When he arrived in the cavern, he was sweating heavily but still stoked from the combat. The churning madness of Khyber stirred his thoughts. That was good. When facing death, it was best not to be in one’s right mind.
He shouted, “Death hag! By the Devourer, by the Dark Six! Death hag!”
Mists swirled around him. He bellowed again. “I bear a message for the lovely hag!”
The room stilled, as though his ears were stuffed with straw. He pivoted, looking in all directions, hating, like any warrior, not to hear his enemy, not to have every sense alert.
From behind came a singsong voice. “Sweet meat.”
He spun. The death hag leaned over him, tall and spectral.
“I bear a message.” He let his sword drop to the ground. If she would only listen.
“Speak your last words,” she breathed, with breath like a month-old carcass.
“Listen until the end, hag, for your master will want to know.”
“Oh, bold, bold.” Her eyes rolled back and came around again. Ravon had to admire the trick.
The witch crooned, “I shall take your blood with especial pleasure. Sip, sip.”
By Dolurrh, she was ugly. But he held her terrifying gaze and said, “I’m a bitter man. You may not find my flesh to your liking.”
“I shall eat your tongue first, then decide.”
He devoutly hoped she would kill him all at once and not save him for the occasional cannibalistic treat. He must remember to enrage her to that point. He’d always had a knack for annoying people.
Ravon hastened to say, “Here is the message from Stonefist. The baron of Cannith doesn’t need you or your demon lord. Once you open the pipe, it will stay open. Cannith will ignore you. You’ve been duped.”
The hag grabbed his shoulder, her nails strong as meat hooks. “Stonefist would not say so to such as you.”
“You’d be right except I was in the process of killing him when he let it slip.”
The hag screamed, smashing him down to his knees. “Where is Nastra?”
“I don’t keep track of her. Sorry.”
The death hag looked over his shoulder, peering into the caldron of smoke, watchful, perhaps desperate. Turning back to him, she yanked his hair, pulling his head back to expose his neck. “Bitch, bitch, bitch!” she howled.
“Know what you mean.” His head was bent so far, he thought his spine would snap. He managed to spit out, “But the elf has her good points.”
The witch hunched over him, her face very near, her breath vile. “You do not fear me, manling?”
With all that was left of his voice, Ravon whispered, “Not so much.”
And he didn’t. He was wholly occupied with trying to figure out what number his death was going to be at the hands of the hag. Was it the three hundred and eighth way to die, or the eight hundred and third? By Dol Dorn’s mighty fist, it was important to know.
By the time he decided both were wrong and was wildly recalculating, he found himself lying flat on the trembling ground, no one else in sight.
The death hag had gone.
Well. Perhaps his innate charm had won out.
As Ravon raced up the stairs, he felt the treads shaking beneath his feet. Splinters of stone fell from the ceiling.
The pipe. They were opening up a portal to Fernia after all. They didn’t believe him. The hag didn’t… but the shuddering continued, worsening. He barely got through the hot door as the stair collapsed behind him.
Summoning his last strength, he raced up the remaining flights. Somewhere above him the fight raged on, but even a battle could not drown out the booming roar of what was coming.
Charging through the halls, he bellowed, “Out, out! It’s coming apart. Get outside!”
The forge itself heaved from side to side. And grew hotter with every minute.
Fernia was coming up. Not in a controlled pipe, he decided. It was coming in a flood, an eruption. It would blow the forge sky high. “Out, get out!” he roared as the slaves started to heed him. He grabbed a dead orc’s pike and struck down a pair of goblins coming at him from a side hall. “Out!”
Then in a general stampede, those who yet lived raced from the corridors, cells, and crannies of the forge, heading for the door out. Bodies lay everywhere, orcs draped over dwarves and goblins over halflings, as though in a last embrace. The slaves rushed outward and Ravon followed.
Once in the clearing, he looked back to see gouts of fire erupting from the forge’s window slits, and a pillar of purple smoke spiking up into the sky from the artificer’s keep.
Even orcs gave up on the fight and stared. Then in a mass surge, they and everyone else turned and raced for the jungle.
Ravon noted a different group standing on one side of the dense forest. A large group of soldiers with their pack beasts also stared at the thundering, shuddering forge.
In their midst stood a lord, by his dress-a regal figure with dark hair and a chain of office around his neck. The expression on his face was one Ravon would never forget.
“Merrix d’Cannith,” a voice spoke at his side. He couldn’t see anyone. But it was Nastra’s voice. “He came to see the forge open. Not fall to ruin.”
“Hate to see him disappointed,” Ravon murmured. The ground shook violently, as one side of the forge collapsed in a deafening crash.
Nastra went on. “I can extend my cloak around you. Perhaps invisible is best under the circumstances?”
Ravon saw that a large orc was making his way toward him. “If you wouldn’t mind, lady elf.”
“Not that I care about you,” she said. “Never think that.”
The orc began to lope in his direction.
“Of course not. But we might fight our way to the coast. In case of drow. Orcs. Other riffraff. Two swords are better than one.”
“Indeed,” Nastra allowed.
In a swirl, the orc grew fuzzy to Ravon’s eyes. The orc spun around, searching for his vanished prey. After a moment it stalked off.
Ravon felt Nastra bend an arm behind and slowly draw a sword from its sheath. She pressed its hilt into his hand.
The air split with a gargled roar. As they watched in frozen wonder, the top of the forge blew off in a gout of fire and iron. The sound engulfed the world. It was an angry blast from Fernia-but not to enliven the genesis forge, not in a controlled pipe. An eruption, sent by the minions of a demon lord to wreak death on his betrayers.
Baron d’Cannith beat a hasty retreat into the jungle as pieces of flaming iron, molten rivets, and doors red as newly poured ingots fell from the sky.
After the blast, nothing remained but a crater where the genesis forge had been. The jungle was set alight in places, but the eruption was done.
Ravon and Nastra turned and ran from the burning clearing. He let her lead the way, admiring her speed.
Catching up to her at last, he said, “We’ll find your family. When we get to Khorvaire, we’ll find them.”
A quick glance at him. “Not that you care.”
He shrugged. “Not in the least. But I figure I owe you.”
She smiled. “A promise, then.”
“Call it that.”
They plunged deep into the jungle of Xen’drik, watchful for orcs, drow, stray goblins, Cannith’s men, and a score of other enemies. It was a world Ravon Kell remembered well. It was good to be back.
ARENA OF SHADOWS
A TALE OF EBERRON
