Whisper of Venom botg-2

by Richard Lee Byers

  Though startled by his new foe’s assault, he automatically made the move. He twisted against the weak point where thumb and fingers met. His sword snagged on something in the dark-his adversary’s body, presumably. But only for an instant. Then the blade jerked free, and so did his arm.

  That left the grip that was crushing his throat and denying him air. It was awkward to use his sword at such close quarters, particularly when he couldn’t see. But he thrust repeatedly. The weapon plunged into something mushy, then rasped on what he assumed to be bone.

  Still the stranglehold persisted, and then his foe’s other hand-the one that had more oozing flesh still clinging to the bones-locked on his neck. Though somewhat encumbered by the sword, he tried to break the hold by swinging his arm up, down, and across. It didn’t work.

  Knowing he had only moments left before his strength failed, he stepped in close, into the worst of his unseen foe’s stench, and hammered at its head with the pommel of his sword.

  Bone crunched. The clawed, clutching fingers dropped away from his neck. As he sucked in air, his foe’s body thumped on the floor.

  The winged creature hissed, and Balasar somehow sensed it swooping at him. He spat frost into the blackness. The thing screeched. And veered off, seemingly, because no fangs or claws ripped at him.

  Not then. But he imagined the creature would take another run at him soon enough. Or something would. And no one would give a scrap of molt for his chances as long as he kept fighting blind.

  So it was just as well he wouldn’t have to.

  Anticipating that his investigations might take him back into the Catacombs, or into some dark place, he’d brought a source of light. Events just hadn’t given him a chance to take it out. But now, he hoped, he had the moment he needed.

  He ripped open his belt pouch, snatched out a piece of black velvet, and dumped the silver ring inside it into the palm of his hand. The silvery glow of the moonstone in the setting leaped forth to illuminate the interior of a tomb with carved stone sarcophagi on low, stepped pedestals. He’d plainly lost his balance and fallen on one set of risers when he arrived.

  The decaying occupants of the sarcophagi had shoved the heavy lids of their coffins partway open when necromancy or some other dark power called them forth. The zombie he’d stabbed and battered sprawled on the floor, fully dead once more. The other three were advancing on him. The smallest-the corpse of a dragonborn child, its eye sockets and the lesions in its face squirming with worms-was already close enough to strike.

  It swiped at his arm. He tried to jerk the limb out of the way but was a split second too slow. The blow landed, jolting his hand. The ring flew from his palm to bounce and roll clinking across the floor.

  It still gave light. But the winged creature swooped down from the ceiling, straight at it. He had no doubt that it could whisk the ring out of the tomb as easily as it had whisked him into it.

  Even without the walking corpses pressing in around him, he couldn’t have reached the ring first. He tossed his sword into his off hand, snatched the knife from his boot, and threw.

  The dagger pierced the hurtling creature, and it vanished at once, like a soap bubble popping. Balasar still hadn’t had a good look at it, nor could he judge whether he’d hurt it badly enough to keep it from coming back immediately.

  But there was no time to worry about it. Slashing at his belly, groin, and thighs, the dead child drove in. Its elders did too. Claws raked to tear away his face, and he hopped back to avoid them. That landed him back on the three shallow steps leading up to the sarcophagus-or maybe on the steps of a different pedestal-and he stumbled and almost lost his balance once again.

  Snarling, he kicked the child zombie. It reeled back and fell on its rump. By then, the full-sized ones were reaching out to tear at him from either side. It would be hard to strike at one without turning his back on the other.

  So he heaved himself backward and rolled over the top of the sarcophagus. And scraped and banged himself up in the process. But he landed on his feet, and now he had a makeshift rampart between the walking dead and himself. They could only claw at him with difficulty, but he had no trouble slashing at them with the sword.

  He concentrated on the one on his right, cutting slimy chunks away from its head. Meanwhile, the zombies started around the two ends of the coffin to close with him once more.

  He rushed the one he’d been attacking. He landed a cut that split what remained of its skull, and it collapsed. By a happy chance, the child corpse had shambled up right behind it, and the two ended up on the floor tangled together.

  He thrust his point deep into the child thing’s tattered, wormy face, and it stopped struggling to wriggle out from under its larger comrade. He whirled. As he’d expected, the remaining zombie was right behind him. He cut, sheared slimy fingers from the hand that was reaching for him, then noticed how the creature’s head dangled and flopped on just a rotted vestige of neck. He struck hard and decapitated it.

  He felt a stab of horror when he saw that hadn’t finished it. But at least it spoiled its aim, and he had little trouble evading its pawing as he kept on hacking pieces away. Finally, it too toppled and lay inert.

  Panting, heart hammering, abruptly conscious of the sting of his cuts, Balasar picked his way through the corpses and the stray lumps and spatters of putrescence littering the floor. He recovered the silver ring and jammed it on his finger. Now no one could deprive him of light. He turned and surveyed his situation.

  There was still no sign of the winged creature. Good. He hoped the wretched thing was busy dying a long and agonizing death.

  The problem was that he couldn’t see an easy way out of the vault either, only the oval piece of wall someone had mortared in place after the most recent interment.

  Without the proper tools, could he remove it? Would he run out of air while he was trying? The thought was enough to make the stale, fetid atmosphere feel thin.

  He spat fear away and told himself he wasn’t going to die there. It had always been obvious that his end would be either glorious or scandalous, and suffocating alone in a box was neither.

  So naturally, he finally did chip and bull his way out, though he ruined a good sword in the process. Beyond the hole he’d opened was a corridor lined with the sealed entrances to other tombs. One of the Catacombs’ distinctive sconces hung on the wall, its glow faded to a mere hint of phosphorescence.

  He still didn’t know exactly where he was, but that was all right. If he simply wandered, he was bound to find a way back up to the Market Floor eventually. As he returned his ring to his pouch, lest its light attract unwanted attention, two thoughts were foremost in its mind.

  The first was that he actually was on the trail of something incriminating. No one set a trap along a path without a reason to keep the wrong person from reaching the other end. The second was that he’d have to avoid his fellow dragon-worshipers for a couple of days, until healing magic erased all trace of the claw marks from his face and throat.

  SIX

  5-9 KYTHORN THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS O NE (1479 DR)

  Tchazzar, Jhesrhi, Aoth, Cera, and Shala approached Soolabax with caution. Which turned out to be unnecessary, because the orange light of the setting sun revealed that the besieging army was gone. Nothing remained but burned and toppled trebuchets, unburied bodies, and trampled earth.

  Scar screeched like he was angry he’d missed the fight. Jhesrhi peered down into the city. She wanted to know how many casualties the Brotherhood had sustained, but found it impossible even to guess from so high up and far away.

  Tchazzar blasted flame across the sky. “A victory!” he thundered. “The first of my new reign!”

  The flash and bellow made the folk down in the streets look up at the sky. When they saw the red dragon, they started to cheer.

  Soolabax wasn’t Luthcheq. There was scarcely room for Tchazzar to land inside the walls. But that didn’t deter him. He somehow managed to set down in the intersection
of three streets in front of Hasos’s keep. A flick of one wing scraped shutters and paint from the facade of a house. His tail swished and smashed a wooden horse trough, splashing the contents onto the ground.

  Then he shrank, becoming the handsome warrior in red and gold. His companions landed beside him. For all her manifest toughness, Shala looked glad to be back on solid ground.

  The enormous hawk the former war hero had ridden gave Jhesrhi a fierce, inquiring stare. She nodded, and it dissolved into a gust of air that stirred everyone’s hair and cloaks, becoming pure wind once again.

  Looking more serious than was her wont, plump, pretty Cera said, “There must be wounded. If Your Majesty will excuse me, I’ll go help tend them.”

  Tchazzar smiled and waved a hand in dismissal.

  Cera and Aoth exchanged a quick, fond look. Then the sunlady hurried away while Gaedynn, Hasos, and others came striding out of the keep.

  Seeing the archer made Jhesrhi feel relieved but guilty too. The relief made at least a little sense. Gaedynn could have conceivably have died in the fight to break the siege, as any warrior could perish in any battle. But the guilt was nonsensical, yet another instance of the exasperating way just being around him could tie her emotions into knots.

  The newcomers bowed, and Tchazzar quickly gave them permission to rise. “Well done, gentlemen!” he boomed.

  “Thank you, Majesty,” Hasos said. “The knights of Soolabax fought superbly.”

  “We Brothers and the fellows Aoth mustered from along the border were there too,” Gaedynn drawled. “We held the knights’ horses and such.”

  “And are there prisoners?” Tchazzar asked.

  Gaedynn nodded. “Some.”

  “That too was well done,” the dragon said. “Sacrifice them. It will give me the strength I need to crush Alasklerbanbastos.”

  For a moment, no one spoke. Then Shala asked, “All of them?”

  Tchazzar grinned. “Why not? Every drop of spilled blood will make me more powerful. And it’s easier than guarding and feeding the bastards, isn’t it?”

  “Probably so,” said Aoth. “But there surely hasn’t been time to question them all. We might be able to extract some useful information. We can certainly ransom the ones whose families have coin. And the sellswords might switch sides with a little coaxing.”

  “Besides,” Shala said, “I’ve studied Chessenta’s history-your history-and I don’t understand. You never required such … such a thing in the past.”

  “No,” Tchazzar said, gritting his teeth, “I didn’t, and then when the Blue Fire took … Never mind. You’ve heard your orders. Does anyone have a mind to disobey?”

  Another silence. Then Jhesrhi said, “Of course not, Your Majesty. Everyone here wants to serve you. It’s just that there’s a problem with carrying out your will.”

  Tchazzar frowned. “What’s that?”

  “Lady Halonya and the rest of your priesthood are back in Luthcheq, seeing to the construction of your temple. There’s no one here to perform the sacrifices.”

  “Then Cera Eurthos and her clerics can do it.”

  “With all respect, Majesty, I doubt that. The Keeper’s priests don’t even sacrifice animals. I suspect they’d botch it, and then all that power would go to waste. Whereas if you keep the captives for a tenday or a month …”

  The war hero fingered the ruby in the pommel of his sword. “You may have a point. But curse it, I’ll have something to slake my thirst. Every twentieth man. Or orc, or kobold, or whatever.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Hasos said.

  Tchazzar’s smile flowered bright as before. “Good man! I’m thinking of creating a new knightly order, open only to those who render heroic service to a living god. You just might be the first inductee.” He switched his gaze to Gaedynn. “And you the second.”

  “So long as the medal’s made of gold,” the bowman said. “That’s the kind of honor a mercenary appreciates.”

  The dragon’s eyes narrowed.

  For the most part, the stairs, ramps, and walkways connecting the various parts of the City-Bastion honeycombed the granite. That left the walls of the atrium free for the private balconies that dragonborn considered an essential amenity of urban life.

  But occasionally one of the paths that ran up, down, or across emerged into the open air. Maybe it was to allay the strange fear of enclosed spaces that afflicted people who weren’t dwarves. At any rate it was pleasant to interrupt the long climb to the apartments of Clan Daardendrien on the strip of walkway, more or less a balcony itself. Since Khouryn was alone, no one else would guess that he was feeling the weight of his mail, or that his arse and thighs ached. It seemed to him that if a fellow could ride a griffon all day without distress, then he ought to manage just as well on a horse, but it apparently didn’t work that way.

  The granite balustrade came up to his chin, but the view was pleasant nonetheless. The ambient light had dimmed to mimic the night outside. Even high up the air smelled pleasantly of greenery, perhaps because so many dragonborn grew potted plants on their terraces. Lamps and candles glowed, and he made out the silhouettes of a household sitting down to a late supper. His belly growled, reminding him that he was as hungry as he was tired.

  He supposed that meant he should resume the tramp upward and find out what his hosts’ cook had prepared for the evening meal. As he turned away from the balustrade, he caught a pattering sound nearly inaudible amid the constant echoing murmur of the indoor city. Something that he couldn’t see was rushing him.

  He leaped to the side. His phantom assailant slammed into the balustrade. A portion of the railing came away from the rest and toppled into space. If Khouryn hadn’t dodged, he would have fallen right along with it.

  He hoped that, carried along by its own momentum and neatly caught in its own snare, his attacker would plummet. But as it seethed into visibility, the dark, scaly thing flapped its batlike wings, and the action held it poised on the brink of the drop. Red eyes glaring from its horned head, serpentine tail lashing, it pivoted while the piece of detached balustrade crashed to the floor far below.

  The thing looked like some sort of devil, which meant it might have all manner of strange abilities. Khouryn judged that the sensible thing to do was kill it before it could demonstrate any more of them. He snatched for the urgrosh strapped to his back.

  He’d just gotten the spiked axe into his hands when, its upper body jerking forward, the devil spat at him. Black fumes streamed from the fanged mouth in its bearded, satyrlike face.

  The way the murky cloud expanded made it impossible to dodge. Khouryn bowed his head and raised his arms to protect his face.

  The fumes seared him wherever they touched his skin. But his steel and leather trappings took the worst of it. Though his eyes stung and filled with tears, he could still make out the creature when it sprang. And still swing the urgrosh despite the pain.

  The axe bit into the devil’s torso. The stroke would have killed a dwarf or human, but the creature grabbed Khouryn by the arms. Its tail whipped around both their bodies to lash him across the back. His mail clashed. The tail whirled back into view, presumably for another stroke, and he saw the jagged stinger at the end of it.

  He heaved, broke the grips on his arms, and chopped at the tail. The urgrosh cut it in two, and the devil screeched. Dissolving like breath on a windowpane, it backpedaled toward the gap in the balustrade.

  Khouryn raced after it and got back inside striking range before it could become entirely invisible or retreat where wingless opponents couldn’t go. He swung. The axe cut deep, smashing through ribs to cleave the organs beneath. The devil’s legs buckled, and it fell. Its shuddering form became opaque once more.

  When the twitching subsided, and he was satisfied the creature wasn’t going to get up again, Khouryn looked to his own hurts. They weren’t too bad-just blisters, basically. The worst damage was to his beard, not that that was an insignificant matter to a dwarf. Still smoking and sizzling
in spots, it looked like an army of moths had attacked it, and its nasty burnt stink wrinkled his nose.

  Half humorously, for he’d lived long enough in exile to know which parts of his people’s customs and preoccupations looked comical to outsiders, he told himself that the person who’d conjured the devil would have to pay.

  Maybe that was one of the ash giant adepts. He’d seen them summon a variety of horrors from their round crystal talismans, and it was possible they’d figured out that Khouryn was the one teaching the dragonborn to fight them to better effect. And then they’d decided to sneak an invisible assassin into Djerad Thymar to eliminate him.

  But could a giant, who’d never set foot in the City-Bastion himself, instruct the devil to lie in wait along the particular route that Khouryn most often took to and from the Daardendrien apartments?

  Maybe. Mages found ways to do lots of things that defied common sense. Still, it seemed unlikely.

  He moved to inspect the balustrade.

  Like any dwarf and any siege engineer, he understood stonework, and he saw immediately how the barrier was made of cunningly fitted sections. He saw too how it had been possible to detach one and leave it simply sitting loose in its place.

  But would the devil have known how to do it? And if it had, where had it stashed its tools?

  He wished, as he so often had since offering his services to the vanquisher, that Aoth, Jhesrhi, and Gaedynn were there. They were better at ferreting out secrets. Although it was also a safe bet that the archer would have made merciless sport of his singed and diminished beard.

  Though he found it difficult to like a man who so openly scorned him and all who practiced his trade, Gaedynn had to admit that Hasos had done his bit during the battle. And that, tonight, he’d ordered the captives slain in a relatively humane fashion, by the simple expedient of stabbing them in the heart. Which fortunately seemed to satisfy Tchazzar.