tower jutting above the surrounding buildings. “Got it,” he said. “The Eye of the Storm.”
“Let’s hope she’s ready to fly.”
“Do you know how to fly an airship?” Gaven asked.
“Sovereigns, no. That’s your job, heir of Siberys.”
Gaven growled and made a sharp right turn into another alley, trying to steer more or less toward the mooring tower. Just as Rienne made the turn, a crossbow bolt clattered against the wall of the alley.
“Fortunately, these alleys haven’t changed much in thirty years,” Gaven said. He pointed ahead. “We’re going right at that T, though it leads away from the tower.”
“If you say so.”
They ran at top speed, and once again Gaven felt the wind pick up around them, carrying them so their feet barely touched the ground. When they reached the branching alley, the wind carried them smoothly around the corner without slowing. At the same time, though, a man came hurtling from the opposite branch, falling into stride right behind them, evidently carried by the same wind. Gaven barely caught a glimpse of him as he rounded the corner, but that was enough to identify him without wasting time on a backward glance.
“Bordan,” he growled.
“That’s right, Gaven.” Bordan had to shout to be heard over the wind. “We found you again. The rest of your life will be like this, you know, as long as you keep running.”
“Still better than Dreadhold,” Gaven replied.
“And Dreadhold’s far better than you deserve!” As he shouted, Bordan leaped forward and threw his arms around Gaven’s legs, bringing them both to the ground.
Gaven landed on his side and kicked hard at Bordan’s head. As his foot connected, a blast like thunder threw Bordan backward. Rienne helped Gaven stand, and they kept running down the alley. They made a sharp left turn, then stopped short, faced with a blank stone wall.
Lightning flashed in the darkening sky. Gaven shouted a curse, but a peal of thunder overhead drowned him out.
“I guess the alleys have changed a bit,” Rienne said. She drew Maelstrom and stepped back to look the way they had come. “The dwarves are almost here, and Bordan’s right behind them.”
“If they want a fight, I’ll give it to them.” Gaven wreathed his body in flames as he drew his sword and stepped beside Rienne to face the onrushing dwarves.
Rienne looked at him sadly. “Gaven, I don’t want their deaths on my conscience.”
“You’re a criminal now, Ree. You can’t afford a conscience.”
The dwarves slowed their approach, demonstrating more caution than they had last time. There were five, and Gaven thought three of them looked familiar from Vathirond. There was the scarlet-shirted leader Rienne had identified as Ossa. The one who had crashed into the kitchen had been in Vathirond as well-he’d knocked Gaven to the floor and almost cracked his ribs with his mace. The woman who had fenced with Senya was there too. The fourth wore the heaviest armor, a steel breastplate with a few other plates of metal protecting sensitive spots, and hefted a greataxe as long as Gaven’s sword. The fifth kept to the back, her empty hands poised in front of her body, preparing to cast a spell. Bordan walked more slowly, trailing the dwarves by a dozen yards or so.
Ossa stepped ahead of the others and addressed Rienne, pointedly turning away from Gaven. “I know from experience it’s pointless to ask for Gaven’s surrender,” he said, “but there is still a chance for you, Lady Alastra.”
“Surrender?” Rienne said. “You don’t know me very well, Ossa.”
“There are few witnesses to the events near the Mournland, and it’s not too hard to believe that he enchanted you and forced you to aid him. I certainly can’t think of a more logical explanation for your behavior.”
Gaven sneered. “You’re wasting your time, Kundarak.”
“Am I?” Ossa finally acknowledged Gaven’s presence with a glance. “She delivered you to justice once, she can do so again. And certainly escape with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. You needn’t spend the rest of your life a fugitive, Lady Alastra.”
“No,” Gaven interjected, “You’re wasting your time chasing me at all. Two of us escaped from Dreadhold. Haldren’s the one fomenting war and planning his conquest of Khorvaire. Why are you spending all your energy chasing me?”
Bordan stepped forward at that. “When you’re just a harmless, misunderstood victim? Is that it, Gaven? We’re chasing you because you’re a dangerous fugitive. You expect us to just let you run around Khorvaire crashing the lightning rail and airships as the mood strikes you?”
“If you hadn’t been chasing me, neither of those accidents would have happened,” Gaven said.
“What makes you think you’re so damned important, Gaven?” Bordan pushed his way through the rank of dwarves and thrust his face into Gaven’s, heedless of the shield of flames around Gaven’s body. “You think you’re more important than the people you’ve killed? Is your life worth more than theirs?”
“Haldren’s about to plunge the world into war again. Do you understand that?”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Gaven. Yes, Haldren’s a mass murderer. But you still have Evlan d’Deneith to answer for. You might be less evil than he is, but that doesn’t mean you’re good. You’ve earned your place in Dreadhold-or worse. So we’re going to take you in, whether it’s now or later. And then we’ll find Haldren and take him in, and put an end to this nonsense. And the world will be a better place when you’re in a cell again.”
Gaven snarled, and lightning answered him, dancing around the spires of the mooring tower above them. “Take me in? You?”
“We will prevail, Gaven.” Bordan’s smile was calm and confident, which only infuriated Gaven more.
“How? You can’t handle me.”
It was not Bordan who answered, but Ossa. Her voice, too, was calm. “We don’t have to handle you, Gaven,” she said. “We just have to handle her.”
Gaven realized his mistake at once. While he’d been yelling at Bordan, the dwarf in the back had cast a spell on Rienne, freezing her in place. Gaven sent a hurricane blast of wind down the alley, sending Bordan sprawling on his back and forcing the dwarves into half crouches. But two of the dwarves held Rienne’s arms, and they started pulling her stiffened body away, letting the wind lighten their load. Ossa pressed the tip of a dagger to Rienne’s neck.
“Careful, Gaven,” the dwarf shouted over the gale. “The wind seems to have caught my blade.”
Gaven saw a prick of crimson well up on Rienne’s neck. The wind caught it and drew it in a line across her throat, as though demonstrating what Ossa threatened to do. With another rumble of thunder overhead, Gaven made the wind stop. His shoulders slumped.
Rain began to patter on the cobblestones around them, to hiss and vanish in the flames that still licked across Gaven’s body, to spatter Ossa’s scarlet shirt with darker spots like blood. The dwarf spellcaster spoke another spell and snuffed the magic of Gaven’s fiery shield. Gaven stared at the tip of Ossa’s blade and the dimple it made in Rienne’s throat.
“If you harm her,” he growled, “I swear that I will hunt down every person that so much as knows your name.”
Two of the dwarves moved to seize Gaven’s arms and pull them behind his back. As they clamped manacles around his wrists, he saw Bordan get to his feet and look up at the sky.
“I must admit my surprise, Gaven,” Bordan said. “I knew you were powerful. But when did rain last fall in the streets of Stormhome?”
PART IV
The greatest of the daelkyr’s brood, the Soul Reaver feasts on the minds and flesh of a thousand lives before his prison breaks. The Bronze Serpent calls him forth, but the Storm Dragon is his doom. A clash of dragons signals the sundering of the Soul Reaver’s gates. The hordes of the Soul Reaver spill from the earth, and a ray of Khyber’s sun erupts to form a bridge to the sky. The Storm Dragon descends into the endless dark beneath the bridge of
