Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain - The Darker Road

Ilvani shoved the dead woman away from her and fell off the window ledge. When she opened her eyes, she was in her bed. She got up quickly and looked around. She even climbed the ladder to look out her window, but she was alone in the room.

Except for the symbols that still burned behind her eyes. She had to get rid of them. Her trembling hands sought her knife from the table beside her bed, but it wasn’t there. She tried to remember what had happened to it. Oh yes. It was out on the Shadowfell plain. Ashok took it from her. He’d told her not to hurt herself.

She looked down at the bandages on her arms. Her fingernails grazed the stiff material, and it took every ounce of her strength not to tear the bandages away, to carve the symbols into her arms with her bare hands. Put them anywhere but behind her eyes, eating away at her thoughts.…

No, and then, aloud, “No.” Saying the word made her resolve real, gave it power, even if her voice was a feeble whisper. “No.” The halfling had tended her wounds. She’d been kind. It was wrong to repay that kindness with blood.

Ilvani remembered her time at Darnae’s shop better than she remembered the shadows in her boxes. She wished she could go back there, but she didn’t know the way. That wasn’t her place, anyway. Her place was moving, she was moving, and she couldn’t stop the current from carrying her away.

She went back to bed, even though she knew she would not sleep.

The night before the caravan was to leave for Faerun, Ashok, Skagi, and Cree-released finally from his prison at Tower Makthar-walked out to the training yard for Olra’s funeral.

Later, there would be celebrating and fierce dancing to see them off on their long journey, but Uwan had declared this hour the time to honor the head of the Camborrs.

Magic shrouded the lights of Tower Athanon and the surrounding area. The gathered warriors were indistinct shadows, but Ashok made out Uwan, Neimal, and the other Sworn standing near the fence. Guardians, new recruits, and Camborrs stood side by side in silence.

Then, out of the tower came a solemn procession. Six shadar-kai carried a wooden bier between them, three to a side. Olra’s body lay upon it, her form covered from head to foot in white cloth.

Skagi had explained the ritual to him. In Ikemmu, the shadar-kai did not look upon the faces of their dead during the funerary rites. To do so was to glorify the shell, the soulless frame that no longer held the essence of the warrior. Instead, they prayed aloud, using their voices to propel her spirit to the realm of her god. Ashok heard them now, each shadar-kai in the crowd murmuring in a low undertone his or her own private prayer. In this breath, the religions of Ikemmu were truly equal-no matter which god they prayed to, the gathered crowd spoke for Olra’s soul.

Ashok found he had trouble remembering how his old enclave had honored their dead, if they had done so at all.

Behind the procession walked more shadar-kai. Ashok recognized the forge masters. They wore dark robes and carried swords in their hands, the points facing down toward the ground.

Tempus’s symbol, the swords were works of art, breathtaking and deadly. Kerthta came last. She carried a sword and Olra’s barbed whip clasped together in her hands. The whip still bore the blood of the snake. She wore no expression of grief and stood stoically when those in the procession halted and placed their burden on an unlit pyre in the center of the training yard. Then the six bearers turned and formed a line at the head of the bier.

The forge masters spread out to form a loose circle around the pyre. They turned the sword hilts so the blades pierced the sky. Kerthta approached the body and placed the whip and sword together across Olra’s breast.

The Watching Blade himself came forward then, bearing a lit torch, its flame surrounded by black spikes like a steel flower unfurling. He handed the torch to Kerthta.

“In the halls of Warriors’ Rest, Olra waits for us,” Uwan said. His voice carried over the crowd. “Tonight all shadar-kai of Ikemmu celebrate the passage of the soul,” Uwan said. “In life, we struggle always to bind spirit to flesh, to deny the lurking shadows their claim on our souls. Olra won her battle, and now her god Tempus calls her home.”

Ashok felt the tension in the air when Uwan spoke these words. The gathered crowd knew that Olra had worshiped Tempus; their leader’s words were appropriate, but they couldn’t fail to hear the fervor in Uwan’s voice when he spoke of the warrior god. Uwan might change Ikemmu’s laws to accommodate other religions, but it was clear the leader still personally favored Tempus’s children. Silently, Ashok cursed Uwan for a fool. The city would never stand united while its leader valued Tempus above all.

“Tonight we celebrate, for Olra’s soul has found rest and peace at last,” Uwan said. “The rest of us struggle on, and by the gods’ will, we will join her someday, when our time comes.”

The prayers of the crowd wound down, and Kerthta stepped forward to light the funeral pyre. Ashok saw Neimal make a gesture, and the flames glowed blue-white and soared high toward the cavern ceiling. They consumed Olra’s body and illuminated the faces of the watching shadar-kai. The forge master, Olra’s lover, looked on and, by the light of the pyre, Ashok saw the grief break through, not in her face, but in the way she reached up to clasp her arm where the snake had bitten her.

Then it was over. The blaze gradually burned down to a few small fires as the crowd began to disperse. Ashok briefly considered approaching Kerthta, who hadn’t moved from her place at Olra’s pyre, but he decided against it. The moment was hers. He would not intrude.

He couldn’t change the past. All he could do was look ahead to the morrow. Ilvani had told him once to value his friends and to keep them safe. Ashok would do all he could to help Ilvani, as she had once helped him.

At the Monril Bell, Ashok, Skagi, and Cree were awake, dressed, and ready. Ashok promised to meet the brothers at the caravan staging area. He made a brief stop to say goodbye to Darnae because the halfling had asked it of him, and then he went on to Ilvani’s chambers to see if the witch wanted an escort through the Veil that separated the two halves of the city.

He knocked on her chamber door but got no answer, and he sensed no life within the room. She was already gone. Ashok felt a brief disappointment, but then he moved on to the Camborr pens.

The nightmare stood in his cage, his nose against the iron bars. Though Neimal’s spell made the beast appear in the guise of a common stallion, there was no disguising the intense beauty of the creature or the hatred in his eyes.

Ashok removed the lock and swung open the cage door. “You knew I wouldn’t leave you here,” he said. “You know I’ll give you the blood you crave.”

The nightmare came out of the cage and walked up to Ashok. He felt the beast’s warmth, an unnatural heat that filled the small space. Anyone standing nearby would be able to tell something was wrong with Ashok’s “horse.” He would have to remember that and keep others away.

Ashok led the nightmare through the city, and together they walked through the portal to the Underdark side of Ikemmu.

A strange mirror to the Shadowfell, this city had long been dominated by the trader races and by extension was more hospitable to outsiders and the comforts they sought. The towers were much the same, but the stone buildings below were newer and softer around the edges than the burned-out ruins on the Shadowfell side. The population here was more numerous, which made Ashok uncomfortable. It seemed to him he was constantly elbowing through a crowd.