Unholy hl-3

by Richard Lee Byers

  Then another undead beholder floated out in front of Bareris. Dripping slime, the big glazed eye in the middle of its body shimmered, and suddenly he couldn't remember why he was running.

  He faltered, and the death tyrant jumped at him. Its jagged fangs snapped shut on his sword arm.

  If not for his brigandine and the unnatural strength of his undead flesh, the bite surely would have severed the limb. As it was, the agonizing pressure nearly paralyzed him. But the pain cut through his confusion as well, and he used his offhand to yank his dagger from its sheath and stab his foe repeatedly in the central eye. He punched holes in it, splashing himself with cold jelly in the process, but the fangs kept clamping down relentlessly.

  Mirror burned away a portion of the creature's body with a flash of holy light, but unfortunately, did not affect the mouth. Aoth lunged and thrust his spear into it, sparked a blast of power from the point, and the death tyrant burst into pieces.

  Bareris cast about and saw that other guardians were already right on top of them. The things would almost certainly have overwhelmed them too, except that the next moment, one plague spewer turned into an iron statue, and a second simply vanished. Hunched creatures with hairless red hides and massive upper bodies pounced on a death tyrant, pressed their mouths against it as if to kiss it, and roared. The cries blasted craters in its body, and it fell.

  Mirror turned to Bareris. "Are you all right?"

  Bareris flexed his perforated sword arm. It ached but seemed to work. "Yes. Keep running!"

  They did. A plague spewer scrambled in front of them and opened its mouth, no doubt to vomit rats. Jet plummeted down on top of the giant and clawed its head to shreds. The griffon then sprang back into the air and flew along above them, likewise racing in Malark's direction.

  Eyes glittering, two more death tyrants floated toward them. Some invisible force exerted by one of the archmages slapped the creatures out of the way as if they weighed no more than puffballs. And then-to Bareris's surprise, actually-the way to Malark was clear.

  The spymaster smiled at them with what looked like genuine fondness. "Nicely done." He raised his staff in a middle guard.

  As Khouryn ran toward So-Kehur, a burst of fire splashed the arcing, stabbing metal stinger. One of the wizards had targeted a part he could hit without burning the soldiers trying to hold the autharch back with their jabbing spears.

  Sadly, neither the magic, nor the spears, nor the arrows that griffon riders loosed from on high appeared to hurt So-Kehur. The gigantic scorpion-thing kept pressing forward, tentacles whipping to smash men's bones, pincers snipping them to pieces, stinger plunging to pierce them through. He would have broken the formation already, except that, like Khouryn, other warriors-sellswords, mostly-kept leaving their assigned positions to reinforce the point in danger of giving way, scrambling over the corpses of the men the necromancer had already killed as they rushed to take their places.

  That mustn't continue, or the enemy would breach the weakened battle lines somewhere else. The defenders had to kill or at least repel So-Kehur and do it fast.

  Khouryn pushed between two soldiers and charged the autharch. A tentacle whirled at his head. He ducked it and ran on underneath the scorpion body. Then he took a firm grip on his urgrosh and chopped at one of So-Kehur's eight legs.

  The spindly limb wasn't as heavily armored as the massive steel body, and the axe blade dented it. Grinning, he chopped it again.

  A tentacle slithered into view. But though So-Kehur had plenty of eyes, none were in his belly, and the arm had to grope for its quarry. Khouryn scurried to a different leg on the same side and bashed that one.

  Then pain ripped through his skull. He gasped and fell to his knees. He told himself he had to get back up, to keep moving, but his head hurt so badly he could barely see. The tentacle found his ankle, coiled around it, jerked tight, and dragged him into the open.

  A dozen illusory Malarks sprang into being around the genuine immortal. Bareris peered in a futile attempt to determine where he should actually strike.

  "Follow my lead! "Aoth shouted. "I can pick out the real one!" He lunged and stabbed with his spear.

  Malark sidestepped the thrust, and his counterparts copied the motion. He whirled his staff at Aoth's head, and the war-mage caught it on the shaft of his own weapon. The impact produced a flash of dark, malignant power and knocked Aoth off balance. Malark spun the staff into position for a follow-up attack.

  Flowing from a parody of Aoth to his own true image as he lunged, Mirror cut and shattered one of the phantasms into nothingness. Despite Aoth's guidance, which by rights should have pinpointed the real Malark, the illusions were maddeningly deceptive. Bareris slashed and merely burst another.

  It was Jet, with his ability to look through his master's eyes, who wasn't fooled. He dived from on high, and Malark had to give up his second strike at Aoth to leap out of the way.

  Jet slammed on the ground between Aoth and Malark. Beak gaping, he lunged. Malark shifted to the side and jabbed his staff at the griffon's flank. Blackness seethed around the tip.

  Mirror sprang in and, despite the confusion engendered by the doubles, somehow managed to catch the stroke on his shield. Power discharged itself with a bang. The ghost swung his sword in a low cut, and Malark and his likenesses leaped above the arc of the blow. The traitor spun his staff through the center of Mirror's body. Mirror shredded into wisps of shadow. Malark poised his weapon for another strike at the tatters, which didn't even constitute a recognizable human shape anymore.

  Bareris shouted to jolt everything in a certain area, the real Malark and his illusions alike. Darts of turquoise light leaped from Aoth's spear, diverging in flight to strike multiple targets. He obviously realized that even if the phantasms couldn't fool him or Jet, he needed to get rid of them so his allies could fight effectively.

  The illusions vanished. It didn't look as if any of the magic had actually wounded the one remaining Malark, but he faltered for just an instant, time enough for Mirror's form to fill in and become discernibly manlike again-still faceless, but at least possessed of limbs and a head-and avoid another attack by plunging into the solid ground beneath him.

  Singing a battle anthem, gripping his sword with both hands, Bareris rushed in and feinted high. Malark didn't try to parry or dodge the false attack. He simply dipped his own weapon to threaten his adversary's groin and, when Bareris tried to block, whirled and smashed a back kick into his chest.

  The impact would have killed a living man. Ribs snapped, and Bareris reeled backward and fell.

  As he did, he caught a glimpse of the rest of the battle. Many of the guardians were still attacking Szass Tam, the zulkirs of the council, and Nevron's familiars. But some were turning their attention to the knot of struggling figures in the center of the mountaintop.

  A pair of plague spewers rushed to take Malark's assailants from behind. One collapsed into a shapeless heap of carrion, as though its bones had melted. The horns now torn from its head, Nevron's ghour lunged, tackled the other, and bore it down to the ground.

  A death tyrant floated down from on high. Still all but hidden in the midst of many such creatures, Szass Tam rattled off words in some sibilant Abyssal tongue. The undead beholder twisted its eyestalks to gaze at itself, then discharged flares of virulence into its own putrid flesh.

  Plainly, though surely finding it a formidable task even to protect themselves, the archmages were trying their best to do the job Aoth had given them. And Bareris had to get back to doing his. Clenching his teeth at the grinding pain of his shattered ribs, he clambered to his feet, resumed singing his battle anthem, and circled to attack Malark from behind.

  The spymaster whirled, parried the cut, then spun back around and swept the staff at Jet. The griffon ducked, and the staff simply brushed across the top of his skull. Still, that was enough to make him scream and send him stumbling backward. He lashed his head back and forth as though trying to clear it.

  Mal
ark pivoted to threaten Bareris, accelerating as he moved. He was fast when he started, but lightning by the time he finished. Bareris sprang back, and the staff fell short by the length of a finger joint.

  Somehow Malark had cast an enchantment of quickness on himself without the necessity of chanting or mystic passes. Perhaps he'd carried the spell stored in a talisman, or maybe it was his rulership of this place that allowed him to invoke it so easily.

  He threw himself at his two remaining adversaries, and his blows hammered at them like raindrops in a downpour. Even though Aoth and Bareris tried to flank him, they still found it impossible to attack. It was all they could do to parry and retreat.

  Meanwhile, Bareris sang a charm to make Aoth and himself as quick as Malark had become. But he doubted he'd have time to finish, especially after the spymaster, plainly recognizing his intent, concentrated his attacks on him.

  Then a mesh like a huge piece of spiderweb shimmered into existence on top of the former monk, tangling his limbs and gluing him to the ground. Bareris suspected Szass Tam had conjured it. As Malark's wards burned the sticky strands away, Bareris sang the last note of his own spell. His muscles jumped at the infusion of power. No doubt feeling it too, Aoth bellowed a war cry, thrust his spear at the spymaster, and they all fought on.

  Bareris wanted to believe he'd done more than postpone the inevitable. Surely it mattered that he'd canceled out Malark's advantage. And that Mirror was rising from the earth to reenter the fight. And that Jet, the feathers on his head soaked with blood, was bounding forward to do the same.

  Surely the four of them could surround Malark and cut him down. It wasn't as if the bastard couldn't die. He'd done it once already, when Samas had buried him in molten lead.

  But back in the Dread Ring, Malark hadn't been a god. In this place, he avoided nine strokes out of every ten, and the one that landed glanced harmlessly off his protections. Meanwhile, he struck back with dazzling speed and showed no signs of slowing, unlike Aoth and Jet, whose chests heaved and whose breaths rasped.

  We're going to lose, Bareris decided. And he could think of only one mad ploy that might conceivably change that dismal outcome.

  He raised his sword over his head, opening himself up, and charged Malark. Trailing tendrils of crackling shadow, the traitor's staff whirled to meet him, and he did nothing to parry or avoid it. It smashed into his torso, and everything disappeared.

  Jhesrhi dashed toward So-Kehur, never mind if it looked odd for a decrepit, hobbling hag like Lallara to sprint. At this point, stopping the steel scorpion was more important than maintaining her masquerade.

  She pushed between two spearmen and obtained a clear view of all of So-Kehur, not just the part that loomed above the heads of ordinary people. At the moment, the scorpion-thing was no longer ripping into the formation, but only because he'd paused to deal with a foe who'd emerged from it to attack him. One of his tentacles was dragging Khouryn out from underneath him.

  The dwarf still had his urgrosh in his hands, but he wasn't moving, and Jhesrhi couldn't tell if he was alive. If so, he wouldn't be for much longer. Not unless someone diverted So-Kehur's attention.

  Drawing on her own strength and the power that other mages were lending her to aid her impersonation, she spoke to the earth, and stones thrust up out of the dirt. Then she married her mind to the wind and made it an extension of her will, like an extra pair of hands.

  The wind screamed, snatched up the rocks, and hurled them at So-Kehur's various eyes. Any natural creature reflexively protected its sight, and she prayed the autharch possessed the same instincts.

  One missile cracked the opalescent left eye in the mask that passed for the scorpion-thing's human face. Another snapped a writhing antenna with an optic gleaming at the end.

  Still clutching and dragging Khouryn, but for the moment no longer concerned with him, So-Kehur turned to face his new attacker.

  Bareris hadn't slept since becoming undead, but violence could smash the awareness out of him, and he supposed that must be what had happened. Sprawled on his back, his torso ablaze with pain, he groggily tried to lift his head. Then, trading attacks, Aoth and Malark passed through his field of vision, the sellsword captain retreating and the immortal pushing him back.

  The sight of them sparked Bareris's memory. He, Aoth, Mirror, and Jet had assailed Malark and found themselves outmatched. So, depending on his unnatural hardiness and recuperative powers to help him weather the assault, he'd allowed the former monk to land a solid blow with the staff, charged with destructive power though it was.

  Remembering, he froze. His desperate gamble would fail if Malark realized he'd survived.

  Although it was possible it had already failed no matter what. He'd expected injury, pain, but not agony like this. What if he could no longer move, or at least, not fast enough to make his plan succeed?

  He thrust doubt out of his mind. Malark was the last obstacle on the path to Szass Tam, and after waiting a hundred years for vengeance, he'd clear the way no matter what. He just had to lie perfectly still, watch the fight through slitted eyes, and wait for Malark to set a foot in the right place.

  Finally, the immortal did. Bareris snatched with both hands, grabbed Malark's ankle, and squeezed with all his might.

  The bones didn't crack. Malark's mystical defenses prevented it. But Bareris had him anchored.

  Its tip shrouded in writhing shadow, the staff of murky crystal stabbed down repeatedly. Still maintaining his grip, Bareris wrenched himself back and forth in an effort to keep the blows from landing squarely.

  They did anyway, each jolt of torment so intense that for that moment, it was as though nothing else existed. But he managed to hold on nonetheless, and then the assault stopped. Aoth, Mirror, and Jet had rushed to surround Malark, and he lifted his staff to defend against them.

  The spymaster could no longer retreat, only duck, sway from side to side, and parry. It should have made a difference, but his weapon flicked from guard to guard with impossible speed and precision, blocking one attack after another.

  A death tyrant floated toward the struggle, and, sensing the threat, Jet whirled, leaped, lashed his wings, and threw himself at the creature. Malark's staff swept through Mirror's shadowy form, and the phantom flickered as though tottering on the edge of nonexistence. The staff then leaped to deflect Aoth's stabbing spear, the parry nearly knocking the shaft out of the warmage's hands.

  Bareris didn't think he could squeeze any harder, but he tried anyway. Drawing on his hate and rage, he crooned a malediction.

  Malark's ankle cracked, and his body jerked. The staff stopped spinning and leaping from point to point.

  Already glowing, the head of Aoth's spear flared like a lightningbolt, while Mirror's blade changed from a splinter of darkness to a light as bright as the sun. The two warriors hurled themselves at Malark, and their weapons punched all the way through the immortal's torso, the spear with an audible thud and a splash of blood, the sword silently and cleanly.

  The staff fell from Malark's hands to clink against the stony ground. For a moment, he looked astonished. Then he smiled, laughed, and more blood drooled from his mouth. "Thank you," he breathed. "I wish you could see it too. It's everything I…" His knees buckled, and he fell.

  The jagged crown floated up off his head, and the staff too rose into the air. Bareris realized Szass Tam must be drawing them to him. They were likely the instruments that had given Malark control of this artificial world and had made him nearly invincible, and were apt to prove more powerful still in the possession of the archmage who'd actually created them.

  Bareris sucked in a breath and bellowed with all his remaining strength. The rod and diadem shattered like the crystalline things they were.

  A hurtling stone tore another eyestalk away. Jhesrhi wondered if she actually could blind So-Kehur.

  Then a sort of chill stabbed into her head, and none of her wards, potent defenses against sorcery though they were, did anything to prevent
it. The cold numbed her, dulled her, and the determination to fight faded into a dazed and hopeless acquiescence. She told herself she had to resist, but the thought was just babble that failed to engage her will.

  The coldness in her mind commanded her to release her hold on the wind, so she did. The rocks fell and thumped on the ground. It ordered her to walk forward, and she did that too.

  So-Kehur spread his pincers. At her back, soldiers shouted for her to turn around and run. She had a vague sense that it would be nice if she could.

  As Malark dropped, Aoth jerked his spear out of the corpse and, panting, pivoted to look for other threats. One of Bareris's thunderous shouts spun him back around, just in time to see the noise smash the spymaster's levitating staff and crown into glittering powder.

  At that point, the death tyrants and plague spewers simply faded away. Evidently the talismans had maintained the endless supply of the filthy things.

  Their sudden disappearance made the mountaintop seem strangely quiet and empty, although a handful of Nevron's demons-limping, mangled, and gory-remained. The zulkirs of the council now spread out along the edge of the drop. And Szass Tam hovered high over everybody else.

  The lich looked down at the minute shards and dust that were all that remained of his tools. "I put a lot of work into those," he said. "But perhaps it doesn't matter anymore. Particularly if we're all willing to be sensible."

  "Meaning what?" Lallara rasped. Aoth realized that despite the distances involved, no one needed to shout to make himself heard. No doubt some petty magic helped the voices carry.

  "The Unmaking will never happen now," Szass Tam said. Aoth risked a glance skyward and saw that, in fact, the churning vileness was gone. "We're all tired, in some cases wounded, our magic largely exhausted. And perhaps we've had our fill of revenge, killing the man who, at one time or another, betrayed each and every one of us. So I propose we go our separate ways. I promise you and your legions safe passage out of Thay."