Paul Kemp - Dawn of Night

Riven said, "They're in the northern Trade Lanes, in the slum warrens near Cart City. They're heading toward the Underdark tunnels that lead north out of the city."

"You're sure?" Cale asked.

Riven nodded and replied, "That's consistent with what the slaad described to me back at the Crate and Dock."

"Wagons ... lizard pens ..." the guide continued.

"Hold him for a while longer," Cale said to the guide. "We need to be sure."

Magadon nodded, his eyes still showing only whites.

They waited.

"They're reaching the end of the cavern," Magadon said. "Tunnels ahead. Lots of torches and lanterns ... goblin runners. It's a caravan assembly point but I only see one closed wagon. There are many heavily armed duergar, and four in no armor. I don't see the gray-eyed slaad."

"Cut if off, Mags," Cale said.

"Wait. . ." Magadon said. "The unarmored duergar are gathered around Azriim. To judge from his hands and perspective, it looks as though Azriim is in the form of a duergar himself, or something similarly short. He's handing them wands. He's looking toward a tunnel, gesturing. I think they're preparing to move out."

"Cut it now, Magadon," Cale ordered. "We know enough."

The guide nodded distantly and shook his head as though to clear it. Exhaling heavily, his eyes returned to normal. He looked exhausted.

Cale patted Magadon on the shoulder while he said to Riven, "That must be the caravan they described to you."

"Agreed," Riven replied. "Two of the three slaadi are there, along with the squad of duergar."

"Where then is the gray-eyed slaad?" Cale asked of no one in particular.

Magadon shook his head. Riven shrugged.

Jak already had pocketed his pipe and pulled on his pack.

"I still don't get it," said the halfling. "The slaadi are with the caravan, but they want us to attack it?"

"An ambush?" Magadon offered.

"Possibly," Cale replied, "but I'd wager it's more complicated than that. Remember that they can teleport away anytime, if they're willing to risk it. They might just be with the wagon to make it look believable, planning to get out of there when we appear."

Magadon tilted his head, conceding the point.

"Either way," Cale continued, "baiting us to attack the caravan is only a ploy, not the real play. So we follow it and them, hidden, but hold our steel until I say otherwise. There's something else going on here."

Magadon stood and shouldered his pack. Riven did the same. Cale looked to the assassin.

"You know the way to the area Magadon described?" he asked.

"I've been there," Riven answered softly.

"Then we're following you," Cale said. "Mags, when we get close, you take us to the tunnel the caravan is heading down. Let's move."

* * * * *

They sprinted through the torchlit streets of Skullport, dodging carts and slaves, mercenaries and mages, bugbears and orcs. With Magadon running easily beside him, Riven led them north through the brewing district-rich with the acrid smoke of distilleries and fermentation casks-and through the slums-rich with the stink of filth, sewage, and rotting garbage-until they reached a flat, open area of Skullport dotted with rothe pens, coopers' shops, large tents, wheelwrights, and other services related to caravannering.

Smoking torches on tall iron stands lit the area as brightly as a surface city street at night. The hemp highway did not reach that far north, and the ceiling soared away into the darkness above. To Cale, the area appeared to be the mirror image of Skullport's wharves, but with wagons and carts instead of ships, teamsters instead of sailors, and dark tunnels instead of dark water.

"Cart City," Riven said, over his shoulder.

Cale saw where the area had gotten its name. The place was thronged with beasts, wagons, carts, humans, and various humanoids, all busily loading and unloading goods and slaves for transport in caravans. Cale did not care to ponder the dark destinations to which the slaves would be taken.

Squads of kobold and goblin laborers flitted frenetically through the area, carrying rope, barking orders, herding rothe and pack lizards. The sulfuric smell of forge smoke and the heavy pungency of animal dung filled the air. The voices of the mass of caravanners merged into an indistinguishable murmur that rose toward the ceiling like smoke.

Jak elbowed Cale and pointed to the ceiling far above. There, framed by stalactites as thin as spears, two glowing Skulls supervised the area from on high, preventing the nascent chaos from erupting into violence. Cale felt the incredible weight of their gazes as they passed over him, the pull of Weaveshear at his waist, and a brief flash of concern that the magic in the blade would draw the Skulls' attention as surely as a lodestone drew iron shavings. But it did not, and Cale and his companions continued on, unmolested by Skullport's guardians.

To their right, a caravan of eight carts was assembling, the carts forming up, the teamsters yoking a recalcitrant pack lizard or two. A score or so of armed orc and hobgoblin guards eyed them coolly. A large hobgoblin in a chain shirt aimed a crossbow in Cale's direction, smiling a mouthful of pointed teeth. Cale slowed and stared. The hobgoblin lowered the weapon, offered Cale a hard smile, a mock salute, and shared a laugh with the other guards.

Meanwhile, Magadon and Riven pushed and elbowed their way through and around the street traffic, hurrying toward the looming, sloping face of Skullport's northern wall. The guide seemed to know exactly where he was going. Jak and Cale trailed after them.

They stopped in the middle of a packed earth road, twenty or so paces before the rough stone facade of the cavern's wall. The street traffic broke around them like a wave.

Ordinarily, the fact that Skullport existed in a huge cavern was easy to forget. The city was so large and the darkness so thick that Cale had not seen a wall or ceiling in cycles. But standing before the craggy face of the city's northern border, he remembered that Skullport existed at the whim of the gods of the earth and stone, in a fragile bubble nearly a league below the surface. He thought it likely that if Azriim and the other slaadi succeeded with whatever they were planning, Skullport's bubble would burst.

And Varra would suffer the same fate as the city.

"Which way, Mags?" Cale asked. "Riven?"

Ten or more large cave mouths opened at ground level in the cavern's wall, each easily large enough to allow a cart's passage. In fact, the last wagon of a caravan was vanishing down the leftmost tunnel at that very moment.

Riven shook his head.

"The slaad wasn't specific enough," said the assassin. "I don't know which tunnel."

Stepping forward out of the heaviest of the traffic, Magadon knelt on his haunches and stroked his chin, looking from one tunnel to the next, as if searching his memory. Wheel ruts scored the packed earth in front of each tunnel, and Cale couldn't tell them apart. Innumerable smaller tunnels opened at all heights along the rough rock face but Cale ignored them as impassable for a cart. Bats and stirges wheeled in the air above.

"This way," Magadon said, standing and nodding in the direction of the third tunnel from the left.

"You're certain?" Cale asked.

"Yes," the guide said, and that was good enough for Cale.

But apparently not for Riven.

"Let's make certain," the assassin said. He grabbed a passing goblin laborer by the scruff of its homespun shirt and lifted it from the ground. The creature squeaked in agitation, legs flailing.

"Quiet," Riven ordered it.

The goblin ceased squeaking and instead hissed at Riven through its stained fangs.

"Puts me down, human," it said in a high-pitched voice, its Common rough and awkward, "or I'll finds you asleep and cuts out your other eye."