Downshadow (10 page)

Other than the Knight ‘n Shadow, this place saw the most traffic into and out of the caves and tunnels. The hounds of Downshadow

who stalked the Waterdeep night didn’t use such a visible entrance, so the bottom of the shaft was empty.

Shadowbane leaped up, bounced off one wall and then the other, and grasped the harness at the end of a long rope that was used to lower folk into Undermountain—often at the Watch’s behest for crimes against the city, but sometimes by request for fools with more greed than sense.

Shadowbane dangled a moment, twenty feet over their heads, then began to climb.

“Tal!” hissed Araezra, but the shieldlar was already moving.

Talanna hurled rwo daggers inro the opposite wall. The fine adamantine edges sank into the stone easily, one at chest level, the other higher. She bounded up one, then the other, then pulled a third blade from her belt and stabbed it into the wall above. She grasped the knife below and snaked it up to jab higher. In this way, wiry arm muscles bulging, the red-haired guard pulled herself up dagger by dagger, as Shadowbane scaled the rope.

It was a bow shot to the top of the well—a long, hard climb.

At rhe bottom, Araezra shivered, panting at the speed of the chase. She wanted to pursue, but she was helpless without means to climb-—or fly.

She seized the lowest of Talanna’s daggers from the wall and felt for Shadowbane’s sword on her back—still tightly secured. Then she looked up.

Long breaths dragged on, and she heard the click and scrape of Talanna’s daggers as she climbed ever higher. The strength of that woman …

Shadowbane gained the tavern first, of course, and Araezra heard distant, startled murmurs of patrons at their drink. Talanna reached the top and pulled herself over the lip of the shaft. “Waterdeep Guard!” came Talanna’s shout. “Lower the harness! With haste!”

Araezra winced, thinking of the stir she would cause when she appeared, half-dressed as she was. “Tal!” she shouted.

Sounds of a scuffle followed, then a feminine voice swore loudly. A red-fringed head poked over the wall far above. “Rayse! He’s going to the street—I’ll stop him!”

“Don’t even think it!” Araezra shouted. “That’s an order!” Talanna bit her lip, then disappeared back into the tavern. “Damn it, Tal!”

The harness came slithering down. Grasping the dagger between her teeth, Araezra rubbed her hands together, then leaped to grab hold. She hung on as it was pulled slowly—too slowly!—toward Waterdeep.

As Araezra reached the top, she swung free of the harness and planted her feer on the tavern floor. She ignored the startled and curious looks of patrons as she ran to the door. Talanna was nowhere to be seen, and if she didn’t know better…

One of the patrons—a white-faced noble lad—gawked at her and pointed out the door. “They—they were fighting, lady, and—and they ran that way!”

Araezra pushed through the door of the Yawning Portal tavern and looked down the dark streer—and cursed. “Oh, Hells.”

She watched as Shadowbane leaped from one roof to another, running east along the rooftops toward Snail Street. Talanna, her red hair gleaming in the moonlight, sprinted after him.

Araezra darted into the chilly Waterdeep night and streaked after, following along the city streets.

Waterdeep’s sky was clear that night, and an almost full moon and Selune’s tears shone down to light the streets. The night was very late—or very early, depending on one’s perspective—and drunken lordlings were making their way back to their villas, where servants would aid them (perhaps along with new-met lasses, or possibly other nobles) into their beds. Meanwhile, the common folk—who had to earn an honest living—were rising to begin the day, making dough for the ovens or gathering eggs to sell at market.

Dawn was naught but a small bell distant, and pale light glowed at the eastern horizon. It was still a time for rest before the gates opened and the important business of coin gathering—and spending—began anew.

In Dock Ward, however, there was no such tranquility.

“You stupid, stupid—Tal!” Araezra shrieked as her friend leaped over the narrow thoroughfare between Belnumbra and Snail Street.

Talanna barely made the jump, tumbled, and got up to run again. She turned south to follow Shadowbane, and they ran down Snail Street. Despite its name, nothing was slow about the street that night.

Araezra, heart thundering in her throat from weariness and terror, ran on, panting. The damp chill of Waterdeep clung to her sweat-soaked, bare shoulders.

Talanna leaped from rooftop to rooftop in pursuit of Shadowbane, whose gray cloak streaked behind him like a pair of wings. Gods, the man was fast, if he could outpace Talanna. Araezra knew magic had to be at work, probably in his boots—no living man could run that fast or jump that far. Sure enough, she saw a slight blue glow lingering around his feet.

The few folk on the streets—laborers, mostly—peered at her curiously, but Araezra put her head down and forced her legs to carry her. At least she was in Dock Ward, where frenzied chases and loud drunken disruptions were common in the early hours of pre-dawn. In the finer wards, Araezra would be reprimanded for disrupring the peace, for sure.

Gods, she was tired.

They ran past the Sleepy Sylph tavern on the left. Araezra’s heart almost stopped when Shadowbane seemed to fly across the alley between two buildings, and Talanna didn’t hesitate to make the jump after him. Still, they continued their chase.

Araezra ran on, narrowly avoiding pedestrians and carts and broadcriers who were just setting themselves to morningfeasts of simmer stew in round loaves. At the sight of her, the older folk gawked and the younger giggled. This, more than anything else, made her cheeks burn.

They passed another tavern, The Dancing Pony, and then Ralagut’s Wheelhouse, where Araezra ran up an unhitched wagon and jumped off the other side before pounding her way down the street. Her lungs felt like fire in her chest, but she kept running, her eyes scanning on high.

Shadowbane leaped over the next street, Talanna just behind him.

Surely she was tiring. Araezra thought she could hear the woman panting and wheezing for breath, even from so far away. They were going so fast and leaping so far …

At the end of the block, Snail Street curled east and south. At that juncture, a street from the west—Fish Street, named for its vendors, the finest place for a stringer of the morning catch—met Snail Street. It was a broad intersection, much wider than …

Gods, Araezra realized. “Tal! Tal, ware!”

Shadowbane ran across the roof and leaped—soaring like nothing human—all the way to the other side. The roof was lower rhere, and he barely caught the edge. Araezra saw him land and roll, and he looked back ar his hunter.

“Tal!” she screamed. “Stop!”

Too late.

Talanna reached the edge of the building and leaped, and for one heart-wrenching moment, Araezra thought she might make it.

Then she slammed into the edge of the opposite building at chest height, and rebounded to plunge into the open Fish Street, where a few men with their nets were passing. Araezra could only watch, heart frozen, as her friend tumbled like a discarded doll toward the ground.

Then she slowed, and drifted down gently like a fluffy cottonwood seed. Araezra realized Tal was wearing Neverember’s ring—the ring the Open Lord had given her to mock her name.

“Tal!” Araezra shrieked, and she pushed herself forward. She slammed into a fisherman rounding the corner, and they both rolled on the wet, grimy cobbles.

Talanna settled gently to the ground and lay rhere, unmoving.

Araezra cursed, forced herself up, and hobbled to Talanna. She fumbled for a healing potion in her belt, only to prick her half-numb fingers on a shard of glass. Her belt was damp and she realized her potions had broken somewhere in their hectic flight.

The hairs rose on Araezra’s neck as Shadowbane dropped next to her, his cloak billowing wide. Two throwing knives—Araezra

recognized them as Talanna’s—stuck out of his shoulder and forearm, but he appeared not to feel them. Blue smoke wafted from his feet— the remnants of whatever magic he’d used to run that fast and leap that far. His cold eyes gleamed at her—seemingly colorless in the moonlight—then at Talanna. Those eyes looked somehow familiar, but in her terror for her friend, Araezra did not care.

“Away!” Araezra shrieked, falling to her knees at Talanna’s side. “It’s your fault! Away!”

Shadowbane put up a hand to silence her.

Araezra recoiled as though slapped. How dare he—how dare he treat her like a child! She remembered Talanna’s adamantine dagger in her hand and she lunged forward, driving it toward Shadowbane. He twisted his arm around hers, ignoring the wound along his forearm, and dealt her wrist a slap with his other hand. The dagger clattered to the street.

Then he twisted Araezra’s arm, driving her to het knees. His eyes gleamed down at her. He could break her wrist without resistance.

Instead, to Araezra’s surprise, he let go. She scrabbled back a pace, cradling her wrist. It didn’t seem broken, or even to have suffered serious harm.

Shadowbane bent over Talanna, spreading his hands wide.

“What are you doing?” Araezra demanded. She drew Shadowbane’s sword—the only weapon she had left—but the hilt burned her hand and she dropped the blade to the ground. It lay, smoldering bright silver, on the cobblestones.

Shadowbane laid his hands upon Talanna’s unmoving chest.

Araezra watched, stunned, as white light flared within his fingers and spread inro Talanna. The red-haired woman’s eyes fluttered and she curled into a pained ball, coughing.

Shadowbane rose and faced Araezra. She tried to meet his eyes, but he looked away—toward his sword. She stepped protectively before it, daring him to attack.

The man hesitated only a moment, then leaped away into the night.

“Gods, Tal!” Araezra knelt beside her friend and hugged her.

“Geh … almost… almost made it, eh?” Talanna said. “That jump?”

Then her eyes closed and she moaned, consciousness leaving her.

They were beneath the eaves of the Knight ‘n Shadow, Araezra realized. She saw folk standing in the street around them, surprise and concern on their faces.

In particular, a half-elf lady with red hair caught Araezra’s eye. She was dressed elegantly in a crimson half-cloak over a gold-chased green doublet, and was staring at them intently. Of all the onlookers, she was the only one who didn’t look up. Araezra found her gray eyes unnerving. The woman turned away and disappeared into the tavern.

Araezra cradled Talanna tightly. “Help!” she cried. “Someone help!”

A chill rain began to fall.

Cellica was stirring the simmer stew from the eve before, reflecting that it might require a few more herbs, when she heard a thump near her tallhouse window.

Leaving the long wooden ladle in the pot on the fire, she turned toward the sound and saw the latch on the window rise—pushed up by a blade slipped between the shutters. She touched the crossbow-shaped medallion at her throat and waited silently.

The blade teased the latch up, bit by bit, until finally it scraped open. Then the shutter pushed inward and a man in a torn gray cloak tumbled through with a crash. He had clearly been leaning on the window from without, as though injured or weak.

Releasing the nervous breath she had held, Cellica rushed to his side, heedless of the rain blowing inside.

“Are you hurt?” she asked. She ran her hands over his chest and scowled at the knives standing out of his shoulder and his left arm. They stuck mostly in leather, she saw, but there was blood, too. “What passed?”

“You locked the window,” Shadowbane said. “I couldn’t—” He coughed harshly.

“It was raining. I guess I didn’t think,” said the halfling. “Curse it, you used your healing on someone else—you fool. How many times have I told you? If you need it, you need it.” She grasped his helm. “Here. Let me—”

Without meaning it, she let compulsion slip into her voice, but he resisted her influence. He shoved her hands away, then wrenched the helm off by himself. Cellica glimpsed a little blood in the mouth guard before he cast the helmet away to crash, with several loud bangs, off the wall and floor. It rolled to the corner and stopped.

“I can’t—I just can’t.” Shadowbane put his hands to his face as

though he would weep. “I made a mistake, Cele. I didn’t… I didn’t mean anyone to be hurt.”

“Aye.” Cellica didn’t know what had taken place, but she recognized the despair in his voice. “I’m sure you did whar you could, Kalen.”

His colorless eyes gazed at her, wet. He started coughing and retching then, and she could barely hold him up. He’d pushed himself, she knew—running and fighting and leaping. Magic boots or no, strengthening spellscar or no, a man was not meant to push so hard.

“Rest, now,” Cellica said. “All’s well. All’s well.”

She could feel his body relax as it bent to her will. Whatever god had blessed her voice with a touch of command, she thanked the fates.

As Kalen coughed and trembled, she held him as she had since they had been children on Luskan’s cruel streets. When he’d been hurt or she’d woken with night terrors, they’d embraced each other like this—brother and sister, though not by blood.

After a while, Cellica spoke again. “You don’t have to do this,” she whispered.

He shook his head and limped to the table. “We’ll talk come morn,” he said.

“It is morn,” Cellica said. He sighed. “Highsun, then.”

Cellica gently tugged the knives free and unbuckled Kalen’s armor. His thick chest and shoulders swarmed with scars from years of this sort of activity. He wore as much blood as sweat.

“These are bad,” Cellica said. “I could fetch a priest, and—”

“No,” Kalen said. “Only needle and thread.”

She shivered. Of course he wouldn’t want magical healing. He wanted the scars to remind him—as though he deserved them. One scar for every drop of innocent blood. Cellica shivered.

Cellica worried at how Kalen didn’t seem to feel the needle or thread as she stitched his wounds. He only winced when she touched the deepest bruises.