[The Cleric Quintet 01] - Canticle

by R. A. Salvatore

  "Forward!" Ivan yelled, and he scooped up one of the barely glowing torches, whipped it about frantically to refuel the flame, and stormed off back the way they had come. Cadderly checked to make certain that he had all of his belongings, said a final good-bye to Pikel, and ran to catch up.

  They had not gone far when they came upon the first group of skeletons, five monsters wandering down a side passage. The disoriented skeletons, refugees from Druzil's disastrous battle, made no move to attack, but Ivan, blind with rage, turned on them with a fury that Cadderly had never before imagined.

  "Ivan, no," Cadderly pleaded, seeing the dwarf's intent. "Let them alone. We have more important ..."

  Ivan never heard him. The dwarf let out a roar and a snarl and rushed at the skeletons. The two closest turned to meet the charge, but Ivan overwhelmed them. He launched a mighty side cut with his axe that cleaved one in half, then shifted the weapon's momentum as it whirled behind him and drove it straight over his head, coming down on top of the second skeleton with enough force to shatter the monster.

  Ivan let go of the weapon, entangled once more in bones, and caught the third skeleton with his deer-horned helmet, lifting the monster dear of the ground, shaking it wildly for a moment, then slamming it into the wall. The attack damaged the skeleton, but it also dislodged Ivan's helmet. The clawing fingers of the fourth skeleton found an opening in the dwarf's defenses and dug into the back of his neck.

  Cadderly came running down to help, readying his walking stick for a swing at Ivan's newest attacker. Before he could get into the fray, though, Ivan took things into his own hands. He reached around and caught the skeleton by its bony wrist, then pulled and spun for all his life.

  Cadderly dove for the ground, nearly sliced by the flying skeleton's legs and feet. Ivan picked up momentum in his twirl and soon had the skeleton spinning straight out at arms' length. He let the momentum build for a moment, then shuffled a step closer to a wall and let the bricks do his work. The skeleton slammed against them and broke apart and Ivan was left holding an unattached bone.

  The last of the skeletons was on the dwarf then, and Ivan, dizzy and a bit disoriented, took the monster's first clawing hand squarely in the face. Again Cadderly started to help his friend, but one of the other skeletons was back up and closing, still bearing Ivan's helmet entangled in its ribs.

  Ivan slammed a forearm into his attacker's ribs. The dwarf's stubby legs pumped wildly, driving the monster back toward a wall. When it pressed in, Ivan did not stop. His every muscle tensed and then snapped, launching him forward and bringing the only weapon he had available, his forehead, to bear.

  He slammed the skeleton in the face, and the creature's skull exploded in the crush between the rock wall and the dwarf's equally tough head. Bits of bone popped out to the sides, other pieces were ground into dust, and Ivan bounced back, his head badly gashed. .

  Cadderly smacked at the remaining monster with his walking stick and snapped his spindle-disks into its face once and then again. The stubborn creature came on, slashing its bony fingers and forcing Cadderly into retreat. Soon, though, Cadderly felt the wall at his back and had nowhere left to run.

  One hand had latched firmly onto Cadderly's shoulder. The other slashed at his face. He got his own hand up to block but found himself helplessly pinned with the bony fingers digging deeper into His flesh. He tried desperately to hook the skeleton's arm under his own, to twist it around and break the monster's grasp, but Cadderly's attack was designed to twist muscles and tendons and inflict such pain on an attacker as to disable him. Skeletons had no muscles or tendons and felt no pain.

  Cadderly put his one free hand against the skeleton's face and tried to push it away―and got a wicked bite on the wrist for his efforts.

  Then the skeleton's head disappeared in an instant, went flying away. Cadderly didn't understand until Ivan's second axe chop, a downward cut, destroyed the skeletal body.

  Cadderly leaned back against the wall and clutched at his bloodied wrist. He simply dismissed his own pain a moment later, thinking his wounds minor indeed when he looked upon Ivan.

  Pieces of skull bone were embedded in the dwarf's forehead. Blood ran freely down Ivan's face, along the sides of his neck, and from numerous cuts on his gnarly hands. Even more horrifying, a skeleton's broken rib bone stuck out from the side of the dwarf's abdomen. Cadderly could not tell how deeply the bone had gone, but the wound seemed wicked indeed and he was truly amazed that the dwarf was still standing.

  He reached for Ivan, meaning to support his friend, fearing that Ivan would topple.

  Ivan roughly slapped his hand away. "No time for coddling," the dwarf barked. "Where's the one that killed me brother?"

  "You need help," Cadderly replied, horrified by his friend's condition. "Your wounds ..."

  "Forget them," Ivan retorted. "Get me to the one that killed me brother!"

  "But Ivan," Cadderly continued to protest. He pointed to the skeletal rib.

  Ivan's eyes did widen when he noticed the ghastly wound, but he only shrugged his shoulders, reached down to grasp the bone, and pulled it free, casually tossing it aside as though he hadn't even noticed the several inches of bloodstains upon it. Ivan's attitude was similarly uncaring when he tried to put his helmet back on, only to find that the embedded bones blocked him from seating it correctly on his head. He plucked a few chips from his forehead, then, with a grunt, forced the helmet into place.

  Cadderly could only assume that the cursing mist had increased the dwarf's rage to a point where Ivan simply did not acknowledge pain. He knew that dwarves were a tough lot, Ivan more than most, but this was beyond belief.

  "Ye said ye'd take me to him!" Ivan roared, and his words rang like a threat in Cadderly's ears. "Ye said ye'd find the way!" In a move of concession, Ivan reached up and tore off Cadderly's cloak and used it to quickly tie off his wound.

  Cadderly had to be satisfied with that. He knew that the best he could do for everybody, Ivan included, was to find and close the smoking bottle as quickly as he could. Only then would the enraged dwarf allow Cadderly or anyone else to tend to his injuries.

  Only then, but Cadderly was not so certain that Ivan would make it that far.

  They soon came back to the original areas where they had encountered the undead monsters. All was quiet now, deathly still, giving Cadderly the opportunity to carefully reconstruct his first passage through. He thought that he was making some progress, leading Ivan down several adjoining passages, when he noticed some movement far down one hall, at the very edge of his narrow light beam.

  Ivan noticed it, too, and he set off at once, his grief for his dead brother transferred again into uncontrollable battle lust.

  Cadderly fumbled with his bandolier and tried futility to keep up with the dwarf, pleading with Ivan to let this enemy go.

  It was a single skeleton this time, wandering aimlessly at first, but then coming straight in at the charging dwarf.

  Cadderly came to a very important decision at that moment.

  He held his light beam in one hand and his loaded crossbow in the other, lining both up between the horns of the dwarf's helmet at the skeletal face beyond. Cadderly had never intended his custom-designed crossbow to be used as a weapon, especially not while firing the exploding darts. He had designed the bow for opening locked doors, or blasting away troublesome tree branches that scraped against his window, or a variety of other nonviolent purposes. Also, he had to admit, he had designed the crossbow and the bolts in part for the simple challenge of designing them. But Cadderly had vowed to himself, as much as an excuse as anything else, never to use the darts or the bow as a weapon, never to unleash the concentrated violence of the explosive darts against a living target.

  The arguments in this instance were many, of course. Ivan could ill afford another fight, even against a single skeleton, and the skeleton, after all, was not really a living creature. Still, Cadderly's guilt hovered over him as he took aim. He knew that he was break
ing the spirit of his vow.

  He fired. The bolt arced over Ivan's head and crashed into the charging skeleton's face. The initial impact wasn't so great, but then the dart collapsed, setting off the oil of impact. When the dust cleared a moment later, the skeleton's head and neck were gone.

  The headless bones stood a moment longer, then dropped with a rattle.

  Ivan, just a few strides away, stopped abruptly and stared in amazement, his jaw hanging open and his dark eyes wide. He turned slowly back to Cadderly, who only shrugged apologetically and looked away.

  "It had to be done," Cadderly remarked, more to himself than to Ivan.

  "And ye did it well!" Ivan replied, coming back down the passage. He clapped Cadderly on the back, though Cadderly did not feel heroic in the least.

  "Let us go on," Cadderly said quietly, slipping the crossbow back into its wide and shallow sheath.

  They crossed under another low archway, Cadderly beginning to believe that they were again on the right path, and then came to a fork in the dusty passage. Two tunnels ran out from the one, parallel and very near together. Cadderly thought for a moment, then started down the right side. He went only a few steps, though, before he recognized his location more clearly. He backtracked, ignoring Ivan's grumbling, and moved at a determined pace down the left passage. This corridor went on for just a short distance, then angled farther to the left and opened into a wider passage.

  Standing sarcophagi filled the alcove in this passage, confirmation to Cadderly that he had chosen the right path. A few steps in and beyond a slight bend, he knew beyond doubt. Far in front of them, at the end of the passage, loomed a door, cracked open and with light shining through.

  "That the place?" Ivan demanded, though he had already guessed the answer. He started off before Cadderly nodded in reply.

  Again Cadderly tried futility to slow the dwarf's charge, desiring a more cautious approach. He was just a couple of steps behind Ivan when the last sarcophagus swung open and a mummy stepped out to block the way. Too enraged to care, Ivan continued on undaunted, but Cadderly no longer followed. The young scholar was frozen with fear, stricken by the sheer evilness of the powerful undead presence. The skeletons had been terrifying, but they seemed only minor inconveniences next to this monster.

  "Irrational," Cadderly tried to tell himself. It was acceptable to be afraid, but ridiculous to let that fear paralyze him in so urgent a situation.

  "Outta me way!" Ivan roared, bearing in. He chopped viciously with his axe, scoring a hit, but, unlike the battle against the skeletons, the weapon met stiff resistance this time. The mummy's thick wraps deflected much of the blow's force, and pieces of the linen came unraveled, snarling the axe-head and preventing Ivan from following through.

  The hit hardly hindered the mummy. It clubbed with its arm, catching Ivan on the shoulder and sending him spinning into the nearest alcove. He crashed heavily and nearly swooned but stubbornly, unsteadily, forced himself back to his feet.

  The mummy was waiting for him. A second hit knocked the dwarf down to his back.

  That would have been the end of Ivan Bouldershoulder had it not been for Cadderly. His first attack was almost inadvertent, for the mummy, in going after Ivan, crossed the direct, narrow beam of Cadderly's fight tube. A creature of the night, of a dark and lightless world, Khalif was neither accustomed to, nor tolerant of, brightness of any kind.

  Seeing the mummy recoil and lift its scabrous arm to block the beam restored a bit of composure in Cadderly. He kept the fight focused on the monster, forcing it back from Ivan, while he nimbly loaded another dart with his free hand. Cadderly held no reservations about using his crossbow on this monster; the mummy was simply too hideous for his conscience to argue.

  Still shielding its eyes, the mummy advanced on Cadderly, slapping at the beam of fight with every sliding step.

  The first dart buried itself deeply into the mummy's chest before exploding, and the blast sent the monster back a couple of steps and left scorch marks both front and back on the creature's linen wrappings. If it had suffered any serious damage, though, the mummy didn't show it, for it came on again.

  Cadderly scrambled to reload the crossbow. His design had been good, fortunately, and the crank was not difficult to execute. A second dart joined the first, again driving the monster backward.

  The mummy came on again, and again after Cadderly had shot it a third time, and each time its stubborn advance brought it a step or two closer to the frantic young man. The fourth shot proved disastrous to Cadderly, for the dart's initial momentum drove it right through the mummy without ever igniting the magical oil. The mummy hardly slowed and Cadderly nearly held the crossbow right against its filthy wrappings when he fired his fifth shot.

  This time the dart had more effect, but again it only slowed, and did not stop, the monster. Cadderly had no time to load another dart.

  "Coming!" slurred Ivan as he crawled from the alcove.

  Cadderly doubted that the dwarf could help him, even if Ivan could reach the monster in time, which he obviously couldn't. The young scholar knew, too, that neither of his conventional weapons, spindle-disks or walking stick, could hurt this monster.

  He had just one weapon to use. He stuck the light tube out in front of him, slowing the mummy further, causing it to shield its eyes and half turn away from him, then he dropped his crossbow and reached with his free hand for the water skin hanging at his side. He grabbed it by the extended nozzle, tucked it tight under his arm, and used his thumb to pop off its gooey cap. Cadderly squeezed with his arm, slowly and steadily sending a stream of the blessed water into his attacker's face.

  The holy water sizzled as it struck the evilly enchanted monster and, for the first time in the battle, the mummy revealed its agony. It let out an unearthly, spine-chilling wail that filled Cadderly with fear and even stopped Ivan temporarily. It was the proverbial bark with no bite, for while the mummy continued to advance, it purposely shied away from the man with the light beam and the stinging water. Soon it had passed Cadderly altogether, but it continued down the passage, roaring with pain and frustration, clubbing with its powerful arms against the walls, the sarcophagi, and anything else that got in its way.

  Ivan came rushing past Cadderly, intent on resuming the battle.

  "The man who killed your brother is behind the door!" Cadderly cried as quickly as he could, desperate to stop the dwarf this time. He couldn't know the truth of his claim, of course, but at that critical moment, he would have said anything to turn Ivan around.

  Predictably, Ivan did wheel about. He let out a growl and charged back past Cadderly, forgetting all about the fleeing mummy, his unblinking eyes glued instead on the door at the end of the passage.

  Cadderly saw disaster coming. He recalled the newly constructed wall in the wine cellar and the blasts that had followed Pikel's battering-ram charger He had to believe that this door might also be magically warded, and he saw that the door was heavy, iron-bound. If Ivan didn't get right through, but was held in the area of exploding glyphs...

  Cadderly dove to the ground, pulling a dart and grabbing for his crossbow. In a single motion, he cocked it, fitted the bolt, and spun about, using his light beam to show him the target.

  The dart passed Ivan just a stride from the door. It didn't hit the lock area directly but exploded with enough force to weaken the jam.

  Surprised by the sudden blast, but unable to stop even if he chose to, Ivan barreled in.

  A Well-Placed Blow

  "No!" she heard the druid say at her back, but it was a distant call, as if Newander's voice were no more than a memory of some other time and some other place. All that mattered to Danica was the wall, made of stonework now and not like the natural dirt tunnel that had led them in. The wall, inviting her, enticing her, to emulate her long-dead hero. That distant voice spoke again, but in clicks and chatter that Danica could not understand.

  A furry tail fell down over Danica's eyes, breaking her concentratio
n on the stone. She moved one hand merely by reflex to push aside the distraction.

  Following the druid's instructions, Percival promptly bit her. Danica dipped her shoulder and came across with an instinctive chop that would have killed the squirrel. She recognized Percival before she struck, though, and that led her again out of the red mist and back to reality. "The wall," she stammered. "I meant to ..."

  "It is not your fault," Newander said to her. "The curse affected you again. It would seem to be an endless fight."

  Danica slumped back against the stone, weary and ashamed. She had put every effort into resisting the intrusive mist, had seen it for what it was and planted deeply in her own thinking the logical conclusion that such destructive impulses must be avoided. Yet here she was, near the heart of danger, abandoning their entire hopes for success for the sake of her curse-enhanced desires.

  "Do not accept the guilt," Newander said to her. "You are braving the curse better than any of the priests above us. You have come this far against it, and that alone is more than most others can say."

  "The dwarves walk with Cadderly," Danica reminded him.

  "Do not hold yourself against that measure," Newander warned. "You are no dwarf. The bearded folk have a natural resistance to magic that no human can match. Theirs is not a question of self-discipline. Lady Danica, but of physical differences."

  Danica realized that the druid spoke the truth, but the knowledge that Pikel and Ivan had an advantage over her in resisting the curse did little to diminish her sense of guilt. For all of the druid's talk, Danica considered the intrusive mist a mental challenge, a test of discipline.

  "What of Newander?" she asked suddenly, more sarcastically than she had intended. "Does the blood of the bearded folk run in your veins? You are no dwarf. Why, then, are you not affected?"