by Wulf, Rich
A small monk in a shimmering copper robe blocked her path.
“Hello, Norra Cais,” the man said. He smiled at her, but there was no joy in his smile. He looked upon her with peculiar metallic eyes. There was something vaguely reptilian about his appearance and demeanor.
Norra pulled another bead from her necklace and hurled it at the man. It exploded in a sphere of searing flame. The monk lunged through the smoke with an irritated snarl. He moved fast, quicker than Norra could avoid. He seized her by the shoulders and thrust her back against the wall so hard that her head cracked the wood.
The monk stepped away and smoothed his robes with one hand as Norra slid to the floor. She touched the back of her head with one hand. Her fingers felt warm and sticky.
“As a teller of tales, there is one thing I disdain,” the monk said. “Do you know what it is?”
“You’re Zamiel,” Norra said, looking up at him in terror. “You’re the one who started all of this.”
“Endings,” Zamiel said, ignoring her. “I abhor endings. In telling a tale, one lives the tale. With each revision it is told over and over in the author’s soul. As you construct it, you see the ending. It is ever-present in the author’s mind. By the time it comes to a conclusion, the ending, to me at least, seems obvious. Redundant even. Bringing that ending to execution is oftentimes rather tedious. Don’t you think?”
“Why did you do this?” she asked, struggling to sit up.
“And yet an ending is required,” Zamiel continued. “Without it, the rest of the story is for nothing. Without closure, the story lingers forever and ceases to be a story at all. So it is a terrible irony that all who create must, inevitably, destroy their creations. If they do not. then they have created nothing.”
“Stop babbling and answer me,” she said.
Zamiel cocked his head. “Such arrogance. Strange that you should demand answers. You understand more than any of them and still you do not see the truth? I am no player in this game. I am the game. Sadly your part in my story is at end, Norra Cais.”
“You’re too late to stop me, Zamiel,” she said defiantly.
The prophet’s eyes hardened.
Norra reached desperately for the dagger in her boot. She had just enough time to watch the blade shatter on the little man’s flesh before he snapped her neck.
ELEVEN
Though they had set out early in the morning, the forest was quite dark. The crowns of the trees were woven so thickly that the area was cast in a perpetual twilight. An unsettling, musty odor hung in the air. Zed’s expression was troubled as he studied a nearby tree.
“What is it?” Eraina asked, moving beside him.
Zed pointed. A crude triangular metal amulet hung from a low branch. A swirling flame was carved upon its surface.
“That looks like a symbol of the Silver Flame,” Eraina said, peering at it closely.
“What is that doing here?” Shaimin asked, riding back to them. He frowned. “Holy ground?”
“The opposite,” Zed said. “Remember the legends about these woods being haunted?”
Eraina nodded.
“Knights of the Silver Flame leave symbols like these,” Zed said. “They serve to warn travelers that the area is infested with undead, and to offer the Flame’s protection to any bold enough to travel further. Look.” He pointed at some of the nearby trees. At least a half dozen other crude holy symbols were visible dangling from the branches.
“If the knights are aware of trouble, why wouldn’t they just send in their exorcists to deal with it?” Shaimin asked.
“During the war, our forces were often spread too thin to take the risk, especially here on the borderlands,” Zed said. “If the walking dead were content to mind their own business, we were content to leave them alone until we were ready to deal with them.”
“In Karrnath this sort of thing is not uncommon,” Eraina said. “Undead can be powerful and unpredictable foes. More often than not, they merely wish to be left alone. I will not deny they are dangerous and often evil, but sometimes it is better this way.”
“Do you believe this warning is genuine?” Shaimin asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps this was left by Marth’s troops to turn away superstitious locals. I didn’t notice anything unusual when I came here earlier, but admittedly the messenger was riding swiftly.”
“There is a sense of something evil in the air,” Eraina said. “I do not think this warning is false.”
“I wouldn’t put it past Marth to establish his headquarters in an area known to be haunted,” Zed said. “With his kind of power, he wouldn’t have a lot to fear from most undead. He might even have found a way to control them—or at least ward them off so that only intruders would have to deal with them.”
“We will not arrive upon any useful answer by wasting time here with pointless theories,” Shaimin snapped, then strode off through the woods. “We should keep moving. The truth will present itself when it is ready. We shall be prepared to face it.”
“Boldrei will protect us from the undead, Arthen,” Eraina said. “Come. We have to keep moving.” She hurried after the departing elf.
Zed looked back at the dangling amulet. Something about it unnerved him. Was he more disturbed by the warning it presented or by the memories it conjured? There was a time when a symbol of the Silver Flame much like this one was one of his most prized possessions. As a paladin, it had symbolized his connection to his god. He’d left his flame in the mud at Vathirond years ago, on the day he realized justice was dead and the gods no longer protected their people.
Now he felt differently. The idealism he had clung to so firmly in his youth was long dead, but it had been replaced by something stronger. Perhaps the world was not a perfect place. The gods might not take a personal hand in the lives of their faithful—but there were heroes if you searched for them. They were imperfect heroes, but heroes all the same. Justice was not dead, but it could not live without sacrifice.
“Arthen, are you coming?” Shaimin whispered.
“Aye,” Zed replied. He pulled the symbol from its branch and slipped it into his pocket.
“The Cyran messenger took a path parallel to this one,” Shaimin said, gesturing toward the woods to his left. “I’d prefer not to take an identical route, lest we encounter patrols.”
“Afraid you can’t handle a few soldiers?” Zed said, hoping to annoy the smug elf.
“Killing without compensation upsets my delicate stomach,” Shaimin replied, smirking.
“Shaimin is right,” Eraina said. “We should avoid fighting if we can.” She studied the thick forest uneasily. Hints of broken stone walls could be seen here and there amid the undergrowth. “It looks like this was some sort of outpost.”
“Thrane knights?” Shaimin asked.
“Smugglers or mercenaries, more likely,” Zed said. “I don’t recall any Thrane outposts this deep in the Harrowcrowns.”
“Or something worse,” Eraina said. She knelt beside a heap of fallen stone and peeled away the undergrowth with one gauntleted hand. Smoothing away the dirt and debris, she revealed an ancient hexagram engraved in the stone.
Shaimin snarled and drew back, eyes darting about the shadows as if expecting an attack. “A symbol of the Dark Six,” he whispered.
“This must have been some sort of cultist temple,” Eraina said. “The knights probably wiped them out, then sealed off the area.”
“Why is it everywhere we go, we run into some death cult or abandoned temple?” Zed asked.
“I would be surprised if Marth’s interest in both Zul’nadn and this place were mere coincidence,” Eraina said. She stood and looked around slowly. “Whatever happened here, it happened a long time ago, from the look of this place.”
A mournful wail resounded from deeper in the woods. Shaimin’s daggers appeared in his hands. He looked at Zed and Eraina, gave an embarrassed chuckle, and slipped them back into his sleeves.
“Nervous, Shaimin?” Zed ask
ed.
Shaimin scowled. “As you should be,” the elf replied. “My people know and respect the power of the dead. I do not relish the idea of entering their territory unprepared.”
“If there are undead in these woods, they didn’t bother you last time you came this way,” Zed said.
“Last time I didn’t come this way,” Shaimin replied. “I followed Yarold’s messenger and saw none of this. If Marth is mad enough to build Fort Ash on the ruins of a death cult, then he must have some means to protect himself and his minions from the predations of whatever lurks in these woods. Perhaps avoiding the path was unwise after all.”
“We’ll be fine,” Eraina said. She rose and started off through the woods again. “We just need to keep moving.”
Another cry, closer this time, encouraged Shaimin and Zed to follow the Sentinel Marshal. They quickly picked their way through the thick undergrowth, avoiding the shadowed remnants of ruined stone that loomed amid the trees. A strange sound erupted behind them, the raucous clatter of hundreds of flapping wings. They glanced back just as a cloud of shrieking creatures swarmed overhead, blotting out what little light filtered through the trees.
Shaimin relaxed slightly and sheathed his daggers again. “Only bats,” he breathed.
“Something startled them,” Eraina said brusquely. “Keep moving.”
Shaimin glanced back, eyes wide. Zed grabbed the elf’s shoulder and shoved him to get him moving again. As the bats vanished from sight and sound, their cries were replaced by the sound of several creatures moving through the woods behind them, snapping branches and scattering leaves.
They broke into a run. Zed risked a glance over one shoulder and saw several hunched figures loping through the woods behind them. Their eyes gleamed with red pinpoints of light. His hand unconsciously moved to the metal holy symbol in his pocket as they hurried on.
They emerged into a small clearing surrounded by broken stone plinths. A half dozen ragged figures waited for them. Like the others, their eyes gleamed with red hunger. Their flesh was pale and rotten, their fingers curled into savage claws.
Eraina drew the sacred octogram from her pocket and held it defiantly before her. “By the light of the Hearthmother, burn!” she cried.
Golden flames erupted from the ghoul’s flesh. The creatures shrieked and scattered.
“Keep running before they regroup!” Eraina shouted, darting through the opening her goddess had created.
Zed drew his sword and swung out at one of the creatures who hadn’t been affected by Eraina’s power, cleaving it from shoulder to hip. It fell in a twitching heap, one claw still scraping at the earth. Behind him, Zed could see more of the creatures chasing them. Zed cursed loudly. Some of their pursuers did not have the rotten flesh and shambling gait of ghouls. Instead they were ghostly images of their living selves, floating gracefully over the earth. Zed had fought the undead long enough to know the sorts that couldn’t touch you were far more dangerous than those that could.
The spirits threw back their heads and released a mournful, hypnotic dirge. Zed felt his limbs grow heavy with fear. He didn’t want to run anymore. He didn’t want to fight anymore. There wasn’t any point.
“Fight it!” Eraina shouted, snapping Zed back to himself.
“Working for Marth was definitely a mistake,” Shaimin grumbled bitterly as they ran. “What sort of madman would willingly live in a place like this?”
“Then get us out of this,” Eraina said. She looked back at the elf. “Which way, Shaimin?”
“This way.” Shaimin pointed ahead and to the left. “We aren’t far now.”
They kept running. Behind them, the ghouls shrieked with hunger and the ghosts moaned. Each time Zed felt his will falter, Eraina called out to them again, pushing them on. Zed remembered a time when he had possessed the same selfless bravery, the ability to inspire others merely by example. Eraina made it look so easy, though Zed knew the path of a paladin was anything but. Sometimes she made him wonder if his own faith wasn’t quite as dead as he had believed for so long.
The woods abruptly ended. A stone fortress loomed above them, nestled deep in the Harrowcrowns. This was no ruin—at a glance it looked well maintained. This could only be Marth’s fortress. There were no gates or entrances nearby. Eraina glanced up and, seeing no guards on the battlements, ran directly for the wall. She stood with her back to the stone, spear in one hand and holy symbol in the other. Zed and Shaimin flanked her.
The undead host appeared. There were at least two dozen of the ghouls now and half that many spirits. They halted at the edge of the woods, hovering just in the shadow of the trees. For a long, tense moment they waited there, glaring at the foolish mortals who had trespassed in their domain.
Then, one by one, they retreated. The ghouls receded into the deep woods. The ghosts simply ceased to be.
“Marth has definitely done something to ward this place against the undead,” Zed said, looking up at the fortress. “They can’t even get close.”
“Explains why he hasn’t done anything about them,” Shaimin said, catching his breath. “They make rather efficient guardians. Good fortune we had a paladin along. Well done, Marshal.”
“Did I just hear a Thuranni thank a Deneith?” Zed asked.
“My pride is not such that I won’t recognize when someone has saved my life,” Shaimin replied. “No matter how unfortunate her lineage.”
“None of that will matter much if we can’t find a way inside,” Eraina said, looking up at the fortress. “If we stay here too long, someone up above is bound to notice. Which way to the main gates?”
“Head back to the main gates and we may as well go back into the forest and wait for the ghosts to take us,” Shaimin said, fiddling with his gloves. “They’re far too well defended.”
“So what do we do?” Zed asked.
“You wait here,” Shaimin said. The elf held out his palms, displaying a pair of climbing claws.
The assassin climbed up the stone wall with almost supernatural grace, making nearly no sound at all. He disappeared over the lip of the wall. A few moments later, a silken rope uncoiled from above. Zed and Eraina looked at one another uneasily.
“I don’t trust him either,” Eraina whispered, “but what point would there be in his betraying us now?”
“All the same, I’d rather go up first,” Zed said.
“Your chivalry is misplaced, Arthen,” Eraina replied. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know,” Zed said, “but if he cuts the rope and I fall, you can heal me.” He winked and climbed the rope.
After nearly a minute of climbing, Zed hauled himself over the battlements with a grunt. Shaimin looked at him with obvious amusement. An unconscious guard lay on the stones nearby. Shaimin had incapacitated him without a sound.
“What’s so funny?” Zed asked.
“Just wondering if age or natural human clumsiness was making you take so long,” the elf said. “I was merely pleased that I need be burdened by neither.”
Eraina climbed over the wall behind them, finishing much more quickly than Zed. Her eyes widened as she moved to crouch beside Arthen, studying the wide courtyard below. Dozens of Cyran soldiers moved about the fortress, hauling crates of weapons and supplies into a large silver airship docked in the center of the courtyard. The three huddled behind the inner wall, carefully avoiding notice from the soldiers below.
“That explains why the guard on the walls was so light,” Shaimin observed. “Marth is getting ready to move.” The elf looked at them curiously. “What’s wrong with you both?”
“We’ve seen that ship before,” Zed said. “That’s the Seventh Moon, Marth’s flagship.”
“And that is surprising why?” Shaimin asked.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Eraina said. “We saw that ship go down over the Talenta Plains. Tristam destroyed her elemental core.”
“They’re still securing the docking ropes,” Zed observed. “She hasn’t been here fo
r long.”
“I wouldn’t be worried about an airship returning from the dead as much as I worry about the number of troops Marth has at his disposal. We have no idea how many troops Marth holds in reserve. This fortress could support a much larger force than we see here.” Shaimin looked back at Eraina and Zed with a pained expression. “As much as it disturbs me to admit this,” Shaimin said, “I can’t help but think that the authorities might be of some use here. Perhaps we should return to Nathyrr and leave an anonymous tip?”
“No,” Zed said. “Even if Draikus came out to investigate, we can’t risk it. Too many people know about the Legacy already. If it fell into the wrong hands, especially someone like Draikus, another Vathirond wouldn’t be far behind.”
Shaimin grunted. “So what is our next move?”
“Our first move should be getting out of sight before someone looks up and sees us hiding here,” Eraina said. She pointed at a nearby sentry tower.
The trio moved along the wall, running at a crouch to draw as little attention as possible from below. Shaimin gestured for them to wait as he stalked ahead, pressing his ear against the tower door, listening for any guards inside. After several moments he opened the door and waved them in, ducking out to drag the unconscious guard inside.
“Not even posting guards in his towers,” Shaimin said as he closed the door behind them and sat on a wooden stool. “He must be gathering his troops for something major.”
“That worries me,” Eraina said, sitting across from the elf. “He was very close to completing the Legacy before. What if Tristam and the others weren’t able to stop him?”
“We can’t let ourselves think that way, Eraina,” Zed said. He leaned against the wall, peering through a narrow window into the courtyard below. “If we believe that we’ve been beaten, then we will be. We have to hold out hope that the others are still out there.”
