Элейн Каннингем - Thornhold

Well, that is what the “Harpers” would do. Danilo, personally, had other plans. He stooped and kissed the gnome’s brown cheek. “Thank you, Alice.”

“What for?” She sniffed and scrubbed at her cheek with one hand. “I gave you my report, same as always. You’ll pass along the report, same as always. Business as usual.”

“I’ll pass along the report you gave me ,” he said, giving the words deliberate emphasis.

Awareness dawned in the gnome’s eyes, and a small, grateful smile curved her lips. She cleared her throat and turned aside. She opened a glass-topped table and snatched up a pair of teardrop earrings; silver, set with moonstones and sapphires. They were beautiful, and perfect for Danilo’s half-elf partner.

“These are elven, and if I remember aright, the elf festival of Springrite is just around the corner.”

He counted out the price and put the gold coins into the gnome’s hand. “Arilyn will love them. She may even wear them. You are an excellent saleswoman, Alice,” he said, punctuating his remark with another kiss to her cheek, “and an even better friend.”

Danilo turned and left, shooing off the suddenly suspicious raven and noting, with great satisfaction, that this time the gnome permitted his heartfelt kiss to remain where he’d left it. And as he went, he sent up a silent prayer to Selûne, the goddess of moonlight and the patron of all seekers, that Bronwyn would find her way safely to Thornhold, and that there she would find what she had been seeking so long.

Dag Zoreth had heard stories about the vastness and complexity of the underground world, but all of them paled before the reality. The tunnels and caverns beneath the Sword Mountains went on forever, delving far deeper than he had imagined a man could go. Dag Zoreth had never been so far underground. It was oppressive in a way that no fortress dungeon, no matter how dank and fearful, could ever duplicate. Perhaps it was the knowledge that tons of rock and soil loomed overhead, or the constant danger posed by the river that careened through the heart of the mountain.

The river path was wet and treacherous. More than one man had fallen down the steep embankment, to be swept away to his death. They had been forced to slaughter one of the pack mules who’d fallen and broken a leg amid the uneven stones. The noise of the rushing water was nearly deafening, and the only light was the luminous moss that grew in uneven patterns on the tunnel walls.

But Dag had chosen the path for its very hazards. The river’s roar would drown out the sounds of the approaching army, and the glowing moss made torchlight unnecessary. It was never easy to surprise dwarves. Taking out their outposts—a reclusive smith and some far-ranging mining parties—would help. One of the miners had yielded up some interesting news. Not willingly, of course. He had died without speaking, despite the Zhentish soldiers’ most creative efforts to wrest information from him by torture. The dwarf’s spirit had been more accommodating. Grudging even in death, the dwarf had given up, bit by bit, the fact that most of the Stoneshaft clan had gathered to celebrate the wedding of the patriarch’s youngest daughter. There would be days of festivity and merriment. Wedding ale, a particularly potent brew, would be abundant.

None of the soldiers believed that this guaranteed an easy time of it. Dwarves were fearsome fighters whose prowess and ferocity only seemed to rise with the level of ale in their bellies. But what the Zhentarim had in their favor was surprise, in the form of access to tunnels that, until recently, no one but the paladins of Thornhold knew existed.

Sir Gareth’s information proved accurate, though Dag had taken care to verify it wherever he could. Finally they reached the last tunnel, the one that led to the Stoneshaft clanhold’s great hall.

A call for silence and readiness passed down the line, moving swiftly by blow and gesture. Dag watched as the soldiers loosened their weapons and removed extras from the nearly empty packs on the mules. The animals would stay back with the drovers, for they would be useful in the new trade routes that would follow this conquest. When all was ready, Dag nodded to his captain, and the soldiers crept forward.

Excitement, dark and compelling, welled up in Dag’s heart. He had seen battle before, but only from a distance. His superiors at Darkhold deemed him too valuable to risk in close combat. He had earned his position in the war-clerics through his command of strategy and the clerical spells he had developed with Cyric’s blessing. This was the first time he would smell the blood and the fear, taste the potent wine of destruction.

He fell into place behind the fighters and began murmuring a low prayer. Into it he poured all his long-repressed anger, his hatred, his desire for blood and power and death.

The evil spell gathered force and power, growing until it felt to Dag like a living thing, a third being born of Cyric’s dark power and his own unfathomable yearning. The power reached out and seized the soldiers with unseen hands, swept them along into the vortex of what Dag felt, saw, and summoned. Soon the men were running, thundering down the tunnel with weapons aloft and eyes glittering with bloodthirst.

The dwarves heard and came running out to meet them, as Dag had intended for them to do. They came barreling down their tunnel and into an antechamber, a vast work of art so grimly beautiful it nearly distracted Dag from his terrible devotions.

Almost, but not quite. Dag’s voice lifted into a sound like shrieking wind. The spell tore free of his throat and whirled into the chamber.

Power, visible only to his eyes, swept with maelstrom force to engulf and encircle the massive stone statues that ringed the chamber. Instantly the statues began to tremble.

The dwarves paused, startled into temporary inaction by this harbinger of the one thing their kind feared above all others: earthquake.

But the reality of Cyric’s wrath was something both less and more terrible. The wondrous statues of long-dead dwarf heroes turned on their descendants. They tilted inward, breaking free of their pedestals with thundering booms, and then crashed into the dwarven throng.

Some of the dwarves were fleet enough of foot and wit to escape back down the tunnel, but dozens were crushed beneath falling stone. The Zhentish soldiers rushed into the swirling cloud of dust.

The sounds of furious battle echoed through the tunnel that led to the great hall. Though the Zhentarim had the strength of numbers and arms and magic, Dag did not count the dwarves out yet, not by any means.

He had reason to know how fiercely people could fight to defend their homes and family. He had seen his brother Byorn die doing just that, living longer than he should have against odds far greater than any sane man would face. Young Byorn’s face rose up before him now, bringing with it a stab of poignant loss. Dag ruthlessly thrust the memory aside.

He began the chant of another dark spell, one that he himself had developed as a Darkhold war-cleric, one that he had taught to the men and women under him. Dream-pursuit, he called it. It slowed the limbs of their opponents, made each motion as languid and heavy as if they were moving through water. The spell duplicated, with precise and deadly effect, the feeling one had in a nightmare of being pursued and unable to run. Only this spell was not a dream, but grim reality.

The spell took effect, turning the dwarves’ battle effort into a slow, macabre dance. Dag studied the surviving dwarves for signs of value. When he saw one he thought might do, he limned the prospective slave in faint purple light, which served both to freeze the dwarf in place, and to mark him as beyond limits. His men knew better, even in the grip of the spell-enhanced battle-lust, to thwart Dag’s demonstrated will.