Prophet of the Dead: Forgotten Realms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Although he wasn’t the target, mere proximity to the casting made Vandar yawn and even quelled the impatience of the red sword flickering at the back of his mind. He thought that surely the magic must be lulling the fey as well. Then he spotted a subtle disturbance in the snow before him. Something was crawling underneath it.

  He bellowed, “Look down!” At the same time, he grabbed Yhelbruna and spun her behind him. As he turned back around, the fey burst up from the blanket of frozen white.

  To his surprise, they weren’t any kind of snake but rather whipping tangles of briar with twisted little faces glaring from amid the thorny stalks. They stood as tall as a man when they finished rearing up.

  Vandar’s rage took hold of him without needing to call it, and he stabbed with the javelin a fellow berserker had loaned him. The weapon gashed and nearly split a stalk, but more briars whipped around the shaft and kept him from pulling it back. He let go of it and snatched for his sword hilt. In his head, the blade crowed with delight.

  As it cleared the scabbard, briars cocked themselves backward. Guessing what was about to happen, he almost dropped into a defensive crouch before remembering his body was shielding Yhelbruna’s. He contented himself with jerking up his arm to protect his face.

  The briars whipped forward and threw thorns like miniature darts. Fortunately, his boiled leather vest and thick woolen sleeves kept all but a couple from piercing skin.

  He sprang at the pair of briar fey in front of him and started slashing lengths of them in two. They lashed back at him, and he ducked and dodged. Thorns dragged across his armor, snagging then popping free.

  He cut into the gnarled face of the fey on his right, and the creature wailed; gave a rattling, clattering shudder; and stopped moving. He pivoted to attack the one on his left in similar fashion but discovered Yhelbruna was already pointing her wand at it. The tip of the arcane weapon pulsed with azure light, and the bramble-thing slumped back down in the snow.

  With no more foes in reach of his sword, Vandar pivoted for a look at the rest of the battle. Several briar fey were still attacking the vanguard of the war band, and not everyone was coping as well as he and Yhelbruna had. Men wrapped in ever-tightening loops of bramble struggled futilely as rows of sliding thorns caught and ripped their skin.

  At the moment, Vandar was riding his anger and not the other way around, and perhaps for that reason, he saw what needed to be done. “Golems!” he shouted. “Let the golems kill them!” Thorns wouldn’t do much harm to living metal and stone.

  Somewhere behind him, Shaugar echoed his command. Steel wolves and big bronze cats sprang forward.

  Meanwhile, Vandar scrutinized the landscape beyond the immediate threat. Nasty as they were, a few briar fey had no hope of defeating a force as sizable as his. Maybe a durthan’s orders or an overwhelming hatred of mankind had prompted them to attack even so, but he feared the purpose was to keep him and his comrades occupied while a different creature carried a warning to the main body of the enemy.

  After a moment, he spotted the sentry, a dark, spindly thing springing from tree to tree. Ignoring the scarlet blade’s throb of protest, he dropped the sword in the snow and sought to rip his javelin from the dead fey’s twisted hold. Stickers pricked him as the weapon pulled free, but he didn’t pay any heed to that either.

  By the time he cocked the javelin over his shoulder, the sentry was all but out of range and on the very brink of vanishing into tangled branches and dimness. But he used the imminence of its escape to make his berserker wrath blaze even hotter, and as he did, he threw.

  The javelin caught the dark fey in mid-spring and stabbed into its torso. It fell to the ground, and for a breath or two, its long limbs twitched, while blood black as ink stained the snow beneath it. Then it rotted away to nothing, and only the instrument of its death and the filthy blotch remained.

  Vandar looked around. As he’d hoped, once they engaged, the automatons had made short work of the remaining thorn fey. He let go of anger and shivered as lightheadedness and a pang of nausea took its place.

  Then Yhelbruna touched his face, and the sickness disappeared.

  “I don’t want you weak,” she said, “not even for a moment. From this point forward, every step will be more dangerous than the one before it.”

  * * * * *

  As Uramar and his patrol—an assortment of doomsepts, other phantoms, and ghouls—ranged the deeper reaches of the forest, many of his broken souls luxuriated in the gloom. For as every undead learned, darkness could be more than the absence of light. It could be pleasurable and invigorating, a condition in which death waxed strong and life guttered, and that was the sort of murk Lod, Nyevarra, and the other undead durthans were calling into the mundane world.

  Those who truly understood the implications assured Uramar the gathering dark meant Rashemen was soon to fall, and naturally, he was glad. Yet the prouder and more bloodthirsty aspects of his complex identity also felt a little wistful. He’d been essential while he was creating and recruiting undead, fighting battles, and Lod was still on the other side of the western sea. But since leading the last little feint of a raid along the River Rasha and then returning to the Urlingwood via the deathways, he hadn’t had much to do.

  He knew his idleness was only temporary. Once the Eminence of Araunt controlled its own country, other conquests would follow and require the efforts of every warrior. But in the meantime, he’d assuage his restlessness by patrolling, and never mind that, after his comrades’ efforts at subversion and misdirection, and with dark fey sentries standing watch farther out toward the edges of the wood, such vigilance was almost certainly superfluous.

  Up ahead, something gleamed for a moment among a stand of oaks. He squinted and made out a steel centipede as long as four horses standing nose to tail, crawling at right angles to his path, which was to say, toward the weir trees where the rites of shadow were underway. Other figures were stalking along with it.

  Uramar smiled. To say the least, he hadn’t liked abandoning the Fortress of the Half-Demon, but he’d found the Raumvirans’ unexpected departure from Beacon Cairn equally troubling. He’d feared they’d come to harm, do something to give away the Eminence’s plans, or even outright betray their undead kindred.

  But evidently none of those things had come to pass. Because the centipede was a Raumathari automaton, and that meant Pevkalondra and her people had thought better of their fit of pique and come to rejoin their comrades.

  Uramar drew breath to call out a greeting. Then one of his more cautious souls snapped, “Don’t! Be certain first!”

  “Yes,” added another inner voice, one of the jocular, japing ones, “you might as well. You’re out here to play watchdog, aren’t you?”

  Uramar raised his hand to signal his companions to halt, then stalked forward, taking momentary satisfaction in the silence of his approach. The necromancer who’d created him had assembled his massive, crooked body for strength, not agility and certainly not for stealth. But in the years since his liberation, he’d learned to compensate for his hugeness, deformities, and limp.

  He peeked around a mossy tree trunk. His eyes widened, and a dozen inner voices clamored at once to explain the import of what he beheld.

  They didn’t need to. He understood. The golems were indeed of Raumathari manufacture. He recalled seeing some of them in the vaults where their creators had kept them. But the folk marching along with the constructs weren’t Pevkalondra and her retainers. They were living berserkers, hathrans, and men in masks, along with the sun priestess who’d destroyed Falconer and the fire mage who’d contended with Nyevarra.

  “How did they get past the fey?” asked one of Uramar’s souls.

  But he didn’t have time to speculate or curse the durthans’ longtime allies for being less capable than they were supposed to be. He turned and crept back to the rest of the patrol.

  “The folk up ahead are an enemy war band,” he whispered, “headed straight for the weir tress. O
ur troops outnumber them, but if the living take them by surprise, it could still be bad. Zashtyne.”

  “Yes,” moaned a gray, wavering, all-but-faceless blur.

  “Fly to Lod and warn him. The rest of us will delay the enemy and buy our comrades time to get ready to fight.”

  Zashtyne hurtled away. The rest of the patrol awaited Uramar’s further commands. In their various fashions, they all looked resolute despite the long odds, and he felt a pang of pride in them. They embodied the truth of Lod’s teaching that the undead were higher, worthier beings than the mortal husks from which they rose.

  Waving his hand, he bade them spread out so no blast of flame or rain of acid could target too many at once. Then he drew his greatsword from the scabbard on his back, charged, and his fellows exploded into a headlong dash along with him. They wouldn’t close the distance before the living noticed them coming, but with luck, they might get close.

  His soul fragments shouted war cries or gave advice. One piece of the latter was to shroud himself in what was, for the living, crippling cold, and he willed the force to leap forth from inside him.

  The patrol was twenty strides from the foe when the fire wizard spotted them and shouted an alarm, whereupon a bronze sphinx with brass joints and copper highlights pivoted and bounded at Uramar. He wondered if some knowledgeable foe was making sure he battled one of the constructs, for neither his aura of chill nor the life-drinking magic bound in his sword were likely to inconvenience it.

  All right, then, he thought, I’ll do this the hard way.

  The sphinx’s hinged jaw opened, and without breaking stride, it roared. The sound ripped through Uramar’s head, and a couple of his inner voices wailed. But most of the pieces of his mosaic self held fast against terror.

  He faltered, though, just as if he were afraid, and waited for the sphinx to spring. When it obliged, he dodged to the side and cut at its neck.

  Metal crashed as steel cracked bronze. The stroke fell well short of decapitating the automaton, though, and it spun around to face Uramar anew. At the same instant, golden light, painful like a bee sting, flashed at the corner of his vision. The sun priestess was channeling the power of her deity.

  Uramar had hoped some of his warriors would reach her and the wizard before they could start casting spells. But things plainly hadn’t worked out that way, and he needed to deal with the sphinx before he’d have any hope of striking down the southerners himself.

  The automaton lunged at him, and he cut at it. With a trickiness he hadn’t expected of a mindless thing—maybe its new master was operating it like a puppet—the sphinx stopped short and swiped at his blade with its paw.

  Metal rang once more as the blow connected and nearly tore the weapon from his hands. Intent on reaching him before he could grip the hilt securely again, the sphinx pounced, and he spun aside.

  As he did, he glimpsed a specter in flight, its arms and fingers stretching as it rushed the tall, slender wizard. She pointed her staff at it, and the end of the weapon and her long yellow hair both burst into flame. Then, however, all the fire went out as quickly as it had erupted, and she hurled darts of crimson radiance instead.

  Uramar barely dodged the sphinx’s spring, and as a result ended up too close to cut at his foe. But as one of his voices needlessly reminded him, that didn’t mean the weapon was useless. He hammered the pommel down on the automaton’s spine with all his strength.

  The sphinx lurched off balance, froze for an instant, then pivoted. Uramar hopped back and so avoided a snap of its bronze fangs.

  At that moment, undeterred by his mantle of cold, a Rashemi warrior with a battle-axe rushed in his flank. Without taking his eyes off the sphinx, Uramar jabbed his sword to the side and caught the berserker in the neck. It would have been a lethal stroke even with an ordinary weapon, but in this case, the Rashemi withered and died before he could even slip off the point, let alone bleed out.

  Meanwhile, the golem lunged, but it was no longer as fast and agile as before. Uramar retreated, shifted the greatsword back in front of him, and swung it down at the top of the sphinx’s half human, half leonine head.

  The blade split its target all the way down to the mouth. The automaton collapsed in a rattling heap.

  Uramar yanked the sword free and pivoted to locate the sun priestess. There she was, casting spells behind the protection afforded by two warriors made of light. He started toward her, but another golem, the enormous centipede he’d noticed at the start, interposed itself between them.

  As he fought to demolish that construct, he caught more glimpses of the rest of the battle. His comrades were perishing one by one, vanquished by superior numbers.

  Was it possible they’d delayed the living long enough? Some of the soul fragments thought yes, others no, but perhaps it didn’t matter anyway. Berserkers and golems were maneuvering to cut off any possible retreat.

  So be it, then. Maybe the necromantic secrets of the Codex of Araunt would one day reanimate Uramar and his comrades anew. If not, he was willing to die the final death for the cause he held dear.

  He sheared the centipede’s front legs out from under it, then smashed its head when it tipped off balance. By that time, though, more foes were converging on him, and he couldn’t see any of his allies anymore.

  He wished he hadn’t been so awkward and shy when Nyevarra offered her affection.

  And at that instant, as if his thoughts had brought her, she appeared beside him in a puff of displaced air, her tarnished silver mask on her face and the Stag King’s antler staff in her left hand. She took hold of his forearm with her right hand and rattled off rhyming words of power.

  The world seemed to shatter into sparks, and he had a sensation of hurtling motion, although without being able to tell if he was falling or streaking along like an arrow. The feeling only lasted for an instant, though, and then his surroundings reassembled themselves into stable, coherent forms as abruptly as they’d burst apart.

  Only now they were different surroundings. He and the vampire stood amid the towering weir trees, where everyone was rushing around preparing for battle.

  “Zashtyne made it here,” he said, “and then you came for me.”

  “We need you,” she said, her fingertips lingering on his biceps. “Are you ready to take on the mortals in a fair fight?”

  He smiled at her. “I am.”

  * * * * *

  When Aoth Fezim and Jet swooped toward the deck, men scattered. And they kept their distance thereafter from the black griffon’s smoldering red eyes, beak, and talons.

  It was the natural, prudent reaction, but Bez had no intention of looking intimidated in front of his own crew and aboard his own vessel, even if he was the Halruaan the beast—and his master—genuinely hated. Thus, he strode closer to the newcomers, past masts, rigging, catapults, ballistae, and the cranks that controlled the Storm of Vengeance’s folding wings, and said, “I saw flashes and heard cries filtering up through the tree limbs. So I know our allies on the ground skirmished with more of the enemy. Were you able to make out any of the details?”

  “Yes,” said Fezim, “and unfortunately, the durthan who wields the Stag King’s staff appeared and whisked the patchwork swordsman I told you about to safety.”

  “So now the rest of the undead and dark fey know we’re coming.”

  “At least we got close to the weir trees, and Vandar and the others are moving up fast. They may engage before Lod and his creatures finish putting themselves in order. But we’re not going to take them by complete surprise like we wanted.”

  Bez grinned. “Not complete surprise. But still.”

  “Right. Our part of the plan hasn’t changed. We’ll give the fight on the ground a little time to get going. Make the undead think what they see before them is all they have to deal with. Then, on my signal, we flyers will hit them from above. You’ll see gaps in the canopy you can shoot through. Just remember that specters and such can fly too. You need to be ready to repel board
ers.”

  “We are,” said Bez. “May the Foehammer guide your spear, Captain.” He grinned. “Until we finish with Lod.”

  Fezim smiled back. “And may Lady Luck smile on you for exactly the same amount of time.”

  Jet gave a rasping cry, pivoted, leaped over the gunwale, lashed his wings, and climbed. Meanwhile, watching, Bez thought, I shot you down once, griffon, and from much farther away.

  For although Fezim might believe his fellow mercenary commander had no choice but to do as he was told, in fact, a clever man could almost always find options, and the present situation was no exception.

  Fezim and an undetermined number of his allies could set the Storm ablaze merely by speaking a certain phrase. But suppose Bez killed the Thayan with a single stroke while his friends were busy fighting on the ground, then simply sailed away. He might get a long head start before Jhesrhi Coldcreek and the others were free to pursue or even realized what had happened.

  But another grating screech and a winged shadow sliding across the deck reminded him Jet was far from the only griffon in the air, and the huge black beast was now the chieftain of the others. If Bez struck at Jet, the rest might all attack the skyship.

  Well then, what if, instead of killing Fezim and making a run for it, Bez fought the battle through on the undead’s side? Dai Shan had formed an alliance with them. Why shouldn’t another living man do likewise?

  Because that strategy brought him right back around to the problem of the runes. Only an idiot would gamble that he could betray his fellow sellsword captain, then linger in the vicinity, and every one of Fezim’s friends would die before a single one of them got around to reciting the trigger words to destroy the Storm.

  And even though Bez possessed magic that would enable him to survive the blast, and even though he could recruit new followers, such a calamity simply couldn’t be allowed. Built with arcane secrets lost when the Spellplague devastated the Halruaa of old, the skyship was irreplaceable.