"What does it do?" Umaryn asked. She had a better feel for the lantern than her brother. In her mind the essence of the spirit in the lantern was strong, practically speaking to her. The lamp was far, far more than what met the eye.
"It is an artifact. An enchanted one no less. It is a marvel of skillful crafting, spirit harnessing, and The Way all in one." Dram said the words more fearful than proud.
"What does it do Dram?" Malwynn asked.
Dram sat the lamp down on the table Malwynn had bled on earlier. He thought lengthily for an adequate answer before replying, "To be honest, I do not know the specifics of what it does."
Umaryn snapped back, "Are you serious Dram? You say this is an equalizer but don’t know what it does? This is a poor time for a joke."
"I was unable to exactly pinpoint the effect the lamp creates, but I do have a strong suspicion as to what it achieves. I have been unsuccessful in determining the spells of the lantern's creation, and I suspect there are spirits involved in its creation, but I know that both Artificer as well as Necromancer magics are contained within it. The lantern was designed by the rebels to destroy large amounts of undead in one fell swoop. It is tremulous though. The magic the lantern creates has finite uses, and is unrefined."
"So we light the wick, and the lantern flares with The Way? Killing undead?" Malwynn asked, his eyes fixed on the arcane device.
"That is the idea. I believe that when the light from the lantern shines on the flesh of undead, it causes detrimental effects. How long the lantern's power lasts, and whether or not it can be relit again is beyond me. Not long and not again I suspect." Dram pushed the lantern slowly across the table towards the twins as if it were poisonous. He seemed almost afraid of the thing.
"I guess it is better than nothing," Mal lifted the lamp and looked it closely. It was a beautiful thing.
Umaryn took the lantern away gently. "Trust in this thing. I can sense the power within it far better than either of you can. The Way is strong with it, but the spirit inside is so much more than you can conceive. If it is as powerful as I think it is, and we survive long enough to light it, it will carry the day."
"Then as the artificer says, I suggest you survive long enough to light it. It might interest you to hear that near the lantern I found a small book detailing the creation process. I've destroyed the book, but the lantern had a name. The rebels called it The Illuminator of Truth. It is time for you to leave."
Umaryn was angry that Dram would destroy the book that told of how such a magnificent item was forged, but she was still too enthralled by the lantern itself to express that anger. As they left she carried the lantern as if it were priceless, as if it were her firstborn child.
Malwynn watched her leave and wondered how much life might be saved by the lantern in her hands.
The wheels of the cart creaked angrily.
Mal lay beneath a musty, dingy blanket that had lived inside Dram' stable for ancestors knew how long. It smelled of horseflesh, fleas, and mold. The hard wood of the cart's bottom rattled his spine and shoulder blades as it rolled over the stone surface of the High City road. The trip would not be long; Omniri and Dram lived agonizingly close to one another. Mal thought the irony of having your greatest enemy so close was humorous.
In truth, the horror of being inside the covered cart, pretending to be dead was suffocating him. It was hard to breathe, and he wouldn't be able to see his doom before it reached him. When next he heard voices, his reaction would need to be swift, for his life would certainly depend upon it.
His mind played tricks on him, filling in the gaps of what his eyes could not see. Walking in front of the cart, leading the horse were the three zombies that Mal had made of Omniri's men. They'd been dressed in spare clothing Dram had about his manse. Their original clothing was discarded. Mal and Umaryn had spilled too much blood, or poked too many holes in them.
It took effort for Mal to control them. As a novice necromancer he hadn’t the unconscious gift yet to issue simple commands and have the undead follow them unerringly. It took effort and concentration to imagine their walking, and loosen their joints and muscles to appear more human, more alive. He had given them the instruction, the notion to follow his sister. He could hear the faint shuffle of her boots on the stone in between the creaks of the cart wheels and the steady clip-clop of the horses' shoes. He could only hear her because sound and scent was all he had left under the mildew soaked blanket. Her hands were bound behind her back with shackles that weren't properly fastened. With a tug, her hands would be free. He hoped his sister would be able to throw the blanket off him and get her hammer from the cart net to where he lay in time to defend herself.
Beside the hammer was the lantern. Malwynn didn't understand the artifact like his sister did, but he was used to that. For many years he didn't understand her love and mastery of The Way, but now he did. He hoped and trusted that her confidence in the lantern would prove as right and true as her confidence in The Way had been all their lives.
He felt the cart slow, and then take a turn. They were at the entrance to Omniri's home. His heart slid up his neck into his mouth, pounding strong. Dram had described an open entrance to the courtyard at the face of the home, a circular drive that allowed for large wagons and carriages to come and go. Omniri didn't entertain much, but his home was well suited for even the most ostentatious of visitors.
But Mal could only imagine it in his mind's eye as he focused on maintaining the gaits of the dead men that were his to control. This was the minute that would matter most. If Mal failed now, they'd be cut down in the garden drive before they had the chance to get inside. If they died inside… at least they were taking the battle to their greatest enemy. But to die here, on the slope of the mountain that had taken them so long to climb…
Mal felt the cart lurch, and stop. With the horse still, and no feet to move about on the stone of the drive, all that was left to his ears was the sudden absence of the door opening.
Knock on the door. Mal sent mentally to the large dead man. Every single ounce of mental fortitude and focus went into the message. He scripted the motion of the walk, as well as the knock on the door. He'd identified the shorter, thicker one as the body he wanted to control most. Dram had taught him that the undead he could mentally picture best was the one to rely on controlling more.
Mal heard the firm triple tap of knuckles on a powerfully thick door. Oak, Mal thought absently.
The scent of the blanket threatened to gag him. He stopped the rise and fall of his breath to still the motion of the blanket as well as fight down the slide of bile moving up in his throat. If his stomach betrayed him at this very moment, he and his sister would be null and void.
He waited in the dark under the blanket for the sound of the heavy oak door to open.
- Chapter Fifteen -
INTO THE BREACH
Umaryn watched as the short fat zombie her brother controlled knocked again on the door. He was moving well, almost as if he were still alive. Malwynn had to be exerting sweat inducing control with his mind over that one for him to be limber like the living. The dead man even stood with an impatient tone to his body language between knocks. The other two undead, the warriors that Omniri had sent to kill them, were also standing at ease. Malwynn had managed to get them to turn away and face the street on the other side of the circular stone drive that their cart was parked in. Anyone at the door would see the backs of their heads and not the dead lifeless orbs in their eye sockets. It was a small detail her brother had taken control of from under the mildew covered blanket, but it could prove to be a lifesaving detail.
For her part, Umaryn looked beaten and bloodied, though she wasn't. A small amount of makeup under the eye made it look as if she'd caught a strong fist to the face, and with a smear of her own blood from a tiny self-inflicted cut above the eyebrow, she looked in remarkably bad shape. Completing the captive's look were the shackles that weren't fully clasped on her wrists behind her back, fresh t
ears brought on by forced recollections of her dead little sister, and a hip that was absent of weapons. She felt naked with her hammer in the cart next to her brother. Her hand was where the weapon belonged.
But right now it needed to be in the cart beside her brother, and his weapons, and the enchanted Artifact lantern that Dram had lent to them. The lantern that could be their deliverance from the horde of undead they expected on the other side of that thick oaken door. She knew it had tremendous power. The spirit inside it was practically vibrating with intensity, and she could sense it standing where she was, despite it being under a blanket several feet away.
Omniri's home was nearly as remarkable as Dram's Manor. It rose two score of feet high, carved straight into the cliff of the Snake Ridge Mountains, the same as nearly all of the luxurious homes in Graben's High City. There were a few small windows, slits in the stone really, all decorated with elaborate carvings and sills. Extending out from the stone face of the wall above the front entrance was a sloped and tiled eave supported by two carved pillars that sat in the middle of the circular drive. It was meant to serve as protection from the weather for those arriving or departing. Everything on the outside of the home gave the appearance and expectation of a sumptuous interior. Flanking Omniri's front door eave were two long and ornate purple tapestries that reached twenty feet up. The home was beautiful, and it scared her. There was no way to know how deep into the cliff it was carved.
Umaryn's heart skipped a beat when she heard a heavy deadbolt throw from inside the home. The future of the Everwalk family was now in the crucible. They could be struck down dead here on the front steps of this home with no justice served, or they could wreak terrible vengeance inside on those that had wronged them. One way or the other, Umaryn knew that their quest ended today.
Umaryn watched the door open inwards, time slowing to a crawl in her mind. Striking down the person opening the door was paramount. With them able to shut the door, they were still very much on the outside looking in. Their plan was simple, and it relied on Umaryn to act first.
"Mal!" She yelled quickly. It was a signal to her brother to command the undead, and as he tossed the nasty blanket off of his body and the cart, the undead warriors lurched forward, their mental leashes cast away. All three suddenly violent forms launched their dead bodies up the stone stairs and into the frame of the door, forcing it open. Someone or something inside fought back aggressively, leaving the door teetering between open and closed.
Malwynn had sat up by then and tossed Umaryn her hammer. She caught it deftly with her unshackled hands and relished the feeling of the weapon's haft, and the weight of the hammer's head. Umaryn stepped forward up the steps toward the door and whispered to her weapon as she went, "Strike hard, strike fast, and deliver my will through your strength."
Inside the weapon she felt pride and power flare.
"Press!" Malwynn bellowed from a few steps behind her. The three undead surged forward with renewed vigor, pushing the door inward just enough for Umaryn to slide in behind them, entering the home of her worst enemy.
Directly behind the door, fighting opposite Mal's undead were three more. They were dressed in dark purple finery befitting the servants of a Lord of Graben. They struggled with no emotion, simply physical exertion despite the severity of their situation. With relish and fury Umaryn hammered one at the temple, caving the hard skull in as it were tissue paper. She could sense the matching glee of her hammer as the door flung inward ferociously. The two undead pressing outward were no longer a match for Mal's dead men. Mal's warriors collapsed on the two undead that had been shoved inward and began to tear into them. Umaryn was suddenly happy they were there. The three dead soldiers ripped the two others apart in short order.
The hall they stood in was wide, almost ten feet so. It was carpeted in dark greens and purples, and tapestries and paintings of immense value hung everywhere. The colors mixed together to create a garish scene, as if someone had stolen all their lives, and chose to keep and decorate their space with a hundred themes and ideations. Umaryn's stomach revolted at the thought of such ugliness brought together.
"Where do we go?" she asked urgently.
Mal handed her the lantern as he drew his sword from the sheath at his hip, "He'll be buried deep. Where his power is. If he truly has a legion at his disposal in this home, he'll put every single one of them between us and him before we reach him. The way to him will be wherever we find undead in our path."
Umaryn lifted her hammer happily, "Then let us pray to our ancestors we find a thick and long path of the dead in our way."
Makar's firm voice trembled with the slightest panic, "They are here. They have entered the foyer and are sure to head deeper. Omniri, what would you have me do?"
Omniri steepled his fingers and cast a wicked grin. His black eyes almost sparkled, "Makar you say that as if it were a bad thing. Dispatch your minions to the entryway, and let them fight through each and every one of them. By the time they reach the inner sanctum they'll be spent, and ripe for the slaughter."
Makar nodded, absorbing some of his master's confidence. He spun on his heel and left quickly.
Before he exited the massive stone room Omniri caught him, "Makar."
The thin necromancer stopped and turned to his teacher, "My Lord?"
"Do accompany them. Your presence and will shall bolster them, and if necessary, bring rot and ruin personally to these two interlopers. I'll not have them meddling in my affairs any longer. This ends today."
Makar swallowed hard and nodded, "As you wish my Lord."
Killing the caged headed zombies inside the manse was difficult. Nigh impossible really. The necromantic sense of clamping a cage of wrought iron bars around their head was validated over and over as Malwynn was forced to slash and hack their bodies apart to break their soul free. A single powerful blow to the head would normally suffice, but these undead were completely immune to that. Perhaps one in five would fall to a lucky stab to the eye socket, but that was a paltry ratio, and the labor rending them limb from limb caused was muscle testing.
Malwynn brought the sword down over his shoulder in a powerful slash. He aimed for the shoulder joint of yet another well dressed zombie. As his blade descended downward he watched as the poor creature's rotten teeth ground together, seeking his flesh to tear apart. The razor edged sword bit into grey flesh, severing tendon, muscle, and bone alike. The blade hacked completely through to the armpit, but left the limb dangling useless by a strip of flesh. The blow rocked the undead man sideways, stutter-stepping him and giving Mal's sister the time to slip around behind it and bring her hammer powerfully into the center of its back. Mal heard the spine crack, and that was enough. The zombie fell down lifeless to the floor of one more candle lit guest room.
Umaryn bent at the waist and rested her hammer filled hands on her knees. Malwynn did the same after wiping his blade free of gore on the body and sheathing it.
"How many more can there be?" Umaryn said between gasps for air.
Mal coughed once then replied, "Dram said there would be a legion in here. He's been true to his word on that account."
One of Malwynn's undead had succumbed to the press of the enemy. The tall blonde dead man had stumbled when they had been surrounded by the caged headed foes, and two of them had grabbed his neck and in an image reminiscent of the twin's dirty work in the butcher' shop, they separated most of his head from his body with sharp nails and digging fingers. Malwynn felt a strange metaphysical sense of loss when his creation was destroyed. A nearly tangible cord was severed with its destruction, and he was almost nauseated. He wondered how his sister would feel if one of her creations was lost or destroyed. Mal and Umaryn had hacked those two undead apart the same as the others in the house, and now here they were; theoretically closer to the men they wanted to run through with a rusty blade.
Another zombie shuffled in through a doorway that led to a perpendicular hall. He was tall, broad of shoulder like a farm hand, and
was armored in thick leather. Like all the dead before him, his skull was sheathed in the metal cage.
"Take his legs," Mal said as he stalked to the side of the room. The two undead still under his command started forward from the back of the room, but Mal made a motion with his offhand and they stopped. This was a foe for the siblings only.
Umaryn had already moved counter to Mal's movement, spreading out and giving the armored zombie pause. These threats were not skilled at engaging wary opponents. It looked to Umaryn and began to lunge but Malwynn shouted at it, and the creature turned. Through the cage he noticed it had long black hair that had been torn out in chunks. The raw red flesh below still oozed with thick blood, showing the man was only recently dead.
"Face me you tortoise shelled numbskull," he taunted. It took the bait, and sent a long step his way.
Umaryn skipped to the side to get behind the creature as it moved away from her. Her feet planted firmly on the fine rug she swung her hammer almost underhanded as a lumberjack would, and expertly sent the heavy metal head into the side of the giant's knee.
With his leg destroyed, he fell like a rotten tree in an ancient forest. Mal's sword was already rocketing down, the tip timed to pierce the skull. As the cage bounced off the floor hard his blade slipped between the iron bars and pierced the head right in front of the ear. He had sent the sword down with such force he felt it nearly buckle against the stone floor beneath the rug.
"If only they were all that easy," Umaryn said.
"Truer words have never been spoken dear sister. I suspect we will see far more of this kind from here on in."
The twins heard the shuffling of many feet from the hallway beyond and knew exactly what it meant.
Umaryn spun her hammer in her hands and reminded herself that there was joy in vengeance. The twins stepped forward into the breach once more.
The Wrath of the Orphans (The Kinless Trilogy Book 1) Page 27