“Ironic, isn’t it?” Kellita said, chuckling. “You thought you were dragging me into this place, when all the time, I was leading you.” No longer was she the baron’s tremulous concubine; now she was reveling in her power as a high priestess of the sadistic queen.
“Persha would never have found that stone from the isle if I hadn’t secretly led her to it. Nor would that fool Reifworm have been able to sail us through the island’s protective spells without my subtle prodding. I even slipped away from the rest of you long enough to lure Wharkun through a secret passage to kill him. I did all of it just to arrive at this moment. Now your blood will bring my queen back from the pit. She shall rise again, and I will rule at her side.”
She stooped and seized Robellar’s corpse under the arms. She cut the baron free from the writhing vines and pulled him toward Sanguinarre’s golden throne.
The rough handling of her lord’s dead body seemed to snap the grip of fear paralyzing Persha. Her back against the wall, she gestured in an arc and muttered a quick incantation. In response, a two-foot-tall wall of blue-white flames sprang up around her. The tendril vines attacking the mage withered and reeled back, green serpents recoiling from fire. Larger, stouter vines began creeping forward to take their place.
Rik, the two basilisks, and Antiope were fighting nearly side by side, but most of the forces of the dead queen were arrayed between them and the doorway.
“If we can’t go out,” Rik said, “we’ll have to go in.” He fastened his eyes upon Kellita, who had dumped the baron’s corpse by the throne and was now chanting over the body.
“Right,” Antiope agreed. “That bitch is the weakest part of her own scheme. If we take her down, we can still walk out of here rich.”
Walking out at all was Rik’s main concern, but if he could escape wealthy—why not?
“Yesss,” Brak grunted. He and Grif surged toward the dangling body of Al-Shakir, between them and Sanguinarre’s acolyte. Rik and Antiope followed, protecting the group’s rear. Of the thirty or so zombies originally facing the mercenaries, a scant dozen remained. The rest they’d hacked into so many pieces that all the vines in the world would not be able to stitch the undead back together.
Those dozenr emained fanatical and deadly foes. Feeling neither pain nor fear, the reanimated corpses rushed after the mercenaries. Only the entangling vines covering the floor and the zombies’ puppet-like awkwardness kept the undead from overwhelming the four warriors remaining.
In the corner, Persha’s firewall was quickly fading, but she had conjured a new type of magical protection around herself. The magical shield flashed with blue-white energy every time a vine tendril tried to attack her. The tendrils withered and died, but the spell seemed to be taking all of Persha’s concentration.
Rik and the others reached Al-Shakir’s body, near where Robellar had fallen. Kellita stood two dozen yards away, her arms raised in supplication as she chanted dark supplications to her dead queen. The acolyte was facing away from mercenaries, but an ocean of writhing vines lay between the warriors and the wicked concubine. Beyond Lita, something large began to push the mass of vines upward.
As Rik, Grif, and Antiope fought off the animated corpses, Brak stooped and retrieved Al-Shakir’s fallen spear. The basilisk hefted the weapon and took careful aim. Then he hurled the spear at Kellita’s smooth back.
At the last second, Sanguinarre’s priestess turned. The spear skidded over her left shoulder blade and sliced through one of the bejeweled straps crossing her back. Part of Kellita’s gossamer clothing fluttered to the floor. Hatred blazed in the girl’s eyes.
“Nebet rahsan sengat!” she hissed. She stretched out her hands and a searing crimson ball of ectoplasm shot across the room.
The hex struck Brak full in the chest, lifting him off his feet and propelling him across the chamber. His turtle shell armor sizzled as the lizard-man soared out the window and disappeared over the wall, just as Memnon had. Unlike the Midknight, Brak did not scream.
Roaring a curse in the tongue of his people, Grif charged forward. He bowled over two skeletons in his way, shattering their bones like twigs, and cut down a half-dozen vines as wide as a man’s arm.
Kellita seemed exhausted from her sorcery and, for a moment, Rik dared to hope that the basilisk might actually reach the girl and slay her. Grif raised his saw-toothed sword high.
As he did, a thick vine shot up from the foliage on the floor. Its thorny tip pierced the tortoise shell armor covering Grif’s back and burst out his chest in a spray of deep crimson gore. The lizard-man gave a surprised hiss, and the breath rattled out of his lungs for the last time.
“Thank you,” Kellita said, licking a droplet of Grif’s blood from her lips. “My mistress needed more blood.” Her eyes blazed red as she turned toward Rik and Antiope, the last mercenaries standing. Behind the wicked acolyte, the vine-covered shape near the throne shuddered and surged up a few more inches.
Kellita began chanting and a pale red glow built up around her hands. “Nebet nebet sihir . . .”
“Do something!” Antiope hissed, her twin short swords felling another vine-encrusted skeleton.
Rik hacked off the arm of the zombie attacking him, whirled, and in a single motion grabbed and threw the dagger at his belt.
The blade soared straight for Kellita’s face, but she stopped her chant and said, “Sildo.” The red magic around her left hand flashed, deflecting the dagger. Before the weapon hit the ground, a burst of white light blazed across the room and struck the acolyte’s right shoulder.
Kellita grunted and fell to her knees, bleeding. Her eyes blazed with hatred. “Persha!” she hissed.
Robellar’s mage was walking slowly toward the throne, her glowing shield forcing back the writhing crimson vines.
“I thought to save you for last,” Kellita said, rising to her feet once more. “Your blood will be powerful—just the thing my mistress needs. Unfortunately, I see that I shall have to deal with you now.” She clutched her wounded shoulder and red energy glowed where the blood dripped.
“Pinu!” Persha said, and another burst of sharp white magic blazed from her outstretched hand.
“Sildo!” the acolyte countered, and Persha’s knife-like hex sizzled into nothingness.
“If you have another dagger,” Antiope whispered to Rik, “now would be a good time to skewer Lita with it.” She hacked off the arm of one of the seven corpses still fighting against them.
“Busy now,” Rik replied. He stepped away from a skeletal claw and tripped on a vine trying to twine itself around his ankle. He slashed down with his cutlass, severing the stem, and rolled to his left as another creeper tried to grab him.
The vine missed, but something hard dug into Rik’s side. Looking down, he recognized the large leather pouch from Baron Robellar’s belt. Scooping it up, he thrust the bag into his own belt and brought his sword around just in time to slice through a vine looping around his throat.
A dozen yards away, Persha and Kellita were advancing slowly toward one another. White and red bursts of energy streaked back and forth between the two women, only to be deflected by magical shields. Sweat beaded on their foreheads as they tried to destroy each other.
“Ironic, isn’t it,” Kellita said, “me turning the enemy’s magic to my queen’s purposes? Izanti’s vines become my mistress’ veins and sinews. The blood of those who plotted to steal her treasure becomes her blood.”
“Fry in hell, you bitch!” Persha said, sending a cascade of fiery daggers blazing toward her enemy.
Kellita staggered, and, for a moment, Persha smiled. But she didn’t see the vines looming up like serpents behind her.
“Persha! Look out!” Rik cried, a moment too late.
Before the mage could turn and reinforce her defense, a huge mass of vines simultaneously thrust themselves into the rear of Persha’s magical shield. Some of the tendrils bounced off or sizzled into nothingness, but many forced their way past the enchantment. They seized
Persha by the wrists and ankles and pulled. The mage screamed as the crimson vegetation tore her apart, splattering the room with her blood.
As the echo of Persha’s final cry faded, the vines behind Kellita peeled away, and the body of the Blood-Red Queen rose from the throne room floor.
The corpse was tall, nearly gigantic, with moldering bones and rotting flesh showing through the gaps in her decaying silken garments. Twisted vines made up her sinews, and scarlet creepers formed her veins. The fibrous vessels lacing across her body pulsed with blood stolen from the queen’s latest victims. Golden bracers, gem-encrusted armbands, serpentine anklets, and other priceless ornaments decorated Sanguinarre’s putrefying body. A golden girdle carved with obscene and sadistic figures girded her waist. Her jewelry rattled and her sinews hissed and creaked as she moved. Atop her skeletal head a ruby diadem glittered, and in the monster’s empty eye sockets burned blazing red eyes.
Kellita fell to her knees and raised her arms in jubilation. “My Queen! You arise! You are nearly complete!” She began chanting once more.
“Sod me!” Rik whispered.
“Happily—assuming we live through this,” Antiope replied. In her eyes, he saw the mercenary gleam she’d lost when Memnon died. All the corpses fighting against them had stopped moving, and the deadly vines had gone limp as the monster queen drew their power into herself.
“Do you think we can run?” Antiope asked.
“Where to?” Rik replied.
The Midknight nodded grimly. “Ride me to hell and back if we don’t have to be heroes,” she said. “I’ll go left, you go right. Maybe between the two of us we can slag that twisted little bitch and stop the conjuring.”
Rik agreed, and the two of them split off, angling for opposite sides of the room. Even immobile, the twisted sea of vines proved difficult to traverse. The dangling vegetation provided cover, and Rik thanked the gods for that. He raced through the concealing foliage until he finally came in sight of Kellita and her dark mistress once more.
The acolyte was so intent on her revivified queen, that it seemed she had completely forgotten the two surviving mercenaries. As Rik emerged from behind a thicket of vines, the evil girl remained kneeling, arms upstretched, a dozen feet away from the rising monster.
The thing that had once been Sanguinarre swayed in front of Kellita, like a serpent before a snake charmer. The girl’s enchantment was building: every moment, more of the vines in the room withered and died. And every moment the corpselike Mistress of Pain appeared more human.
Rik spotted Antiope, crouched amid the hanging vines on the acolyte’s opposite side.
“Now!” the Midknight cried, springing forward. Instantly, Rik also leapt toward Lita.
Kellita whirled, deadly sorcery on her lips. Antiope drove her right shortsword into the acolyte’s side.
“I think I liked you better when you only whimpered, bitch!” the Midknight said. She reeled back with her other sword, aiming at the girl’s neck. “This is for Memnon!”
The acolyte pointed, and white-hot flames blazed from her left hand. The hex burned away the right half of Antiope’s face, and the Midknight crashed to the ground, dead.
Rik wrapped his arm around Kellita’s slender neck and drove his remaining dagger into her back, puncturing her lung and seeking her heart.
The girl whirled and her left hand struck Rik on the side of the head with surprising strength. He stumbled back, his face burning where she’d hit him.
Kellita staggered and fell on all fours, blood gushing from her mouth, gore dripping from the wounds in her side and back. Rik drew his cutlass to finish her.
“Sanguinarre! Save me!” the girl gasped.
Suddenly, the whole floor exploded upward. The crumbling vines disintegrated into dust, and the remaining zombies shattered into shards of bone and splatters or rotted flesh.
The impact hurled Rik across the room. He landed by the doorway, crashing hard onto his back. For a moment, the whole world swirled with flashes of light and darkness.
As Rik’s vision cleared, he saw Kellita crawling toward the towering form of Sanguinarre.
“Take me!” the dying girl pleaded. “May my blood be . . . enough. . .”
The titanic corpse queen lifted her bleeding acolyte overhead and tore the girl in two. Kellita’s blood rained down hot and crimson on Sanguinarre’s twisted flesh. And, as the blood covered her, the decaying body of the Mistress of Pain began to glow bright red.
A terrible laughing sound built within the chamber, a kind of laughter that Rik had never heard before—a sound that came straight from the darkest pits, the sound of the Blood-Red Queen crawling out of the abyss to plague the World-Sea once more.
Outside, black clouds covered the twilit sky and lighting crashed. Thunder shook the palace to its core, momentarily drowning out the terrible laughter. The clouds opened and torrents of rain poured down. A gust of wind sent enormous droplets hissing into the throne room. The hot rain splattered against the blood drenched corpse of Sanguinarre.
Rik staggered to his feet, knowing it was too late to do anything. Even in death, Kellita had won; her monster queen was returning to the world, and nothing Rik could do would stop it. His only hope now was to escape.
He stumbled toward the exit, his body bruised and sore, cuts tracing almost every exposed inch of his skin. His right side ached with every breath he took; he was certain his ribs were broken.
The vines’ demise had left his escape route blessedly free from obstacles, but Rik still had trouble putting one foot in front of the other. He wobbled into the antechamber and leaned against the sill of the broken windows.
He looked down the hallway toward the stairs. How would he ever get back to the beach before the Mistress of Pain turned him into the first victim in her new reign of terror? He surveyed the hall’s shattered furniture and his gaze settled on the obscene tapestries on the opposite wall. A desperate plan formed in Rik’s mind.
The former pirate seized the largest and sturdiest tabletop he could carry and tossed it out of the window. The table sailed over the wall and bounced once off the mountain, before disappearing into the darkness. A flash of lightning revealed it, more or less intact, lying in the mud at the apex of the rockslide.
Inside the throne room, the red glow grew brighter and the queen’s laughter louder. The total resurrection of Sanguinarre was very close.
Rik tore the largest tapestry he could find from the wall. Dragging it to the window, he stabbed his cutlass through the hem with all his strength. The sword plunged deep into the hard wood of the windowsill, securing one end of the cloth in place.
He heaved the other end over the side and grinned when it stretched from the heights of the palace to the mountainside below. This plan might work after all! The former pirate tested the windowsill connection for strength and then threw his leg over the rail.
As he tried to hike himself over the sill and out, part of Rik’s outfit caught on a broken mullion: Robellar’s bag. Something in the pouch pressed hard against Rik’s side, making spots dance before his eyes. What was in the bag? Rik’s fevered brain could hardly remember—though he thought it might be important.
“You don’t have much time!” he muttered to himself, but his fingers opened the bag as if of their own accord. Inside was the glowing stone that Persha had found—poor, dead Persha. What was it she’d said about the stone? It contained magic—the magic of Lian Fyre and Izanti.
Rik glanced from the stone to the throne room and made another desperate choice.
“Chew on this, you twisted red bitch!” he called, throwing the stone into the chamber with all his might.
Then he hurled himself outside, clinging to the tapestry, sliding down into the darkness. Just as he crashed onto the muddy mountainside, a blinding flash of green illumination burst from the ruined castle above him.
Not daring to look back, he half ran, half stumbled downhill until he reached the top of the rockslide. As he’d hoped, the r
ain had turned the slope below into a mud river.
He jumped face-down on the tabletop, landing on it as though it were a sled, and threw himself over the precipice. Behind him, the castle exploded in another flash of brilliant emerald light.
The whole island shook as Rik hurtled down through the jungle. Lightning crashed and he saw Chun Ping’s body, still impaled on the broken tree stump. Then she was gone, and the wet leaves of the jungle were slapping his face once more.
Twice the makeshift sled nearly bucked him off. The former pirate held tight, though both jolts nearly ripped his arms from their sockets.
He landed in a muddy tumble on the rocky beach where they’d left their landing boat moored. Rik looked around; the sampan was gone!
He cast his eyes desperately across the bay. Chun Ping’s junk still lay at anchor, unaware that its mistress would never return. And near it, silhouetted against the waves, bobbed the sampan.
Rik looked back. The entire top of the mountain roiled with green flames. Lightning crashed and thunder shook the island. Between the deafening peals, Rik heard the dying wail of the nearly resurrected queen of Isla Sangre.
The green fire burst out of the castle and billowed down the mountain toward shore.
Rik dived into the water and swam.
He was almost half way to the ship when the concussion from the magic hit. The sea rose up and dashed him into the deep, sucking him under with powerful watery hands. The sea crushed the air from his lungs. He tried to swim, but he didn’t know which way was up.
A flash of lightning revealed the green eddies surrounding him: green above, green below, green to either side. Desperately, Rik kicked his legs, hoping his body’s natural buoyancy would carry him to the surface.
His air ran out before he got there. The world swirled and went dark. Then something jerked him upward.
He found himself in the open air, lying on a hard and wet surface, gasping for breath. Above him loomed a reptilian face that not even a mother could love.
Rik sat up quickly; his head pounded as though someone had struck it. He squinted into the darkness and said, “Brak?”
Zombies, Werewolves, & Unicorns Page 5
