Free Uneasy Alliances by David Cook Page A

it.
    “Ingrar! What is it?” cried Noph.
    “Go now and fight! Don’t ask more! You must go now!” The young pirate’s urgency infected even Artemis and Shar.
    Kern lifted his sword. “Ready?”
    “No.” Trandon again lifted a hand. “Kern, you, I, Sharessa, and the guards must create as much of a circle around us as possible. Lord Garkim, Entreri, and Noph, move with us, and when we come near the altar, seize the bloodforge.”
    “What then?” asked Noph.
    Trandon looked at him, a corner of his mouth quirking cynically. “Then we try to get to the door. Ingrar, stay here, and when you sense the forge is near, start for the outside. I don’t think you’ll need anyone to guide you; you seem to feel the forge in some other way.” He lifted his hands. “First let’s see if we can get their attention.”
    He spoke an arcane word, and from his fingertips a blazing ball of light leapt forward and streaked across the crowd, exploding against the far wall. Shrieks came from worshipers, who became sudden torches, their robes igniting in a fiery display of arcane power.
    “Now!” yelled Kern. The company surged forward. Kern’s hammer glowed in the light of the bloodforge as the heavy blunt weapon rose and fell, driving the devotees of the Fallen Temple before him. Trandon had time for a blast of lightning that reduced two worshipers to smoking cinders; then he caught up his staff to defend himself against an onslaught of squealing Doeganers. Sharessa’s sword flashed in and out, parrying and thrusting as she tried by the sheer skill of her swordplay to keep the howling mob at bay. By her side, one, then another of Lord Garkim’s guards was overborne and dragged away.
    Noph, his dagger out, defended himself as best he could against the clutching, bloodstained fingers of the crowd. They fought their way to the altar and surrounded it. Noph, Entreri, and Garkim grabbed the tripod holding the bloodforge and lifted—and stopped in frustration.
    “It’s too heavy,” Noph yelled to Kern above the din. “We can’t lift it.” The forge glowed malevolently, and Noph realized something with a shock. “It doesn’t want us to lift it. It knows what it wants.”
    He looked around him. In Sharessa’s face and in that of the remaining palace guards, he saw only despair. Kern was fighting like a madman, his face streaked with blood, his eyes shining with something very like happiness. Trandon’s face reflected only cold, calculating concentration as he batted away flashing blades with his staff. Garkim and Entreri had drawn their swords and were helping to hold back the crowd so intent on tearing them apart. The Doeganers fought without skill, but their sheer numbers told in their favor. The fight couldn’t last long now.
    From the side of the temple came a thunderclap. With a loud crack, a portion of the dome fell, crushing screaming worshipers beneath it. A light shone through from the sky, a more than natural light that bathed the interior of the hellish temple in ethereal radiance. Noph could see the bones in his hand shining red through the skin.
    From the side of the temple, Ingrar advanced from the alcove. The light shone directly on him, almost lifted him, so that he seemed to glide rather than to walk. His blind eyes, deep and dark, were opened wide and seemed to be filled with an inner fire.
    Around him, as he advanced through the ranks of the cultists, silence fell, and the struggling mass around the altar parted to let Him through. Noph seemed to hear from far off a kind of chanting in a language at once unknown and yet hauntingly familiar.
    Ingrar stood beside the bloodforge, its surface now flaring with sparks and flashes of magical energy. He lifted his hands toward the gaping ceiling and to the light that fell upon him The rays increased until they were blinding in intensity, yet even if the viewers shut their eyes, they could still see Ingrar standing in an attitude of total supplication.
    The chanting