The Paladins Read Online Free PDF Page A

goes,” said Harloon.
    “Fine! Then none of you goes. I’ll send Force Grey, which is what I wanted to do in the first place! I don’t know you, and I don’t know how you’ll deal with this situation—”
    “Khelben!” called Aleena from outside the circle of warriors that closed upon Blackstaff. “Hold your temper.”
    “You defy the commands of your lord, Piegeiron,” Trandon accused.
    “My lord? Let’s get one thing straight. Lord Paladinson is not my sovereign, he’s my colleague. Don’t try to use him to push me around! You know, the more I think about it, the more foolish this whole plan sounds….”
    The warriors of Tyr erupted in protest. The word honor emerged from the din. Aleena tried to intervene again but could not make herself heard. Noph stood blinking. This is just like a meeting of father’s fellow lumber merchants, he thought. They’re all bickering for their shares. For a moment, he wondered if heroism was just an ordinary job. The thought made him angry.
    “Hey! Hey! HEY!” he shouted, until the mighty wizards and warriors fell silent and stared indignantly at him. “Undermountain’s right below our feet, isn’t it? Why don’t we just hoof it there?”
    Can we walk to the third level of Undermountain from here?” asked Miltiades.
    “Well… we can sail there,” answered Aleena, hesitating. “But you paladins won’t like it.” She looked toward Khelben, who threw up his hands and looked away, thoroughly disgusted. “We’ll have to pass through Skullport.”
    “Skullport?” asked Jacob.
    “A city of criminals, outlaws, and… undead,” said Miltiades. His voice was filled with dread, as he recalled his own existence as a death knight. He sighed heavily. “So be it. Piegeiron wanted the paladins of Tyr to lead the rescue, and Kern is one of the two. Through Skullport it is.”
    Aleena’s eyes met Noph’s, and she smiled reassuringly, but her face fell as she turned away.
    Interlude 2
    Knowledge is power. If you destroy your teacher, it will be all yours.
    A twelve-foot stone wall surrounded the city where the bloodforge was hidden, but a thousand barriers could not bar the way of tanar’ri, were they not magically enhanced with powerful wards—as this wall was. The magnitude of its impregnability surprised the vrocks. Shaakat and Rejik circled above the habitation, carefully avoiding the invisible border, for no magic or might would allow them to enter. To the humans below, the vrocks appeared to be common vultures circling some unfortunate, fallen beast outside the city walls.
    “There,” thought Shaakat to his confederate, pointing with his gaunt hand to a dome within an enclosed courtyard of a large building, near the south wall. “Smell it?”
    “Yes! A dimensional portal. A gate! In that round-topped structure surrounded by human sentinels.”
    The fiends laughed at the idea of a mere human protecting anything.
    “Who knows where the gate’s other side may lie?” whined Rejik.
    “The primes in that burg below, leatherhead. See those humans just emerging from the keep? Let’s scrag ‘em!”
    The vrocks spiraled lazily downward, waiting for the pair of riders to clear the warded walls before swooping in. As they cleared the magical barrier, the humans seemed to sense their peril, for they kicked at their steeds and broke into a gallop, making for the forest beyond. Shaakat and Rejik clucked in anticipation of sport and pulled in their wings, dipping into a dive. They leveled off and soared just over the riders’ heads, parting their black beaks and piercing the air with a terrible, deafening screech, which stunned both the horses and the humans.
    With horrible screams of their own, the horses writhed in terror and tumbled to the ground, pitching their helpless riders over their heads. Shaakat and Rejik came about just as the horses regained their feet. The fiends slashed the poor beasts from shoulders to rumps as they streaked by again. Both animals wailed