Erin Evans - The Adversary

Another guard came at him, chain wheeling. The heavy weapon smacked against Dahl’s upper arm, hard enough to make him feel the bone, and more than enough to grab his attention. He heard Vescaras’s shouts, Hamdir’s shouts, Oota’s bellows, and he could not track a one of them as he dodged the heavy spiked chain. He backed away, leading the chainmaster away from his fellows. . and toward the rune-scribed gem glowing in the center of the wall. “Come on, little mouse,” the shadar-kai crooned. “Come and play.”

The chain darted out, nearly catching Dahl’s shoulder, but he dropped beneath it. The chain crashed into the gem. A stream of ice burst out, encasing the guard. The shimmer of magic dropped from the cages. Dahl finished off the guard and started prying open doors. On the other side of the room, he saw Vescaras do the same. Oota roared as the last of the guards fell to her sword.

It is my duty to find what is hidden, Dahl chanted through the noise of the Chosen, and my gift to know what is unknown.

He heard a strangled sound. The last wizard was pulled against the bars of the cell beside the one Phalar had ducked into, the chain of his amulet stretched between two ebony hands and pulled taut against the wizard’s throat. Against the back wall of the cell, an old woman watched in horror.

The wizard’s last strangled gasps were cut off by the twang of Sheera’s crossbow. The bolt lodged in the wizard’s chest, and he fell still. Phalar dropped him with a look of disgust.

“ None of you,” he announced, “are any fun.”

“The sands are running,” Dahl said. “We have to move.”

Those prisoners who had not broken out into the fight on their own were easily recovered. Many of them were wounded, all of them were shocked and shaken. Dahl had to coax little Vanri out of the corner of the cage she’d been thrown in.

“I don’t want to,” Vanri sobbed. “Tell her I don’t want to.”

Dahl picked the girl up and held her close. He looked over her shoulder at Armas, at Brin straightening, woozy and off-balance from trying to heal the half-elf’s ruined chest. The wound had healed over, a shiny patch of pink skin where the bloody mess had been. But Armas still looked drawn and sallow. Vanri’s grip on Dahl’s neck tightened and the sound of the roaring ocean filled his ears.

“Hush,” Dahl said, and he rubbed her back. “It will be all right.”

As they came to the door, however, a sudden sense of utter dread clenched around Dahl’s heart, so strange and sudden that it only took a moment to realize it wasn’t natural.

“What in the Hells was that?” Oota demanded.

Lord of Knowledge, Dahl thought, don’t let that be from the Hells. Havilar watched, horrified, as flames leaped across Farideh’s skin when she stepped from the water. A whirlwind of fire shifted, collecting, haloing her form, but building, building, up her back until . .

Wings of fire unfolded around Farideh, shielding her like two massive hands. Pure dread gripped Havilar in the very base of her belly, and for a moment she couldn’t quite feel her knees or her glaive in her hands. Samayan clung to Ebros, shivering. Among the shadar-kai, even, some stepped back, away from this nightmare creature Farideh had become.

No, Havilar thought, gripping her weapon. She’s still Farideh. She’s still Farideh.

Farideh held her rod out in front of her. “ Chaanaris ,” she said, almost a hiss. She pulled the rod up.

In concert, a dozen hands made of shadow and flame broke out of the ground. The shadar-kai who noticed yelped and cursed and backed into still more hands, still more bodies pulling themselves up out of the ground and snatching at the guards with hands more claw than finger. Hungry hands, Havilar thought, edging toward her sister.

Farideh dropped the rod with a soft cry. The flames sputtered and failed. Havilar grabbed her arm.

“What are those things?”

“Get back!” Farideh cried, snatching up her fallen rod. “They’re not on our side.”

The creatures grabbed hold of several guards, hooting and howling like wild apes, like things all empty of all but the simplest needs. Their shadowand-flame hands sank into the shadar-kai, who screamed as the creatures tore flesh and something deeper from their forms.

“Ebros, keep shooting!” Khochen cried, pulling throwing knives from her boots. Farideh recovered herself and sent a rain of brimstone after them, and Havilar kept her glaive moving, keeping the frantic guards away from her sister and trying hard not to watch the clawing, Hellish souls.

Farideh’s terrible spell faded, and the shadar-kai who weren’t lying dead or dying came at them with renewed fury. Fifteen still, Havilar guessed. And five of us. Not pleasant odds, but she adjusted her stance and held her glaive low and ready.

A flash of light seared Havilar’s eyes.

“Hold,” Adolican Rhand said to his guards. And as welcome as the order was, it sent a trill of panic through Havilar. The wizard’s creepy gaze was fixed on Farideh.

“Well, well,” Rhand said, his voice like a razor, “I see you are not in the keeping of the Hells, after all. I shall assume that this was just Lady Sairché’s attempt to enjoy my company.” He smiled at Farideh, and Havilar shuddered. Twelve steps, she estimated. Just far enough she couldn’t be sure that she’d hit him before he cast another spell. She edged toward her sister.

Farideh was as still as an oak in the forest. “You didn’t come here to ask after Sairché’s motives. What do you want?”

“My patron’s interest has diminished,” Rhand said, “and we seem to be under attack. We are departing for Shade, and so you have a choice to make.” His gaze bored into her. “You can depart with me, and I will leave these people to their own devices. Perhaps they will manage where others have failed and escape before the remaining stores run out.

“Or you can refuse,” he went on, “and be swept from the face of Faerûn with the rest of these unwashed pretenders, knowing you could have saved them.”

Farideh glanced at Havilar, her terror plain to her twin. Havilar shook her head, ever so slightly. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Rhand couldn’t destroy the camp faster than they could finish getting people underground, right?

Farideh swallowed and gave Havilar a look that said volumes: There wasn’t another way. There wasn’t a way to be sure. And she was sorry, again. So sorry.

“Don’t!” Havilar said.

“I love you, Havi,” Farideh said. “Tell Mehen and Dahl and the others I’m sorry, and. .” She gave her twin a significant look. “Don’t follow this time.”

“Fari!” Havilar shouted, running toward her. “Fari, karshoj, don’t-”

But Farideh took hold of Adolican Rhand’s proffered hand and vanished before Havilar could grab hold of her and make her stop. The shadar-kai glanced at each other, as if none of them wanted to follow orders, but each stepped through the nearest patch of shadow and disappeared, back to the fortress.

Silence hung over the bloody beach. Then, Havilar screamed.

Lorcan knew he ought to ask the mirror to show him Adolican Rhand-if it couldn’t find Sairché, it could at least find her captor and narrow Lorcan’s search. But instead he caught the scourge pendant in his hand and asked to see Farideh.

Asmodeus’s demands outweighed his agreements with Sairché, he told himself. The mirror shivered and shifted to reflect Farideh tearing down a slope toward a score of armed shadar-kai, and Lorcan cursed.

Lorcan sprinted back to the portal, holding in his thoughts the image of Farideh, the edge of a frozen lake.

The portal to the fortress didn’t behave any better for Lorcan than it had for Sairché. He stepped out, not into the middle of the battle with the shadarkai, but into empty streets between ragged huts. He heard the shouts and scrambling of a handful of people running from his entrance to the plane. Good riddance, he thought, trying to orient himself. The lake would be to the south and west-