The Black Talon

XXIII

The signet did not protect him completely. Golgren had brutally discovered that reality. Yet the signet had kept him from severe harm when the one bolt had struck him-no small miracle in itself. The ogre had been shocked and tossed about, and his right shoulder still felt painful and numb, but he lived.

How much longer that would be the case was difficult to say.

He held up the ring and wished for some sort of all-encompassing shield, but in fact there was a new barrage of bolts, none of the bolts coming as close as that first one, thankfully.

Yet he couldn’t stand awaiting the inevitable. Again he shouted, personally addressing the leader of the Titans. “Come, Dauroth! I spit upon your efforts! Never will I kneel to you! Come!”

The air was inundated with dust. Golgren’s pronouncement ended in an unimpressive hacking cough. His lungs felt as if they were filled with acid. He pressed his hand against his chest, shoving aside the mummified appendage that somehow still hung around his neck.

His fingers grazed the cursed vial. Its uselessness bothered him even more than the fact it was sealed to his flesh.

Then his harried thoughts flitted to a face, an elf face.

The face was not that of Idaria, but of a female who, although no older than the slave, looked as though she had lived twice as long. Weathered lines that should have never graced such a delicate face had run rampant over his mother’s visage. Despite everything that she had suffered, her eyes spoke of life and energy. She had stayed alive rather than kill herself because of her child, the misfit half-breed she had been forced to bring into the world and yet had loved more than herself.

The image in his mind lasted but a second, yet it filled him with not only a deep longing and regret, but also a rage that reminded him of what he was and what he sought to achieve.

His hand drifted to the ancient dagger, gripping it tightly. It had been meant for another deed, but better to end his life and gain a small satisfaction that Dauroth would be annoyed.

He brought the point up to his throat.

A new, far more intense tremor ripped through his surroundings. The shining dagger fell from his grasp, tumbling among the rocks. Golgren let out a frantic cry, and the lord of Kern and Blode snatched at the weapon. His mother’s face and the struggle with the ji-baraki in the old temple momentarily overwhelmed him. The dagger had become, in his eyes, a gift from his mother’s spirit, always to remind Golgren of her and of how she had helped him to survive after her own death.

To lose it recalled to him how he had lost her.

As the tremor increased in magnitude, Golgren pushed back the memories and tried to focus. He found no hope, though. Destruction lay everywhere. The ogre glanced around at what would soon become his grave, aware there would not be enough scraps for anyone to bury or burn should his former subjects decide it was even worth their trouble. More likely, whoever found him would strip whatever of value remained then spit upon his ruined body. That was the fate for a failed leader.

Then, as he looked off to one side, Golgren beheld two tiny figures. One was the Solamnic knight, Sir Stefan Rennert, who appeared either unconscious or, more likely, dead. The armored fighter lay sprawled on his back across a small outcropping.

Idaria stood over the man, her left hand on his shoulder, trying to pull him up to safety with her other arm. Yet the elf’s gaze was not on her companion, but fixed on Golgren.

The grand lord tore his eyes from her. It was bad enough he had to die, but to have the elf slave as his final witness …

The chain that held his withered hand seemed to be suffocating him. Swearing, Golgren nearly tore off the lost appendage as he loosened the chain. Again his fingers touched the vial that Dauroth had insisted was of no danger to him. In his desperation, the grand lord wondered: Was there a chance?

Had the Titan lied?

A bolt rocketed down. It tore up the soil just ahead of him. A new torrent of rock and dirt assailed Golgren as he fell back.

He slammed his fist against the vial.

It did not break. Worse, the heavens exploded, and the ground churned as if it had turned liquid. Golgren had only a moment to note that it all took place in his immediate vicinity and nowhere else. Dauroth wanted him and only him, and it looked as if he might be successful.

Golgren was lost.

And yet some mysterious force still protected him, or else the first moment of the new upheaval would have seen him crushed under tons of stone. However, that protection was weak, and was weakening further. It would not last long.

Again his harried thoughts returned to the vial. Golgren could not explain why, but he felt certain that it was his best hope. Unfortunately, he could not seem to pry it loose.

Wrapping his maimed arm around a jutting piece of rock, the grand lord rubbed the side of his scarred and bleeding face with his hand, trying to think even as he fought to keep his balance with the ground shifting beneath him. Another bolt struck, barely missing him. He felt a sharp pain across his face. Adding insult to injury, he had added to his multitude of wounds by somehow cutting himself. As the blood trickled down his face, Golgren saw why. The edge of the signet had scraped against his skin. Some blood even splashed across the signet.

And suddenly the symbols flared a fiery orange again.

That orange glow was reflected in his widening eyes. Teeth bared in a fatalistic grin, Golgren twisted his hand around so the ring faced inward, toward himself and the vial.

“Perhaps we go together yet, eh, Dauroth?” the grand lord hissed. “That would not be so bad an end, then, for me.”

It was a final, crazy notion, yet just as when Golgren had figured out how to wield Tyranos’s staff against the skeletal meredrake, it seemed the right-the only-thing to do.

As hard as he could, Golgren smashed the bloody signet into the vial. He heard the tinkle of breaking glass, and suddenly he felt as though all the air had been ripped from his lungs. Golgren cursed his naivete, cursed having failed so utterly.

The ground rushed up at him from all sides. The sky vanished under a hail of earth.

Dauroth gasped.

He had lost control of the spell; the quake had lessened, and the lightning ceased altogether. The other Titans darted glances his way, but he ignored them, allowing only Safrag, through his deeper connection, to understand even the least bit of what was happening. The apprentice wisely kept silent.

But the pain did not pass as he might have wished. Rather, it grew and swelled. The immense effort had finally begun to take its toll on him. He had to finish it. Then, while the others awaited him there, he would go to his sanctum and be the first to imbibe again from the dwindling supply of elixir.

Yes, that was what was left to do; in spite of the pain, he had to finish Golgren. The rest would fall into place.

Fighting to concentrate, Dauroth located Golgren. A final thrust of magical power, and the grand lord would be no more than a blot of red on the ruined landscape.

Just a final thrust-

His entire body suddenly flinched, feeling as if on fire. Dauroth could not hold back a roar of agony. The pain was everywhere; it was inside him and surrounding him. Only his incredible willpower kept everything from falling apart.

Kallel made things worse by interrupting his struggling thoughts. “Great Dauroth! You must stop! This is taking from you too much-”

“Taking from you. Is that not what you mean?” countered Safrag emphatically. “The master is not so weak of will as you! His strength of mind is more powerful than anything!”

Safrag’s declaration pushed Dauroth to try and overcome his agony. It must pass. Surely it would pass.

Dauroth screamed as his body was wracked with worse pain. He felt as though he were being torn apart. He felt … only pain.

And in that moment, clarity came to him. He understood the cause of his struggles. The vial was not powerful enough to hurt him! The minotaur priestess’s spell work was inadequate! Dauroth had tested the vial several times and proved that he was immune. Her enchantment had been too weak. At the most, it should have caused him a mere twinge, not the abject horror he was experiencing.

Yet … what other explanation was there?

The signet! The ancient signet that somehow had found its way to Golgren. The mongrel must have learned how to use the signet to amplify the enchantment on the vial, actually make the Uruv Suurt priestess’s spell function as originally intended.

But Golgren was no master of High Ogre artifacts and magic. It would take a true scholar of the arts, such as a Titan, to make it function properly.

And not just any Titan … such knowledge, such casting of spells, required a member who belonged to Dauroth’s inner circle.

The Black Talon.

And with that realization, he turned his torturous gaze upon those standing with him, his eyes focusing first and foremost upon Kallel. Kallel, who had protested ever Dauroth’s demand upon the rest for power, who constantly worried about whether there was enough elixir or whether the other sources they had gathered would ever be enough to replace the blood of elves. Kallel … Kallel … the name played over and over in his head, in condemning fashion. Dauroth’s skull pounded.

“Betrayer!” he shouted at last, the shocking denunciation fortified by the torture Dauroth was undergoing. “Betrayer!”

Taken aback, the rest of the Black Talon broke from the pattern, not caring that in doing so they shattered the spell. Kallel, gaping, sought to hide among his comrades. However, they shoved him away, leaving him to face the master alone.

Something had begun to gnaw at Dauroth, a terrible gnawing that grew with each labored breath. “Betrayer!” he managed to gasp again. One hand twisted into a fist. He felt Safrag strengthen him for what he was about to do. “Kallel, you are condemned!”

“Nay, great one! I know not even what you speak of! I did nothing!” Kallel’s eyes were bright with fear. “Nay! Do not-”

“You are an Abomination to me.”

Kallel howled. His body seemed to lose all solidity, as if his bones had turned to butter. His blue skin paled, turning a foul, decaying green. Hideous boils erupted all over his body. Kallel’s face distorted, the eyes seeming to slide to random positions. His mouth deformed. A stench arose from him, one of corruption. His limbs twisted into tentacles.

His own insides twisting, Dauroth let out a sharp cry of his own. With a commanding gesture, he cast the transforming Kallel from the sight of the rest of the Black Talon, sending him to that remote place to which all Abominations were condemned.

At the same time, Dauroth felt Safrag sever the link between master and apprentice.

“Safrag!” The elder Titan spoke in a grating voice, startled by the development. Safrag he counted on as his key to survival. “Safrag! Attend me! Attend me now!”

But his apprentice, staring stonily, merely shook his head. “There is nothing I can do for you, my master.”

The gnawing sensation had been moving up Dauroth’s body, yet he retained enough presence of mind to cast a keen glance at Safrag, and at last he understood. For one of the very few times in his existence, Dauroth knew he had been played for the fool.

Kallel had not been the culprit. Safrag had merely fostered that idea in his master’s mind, just as he had fed so much distrust of Hundjal before, Dauroth realized.

“Safrag! You-”

But it was too late to punish the traitor. The curse upon the vial’s contents took its final toll. It was as if someone were peeling Dauroth apart from the inside. His chest folded open-his ribs, organs, and beating heart were momentarily revealed, to the horror of the others-and from inside of him burst a green-tinged energy that further ate away at the Titan.

In the end, it was not hatred for Golgren or anger over the betrayal by one of his own that was Dauroth’s last thought; rather it was the long-held dream. He beheld the ancient spirit from his first vision, then the golden city from the more recent. The city stretched out before him, the gates open and inviting. The gleaming figure was there too, and at first Dauroth believed he beckoned the spellcaster toward those gates.

But then the guardian transformed into the robed spirit. The beautiful male/female shook its head in sorrow. It waved a slim hand, and the gates shut tight.

You have failed to earn it, the guardian sang. You have failed…

As the rest of the Black Talon watched, Dauroth reached a shaking hand toward empty air, and the last of him was peeled away until nothing remained but dissipating wisps of smoke.

In Garantha, the quake came to such an abrupt halt that nobody could question its supernatural origins. The remaining towers, still teetering, very quickly stilled. Dust drifted over everything, so thick as to be blinding.

Certain the catastrophe would return, Garantha’s inhabitants remained frozen, and the only sounds heard throughout the city were those of the injured and dying calling out unheeded for aid. Only as more time passed and the land remained quiet did more normal signs of life gradually return. Only then did help begin to come to those in dire need.

With the return of normal life came the shock of awareness of the death and destruction that had engulfed the city. The cries and weeping began anew, for even ogres can stand only so much before their spirits break. Yet for all the violence within the city, an even greater menace, encroaching from the west, had been met in battle. Guards peeking over the walls caught their first glimpses of the ruined land beyond, making them thankful the city had not suffered as much by comparison.

The call went out for those who ruled to take command of the emergency and issue instructions for relief and aid, but of the self-proclaimed master of all Kern and Blode, the only signs were the mangled and ruined banners and the cracked images.

Idaria woke first; it was she who first discovered that she was alive. She lay half buried in silt and stone, her body bruised and slashed, but miraculously not badly harmed.

No, it was not so miraculous. Recalling her rescuer, she looked around hopefully. Yet there was no evidence of any silver armor nearby, no hint of a human hand or limb.

“Sir Stefan!” she rasped, her wracked voice sounding like it’d be more suitable for a goblin. “Sir Stefan!”

The elf bent down and started digging frantically, tossing aside loose dirt and small debris. When the first hole she dug did not satisfy her, Idaria tried a second and a third and more. The knight had saved her life. He must be buried there somewhere, crushed by dirt and rocks. She had to find him.

But each shallow hole ended in sheets of solid rock. Whether that rock was ancient or the result of the quake was impossible to say. Stefan could lay buried yards away or right under her feet. Never had she felt so defeated.

“Sir Stefan,” the elf rasped again. “Sir Stefan … ”

Then her fingers scraped against something. Desperate, Idaria scrabbled at the object, finally uncovering it.

It was the medallion. She recognized both the medallion and the revered symbol decorating it. That drove her to prayer. “Kiri-Jolith! Lord of Just Cause! I call you in the name of one of your own! Help me find him if there is still any hope.”

What she expected in response, Idaria did not know. The medallion did not flare bright, however, and no ghostly image of the good god appeared, pointing the way to the buried knight.

But then a clatter of rock to her right made her straighten expectantly. To her astonishment, she saw the armored figure she sought, off in the distance, stumbling away from her over the ravaged landscape. Stefan kept his head turned away from the elf, as if something before him held his utmost attention.

Confused, Idaria took a step after the human. Stefan was heading toward neither Garantha nor in the direction of distant Solamnia. If anything, he was heading toward the more mountainous regions of Kern and, for that matter, Blode.

“Sir Stefan!” she shouted after him. “Sir Stefan!” Although her voice was strained, her cry was loud; yet the human did not give any sign of hearing her, nor did he turn around. He continued to stumble determinedly along on his path.

Idaria hesitated. Golgren’s face formed in her mind. She remembered all she had struggled for in her mission as an ogre slave. And she fought against feelings that had nothing to do with that mission, having only to do with herself.

Looking back, the elf saw not only Garantha, but the great waste that stretched from its walls to as far as the eye could see. Golgren lay out there somewhere, surely dead. Idaria had no more need to stay, no more need to concern herself over his machinations. As for his enemies, the Titans, she could do nothing about them. Only Golgren had been able to keep them at bay … until then. It was best that she follow after the knight and leave Kern behind.

Her eyes shifted to the Solamnic’s dwindling figure then back to the ruined landscape that had to be Golgren’s grave.

Squeezing the medallion tight, Idaria murmured, “Forgive me, Kiri-Jolith.”

She rushed toward where she had last seen the ogre.

His lungs burned, yearning for air. He tried to inhale, but dirt filled his mouth and squeezed his lungs.

He wasn’t breathing; he was hacking. The urge to breathe, to live, fought with the temptation to die. He flailed in the direction he thought was up, seeking anything that would tell him he was making the right choice. It was hard to think. His brain and his heart pounded; his chest felt as if it were about to collapse.

Golgren’s head broke the surface.

He coughed up more dirt, then madly gulped air. That brought about another hacking fit, but at least something other than the dust and soil finally was entering his lungs.

The ogre forced his eyes open. They teared painfully, creating a murky effect that reminded him of being under water.

Then through his tortured gaze, he beheld a gleaming figure of gold, a figure with no countenance, no telling detail. However, though the golden figure had no eyes to speak of, Golgren knew that it was studying him intently.

A powerful heat radiated from the shining being. Eyes stinging, the grand lord blinked, and in that blink, the golden figure vanished.

His strength spent, Golgren sagged, his head dropping down, face slamming into the ground. He did not black out, although he wished that he might if only to be momentarily free of pain.

Then a sound burrowed through the haze of his thoughts: a voice, a familiar voice.

An elf voice …