The Floodgate (5 page)

The Halruaans called her kind “shadow amazons.” Thanks to the human barbarians in her ancestry, Shanair was tall for an elfblood, and powerfully built. Her limbs were long and lean, her curves generous over a tightly muscled frame. A mass of iron-colored hair tumbled over her shoulders like a mountain stream, framing a face that was all planes and sharp angles. Although her ears were only slightly pointed, she emphasized her elf heritage with silver ear cuffs that extended up into exaggerated, barbed points. Her boots and leathers and cloak were all gray. Other than her eyes, which were an unexpectedly vivid shade of blue, the only slash of color about her was the jagged red tattoo encircling her upper arm and the red paint that turned her fingernails into bloody talons.

A distant scream floated over the hills. Shanair’s head came up in sharp recognition.

“Rekatra!”

She slapped her heels into her horse’s sides.

Two of Shanair’s aids leaped onto their steeds and fell in behind as she thundered toward the doomed scout-doomed by her own voice, for no true Crinti cried out in fear or pain.

They found Rekatra sprawled beside a swift little creek, clutching at the four deep, widely spaced wounds that sheared through leather armor to plow deep furrows through belly and bowels. The Crinti scout was drained nearly dry. The eyes she lifted to Shanair’s face were already glazed and dull.

“Mother,” she said faintly. Her voice held hope and supplication, the plea of a wounded child.

Shanair leaped from her horse and stalked over to the fallen scout. She drew two curved swords in a single, fluid sweep. They flashed down, crossed over the young warrior’s throat, and came back blooded.

The Crinti chieftain sheathed the stained blades and stooped over the carrion that had been her scout and her daughter. The other two women dismounted and drew near. Their faces held no hint of revulsion at their leader’s actions and no surprise.

“Look at these marks.” Shanair trailed her fingers along the edge of one deep gash.

The others crouched down to look. The cuts alone were deep enough to kill, but within each slash was another tear, slanting up at a sharp angle to the main cut.

“Whatever cut her was not only sharp, but barbed,” observed Whizzra, Shanair’s second in command.

“And big,” put in the third Crinti. Xibryl, a fleshy warrior nearly Shanair’s height and strength, placed her hand on the dead scout’s belly and spread her thick fingers as wide as they would go. Her hands were long-fingered and strong, and like Shanair she wore her nails in blood-red talons. “If these marks came from claws, the hand was four times the size of mine. What creature in these hills could have done this?”

Shanair rocked back on her heels and rose in a smooth, swift motion. “Something new. Something we’ve not seen before.”

Her gaze swept the dismal terrain, searching for clues. No tracks were visible to her keen eyes, no trail sign. Rekatra’s attacker had fled through the stream.

Shanair’s blue eyes narrowed as she considered the bubbling stream. Snow still crowned the highest peaks of the mountain ranges encircling Halruaa, but the spring thaw had come and gone. Summer was upon them, but the heavy rains of the monsoon season were still two or three moons away. The water should not be running so swiftly.

“We follow the stream to its source,” she announced.

She vaulted onto her horse’s back and set a brisk pace north, sparing no glance or thought for the dead girl.

The terrain grew steeper and more inhospitable with each step. Soon the rocky pass gave way to forest, which thinned to scrub pine as they climbed higher into the mountains. With each step, the song of the stream grew stronger and more urgent.

The Crinti warriors rode until the sun had set, and they pressed on through the lengthening shadows of twilight. The sounds of gathering night echoed through the trees-the screech of raptors, the snarl of wild cats, the sharp sudden squeal of prey. When it grew too dark to ride, they dismounted and led their horses, trusting the keen night vision inherited from distant drow ancestors.

Dawn was near when they came to a small clearing. In the center of it, the stream flowed out of a small and apparently shallow pool. There was no sign of the creature that had shredded Rekatra.

Shanair left her horse at the edge of the clearing and crept cautiously nearer. She circled the stream’s mouth, peering keenly at the moss-covered ground. “Bring me a stout stick,” she ordered.

Xibryl complied at once, dragging a six-foot length of deadfall wood over and hacking off the side limbs with a hand axe. Shanair took the rough staff and jabbed tentatively at the water. Try as she might, she could not find the spring’s source. The bed beneath was solid ground.

“Impossible,” she muttered. Raising the stick high overhead, she plunged it hard into the water.

The staff dived so deep and so easily that Shanair nearly lost her footing. She leaped back, staring in amazement at the two-foot length of wood in her hands.

An enormous green hand shot out of the spring and fisted over the empty air where Shanair had just been standing. The hand was the size of a small battle shield. Webbing connected the four fingers, each of which was as long as her forearm and tipped with talons as barbed as fishhooks. As suddenly as it came, the hand disappeared, slapping back into the incomprehensible spring.

Shanair quickly conquered her surprise and drew her swords. Steel hissed free of Whizzra’s baldric. The creak of whirling chain announced the lethal dance of Xibryl’s spiked flail. The three Crinti moved quickly, silently into triangle formation around the spring.

Suddenly the clearing seemed to explode. The monster leaped out of the water like a geyser, and its voice was the roar of a waterfall.

The massive creature was twice Shanair’s height. Roughly humanoid in shape, it crouched on two froglike legs. Four arms, thickly muscled and armored with dull green scales, lifted into a wrestler’s ready stance. The creature’s head was enormous, crested with a barbed standing fin and nearly split in two by a fanged mouth. Dagger-sized teeth clacked with anticipation.

The Crinti warriors eyed their foe, sizing up its potential strengths and weaknesses.

“Sahuagin?” guessed Xibryl.

“Worse,” Shanair said with a fierce smile. This monster, she suspected, was no creature known to this world. Battle lust burned wild and hot in the Crinti chieftain as she began an ancient death-dance.

The others moved with her, dodging from side to side, dipping tauntingly forward, then leaping back. There was magic in their movements, a lure as potent as siren song. The Crinti did not weaken their enemies. They enticed them.

The creature came on with a rush, taking a mighty swing at the nearest Crinti. Whizzra nimbly dropped and rolled away, and Shanair dived in before the beast could recover its balance. Her left-hand sword thrust hard at the juncture of arm and chest-and slid harmlessly off the scaly armor.

Shanair ducked as another massive arm whistled over her head. In a lightning-flash decision, she measured the power of that swing and decided she could not absorb the impact.

She relaxed her grip on her sword and allowed the blow to send it flying. She barked out a one-word command, naming a much-practiced battle maneuver.

The other Crinti moved out wide on either side of the creature, their weapons flashing as they kept all four of the monster’s arms engaged. In came Shanair, ducking under the flailing arms. She gripped her sword with both hands, and launched herself into a powerful upward lunge. Her scale mail hissed against the massive green torso as she rose.

Her blade dived into the lizardlike folds under the creature’s chin. It grated against tooth and jaw, slammed hard into the bony palate that roofed the massive mouth. The creature’s shriek was liquid with blood, but Shanair instinctively knew she had not struck a killing blow.

Xibryl’s axe slashed in, knocking aside the taloned hand pawing at the imbedded weapon. Shanair let go of her blade to avoid the sweeping axe, whipped her head to one side so that she was not blinded by the shower of sparks as steel hit steel, then seized the hilt again. She leaped up, planted both feet on the creature’s chest, and pushed herself off as she tugged the sword free.

The Crinti dropped into a backward roll and came up on her feet. She backed away and whistled for her horse. The battle-trained steed trotted up, seemingly oblivious to the monster and its frenzied attempts to fight free of its tormenters.

Shanair untied a bundle of javelins and thrust them point-down into the mossy ground. She snatched up one, took aim, and let fly.

The weapon streaked toward the creature, tearing through one of Xibryl’s flying gray tresses. Trailing a wavy strand of hair like a banner, it dived into one of the creature’s black eyes.

Shanair’s yell of triumph came to an abrupt stop as her javelin bounced back and fell free. Her aim was true, yet the spear did not pierce the skull!

Still, the creature was half blinded. Shanair threw another javelin and completed the task. The monster fought on, its swings and parries as accurate as before.

The Crinti woman’s keen ears caught the faint clicking sound that hummed through the air like distant cicada song. Under water, the sound probably carried for leagues. Shanair figured that the creature’s sound-sight, even in air, was probably as keen as a bat’s.

Shanair smacked her mare’s flank and sent her running. The other horses fell into pace behind their leader. The trio thundered in tight circles around the clearing, leaping over the stream again and again. The echoing hoof beats blended into a reverberating rumble, like the war drums of jungle elves. Even Shanair’s battle shriek was swallowed by the sound as she closed in on the confused and wounded beast.

Now truly blinded, the creature tried to bolt, but it could not even hear the spring and took a fatal pace in the wrong direction. The Crinti warriors closed ranks.

They worked their quarry for a long time, and not just for the joy of a slow kill. They played the creature until it was exhausted, then tried prying up several scales, inquiring with sharp, deep jabs as they studied which wounds bled, which ones brought the sharpest pain, and finally, which killed. If this were not the only creature of its kind, such information could decide the next battle.

Finally the Crinti stood over their kill, drenched with exertion and blood, not all of it the monster’s. All three wore fierce, sated smiles.

“Take the trophy,” commanded Shanair.

Her warriors set to work, wresting off the head and stripping it clean of flesh and hide. Shanair broke off several dagger-shaped teeth and gave them to her warriors. The skull was too awkward for one horse to carry, so they fixed a cloak between two mounts like a sling. That accomplished, they mounted and set off to rejoin their comrades.

“A good kill,” Whizzra observed.

Her words were correct, but her tone held hesitation as well as satisfaction. Shanair lifted an inquiring eyebrow.

“This monster, this stream,” the warrior continued. “What does it mean?”

“Do you not recognize this clearing?” demanded Shanair. “This is where I come to meet with Kiva. As for this stream, it is a gate to the world of water. That can only mean the elf woman has succeeded.”

Joy, as dark and bright as hellfire, seared through the Crinti warriors’ eyes. “It is time to fight?” Xibryl demanded eagerly.

Shanair shook her head. “Soon. We continue as planned, We loot and raid. We await Kiva. In time, the Crinti will emerge from the shadows, and all of Halruaa will be washed into a bloody sea!”

A young woman sat before a table in a wizard’s library, garbed in the pale blue robe that marked her as a conjurer’s apprentice. The robe was left open, revealing a trim form clad in a well-worn tunic and leggings that ended several inches shy of her bare feet. Her face was finely featured, with large dark eyes and a wide, expressive mouth currently pulled down into a mutinous scowl. Her short brown hair stood up in spikes, as if raked through by an impatient hand, and her fingers were stained with purple ink. There was a small stack of parchment to her left, three completed scrolls to her right, and a pile of crumpled and discarded parchments scattered around her feet.

Suddenly she tossed aside the quill and rose. A quick, impatient kick sent parchment wads flying.

“Copy the spell scroll, Tzigone,” she repeated, in an uncanny imitation of her master’s jolly tones. “By highsun, you’ll know the spell as well as your own name, and then you can have the evening free.

“Well, guess what, Basel,” she said in her own voice as she stalked across the room to glare at a portrait of the wizard. “I don’t know my real name, the sun is as high as it’s ever going to get, and I learned the blasted spell the first time I copied the thrice-bedamned scroll!”

The image of Basel Indoulur continued to beam down at her, unperturbed by her uncharacteristic spate of ill temper.

Tzigone sighed and blew the portrait a kiss by way of apology. She genuinely liked her new master-her first master. If she had to learn the art of magic, and apparently she did, there were worse ways of going about it.

Basel Indoulur was a round, jolly man who enjoyed good times and fine things. He was fun loving but hardly frivolous. A master in the art of conjuration, he was also a member of the Council of Elders and mayor of the city of Halar, just south of the king’s city. He enjoyed teaching, and was one of many wizards who had courted Tzigone after the Swamp of Akhlaur incident. Many wizards were eager to train an innate gift strong enough to withstand the magic-draining power of a laraken. Tzigone had picked Basel for two reasons, only one of which she would admit. His eyes knew how to laugh.

He was a patient but exacting teacher. Such discipline was new to Tzigone, and an uncomfortable fit for a girl who had seldom slept two nights in the same place. Basel’s other apprentices had lived through the boredom of copying spell scrolls, so Tzigone assumed that her chances of survival were fairly good.

She’d kept at it since morning, copying the runes over and over and over. Basel had patiently explained that magic, like the science of numbers, was best learned in a well-defined sequence. An apprentice must train her memory, hone her powers of concentration, practice hundreds of precise and subtle movements with the dedication of a dancer, learn the hidden language in which all Halruaan spells were declaimed, and acquire a core knowledge of basic spells and cantrips. There was far more to spellcasting, it seemed, than tossing a few smelly oddments into a pot and chanting words over it.