Free Dark Warrior Rising by Ed Greenwood

probably only get one chance to escape, and failure would mean death. Right now they fed him, gave him work to do, and his skills meant the only abuse he got was the whips. So he did the only sane thing he could do: He schemed.
    He plotted, considered all he’d seen, and plotted some more, alone and silent amid the clang and clatter of the Rift as he hammered and slaked and hammered some more. Among the firefists, he kept to himself because he could do nothing else: as Taerune’s favorite and the most skilled Rift slave, he was kept apart from the others by stone sidewalls unless he was needed elsewhere, and taken there in chains by the surly, much-scarred gorkul overseer the firefists called “Grunt Tusks.”
    The gray-skinned overseer was lurching past right now, peering narrowly at Orivon’s work and trailing his usual sour stink. A rather disapproving grunt rolled out from under his broken brown tusks—but then, the gorkul never said anything else. He went on along the edge of the Rift without stopping, and little wonder: His worries were farther along, among the younger firefists. Orivon Taerune’s-Pet never made any trouble.
    Ashenuld … he’d often wondered just what he was wondering now: how he’d find his way there, once free of Talonnorn and out into what the Nifl called “the Wild Dark.” Monsters roamed there, horrible things that made sneering Nifl shudder when remembering them … and then there were the Ravagers. Did the Nifl have maps of the surrounding Dark? Such things would be treasures, well-hidden or guarded or both, surely …
    There were other Niflghar cities out in the Dark: Orivon had overheard the names Uryrryr and Imbrae and Ouvahlor, though their names were all he knew of them. The Nifl of Talonnorn hated the Nifl of other cities. All other cities.
    Now that he thought about it, the Nifl hated many things. Hatred seemed their daily drink, their slakethirst.
    Orivon reached up his jug of slakethirst and drank deep, frowning. At the thought that always made him frown: He had to get out of Talonnorn first. And Talonnorn was home to the Hunt.
    He had to find a way to survive the Hunt.

    Â 
    Â 
    Batlike blackhide wings flapped loudly as squalling darkwings landed, dark talons skittering on stone and long necks undulating in anger at being chokingly reined in. There would be later patrols, but the fullmustered Hunt of Talonnorn had hunted—and, as always, had failed to miss its quarry.
    Laughing together as loudly and freely as those who are drunk on bloodlust and excitement are wont to laugh, the warblades of the Hunt tossed reins and writhing, over-long whipswords to the waiting Evendoom hostlers, and stalked off the High Ledge, their spell-armor pulsing sapphire, emerald, ruby, and amethyst as they went.
    Servants were waiting to take their bloody battle trophies and wash the gore from their war-harness with ewers of scented water. As always, the warblades strode on, not deigning to notice them, forcing them to hop and scurry to keep pace with the triumphant warriors as they worked.
    The warblades knew the young Nifl-shes who adored them would be waiting, and they strutted in their glowing magnificence, masters of the moment and eager to taste eagerly offered flesh. Crones might snap cold orders at them later, but now younger, far more magnificent shes surrendered all to them hungrily, submitting to their every demand.
    â€œHa-ha!” one of the eldest of the young Hunt warblades roared, “let us sport with our beauties once more! By the Burning Talon, bring me wine! And not just any quaff, but icefire—and mind it’s smoking in the flagon!”
    â€œAt once, Rolaurel!” cried a tall, long-maned she whose breasts were both pert and—aside from a sprinkling of glued-on gems—bared to him.
    The warrior spread his arms and roared his exulting laughter to the unseen roof of the great cavern overhead—and by the