Darkvision - Bruce R. Cordell [0]
The Wizards 03 - Darkvision
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Ebook version 1.0
Release Date: September, 1st, 2008
Dedication
For Dee
Acknowledgments
Rob Heinsoo's development suggestion
is much appreciated, as it lays the groundwork
for Kiril Duskmourn's emergence
as an important character.
Martial arts instruction provided
by John Staab gave the author firsthand
knowledge of the effectiveness of several
techniques, such as choke-outs,
which make appearances in this story.
PROLOGUE
A barren land smoldered beneath a cover of ash.
The desert was still, grim in its isolation, and decorated with bleaching bones and drifts of snow white sand. Ripples across the dunes traced meandering lines under a merciless sun.
The roar of a storm shattered the deathly quiet. The chalky stillness rose up to become a howling waste of breathless suffocation. Lightning etched jagged trails through clouds of airborne grit. Wind scrabbled over blasted stone.
When the wind screamed, the desolation recalled the ancient mistake that birthed it, a mistake of such scope it doomed its perpetrators, burying their memory beneath centuries of sand.
A blot above the storm twisted, strained, and ripped. Ruinous dark lay behind the dust-hazed sky, littered with debris.
The aperture over the desert widened, and something moved within the newborn gap. Something terrible.
A splinter of darkness slipped through the opening and fell-a shard of stone almost a mile in length-like a hungry predator bounding into unguarded territory.
It slammed into the desert floor, and nearly three hundred feet of its razor-sharp length punched into the bedrock beneath the shifting dunes.
Shock waves pounded out from the point of contact, clearing the air and overpowering the dust storm's constant shriek. Moments later, the storm settled back, cloaking the waste in a roaring haze of stinging sand. The splinter remained upright, its head rising above the storm's roil as a lighthouse rises over a wave-racked coast. In the full light of reality, the structure bore a faint purple translucence along its edges, though its core remained black.
The time of imprisonment was finished.
The time for sweet retribution was at hand.
CHAPTER ONE
Spring, 1374 DR
The vengeance taker walked steadily, not hurrying, not lazing.
He ambled across a scrubland of long dead grass, his boots crunching brown blades, and his steps carrying him past stony outcrops. Sparse foliage, cactus, and an occasional squat, thorny tree dotted the endless miles. Waterless gullies sometimes splintered the terrain. The only limit to his vision was the next distant rise. Unless he counted the mountains.
To the taker's left was a rugged, desolate barrier of stone. The crags of those distant heights promised no mercy on any who attempted passage. But Iahn Qoyllor traveled a path parallel to the mountains, not toward them. The Giant's Belt would not try his strength, at least not this journey.
His unwavering stride ate the miles.
He had been on the trail just over two months. When he received the order to find the fugitive, he accepted the task, despite its seeming impossibility. Within a few tendays, his considerable skill unearthed a trace nearly ten years cold. Until recently, his target had lived in the city of Two Stars. He wondered again why she'd left after such a long residence. Had she sensed his eventual arrival? Iahn didn't like to dwell on uncertainties. Among his brethren, he was known for his preference for action over supposition, and proof over faith.
The vengeance taker was close. He no longer sustained himself by imagining the day he would finally catch her. The need for such a crutch had passed. He knew with certainty he was just days behind the woman. Maybe only one day, if she paused in her route, as she sometimes did.
Iahn was a creature out of place in this too-bright wasteland. A masterwork crossbow, its arms folded against the barrel, was strapped to his left calf. His hide leggings were the color of volcanic stone, and the leather vambraces