“Get on my back!” Jet rasped.
Vandar glanced around. “You’re sure?”
“Do you have a better plan? Move!”
The Rashemi ran to him and clambered on. Even the paltry weight of a human being produced a fresh pang of pain.
But Jet didn’t let that slow him down. He lunged at the parapet, leaped atop a crenel, and bounded on out into space.
And his outstretched pinions transformed what would otherwise have been a plummet into a level glide. He lashed them and began to climb.
Every wing beat hurt, and flight was a labored, awkward progress. But he was flying, and he rejoiced.
He wheeled and beheld a couple of the animate suits of half-plate floating after him. Uselessly. Despite his weakened condition, they weren’t flying fast enough to catch him.
Still, he wheeled, lashed his wings, and hurled himself at the closest. It attempted to swing a broadsword at him, and he caught its weapon arm in one set of talons and its helmet head in the other.
The armored phantom pulled apart in his grasp. He dropped the pieces to clatter on the ground, turned to avoid flying over the courtyard—there might be archers and spellcasters down there by now—and drove onward.
“Another man might ask what the point was of pausing to kill that one creature,” Vandar said, still breathing heavily. “But I’m a berserker. I understand.”
Jet didn’t bother answering. He was busy peering ahead for a place of concealment he could reach before his strength gave out.
Over the course of her long life, Yhelbruna had listened to countless messengers standing outside Witches’ Hall to request that she and her sisters attend the Iron Lord. Such callers were always respectful, but in subtle ways, their manner varied.
Generally, the messengers were extremely deferential, conveying that their master understood the hathrans would come if and when they pleased. But if a matter was urgent, and particularly if it pertained to the Iron Lord’s primary role as warlord, then his emissaries communicated that urgency. While still asking for assistance with all the rhetorical flourishes protocol required, they nonetheless made it clear that the Iron Lord expected representatives of the Wychlaran to attend him without delay.
The messenger that had arrived this afternoon had been of the latter variety. Still, Yhelbruna had expected to find Mangan Uruk inside the castle. Instead, he stood in the courtyard amid scurrying, shouting warriors, some of them his own personal retainers, others carrying shields painted with stags, snow tigers, and other totems of Immilmar’s berserker lodges.
Spying the half dozen hathrans entering through the gate, he waved to them. “Over here!”
The hathrans advanced, the warriors made way for them, and, when they reached him, Mangan bowed.
“What is all this?” Yhelbruna asked.
“I’ll let him tell you,” Mangan said. He held out his arm, and, its little brown-feathered body translucent in the winter sunlight, a wren fluttered down to light on his wrist.
Yhelbruna felt a pang of dismay. Despite all the distracting commotion, she ought to have sensed the presence of a spirit animal. It was one more indication that her mystical strength was waning.
“I am Rosesong!” chirped the wren. “I live in Belvata!”
“Yes,” Mangan said. “Please, tell the learned sisters what you told me.”
“I am Rosesong! I live in Belvata! Dead things came in the night! They killed men and women! They killed chickens and pigs! Hathran Yulzel sent me to fetch help! I am Rosesong! I live in Belvata!”
“Thank you, friend,” Mangan said. The phantom bird leaped off his wrist and fluttered up toward the battlements.
The Iron Lord then gave Yhelbruna a wry smile. “So you see, hathran, you were right. Whatever may have happened in the North Country, the threat from the ghouls and wraiths is not over, and I have to go end it once and for all. I’ll need witches to help me, and naturally, I’d like the aid of wise Yhelbruna most of all.”
She took another look around the crowded courtyard with its men tying bundles on braying donkeys; whining, sparking grinding wheels sharpening blades; and all the rest of its bustling, noisy preparations. “It looks like you’re taking every warrior you can lay your hands on.”
“As I said, we’re going to put an end to this menace as fast as possible, and the way to do that is to bring all our strength to bear.”
“I see the logic. But Belvata is a small village.” To be precise, it was a hamlet on the far side of the River Rasha a hundred miles to the south. “If a great host of undead raided it, how likely is it that anyone would have survived to send word?”
For a moment, a hint of something less cordial, a flicker of impatience, perhaps, showed through Mangan’s smile. “You listened to Rosesong. He’s a brave, loyal creature, but I doubt he has the wits to give us a more detailed explanation of what happened. Maybe only a few undead, scouts or foragers or whatever, turned up in Belvata. The fact remains that of late, no one has sighted any of the vile things anywhere else. Accordingly, I have to assume they’ve all moved south.”
Yhelbruna frowned. “That’s not as logical. What if—”
“Curse it!” Mangan exploded. “Enough of this!”
Startled for a moment, Yhelbruna could only stare, and in that instant, the Iron Lord appeared to realize he’d overstepped. He bowed a second time and far more deeply.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I revere the Wychlaran. I’ve spent my life serving you to the best of my ability. You know that.”
The apology, offered to placate an anger Yhelbruna hadn’t actually experienced, made her feel tired and lonely. Still, she replied with the austere composure Rashemen expected of her.
“But? You’ve already made it plain you have a grievance. You might as well go on and tell me what it is.”
Mangan took a breath. “As you wish. Before, I praised your wisdom. That was flattery, meant to quell any hard feelings that may have risen between us. The truth is, lately, you’ve been wrong at least as often as you’ve been right.”
“Tell me how.”
“I told you from the start that I could destroy the undead. It’s the Iron Lord’s responsibility, and the Wychlaran handed me the office, so your sisterhood must believe I can handle it. But you, hathran, insisted the spirits wanted me to sit by the fire while others, outlanders, mostly, fought my battles for me. And how did that work out? Folcoerr Dulsaer and his Aglarondans died. So, apparently, have Vandar Cherlinka and the Griffon Lodge, Aoth Fezim and his companions, and Dai Shan. The filthy Halruaans ended up trying to murder you and did kill others as they fled the city. Meanwhile, the undead are still roaming free, butchering folk who look to the Huhrong’s Citadel for protection!”
Yhelbruna didn’t know how to answer. It was an unaccustomed feeling and one she disliked. “I can’t deny the truth of any of that.”
“Then please, give me your blessing to go fight for Rashemen in the way I think best! Better still, come along and help!”
Well, why not?
As she’d just confessed, Mangan’s indictment of her was fair. Her plan for destroying the undead had failed. Indeed, now that none of her supposed champions remained, her scheme seemed not just wrongheaded but preposterous.
Perhaps the spirits no longer guided her decisions. Maybe she was simply imagining their promptings as she finally slipped into senescence, her mind and magic failing together.
But she didn’t feel senile. And no one could deny that the wild griffons and their golden telthor leader were a miracle, a gift from the Three intended for a special purpose, and she and Vandar were the ones who’d brought them down from the High Country.
Besides, Mangan’s decision to take every available warrior and rush south just felt rash and reckless. Unfortunately, Yhelbruna could see she had no hope of talking him out of it and knew she’d reached the point where she could no longer command him. Her judgment in this matter was no longer credible, and other witches, maybe the very hathra
ns at her back, would speak up to countermand her orders.
The only thing Yhelbruna could control was her own actions. “I’m sure many of my sisters will march with you,” she said. “But I have other matters to which I must attend.”
Mangan sighed, and she sensed his mingled disappointment and disgust. “I understand, and I certainly wouldn’t want to take you away from anything important.” He shifted his gaze to the witches behind her. “Learned sisters, if any of you intend to come south and help the brave men who fight in your name, I could use your advice and magic starting right now.”
Yhelbruna had in effect been dismissed. That feeling too, was both unfamiliar and unwelcome, but circumstances obliged her to tolerate the disrespect. Rebuking the Iron Lord when he was in the midst of readying his troops for war would only make her look petty and petulant, childish in the erratic, snappish way of an addled old woman.
Afterward, restless, she wandered the snowy streets of Immilmar. Even with all the warriors at the citadel, and the excited little boys peering in the gate to observe as much of the muster as they could, no one could honestly say the rest of the town seemed deserted. A dog barked, the smell of baking bread wafted from a kitchen window, and, his hammer tapping, a carpenter replaced a plank on one of the bridges. Still, under the surface, Yhelbruna’s surroundings felt strange, desolate, or even ominous for no reason she could define.
Is it really all just me, she wondered, then scowled and doggedly told herself it wasn’t. She turned back toward the Witches’ Hall to attempt what she already sensed would prove to be yet another opaque if not nonsensical divination.
* * * * *
Cera stumbled along in a blur of misery, chiefly aware of the ragged, slimy touch of the dead men supporting her and the even filthier feeling of contamination inside her.
Then, however, she felt a release, like someone had lifted a crushing weight off her or removed strangling hands from her neck. The relief was only partial if not marginal, but it sufficed to quicken her thoughts.
Not wanting her captors to realize she had in any measure recovered, she glanced around through half-lowered eyelids. By the feeble greenish luminosity of a phantom floating along ahead of her, she discerned that the endless profusion of tombs and sarcophagi had given way to a more normal sort of tunnel.
Combined with the feeling of relief, the change in her surroundings revealed that she and her captors had just emerged from the deathways! And even through all the stone and earth that still separated her from its light, she could faintly sense the Yellow Sun above her. She felt like laughing and weeping at the same time and clenched herself lest she do either.
In due course, her captors marched her up to what she recognized as the entrance hall of the primary keep of the Fortress of the Half-Demon. The sooty opening where Jhesrhi had burned away the doors was unmistakable. So were the hacked and blasted bodies.
Some of the undead were outside in the courtyard amid a litter of those frozen corpses. Lod and Dai Shan were looking out the doorway and conversing, and Cera strained to eavesdrop on their conversation.
“How much of a problem are they likely to be?” the bone naga asked.
“I doubt the griffon can fly very far,” Dai Shan answered, “which means they won’t make it out of this wasteland quickly. Still, if the sagacious champion of the undead can see a way to complete his conquest expeditiously, it might be well to do so.”
“I can,” Lod replied, swaying. “The strategy Uramar devised is clever, and I came to Rashemen because I can move it along even faster. The Codex of Araunt contains magic germane to the purpose.”
“But has anyone set the scheme in motion in the first place?” With a slight wave of his hand, Dai Shan indicated the bodies sprawled in the snow outside. “The learned prophet sees that circumstances here are as I reported. Your enemies took the Fortress of the Half-Demon, and it may be that Uramar and all his lieutenants lie among the slain.”
“I doubt it,” Lod said, “considering they had the option to retreat into the deathways when it became necessary. My judgment and instincts alike tell me we’ll find Uramar at Beacon Cairn.”
“I fervently hope so. Shall we go there, then?”
Cera realized that to “go there” would mean a return to the deathways, and in her brittle state, the prospect nearly maddened her. She struggled against the urge to try to yank away from the zombies and run.
“Yes,” said Lod, “but not quite yet. My folk fought a hard battle before we encountered you, and though we don’t suffer fatigue or pain exactly as mortals do, a period of recovery is still advisable. We’ll move on at midnight.”
“And—if the mighty and honorable naga lord will forgive me for seeking absolute clarity on the point—if I continue making myself useful, when the Eminence of Araunt rules Rashemen, I can take the wild griffons and depart in peace?”
“Of course,” said Lod, “I promise.”
With that, the undead began to make themselves at home, although they didn’t all simply flop down and rest. Lod slithered forth with half a dozen followers to explore the castle, scavenge equipment, and see if he did recognize any of the mangled corpses littering the battleground. Ghouls set about lighting a fire in a cold hearth and dragging goblin bodies close to it to thaw.
At which point, Cera’s guards hauled her away through the keep until they found what they evidently considered a suitable chamber. There, they dumped her on the cold, hard, grimy floor and withdrew, pulling the door shut behind them.
She told herself that where securing prisoners was concerned, the mute, dull-witted things could have learned a precaution or two from Halonya’s wyrmkeepers. But when she struggled and failed to clamber to her feet, she realized weakness was likely to hold her every bit as well as locks and iron bars.
But she couldn’t let it. Her desperate plan had gotten Jhesrhi and her out of the deathways even if it had done so in about the most unfortunate way imaginable. Now they had to finish their escape.
On the far wall, stout shutters sealed windows scarcely wider than arrow loops. At a couple of points, lines of pale light showed where the ironbound wooden panels fit imperfectly against the stone.
Cera crawled forward. The trailing scraps of her torn mail scraped against the floor.
She couldn’t see precisely where the light shone down. There wasn’t enough of it to make a brighter spot amid the gloom. But she felt it when it touched her.
The sensation, however, was not what she’d anticipated. Ever since she was a little girl, even before she realized her calling, she’d loved the warm caress of sunlight. Now it stung, and she—or rather the pollution inside her—wanted to flinch from it like a parasitic grub squirming away from a healer’s forceps.
But she didn’t flinch. She stayed where she was and fixed her eyes on the luminous cracks, keeping them there even when her head began to throb.
I accept the pain, she thought. It’s like a cauterizing iron searing infection out of me. And while it does, I pray for my god to reveal himself.
The discomfort faded, and the gloom and the massive structure around her faded with it, until she was floating in a sky of flawless blue, gazing into the heart of the Yellow Sun. All around her, though she couldn’t actually see them, she had a sense of wheels meshing and turning one another with utter smoothness and regularity. It was like the world’s most accomplished dwarf artisans had assembled to build the largest, most intricate, and most finely crafted mill in all creation.
Gradually, Amaunator’s radiance warmed and cleansed her, and her perception of the perfect order that was as intrinsic to his nature as the daylight soothed her with the promise that all things, no matter how seemingly discordant, resolved themselves into harmony in the end. Her communion with him was so blissful that a part of her could have basked in it forevermore. But Jhesrhi needed her, and so, after a time, she mustered the will to abandon the rapture of pure contemplation for more practical concerns.
“I have to go
back,” she breathed, “to bring more of your grace to the world, and for that, I need my magic. Please, help me.”
She felt a pulse of reassurance that, now that she was out of the dark maze and purged of the taint of incipient vampirism as well, she could channel the god’s power as readily as ever. Then she was back on the floor.
For a moment, she lay relaxed and almost mindlessly serene in the afterglow of her meditation. Then she realized the light leaking through the cracks was dimmer than before.
She didn’t know how long her trance had lasted, but obviously, long enough for the westering sun to travel some distance across the sky. It would be dark soon, and once it was, the undead would be more active and alert.
She tried to rise, and as before, found herself clumsy and feeble. Her communion with the Keeper had revitalized her spiritually but hadn’t restored the physical vigor exsanguination had cost her.
Because, she supposed, she could attend to that herself. She murmured a prayer and felt a warm tingling as light poured into the core of her and made her body glow from within. Inside the blood-spotted rents in her mail and the padding beneath, the fang marks dwindled and disappeared.
She tried again to stand and did so without difficulty. She crept to the door, pressed her ear against the panel, listened, and heard nothing. Unfortunately, that was no guarantee of safety. The undead were notoriously quiet. She took a breath, gripped the handle, and jerked the door open.
As she’d feared, one of the zombies that had tossed her into the room was still standing and staring at nothing just outside. She supposed she was lucky it wasn’t both of them, although she would have felt luckier still if she had a weapon, a shield, and intact armor, or, as long as she was wishing, Aoth and twenty stalwart Brothers of the Griffon surrounding her.
Because she didn’t, she hopped back as the dead man lurched around to face her and slashed with his sword. The cut fell short, and she swept her hand in an arc that evoked the sun’s path from horizon to horizon. “The Keeper grant you peace,” she said.
Prophet of the Dead: Forgotten Realms Page 22
