Another footfall. Morbed stood and saw for the first time a groove cut into the stone a cubit’s length from the base of the rampart. It was inlaid with a yellow lustrous metal and, as far as he could tell, ran the perimeter of the ledge. The sailor stepped once more, his toes a hair’s breadth from the marking.
The old man did not turn, did not take his eyes off the emptiness beyond the wall. “A life for a life. It’s a fair trade.”
Jaharra stepped forward, one hand out. “This isn’t the way. Let us help you. A wise man once told me that redemption is a journey of many steps. You still have a long road ahead of you . . .”
Morbed was aware of Jaharra gesturing slightly, most likely preparing some kind of spell to restrain the sailor. For his part, the old man took no notice of the wizard or Morbed but instead continued on. Just as his foot passed over the metal inlay, a skull-rending squeal pierced the air. Hands flew to ears; torsos hunched. This was not the throaty bellow of the creature beyond the walls but a much higher, screeching wail. As Morbed oriented his head, he judged the sound to be coming from the winged statue under which the old man had huddled. He caught sight also of the cringing spirit wolf dissipating, turning to smoky wisps that scattered in the wind.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he spied movement. Something was slowly shifting among the statues. Morbed turned. No . . . the movement wasn’t amid the statues; it was the statues. Cracks appeared at joints, allowing limbs to flex as, one by one, they took on some abominable semblance of life.
Morbed straightened and was held fast in a cold embrace. Stone arms encircled him. He twisted his head and was confronted with a faceless, hooded visage.
The stooped carving that appeared to be half-human, half-animal broke from its base and lurched toward Jaharra and the old man. The wizard’s hands shot out, and the stone figure rose as if plucked by the wind. Jaharra turned toward the battlement, and the statue soared out over the chasm. Just then the armored giant descended from its foundation and crossed the platform in two strides, axe held high. Morbed called out. The old man rushed forward, pushing the wizard aside as the axe fell.
Jaharra spun back but not in time. The chiseled blade cleaved the center of the old man’s head down to the jaw, spewing chips of bone and brain in all directions and driving the sailor to his knees. Lifeless hands dropped to his sides; the lantern collided with the platform but did not shatter.
The wizard grasped the massive arms of the behemoth and closed her eyes, mouth working in a silent chant. Veinlike fissures spread over the marble surface, up the arms, over the torso, and down the legs. The giant’s actions ceased; the cracks widened. The carved warrior shivered once, then crumbled to pieces at Jaharra’s feet. The sailor pitched forward into the debris.
Morbed fought to free himself, but the arms only squeezed tighter. He could hold no more air in his lungs. He kicked and thrashed.
Jaharra suffered raking scrapes from the two animated imps as she raced past them toward the gargoyle.
There was a tingling sensation in Morbed’s head, lights dancing before his eyes. He was aware that his feet had stopped kicking and that his ribs would soon break and stab through his lungs. He thought of reaching for his knife but knew it would be useless against the cold marble. Still, he would not give up; he would find a way to survive . . .
Then the wailing died out, and so, too, did the movement of the statuary.
Morbed tried to yell but succeeded only in wheezing. Jaharra appeared before him and placed a hand on the robed arms. A fine tracery spread over the surface. The lines deepened and widened, and at last the arms fell away in chunks. Morbed drew in long hitching breaths and stepped forward, clutching at his chest.
Jaharra stumbled to the detritus of the armored warrior and knelt by the still form of the old man.
As the starbursts finally faded from Morbed’s vision, he glanced at the gargoyle to see a void where its head had once been and a scattering of rocky clumps at its base, glittering pieces of crystal among them. He shambled to Jaharra’s side. She held the lantern. Morbed noted that the light was extinguished, and the manacle was now open and free of the sailor’s wrist. Perhaps it was never locked to begin with?
“What was it that drew him to this?” the wizard wondered aloud. “Whatever power it possessed seems mostly gone now . . . though I still feel a kind of undercurrent. In any case, we should return the lantern to its place and get back to the others. That creature is still out there.” She nodded toward the sailor. “I’ll speak with them about a proper burial.” She reached down and softly touched the old man’s shoulder. “He saved my life.” She stayed that way for a long moment; then her eyes looked up. “Are you well?”
Although his chest still burned, his muscles ached, and there was a vicious throbbing in his head, Morbed attempted a half-smile and offered his hand. “I’ll survive,” he said.
CHAPTER THREE
Jaharra and Morbed deposited the lantern in the room the thief suspected it had been taken from.
“For now, I want to leave everything as we found it. We’ll use the ship’s logs to record the most important items, and let the rest remain undisturbed. When we return to Westmarch, we’ll seek audience once again with the king, collect payment. If needed, I can aid Justinian’s men in undoing the keep’s protective spells.”
“You assume the hermit is dead?”
“I assume nothing yet. Let’s be off.”
The wizard provided illumination with another orb, but it seemed weakened; its light stretched only several paces ahead of them as they retraced their path back to the chamber. Her stride was sluggish, her shoulders forward. Morbed wondered just how deeply she had been affected by the incident on the ledge, but he knew better than to ask.
Footfalls echoed from the darkness ahead. Aedus called out, “Jaharra! Ah, at last,” and emerged into the orb’s dim glow. “I felt Ishkara dissipate shortly after you left.”
The wizard continued walking. Morbed and Aedus kept pace.
Jaharra spoke quickly. “There are defensive wards that detect and act against the removal of items from the keep. There is a device that suppresses magical energies yet allows the defense mechanisms to function. I don’t fully understand it yet, but I am aware of a counterspell. Still, these wards are powerful.”
Aside from fatigue, the pain of nearly being crushed to death, and the continued ringing in his ears, Morbed felt normal. For the wizard, he now realized, it wasn’t her body that was diminished; it was her power. That drain had taken a toll.
They stepped into the summoning vault to find the braziers lit, Vorik sitting cross-legged in the center, his eyes closed in deep meditation. Vorik’s and Aedus’s haversacks and waterskins lay on the floor.
The necromancer’s eyelids lifted. “Of the remains gathered in this room, none belong to the patron Clovis seeks. I’ve learned as much as I can from them. Had I my dagger—”
“Yes, we know,” Aedus interrupted curtly. The necromancer, when he did speak, would let no one forget that he was in need of a new dagger, since his old one was destroyed. Necromancers’ daggers were more than just weapons; they acted as instruments to focus many key spells.
The druid turned to Jaharra. “What of the fisherman?”
Just then a voice, husky and weathered, in words distorted by aged lips, carried to them. “The old man was a—hhough! hhough!—fool to bring those pillagers here!”
Morbed drew his knife and looked to the tower’s heights. There he spotted a silhouette hunched in the parapet just outside the braziers’ light, flanked by the stone gargoyles.
Gargoyles resembling the one that emitted the piercing scream in the statuary.
The chains rattled slightly against the walls. Beneath them, the floor trembled.
A smoky form raced through the main doorway, silently skidding to a stop at the druid’s feet. It was Roshan, tail tucked betwe
en its legs. It turned, pressed against the floor, and eyed the entry.
Aedus knelt, petting the ghostly fur. Morbed wondered if the druid could feel it beneath his fingers. “Shh, be calm.” He looked up at the others. “That thing is here, and it’s coming this way.”
Jaharra stood defiant, shouting—or attempting to shout through the room’s strange muting—to the upper reaches. “We know what happened. No one else has to die. Call off your lapdog, and we’ll spare your life!”
Hoarse laughter drifted eerily. The chains and skeletons shook with approaching rumbling footfalls, and the skulls jostled as if participating, mocking gleefully.
Sshunk! Sshunk! Sshunk! Sshunk! One by one, iron portcullises dropped in the arched passageways, barring the wooden doors within and preventing any chance of escape. Only the main entry remained unobstructed.
The floor quaked. Skeletons danced. Chains clattered. The room shuddered violently.
“Summon the pet with Clovis! Call him back to us!” Jaharra called with an urgency almost lost in the dead air.
Dread clawed deep into the core of Morbed’s being. The same high-pitched shriek from the statuary cut the air. It was, however, not as sharp as the squeal heard on the battlement. Here, both distance and the sound-dampening enchantment of the chamber seemed to affect its potency.
Still, its power to suppress or interrupt abilities was not greatly diminished, as evidenced by Aedus’s scream. “Aagh! I . . . cannot!”
With a silent howl, Roshan burst into swirling dust and was gone.
Morbed pressed his inside forearms against his ears. Though reeling in pain, all those gathered locked their eyes on the main entry as the juggernaut forced its way through.
To Morbed, who had seen humanity at its worst and lowest and had endured all manner of evil throughout his life, the thing that stepped over the sill was beyond any horror he had ever confronted or imagined. It was diabolical, wholly unnatural, and nearly indefinable. It was, he believed, a thing never meant to be gazed upon by mortal eyes, a thing that should not exist in any sane world.
Stonelike armor, three plates deep over the shoulders and back, shielded its frame. From the shoulders sprouted long and thickly muscled arms (although the muscles appeared not to be those of any human anatomy), four times the girth of a stout man. Its right limb ended in a kind of massive flail, with spiked and knobby protuberances over the surface; its left limb, though slightly smaller, widened into a hulking, three-fingered, clawed fist. Its legs were squat and bowed, a single broad horn jutted from its sloping brow, and tiny eyes gleamed from the shadows of deep-set sockets, like faraway egresses glimpsed from the bottom of fathomless pits.
Its flail-arm swung into the nearest brazier, obliterating it and launching burning embers into the room as the demon stomped and hunkered down, extending its head on a brawny neck, opening wide a plated jaw, and emitting a thunderous roar that drowned even the deafening skirl from above. Within the creature’s cavernous maw, a white-hot fire blazed.
Morbed’s heart felt as though it might rip free of his chest. His mind threatened to unravel. He staggered backward, barely registering the wall against his shoulder blades.
A bright light formed around Jaharra’s left hand. The keening wail seemed to weaken. “Fight, damn your eyes! I’ve cast a counterspell on that dampener, but I don’t know if it will hold!”
Aedus was quick to react. Morbed had seen him shift only a few times but never into anything bigger than a wolf. It was always an extraordinary sight, but the form he was taking on now was something altogether different, something much larger. The druid’s legs shortened, thickened, accompanied by popping noises, as he fell to all fours, tooth-dagger in hand. His entire aspect expanded in size. The dingy furs he wore moved and stretched over his body; hair burst across his face and grew long, even as his features extended, ears raised and rounded, the dagger becoming one with his re-forming hand, joined by four gleaming claws as bones snapped and cracked like unfurling whips.
As the transformation took place, Vorik, standing near the center of the room with arms outstretched, pitched his head backward and muttered a series of incantations. A rattling, chattering cacophony joined the gargoyle’s squeal.
Morbed glanced upward to see the chained skeletons shivering and dancing like puppets on strings.
Around the periphery of the room, braziers guttered as Jaharra gesticulated with her right hand, her left still alight, still held high, although its luminescence appeared to be fading. With rumbling strides the demon stepped farther into the dim space. The air took on a frigid chill; liquid gathered over the rocky hide of the horned monstrosity and quickly formed into a coat of ice. The creature’s movement slowed.
Aedus’s body swelled, and in the druid’s place an enormous bear now reared on hind legs. The beast bellowed, took to all fours, and in one bound collided with the frost-encrusted giant, raking away chips and shards of ice to swipe and bite at the creature’s armored hide.
One by one, the skeletons adorning the stonework answered Vorik’s call, ripping iron pins from stone and yanking chains down with them onto the floor. They collected themselves, rose as if manipulated by unseen hands, and swarmed over the hulking form of the fiend, wrapping chains around its limbs and neck.
Jaharra turned to Morbed, arms and hands motioning in the air, sweat causing her skin to gleam in the dimness. “My spell weakens. Climb! Stop that damned screeching!”
Morbed, arms still over his ears, right hand still clutching the dagger, assayed the walls, looking for handholds. It could be possible . . .
The demon grasped the fur at the nape of Aedus’s neck, worked its club-arm across between them, then yanked the beast backward and swung out with its flail-arm, catapulting the bear into the portcullis just to Morbed’s left, warping the metal gate. The bear regained its paws, rolled its head as if shedding water, and rejoined the fray.
Veins were standing out at Jaharra’s temples, and Morbed could tell that the effort to cast amid the screaming ward was taking an enormous toll. The luminescence around her left hand was now a faint, fading corona.
As Aedus charged, the armored titan swiped, hurling the beast across the room.
Morbed backed slowly toward the buckled portcullis. The demon crushed the marauding skeletons as though they were kindling, shedding the chains, pressing forward, as unstoppable as the tide. Vorik, without his dagger and hampered by the magic-suppressing wail, was unable to bring the height of his abilities to bear against their otherworldly opponent.
Morbed knew with instant clarity that they would all die very soon. He returned the useless knife to its sheath, lowered his arms, and gazed at the unfolding predicament. Suddenly it all became distant, distorted. He was transported back to the day he had stood guard while his comrades infiltrated the thieves’ camp in Aranoch.
Part of what Morbed had later relayed to his allies was true; he had convinced the bandit king that he was the son of a wealthy merchant and therefore worth ransoming. What he hadn’t admitted was that he had abandoned his post when he saw the bandits drawing near.
He had weighed their superior numbers, realized he had no means of warning his fellows, and knew that the entire party would surely be lost. So he left. Left them all to die at the hands of the vagabonds, before being outflanked and captured himself.
Jaharra was backing away from the advancing demon, screaming at Morbed to climb. Vorik was in its path. In its left hand the behemoth was grasping the nape of Aedus’s bear-neck.
He had been wrong about the event in Aranoch. They had all lived because the bandits were drunk and poorly trained. But this time, there was no doubt. Yes, they would all most certainly die.
All but Morbed.
He was, if anything, a survivor.
The thief caught enough of Jaharra’s expression—open mouth and wide, wet eyes—to register her shock at his betrayal as
he wriggled his body through the opening in the warped portcullis. As he rushed through the wooden door and headlong into the darkness, Morbed was vaguely aware of the muted screams and shouts—soon drowned out by the ear-rending skirl—of those he left behind.
CHAPTER FOUR
The hammering in his chest did not subside as Morbed raced through the inscrutable dark, arms flailing right and left, colliding intermittently with stone as his path weaved and ragged breath hitched in his lungs.
He sped on, down one corridor after another, his only thoughts of escape—to make his way back to the longboat, onto the fishing hulk, and out to sea. His ears were still ringing as he plunged ahead—
And slammed face-first into a wall.
Rebounding, he rocked onto his heels and fell hard. His head spun. Blood ran freely from his nose, over his mouth, and down his chin. He sat forward and felt around in the gloom. A dead end.
Holding the sleeve of his capote against his nose, Morbed gained his feet. He ran his right hand along the wall before him and followed the stone for several steps before coming to a corner. To his left was a faint haze, a shapeless aura that was simply less black than its surroundings. It lingered briefly, then disappeared. A tingling sensation worked through Morbed’s core. He was loath to trail the apparition, but any thoughts of turning back the way he had come were not to be entertained. He must escape.
Breathing heavily, Morbed shuffled forward and stopped at another corner, where he spied a dim lavender glow originating from a side passage, feebly illuminating a small section of the corridor ahead. Was it the same glow he had witnessed just before? It couldn’t be; that glow had moved.
Pinching the sleeve against his nose, Morbed stepped toward the light. He halted mid-stride and spun as he heard a noise behind him, the sound of an unintelligible whisper followed by silence.
Squinting in the faint glow, he could detect no presence nearby.
Diablo III: Morbed Page 3
