David Cook: Uneasy Alliances

"And he can do that if he gets a bloodforge?" Noph asked.

"According to most accounts of him, Ysdar already has a bloodforge. But a second would give him decisive power to command armies far greater than any that other kingdoms might bring against him. So we stand upon the sword's edge. The next few hours may decide whether my world stands or falls." Garkim fell silent and strode on.

At last the party entered a small room, into which a number of passages converged. To one side was another ladder leading upward. Garkim, the hem of his robes dripping with foul water, climbed up the ladder. The others followed and, in a few moments, emerged, blinking, into the light of day.

The sun was now high in the sky and blazed down upon the close quarters of the city. The air smelled of rot and decay, of soot and ashes from the burning city. And over everything was the acrid tang of fresh blood.

They were in a deserted street lined with empty houses. To Noph, it looked no different than the area where they had entered the drains. Yet something felt different, and after a moment he realized what it was. The fiendish clamor had died away, and high in the morning sky, he could hear the cry of gulls and smell a stiff salt breeze.

They were near the sea.

The group formed a narrow line, and Garkim led them along the street, gesturing to them to stay in the shadows cast by the overhanging houses. They saw no living thing.

One of the guardsmen in the rear screamed.

From a dark doorway, tentacles reached forth, their edges as sharp as razors. One whipped around the man's neck and tightened abruptly. His head fell and went spinning down the dusty street, eyes staring and mouth still open in a silent cry of death and despair. His body was yanked back into the doorway; there was a horrid crunching sound.

"Run!" cried Garkim.

Noph raced forward, then stopped, hearing a cry from Shar. She was clutching the hand of another guard, who had fallen in the street. A tentacle held him by the ankle, trying to draw him back to the same shadowy door where his companion had met death. The man was moaning, his face contorted in pain. Noph grasped the man's other hand and pulled. There was a dreadful moment of straining, and then suddenly resistance ceased, and Noph and Shar fell backward in the street. They saw the tentacle retreating, the guard's foot from the ankle down still clutched in its grasp. The guard looked down at his footless leg and promptly fainted.

"Come on!" Shar yelled to Noph. Between the two of them, they got the man up and half carried, half dragged him a hundred yards up the street. Trandon knelt by the guard, whose leg was spouting blood. He pressed his hands gently about the wound and murmured a few words. The flesh around the stump knit together, and the bleeding stopped.

"That's the best I can do," Trandon told Shar. "You'll have to help him along."

"No!" snapped Entreri. "He can't fight, and hell impede two others. He's useless to us now. Leave him."

Garkim drew himself up. "You will not leave one of my men behind, Master Entreri."

The assassin glared at him. "I give the orders."

"And I know the location of the bloodforge."

Entreri turned and with bad grace stalked along the way they were following. Garkim followed without another word. Shar put her arm around the guard, who had now recovered consciousness, and helped him limp along, while Noph rejoined Trandon and Kern.

The smell of the sea grew stronger in Noph's nostrils. He realized they must be drawing near the dock area. All at once, the party reached the end of the narrow street they had been traversing and beheld before them the Great Sea and, glimmering in the sun, a temple.

Before them was a broad plaza, along which were drawn several fishing boats. From the dock, a narrow causeway led across the water, perhaps fifty yards, to a building, constructed of black basalt, that sat amid the waves like a brooding spider.

Garkim gestured toward it. "The Temple of Umberlee."

Ingrar, standing beside him, nodded. "Yes. That's where they've taken the bloodforge."

The others crowded around them, standing in a shadow cast by one of the buildings that ringed the plaza. They could see various hooded figures moving along the docks and the causeway. Garkim gazed at them thoughtfully.

"Those are not the robes of the True Believers of Umberlee," he observed.

Kern snorted. "I didn't know the word 'true' could be mentioned in the same breath with the bitch goddess," he remarked to Trandon.

"Silence!" said Garkim sternly. "Umberlee is a deity widely worshiped in Doegan, as well as in other parts of the Five Kingdoms. It is not for outsiders such as yourself to denigrate her."

Kern shrugged. "All right, fine. The bloodforge is in the Temple of Umberlee. Let's go get it."

He was two steps onto the plaza before Trandon's hand on his arm yanked him back. "Wait," urged the fighter. "This isn't a situation for a frontal assault." He looked at Garkim. "You said those people"-he motioned toward the hooded figures-"don't look like Umberlee's worshipers. To me, they look like disciples of the Fallen Temple."

Garkim nodded grimly. "Precisely. The adherents of the Fallen Temple have evidently used the confusion to install themselves and the bloodforge in Umberlee's sanctuary."

Entreri had been carefully taking a visual survey of the plaza and dock area. Now he stepped back and tapped Trandon and Shar. "You two come with me. The rest of you wait here." Without another word, he was gone, stealing back along the way they'd come. Garkim looked after him, puzzled.

"What's he doing?" the chancellor asked Kern.

The paladin spread his hands in a gesture that indicated dissociation. "I've no idea, and I don't want to know. Right now, let's get out of sight." He examined the open door of a nearby house carefully, and beckoned the others inside. Noph helped the footless guard whom Sharessa had been aiding. Once inside, the man sank to the ground and rested against the wall.

"That woman… who is she?" the guard asked Kern.

"Shar? She's a pirate."

"She's the most beautiful pirate I ever saw." The guard managed a grin. "Something to make a man wish he'd chosen to follow the sea."

Noph settled himself beside the guard. "Don't expect too much from her. If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that you can't trust women. Love 'em and leave 'em, that's what I say."

The guard looked at Noph's hairless face and slender wrists. Along the youth's upper lip was a dark line of fuzzy down, where he'd been trying to grow a mustache. "Right. I'll remember that. Coming from a man of your experience." He sighed and stretched a hand down to scratch at his stump of a leg. "Damn thing itches."

The company was silent until Kern, who had been watching from the door, gave a low whistle. A moment later, Entreri, Shar, and Trandon entered, bearing a pile of shapeless rags.

"What are those?" asked Kern.

Shar held up a robe, identical to the ones they'd seen on the members of the Fallen Temple. "Here's one just your size, paladin."

The big knight drew back as if the garment were riddled with disease. "I can't wear that."

"Why not?"

"It's dishonorable to go into battle in disguise. And especially to disguise myself as a member of that disgusting bunch of-"

"Fine. Then you don't go," Entreri said briskly. "The rest of you get these on quickly. There's some sort of ceremony about to start, and we may be able to take advantage of it."

Garkim's dusky face paled. "Ceremony?"

"Yes. We heard chanting and drums, and there was a long line going to the temple."

Garkim hastily drew a robe over his head. "It must be the Rite of Investiture. We cannot allow this to happen!" He turned to the paladin. "Do you not see the terrible danger? Imagine those monsters of the Fallen Temple-the temple of your god Tyr-with the power of the bloodforge at their command! Do you think for a moment they would stop at the shores of the Five Kingdoms? This plague will spread across all realms. It will drive out all other gods. We must stop it!"