Keith Baker - Son of Khyber

The answer soon became clear. The narrow tunnel opened into a massive chamber. A basalt altar stood in the center of the room, a long dark table carved from the floor itself. Narrow niches covered the walls, and Thorn could see a stub of bone protruding from the nearest of these.

A crypt, Steel mused.

“More like an ossuary,” Thorn whispered, thinking back to a previous mission. It seemed a likely assessment. Glancing in one of the nearby alcoves, Thorn saw a dozen goblin skulls grinning up at her. And there were tools scattered about the altar-rusted knives and remnants of shattered pottery, likely tools and salves used by embalmers.

Then she saw the net.

Four pillars of dark stone surrounded an altar. But these columns weren’t ceiling supports, as Thorn had first thought. Instead, a wide net was stretched out between the pillars, the rope in remarkably good condition considering its apparent age. Bones were trapped within the mesh. More than just bones: Thorn could see pieces of rusted armor and decaying cloth. The remnants of a hundred bodies or more, suspended a good twenty feet from the floor.

There are open shafts in the ceiling, Steel observed. This must have been a central repository for bodies. A corpse would be dropped into a pit somewhere above, and routed here, falling into the net until the embalmers could tend to it. From the looks of things, they had a little more work than they could handle.

“I hate it when work piles up,” Thorn said. She examined the room closely, watching and listening for any signs of motion, but there was nothing. Bits of bone were scattered across the floor, pieces that had slipped through the net above. Eerie as it was, the room seemed to be empty. Thorn could see the mouth of a tunnel on the opposite side of the chamber, and so she carefully began to make her way across.

She was almost at the altar when Xu’sasar struck. The drow woman had been pressed against one of the pillars, and now she stepped out behind Thorn. Her bone wheel spun through the air, curved points glistening with venom. Fortunately, Thorn had been expecting an attack. There was no time for conscious action, but the instant she heard the whir of the wheel, Thorn rolled down and to the side, twisting to face her opponent. The throwing wheel smashed into a pillar behind her, and Thorn heard the rattle as shards of stone fell to the floor. The wheel spun back through the air before she could move, returning to Xu’sasar’s hand with supernatural swiftness.

“I do not fear death,” Xu’sasar said as she drew back for another throw. “And I am not afraid to slay my reflection.”

Thorn rolled behind the altar before the blow could land. As before, there was a shower of shards as the bone wheel struck the stone pillar. The force of the throw was amazing, as was the fact that the bone was unaffected by the impact. Thorn couldn’t risk being hit. But she did have one advantage. She could see in the darkness, but she’d also been able to fight a medusa with her eyes closed, guided solely by sound and scent. Xu’sasar had managed to take Thorn by surprise, but now Thorn was able to pinpoint the dark elf’s position, even as she crouched behind the altar. She heard the whisper of the bone blade as it returned to Xu’sasar’s hand, heard the soft sounds of the dark elf creeping closer to Thorn.

Xu’sasar leaped over the altar in one swift motion, a jump surely empowered by magic. Her bone weapon had shifted both shape and mass, and now it was a long blade on a short haft, wielded in both hands.

But Thorn was ready. When the drow was at the apex of her leap, Thorn rose and hurled the bag of holding at her. Thorn couldn’t catch the dark elf in the sack, but the heavy leather folds caught Xu’sasar full in the face, and she landed off balance. She was still swift enough to raise an armored wrist to block Thorn’s attack, but Thorn wasn’t striking with Steel. She wrapped her fingers around Xu’sasar’s forearm and activated the false dragonmark.

The tattoo burned around her eye, and Thorn felt the fire flowing through her veins. Xu’sasar stiffened, but she didn’t cry out and she didn’t fall.

Xu’sasar clenched her teeth, and a hammer slammed into Thorn’s chest-a powerful kick that sent her reeling backward. Thorn barely managed to stay on her feet. Luckily, the pain had slowed Xu’sasar. The tip of the bone glaive burned as it scraped against Thorn’s shoulder, and Thorn prayed that there wasn’t enough poison in the wound to bring her down.

Now the advantage was with Xu’sasar. The length of her long blade moved with deadly speed and kept her out of Thorn’s reach. It took every trace of Thorn’s skills to hold her foe at bay, and she had to give ground with each exchange. Xu’sasar was pressing her back to one of the stone columns. And then Thorn had her plan.

Reaching with her free hand, Thorn summoned the myrnaxe she had bound within the glove. Let your instincts be your guide, Fileon had told her. Thorn drew on his lessons. She didn’t try to summon the mysterious energy that lay within her, the burst of power that had saved her in the past. She just focused on the throw, on putting all of her strength into the blow. And the power came, responding to her need.

She threw the axe one-handed, but she barely felt its weight. It was a clumsy blow, and Xu’sasar was able avoid the deadly blade. But the drow was still disoriented from pain, and the sheer force of this blow sent her sprawling backward. Another step brought Thorn to the pillar, and a slash with Steel severed the rope supporting the over-laden net. The cord was thick and unnaturally tough, perhaps strengthened by alchemical means, but it still gave way to Steel. Before Xu’sasar could rise, an avalanche of bone and rusty metal was upon her-brittle corpses of goblin soldiers flowing down in a ghastly torrent. Darting back, Thorn escaped the bones, but Xu’sasar was buried beneath it. Skulls rolled across the floor, and the crumbling breastplate of a fallen bugbear scraped against the stone.

Thorn tightened her grip on Steel and studied the heap of bones. She’d managed to pin Xu’sasar, but it was unlikely that the dark elf was seriously injured. Thorn needed to finish her quickly, before she could work her way free from the bones. She studied the scattered bones, searching for any signs of movement, listening for the sound of labored breathing. But the motion she heard came from behind her, as someone entered the room.

It was Daine. His sword was in his hand, and the blade glowed with pale, silver light that illuminated the room. His dragonmark twisted around his arm, rippling like flame.

Thorn froze. She was still disguised as Xu’sasar, and the true dark elf was completely hidden beneath the bones. Steel was in her hand. She could finish this here. If Daine lowered his guard, one well-placed throw was all it would take to cripple him. She waited, watching, searching for the opening she needed.

“Thorn,” Daine said. She felt a chill in the crystal shard as she met his gaze. “I thought I might see you tonight. Come. You and I have much to discuss.”

The Undercity Lharvion 21, 999 YK

Thorn kept Steel at the ready. Despite his words, Daine was still on his guard. It would be difficult to strike a lethal blow at this distance, and she just didn’t know what he was capable of. Draw it out, she thought. Wait for him to slip.

“I don’t understand,” she said. It was hard to perfectly match Xu’sasar’s style and idiom, but the magic that hid her face also altered her voice. And fortunately, if Xu’sasar was alive, it appeared that she’d been rendered unconscious by the flood of bones.

Daine smiled, but his sword never faltered. He raised his dragonmarked hand. “I can feel you, Thorn. It’s part of my gift. When I touched you before, I tasted your soul. It will take more than such a little spell to hide your presence from me. And I know why you are here. You came to us from the Dark Lanterns, but you never truly left their ranks, did you?”