Within the featureless faces, Raidon perceived hunger, raw and unstoppable, multiplying with each new corpse that kicked its way out of the confining walls.
Adrik's heartbeat was thready, uncertain, but at least it persisted. It wouldn't for very long, though, if Raidon couldn't apply a tourniquet to the man's bleeding wrist.
The tunnel emptied to another cavern, smaller than the last one and roughly circular. Within this space the blue haze was thicker than ever. Broad black mushrooms sporting red pustules clustered at the room's hub. Looming among the ceiling-high toadstools was another ambulatory fungus hulk, like the shambling form Raidon had glimpsed in the previous cavern, but possibly bigger. Or perhaps it was the same one?
Limestone attackers flooded in from all sides, eroded and broken, possessed of an inarticulate fury. A wave of seven burst into the mushroom ring, intent on the towering creature within. The fungus hulk, its posture already hunched, lashed out a massive limb, batting all but two of the creatures across the chamber in arcing trajectories. The other two simply shattered.
"The hulk fights the undead!" exclaimed Raidon. An undead burst from the floor beneath him. He evaded a pale claw, barely maintaining the bleeding Adrik across his back. "Let's join it!"
Not waiting for confirmation from Kiril, Raidon plunged in amongst the woody stems, moving until he stood within ten paces of the native creature. The fungus hulk, possessing no eyes, nonetheless seemed to measure him in its regard. A heartbeat later Kiril joined them, her chest heaving as she fought for air after their mad dash.
The fungus hulk seemed to nod, a movement that involved most of its body, then it turned to stave off another wave of attackers.
Raidon let down Adrik, who moaned. "Hold on, friend," he told the sorcerer. Three more groups of stone-hard undead shuffled toward the mushroom cluster, plus five or six more lone shufflers. If he could snatch even an instant to care for his friend-
The monk dodged outside a white fist's trajectory. As the blow flashed past his head, he grasped it. Using the creature's own force, and assisting by twisting his hips, he swept the undead from its feet and into one of its advancing companions. The arm broke off the one he used as an improvised ballista, and the second toppled and fell.
Two more charged him, one straight on, the other advancing toward Raidon's right flank. The monk ran toward the closer one. Before it could wrap him in its rigid arms, he ran up its slablike front and poised on its head. His balance on the precarious perch was better than he'd imagined. The creature stumbled to a halt, confused. It batted at its own head, but Raidon evaded its grasp with well-timed hops. The other undead, intent on reaching him, careened full speed into the one upon which he stood.
The collision propelled Raidon into the air with double the force of a simple jump. He tucked his feet, accelerating himself into a midair spin. He drew his daito as he dived into a rolling landing, simultaneously sweeping the daito into the neck of another undead.
His blade, for all its provenance, became lodged in the fell thing's throat. Despite knowing better, he wasted a heartbeat vainly tugging at his grandfather's sword. He couldn't wrench it free! As he struggled, he was blindsided by an unseen slam.
Raidon staggered back, blinking stars from his eyes, his hand stinging where the daito's hilt had been torn away. A warm trickle began somewhere on his scalp. He was lucky the thing hadn't gotten a grip on him. If it had. .
He looked for Adrik. Three undead obscured the sorcerer, battling Kiril, who'd apparently moved to guard the fallen man.
She'd drawn her sword! Argent flames raced along its length, threatening to mesmerize the monk. She sheared through one's arm, another's head, and cut the last in half. But five more jogged forward to take their place.
The fungus hulk remained standing, its head rising high above the scuffle. Its arms worked continually, battering, batting, and crushing the endless rush of undead. Heaps of broken stone were building all around it, piece by piece, and billows of powdery dust swirled in the blue haze. Wounds accumulated across its carapace, oozing bluish fluid.
The fungus hulk, Kiril, and the monk formed a rough triangle. Back to back, they were stemming the onslaught.
But for how long?
His skills had rarely been matched in his temple. But for all his expertise, his talent was better used against foes whose flesh was living, or at least supple. Of the many lessons he'd learned at Xiang, one was fundamental. In a fight, a defender either treated himself as the center and moved his foes around him, or he treated his foes as the center and moved around them. Raidon was a master of the former fighting style. Unfortunately, it was a style unsuited to fighting animated fossilized corpses.
He fell back, kicking, chopping, and evading until he stood only a few paces from Kiril. He yelled, "These creatures attack us without end! Are they truly undead, or is the earth itself forming and spewing them forth, mockeries of life meant to deprive us of ours?"
The ferocious but strangely vacant gaze of the swordswoman, as she methodically destroyed every monstrosity that strayed into her reach, gained some measure of animation. She muttered, "If they're being created as quickly as we can destroy them. ."
"Then we are doomed if we make a stand here," finished Raidon, sidestepping the bull rush of a towering stone humanoid.
Kiril gritted her teeth and said, "Hear that, bastard? This fight is concluded already-you're just too dim-witted to recognize it." Raidon realized she spoke to her blade. "Ease up on me, and I can get us out of here. Should I die here, you'll be without a wielder. You'll have no vessel for your damned piety. We're close to Stardeep. Have you considered this uprising might be a ploy of the Traitor. ."
She suddenly pirouetted in a full blazing circle, smashing half a dozen advancing figures to rubble. She continued, ". . though these. . undead or stoneborn … do not have the feel of something left behind by aberrations. They are something different. I doubt they are tethered to the Traitor's will."
"But they are no less a threat. We must flee someplace safer, somewhere we can tend Adrik. And, I tire," confessed Raidon. He didn't have a magic blade to feed him limitless strength, or to mend his bones and stitch his flesh when he miscalculated. The blood flowing from his scalp threatened to obscure vision in his left eye. Several cuts on his arms and chest threatened to spill blood, but were restrained from gushing only through his strict control and focus on his body. If one more stone fist penetrated his guard and smashed him, he might fall.
The animate stone with Raidon's daito embedded in its neck trundled into Kiril, arms wide, undeterred by the length of steel. It knocked her back two paces. Her eyes lost their moment of coherence. She yelled in an oddly resonant voice, "Pretenders at life, feel the Cerulean Fire!" She lopped the arm, upper chest, and head from her attacker as if it were formed of clay, not stone.
The daito clattered free and Raidon retrieved it with an easy motion. He sheathed it immediately. He couldn't risk using it again, and more importantly, he did not want to view any damage upon the weapon from his brash attack.
Abruptly, a colossal hand reached down and plucked Adrik from the ground. Raidon yelled, but the fungus hulk turned and thundered clear of the mushroom grove. It ran toward an opening in a far wall, bowling over several stony attackers who failed to clear its path.
"Kiril, we must follow-that thing has Adrik!" The monk backed quickly toward the retreating fungus hulk. Had they been fooled by the hulk? Did it think the fallen sorcerer was food?
The swordswoman, with an obvious effort of will, also fell into a retreat. She called, "Follow it-the creature forges a path for us, knowingly or not!" Above her, the circling dragonet pealed an ongoing commentary on the battle raging below it.
As soon as Kiril committed to the withdrawal, Raidon turned and accelerated toward the hulk's broad back. Few things could hope to match the monk's unhindered speed. Dodging a few grasping arms, he caught up with the beast that clutched Adrik. He was right behind as it plunged into a wide tunnel
.
The spore haze seemed to move with the creature. The light emitted by the haze gave everything an unearthly blue tint, a halo of sorts. By its illumination, Raidon saw the tunnel ahead was clear of stumbling fossils. So far.
The strange creature held the sorcerer securely in one arm, nestled against its chest like a mother might hold a babe. The pose lent Raidon sudden reassurance-for whatever reason, the fungus hulk was protecting Adrik. Intuition told him that as long as the creature lived, Adrik would be safe.
Raidon's shadow suddenly deepened and stretched ahead. Kiril and Angul must have entered the tunnel. He glanced back, saw the elf managing a pace quicker than he would have supposed, though her blade probably fed her speed. That sword, cursed though she proclaimed, was a relic of power unlike Raidon had ever seen.
In their wake, a flood of stone-clasped marauders followed.
Kiril held her sword like a standard. She marched beneath its haughty certainty. Angul burned like a brand, with a cerulean fire unique to it, illuminating the wide, high tunnel down which she coursed. The hard-edged light Angul shed fought with the softer, bioluminescent haze that clung to the fungus hulk, which bloomed along the same tunnel. The enigmatic creature yet gripped the sorcerer in a tender clutch. The beast bled ichor from scores of wounds. It had lost so much internal fluid without impairment Kiril wondered if the ichor was necessary for the creature's survival.
Such certainly wasn't the case for Adrik. A portion of the elf's mind, free of sword-influence, worried about the injured, too-quiet sorcerer. What did the great striding creature want with him? It didn't seem to wish any of them harm; rather, it had fallen in with them as if an old ally. Perhaps it was as concerned about the undead uprising in its quiet tunnels as they were. The horrors rumored to stalk Stardeep's underdungeon had proved all too real. No wonder so few had ever managed to make the trek between Sild?yuir and the dungeon proper.
As she held Angul aloft, she noted on the back of her left hand the ugly burn scar she'd received more than half a decade ago, years after she'd set aside her duties as a Keeper. A too-close encounter with the magma heart of an active volcano. Nothing to do with Traitors, aberrations, ancient gods, undead, or fell sorceries. Seeing that scar pulled her more fully from Angul's mental grip. She took a deep breath. Gliding above, pacing her as it did so effortlessly these days, Xet chimed upon noticing her regard, as if to ask if she were returned to her right mind. She was, but she didn't sheathe the sword.
Behind them moved a cluster of ravenous fossils, and if her vigor evaporated, she'd fall behind into their remorseless clutch.
Then came a sound so hideous Kiril saw Raidon flinch. It was the sound of demons screaming torment, or the tortured cries of a thousand victims bawling out their last breath after days on the rack. It was a sound she hoped never to hear again.
The sound came from ahead. But no path was possible other than the direction of the hellborn screams. They continued their mad dash, and moments later, elf, half-elf, and fungus hulk emerged into a vast cavity.
The roof rose steadily upward and was crowned by a violet flame that stuttered and flared, one moment dim, one moment sun bright.
The light illuminated an army of hundreds, perhaps thousands of hard white figures in the midst of a terrible riot, all trying to crowd into a space beneath the light on narrow streets in the ruins of a blasted city.
Here and there, amidst the white backs and pale eroded heads, she saw the silhouettes of Knights. By the Sign, how had they come here? Many fought alone-isolated clashes surrounded by a sea of undead, each desperately swinging a weapon against a teeming mass that didn't register pain or loss. For each Knight she saw standing, she spied three more being ripped asunder by red-stained undead.
Despite the decimation of what must have been half an Empyrean company or more, the undead seemed more intent on reaching a central pyramid built of their stony brethren, which squirmed and buckled, but held its shape well enough to support a blood red throne of rough-cut crystal.
On one side of the throne a fossil, caped and crowned in violet luminescence, brandished a staff of deadly energy. Was it the Traitor, or some fell working created by the Traitor? No, Angul thought not. But yet. .
On the other side of the ruby throne appeared a male star elf who wore the trappings of a Keeper! And in this man's hands, a blade whose outline was night's progenitor.
Something in Angul stuttered. It imparted to her, That sword is somehow familiar. .
Kiril gasped. Angul had never before betrayed even a hint of uncertainty in the entire decade she'd wielded him.
At that moment, the fungus hulk gave voice to what sounded like a despairing moan. It crashed to the ground, turning its body as it buckled, protecting the man it held from its weighty fall. Kiril touched Angul's tip to the creature's lichen-covered carapace.
Dead, pronounced her blade. A sacrifice for a righteous cause. Turn aside now, and go to that Keeper who yet holds faith with the Sign!
Kiril winced. The blade's implication was that she, Kiril, did not hold such faith. .
I will see us through this press, promised her sword. His fire fumed and grew, new strength rushed into her limbs, and surety of purpose infused her will. The last thing she saw as she plunged into the mob of animate neoliths was the monk bending to cradle Adrik's lolling head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Stardeep, Underdungeon
Oppressive slumber relinquished its clotted hold, and Adrik opened his eyes. Tunnel walls rushed by on either side, bluish with luminescent haze. The hue seemed somehow familiar. . such an effort to recall to mind why.
And what held him so snugly in arms overgrown with lichen and trailing tiny rootlets through the dank air?
He tried to voice his question, managing only to croak. The noise was enough to catch the attention of something above him-a great head swiveled forward and down to fix him with its. . gaze? A lopsided, vegetable-like visage of wavering rhizomes and empty sensory pits. A vacant face, yet somehow, one that communicated intelligence.
Adrik was so far past exhaustion the face held little terror for him. He allowed his head to fall the other way, and saw that below, at the side of the great creature that clutched him, padded his friend from Telflamm, and the elf woman they'd met.
Unaccountably, sadness touched him. There were so many questions he had, like friends whose company he never tired of. But those friends were drifting away now. He sensed his curiosity dispersing to find a host whose life wasn't dripping away with each stuttering, slowing heartbeat.
What surprised him the most was the pain. The numbness began to give way to an agony unlike any he'd before imagined. Except for the pain right before the stern star elf guarding Stardeep's outer gate had healed him. Some lingering nilshai curse was released from the bonds that had temporarily held it. The taint began to bite into him anew.
He began to shriek. He tried to flail; the unrelenting grip of the fungus hulk held him fast. The tunnel walls continued to speed by, painted blue in the creature's spore halo.
He noted Raidon glancing anxiously up at him, but at that moment the tunnel disgorged into a ruin of arching white columns choked with thrashing fossils whose lives ended thousands of years, maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago. The blue light was drowned by a greater fire, the fury of which seemed to sear Adrik's eyes. The light reached him in shafts and rents obscured by crumbling spires and broken towers.
The swordswoman Kiril dashed forward. A hundred or more colliding stone figures turned from their rush down the too-narrow streets to fix their blind regard on the newcomers.
Adrik turned his face up, uncaring. For the pain was lifting, disappearing as suddenly as it had pounced upon his failing flesh. A calmness fell upon him, and into that pearly space came thoughts, wandering and unconcerned with the sprays of rock dust emerging from the cerulean whirlwind of Kiril as she moved into the ruined city chamber.
He saw a face, like his own, yet older. He recognized his b
rother Erik, fellow adventurer and wide wanderer in the world, who yet waited his return in Emmech. What plans they'd made! Once their fortune was secured, why, they'd disturb the councils of kings, confer with the elder mage of Shadowdale, and shake the foundations of the world! Ah, yes. He smiled to think on it. It saddened him, though, to imagine his brother waiting in vain. His heart could barely muster the strength to put one beat after the next. Then he envisioned his brother's grief when, long past Adrik's promised return date, Erik finally realized the truth.
The one he would see next, Adrik decided, would be the god whose domain was death. Would the great beast holding him transfer him directly into Kelemvor's hands? Memories, realizations, regrets-the time for all such activity was past. Accept it, Adrik, he chastened himself. Cease these mental acrobatics, compose yourself.
He thought then of a girl he'd once known. Her name. . what was it? Chelsea, it was Chelsea, of course. A love cut down before its time when cruel disease had claimed her. His grief over her untimely demise was the final impetus that launched his adventures with his brother. With her end, nothing else could keep him home.
She awaits you now. And his childhood friend Macknar who'd drowned, and grandfather, too, most likely. Old friends, old loves. Would they greet him?
Suddenly Raidon was there before him, cradling his head. Was it real, or a vision? The monk's visage was scribed with compassion and regret.
Grieve not, he tried to say to the half-elf. Kelemvor comes, and shall deliver me to a place I do not fear to travel. Perhaps a place where I can continue to ask my questions.
His drifting thoughts persisted for one final heartbeat. Raidon's eyes, glassy with unwept tears, faded into a translucent mist, through which a golden light began to break, a celestial light whose brilliance washed Adrik Commorand away from the world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Stardeep d-3 Page 23
