Stardeep (The Dungeons) by Bruce Cordell

Author:Bruce Cordell [Cordell, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780786963867
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2012-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Stardeep, The Causeway

Telarian watched the fight unfold at the Causeway’s end.

He stood just within Stardeep’s open Causeway Gate. Nearby loitered Commander Brathtar, also watching, though the Commander frowned and scowled by turns. A small cavalry unit of mounted Empyrean Knights waited in the gate tunnel, ready to ride out and again defend Stardeep from what they believed to be another foray of violent wood elf invaders.

Anxiety tightened Telarian’s throat. Something was wrong. No, that word wasn’t weighted with enough soul-churning dread; something was terribly, horrendously off beam. He’d foreseen the addled, alcoholic Keeper would give up her sword to avoid a fight. Yes, he’d prophesied a struggle to convince her what must be done, but in her need to see Nangulis reborn, she gave up her one remaining connection to Stardeep: Angul. He’d seen the future!

But reality unreeled right in front of him far differently. Knights lay dead, and a former Keeper was imperiled by orders he’d given those same Knights. How had it come to this? How could his divination be so much in error?

Just yesterday, a wood, wild, and half-elf force of considerable size approached Chabala Mere and attempted to lay siege. Three Knights had perished in that attack, plus a host of wood elves that hadn’t understood what they assailed. A few of their bodies lay in scattered graves, while the bulk of that defeated force lay at the bottom, if it had a bottom, of Chabala Mere.

He hadn’t foreseen that, either.

Events were tumbling out of control, and worse, beyond his sphere of foreknowledge.

The thought assailed him, not for the first time: if his ability to see the future was careening wildly away from reality, should he not entertain the possibility his most terrifying vision of the far future, the rise of the city Xxiphu, might also—

Divination is muddied if one relies on those hiding betrayer’s thoughts, intruded the simple, irrefutable voice of Nis.

Betrayers? Which were they? The two survivors of the devastated wood elf force who’d reappeared to save the day? A crazed half-elf monk and a wounded human sorcerer. They should be dead, like the other elf attackers—hadn’t he instructed Brathtar to sweep the area beyond the Causeway and eliminate all signs of conflict? Yes. Brathtar …

Perhaps the Commander was the betrayer Nis described. The appearance of these last two, unlooked for, was just one more failure the Commander had laid at Telarian’s feet. Now that he thought on it, it was Brathtar’s failure to completely purge the tribe of wood elves that had summoned the mixed-blood elves of the Yuirwood to Stardeep’s very porch.

Was it possible loyal Brathtar worked against him? The fight beyond the Causeway was undeniable proof of something, after all. Perhaps Brathtar truly was to blame. Because of the Commander’s list of failures, Kiril’s return hadn’t followed the script his vision had foretold. She’d fought instead of sued for peace against those who once served under her, the Empyrean Knights.

He tightened his grip on his belt, a mere inch from Nis’s beckoning pommel.

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