by Dave Gross
The hesitations must mean Zutha’s new body had not yet come into his full power. So I hoped, and so I knew we had to act quickly.
“Varian Jeggare,” he said, pronouncing my name strangely. “Varian Jeggare, Varian Jeggare,” he repeated, as if growing accustomed to the words upon his tongue. He sniffed before speaking in ancient Thassilonian: “Blood of my blood. Child of my child.”
I unleashed the power of my most destructive ring. The instant I willed it to fire, an invisible force struck my hand like a schoolmaster’s rod across the knuckles of an insolent student. The stones orbiting my brow cracked against my skull as they fled from me to encircle the necromancer’s head.
“Your friend restored me, great-grandchild, and you have delivered my most potent weapons,” said Zutha. “Now bend your knee and serve your father.”
“Never!” I spat out the word before considering a more guileful approach. I could not help but rebel at the notion of bowing before such a monster, no matter our blood relation.
While Zutha regarded me with disappointment, Svannostel fell upon him. The dragon’s claws sheared hanks of flesh from Ygresta’s carcass. Zutha grunted in irritation and swept his scythe around his massive body, the gesture as delicate as Zora’s handling of her flag. The scythe came away bloody. One of Svannostel’s talons fell to the floor.
She trumpeted her fury, rising up to blast Zutha with her stormy breath.
“Not the golem!” I shouted too late. There was no time to explain that I knew how the rings and stones defending Zutha could also redirect the lightning.
The white shower danced across an invisible barrier around Zutha. The runelord reeled, still weak as a newborn. Even so, his Crest defended him. The power of the ring deflected Svannostel’s breath to cascade over Durante’s body. Electricity leaped from joint to staple, energizing the automaton.
“Otto, Otto,” said Zutha, the shadow’s name coming to him as mine had, through the dying brain of Benigno Ygresta. As Zutha spoke, his fluid flesh bubbled and filled its gaping wounds. “Otto, Ada, Durante.” After a brief pause, he spoke again, this time in heavily accented Taldane. “Otto, Ada, Durante. Your former master created you. Now his body is mine, and you are my servants.”
“We are, Master,” said a fragile voice I assumed belonged to Ada.
“Kill the dragon as I gather my strength,” he said. “And drag this boy of mine before me … on his knees prefer—”
Svannostel slammed the runelord to the ground.
As she raised her claw again, his body bobbed up to levitate above the floor. Where the blow had crushed his arm and face, the bones shifted, the flesh knitting back together, more pustulant than before. “I chose the location of my crypt for a purpose,” he said. “Even in my weakness, you cannot destroy me here. The energies of the site sustain me, as they do all undead.”
I had lost my only advantage with the rings and stones. What weapons remained to me and Svannostel now appeared insufficient. We had to flee or die.
I rushed toward Zutha. The shadow—presumably Otto—and his hound intercepted me. Once more, I evaded the hound and lashed out at Otto, my sword tearing a slice from his shadow arm. As I leaped to the lip of the sarcophagus, Durante pummeled me with a bucket-sized fist. I flew backward and crashed into an alcove full of dusty scrolls. Somehow I retained my grip on the Shadowless Sword, yet that small victory provided little consolation.
Svannostel buffeted our foes with her wings. I saw the battle through a veil of dust. She threw her massive body on Durante, biting and tearing. With a scream of metal, she pulled off one of his rotting arms and spat it to the side.
Gesturing with both hands, Zutha spoke a word of power. Svannostel reeled, her wounded claw clutching at her breast as the runelord’s death magic wormed its way to her heart. The impact of her fall filled the room with dust and shadows.
Choking, I staggered back into the fray. The shadow hound rushed me. Its jaws clamped around my sword arm. With my free hand, I grabbed its throat and unleashed a shock of electricity. The stench of burning fur overpowered the smell of dust. The shadow hound’s body shook until it released my arm and limped away, whining.
As the dust settled, I saw Zutha hovering above his own sarcophagus. In one hand he clutched his scythe. With the other he gestured toward the wall, where a great black hand gripped Svannostel by the throat.
Worse, the Gluttonous Tome rose up to hover by his side. His power grew.
Even so, hope surged in my breast as I saw the dragon still lived. Yet she could not survive for long. The giant hand pressed so hard the masonry behind her crumbled. Stones fell from far above as the hand crushed the supporting vaults. A mangled iron grate struck Svannostel’s head and clanged on the crypt floor.
A desiccated body plunged after the grate. Another dropped onto Svannostel’s neck and began gnawing at her scales. The dragon struggled to pull the ghoul away as the shadowy hand held her fast.
An intangible grip fell upon my shoulder, cold and enervating. I shrugged it away, but another gripped me from the other side. My strength spilled away.
“Bow,” rasped Otto. As more stones and bodies fell around us, the shadows pushed me to my knees.
“Yes, Count Jeggare,” said Ada. “Bow before the Master.”
20
The Crypt of Zutha
Radovan
Hundreds of undead soldiers stood at the mouth of an open pit. We’d seen a few try to climb down, only to scramble back up again as some things down there snarled and tore at them. Even at a distance we could smell what they were. Nothing stinks like a ghoul.
Others jumped into the pit while their buddies watched. When they heard the clatter of bones from somewhere far below, they stepped back, shaking their naked skulls or the mummified lumps that used to be their faces.
“I don’t think we ought to go in there,” Zora said.
“Where else can we go?” I’d already made a circuit of the room after Illyria cast a spell to make me invisible and unsmellable to the undead. I hadn’t found any other way down, but it was obvious that’s where the action was happening.
“Varian has to be down there,” said Illyria. “Zutha’s army must be trying to follow him.”
“Got any suggestions?” I looked around to see whether anybody else had an idea. Kazyah looked her solemn self. Zora looked like she’d rather be anywhere else.
“Let’s ask for directions,” said Illyria.
Before anybody could stop her, she walked straight toward the undead army. Even the drake thought that was a bad idea. She flapped back to perch on Arni’s shoulders. She’d done that often enough that he was getting used to it. He barely even flinched. But when I started after Illyria, he whined to let me know he thought it was a bad idea, too.
The dead turned as we approached. I expected a fight, but they didn’t go for their weapons. Most of them wore old armor covered in red rust and that green stuff whose name I forget. One wearing a few strands that used to be a plume on his helm stepped forward and opened his jaws. A scrap of leather that served as his tongue started to move, but Illyria held him still with a spell.
“Has the count passed this way?” she said before releasing him to speak. She was tougher than I’d given her credit for. Her voice barely wavered.
“You serve the master?” said the dead guy.
“Why else would we walk among you filthy things?” she said with a sniff. “Take us to him.”
“We have tried,” he said. “The hungerers devour those who seek to follow. We try to obey him, but less than half our number have made it down intact.”
I peeked down into the pit. Ghouls snapped at us from a hundred little cells in the walls. Sometimes one shoved a scabby arm through the grate. Here and there, a ghoul gnawed on the bones of some undead soldier who’d tried to get past.
“Climbing down is a bad idea,” I said.
“There may be an alternative,” said Illyria. “While we cannot all fly, we can all fall.”
“Together is best,” she said. Every time she turned, the light spell on her brooch turned the shadows in a new direction. “That way I’m less likely to miss one of you.”
“I would prefer to walk through the stone,” said Kazyah. The way she looked into the pit, I realized she didn’t like heights. The way I’d seen her fight, I’d been beginning to think nothing scared her.
“That’s fine for you,” said Illyria. “But we should stay together.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ve done this with the boss.” I offered Kazyah my hand. She surprised me by taking it. We gave each other a squeeze.
“Go!” said Illyria.
We jumped into the pit, falling fast. Illyria said her spell, and we drifted soft as autumn leaves.
The ghouls wailed behind iron bars. I realized somebody had put them there on purpose, maybe to keep people like us from climbing down. Their stink got worse the lower we went.
We landed on mounds of shattered bodies. That they’d been dead long before they hit didn’t make it any nicer. Arni clambered down from the heap, whining and skittish. You’d think a dog would love a pile of bones, but I couldn’t blame him for wanting fresher. Kazyah took Illyria by the arm to help her down.
Four passages stretched away from the round room. Amaranthine hissed and beat her wings as a ghoul reached out from the nearest wall. Illyria moved away. So did the rest of us.
A claw scraped over my boot from a cell under our feet. “Watch your step!”
“Do you hear it?” said Kazyah.
It was hard to hear anything over the ghouls, but something was going on below us, below the ghouls in the floor. Crashing, thunder blasts, muffled voices. It was almost enough to bring the house down.
“It sounds like it’s right underneath the floor,” said Illyria. She looked to Kazyah. “Is there any way you could smash through this?”
“Can you make us float again?”
Illyria nodded. Kazyah waved us back. We gave her room to swing her earth breaker. She began the whirling transformation into a rock spirit. When the change was done, she raised a barrel-sized fist and punched the floor.
The first blow smashed open a cell pen and stunned the ghoul inside. The second crushed the ghoul to pulp and put a crater in the floor.
Kazyah kept at it until she broke through the floor, and the dead ghoul fell into another, much bigger room. Cool, dusty air blew up into our faces.
Kazyah widened the hole with a couple more smashes of her stony fist. I smelled lightning from down below and saw yellow lights all around the circular walls of a big room.
“Catch me!” I jumped in
“Not so—!” said Illyria, but it was too late.
As I fell, I had only a second to see what was going on: dragon, big floating hand, one-armed golem, black dog, fat reaper, and there—kneeling with a couple shadows squeezing his neck—was the boss.
“Illyriaaaa!”
Her spell caught me just in time. Floating felt a little like hitting the water. I tugged the big knife from its sheath and grabbed a shadow to pull its head back. My hand went right through it, feeling like I’d pulled it out of a bucket of ice water. I swept the blade across the shadow’s neck anyway. A little tug and a hellish red glow told me the knife’s magic did its trick. The shadow blew away like a burned sheet of paper.
“Ada!” screamed the other shadow. It lunged at me. That was good, because it had to let go of the boss, but I didn’t want it touching me either.
I quick-stepped back, sweeping the blade to cover my retreat. I caught the shadow’s hand before it showed sense enough to dodge. Reversing my grip, I got ready for a good stab to its heart—assuming it had one—and then something knocked me flat.
The shadow dog was on me, biting and scratching. Its weight held me down, so it had meat or something to it, unlike its pals. Rolling to the side, I lashed back with a spur and got a nice wet yelp.
The dog jumped again. This time I had the knife braced. The blade sank deep into the shadow hound’s belly. I twisted and pulled the blade up, spilling its guts all over me.
“No!” screamed the shadow. He ran at me while I pushed at the dog carcass. He was going to get me before I freed myself.
Two quick strokes of light cut the shadow into three pieces. Like the first one, they shriveled and blew across the room.
The boss stood there with a weird black sword. I blinked when I realized it was the Shadowless Sword, only now it was black with runes on the sides.
The boss’s face was a white mask. I thought maybe he was sick, or maybe he was still mad at me. I was afraid I might be next in line after that shadow. But he didn’t stab me. Instead, he offered me a hand up.
“You should not have followed me,” he said.
Behind him, Kazyah fought the golem, who’d already taken a pretty good beating. She lifted him off the ground and threw him across the room.
“Let’s see how he likes it,” I said. The boss didn’t laugh. He didn’t even look irritated at my dumb joke, so I changed the subject. “Did Ygresta get fatter?”
“Zutha has claimed his body,” said the boss. “He has not recovered his full strength, but he already far more powerful than Ygresta.”
“And Ygresta beat our asses.”
The golem came crashing down on Zutha, but the big guy shoved him aside with a gesture. He pointed one of his rings at me and the boss. Its diamond head flared. Four crackling balls of lightning flew at us.
The boss shoved me down and made a fancy gesture with his sword. Whatever it was supposed to be, nothing happened before the lightning exploded all around him.
“Boss!”
He staggered back, flame flickering in his hair. He started a spell of his own, making the gestures with his free hand and the sword at the same time.
Svannostel roared, the sound shaking the room. She’d changed back into an elf to slip out of the giant hand, but now she was changing back. Next to her, Illyria had her hands ready for a spell, but she was waiting for something before she cast it.
Zutha began his own spell, looking at her. Illyria’s eyes went wide, but she let her own spell go before cringing.
The boss didn’t wait to see how that turned out. He ran forward and leaped over the tomb. On the downward arc, the Shadowless Sword cut through some magic barrier with a black-and-white flash. The blade met the runelord’s wrist. The necromancer’s fat hand fell away.
Zutha shouted. He sounded more surprised than hurt, but he was no less pissed. He swung his scythe around. The blade was big enough to cut a man in half, but it cut nothing but air. The boss had already rolled away, putting himself between Zutha and Illyria.
Always a gentleman.
Zutha yelled something I didn’t understand and held up his stump. Black tendrils grew out of the wound, already forming a new palm and fingers. “You see?” he went on in Taldane. “You cannot destroy me. In my seat of power, I regenerate faster than you can harm me.”
A shower of dust and stone fell on him from above. With it came a ghoul. The thing latched on and started gobbling at Zutha’s fat shoulder.
“Off of me, you wretch!” He tried to shrug the thing off, but it held tight. “I am the master of this place. Obey me!”
“Hung—hung—hungry!” gibbered the ghoul. It tore chunks out of him, drool and blood running from its jaws. Next to Zutha, the Tome dipped, bobbing in the air like he’d lost concentration on keeping it there.
“Radovan!” the boss yelled. He showed me a hand sign that meant distraction!
There’s a lot of ways to do that, but only one came to mind. I ran behind Zutha, who was too busy shaking off the ghoul to notice me. Maybe my knife wasn’t as special as the Shadowless Sword, but it’d leave a mark. I stabbed the runelord in the spine.
Whatever whammy was in the big knife, it was enough to get through his magic shield. But then there was so much fat to cut through tha
t I didn’t see blood until the third or fourth stab. By then, my first cut had already sealed up. Zutha was right. He was healing faster than we could cut him down.
The boss and Illyria threw more spells at Zutha. Magic shields from his crown of stones absorbed them. Svannostel blasted him with lightning. Another floating stone sucked the bolt out of the air.
I kept stabbing until Zutha flicked a finger and threw me across the room. Between him and the golem, I was damned tired of getting tossed around.
The boss said something to the dragon. She snatched up a ghoul gnawing on her leg and threw it at Zutha. The ghoul latched onto him just like the first one. Slobbering in excitement, it dug in.
Zutha howled, this time in pain. “Obey me, scavengers!”
“More ghouls!” the boss shouted.
“Are you sure?” said Illyria. “You were very cross with me the last time.”
“Confound it, I am certain that—!”
She was already spilling teeth from her pouch into her hand. She just wanted to get a dig in, maybe in case it was her last chance. Casting the boss’s least favorite spell, she threw the teeth at Zutha.
“Kazyah, can you break the others out of their cells?” said the boss.
“I might bury us all.”
“Can you escape on your own?”
She nodded.
“Then do it. We shall find another way.”
Illyria threw handful after handful of ghoul teeth at the runelord. Some stuck like knives. Others disappeared into his rolls of fat. All of them sprouted ghouls. The things were born hungry, and they wasted no time feasting.
The boss ran over to Illyria and waved at me to join them. I limped over, avoiding falling stones and ghouls.
“You vexatious worms! Your punishment will last longer than my slumber!” Zutha’s flesh grew back as fast as the ghouls devoured it. He threw off two of them. Three more scrambled up and savaged him.
Illyria rose from the floor, flying. Amaranthine flew after her.
“Stay close,” said the boss. He snapped off a riffle scroll. “Cover me while I go in.”
“He says we can’t kill him here!”