David Cook: Uneasy Alliances

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."