Eric De Bie - Shadowbane

Myrin lay below the orb, so still Kalen feared for a moment that whatever she had done had drained the last of her strength. Her blue runes seemed to shimmer dimly. She stirred as he came close and when he put his fingers to her cheek, her eyes opened. She looked so weary, her eyes shot through with blood and her lids lined with deep wrinkles in black hollows.

“What-what happened?” she asked.

“You did.” Kalen pointed to the orb. “Your spell … that summoned …”

“Oh.” Myrin looked at him dazedly. “But I don’t know a spell like that. At least …” She touched at her throat, and there, just below her right jawline, he saw a shimmering black circle illuminated in ink on her skin. “I didn’t.”

He shivered, though he couldn’t say exactly why.

A familiar stir in the air presaged the reappearance of Sithe. The genasi panted and wheezed, falling immediately to her knees beside them.

“Sithe,” Kalen said, reaching for her. “Are you-?”

She swatted away his hand. “Very well indeed,” she said.

“You sound awful,” Kalen observed.

“Spoken in a voice free of hurt.”

“True.” Kalen wiped blood from his chin. If not for his toughening spellscar, he suspected he would lie twitching on the floor. “Can you dispel this darkness, Myrin?”

“My orb is maintaining it,” Myrin said.

“Lilten’s orb,” Kalen said.

The woman gave a noncommittal shrug. “Let’s see-” She focused on the orb, raising her hand toward it. After a moment, as though it struggled with her, the orb dimmed and dropped like a stone to her hand.

The oppressive darkness lifted as the torch on the floor-miraculously unscathed by the battle-flickered back into existence. At first, the chamber looked empty and Kalen had the briefest moment of elation.

Then he saw it and his heart knew fear.

The mass of buzzing, hissing monstrosities rose up like a mountain before them. Even as he watched, bulges of the demonic beasts emerged to represent limbs. Finally-and perhaps worst-the swarm flowed to form something like facial features.

“Scour … Murmur …,” the swarm said in their minds. “ We have dreamed. A world afire .”

The three hardly understood, but the creature’s majesty forced them to silence.

“We are your prince,” it said in a hundred echoing voices. “ We are the harbinger .” The swarm made a cacophony of clicking noises that might have been laughter. “This world will feed us. You will feed us … Shadowbane.”

It wasn’t fair, but Kalen didn’t think about that. They were all going to die, but he didn’t think about that either. He did not think about Scour, or Myrin, or Sithe-not even himself. The chamber, Luskan, all of Faerun-all of it vanished.

He was the thief and the paladin both. He was Shadowbane .

A single voice spoke in his heart, telling him what it needed. What it demanded .

He answered.

Gray flames surrounded him, forming the suit of armor that was the manifestation of his faith. The steel that was his steel-the helm that was his helm.

Slowly, Kalen raised his hand high over his head as though saluting the swarm demon. He reached toward the heavens and opened himself wholly to the Threefold God.

There was no blade in his hand. He was the blade.

He was the destroyer.

A god’s instrument to destroy a demon prince.

He was the protector.

The drive to destroy was also the need to defend.

He was the guardian.

Silver fire lit in the air above him and he felt the familiar weight of a familiar bastard sword in his hand. One that, at last, did not burn him as he touched it.

He knew without looking that his prayer had been answered.

8 FLAMERULE (MIDNIGHT)

His thoughts vanished and he moved in a seemingly frozen world.

Vindicator, the sword of his soul somehow restored, slashed down and across, burning a score of Scour to ash. He bent low with the momentum, his body moving in perfect balance, and brought it up the other way, ripping away at the demon swarm.

With a roar, Scour slammed a composite limb into him, but hundreds of demons shrieked off his armor to no effect. Calmly, he stepped aside like a breath of wind and slashed the arm in two. Every strike he made against it-every bit of its life that slipped away-made the next strike deeper.

He struck again and again, dodged and struck. He did not think, not in the depths of his ardor-not in the burning light of his god. He struck and struck until it was ended.

Vindicator cut and burned until Scour lay in quivering pieces on the floor.

A hand touched his shoulder and he cut before he felt it. Vindicator smashed into a jagged black axe, knocking it to the floor.

Shar’s daughter stood unarmed before him.

He said nothing, only pulled back his sword for another strike. He knew exactly how to defeat her-exactly how to water the earth with her blood.

Then she appeared-the daughter of another goddess-and laid her hands alongside his cheeks. “Kalen!” she said. “Kalen, wake up!”

He did not know this name.

He drew back the blade, but a crystal in her hand flashed, thunder cracked, and he landed on his backside, five paces distant.

The ardor of the Threefold God fled him and-with it-the deepest secret of all.

Kalen found himself sitting on the blood-smeared floor, the hilt of silver-burning Vindicator in his hand. He stared dazedly at the sword. Hadn’t it been destroyed? How had he come by it?

And more to the point, what had he done ?

Scour lay in dozens of pieces, its multiple creatures limping uncertainly.

Myrin fell to her knees at Kalen’s side. “Are you well?” she demanded, feeling at his head. “Are you you ?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Myrin breathed a sigh of relief. “As thick-headed as ever.”

Kalen might have spoken, but she pulled him forward and kissed his forehead. That was all that needed to pass between them.

“It is not over,” Sithe said.

The genasi stood just removed from them. Her skin was torn in scores of places. Her clothes hung limp and ragged. She pointed.

Kalen saw, with a chill, what she meant. The beasts that had made up Scour were attacking one another, deriving sustenance from the demonic blood they spilled with their bites. Each creature that died fell among half a dozen of its fellows, which started twitching. New beasts grew from the corpses and even from the rock itself-those parts touched by the blood of the abyss.

“I can feel them in my head-they will return,” Sithe said. “Unless the pestilence is contained, it will never be over.”

“So we burn them,” Kalen said, knowing that would not work. “We can-”

Sithe shook her head. “It is not such a bad life I have lived, to see a god’s work,” Sithe mused. “And to know I was worthy of it.”

“I don’t understand,” Myrin said. “What are you saying?”

“Wait-” Kalen started to rise.

“It is the only way.” Sithe tossed her black axe into his chest, knocking him back to the floor. “Take care, Helm’s Champion.”

Myrin blinked, finally understanding. “Sithe, wait!” she said. “We can find you a cure-in Waterdeep, or Silverymoon! Don’t-”

“I wish I had worn your dress, Myrin Darkdance,” she said. “Just once.”

With that, she strode away from them, toward where the beasts were milling about, fighting with one another. The nearest leaped on her and dug its talons into her leg. Another, weakened by the attacks, leaped for her face, but she caught it instead on her arm. She walked on, unhindered.