Keep on the Borderlands

by Ru Emerson - (ebook by Flandrel; Undead)

  “So far, so good,” Jerdren said as the priest came up to join him.

  Panev pointed across the hall. “The other undead at this end of the temple are in that chamber,” he said quietly. “They are bound to that chamber, or the noise of battle would have brought them out to aid their fellows just now.” He eyed Jerdren, glanced at Eddis. “We can leave them alone for now. But if we did, their high priest could summon them against us.”

  “We fight them, then,” Jerdren said with satisfaction.

  “We fight,” Panev said. “Though I will turn them, if I can. Wait, all of you, until I order an attack.”

  His black gaze rested on Hebold, who rolled his eyes and shrugged.

  “It is seldom given to a man of my calling to turn the undead—but perhaps the gods of order will aid me in this. When we are done there, I will help Mead with the wounded.”

  Eddis thrust herself forward. “You who’ve been hurt—stay out of this fray, and watch our backs.”

  Panev beckoned as he strode into the room. Zombies—eight more of them—came to staggering life as he entered the chamber. Eddis moved to M’Baddah’s side and drew back her bowstring.

  Her lieutenant hadn’t been quick enough to get Flerys behind him this time—or more likely, the smell of rot and decay from the hall behind them had already affected the girl. She stumbled away from him, clutching her stomach, and vomited. M’Whan snatched at her arm and dragged her back to the nearest wall, where he thrust her into Mead’s grasp.

  Eddis and M’Baddah shot and shot again, moved sideways as one, the way he’d taught her. But the two zombies stalking them seemed unfazed by the arrows. One of the spearmen came from somewhere to bury his weapon into the nearest, angling up from the base of its neck and into the skull. The head popped off, and the body went down like a sack of pudding. The undead at its side pawed at the man but slid in Flerys’ mess and fell on its back. Hebold was there with his axe before it could rise, and across the chamber, Jerdren came darting up behind two more undead, beheading them both in one mighty swing.

  “Back!” That was Mead, who thrust Flerys back at M’Baddah and strode forward, unstoppering a gourd of oil as he walked. He whipped the thing back and forth, then backed away himself as he tossed a lit candle stub into the spill of liquid. Fire roared up. The three zombies still on their feet went up like torches.

  Mead was already back in the short, broad corridor. “There is no one and nothing out there just now. Catch your breath, all of you, drink water—no, not here, out in the passage, where the air is cleaner. Let me know which of you was wounded in that fray. We cannot afford to lose anyone here.”

  Eddis hugged Flerys close as they left the chamber. The child was pale, and her lips trembled.

  “Here,” the swordswoman whispered. “Eat a little of the travel bread, it won’t hurt your stomach.”

  “I’m sorry.” The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “You couldn’t help it. It’s all right, Flerys. I almost got sick in there myself. A little bread and a drink of water. You’ll be fine.”

  Flerys took the wafer and tucked a bite of it in her cheek, sipped water, and leaned back against the wall, spear clutched to her body.

  Mead’s voice roused Eddis. “Anyone so much as touched by those foul creatures, come to me or Panev now and let us heal you.”

  Hebold sighed heavily. The mage eyed him with disdain.

  “Of course, a man like you bears his wounds bravely, but the least touch from these undead may turn you into one of them. Do you want that, hero?”

  Time passed. It was deathly quiet here. Eddis thought she heard something like a distant flute once, but when she held her breath to listen closely, there was nothing.

  “So.” Jerdren came up quietly behind her. “What next?

  The priest answered for her, as he pointed north. “There are men. Fewer than we but strong in evil. We must be careful.”

  Jerdren smiled grimly and got to his feet. “I can deal with men.”

  Back past the entry and a like distance on, the passage ended in a door ahead and a door on their right. Panev brought out a stubby black wand and gazed at it, then turned to look from one door to the other. He nodded toward the one straight ahead, but as Jerdren and Hebold surged that way, the priest blocked their way.

  “There are priests within,” he murmured. “Four priests. Trust nothing they say or do!”

  Hebold shrugged and slammed into the door. The panel gave way. Four hooded, red-robed men snatched up weapons and ran to put themselves between the invaders and two other priests who had been reading a text.

  Mead fired a glowing dart across the chamber into the nearest standing priest. The fellows hood smoldered, and he flung his mace aside to beat at the thick doth. Mead jumped back, M’Baddah and Willow brushed him aside and blocked the entry, firing two swift arrows each. M’Baddah’s bounced off the robed being with a dang. Willow’s lodged deep in the hood, and the unseen priest sagged and fell across the table. Hebold and Jerdren charged into the room then, as outlander and elf swung away from the doorway. Two Keep men followed, bearing down on the priest with the still-smoking hood.

  Eddis and Flerys stayed in the hall, the swordswoman with her blade out and her free arm around Flerys, her eyes searching both corridors. Panev said noise would bring the undead down on us, she thought. If this isn’t noise, I don’t know what is.

  It was abruptly quiet back in that chamber, all at once. Someone was moaning in pain. A sword clanged into something hard and metal, and the moaning stopped. Eddis looked that way. Blood splashed the far wall, and all four hooded men lay still.

  “It’s all right, child,” she told Flerys. “We’ve won again.” She hoped. There were men down in there—one she could see with a long dagger sticking out of his neck, his eyes open and vacant.

  Panev walked around the chamber, spoke a blessing over their dead. “Everyone out,” he said tersely, and began pouring oil on the bodies. When Hebold protested the waste of oil and time, the priest gave him a chill look. “Would you be foolish enough to leave a body in this unholy place?” Without waiting for a reply, the priest strode on down the west-facing passage.

  At its end, he paused once more. There was a chamber to their left. Eddis could just make out a large, red stone block that might be an altar and farther in, a great tapestry that covered most of the wall behind it. She shuddered and turned away.

  Panev led them past the room, then paused. “There is a door ahead—perhaps two doors. Men are there, and evil surrounds and fills them. The gods grant us courage.”

  Jerdren nodded grimly and led the company on.

  Another dosed door. Hebold broke this in and threw himself at those inside. M’Baddah fired his remaining magic arrows, and the battle was quickly over. Hebold came back into the open, bleeding from a head cut, which he grudgingly let Panev heal.

  Another chamber, more priest-clad enemies who grimly swung maces. Two Keep men went down under the attack. Eddis leaped back as a priest evaded Hebold’s axe and pelted straight for her, hand snatching at her. Blorys’ sword came down across the robed back, and Flerys lunged, spear stabbing deeply into the hood. The enemy sagged, dragging the spear from the girl’s hands. Blorys pulled it free, and she snatched it up.

  Another hooded man burst free, and his mace knocked Blorys to his knees. Eddis jammed her blade two-handed into thick cloth. The weapon felt sluggish, her arms weak, and the point seemed to hesitate just short of flesh.

  “Foul thing!” she yelled and used her legs to drive the sword in. The man wailed, staggered back into the wall, and slid down it.

  More dead men, more injured, and another room ablaze. Where does it end? Eddis thought wearily. Panev looked as exhausted as she felt.

  “Undead hold the way against us, up there,” he said. “We will avoid them, if we can.” His eyes kindled. “The center of evil is here—so close!”

  “Let’s get ’em, then!” Hebold snarled, bu
t Jerdren pressed him back.

  “Wait,” he said. “Any other place, I’d be with you, friend. Here, we let this priest guide us.” He caught Eddis’ eye and managed a faint, wry grin. “Didn’t you tell me once that dead men don’t kill anything?”

  “Hah,” Hebold retorted but stayed where he was.

  “Rest, all of you,” Panev said. “Our greatest challenge lies ahead. And I warn each of you—touch nothing! We approach the heart of evil, and the thing that catches your eye may draw you from us and turn you into its slave. Do not let any creature touch you or hold your gaze. And let no priest escape!”

  “Great. So, if he’s that powerful, how does a mere man like me kill him?” Hebold asked He scowled at his broken battle-axe and tossed it aside.

  “The priest who controls this place is still mortal, though harder to kill than most men.” Panev paced while the others drank water or checked their weapons, then led them swiftly on.

  All at once, the passage widened into a chamber, a dark void at their left. Panev drew them close to hiss, “There are undead waiting beyond the wall, to our right. Keep still if we are to avoid them!”

  They moved slowly and cautiously now, easing into the large, open room. Light flared. Black candles burst into flame, illuminating the chamber suddenly and painfully. Panev ripped a scroll tube from his pack, though he did not yet open it.

  The wall ahead glowed as if covered with fresh blood, then seemed to shift and change. Eddis hastily turned away.

  It’s a temple! she realized as her eyes adjusted. There a black stone dais, here benches and pews for worshippers. The vast dais took up much of the room and was topped by chairs of the same stone grouped about an enormous throne. Gems glittered—the dais and the chairs were covered in them. Kadymus gasped then spun away, hands clasped together behind his back. Even Hebold seemed subdued.

  As they passed a great iron bell, Hebold’s face lit up, and he tapped Mead’s arm, pointing at something Eddis couldn’t see. The mage shrugged, brought up the wand he was carrying, and finally nodded. Hebold grinned hugely, sheathed his sword, and scooped up a pair of heavy mallets, knocking them together with a dull dank. Mead gestured urgently for silence and hurried to catch up with the priest, who had reached the far end of the room.

  A long purple drape covered the wall. It shifted, colors swirling wildly, curious writing and symbols filling the space.

  Panev drew Eddis and Jerdren close and whispered, “There are small passages beyond the doth and three undead at guard. Beyond that is a small room where the priest dwells. He is the one I seek, the one we must defeat if this place is to be taken back from chaos.”

  Jerdren nodded and signed for Willow and M’Baddah to stay with him.

  Eddis glanced at Blorys, who waited only long enough to see that Hebold wasn’t on his brother’s heels.

  “Gods, Blor,” she whispered. “What are we doing here?”

  “The best we can,” he whispered back. “Remember your pledge to me!”

  She nodded. “Remember yours.”

  His eyes warmed. Panev laid a hand on her shoulder in passing, and her heart lifted briefly. When he pressed the drape aside, she followed close on his heels, sword in one hand, dagger in the other.

  Her nose wrinkled as they came into the passage behind the drape. There wasn’t much room for maneuvering here. Too much fancy and luxurious furnishing—couches, carpets, odd bits of statuary here and there—and not enough bare floor. The space reeked of long-dead flesh. Zombies. She could see one now, shuffling toward her, sword in its rotting hand.

  A loud dang brought her around. Hebold had leaped to the attack, beating down a zombie with his long-handled bell mallets. M’Baddah pinned another to the wall with his sword, ducking back as the thing continued to swipe at him, but M’Whan charged in to behead the thing with a two-handed swipe of his sword.

  The third turned from her and staggered toward Mead, giggling madly, but the mage snatched up a spear from one of the Keep men. The creature veered away, right into Jerdren’s reach, and he smashed it down, bones and black fluid spilling over the tiled floor as he reversed his grip on his sword and beat at the thing with the heavy hilt.

  Another door loomed. To Eddis’ surprise, it opened easily when Mead pressed his spear against the latch. A small chamber was beyond, nearly as obstructed with furnishings as the last space had been.

  “Great,” she murmured sourly. “No room to fight… now what?”

  Panev strode past her, Mead on his heels. The priest’s scroll crackled as he read the spell aloud—odd words that echoed in her mind and made her skin crawl.

  The words meant something to his enemy, clearly. Wild, deep laughter filled the room. Eddis shuddered.

  “Why do you invade my private sanctum, priest of Law?” a voice demanded from the shadows “What fool are you, to invoke a spell of lawful holding, here? Do you think me a weakling that I will fall to such simple words as that?”

  “Foul creature of chaos!” Panev replied, “I knew you would turn that spell! Because you turned it, you have torn down the wall you built against lawful spells such as mine, and now you are open to both my magic and the weapons my allies bear! You cannot overcome us, dark one! Die, you and your undead servants! Sink into darkness forever!”

  Eddis stopped just inside the doorway, fingers clutching her bow and her sword. The priest who strode into the open was tall and thin, clad in red and black. But as Panev spoke, the least wind soughed through the chamber, and the other’s robe shifted, revealing a gleam of mail under it.

  His eyes were black, luminous, eager pinpoints. After one glance, the swordswoman knew she dared not look on his face again. Blorys was a sudden, comforting presence against her left arm, his sword in his left hand, throwing-dagger held by the point in his right.

  The evil priest darted aside to snatch up a staff, lips moving. Mead raised his hands to begin a spell, then went flat as the priest launched the staff at him. Eddis ran to help him up, then jerked away as the weapon clattered to the floor, writhed, and became a serpent. It twined around the elf mage.

  “Get away from it, woman!” Panev ordered her sternly and began to pray aloud. A snake grew between his hands, twisting and hissing. With a shout of triumph, Panev cast it at the dark priest, but the dread creature dapped his hands together, and the snake was unmade in a coil of black smoke just short of his feet.

  Teeth gleaming in the gloom, the dark one drew a bludgeon from his robes. Panev pressed Eddis aside and brought up his mace.

  The two priests swung furiously at each other, but their blows missed. The dark priest spat words and darted forward to backhand Panev out of his way. Blood ran down Panev’s cheek from a long, narrow cut, as though he’d been knifed. He gritted his teeth and swung the mace again, this time catching his opponent’s weapon firmly against the head of his own. Eddis waited for an opening and threw one of her daggers. The blade sliced through the red cloak but clanged off metal and fell useless to the floor.

  Blorys’ sword ripped at the priest’s neck, and blood followed.

  “Look!” he shouted above the din. “He isn’t proof to a blade!”

  Eddis laughed wildly and stabbed. The man now bled from several wounds, but nothing seemed to slow him, and Panev could make no headway. The evil priest shouted, and the sound ground against Eddis’ skin like sharp-edged stones. Blorys gasped and went down. Eddis cursed furiously and set herself between him and the evil one.

  Behind them, sounds of fighting ceased. Eddis hoped, but didn’t dare look to see which side had won. Slowly, Panev was gaining the upper hand. A finger’s worth at a time, he pressed the evil priest back, but every step took them both closer to Mead, who stood helpless, eyes black with fury as he remained bound in a serpent’s coils.

  Blorys swore weakly. Eddis helped him up.

  “This has to end. Now,” she said flatly.

  Blorys nodded. He was short of breath, but his eyes were dark furies.

  “We end this.
If we can,” he added.

  The two ran forward, swords high, and brought them down across the priest’s neck. Blorys’ sword rebounded with a loud dang. Eddis’ slashed through flesh, and the priest howled, staggered back, breaking away from Panev, who staggered and nearly fell on his face. The foul priest spun around, eyes glittering with hate, the mace a blur as he swung at Eddis, but she darted back out of reach, and Panev’s mace slammed down on the priest’s exposed head.

  Eddis ducked as somewhere behind her Willow urgently shouted, “Arrow!”

  One of the black-fletched magic arrows sang across the chamber and buried itself deep in the priest’s eye. He fell to his knees.

  Horribly, Eddis realized, he wasn’t yet dead. But as he strove to rise, Blorys lunged, stabbing through his throat as Panev brought the mace down two-handed.

  The snake released Mead, vanishing in a roil of oily black smoke. The elf came slowly across the room as Panev gazed down at the fallen priest, mace ready to strike if he moved again, but the man’s blood no longer flowed, and his eye stared glassily, unseeing at the ceiling. Panev staggered back into the wall, eyes half-closed, his breathing shallow.

  Mead felt in his pouch for a healing potion and came up with a small, dark bottle. “A good thing you aren’t much hurt, priest. I’m running low.”

  “It scarcely matters how I fare, if he is dead,” the priest replied.

  “But others depend on us to escape this place,” Mead reminded him.

  The priest took the little bottle and drank down the contents.

  “That’s him?” Jerdren peered around the doorway. “That’s… that’s it?”

  Panev nodded.

  “Anything here we dare take?”

  The priest shrugged. “I am too worn to dare trust my own thoughts about that. Mead?”

  The mage shook his head. “I used my last reveal spell. Still …” He drew a slender scroll from his pouch, unfurled the thing and read it under his breath. “It is safe now. Search for things of value if you wish, but do not touch that priest or any scroll or bottle.”