Keith Francis Strohm - The Fighters Book 4: Bladesinger (Forgotten Realms)

Bladesinger

The Fighters Series

A Forgotten Realms Novel

By

Keith Francis Strohm

Proofread by BW-SciFi

Ebook version 1.0

Release Date : July, 6th, 2008

Dedication

To the DavidsonsRobin, John, Demarie, Parker, and Carsonfor offering shade beneath the desert sun; and to the God who brought us together:

Adoramus te. Glorificamus te. Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. Domine Deus, Rex coelestis.

Deep the heart's yearning for fairest Cormanthor, for the bright leaves of home, where the sun's kisses fall upon jeweled crystal spires, and summer winds blow through ancient oak bowers;

Soft the heart's turning through the long sigh of years, to the glades of Varaenae, where the Eadulith flows with moon-stippled grace, and lilaenril blooms within night's dark embrace;

O fairest of homes!

Sharp the heart's churning for that now-distant road,

for the vale of Ny'athalael, where the dryads still sing

of root-hidden beauty,

and silver streams carry their songs to the sea.

O Cormanthor, Hail!

Through the heart's discerning, in shadow and flame,

we carry the song of your glory within;

Remember us dearly, your sons and your daughters,

'till we come once again to your soil.

To the bright, golden leaves of our home!

from "Aelrindel's Lament"

The Year of the Unstrung Harp

(1371 DR)

Deep among the jagged teeth of the Icerim Mountainswhere wild winter winds shriek fell tidings and the snow-blasted dead claw at their ice-blue tombsan old woman sang. Harsh-throated and cruel, the terrible song echoed among the frost-rimed boulders, not drowned out by the wind but amplified, carried like the rumor of war or pestilence, until even the iron heart of the mountain trembled before it.

Yulda, hathran and sister to the Witches of Rashemen, threw a gnarled hand against the stone wall of the mountain, and the deep rumble of an avalanche answered. A sharp bark of laughter escaped her. No going back now, the witch thought with a thrill. Snow, ice, and stone sealed the treacherous path she had followedas she had planned. The spell was simple for one such as her, steeped in the ancient ways of the wychlaran. The very stones and trees of Rashemen were alive with the presence of ancient spirits known to her people as telthor. Those same spirits, shaped by centuries of wild storms and harsh winters, were eager to accede to her request.

The heaving subsided after a few moments more. Yulda started forward, her thick, furred boots crunching across the thin layer of ice-encrusted snow. On any other night, in any other place, the witch would have used the moon's own light to guide her way. Here, in the wilds of the Icerim, with thick clouds blanketing the sky, she gathered her power and sent a golden ball of light ahead on the path she followed. The raking wind tore through her black robes until they rustled around her like the shadow of dark wings, but she paid it no mind. Simple cantrips to keep the cold at bay were one of the first things the witches taught their most junior ethran, or apprentices, and now her devotion to the arcane lore of Rashemen offered her protection enough from the predations of winter.

Thinking of the ethran brought Yulda back to her own apprenticeship, so many decades ago it seemed lost in the fog of time. She had been young and unsure of herself thenall too eager to please the other hathran. It wasn't until she had mastered the witches' arts and became a hathran herself that she began to see the hypocrisy behind her sisters' existence.

For all of their talk of keeping the law and defending Rashemen, the wychlaran were nothing more than glorified hedge witches, like those unproven who, through their own weakness, did not choose the harsh discipline and study of the hathran. The word of a Rashemi witch may be law, but they rarely spoke such a word without deliberation, relying instead on the Iron Lord and his dull-witted thugs to order things. The vremyonni, too, stung her pride like a thorn. Those male spellcasters known as the Old Ones, laboring in their secret cavern strongholds away from the eyes of the hathran, were an affront to the true dignify of the wychlaran.

Yulda had long since seen the error in such a system. Working through ale-addled men instead of ruling as they should was exactly the reason that the wychlaran were so ineffective. After centuries, danger still threatened Rashemen from its borders. Let the men, and especially those damned secretive vremyonni, truly understand their place in the natural order. Only then would Rashemen attain its true destiny!

A rumbling cough interrupted Yulda's thoughts, and the witch cast around for the source of the disturbance. There, high on an escarpment, shimmering within the golden witchlight, crouched a Rashemi snow tiger. With another deep-throated rumble, it bounded down the steep slope, muscles rippling beneath a pelt of purest white, and halted before the black-robed witch. Up close, the snow tiger shimmered and glowed with its own incandescence, betraying its incorporeal nature.

Yulda pulled back her hood and gazed upon the creature from beneath the confines of her stark white mask, the symbol of her status as a hathran. Even here, poised on the threshold of plans that would mean her own death at the hands of her sisters if discovered, she was hesitant to remove it. She had worn the mask for far too long to cast it off so easily.

"Excellent work, my dmizny, my Fleshrender," Yulda purred at the spirit tiger in a voice that held none of its earlier harshness. Truly excellent work, she thought. Without the presence of her telthor companion, she would never have found the cavern that held the key to her plans.

Fleshrender let loose a long growl then fell into place by Yulda's side as the witch continued on her way. She sometimes wondered what the telthor did when not directly in contact with her; one look at its baleful eyes usually convinced her that she really did not want to know. It was enough that the two were bound together in this dark purpose.

The path led through several old rockfalls, cluttered with ice and drifts of snow, and up a series of steep slopes. Yulda trudged onward for another candle's length, wheezing as she navigated the relentless course. The witch had just climbed over the shattered corpse of an ice-slain tree when her shimmering, golden witchlight winked out of existence, plunging her into total darkness.

She cursed loudly as her knee banged against the frozen stone before her, then laughed at the absurdity of it all. The dispelling of her magic should not have come as a surprise. The witch had, after all, chosen this place for a reason. During the course of its troubled history, Rashemen became the battleground of warring nations, whose mighty spells even now held sway over portions of the land. Yulda knew that no magic would function at all beyond this fallen tree and across a broad sweep of flatland, until the spellcaster reached the entrance to a small cavern at the base of a natural outcropping of stone.

The witch reached into her robe, pulled out a small torch, and lit it with some flint and steel. The flame guttered beneath the heavy wind but continued to cast fitful light. With a sharp motion to Fleshrender and a mental command to wait here, Yulda hurried along the path toward the cavern. Walking through this area devoid of magic set her teeth to itching; she felt only half alive, as if something precious and vital were missing. The torch nearly went out a few times along the way, but she finally arrived at the cavern entrance, breathless from the buffeting of the wind.

Yulda dropped the torch and bowed her head to avoid banging it on the uneven stone as she entered the cave. Immediately, she let out a sigh of relief as her mystic senses returned. In the dying light of the torch, she could see a shadowed path leading toward the back of the cave. Following it, she stood at last before a wall of stone inscribed with several glyphs. The witch sang softly, almost humming, and purple light flared from the glyphs before the wall shimmered and faded away.