The Eye of the Chained God

CHAPTER EIGHT

Smoke lay over Winterhaven like a black, choking fog that persisted despite the breeze and the morning sun. All of the buildings on the north side of the market square-Wrafton’s Inn among them-were on fire. Some efforts had been made to fight the flames before they were abandoned in exhaustion and despair. A few glassy-eyed defenders worked to keep the fire from spreading, but others wandered the village, slowly collecting bodies and committing them to the flames. Wrafton’s had become a pyre. Salvana crouched so close to it that the tears that ran down her cheeks dried before they reached her jaw.

Uldane helped to gather the bodies of the fallen, numbly working through his shock. The corpses of villagers were treated with a sort of reverence, rolled in blankets, put on boards, and carried to the consuming fire. The remains of the plague demons went to the flames too, dragged into the fire with hay hooks and pitchforks.

The dead demons outnumbered the dead villagers, but not by much. Only about half of the villagers had died by claw and fang. The rest, like most of the demons, bore the focused scorch marks of a lightning strike.

Albanon’s magic had saved Winterhaven from the plague demons, but at a terrible cost.

As they brought Thair Coalstriker, his hammer still clenched in his lifeless fist, Uldane saw Lord Padraig standing close to the flames with some of Winterhaven’s other senior warriors. Uldane left Thair with a farmer’s two brawny sons who had taken on the somber task of slinging bodies deep into the fire and went to Padraig. The conversation broke off as he approached. One of the warriors glared at him as if Uldane had personally brought destruction to the village.

Padraig nudged the angry man pointedly, then looked down. “What is it, Uldane?” he asked.

His voice was flat and weary. Uldane found words with difficulty. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know Albanon didn’t mean to-”

“What’s done is done.”

“If you need help rebuilding or reinforcing the gate…”

Padraig stopped him with a raised hand. “Enough, Uldane. There won’t be any rebuilding. We’ve stood our ground as long as we could. We’ll set out for Fallcrest before noon. Winterhaven is finished.”

Uldane felt a flutter in his chest that he hadn’t felt even during the heat of the battle. “You can’t mean that.”

“Or what?” growled the man on Padraig’s right. “Stay and be picked up off? They’ll be back, again and again. There’re fewer of us than ever thanks to you.”

He took a threatening step toward the halfling, but Padraig staggered and grabbed for his shoulder. Not to stop the other man, Uldane realized, but to support himself. A bloody bandage wrapped Padraig’s thigh.

“You’re wounded,” Uldane said. “Was it one of the plague demons? You could already be infected with the Abyssal Plague!”

“No, not one of the demons, thank the gods,” Padraig said. “A splinter long as a knife driven by a lightning strike on one of the buildings.”

Another jab at Albanon. Uldane set his jaw. “You should have it healed. Roghar can do that.” He turned and scanned the smoky square for the paladin. He found him lowering the curled body of an old man into the arms of the brothers by the inn and called him over. Roghar came, greeting Padraig with a deep nod that conveyed both acknowledgment and regret in silence. Uldane grabbed for Roghar’s hand and pointed at Padraig’s thigh.

Roghar’s face tightened. He pulled his hand away from Uldane. “My lord, I can heal your wound if you require it, but I’ve called on Bahamut’s favor too much tonight.”

Uldane swung around to stare at him. “Really?”

Roghar’s snout wrinkled in annoyance at the challenge, but Padraig only shook his head. “Save Bahamut’s favor for those who need it more than I do.”

“Few enough of those,” said the man at his side. “Unless you can bring the dead back to life.”

Padraig nudged him again, but not too hard. The lord of Winterhaven’s gaze remained on Uldane. “You should go, too.”

“Go?” The flutter in Uldane’s chest turned into a wild flapping like an agitated bird. “Go where? What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s nothing more for you here. You and your friends should leave Winterhaven. Emotions run high after a battle.” Padraig nodded to Roghar. “Paladin, thank you for your service in battle.”

“Bahamut demands no less, my lord.”

And with that, Padraig turned away, leaving Uldane to stare after him in shock. The halfling might have followed, but Roghar shifted to herd him in the other direction. “You heard what Padraig said,” he muttered. “We should be on our way. We’ve outstayed our welcome.”

“Outstayed? This is my home!” protested Uldane. “I lived here until a few months ago.” He tugged away from Roghar. “And what do you mean you’ve called on Bahamut’s favor too much? I’ve never seen you turn away someone who needed help.”

Roghar’s jaw tightened. “Just because you’ve never seen something doesn’t make it impossible. Besides, Padraig himself said he didn’t need my healing.” He looked around, then took a firm grip on Uldane’s shoulder and propelled him onward. “Let’s get to the others.”

There was no question of where they would find Belen, Tempest, and especially Albanon. Toward the gate in the center of the area most heavily scarred by lightning, the eladrin wizard sat with his head in his hands. Tempest and Belen stood by him, not so much to give him comfort as to warn off anyone with thoughts of revenge. They looked relieved at Uldane and Roghar’s approach, though it seemed to Uldane that all they’d had to deal with were angry looks. No one was coming close. Though all the other corpses nearby had been collected, three corpses lay undisturbed: Vestagix, Immeral, and, at Albanon’s feet, Splendid.

Roghar wasted no time. “Padraig says we should be on our way.”

“He’s right,” said Belen. “When the Winterhaveners stop feeling stunned, they’re going to be angry. We’re lucky-the stable didn’t catch fire and whoever cleared out the inn before the flames took hold threw most of our gear out along with everyone else’s.” She kicked a little pile of packs with her toe. “I don’t think we’d be so fortunate now.”

“Good,” Roghar said. “I’ll get the horses and be right back.”

Anger boiled over inside Uldane. “No,” he said. “We’re not going yet.” He marched up to Albanon. The wizard raised his face-and Uldane slapped it. “By the gods, what happened? What was that?”

Albanon’s head just dropped again. “I told you about the power I felt while I was under Tharizdun’s influence. That was it.”

That gave even Uldane pause. “You called on the Chained God’s power?”

“It’s not Tharizdun’s power. It’s my power. He just showed me how to use it. All of it.” Albanon scrubbed his fingers and palms across his face. “Vestagix killed Immeral, then Splendid. It put me over the edge. I needed to stop him.”

“Vestagix was dead before you summoned the lightning, Albanon,” said Roghar gently. “I killed him.”

Albanon peered at him, the blue orbs of his eyes bright between long, pale fingers. “He was a part of Vestapalk, some kind of extension of him just like the plague demons are an extension of the Voidharrow. You killed a body. I needed to stop Vestapalk.”

He sighed, dropped his hands, then bent over to pick up and cradle Splendid’s body. Her neck was snapped like a chicken’s. Uldane’s friendship with the pseudodragon hadn’t been deep-she’d been too much like a prim spinster for him to really like her-but even he felt she deserved better than that, especially after risking herself to save Albanon.

“I didn’t see any point in restraining myself when all my restraint had done was let Splendid and Immeral die,” Albanon continued, stroking Splendid’s scales. “I couldn’t let the demons overrun Winterhaven but I didn’t realize how far I might go to defeat them.” He glanced up at Uldane and Roghar. “When you tried to stop me, I thought you were plague demons, too. I came this close to turning the lightning on you as well. I’m never going to let my resistance down again.”

“Don’t say never,” said Tempest. She kneeled down beside Albanon. “That wasn’t you. Maybe it was your power as you say, but I can’t believe it was really you that used it to destroy Winterhaven. You wouldn’t do that. When I was possessed by Nu Alin-when Belen was possessed by Nu Alin-we did some terrible things, but it was him using our bodies to do them. It wasn’t us.”

Albanon looked at her. “But you fought him, didn’t you? I didn’t. I embraced what Tharizdun offered.” He nodded at Vestagix’s corpse. “Am I any different than him or Vestapalk?”

“Of course you are,” said Uldane without hesitation. He meant the words wholeheartedly, but they slipped out before he even realized they were on his tongue. Suddenly, all the others were looking at him. He winced and pressed ahead. “For one thing,” he said, “you regret what you’ve done. Whenever we’ve faced Vestapalk, it’s been clear he only cares about gathering power. Look what’s come out of that-Winterhaven destroyed, Fallcrest barely hanging on, and the Abyssal Plague spreading across the Nentir Vale and beyond. You care about people, Albanon. You held that power in because you didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

Albanon wrinkled his nose. “I wanted to hurt the demons.”

“Don’t talk, just listen.” Uldane was rolling now. His speech was a little fire burning steadily in his belly. He drew his dagger. “When my uncle gave me my first dagger-not just a knife, but a real weapon-he said, ‘Uldane, someday you’re going to have to kill people with this. You might hurt people with it when you don’t mean to, as well. Don’t blame the dagger and don’t blame yourself. It’s a tool. Anyone can have an accident with a tool.’ ”

“An accident with your dagger isn’t going to destroy half a village.”

Uldane flipped the dagger around in his hand and with a quick flick of his wrist sent it skimming past Albanon’s ear, close enough that a few gleaming silver hairs went drifting to the ground. The dagger stuck into a post some distance behind him. Albanon yelped and flinched. Uldane folded his arms and continued, “We all have to live with what we do. An accident is an accident, even if it started as something stupid-”

“ That was stupid!” snapped Albanon, running his fingers over his ear.

“I would never have hit you,” said Uldane. “Anyway, the point is you don’t just blame a tool and throw it away.”

“You threw your dagger away,” Belen said.

Uldane glared at her, and then at Tempest as the tiefling added, “I thought the point was that accidents happen when you give sharp things to Uldane.”

“I’m more concerned that Uldane’s uncle was encouraging him to kill people at a young age,” said Roghar.

“Enough!” Uldane stamped his foot angrily. He looked to Albanon. “Do you still feel that urge drawing you north?” The eladrin nodded. “Are we going to keep following it, looking for a way to stop Vestapalk?”

Albanon hesitated then stood up, his mouth set in a grim line. “I want to stop Vestapalk more than ever now.”

“What if you need to use that power against him? You said it was Tharizdun’s influence that showed you how to use it-and you said you thought the urge was something the Chained God’s touch put in you. What if they’re connected?”

Albanon’s expression grew even grimmer. “If I have the chance to turn it against Vestapalk,” he said, “I will.”

“No matter what the cost?”

The wizard froze at the suggestion. He looked down at Splendid, cradled in his arms. Doubt and conflict showed in his face. Uldane reached up and wrapped his hand around one of Albanon’s.

“If you have to think about it, you’re a thousand times better than Vestapalk. You’ll be fine.”

Albanon closed his eyes for a moment and blew out a long breath, then looked up again. “We should burn Immeral and Splendid before we leave,” he said.

“Let me,” said Tempest. She took Splendid from Albanon and carried her over to where Immeral lay. She settled the pseudodragon’s corpse with the huntsman’s arm around her, then stepped back before kneeling to place one hand on the battle-churned ground. Her tail thrashed as she concentrated. Wisps of acrid smoke rose around the two bodies for a moment before exploding into a torrent of flame.

Around the square, villagers turned to stare. Roghar let out a soft hiss. “Now I’d better get the horses,” he said. He slipped away to the stables.

Albanon went to stand close beside Tempest. Uldane watched them, then felt Belen step up beside him. “That was impressive,” she said quietly. “You can be quite the inspiring speaker when you want to be. You have more depth than I thought you did.”

“I know,” said Uldane. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Roghar strode into the stables, facing anyone who looked like they might challenge him down with a cool stare. They all dropped their eyes after no more than a few heartbeats. Even after a battle of demons and lightning, a dragonborn in heavy armor was a sight to make the most unruly troublemaker think twice. There were few enough people in the stable as it was and those who didn’t clear out entirely found reasons to give Roghar a wide berth.

Which made him feel even more frightened and ashamed. Roghar glanced around to make sure no one was watching him, then ducked down into the stall where his own horse waited and drew the gauntlet off his right hand.

Beneath it, the fine scales of his wrist were torn in a raw, irregular circle. Blood pricked the surface in small, shimmering beads. Roghar examined the abrasion closely, making sure the sparkling droplets were indeed blood-and nothing else.

When Vestagix’s lashing crystalline tail had wrapped around his arm in the heat of battle, he’d registered only a moment’s stinging pain. The wrenching of the sword from his grip and the gauntlet from his hand had seemed like more of a blow. In the chaos that followed-a wave of plague demons that had strangely all but ignored him, the furious blow that had ended Vestagix, the storm of Albanon’s magic-he hadn’t given the slight sting of his wrist a second thought. Then he’d recovered his gauntlet and his sword and, in donning the gauntlet, had realized what had happened.

Roghar could almost feel the splintering crystals of Vestagix’s tail against his hide. Raking through his scales. Drawing blood.

Infecting him with the taint of the Abyssal Plague.

He’d lied when Uldane had asked him to heal Lord Padraig, but he couldn’t help himself. Padraig’s wound had been entirely natural. A good dressing and careful attention would heal it. There was nothing natural about what Vestagix had done to him. He wrapped his good hand around his wrist and focused the power of his faith. “Holy Bahamut,” he murmured, “whose Word is Law and whose Shield is Justice. Hear my prayer and cleanse these wounds.”

The warm touch of the divine that normally answered his invocation was slow in coming, like honey flowing on a cold morning. When it did finally enter him, it was sweet but also strangely distant. Roghar held his breath as it grew, then ebbed, beneath his fingers. Albanon had described how Kri had drawn on the holy light of the gods to scour the Voidharrow from his flesh. Roghar couldn’t wield divine radiance in the same way, but he hoped-prayed-that his own healing abilities would be just as effective.

When the warmth faded, he slowly removed his hand from his wrist. The mark of Vestagix’s tail remained, a scar on his scales, but the blood was gone and the raw flesh was smooth. Roghar let his breath out in relief.

Then he caught it again as a single bright red drop welled up between two torn scales.

“No,” he choked softly. “No!” He squeezed his hand over his wrist once more. “Bahamut, close this wound!”

This time, he waited for the touch of the divine in vain. There was no warmth, no sense of the divine. All he felt, and it might have been his own imagination, was a slow itching, as if something crawled through his veins. Bahamut did not answer him. Did not or would not. Or perhaps, Roghar thought, could not.

“Roghar!” called Uldane from outside the stable, then his voice echoed as he came inside. “Roghar, where are the horses? We’re ready to go.”

The paladin flinched and grabbed his gauntlet, pulling it on to hide the blood that smeared his wrist. He stood just as Uldane came searching along the row of stalls. Uldane frowned at him. “What have you been doing?”

Roghar scowled back at him. “Giving thanks,” he lied. “Can I not have a moment to commune with my god?”

“It would be better if you communed while we rode. People are starting to forget they’re afraid of Albanon. We need to go.” He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “You haven’t even gotten them saddled yet!”

“Then make yourself useful and help me. Gather their tack. We’ll be gone faster.” Roghar grabbed his horse’s saddle blanket from where it hung over the stall and threw it across the animal’s back. As Uldane turned away, he exhaled and squeezed his eyes closed, fighting down a churning fear he knew he couldn’t outrun.

There were two times during the day that Albanon found his memories of Winterhaven particularly hard to bear. The first was in the evening as he prepared himself to enter the trance that served eladrin in place of sleep. Memories of the power he had wielded chased themselves around the dark corners of his mind and a fear grew that madness would creep up on him once more as he dreamed.

The second was in the morning. For about twenty heartbeats after he emerged from his trance, he’d be at peace. Then he’d remember that Splendid and Immeral were no longer with them and his sense of peace would evaporate. Various emotions would rush in to fill that void. Sorrow. Fury. Determination to put an end to Vestapalk’s cruelty-and to Tharizdun’s hold on him. Sickness at what his friends’ deaths had brought out in him. Guilt at what he’d done.

On the third morning after they’d left Winterhaven, guilt and sickness came together like a physical blow that made his head spin and his throat clench with nausea. Albanon lunged away from their little campsite, drawing calls of concern from Tempest and Uldane, and retched into a clump of bushes. He thrust the vile thought away and stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

He found himself facing Roghar across the bushes and winced. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t…” He gestured weakly at the vomit-streaked leaves. “Did I?”

“No,” said Roghar in a low rumble. “You didn’t. Thank Bahamut for that.”

“I didn’t know you were there.” Although he should have guessed, Albanon realized. Ever since they had left Winterhaven, the paladin had been taking himself a short distance from the camp to pray at dawn and dusk. He’d been quieter and more withdrawn, too. Albanon couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Roghar sing the way he used to. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who carried emotional scars from the events in the village.

He stretched out a hand-not the one he’d wiped his mouth with-and offered it to Roghar. “We’ll get through this together. We’ll stop Vestapalk.”

The dragonborn hesitated for a moment, then wrapped his hand, still cased in a gauntlet, around Albanon’s. “How much farther?” he asked bluntly.

Albanon glanced in the direction that his internal urge-growing steadily stronger the farther they traveled-was taking them. Away through the trees, the ground rose into the first steep slopes of the Cairngorm Peaks. They’d left the road behind and spent the previous day travelling through foothills. That day, and for as many succeeding days as it took to reach their mysterious destination, they would journey through the mountains. Unless they had good fortune, there was every chance they might find themselves forced leagues out of their way to get around some obstacle in the empty wilderness.

That the wilderness was empty was, perhaps, a blessing. They hadn’t seen any sign of plague demons since leaving Winterhaven. Albanon wasn’t sure whether to be pleased at that, especially in a region that was so sparsely populated to begin with, or even more worried. All evidence to the contrary, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Vestapalk’s minions were out there somewhere. Waiting for them.

“Not far,” he told Roghar. “I hope.”

Roghar responded with a grunt. “Good,” he said-and he dropped Albanon’s hand, turning to stride back to the camp without another word or glance. Albanon blinked and stared after him.

Later, with the sun almost at its noon height, the eladrin nudged his mount over beside Tempest’s as they rode around the grassy flank of a mountain. “Have I done something to offend Roghar?” he asked quietly.

Tempest raised a narrow eyebrow. “Besides almost vomiting on him?”

“Other than that.” Albanon looked at Roghar’s back-the paladin rode in advance of the rest of them. “He’s been curt with me the last couple of days and it’s only getting worse. You’ve known him the longest. What’s bothering him?”

“I wish I knew,” she said, “but it isn’t just you. I’ve seen him surly, but never for this long.”

“Do you think it’s because of what happened at Winterhaven?”

“He’s seen worse-or at least as bad. The attack on Fallcrest. What we found in Nera before we came back to the Vale. When something bad happens, he seeks refuge in Bahamut for a while, then he comes back stronger than ever.” Tempest turned her head and studied Albanon for a long moment. “I think you’re doing better than him right now.”

“If I’m doing better, then he’s in really bad shape.” Albanon attempted a smile but it withered on his lips. He sighed. “I never thought I’d actually miss Splendid this much.”

“It surprises you, doesn’t it? I miss Immeral. Not much of a talker, but his wilderness skills would come in handy right now. I can’t help thinking we’d be moving a little faster if he was here.”

Albanon shrugged. “We’ll get through. Uldane’s trying but I think he always depended on Shara.”

“Possibly.” Tempest rode a little farther in silence before she said, “Am I the only one who was hoping we’d find signs of her and Quarhaun? Thair said they went north from Winterhaven, too.”

“They could have gone anywhere. ‘North’ covers a big area and I doubt that Shara would have left anything behind to mark their passage. We could pass by one of their campsites and never see it.”

“First Shara and Quarhaun leave us, then Splendid and Immeral.” Tempest gave a wry smile. “At this rate, there won’t be enough of us together to face Vestapalk.”

The observation put a new twist into Albanon’s already knotted stomach, but the grim humor of it made his lips twitch. Before he could answer, however, there was a whinny and a scuffle of hooves from ahead as Roghar reined his horse in sharply. He turned the beast around and came back to them. “There’s smoke rising beyond the next ridge.”

“Forest fire?” asked Albanon.

“Not dense enough,” said Roghar. “It looks more like the smoke from a lot of individual fires.”

They all exchanged glances. “A camp,” Belen said.

Roghar nodded. “A big one. Albanon, which way do we go?”

He raised his arm without hesitation and knew by Roghar’s sour curse that he was pointing right at the heart of the rising smoke. “Maybe the camp is our destination,” said Uldane brightly.

Albanon barely had to think about it-the answer rose in his mind. “It isn’t,” he said. “We have farther to go.”

“Dismount,” said Roghar. He swung down out of the saddle. “We’ll leave the horses and go up the ridge on foot. We may be able to go around it, but I want to have a look at what we’re dealing with.”

Among the trees, Uldane took the lead, pointing the way for the others to follow so they made as little noise as possible. The climb wasn’t difficult but their caution made it slow. Albanon got a good look at the smoke Roghar had described before they began their ascent and well before they reached the top of the ridge, a shift in the wind brought the scent of the camp that lay beyond. Wood smoke, cooking food, leather-the smells of any normal established hunting camp. What reassured the wizard even more, however, was the sound of children’s laughter drifting on the breeze.

He wasn’t the only one who drew hope from the laughter. Uldane looked pleased, while Tempest relaxed visibly. Belen, however, tensed, and Roghar’s face tightened. “What’s wrong?” Albanon asked him.

“People fight to defend their children like nothing else,” he said. “Be careful.”

They stayed low to the ground as they emerged from the trees and crept across the exposed top of the ridge. Flat on their bellies, they stared down at a camp that filled most of the hollow below. There were perhaps fifteen large tents of hides lashed over bent poles and enough people moving around-including children at play-that Albanon estimated the camp could easily have a population of one hundred and fifty inhabitants.

Many of those in the camp were human, but not all. Some of the figures moving among the tents had an easy grace and a casual swiftness that reminded him of hunting cats. Indeed, when he looked more closely, he saw their features had a catlike cast with flat noses, large eyes, and sharp teeth. Shifters. And a camp of mixed humans and shifters meant…

“Tigerclaw barbarians,” he murmured aloud. He turned his head to look at the others. “What are they doing this far away from the Winterbole Forest?”

“Thair said Tigerclaws were scavenging around Winterhaven,” said Uldane. “Maybe these are the same ones.”

“The question is,” Roghar said, “do we go into the camp and hope they’re feeling friendly or try to slip around them without being noticed?”

Belen answered before any of the rest of them could. “We go into their camp,” she said decisively. “You never sneak around the Tigerclaws. It suggests that you have some reason for being stealthy. We want them to know we’re here.”

Albanon felt Tempest, on the ground beside him and at the outside of their watching pack, stiffen. “Too late,” she rasped. Albanon twisted to look at her-and found a spear point gleaming just a handsbreadth from his nose.

On the other end of the spear, a Tigerclaw shifter bared her teeth at him.