Soon a reaper-ghoul came into sight, moving at a rapid pace. The creature’s eyes and claws glimmered with the usual pale blue-green fire. The thing looked familiar. In fact, it almost looked like…
Marsile’s eyes widened.
It was Tored.
The reaper-ghoul stopped before Marsile’s litter, settling into a comfortable crouch.
“You,” said Marsile.
“Master,” said Tored. His voice had deepened, roughened. “I have returned.”
“You’re dead,” said Marsile. “I saw you die.”
“I have been dead for a very long time,” said Tored.
“No! Fool!” said Marsile, glaring. “Nightgrim took you, tore your head from your shoulders. I saw you destroyed.”
“I am,” said Tored, “very hard to destroy. I was commanded to take you to Moragannon. I shall obey. You will come to Moragannon.”
“You are not Tored,” said Marsile, scowling. Everything about the demon-possessed creature had changed. Tored had he ever stared at Marsile with such powerful mocking, confidence. “You…must be the minion of some other blood sorcerer, summoned by that totem.” Marsile worked the spell to sense magic.
He sensed nothing, save dark power of the demon in Tored’s flesh. Had Tored been destroyed, only to rise again as a reaper-ghoul? Marsile had never heard of such a thing happening. Once a ghoul was destroyed, it was destroyed, its flesh no longer able to house a demon.
“We should go, master,” said Tored, “to Moragannon.”
“How is it that you even stand here?” said Marsile, “stronger than before? How?”
“I grow stronger,” said Tored, “as we draw closer to Moragannon.”
“Tell me!” growled Marsile.
“I was commanded to take you to Moragannon,” said Tored. A faint sneer flickered over his misshapen face. “I shall obey.”
Marsile snarled and began casting the spell to dominate a demon, putting all of his power into the incantation. He would wrench answers from this creature, one way or another.
He cast the spell…and it did nothing, his power rebounding from Tored. Marsile reeled back in his sedan chair, blinking. In other reaper-ghouls, the creatures’ overmastering hunger had repulsed his spell. In Tored…it was as if his magic had struck a wall of iron.
Tored remained motionless.
Marsile chewed on his lip, thinking. Perhaps he should destroy the creature at once. Who knew what power controlled the thing Tored had become?
Yet a guide to Moragannon would prove useful.
Marsile’s lip twitched in disgust, annoyed at his timorousness. Had he not found Tored wandering outside the monastery of St. Tarill’s? Tored had been nothing but a lesser ghoul then. The astral world was closer in these lands. No doubt some strange reaction between the astral world and Marsile’s spells had reanimated Tored as a reaper-ghoul.
“Very well,” said Marsile. “I commanded you to take me to Moragannon, did I not? Then fulfill that command. Lead me to Moragannon by the quickest route.”
“As the master wishes,” said Tored, loping to the head of the column.
Marsile bade his servants and litter-bearers to follow the reaper-ghoul’s hunched shape.
The Silvercrown Mountains drew ever closer.
###
They left the nameless city at sunrise.
Raelum winced at his bruises, but did not complain. He wanted to make all speed to pursue Marsile.
The nameless city stood silent and deserted. Without Nightgrim’s will to hold them, the demons had fled from the daylight to the catacombs beneath the ruins.
“Well,” said Arthuras as they passed through the city’s northern gate, “I have gone into the nameless city, and I have come out again. I never thought such a thing possible.”
“Your daggers had no small part in it,” said Raelum.
Arthuras shrugged. “I wrought them long ago, when I hunted my mother.” He touched one of the daggers at in his belt. “I forged them to be proof against draugvirs. I had forgotten that.”
“A glorious morning,” said Lionel..
The shadow of despair had left his face along with Nightgrim’s taint. He was no longer the timid young man Raelum had first seen in the courtyard of St. Tarill’s. Hildebrand of Oldenburg would have been shocked to see the change in his former companion.
“Let us be on our way,” said Lionel, hand resting on sword hilt, “and bring Marsile to account.”
“I will cast the spell of location as soon as we get past the lake,” said Carandis. The lake lay to the left of the road. It looked like a great eye of ice, cold and dead. They had seen wraiths dancing over the frozen waters in the night.
“No,” said Arthuras.
Carandis raised her eyebrows. “Why not? I stopped before we came to the nameless city, and Marsile was ready for us anyway.”
“Yet last time Marsile did not know if we yet lived,” said Arthuras. “He did not know if Walchelin had succeeded, or if we had perished in the wild. Now he has every reason to believe us dead. For who could stand against a creature such as Nightgrim and live?”
Lionel laughed. "Sir Raelum did."
“Marsile ambushed us,” said Arthuras. “Now let us repay the favor.”
“How?” said Carandis.
“He will go straight to Moragannon now,” said Arthuras. “It is not far. But I know the way to Moragannon, and better than he does. His horde of demon minions will leave a trail I can read like script on a scroll. Whatever path he has taken, we shall follow him and take him unawares.”
“Indeed, it might be the only way we can hope to succeed,” said Carandis. “I’ve seen his power, as have we all. If he’s ready for us, he’ll work spells we cannot hope to survive.”
“And I, for one, am eager to meet him,” said Lionel. “He will not unleash another horror like Nightgrim into the world.”
“Very well,” said Raelum. “Let us make Marsile regret his sins.”
###
Raelum and the others set off at a great pace to the northeast, moving with haste through the trees. They camped after dark and rose before dawn, dodging both roving bands of reaper-ghouls and crumbled, wraith-haunted ruins. Sometimes Arthuras led them along the road. There Raelum saw, clear even to his eyes, the tracks of Marsile’s servants.
The road was in far better shape than the one leading to the nameless city.
“The road ought to have vanished years ago,” said Lionel. “No one has dwelled here for centuries.”
“Perhaps the ghouls walk the road,” said Carandis, “keep it from vanishing.”
“Perhaps,” murmured Arthuras, ghostly blue eyes scanning the trees. “Perhaps.”
He did not believe it, Raelum thought. Yet their taciturn guide would not reveal his mind until he thought it necessary, and Raelum said nothing.
The forests thinned into patches of woods, rocky meadows, and stony hills. The mighty shapes of the Silvercrown Mountains in the east grew larger, snow and ice capping the peaks. Perhaps they would soon see the black shape of Moragannon lurking atop the foothills.
The next day they saw the ruins.
Heaps of burned logs and shattered stones squatted atop a hill. Raelum swept his demonborn senses over the hill, seeking for the demons that must choke such a ruin.
He felt nothing.
“This is no ruin of Arvandil, I say,” said Carandis. “Every ruin we’ve seen has been built of stone. And this was burned recently. Within a year at the most.”
“You are right,” said Arthuras.
“Was this place here when you last passed?” said Lionel.
“Nay,” said Arthuras, face grim. “It was not.”
“Do you know who dwelt here?” said Carandis.
Arthuras said nothing.
Carandis grunted, squatted, and picked up a reddish stone. “Well, whoever these folk were, they forgot the art of smithcraft.” She held out her palm. A flint arrowhead rested on her gloved hand.
Arthu
ras stared at it, eyes distant.
“You’ve seen such arrowheads before, haven’t you?” said Raelum. “And you know who dwelt here.”
“Know?” said Arthuras, scanning the surrounding trees. “Know? I know nothing. I suspect. Perhaps I am wrong. Yet if any of these hill-dwellers still live, we will do well to avoid them.”
“I agree,” said Carandis, tapping one of the strange skull-totems with her staff. One of the black feathers fell and drifted away. “Whoever these folk were…I doubt they welcomed strangers.”
“No,” said Arthuras, “they did not. I dislike this place. Let us move on. Keep careful watch.”
“Who do you expect to be about, save demons?” said Lionel. “Men have forsaken these lands for years.”
“Aye,” said Arthuras, “men have.”
With that enigmatic statement he led them from the hill. They walked the rest of the day and stopped for camp after dark.
“Not far, now,” said Arthuras. “Very soon we’ll find ourselves in the foothills. And then it is a short journey to Moragannon itself.”
Raelum took first watch. Yet Arthuras stayed awake, sitting with one of his quivers lying across his lap. As Raelum watched, Arthuras mixed a number of odd powders in a cloth. Raelum caught a whiff of a sharp, pungent spice. Arthuras took the cloths and wrapped them about his arrows, one by one.
“What are you doing?” said Raelum.
“Shouldn’t you be at watch?” said Arthuras. Raelum said nothing, and Arthuras kept working. After a while he said, “If we are to have any chance, Marsile must not use his spells. If it all possible, I will try to kill him quickly with a single arrow. But if that fails, I will resort to other methods.”
“The powders,” said Raelum.
Arthuras nodded, winding a cloth about another arrow.
“And what will those powders accomplish?” said Raelum.
“If fortune favors us, we shall never need know,” said Arthuras.
“You guard your secrets like hoarded coins,” said Raelum.
“I do.” Arthuras slid a completed arrow into his quiver. “And I oft wish I had never laid eyes on some of those coins. It would be best if we killed Marsile before he came anywhere near Moragannon.”
“Before he can free the evil that lurks within,” said Raelum.
“That,” said Arthuras, “and I fear that evil. I saw Moragannon once, from a distance. I have no wish to see it again.”
“You said the same of the nameless city,” said Raelum, “and yet we came out alive.”
“We did,” said Arthuras, “but there are horrors within Moragannon that make the nameless city seem a sunlit garden.” He tucked his quiver away and rose. “You may as well sleep. I will sit and think while keeping watch.”
Raelum fell asleep. Arthuras woke them before dawn, and they continued the pursuit.
The tracks of Marsile’s servants grew fresher.
###
Marsile sat on his litter and stared at the dead deer dangling from the tree.
The deer watched him with sightless eyes. Its antlers scraped the ground, scratching lines into the earth. A length of rough rope had been wound around the deer’s legs, holding it off the ground. Looking closer, Marsile saw that the rope had been part of a cunningly wrought trap. The deer had blundered into the lasso, the rope had pulled taut, and the whiplash had broken its neck.
Someone had set that trap. Someone living, and breathing, with a need for meat.
Yet who?
Or what?
“Tored,” said Marsile, “do any living creatures dwell in these hills? Mortal men…or something else?”
“I was commanded to take you to Moragannon,” said Tored, black tongue scraping over yellow fangs. “I shall obey.”
“Be silent,” said Marsile. “I wonder if you remember how to say anything else.”
Tored said nothing.
Marsile straightened in his seat. He had over ninety demons to defend him, along with the potency of his spells. If the mysterious hunters tried to stop him, Marsile would slaughter them all and bind their possessed corpses to his service.
He turned, and from the corner of his eye, noticed something moving in the trees.
###
“There,” breathed Raelum, sword in hand. “There.”
A mass of demons stood in a snowy meadow at the edge of a small wood. Raelum, Carandis, Lionel, and Arthuras picked their way around the trees. Every now and again a twig crunched beneath Lionel’s or Carandis’s boot, and Arthuras glared at them, but the demons never reacted.
Raelum saw Marsile. The outlaw Adept sat in a sedan chair carried by four ghouls. A dead deer dangled from a nearby tree, hind legs caught in a rope. Had Marsile been forced to hunt for food?
Raelum’s heart hammered. A quick dash would bring him to the vile murderer. Yet Raelum doubted he could hack his way through the ranks of ghouls before Marsile’s spells struck him down.
Arthuras stopped, drew an arrow, and raised his bow. Raelum watched, his fists clenched. Marsile deserved this, deserved unexpected death hurtling from the trees. Raelum wanted to see the agony on Marsile’s face, to see the pain as death claimed him.
Arthuras drew back his bow.
Marsile turned and saw them.
###
Marsile’s eyes widened.
The four of them stood in the trees, staring at him. Lionel of Tarrenheim and Carandis Marken, sword and staff in hand. Arthuras, a bow held at the ready. And Raelum, his red eyes ablaze with hatred.
How was this possible? How could Nightgrim have failed? For the barest instant Marsile’s stunned mind refused to work.
Then he remembered, in a terrifying flash, standing in the nameless city, Arthuras’s arrow shattering against his protective spells.
The arrow!
Marsile flung himself backwards.
The action saved his life. An arrow flew from Arthuras’s bow and slammed into Marsile’s left shoulder.
###
Arthuras snarled a curse and yanked his sword free.
“You hit him!” said Carandis.
“It was not a killing shot!” said Arthuras. “Quickly!” He sprinted forward, singing, and his sword burst into raging flame. Raelum and the others dashed after him, weapons at the ready.
The demons turned to face them.
###
Marsile snarl in pain. The arrowhead ground against the bones of his shoulder. Blood pumped from the wound, darkening his crimson robes.
“Kill them!” Marsile managed to shout. “Kill them!”
His servants moved towards the attackers.
“You,” gasped Marsile, pointing. He tasted blood on his tongue. “Come here! Now!” One of the ghouls shuffled to Marsile’s side.
It bore the black spear Marsile had taken from the demon knight in the nameless city. The spear held enough stolen life-force to heal Marsile’s wounds, if only he could get the wretched arrow out of his shoulder.
His right hand curled around the arrow’s shaft and tugged. A wave of sickening pain roared through him, and Marsile rolled onto his side and retched.
“You,” said Marsile, when he could speak again. He heard the clang of steel and the crackle of spells.“Pull the arrow from my shoulder. Now! Now!”
The ghoul bent, clawed hand curling around the arrow, and yanked. The arrowhead wrenched free from Marsile’s shoulder, dangling a gibbet of flesh.
Marsile he heard himself screaming. Waves of gray washed over his vision. He wanted to close his eyes, huddle into a quivering ball.
But if he closed his eyes, he might never open them again.
“The…spear,” he rasped, raising his shaking hand, “give me…the spear.”
The ghoul complied, the shaft slapping against Marsile’s palm. He gathered his will and forced his mind into the weapon.
Warmth flooded through Marsile, easing his pain, and a stream of life-energy surged into him. Marsile gasped in relief as the pain in his shoulder vanished. He felt h
is shoulder beneath the blood-wet robes. The wound had closed.
Marsile clenched the spear, his relief becoming rage. They dared to attack him? Marsile was through with poison, with lackeys, with unreliable minions. He would end this himself, here and now. He would slay his enemies beneath the fury of his spells.
“Tored!” The reaper-ghoul dashed to his side. “Take the ghouls with the children and continue towards Moragannon.” Suppose the wretched Silver Knights accidentally killed one of the children? Marsile had no wish to travel all the way back to the civilized lands to steal more. “I shall rejoin you once I have dealt with these fools.”
“Master,” said Tored. The reaper-ghoul turned and raced away.
Marsile muttered a spell, still lying on the ground. Warding energies crackled and shimmered about his body in a haze of blue and white light. Let the fools try to wound him now! Between his defensive spells and the spear’s protective powers, neither the Paladins’ blades nor Carandis’s astralfire could touch him.
He sprang to his feet and began casting a spell.
###
Raelum caught the claws of a ghoul on his shield, shoved the creature back, and lashed out with his sword. The burning blade tore through the ghoul’s skull, rotten bone shattering. The demon writhed and collapsed to the ground. Raelum whirled and took the head from still another ghoul.
The demons came at them in a solid mass, clawing and lashing. They did not try to encircle or flank them. Instead they piled on in a solid mass, and Raelum and the others mowed them down.
“For Chrysos!” Lionel fought like a man possessed, his arms filled with the strength of the Light. He smashed his blade through a ghoul, ripping the demon apart. “For Karrent!” His backhand shredded a wraith to wisps of glowing smoke. “For Hildebrand! For the Divine!” He hacked through Marsile’s demon minions like a scythe through chaff. Carandis loosed burst after burst of blue astralfire. Arthuras’s burning sword and silver dagger sent the demons fleeing.
They were winning.
Hot rage fired Raelum’s mind. Any moment, he would break through the demons and ram his sword through Marsile’s heart.
The Third Soul Omnibus Two Page 41
