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"And who is to be the Hammerseeker?" Patriarch Anton intoned ceremoniously.
Tarl drew in a deep breath. "The name of the Hammerseeker is Kern Miltiades
Desanea!" His deep voice rever-berated about the temple.
Listle's silvery eyes nearly popped out of her head.
Tarl smiled proudly at his son.
Kern gaped at his father in utter astonishment as all eyes turned expectantly
toward him.
"Who?" he blurted in an unexpectedly squeaky voice. "Me?"
3
Mysterious foes
The huge assassin called Slayer strode into the smoky subterranean hall and
surveyed the gathered throng with cruel eyes, his lips curling back from his
strong white teeth in a feral grin. It looked as if every last member of
Phlan's guild of thieves had answered the call, from the scroungiest cutpurse
to the deadliest killer. Over three hundred men and women stood before Slayer,
and all of them were his to command. The old fools of the temple of Tyr had
seen their last sunrise.
"I have a gift for you, thieves of Phlan!" Slayer pro-claimed in his booming
voice. "From Guildmaster
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Sirana herself. You would do well not to refuse it."
He gestured to a huge, misshapen heap before him, covered with a rough cloth
the color of old blood. At his signal, a trio of thieves leaped forward to
pull back the cloth, revealing a pile of ebony armor. Next to it was a stack
of long swords as dark and polished as onyx.
"With these weapons, we will crush the wretched cler-ics and seize the tome
that points the way to the
Hammer of Tyr and the riches Bane is said to have buried with that relic. Clad
yourselves in this armor and take up these swords, thieves of Phlan, and I
promise you, you will fight as you never have before!"
The thieves eyed Slayer hesitantly. He had been sec-ond-in-command of the
thieves' guild for no more than three moons, and many were still wary of him.
Slayer watched them scornfully. "Now!" he thundered, drawing himself up to his
full seven feet. The soot-covered rafters shook with the force of his voice,
and his dark eyes blazed with menace. Clad all in black leather, he was a
commanding figure.
The resistance of the thieves broke. Swiftly they pressed forward, grabbing
breastplates as smooth as beetle cara-paces and swords as sleek as adders.
Most of them were at a loss as to how to don the armor, and they stared at the
weapons in confusion. Thieves were usually creatures of stealth and trickery,
not warriors.
"We're cutthroats, Slayer, not bone-brained fighters!" a voice sneered over
the din. "Or did you forget that, just as you and your foul mistress have
forgotten so many of our other traditions?"
Slayer turned his dark gaze toward a wiry man with a shaved head and an eye
lost in a mass of scar tissue. Kankorlin. He had been loyal to Bercan, the
guildmaster Sirana had murdered three months before.
Kankorlin had been whispering against Sirana ever since she seized command of
the guild. Now he had finally summoned the courage to speak out.
"I for one won't wear this junk!" Kankorlin tossed down a breastplate in
disgust and turned to the assembled thieves. "We can't lumber up to the temple
in these. Fine targets we'll make for the spells of those idiot clerics."
Murmurs of agreement drifted through the hall.
"Is that so, Kankorlin?" Slayer replied, his voice as smooth as oil. "Well, if
you don't care to wear the armor, you certainly don't have to."
Kankorlin smiled at his easy victory. However, his plea-sure was short-lived.
With an idle flick of his black-gloved hand, Slayer sent an inky sphere of
magic hurtling toward
Kankorlin. It struck the wiry thief directly in the chest. There was a
siz-zling sound and a smell of burning flesh as the thief was propelled
backward and crushed against a granite wall. The other thieves stared in shock
as the remnants of Kankorlin's body slid to the floor, still smoking.
"Who else prefers not to don the armor?" Slayer inquired.
Three hundred thieves less one scrambled to strap on the onyx breastplates.
With a flourish, Slayer raised his own suit of black armor in one hand. Fiery
sparks sped from his fingertips to engulf the ebony armor. In the blink of an
eye the suit magically melded to his body. The metal conformed tightly to his
muscles, fitting him like a second skin.
As the thieves strapped on the black armor, they noted the slippery, greasy
quality of the metal. As the form-fitting metal covered each wearer from neck
to ankle, a subtle transformation took place. Each thief suddenly became a
little bulkier, more muscular. Faces grew harder and coarser; brutish gleams
ignited in every pair of eyes. Slayer stroked his well-oiled beard, most
pleased. Sirana's enchanted armor seemed to be everything she had promised it
would be.
Suddenly the torches dimmed as a chill gust of wind coursed through the hall.
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