by Odom, Mel
Unwilling to stand there and talk of such things, she started on for the main section of the House of Silvanus. She walked to the water’s edge then followed the marble and granite stepping stones that were magically set on the surface. The stones didn’t move beneath her.
On the banks, druids, rangers, and those called into the service of Silvanus sat wrapped in prayers. Flower petals, meager offerings from the bounty Silvanus provided, floated on the water.
As Shinthala walked, she noticed the water roil beneath the stepping stones. The first time she’d seen it, she’d been wary. A water elemental prowled the small lake and the spring that fed it. The elemental was a guardian put there by Silvanus to watch over his charges.
“Lady,” Torinbow said. “There is one thing I feel I must bring to your attention.”
The hesitation in his voice conveyed grave discomfort.
“Speak your mind, Ashenford,” she told him. “We’ve long been friends, and in this time—if Borran Klosk is truly risen—then we must definitely remain so.”
“We speak of the army the mohrg must raise,” Torinbow said, keeping his voice low so it didn’t carry to the other druids and rangers gathered around them, “and we know that Borran Klosk has the power to do so.”
“If the townspeople of Alaghôn feel that Borran Klosk is among them again, they will surely keep watch over the cemeteries. The mohrg will not find a following so easily.”
“Not from the cemeteries of civilization,” Torinbow agreed, “but there may be another source.”
“The only way Borran Klosk can raise an army is by killing living beings and animating their corpses.”
“What if the corpses are already animate?” Torinbow asked. “What if they’re already undead?”
“Borran Klosk won’t find an undead army already in Alaghôn, or even all of Turmish and beyond,” Shinthala said.
“I’m not talking about Alaghôn or even Turmish,” Torinbow said. “The Whamite Isles …”
The cruel horror of that possibility had not presented itself to Shinthala until that moment.
“Since the Taker’s War,” Torinbow continued, “the Whamite Isles have been ringed by hundreds, possibly thousands, of drowned ones.”
“Borran Klosk would have no reason to go there,” she said, though she knew the hope was a desperate one at best.
“If the mohrg wants to raise an army,” Torinbow said, “he will go there. We have reports, though none of them confirmed, that Iakhovas was behind the massacre on the Whamite Isles, but what if Malar had a hand in it as well?”
Shinthala shook her head. “You’re starting at shadows, Ashenford, and I mean no disrespect in the saying of that.”
“None taken, Lady, I assure you. Were you not here to question me, I’d have to take that on myself.” Torinbow hesitated, closed his mouth, then opened it again and said, “I believe we would be remiss if we did not investigate the possibility. The Whamite Isles are close enough to Turmish that Borran Klosk could try for them.”
Shinthala sighed. Seeing the wisdom in the half-elf’s words, she said, “I’ll travel to Sapra and arrange for—”
Torinbow cleared his throat. “Lady, if you’ll forgive my meddling, I’ve already seen to it.”
“You’re not meddling. I appreciate your efforts, and you were well within your rights as an Elder to assign such a task.”
“Thank you, Lady.”
Shinthala’s mind flew quickly. “If Borran Klosk should decide to undertake a voyage to the Whamite Isles, he’ll need a ship, and he’ll have to come from Turmish or he’ll spend tendays, even months at sea.”
“Borran Klosk, from what I remember of the stories, was not known for patience.” Torinbow said. “The mohrg won’t wait to strike.”
“Someone freed Borran Klosk from his crypt,” Shinthala said. “This has been planned. I’ll gather another flock of doves to carry the message and instruct druids everywhere to go to Alaghôn. Perhaps it’s not too late to stop the monster there.”
She prayed to Silvanus that it was so, but even as much as she believed in her god, she had her doubts.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Whipping his scimitar in front of him, Haarn barely managed to block the skeleton’s claws from his throat. The clang of metal against bone echoed over the marshlands as Broadfoot roared a challenge.
The druid moved slowly. With moccasins caked in mud, his feet felt heavy, awkward, and his reflexes were slowed as a result. The skeleton gave him no time to use spells, and Haarn was forced to simply defend himself.
Turning, setting himself in the mud, the druid blocked the skeleton’s attacks. As he parried just to keep himself alive, Haarn caught glimpses of Broadfoot closing in. Above, on the ridgeline, Druz began her descent, sliding down the steep, mud-encrusted mountainside. Haarn knew with grim certainty that the fighting would be over long before Druz could reach him. Only Broadfoot stood a chance of reaching him in time to help.
He parried the skeleton’s strikes again and again, giving up step after step of the muddy ground, leaving a ragged battlefield in his wake.
Despite the ravaged ground and the thick mud, the skeleton had no problem pursuing Haarn. It lunged after him, taking long, slapping strides through the mud. Without a true mouth and only a leathery husk for a tongue, the undead thing’s voice came out as a barely audible, growling hiss.
There was no finesse to the skeleton’s attack. It swung its arms like bludgeons, depending on its sharp talons to flay him.
The skeleton was far stronger than Haarn had at first realized. The creature was an inhuman dreadnought that kept on coming. As it struck, the ruby jewel inside its chest rattled against its rib cage. Sunlight splintered from it in a cascade of crimson colors so bright they almost hurt the druid’s eyes.
Haarn dodged behind a tree, and the skeleton lashed out again. Narrowly avoiding the blow, Haarn narrowed his eyes as the heavy claws ripped through bark. A cloud of splinters flew into the air, and the sound of the impact was like nothing Haarn had ever heard before. A shiny patch of white marred the tree where a patch of bark nearly the size of Haarn’s head had been.
Haarn brought the scimitar up in both hands, driving it toward the skeleton’s skull. The undead thing managed to get a hand up first, though, and the clang of bone against metal rang across the marshlands. Mud sucked at Haarn’s feet as he shifted. He struck again, but the skeleton managed to block him once more, though this time a finger bone flew from one of its hands. They were moving so fast that the druid couldn’t tell which finger had been lost.
Abandoning all hesitation, the skeleton threw itself at Haarn.
Knowing his undead opponent’s weight would drive him into the mud and trap him, Haarn jumped to one side, trying for as much distance as he could. He knew Broadfoot was almost on them now, and he trusted the great bear to help guard his back.
Before the skeleton could reach Haarn, who struggled to extricate himself from the mud, Broadfoot’s shoulder hit the skeleton so hard that bone shattered and broke. Knocked off its feet by the terrific force, the skeleton flew through the air, scattering pieces of itself as it flipped and cartwheeled.
Haarn shoved himself to his feet and spat mud. Slimy muck caked his face and blurred the edges of his vision. He started forward as the skeleton struggled to draw itself to its feet once again. It stood on unstable legs in the splintered shadows that tracked the ground beneath the trees shivering gently in the breeze.
The skeleton’s jaw moved, and it leaned down to seize a broken tree limb that floated on the water. As the skeleton turned, drawing back the limb in a threatening manner, the jewel inside its rib cage twisted and gleamed like a coal that had just been hit by a blast from a smith’s bellows.
As if surprised, the skeleton glanced down at its broken rib cage. Within its ivory prison, the jewel glimmered and spun, rattling in wild abandon. The skeleton loosed an ululating wail as if in pain, sinking to its knees and holding its arms across its rib cage. T
he ruby light squeezed between its arms and lanced at the ground.
An invisible force scooped up a load of muck-encrusted earth. Water and young toads spilled off the sides of the earthen burden, plopping down into the hole that rapidly drained the nearby marshlands.
Taking cover behind a young elderberry tree, inhaling the sweet scent of the blossoms and aware of the bees working the flowers around him with no concern at all, Haarn prepared a spell, sheathing his scimitar. He touched the symbol of Silvanus at his throat and threw out his hand.
The trees around the skeleton bent and snaked their branches down toward the undead creature.
The beam of red light leaping from the jewel slashed through the tree branches. The smoldering limbs dropped into the shallow water of the marshlands, hissed, and sank beneath the dirty surface.
The clump of mud writhed and jerked into motion. The mud flew into the air and came down in a sprawling mass.
Not believing what he was seeing, Haarn watched as a creature forced itself to an erect position.
Shamblers, also called shambling mounds, lived in warm wetlands and underground caverns. Carnivores, they hunted animals even as big as they were. Haarn generally left them alone unless they unduly threatened a local animal population.
Like the other shamblers Haarn had seen, this one resembled a huge mass of rotting vegetation until it stood and revealed its humanoid shape. Two massive tree trunk legs, each sprouting root-like appendages as thick as Haarn’s forearms, supported the creature. While the body of the shambler was yellowish brown, the same as the mud and muck of the marshlands, the two arms showed green as if freshly grown. The arms stretched out over twice the shambler’s height, and moved like whips. Only a short distance from the shoulder, the arms each flared out into two pieces that looked like vines.
The shambler snapped out one of its vinelike arms. The arm sailed through the air with uncanny accuracy for a creature that seemed to have no eyes, and struck Broadfoot’s shoulder. The attack ripped through the bear’s fur and opened a crimson gash nearly a foot long.
Blood wept from the bear’s terrible wound and matted fur. Angry and in pain, Broadfoot reared to his full height and started for the shambler. The shambler reacted at once, flailing the bear with the lashlike appendages that made up its arms. More bloody welts opened up on Broadfoot’s body, but the bear didn’t give ground.
“No!” Haarn yelled, yanking his scimitar free again.
He pushed away from the tree and ran at the shambler, certain Broadfoot would be slain before he could get away. Behind the shambler, the skeleton turned and started into the forest, making its way east again. Before Haarn covered the distance to the shambler, the skeleton had disappeared.
The shambler drew back its right arm again and whipped it forward. The smack of tentacles against the bear’s flesh was interrupted by a sucking sound. As Haarn braced himself in the mud, he saw the blue-dyed fletching of an arrow jutting from the lump atop the shambler’s shoulders. As he chopped at the tentacle that wrapped around one of the bear’s legs, Haarn saw another arrow pierce the shambler not two inches from the first.
Haarn hacked at the arm holding Broadfoot. He brought the scimitar down in a two-handed swing. The blade cleaved deeply into the creature’s muck and vegetation flesh and left gaping wounds that would have killed anything mortal. Even the shamblers Haarn had encountered before would have been seriously injured and probably withdrawn from the fight.
The creature released its hold on Broadfoot.
“Back,” Haarn told the bear, grabbing a handful of fur and urging Broadfoot away from the shambler.
Haarn stayed with the bear, glancing back the way he’d come. Haarn spotted Druz already fitting a third arrow to her string.
“Aim for its chest,” he called. “There’s an organ that serves as its mind. That’s the only way you can kill it.”
Readjusting her position and stepping around a clump of brush, Druz steadied, then fired again.
The arrow flashed by Haarn less than a foot to his left. There was no warning from the shambler as it raced forward again, pursuing Haarn and Broadfoot even while Druz’s arrow was in flight. The third arrow took the shambler in the shoulder, and if it hurt the big creature at all, it didn’t show in the way it moved.
The threat drew an immediate response from Broadfoot. The bear shrugged off Haarn’s tugging hand and gave in to instinct.
Haarn stepped away, setting himself in the mud, and watched helplessly as the bear met the shambler’s lunge. Though Broadfoot was the taller of the two, even the great bear didn’t have the shambler’s bulk. When the shambler slammed into Broadfoot, the force of the impact carried the bear backward. Broadfoot tried to stand his ground, but the mud gave way beneath his clawed feet.
Another arrow feathered the shambler’s chest, and Haarn silently acknowledged Druz’s skill with the bow. Even with four arrows in it, the dread creature wasn’t slowed at all. Two of the shafts snapped off as it fought Broadfoot.
The bear stood his ground, leaning on the shambler’s greater bulk and managing through sheer strength and rage to hold the monster back. The shambler’s vinelike arms whipped again, leaving furrows of torn and bloody flesh. During the next attack, the shambler wrapped the two appendages at the end of its left arm around the bear’s broad upper body and tightened its grip. The shambler’s rootlike feet plunged into the ground and took hold.
Locked down as it was and holding Broadfoot, Haarn knew that the shambler was at its most vulnerable—and most deadly. The constricting power of even a normal shambler could break a man in half. The bear would only take longer.
Haarn prayed to Silvanus for his next spell, then unleashed the power within him as Broadfoot’s growls of rage tightened to shrill agony. With the constricting coils around him, Broadfoot couldn’t take another breath. If the bear’s ribs didn’t shatter and pierce his heart, then he was doomed to a slow death by suffocation.
Gripping the scimitar, Haarn hurled himself at the creature. He knew it was aware of him by the way it moved its body, but it had already chosen its victim and the only way it could engage Haarn was to release the bear.
Haarn stepped behind the shambler, praying that his spell would work in time. Holding the scimitar in both hands, he drove it deeply into the creature’s broad back. Nearly a foot of steel penetrated the shambler’s body before the scimitar stuck. A frantic buzz reached the druid’s ears, and he knew at once it was the horde of flying carrion beetles his spell had summoned. He just didn’t know if they were arriving in time.
The shambler shifted slightly as Broadfoot’s wailing blows finally died away and the bear slumped in the creature’s vine-arms.
Fearing the bear was dead, hoping his companion was only unconscious, Haarn shoved the scimitar harder. The wound gaped more obscenely and made sucking noises like a man pulling his boot from mud, then the flying beetles arrived.
Sunlight and shadow alternately dappled the insects’ hard carapaces as they streaked toward the shambler. Haarn held the wound open. Some of the beetles flew into the gaping hole, but others clustered over the shambler’s back, forming a hard crust of chitin-covered bodies.
Haarn ripped the scimitar free of the wound, satisfied the gorging mass of beetles would keep it open, and sprinted around the shambler. If the creature felt the invasion of its body, it gave no indication.
At the shambler’s side, still gripping the muddied scimitar, Haarn brought the blade crashing down into the vinelike arm that was wrapped around Broadfoot. The bear’s legs twitched and his eyes were closed, but the druid knew his companion was alive.
Druz stepped into place on the other side of the shambler. She’d dropped her bow somewhere behind her, but she wielded her long sword with grim intensity.
The shambler released its hold on Broadfoot. Weak and helpless, the bear dropped into the mud, but Haarn heard the whoosh of air sucked into Broadfoot’s lungs.
Crouching again, pulling the massive tree tru
nk legs free of the ground, the shambler faced Haarn in eerie silence.
The druid’s senses, so finely tuned to everything in nature, registered nothing from the shambler. During his years serving the balance, Haarn had seldom encountered such a thing. Even corpses, those left to rot and decompose as a natural progression, never resonated such a vacuum.
The shambler drew back an arm, getting ready to whip it forward.
Haarn gave ground, slipping in the nearly knee-deep muddy water. He took a fresh grip on his scimitar and glanced at Druz, who had also backed away.
“The skeleton!” the druid gasped. “Don’t let it get away.”
“You can’t face this thing alone,” Druz objected.
“Go! We can’t afford to lose the skeleton!”
“I’m not going to leave you!” Druz argued.
Haarn had no more time to argue. The shambler focused on him, whipping its arm forward.
“We both need to get out of here,” Druz said.
Haarn leaped to the side, hurling himself from the path of the shambler’s strike. The vine appendages cut deeply into the wet ground.
Shoving himself up, Haarn glanced at Broadfoot. The bear still hadn’t regained enough strength to rejoin the battle. He didn’t have enough strength to escape either, but Haarn knew escape wasn’t an option. The shambler had to be destroyed.
Shifting again, the shambler focused on Haarn, whipping its arms at him so rapidly it seemed the air was full of them. The druid turned some of the attacks away with the scimitar, and others he managed to avoid, but his skill and speed wasn’t going to save him forever. Already his breath rasped in his throat and the taste of the sour mud made him want to retch. His arm and leg muscles burned.
The shambler ignored Druz’s attacks, concentrating on Haarn, who leaped and dived through the water and across the muddy ground as quickly as he could. Nothing human could have moved as fast as he was moving, but then, nothing human pursued him. He leaped again, arcing high over the vines that streaked for him, flipped easily by tucking his knees into his chest, and came down—then what had been inevitable on the uncertain terrain finally happened. His moccasins came down, thudding into the mud, and the loose earth gave way beneath him. Haarn flailed, trying desperately to gain his feet again, but there was no time.
