Mizzrym."
Hearing those words, Pharaun understood that he had passed her test. He smirked at Danifae and called to mind another spell as he watched Jeggred come back to himself. Just in case.
The effect of the word of power vanished quickly. Jeggred's breath came hard, and his hands dug furrows into the stone. He climbed to his feet, shook his head to clear it, and fixed his baleful stare on Pharaun.
"I will tear your head from your shoulders!" he roared as he stalked up the tunnel.
"Stop," Quenthel commanded but to no effect.
It was Danifae's raised hand and soft word that halted Jeggred's charge. He stood in the tunnel, staring hate and rage into Pharaun.
"All things in due time," Danifae said and offered the mage a smirk of her own.
"Indeed," Quenthel answered, eyeing her nephew coldly.
Pharaun forced a smile, just to irk the draegloth, though when he looked at Quenthel and
Danifae, he heard Aliisza's troubling words in his mind. Maybe neither of them was the Yor'thae.
Nimor found Crown Prince Horgar at his field headquarters-a large, rough-walled, stalagmite-
dotted cavern in the Dark Dominion not far from the battle lines at Tier Breche. The chamber stank of sweat, blood and the thick smoke from stonefire bombs. Nimor hung near the ceiling of the cavern in his half-dragon form, invisible by virtue of one of his spells.
Squads of duergar streamed in and out of the cavern, coming and going from the battle, their blocky armor ringing, their dusky skin smoke-blackened and bloody. Some were still enlarged-
duergar possessed an innate magical ability to double their size-so Nimor presumed they had just come from the battle.
They spoke to each other in their inelegant language, their voices deep and gravelly. In the conversations, Nimor caught the ripple of a faint undercurrent of fear. Perhaps the duergar forces at last had encountered the spells of a priestess of Lolth. If so, even the tiny intellects encased in their small bald heads must have understood the implications.
Two elderly clerics, each as bent and twisted as a demon's heart, tended the wounded. Nimor didn't know the name of the deity they served and did not care. Occasional explosions in the distance-stonefire bombs and spells, no doubt-occasionally shook the cavern and rained rock dust on the inhabitants.
Prince Horgar stood to one side of the table, bent over a low stone table, looking at a makeshift map of the approaches to Tier Breche and issuing orders to two of his commanders who stood to either side of him. After a few moments of exchanged words, nods, and gestures at the map, the two bald commanders offered agreement with whatever Horgar said, gave him a salute-by thumping their pick hafts against the cavern floor-and stalked off.
Horgar stood alone over the table. He stroked his chin, staring at the map, lost in thought.
Horgar's scarred bodyguard stood near the Prince. He held a bare warhammer, but his slack stance indicated that he expected no threat to his lord. Nimor smiled without mirth and flexed his claws. With the keen senses gifted him through his dragon heritage, Nimor studied the chamber.
Duergar also possessed an innate ability to turn invisible. Nimor wanted no surprises.
As he had expected, he sensed no one in the cavern other than those duergar he could already see.
Horgar stood upright and stared at the cavern wall, no doubt still wrestling with some problem or strategy that plagued his pathetic little mind. He put a hand to his axe haft and rubbed the back of his bald head.
Calling upon the power of his brooch, Nimor levitated down until he stood directly behind the unsuspecting Horgar. The little dwarf was muttering in his awkward tongue.
Lesser races, Nimor thought with contempt.
Nimor might have said something to Horgar before killing him, might have shown himself,
might have evoked fear, but he did none of those things. He was the former Anointed Blade, an assassin without peer. When he killed, he did so without fanfare.
Moving with a rapidity and ease born of long practice, he reached around Horgar and tore open the dwarf's throat. He turned visible the moment he struck.
The hole in the prince's throat sprayed blood across the map, across the cavern wall. Horgar gagged and fell across the table, his muttering becoming a fading, wet gurgle. The prince tried to turn to see his attacker, but Nimor had split his throat so thoroughly that the muscles of the gray dwarf's neck would not function.
Nimor grabbed Horgar by the top of his head and jerked his face around, partially to let
Horgar see who had killed him and partially to ensure that the crown prince was beyond the ability of the duergar clerics to help. Horgar's eyes went wide, and Nimor satisfied himself that the gaze had flashed recognition even as the duergar's life blood pumped from the gash in his throat. The prince's gnarled body began to spasm in its death throes. The clerics would be unable to save him.
Shouts of surprise and rage erupted around Nimor-the stomping of boots, the clank of armor,
the ring of weapons. He looked up to see duergar charging him from all sides, rushing to their fallen prince. Some were enlarging as they charged, growing taller and broader with each step.
Others called upon their innate ability to turn invisible and vanished from his sight.
No matter, Nimor smiled, swallowed, triggered a reaction in his lungs, and exhaled a cloud of billowing, viscous shadows that nearly filled the whole of the cavern. He poured all of his pent up frustration, anger, and shame into the exhalation. The cloud of darkness engulfed the onrushing duergar and siphoned energy from their souls. Nimor heard them shouting in pain,
cursing, shrieking. He stood unharmed in the midst of the cloud, grinning at the death around him.
The shadows dissipated quickly. Duergar lay scattered around the cavern, some of them dead,
some of them dying, some of them weakened so much that they could no longer stand. A few,
perhaps, would live.
Unless a drow patrol happened upon them.
Nimor located Horgar's scarred bodyguard. The duergar lay to Nimor's right, still holding his warhammer. The gray dwarf's eyes were unfocused, and drool dripped from the corner of his mouth. Nimor stepped to him, knelt, and looked him in the face.
"You should have chosen your master with more care," he said and slit the guard's throat.
He found the death pleasingly cathartic. It always did him good to kill.
Without another word, Nimor rose, shifted back into the Shadow Fringe, and left the cavern of dead and dying duergar behind him. He wanted to see Kaanyr Vhok before he returned to
Chaulssin.
Inthracis walked the flesh-lined lower halls of Corpsehaven. The walls squirmed in his wake.
Nisviim, his jackal-headed arcanaloth lieutenant, walked beside him.
The screams of mortal souls sounded in the distance, audible through the walls. No doubt some of his mezzoloths were feeding soul larvae to his canoloth pets.
"Shall I sound the muster for the Regiment, Lord?" Nisviim asked.
Despite the arcanaloth's muzzle and overlarge canines, his voice and diction were impeccable.
His heavy robes swooshed with each step. He toyed with one of the two magical rings on his hairy fingers as he spoke.
"Soon, Nisviim," Inthracis answered, "but first we must attend to a small matter in my laboratory."
The arcanaloth cocked his head with curiosity but kept his questions to himself.
"Very well, Lord," he said.
Nisviim was as skilled an enchanter as Inthracis was a necromancer. Ordinarily, an arcanaloth of Nisviim's power would not have been content to serve as a second to Inthracis, but Inthracis had long ago learned Nisviim's true name. With it, he kept Nisviim obedient and subservient. The only alternative to service for Nisviim was pain.