by Barb Hendee
When the air cleared, the cottage door stood open. Far to his left Welstiel heard the thrashing of brush and spotted the sage and the half-blood scurrying into the forest. Two more figures appeared in the doorway and headed into the forest.
Welstiel sensed no tingle of life within them as he reached out with his awareness.
Chane glanced at Welstiel as the decayed men passed into the trees.
"Reanimated dead, " Welstiel whispered. "Ubad's skills have become more diverse. "
Another pair appeared in the cottage doorway. One wore a leather mask, and the other's skin was stretched tight and gray across the bones of his face.
"Ubad?" Chane whispered, gesturing to the first man.
Welstiel barely nodded. He shivered off trepidation, suppressing the terrible memories conjured by the sight of his family's old retainer.
Between the necromancer's leather mask and cowled robes, it was difficult to imagine what he might look like underneath, but his withered jaw and hands were as Welstiel remembered. As ancient as he had always seemed, he had aged no further in twenty-five years. He carried a long iron staff that appeared far too heavy for his stature.
Ubad spoke to his companion, and Welstiel's senses expanded sharply to catch the man's words.
"I will lure the dhampir off, " he said, "and see to it that she takes her place with us. Find the half-elf and kill him. The sage, as well, though it is doubtful she would last a night in the forest. "
"And that bothersome dog?" asked his companion, holding his shoulder as if it pained him.
"He will stay with the dhampir... and I will deal with that misbegotten mongrel sent by our patron's oppressors. His meddling ends tonight. "
They both stepped into the trees and then separated.
Chane made to go after the undead sorcerer, sword gripped tight in hand. Welstiel stopped him, but kept his voice low.
"The dhampir and the majay-hi have not come out yet. Stay close where I can hide you from their awareness. "
"The dead are wandering every corner of this forest, " Chane answered. "That dog is not going to pick me out. I must go!"
Welstiel realized Chane was not going to help him protect Magiere. Perhaps that was best. If Ubad's undead sorcerer overcame Leesil, he would return to his master's side. And that would make Welstiel's own task far more difficult. Chane's only thoughts were of his little sage now in Leesil's company.
"Go, " he said, "but do not let her see you. "
Chane was off into the trees and out of sight.
Welstiel looked back at the stone house just as Magiere and Chap rushed out. Her eyes were completely black. When her lips parted in a deep breath, he saw her elongated canines. His confidence in her wavered. Had he underestimated Ubad's poisoned whispers? Would Magiere give in and follow the necromancer's path?
She was in a fully enraged dhampir state, yet she paused in the open space before the house. She waited calmly as the majay-hi sniffed the earth. It turned, barking wildly at her, and ran a few paces in the direction Ubad had taken then paused to look back. Magiere broke into a run and followed the animal into the forest.
Welstiel followed, as well.
IChap slowed to let Magiere to get ahead of him. He trailed her as she crashed through the dense forest after the child ghost. His concern should have been for her alone, but Leesil and Wynn were at the mercy of Ubad's minions. Magiere was almost beyond his sight, and he paused in a hollow between the moss-laden trees and closed his crystalline eyes. Hear me, my kin. Come to me.
He reached out, again and again, sensing for an answering touch of spirit in the wilderness. A presence grew around him, and he opened his eyes.
Enormous oaks and firs crackled and rustled as their limbs reached outward into each other's embrace. He heard something akin to whispers mat did not come from Ubad's spirits. Tiny movements made leaves and strands of moss quiver, and he felt the many lives of the wild surrounding him, turning their awareness inward upon him within the half-circle of sentinel trees.
A yellow speckled lizard crawled slowly across a spruce's wide trunk, its tail twice the length of its body. The tail dragged behind the reptile in a lengthy curve like a mouth in the bark below the glittering eyes of other creatures in this massive tree's shadowed upper reaches.
Why do you call us... now that you have abandoned us in our need to go your own way?
Chap bowed his head as the lizard's tail slipped out of sight behind the trunk.
I stand by her. I stand by my choice. And nothing you hope for has been lost as yet. But the others...
A flurry of skittering filled his ears like tiny claws and paws racing through the forest canopy in agitation.
Chap padded back and form impatiently. And the half-elf? He still serves his purpose, to keep Magiere from the reach of the enemy... and perhaps more.
A telling silence was the only reply, and he pressed further.
Let life bar death in this place. Hold off the restless dead. Hold them for even a short while. Keep the sage and the an-maglahk safe.
Whispers and rustles in the leaves grew louder.
Chap knew his kin hated this forest of death. He rumbled in anger at their indecision.
Without her companions, the dhampir will fall to the enemy. Hold back the spirits of death, or what we seek will certainly be lost.
Whispers faded to silence.
Chap felt a wind, gentle at first but growing in strength, until it whipped at his fur. He heard cries in the dark that mingled with whispers from the trees and the skittering of life among them.
White mist whipped among the branches around the hollow in which Chap stood.
The grizzled soldier and scores of others took half-form in the air as they swirled together above him. More and more of the forest's wandering ghosts were pulled in. The girl with dark curls and torn throat rushed past him, caught in the gale. And all began to blur until they became nothing but translucent glowing streaks.
The whirlwind expanded until its circumference touched the dark branches above. The threads of white mist split and tangled in the forest canopy. Bit by bit, the wind died down to a breeze.
When the rustle of Chap's fur ceased, there was only the dark above him. All trace of the spirits had vanished, trapped by the forest.
Relief filled him. Leesil could find a way to face almost anything else that came, and Wynn might yet survive this night.
Chap waited no longer and bolted through a space in the sentinel trees. He thrashed through tangled branches and curtained moss, until he broke into the open and followed the scent of Magiere.
* * *
Leesil was well into the forest when the first ghost assaulted him. He dodged only to be struck in the back by another. Icy pain made him stumble to his knees, and streaks like vapor in a wind exploded from his chest. When he rose, ducking through the trees to escape, he lost track of Wynn. When he circled back, she was nowhere in sight.
Breathing brought pain as he backtracked to find her, but a hideous form flew toward his face.
The man looked as if he'd been stretched until his bones were broken, and his arms and legs hung in the night air, distended from his shoulders and hips. Madness twisted his features as the spirit melted to a white blur and struck Leesil's torso.
The cold was so severe that the breath clogged in Leesil's chest. He tumbled to the wet ground trying to expel the chill from his lungs.
Leesil clawed up the trunk of a tree to his feet.
He had lost control of this journey, and he couldn't fight what his blades couldn't touch. He and Wynn would die here. The ghosts wouldn't stop until the very life was frozen out of them. And what would become of Magiere, left alone in this world?
Leesil drew in a painful breath. A gentle breeze crossed his skin, pulling at the branches and dangling moss around him. He looked for any place he might run, remembering the rush of air in the cavern when Ubad's guardian spirits had attacked them.
The breeze built to a wind... and
then a gale that whipped his hair into his eyes as he clutched for a handhold on the base of a low stout branch.
Spirits all around thrashed frantically—but not at him.
The anger in their warped features transformed into fear. The broken man opened his slack jaw in a whispering scream as the wind dragged him away into the forest.
Translucent figures flew past Leesil on the air. Within moments, the forest around him emptied of all but the dark branches and wet foliage and long strands of moss.
The wind dropped with a last gust that pulled at his hair.
Leesil looked about, uncertain what had happened. His first instinct was to call out to Wynn, but he stopped himself. If anything else lurked here, he would give away not only his own position but possibly Wynn's, as well.
He silently cursed himself as a fool.
He never should have agreed to Magiere's reckless gambit. The four of them shouldn't have separated. He tried searching again for Wynn, but he had lost his sense of direction. Every step in these marshy woods looked the same as the last.
A spark of light in the distance caught his attention. It blinked in and out as it moved among the trees.
Leesil's fear melted in relief as he remembered Wynn's cold lamp. Then he spun behind an oak as that same relief vanished. Wynn hadn't been carrying her lamp when they'd fled the cavern. And the light was an orange yellow tint rather than crystal white.
He crouched as the glimmer came around the side of an oak. The figure carrying it took shape in Leesil's night sight.
Grayed and shriveled skin took on a sickly yellow cast in the glow and revealed eyes that bulged in sunken sockets. The topaz amulet Leesil had lost was still clutched in his bony hand.
Vordana held his shoulder where Leesil's blade had sliced through.
Leesil smelled the walking corpse even at a distance and remembered how that cut had broken the sorcerer's focus in the cavern. Vordana had a weakness in his decaying flesh that other undead did not.
Leesil crawled quietly along the ground, keeping his quarry in sight. The topaz glowed in Vordana's presence like a beacon. The sorcerer stopped to look about in puzzlement, and Leesil turned his course to move out ahead. He found duck brush between two trees and crouched there, gripping both blades.
Vordana wandered, turning slightly to his left, and Leesil bit his lip in frustration. Then the sorcerer curved back upon his original path. Waiting in the darkness, Leesil gauged the distance as his target neared.
Ten paces, five, two...
He sprang up and forward, driving his right blade in below Vordana's collarbone.
A soft metallic click came just before the sound of severed bone scraping against steel, but Leesil kept his eyes on his opponent's face. The force took Vordana off balance, and Leesil followed on the momentum.
Vordana's back slammed against a tree as the blade's tip drove deeper. The impact brought a shower of water drops cascading down upon both of diem from the branches above. The dead man's putrid stench thickened from the wound, and light dimmed as the topaz fell from his grasp.
Leesil raised his other blade to hack into Vordana's throat, and the sorcerer's filmy eyes widened. A chant rose behind Leesil's thoughts, filling the back of his mind. He changed the second blade's swing, taking the quicker path into Vordana's stomach. As the blade sank in, the chant swelled to a shriek, then ceased.
Vordana's mouth gaped. Leesil jerked the blade from the dead man's gut to draw back and strike for bis neck. A wave of fatigue struck him, and his blow faltered.
The blade's edge clipped Vordana's wounded shoulder, and the sorcerer flinched. His bony hands grasped Leesil's arms.
Fatigue flooded Leesil's body so quickly that his legs and arms quivered as he fought to stay on his feet. Vordana's voice filled his head.
Your life is my strength, half-breed. What a meal your elvish blood is.
Vordana's words were filled with malicious joy, but there was still fear in his skeletal face. Focus appeared to take great effort on his part, but Leesil felt his life being ripped from him by the walking corpse. He needed to break the undead's concentration, but he felt himself growing weaker.
Leesil let his legs buckle and the blade slide from Vordana's chest.
As he dropped, he twisted his wrists so that the blades came over the top of Vordana's forearms. Something hard jabbed his back through his hauberk as he hit the ground. He gave it no notice, and summoned all his strength to pull one leg up to his chest.
He used the weight of his own fall combined with the undead's grip. When Vordana began to topple toward him, Leesil kicked out into his abdomen.
Vordana rose up in the air, filmy eyes widened in surprise.
As the sorcerer flipped over Leesil's head, he slashed his blades outward in a last effort. Vordana slipped from sight, and Leesil lay prone and sweating on the wet ground.
Breath came with difficulty, as if his chest had no strength to rise and fall. Something still poked his back where he lay. His mind cleared, and he felt fingers still gripping his forearms inside the wings of his blades.
Leesil rolled to his side.
Bony hands were tightly latched on to his arms, but they weren't joined to anything. Only half the sorcerer's forearms remained, ending in cleanly sliced gray flesh and bone.
Leesil thrashed as he rolled to his knees, trying to dislodge the undead's hands. Their grip wouldn't release.
Vordana rose and stared at his own severed arms. No blood poured from the man's dead flesh. No tears of pain or anguish fell from his milky eyes. His voice called out through Leesil's head.
Bastard... half-blood!
Leesil kept fighting to breathe. How in this hellish land could he kill such a monster if its severed parts still obeyed its will? Taking its head was hopeless.
He slipped his left blade tip under the thumb of Vordana's hand still clinging to his right arm. Weakness rushed through his body, along with pain, as he felt Vordana begin to drain his life again. He slashed the digit off, and the hand fell away.
It hit the ground, fingers clawing air, and Leesil saw something shiny beside it.
His legs gave away under him, and he fell so quickly that his blade tips slid into the ground.
Half-pressed into the wet earth was a small brass urn, its top sealed with a whitish filling that might have been wax. Its chain had been split in half. The soft metal clink Leesil had heard at his first blow into Vordana's chest had been the chain severing on his blade's edge.
Leesil raised his head and saw Vordana coming for him. The sorcerer didn't seem aware that he'd lost the urn... didn't see it lying so close. Leesil knew he couldn't defend himself much longer, and he had to end this. If not by finishing this walking corpse, then at least by driving it off—as Wynn had once done. He shoved himself upright on his knees, and wavered as he lifted both blades.
Vordana hesitated at the sight of sharp steel in the air before him.
And Leesil swung downward, letting go with all his weight behind the blades.
His left blade missed and buried in the soft earth up to his fist.
The right struck true.
A snapping puff of vapor issued as the urn split in half. It smelled of pepper and the scent burned in Leesil's nose, making his eyes water. The sensation of his life draining away ceased.
Leesil's fatigue started to fade, little by little, and he looked up at Vordana.
The sorcerer clenched exposed teeth as he stared at the urn's halves to either side of Leesil's blade.
No... no... no...
Over and over, the one word filled Leesil's head as he struggled to his feet.
Ubad!
Leesil lunged at Vordana. Whatever the urn preserved of the sorcerer's presence, its loss had undone his ability to prey upon the living.
Vordana's filmy eyes turned fully white. They collapsed inside their sockets, and Leesil slashed. Vordana raised the stump of his arm to shield himself. The blade hit, skidded along bone, and tore away rotti
ng flesh.
Ubad! Master, save me!
At this outcry, Leesil's fear sharpened to replace his lost strength. He couldn't let the withered mage save this creature. Vordana's grayed flesh shriveled further and split in places to reveal yellowed bone. The undead sorcerer decayed before Leesil, but it was not enough to satisfy him. He chopped down into Vordana's head.
The sorcerer crumpled to ground, still writhing with a spilt in his skull, and Leesil fell upon him, striking again and again.
When Leesil finally stopped, he was panting in exhaustion. He rose to his feet, wavered there, and stared down at the unrecognizable remains of Vordana's head. With one kick, he scattered the rotted pieces into the forest.
"Come back from that, if you can, " he gasped out.
Now he had to find Wynn... and Magiere and Chap.
A high-pitched scream carried through the forest from a distance.
"Wynn?" he whispered hoarsely.
Leesil snatched up the still-glowing topaz, and stumbled through the trees.
IWynn knelt upon the ground, clinging to a tree trunk with both arms as the gale died away. She stayed there, shivering for a long while, before she could open her eyes. The glimmers of the ghosts were gone, and she had fled so quickly, there had been no time to pick up her cold lamp from the cavern floor. Even the moon was hidden somewhere above the thick forest canopy. All she saw was the silent dark forest.
No ghostly translucent spirits. No thin trails of white in the air that pierced her with cold pain. And no Leesil.
"Leesil?" Wynn whispered.
He was nowhere to be seen, and she had no idea which direction she had run—which direction to turn and search for him. The sound of Wynn's own rapid breaths filled her ears, and she willfully slowed her breathing before it dizzied her.
"I am not lost, " she told herself.
If she could not find Leesil, then Magiere and Chap would come. Chap could track her... if those two had escaped the cavern.
Magiere had been so angry when the communion with her mother had ended. Ubad's suggestive words of her greater purpose only fed fuel to her rage. Wynn so often felt frightened both for and of Magiere that it was becoming a familiar state. She wondered what confidence Magiere and her mother's spirit had shared.