White Plume Mountain

Paul Kidd White Plume Mountain

PROLOGUE

To a newcomer, the Flanaess had a distinctive, brilliantsmell, vibrant and alive, sharp and pure. It sang in a predator’s nostrils withpromises of blood. All the life, all the wealth, all the thrill of a newfound playground shook and shimmered in the morning breeze.

A predator stood upon a hillside, eyes closed as she felt the currents of her new world ebbing and flowing beneath her. It was a land drained and torn by war-a shadow of the greater battle that raged unchecked across anentire continuum. But it was a living land, a world of sun and grass, of cities and animals and birds dancing in the winds, a world that she could one day dominate and command.

New winds ruffled the feathers of her pure white wings. Saala was of the race of baatezu, demons that existed in a dozen different shapes and forms. An erinyes, she was a lean and exquisite huntress who wore the body of a beautiful winged woman, her skin shining pale and exotic as her body gleamed beneath the sun. In her hand, she held a black sword, a deadly weapon now safe in a scabbard decorated with cut obsidian. Despite its temporary prison, the sword chattered like a hungry animal, gibbering madly with the need to feast on souls.

A master of deception and fear, Saala had long used her weapons in the service of her dark masters. Now, abandoned and disgraced by the twists and turns of politics, she had come far afield in search of fertile hunting grounds. The erinyes was a solitary huntress, preferring the use of slaves rather than allies. She roamed the forgotten corners of countless worlds, forever seeking opportunities.

Her search had finally yielded treasure.

Saala turned her golden-eyed gaze upon the lands below her. A city lay there, a place with shantytowns and military camps spilling out of its old stone walls. There were temples and palaces, docks and taverns, all the glorious tangle of streets and plots and plans that made the hunt so rapturously wonderful. Saala gazed down upon the city in all its fabulous complexify and gave the simple smile of a little girl at play. It was a place of opportunities, a place utterly ignored by the erinyes’ own race.

Beyond the city lay the wastelands, and beyond the wastelands lay a kingdom ruled by Iuz, a demonic king who had attained the powers of a demigod, spreading terror and destruction across this green world. Yet, unknown to even him, Iuz had brought her a gift beyond price. To further his own power, Iuz had summoned demons of the tanar’ri race, and in so doing, he had become apawn in an even greater war, for tanar’ri and baatezu had been locked in savageconflict for millennia untold. This conflict had spread to countless different worlds, and minor wars between mortals often became the testing grounds of baatezu and tanar’ri. Each species manipulated their unwitting allies, layingentire nations waste as they grasped for tactical advantage in the greater war.

By summoning tanar’ri as his allies, Iuz had overtipped thebalance of power and given Saala the opportunity to enter this world. The erinyes could now conquer a local kingdom as a base and turn it into a tool for her own kind. When her masters raced to this world to stem the tanar’ri threat,Saala would be able to present them with a secure base and thousands of unwitting slaves. A tiny slip of chance might win her entire kingdoms, and the gratitude of her baatezu overlords would be incalculable if she only brought them the gift of victory.

All she need do was conquer a kingdom-and all on her own. Thecurrent situation merely needed a little misdirection, a little misrepresentation.

The sword suddenly shivered in its sheath, whimpering and calling for a human hand to wield it. With the weapon as her tool, the erinyes could bring a city to its knees from within. She needed only a little forethought, a little patience, and imagination. Feeling the movement of her thoughts, the sword moaned, and Saala smiled.

All things came to those who knew the value of subtlety. Saala flexed her claws, folded up her wings, and set her mind to the pleasurable task of intrigue. A city to conquer, a land to subdue, and an entire world lying supine at her feet.

There were some days when it was simply good to be a girl….

On a windswept heath in a blighted land, seed heads rattledagainst the teeth of an old, yellowed skull.

It had been only a year since the war’s end, only a yearsince the corpse king Iuz had sent his legions through these fertile lands like a disease. Finally battered to a standstill, the enemy had gone, having the land bleached and empty.

It was a land where the grass had become an ocean. Novillages marked the skyline. No taverns spread their wood smoke to the wind. Across the plains, no two stones stood atop one another. Wild grasses grew in untilled fields, and weeds jutted through the blackened ribs of dead, decaying farms.

Yet, life was tenacious even in the face of death. Wild cropsgrew across the battlefields and covered up the bones. Refugees had crept from the woods to repopulate the borderlands in huddled camps. Once again, the caravans marched as trade and communication struggled to reknit shattered civilization.

It was a world that had begun once again to find its feet.

It was a time when justice reached no farther than the end ofa sword….

1

“Razor Wood! Over there! It’s called Razor Wood!” Theteamster swept out his whip to indicate the approaching terrain, almost taking the ear off one of his own oxen. “You can still see the swords poking up throughthe brambles! Nigh on a thousand men died there not three years a-gone.”

Polk the teamster sat on his driving bench, lord of all that he surveyed. Scrawny, boisterous, and graced with a huge hatchet of a nose, he drove his cart with a singular lack of skill. Heavy wooden wheels screeched like tortured cats as the ox cart lurched its way along the open grass, forcing the teamster to shout to be heard above the noise.

His audience was a man walking alone with a slow and steady tread beside the cart. He was a big man with a shaven head and dark eyes that carefully scanned the heather-covered hills. A scar ran outward to the point of his stubbled jaw. Over plain clothes he wore armor made of rawhide scales laced into strips and backed with heavy felt. The armor was silent, well worn, and as tough as steel. A sturdy helmet hung from the man’s belt below a long, heavysword with a pommel shaped like a wolf’s skull.

The walker stayed silent, and Polk approved. A good listener. Now that was a rare thing to find! The teamster took a pull from an old clay jug and watched the evening sun setting above the bleak gray woods beside the trail.

“Razor Wood. Yes indeed. I saw me a battle once! Saw me awhole big battle. Even saw me some fellas dueling with swords!” The teamsterscratched beneath his hat as though stirring up memories. “You ever seen a swordfight? I mean a real fight, a fight where they mean business?”

Plodding along stolidly, the stranger kept his eyes on the horizon and replied, “Can’t say I have.”

“Well I saw me one. Big fellas they were, big men. Longblades, too-big as trees!” Leading a procession of wagons and feeling like ageneral on parade, Polk puffed his chest. “Bein’ a fighting man myself, I leftthem to it. Never interfere in another man’s work-that’s what I always say.Never interfere.”

His audience’s attention seemed to be wandering. As the wagoncontinued rolling by, the shaven-headed man stopped to kneel beside the trail and part the grass. His eyes narrowed as he examined a day-old horse dropping nestled in the weeds.