by Mel Odom
Karg stood nearby and removed the small flask at his hip. “It’s spring water, god-speaker, brought from the airy heights, only one step removed from the heavens themselves.”
“Even better. Pour.” The giant killer sluiced the water over the priest’s hands. Prayer spilled from Carceus’s lips, coming so rapidly that Baylee understood only a few of the words.
He added his own prayers to the Lady of the Forest to the priest’s. Aymric’s hand in his was already growing weaker.
A smoky blue aura glowed around Carceus’s hands. He kept his fingers wide-spread. Then he placed his palms against the violent wound in Aymric’s midsection.
The elf’s body jumped in response, bowing up. Aymric’s hand closed around Baylee’s tight enough to cut off the blood flow. A keening moan escaped the elf ranger’s lips, spitting out blood with it.
The smoky blue aura around the priest’s hands spread, covering all of Aymric’s stomach and lower chest. Miraculously, the flesh knitted itself back together. Muscle reconnected to bone, then to each other. Long moments passed as the healing continued. Perspiration dappled Carceus’s forehead, trickling down through his eyebrows. After a time, the blue glow faded. Even after the work was done and he sat back in exhaustion on his haunches, the priest’s prayer to Gond Wonderbringer continued unabated.
Baylee stared at Aymric’s face. Once the blue glow had faded, the elf’s body had gone into total relaxation, his eyes shut. He didn’t appear to be breathing. “Aymric,” Baylee called gently.
There was no response.
Fear clawed at Baylee’s mind, bristly as the spider’s leg had been all those years ago when he’d been tied securely in the web before Golsway had shown up to save him. There were stories from time to time of those who had been healed after having severe wounds who only turned out to be well-preserved corpses. Healing could still be done on the body even though the spirit had departed. His hand trembled, surprising him. “Aymric.” He spoke louder, but his voice was lost in the myriad moaning and bits of other conversations circling around the group with the elf.
Serellia placed her fingers against Aymric’s throat. “It’s all right,” she said. “He only sleeps. His heart beats strongly.”
Baylee.
Heartened by his friend’s survival, the ranger turned to look back at the azmyth bat. The skeleton warrior had gotten closer to the circlet in Xuxa’s claws. Men and women surrounded the base of the tree. Even over the distance, Baylee heard the group talking about firing the tree. Someone else told them that firing the tree would do no good, that only magic weapons had any effect on the undead creature.
We have to deal with the skeleton warrior, Xuxa urged. I have but to release the circlet and he will go.
Not yet. Baylee stood and walked toward the tree with the skeleton warrior in it. He knew that the undead creature wasn’t mindless. Far from it, skeleton warriors possessed cunning intelligence far above average. But they were bound by the drive to recover the circlets and become one with their souls again. That obsession weakened them once they were no longer in a controller’s thrall.
“What is it you’re going to do?” Karg growled, joining Baylee. He carried his axe in one huge hand.
“We have no clue where these skeleton warriors came from,” Baylee answered. “But they were elves.”
“Aye.”
“Where is the skeleton warrior you and Serellia fought?”
“Destroyed,” the giant killer replied. “It put up a fierce fight for a time. Of course, it helped when I removed one of its arms. Then it erupted into a frenzy that almost caught me unawares. Serellia saved me with as fancy a piece of sword play as I’ve seen in a long time. We were hard pressed for a time, but it turned its attention back to the drow. Were it a human foe, I would not have attacked it from behind. The blow cut its spine in two and took its legs from it. Still, it tried to battle. Then, of a sudden, it went limp. I wasted no time in cleaving its skull to pieces, I tell you.”
“It’s dead?” Baylee asked.
“Oh, and it didn’t turn to dust, that’s true,” Karg said, “but it’s deader than it has been in a long time.”
How long a time it had been originally dead was only one of the questions on Baylee’s mind. He’d noted the clothing the skeleton warriors almost wore. Fashion sometimes was very indicative of time period, and the bits he’d seen of the clothing on the skeleton warriors looked near to ancient.
Xuxa, he called. Bring me the circlet.
Are you sure?
Baylee came to a stop forty paces from the tree. He hoped it would be enough. Yes. He glanced at one of the nearby rangers, a young boy who trembled as he tried to stand still under a shuddering pitchblende torch. “Could I borrow your torch?”
The boy gave it without answering, then wrapped his arms around himself.
Xuxa hurled herself from the tree, dragging the heavy circlet after her. The skeleton warrior tracked the band instantly, abandoning the tree. It fell through the branches, plummeting toward the ground. When it hit, it sank into the ground nearly to its knees from the weight and the height of the fall. A normal man’s legs would have shattered.
Instead, the skeleton warrior put a hand against the ground and levered itself from the impromptu grave. An arrow glanced from its head, leaving a trail of silvery sparks behind to show that the arrowhead had possessed magic properties. Thin cracks blossomed in the undead creature’s skull.
That creature will kill you to get this, Xuxa warned.
Baylee reached up as the azmyth bat let the circlet tumble from her claws. Gold flashed as it tumbled through the air, fired by the torches and lanterns the rangers brought with them. He caught the circlet, the metal cold under his fingers.
“It’s coming,” Karg stated.
14
Studying the circlet even with the skeleton warrior bearing down on him, Baylee felt drawn to it. The piece of jewelry was old, hundreds of years old. Sometimes when he touched something, he just knew. Most instances, when challenged to discover which was an actual artifact and which was a cleverly constructed replica, Baylee had picked the artifact every time. It wasn’t just knowledge with him, and the aspect had fascinated even Fannt Golsway enough to attempt to find out how his young apprentice could be so accurate. No answers had presented themselves. It was a knack, Golsway had been forced to concur, just a small gift from Mystra, Lady of Mysteries, in fact as Golsway was wont to declare, maybe a small homage to her own title.
He turned the circlet in his free hand, noting the rune work inscribed in the metal. Only some of the characters looked at all familiar.
Baylee!
The ranger knew Xuxa referred to the growing proximity of the skeleton warrior, but he found himself loathe to let go his prize. The band felt heavy, solid, and so, so old. He had to wonder what stories the runes might tell if he could have time to decipher it.
But there was no time. The skeleton warrior ran at him, its great sword drawn back to strike.
“Tell me, Baylee, are we going to fight?” Karg asked.
You can’t ask them for any more blood tonight, Xuxa counseled calmly. Not when there is an easy way out.
It’s not so easy for me, Xuxa. Everything in my being cries out to hold onto this piece.
I know. But you can’t. Not unless you’re prepared to ask someone to die for it.
Baylee held the circlet tight in his fist. Karg had already taken a step in front of him, pulling the huge, double-bitted axe into readiness. There is an inscription here. What stories it could tell.
Xuxa flapped over and landed on Baylee’s shoulder. The ranger knew she didn’t like to stay upright. Even her slight weight was too much for her hind legs to maintain her balance. She laid over his shoulders like a cripple. A trail remains, Xuxa said. The female drow. Fannt Golsway’s death. Someone here is covering something up. Something that may be awaiting you in Waterdeep. You’ve not even gone there yet.
And if there’s not something waiting there and the trail ends
here?
I have not often been wrong, Xuxa reminded gently. This trail will not end so quickly.
Baylee peered at the circlet, drawn deep into the hypnotic glint of it. But to lose this.…
There have been other lost treasures. Else how would we find these adventures to go on?
Baylee looked up, seeing the skeleton warrior bearing down on him. The rangers nearby started to scatter, so close was the dreadful being. Everything in him screamed to clutch his prize tightly and run for all he was worth. You need to fly away, he told her. I don’t want you to be trampled.
Why should I leave? she asked in that wise voice of hers. You will make the right decision. I have faith in you.
Baylee thought briefly about bolting from the skeleton warrior and taking his chances. Xuxa was right in that probably no one would help him while he seduced his own doom by trying to hang onto the circlet. But he knew if he bolted and ran, the azmyth bat might tumble from his shoulder and lose her life. She would be that stubborn.
The skeleton warrior was less than ten paces away and coming hard when Baylee flipped the circlet out to it. The ranger covered Xuxa with one hand, feeling her small, fragile body press against his palm. “We’re not going to fight,” he told Karg.
For a moment, he thought he had waited too long after all. Then the skeleton warrior stretched out a hand and ripped the tumbling circlet from the air. The yellowed ivory finger bones clicked against the soft gold. With amazing grace and control, the undead creature came to a stop, its legs buckling under itself as it prostrated on the ground.
With a cry of relief and anger, the skeleton warrior dropped the two-handed sword. It turned its face toward the sky and spoke. The words sounded brittle as they echoed in the clearing, but they were filled with the strong emotion of pain.
Seeing the exquisite workmanship of the two-handed sword lying beside the undead creature, Baylee moved forward and picked it up. No one tried to stop him, and no one came forward with him.
The skeleton warrior could have reached him easily, but it remained on its knees, shrilling up at the sky.
The sword pommel was fashioned of the teeth of great cats, each tooth carefully inlaid in the overall pattern to lock precisely with the others to create a smooth hilt. A loop of silvery-gray hair hung from the hilt, carefully braided to be decorative.
Even as Baylee took the weight of the sword into his arms, the skeleton warrior’s cries ended. It turned its hollow-eyed gaze on the ranger, then brought the gold circlet to its forehead.
Baylee thought he saw a smile on the undead creature’s mockery of a face, twisting up the tattooed flesh of the cheek. At first, the ranger had thought the lines of tattooing were old scars or even dirt, but now he knew them as tattoos.
In the next instant, all that remained of the skeleton warrior was a pile of white, powdery dust. The sword disappeared from Baylee’s grip as well, leaking through his fingers as the magic exhausted it.
The ranger stood, facing the people nearest him. “Did anyone understand what he said?”
Everyone shook their head. Many of them returned to helping friends and family who’d been wounded in the battle.
“He was giving thanks.”
Baylee glanced at Aymric. His friend stood between Serellia and a young boy, not yet able to support his own weight. His tunic flapped where it had been cut away to expose the wound. All that remained of the injury was a long, scab-covered line. Patches of red-inflamed flesh still carrying some infection surrounded the scabbing on either side.
“You understood him?” Baylee asked.
Aymric nodded. “Some of what he said. It was a very old dialect.”
“An elven tongue?”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
Aymric wearily shook his head. “You should know our history better than any human, Baylee. Once the elven races dominated Toril, then we massed at Myth Drannor, and eventually retreated to Evermeet. That tongue is still spoken in some areas. But you have to know also what time that poor soul came from.”
“You saw his clothing.”
“Yes.”
“And the sword.”
“As you held it, yes.” Aymric nodded. “To find that tongue spoken now, I’d wager you’d have to go to Evermeet to hear it. But to hear it spoken then—” He shrugged painfully. “It could have been from a number of places.”
“He was a wild elf,” Baylee stated, feeling certain about his conjecture. “You saw that the armor he wore was scant. Wild elves don’t wear much armor.” He touched his face along his jaw. “And there is the matter of the tattooing, which again indicates his heritage.”
“Sy-Tel’Quessir,” Aymric said. “And the god he cried out to was Solonor Thelandira, who watches over those attempting to survive in the wilderness. I did not understand everything, but the parts I did understand were quotes from Hunter’s Blessing. That’s the closest it translates to the human tongue.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Baylee said. “It’s supposed to be one of the most ancient texts of Solonor Thelandira. From a discourse from a much longer work that has been lost to the Tel’Quessir.”
Aymric nodded. “Some of the words he spoke may have been some of the missing stanzas. I will remember them and submit them to the proper authorities.” He gave a weak grin. “Mayhap we’ve already uncovered part of the treasure you seek.”
You failed!
The lich’s voice thundered inside Krystarn Fellhammer’s head as she returned to the hallway she had left only moments ago. “There was not much margin for anything but failure,” she responded. “Your spell put us down in the center of the forgathering. There were dozens of them, perhaps even scores.”
Baylee Arnvold yet lives.
“Would it have been better had we all died killing him?” Krystarn demanded. “Even the skeleton warriors were turned against us at the end.” She strode angrily down the hallway toward the wall, thinking the way might be open to her.
Instead, only a blank wall greeted her. Folgrim Shallowsoul refused to even have a proper audience with her.
Krystarn wanted to cry out with rage. Her need for vengeance soared. She had been so careful in her life never to walk into a situation she could not control, yet the lich insisted on shoving her down on her knees and placing the blade of an opponent at her throat.
Then he expected her to vanquish that foe. Black spots swam in her vision as she turned back to face the hallway. She looked back at the drow warriors as Sergeant Rr’t’frn reached into the bag of holding lying in the middle of the floor and pulled men out of it.
“How many dead?” she asked the sergeant.
“Seven,” Rr’t’frn replied.
Krystarn cursed. Nearly a third of her men had been sacrificed in the attempt. She had counted six dead, two of them men she had killed herself with the hand crossbow. Captain V’nk’itn’s death was regrettable, but necessary. With the curse put on the circlets of the skeleton warriors she had known there was the possibility of someone using the undead as a means of tracking them down if they were unable to recover them. That was why she had commanded the one she controlled to leave itself defenseless. When the axe had shattered the skeleton warrior’s skull, a sharp pain had razored through Krystarn’s mind, sending her back to her own body.
She watched the bloodied and battered drow warriors stagger to their feet, two of them feathered with arrows. Seven warriors dead in one night—in a matter of minutes—and she had lost less than that in four years of searching through the catacombs.
I wouldn’t have forgiven you even in death, Shallowsoul assured her. The men who became the skeleton warriors you used tonight died a second death unforgiven.
“I acted as you wished,” Krystarn said. “It was your plan. Had I a voice in such matters, I would have recommended we act in another way.”
Treacherously? Shallowsoul laughed.
“As any true Drow would have,” Krystarn returned. “What matters is winning, not the
how of it.”
You say “drow” as if you are so proud of your heritage, as if what others think of it does not matter.
“It doesn’t. And if you had not wanted a drow as a partner—”
Not a partner, Krystarn Fellhammer. Never make that assumption, or that mistake again in my presence.
Krystarn fell silent.
Excellent, Shallowsoul said. You’re very attentive … a good vassal … when you wish to be.
A short prayer to Lloth filled Krystarn’s mind, asking for the ability to conceal her true emotions from the lich at that moment.
See to your men, Shallowsoul ordered. While I try to find another means to slay this Baylee Arnvold.…
Krystarn felt the lich’s thoughts fade from her mind. Before she could move, a bag suddenly appeared in the hallway. Glass vials spilled out of it, each containing a pinkish fluid with a syrupy texture.
“Malla?” Rr’t’frn looked at her expectantly.
Krystarn approached the spilled vials, knowing Shallowsoul had sent them but not knowing for sure what they were. She took one up and unstoppered it. Crossing to the nearest wounded drow warrior, she grabbed the fletched shaft protruding from his leg and roughly snapped it off. Reaching behind the wounded leg, she pulled the other half of the arrow through the limb, ignoring the sudden spurt of blood.
The warrior only groaned in a muffled voice and did not try to pull his leg away.
Krystarn poured the syrupy pink liquid over the wound. Almost instantly, the bleeding stopped and the flesh started to heal.
“Those are healing potions.” Krystarn handed the vial to the wounded man. “Use them well, Captain Rr’t’frn.”
The drow warrior looked at her, understanding full well he’d been promoted. He bowed his head. “I will serve you well, Malla.”
“I will expect no less,” Krystarn replied, “upon certainty of death. Take care of your men.”
“Yes, Malla.”
Krystarn left them there, walking through the hallway and returning to her rooms. Shallowsoul had never told her how Fannt Golsway had found out about the library, but she felt the threat now as keenly as the lich did. After seeing Baylee Arnvold in action tonight, after seeing the anger in his green eyes—something that she as a drow could clearly understand—she knew the ranger would not easily be put off the track.
