Canticle

by R. A. Salvatore

  She popped the ghoul in the other eye for good measure, but the move put her torch out of line for a continuing defense. A second foe appeared beside the first, its tongue hanging low and its wretched hands reaching for Danica.

  Danica moved to punch it but remembered Newander's warning and knew that her own arm's reach could not match the taller ghoul's. Danica possessed other weapons. She threw her head backward suddenly, so far that it seemed she would tumble to the ground. Her continued balance caught the still-advancing ghoul by surprise and brought an astounded gasp from Newander behind her, for Danica did not fall. She pivoted her body on one leg, her other leg shooting up before her and her foot catching the charging ghoul right under the chin. The monster's jaw smacked shut, its severed tongue dropped to the floor, and it stopped abruptly, hideous red-green blood and mucus pouring from its mouth.

  Danica wasn't nearly finished with it. She dropped her torch and leaped straight up, catching the crossbeam support, and snap-kicked one foot into the ghoul's face, sending gore flying. Again and again Danica's kicks pounded it.

  The third advancing ghoul had met equal punishment. Newander held his open palm out before him and uttered a few words to produce another ball of magical flame, similar to the one he had used to light the torch back at the tunnel entrance. As the ghoul came hobbling in, Newander launched the fiery missile. It hit the advancing monster squarely in the chest and suddenly the ghoul was more concerned with patting out the flames than attacking the druid. It had nearly put out the first fire when another ball came in, this one taking it in the shoulder. Then came the third missile, bursting into a shower of sparks as it hit the ghoul in the face.

  Danica held her position on the crossbeam and kicked one final time. She knew that she had snapped the ghoul's neck, but the doomed creature managed to get a claw on the side of her leg. As it fell, its dirty nail dug a deep in the down Danica's calf. Danica looked upon the wound in horror, feeling the paralyzing touch taking hold of her. "No!" she growled, and she used all her years of training, all her mental discipline, to fight back, to force the chill from her bones.

  She dropped from the beam and scooped up the torch, glad to learn that her leg could still support her. Her anger controlled her now; part of Danica's discipline involved the knowledge of when to let go, of when to let sheer anger guide her actions. The ghoul with the burned eyes spun about wildly, slashing blindly with its claws in its search for something to hit. Its mouth opened impossibly wide in a hungry, vicious scream.

  Danica grasped the torch in both hands and rammed it with an overhead chop down the ghoul's throat. The creature thrashed wildly, scoring several hits on Danica's arms, but the furious woman did not relent. She drove the torch deeper down the ghoul's gullet, twisting and grinding until the ghoul stopped thrashing.

  Hardly slowing, Danica tightened one hand and spun about, catching the ghoul battling Newander's fires with a left hook. The blow lifted the monster from its feet and sent it crashing into the tunnel wall. Newander came on it in an instant, pounding with his oaken staff.

  The fight was far from over. Five ghouls remained, though three were still helplessly entangled by the moss strands. The other two had worked their way free and charged, paying no concern to their dead companions.

  Danica dropped into a low crouch, pulled her daggers from their boot sheaths, and struck before the monsters ever got close. To the lead ghoul, the coming dagger probably seemed no more than a sliver, flickering as it spun in the dim torchlight. Then the creature got the point, as the dagger buried itself to the hilt in its eye. The ghoul shrieked and teetered to the side, clutching its face. Danica's second shot followed with equal precision, thudding into the creature's chest, again burying to the hilt, and the ghoul tumbled, writhing in the throes of death.

  The second charging ghoul, not a fortunate creature, now had a clear path at Danica. The monk waited again until the very last moment, then sprang to grab the beam and her deadly foot flashed out. The powerful kick caught the ghoul on the forehead, stopping it cold and snapping its head backward. As the head came back, Danica's foot met it again, then a third and a fourth time.

  Danica dropped from the beam, letting the momentum of her fall take her down into a low squat. Like a coiled spring, she came back up, spinning as she rose and letting one foot fly out behind her. The circle-kick maneuver caught the stunned and battered ghoul on the side of the jaw and snapped its head to the side so brutally that the ghoul was sent into an airborne somersault. It landed in a kneeling position, weirdly contorted, with its legs straight out to either side, its lifeless body hunched heavily and its head lolling about, looking over one shoulder.

  Danica's rage was not appeased. She charged down the passage, issuing a single-toned scream all the way. She put her right hand in a partial fist, extending her index and little fingers rigidly. The closest moss-wrapped ghoul, not Danica's target, managed to free one arm to lash at the woman. Danica easily dove under the awkward attack, went into a roll right past the attacker, and came up a few feet in front of the next ghoul without breaking her momentum in the least. She leaped into the air and struck viciously as she descended. Eagle Talon, this attack was named, according to the scrolls of Grandmaster Penpahg D'Ahn, and Danica worked it to perfection as her extending fingers drove right through the ghoul's eyes, exploding into its rotted brain. It took Danica nearly a minute to extract her hand from the creature's shattered head, but it didn't matter, she knew. This ghoul offered no further threat.

  Newander, finished with his ghoul, started toward the young woman. He stopped, though, seeing that Danica had things well under control, and went instead to retrieve the low-burning torch.

  Finally free, Danica went back at the ghoul that had swung at her. Her fist thudded grotesquely against the rotted flesh of the creature's chest; Danica knew that its ribs had collapsed under the blow, but the ghoul, nearly free before the attack, fell clear of the moss with the weight of the punch. It came up screaming horribly, wailing away like a thing gone insane.

  Danica matched its intensity, hitting it three times for each hit she suffered. Again she felt the paralyzing chill of a ghoul's touch and again she growled it away. Still, she could not ignore the lines of blood on her arms, and her pain and weariness were mounting. She feigned another straightforward punch, then dropped into a squat under the ghoul's lurching swings. Her foot flashed straight out, catching the ghoul inside its knee and sending it face-first to the ground. In an instant, Danica was back up. She clutched her hands together in a double fist, reached back over her head and dropped to her knees, using the momentum of her fall to add to the power of her chop. She caught the rising ghoul on the back of the head, slamming it back to the ground. The creature bounced under the terrific impact and then lay very still.

  Danica didn't wait to see if it would move again. She grabbed a handful of its scraggly hair, reached under to cup its chin in her other hand, and twisted its head so violently that before the crackling of neck bones had finished, the ghoul's dead eyes were staring straight up over its back.

  Danica came up with an enraged scream and advanced steadily on the one remaining ghoul. The moss had lifted this one clear of the ground and it hung there still, barely struggling against the impossible bonds. Danica punched it on the side of the head, sending it into a spin. As the face came around in a full circle, Danica, too, spun a circuit and circle-kicked, reversing the creature's spin. And so it went, punch, kick, around one way and then the other.

  "It is dead," Newander started to say, but he didn't bother to press the point, understanding that Danica needed to work through her rage. Still she kicked and punched, and still the limply hanging ghoul spun.

  Finally, the exhausted monk dropped to her knees before the latest kill and put her head in her blood-soaked hands.

  * * * * *

  "Druzil?" Barjin didn't know why he had spoken the word aloud; perhaps he had thought that the sound would help him reestablish the suddenly broken telepath
ic link with his imp familiar. "Druzil?"

  There was no reply, no hint that the imp kept any link at all opened to the cleric. Barjin waited a moment longer, still trying to send his thoughts along the outer passageways, still hoping that Druzil would answer.

  Soon, the priest had to admit that his outer eyes had somehow been closed. Perhaps Druzil had been slain, or perhaps an enemy priest had banished the imp back to his own plane. With that uncomfortable thought in mind, Barjin moved to his low-burning brazier. He spoke a few command words, ordering the flames higher and trying to reopen his mysteriously unproductive interplanar gate. He called to midges and manes and lesser denizens; he called to Druzil, hoping that if the imp had been banished, he might bring him back. But the flames crackled unimpeded by any otherworldly presence. Barjin did not know, of course, of the magical powder Druzil had sprinkled to close the gate.

  The priest continued his calling for a short while, then realized the futility of it and realized, too, that if Druzil had indeed been defeated, he might have some serious problems brewing. Another thought came to him then, the image of the imp returning to the altar room at the head of the skeletal force with ideas of overthrowing the priest's leadership. Imps had never been known for their undying loyalty.

  In either case, Barjin needed to strengthen his own position. He moved to Mullivy first and spent a long moment considering how he might further strengthen the zombie. He already had given Mullivy a patchwork armor plating and had magically increased the zombie's strength, but now he had something more devious in mind. He took out a tiny vial and poured a drop of mercury over Mullivy, uttering an arcane chant. The spell completed, Barjin retrieved several flasks of volatile oil and soaked Mullivy's clothes.

  Barjin turned to his most powerful ally, Khalif, the mummy. There was little the priest could do to enhance the already monstrous creation, so he issued a new set of unambiguous commands to it and set it in a more strategic position outside the altar room.

  All that remained for Barjin was his personal preparations. He donned his clerical vestments, enchanted cloth as armored as a knight's suit of mail, and uttered a prayer to enhance this protection even more. He took up the Screaming Maiden, his devilish woman-headed mace, and rechecked the wards at the room's single door. Let his enemies come; whether it was a traitor imp or a host of priests from above, Barjin was confident that the attackers soon would wish they had remained in the outer passages.

  * * * * *

  Newander moved to comfort Danica, but Percival got there first, dropping from a crossbeam to the woman's shoulder. Danica's smile returned when she looked upon the white squirrel, a reminder of better times, to be sure.

  "They sense the raising of the dead" Newander explained, indicating the ghouls. "The meat of their table is the meat of a corpse."

  Danica shot him an incredulous look.

  "Even if they must create the corpse on their own," Newander replied. "But it is the raising of the dead that brings them." Newander seemed to doubt his own words, but he knew nothing of the necromancer's stone and had no other explanation. "Ghouls will flock to undead from anywhere near, though where these wretches have come from, I cannot guess."

  Danica struggled unsteadily to her feet. "It does not matter where they came from," she said. "Only that they are dead―and will stay dead this time. Let us go on. Cadderly and the dwarves might have met troubles farther in."

  Newander grabbed her arm and held her back. "You cannot go," he insisted.

  Danica glared at him.

  "My spells are nearly exhausted," the druid explained, "but I have some salves that might help your wounds and a curative spell that can defeat any poison you might have suffered."

  "We have no time," Danica argued, pulling free. "Save that poison cure. My wounds are not so serious, but we might need that before this is ended."

  "Only a minute for treating your wounds then," Newander argued back, conceding the point concerning the spell but adamant that Danica's scratches at least should be cleaned. He took out a small pouch. "You might be needing me, Lady Danica, but I'll not go in with you if you do not let me tend to your wounds."

  Danica wanted no delays, but she didn't doubt the stubborn druid's resolve. She kneeled before Newander and held her torn forearms out to him, and, despite her own stubbornness, she had to admit that the gashes felt much better the instant the druid applied his salves.

  They set off again, Newander bearing the torch and his staff, Danica holding her daggers, stained darkly with ghoul gore, and the newest member of the party, Percival, wrapped nervously about Danica's neck and shoulders.

  Oh, Brother, Me Brother

  "Me brother!" Ivan wailed, falling over Pikel's prostrate form. "Oh, me brother!" The dwarf sniffled and wept openly, cradling Pikel's head in his hands.

  Cadderly had no words to comfort Ivan. Indeed, the young scholar was nearly as overcome as the dwarf. Pikel had been a dear friend, always ready to listen to Cadderly's latest wild idea, and always adding an emphatic "Oo oi!" just to make Cadderly feel good.

  Cadderly had never known the pangs of a friend's death. His mother had died when he was very young, but he didn't remember that. He saw the priests of Ilmater and the dead gluttons in the kitchen, but they were only faces to him, distant and unknown. Now, looking at dear Pikel, he didn't know how he should feel. didn't know what he could do. It seemed a macabre game, and for the very first time in his life, Cadderly understood that some things were beyond his power to control or change, that all his rationale, his intelligence, in the final estimation seemed just a minor thing.

  "Ye should've been a druid," Ivan said quietly. "Ye always were better under the sky than the stone." Ivan let out a great cry and buried his head in Pikel's chest, his shoulders shuddering uncontrollably.

  Cadderly could understand the dwarf's pain, but he was shocked nonetheless that Ivan was so openly emotional. The priest wondered if something was wrong with him for not falling over Pikel as Ivan had done, or if Ivan's love for his brother was so much greater than his own feelings for the dwarf. Cadderly kept his wits about him; no matter how agonizing Pikel's death was, if they did not move on and close the bottle, many others would share a similar fate.

  "We must go," Cadderly said softly to Ivan.

  "Shut yer mouth!" Ivan roared, on the verge of an explosion, never taking his gaze from his brother.

  The response caught Cadderly by surprise, but again he did not understand the nature of grief, did not know if it was Ivan who was acting out of sorts or if he was. When the dwarf finally did look back at him, tears streaked his contorted face and Cadderly feared that he knew what was going on.

  "The curse," he muttered breathlessly. As far as he could tell, this red mist worked to exaggerate one's emotions. Apparently the curse had found a hold in Ivan's sincere grief, a chink in the tough dwarf's magic-resistant constitution.

  Cadderly feared that it was taking hold of Ivan. The dwarf's blubbering increased with each passing moment; he could hardly draw breath, so violent was his weeping.

  "Ivan," he said quietly, moving over to put a hand on the dwarf's shoulder. "We can do no more for Pikel. Come away now. We have other business to attend."

  Ivan snapped an angry glare on Cadderly and smacked his hands away. "Ye're wanting me to leave him?" the dwarf cried. "Me brother! Me dead brother! No, I'm not going, never going. I'll stay by me brother's side. Stay here and keep me Pikel druid warm!"

  "He is dead, Ivan," Cadderly said through his own budding sniffles. "Gone. You cannot keep the warmth in his body. You cannot do anything for him"

  "Shut yer mouth!" Ivan roared again, reaching for his axe. Cadderly thought the dwarf meant to chop him down, feared that Ivan blamed him for what had happened to Pikel, but Ivan never even found the strength to lift the heavy weapon and instead tumbled back down over Pikel.

  Cadderly realized that he would get nowhere reasoning with the grieving dwarf, but Ivan's outburst incited other ideas in the young scholar.
There was one emotion that could overrule even grief, and Ivan seemed all too willing to let that emotion take charge.

  "You can do nothing," Cadderly said again, "but repay the one who did this to Pikel."

  Suddenly Cadderly had Ivan's full attention.

  "He is down here, Ivan," Cadderly prodded, though he didn't like leading the dwarf on like this. "Pikel's killer is down here."

  "The imp!" Ivan roared, looking around wildly for the creature.

  "No," Cadderly replied, "not the imp, but the imp's master."

  "The imp's what poisoned me brother!" Ivan protested.

  "Yes, but the imp's master brought the imp, and the curse, and all the evil that led to Pikel's demise," replied Cadderly. He knew he was taking license in drawing such conclusions, but if he could get Ivan moving, then it would be worth the deceit. "If we can defeat the master, then the imp and all the evil will follow.

  "The master, Ivan," Cadderly said again, "he who brought the curse."

  "Ye brought the curse," Ivan snarled, fingering his two-headed axe again and eyeing Cadderly suspiciously.

  "No," Cadderly quickly corrected, seeing his conniving tactics taking an entirely different light. "I played an unfortunate role in its release, but I did not bring it. There is one down here―there must be―who brought the curse and sent the skeletons and the imp down here after us, down here to kill your brother!"

  "Where is he?" Ivan cried, springing up from Pikel and clasping his heavy axe in both hands. "Where's me brother's killer?" The dwarf's eyes darted all about wildly, as if he expected some new monster to appear at any moment.

  "We must find him," Cadderly prodded. "We can go back the way we came, back into the tunnels I remember."

  "Go back?" The idea didn't seem to please Ivan.

  "Just until I remember the way, Ivan," Cadderly explained, "then we'll go forward, to the room with the cursed bottle, to where we shall find your brother's killer." He could only hope his words were true and that Ivan would relax by the time they found the room.