, Grinder of Tribes. The Rashemi barbarian he'd killed in Sathra's lair. Back from the dead with a little push from Sathra's necromancy. The barbarian carried his maul, but dusk dripped from the gray stone cudgel as if it were dipped in ink. The tattoos scrawled across the man's flesh now writhed and twisted, as if ready to animate with tiny, nasty lives all their own.

Gage flipped the dagger, grasped it by the blade, and threw. His aim was true. The blade punched straight into Stolsin's left eye.

The beshadowed barbarian opened his mouth to yell or scream, but all that emerged was dripping night. He didn't cease his relentless march across the forest floor.

The thief jumped up onto the log, then ran along it to the great root ball that had come free when the tree crashed over in whatever wind or rain had ended its days.

Stolsin the Reanimated altered his trajectory like a lode-stone. He moved unerringly toward Gage. The thief grimaced with sudden realization; Sathra had used Stolsin's death to track him into the Yuirwood. When one person kills another, a terrible linkage forms-a linkage a skilled necromancer can follow. Finding him meant finding Kiril, and the sword Sathra apparently desired above all else.

On the other hand, all Stolsin sought was vengeance.

Gage transferred his dagger from gloved hand to bare.

"Today our linkage doubles, Stolsin, because I'm going to kill you again!" His demon gauntlet would win the day and defeat the walking corpse. He hoped. Although he did carry a few vials of alchemical acid particularly good at disrupting leather. .

A dark pulse on the hill caught Gage's attention-black lightning from clear skies smote Kiril, once, twice, then again. The elf was hurled down the slope, a net of gibbering shadow entangling her thrashing limbs.

Stolsin swung his maul while Gage was distracted. Gage slipped back, but the blow caught him on the left shoulder. Agony seized his arm and the dagger dropped from his nerveless hand.

Gage lunged forward with his right hand, the demonic mouth on his gauntleted palm gaping. The revivified corpse backstepped, avoiding the slap. Gage overreached and stumbled to one knee. The maul whistled down, catching the thief on his left leg as he tried to roll clear.

Then he was back on his feet. He winced when he tried to put weight on the left leg. He had retrieved his short blade, this time firmly held in his gauntlet. The demon mumbled curses around the hilt. Gage ignored the vile suggestions.

His foe stood a good chance of flattening him with the maul if Gage moved inside its reach. It would be less risky if his left hand could properly grasp the dagger, but until feeling returned to it, he had to hold the blade right-handed to stay outside Stolsin's sweep. To bring his gauntlet to bear against Stolsin, he'd have to do so from a distance.

The reanimated barbarian groaned something, its swollen and dry tongue rasping ineffectually within its gaping mouth. Indecipherable.

"You have seen better days, my friend," Gage observed, wondering if he could bait a creature whose brain was probably maggot food. More inscrutable groans and grunts followed, with a swipe from the maul that nearly removed the thief's head.

Gage leaped up onto the log, then off again before the maul splintered down. The log broke into two pieces under the mighty blow.

When he'd defeated Stolsin last time, he'd been wielding Angul.

A slender thread of worry burrowed up to pierce Gage's confidence. The thing had already tagged him twice unanswered, and was forcing him to flee with an unholy energy born beyond the grave.

Another shuddering of the light behind the walking corpse let him know Kiril remained in the fight. Whether succeeding or failing, he didn't divide his attention to ascertain. Stolsin battered the log a few times with its maul, but even its damped brain recognized that smashing through the obstruction, as satisfying as such destruction might be, paled before the opportunity to pulp the thief. The creature made an awkward jump onto the log, crudely aping Gage's agile leap.

Gage swung his dagger in a wide arc, encountering resistance mid-swing. Stolsin's foot and lower calf parted from the rest of its body. The undead crashed sidewise onto the log, groaning as it impacted. It rolled off the other side.

Gage grinned and looked over to see where the monster had landed. The maul caught him on the side of the head.

Whispered exhortations sheathed in gloom poured from Sathra's outstretched fingers and enveloped Kiril and her blade. Within the midnight embrace, cold prickled Kiril's skin from a hundred wraithlike hands, growing from merely unpleasant to life-sucking agony in moments. The elf screamed. Where in the Hells was Angul's balm? Didn't she yet hold the blade? His flame was hardly visible in this tumbling dark, but his presence yet touched her consciousness.

"Help me, damn your blunt edges!"

The blade, dulled and cold, trembled at her words. Strength continued to pour from her exposed skin into the murmuring clutch of dead shades. Why wasn't he helping her?

"I'm dying, you rusted reject from a halfling's smithy! I-"

The sword trembled again, as if straining. . then ignited with cerulean incandescence. He pulled power from a source that had always seemed inexhaustible. Whether that strength had its origin within Angul himself, or in some external font of moral power, Kiril had never before wondered. The sword was always equal to every task, capable of keeping its wielder alive no matter the threat.

Was Sathra's power of shadow inimical to Angul, or was he, after all these years, drawing to the end of his enchanted lifespan?

Angul's certainty sought to whelm in her once more, becoming the balm she'd fought to hold herself aloof from during the last decade. Her newfound doubt about the weapon's longevity transformed her usual sentiment of dread to relief. The blade was still up to its old tricks. She wanted-

No, she needed to ask Sathra about Nangulis! But that desire was washed away in Angul's all-encompassing belief that nothing he-and by extension his wielder-did required explanation.

The necromancer's shadowy influence burned away in blue celestial fire, revealing the light of day and a surprised-looking Sathra. Kiril stood up where the necromancer's last blast had flung her. She intoned Angul's words. "Suffer not abomination, nor she who gives up her soul to evil."

Kiril sprinted back up the slope, her sword's fire pumping her limbs with boundless energy.

Sathra spoke anew, her voice a series of unfathomable vocalizations that smoked into reality, her hands frantically waving in rhythm with the foul syllables. Kiril recognized enough spellcasting to identify the cadence of a magical escape.

Sathra wasn't quick enough.

The career of the most-feared crime lord of Laothkund ended in the snowy eaves of the Yuirwood.

An interminable sea of discomfort slowly focused, finally shrinking to the size of his skull. Dull throbs, the stings of scrapes and cuts, and three sharp pinches told him the position of his body; he lay in a splayed posture, facedown on a hard surface. He tasted dirt and bark in his mouth.

He yet lived! Gage throttled his first instinct to groan. Better not to reveal that life hadn't fully departed if enemies lurked nearby. He opened one eye the merest slit to reconnoiter the situation.

Stolsin lay not far from him, cut into three or four bloodless pieces. Closer stood Kiril, tending a small fire. Her pet construct perched on her shoulder. He sucked in his breath when he recalled his last few conscious moments. The elf's head turned. She gazed at him, one eyebrow going up in speculation. She said, "You awake?"

Gage considered. Better not to dissemble, just in case. He let out a loud groan and let his eyes flutter open. When the pain redoubled, he realized he wouldn't have to put up much of an act.

"What happened? That damn walking corpse clipped me with his hammer. Last thing I remember." He levered himself up so his back was supported by a log. A very familiar log. A log much the worse for wear. He'd be happy to see the last of it.

"I'll tell you what happened. A whore came out of nowhere and tried to kill me-which is pretty flecking odd since you told me Sathra was dead!" Kiril moved until she stood a foot from Gage, her eyes narrowed and wild. Xet flew up from her shoulder, chiming a rebuke at her sudden movement.

The thief held up his left hand. "Hold on! You think I lied to you? I thought Sathra was dead-I left her as good as. How could I know someone would pull her out of the sewer and fix her up?" It was as compelling a scenario as he could invent on the spot. He was good at it, but would the enraged elf buy his story? More importantly. .

"Did you ask her the questions you wanted, Kiril?" Gage asked, anxiety straining his faked credulity. "Did you ask about Nangulis?"

The elf clenched both her fists, neither of which, luckily, was wrapped around her sword. She yelled, "Blood, no!" and slammed a fist down on the log next to Gage. He winced despite himself.

The swordswoman took a deep breath, visibly getting hold of herself. She continued. "No, she came upon me too strong. The only way I could stand against her was to kill her. That, and Angul got the better of me."

"Yeah," agreed Gage, "I know how that goes." He watched her clench her fists and eyes, her mouth a tight line, as she decided to believe his story. He relaxed fractionally.

The fact was, he was having second thoughts about his involvement. How could he have known, when he agreed to steal the blade, that Angul was far more than a simple piece of enchanted steel? How could he have known the sword was Kiril's entire reason for living?

Gage had committed petty larceny, and not-so-petty larceny, from the vaults of the fabulously rich and probably crooked. He had killed, but only those whose hands were stained with years of evil-he'd never knowingly cut the life from an innocent. By his own lights, he was a moral person, one whose skills allowed him to tread the edges of the law, but one whose actions, in the balance, wouldn't endanger his soul's final destination.

He didn't spend all his money on whores and hounds, as did some of his companions, nor did he use his strengths to take advantage of the weak and credulous.

In short, Gage didn't think of himself as a bad guy. Which was an image he found increasingly under siege as he continued supporting the facade he'd created to interact with Kiril…

He shivered and put the unpleasant topic from his mind. He'd deal with the ramifications of his actions soon enough. Not a strategy most people would recommend for success, but one that had served him well enough in the past. Him, but rarely those around him.

"So, what now?" he ventured.

"Now we get you fixed up and continue to Stardeep. We're not far from the Causeway. I'll have my answers soon."

Gage almost told her the truth then. Instead, he nodded and said, "First, let me collect my daggers. Wouldn't want to run low later."