Eric De Bie - Shadowbane

“One bottle left,” the bartender called back. “Cost me forty pieces of gold.”

“Share it with us who are soon to die?”

“Well then.” She reached into a cupboard hidden beneath the bar and took out one of the Dead Rats’ greatest treasures: four glasses-genuine glasses, albeit cracked in two instances, and with one missing a substantial chip from the edge. “Can’t be toasting imminent death with pewter or clay.”

The four of them sat around the table in the middle of the vast, nearly empty common room, as Flick poured glasses of the thick amber liquid into their tankards. The scent of almonds rose as they each touched their glasses, expectant.

“We face certain death tonight,” Kalen said. “We’re to venture into the sewers and destroy that creature in its lair. All on the word of an elf who’s probably playing both sides.”

“Well,” Myrin said. “That definitely sounds like certain death-unless we win.”

“Unless.” Kalen raised his glass. “To almost certain death.”

They raised their glasses and threw back the zzar. Of the four of them, Sithe’s face drew tightest-apparently, heavy drink was not for her. Myrin did quite well.

“You are well?” Kalen asked the genasi.

Sithe drained the rest of her zzar. “Better.”

“Hic!” Myrin beamed. “That’s the best.”

Flick chuckled wetly and poured the last of the bottle into the four glasses. “What of the next queen of Luskan, eh?” she asked. “Eden of the Clearlight?”

Every face turned sour.

“Easy come, easy bleed,” Flick said. “In Luskan, you basically have two choices: live with the blaggard in power or kill him and hope you like the next blaggard better.”

Kalen touched his second glass of zzar, looking at the reflection of his fingers through the amber. “Anyone know how to kill a tide of ten thousand beasts?”

“Ten thousand cuts,” Sithe said.

“If we fought it before and couldn’t kill it,” Kalen said, “how do we kill it now?”

“Point.” Myrin stared at her second glass very seriously. “But we have to try.”

“Fleeing isn’t better?” Flick asked. “The Dead Rats is done, the other gangs of Luskan in disarray. What you got’s worth the fight?”

“Nothing,” Sithe said.

The genasi looked around the table, taking in first Myrin, then Kalen. Understanding flickered across Sithe’s dark visage.

“Something more,” she amended.

Kalen raised his glass to that. “Something more.”

More .

We fed well today, but we must have more .

The call brought us to food and that was good. We chafe under the control, but the eating was good. Murmur is silent-Murmur is weak when we are strong .

One of them stood against us. We know .

Shadow. Bane .

We hunger for him .

Darkness stirs. They are coming .

We wait in the holes and gaps of the broken earth .

We will have more .

7 FLAMERULE (DUSK)

Every city has a pit of misery that outstrips all else, and Luskan was no exception. The darkest, foulest, and most dangerous part of the ruined city lay below the streets, where the gangs refused to tread without the most desperate of causes.

These were the sewers.

Even in its glory days, Luskan had never had a proper sewer system. The erstwhile natives simply dumped their refuse in the streets and it filtered down through the holes in the cobblestones and into the underworld. Built atop the ancient city of Illusk, Luskan boasted extensive caverns and passages, each of them filled over the years with the detritus of thousands of uncaring citizens. Mangy rats, spiders as big as dogs, and rot-feasting beetles ruled the undercity, making it a perfect haven for Scour.

Holding aloft a guttering torch, Kalen made sure Myrin and Sithe were well. It smelled beyond foul, overlaid with a sort of toxic heat that made breathing difficult. Myrin wore stout boots and a veil to keep out the stench. Sithe was unflappable.

Below the stink that choked breath, beneath even conscious senses, they felt a deep, steady beat in the tunnels below-like a heart that beat its own, droning rhythm. They heard the patter and buzz of a thousand voices.

They exchanged nods and descended into the waiting, hungry darkness.

“I almost thought you weren’t coming,” a cheery voice rang out as they entered a wide, round chamber fifty feet or so below the surface.

Lilten leaned against the wall, untouched by the filth. His gold eyes glowed slightly in the stuffy darkness and the hilt of his rapier gleamed.

A paper-wrapped package leaned against the wall at Lilten’s feet, about the length of Kalen’s arm and thrice as wide. It lacked the elf’s uncanny fastidiousness: the damp of Luskan’s sewers had soaked through the base, turning it a deep, ugly brown.

“What is that?” Kalen asked.

“Nothing for this battle.” Lilten waved at the parcel. “All things at their proper time, no?” He swept his arms around the room. “Do you not know where we are?”

The wide chamber in which they stood expanded enough for forty or fifty to mill around in comfort. Hollows in the ground held withered soil and chipped stone basins might have held flowers. Kalen thought it an arboretum from ancient times. How long ago had it been that this chamber, now so deep underground, had seen the sunlight?

Kalen looked to Sithe, who shrugged slightly.

Myrin, on the other hand, furrowed her brow. “Something familiar. I can’t-”

Kalen stepped in front of her, dropped the torch, and pulled his daggers. An arrow streaked from the darkness and embedded itself in his shoulder. Myrin sucked in a sharp breath to cry out, but before any of them could utter a sound, men streamed through the half-dozen archways leading into the chamber, steel glinting in their hands.

It was a trap.

Kalen had no time to consider whether Lilten-who seemed to have vanished-had betrayed them or not. He parried aside one man’s strike and slashed at the next. He felt the arrow in his shoulder only numbly. Sithe whirled, her axe flying, and men toppled away from her. Arrows streaked through the darkness at her, but she batted them aside with her jagged blade.

Kalen parried a thrust, punched out at his attacker’s face, then spun to kick a second man between the legs. His foot met some sort of resistance and barely touched his target. An attack that should have put the man down was turned aside. He saw Myrin spreading her fingers to cast a spell and shouted to her. “Save your magic for Scour!”

“It won’t matter if we all die!” Myrin said. A sheet of flame erupted from her fingers, illuminating the chamber and driving back two masked warriors with eastern blades.

The rogues herded the three into the center of an ever-tightening circle. Kalen and Sithe flanked Myrin, batting aside attack after attack. The wizard blasted with thunder, frost, and magical force, but to no avail. There were too many. Worse, they were bolstered by some sort of protective spell that turned most of Kalen and Sithe’s strikes aside.

Armored by faith, Kalen realized.

When the three touched backs and found nowhere left to retreat, as the sound of applause rang out through the wide arboreal chamber.

“Brilliant!” Eden called from behind the throng. “Well fought-well fought indeed. But while you can beat to a pulp every dastard in this midden hole of a city one by one, how long can you stand if every one of them comes at you at once?”

Indeed, their attackers were of all sorts-Shou Dragonblood, brutish Dustclaw, ragged Dogtooth or Bloodboot, even some weasel-like Dead Rats. All of them wore the gold sash of the Coin-Spinners.