The Jewel of Turmish

by Odom, Mel

  The shambler flung an arm forward. The vinelike appendages wrapped around Haarn’s ankles and lower leg with bone-breaking force. Freeing one hand from the scimitar, he grabbed for an exposed root revealed by the sloshing water. His strength held against the monster’s but only for a moment. Renewed agony flared through his legs as the shambler reset itself and yanked upward. Haarn’s vision blurred, and he almost passed out from the pain as his knees and hips seemed to come apart. He shot into the air.

  With astonishing ease, the shambler held the druid upside down by his legs. Haarn spun crazily, still managing to grip the scimitar. Blood rushed to his head in a thunderous roar and caused black spots in his vision, but he clung to his senses.

  The shambler stumbled, one massive tree-rooted foot coming up from the ground. The huge body writhed, back arching as it strove to remain erect.

  Haarn saw movement in the center of the shambler’s chest only a moment before it burst open and revealed the carrion beetles still gorging. Foaming yellow sap filled the wound, and several of the beetles were dead.

  Looking at the damage the swarm of insects had done, Haarn knew that even as fast as they worked they wouldn’t be able to destroy enough of the creature to save him. As the druid spun again, he saw Broadfoot shifting, striving to get to his feet, but not enough strength remained in the bear. Druz would only serve to get herself killed if she stayed and tried to help.

  Haarn prayed to Silvanus as he accepted his fate. The Keeper of the Balance remained neutral in the laws of nature, between predator and prey, but Haarn couldn’t believe Silvanus was going to stand by and allow him to be killed by the undead shambling mound summoned by the blasphemous skeleton.

  Still, he knew he had to struggle. The fight for life was innate within him no matter how futile that fight appeared. He gripped the scimitar in both hands and tried to summon the remaining strength from his body. He doubled up, curling in on himself, then swiped at the appendage that dangled him so easily.

  The heavy blade cleaved into the thing’s arm, and Haarn felt it shiver all through his dangling body. A fine mist of yellow sap sprayed out, soaking into the druid’s clothing.

  Before Haarn could strike again, the shambler whipped him around and slammed him into the ground like a wildcat shaking a rat. For an instant, the druid was submerged in one of the deep pools. He clawed at the mud with his free hand, slapping cold handfuls over his legs, hoping the lubrication would break the shambler’s grip.

  Effortlessly, the shambler pulled him into the air again. Roaring blood filled Haarn’s head, and he stared down at the large rocks that studded the marshlands. If he landed on one of those, his head would split open or his shoulder would be crushed.

  The shambler shivered again, and Haarn dared hope that the rampage of the carrion beetles had had more of an effect than he had at first supposed. Instead, the druid noticed that he could see through the shambler. The hole was almost large enough for a full-grown man to crawl through. None of the carrion beetles remained alive.

  There was no hope, but Haarn steeled himself to grip the scimitar again with both hands. He could not die, not without fighting.

  Frightened birds cried out from the treetops, creating a mad cacophony of screeches and whistles, then a voice Haarn knew—and sometimes feared—rang out from somewhere below.

  Clad in fine robes that bore a hood to hide his features, which were further masked by an illusion spell to help him pass as human, Borran Klosk strode the dockyards of Alaghôn with impunity. No one recognized him, but all assumed he was a rich merchant or perhaps even a lord come down out of Alaghôn or elsewhere in Turmish.

  The mohrg gazed out from under his cowl and smelled the blood of the living around him. He could almost taste their flesh. His thick purple tongue moved restlessly. One quick flick was all it would take, then the captains, crew, cargo handlers, and merchants would know he was among them. They would all run, fearing for their lives. The image was delicious.

  “No,” Allis whispered.

  Borran Klosk growled. They walked, arms touching, down the dockyards alongside a merchanter frigate called Mistress Talia that flew the colors of Sespech.

  “If you reveal yourself here,” the werespider said, “you will only get us both killed.”

  “Perhaps not,” Borran Klosk challenged.

  “You will earn Malar’s wrath. Better to earn his appreciation.”

  The threat grew thin on Borran Klosk. He gazed along the docks. Even in late afternoon, Alaghôn labored to shift cargo and carry on trade. The harbor was filled with ships of all sizes, flying flags from lands all around the Sea of Fallen Stars.

  The ships lining the docks were unloaded first. Other ships at anchor in the harbor waited to be unloaded, but some of the smaller vessels—cogs and caravels that serviced coastal waters—off-loaded onto small boats that brought the cargo ashore. Boom arms brought cargo off in huge nets, and the sounds of boatswains’ yells and curses to direct the teams pierced the conversations going on around them. Turmishan merchants, their heads covered in turbans and their beards cut square, dickered with ships’ captains on the docks or led them to the dockyard taverns and inns where they could ply them with wine, women, and song. Fishermen still hawked their wares from carts, though not many were buying. The clatter of humanity, who were always moving and always noisy, rolled around Borran Klosk.

  It was almost too much to bear.

  “Take it up!” a man yelled from Mistress Talia’s upper deck. “She’s all together now, she is!”

  A boom arm near Borran Klosk shifted as sweaty, grunting men bore down on it. The freighter bobbed in the harbor as the load came off her deck. Water shifted and slapped against the freighter’s barnacle-encrusted hull.

  “She’s clear!” the man above called out.

  A young bard sat on a stack of crates near the boardwalk and strummed her yarting. From the hesitant starts she made, Borran Klosk surmised that the bard was composing. A smile that the mohrg couldn’t show, since he lacked a face, dawned inside him as he heard the words.

  “Borran Klosk,

  Still reeking fresh from the grave,

  Faced down the Alaghôn Watch

  —At least, those who were brave.

  Heroes died that night,

  Eaten by the … by the flames

  Of the mohrg’s evil wizardry.

  Borran Klosk, just another of death’s names.”

  Borran Klosk looked at Allis and said, “They sing of me.”

  Allis nodded, but her gaze was on the merchanter.

  “We are taking this ship?” Borran Klosk asked, divining her interest.

  He hadn’t sailed much, hadn’t been aboard a ship since he’d been brought back from the grave, and only a few times when he’d worn flesh and blood.

  Nodding, the werespider said, “I booked passage for us to Sespech.”

  “I don’t want to go to Sespech,” Borran Klosk said, and he had no intention of doing so.

  “We’re not,” Allis said. “That’s where the ship is bound. The destination will change when we take over the ship.” She looked at him with her opal gaze and added, “You have the power to turn men to you, to kill them and raise them again from the dead, and you have more power than that. The ship will be ours.”

  Borran Klosk looked at the frigate with clearer understanding and some humor. Turning to face her, Borran Klosk leaned in closely, so closely that she wouldn’t be able to miss the fires that burned in his hollow eyes.

  “Not ours,” he told her. “Mine. They will be mine.”

  Nostrils flaring and color showing on her cheeks, Allis hesitated a moment, pride warred with fear. Fear won, he could see it in her eyes, and she nodded.

  “As you say,” she said.

  Allis turned from him, giving her attention to the sailor standing at the boarding ramp.

  “We have passage,” she said.

  “Aye, ma’am,” the sailor replied. He was short and lean, his clothing heavily t
arred against the elements. “I’ll be after havin’ yer names, I will. To check against the ship’s manifests the quartermaster keeps, ye see. Cap’n Ralant runs a tight ship, he does.” He looked up, placed his fingers in his teeth, and whistled. “Hey! Vonnis!”

  One of the men aboard Mistress Talia turned and looked down. “What do ye want, Durgel?”

  “Two to ship aboard, sir,” Durgel responded.

  “Awfully damned early, if you ask me,” the older man said, taking a stylus and ship’s log from under his arm.

  “We didn’t ask you,” Allis said.

  Bristling, the sailor said, “Don’t go getting airs with me, woman.”

  Unleashing the anger that filled him, Borran Klosk spoke and gestured. The sailor at the top of the gangplank grabbed his neck and dropped to his knees. His face reddened, and he couldn’t breathe.

  “Vonnis!” Durgel cried, racing up the gangplank.

  Allis turned to Borran Klosk with an angry look. “What are you doing?” the werespider asked.

  “Getting us aboard,” Borran Klosk replied, “in a manner that will be more … tolerable.”

  He started up the gangplank as the first sailor tried to tend to the second.

  “You will alert them,” Allis whispered, hesitating for an instant before she followed him up the gangplank.

  Borran Klosk swept the ship’s deck with his gaze. Durgel tried valiantly to help Vonnis, but the sailor wasn’t even aware of the magical constriction the mohrg used. The other men around the dockyards kept to their work, and only a few curious stares came from Mistress Talia’s crew.

  Drawing even with the two sailors as Durgel fought to hold Vonnis down while crying out for help, Borran Klosk gazed down at the man he’d afflicted.

  “Someone get a healer!” Durgel told one of the nearby crewmen. “Ol’ Vonnis is havin’ himself an attack of some kind, he is!”

  Borran Klosk spoke again, removing the constriction from around the quartermaster’s neck.

  Vonnis gasped like a dog on a too-hot day. His eyes filled with fear as he gazed at Borran Klosk.

  “Ye did this?” Durgel demanded, rising and reaching for the skinning knife that hung at his hip.

  Before he could pull his knife, Allis had one of her own only an inch from his eye. Sunlight glinted on the razor-sharp edge.

  “No,” she said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Durgel’s hand froze, then the sailor slowly released the knife and took his hand way.

  “I don’t want no more trouble,” Durgel said. “Don’t want it at all.”

  “Good,” Allis said.

  Borran Klosk stared at the quartermaster, who had yet to draw a full breath.

  “Don’t ever treat me or the woman with me with such disrespect again,” the mohrg said.

  “I … won’t,” Vonnis gasped.

  The fear the quartermaster exuded was almost enough to make Borran Klosk drunk with it. Killing the priests had been good, but they’d been schooled to control their emotions. The victims in the tavern had passed too quickly, and the men of the watch had been too far away. Everything the quartermaster felt radiated into the mohrg without filter.

  “What’s the meaning of this?”

  Borran Klosk looked up from the frightened quartermaster to the old man standing on the upper deck. He wore dark robes and had a fierce gray beard that still held smudged traces of red. The sun and harsh elements of the sea had browned and wrinkled his face. Shaggy hair wafted in the breeze.

  “We have paid for passage,” Allis said.

  Durgel helped Vonnis to his feet. The quartermaster continued to gasp and hack as he struggled to get his wind back.

  “What does that have to do with your treatment of Vonnis?” the old man asked.

  Borran Klosk felt the old man’s magic. Tendrils of the unseen force pried and lifted at the spell of illusion the mohrg had woven over his own fleshless features.

  “He was rude,” Allis said.

  “He did not lay hands upon you,” the old man said.

  Borran Klosk felt the unseen tendrils wither and die as his own spell rendered them useless.

  “I would have killed him for that,” the mohrg said. “I punished him for his rudeness.”

  “Punishment such as that is better left to his captain,” the old man said.

  “You come close to rudeness yourself,” Borran Klosk warned.

  The old man’s lips closed tight and his dark eyes glittered.

  “Have a care how you carry yourself, good sir,” the man said. “I’m Hildemon, ship’s mage aboard Mistress Talia, and I’ll brook no threat from any man.”

  “You’ve got the gold I’ve paid for passage,” Borran Klosk said. “If you want a little extra gold for my rashness in dealing with your man, so be it. Name your price.”

  After all, whatever gold he paid would be reclaimed when he overtook the ship.

  “They wanted onto the ship early,” Durgel said. “An’ ever’body knows ain’t nothin’ to do aboard. It’s gonna be hours before we haul anchor and set sail, even with all the crew working.”

  Hildemon’s face wrinkled and he asked, “Why would you want to come aboard so early?”

  “I’ve done everything in port that I care to,” Borran Klosk said. “I stayed up all night, and I wanted to see this ship, perhaps even place a few investments of my own after I see what cargo you’re carrying.” That would be excuse enough for him to learn the run of the ship.

  The old mage was silent for a time.

  Borran Klosk knew that Mistress Talia was a ship down on her luck. Remnants of the Taker’s War still existed throughout the Sea of Fallen Stars, and the waters were rife with pirates. Mistress Talia had battled a ship on her last journey, and the scars of that fight still showed on her deck and sections of missing railing. The gold Allis had paid for passage had been welcomed with no questions asked.

  “Quartermaster Vonnis!” the old ship’s mage called out.

  “Aye?” Vonnis croaked through his bruised throat.

  “We’ve got a cabin for these people?”

  “Hold, you foul beast!”

  Druz Talimsir glanced quickly to her left, thinking that the voice had come out of thin air. She brought her sword up, ready to defend herself.

  An elf dressed in hide armor, with a helm of deer horns and falcon feathers, seemed to step out of the tree beside her. His black hair was knotted through the deer horns and ran down his back, leaving his smooth, unblemished face in full view. A dark green cloak hung from his shoulders. Like all elves, he didn’t show any indication of age. His dark emerald eyes flashed with angry fire.

  His presence filled the marsh.

  “Beware this thing,” Haarn said, still dangling upside down. “A skeleton called it up from the earth.”

  The shambler turned. Though it had no eyes, it seemed to sense the elf in some manner. The elf was smaller than Haarn, smaller even than Druz, and more slender. Still, when he started toward the shambler, Druz moved to follow him into battle. The elf threw up a hand without glancing in her direction.

  “You can’t face that thing by yourself,” Druz protested.

  “Stay,” the elf said. He closed on the shambler, stepping gracefully through the uneven terrain masked by the water.

  The shambler loosened its squeeze on Haarn and pulled its feet out of the ground. It turned, and as if toying with the new arrival, the shambler dangled its captured prize in front of the elf.

  The elf spoke, but Druz couldn’t understand the language, though she got the impression it was an old tongue.

  As the elf’s words died away, he raised his right arm. A blazing blade formed entirely of twisting red and yellow flames nearly four feet long sprouted from his hand. The flames danced and shivered, and Druz expected the elf to yank his hand back in pain. Instead, the elf lashed out with the fire sword.

  The move caught the shambler unprepared and the flame blade cut through the shambler’s vinelike arm. Haarn droppe
d from the shambler’s grip like a fresh-harvested fruit.

  For the first time, Druz saw the shambler hesitate before attacking. She thought the thing might have recognized something even more fearsome than itself.

  The elf stood there with his blazing sword and the wind blowing through his hair. He spoke again as the shambler attacked with its other arm. Moving only enough to avoid the whipping lengths of the vinelike appendages, the elf lashed out with the flame sword again. Smoke puffed from the amputated end of the shambler’s arm as the first half of it dropped, sizzling, into the mud.

  Nearby, working in spite of the pain that still racked him, Haarn stripped the dead length of the shambler’s arm from him. He tried to get to his feet, but his legs kept going out from under him.

  Stepping back, opening his arms wide, the elf shouted to the heavens, his face upturned. Dark clouds formed above the shambler. Sparks flitted like fireflies inside the clouds. The shambler started forward then, like an avalanche of mud. Before it had taken three steps, the swirling dark clouds above it unleashed a column of white-hot flames that descended on the shambler.

  Holding her empty hand up to shield her face from the heat, Druz peered through her fingers. Almost between heartbeats, the shambler dried out, hardened, then flaked to pieces. When the column of fire died away, a pile of gray ash—all that remained of the shambler—spread out over the water.

  Druz sucked in a breath, only then aware that she’d been holding it. Wicked and acrid, the stench of the dying creature filled her nose.

  “The skeleton,” Haarn said.

  “What skeleton?” the elf asked.

  “I was trailing a skeleton.”

  Haarn pushed himself up from the ground with some difficulty, but Druz was still amazed at the druid’s resilience.

  “Who is the woman?” the elf asked.