Short Story - Finished At Last

[Tancred]

I've prodded it, redrafted it, and poured all the creativity I can muster into it. Inspired by 'The Might of Rome' on the Gladiator soundtrack, I came up with this - the short story to celebrate the reopening of Ironworks. Those of a nervous disposition, or who are just a bit young, be warned... I am a little frightened and somewhat appalled that I can write like this when the mood takes me.
For the rest of you, I hope you enjoy it...


The knocking crashed through the strange stillness that surrounded Ust Natha gate. Beyond, the sounds of the city were muted, a faint echo of the life to be had that ever waited to distract the Guards from their duty. Beyond, there was nothing but empty rock. Each of the guards jerked upwards from their relaxation, each one suddenly terrified that this arrival was an oversight on their part – and that they would pay for it. The Warden hurried to the window of the gatehouse, frustrated that his routine should be disrupted in such a manner.
“Who is there? There are no scheduled patrols this day! Identify yourselves!”
The voice rose from the darkness at the foot of the gate. “We are travellers from Ched Nasad! We request entry into your great city!”
“I warn you, intruders without cause will be killed where they stand!” The Warden withdrew from the window. “Deserin, Karloc, go to the gates. If they aren’t Drow, give the word. The rest of you, man the murder holes.”
The six travellers that arrived that day at Ust Natha were nothing special, for wanderers in the Underdark. Three females; one an obvious mage, one handling her strange, black club as if she knew how to use it, helping along a wounded girl who glanced around as if scared by the very shadows. Three males, each of them obviously fighters. One tall and belligerent, one shorter but with an arrogant stride and posture that in no way fitted his status; and one that was clearly the leader of their party. Each of the guards took one look at their ragged clothing and silently tagged them as refugees, perhaps castoffs from one of the great Houses… seeking perhaps some solace from some vengeance or other. It didn’t matter; no-one at the Gatehouse had any illusions about what the city of Ust Natha could do to the weak. The travellers were let in swiftly and without much fuss, for the guards were keen to return to their wine.
“Name?”
The leader of the party of travellers gave a slight, somehow dangerous smile.
“Veldrin.”


Fully five hundred thousand Drow souls worked and toiled and lusted and hated and died in Ust Natha, last of the great Drow capitals. Buildings crowned with gaudy minarets rose high into the city cavern, streets stretched out for miles above the darkness of the rocky below. Drow crowded every street, every square, every bazaar, living out their lives in the opressive heat of a city far from light. The sounds of the populace and the prescence of that many bodies could not be ignored by anyone; cries of pain, of anger, of pleasure and of fear occasionally broke the hubbub of the streets, but no-one paid them heed. This was a city in which curiosity killed more than mere cats.
Somewhere near the Street of Markets, a group of wayfarers were pushing their way through the claustrophobia, trying not to be overheard. They needn’t have bothered.
“This is intolerable! I am barely restraining the urge to give the nearest passer-by a good butt-kicking! Boo agrees, don’t you, Boo?”
There was a small, muffled squeak from somewhere within the Drow warrior’s armour. One of his companions nodded agreement.
“We are truly pilgrims in an unholy land, Tancred. I, for one, am finding this experience galling in the extreme. I chafe in this… Drow skin. Where are we to find the eggs of which Adalon spoke of?”
“Right now, Anomen, I’m more concerned about getting Imoen patched up. Restrain your righteous ire for a few brief seconds, if you can find it within your own holy self to do so!”
The sarcasm was sharper than any of them would have expected from the Paladin. Was it a sign that the darkness was starting to take hold, or merely a reaction to unbearable stress? The party exchanged brief worried glances, glances that the Paladin thankfully failed to notice.
Jahiera fought her way to the front. “All we need is a place to rest. I can heal Imoen myself if we can simply find an inn, or a tavern.”
Tancred stopped, his face a very picture of thoughtfulness. The crowd surged around the party as they gathered around their leader.
“I think… you might be right, Jahiera! If there’s one universal thing about cities, the tavern’s where you’ll hear the gossip of the times. There must be a tavern around here somewhere.”
“Back there, in fact.” The party turned suddenly to look at Nalia, still supporting the ailing Imoen. Such self-assurance was rare when dealing with Nalia unless there was some pauper in need of help, and she certainly wasn’t about to suggest aiding impoverished elves of the darkness. Anomen voiced their question.
“Where?”
“Over there. A free-swinging door with the sounds of cheering and the clinking of glasses – with some kind of smoke coming from the door, I might add. There’s only a few things that door can possibly be. Add in the large sign swinging above it and the several floors, and I think that’s an open and shut case…”


The Favour of Houses was not what anyone from the surface would call ‘a pleasant place to drink’. The air was thick and smoky, flavoured with some strange musk. The floors were hard and glassy, inlaid with twisting and disturbing designs, but the fur of a creature none of the travellers could identify carpeted the drinking areas and the arena seats. The rooms of the tavern were packed with Drow – some watching a pit fight, as a female warrior duelled seven armed slaves; some were downing obviously potent drinks, laughing uproariously at some joke or another. Others played games with strangely-patterned cards, while near the stairs one Drow tried his best to gouge out the eyes of another with a viciously serrated blade. Everyone in the bar was doing their best to ignore their oaths and scuffling.
The six companions entered as a group, and then went their separate ways. Tancred, Minsc and Anomen took separate directions, planning on eavesdropping on whatever they could. The theft of the eggs would be a very significant deed to the Drow, they had reasoned; either that, or someone must have noticed Irenicus and Bodhi in a city this crowded. Regardless, someone must know something. Jahiera strode through the crowd, shepherding Nalia and the wounded Imoen through the throng, intent on getting a room. The Drow sitting bored behind a desk beside the staircase had ‘tavern host’ written all over him – even if, as Jaheira discovered, he was somewhat less helpful than he could have been.
“What?” The innkeeper snapped before any of them could even open their mouths. “What is it you want? Beds? Spirits? Use of the lust chambers?”
Jahiera was taken aback, but inwardly groaned as Nalia beat her to the draw.
“LUST chambers?”
The innkeeper gave her an odd look. His puzzlement was obvious; be it his face, his voice or his pose that one was paying attention to. “Don’t they have lust chambers where you come from, traveller?”
Jahiera spoke loudly over Nalia’s mutterings. “What my companion means, I think is… that… we were taken aback by the fact you have… lust chambers in an establishment this small. Yes. A very well-to-do place, this.”
The innkeeper gave Jahiera a hard stare. The druid fought on.
“Regardless, we wish to book a room. How many do you have available?”
“Well… enough for you. Unless you have other members of… of your party…” The innkeeper suddenly lost interest in his customers, leaning past and looking behind them. Jahiera turned, suddenly aware of the hushed silence in the inn. There were two Drow who were the centre of attention – one of them was the female fighter who had slain seven armed slaves in the fighting pit a mere minute before. She was covered, not in blood, but in wine. Her face was at once incredulous and outraged. The other Drow was, Jahiera realised with a terrible sinking feeling, Tancred-as-Veldrin. Events appeared to have overtaken him, and the disguised human was the very picture of confusion and guilty uncertainity. The woman’s voice was the very archetype of hostility and imperiousness.
“You! Male! You spilt my drink!”
Tancred seemed to leap at this sudden lifeline. “Um… apologies, my lady… may I buy you another mug of-”
Her hand was faster than Jahiera could follow. It whipped up and slapped him across the face. The fighter, if anything, looked angrier.
“You show yet more impudence! How dare you speak to me without permission! You shall meet me in the arena, fool!”
At this, the crowd that had quietened so quietly mere moments before erupted in a frenzy of cheering. Drow thudded tables with tankards and glasses, stamped on the floor, and beat a rhythm with their hands. The feeling in the room was unmistakeable and sudden – bloodlust. Some around the pit could already be seen calling hasty odds on the success of the fighter and her challenger; while others fumbled in their pouches for money to bet upon these lives. The Drow in the tavern had come for a good time, and were determined to see some entertainment. They did not wait for any reply on Tancred’s part – and would have ignored it had there been one.
“Make way! Make way! The Lady Chalinthra has a challenger!” The chief pit-handler struggled to allow the duellists access to the arena, even as he yelled to the other hands to drag away the mutilated corpses of the pit’s previous users with all haste.
Jahiera desperately tried to push through the crowd to get to the struggling paladin, but the crowd pulled together, presenting an impenetrable wall of backs to the druid - even as that same force pushed Tancred towards the fighting arena like the swallowing throat of some great creature. The gladiatrix – Chalinthra – rode the wave of bodies, striding the desires of the crowd like a master showman. She reached the pit, leaping down the few feet and drawing twin blades from her belt; short and vicious, adamantine blacksteel; razor-sharp, even to the naked eye. Cheers came from the crowd as she raised her blades high, acknowledging the crowd’s favour.
Jahiera caught sight of Minsc and Anomen, almost throwing aside cheering spectators to get to the pit. Working as a team, they had managed to force a path forward. The half-elf quickly made for them, following in their wake, Nalia and Imoen behind.
“MINSC! We need to get Tancred out of there!”
Minsc nodded and started to push his way towards the arena gate, but Anomen laid his hand on the Ranger’s arm. He shook his head vigorously.
“We dare not, lady Jahiera! If we try to intervene, I fear this mob will tear us apart!”
The word ‘fear’ was not one that Jahiera had learned to associate with Anomen’s rather boorish vocabulary, but there was no way to fault his assessment of the situation. Anomen’s face was grim with the sheer hopelessness of their position. The party continued making their way to the pit wall, minds racing even as they struggled through the baying crowd.

Tancred could quite easily move, but movement wasn’t going to get him out of this. The crowd of baying Drow forced him towards the fighting pit, and it would take strength greater than his to force them back. He could see his opponent, Chalinthra, playing to the crowd, leaping and whipping her swords through the air at a speed that Tancred could hardly believe. Her athleticism, her arrogance and the look of perfect concentration on her face all added up to one thing – a master. Her movements screamed her status as a professional killer, and spoke of a grace that she could use to easily slay, or cripple and slay, anyone she faced.
The Paladin liked to think of himself as a skilled fighter, but a fatalistic awe overcame him as he watched the woman.
He suddenly realised he was going to die.
Rough hands forced him to the lip of the pit. Chalinthra waited impatiently behind the pillar that marked the centre of the circular arena. Tancred struggled one last time, to no avail. He could feel his sword being unsheathed and forced into his hand by the pit handler at his side.
“You’ll need this,” the handler hissed into Tancred’s ear.
Tancred turned his head to look at the strangely detatched Drow. “You don’t say,” he replied.
The pit handler grinned at this sudden display of gallows humour; then, with a shout, he ordered his underlings to push the unwilling contestant into the pit.
Even as he landed face-down in the sandy floor of the pit, Tancred rolled to one side, his sword lashing out to his left as Chalinthra ran at the prone paladin. It was a hasty move, but enough. Tancred’s longsword was longer than Chalinthra’s twin short swords, and that fact gave him just enough room to push himself to his feet. He tried to set his footwork, to gain some bearings, but there was no time; Chalinthra was leaping to the attack. Her twin swords moved as she did, in a complex, dance-like pattern of slices and stabs. Tancred tried to parry, but the gladiator was too wily for that; one of her blades snaked up, hooking the long blade against the hilt while the second short-sword sliced down through the chainmail to carve a deep cut in the paladin’s leg. Blood leaked from behind the ruined armour; Tancred’s gasp of pain was lost in the cries of the crowd.
The paladin tried to back off, but Chalinthra suddenly shifted her weight, leaning backward and delivering a kick that caught him across the face, sending him stumbling against the pillar in the centre of the arena. One of Chalinthra’s swords struck sparks against the stone where Tancred’s head had been a moment before; the other managed a shallow slice acorss the Paladin’s back as he ducked and twisted away from the pillar. The twin swords seemed to part the links of Tancred’s stolen adamnatine chainmail as easily as a scythe against the stalks of the harvest’s wheat. Tancred turned, sword flashing through the air, but Chalinthra had already danced back and was coming at him again from another angle; one slice of a shortsword opened a nasty gash in Tancred’s forehead, the second a slash across the forearm, the second swipe of the first flicking across the chest, the the next two attacks caught by the paladin’s blade. Tancred tried to capitalise on the space he had gained, bringing the longsword around in a midriff-sweep, but Chalinthra did not take a step back; she merely ducked, waiting for the Paladin’s sword to swing over her head before lashing out with a suddenly open palm. The punch connected with Tancred’s jaw, knocking him back into the arena wall. He barely felt a black blade open a shallow but stinging red line across his stomach as he tried to slide out of his attacker’s way. Chalinthra skipped backwards, kneeling to retrieve the shortsword she had dropped, then uncoiling like a spring to attack the rapidly tiring Paladin once more.

Jahiera watched, appalled. The iron cage of the arena seperated her from the pit-fight, but she could feel every cut, every drip of blood that welled from the Paladin’s injuries. Chalinthra was too perfect a killer, too perfect a creature of precision and cold, hard edges to be bested in this kind of fight. Tancred was dying a death of a thousand wounds as the dervish-like harpy he fought added swiftly to the tally of his injuries, and the blade he held grew slower as he tired; and all she could do was beat on the iron railings and cry her own fears, listening to her own protests as they were swallowed up by the madness around her.
Resolve hardened within her scarred heart. Anomen was probably right. The crowd would fight, and there was no way to fight that many Drow. There would be little time to escape the city even if they did. They would have no way to rescue the Silver dragon’s eggs, no way to pursue Irenicus to the surface. It would end, here, in the Underdark.
But none of that would matter if Tancred died now.
Long ago, she had made a promise to a fellow Harper. And now she planned to live up to that promise. She pulled on Minsc’s sleeve, whispering urgently into the massive ranger’s ear. If Tancred weakened, they would save him, no matter what; and if he fell, he would be avenged.

Tancred cursed inwardly as another slash danced past his guard; blood dripped from his forearm as the blade slipped back, snake-quick. He ached all over; every movement seemed to aggravate some wound somewhere. Blood dripped into his eyes from the cut across his brow. He was becoming slower and slower as pain and fatigue started to take their toll; the battle with the Drow raiding party… the encounter with the human bounty hunters… the attack of Kua-Toa… there had been no chance to rest in the Underdark, and now every bruise and knock taken in those skirmishes came back to haunt him as dull pain crept through his body. His opponent, by contrast, seemed indefatigable; as if her previous combat had not required her to exert herself at all. Tancred was sure that if she wanted him dead immediately, he would be dead; the woman was fighting for the crowd’s amusement, and every whirl of her swords, every shallow cut, bespoke of her skill to the audience.
There was nothing to do but snarl in frustration and look for some weakness, some opening in the gladiatrix’s guard, but none appeared. Her swords seemed enchanted to bite through armour; the Drow longsword, still unfamiliar to the Paladin’s calloused hands, was much lighter than the blades he had used before. It threw off his timing. Had he been wearing his customary plate, had he been wielding Carsomyr, Tancred felt he would have been just the woman’s master; but he was not and it was killing him.
Flashbacks of his brutally one-sided clash against Bodhi flashed across his mind. But Irenicus’ vampiric sister had been fighting for her own amusement. This Drow fighter fought with a cold reserve unlike any other the Paladin had seen; she knew the moves, she knew the crowd, and she danced the steps she needed to. There was no pleasure in the kill, no grim satisfaction at her skills, no exhultation at the crowd’s favour, no relish of the spectacle; she was a performer, singing with a voice of steel, and that was all that mattered.
There was something in the falseness of the fight, something in the simple inhumanity of it, that offended the Paladin. He had been taught to kill to preserve the balance, to fight in Helm’s name, and he accepted that responsibility. He had seen many fight for money, fight for pleasure, fighting for the simple wonder of being able to kill, and Tancred knew that the darkness within him applauded at that; knew that, deep down, he understood such urges. But to die here, as nothing more than a rabbit for a hound with steel claws to hunt down, to bleed for the crowd’s entertainment, struck at something deep within him.
This is evil, his mind told him. This is the worst side of human nature, given freedom in the natural cruelty of the Drow race. This is violence, trivialised and accepted. This is as bad as it gets.
But something told him different; the black, yawning pit within him, the dark maw that slowly fed on his essence and his thoughts, cried out its’ own scorn of the tame show placed before the crowd. And its’ cries were growing louder, drowning out his faith, his pain, even the cries and cheers of the gathering. It crowed as the yells of the crowd gave it strength, and it breathed deeply upon the air of malice and violence in the arena.
This is a travesty of murder, it spoke in a voice steeped in blood and brooding evil. There is nothing pure, nothing even redeeming about this pathetic sideshow. There is bloodlust in the crowd, but where is their hatred, their love, their fear, their awe of death? They cry for death, but there is no respect of the thing they unleash, only stale urges they do not even understand! Where is the strength within the cipher you now face, nothing more than a mere golem, carrying out the wishes of a gutless rabble? She is an abomination, a thing with no passion or power! Her worship of a numbing, futile god has stolen what true spark she might have had! Where is the death, where is the offering, besides the one you will suffer? Why should you, when one such as this will walk away with your head, and the moronic imbeciles that sit and stare and fail to see the true wonder of the ending of a life, the true rapture that is the departing of a pained soul from a broken body into Hell, will go back to their whores and their drinks and rot their murder-lust away in futile pleasures? Why should you permit this? WHY?
Let me give them a show they will not forget.
At the last, as his lifeblood dripped from his body, Tancred was too weak to resist. In one, sudden rush, the darkness came to the surface, and the anger of his father became him.

The longsword suddenly leapt once, twice, three times, knocking sparks from the blacksteel of Chalinthra’s blades. The gladiatrix took a step back, seeing the sudden desperation in her quarry’s eyes, realising that now the terror was starting to manifest. Tancred’s sudden lunge was easliy anticipated, an obvious over-extension of his guard; one sweep knocked the sword away, the second lashed out, catching the sword just below the hilt, and a tug let the longsword slip from her opponent’s grasp. A classic response to a classic mistake. The terrified face of the Drow before her, the dumb disbelief in the face of his own death as he stood dumbfounded, might have made Chalinthra smile, had she not grown so accustomed to the idiocy of all males. She paused for a heartbeat, to let her foe savour the moment of his impending death and for the crowd to see the mastery at work, and then the shortswords struck.
She was unprepared for the sudden, bone-jarring force that smashed into her face in that one instant, knocking her several steps backward and against the arena wall. The sudden pain made her cry out, and the tears from that pain blinded her. Confusion rang through her mind; she had felt one of her swords strike! What…
As she cleared her vision, she witnessed the gruesome sight of her opponent slowly pulling one of her shortswords from the palm of his left hand. He had seen the first sword coming, but the second he had blocked, letting the blade sink into the flesh, clasping his fingers around the hilt of the sword, before delivering a punch with his free hand. The drow warrior she faced looked up at her, a dreadful, death’s-head grin across his face. Blood dripped from his clenched fist.
Suddenly angry that her kill should be thwarted in this way, Chalinthra leapt to the attack, her one sword spinning and whirling in her hands.
She was a Convent-Mistress of the Female Fighters of Ust Natha, a deadly instrument of Lolth’s vengeance and wrath, but in some strange way her opponent was suddenly deadlier still. Even with a mere shortsword, the wounded, once-flagging wanderer seemed to see her attacks before they came, blue sparks flying as the twin enchanted blades struck against one another. A kick, a punch, another three swipes of the sword; each was either parried with a speed unbelievable or the effects, the pain and the injury, were ignored. Chalinthra redoubled her efforts, finally letting her frustration escape from her lips, a screech of impotent violence that grew and grew as her opponent refused to die.
Suddenly, the sword struck against her. Fast she still was, and her hand snaked around her opponent’s wrist, forcing the sword away from her body – but she failed to see the true attack as Tancred’s head thudded into her own. There was a dreadful crunch of bone and a shrill scream of pain as Chalinthra staggered back, her nose bleeding and crushed. She looked back at her opponent, fear registering in her mind for the first time since her childhood. The dark eyes glared back at her, taunting her, and the mouth formed words that she could not catch; but she did not need to. She knew their meaning.
Now it’s my turn.
Tancred launched himself at the gladiatrix, fists and blade flying, a bellow of pure focused hatred issuing forth from the Paladin’s bloody mouth. Chalinthra was still a worthy fighter, but her concentration was gone; her reserve and calm vanished as the threat of death manifested before her in the shape of her opponent. He was too fast for her to back away, too quick for her to dodge, too strong now to be denied. She blocked and parried, but the sheer ferocity of the attack was more than she expected, and Tancred’s battering fists drove feeling and breath from her body. She met his attack with one of her own, but her skill was not enough to stop the roaring, almost animalistic creature she now faced. The bars of the arena wall, the web in which she had trapped so many others, regarded her mockingly. Her sword slashed at his chest and legs, carving grisly but futile marks that would be nothng but scars by morning. One flailing fist rabbit-punched her windpipe, sending her gasping for breath even as she felt the stinging pain as a deep groove was cut across her belly. Her sword knew no allegiance.
It was the pain and the irony that galvanised her to action, perhaps; or, finally, she had awoken at last to see the reality of death confront her in all its’ naked horror. Chalinthra leaped high and back, launching a desperate but well-timed kick, a move of pure desperation. Tancred's blade slashed deeply through her thigh, but the blow connected to the paladin’s face, sending blood and sweat scattering across the arena floor. The pain seemed not to slow the paladin, but for an instant he was blinded, and that was all she needed now she had nothing to lose. Her blacksteel short sword leaped towards Tancred’s chest, going for the heart. The blade seemed to part the very air, driven by the force of all of Chalinthra’s grace, strength and will. Nothing, it seemed could halt a blow born of such fear and focus.
But something did. An iron-hard, blood-soaked grip materialised around her wrist, grinding the very bones. The blade halted a mere inch from the skin it sought to taste, and slowly the hand was forced back. Tancred’s own blade leapt out; again Chalinthra caught the wrist of her opponent, but there was nothing she could do as the blade worked its’ way towards her stomach, centimetre by trembing centimetre. She was forced back against the wall, her sword pressed above her head, her grinning opponent sending the steel, inch by inch, through her body; with a final, horrible wrench and a tortured scream, the blade rammed home, impaling the gladiatrix, transfixing her to the arena wall. A sudden twist, a despairing croak, and Chalinthra could do nothing but be held by the gaze of those dark eyes as the blood welled from her chest to her mouth. She pulled feebly at the treacherous sword in her stomach, but her hand slipped against the slick hilt; she could not get a grip. And before an assembled crowd of stunned onlookers, Lady Chalinthra, Fourth Convent-Mistress of the Society of Female Fighters died. The blood choked her, and her ripped stomach retched painfully at the taste in her throat. Finally, mercifully, her body went limp, the spark of life leaving her; but all the time it took for her to bleed to death, those eyes held her own.

Tancred looked up at the gathered onlookers, listening to the stillness around him as the crowd gazed in horror at what they saw. He looked around the arena, met each staring face in turn, let them see the triumph and the power in his eyes despite the wounds and the pain in his body. The noise of the street was muted against the shock of the drinkers and gamblers and warriors all. All felt this moment, a sudden stirring, an excitement in their hearts, a thrill unlike any tame pit-fight they had heretofore seen. They had come to see a demonstration of skill by a favoured fighter, and had witnessed a display of hot-blooded murder in all its’ glory. It took them by the heart and gripped them, letting them taste part of a primordial power within each of them that had lain quiescent for centuries; the power to kill, for the simple joy of the kill. Slowly, Tancred glimpsed their souls one by one, stretching mere seconds into a breathless eternity.
At the last he raised his arms and his head high; and the cheers and the cries and the thumping of chairs and tankards and feet and the roar of the voices echoed across the bar, across the square, across Ust Natha. He had entered as a vagabond; they hailed him as a prophet. Drow wanderers entered the bar, wondering what the noise was about, and almost immediately joined the cries of sheer dark victory. The noise rose, up and up, shaking the ceiling and the windows, sending glasses falling and hearts aflame.
Unseen and unheralded by all, a single drop of blood fell from Tancred’s fist. It was black, and smoked upon the ground. One drop; but not the last drop.

The party watched as Tancred was let out of the pit, as the crowd swept him up, a wounded but somehow invincible embodiment of their own deeper darkness. Minsc and Anomen yelled their own cries of joy at seeing their friend prevail, but Jahiera, Imoen and Nalia stayed silent, watching. Each of them loved the paladin, in their own way. Imoen saw him as a brother who had been with her always, Nalia regarded him as a friend who risked his own life to save her future; and Jahiera as a lover, as a kindred spirit that had guided her and never given up on her, no matter how dark the path. Each of them had looked into his eyes as his gaze swept past them; each had known what they were seeing. Slowly, the darkness was taking hold, eating its’ way out of Tancred’s mind and heart; and here in Ust Natha, in the heart of the Underdark, the darkness was strongest.
Jahiera voiced their unspoken thoughts, her voice a mixture between her own relief and terror for another. “Whatever we do here, we have to get him out as soon as possible.”
“You think Bhaal – our, our father – can break him?” Imoen, still weak from her wounds, looked up into the half-elf’s troubled eyes, fear for her brother and herself growing there.
Jahiera’s face set hard. “I don’t want to give him the chance. We must tell Minsc and Anomen of this. Soon.”
With the darkness still heavy in their hearts, the three women went to hail the welcome – if unholy - deliverance of their friend and leader.


The cheers were muted in this room. Comfortably warm and sumptuously decorated, this was where the nobility of Ust Natha came to relax and unwind. Dark, velvetlike couches and tables laden with refreshments were placed strategically around the room; servants and guards stood on attendance of the wishes of their betters.
At this moment, the liquor went undrank, and the food quietly spoiled in silence. The present entourage had gathered around the main window, the mirror-glass panel that overlooked the fighting pit. None of the guards, flunkies, toadies or servants watched the floor of the bar, however. Every one of them was focused on the needs, wants and whims of the young Drow woman at the centre of their world, who now gazed upon the victorious fighter. A slow, thin smile crept across her face, and her eyes sparkled with malicious intent. The girl turned her head slightly, towards the male at her side.
“The fourth Convent-Mistress of the Female Fighters defeated in single combat… by a vagabond from Ched Nasad, you say?”
The solemn, dark-skinned man nodded reservedly.
“Aye, my mistress. He and five others were marked passing through the gate a few hours ago, according to the Gatewarden’s reports. He is called… Veldrin, I believe.”
“Intriguing.” The woman’s smile split open to reveal her pearlescent, perfect teeth as she watched the young fighter released from the pit. She saw him be carried to the bar – mostly by a crowd of cheering, suddenly rebellious males, she noted. She saw five others force their way through the throng, joining him at the bar; his companions, she supposed. She stared at them, invisible behind the mirror-glass, memorising their features… especially the face of the tall, armoured female who embraced the fighter so readily. Her eyes narrowed.
Eventually, she spoke again, her voice suddenly strong with the self-confidence of royalty and wickedness.
“We must meet him. I think a young outcast with talent like that could be of great service to my House… woudn’t you agree, Solaufein?”
The Drow at the woman’s side only stared at the victorious fighter and his celebrations. Only someone watching him very carefully could see the sudden, slight twitch in his face. He dared not think upon Phaere’s words… for in them, he could read his own death.


Tancred


[This message has been edited by Tancred (edited 05-17-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Tancred (edited 05-17-2001).]

[sylent]

I don't actually have time to read your story at the moment, but I will, and in the mean time I will just keep it bumped up...

- No worries mate

[John D Harris]

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"the memories of a man in his old age,
are deeds of a man in his prime"

[Jerome]

Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Verf, VERY.....uh....GOOD!

Great Story Tancred!


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My hopes lie dashed,
Crushed from high above,
My dreams lie shattered, my heart broken,
A casulty on a battlefield called love.