The Godborn Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Table of Contents

  Prophecy

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  The Sundering

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  THE PROPHECY

  When the trials begin,

  in soul-torn solitude despairing,

  the hunter waits alone.

  The companions emerge

  from fast-bound ties of fate

  uniting against a common foe.

  When the shadows descend,

  in Hell-sworn covenant unswerving

  the blighted brothers hunt,

  and the godborn appears,

  in rose-blessed abbey reared,

  arising to loose the godly spark.

  When the harvest time comes,

  in hate-fueled mission grim unbending,

  the shadowed reapers search.

  The adversary vies

  with fiend-wrought enemies,

  opposing the twisting schemes of Hell.

  When the tempest is born,

  as storm-tossed waters rise uncaring,

  the promised hope still shines.

  And the reaver beholds

  the dawn-born chosen’s gaze,

  transforming the darkness into light.

  When the battle is lost,

  through quake-tossed battlefields unwitting

  the seasoned legions march,

  but the sentinel flees

  with once-proud royalty,

  protecting devotion’s fragile heart.

  When the ending draws near,

  with ice-locked stars unmoving,

  the threefold threats await,

  and the herald proclaims,

  in war-wrecked misery,

  announcing the dying of an age.

  —As written by Elliandreth of Orishaar, c. –17,600 DR

  THE GODBORN

  ©2013 Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast, LLC

  Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC, Forgotten Realms, Wizards of the Coast, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC, in the U.S.A. and other countries.

  All Wizards of the Coast characters, character names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  The sale of this book without its cover has not been authorized by the publisher. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for this “stripped book.”

  Prophecy by: James Wyatt Cartography by: Mike Schley Cover art by: Tyler Jacobson

  First Printing: October 2013

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN: 978-0-7869-6373-7 ISBN: 978-0-7869-6436-9 (ebook) 620A2244000001 EN

  ___________________________________________________________

  Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the Library of Congress

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  Dedication

  For Jen, Riordan, Roarke, Delaney, and “4.”

  Acknowledgements

  As always, my thanks to Ed, Bob, Fleetwood, and James.

  Prologue

  Marpenoth, the Year of Holy Thunder (1450 DR)

  Pain wracked Varra, knife stabs of agony that kept time with her contractions. She lay on her back in a straw-filled birthing bed in the abbey—the Abbey of the Rose, Derreg had called it—her knees bent, the sheets damp and sticky with sweat and blood. Her blood.

  Too much of it, she knew.

  She saw her fate reflected in the worried eyes of the homely, middle-aged midwife who patted her hand and mouthed soft encouragement, saw it in the furrowed brow and filmy but intense gaze of the balding, elderly priest with blood-slicked hands who reached into Varra time and again to no avail.

  Varra searched her memory but could not remember their names. The previous hours—had it been just hours?—had passed in a blur. She remembered traveling in a caravan across Sembia, fleeing before a storm of shadows, an ever-growing tenebrous thunderhead that threatened to blanket all of Sembia with its pall. Undead had attacked the caravan, unliving shadows, their keening voices announcing their hunger for souls, and, in a moment of thoughtless bravery, she had led them off into the forest to save the others.

  There, terrified and stumbling through the underbrush, she’d happened upon a man, a dark man who had reminded her of Erevis, her child’s father. The howls of the undead had filled the woods behind her, all around her, their keens a promise of cold and death and oblivion.

  “Who are you?” she’d asked the dark man, panting, her voice tense with growing panic.

  “I’m just fiddling around the edges,” the man had said, and his narrow, sharply angled face had creased in a mirthless smile. He had touched her pregnant belly—then not yet bulging—and sent a knife stab of pain through her abdomen.

  The memory of his touch caused her to squirm on the birthing bed. She moaned with pain. Bloody straw poked into her back. The light from the lanterns put a dancing patchwork of shadows on the vaulted stone ceiling, and she swore she heard the dark man chuckle.

  “Be still, woman,” the priest said sharply. Sweat greased his pate. Blood spattered his yellow robe.

  “He did something to the child!”

  “Who?” the midwife asked, her double chins bouncing with the question. “What do you mean?”

  “The dark man!” Varra said, screaming as another contraction twisted her guts. “The man in the forest!”

  The midwife glanced at the priest knowingly and patted Varra’s hand. “It’ll be all right,” she said, mouthing words they all knew were a lie. “It’s fine. You’re not in a forest and there’s no dark man here.”

  The priest mopped his brow, smearing blood across his pate, and reached into Varra again. Pain ripped through her, a wave of agony that ran from pelvis to chest. She gasped and the priest pulled his hands back, looked up, and shared a glance with the midwife. Varra read in their faces the words they didn’t say aloud.

  “What’s wrong with my child?” she said, and tried to sit up. The bloody sheets clung to her back. The effort caused her more pain, agonizing pulses. The room spun. She feared she would vomit.

  “Please be still,” the priest sai
d, and the midwife gently pressed her back down on the birthing bed.

  Pain and exhaustion caused Varra’s vision to blur. Her mind floated backward into memory, to the forest.

  “Run,” the dark man had said to her, and she had, tripping, stumbling, and cursing her way through the brush. The unliving shadows had pursued her, closing, their wails loud in her ears, coming at her from all directions. She had stumbled into a meadow and fallen. She recalled the sweet smell of the purple flowers, the dusting of silver pollen that fogged the night air and glittered in Selûne’s light. She remembered curling up among the blooms as the shadows closed in, like a child herself, wrapped in the meadow’s womb. She’d put her arms around her belly, around her unborn child, knowing they were both about to die, and wishing and praying that she were somewhere else, somewhere safe, anywhere.

  And then, as if in answer to her wish, the motes of pollen had flared bright silver and she recalled a sudden, disconcerting lurch of motion.

  “He saved me,” she murmured to the midwife, knowing she wasn’t making sense to anyone but herself. “The dark man. He saved me.”

  “Of course he did, dear,” the midwife said, caressing her hand, obviously not listening.

  And he’d also saved Varra’s child, from the undead if not the perils of childbirth.

  She came back fully to the current moment, to the pain.

  “Derreg?” she said, blinking tears and sweat from her eyes.

  “I’m here,” he said from behind her, and she drifted again.

  The magic of the meadow’s flowers had . . . moved her, and Varra had found herself elsewhere, disconcerted, nauseated. A soft rain that smelled faintly of ash fell out of a black sky. She’d felt drowsy, as if she’d been sleepwalking and had only just awakened.

  Sitting low on the horizon, the setting sun tried to poke through a roof of dense dark clouds, but only a few stray rays penetrated the shroud. It was almost night.

  The sheer, cracked face of towering mountains hemmed her in. She was in a pass.

  Her mind tried to make sense of events. How had she arrived here? Some magic, some miracle of the meadow. . .

  Her child moved within her. She gasped, her knees went weak, and she nearly fell when she saw the growth of her belly.

  “How?” she whispered, and ran her hands over the now-swollen mound of her abdomen. The swell of her stomach seemed more miraculous than her inexplicable translocation. Moments ago, she had been little more than a month pregnant.

  Then she remembered. The dark man had touched her belly. He’d done something to the baby; he must have.

  Even as the thought registered, the contractions began, like a hand squeezing her womb. Her wonder turned in an instant to fear, and fear to terror.

  She was alone in an unknown place, and somehow soon to give birth. Her heart beat so fast she grew lightheaded. She tried to calm herself with long, deep breaths. The rain and the breeze summoned shivers. She had to find shelter, help. Gods, she needed help.

  She stumbled through the rocks, picking her way through the boulders, the stands of trees, calling out over the patter of the rain. The unliving shadows appeared to be gone. Perhaps the caravan was nearby? Or perhaps there was a village in the vicinity, a cottage, something, anything. She had to risk a shout.

  “Help! Anyone! Help, please!”

  She realized that she didn’t even now where she was. She’d been in a forest. Now she was in a mountain pass.

  “Gods,” she said, tears falling down her face. “Gods.”

  She wandered the shadowed landscape, shouting until her voice was hoarse, watching with a sense of dread as the sun sank. At last her legs would bear her no farther and she sagged to the ground under a cluster of pines, exhausted, wrapped in the aroma of pine needles and rain.

  She would give birth alone, outside, in the dark. The realization pressed against her chest, made it hard to breathe.

  “Help!” she called, expiating with a scream the pain of another contraction. “Help! Someone please, help!”

  Over the rain she heard voices.

  She froze, afraid to let hope nest in her chest. She cocked her head, listened, tried to hear above the thump of her own heart.

  Yes, voices!

  “Here!” she cried. She tried to stand but another contraction ripped through her and forced her back to the bed of pine needles. “Over here! Help me, please!”

  The ground vibrated under her and she soon saw what caused it. A patrol of armed and armored men mounted on warhorses moved through the pass at a rapid trot. A blazing sun and a rose—both incongruous in the bleak, shrouded land—were enameled on their breastplates. They looked about, as if seeking her, their mounts trotting and snorting.

  “The call came from around here,” one of them said, and pulled his horse around.

  “I heard it, too,” said a second.

  “Where are you?” another shouted.

  “Here!” she called, and held up a hand. Relief put more tears in her eyes but gave her voice strength. “I’m here.”

  Helmed heads turned to her. The men pulled up their horses.

  “Here in the pines!”

  “It’s a woman!” one of them shouted.

  Several of them swung out of their saddles, pushed through the pine limbs, and hurried to her side. They smelled of sweat and leather and horse and hope.

  “She’s with child!” said a young man whose helm seemed too large for his head. Even under the trees their bodies seemed to attract the last, meager rays of the setting sun, and the fading light limned their armor and shields. She could not take her eyes from the rose. Her memory blurred subsequent events, compressed what must have been close to an hour into moments. The oldest of the men, his long, gray-streaked hair leaking from beneath his helm, his face seamed with lines and scars that his trimmed beard could not hide, had kneeled beside her.

  “Rest easy,” he said. He closed his eyes and placed the fingertips of one hand on her arm.

  She felt his mind touch hers, as if evaluating her soul. She did not welcome the violation, but she was too tired to resist. After a moment he opened his eyes and nodded, seemingly satisfied.

  “What is your name, goodwoman?” he asked.

  His deep voice reminded her of a rolling brook. It calmed her.

  “Varra,” she said, and winced as another contraction knotted her abdomen.

  “You’ll be cared for, Varra.”

  He took a small holy symbol, a stylized rose, in his hand and placed both of his palms—gnarled and scarred from years of battle—on her stomach. He intoned a prayer to Amaunator. A soft glow spread from his palms to her abdomen, warming her, easing her pain, and quelling her fear.

  “You need a midwife,” he said. “And a priest skilled in childbirth. I can get you to both. Can you stand?”

  She nodded, and he helped her to her feet. He stood almost as tall as Erevis and smelled like the rain.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  “You’re with me. And safe.”

  The simple words took her by surprise, recalling, as they did, her wish from the meadow. Her eyes welled. The man removed his heavy cloak and draped it around her shoulders.

  “How did you come here?” he asked her, guiding her toward his horse.

  She felt the eyes of the other riders on her, their gazes heavy with questions. They’d already remounted.

  “How did you find the pass? Are others with you?”

  She swallowed, shook her head. “I was with a caravan, but . . . I think I’m alone now. And . . . I don’t know how I came here. What . . . pass is this?” “She could be in service to the Shadovar, Derreg,” said a young, squat rider.

  “Don’t be a fool,” the older man, Derreg, snapped. “Look at her. She is no servant of the shades.”

  “The shades of the desert of Anauroch?” Varra asked, wincing in anticipation of another contraction.

  “Desert?” said the young rider, his face pinched in a question. He looked to Derreg
. “She babbles.”

  “Erwil, ride toward the foothills,” Derreg said. “See if anyone else from her caravan is about.” To Varra, he said, “Do you think you can ride?”

  She took stock of her condition, nodded, grunted as another contraction pained her.

  “She rides Daybreak with me,” Derreg said to his men. “Nav, Greer, ride for the abbey. Tell the Oracle we found her. And tell the abbot we return with a pilgrim in the midst of labor. Then rouse Erdan. He has experience in these matters.”

  Two of the riders wheeled their mounts and rode off.

  “Abbey?” Varra asked, leaning heavily on Derreg. “Pilgrim? Oracle?”

  “The Abbey of the Rose,” Derreg said, as he assisted her toward the warhorse he had called Daybreak. “You’re a pilgrim, yes? Come to see the Oracle?”

  She had never heard of the Abbey of the Rose. “I . . . don’t know.”

  He studied her face, the age lines in his brow deepening with his frown. “Where are you from?”

  “Sembia. North and west of Ordulin.”

  Derreg’s eyes narrowed. He studied her expression as he said, “Ordulin is a wasteland. It was destroyed in the Shadowstorm. And Sembia is a vassal state to Netheril and the shades.”

  She stared at him uncomprehending.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She felt lightheaded. She shook her head. She must have misheard. “I don’t understand. I just left. . . ”