Prophet of the Dead botg-5

by Richard Lee Byers

  “On the inside, you’re like an undead yourself.”

  “Whereas on the outside, the brave priestess is gripping her sole weapon in a way that bespeaks a lack of experience in its use. I promise that if you let it fall, I won’t hurt you any further, and neither, I think, will Lod, provided you freely answer his questions. He’s curious to learn all that a priestess of Faerun can-”

  Cera threw the sword.

  Dai Shan likely didn’t expect her to use it in such an unconventional fashion, but he had no difficulty contending with the inept attack. He flicked his hand and knocked the blade tumbling to the side.

  In the instant that required, though, Cera called out to Amaunator, drew down more of his might, and stamped her foot. Another sun symbol flowered beneath it, the rays stabbing out across the floor. Dai Shan gasped and stiffened.

  She rattled off a second spell, mimed the act of striking with a weapon, and as the sun symbol faded, a mace made of yellow glow burst into being. With a thought, she sent it flying at Dai Shan.

  But as she did, she saw he was reciting too. Then the room went black, darkness smothering even the luminescence of her conjured weapon. She made the mace swing anyway, but it didn’t connect.

  Dai Shan had dodged it, and suddenly, instinct screamed that, blind though she now was, Cera needed to change position. She stepped back and to the left, and something, the Shou’s fist or foot, no doubt, slammed into her side.

  The impact hurt, sent the breath whooshing out of her, and knocked her stumbling. If it had caught her squarely, or landed on a spot her torn mail didn’t cover anymore, it likely would have crippled her or worse.

  She brought her conjured mace streaking back across the room for another blind attack. As it missed, she heard Dai Shan murmur two words in a language she didn’t recognize, a Shadow tongue, perhaps, and then sensed it when he snatched the magical weapon out of the air and snapped it like a twig.

  Once again, though, at least the product of one spell had occupied him long enough for her to gasp out another. Light glowed from her right hand to counter the darkness he’d summoned and restore her sight.

  Unfortunately, she could discern little cause for hope in what vision revealed. She was certain the power of the sun symbol had in some measure hurt Dai Shan, but no one could tell it from the smooth, subtle way he eased closer. Meanwhile, her side was throbbing, and when she twisted the wrong way, an even fiercer pain ripped through her.

  She retreated, and, still in no hurry, he came after her. She realized he was backing her into a corner.

  She raised her hands to face level as though to fend him off. Perhaps they, and the light shining from the right one, would keep him from observing her mouth was moving.

  Alas, no. Evidently realizing she was whispering a spell, he lunged, faked a punch to the stomach that drew her guard down, then smashed the true attack into her face. She reeled, and suddenly the whole world seemed to ring like a giant bell, although simultaneously, everything was utterly silent.

  Still, she forced out the last word of her incantation. The rays of another sun symbol flared out across the floor.

  She discovered she hadn’t lost her hearing after all when Dai Shan stiffened and made a little grunting sound. After that, though, he seized her and tumbled her off her feet. Spinning around behind her, he pressed his forearm into her throat and choked her.

  “The valiant sunlady should take pride in her prowess,” he said as she pawed in a futile attempt to break his hold. “Had we begun our contest at opposite ends of a sunlit field, the outcome might have been different. But close quarters and darkness favored me.”

  Cera’s head swam, and the chamber grew dimmer. Until Jhesrhi’s body burst into flame, and the willowy mage started to struggle to her feet.

  Because Amaunator’s magic was not merely potent but versatile. Channeled in the proper form, like the sun symbols, it could smite foes and revive friends simultaneously, and, to maximize her chances of surviving a fight against a strong and cunning adversary, Cera had so evoked it.

  Startled or at least distracted, Dai Shan eased the pressure on Cera’s throat, and she sucked in a breath. The Shou thrust out one arm at Jhesrhi and murmured the first word of an incantation. Dark streaks ran through his outstretched hand as though the bones were in some sense glowing through the skin, but radiating shadow instead of light.

  Cera jammed her head backward into his jaw. She was no brawler and felt at once that she hadn’t connected hard or squarely. But the impact sufficed to make him stumble over his recitation, and the shadow power accumulating inside his hand dissipated with the attack uncast.

  Jhesrhi finished clambering up, and, with a roar, her halo of flame flared hotter. As Cera cringed, the wizard’s shackles and gag softened and sagged like dough. She stripped away the manacles, then jerked off the cruel-looking device that had cut the corners of her mouth, and finally spit out a stray bit of red-hot metal.

  Fortunately, that burst of hotter fire lasted only a moment; Cera doubted she could have endured its searing proximity much longer. As it subsided, Jhesrhi swayed.

  Dai Shan sprang up and rushed her. Evidently he was willing to risk punching or kicking through the weaker flame that still shrouded her slender form, if that was what it took to strike her down.

  Cera swung her arm backward to trip the merchant as he dodged around her. But he sprang over her out-flung limb and charged onward.

  Jhesrhi recited, and fresh blood trickled from her raw mouth. She gestured with swollen, crooked fingers. Meanwhile, she retreated, one step, two, and then her back was against the wall.

  Dai Shan plunged into striking distance. His hand leaped, but then a red spark streaked at him as well. A dazzling, booming blast of flame engulfed both him and Jhesrhi.

  When the flash faded, Cera, blinking, saw the sellsword was unharmed. Whereas what remained of Dai Shan lay burning on the floor.

  Jhesrhi rounded on Cera. She raised her hands as though she meant to cast another spell.

  “It’s Cera!” the priestess gasped. “Aoth and I are together! You remember!”

  Jhesrhi faltered. “Yes. Sorry!”

  “Don’t be.” Sucking in a hissing gasp at a fresh twinge in her side, Cera rose. “You saved us. Well, partly. Let me finish healing you so you can do the rest.”

  “You’re all blistered, and your nose is broken.”

  Cera wished the wizard hadn’t mentioned any of that, for now she felt those pains too. “It’s not important. Just stifle your halo of flame.”

  Now that Jhesrhi was conscious, it wouldn’t do to administer the Keeper’s healing grace via a touch. The sellsword couldn’t bear it. But Cera wanted to get as close as possible.

  Jhesrhi frowned as though the request warranted suspicion. But then she gave her head a little shake, and her cloak of flame vanished. She circled around Dai Shan’s still-burning body to meet Cera in the center of the room.

  Cera drew down more of Amaunator’s light and, with an arcing gesture of benediction, sent it shining into the wizard’s body. Scratches and bruises faded.

  Then zombie warriors appeared in the doorway, while a luminous phantom flowed through the wall beside it. The booms of the fiery blasts Jhesrhi had conjured had no doubt brought them rushing to investigate.

  Cera hurled the Keeper’s power and burned the first ones to nothingness. Meanwhile, Jhesrhi recited with what, under the circumstances, felt like maddening slowness, articulating crunching, grinding, ponderous words that a person unschooled in earth magic could never even have pronounced.

  More undead sought to enter the room, and with her dwindling store of power, Cera threw them back. The wall behind her scraped, banged, and let in a frigid breeze, as, obeying Jhesrhi’s command, it opened to provide an exit. That felt as if it were taking forever too.

  Jhesrhi spoke moaning, whistling words. Cera glimpsed motion at the corner of her vision, turned, and saw the specter that had somehow penetrated her magical defense reaching
out with shadowy hands to seize her. Then, howling, the wind picked her up and whisked her beyond the phantom’s reach.

  In its haste, the wind banged her shoulder against the side of the breach as it carried her through, but all she cared about was that it was outdistancing the specter streaming in pursuit. She and Jhesrhi soared high above the fortress into a deep blue sky that glowed red on the western horizon. The frozen surface of Lake Ashane reflected a trace of the heavenly colors.

  After the cold, lifeless darkness of the deathways and the predation of the vampires, the snowy twilit wilderness seemed like the loveliest sight Cera had ever seen, and despite her lingering pains, as she and Jhesrhi flew southward, she imagined she could scarcely feel any happier. Then a huge, black shape swooped down beside her. “About time you showed up,” it rasped.

  “Jet!” said Jhesrhi an instant before Cera would have joyfully exclaimed the same. “How is it you’re still here?”

  “Because Vandar and I stayed in the fortress to search for the two of you,” the griffon replied. “After he ran into the undead coming up out of the dungeons, we had to flee, but we didn’t go far. And for the last little while, I’ve been flying around, keeping an eye on the place to make sure the ghosts aren’t still chasing us. How is it you’re here?”

  “The same undead Vandar encountered had taken us prisoner,” Jhesrhi said. “But we managed to escape.”

  “Where is Vandar?” Cera asked. “Is he all right?”

  “Yes,” said Jet, his voice even gruffer than usual. “He’s on the ground right now, because it hurts me to carry a rider. Aoth said that you, sunlady, would help me with that.”

  “You’ve spoken with Aoth?” Cera said. “He made it out of the dark maze too?”

  “Yes,” Jet replied. “After we set down, the two of you can talk to him too. I’ll pass the words back and forth. Just try not to gush, weep, or coo. I have enough ailing me without getting sick to my stomach.”

  For once, Aoth’s preternaturally keen sight blurred, and his eyes felt wet. He realized he was on the verge of tears and at once felt a twinge of Jet’s disgust.

  That disgust was half feigned, but still, the familiar had a point. A war captain couldn’t bask for long in sentiment, let alone give the impression of weakness, when he had important tasks to perform. Aoth took a deep, steadying breath, then turned to face Orgurth squarely.

  “Good news?” asked the orc. He had a bloodstained dressing on his neck where an automaton had clawed him. Had the strike landed just a little differently, it either could have sliced his windpipe or slashed an artery, but he seemed to regard the actual wound as a trifle.

  “The best,” Aoth replied. “Jet found Jhesrhi and Cera alive and well.”

  Orgurth grunted. “That is good, when all your friends make it back from the battle alive.”

  Aoth had the feeling Orgurth was remembering some sorrow from his own past and wondered if the orc was ever going to tell him why he’d been cast out of the legions and condemned to slavery. It plainly hadn’t been for cowardice.

  With a leer, Orgurth appeared to cast off the grip of somber recollection. “Still,” said the orc, “you’re wrong. The best news would be your friends are alive and your enemies are dead.”

  Aoth smiled. “True. Let’s go work on the second part of that.”

  They found Pevkalondra, as the ghoul sorceress had named herself, where and how they’d left her, in a sort of natural alcove, bound hand and foot and gagged. With her filthy yellow fangs, she could likely have chewed the gag to shreds if she’d decided to, but she also had an “Old One”-actually, another keen young novice like Kanilak-hovering over her with an axe to chop her if she showed any sign of attempting to cast a spell.

  Orgurth cut her feet free and hoisted her up. Then he, the Rashemi, and Aoth marched her to the large cave, an amphitheater somewhat like the one outside the Witches’ Hall in Immilmar but with the tiers of seats shaped from stone rather than dug out of the earth, where the rest of the Old Ones awaited them.

  Most of the seats were occupied. The Old Ones had taken casualties during the final stage of the siege, but fewer than Aoth had privately expected. Even if they spent their days kowtowing to the hathrans, the enchanters hadn’t been bragging when they claimed to know how to fight.

  Aoth gave a nod to all the folk looking back at him and his companions. “Well,” he said, “here we are, no thanks to this creature. Let’s find out why she came here to bother you.”

  Watching out lest she suddenly twist her head and bite him, he pulled the gag away from Pevkalondra’s mouth. She spit viscous gray fluid and licked her shriveled lips with a long, pointed tongue. For some reason, the latter action thickened the dry-rot stink of her.

  “I won’t tell you anything,” she said, “until you promise me my freedom.”

  “Done,” said Aoth.

  Some of the Old Ones exclaimed in dismay. Seated on the third tier up, owl mask set aside-likely because it chafed the bruised, swollen right side of his face-Kanilak yelled, “That thing led the attack on the caverns!”

  “Yes,” said Shaugar, seated a level higher with Pevkalondra’s wand in his hand, “and it’s undead on top of that. Its very existence offends the spirits and the Three themselves.”

  “She offends me too,” Aoth replied. “But we need to know what she can tell us. Because up in the North Country, my comrades and I believed we ended a threat to Rashemen. But plainly, the menace isn’t over.” He looked to Pevkalondra. “Isn’t that so, Raumviran?”

  The pearl in her eye socket glimmering, Pevkalondra sneered back at him. “I told you what I require,” she said. “For obvious reasons, I require it from these barbarians as well.”

  Orgurth snorted. “Stinky, I don’t see how you can ‘require’ much of anything. Like I already told the captain, I can make you talk.”

  “Maybe,” said Aoth, “but maybe not. I’ve heard of undead yielding under torture, but also of those that never did. Their pain and fear aren’t necessarily like ours.”

  “We could try,” said an Old One in a mask like the gnarled face of a tree spirit ringed with stubby twigs.

  “I know you’ve lost friends,” said Aoth. “I understand the wish to avenge them. But think of the welfare of your country and your own welfare in particular. There could be more Raumvirans in the Running Rocks, and if so, you need to know.”

  “I don’t like it,” Shaugar growled, “but the Silverbloods owe you, Captain, and you have a point.” He glowered at the ghoul. “We Old Ones promise to release you and give you a day to clear out of our territory in exchange for answers to our questions. Start with the one Captain Fezim just raised. Are we still in danger?”

  “No immediate danger,” Pevkalondra said. “No more than the rest of the Rashemi.”

  “Convince us,” said Aoth. “What were you and your raiders doing here?”

  The Raumviran hesitated, not, he sensed, because she was concocting a lie but rather because the answer was somewhat complicated.

  “Do you understand,” she asked at length, “that undead from an unknown land far to the west of Faerun have come to Rashemen?”

  “I do now,” Aoth replied. Speaking through Jet, Jhesrhi and Cera had explained it to him. “The emissaries reanimated Raumvirans, Nars, durthans, and the Firelord knows what else to create a force capable of subjugating Rashemen.”

  “Yes,” Pevkalondra said, “and then our confederacy explored various ways of achieving its purpose. One such option was via a straightforward military campaign, but your victory at the Fortress of the Half-Demon led Uramar-the chief envoy from the Eminence of Araunt-to decide to pursue a different scheme he hatched with Nyevarra, a durthan, instead.

  “The plan,” the ghoul continued, “gave a central role to witches, and thereafter, Uramar concentrated on reanimating more of them. He ignored Raumvirans, even though we’d sustained heavy losses in the battle. His disregard made it clear my folk were destined for only a minor role in the Rashe
men to come.”

  “Unless,” said Aoth, “you did something to increase your power and prestige.”

  “Yes. So I cast around to determine how to accomplish that, and I discovered hathrans weren’t the only mages who in one fashion or another support the Iron Lord. The Old Ones were up here in the mountains, and I hoped that if I led a war band to destroy them, one enclave after another, my efforts would demonstrate the worth of Raumathari wizardry and arms.”

  “And if they didn’t,” said Orgurth, “you’d still have all the enchanted weapons and talismans you’d looted. If it came to it, you could make this Ura-something show you respect.”

  “Exactly,” said the ghoul.

  Orgurth leered. “Too bad it didn’t work out.”

  “So you’re telling us,” said Aoth, “that yours was the only band of undead raiding in these mountains?”

  “Yes,” Pevkalondra answered. “All the durthans and such are pursuing Uramar’s scheme.”

  Aoth nodded. “Fair enough. And now let’s talk about that. What is the cursed scheme?”

  The ghoul grinned, likely because she was anticipating the effect her next words would have. “Corruption. First and foremost, of the Urlingwood itself, the sacred earth Rashemi so revere. The durthans apparently know how to tilt the balance of forces centered there to strengthen their witchcraft and the dark fey while weakening the hathrans and their particular allies. The overt conquest of Rashemen will be a trifling matter after that.”

  Seemingly astonished, the Old Ones stared down at her. Then Shaugar said, “Nonsense! If the durthans knew how to do such a thing, they would have done it during the Witch War of old.”

  “They couldn’t,” Pevkalondra said. “The hathrans guarded the heart of their power too well.”

  “And do you think they’re any less vigilant now, mere tendays after you and your undead friends were committing atrocities throughout the land?”