demons seemed particularly perturbed by that radiance, which tore at their shadowy substance and even seemed to make Shara’s sword bite more easily into them. Two demons at once reached their claws toward Roghar’s head, and he paused for a terrible moment as Shara watched the fear creep into his eyes. Then he shook his head and renewed his attack, undaunted by whatever vision of terror they had presented to him.
A moment later, a bolt of eldritch fire streaked down from the road above them, and Shara glanced up to see Tempest looking down at her. The fire slammed into one of the demons and consumed it, sending the last shreds of its substance hurtling down over the bluff. Quarhaun glanced up as well and cocked an eyebrow when he saw Tempest’s curling horns.
“A tiefling warlock and a paladin of Bahamut?” he said. “An unusual pair.”
Roghar and Shara maneuvered into a position that kept their friends sheltered from the demons’ attacks, coordinating their movements with quick, simple signals. Shara smiled to herself at how good it felt to fight alongside someone skilled and reliable.
Sorry, Uldane, she thought. It’s not the same.
Shara and Roghar kept the demons at bay, their blades hacking and slicing into their shadowy forms. Uldane darted around past them to cut at the demons, then back behind the protection they offered, shouting encouragement to everyone as he went. Quarhaun and Tempest riddled the demons with blasts of fire and bolts of dark lightning. In moments, the last demon dissipated into wisps of shadow and a scattering of red crystal droplets.
Laughing with the sheer pleasure of it, Shara threw her arms around Roghar. “The paladin rushes in to save the day!” she said. “Your timing was perfect.”
“Well, I was in the neighborhood,” Roghar said.
“And thought you’d drop in?” Uldane said with a grin.
Roghar dropped to one knee to embrace the halfling as well. “That was pretty terrible.”
“I thought it was funny,” the halfling said.
Tempest made her way down from the overhanging bluff and embraced Shara. “It’s good to see familiar faces,” the tiefling said. “Trouble seems to be afoot in Fallcrest.”
“Do you know what’s going on?” Shara asked her.
“Not yet. We just arrived and found the Nentir Inn in flames. We were circling around to investigate when we heard sounds of a fight.”
“I heard the sounds,” Roghar said, thumping his mailed fist on his armored chest with a clang. “And rushed to the rescue.”
“And a good thing you did,” Shara said. “We were outnumbered, and Quarhaun is still recovering from our last fight against these demons.”
“So you would be Quarhaun,” Roghar said, extending a hand to the drow.
Quarhaun looked down at the dragonborn’s extended hand for a moment too long before he clasped it. “I am,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Shara said. “Quarhaun, this is Roghar, and this is Tempest. We were thrown together on a past adventure.”
“And now it appears that all our various adventures are connected,” Roghar said with a scowl. He squatted down and poked at a tiny pool of red crystalline liquid left behind by one of the demons.
“Don’t touch it!” Shara and Tempest exclaimed together.
“It’s inert,” Roghar said. “I think it’s … dead, I guess.”
“More of Vestapalk’s spawn,” Shara said. “Transformed by the Voidharrow.”
“Vestapalk?” Roghar said. “The dragon? I thought you killed it.” Roghar had been at her side that day, in the ruins of Andok Sur, when her blade had opened the dragon’s belly and sent it hurtling down into a chasm opening beneath it.
“I killed it,” Shara said. “Or at least I dealt it a mortal wound. But I also provided the means for its resurrection.”
“What?” Tempest said.
“When I cut the dragon, it had the death knight in its claws. I cut open the death knight’s belt pouch as I swung at the dragon, and a vial full of glittering red liquid came out. It was absurd, really, a coincidence that only an evil god’s tricks could have orchestrated. The liquid spilled out of the vial and flowed into the dragon’s wound. The Voidharrow, Kri called it.”
“Kri?” Roghar asked.
“A priest of Ioun,” Uldane said. “He showed up at Moorin’s tower looking for that vial of the Voidharrow, which the death knight stole from the tower.”
“The demon that … that took me,” Tempest said. “It was looking for the Voidharrow, too. And it was made of the same substance.”
“That demon is serving Vestapalk now,” Shara said. “And helping the dragon spread what they called an abyssal plague. We’ve only seen them once-and actually, that’s where we met Quarhaun. The dragon’s minions had captured both Quarhaun and Albanon, and the dragon tried to transform them both with the Voidharrow.”
“And since then,” Uldane said, “we’ve encountered all kinds of demon creatures that have that same crystal stuff.”
“We’ve fought them all over the Nentir Vale,” Shara said.
Roghar scratched his chin. “It appears that this threat isn’t confined to the Nentir Vale,” he said. “We discovered a droplet of this Voidharrow in Nera.”
“Then Vestapalk’s reach has grown wide indeed,” Shara said.
“Not necessarily,” Tempest said. “The substance was in the keeping of a little cult of the Chained God. There was no other evidence of a connection to Vestapalk. It could have come from the same source as the vial the death knight carried.”
“Kri did say that the Voidharrow was separated,” Shara said. “Some of it was carried east, I think he said, while the rest was passed down until it came to Moorin. So maybe what you found came from that eastern portion.”
“So what is it?” Roghar asked. “Where did it come from?”
Shara looked around and saw a circle of scowling faces. “More immediate questions first,” she said. “What’s happened to Fallcrest? And is there any safe place in the town where we can rest, or do we need to make camp at a safe distance outside?”
“Let’s try the bridge,” Roghar said. “I have a feeling the Nentir Inn was set ablaze as a lure.”
“Trying to draw people out from their fortifications,” Shara said, nodding. “And into a trap.”
“We’d better make sure we don’t get drawn into the trap,” Quarhaun said.
“Right,” Shara said. “At the top of the bluff, we cut through the woods and around the orchards behind the inn to the bridge.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Roghar said.
“At least the beginning of one,” Quarhaun added.
The top of the bluff offered a fine view of the land Shara, Uldane, and Quarhaun had just passed through. Shara explained what they’d seen at Aerin’s Crossing and the outlying farms, and nodded as Tempest described the eerie silence of the forest along the King’s Road. Shara led the group on a path through another small wood, just as quiet, around to the riverside.
As soon as they emerged from the trees, Shara breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Across the river, Fallcrest’s Hightown was bright with torchlight illuminating the bridge and the opposite shore against the approaching dark.
“So Fallcrest is not yet lost,” she said.
“Just under siege,” Roghar said.
Their path to the bridge along the riverside brought them past the fields of one more farm, and then into the fire apple orchards belonging to the Nentir Inn. Apples hung ripe on the trees, bright red and swollen with juice.
“Pick me an apple?” Uldane asked Shara.
“I suppose thieves in the orchard are the least of Erandil’s worries tonight,” she said. She plucked an apple