Uneasy Alliances

Chapter 4

Thunder rolled distantly, and Noph shaded his eyes against the lightning flashing across a stormy sky. A dark rain lashed his cheeks, and he felt warm blood running down his face. Some of it trickled into his mouth, and he tasted its salty tang.

"Noph!"

Harloon was calling him, struggling in the grasp of a club-swinging ettin.

"I'm coming, Harloon!"

The youth bent to push the tall bushes and grass of the lonely moor away from his legs.

They wouldn't move.

"Noph!"

Noph pushed again at the grassy covering over his legs. He opened his eyes, not to the wind and rain of his dream-inspired moor, but to another darkness, one filled with pain. Someone was whispering urgently in his ear.

"Noph, are you all right?"

"Yes… no… I… I can't move my legs."

"Damn! Wait a minute."

Noph heard the scrape of a tinderbox, and a faint, flickering light illuminated his surroundings. He was lying on top of a pile of rubble. Blackness stretched around him as far as he could see. Before him knelt Shar, an ugly gash across her forehead. She had torn a strip of cloth from her shirt and, winding it around a piece of wood, was busy fashioning a makeshift torch.

Noph looked down at his legs. They were pinned beneath a large block of stone, but oddly enough, he felt no pain, only a curious sense of dissociation, as if everything were happening to someone else and he was an impartial observer. He lifted a hand to push back hair from his face and felt dried blood crusted on his scalp.

Next to him, he could see a shapeless pile, as if someone had carelessly thrown down a bundle of washing. The bundle stirred and moaned, and he saw it was Entreri. His skeletal arm had come partially out of its wrappings, and the assassin stared at it, moaning and rocking back and forth.

The sight of Entreri, usually so cool and detached from those around him, in such a state jarred Noph back to full consciousness. He reached down and tried to push the stone from his legs, but it was too much for him. Shar stuck her torch in a crevice and came to his aid, but after a moment, she, too, admitted defeat.

"Wait here," she said in a low voice. "I'm going to see if I can find the others."

She took the torch and climbed away over the rubble, leaving Noph and Entreri in the dark. They saw her light bobbing in the distance, and then it disappeared. For an endless space, Noph lay still, listening to water dripping somewhere and to soft moans of pain and horror from Entreri. Then, just as hope was at its lowest ebb, Shar's light reappeared. In a moment, the female pirate was at his side, accompanied by Kern and Trandon.

"Where's Ingrar?" asked Noph.

Shar shook her head. "I don't know. We couldn't find him."

Trandon and Kern pulled at the stone block pinning Noph's legs; with a grinding sound, it moved and rolled away. But though the obstacle was gone, Noph found he still could not stand or even shift positions. Kern knelt by him, examining his limbs.

"Your legs are broken, Noph. I'm going to heal you." He placed a hand on the injured legs, murmuring a prayer. Noph felt a power run through him and sensed strength returning. He flexed his legs and stood cautiously, with Trandon's help.

"What about him?" He turned to the assassin, still lying semiconscious on the ground.

Trandon looked thoughtfully at the little man's body. "Are you sure you want to heal him?" he asked Kern.

The paladin sighed and nodded. "We must succor the fallen, even if they're enemies."

Trandon shrugged and bent over the dark figure. His fingers spread out on Entreri's forehead, stroking it while he muttered words of arcane power. The little man stirred and sat up suddenly. His dark eyes sparkled in the torchlight. He looked at his arm, and with a shudder that ran through his entire body, rewrapped it, holding it close to his body.

"Can't you fix… that? " Noph asked the fighter, gesturing to Entreri's arm.

Trandon shook his head. "There's something about it that defeats me. My magic won't take. It's part of him-what the forge has made of him." He looked at Entreri with something akin to pity and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm afraid that's going to be permanent."

Artemis shrugged off the gesture with an air of irritation. "Where's Ingrar?"

"We don't know," said Shar quietly.

While Trandon had attended to Entreri, Kern had healed the cut on her brow, and she now looked as normal as it was possible to look in such surroundings.

Entreri picked up the torch in his good hand. "Let's go look for him." He started off down the mound of stones and dirt. Kern stared after him, then looked at the other three, shrugged, and followed after. Shar and Noph followed.

They seemed to be in a cavern, the dimensions of which were not entirely clear. Stones from above had crashed through the roof and blocked access to some areas. The company searched where they could, but without success. Then, out of the dark, Shar gave a sudden exclamation. Before them, dim in the torchlight, was the figure of the blind mercenary.

He was standing, facing away from them, apparently uninjured but not responding to their calls. Only when they came up to him did he reply.

"Are you all right?" asked Trandon while Kern ran a hasty eye over the young man's form, searching for injuries.

"I'm fine." Ingrar seemed no more disconcerted by their present surroundings than he'd been by anything since they first entered the labyrinth of the bloodforge. He gestured forward. "This way out, I think. I can smell fresh air through there."

The others saw he was pointing to a dark tunnel at one side of the cave.

"How does he do that?" Noph muttered uneasily to Sharessa. "This is getting very strange."

The pirate nodded thoughtfully. "I know. I don't understand. Ever since we started looking for the bloodforge, he's acted like he's possessed." She shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Well, not much choice now but to follow him."

With Entreri and his torch leading the way, they entered the dark opening followed a tunnel that slanted steadily upward. After walking for several hundred yards, they came to a broad flight of steps leading farther up.

"Wait a minute." Noph sank down to rest at the foot of the stairs. "I'm sorry, but I've got to rest a minute. I don't think I'm over what happened back there."

The others sank down beside him. Entreri bit his lip and stared impatiently at them but finally sat on the lowest step, from time to time glancing up the staircase.

Kern turned to Trandon. "Now that we're all here," he said, his voice cold, "perhaps you can explain what you've been playing at."

"Yes," added Shar. "I thought we had only one magic-user in this group." She jerked a thumb at Kern. "So what were all those fireworks back at the altar?"

Trandon drummed his fingers for a moment in thought. His staff, which he'd evidently clutched when he fell, lay beside him.

"All right," he sighed. "I was sent on this expedition by the Council of War Wizards of Cormyr."

"What?" exploded Kern. "What in the name of Tyr did the War Wizards want with this business? And furthermore," he growled before the fighter could answer, "since when have you been working for the War Wizards? You told us you worked with the Hammers of Tyr recruiting paladins."

Trandon rubbed his chin in evident embarrassment. "To answer your second question first, I don't work for the War Wizards; I'm a member of the Council of War Wizards and have been for a number of years. Given the circumstances of Lady Eidola's kidnapping, that wasn't information I was anxious to spread about. I was at Piergeiron's wedding purely as a social courtesy, but as soon as his bride was stolen, I contacted other members of the council, and they agreed I should join the expedition to find her.

"The council became concerned when Khelben determined that the kidnappers came from the Utter East and that a bloodforge was somehow involved. We had heard of these artifacts and their tremendous power, though no one on the council had ever seen one. Vangerdahast didn't want someone wielding that kind of power about Faerun without anyone keeping track of it." He paused and glared at Artemis, who looked back coolly without speaking.

"Just a minute," interrupted Sharessa. "What are you both talking about? Where's Cormyr, and what's this council? And who's Peergarion?"

"Cormyr's a kingdom in Faerun," supplied Noph. "Piergeiron is the ruler of the city of Waterdeep, where I come from. My father's a lumber merchant there," he added, rather unnecessarily.

"Don't your rulers have bloodforges?" asked Sharessa.

"Of course not," replied Trandon. "As I understand it, they're peculiar to the Utter East-the Five Kingdoms, if you prefer that term. But if a ruler in Faerun were to acquire one, or to form an alliance with a realm that possessed one…"

"… the donkey dung would be in the fire," finished Noph.

"Exactly. No one could stop a power that could create armies out of thin air."

Shar shook her head impatiently. "What about the cost? The cost of using the bloodforge, I mean. You may have heard how these things affect the rulers who use them. I've heard stories about the mage-kings of Doegan since I was a baby, but I never believed them until now."

Trandon shrugged. "Take my word for it, there are plenty of rulers, or would-be rulers, in Faerun who'd gladly pay such a price."

"Okay, but who are the War Wizards?"

Kern made a noise between a grunt and a hiccup. "The War Wizards are a lot of busybodies who think that because they're wizards, they have the right to poke their snouts into everything that passes under the sun."

"Well," observed Trandon pacifically, "let's just say we felt we had a legitimate interest in the outcome of this affair."

"We might be a lot better off if you'd told us you were a wizard," Noph half shouted. "Couldn't you have used wizardry back in Undermountain? Maybe you could have saved Harloon…" His voice choked as he remembered his dead friend.

Trandon sighed and placed a hand on Noph's shoulder. "Believe me, Kastonoph, I did everything I thought I could. Maybe I could have done more. Harloon and Abie's deaths are something I have to live with now. But I didn't want to tip my hand. And you must agree that when I did use my powers, it was at a time we really needed it."

"And the result," observed Entreri, speaking for the first time in the debate, "is that we're here." He stood and stepped a pace nearer the now-revealed wizard. "I don't like surprises. And I don't much like wizards," he said flatly. "Is there anything else that anybody's keeping secret?" His eyes swept the party. When no one spoke, his lips creased in what might have been taken as a smile. "All right. The Fallen Temple has the bloodforge.

But if we hurry, we may be able to get it back."

"Get it back? Are you insane?" Shar was on her feet, pointing to Artemis's injured arm. "Have you forgotten what that thing did to you?"

Entreri turned his back on her and went up the stairs. In a moment, the rest of the party followed.

The stairway rose in a steady line for perhaps a hundred feet, then leveled off in a broad landing. Three doors opened onto it, and Ingrar, without the slightest hesitation, entered the right-hand one. Entreri, apparently equally confident, followed him, with the rest of the adventurers trailing behind him.

This tunnel rose in a steady spiral, the slope gentle but wearing on pirate and paladin alike, suffering as they still were from the stiffness and aches from their fall. Nonetheless, their spirits rose as they sensed they were coming closer to the surface.

"We must be almost there," gasped Shar. As she spoke, a flicker of red light flared against the side of the tunnel before them, and a wind blew down the passage, carrying with it the smell of something burning.

A moment later, the companions found themselves standing in a doorway whose great wooden doors had been wrenched asunder. Trandon and Kern stepped forward and pushed the wreckage aside, and the group stepped through. They were in the interior of a temple; that much was clear from the great altar with its now-familiar image of the mage-king. The doors on the opposite side of the building stood open, and Noph, longing for a glimpse of the sky, ran to them. His strangled cry brought the others behind him. In awe, they stared out upon the scene.

Eldrinpar was burning. From the temple doors, standing atop a vast pyramid, they gazed out at the doomed city. Flames lit the dawn and flickered against the horizon. Spirals of smoke wafted upward, tendrils of black that seemed to reach into the greater darkness of the early morning sky. From time to time, a new building, ignited by the great heat of the fires, burst spontaneously into flame. The companions could hear a confused din of cries, screams, and shouts borne on the hot breeze.

From their vantage point above the city, they could see crowds of citizens fleeing through the streets. Pursuing them were bands of fiends, who ensnared them with paw and claw, sometimes slaying, sometimes capturing the unfortunate Doeganers and bearing them off to an unthinkable destination.

Not a word was spoken among the companions for some time as they stared, horrified, at this orgy of death and destruction. Then Sharessa pulled her eyes from the scene and faced the others.

"Come on! With a lot of luck and some fighting and wizardry, we can probably get to the harbor. Once we're out to sea, I doubt any of those things will follow us. They're too busy making meals out of these people."

Entreri turned toward her. The rising sun showed the dark circles beneath his eyes. Raising his injured arm, he pulled the cloth from it. The others shuddered at the sight of the bones that clicked and moved without sinew or muscle.

"I don't plan to go anywhere," the assassin observed, "until I have that forge." His voice rose in power and ambition. "Imagine what would be mine if I could learn to control the power that did this to me!"

Shar stared at him. "You're mad! Even if you could control that thing, there's no way you'd get within a mile of it. Gods, we don't even know where it is now." She turned away from him to the others. "If he wants to stay and get killed, so be it. Come on!"

Kern took his warhammer from his belt. "I agree that we must go. But Master Entreri is right in one respect. As long as that forge remains in the hands of the Fallen Temple, no one on all Toril is safe. I cannot allow this." He looked at Entreri. "I'll go with you, but I won't allow you, of all people, to claim the bloodforge."

Sharessa bit her lip in frustration, and Noph saw the red blood spread across the rosy promise of her mouth. "Ingrar?"

The young pirate, his face lit by the fires of Eldrinpar, shook his head. "I can't, Shar. My destiny is bound up with the bloodforge." His voice grew in strength as he spoke. "I am linked to the forge and to the destiny of the Five Kingdoms. It is beyond your power to change my course. It is my destiny."

"Your destiny!" spat Shar angrily. "Your death, you mean! Haven't you seen enough death already? Remember Kurthe? And Brindra? And Anvil? Gods, how many more deaths is it going to take?" She whirled furiously on Entreri. "You brought nothing but death to us. We were the best of Kissing Shark's crew, and now look at us. Three dead, and Rings and Belgin gone off on some expedition to the ends of the earth, all because you say so, you tell us what to do. But you don't say when we die! Do you hear me? You don't say when we die!" She slammed her blade at the temple wall. The steel struck a shower of sparks from the stone, and the sword sprang back, a notch in its gleaming edge.

"Shar?" Noph's voice was shaking with weariness and emotion. "Shar, listen to me." He looked around at the others: Entreri scanning the chaotic scene below them; Kern, the flames shining on his golden armor; Trandon, his silver hair blowing free in the wind; and Ingrar, a strange radiance shining from his face. "Shar, we've been through too much to run away. All those deaths-they're not the only ones. I've seen our friends Able and Harloon die in Undermountain before we even got here. There's been too much death." He gestured toward the city. "There's more down there. But it all has to mean something. It can't just have been for nothing. And the only way I can see that any of this is going to mean anything is for us to try to do what we set out to accomplish."

He flushed and turned away. Trandon looked at him with something very like affection. The others did not move.

Shar looked at Noph. "Is that what you think?" she asked. Her voice, honey-sweet, dripped sarcasm, and in her eyes the youth saw only contempt.

Contempt for weakness, for sentiment that had no place in survival. Artemis had said that, Noph remembered. But it was the pirate code as well.

Shar turned away from him. Her long dark hair blew free in the wind, fanning into a great cloud that seemed to cast a shadow over the dreary sun of this dreary land.

On one side of the door was a bas-relief of the mage-king's face, gazing sadly out at the capital of his empire. Shar walked over to it and stared at the stone eyes for a long moment. Then, drawing her sword, she reversed it and, pommel first, struck at the image as hard as she could. The visage shattered, the pieces clattering around her feet. The female pirate looked at her companions. "All right. I'm ready now."

Entreri nodded almost imperceptibly and turned to Ingrar. "Can you feel anything? Anything about where the Fallen Temple might be holding the forge?"

Ingrar hesitated for a moment, then pointed out over the roofs below. "There." He gestured toward another, smaller pyramid, perhaps a mile or two away.

Shar, standing beside him, looked coolly at the scene below.

"The fiends are taking their captives that way." She gestured toward the city's walls that held back the encroaching jungle. "If we're careful, we ought to have a clear path to the harbor."

"And do we leave the population to the tender mercies of those monsters?" Kern asked angrily. "I am a soldier of Tyr. I fight evil wherever I find it."

"Yes, all right," interrupted Shar. After we get the forge, we'll put you in a room with all the fiends in the Abyss and you can slaughter them all in the name of Туг, or Tempus, or whoever you damn well please. For right now, let's concentrate on getting the forge."

She stared coldly into the paladin's blue eyes. He looked stoically back into her brown orbs. Trandon cleared his throat.

"She's right, Kern," the fighter observed. "One thing at a time. We can't save the population without a weapon that's a lot more powerful than anything we've got. The bloodforge is the key to retaking the city."

Kern nodded reluctantly, persuaded in spite of himself. "Very well. Let's go."

The party began to descend the steps cautiously. The street below them had begun to empty as the fiends herded their captors toward the city's center. The companions picked their way carefully over many of the stone steps that had been broken or cracked. The heat from the fires grew greater as they descended the slope.

At the foot of the pyramid, they halted. Kern pointed down a narrow street of adobe houses crowded together, some sagging uneasily. "That's the most direct route."

Entreri nodded wordlessly, and the company moved on. Within a few of the darkened doorways of the street, they could hear wailing and moaning. Noph paused before one such door, but Shar pushed him on. "We don't have time, Noph." Her face seemed to mirror that of Entreri in its cold decisiveness.

Noph realized the wisdom of her words. Even now he thought he could hear soft footsteps behind them. He turned and glanced back at the winding way they had come. Nothing. No one. He took a few steps, then turned again. There! Surely there had been a dark shadow flitting along one side of the street. Noph grabbed Trandon's arm.

"Look! Do you see anyone? Anything?"

Trandon stopped and gazed back, shading his eyes. "No. You sure you're not imagining things?"

Noph shook his head. "I don't think so. Someone's following us."

Trandon called softly to Entreri, and the little man halted impatiently.

"Well?"

"Noph thinks we're being followed."

The assassin looked irritably at Noph, who stared back, unblinking. Entreri sighed. "Ingrar?"

The blind pirate listened. "Yes. There's someone back there. Several someones. They've got weapons, too."

Entreri turned abruptly and walked back the way they'd come, Kern at his side. From out of the shadows on either side of the street, dark figures emerged and blocked them. One of the shadows stepped forward. "Greetings to you, Master Entreri. Sir Paladin."

"Lord Garkim!" Kern's voice was relieved but not friendly. "What do you want with us?"

"A word." The chancellor of Aetheric III was soot-streaked and weary-looking. His once fine robes were singed and tattered. In one hand he bore a curving sword. His followers, members of the palace guard, looking equally bedraggled, carried similar weapons. "I know what you are seeking."

Entreri looked at him without expression. "How do you know?"

"I can hear your thoughts. My telepathic abilities are exceptional, but all this"-he gestured broadly around them-"has made it difficult to sense much. However, your desire for the bloodforge is so strong that I could feel it when you descended from the temple."

"What of it?" asked Kern. "We are seeking the bloodforge, it's true. We had it once, but-"

"I know. It was stolen from you by members of the Fallen Temple." A ghost of a smile wafted across Lord Garkim's face. "I suppose there is something appropriate about a theft by the Fallen Temple from a paladin of Т yr."

"What do you want?" repeated Kern. His hand was on his sword, his face stern. Trandon stood behind him, both hands resting on his staff, watching the scene closely. "I tell you frankly, my lord, I feel no great friendliness toward you. As far as I can tell, you have lied to us since we came into this land. You used us, you and your master. What can you offer us now?"

"An alliance, though perhaps a temporary one. The bloodforge in the hands of the Fallen Temple is an artifact that represents an extraordinary danger to the Five Kingdoms."

"It's also a grave danger to Faerun," said Trandon quietly.

Garkim shrugged. "Possibly. I cannot concern myself with matters in your corner of the world. What is of importance to me is safeguarding my land and performing the bidding of my master. In this I have failed. But if we can retrieve the bloodforge from the Fallen Temple, we can turn back the fiendish invasion."

"You know the secret of the bloodforge?" Entreri's voice trembled slightly, and his hand reached up to stroke his skeletal arm, now concealed again by wrappings.

"I do."

Entreri stood silent for a moment in thought. The others waited, Sharessa shifting impatiently from foot to foot, casting worried glances at the shadows in the street.

"I agree," observed Entreri finally. "But you will obey me in this affair."

Garkim looked at him, eyes gleaming. "You'll forgive me, Master Entreri, but I have some little experience with the false adherents of Туг. Moreover, I know where they have taken the forge. It hardly seems to me that you have anything with which to bargain."

"Then why propose an alliance?" snapped the little assassin.

Kern cleared his throat. "Come. We're wasting time. Lord Garkim, lead us to the bloodforge. Our pact can last at least that far. As to what happens when we recover the forge from these blasphemers-" He shrugged. "Well see."

"Oh, yes," said Garkim softly. "We shall see."