The Gates of Thelgrim Read online

  Descent: Legends of the Dark

  Terrinoth: an ancient realm of forgotten greatness and faded legacies, of magic and monsters, heroes, and tyrants. Its cities were ruined and their secrets lost as terrifying dragons, undead armies, and demon-possessed hordes ravaged the land. Over centuries, the realm slipped into gloom…

  Now, the world is reawakening – the Baronies of Daqan rebuild their domains, wizards master lapsed arts, and champions test their mettle. Banding together to explore the dangerous caves, ancient ruins, dark dungeons, and cursed forests of Terrinoth, they unearth priceless treasures and terrible foes.

  Yet time is running out, for in the shadows a malevolent force has grown, preparing to spread evil across the world. Now, when the land needs them most, is the moment for its heroes to rise.

  First published by Aconyte Books in 2021

  ISBN 978 1 83908 098 2

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 83908 099 9

  Copyright © 2021 Fantasy Flight Games

  All rights reserved. Aconyte and the Aconyte icon are registered trademarks of Asmodee Group SA. Descent: Legends of the Dark and the FFG logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fantasy Flight Games.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover art by Jeff Chen.

  Map by Francesca Baerald.

  Distributed in North America by Simon & Schuster Inc, New York, USA

  ACONYTE BOOKS

  An imprint of Asmodee Entertainment Ltd

  Mercury House, Shipstones Business Centre

  North Gate, Nottingham NG7 7FN, UK

  aconytebooks.com // twitter.com/aconytebooks

  This book is dedicated to Adela, my one-and-all.

  Prologue

  “Stay close,” Tiabette told Sarra.

  She knew it was a stupid thing to say, because right now she was clutching Sarra’s hand as tightly as possible. The little girl had no choice other than to stay close.

  In truth, Tiabette knew she was saying it for her own benefit as much as her daughter’s. ‘Stay close’ had become a sort of mantra over the past few months, all the way from their home west of Kellar, on the long, brutal trek through the Howling Giant Hills, west seeking shelter in the icy streets of Frostgate, and then north-east and beyond to the edge of the world. ‘Stay close’ sometimes felt like all Tiabette had, the only form of control she could still exert in a life that, otherwise, had been wholly taken away from her.

  “I’m tired,” Sarra complained. Tiabette did her best not to snap back at her.

  “Not much further now, sweetheart,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed ahead.

  She didn’t think she could carry Sarra in her arms again. In the months spent on the road with the other refugees, trying to outrun the Uthuk warbands that were spreading like the plague through eastern Terrinoth, she’d seen incredible feats of endurance from parents battling to keep their children alive. She felt as though she’d carried Sarra across half of Terrinoth herself, through cloying mud and swampy tracts and thorny, cutting forests. In Frostgate she’d given up the leather of her shoes to mend her daughter’s – she had walked barefoot ever since, the soles of her feet long since reduced to pads of tough, numb skin. The two of them had come so far, yet, despite it all, she wasn’t sure she could carry Sarra another step. If she fell now, she knew she wouldn’t be able to get up again.

  “You always say not much further,” Sarra complained. Tiabette closed her eyes for a moment as she walked, trying to keep her voice level.

  “This time I really mean it. Look. You can see the end, right there. It’s getting closer, with every step.”

  She opened her eyes and pointed forward, over the bowed heads of those trudging in front. Beyond them the Dunwarr Mountains rose like a vast curtain wall, sheer flanks of gray and purple soaring up to jagged parapets of snowy white. It seemed as though they had been set to guard the heavens themselves, framed by a cloudless sky that arched overhead from peak to flanking peak like some vast, azure vault.

  “We’re really going there?” Sarra asked, following Tiabette’s gesture. Directly ahead, further along the rocky path that the caravan had been following through the foothills, stood something that glittered gold and silver in the distance. From far out it looked like a wall set into the base of the mountainside, a smooth block carved by cunning artifice into the jagged lower face of the peaks. Tiabette knew that it wasn’t a wall though. It was a gate.

  “We are,” she reassured Sarra, managing to smile down at her. “And we’re so close now we can even see it! So not much further!”

  How many times had she said those words lately? How many times had they been a lie, told as much to herself as to her daughter? Now, finally, they were coming true. Just a little further.

  The caravan trudged on. There had been about a hundred of them when they’d first left Frostgate three weeks earlier. Now there were half that number. Some had broken off and gone to Highmont as they had skirted past the southern edges of Blind Muir forest. Others had turned back or dropped by the wayside. Some had simply disappeared overnight. Tiabette tried not to think about those.

  She’d learned quickly how to survive on the road. You couldn’t trust the people in the caravans. All of them were desperate, and desperate people did desperate things. The ones that offered to help, they were the worst of all – they always wanted a favor in return, or were just searching for the weak and vulnerable behind the guise of kindness, sifting for prey amidst the lost souls cast onto Terrinoth’s roads by the war that had gripped the baronies. They were like wolves, stalking in amongst the flock, always watching, always hungry.

  She’d discovered that to her cost when an elderly man who’d looked after Sarra on several occasions while she’d been bartering for food, had robbed her while she slept. Now she avoided the helpers, avoided those with the distant stares, and the ones who muttered constantly under their breath. She spoke to no one, and instructed Sarra to do the same.

  “Stay close,” she urged her once more. Sarra clung on, though Tiabette could see how her small steps faltered. Not now, she silently urged. Not when they were so close.

  The gates were more clearly visible now. Tiabette tried to focus on them, seeking anything that could help take her mind off the stiff, trembling exhaustion in her limbs or the aching pit of hunger in her stomach. She could see an arch of carved rock rising above the huge entranceway, its sheer size only becoming apparent the nearer they got. Towers and ramparts had been carved directly into the steep slopes to their side, seemingly spouting fully-formed from the rockface, so well designed it was difficult to tell where mountain ended and fortress began. The gates themselves stood partially open, the sunlight gleaming brilliantly from the burnished metal cladding them. Tiabette realized, as the caravan drew gradually closer, that they had been fashioned in the likeness of two huge Dunwarr warriors, standing back-to-back,
as though warding off surrounding foes in the midst of the mountain pass. Even with the entrance still at a distance, the sheer scale of the architecture almost made her falter and lose her footing.

  She realized that the track, for so long a rutted, stony pathway winding unevenly through the foothills, had been replaced with a more solid road of carefully-laid, interlocking cobbles, worn smooth by the passage of countless feet. The valley was likewise constricting ever more sharply on either side of them, its flanks rising above to block out the sunlight while leaving it shining down upon the great gate ahead of them, making it gleam like a beacon in the gloom.

  “Will we get to see the dwarfs, Mam?” Sarra asked her. “The ones who live under the mountains?”

  “Yes, sweetheart,” Tiabette said, too distracted to reply properly. There was a change in the movement up ahead, or rather, a lack of it. The family of five directly in front of them – a husband and wife, their parents and their infant son – had all come to a stumbling halt, blocked by a covered wagon carrying sacks of supplies.

  Something, somewhere down the line, had stalled. That in itself was hardly unusual. It seemed that every hour a cart would throw a wheel or one of the oxen would falter and fall. The whole procession would then shuffle to a halt, as people argued and cursed one another. Eventually whatever had caused the delay would either be fixed or simply hauled off the roadway and abandoned, and the ponderous line would get underway again.

  Tiabette usually kept to the side whenever there was a halt. Tempers always rose, and she’d seen enough blood spilled in thoughtless anger over the last few months to know it wasn’t worth getting involved in the crowd that always gathered around whatever was causing the obstruction. Today, however, was different. Today the end was in sight, achingly close. After everything they’d been through, to be able to see the gates themselves – it was too much.

  She felt her anger flare.

  “Stay close,” she repeated, keeping hold of Sarra’s hand as she led her off to one side, into the cold lee of the sheer slopes flanking the road. She was trying to get a better view of whatever had caused the caravan to stop, but others had already had a similar idea. Bodies blocked the route up to the gates, voices rising as a sense of agitation swept through the huddled groups of refugees.

  “Why are we stopping?” Sarra asked, standing on her tiptoes as she strained for a better view.

  “We aren’t,” Tiabette corrected her, leading her along the side of the road. From Kellar to the very base of the Dunwarrs, she hadn’t struggled half the length of Terrinoth just to be stopped by some fat sutler’s broken wagon axle.

  The press of bodies grew rapidly denser. The gates were soaring just ahead now, the scars of a thousand sieges visible in the huge, elaborately crafted metal bands that protected the entranceway. The voices around Tiabette were rising as well, competing with the shouting now audible from ahead. It appeared to be coming from the gates themselves.

  There was no obstruction, she realized, not on the road anyway. The caravan had met another that appeared to have been stalled right in front of the gates themselves. A short slope led up to the final approach, and the raised elevation allowed Tiabette to see over the heads of those crowding in front.

  The gates were still open, but the route through them had been blocked. A solid phalanx of Dunwarr warriors stood like a wedge between the two halves of the entranceway, the mountain sun gleaming brilliantly from burnished helmets and metal-banded shields. One of their number had come forward, taking up a position a few paces ahead of the front ranks. She seemed to be in conversation with a gaggle of refugees, presumably the leaders of the caravan that had arrived just before Tiabette’s. Their voices were raised, but the hubbub of the intervening crowd masked their actual words.

  “They’re going to bar the gates,” an old woman in a ragged shawl next to Tiabette exclaimed. “They’re going to lock us out!”

  “Nonsense,” snapped a heavy-set man dressed in a fur-lined, red merchant’s tunic, glaring back at the woman. “The Dunwarr have been accepting refugees for months. They wouldn’t just stop today!”

  “You can’t know that for sure,” called out another voice, unseen amongst the gathering.

  The claim drew out more voices, rising and melding together in an angry, confused outcry. Tiabette felt the same rising swell of panic that was infecting those around her, twinned with the desperate hope that she was mistaken. Surely something like this couldn’t really be happening.

  “What’s going on, Mam?” Sarra pleaded, tugging on Tiabette’s hand. She shushed her, trying to follow what was happening at the gates. One of the refugees, an elf, was throwing his arms up angrily. He turned and stormed back towards the crowd, as several of the human delegates seemed to try to push past the dwarf they’d been conferring with.

  There was a general, swaying motion amongst the bodies around Tiabette. She felt herself being thrust forward, shoving, jostling refugees beginning to force those at the front up the slope and towards the Dunwarr ranks.

  “Hold on,” Tiabette shouted to her daughter, trying to keep her close. It seemed as though the crowd was going to surge up into the dwarfs, heedless of their presence barring their way.

  That was when a voice rang out, deep and commanding. It was accompanied by the single peal of a mountain horn, unseen, echoing sharply down the valley.

  The dwarfs ahead reacted immediately. Shields were brought up and slammed together, creating a fearsome, echoing report that sounded from the slopes on either side. At the same time, the second rank shifted. Tiabette caught sight of crossbows being raised, poised between the overlapping shields of the Dunwarri in front. They were loaded, the wicked tips of the quarrels gleaming.

  A wail went up from the crowd as those at the front urgently began to push back against the ones shoving forward from behind. Sarra screamed as she was almost dragged from Tiabette’s grip. She clung onto her daughter with both hands, pulling her in close as they were both nearly lifted from their feet by the diverging currents driving the crowd.

  There was another horn blast, ringing through the cold, clear air. People around Tiabette were crying and screaming now, total panic overwhelming the refugees as the sound of vast, rumbling hinges rose above the discord.

  With another shuddering crash, the Dunwarr phalanx moved. They took a step back, shield wall staying intact and crossbows never wavering. Another step, then another, the darkness beyond the doors slowly swallowing them up. As they went, the vast gates began to swing steadily shut, the sunlight catching the scarred metal.

  “No,” Tiabette shouted as she was driven further back by the crowd, her hopes plummeting as a sense of absolute helplessness gripped her. She tried to free herself from the press, but it was no use. All she could do was cling on to her daughter and attempt to shield her from the shoving, stumbling, shouting mass.

  With a crash that seemed to shake the very mountain peaks above them, the gates of Thelgrim slammed shut.

  Chapter One

  The man named Slevchek slammed his fist into the table, spilling ale and scattering coins across the scratched, sticky timber.

  “Cheat,” he bellowed, glaring furiously at Raythen. The dwarf returned an equally fierce look, his single, dark eye glinting in the sallow candlelight of the taproom.

  “Piece of advice, manling,” he said. “It’s not clever to accuse someone of cheating at cards when they’ve just beaten you. It makes you look like a bad loser which, I’ll grant, you probably are. But, for future reference, if you’re going to sling mud do it while you’re ahead. The second round we played, perhaps, or the third, while you were still winning. It makes it more believable, more honest-looking.”

  Raythen wasn’t sure if anything he’d just said had reached Slevchek’s admittedly small brain. The heavy-set merchant was practically steaming with fury, his fists bunched, jaw clenched, ruddy complexion turning an even uglie
r shade of puce. His compatriots, two other human traders sitting to his left and right, seemed caught between their desire to back up their friend and their aversion to making a scene in the middle of the bar.

  In Raythen’s private opinion, it was a bit late for that. The taproom beneath Skellig’s Inn had gone deadly quiet as carousers turned their attention expectantly towards where Raythen and his fellow gamblers were sitting. The dispute had been rumbling all evening, as Slevchek became ever-more drunk and belligerent. He’d mocked Raythen’s early setbacks, then reacted with increasing outrage as the dwarf had first won back his losses, then started steadily building on them.

  Of course, the oafish human was quite correct – Raythen had been cheating. Nothing especially nuanced, but naturally the pack was rigged. Raythen had a few duplicates he’d palmed, with a backup Barony Queen concealed beneath a platter of half-eaten poultry wings he’d been deliberately taking his time with.

  “Never trust a Dunwarr when it comes to gold,” Slevchek spat across the table, cuffing drool from his chin stubble. “Especially a one-eyed, one-handed one!”

  Making such a remark toward a dwarf would normally have seen the human’s skull smashed by a bar stool or an axe, but Raythen had heard it all before. Besides, he was no ordinary Dunwarr. He smiled.

  “Come now, manling, we’re three apiece. If I’m cheating, I’m not doing a very good job of it,” he said.

  “You’ve won all the big bets,” whined one of Slevchek’s companions, a sniveling, sunken-eyed little man whose name Raythen hadn’t bothered to remember.

  “I wasn’t the one who started raising the stakes,” he pointed out. “That’s down to you three gentlemen.”

  He could feel the attention of the rest of the bar on them, a fact Slevchek and his friends seemed oblivious to. Right now, that was the only variable Raythen felt vaguely uncomfortable about. He could keep these three idiots going all night, but what if someone else intervened? What if one of the other patrons had seen the trick before, or just possessed a keener eye and a clearer head than the human trio. He’d noted the presence of two elves earlier in the evening, and one of the bar servers had been staring at him for the better part of an hour, even before Slevchek’s outrage had started to draw a more general crowd. He feared it wasn’t because of his good looks either.