The Kingdom of Shadow

by Richard A. Knaak

  They moved to obey, especially in regard to the last command. Kentril noted them beginning to relax as the familiarity of the routine took hold. He felt certain that the nightmare would soon fade some in the veterans’ minds. Men in their line of work often suffered bad dreams. Kentril himself still experienced nightmares of his first campaign, when his commander and nearly all those in the squad had been slaughtered before his very eyes. Only luck had saved him then, but the memories of that terrible time remained clear.

  Yet this horrific dream stood out even from those recurring torments, for Kentril had not suffered it alone. Everyone had experienced it at the same time, in the same way. He had no doubt that if he questioned each man, they would all describe the details in more or less the exact manner.

  A harsh, cutting sound suddenly brought back vestiges of the fearful vision. Kentril had his hand on the hilt of his dagger before he realized that what he had just heard had been, in reality, the sound of snoring.

  Quov Tsin’s snoring.

  The Vizjerei had slept through not only the dream but the panic ensuing afterward. In utter disbelief, Captain Dumon started toward the tent, only to pause at the last moment. What good would it do to look upon the sleeping sorcerer or, for that matter, to wake him? Tsin would only sputter denigrating words at the captain, then demand to know why he had been disturbed.

  Kentril backed away. He could imagine the Vizjerei’s wrinkled face tightening into an expression of deep contempt once the spellcaster heard the reason. Big, brave mercenaries frightened by a nightmare? Quov Tsin would laugh at such fear, mock Dumon and his men.

  No, Kentril would let sleeping sorcerers lie. Tomorrow, however, he would inform their employer that the mercenaries had no intention of waiting for the gold of Ureh to come falling from the sky. Tomorrow morning, Kentril’s band would be leaving.

  After all, how much gold could dead men spend?

  Just into the jungle and well out of sight of the camp, the damp, shambling form of Hargo paused. Branches and leaves stirred up by the night wind fluttered through the ghastly form, unhindered by the rotting flesh and gnawed bone. The lone eye stared sightlessly ahead, and the mouth hung open, revealing a blackened tongue and gums.

  From atop a tall, gnarled tree, Zayl looked down upon the ghoulish shade. In his hand the pale necromancer held a tiny talisman shaped like a dragon around which had been wrapped a piece of torn material.

  “Your mission is done,” he quietly informed the ghost. “Rest easy now, friend.”

  Hargo turned his gaze up toward the necromancer—and faded away.

  “Not the most talkative fellow,” remarked the skull from the branch upon which Zayl had propped it. “Me, I think death needs to have a little life to spice it up, eh?”

  “Be quiet, Humbart.” The slim necromancer slipped the bit of fabric off the talisman, putting the latter then within the confines of his cloak. The cloth he studied for a moment.

  “You think them boys’ll get the point?”

  “I should hope so. I went through much trouble for this.” And, indeed, Zayl had. He had smelled the death of the one mercenary even from his vantage point near the ruins. That had enabled him to track the death to its point of origin, and there Zayl had searched the area around the river for some time for any vestiges of the late, lamented Hargo. The necromancer had been rewarded with this scrap of garment, but only after dodging the hungry senses of the very beast that had taken the man.

  A bit of flesh, a few drops of blood . . . those would have served Zayl better, but the cloth had come from the body of the dead, had been worn for so long close to his skin that it had contained link enough to its wearer for the summoning. Zayl had wanted only to touch the sleeping minds of the other mercenaries, use their dead comrade to scare them into leaving Ureh before it became too late. Hargo’s shade had performed his task to perfection. The necromancer felt certain that the fighters would flee the area come the first hints of sun.

  He had not even bothered to try the spell on the Vizjerei. Not only would it have been a waste of time, but the sorcerer’s defensive spells, active even during his sleep, might have warned of Zayl’s presence. That could not be condoned.

  “He will have to leave if they do,” the ebony-clad figure muttered to himself. “He will have to.” Living mostly alone, necromancers had a habit of talking much to themselves. Even after finding Humbart Wessel’s remains two years before and animating the skull, Zayl had been unable to break his old habit.

  Humbart did not care whether the other spoke to himself or to the skull; he answered as he felt, which meant often. “That was a mighty fine piece of work, that was,” he interjected. “And maybe that’ll send the sorcerer packing, too—but only if the fighters do leave, you know.”

  “Of course, they will leave. After an omen such as that, experienced by all, they would be fools otherwise.”

  “But come the morning, my not-so-worldly friend, the sweet murmurs of gold can easily outshout the rasping warnings of a nightmare! Think you I came back for the lovely weather and the playful serpents of the river? Ha! Mark me, Zayl! If they don’t leave at daybreak, they won’t be leaving at all!” The jawless skull chuckled.

  Letting the scrap fall to the jungle floor, the necromancer nodded solemnly. “Let us pray you are wrong, Humbart.”

  The men readied themselves, lining up for inspection by their captain. Looks of unease still branded the visages of many, unease combined with growing uncertainty. They had all come far, risked their lives for promised gold and jewels. To go back now would mean to go back empty-handed.

  But at least they would be able to go back. No one desired Hargo’s fate.

  Kentril stood determined to lead his men out of here. The others might waver in their decisions, but he knew a true harbinger of danger when he saw it. As he finished his inspection, his hand grazed the pouch in which he carried the brooch. At least he had that more soothing memory to bring back with him.

  Quov Tsin exited his tent just as Kentril steeled himself for the confrontation. The short sorcerer blinked as he stepped out into the sunshine, then noticed the officer coming toward him.

  “Today is the day, Dumon! The secrets, the riches of Ureh, today they shall be open to us!”

  “Tsin—we’re leaving.”

  The silver-gray eyes narrowed even more than normal. “What’s that you say?”

  “We’re leaving. We won’t stay in this cursed place.” The captain chose not to tell his employer just why.

  “Don’t be absurd! One, two more days, and you’ll be able to leave here all of you as rich as kings!”

  This brought a couple of murmurs from the men, who had been watching the two from the distance. Captain Dumon silently cursed. Here he was trying to save all their lives, and already the hint of gold had staked a claim in the hearts of some. How quickly some could forget.

  “We’re leaving. That’s all there is to it.”

  “You’ve been paid—”

  “Only enough to get you here. We’ve no more obligation to you, Vizjerei, and you’ve nothing you could possibly give us.”

  The sorcerer opened his mouth to speak, then abruptly shut it. Kentril, expecting the usual tirades, found himself slightly disconcerted. Still, perhaps he had convinced Tsin of the uselessness of arguing.

  “If that is your choice, so be it.” The diminutive figure suddenly turned back to his tent. “If you will excuse yourselves, I’ve much work to do.”

  As he watched Quov Tsin vanish again, Kentril frowned. He had successfully faced the sorcerer. His pact with the Vizjerei had been severed. The captain and his men could leave right now if they so chose.

  So why did his own feet move with such sluggishness?

  We will be leaving! he silently roared at himself. Turning to the others, Kentril shouted, “Get your packs ready! I want us on the path back home within the next few minutes! Understood?”

  Under his stern gaze and commanding tone, the mercenaries hurried to
break camp. As he gathered his own things, Captain Dumon glanced now and then toward the tent of his soon-to-be former employer. Never once, though, did the Vizjerei poke his bald head out. Kentril wondered whether the sorcerer might be sulking or had simply begun his preparations for the supposed spectacle. It bothered him slightly to leave Tsin alone here, but if the Vizjerei chose to stay even with everyone else abandoning Ureh, the captain would not waste any more time on him. The men came first.

  In short order, the mercenaries stood prepared to march. Gorst grinned at Kentril, who opened his mouth to give the order to move out.

  A rumble from the south froze the words on his very lips.

  He looked over his shoulder to see dark clouds rolling toward them from the direction of the jungle. Black as pitch, the thick, angry clouds roared over the landscape at a phenomenal pace. The wind picked up nearby, growing to near hurricane proportions in the space of a few breaths. Lightning played across the sky. A dust storm arose, turning the camp into chaos.

  “Find shelter!” Kentril looked around quickly, saw that, other than the crumbling city, there stood nothing around that could protect him and his men from what would surely be a titanic assault by the elements. With much reluctance, he waved for the others to follow him.

  At a section of the outer wall that had some years past collapsed, the mercenary band slipped into ruined Ureh, paying no more mind to the once fabulous architecture than they had during their earlier treasure forays. Kentril quickly spotted a rounded building three stories in height and judged it to be among the most stable in the vicinity. He led the rest there, and the fighters huddled inside, waiting for the blast to come.

  An ocean of rain swamped the area almost as soon as the mercenaries found cover. Jagged bolts shot dangerously close to their location. Rumbles of thunder shook the building as if an army of catapults assaulted it. Dust and bits of masonry dropped from the ceiling.

  Seated near the entrance, Kentril fought to turn his mind from the horrendous storm. The thunder and lightning once more brought back the memories of earlier battles and comrades lost. In desperation, he finally slipped the brooch out, holding it hidden in one hand while he stared at the perfect face and dreamed.

  One hour passed. Two. Three. Still the dire storm did not let up. Unable to make a fire, the mercenaries sat in small groups, some trying to slumber, others talking among themselves.

  More time passed—and then Gorst, blinking, suddenly asked a question that Kentril realized he himself should have asked long, long ago. “Where’s the magic man?”

  In all their haste, the motley band had not even bothered to think about the Vizjerei. As little as he cared for the man, Kentril could not leave the sorcerer out there. Thrusting the brooch back into its pouch, he surveyed the others, then decided that it remained up to him to find out the truth.

  Rising, he looked at his second. “Gorst. You keep the others under control. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  The torrential rain showed no sign of letting up as he stood in the doorway. Swearing at his own burdensome sense of decency, Captain Dumon raced out into the storm.

  The wind nearly buffeted him back inside. Despite such terrible resistance, though, he struggled through the ruins, finding some meager protection along the way.

  At the gap in the outer wall, the captain paused. A bolt of lightning struck the rocky ground just ahead, pelting him with bits of stone and clay. As the earthy shower ended, Kentril took a deep breath and stepped from the relative safety of Ureh.

  Squinting through drenched eyes, he searched for the sorcerer’s tent.

  There it stood, seemingly unaffected whatsoever by the rampaging elements. The flimsy tent looked remarkably untouched, as if not even the slightest wind blew nor a single drop of rain had alighted onto it. Despite his own lamentable situation, Kentril paused again and stared, disbelieving.

  Another bolt struck near. Common sense revived, Kentril charged toward the tent, fighting the storm with as much ferocity as he would have any other foe. Twice he slipped, but each time the captain leapt back to his feet. As Kentril reached Quov Tsin’s abode, he shouted out the sorcerer’s name, but no one answered.

  Lightning ravaged the area. Rain and rock assaulting him, Kentril Dumon finally threw himself into the tent—

  “And what exactly do you think you’re doing?”

  Bent over a scroll and seemingly unaffected by the storm raging around him, the wrinkled Vizjerei eyed Kentril as if he had just grown a second head.

  “I came . . . to see if you’re all right,” the soldier lamely replied. Tsin looked as if he had just risen from a long, refreshing nap, while Kentril felt as if he had just swum the entire length of one of the dank jungle rivers.

  “Such concern! And why shouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, the storm—”

  The sorcerer’s brow furrowed slightly. “What storm?”

  “The huge one raging out—” The mercenary captain stopped. In the tent, he could no longer hear the roar of thunder, the howl of the wind. Even the heavy rain left not the slightest patter on the fabric.

  “If there’s a storm out there,” Quov Tsin remarked dryly, “shouldn’t you be wet?”

  Kentril glanced down and saw that no moisture covered his boots, his pants. He stared at hands devoid of rain, and when he reached up to touch his head, only a few droplets of sweat gave any hint of dampness.

  “I was soaked to the bone!”

  “The humidity here can be very harsh at times, especially in the jungle, but you look fairly well to me, Dumon.”

  “But outside—” The captain whirled toward the entrance, thrusting aside the tent flaps so that both could witness the horrific weather beyond.

  A sunlit day greeted Kentril’s dumbstruck eyes.

  “Did you come all the way back here because of this mythical storm, Dumon?” the dwarfish spellcaster asked, his expression guarded.

  “We never left camp, Tsin . . . it started just after we’d packed up!”

  “So, then, where are the others?”

  “Taking . . . protection . . . in the ruins . . .” Even as he said it, Kentril felt his embarrassment growing. More than a dozen veteran fighters now huddled inside a building, for the past several hours trying to shield themselves from—a cloudless sky?

  But it had stormed . . .

  Yet when he looked around for any sign of the deluge, Kentril saw nothing. The rocky ground appeared parched, not a single droplet to be seen. The wind blew strong, but only at a fraction of the velocity that he recalled from earlier. Even his own body betrayed his beliefs, for how to explain the relative dryness of his clothes, his very skin?

  “Hmmph.”

  Captain Dumon turned to find Quov Tsin drawn up to his full height. The sorcerer had his arms crossed, his expression one of growing bemusement.

  “Dipping into the rum rations before leaving, Dumon? I’d thought better of you in at least that regard.”

  “I’m not drunk.”

  The robed figure waved off his protest. “That’s neither here nor there now, captain. We’ve a more important matter to discuss. Since you and yours have decided to be here after all, we should make plans. The hour approaches rapidly . . .”

  “The hour—” Realizing what Tsin referred to, Kentril made a quick calculation. With the time his men had already lost, they would not get very far. Even if they had started off as planned, the mercenaries would have barely made what he considered a safe place to camp by sundown.

  Yet if they stayed one more night here, they might be able to go back with something to show for their misfortunes.

  But did they want to stay even one more night in a place where the dead invaded one’s dreams and monstrous rain storms appeared and vanished in the blink of an eye?

  Before Kentril could come to any conclusion of his own, Tsin made it for him. “Now, run along and gather your men, Dumon,” the sorcerer ordered. “I’ve a few outside calculations to make. Come back in a coup
le of hours, and I’ll inform you of what must be done. We must time this right, after all . . .”

  With that, Quov Tsin turned his back on the tall fighter, once more becoming engrossed in his curious tasks. Still at a loss, Kentril blinked, then reluctantly stepped outside. He took one last look around for any sign of the storm, then started back to Ureh, hoping all the while that by deciding to stay a little longer he had not made a terrible mistake.

  Only when Kentril had already reached the broken wall did it occur to him that the Vizjerei might have been too calm, too relaxed, when told about the tempest. Only then did he wonder if perhaps the sorcerer had known more about it than he had revealed, if perhaps the timeliness of the storm, not to mention its abrupt end, had been no coincidence.

  But Tsin had never shown such power . . . unless everything the fighters had experienced had been nothing more than illusion. Still, even that would have required great skill, for not one of Captain Dumon’s men had seen through it.

  A shout came from the building in which he had left Gorst and the others. The huge, shirtless mercenary waved at Kentril, grinning as usual. He seemed not at all bothered by the peculiar finish to the rain.

  The captain decided to say nothing about his concerns . . . for now. At the very least, he and the others still had a chance of coming out of this with some profit. Surely, then, one more night in the vicinity of Ureh would not matter.

  They could always leave tomorrow . . .

  Kentril’s quick talk of the possibility of yet garnering some profit from their venture rapidly eradicated any apprehensions caused by the unsettling weather. They all understood, as he did, that a late start into the jungle would not be a good thing, but they understood even more that by waiting the one night, they might leave with their packs filled with treasure. The fears of the previous eve became more and more simply a bad dream, replaced gradually by visions of gold and jewels.

  And so, just before the appointed hour, the captain positioned his men as requested and turned to the sorcerer, who had made still more last-minute calculations. The shadow of the mountain Nymyr had already stretched forth its fingers over much of fallen Ureh, but Tsin had informed him again that only when it touched the entire city in just a certain way would they all be rewarded for their waiting.