Shadowbane: Eye of Justice Read online

  Shadowbane

  EYE OF JUSTICE

  ©2012 Wizards of the Coast LLC

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  Cover art by: Raymond Swanland

  eISBN: 978-0-7869-6135-1

  64049806000001 EN

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  v3.1

  ALSO BT ERIK SCOTT DE BIE

  SHADOWBANE

  Shadowbane

  Eye of Justice

  ED GREENWOOD PRESENTS WATERDEEP

  Downshadow

  THE DUNGEONS

  Depths of Madness

  THE FIGHTERS

  Ghostwalker

  Welcome to Faerûn, a land of magic and intrigue, brutal violence and divine compassion, where gods have ascended and died, and mighty heroes have risen to fight terrifying monsters. Here, millennia of warfare and conquest have shaped dozens of unique cultures, raised and leveled shining kingdoms and tyrannical empires alike, and left long forgotten, horror-infested ruins in their wake.

  A LAND OF MAGIC

  When the goddess of magic was murdered, a magical plague of blue fire—the Spellplague—swept across the face of Faerûn, killing some, mutilating many, and imbuing a rare few with amazing supernatural abilities. The Spellplague forever changed the nature of magic itself, and seeded the land with hidden wonders and bloodcurdling monstrosities.

  A LAND OF DARKNESS

  The threats Faerûn faces are legion. Armies of undead mass in Thay under the brilliant but mad lich king Szass Tam. Treacherous dark elves plot in the Underdark in the service of their cruel and fickle goddess, Lolth. The Abolethic Sovereignty, a terrifying hive of inhuman slave masters, floats above the Sea of Fallen Stars, spreading chaos and destruction. And the Empire of Netheril, armed with magic of unimaginable power, prowls Faerûn in flying fortresses, sowing discord to their own incalculable ends.

  A LAND OF HEROES

  But Faerûn is not without hope. Heroes have emerged to fight the growing tide of darkness. Battle-scarred rangers bring their notched blades to bear against marauding hordes of orcs. Lowly street rats match wits with demons for the fate of cities. Inscrutable tiefling warlocks unite with fierce elf warriors to rain fire and steel upon monstrous enemies. And valiant servants of merciful gods forever struggle against the darkness.

  A LAND OF

  UNTOLD ADVENTURE

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other Books by This Author

  Prologue

  Part One: Deadly Homecomings

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Part Two: Old Friends and New

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part Three: Shifting Alliances

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Part Four: Frenzy Unto Death

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part Five: The Destroyer’s Rage

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Part Six: Veils Over Fire

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Part Seven: Broken Mirrors

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Epilogue

  12 HAMMER, THE YEAR OF THE SECOND CIRCLE (1470 DR)

  WE MUST FIND THE SWORD OF SHADOWBANE.”

  In the wake of her words, muted disapproval filled the great council chamber of the Eye of Justice, dancing along the carved walls to reach every one of the fifty assembled knights. They were malodorous, ugly men and women with cruelty in their eyes. They did not listen but amused themselves with trivialities: some counted and recounted their ill-gotten coin, some sharpened blades, and some even dared to bring hired company to the council.

  It sickened her, but after seven years under Uthias Darkwell, had Levia truly expected anything else?

  The Vigilant Seers were even worse. The five cold-faced men on the council sat in enigmatic silence, their unsympathetic eyes fixed upon the supplicant with her impossible quest or wandering to other diversions. Few of the Seers had any honor left, and none of them cared about the Eye anymore.

  After a moment, someone rose to speak against her: Watcher Haran, the big half-Shou swordsman from Elversult. Of course he challenged her—he did so every time she addressed the council. He rose from where he sat beneath Lord Darkwell’s throne and waved at Levia as though to disperse a puff of dust.

  “Every year, you bring before us the same request,” he said. “Do you never tire of hearing your own words, Levia Shadewalker?”

  Haran’s booming voice and thick shoulders more than dwarfed the plain half-elf woman in the center of the council chamber they shared, but she refused to concede. Levia was made of harder steel than Haran of Elversult. The laws of the Eye granted her a voice and put her on the same level as her far-more-popular opponent: a rising star in the order and on track to sit on the council of the Vigilant Seers. Indeed, Haran had earned a fair stake of his clout in the Eye by his way of vociferous opposition to her agenda. He was Uthias’s stooge through and through, and the words he spoke might as well be the High Seer’s own.

  No matter. The wind howled outside the chamber of the Eye, matching the fury she kept carefully locked in her heart. She would speak, and although they might not listen to her, they would hear her, gods-be-burned.

  “Every year, I ask the same question, yes, because every year, the call for it is greater.” She gazed around the chamber at the grubby rabble that infested the Eye of Justice. “Can you not see Gedrin’s legacy crumbling around you? We sit in our cavern of stone and count our coins while thieves grow bolder in the streets of Westgate. We call ourselves bringers of justice, yet the lawlessness in the city grows by the day. Can we not undertake this simple task?”

  “Simple task?” Haran stopped where he had been pacing around her and turned an incredulous expression in her direction. “The search for Gedrin Shadowbane and the sword of Helm is no mere trifle. The o
ld man has been gone for a decade, lass!”

  The word “lass” grated on Levia, but she bore it with the cool detachment Gedrin had taught her. Gedrin Shadowbane had been her teacher and—in the latter years—a father to replace the one she had never known. She owed him everything and resolved not to disappoint him now, even if he had abandoned her along with the order he’d created so long ago.

  “His lengthy absence is all the more reason to search,” she said. “We must discover what has become of him and reclaim the sword that was lost. It is the blade of our god and must—”

  “One of our gods.” The oldest of the Vigilant Seers, Lord Sephalus, roused himself just long enough to impart some of his sagely wisdom, his head perched on his hand. “The first to pass from us. There are three gods we follow, and Helm is far from the most potent. Why do we focus upon him, and not our living lord?” His eyes drooped again and he snored.

  “My Lord Seer speaks true,” Haran said. “All affection for your father aside—”

  “He was—is—not my father,” Levia said. “Gedrin Shadowbane is my master, and master of us all. Or have you forgotten whose voice stirred us out of depravity and set us on the path of the righteous? How the Eye of Justice brought order after the chaos of the blue fire?”

  “That was eighty-five years ago, before any of us yet drew breath.” Haran seemed to reserve his most incisive counterstrokes just for her. The man did not bear the nickname “Saer Harangue” for nothing. “I admire Gedrin as much as any of my brother and sister Seers, but he must be more than a hundred years old by now, if he is even yet living. Ways must change, lass.”

  Levia wished he’d stop calling her that. “We have strayed from the path …”

  “And besides,” Haran continued unabated. “The Eye lacks the blades to reach the whole of the Dragon Coast, much less a fruitless scouring the length and breadth of Faerûn.” He stood face-to-face with Levia and crossed his arms. “This, lass, is why you will never rise in the order—you simply refuse to see beyond yourself, much less to the whole of the matter.”

  “Aye,” said a woman’s voice from beneath Lord Sephalus’s throne.

  Watcher Rsalya of Selgaunt was squire to Sephalus, his obvious heir, and some said she was much more. Few women claimed membership in the Eye of Justice, and many who did were not knights but rather harlots who rose to prominence using their bodies rather than their swords. Rsalya was one such, and Levia hated her for it. She disliked beautiful women, because they possessed that which she did not have and never would. The world seemed so easy for them.

  “I wonder if Sister Levia can even see herself.” Rsalya wrinkled her nose. “Perhaps she’d stop insulting us all with such awful hygiene—or is that an attempt at her hair, do you think?”

  The barb drew laughter from the men gathered around the chamber, and Levia bristled. She bit her lip to keep from countering. To seem a hysterical woman would not avail her cause.

  Had Levia truly expected victory here? In the Year of the Second Circle, the Eye of Justice lay sick, infected with fools like Haran and fops like Rsalya when it deserved heroes like Gedrin or even Sephalus as he had been before age replaced his gray matter with cake batter. The council was not on her side, and she could count not a single vote among them to back her cause.

  She turned, as she did every year, to Uthias Darkwell, chief of the council and highest of the Vigilant Seers. He was a man of powerful stature and impressive sword skill, and he at least deserved her respect, even if he had been the one to succeed her master Gedrin ten years earlier, after the paragon’s disappearance. Uthias had watched the proceedings silently, his sharp eyes and ears catching the minutiae even Levia herself missed. None of it mattered, however—she knew his answer even before she asked the question.

  Levia fell to one knee before the High Seer. “Please, my lord,” she said. “Hear me—”

  At that moment the great doors of the council chambers gave a thunderous groan and swung open as though blown inward by the tempestuous wind. A figure stood in the door, seemingly frayed around the edges like poorly cut paper. He wore rags and carried no weapon, but his eyes—so pale they almost seemed white—might as well have been a burning sword and a gleaming shield. Two Justice Stalkers made to bar his way, but the man—little more than a boy, Levia realized—cut them off with a look.

  “I seek the Eye of Justice,” he said.

  His youthful voice somewhat undermined the impact of his sudden appearance. Chuckles broke out among the crowd. Haran scoffed. He shoved past Levia and raised his hand crossbow casually toward the youth’s chest. “I suggest you leave this place, boy, before—”

  Without hesitation, the youth with the pale eyes reached out, seized the crossbow, and smashed it into Haran’s chin. Stunned, the odious man fell back and the youth pointed the stolen weapon at his chest. “The Eye of Justice. Now.”

  This made the confrontation all too real. Around the chamber, members of the Eye stirred from their lethargy. They dropped their coins and whetstones and set aside their hired lads and lasses. It was the brief hesitation from the youth’s dramatic entrance that saved his life, or else he’d have been riddled with crossbow quarrels and thrown daggers before he spoke another word.

  “You have found the Eye.” Levia strode forth. “Why do you seek us?”

  The youth turned his resolute gray eyes on her. “Who are you?” he asked as though he weren’t fifteen years her junior.

  Levia scrutinized him. Such arrogance, to burst into this chamber and make demands of her—of any of them! He wore rags and smelled beyond awful—a concoction of sweat, dirt, and the bitter rain of the Dragon Coast that she could smell across the ten paces between them. She reached for her mace, resolved to teach this beggar boy a lesson.

  “Ah, ah,” said a feminine voice near the door. “I wouldn’t be doing that, me lady.”

  A scrawny halfling wielding a crossbow in either hand stood out against the storm. She pointed her weapons at either side of the council chambers, covering the whole of the Eye. The knights looked stunned to see her, and a few raised their hands in surrender. Cowards.

  “Answer my question,” the scraggly lad said.

  Levia straightened. “I am Levia Shadewalker, first apprentice of Gedrin Shadowbane.”

  The name struck the youth, and—although he made no move to lower the crossbow—he reached into his pocket. He tossed her something tiny. “This is yours, I believe.”

  She caught the object and drew in a sharp breath upon examining it: Gedrin’s ring.

  “Lord Shadowbane wanted you to have it back,” the strange lad said. “He died well, and I would avenge him if I could.”

  The delay allowed the gathered knights to snap free of their indecision, and blades and bows came out. The halfling hissed a warning. “Kalen! Blades!”

  Through it all, the youth’s eyes remained upon Levia. His crossbow, however, rose toward Uthias Darkwell himself, provoking gasps of alarm.

  “Wait,” Levia said. Then, louder: “Wait! Down bolts and listen!”

  She had never been well-liked among the Eye, but the knights heeded her now and stayed their weapons. A good thing, too, as otherwise the youth might have fired his crossbow.

  Haran stood fuming just behind her, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Who is this cur?”

  “I come by the will of Gedrin Shadowbane, to fulfill his final command,” the youth said. “We spoke only a moment, but it was long enough for him to send me on a quest. I seek ordination in the Eye of Justice.”

  His last word rippled through the chamber like sizzling water on a bed of coals.

  “What a jest,” Haran said. “Surely—”

  “Silence.” Uthias Darkwell’s powerful voice shut Haran’s mouth and stilled the anxiety in the chamber. He waved to Levia.

  “The lad speaks the truth,” she said. “He … Gedrin sent him. I know he did.”

  “I will find the sword whether y
ou send me or no.” The youth looked to Uthias. “But out of respect to Gedrin, I would have your blessing.”

  Levia felt suddenly unbalanced and uncertain. Not since a roving Gedrin had called her out of her life as a scullery maid and occasional thief on the streets of Neverwinter had she seen such confidence—such fixity of purpose. He truly would pursue this quest for Gedrin’s sword, whether for the Eye, for Gedrin’s sake, or only for himself.

  And what did he know of her master’s fate? That he’d “died well” and that the boy would avenge him if he could. She clasped Gedrin’s ring tightly.

  Uthias Darkwell regarded the boy with a calculating gaze. “Interesting.”

  Haran sputtered. “My lord, he is a boy, not a knight-errant. You cannot be serious!”

  Levia tightened her hand around the ring, her decision reached. “He is Gedrin’s apprentice and heir to Vindicator,” she said. “The Eye has chosen him.”

  “Gedrin Shadowbane was a mad old man who couldn’t tell a swordsman from a tree stump,” Haran said. “We all know this, and yet you expect us to consider allowing this boy to undertake a quest no member of the Eye of Justice has ever accomplished?”

  Levia stood her ground. “This is his will, the will of our master, and the will of the Threefold God.” She looked up at Uthias. “My lord, allow him to try.”

  The High Seer rubbed his gray beard.

  “Gods, you might as well kill the lad right now.” Haran sneered. “What makes you think a beggar boy can succeed where hundreds of sworn knights have failed?”

  “For just that reason,” the boy said. “I am not a sworn knight, and so I will do that which must be done—without a good godsdamn for your code or your order.”

  That stole the triumph from Haran’s face and replaced it with spreading ruddy blotches in both cheeks. “Enough, you insolent pup.” He drew his sword. “Halfling or no, Levia or no, I—”

  “Why?”

  Uthias’s resonant voice rippled along the dusty walls. The one-word question stilled Haran where he stood, and he eased his blade back into its scabbard. Uthias Darkwell, High Seer and master of the Eye of Justice, rose from his seat and spread his hands across the tabletop.