Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [59]
After he had destroyed the palace and surrounding city, Kohath had systematically razed the nearby towns and villages. The smoke that choked the sun rose from burning homes, trees, crops, livestock, and even people. All that had been Vantir now burned. Of the inhabitants of the dead land, precious few had escaped. Kohath had, intentionally and methodically, slain his own kingdom.
Yet Tiuren lived. He could not help wondering if somehow, deep within the creature that was once Kohath, his friend had let him escape. Perhaps he owed his life to that undead monster. Buried within it, his friend possibly lived on. Yet if Kohath could lay waste to the land he loved, the man Tiuren knew was so utterly lost in the cavernous pit of his soul that he had no chance of ever escaping. He wondered if somewhere, immersed in that darkness, Kohath-the real Kohath- despaired.
The new Kohath was different. A few mortals had escaped his realm, and told of its horrors.
Deep within the dark land of death, on the site of the old palace of Vantir, Kohath used sorcery and undead slaves to build a new fortress. This fortress was made from the bones and flesh of the fallen citizens of Vantir. In this subterranean castle, the former king had begun to call himself Kohath the Eternal.
Tiuren knew no reason to think the moniker an idle boast. Nor did he intend to find out. Never again would he bring himself to utter the names Kohath or Vantir.
Faerun was a big place, and there were certainly other realms in which to live out the rest of his life. Without another look, he turned his back on his former home, his former friend and king, and his former life.
The Whispering Crown
Ed Greenwood
The young Lady of Dusklake stood alone in her feast hall, in the last golden gleam of the setting sun, and waited to die.
Dusklake and Grand Thentor had been at war for only a day now-but the battle between Aerindel and Rammast, Lord of Grand Thentor, had begun when they were both children. He had wanted her to be his slave and plaything for more than a dozen years-and Rammast was not a man accustomed to waiting long for anything.
He would come for her, and soon. Aerindel wondered if she'd be strong enough to hold on to the three things she valued most: her freedom, her land… and her life.
Knowing what was coming, she'd sent the servants away-but she also knew that eyes were watching her anxiously from behind parted tapestries and doors that hadn't quite closed. The eyes of those who feared she might take her own life.
The news of her brother's death lay like a heavy cloak over the household-but it rested most heavily on the Lady Aerindel. She could not quite believe she'd never hear his bright laughter echoing in this high hall again, or feel his strong arms lift her by her slim waist and whirl her high into the air.
But the news had been blunt and clear enough. Dabras was dead by dragonfire, the grim old warriors had said, proffering his half-melted sword hilt and their own scorched wounds as proof. And that made her ruler of Dusklake.
Though a small realm, Dusklake had once been widely known-and feared-for the man then its master: the mage Thabras Stormstaff. Thabras was Aerindel's faintly smiling, sad-eyed father. He was the mightiest of a long line of famous heads of House Summertyn, from Orbrar the Old, the grandfather that Aerindel had never known, to Asklas and Ornthorn and others in the early days, known only in legends. A small but proud hold, oldest of all the Esmeltaran, Dusklake was nestled in the rolling woodlands between Lake Esmel and the Cloud Peaks. And it was hers, now.
If she could hold it. Aerindel looked grimly out through a window that was seven times her height, at the lake the land was named for. Its waters were dark and placid, at the end of a bright, cool summer day. The Green Fields to the north were still a sheet of golden light, but westward, the purple peaks of the Ridge rose like a dark wall, bringing an early nightfall down on her hall.
A night