Pathfinder Tales: Lord of Runes

by Dave Gross

  “Perhaps not,” said the boss. “But I can be vexatious.” He ran toward Zutha, which looked like the worst possible idea. The runelord reached out a hand, aiming a ring. It began to flare, and the boss threw himself to the side to go for Tome—which had been his plan all along.

  The Shadowless Sword licked out twice.

  A scream filled the crypt, louder than Svannostel’s roar or any of the explosion. I couldn’t tell whether it came from Zutha or the open pages of the Tome. The sound stabbed deep into my ears and left puddles of blood in them.

  Zutha reeled, flailing a regenerating hand toward the book. The ghouls chewed off his fingers and spat out the rings. They swarmed thick enough to knock the Azlanti stones out of their orbit. Without them, I wondered how long he could hold out before they ate every last bit of him.

  The boss threw Tome’s front cover to Svannostel. The dragon caught it, said a spell, and disappeared.

  He threw the back cover to Kazyah. She shifted back to human form to catch it.

  “Now!” he yelled.

  Kazyah chanted a spell and slammed her earth breaker into the floor. The impact sent deep cracks across the room and up the walls. Thunder rolled through the earth, shaking stone off the walls, spilling more and more ghouls out of their cells.

  The boss slapped the Tome’s middle pages onto my chest. “Take these.”

  I tucked them under my arm as the ground crumbled beneath us. “You keep it. I don’t wanna get fat!”

  “Then resist the temptation to read it.” He hooked his arm around mine and pulled me into the air.

  “I ain’t tempted.” I held tight to the book and to him.

  Below us, Kazyah finished her spell and sank into the floor like it was a pool of water.

  As ghouls rained down, Zutha bellowed more Thassilonian words. The bodies of ghouls muffled the sound, but I guessed more of it was curses than spells.

  The boss shouted back in the same language. Whatever he said made Zutha curse louder, and then a ghoul grabbed both sides of his face and bit out the runelord’s tongue.

  As more falling stones and ghouls covered him, his squeals faded away. We flew up through the pit. Some kind of earthquake—and I had an idea what kind—had broken open all the cells to spill out the ghouls.

  “Is that the end of that guy?” I said.

  “Certainly not,” said the boss. “Pray there are enough ghouls to keep him occupied for many years.”

  “They’ll get full, won’t they? Then he’ll come for us.”

  The boss had nothing to say to that.

  By the time we reached the main floor, the joint was jumping. Kazyah’s earthquake had scattered Zutha’s army. Some ran out of the Cenotaph. Svannostel hovered above them, beating her wings to knock them down, blowing lightning kisses to incinerate the ones that ran.

  Illyria and Amaranthine were already flying out the open doors. The boss followed, slower on account of carrying me.

  Outside, he paused long enough to let Svannostel join us. Then he closed the weird green doors with a touch. We flew down to the base of the mountain.

  “Where is the carriage?” he asked. “Where are the others?”

  “I’d say right about there.” I pointed west.

  His eyes widened as he saw the dust clouds. The sound of war drums rolled across the foothills. He dug the spyglass out of his satchel.

  “They had to keep moving while we came inside after you. We tried to lose them, but this land is lousy with orcs, and we weren’t flying.”

  “What is that cloud to the south?” he said.

  Without a spyglass, I could only shrug. “Those guys are new.”

  As soon as I said it, I saw a third group coming from the southeast. The boss looked their way. More orcs. “They have warbeasts.”

  “Desna weeps,” I said. “I thought the hard part was over.”

  Peering through the glass, he said. “Far too many.”

  “You need to learn how to make the carriage fly,” I said.

  His eyebrows rose, but he had to know I wasn’t serious.

  “Make for the carriage,” he said.

  “What about Kazyah?”

  “She can escape on her own, and I cannot carry you with any speed.” He took to the air. He and Illyria flew toward the carriage.

  “Hey, what about me?” I knew I’d sort of killed him, but I didn’t like being ditched. Before I could get sore, Svannostel swooped down and grabbed me by the arms.

  “Hey, hey!” I yelled. “Shouldn’t I be riding on top?”

  “No.”

  She flew me to the Red Carriage. Eando was hanging onto the scorpion for his life while Janneke drove.

  Behind them ran twenty or so wargs, wolves the size of ponies. Most had orcs riding on their backs. One had a bloody streak running down its side. Eando must have got off a good shot.

  “Don’t spook the horses!” I yelled.

  Svannostel banked away as the horses screamed and veered the other way. I was bad enough for scaring horses, but there was no not spooking them with a great big dragon. At least they didn’t turn back to the orcs.

  On the second pass, Svannostel let go of me just before we reached the carriage. She was a good shot, too. I hit the roof, rolled, and hung onto the luggage rail. Down below, Arni woofed and stuck his head out the window.

  “Stay put, Arni!”

  I pushed Eando out of the way and started cranking the scorpion. “Reload! Janneke, we got two more groups coming in from the south.”

  “I can’t turn toward the mountain!”

  “Well, pick a group.”

  Ahead of us, the boss threw lightning at one war band while Illyria sent a blurry gray specter toward one of its shamans.

  The orcs had scorpions of their own mounted on the backs of their war rhinos. One shot a bolt so close I thought it’d gone straight through the boss, but he didn’t fall. Others fired arrows. Some fell past the wizards, but others ricocheted off their wards. That would only last so long, and the orcs were getting closer to them than we were.

  “Svannostel!” I yelled, wanting her to go help the boss and Illyria, but she’d already circled behind us. She laid down a line of white lightning, frying the first rank of wargs. The ones behind leaped over them and kept coming. The horses screamed, but they couldn’t run any faster.

  Eando slapped a bolt into the scorpion. I turned it around to fire at the orcs closing in on the boss, but we were too far away.

  “Go higher!” I yelled. That was pointless. The boss couldn’t hear me from that distance, especially not over the battle screams of the orcs.

  The orcs split into two groups. At first I thought they meant to surround the boss and Illyria. Then I saw that something else was cutting through them.

  Two dozen armored mercenaries charged from behind. At their head, I saw Faceless Kaid’s red plume.

  “Yes!” Janneke punched the air.

  I was happy about it too, but we were still outnumbered.

  “Look!” Eando shouted. “Turn this thing around!”

  I spun the scorpion back to point at the wargs. A big ugly one was close enough to nip at the back wheel. The angle was no good for me to shoot that one. Eando cast a spell, flinging a ball of acid down at it. The warg yelped and peeled away. I grinned to think we were routing them, but then I saw they weren’t running. They were just letting their reinforcements through.

  “Hell,” said Janneke. “Dragons!”

  I looked where she was pointing. Three blue-winged reptiles flew above the third group of orc marauders. I didn’t like it any better than she did, but it could have been worse. “Don’t be such a baby. It’s only wyverns.”

  She didn’t waste time shooting me a look.

  Svannostel headed for the wyverns. They spread out, trying to come at her from all sides. She blasted one with a breath of storm. It went down, trailing a spiral of smoke.

  The orcs threw everything they had at the dragon. Arrows glanced off her scales like fl
eas jumping off a dog, but a few stuck deep. A fireball blasted her hard enough to make her wobble in flight. Just as she was about to bank and snap up a wyvern in her jaws, another one swooped down and slung its tail around, stinging her with its tail-barb.

  Svannostel veered away, slapping the wyvern with her own tail. It didn’t have a barb, but it was heavy as an oak tree trunk. The wyvern went straight down, tried to catch itself, and crashed in front of a charging rhino. The driver tried to turn away, but the big beast trampled the fallen wyvern.

  Suddenly I was in the air, tumbling end over end until I hit something hard enough to knock out all my wind. All I could see at first was a bunch of green and yellow explosions. I felt the heat of the fireball that flipped us. I heard the horses screaming. I couldn’t figure out which way was up.

  As soon as I stood, something knocked me back down again. There were feet running past me on all sides. Blinking and gasping for breath, I got to my hands and knees and crawled until I could see again.

  The Red Carriage lay on its side, and so did the team, still caught in their harnesses. A little way past them, Janneke staggered to her feet. She’d lost her helm in the fall. That was becoming a habit.

  Kaid’s Band were jumping down from their horses and forming a shield wall around the carriage. They covered maybe half.

  The boss stood on the side of the carriage facing the sky. He pulled Illyria up through one side window while Arnisant scrambled out of the other, followed by Zora and her flag. Eando staggered around from the other side. He had two black eyes and a bloody nose. The others didn’t look much better.

  “Get in formation!” Kaid yelled at Janneke.

  All around us, the three orc bands regrouped. Two formed up together, while the third stood off to the side, too good for the others, or too bad. Their chief was big as an ogre—maybe he was an ogre—and he wore a cape of tattooed Shoanti skin.

  It was too much to hope that they’d fight each other, but I prayed anyway. “Sweet Desna, I would appreciate a smile about now.”

  One of Kaid’s girls—Stiletto—cut the horses loose from the carriage. The big fellows stood up and ran like hell in the direction of Ustalav. At least none of them had broken a leg, which was some kind of miracle. If Lady Luck was smiling on anybody just then, it was those horses. I hoped they ran all the way back to Elfland and got put out to stud.

  The rest of us weren’t going to be so lucky.

  The bigger of the two orc bands started up their war music. I could feel the drums pounding on my teeth. Their shamans shouted blessings on the troops. The chief barked out a speech, working them up into a good lather.

  The boss floated down from the sky and put a few riffle scrolls into my hand.

  “Use them all,” he said, before taking his own advice. We filled ourselves with strength and quickness and all the good magic we had left. Illyria busted out her own scrolls and kept a wand in one hand.

  Eando had his sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. He gave me a nod and said, “I’m with you, all right?”

  “All right,” I said.

  “I’m with you, too,” said Zora. She’d already unfurled her flag. I saw she’d inserted a spearhead at the top. She knew this was going to be more than a Korvosan alley scuffle.

  “The more the merrier.”

  When they came, the orcs deafened us with horns and drums. The way they smelled, they almost suffocated us, too.

  They smashed into Kaid’s mercenaries, punching holes through the line of shields. Those that broke past got arcane missiles in the face. A shaman made it through, turning his tusked head to pick a target. Before he could cast his spell, Illyria whipped a black lash of magic around his throat.

  Seeing that, Eando and I got on either side of him, left our graffiti, and got away just as his guts spilled down to his ankles. Zora came in a moment too late, but that was just as well. Her face turned green at the sight of the eviscerated orc.

  “Fill the gaps!” shouted Kaid. Her mercs obeyed, and the wall shrank a few feet shorter.

  A berserker leaped the shield wall. He stood for a second on top of the carriage, deciding who to chop first. Like the shaman before him, he took too long. The boss put a lightning bolt through both him and the rhino charging into the wall. It fell on it side, sliding through Kaid’s women and crushing the carriage boot and rear wheels.

  Shadows fell across the field around us, growing smaller as they got close. Maybe more wyverns had come our way, I thought. But looking up I saw eight big rocks falling among the bad guys. Each one crushed an orc into a puddle. The screams came from the survivors as the boulders unfolded into orc-sized earth spirits and showed them the true meaning of berserk.

  “Kazyah!” yelled Zora. She kept her flag moving, slapping arrows out of the air, snatching spells before they could hit us, and sometimes spearing an orc in the eye.

  Once more in the form of an earth spirit, Kazyah waded into the orcs. She was bigger than all of the elementals she’d hurled at them combined. She snatched up orcs and crushed them in her stony fingers. The orcs sank spears in her. They hacked at her with axes and hammers. She started to chip away.

  I yelled, “She needs help!”

  “Stay within the shield wall,” said the boss.

  It didn’t matter that he was right. I didn’t like leaving Kazyah out there by herself.

  Another orc made it over the shield wall. Somebody perforated him with arcane missiles. Eando cut him across the chest. I put the big knife in his spleen. He went down, but killing him made me tired, especially after the fight in the Cenotaph. It was taking an awful lot of work to make one dead orc. If we had to do that much for every one of them, we were never going to make it.

  Kazyah kept harrying the orcs outside our lines. Svannostel swept past now and then to drop lightning or bad magic on them. We killed dozens. It felt like hundreds.

  More kept coming.

  I was out of scrolls. Eando was down to blades. Illyria was down to her wands. Zora did what she could to support us, while another of Kaid’s Band fell every time the orcs hit the shield wall. The boss used his sword more and more. He threw away a spent riffle scroll with a look like it was his last one.

  Kazyah walked into the air above the orcs like she was climbing an invisible stair. Seeing her that way reminded me of her story at the Seraph’s Stair: the old man and the granddaughter, the one growing old too fast. She let go of the elemental shape, becoming flesh and blood.

  The orc spellcasters threw fire and frost at her. The archers covered her in arrows. Some flicked away as if they’d hit stone. Others sank deep into her. She threw back spells of her own, but when she looked our way she caught my eye.

  For a second I saw her the way she looked before her son was born. Then I caught a glimpse of the old woman she ought to be. She looked at me and said something. I read the words off her lips:

  Until our skulls are gathered.

  I caught a glimpse of her skin turning to stone as she fell back into the sea of orcs. I like to think she sank into the earth and flowed through the ground somewhere far away. That’s what I like to think.

  Anyway, that was the last I saw of Kazyah the Night Bear.

  “I can’t believe we’re going to die fighting orcs,” said Illyria. “We survived the crypt of Zutha. This isn’t the least bit romantic!”

  “Goddamned orcs,” said Eando.

  “Goddamned orcs,” I agreed.

  A sound of thunder rose from the south. Lightning flashed across the sky.

  “Go!” said the boss. He’d just finished casting the last of his flying spells on Illyria.

  “Come with me!” She reached for him. Amaranthine curled around her upper arm.

  “Go now,” he said. I could tell by the way his body moved that his own spell was still working. He could have gone with her, but he stayed with us.

  Illyria flew up to join Svannostel. They could fight from the sky. When the rest of us were dead, they could fly away.

/>   The bronze dragon flew close overhead, blowing Illyria off course. Just as she righted herself, another bronze dragon followed the first.

  “Am I seeing double?” said Zora.

  The orcs’ cheers changed to screams of panic. The thunder kept growing louder. The front lines fell back. Kaid’s women lowered their shields, and we saw what distracted them.

  An honest-to-Iomedaea cavalry charged through their rear lines. I recognized the sword and sun on their tabards. They were knights of Lastwall, dedicated to keeping the orcs bottled up in Belkzen and watching over Gallowspire, on the other side of their country. What they were doing here I couldn’t figure. For a second I thought somebody had cast an illusion, but then I remembered that Svannostel had a brother.

  Who lived in Vigil.

  “We’re saved!” shouted Eando.

  “Don’t get cocky,” I said. “That’s when you get killed.”

  He sobered up. We stuck near the boss and Zora, protecting each other’s backs as a few desperate orcs ran our way instead of toward the ranks of knights. Bloody lances plowed furrows through the orc mob.

  It was still hard work, fighting off the orcs until they ran. But soon it became short work.

  When it started to look clear for us, the boss flew up to join Illyria. Their hair floated in the static left behind by the dragon’s breath. They looked like the heroes in one of Illyria’s romances, soaring above the field. Beneath them, covered in dust and blood, the rest of us bundled up the wounded and closed the eyes of the dead.

  Epilogue

  Vigil

  Varian

  In the great hall of Castle Overwatch, we paid our respects at the Shattered Shield of Arnisant. Once known as the Shield of Aroden, blessed by the now-dead god of humanity, its broken remains offered mute testimony of the sacrifice demanded of those who dared oppose the Whispering Tyrant.

  “Your namesake bore that escutcheon, Arnisant.” The hound looked up at me when he heard his name. I scratched his curly gray head. He had lost some of his plumpness during our recent ordeals, but I restrained myself from offering him a treat before suppertime. “He too was a very good boy.”

  Arnisant looked at the shield as if he understood my words. The gesture seemed so human that even Svannostel turned her head in a querulous gesture. Her comely elven form still seemed strange to me after having fought her as a dragon in her lair. She carried the Black Book in a leather pack slung across her shoulders. She had assured me the book would remain secure even after she transformed back into her draconic form.