James Wyatt - In the Claws of the Tiger

Dania still clutched her sword and Janik could feel the tension in her. He suspected she was having the same kinds of thoughts. What had happened when she met Krael in Karrnath? He realized he didn’t know, but it had stirred up the same degree of hatred in her heart, and her newfound devotion to the Silver Flame had done nothing to diminish the rage she felt toward Krael. He stole a sidelong glance at her and caught a glimpse of the fire in her eyes. She would stand behind him.

“Janik?” Mathas said. “I am inclined to believe this is not the time and place for this confrontation.”

Janik didn’t respond, but Dania shifted her stance slightly.

“I think the elf is right,” Auftane whispered. “I think we could take the lackeys, and you can leave the warforged to me, but I’m worried about the vampire. To say nothing of the giant.”

Dania turned toward Janik.

“It would be unfortunate if we were forced to harm well-meaning members of the Stormreach guard in the course of battling our foes,” Mathas added.

“They’ve got a point,” Dania said. “We’ll have our shot at Krael, I’m sure.”

“You’re right,” Janik said. “Let’s get out of here.” He shifted his sword to his left hand and slid it into its sheath while raising his other hand to point at Krael. “Some other time, Krael!” he called.

The vampire hadn’t moved, but was still staring at Janik and Dania. Janik turned his back on Krael, took Dania’s arm, and hurried down the block toward a nearby tavern. Mathas and Auftane followed. Janik refused to look back at Krael-he couldn’t stand to see that satisfied smirk again. A group of people had gathered outside the tavern door to watch the confrontation, alerted by the call of the Stormreach guard. Janik ignored their laughs and whispers and pushed through. He led his friends to a table near the raging fire, and they all sat down.

“So tell me about Karrnath, Dania,” Janik said when they all had drinks in their hands and the hubbub had died down.

Dania scowled and stared into her tankard. She was silent for a moment, collecting her thoughts, then took a deep breath. “I went there to work for a friend of my late father’s,” she said, “an exorcist of the Silver Flame named Kophran ir’Davik. He was a pompous ass, as I believe I might have mentioned before.” Mathas grinned and nodded. “Along with a Sentinel Marshal, Gered d’Deneith-”

“Krael mentioned him,” Auftane interjected.

“Yes. The three of us tried to fight the influence of evil in Atur.” She paused and sighed again. “It was a bit like trying to put out a forest fire by spitting on it. Atur has earned its nickname, the City of Night. Anyway, one evening we went to a house where every inhabitant had been brutally murdered. Blood and bodies were strewn everywhere. Gered determined that two vampires were involved, one a shifter, and one a human-well, that one turned out to be Krael. Gered and I followed a trail away from the house and encountered Krael in an alley. We talked for a little while before Gered and I realized he was one of the vampires we’d been hunting, and then-” She broke off suddenly, swallowing hard.

“He killed Gered?” Mathas said softly.

Dania breathed a deep sigh. “Not quite. He started drinking Gered’s blood, but then Kophran came back.” She took another steadying breath. “Kophran filled the alley with silver light, and that drove Krael away.” Her voice trailed off and a half smile lingered on her lips.

“What about Maija?” Janik’s voice was barely audible above the din of the tavern.

“Well, it turned out that Krael and Maija had awakened this old shifter vampire named Havoc as part of their search for the Tablet of Shummarak.”

“You mentioned that on the ship,” Mathas said. “What is that tablet?”

Janik answered the elf’s question. “It’s an important serpent text from Xen’drik, dealing with the legendary war between the dragons and the fiends in the first age of the world. Specifically, it describes how the allies of the dragons, the couatls, bound the lords of the fiends deep within Khyber.”

“Sacrificing their own physical forms to trap the fiends within their spiritual coils,” Dania added, repeating what Kophran had told her. “And supposedly the Tablet of Shummarak goes on to reveal a means by which the bonds of the couatls’ coils might be broken, releasing the lords of the demons upon the earth again.”

Janik raised his eyebrows, wishing he had discussed the Tablet with Dania earlier.

“So Krael and Maija were hoping to find the Tablet and destroy the world?” Auftane asked.

“Undoubtedly part of some Emerald Claw plot,” Janik said.

“So we tried to learn more about this vampire, Havoc. He was rumored to have owned the Tablet some time before the Last War. And we managed to track him down-we found all three of them in a little shrine beneath the city. Havoc, Krael, and Maija.” She swallowed hard again. “That’s when Gered died. Maija cast a horrible spell, and he just … went out. Like pinching a candle.” She shook her head. “Kophran killed Havoc-or forced him to turn to mist, or something. I guess you can’t really kill a vampire. Maija disappeared-teleported away, I think, and Krael ran as well. Kophran figured Havoc was in charge of the operation, and insisted we take steps to finish him off. We ended up chasing a cloud of mist through half the sewers and catacombs under the city until it reached Havoc’s original crypt. Then we were able to destroy him for good, or Kophran said we had. But I didn’t see Krael or Maija again. We hunted for them for a long time, but as far as we could tell, they both left Karrnath entirely.”

“Did she … did Maija say anything?” Janik asked.

“Quite a bit, actually, considering that we were doing our level best to kill each other.”

“You fought her?” Somehow this seemed impossible to Janik. Some part of him, he realized, had long assumed that there was just some misunderstanding that would all be resolved the next time he saw Maija. That was why he had rebelled so strongly against Dania’s assertion that Maija was beyond redemption. And to imagine Dania actually trying to kill her, so convinced that Maija was lost to evil that she would take her life-his head started to swim.

“Of course I fought her, Janik.” Dania’s voice was gentle but firm. “Have you heard what I’ve been saying? She was working with a pair of vampires. She killed Gered-a Sentinel Marshal and a good man. As far as I could tell, she was trying to release the lords of demonkind and set them loose on the world. Of course I fought her.”

Janik nodded but turned aside, staring into the fire.

“What did she say, Dania?” Mathas asked.

Dania paused, trying to remember the details of their intense fight beneath the streets of Atur. “She mocked me. Every damned word was a mockery. She was so full of … of spite, malice, contempt. She said the vampires had grown tiresome or outlived their usefulness, and I asked her if that was what had happened at Mel-Aqat-whether she just tired of us. That’s when she cast the spell that killed Gered-it was like a wave of death crashing over me.”

As Dania spoke, a series of memories raced through Janik’s mind. They started, as thoughts of Maija always did, with Mel-Aqat-as she took the Ramethene Sword from Janik’s hand and ran over to Krael, offering it to him hilt first. Krael had seemed taken aback-he took a defensive stance as she approached, as if he thought she would attack him with the sword. When she handed him the weapon, Janik couldn’t hear what they said, but Krael still seemed suspicious. She had been mocking then, too-shouting back at him as she disappeared into the wilderness with Krael.