Prince of Lies - James Lowder [65]
Kezef tore through Lyonsbane Keep, following the path of Kelemvor's early years. Had any mortals still inhabited the ruined castle, they would have seen the Chaos Hound as nothing more than a fleeting shadow. Kezef became insubstantial when he ran, a ghostly blur that left a lingering smell of decay and a vague dread of darkened corners and howling in the night.
In a matter of hours, he traveled the boy's first thirteen years. The trail crossed a few others in that time – older brothers, servants, and a father growing fatter and more unpleasant with each passing day. The Hound could tell much from the violent meetings between the paths and the heavy, staggering pace of the old man's long-vanished tread. Even after more than four decades, those small clues could not remain hidden from Kezef's astounding senses.
One clash in particular blazed in the trail, stinking of hatred. It was a welcome odor to the Chaos Hound, and he paused to savor it. Kezef's body became substantial again as he stood there. His maggoty paws burned prints into the floor.
Kelemvor had battled his father here, in the musty library. The old sot had been beating some wench not much older than his son. The boy leaped to her rescue, but was no match for the warrior. Kelemvor had gained a few blows for himself. Then something frightening had occurred…
A sharp smell of terror hung over the scene like the aroma of a sun-bloated corpse. Kezef's ratty tail curled in appreciation as he inhaled deeply.
Some new trail replaced the boy's. It was musky and feral, like the scent of a wild cat. A tiger? The Chaos Hound sniffed the decaying shreds of carpet left beneath the long-broken window. No, a panther. Kelemvor Lyonsbane had been a werebeast, a lycanthrope. The spot where the transformation had taken place bore the touch of ancient sorceries, of a curse laid upon the Lyonsbanes long ago – a fatal curse, too, if Kezef read the ending of the old man's trail correctly. The Hound pulled tattered lips back from black teeth in an obscene smile; there were still spatters of blood soaked into the floorboards.
The trail led out of Lyonsbane Keep then and never returned. Kezef gladly followed the winding path as it drove farther and farther afield from the claustrophobic old castle, into the twilight-shrouded countryside. The panther scent soon disappeared. It was replaced by the trails of the boy and a group of adults – adventurers, by the cold smell of chain mail and sword blades – who had obviously taken him in. Kezef grew nauseated from the cloying, reckless happiness that lay over the trail, but that miasma ended soon enough. One of Kelemvor's brutish older brothers crossed paths with the group; when the fighting had ended, only Kelemvor loped away, wounded, in beast form once again.
After the battle, the young man visited many of the larger cities in the Heartlands, lingering but a few tendays in each. He'd become a wandering mercenary, and from the weight and steadiness of his tread, the Hound could tell his strength had easily rivaled that of his bestial alter ego. Kelemvor's life trail told of unremarkable adventures and long bouts of loneliness, hard winters in the wilderness and sweltering summers in crowded, teeming cities. Kezef followed him to these sites and thousands more.
For days after, the cities Kezef visited in his search were filled with fearful murmurings. Even the fiercest warriors found themselves shrieking awake as the Chaos Hound passed beneath their windows. More often than not, however, the nightmares caused by Kezef remained elusive – much to the delight of the Night Serpent, coiled in her cave in Hades.
It wasn't until the chase brought the Chaos Hound to the Great Gray Land of Thar, and a cave atop a steep-sided plateau, that he slowed his lightning pace. The trails of many humans, elves, and dwarves led to this isolated cavern, far too many for it to be a mundane shelter in the icy wilderness. The sweet stench of ancient death lingered there, and the flocks of carrion crows in the sky overhead told