Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [72]
Thorn had never been to Fallen. But if any place in Sharn was bereft of hope, this was it. Once the buildings around them had been temples to the Sovereigns and lesser faiths. Now the mosaics were shattered, and inscriptions were worn away by time or gouged out by human hands. The smell of rot and urine filled the air, nearly as thick as in the sewers they’d traversed before. There were a few people scattered around the streets, ragged clothes barely covering filthy skin. Most fled at the sight of the outsiders, ducking into alleys or through broken doorways. A few just glared at the strangers. One old woman muttered as Thorn drew close, shaking something within her fist; finally she opened her hand, revealing human teeth marked with strange symbols.
This was just the outer edge of the district. It was only when they moved in deeper that they saw the horror responsible for its name. The spire that had fallen from the sky had been a massive tower built of smoked glass. Huge chunks of mystically hardened glass had smashed into temples and tenements, and the streets were still filled with rubble. Many of the shards still lay where they’d first fallen, and Thorn caught a glimpse of bone through cloudy glass. Where the rubble had been shifted, there were makeshift barricades and shelters.
“This is what comes of reaching for the sky,” Drego said. “Though it seems the Brelish have yet to learn that lesson. That blue and gold tower up there is a recent addition, isn’t it?”
He glanced back at Thorn as he spoke, but Brom answered before she could. “What’s your answer, brother?” he rumbled. “Would you keep your eyes on the ground?”
“If you seek the heavens, faith is a stronger ladder than stone,” Drego said.
“But a hard one to find,” Brom replied. “I was born in this place. It was rubble from the Fall that took my arm when I was a boy. If you wish, I could take you there and we could dig for the bone. I found no solace in flames or gods. They brought me nothing but pain. But at night I could always look up at the lights and imagine the day when I would climb the tower and take my place among the stars.”
“Yet if that glass tower had never been built, you’d still have your original arm,” Drego said.
“The fall brought madness and terror to the district,” Brom said. “But misery always had a home here. The towers are a source of hope. Proof that there is something better, if you have the strength to reach for it.”
“I don’t see much in the way of hope here,” Thorn said.
A pair of gleaming eyes watched them from a nest built from refuse and bloody cloth It was difficult to say if the eyes belonged to a gnome, a halfling, or a human child, but they held only savage fear.
Brom nodded. “Yes. It’s worse now than it was. And if that is the doing of this beast that lies below, I shall enjoy crushing the life from him.”
No one had an answer to that, and the quintet continued on in silence.
The attack came at the heart of the district.
Before the fall, the Glass Tower had been a vast structure. There were pieces of the tower larger than the house Thorn had grown up in. Drego had led them into a narrow tunnel formed from the collapsed walls of two buildings, and now he stopped. Closing his eyes, he raised a hand and let his fingers drift through the air, as if he were dragging them through the water of a stream.
“We’re close,” he said quietly.
Thorn didn’t have Drego’s gift for sensing spirits, but ambushes were another matter. Shifting gravel, flesh brushing stone, the faint sound of nervous breathing; there were people at the mouth of the tunnel behind them, preparing to act. Thorn tapped her hand, drawing the attention of the others and gesturing backwards. “We’ve got company,” she whispered.
Xu’sasar clicked her tongue. “Ahead as well,” she said quietly. “Four, spread to the sides.”
Daine considered this. “They’ll attack the first of us to emerge then try to pin the