Crypt of the shadowking - Mark Anthony [8]
With eerie speed the stranger reached out with a black-gloved hand, snapping Garl's neck with an almost casual motion. The farmer slumped lifelessly to the floor as Anja watched in frozen horror. Shouting and swearing in outrage, the other men leaped into action, but to little avail. The black-robed stranger batted aside a glowing poker with an easy gesture and threw a burly farmer through the sod wall. He smashed one young man's skull against the stones of the chimney and with a quick blow crushed another's windpipe. In moments only Anja was left standing, shaking her head in terror. The stranger walked slowly toward the one he had come for.
"Please," she whispered. "Please don't." The stranger lifted a gloved hand, and Anja's scream was lost in a gurgle of hot blood. The wooden flute slipped from her hand to the dirt floor. It would never make the shadows dance again.
The black-robed stranger left the cottage then, slipping into the night. His mission had been accomplished. The woman with the shadow magic was dead. Now there were but two more left in all the Realms. Soon there would be none at all. The stranger turned to the wind, testing the cool air. The trail led southward.
The wind hissed through the dry grass, and suddenly the night was empty.
Caledan rose early the next morning. He retrieved Mista from the stable of the Wandering Wyvern and rode off through the cheerless streets. Even with the coming of dawn Iriaebor seemed wrapped in gloom. Many of the city's once-proud towers slumped precariously above the narrow avenues, the bridges that spanned the distance between them crumbling and treacherous where passable at all. The light of the sun was dull and tired by the time it managed to filter its way down past the ancient spires, and even as the sullen light filled the streets so did the people, pouring out of countless peeling, weathered doors to pursue the day's affairs, their faces grim and wearied. Caledan could only shake his head. Perhaps that drunken dockhand had been right Maybe he should never have come back at all.
Why had he returned? Did he really think he could find some sort of peace here after all this time? If so, he was a bigger fool than he thought. There were too many memories here, he now realized. Every street, every tower, every stone reminded him of a time when he had been happy, when he hadn't been alone.
Absently he twirled the braided copper bracelet he wore on his left wrist That happiness had died seven years ago. He had laid it cold and dead in the earth alongside a woman with summer-gold hair. All he had now were ghosts. Maybe no amount of wandering would be enough to leave such memories behind.
He supposed an old friend or two might still live in Iriaebor, but he feared his one-time companions would be as changed as the city was. Besides, he had grown used to loneliness these last years, and he could live without friends.
"Anyway, I have you, Mista," he said, slapping the pale mare's neck with a friendly hand. She tossed her head and pranced haughtily, her hooves ringing against the cobbles. "Vain beast," he said with a laugh.
It was time to leave this forsaken place, Caledan decided. He had heard there was good pay to be had guarding caravans on the roads north of Waterdeep. He was as handy with a sword as any man, and he could use the gold. He guided Mista onto a wide avenue that led down the Tor and out of the city.
The avenue widened as it made its way past the tower of the city lord. The tower stood atop the very highest part of the Tor, soaring above all the city's thousand spires. Its walls were wrought of dark stone quarried from the very hill upon which Iriaebor rested.
Much blood had been shed in the tower's construction, and those who had laid its foundations were long dead by the time the last stone of the turret was set in place. One could still see the faint line a third of the way up the tower's height where the color of the stone changed slightly. Every