The Jewel of Turmish

by Odom, Mel

  “What the hell are ye?” the bartender asked in a hoarse voice. His eyes rounded in fear as he stumbled back a step.

  “Klosk!” the dwarf woman croaked, spewing ale. “Borran Klosk! He’s returned!” She hefted a battle-axe from the floor beside her.

  If Klosk had possessed lips, he would have smiled. Though he was certain he’d been gone a long time, his name and deeds had been remembered.

  “Yes,” the mohrg spat, “I am Borran Klosk. Fear me.”

  The bartender lashed out with the mop, trying to push Borran Klosk away. The mohrg reacted with blinding speed. Before his transformation he’d been a warrior as well as a mage, and though the men he raised from the dead did not retain their memories, he had.

  The rain-drenched robes whirled as Borran Klosk spun. He knotted a hand into a hammer-like fist, caught the broom in his other hand, and snapped the end of the mop off. Before the collection of dirty rags fell to the floor, he stepped in, pulled the mop across his body, and brought his fist back up. The mop handle snapped again, leaving the bartender with only a precious few inches jutting from his hands.

  Stuttering a surprised oath, the bartender stumbled back, but Borran Klosk was on the man like a hawk taking a dove. Whirling, noticing the other men and women in motion around the room, the mohrg drove the splintered end of the mop handle through the bartender’s chest. Flesh and bone gave way to the unforgiving blow, and the wooden shaft split the man’s heart in two.

  “Die, darkspawn!” the dwarf woman yelled as she raced across the room with her battle-axe raised.

  With superhuman speed, Borran Klosk evaded the dwarf’s blow. The axe sliced through the air, dragging the woman forward a half step. Before she could recover her balance, Borran Klosk seized the back of her head in one hand and her chin in the other. He wrenched her head and felt her skull separate from her spine with a sudden snap.

  The dwarf’s eyes widened in disbelief as she died.

  Gleeful, Borran Klosk savored the woman’s death for a moment, holding her sagging body upright by her head without effort. He watched the life drain from her eyes and rejoiced in the savage jealousy that had filled him since he’d clawed his way free of the first grave to hold him captive.

  Movement to the left alerted Borran Klosk and gave him only a moment’s warning. Spinning, the mohrg watched as the black-clad elf rose to his feet. His voice rang out with words in a tongue Borran Klosk didn’t recognize. As the words tumbled from his lips, the elf pointed.

  Something blurred through the air before Borran Klosk, and he felt an incredible agony rip into him. His knees weakened and even his supernatural vision wavered and filled with whirling black comets. Screaming, the mohrg forced himself to remain standing.

  The elf murmured again, and the other men in the tavern stood back and watched, holding their weapons before them. When the elf gestured again, a flaming arrow leaped from his fingers.

  Twisting with uncanny speed and grace, Borran Klosk dodged the spell. The flaming arrow struck the wall behind him, scorching the impact area and leaving smoldering ruin in its wake. Concentrating on the elf, wondering if he was part of the damned Emerald Enclave, Borran Klosk spoke his own spell and pointed toward the elf.

  The magical energy spewed through Borran Klosk’s palm and became a windstorm in front of him. Another gesture sent the windstorm toward the elf. Howling winds tore through the tavern’s interior, extinguishing candle flames and knocking over chairs and tables.

  The howling windstorm struck the elf before he could move or defend himself. When the winds slammed into the elf, they lifted him from his feet and hurled him back through the window overlooking the street. Glass shattered and the thin panes crumpled and tore loose. Arms flailing, the elf screamed and tried to catch the sides of the windows. Before he could get a strong grip, he was blown through the window and vanished.

  Still in motion, Borran Klosk scooped the battle-axe from the floor. The wall where the elf’s spell had struck burst into flame. Light and smoke filled the small tavern. A crossbow bolt tore into the priest’s robes and slammed against the mohrg’s pelvic bone. Setting himself, Borran Klosk unleashed his tongue.

  The thick, purple appendage sped across the room and ripped through the guts of the woman who’d fired the crossbow. Once his barbed tongue had penetrated its target, Borran Klosk whipped his head back. His tongue opened the woman’s midsection like an overripe tomato and spilled her entrails before her.

  Screaming, dying, the woman dropped.

  Borran Klosk pulled his tongue back into his skull. He listened in satisfaction to the dying woman’s pain-filled screams and pleas for help. It had been so long since he’d heard someone beg for her life … he’d missed the sound.

  “Run!” one of the sailors cried, shoving the man in front of him toward the door.

  Borran Klosk leaped in front of the door. The mohrg drew the battle-axe back, fitting both hands around the handle. He swung, slicing the axe in a transverse sweep across the sailor’s body.

  The sailor fell in halves, a horrified look frozen on his features. Before the next sailor could pull back, Borran Klosk raised his captured battle-axe dripping with gore and brought it down again, cleaving the sailor’s head from crown to chin. He lashed out with the tongue again, spearing the remaining sailor through his open mouth and tearing his brain out the back of his skull.

  Sadistic glee filled Borran Klosk as he turned on the last living person in the tavern. The woman cowered against the back wall, trapped by another wall on one side and the fire from the elf’s spell on the other.

  She sobbed and wailed, and the shrieks were a joyful noise to Borran Klosk. Walking toward her, he dragged out the enjoyment. Torture, if there were time yet remaining before the city watch arrived, would be a welcome diversion.

  “Stay away!” the woman shrilled. She held her empty hands up before her.

  Borran Klosk cocked his head, surveying her.

  “No! Please don’t kill me!” She shrank down, dwindling to a kneeling position with her arms wrapped around her head. She kept her eyes averted from his skull, but looked at his skeletal feet covered in blood.

  Stopping just out of the woman’s reach, Borran Klosk gazed down at her and said, “Do you know who I am, woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is my name?”

  The woman shook her head, gasping in painful fear.

  Borran Klosk opened his jaws and let his tongue spill out. The dripping purple appendage coiled like a restless snake as it approached her. The mohrg relished the taste of the woman’s fear, so palpable through the tongue. Some of his other senses, and the pleasures of the flesh, had been taken from him or dulled by the magic that brought him back to unlife, but they had been replaced by the ability to taste another’s fear. For Borran Klosk there was no finer elixir.

  “If you know my name,” the mohrg said, “say it. Spare your life a little longer.”

  He caressed her cheek with the bloody tongue, leaving smears in its wake.

  The woman trembled, gasped, and cried. Tears tracked her face, and the mohrg tasted the sweet salt of them.

  “Your death,” Borran Klosk promised her, “is a certainty. It can be the most horrible thing you’ve ever been through, or it can come so fast you’re not even aware of it. The choice is yours.”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  Grabbing the woman’s hair, Borran Klosk yanked her head back up at him.

  “Please. Please don’t hurt me.”

  “My name,” Borran Klosk commanded, shaking her head.

  Coughing and hacking, eyes blurred with drink and tears, the woman said, “Borran Klosk.”

  “And you remember me?”

  “I’ve heard tales of you since I was a little girl,” the woman said. “I never thought you were real—only something made up to frighten children.” She wailed, “Gods help us if you are real.”

  “I am real,” Borran Klosk declared, pressing his fleshless face close t
o hers. “I am real and I am come back from the icy pits where the priests of Eldath kept me. I am come back for my vengeance.”

  Holding a hand up before her face, the woman wept and trembled.

  Borran Klosk laved the tears from her cheeks with his bloody tongue, tracking her face and marking her features with grotesque patterns.

  “Do you want to live, woman?”

  She hesitated, and he knew she thought he was trying to torture her further by giving her false hope. Light from the flames clinging to the wall danced over her face and sparked highlights from her hair.

  “Answer me,” Borran Klosk said. “Would you live if you could?”

  “Yes. Gods help me for being so weak.”

  Borran Klosk touched the woman’s face with his hand and said, “Then I shall let you live.”

  An uncontrollable shiver ran through the woman. “Thank you! Gods bless you for that!”

  “Only one god has blessed me,” Borran Klosk said. “I will do Malar’s work to bring this city to its knees. Aye, and even the whole of the Vilhon Reach if the Beastlord should choose to put that within my grasp.”

  The fire clinging to the wall crept closer to them, and Borran Klosk could feel it soaking into his bones.

  “You will let me go?” the woman asked.

  “Yes,” Borran Klosk said, turning his grim visage on her, “but your life comes with a price.”

  “Anything, Lord Klosk.”

  The woman bowed her head, flinching from the flames that licked too close. Outside, through the open window, thunder echoed along the street as a man’s voice took up a harsh cry of warning. The dead elf had not gone undiscovered long.

  “Tell them,” Borran Klosk said, “that I am coming for them. Do you understand?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Tell them that I will not rest this time until all of Alaghôn is within my power.” Releasing the woman, Borran Klosk took a step away and said, “Now go.”

  Fear held the woman in place, and she only trembled.

  Borran Klosk grabbed the woman by the arm and yanked her to her feet. He shoved her toward the door near the dead sailors.

  She stumbled and almost fell, but she kept her balance and ran toward the door. Her hands wrapped around the back of her head, as if afraid he would strike her with his tongue. She disappeared through the door and her footsteps rang on the stairs.

  “Help!” she screamed. “Someone help me! He’s killed everyone!”

  Satisfaction filled Borran Klosk as he surveyed the burning and bloodied ruin of the tavern. Even before he’d been reborn as a mohrg he’d burned with hatred. As a living man he’d stalked and killed dozens of men, women, and children of all races. He’d been careful, but in the end the city watch had gotten him. After he’d been humiliated in court, then executed in public and buried, he’d risen, undead and vengeful. Whatever had compelled him to kill while he’d still been human had only grown in power since his rebirth.

  Going to each of those he had slain, Borran Klosk put his hands upon them and spoke the words that would bind them to him should they rise again—and they would rise, he knew, as long as the townsfolk didn’t destroy the bodies.

  He gazed at the corpses, wondering if enough people would believe the woman he’d spared to make the families of the dead let the bodies be destroyed. He thought perhaps they might, but it didn’t matter. If these and the dead priests weren’t to be the first of his new army, then there would be others.

  He crossed to the smashed window and looked down. Rain swirled in, riding the harsh storm winds and drenching him anew. He braced himself on the broken sill, gazing down at the body of the elf clad in black.

  “A monster!” the woman screamed out in the street.

  A man had seized her, thinking maybe that she was too drunk to know what she was doing.

  “ ’Ere now,” the man said, folding the woman into his large arms and keeping her from striking him. “An’ tell ol’ Kafeer some’at’s the matter.”

  “Borran Klosk,” the woman yelled. “He’s back. He told me to tell everyone.”

  She turned and pointed back up at the tavern.

  Knowing he was backlit by the flames claiming the tavern, Borran Klosk raised his hand and revealed his skeletal arm beneath the stolen priest’s robes. Lightning flared, and his arm burned brilliant white from the reflected glare.

  A group of soldiers dressed in the colors of Alaghôn’s city watch rounded the corner. A commander astride a war-horse led them, matching his mount’s speed to the men slogging through the water-covered street.

  “Where away?” the commander demanded. He carried his sword naked in his fist, the polished steel catching flickers from the lightning and the colored lanterns of the businesses still open at the late hour.

  “There!” the woman screamed again, pointing at the tavern window where Borran Klosk stood.

  Heeling his restless mount, the iron-shod hooves ringing against the cobblestones, the commander glanced up at the tavern. He pointed with his sword and shouted, “Get that man down from there!”

  The guardsmen hastened to do as the commander ordered, falling into a two-by-two column.

  Borran Klosk’s tongue writhed in hungry glee as he watched the warriors start across the street.

  “Are you that confident, Borran Klosk?”

  Wheeling, the mohrg turned to face the speaker. His tongue flexed before him, ready to spring and pierce.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Framed by the doorway leading to the stairs, glistening from the rain that clung to his skin in the firelight, a small woman watched Borran Klosk. Her simple brown breeches and green shirt showed no insignia nor gave any indication of her station. Beneath her hood, unbound black hair surrounded her gaunt, pinched face, emphasizing her deep-set white opal eyes.

  If Borran Klosk had not felt the woman’s eyes on him, he would have sworn she was blind. He considered killing her outright but held himself at the last moment, giving in to curiosity. Whatever she was, alive though she may be, the scent around her didn’t taste as human as it should have.

  Turning his attention back to the approaching city guard, Borran Klosk spoke words of power then pointed toward the street. A wall of violet flames sprang up from the cobblestones and darted around the larger puddles. Water hissed, spreading clouds of steam, and the heat drove the guardsmen back.

  “Send for a watch wizard!” the commander roared, taking a firm hand with his nervous mount.

  One of the guardsmen took off at once.

  “Is this what you think you should do, Borran Klosk?” the woman asked amid the harsh yells of the guardsmen and gawkers below. “Squander the second chance Malar has given you to wreak havoc among your enemies?”

  “Have a care, woman,” Borran Klosk replied.

  He sensed the woman walking closer to him, and he was amazed at her lack of fear. Gathering his energies, the mohrg gestured again. He watched as a shadow blurred the area in front of the watch commander.

  The man screamed and swung at the air with his sword. His hoarse voice scared the men in his group, dividing their attention between him and the wall of twisting violet flames that gave off searing heat.

  “What does he battle?” the woman asked, peering over Borran Klosk’s shoulder.

  “His own fear,” Borran Klosk replied. “The spell I employed gave form to his private aberrations.”

  The watch commander screamed himself hoarse, startling his mount. Two of the guardsmen ran to him and attempted to help. One of them got a sword slash across his face for his trouble. The other backed away. The commander stiffened and fell from his saddle. His limp body smacked onto the cobblestones.

  “He’s dead?” the woman asked.

  “Yes,” Borran Klosk said, watching the blurred shadow fade away as the commander died. “Touched by whatever he most feared in this life.”

  “Perhaps he envisioned himself fighting you.”

  A faint smile touched the woman’s shado
wed face.

  Borran Klosk faced her, intrigued anew. “I am,” the mohrg said, “a frightful thing to behold.”

  The woman’s opal eyes met his gaze without flinching. “I’ve never seen anything more horrid.”

  Standing close to the woman, Borran Klosk found himself aware of her simple beauty. Her face was almost triangular, holding the wide-spaced opal eyes and coming down to a firm chin beneath a full-lipped mouth. Even though he was dead and the flesh and most of its natural calls had left him, he found himself drawn to the woman on a level he’d never experienced even while alive.

  “Who are you?” he asked again.

  “You may call me Allis,” she answered.

  “May?” Borran Klosk mocked her with his tone. “You are impudent, child.”

  “I’ve seen worse things than you, Borran Klosk.”

  Her demeanor was calm and easy. Before he could restrain the anger that burst within him, Borran Klosk swung a mallet-hard, bony fist that would have broken her skull if it had connected.

  The blow never landed. With incredible speed and poise, the woman dodged to one side and said, “You’re making a mistake.”

  Borran Klosk flailed at her again, but she dodged his next blow with even more ease.

  “You’re wasting time,” Allis said. “Even with your power, do you think you can stand against a watch wizard? Surely after your demonstration of power one is already on his way.”

  Borran Klosk spat his thick, purple tongue at her. She threw herself to one side and the vulgar appendage missed her by inches. Steadying himself, the mohrg lunged for the woman with his tongue again and again. His disbelief grew stronger as she continued to evade his attacks. He prepared another spell then pointed at her. Blurred energy sped from his outstretched hand and her shirt seemed to explode. Strange appendages sprang out of her. She leaped for the ceiling, and clung there by four hairy, jointed legs.

  Staring at the woman in awe, Borran Klosk noted that her features had undergone drastic changes as well. Instead of two wide, opal eyes, there were now several orbs, each of the same peculiar hue. The long hair had become short, stiff bristles. The triangular face rounded, and became an almost featureless ovoid. Only a lipless slash remained of her mouth.