Uneasy Alliances by David Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

have done more. Harloon and Abie’s deaths are something I have to live with now. But I didn’t want to tip my hand. And you must agree that when I did use my powers, it was at a time we really needed it.”
    “And the result,” observed Entreri, speaking for the first time in the debate, “is that we’re here.” He stood and stepped a pace nearer the now-revealed wizard. “I don’t like surprises. And I don’t much like wizards,” he said flatly. “Is there anything else that anybody’s keeping secret?” His eyes swept the party. When no one spoke, his lips creased in what might have been taken as a smile. “All right. The Fallen Temple has the bloodforge.
    But if we hurry, we may be able to get it back.”
    “Get it back? Are you insane?” Shar was on her feet, pointing to Artemis’s injured arm. “Have you forgotten what that thing did to you?”
    Entreri turned his back on her and went up the stairs. In a moment, the rest of the party followed.
    The stairway rose in a steady line for perhaps a hundred feet, then leveled off in a broad landing. Three doors opened onto it, and Ingrar, without the slightest hesitation, entered the right-hand one. Entreri, apparently equally confident, followed him, with the rest of the adventurers trailing behind him.
    This tunnel rose in a steady spiral, the slope gentle but wearing on pirate and paladin alike, suffering as they still were from the stiffness and aches from their fall. Nonetheless, their spirits rose as they sensed they were coming closer to the surface.
    “We must be almost there,” gasped Shar. As she spoke, a flicker of red light flared against the side of the tunnel before them, and a wind blew down the passage, carrying with it the smell of something burning.
    A moment later, the companions found themselves standing in a doorway whose great wooden doors had been wrenched asunder. Trandon and Kern stepped forward and pushed the wreckage aside, and the group stepped through. They were in the interior of a temple; that much was clear from the great altar with its now-familiar image of the mage-king. The doors on the opposite side of the building stood open, and Noph, longing for a glimpse of the sky, ran to them. His strangled cry brought the others behind him. In awe, they stared out upon the scene.
    Eldrinpar was burning. From the temple doors, standing atop a vast pyramid, they gazed out at the doomed city. Flames lit the dawn and flickered against the horizon. Spirals of smoke wafted upward, tendrils of black that seemed to reach into the greater darkness of the early morning sky. From time to time, a new building, ignited by the great heat of the fires, burst spontaneously into flame. The companions could hear a confused din of cries, screams, and shouts borne on the hot breeze.
    From their vantage point above the city, they could see crowds of citizens fleeing through the streets. Pursuing them were bands of fiends, who ensnared them with paw and claw, sometimes slaying, sometimes capturing the unfortunate Doeganers and bearing them off to an unthinkable destination.
    Not a word was spoken among the companions for some time as they stared, horrified, at this orgy of death and destruction. Then Sharessa pulled her eyes from the scene and faced the others.
    “Come on! With a lot of luck and some fighting and wizardry, we can probably get to the harbor. Once we’re out to sea, I doubt any of those things will follow us. They’re too busy making meals out of these people.”
    Entreri turned toward her. The rising sun showed the dark circles beneath his eyes. Raising his injured arm, he pulled the cloth from it. The others shuddered at the sight of the bones that clicked and moved without sinew or muscle.
    “I don’t plan to go anywhere,” the assassin observed, “until I have that forge.” His voice rose in power and ambition. “Imagine what would be mine if I could learn to control the power that did this to me!”
    Shar stared at him.