Unholy hl-3

by Richard Lee Byers

  Bareris rolled clear, floundered upright, and made himself corporeal. Tsagoth snarled and started to rise. The last sword stroke must have hurt him, for he was floundering too. But he was still coming.

  Shaking, his body ablaze with pain, Bareris gripped his sword with both hands, bellowed a war cry, and swung. The blow split Tsagoth's head from crown to neck.

  Two more cuts chopped the head free of the body. Bareris reduced it to fragments, then turned his attention to the remainder of his foe's corpse. When he was certain that he'd demolished the blood fiend beyond any possibility of regeneration, all the strength spilled out of him, and he collapsed amid the carrion.

  Where he tried to feel triumph. Or at least satisfaction. Something.

  But he couldn't. For a few moments, as he had fought and gained the upper hand, he'd felt a teasing promise of joy, but there was nothing now but the torment of his wounds.

  As Tammith had once tried to explain to him, this too was what it meant to belong to the living dead. You thirsted for something-blood, revenge, power, whatever-and the need was so hellish you'd do anything to ease it. But you couldn't, no matter what you tried.

  As soon as he could, before his wounds had finished closing, he drew himself to his feet to hurl himself back into the roaring chaos of the battle. For after all, what else was there to do?

  A griffon rider swooped past the arched window. Malark resisted the impulse to toss a javelin or darts of force at the sellsword and shrank back instead. If he didn't reveal his location, the enemy couldn't disturb him while he performed his next task.

  And it was essential that he succeed. He'd helped the defense by unlocking all the magically sealed doors, but by itself, that wasn't going to be enough. The council's soldiers were pushing into every bailey. They'd taken possession of some of the towers and bastions already. By the looks of it, they were on the verge of seizing the fortress's primary gate to admit the rest of their army.

  But Malark judged he could still turn the fight around-if he could blot the wan dawn light out of the sky. Then the specters and other entities lurking in the dungeons, the true night creatures to which the sun was poison, could emerge to join the fray.

  Unfortunately, it wouldn't be easy. Ysval had been able to do it, but he'd been a nighthaunt. And then Xingax, but he'd grafted Ysval's severed hand onto his own wrist.

  Malark would have to make do with pure sorcery. Encouraging himself with the reflection that at least he'd learned the craft from the greatest mage in the East, he raised his wand and started to chant.

  Jet beat his wings, flew above a skin kite, caught the membranous undead in his talons, and shredded it. Meanwhile, Aoth looked around the aerial portion of the battle for another foe and saw the sky was darkening.

  With his fire-infected eyes, he'd noticed the process early. That gave him a chance to stop it if he could determine its source.

  Unfortunately, no matter how he peered, he couldn't. The wizard responsible was hidden away somewhere.

  He cast about for his own wizards and spotted the gleam of Jhesrhi's golden hair atop a captured bastion. She and some colleagues in red were hurling fire from the flat, square roof of the keep, while the soldiers standing with them shot arrows or dropped stones they'd pried loose from the parapet.

  Aoth sent Jet diving toward the keep. Their haste nearly earned them a volley of arrows, but then the startled archers realized who was plunging down at their position and eased the tension on their bowstrings.

  Jet spread his pinions wide and, despite his speed, touched down with scarcely a bump. "Jhesrhi!" said Aoth. "The sky's getting darker."

  Jhesrhi looked up. "It is?"

  "Yes, and that's bad. Can you find the person causing it?"

  "Maybe. Darkness isn't an element per se, but air is, and the darkness is presumably flowing through the air. I'll speak to it."

  She raised her staff over her head, closed her eyes, and murmured words of power. Aoth had a fair knowledge of elemental wizardry himself, for as a warmage, he relied on it extensively, but even so, he didn't recognize this particular spell. A cold wind kicked up, moaning, blowing one direction, then another, fluttering the hems of cloaks and robes.

  Jhesrhi lowered her staff and used it to point at one of the taller towers. "It's just one man, and he's in the top of that."

  "Thank you." Aoth dismounted, strode to the parapet, pointed his spear, and rattled off his own incantation. A bright, crackling lightning bolt leaped from the point of the spear, only to terminate just short of one of the windows of the minaret.

  Aoth cursed and threw a pale blaze of cold. It too failed to reach the target. "The bastard's got wards in place."

  One of the zulkirs' soldiers said, "Captain, we could do it the regular way. Break into the bottom of the tower and fight our way up from there."

  Aoth shook his head and pointed to the sky. By now, surely everyone could see it was murkier than before. "We don't have time."

  His glistening wand of congealed quicksilver in his hand, the harness of white energy still supporting his ponderous form, Samas Kul waddled forth from the circle of wizards with Lallara hobbling at his side. Aoth hadn't noticed his co-commanders before but wasn't surprised to find them here. The top of the keep was a relatively safe position from which to work their magic, and in his experience, his former masters didn't like facing unnecessary risks. That was the job of lesser creatures like legionnaires.

  "I'll break open the tower," Samas said.

  Lallara spat. "You couldn't breach the walls before."

  "Then," Samas said, "we were outside the Dread Ring, which meant its defenses were at their strongest. Now, we're inside. Watch and learn." He raised his wand with a surprising daintiness that reminded Aoth of a conductor leading a band of musicians, then flicked it through an intricate series of passes.

  A piece of minaret sparkled around its pointed window, and then the black stone turned to water. It cascaded down the side of the tower, leaving a ragged hole and revealing the man inside. It was Malark, clad in garments that were partly scarlet, denoting his status as a Red Wizard.

  Aoth and Malark both aimed their weapons, but Szass Tam's aide was a hair quicker. Four points of yellow light shot from the tip of his wand.

  "Get down!" Aoth yelled. Praying that the parapet would shield them at least to some degree, he threw himself flat, and his companions followed suit. Most of them, anyway. Lallara was moving too slowly. He grabbed her and jerked her down just as the sparks exploded into blasts of fire.

  The heat seared him, and the booms nearly deafened him, but he wouldn't let them pound him into sluggishness. He raised his head and looked around.

  Some of the warriors were badly burned, maybe dead. Thanks be to Kossuth, Jhesrhi and Jet looked dazed and a little scorched but essentially unharmed.

  On the other side of the gap that separated the one high place from the other, violet phosphorescence seethed on top of the hole Samas had punched, patching it. Somehow, though he'd only had an instant, Malark had conjured a new defense. Now, protected by that shield, he was lifting the trapdoor that granted access to the lower levels of the tower.

  He was still chanting and brandishing his ebony club too, and the sky was still blackening. Down in one of the western courtyards, a door flew open, and wolves with glowing crimson eyes-vampires, almost certainly-loped out.

  Lallara snapped her fingers and floated back onto her feet as though invisible hands had lifted her. Samas heaved himself up in a way that reminded Aoth of a whale breaching. Jhesrhi rose, and the glowing runes on her staff pulsed brighter, first one and then another, a sign that she was angry.

  Lallara glared at the minaret so intently that one could virtually feel her summoning every iota of her mystical might. Then she thrust her staff at it and screamed a word of power.

  Samas seized Jhesrhi's blistered hand in his own meaty fingers. "I want your strength," he said, and though she stiffened like he'd jabbed her with a pin, she didn't pull awa
y. He whipped the quicksilver wand through a complex figure.

  Assailed by Lallara's spell of dissolution, the shield of violet light shattered like glass, the fragments winking out of existence when they fell free of the whole. As soon as the defense failed, Samas's power enfolded the minaret, and the entire top half of the black tower became a shapeless grayness that collapsed under its own weight and engulfed the nearly vanished Malark in the process. Portions of the stuff fell away from the central mass in globs and spatters. The rest flowed down what remained of the spire.

  For an instant, Aoth couldn't tell what Samas had transmuted the stonework into. Then he heard the fresh screams rising from the base of the tower, looked down at the burned, battered, writhing men and orcs, and realized it was molten lead.

  He rounded on the obese archmage, who was just letting go of Jhesrhi's hand. "Some of our own men were at the foot of that tower!"

  "I killed Malark Springhill too," Samas answered, "and brought back the dawn light." Aoth saw that the sky was indeed lightening, and the vampire wolves were bursting into flame. "It's a fair trade, don't you think?"

  Then, as if to save Aoth the trouble of framing an answer, the transmuter swayed and collapsed.

  Lallara squinted at him. "Pity," she quavered, "he isn't dead. He simply swooned from his exertions." She turned to a soldier. "Guard him, and find a healer to tend him. And have food and drink ready when he wakes up. I guarantee the hog will want them."

  Aoth scratched a patch of itching scorched skin on his cheek. Something was nagging at him, and after a moment, he realized what. He was finding it hard to believe that Malark was truly gone, charred, crushed, smothered in a heartbeat. It would have felt wrong even if the spymaster had simply been the supremely competent warrior of a century ago, and in the time since, he'd mastered a zulkir's skills on top of that.

  Still, that was war for you. Even the greatest champion could die in an instant, as Aoth had observed time and again. And to say the least, it was doubtful that any human being could survive the magma-like inundation that Samas had dumped on Malark's head.

  Anyway, the problem of the darkening sky was past, Aoth had a battle to oversee, and the best way to do it was on griffonback.

  Sensing his intent, Jet bounded to his side. He swung himself back into the saddle, and the enchanted restraining straps buckled themselves to hold him there. The familiar leaped, lashed his black-feathered wings, and carried him aloft.

  They climbed until they achieved a good view of the great southern gate. At the moment, he judged, it was the site of the most important struggle of all.

  He sighed and sent a silent word of thanks to the Firelord when he saw that his side was winning. A lurching step at a time, paying a toll in blood for every minuscule advance but exacting even greater payment in their turn, the council's soldiers pushed, stabbed, and hacked their way toward the great valves, grinding the mass of defenders in front of them like grain beneath a miller's stone.

  Meanwhile, Gaedynn and other griffon riders wheeled above the fight and shot arrows down at Szass Tam's minions. Singing, Bareris fought on the wall-walk, keeping it clear of enemy warriors when necessary and hammering the legionnaires, dread warriors, and orcs below him with his magic the rest of the time. Mirror battled beside him.

  The defenders held out for a while longer, but finally the relentless assault proved too much for all but the stolid undead. Panicking, their human and orc counterparts cringed or turned and sought to run away.

  But, hemmed in, they had nowhere to flee, and when they all but stopped fighting, the attacking infantry rolled over them like the tide.

  At once, some of Aoth's sellswords scrambled to the mechanisms controlling the gates. The huge leaves cracked open, and a roar arose from the men waiting on the other side.

  Aoth smiled. He was sure that he and his comrades would fight for the rest of the day and well into the night. But even so, he judged that in the truest sense, the castle had just fallen.

  CHAPTER NINE

  20 Mirtul, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

  Aoth found Bareris and Mirror atop the east wall. He himself wore a hooded cloak fastened all the way down the front to ward off the cold rain spitting down from the bulbous gray clouds, but the bard stood exposed and seemingly indifferent to the elements. Maybe, now that he was undead, they had no power to vex him.

  Mirror was certainly beyond their reach. During the battle, some injury or malediction had knocked the personality and coherent thought out of him, and now he was less a visible presence than a sudden pang of vertigo when a person happened to look in his direction. If not for his spellscarred eyes, Aoth doubted he would have seen anything hovering there at all.

  Bareris was gazing out across the rolling plains. Any other man would have done so with apprehension, but Aoth suspected that his friend did so longingly. Because what did Bareris have when he wasn't killing?

  "See anything?" asked Aoth.

  His long, white hair whipping in the breeze, Bareris smiled ever so slightly. "If something was out there, you wouldn't need me to point it out to you."

  "Well, probably not," replied Aoth. "You know, you don't have to stand watch constantly. We have other sentries, and Jhesrhi has made friends with the winds hereabouts. They'll whisper in her ear if some threat appears."

  "I don't mind. Since we finished cleaning out the dungeons, I have nothing better to do."

  "You could sing and play your harp. Tell stories. The men-the wounded, especially-would be grateful for the entertainment."

  "I'll be more useful up here."

  Aoth sighed, and a drop of rain blew inside his hood to splat against his cheek. "Well, do what you think best, of course. Either way, you won't have to do it much longer. Lallara tells me the ritual's tonight."

  Bareris finally turned to face him. "Is everything ready?"

  "I think everyone understands it has to be. We can't dawdle here forever, even with the fortress to protect us. Another of Szass Tam's armies will come looking for us eventually, and we don't want to fight another battle like the last one. We've lost too many men." Aoth's mouth twisted. "The Brotherhood of the Griffon, especially."

  Bareris hesitated, as though he had to search his memory for the response that would come naturally to any living man. But eventually he said, "I'm sorry about that."

  Aoth shrugged. "It had to be done. Still, they were good comrades. I'll miss them. More to the point, I'll need to replace them, and it may be difficult. Until you dropped this mess in my lap, I had a reputation for keeping my word and for winning without taking many casualties-that last comes from choosing your causes and fights carefully. Now, it's all tarnished. I turned on the simbarchs and all but beat the Brotherhood to pieces against these black walls. So it remains to be seen whether warriors will flock to my banner as they did before."

  "I'm sorry," Bareris repeated.

  "Truly, I don't blame you." Aoth grinned. "At least, not too much. In fact, I want you and Mirror to stay with the company when this is over. We're a motley band of knaves and orphans as it is, and the others have gotten used to you. They'll make you welcome, and they won't care that you're undead."

  "Thank you for that," Bareris said. "But it won't be over. Not for me."

  "Don't be stupid! Of course it will! You killed Xingax and Tsagoth. We're about to wreck Szass Tam's great scheme. That's as much revenge as you'll ever get. The lich himself-his person, his existence-is beyond your reach."

  "You heard the speech I made to the rebels. I more or less promised I'd continue to help them."

  "And we keep our pledges," Mirror whispered, his sepulchral tone as chilling as the wind and rain. "The rule of our order requires it."

  Aoth scowled. "For the hundredth time, neither Bareris nor I belong to your extinct fellowship, and we don't care about its code. In fact, he's just using obligation as an excuse to put me off." He shifted his gaze back to the bard. "But all right. I can see there's no swaying you. Just tell me on
e thing. What if, someday, by some miracle, you actually do manage to slay Szass Tam, and his destruction doesn't ease you any more than Tsagoth's did?"

  "However I feel, I'll go into the dark as the dead are meant to do and hope Tammith is waiting for me there."

  The Dread Ring was an instrument built by an undead wizard to serve the unholiest of purposes, and to Jhesrhi's way of thinking, it would have made sense to try to break it in the purifying light of day. But Nevron had insisted they work at night, because the spirits he and his aides would invoke would be more powerful then.

  He'd insisted on Jhesrhi's presence in the primary circle as well, perhaps because her escape from the trap under the wall had impressed him. Accordingly, she now stood with Aoth, Bareris, and the zulkirs on the same rooftop where Samas had melted the minaret.

  She grasped the core idea of the ritual the zulkirs had devised, but not precisely how it worked. Fortunately, she didn't have to. During the initial phase, her job would be to raise power for others to direct. Still, though in most circumstances she was confident of her own abilities, she felt nervous as she waited to begin. What if, somehow, she spoiled the ceremony? Then Szass Tam would murder everyone in the East, everyone in all of Faerun, conceivably, and it would be her fault!

  Gaedynn was one of the spectators sitting on the parapet. He wasn't as much of a dandy on campaign as he was when idling in town, but with the siege won, he'd done his best to burnish his appearance. His new, jeweled rings and cloak pin, plunder seized in the wake of the castle's fall, helped considerably.

  Perhaps he sensed that Jhesrhi was tense, for he gave her a wink and a grin. His attention evoked the usual awkward tangle of emotions. But on this occasion, gratitude predominated, and she managed a twitch of a smile in return.

  In the courtyard below, yellow flame boomed into existence, at this moment of its birth leaping higher than the roof of the keep. The Burning Braziers had lit the bonfire that was key to their own ritual. Mirror, she knew, was down there with them. The ghost was no servant of Kossuth, but, paradoxical as it seemed, he evidently channeled some sort of divine power and believed he could be of more use standing with the priests of fire than among arcane practitioners.