Promise of the Witch-King

by R. A. Salvatore

  Trying to minimize the feeling of vulnerability, Entreri kept them near to the inner bending wall as he edged ahead, sword in one hand, dagger in the other. Their progress was steady for some time, and they put many hundreds of feet between themselves and the staircase. But then Olgerkhan’s cry froze the assassin in mid-stride.

  “It’s taking her!” the half-orc wailed.

  Entreri spun and ran back past the turning Athrogate. He shoved by Jarlaxle, needing to get to Arrayan. By the time he spotted her, she was down on the ground, Olgerkhan kneeling over her and whispering to her.

  Entreri slid down beside her opposite the large half-orc. He started to call out to her but cut himself short when he realized that he was calling the name of a halfling friend he had left far back in the distant southern city of Calimport. Surprised and unnerved, the assassin looked from Arrayan to Jarlaxle, his expression demanding answers.

  Jarlaxle wasn’t looking back at him, though. The drow stood facing Arrayan with his eyes closed and his hand over the center of his waistcoat. He was whispering something that Entreri could not make out, and in looking from him back to the fallen woman, Entreri understood that the drow was trying to somehow intervene. Entreri thought of the skull gem and guessed that Jarlaxle was somehow using it to disrupt the castle’s possession of the woman.

  A moment later, Arrayan opened her eyes. She seemed more embarrassed than hurt, and she accepted Olgerkhan and Entreri’s help in getting back to her feet.

  “We are running out of time,” Jarlaxle stated—the obvious for the others, but his tone explaining clearly to Entreri that he could not long delay the inevitable life-stealing process. “Quickly, then,” the drow added, and Entreri gave a nod to Arrayan then left her with Olgerkhan and sprinted back to the front of the line.

  He had to hope that there would be no more traps, for he did not slow every few feet to inspect the ground ahead.

  The corridor continued to bend and spiral but began to narrow again, soon becoming a mere dozen feet across and with a jagged ceiling often so low that Olgerkhan had to crouch.

  Entreri felt the hairs on the back of his neck tingling. Something was ahead, he sensed, whether from some smell or perhaps a sound barely audible. He motioned for the dwarf behind him to halt, then crept ahead on all fours and peered around a sharper bend.

  The corridor continued for another dozen feet, then the stone floor fell away as it opened into a great chamber. He remembered Jarlaxle’s words about the “king” of the castle, and he had to take a deep, steadying breath before going forward.

  He crept ahead, belly-crawling as he exited the corridor into a vast cavern, on a ledge high up from the uneven floor. To his right, the ledge continued for just a short distance, but to his left, it continued on, sloping down toward the unseen cavern floor. It was not pitch black in there, as some strange glowing lichen scattered about the floor and walls bathed the stone as if in starlight.

  Entreri crawled to the edge and peered over, and he knew they were doomed.

  Far below him, perhaps fifty feet, loomed the king of the castle: a great dragon. But not a living dragon of leathery skin and thick scales but one made mostly of bones, with only patches of skin hanging between its wings and in patches across its back and head. The gigantic dragon carcass, mostly skeleton, crouched on the floor with its bony wings tucked in tight atop its back. If Entreri had any doubts that the creature was “alive,” they were quickly dispelled when, with a rattle of bones, the great wings unfolded.

  Swords, armor, and whitened bones littered the chamber all around the undead beast, and it took Entreri a few moments to sort out that that had been the spot of a desperate battle, that those weapons and bones belonged to warriors—likely of King Gareth’s army, he realized when he gave it some thought—who had done battle with the wyrm in the time of Zhengyi.

  Entreri started to back up then nearly jumped out of his boots when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Jarlaxle moved up beside him.

  “He is fabulous, is he not?” the drow whispered.

  Entreri shot him a hateful look.

  “I know,” the drow said for him. “Always dragons with me.”

  Down below, the dragon of bones and torn skin swung its head to look up at them, and though it had no physical eyes, just points of reddish light, its intimidating gaze rattled the companions.

  “A dragon cadaver,” Entreri said with obvious disgust.

  “A dracolich,” Jarlaxle corrected.

  “That is supposed to sound better?”

  The drow just shrugged.

  And the dragon roared, its throaty blast reverberating off the stone walls with such power that the assassin feared the ledge he lay upon would collapse.

  “That ain’t right,” Athrogate said when the echoing blast at last relented. The dwarf had come up as well, but unlike Entreri and Jarlaxle he wasn’t lying on the stone. He stood at the lip of the ledge, staring down, hands on his hips. He looked at Jarlaxle and asked, “That the king?”

  “One would hope.”

  “And what’re we supposed to do with that thing?”

  “Kill it.”

  The dwarf looked back down at the dracolich, which hunched upon its hind legs, sitting upright, head swaying, two-foot long teeth all too clear with little skin covering its mouth.

  “Ye’re joking with an old dwarf,” said Athrogate.

  He didn’t rhyme his words, and Entreri knew that no “bwahahas” would be forthcoming.

  Jarlaxle pulled himself up. “I am not,” he proclaimed. “Come now, our time of trial is upon us. Run along, mighty Olgerkhan, for the sake of your lady Arrayan. And you, good Athrogate, fearless and powerful. Those brittle bones will turn to dust before your mighty swings!”

  Olgerkhan roared and came out onto the ledge, then with strength and power they had not seen from him before, he took up his heavy club and charged down along the ledge.

  “Ye’re really not joking with an old dwarf?” Athrogate asked.

  “Shatter its skull!” Jarlaxle cheered.

  Athrogate looked at the drow, looked down at the dracolich, looked back at the drow, and shrugged. He pulled his morning stars over his shoulders and whispered to his weapons alternately as he ran off after Olgerkhan, bidding their enchantments forth.

  “Fill yer teeth with half-orc bread,” the dwarf yelled to the waiting beast, “while Athrogate leaps atop yer head! Bwahaha!”

  “And now we leave,” Entreri remarked, coming up beside Jarlaxle and making no move to follow his two warrior companions.

  But then it was dark, pitch black so that Entreri couldn’t see his hand before his face if he’d waggled his fingers an inch in front of his eyes.

  “This way,” Jarlaxle bade him, and he felt the drow’s arm around his waist.

  He started to protest and pull away, sheathing his dagger to free up one hand, though he dared not move too quickly on the ledge. But the assassin was caught by surprise when Jarlaxle pushed against him hard, wrapping him in a tight hug. The drow then fell the other way, off the ledge.

  The dragon roared.

  Entreri screamed.

  But then they were floating as the drow enacted the power of his levitation, and as they set down on the cavern floor, Jarlaxle threw aside the stone he had enchanted with radiating darkness and let go of Entreri.

  Entreri rolled to the side, putting some distance between himself and the dark elf. He got his bearings enough to realize that the dracolich wasn’t looking at him and Jarlaxle, but was focusing on the half-orc and the dwarf as they continued their raucous charge down the sloping stone ledge.

  Entreri had his chance to strike with the element of surprise. With the beast distracted, he could get past its formidable defenses and score a mighty blow.

  But he didn’t move, other than to look down at his weapons. How could he even begin to hurt something like that?

  He glanced to the side and considered leaping over and stabbing Jarlaxle instead, but he found the drow with
his eyes closed, deep in concentration.

  Jarlaxle had some hidden trick to play, it seemed—or at least, that’s what Entreri hoped.

  But Entreri still did not charge in against the beast, as it was no fight that he wanted. He rushed away from the wall, weaving toward the far side of the cavern, putting as much distance between himself and the half-orc and dwarf as possible.

  He glanced back as Olgerkhan cried out, and he nearly swooned to see a line of black spittle spraying from the dracolich’s skeletal mouth. Though he was still fully twenty feet from the floor, the half-orc desperately leaped from the ledge ahead of that spit, which engulfed the stone and immediately began to melt it away.

  “Once a black dragon,” Entreri heard Jarlaxle explain in reference to the acidic breath weapon, trademark of that particular beast.

  “It can breathe?” Entreri gasped. “It’s a skeleton, and it can breathe?”

  But Jarlaxle had closed his eyes again and was paying him no heed.

  Entreri ran along faster, heedless of Olgerkhan’s groans. He did glance back once to take note of the poor half-orc, crumpled on the floor, one leg bent out at a disturbing angle, obviously shattered. How ridiculous, he thought. For the first time, the half-orc had seemed as if he might be ready for battle, and there he was, out of the fight yet again before it had even begun. And he was Arrayan’s “hero” and true love?

  The momentary distraction cost the assassin dearly, for when he looked back, he saw the great bony tail swiping his way.

  Arrayan, too, fought a great battle, but hers was internal and not carried out with sword or wand. Hers was a test of will, a battle as one might wage with a disease, for like a cancer did the darkness of the Zhengyian construct assail her. It clawed at her life energy with demonic hands. For days it had pulled at her, thinned her, sapped her, and now, so close to the king of the castle, the monstrous beast she had inadvertently awakened, Arrayan had come to the final battlefield.

  But she had no way to fight back, had no strength to go on the offensive against the dracolich and the continuing intrusions of the book. That was a physical battle for her companions to wage.

  She had to just hold on to the last flickers of her life, had to cling to consciousness and identity. She had to resist the temptation to succumb to the cool and inviting darkness, the promise of rest.

  One image, that of Olgerkhan, carried her in her battle though she knew it to be a losing cause. For all those years he had been her dearest of friends. He had tolerated her pouting when she couldn’t unravel the mysteries of a certain spell. He had accepted her selfishness when all of her thoughts and all of her talk had been about her own future and dreams. He had stayed beside her, his arm offered in support, through every setback, and he cheered her on from afar through every victory.

  And she had accepted him as a friend—but just as a friend. She had not understood the depth of his devotion and love for her. He had worn that ring, and though Arrayan had not been in on the placement and explanation, she understood the properties of physical arbitration the matched set had created. He had suffered, terribly so, so that she could get where she was, so that she would have her one chance, feeble as it seemed.

  She could not let him down. She could not betray the trust and the sacrifice of the half-orc she loved.

  Yes, loved, Arrayan knew beyond all doubt. Far beyond her friend, Olgerkhan was her partner, her support, her warmth, and her joy. Only when she had seen him near death had Arrayan come to fully appreciate that.

  And she had to fight on.

  But the darkness beckoned.

  She heard the ruckus in the far room and managed to open her eyes. She heard the approach of someone from the other direction, but she hadn’t the strength to turn her head.

  They passed her by, and Arrayan thought she was dreaming, then feared that she had gone over to the netherworld. For those three, Ellery, Mariabronne, and Canthan, had certainly died, yet they walked past her, ran by her, the warrior woman hefting her mighty axe, the ranger holding his legendary sword, the wizard preparing a spell.

  How was it possible?

  Was this the reality of death?

  “Bwahaha! Ye got to be quicker than that, ye bony worm!” Athrogate bellowed as he dodged past a slashing claw, dived under the biting fangs, and came up with a smashing swing that cracked hard against the dracolich’s foreleg. Bone dust flew, but the leg didn’t give out or crack apart.

  Athrogate had put all of his weight behind that strike, had let fly with all of his magically enhanced might, and had used the enchantment of the morning star, the oil of impact coating it, for maximum effect.

  He hadn’t done much damage.

  He hit the leg again, and a third time, before the other foreleg crashed against his shoulder and launched him into a flying roll. He bounced through the heap of bones, weapons, and armor, finally coming back to his feet just in time to leap aside to avoid the snap of the dracolich’s powerful and toothy jaws.

  “A bit o’ help, if ye might!” the dwarf yelled, and that was as close to a call of panic as had ever been uttered by the confident Athrogate.

  The dracolich bit at him again, and he dodged aside, and even managed to snap off a one-two routine with his morning stars, their glassteel heads bouncing alternately off the thick dragon bone.

  The creature showed no sign of pain or fear, and the head pressed on, snapping at him over and over. He retreated and dodged, jumped back, and when the dracolich finally caught up to him, the dwarf leaped up high, just high enough to get above the thing’s snapping maw. He was spared a deadly bite but was thrown back and to the floor.

  When he landed and slid down onto his back, he noted Olgerkhan, still squirming and grabbing at his shattered leg.

  “By the gods, ye dolt, get up!” Athrogate pleaded.

  Entreri wasn’t quick enough. He jumped and turned sidelong but got clipped by the swinging tail and spun halfway over. He kept the presence of mind to tuck his head and shoulders and turn all the way as he landed among the bones, but when he came back to his feet, he found that one ankle would hardly support his weight. He gave it a cursory glance to see blood staining the side of his boot.

  He hopped and limped along, though, and still his thoughts were to simply find a way out of there. All along, Entreri had expected that Jarlaxle’s thirst for adventure would eventually put them in a position where they could not win. That time had come.

  He stumbled on a tangle of bones then threw himself flat as the dracolich’s tail swung back his way but higher off the ground. He glanced back across the length of the undead beast to see Jarlaxle standing quietly off to the side, to see Athrogate’s desperate struggle against the more dangerous weapons of the dragon, to see Olgerkhan squirming in agony, and to see …

  The assassin blinked repeatedly, unable to comprehend the scene before him. Running down the slope to join in the fray was Ellery. Ellery! Supposedly dead at his hand. And behind her came Mariabronne, also dead.

  Entreri snapped his glare back at Jarlaxle, thinking that his friend had deceived him. He hadn’t seen Ellery’s corpse, after all. Was it all just a lie?

  Even as he contemplated abandoning his flight and rushing back to slaughter Jarlaxle, however, he realized that he had indeed seen Mariabronne lying in the utter stillness of death.

  Entreri’s gaze was drawn up to the small landing at the top of the ramp. There stood Canthan, waving his arms.

  Now that man was dead, Entreri knew. More than dead, his soul had been destroyed by the jeweled dagger.

  Yet here he was, casting a spell.

  Farther down, still forty feet from the ground, Ellery took up her axe in both hands and leaped out into the air.

  Suicidal, Entreri thought. But could it be suicide if she was already dead?

  She soared from on high, her body snapping forward as she crashed down beside the dracolich, her axe slamming into a rib with tremendous force, taking a chunk of bone and tearing a long line of tough skin all
the way down to the ground. She landed hard but came right back to her feet, swinging with abandon, without concern for any semblance of defense.

  Behind her came Mariabronne, leaping far and wide. He slammed down on the dracolich’s back face-first, and somehow held on, eventually bringing himself to a sitting position straddling the beast’s huge spine. He locked his legs around a vertebra, took up his sword in both hands, and began slamming away.

  The dracolich reared—and from above came a sudden and blinding stroke of lightning that crackled around the creature’s head.

  But if the lightning hurt the dracolich at all, the beast didn’t show it.

  It all made no sense to Entreri, so of course he glanced back at Jarlaxle. The drow just stood there, serene, it seemed, with his eyes closed in concentration. Entreri shook his head. That one always had a trick to play.

  His sigh was one of disgust, his shrug one of helplessness, but Entreri changed direction and lifted Charon’s Claw above his shoulder. Perhaps it wasn’t the end after all.

  The dracolich was focused on Canthan, and Athrogate charged back in from the front as Entreri limped in at the back. Ellery and Mariabronne pounded away with abandon. The assassin still shook his head, though, doubting that it would be enough.

  He watched the serpentine neck lift the head fast toward the wizard. Canthan let loose a second spell and the dracolich’s skull momentarily disappeared within the flames of a fireball. It came through smoking and blackened in spots.

  With his free hand, Entreri pulled out the side of his cloak and whispered, “Red” into a pocket, then grabbed Charon’s Claw with both hands, determined to make his first strike count.