Dark Vengeance by Ed Greenwood Page A

Hunt of Talonnorn. Beside him, the last crone gasped his name through bleeding lips, begging him for aid, but he ignored her.
    What cared he if one more crone lived or died?
    By the time the last darkwings of the original Hunt were torn bloodily apart in midair by five eager darkwings from among his own replacements, and Jalandral Evendoom turned again to face the forecourt full of shocked, struggling-to-flee Talonar Nifl, the crone was dead.He planted a boot on her body to make himself that much taller, to tower just a little more over his new subjects, sneered at the swaying, gingerly retreating banners of the rival noble Houses, and gently cast the little spell that ensured his next words would be heard by every Talonar Nifl—even in the minds of those asleep—from end to end of the City of the Spires.
    â€œTalonar, hear me, and have my thanks,” he told them all. “I, Jalandral Evendoom, am pleased and proud to begin my duties as High Lord of Talonnorn.”
    He carefully ended the spell before adding, to himself alone, “And do just as I please, slaughtering you all if the whim takes me.”
    Â 
    Aloun blinked in astonishment, his face lit by the shifting glows of the whorl. “Was he
really
that blunt? Does he think they’re so afraid of him that he can get away with that? Or do Talonar expect their nobles to speak thus, by now?”
    Luelldar was careful not to sigh. “Did you not notice that little lift and unfolding of his hands, after announcing the title he was bestowing upon himself? That was him ending his ‘great proclaiming’ spell. Evendoom fondly believes that only he—and perhaps a few spellrobes standing with his rival nobles, and he’d be amused if they conveyed his every last word to their masters—heard his last sentence.”
    He waved at the open expanse of floor in front of the junior Watcher, and ordered, “Cast your whorl. Revered Mothers seldom like to be kept waiting.”
    Aloun did as he was bid, showing no surprise at all when Luelldar worked a small second whorl tucked under the edge of his larger one, spinning around itself in the opposite direction as it scudded along under the slowly turning edge of his great eye.
    At first, all the great whorl showed them was a restless sea of deep, rich violet that gaped from time to time in menacing but momentary fanged black mouths. The Anointed of the Ever-Ice didnot welcome watchers upon their doings, and Coldheart’s defensive wards were powerful indeed.
    It was not long, however, ere the purple parted in a whorl of its own, a swiftly expanding iris whose inner edges were black and seemed to burn with little tongues of ravaging flame. Luelldar stepped forward, and Aloun was only too eager to obey his waving hand to stand well back.
    Ever-more-accomplished Watcher of Ouvahlor he might be, but he was frankly terrified of the new Revered Mother of Coldheart, and did not welcome the thought of being questioned by Lolonmae at all.
    Wherefore it was Luelldar who bowed gravely to the three priestesses that the shadows behind the spreading flames soon revealed, and Luelldar who murmured, “Revered Mother, we Watchers obey your outstanding command, to be informed immediately of what befalls over the rule of Talonnorn. We have news to report.”
    â€œSpeak, Senior Watcher,” Lolonmae replied, almost gently. Barefoot, bare-armed, and in plain robes, she looked like a young Nifl lass of low station. Seated on a throne shaped of clear ice, she was bared to it, her robes laid atop her body like unfitted cloth and gathered to her only at her waist, with a simple cord. She looked neither cold nor ill at ease.
    In contrast, the two priestesses who stood flanking her had drawn themselves up tall and terrible to glare at the intrusion. They wore gleaming black hide robes and matching gloves and boots, all a-crawl with blue runes of the Ever-Ice that shifted shape and pulsed with restless