Reign of Pain:

Chapter Two:

Talindra had considered staying to fight by the side of her companions, but in the end had been able to see the way that it would end. The conflict was needless and messy, and it was her singular gift to be able to know when to cut her losses. In the end, not one of those individuals were essential to her plan. She suspected that if any of them had been in her position they would have made a similar choice. She could have helped them in any number of ways without putting herself in danger. The spell that hid her from the sight of others was of a nature that enabled her to cast spells that would benefit her party members without revealing herself. She could have healed their wounds or called the blessing of her goddess to strengthen their arms or their fortunes. That she chose not to do this was probably of no consequence to her goddess, and as likely as not pleased her if she were aware of it. There was another reason that she fled, of course, but that was something she would not admit even to herself.

Within a few minutes of her flight she stopped running, having gotten as far away from the road as she could without losing sight of the river Ashaba. It was possibly the only landmark in this wretched, flat farmland and there was no place to hide or lose a pursuer save the distant hills of Tasseldale, not far from the pool of Yeven. She had no intention of heading west, despite the sage advice that Randal attempted to give her before all hell broke loose. Her best option was to head toward Sharburg and charm some ignorant Dale farmer into giving up his wagon. Once back on the road, this time under magical disguise, her problems would be over. After all, Dartrick had no idea where in Sembia she was going, and Sembia was a lot of territory to cover. As long as she beat her pursuers to Ordulin, there was nothing they could do to stop her. The silvery amulet that hung around her neck, still marked with the symbol of Leira, kept her from the prying eyes of magic detection. She had never taken it off, and had no intention of doing so.

It was then that her heart sunk. Looking back toward the road she saw a lone pursuer following. It was too far to tell for certain who was following her, but from the accuracy with which he stayed to the trail she made through the weedy terrain she knew that it was Dartrick. She still had about an hour left in the lesser invisibility spell that she had cast when her last one expired, but the ranger was like a bloodhound, and on foot he would overtake her before she could make it to Sharburg. She could not allow that to happen. If he would not allow her to avoid this encounter, than she would have to make it an encounter at a place of her choosing.

Dartrick gulped down the healing potion as he walked. He did not have a great many of them in his possession, so he had to use them carefully. The warmth spreading across his abdomen mended all but an aching purple gash across his ribs, still clearly visible through his rent armor. The wound bled no longer, but he would have to be careful of it. There were many things in which he would have to be careful. He toed along, fully aware that he could not sneak up on his quarry, and had no choice but to shadow her until her magic failed. When that happened, he would chase her to ground like a deer caught in the open plain. Throwing the potion bottle aside, he wrung his hand around the heft of the shining hand axe. He had finally been given the time to think that he had lacked in the heat of battle, finally seeing the dead and the dying clearly in his mind. Onlar and Largon were clearly dead, and Shael and Styngian surely in peril from their wounds. That he had left them to the mercies of the wilderness so easily, especially Shael, troubled his thoughts.

Leave it be he told himself. There is nothing that you can do about it now.

It was the distraction of these troubled thoughts that nearly doomed him. Had he been paying attention, he would have seen not only the trail he was following, but that one was coming from the same direction.

The darkly beautiful form that shimmered into existence behind him had already finished her casting by the time he whirled around to face the caster. His arm was cocked and ready to throw the axe when his body froze in place. Like a human statue, he stood rigidly immobile in an appropriate battle pose for a heroic memorial.

"Sometimes, things are entirely too easy..." Talindra Thellis sighed, sliding closer to him and gently placing one arm around his waist.

"Sometimes, they are very hard too." She said with a suggestive purr, scant inches from his face as she pressed to him.

Dartrick was unable to respond with anything but fury in his eyes.

"I've waited quite some time for this... reunion." She said as she put one finger to his bottom lip. "I'm sure that you have, too."

With that she rammed her fingers into his wound, speaking a simple incantation to her goddess that blasted Dartrick's guts with agony. The magic ripped open the wound healed by the magic potion and spurted rivulets of blood to run down alongside the stains of the last wound. Spurting gore ran down Talindra's arm to drip freely from her elbow. Despite the pain, Dartrick could react in no way. The world swayed back and forth although there was no possibility that he was.

"Was it worth it..." She purred, with her lips inches from his perpetually gritted teeth "To finally feel my tender touch once again?"

Dartrick screamed silently as she slid her fingers further into the reopened wound, nearly reaching the palm of her hand. She cast the spell again, causing even older wounds to wrench open, and the flow of blood became a abrupt gush that forced her to withdraw her hand.

"I apologize, both to you and to Loviatar, that I cannot make this last for more hours, or even days. I am afraid that a man of your... vigor would recover from my holding far too quickly to risk. I am going to have to kill you much more... expediently."

She placed her bloody palm flat over his heart and kissed his frozen lips with a cold peck before starting the incantation of her most powerful wounding spell, but less than a moment before she finished it the arrow struck her squarely in the back. Her eyes bulged in pain and surprise for a moment, but she did not scream. Pain was her area of worship, and she was not unfamiliar with it. She let go of Dartrick and nearly stumbled as she whirled to face her attacker. Shael the bard had faded into existence behind her, far out of the range of sling or spell. Not, however, out of the range of a longbow.

"How do you like your own tricks, whore!" Shael screamed as she loosed an arrow that struck home on Talindra's thigh. It was a glancing hit, but left a nasty slash that bled freely.

By the time the third arrow arched toward the priestess, it struck one of many images, causing it to fade out of existence. This simple spell had been saving Talindra's life since she was a fledgling adventurer with dreams of heroism and glory, and preserved her still. She called on a healing spell from her goddess as Shael "killed" another illusion, but was immediately rewarded with pain as her wound healed tightly around the arrow. The Lady bard cursed loudly and fired again, nearly hitting the priestess before she disappeared again.

"No!" Shael panicked, dropping her bow and running at a full sprint to where she could cast her spell. The gentle tone of her spell song cumulated in an eruption of multicolored dust all around Dartrick, but as the dust settled none of it revealed that the Priestess was anywhere near.

It was then that Dartrick fell like a marionette that had its strings cut, colliding with the ground so roughly as to kick up a cloud of the glitterdust.

"Dartrick?" Shael asked softly, cradling the wounded Ranger in her arms as soon as she was sure that the invisible priestess was not entering the cloud of glitterdust.

"Let go of me." Dartrick responded gruffly, forcing himself to his feet and clenching his hand over the grievous wound that Talindra had inflicted on him.

"You're hurt!" She insisted "Let me help!"

"Like you just helped by driving her off?" Dartrick snarled.

"I saved your life!" Shael growled back "Can't you see that?"

"I had her!" Dartrick yelled loud enough to cause an echo off the distant hills "All that she was doing was adding to the debt of pain that I already owed her. Her magic was failing, and she is much too vicious to finish me when she had the chance. The second the spell failed she would have been mine! I told you that she was mine! In the name of all the gods why didn't you listen to me!"

Shael stood shocked. She had never seen Dartrick so angry, or imagined the quietly shy ranger capable of such a tirade. As upset as he had ever been regarding this woman, for all the nightmares and all the brooding, she had never seen this face before. It was the red and frothing face of madness.

"I saved your life." She said with deliberate resolve "If you can't see that she was going to have your living guts in her hands..."

"The only thing I see is disobedience!" Dartrick yelled "What of the others? Did you leave them to die so that you could defy my orders and ruin everything?"

"No!" Shael yelled back, now perhaps angrier than even Dartrick. "I came to show you this!"

Dartrick groaned as the scroll case Shael threw bounced off of his chest, perilously close to his wound.

"If you had not rushed off so quickly you would have found it with us when we searched the bodies. We know where she is going, and can beat her there if we hurry! We have her mounts and she is afoot! She has no chance of reaching Daerlun before we can!"

"Then I will beat her there." Dartrick said, abruptly calm and solemn once again.

Shael did not miss the singular insinuation in that sentence.

"You can't defeat her alone, Dartrick!" Shael almost screamed, still enraged "Didn't this encounter just prove that to you? Are you seeking her or are you seeking death?"

Dartrick was quiet for a moment, looking to where Shael's errant arrow was lodged in a rotten stump.

"Both." He finally said.

"Bardic bitch..." Talindra Thellis hissed as she made her way, with all haste, in the direction of Sharburg. The priestess was in an exquisite amount of pain from the wounds that Shael had inflicted on her, but dared not slow down for even a moment to heal them. It was only her training, honed through hours and hours of instructional torture at the hands of her superiors in the clergy, that had enabled her to remain conscious as she savagely tore the arrow free from where it had healed inside of her. She should have known better than to cast that spell, but the rapid succession with which the Bard had rained arrows upon her had forced her hand. That, as well as how quickly she had closed the gap between them to cast her spell, led the priestess to believe that her adversary had been hastened with magical speed. She was a more dangerous foe than she had anticipated, but then again Dartrick always had an affinity for dangerous mates.

She had not heard what the lovers had been quarrelling about as she fled, but she was pretty sure that it had nothing to do with the quality of his last anniversary gift. It did not matter to her, as it had served her purposes. The distraction the lady Bard had burdened Dartrick with had let her make good her escape, even beyond the reach of the spell that would reveal her invisible nature. Talindra was down to her final invisibility spell, with few other illusions with which to mask her flight, and she felt it was high time that she stumbled onto some good luck. She was seriously reconsidering the nature of her relationship with Tymora, as Beshaba had made it clear that she had a profound interest in her. A sudden feeling of ill-ease struck her just then, and made her realize that perhaps Loviatar was not pleased with that line of thinking.

It was just than that one of those strange happenstances that had plagued Talindra worked out in her favor. A lone rider was making way toward her as if to trample her, although there was no possibility that he could see her. As she forced herself to appear, the startled mount skidded to a stop as his shocked rider yanked the reigns. All that collided with Talindra was a healthy cloud of dust.

"What in the nine hells? What sorcery..." the unhandsome young farmer began.

"Silence." Talindra instructed, using her final magical command, then proceeded to invoke the charm that would enthrall this dim-witted farmer and bind him to her will. Once that was done, all that needed to be settled was whether she would ride side-saddle or not. The Farmer treasured her with a gappy grin as she saddled up behind him, and she wiped some perfume on her upper lip to mask the smell of sweat and dung. Somehow, this lacked the dignity of a great escape, but she would have to take it any way that she could get it.

In the days ahead, Dartrick rode alone.

The Ranger had known the countryside north of him like the palm of his hand, but as he approached the Archenbridge he realized that it would be best to stay on the main roads for now. He had known every back trail and shortcut between the fields of Sharburg and the clearing of the Archwood, but knew nothing of the Sembian lands that yawned beyond the bridge. This main road ran through Saerb, and where it met with the Way of the Mantacore was Daerlun. That was all that he needed to know. He had always distrusted main roads, and the Brigands who often called them home, but he would do what was needful. He had no idea whether or not Talindra knew about the letter that Vhanar had been carrying that gave away their destination. It didn't really matter, because that was where the plans that she had been hatching for years would finally unfold.

In the days of constant travel he had many opportunities to think back to his decision to drive on without his comrades, but had changed his mind several times on the subject. Just now he was regretting his words to Shael and the way that he left them all. For the entire day before, making better time through the Archwood than he would with them, he had been assured of his decision. However he felt tomorrow, riding through the streets of Saerb, it did not matter. It was far to late to turn back for them. At his heart, Dartrick had always been a loner. As many times as his cooperation and teamwork with others had been necessary, he was never comfortable with it. Riding alone, with none to worry about getting hurt save himself, he was more at ease than he had been in ages. He had too many weighing heavily on his conscience as it was.

As he approached the water flowing under the bridge, though, he realized that it was not a babbling brook. The wide waters were far from being a brook at all, but it did not stop it from babbling at him. He dismounted from his horse and peeked over the lip of the bridge to see what the fuss was about.

"Dartrick? Dartrick? Down here! Yoo Hoo!"

"Can't you think of a better hail and well met than 'yoo hoo?'" The Ranger sighed to the reflection in the water that was not his.

"Ever dour as a Dwarf!" The rounded and ruddy face laughed back at him. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing but death." Dartrick replied.

"Oh? A typical Tenday for you, then." the laughing face said as seriously as he was able.

"Is everything a joke to you, Daargar?" Dartrick asked, skipping a rock off of the mage's reflection.

"Only your battle prowess... and your social graces... and your love life..."

Dartrick cut off what could have gone on for some time with a scowl.

"I'm sorry that I could not have been there." Daargar said, as seriously as he was able.

"You would have killed us all, leaving us in twisted smoking piles... if you had not turned us into something unpleasant." Dartrick said bluntly. "They don't call you 'The Blunder of Westgate' because you've bested any Dragons lately."

"Touché." the mage conceded "Were your sword as quick as your tongue you would not be crossing this bridge now, I suspect.

"Keep your suspicions." the Ranger shot back. "Why have you bothered with this sending?"

"To give you a choice"

"How cryptic."

"Than let me be specific. I've come to tell you that ten miles north of Saerb there is a little hamlet that is being menaced by a beast that comes in the night. You can help them, or you can continue on..." The mage shrugged.

"I have to continue on..." Dartrick began.

"You have a choice to make." The mage interrupted. "just what are you fighting for, Dartrick? What kind of man do you want to be?"

Dartrick looked away, in the southwest direction where Daerlun waited.

"That's the thing about being a hero..." Daargar said lightly "there is always a choice."

Shael and Styngian looked down at the twin bundles of cloth that had been their traveling companions, now mere meat wrapped to hold in their reek. The priest of Tymora that had been sent for was taking his own sweet time getting here, although Dartrick had the foresight to pay him an advance toward the cost of resurrections before they even set out on their ambush. He had gambled that at least one of them would survive to get the others raised. Still, the inn had been so ill at ease with letting a room to corpses that they insisted on housing them in the stables. At least the stench of the horses helped to mask their own ripe odor. All things considered, their stay in Feather Falls had been interesting.

"What are we to do when the cursed cleric finally does show up?" she asked the old man.

"I would have thought that obvious." the swordsman replied. "We go after Dartrick."

"He has made it clear that..." she began rigidly.

"He doesn't know what is good for him." he finished. "When a man chases the ghosts of the past, he loses sight of both present and future."

"You are full of wisdom today, aren't you Old Grump?" she almost laughed.

"Unfortunately..." he said solemnly as he looked again to the bodies before him "wisdom is often bought at a very dear price."

"I find myself wondering if Dartrick will find that wisdom... before he pays the price." Shael nearly whispered.

"He already has found it." he said "He only needs to pick it up and dust it off every so often."

Shael walked out of the barn to get some fresh air. When she had left her family and her friends in Elversult for her chance to wander the realms in one traveling show after another, she never knew that things would come to this. She had started out as a dancing girl, and then as a singer and performer. Soon she realized that she would end up like any one of the other assortment of hags and whores that if she did not listen to the song her independent heart was singing to her every night. She learned what she could of swordsmanship and spell craft in the course of her journeys, mostly in bits and pieces between performances, but by the time she met Dartrick she was a respected adventurer in her own right. They had met as equals, in the most unlikely of places; a cess-pit where the hobgoblins of the stonelands deigned to throw their prisoners until they could properly arrange a feast, execution, sacrifice, or other proper means of disposal. When he tumbled down into that pit he would end up being her salvation, but in truth they rescued each other. They had been doing it ever since... until now.

Styngian followed her shortly, looking much better after a few days of rest. The old grandmaster had suffered greatly from his few wounds, and Buchanan was still bedridden under a healer's orders from the injuries inflicted on him by Deneiri. If she listened carefully she could hear the halfling grumbling from his bed on the second story of the inn. Her wounds were grievous, including a punctured lung, but had been taken care of by a healing potion before she cast her haste spell and chased down Dartrick. If Largon had survived, they would have had access to his healing spells and expertise. Perhaps they would already be on their way to Daerlun together, ready to bring overwhelming force to bear on the priestess.

"Don't worry over him so." Styngian said softly. "The lad survived the Zhent's assault of Shadowdale when he was just a boy, the battle of the Golden Way when he was barely yet a man. Do you think that twisted refugee from a pleasure hall could possibly succeed where Lord Bane and Yamun Khan failed? She strode through this dale like she owned the place and we spanked her bottom."

Shael laughed despite herself.

"There are more than a dozen graves over yon hill to attest to the fact that men, elves, and beasts should think more than once when making an enemy out of that soft spoken ranger. Many more of those about these parts, I reckon. If you wish to worry over someone, I might suggest a certain blonde... but she be hardly worth the effort."

"You're right on that point." Shael conceded.

"So what are you to do?" The old man asked as he took a load off his feet on a nearby hay stack

"I'm going after him." She said "Whether he likes it or not."

The next tenday for Dartrick Aliston was an exercise in frustation. First he got lost in his quest for the village that the worthless mage had directed him to. In the Dales he had been able to know exactly where he was and what direction he needed to go in simply by examining the patterns of moss on a tree or which direction a river flowed. Here, he'd been forced to ask directions from a half-drunk woodcutter. That had cost him half a day at least. He had to remember to ask Daargar the next time he saw him how he could divine that there was trouble in this settlement when he couldn't even give proper directions to it. Then, he had been beset by a pride of highwaymen, which had been an adequate excuse to vent his frustrations by working their deaths. He had also found an enchanted blade in their possession. Nothing to shake the realms, but it had come in handy. His own blade had failed to sharpen on one side ever since Randal's black blade had carved off its fine edge.

Once found, half of the locals insisted that the beast was dead. Dartrick had a feeling, though, and upon staying it took no more than one night before another attack left a family residence in shambles and a child missing. For most of the tenday come and gone Dartrick had done what he does best, taking to the woods in search of the beast. On the third day his horse had been killed in the stable of the inn where he stayed, which was not a very subtle hint that he was getting too close. Every day he cursed as another day lost in his pursuit, but he knew that he could no more turn his back on these people than he could suddenly transmute himself into a dragon. This was who he was. The local hunters that had been tracking the beast up to this point, needlessly killing dozens of wolves, ridiculed him when he started following the tracks of a man. They were especially amused that the tracks kept leading back to the village. Dartrick, however, knew exactly what he was doing. Last night he had insisted that none of the hunters go out, but rather bar themselves into their residences. He had then set a chair in the middle of the main road and sat, the picture of wakefulness, with his gaze focused mostly upon the abode of one of the hunters. Salak had been the loudest of his ridiculers, and the tracks that were the source of the ridicule let right to his front porch. All that he had needed to do was wait.

Now that he was standing over the bloody, naked body of Salak with his children sobbing nearby and his wife sprawled over the body, he wondered why this was how a hero was rewarded.

"Gods curse you for a murderer and a coward!" Lilina, wife of Salak, screamed up at him.

"He was the killer." Dartrick said bluntly, the words sounding insensitive and hollow even to him.

"Liar! Murderer! To the nine hells with you who have taken a kind and gentle soul!" Lilina howled.

He had planned the battle with Salak the werewolf so that the entire hamlet could witness it. He had forseen this moment, and had no intention at the time of swinging from the nearest tree. No one could deny the dozens of eyewitnesses who had seen him put four silver-tipped arrows into a ravenous wolf-thing, and then finish it off with the highwayman's blade. No one could deny that the beast had become the body that now lie under the sobbing woman.

"You killed him as surely as I did." Dartrick hissed "Do you expect anyone to believe that you did not notice his comings and goings, or of the wound that infected him in the first place?"

"I..." She choked.

"Had you spoken up, perhaps a bit of wolves bane or a cleric's prayer would have solved this. Instead, you left it to my blade." Dartrick whirled to the accusing stares of the assembled townspeople "You all did."

Leaving the highwayman's sword thrust into the ground behind him, Dartrick turned his back and walked away from the crowd, vowing to himself not to stop walking until he reached Saerb, where he would buy a new horse... and a new sword. He hoped that the blade he left behind would serve them as a reminder. He had no desire to pick up that particular sword again, besides, after the work that it had done. In a romantic tale or a minstrel's tavern song the hero that slew the beast unfailingly got a huge chest of treasure and the hand of a beautiful maiden (more importantly, the rest of her to go with it). After all of these years, Dartrick knew the truth of heroism. The life of a hero provided two rewards, only one of which was to be looked forward to. The first was death in a distant place, and the other was the one that he was enjoying right now... the peace and quiet of the road. Behind him, the sobs of the newly made widow faded into the sounds of the birds in the trees.