The Temple of Yellow Skulls

by Don Bassingthwaite

  Anger overcame the wyrmpriest’s fear. “I serve Vestapalk,” he said.

  “Vestapalk doesn’t need you.” Raid opened his hand and let Tiktag fall.

  The wyrmpriest caught himself before he tumbled to the ground and glared at Raid. In the days since he had vowed to save Vestapalk from himself, he’d watched the dragon closely, looking for something that might turn his master back the way he had been. Raid and his fierce new appearance were just reminders of his failure to find any hint of what he should be doing to help his master. That Raid should even think he deserved a place in the dragon’s service was infuriating.

  “I have been with Vestapalk since before his transformation,” Tiktag said defiantly. “I have watched over him when he was weak. I stand by him because of who he is, not what he can offer me.”

  Raid laughed without humor. “You think you know who he is?”

  “He is my master. He is my dragon.”

  “He’s more than a dragon now, just as I’m more than a man. You have no place with him anymore, kobold.”

  “I have more place here than you do.” Tiktag lifted his head. “You should not be here. Vestapalk commanded you to stay away and lay a trap for his enemies.”

  A smile touched Raid’s face. “I did.” He gestured and a mixed band of red-eyed wolves and four-armed brutes moved out of the trees.

  Two of the brutes pushed someone along with them. A hood made from a sack covered his head, blinding him. His hands were tied behind his back and he stumbled as he walked. The mud and grass that stained his blue robes from knees to chest showed where he had fallen. Many times. He staggered with exhaustion.

  The eladrin who had fought Vestapalk. Raid gave Tiktag another mocking sneer and turned, leading his troop into the temple. Tiktag shifted back as they passed. A sickening sensation rose in him. He had found nothing to help his master, but Raid had managed to bring down one of those who had themselves defeated Vestapalk.

  Tiktag blinked. Vestapalk’s transformation had begun after his defeat. After his wounding by the human woman, Shara. If anyone would know about the Voidharrow and what it had done to his master, it would be one of her allies.

  If Tiktag got a chance to talk to him before Vestapalk took his own revenge.

  The kobold raced after Raid, running to keep up, his hunger as forgotten as the rabbit. “Raid!” he called, trying to claim his attention. What he’d do once he had it, Tiktag had no idea, but it would keep him from presenting his prisoner to Vestapalk for a few more moments, at least.

  Too late.

  Vestapalk’s growing horde looked up as Raid and his monstrous troops entered the ruins. A growl rose from the creatures, escalating into a kind of barking chorus. Raid raised his arms like a hero. The chorus boomed louder. Tiktag’s calls to Raid were lost in it. And where Raid passed, the gathered brutes closed in and followed. Tiktag had to push his way through. Vestapalk’s command still held—no brute had ever threatened Tiktag—but they didn’t defer to him, either. He resorted to dodging between their legs to get ahead.

  He managed to push free of the crowd just as Raid entered the ruined courtyard.

  Vestapalk’s head was already up. His eyes narrowed sharply at the sight of Raid. Unlike Tiktag, though, the dragon didn’t bother questioning Raid about his unexpected return—his nostrils simply flared and his head swept from side to side as he tested the air.

  “I smell an eladrin,” he said, double voice rumbling and chiming at the same time.

  Raid dragged his prisoner forward. “Master, I give you Albanon,” he said, and tore off the hood.

  It felt like Raid had run him halfway across the Nentir Vale.

  Albanon knew it couldn’t really have been that far. He could distinguish night from day beneath the hood Raid had put on him, and while the demon set a punishing pace, dawn had only come once. Albanon’s feet and legs burned, though. Exhaustion was a grindstone slowly wearing him down. Every pause was a moment of relief. And of terror that it might be his last. Blinded by the hood, he had only his ears to tell him what was happening. With nothing to hear but the grunts and growls of Raid and his demon warriors, that was no comfort at all. Raid didn’t even try to talk to him. Not that it would have been much of a conversation—Raid had also forced a gag into Albanon’s mouth to keep him from casting spells.

  He certainly didn’t tell the eladrin where they were going, but somewhere during the stumbling, mind-numbing journey, Albanon figured it out. When the ground under his aching feet changed from earth to hard stone and the sounds around him took on the slight echo of walls or something like them, he knew for certain that the next stop really would be his last. They’d entered the ruins of the Temple of Yellow Skulls.

  And they weren’t alone. A terrible sound rose around them, beating at Albanon’s weary mind. He’d thought that he was too tired to be frightened anymore. He realized abruptly that he was very wrong. The throats that made the barking, roaring noise weren’t human—at least not anymore. His own captors responded, confirming his fears.

  Demons. A lot of them. How many people and beings had Raid infected with the Voidharrow?

  The creatures pushing him along stopped. The noise of the crowd paused as well. Something big moved, scraping over stone. Albanon heard a deep snuffling, then—

  “I smell an eladrin.”

  The voice was strange, as if it were actually two very different beings speaking through one mouth. Albanon didn’t have a chance to listen further. Raid’s heavy hand seized him and dragged him to his side. The demon’s other hand grabbed the hood. “Master,” he cried, “I give you Albanon.”

  The hood came off suddenly, so suddenly that after a day of its stifling gloom, even twilight seemed brilliant. Then something shadowed the last of the sun. Albanon gasped into his gag and jerked back against Raid’s grip, exhaustion washed away.

  Vestapalk loomed over him. And as much as Albanon had imagined the dragon’s transformation based on Uldane’s description, it seemed his imagination had failed him completely. He should have looked into his nightmares.

  The dragon had grown huge, towering over him. His body was even more gaunt than Uldane had described. Red-silver crystals flashed like spurs on his limbs and in twisting veins on his folded wings. It seemed to Albanon that the dragon’s skull had changed, too, becoming longer and narrower. There was something like a predatory bird about him now—no, Albanon realized, like an insect, hard and almost alien.

  The liquid red crystal of the Voidharrow all but oozed out of him. It squeezed up between his green scales and stained them red. It dripped from his jaws. It filled his eyes—replaced his eyes, leaving them shifting pools of crystal.

  The … dragon? Demon? Albanon wasn’t sure if Vestapalk was fully one or the other, but his mind wanted to say “dragon” because the alternative was too terrifying. The dragon didn’t look pleased. He bared teeth that were shockingly white against so much red.

  “You have one. Where are the others? Where are Shara and Uldane and this priest who defeated you before? Did he defeat you again?”

  Raid scowled. “They escaped.”

  “They defeated you.” Vestapalk sounded amused. Raid’s scowl deepened.

  “They fled rather than face me!” snapped Raid. Vestapalk’s eyes narrowed. Raid seemed to rethink his tone. “But they’ll come to us, Vestapalk. Their type always do. They’ll try to rescue him.”

  Albanon wasn’t so certain of that. Shara and Uldane would want to, and deep inside he prayed that they would at least make the attempt. But would Kri let them? He admired the old cleric’s knowledge and cunning and his devotion to the Order of Vigilance. He had a strong feeling, however, that devotion to the Order’s mission took precedence over anything else in Kri’s life. It wouldn’t have taken the others long to realize that he hadn’t died on the road. They’d had more than a day to catch up to Raid and his demons and attempt a rescue. But they hadn’t.

  Vestapalk seemed to recognize the same thing. “Why haven
’t they tried to rescue him already?”

  “Whether they do or not, we gain.” Raid thrust Albanon forward. “Look at him. He fights us. And he’s the first spellcaster I’ve captured. Isn’t he … exceptional?”

  Something in the way Raid said “exceptional” left Albanon feeling queasy even beyond his terror. Vestapalk’s head came down. Swirling liquid eyes stared into Albanon’s. Hot breath blew over him. Albanon fought off his terror, trying to deny Vestapalk the satisfaction of seeing him afraid. The dragon hissed and drew back, then stretched out a claw like smoky red glass and stroked it across his belly. His eyes didn’t leave him.

  Albanon couldn’t stop the trembling that shook his legs, but he fixed his gaze on Vestapalk’s strange eyes and glared defiance at him. If the gag hadn’t been in his mouth, he might have spit at him.

  Vestapalk grined sudenly and laughter rolled up from his belly, as dry and hard as his flesh. His claw slammed back to the ground. “Yes!” he said. “Yes, he is exceptional. Well done, Raid. A wizard—he will serve very well. Put him with the others.”

  Before Albanon had time to do more than wonder what others the dragon could mean, Raid had him by the arm again. The demon paused before he led Albanon away, though. “Vestapalk,” he said, looking up, “how many more do you need?”

  “As many as you can provide.” Vestapalk cocked his head. “Why?”

  “Hunting grows scarce. Perhaps I should wait before I go back out. Otherwise if you want me to find more exceptional individuals for you, I will need to go where there are more people. Into Winterhaven. Or Fallcrest.”

  Albanon’s gut leaped in new fear. Fallcrest? He could only imagine Raid sweeping through the town. A groan escaped him—a groan that the demon must have misinterpreted as protest, because his free hand swept around to crack across Albanon’s face.

  The blow was enough to put Albanon’s already exhausted mind into a spin. Splotches of darkness threatened to rise up against him, but he was quite certain that he saw Vestapalk smile slyly at Raid. “You don’t want to leave the ruins,” the dragon said. “You want to be here when Albanon’s friends try to rescue him.”

  Raid hesitated, then nodded silently. Vestapalk laughed again and settled back, curling his tail around a leather bag that held the hints of gold. “Granted! Now take him away, then prepare to welcome his friends!”

  The grin that split Raid’s face stretched almost from ear to ear. He thrust an arm into the air and howled. The crowd of four-armed demons roared in response, the sound rolling through the ancient ruins and through Albanon’s throbbing head. This time when darkness rose, it was all too easy to let himself slide into it.

  Tiktag waited until night had fallen completely before he made his move. Lugging a heavy skin of water, he strode up to a pair of Vestapalk’s brutes and addressed himself to one of them. “Water for the new prisoner,” he said boldly.

  The brute just looked back at him and blinked its beady red eyes as if a fly had come buzzing around its head. The other brute gave no reaction at all. Tiktag waited a moment, then added, “I’m going into the pit.”

  Still nothing. He edged forward and down the ramp that lay between the two creatures.

  What the pit—deep as five kobolds, large enough to make a very spacious den, with the narrow ramp at one end and carvings of dancing fiends adorning its crumbling walls—might have been used for when the ruins made up a temple, Tiktag had never figured out. For Vestapalk, however, it made an excellent place to keep his special prisoners.

  Two more brutes moved around the pit. Unlike the guards at the top of the ramp, they glanced at him immediately. One of them bared teeth in a snarl of challenge. Tiktag had heard Vestapalk give them their orders: guard the prisoners and do not allow them any opportunity to escape. The prisoners were well-bound but the brutes took their charge seriously. Tiktag had seen them fight one of their own kind if it wandered into the pit. The kobold almost faltered but braced himself. Remember, he thought, you do this for Vestapalk. He puffed out his chest and met the brute’s gaze. “Water for the eladrin. Raid commands it. Challenge me and you challenge Raid. Don’t make me summon him!”

  The brute seemed to consider that. Its lips closed over its teeth and it moved aside.

  Tiktag scurried on among the prisoners Raid had collected for Vestapalk. A human woman cowered in a corner with wild fear on her face, eternally under the starvation-sharpened gaze of a heavily bound ogre. The greenscale lizardman who had been Vestapalk’s first prisoner huddled against a wall, his scales dulled. Another human lay nearby, gaunt and gray as if trying to will himself to death rather than face his fate. A dragonborn. A hobgoblin. Two orcs. A halfling, bound up to his neck. An old dwarf. A third human. Enough moonlight entered the pit that all of them looked up to watch Tiktag as he moved through the pit, searching for the only prisoner that interested him.

  Raid had dumped the eladrin at the pit’s far end. Albanon sat slumped, the hood replaced over his head. His chest rose and fell in irregular, twitching rhythms. Tiktag looked over his shoulder at the wandering brute guards, then set down his water skin and lifted the hood slightly. Albanon was so lost to exhaustion that he didn’t even move.

  Tiktag slapped him sharply. Albanon jerked back to wakefulness and the kobold grabbed his face with both hands. “Call out or struggle,” he said, “and I take your eyes.”

  He pressed the sharp claws of his thumbs against Albanon’s lower eyelids for emphasis. He felt the lids flicker and widen in response. Albanon stiffened, but he didn’t try to move. A sense of relief rushed through Tiktag. “Good. Now you answer my questions.” Keeping one hand under an eye, he slid the other down to loosen the gag in Albanon’s mouth. The fabric was tight and he had to fight to get it out from between Albanon’s cracked lips.

  The first words out of the eladrin’s mouth, however, startled him. “You’re Vestapalk’s wyrmpriest!”

  The words were little more than a groan, but Tiktag flinched, dropped the gag, and jammed both thumbs back under Albanon’s eyes. “Quiet!” he spat. “Quiet!” He glanced over his shoulder but no one seemed to have noticed. He looked back to Albanon. “Yes, I am Tiktag. Don’t draw the attention of Vestapalk’s brutes.”

  “Brutes?” Albanon’s voice was a creak. His blue eyes flicked from side to side as he took in the pit, the other prisoners, and the hulking figures that moved among them. Tiktag felt him shiver. “The … things with four arms—”

  “Vestapalk’s creatures,” said Tiktag. “Raid builds him a horde. This is what comes of what you did to him!”

  Albanon’s gaze came back to him. “What I did to him?”

  Tiktag dug his nails into the eladrin’s flesh until Albanon gasped in pain and blood welled up. “Do not pretend! Vestapalk sought a transformation into something great, but after your human friend wounded him, it all went wrong. What you saw isn’t what he was meant to be. Tell me how to turn him back!” Albanon sucked in air and tried to pull away, but Tiktag pressed close. “Tell—”

  “A guard is coming!” Albanon gasped.

  Tiktag’s heart jumped. He released Albanon and grabbed for the water skin before he even looked around to see if the eladrin was telling the truth or just trying to distract him. It was no distraction. One of the brutes had turned and was coming their way, its red eyes fixed on them. Tiktag hastily pulled the stopper from the skin and splashed water over Albanon’s mouth.

  “You see?” he called to the brute. “Raid’s orders. Water for the prisoner.”

  The guard stopped and stared at him for a moment longer, then turned away. Tiktag sighed and looked back to Albanon. The eladrin was lapping frantically at the water that poured from the skin, straining to reach the neck. Tiktag pulled the skin away, but paused and studied him. “You warned me.”

  Albanon sat back, chest heaving, and licked his lips. Blood from the wounds under his eyes mixed with the water running down his face. “Did Raid really order you to bring me water?”

  Tiktag narrowed
his eyes and thought about how best to answer that question. “No,” he said finally. “Raid is no friend of mine.”

  “We have that in common, then.” Albanon looked at him with desperate eyes. “Tiktag, what happened to Vestapalk wasn’t our doing.”

  Anger flared in the kobold’s chest. “You tried to kill him.”

  “He tried to kill us!” Albanon squeezed his eyes closed and grimaced, then said, “Do you know about the Voidharrow?”

  Tiktag twitched. A little voice inside told him that he shouldn’t be talking to Albanon—he should be forcing the wizard to answer his questions, not the other way around. But then so much of what had taken place recently was not what it should have been. He swallowed and brushed the little voice aside. “How do you know about it?”

  “It was stolen from my master. When Shara wounded Vestapalk, it got into his body. It’s some kind of disease, an infection. It’s what’s transforming him—and Raid. Did Vestapalk bite or scratch Raid?

  The wyrmpriest shook his head as he recalled the silver-crimson drops of venom falling from Vestapalk’s jaw to Raid’s forehead. “No bite. No scratch. He anointed Raid. Vestapalk made him his exarch.”

  “His exarch?”

  Albanon looked sickened. Tiktag hesitated, wondered for a moment how much more he should tell the eladrin, then added, “Vestapalk will anoint you, too.” He swept a hand around the pit. “Raid gathers for him: exceptional individuals to become other exarchs, commanders for his horde. All of you will serve.”

  Albanon’s eyes opened even wider in shocked silence. The kobold leaned closer to drive the wedge of a whisper into his fear. “Save yourself. Tell me how to undo what the Voidharrow did to him. I want my master back!”

  But Albanon’s mouth only opened and closed for a moment, then he slumped down. “I don’t know if it can be undone.”

  “What?” Heedless of whether any soldier might see him, Tiktag struck Albanon. “You just said you put the Voidharrow into him!”

  “By accident, not on purpose. We really don’t know anything about the Voidharrow.” Albanon’s expression tightened. “Except what it does. Vestapalk, Raid, the brutes—they’re not what they used to be. The Voidharrow has turned them into demons.”