For now, the ghouls seemed content to attack only the groups of guests left outside the ring of Jander’s men. Selgaunt’s noblemen fought, shouted, and died by fang and claw. Ghouls devoured the soft skin of the city’s noblewomen. The macabre feasting was within view of the horrified guests being protected by Uskevren house guards.
Despite the protests of Lord and Lady Uskevren, Jander Orvist let no one break from the ring. Cale searched the faces behind Jander’s men—he saw Lord and Lady Foxmantle, and Lord and Lady Talendar, among others—but didn’t see Thazienne.
Jander, in the midst of trying gently to restrain Thamalon, suddenly threw Lord Uskevren behind him, shouted something to his men, and pointed with his blade to the ceiling. Cale’s eyes followed his pointed blade.
He saw nothing but black smoke—
Sudden motion among the ceiling rafters drew his eye. Quick as an arrow shot, a huge, bat-winged shadow with long, clawed arms swooped down from the smoky ceiling toward the house guard perimeter.
“Look out!” Cale shouted, but knew they could not hear him through the noise.
The crowd of guests had also followed Jander’s pointed blade. They backed up and cowered as the shadow dived toward them. Jander stood over Thamalon and brandished his long sword. Two other guards flanked Shamur. Vox edged toward Tamlin.
Difficult to distinguish from the smoke, the shadow darted over the flashing steel of Jander’s men. A few quick-thinking house guards had readied crossbows and fired on the creature, but the bolts passed through its body without effect. It swooped into the crowd like a kingfisher and scooped up a young nobleman. The nobleman dangled and squirmed from the shadow’s clawed grip. Cale did not know the young man’s name. The creature hovered over the terrified crowd of guests. Its eyes flared yellow in the black oval of its face. Several of the women fainted. Many of the men cowered in fear, even some among the house guard. Meantime, the young man in the shadow’s clutches screamed and kicked frenetically but his blows passed harmlessly through the creature.
Cale watched in fascination as the shadow, hovering only two armspans above the crowd, placed a claw on the scrabbling man’s chest and slowly tore open a hole in his torso. Inch by inch the man’s body split open. He screamed, convulsed, and died.
Cale expected a rain of entrails to shower the terrified crowd below, but nothing spilled from the wound but a whitish vapor streaked with swirls of gray. The mist flowed toward the shadow’s mouth like iron shavings to a lodestone. The creature drank it in greedily. As it did, the nobleman’s body began to collapse in on itself as though sucked empty—eyeballs shrunk and fell back into the collapsing sockets. The jawbone fell open in a soundless scream.
When only a dried husk remained, the creature threw the body into the cowering crowd below and began to scan the hall below for its next victim.
Cale’s gaze swept the feasthall near him and took in the many desicated corpses that littered the ground. The shadow had already fed well. No wonder Jander had been forced into a corner. How could the house guard hope to fight off such a creature? He had to find Thazienne!
He searched the hall, but through the smoke Cale couldn’t see her anywhere. With one eye, he kept a watch on the shadow. It continued to lazily circle near the ceiling. Cale searched for Thazienne. Where was she, godsdammit?
“Thazienne!” he shouted from the doorway, heedless now of whether ghouls noticed him or not. “Tazi!”
Through the smoke, he spotted her across the feasthall. She stood opposite from him, near the musicians’ dais, fighting a ghoul. It toyed with her the way the one in the parlor had toyed with him.
She had torn her jade gown off at the thighs and now skillfully brandished a softly glowing dagger. Cale thanked the gods she had defied her father and worn the dagger under her dress. Her short hair hung wildly about her face and her eyes glowed with the fire of combat. Behind her, tiny Meena Foxmantle cowered against the wall, wide-eyed with fright.
The ghoul backed off, circled wide, then suddenly bounded over a toppled chair to try to get at Meena. Thazienne jumped in front of it and slashed open its forearm with her dagger. The gray-skinned beast recoiled with a growl, blood from previous victims still dripping from its claws. It backed off and again circled, less playfully now, then rushed in to attack her with a flurry of claw rakes. Despite his concern, Cale picked his way toward her cautiously, trying to avoid the attention of the rest of the ghoul pack.
Thazienne leaped backward and nimbly dodged a claw attack. She ducked low and lashed out with the dagger, this time to the ghoul’s abdomen. The creature staggered backward. She shouted something, reversed her stroke, and slashed it backhand across the throat. Purple blood sprayed from the wound. The ghoul clutched at its neck and fell writhing to the floor. Without hesitation, she pounced on it and drove her dagger through its chest.
“Thazienne!” Cale shouted, to get her attention. “Thazienne!”
She didn’t hear him. There was too much shouting. Several ghouls did hear him though, and eyed him hungrily.
After making sure the ghoul was dead, Thazienne grabbed Meena by the hand and began to lead her across the feasthall toward Jander and the protective circle of guards.
Smart girl. Cale headed that way as well.
He looked up and caught the shadow creature’s baleful yellow eyes. They fell on Thazienne and Meena. It stopped circling and hovered.
“Thazienne!” Cale shouted, but still she did not hear him through the tumult. The shadow began to flow sinuously earthward.
Cale threw caution to the wind. Leaping chairs and tables, he ran across the hall and through the carnage. He ignored the paralyzed but still living guests, even those being fed upon by ghouls. He ignored the hungry slavers of the ghouls, loud in his ears as they bounded after him. He saw nothing but the need to get to her before the shadow did.
Something crashed into Cale’s back. A ghoul buried its fangs into the muscles of Cale’s shoulder and its claws tore at his face. Off balance, he skidded into an overturned table, a snarling ghoul astride his back.
Tableware, broken dishes, and the ghoul’s fangs and claws bit into his flesh. The charnel reek of the creature filled his nose and he swallowed bile. Fueled by his fear for Thazienne, he flipped the ghoul over his back and slammed it onto the table. It squirmed and slashed but he held it fast with one hand and a knee. His other hand frantically fished the debris nearby for the first sharp thing he could find. His hand closed on the hilt of a carving knife.
With a grunt, he drove the blade through the ghoul’s throat and into the wood of the table underneath. Pinned, it gurgled, kicked feebly, and died.
Tazi! He wiped the blood from his face, ignored the pain in his shoulder and sides, and jumped to his feet.
The shadow had landed on the floor to cut Tazi off from the ring of house guards. Now only twenty paces from Cale, Tazi shoved Meena Foxmantle behind her and held the enchanted dagger before her in a trembling hand. The shadow flowed toward Tazi, faster now. Beyond her, Cale saw Thamalon and Shamur struggling frantically to get free of the house guard ring, but Jander refused to let them go. Cale raced for her, leaping over and through debris and corpses.
“Thazienne!”
As the shadow neared, Meena Foxmantle swooned and fell to the floor at Thazienne’s feet. With its long clawed arms outstretched, the shadow darted in for her.
“Tazi!” He realized how stupid it was to shout the moment he did it. If he distracted her—
She showed no sign of having heard him and he thanked the gods for her single-mindedness. She paid attention only to the living darkness that swirled around her.
When the shadow drew near enough, she slashed with her dagger. Incredibly fast, the creature easily flowed out of the reach of her small blade. She did not pursue it, instead standing protectively over Meena.
Cale was almost there.
Suddenly, with blinding speed, the shadow darted in and flashed a claw. Thazienne leaped to the side but the blow sti
ll tore a gash in her shoulder. Immediately, her face turned ashen. She staggered, clutching her shoulder, and fell to her knees.
“No!” Cale shouted, but knew his cry to be futile. Thazienne stood perfectly still and the suddenly vacant look in her wide, haunted eyes burned holes into his soul. Her dagger clattered to the floor.
“No!”
Before he took another stride, the shadow slashed again, tore open her gown, and opened a wound in her chest. Gray vapor began to pulse from the gash toward the shadow’s waiting mouth. Thazienne’s mouth fell open.
Cale could feel the creature’s eager anticipation. The thing radiated hunger like heat from a fire.
“No, gods damn you!”
He leaped over the last chair in his way and charged into the shadow at a full run. Flailing wildly with his fists, he ran right through the insubstantial body of the creature and felt nothing but a pitiless cold, as though he had stepped unclothed into the freezing air of a cold Hammer night. Unable to halt his charge, he crashed into Thazienne and knocked her flat. Forcing his numb limbs to answer his commands, he turned to fight, turned to protect Thazienne. He faced the shadow, filled with the heat of rage, and charged it again, fists first.
Taken aback by Cale’s fearlessness, the creature darted backward, out of his reach. Cale did not pursue. He stood his ground over Thazienne, fists clenched. His breathing came in labored gasps and his body shook with emotion. He stared without fear into the shadow’s flaring yellow eyes.
“Come on!” he shouted, and beckoned it toward him.
The shadow circled around him, watchful, curious, predatory. He turned as it moved, kept his eyes on it all the while. The shouting and growling all around him seemed to fall away. There was only Cale and the shadow, nothing else mattered.
He sensed its amusement with him, the same way he had felt its hunger, but he felt no fear. Let it come.
Weaponless but for his hands, he dared it with his eyes to try again for Thazienne. He momentarily lowered his gaze from the shadow to her and saw that the vapor that had bled from her wound still clung in wisps around her body. The creature had not yet fed. And it never will, he vowed. Not while I live.
“Come on,” he challenged. “Come on.”
Meena Foxmantle, now awake and trembling with sobs on the floor behind him, pulled pathetically at the leg of his breeches. When he tried to reassure her with a quick glance, his eyes fell on Thazienne’s dagger—Thazienne’s enchanted dagger—lying on the floor only a few feet away.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he dived for the blade. As he did, he noticed with his peripheral vision the shadow darting in to strike. He grabbed the steel, rolled to dodge the shadow’s attack, and jumped up with the now glowing dagger held before him. The moment he stood, the cut of a shadowy claw tore open his side.
His body went instantly numb, as though he had been immersed in ice water. He kept his fingers wrapped around the dagger’s hilt only by sheer force of will. No blood flowed from the deep cut in his ribs—he would have welcomed the warmth—rather, he felt a nauseating yet seductive tug on his soul. In his mind’s eye, he saw a horrible vision of his desiccated, pruned body falling in dried pieces upon Thazienne and Meena. In that terrifying instant, he realized that he faced not merely an undead creature, like the ghouls, but a demon from the Abyss—for only a demon could drink a man’s soul.
Seeing his vulnerability, the demon’s yellow eyes flashed in the void of its oval head and it raised a second claw high to strike. Again, Cale felt waves of hunger coming from the emptiness of its body. Its overlong arm extended high and seemed to Cale to reach all the way to the ceiling rafters. The claws looked as long as broadswords.
Desperately, he willed his numb body and thick brain to answer his command to move. Move! Move!
The claw sped downward for the kill.
At the last possible moment, he dived under the demon’s arm and reflexively stabbed upward with Thazienne’s dagger. Unlike his punches, the blow from the enchanted dagger actually bit into the demon’s shadowy substance. Cale felt resistance as the blade penetrated the demon’s being—soft tension, then sudden give—as though he had poked a hole in a wineskin. His hand hurt from the cold.
The demon jerked back and Cale sensed rather than heard a surprised howl of rage and pain. Black, foul-smelling smoke hissed from the wound in its arm. It jerked back and circled him at a distance, leaking foulness. Its yellow eyes narrowed. Cale sensed it hiss. It was no longer amused.
His eyes fell on Thazienne, motionless on the floor, and he charged it with a roar.
Startled, the demon’s yellow eyes went wide and it flowed backward. Cale chased after and stabbed maniacally with the dagger. Heedless of the creature’s claws, Cale attacked. He was interested only in killing the thing that had harmed Thazienne.
With each telling cut, the demon’s shrieks of pain and surprise thumped in Cale’s brain and fed his anger. He stabbed, ducked, rolled, and stabbed again. Shadowy claws flashed about him but he kept moving and avoided them all. He spun, ducked, and cut again. As he fought, he shouted incoherently, bellows of primal rage.
Reeking shadow stuff streamed out of the demon from a handful of dagger wounds. Cale pressed it relentlessly.
Without warning, the wounded demon suddenly took wing and streaked, still bleeding, from the feasthall. Cale sensed its pain and shock. He chased after it on foot for a few paces, waving the dagger and shouting challenges.
When it left his sight, he came back to himself.
Except for some soft crying and pained moans, the feasthall was silent. Cale looked around.
The ghouls had ceased attacking and now stood idle, as though the defeat of the demon had left them stunned. Their faces hung slack. Their expressions were vacant.
Jander Orvist needed no better opportunity. His voice boomed from across the feasthall. “Now!” he ordered, and the house guard charged, blades held high.
The ghouls did not even move to defend themselves. The surviving Uskevren house guards brandished their long swords and began to chop them down like farmers harvesting wheat. Cale dropped the ice-cold dagger and rushed to Thazienne’s side.
As though freed to return by the absence of the demon, the white vapor that clung in wisps around her body—her soul, Cale now knew—flowed back into the slash in her chest. Immediately, the wound knitted itself shut to leave only an ugly pink scar. He knelt beside her and brushed the hair from her forehead. She looked so pale. Her body felt as cold as Deepwinter snow.
Ignoring the pain of his own wounds, Cale pulled her limp body close and cradled her to his chest. She still breathed, he realized, but only barely. His eyes welled as he rocked her back and forth. Please, gods, not her, please.
“Thazienne,” he murmured. “Please come back, Thazienne.” He buried his face in her dark hair and tried to warm her cold body with the heat of his own.
Moments later—it seemed an eternity to him—Meena Foxmantle’s sobs brought Cale back to himself. She lay on the floor near him, curled into a fetal position, trembling so badly that she looked as if she were convulsing. Her terrified eyes stared vacantly at him. He reached out and gently placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She grabbed at his arm like a drowning person clutching a lifeline and held so tight that he lost all feeling in his hand within moments.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s going to be all right.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself.
While Captain Orvist and the house guard finished with the remainder of the ghouls, Thamalon and Shamur charged across the feasthall, the Foxmantles close behind.
Cale saw them coming and lifted Thazienne from the floor.
“Tazi!” they shouted in shared alarm. They rushed forward and touched her hands and face. Upon feeling the coldness of her flesh, Thamalon recoiled in shock. Shamur’s already tear-streaked face went white. She clutched her husband’s wrist with one hand, raised the other to her mouth, and looked upon the limp form o
f her daughter.
“Gods,” Thamalon oathed, and tears formed in his eyes.
Cale’s knees trembled. Tears welled in his eyes. A house guard tried to relieve him of Thazienne but he refused to let her go.
“Send for a priest, Lord,” he said to Thamalon, his voice quavering with emotion. “Send for a priest now.”
Riven glared at the gate guard of the manor house and stormed past without a word, violence on his mind. The sleepy, bearded house guard took one look at Riven’s scowl and apparently thought better of challenging his entrance to Whitebirch.
Fortunate for you, Riven thought. He would have welcomed an excuse to vent his anger by gutting one of Verdrinal’s lackeys.
His foul mood only worsened as he strode through the neatly landscaped, illumined grounds and approached Whitebirch Manor itself. Verdrinal’s manse exuded decadence, which of course fit the man perfectly. The front was bedecked with winter shrubs, perfectly hedged, statues of nude women frolicking with leering satyrs, snow dusted benches, and a wooden veranda. Riven found the whole sight vaguely offensive, as though the very air here somehow soiled him. Not for the first time, he marveled that a fool such as Verdrinal could have risen so far within the Zhentarim. The bastard actually equaled him in rank!
You get born to the right family and anything’s possible, he supposed with a scowl. The only heir of the Isterin family fortune, Verdrinal Isterin provided a legitimate face for many otherwise illicit Zhentarim operations. Apart from his wealth and family name, Riven thought Verdrinal a useless, incompetent man. Equal in rank or not, Riven held him in contempt.
Not bothering to use the bronze doorknocker, he kicked open the main doors and walked into the foyer. Not a guard in sight.
“Verdrinal!” he shouted up the main stairway. “Get out of bed and get down here!” He deliberately had come in the small hours, just to inconvenience Verdrinal the more. He must have caught the house guard unawares as well—Hov usually did better work.
Muffled voices and a shuffling from upstairs told him that he had been heard. In a few moments, a dark-haired young man in the purple uniform of an Isterin house guard emerged from the hallway and leaned over the banister. He scowled when he saw Riven.