by Mel Odom
Pride touched Juhg as he realized he knew exactly what the Grandmagister was talking about. He’d felt the same way a number of times. A glance at Raisho revealed that the young sailor was mesmerized by the Grandmagister’s words.
“I did not know,” the Grandmagister said in a softer voice, “how much all of those races were alike in some ways—in the best of ways and in the worst—until I read the books about their lives and dreams.” He stared at Dilwiddy.
The dweller looked away and wouldn’t meet the Grandmagister’s gaze.
“There were even people like you, Dilwiddy,” the Grandmagister said. “Small-hearted people with narrow minds and a greedy nature. Not all of them were bad people. Just self-involved.”
Dilwiddy hung his head.
The Grandmagister turned his attention back to the crowd. “I listened to Sayrit speak this morning. And Erolg and Captain Artoona as well.” He paced, stepping away from Dilwiddy and Brokkle. “I heard their words and their pride in their accomplishments, in their dedication to the promises their ancestors made on their behalf.” He paused. “I took pride in the knowledge that I know these individuals as friends.”
Juhg turned the page and blocked out the faces of the three the Grandmagister had named. Only then did he realize that the ship’s captain had indeed been Artoona of Jeweled Dragonfly, a pirate ship that had taken prizes on a number of occasions out in the Blood-Soaked Sea.
“I’ve always been loath to exercise the powers I have as Grandmagister of this place when dealing with the townsfolk here, but if I choose not to exercise those powers now, I know that I will be remiss in my duties.” The Grandmagister stopped and looked around the room. “Dwarven warriors and elven warders and human sailors died up in the Knucklebones Mountains only a few days ago. They gave their lives fighting for promises made by their ancestors, without ever truly experiencing the same circumstances that propelled their ancestors to make those agreements in the first place.”
No one spoke inside the meeting hall. Juhg’s charcoal almost sounded loud against the journal page.
“I’ve seen how dwellers live along the mainland,” the Grandmagister said. “Many are still in slavery. I was sold as a slave in Hanged Elf’s Point when I first journeyed from Greydawn Moors. First Level Librarian Juhg lost his family and was a slave himself in the goblinkin mines. He wore shackles for years. His ankles still bear the scars.”
Juhg felt Raisho’s eyes on him then and realized that he’d never told the young sailor about his years spent as a slave. He focused on his work in the journal, distancing himself from the memories the Grandmagister’s words dredged up.
“Dwellers live and die in poverty and pain there,” the Grandmagister said. “They weren’t given the opportunity to safeguard the books in the Vault of All Known Knowledge, as were your ancestors.” He paused. “As were you.” He gazed around the room and Juhg watched as all of the dwellers were too ashamed to meet his eyes. “And here you are this morning, brazen enough to tell me and these loyal friends of the Library that the Vault of All Known Knowledge is an imposition to you.” He drew in a deep breath. “How dare you even think of not rebuilding.”
No one said anything.
“Without the mandatory schooling required by the Library of every dweller on this island, your children would only be an ocean away from a life of servitude, pain, and disaster. And when they got too infirm to work, the only future they would have would be a goblin’s stewpot.”
The dwellers sat huddled, their shoulders rounded and their heads down.
“As Grandmagister of the Vault of All Known Knowledge, I hold the power over this island. I decide, after deliberation with advisors whom I see fit to name, what will be done.” The Grandmagister crossed the room and stood in front of Dilwiddy. “I decide who stays here, and who goes. Not you.” He took a breath. “If I choose to, I can have you put on a ship, Dilwiddy, with only the clothes on your back.”
“Grandmagister,” Dilwiddy pleaded.
Raisho shifted beside Juhg and whispered, “Can he do such a thing?”
“Yes,” Juhg whispered back, trying to keep everything in perspective. Throughout the years of his association with Grandmagister Lamplighter, he’d never seen his mentor so firm.
The Grandmagister of the Vault of All Known Knowledge had final say over every aspect of the Library, as well as the island. But in all the history of the Library and of Greydawn Moors, no Grandmagister had ever stood in the meeting hall and threatened to deport townsfolk.
In years past, the sailing crews had been carefully chosen. It wouldn’t do for a sailor to jump ship and tell stories about dwellers who could read and write and lived in a huge building with thousands of books.
The Grandmagister turned away from the dweller and faced the rest of the audience in the meeting hall. “I’ll make that offer now. To all of you. Anyone who does not want to stay here at this place will be given passage to the mainland on the next ship headed that way. But you will leave now. This instant.”
No one spoke.
Turning, the Grandmagister faced Dilwiddy and Brokkle again. “Decide,” he told them. “Here or somewhere else. Where do you want to spend the rest of your lives?”
“Here, Grandmagister,” Dilwiddy whispered. “Please. I want to live here.”
“So do I,” Brokkle added.
Letting his response hang for a time, the Grandmagister finally nodded. “Fine. Then so long as you support the Library and its mission here, you will be welcome.”
“Thank you, Grandmagister,” both dwellers said.
“This will be an end to the fighting,” the Grandmagister declared. “Erolg.”
“Aye, Grandmagister.”
“See to it that we have a jail established here in town. If there is any more trouble, any more sedition from the dwellers regarding the rebuilding of the Library, I want a place to keep them till we can ship them away from here.”
“Aye, Gran’magister. ’Twill be done.”
“Primary Warder Threld.”
“Yes, Grandmagister.”
“Please take control of our resources in the town, as well as at the Library. I’ll need lists on what we have, what we need, and projections on what we can do if we lose the sea lanes for a time.”
“It will be done.”
“Captain Artoonis.”
“Aye.”
“We’ll need to discuss the need for patrol fleets, as well as supply ships, until we find out where we stand.”
“Aye.”
“And we’ll need to discuss what ports we might chance recruiting more sailors to our cause.”
“Aye, Grandmagister.”
Listening to the Grandmagister give directions, Juhg was astounded. The Grandmagister had always had a quick and able mind, and even over the years that Juhg had known him, the Grandmagister had gotten quicker about his resolve, but he had never seen his mentor as he was now. So … so … in command.
Without thinking, hearing the decisive tone in the Grandmagister’s words, Juhg had turned to a fresh page in the journal. Even as the Grandmagister had spoken to the three leaders, Juhg had taken notes about what each was supposed to do. During their travels abroad, when knowledge and planning where the only things that had kept them alive—with an inordinate amount of good luck thrown in, Juhg had often kept notes to match the Grandmagister’s. That way, if they were separated or one of them lost his journal, they would still have a copy to rely on.
He has a plan, Juhg realized, watching the Grandmagister in motion. The knowledge excited him, but it also dismayed him. He’d made his choice about leaving. Hadn’t he?
Feeling someone’s eyes on him, Juhg glanced around and found Craugh looking at him intensely. A look of speculation was held in the wizard’s green eyes, but the speculation held a mocking glint as well.
“Sounds as if the Gran’magister’s up to something,” Raisho whispered.
“I know,” Juhg replied.
“An’ the wizard�
�s sure enough givin’ ye the hairy eyeball.”
Juhg nodded. Part of him wanted to go to the Grandmagister and talk to him. If there was a plan, Juhg wished very much to know what it was.
And then there was the certainty the Grandmagister had spoken of regarding the shelves at the Vault of All Known Knowledge that wouldn’t remain empty. What had that been about?
“C’mon, then,” Raisho said, standing. “Show’s over in here, an’ I’d like to keep on the good side of Cap’n Attikus as long as I can afore we set out. Like as not, he’ll be a-waitin’ in the harbor for word of what went on in here.”
With more reluctance than he wanted to feel, Juhg stood and followed Raisho out of the meeting chamber. Craugh watched him go but didn’t try to get his attention or detain him.
Outside, the fog continued to fill the streets. The chill had grown stronger, leeching into Juhg’s flesh and clinging like barbed fishhooks. Rigging pinged against the masts out in the harbor.
Juhg pulled his traveling cloak more tightly about him and shivered with the cold. He peered out at the harbor, wondering when the last time was that he had seen the fog so thick.
“The Gran’magister did really good in there,” Raisho said. “Really gave them halfers what for, didn’t he?”
Juhg just looked at his friend.
Raisho stopped grinning. “Oh. Well, what I need to mention is that I don’t exactly dislike all halfers. Why, some of me best friends is halfers. One of them, anyway.”
Glancing around, Juhg saw that the street was packed with travelers, despite the inclement weather. So many residents had come to the meeting hall to find out what was going to happen. How many, he wondered, were shocked by the turn of events?
He glanced up toward the Knucklebones Mountains. With the layers of fog as thick as they were, he couldn’t see the Vault of All Known Knowledge. Despite that, though, he knew what it looked like: broken and jumbled.
Will it be fixed the next time I see it? Juhg wondered. Or will I never see it again?
And what is it the Grandmagister is keeping under his hat?
Without warning, Raisho stepped in front of Juhg and drew his blade. “Look out!” the young sailor yelled, whipping the cutlass forward.
Mind whirling as the excitement of the moment briefly spun his senses, Juhg tracked the whipping movement in front of him. Something had flown through the air only a short distance above Raisho’s head. The fog swirled behind it.
Then the sound of metal against stone rasped and filled Juhg’s ears just before the first screams cut loose along the street. Spinning, staying close to Raisho’s sheltering bulk, Juhg glanced along the street as he saw improbable shapes drop through the fog.
Some of the shapes landed in the street, where they stood on splayed legs. Others gripped the eaves of buildings and hung upside down, tucking themselves up under to take advantage of the cover offered by the structures.
There were, Juhg noticed in immediate horror, dozens of them. An army had silently invaded Greydawn Moors and now stood poised to attack.
22
The Battle for Greydawn Moors
“Guards! Guards!” someone yelled, sounding nearly panicked.
It took Juhg a moment to recognize his own voice with all the raw emotion in it. Although he had never seen the creatures scattered around the street before him in the flesh, he knew what they were.
When the Unity armies of dwarves, humans, and elves had finally started to turn the tide against the hordes of goblinkin, Lord Kharrion had used the darkest arts of magick to call forth a new army. As the goblinkin had been forced back over battlefields where they had left their dead strewn behind them, sometimes half-eaten by those goblinkin armies, the Goblin Lord had resurrected the bodies of those dead goblins.
In most cases, those dead goblins were nothing more than skeletal remains, either through time or the bones having been scraped for meat into a goblinkin stewpot. When Lord Kharrion used those freshly killed, he’d commanded the goblins to carve the flesh from them. Using the dark eldritch energies he called to his power, he forged the remains of the goblins with the echoes of the raw pain and suffering and fear of the humans, dwarves, and elves who had died in those places as well. Although, possessing no real identity, the Boneblights were far more than mere automatons.
They stood tall and gaunt as elves, with dark gray flesh sculpted from the bloody soil of battlefields and mixed with the ash of hardwood trees and iron slivers. Deep-set ruby eyes looked as though they’d been punched with an awl into the blunt-featured face covering the squared-off head. A piggish snout thrust out above a wide mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. Rusty mud clung to the Boneblights. Most carried scythes and axes for weapons, but every single one of them had long claws at the ends of skinny, powerful fingers and two tusks that curled up from the lower jaw almost to the eyebrow. Like a snake, Boneblights could unhinge their jaws to devour huge bites.
Without hesitation, Raisho stepped forward and struck the Boneblight facing them between the eyes with his cutlass. The blade scraped away a patch of magically hardened flesh and batted the creature’s head back, but didn’t even serve to knock the Boneblight from its long, narrow feet with toes splayed like a chicken’s.
The Boneblight laughed, a hissing sound that came from atrophied vocal cords. “Foolssss! You sssshall be punissssshed! You sssshall die!”
Quick as a wink, the Boneblight struck with its rusty, pitted scythe, aiming at Raisho’s neck and no doubt intending to cleave the young sailor’s head from his shoulders. Raisho barely got the cutlass up to block the attack. He disengaged his blade and struck again and again, driving his opponent back with his blows but achieving no real success in harming it. He blocked the scythe again, then put a booted foot into the middle of the dead flesh-and-bone face and shoved the Boneblight backward into a crumpled mass on the street.
Raisho cursed as the Boneblight hauled itself to its feet again. The creature unfurled the leathery wings kept close and tight to its back. Although Boneblights couldn’t fly under their own power, the creatures could glide for long distances when the wind was right.
Where did they glide from? Juhg wondered as he peered at the dozens of Boneblights that had filled the streets of Greydawn Moors. For a moment, he stopped being afraid as he considered the problem of the presence of the creatures—where they had come from and who had brought them there, but he quickly remembered the danger he was in when the Boneblight launched itself at Raisho and him.
Moving gracefully to one side, Raisho slashed the cutlass down across the Boneblight’s outstretched arms. Off balance, the creature dropped to the street. Immediately, though, it pushed itself to its feet again.
“What are these things?” Raisho demanded.
“Boneblights.” Juhg glanced around, spotting the public stables across the street. “They’re something old. Something from the days of the Cataclysm.”
Raisho backed away warily. “Mayhap not so old an’ not so far away today.”
“No,” Juhg agreed. “Not at all.”
Ahead of them, a Boneblight released its hold on the underside of an eave, spread its wings, and glided down to pounce on an unsuspecting dweller woman. She screamed and fought, but her efforts were to no avail because in the end the Boneblight snapped her neck like kindling. The creature dumped her body and immediately scouted around for more prey.
“Can they be killed, then?” Raisho asked, fending off the creature that confronted them. His cutlass blade rattled harmlessly against the Boneblight’s arms. The hardened soil that served as flesh, as well as the ridge of bone that stood out against the gaunt frame, made the thing nearly impervious to even a keen blade’s edge.
“Yes.” Juhg hurled himself forward, racing across the cobblestone street. “You’ll have a hard time killing them with blades. Follow me.”
Raisho feinted with his cutlass, then lifted a boot into his opponent’s face, driving the Boneblight back. He turned and raced after Juhg.
Senses alive, keeping track of as many things as possible, Juhg ran. A wagon rolled toward him, out of control as the horses panicked and the driver fought with the Boneblight that had landed in the bed behind him.
Catching a glimpse of a shadow slicing through the foggy air above him, Juhg reached back and caught the sleeve of Raisho’s cloak. “Here!” Pulling the young sailor after him, Juhg dove under the wagon, rolling and pulling his arms and legs in, barely missing the heavy, ironbound wheels as they clattered across the cobblestones.
The wagon shuddered, though, when the Boneblight that had glided down in pursuit of them crashed against the wagon’s bed. So great was the creature’s speed that it shattered against the wooden surface and rained down on Juhg in splintered bones bound together by frayed clothing as the wagon kept rolling forward.
Almost immediately, another Boneblight landed in the street in front of Juhg while the out-of-control wagon thundered away.
“Get up!” Juhg told Raisho. Quicker and smaller than the Boneblight, Juhg sidestepped the thing’s attack, got so close he smelled the moldy odor of death clinging to it, and stamped his right foot down on the side of the Boneblight’s right knee.
Bone snapped as the vulnerable joint gave way. Still, the Boneblight distended its massive jaws wide enough to envelop his head as it lunged at him. Juhg ducked again, knowing he would only barely escape—if at all. Then Raisho stepped in, caught the Boneblight behind the neck with his empty hand, and kicked the creature’s good leg out from under it.
The Boneblight crashed to the ground amid the clutter of the other attacker.
“Are ye all right?” Raisho asked with grim concern. He grabbed Juhg roughly by the hair on his head and tilted his head up so that he could better look at him.