There was a loud animal roar, and Kelemvor felt an incredible weight burst free from him. Instantly the pain lessened considerably, and Kelemvor saw that Bane had gripped both sides of the beast's head. With a sharp, inhumanly swift motion, the god snapped the creature's neck.
The fighter looked down and stared at his chest. He watched in awe as his torn flesh began to close and mend together. The wounds were healing at an impossible rate.
"It is done," Bane said nonchalantly and dropped the body of the panther at Kelemvor's feet. The god turned and strolled from the cell. "Tell him where to find the mage, clean him up, and send him on his way."
"No!" Kelemvor rasped, his voice little more than a whisper.
Bane looked back to the cell, suspicion crossing his features.
"I should look as if I had to fight my way out," the fighter said and collapsed onto the ground, inches from the panther's still-warm corpse.
The Black Lord smiled. "Very well," he hissed. "But know this, Kelemvor. If you even think of reneging on our agreement, I will know. My agents will hunt you down and kill you, no matter where you hide." The God of Strife paused, and another evil grin flitted across his lips. "Or better still," he added, "I'll put that creature, or one even more horrible, back inside you." The smile widened slightly. "One that would be far more painful to remove than the panther was. Remember that."
The fighter nodded. "It is no less than I would expect," Kelemvor said. "And no less than I would do in your position. Set your mind at ease. I will follow the terms of our pact to the letter."
"This could be the beginning of a long and profitable association," Bane called over his shoulder as he continued down the corridor. "Bring her to me alive, Kelemvor. If that's at all possible."
Kelemvor shuddered and stood up slowly. He didn't look at the guards as he staggered out of the cell. "I shall," the fighter whispered as he followed the same path from the dungeon that the Black Lord had taken.
IX
Travel through the eastern dales was long and hard for the Company of the Scorpions, but the Zhentilar were well supplied and used to the difficulties of such a journey. Cyric quickly learned from Tyzack that the Scorpions had been on an expedition to Haptooth Hill, searching for an artifact of great power that wanderers passing through Zhentil Keep had made some offhand comments about.
The Company of the Scorpions had received its orders before the Battle of Shadowdale, when Lord Bane had been obsessed with finding any artifacts that might be repositories of magical power. In all the confusion surrounding the battle and its aftermath, the Scorpions, and their mission, had been forgotten by Zhentil Keep — until the time came to amass every available unit of Zhentilar in Scardale. A mystical communication from Bane's new sorceress, Tarana Lyr, had come one night, and the Scorpions had actually been relieved to receive the new orders. Their efforts at Haptooth Hill had been fruitless and extremely tedious.
Two days after Cyric joined them, the Scorpions ran into a small Sembian patrol and were forced into combat, an opportunity for the thief to measure his new acquaintances' skills, and for them to measure his. The battle was swift and furious, but not without cost to the Scorpions. Croxton was killed, though whether by a Sembian hand or a Zhentish, Cyric wasn't sure. Much to Cyric's surprise, Tyzack promoted the thief to second-in-command for his efforts in the battle, with Slater openly supporting the decision and the others saying nothing, though some — like Eccles — were obviously unhappy with Tyzack's choice.
One day after the clash with the Sembians, the Scorpions encountered the first of many Zhentish patrols heading toward Scardale. Tyzack automatically assumed command of the ragtag groups of fighters and thieves that the company met. No one opposed him.
Now, as Cyric rode behind Slater, his mind wandered over a myriad of subjects. But mostly he watched the bright afternoon sunlight pulse through the prism earring the female warrior had taken from Mikkel's corpse and attached to her right ear. The sparks of brilliant, multicolored light shot out from the bauble as Cyric stared dreamily at it, washing away all the thief's concerns and fears.
The line of the horizon was choppy, marred with sharp ridges, and the earth was a strange mixture of grayish green stone, with veins of raw, auburn clay. Small, barren hills and rises surrounded the riders. An immense growth of earth, with a crevice along its spine and serrated, evenly spaced depressions leading off in crooked gaps, lay ahead and continued for miles. Cyric felt that he was looking at all the skeletal remains of an incredible giant, which might have lived eons before the gods ruled Faerun.
It should be the form of a god, towering over the Realms, he thought as he looked at the ridge. Tall enough to reach into the sky and pull down the very heavens, not trapped inside a frail body of flesh, like a mortal.
Shards of light from the stolen earring drew the thief's attention once more, and as the Zhentilar rode — now more than three hundred strong — Cyric realized that he had become just as fascinated with the prism as Slater was.
The hawk-nosed thief watched the slivers of light as they glittered in a beautiful array of colors, and studied each shard. The lights came into existence and passed on in the blink of an eye. Much like a human life, he thought. Gone and quickly forgotten. Cyric wanted more from his life. He thought of the gods and the gift of immortality that they had endangered with their foolish, petty squabbling. The thief felt contempt for the deities like Bane and Mystra, who had allowed their vast powers to be stripped away.
Cyric tried to calm himself. The dry afternoon heat was sweltering, and even the slight breeze he felt did little to assuage the bands of broiling, intense heat that assaulted the company as they trekked along the Ashaba. The heat pressed against Cyric's flesh like scorching, oppressive hands, causing rivulets of sweat to pour into his eyes, obscuring his view of the prism momentarily.
Looking around at dozens of faces that he did not recognize, Cyric considered the fact that each of the Zhentilar rode to Scardale for the sole purpose of answering Lord Bane's call. Nearly all of them would lay down their lives without a moment's hesitation if the Black Lord called for them to do so. Incredibly, it was the Company of the Scorpions that these men had turned to for temporary leadership. The political maneuvering that Cyric had observed Tyzack perform to ensure his own supremacy surprised the thief. Cyric thought the leader of the Scorpions incapable of even conceiving of such well-thought-out plans, let alone implementing them.
The thief cleared his eyes and returned his gaze to the prism. The shards of light released from the earring seemed endless, and as each new shard died away, another took its place. Cyric thought of Tyzack. The man had to have a weak spot, a vulnerability that Cyric could exploit. What was it? the thief wondered. Ahead, Slater reached for the prism earring, caressing it gently. The thief smiled. Perhaps there was a simple way of finding out.
An hour later Tyzack was off chatting with the commander of a fifty-man contingent from Tasseldale that was located somewhere near the rear of the sizable Zhentish advance. Ren had gone with Tyzack. Cyric moved up through the line and motioned for Slater to join him a few lengths ahead of the Zhentilar. Willingale, one of the Zhentish operatives from Harrowdale, had taken point a few hundred yards ahead of the troops, and Cyric told the others that he and Slater were going to replace him for a while.
"Why are we replacing Willingale on point?" Slater asked as she rode next to the thief. Cyric hesitated, and the flesh of the woman's eyebrowless forehead wrinkled as she flashed her eyes wide open in a gesture that was meant to emphasize her confusion. "What is it you really want with me?"