interrupted him.
“Danger,” it hissed with the cold sibilance of the grave. Ittook a few moments for Durgoth to realize that it was the golem itself that had spoken.
“Where?” the cleric asked, searching for the cause of thealarm.
But it was too late.
The room plunged into total darkness.
“What treachery is this?” Durgoth shouted above the wildcries of his followers.
A moment later another voice answered, “Please, my dearfriend, let us not be too hasty in our pronouncements. This is not treachery. This is merely a renegotiation of terms.”
Durgoth’s blood burned with anger. Was that amusement heheard in the ringing tones of that voice? He was nobody’s plaything, to be usedand made a fool of. Quietly, he reached for his obsidian mace.
“And what if I choose not to renegotiate?” he asked of themysterious voice.
When the reply came, it was yet a different voice. “Thatwould be most… unfortunate.”
“Then here is my reply,” said the cleric.
He touched the tip of his mace and shouted into the darkness. The room filled with a dim bluish light. Durgoth could see figures skulking out of the shadows toward their group.
Suddenly, the air was filled with the hiss of flying crossbow bolts. Two cultists fell to the stone floor immediately, bolts imbedded in the center of their chests, while a third clutched his leg in obvious agony. Durgoth shrank back for a moment, expecting the sting of metal, but Jhagren Syn sprang into action. Soundlessly, the monk stepped to Durgoth’s side, his hands movingblindingly fast. Three bolts to the left clattered harmlessly to the floor, while the fourth, which sped right for Durgoth’s throat, split in two beneaththe knife edge blow of Jhagren’s calloused hand.
The cleric was stunned for only the briefest of moments before he turned to the golem. “Defend me!” he shouted at the mass of flesh andmuscle. Without a word, the creature stepped in front of Durgoth, ready to meet the advancing figures.
He turned to give orders to Jhagren, but the monk was already gone, carrying the fight to their attackers. Durgoth spotted the man rolling to his feet amid three opponents. The monk was a red blur, spinning, kicking and punching. When he was through, two men lay dead on the floor, and the last one clutched at the red ruin of his throat, unaware that he was already dead. Durgoth watched as the monk opened his hand, dropped the shattered cartilage to the floor, and then rushed forward to meet more attackers.
Another deadly hiss brought his attention back to the fight at hand. Five crossbow bolts hit the golem in the chest with a meaty thunk. The creature ignored them and reached out with a thickly-muscled arm to slap away the short sword of a thief. Another swipe of its arm struck the attacker squarely, and Durgoth could hear a sharp snap as the man’s bones broke beneaththe blow. The thief crumpled into a pulpy heap on the ground.
That nuisance taken care of, the cleric scanned the room for bowmen. Sure enough, he spotted five figures hastily reloading their crossbows on a ledge in the northern section of the room. With a vicious smile, he focused his will and began to chant in a deep-throated voice. He twisted his arm up in a swift motion and then finished the words to his prayer. A beam of pure darkness shot from his hands, consuming all light in its path. When the beam struck the bowmen on the ledge, they screamed and began to tremble. Durgoth watched in satisfaction as the darkness consumed their flesh from the inside out, until nothing living was left on that ledge.
The sounds of battle and the cries of the wounded filled the wide chamber. Jhagren and Adrys continued to strike blow after blow against the treacherous thieves, and Durgoth noted the pile of bodies they had left in their wake. The slightest whisper of sound alerted him to the presence of a cloaked figure approaching from behind. He cursed once and spun, trying to avoid the inevitable attack, but it was too late. He cried out as a dagger plunged deeply into his side. Blindly, he struck out with his fist and felt it strike the would-be-assassin with a satisfying crunch. Swiftly, the cleric grabbed his obsidian mace and swung it hard at his attacker, hoping to take advantage of the thief’s surprise at being struck. His opponent, however, was far faster. Thethief ducked beneath the whistling mace and drew his own sword. The two opponents circled each other warily, though Durgoth spared an occasional glance at the golem, hoping to maneuver his attacker within reach of the creature’sgrasp.
His opponent attacked left. Durgoth allowed himself to be drawn in by this obvious feint, blocking hastily with his mace. When the thief drew a second dagger and struck at his right side, the cleric stepped easily aside and kicked his attacker with a heavy boot. The man doubled over only for a moment, but it was enough time to bring his own mace crashing down on his opponent’s head. The thief’s skull cracked open like an egg. Gray matter andblood spilled out on the floor.
Durgoth turned from his defeated opponent and surveyed the scene. The battle was clearly over. Jhagren and his apprentice were moving quickly through the center of the chamber, scanning the shadows for any more opponents, and the golem had just cracked the back of his last attacker.
Silence descended upon the room. Dead bodies littered the floor, and the ground was slick with pooling blood. Several of his followers were among the corpses, but he noted with some satisfaction that most of those who journeyed with him from the Fellreev forest were still alive.
It wasn’t until Jhagren shouted, however, that Durgoth notedthe single figure slinking away toward the shadowy recesses of a side passage. He turned toward the retreating figure, one hand on the onyx-wrought symbol of his faith, and spoke the words of another prayer. He shuddered once as the divine energy of his god poured forth from him.
The figure froze in place.
As Durgoth approached, he noticed the fine weave of the thief’s cloak and the jewelry on hand and ear. This was no simple gutter snakeor cutpurse, but someone of substance in the Thieves’ Guild. Someone they coulduse. He motioned the golem forward and commanded it to hold the helpless human. The creature reached out and grabbed the thief by the neck.
Secure in the knowledge that their prisoner could not escape, the cleric released the thief from the bonds of his spell. The man struggled briefly, but stopped when the golem tightened its grip around his throat. The thief stared bug-eyed at his captor.
“So, my
“W-what do you want from me?” the thief managed to gurgle.
The cleric smiled and sent out a quick prayer of thanksgiving to Tharizdun, for even compressed by the crushing grip of his golem, he could hear the familiar tones of the voice that first spoke to them in this chamber.
“Why,” replied Durgoth in an overly sweet tone, “I want totake you up on your offer. Let’s renegotiate our terms, shall we?”
5
“More ale!” Kaerion bellowed at the portly barkeep. “Andbring along a few more fingers of that damned Dragons Breath. Packs a fine kick, it does.” He slammed down his mug on the chipped wooden bar and drew his otherhand across his mouth.
The common area of the Men O’Steel tavern was packed withbodies, hard drinkers all of them. Humans, elves, and even a few dwarves jostled and joked, drank and swore in its dim-lit confines-though Kaerion noticed thatno one let their hands stray too far from their weapons. Dirty rushes covered the floor and serving maids swooped from table to table, collecting coins and absently swatting away roaming hands and pinching fingers. Somewhere off in a corner, a minstrel swept swift fingers across the strings of an instrument.
Kaerion turned back to his drink, disgusted. Only a few moments later, the barkeep deposited two more mugs of dark ale and three small cups filled with a brownish liquid. He sniffed the cups, satisfied by the smoky scent that wafted up. Holding up his first cup, he saluted an elf, who had just tied the beard of a dwarf to the cheap wooden table upon which he rested his head, completely passed out. The elf gave a quick smile in return, and Kaerion could
