Shal quickly added some of their gear to the Cloth of Many Pockets, then she, Ren, and Tarl dived overboard and swam for shore.
The captain had already turned the ferry away and was well out in the water before the three even made it to the rocky beach.
“So what now?” Shal pulled off her soaked leather boots and stood in a sandy section of the boulder-strewn beach. “We got out of the city, but the captain was right. The Black Watch will be after us again. And you can be sure they’ll let Cadorna know we’re alive. We’re not accomplishing anything sitting on this beach.”
“You’re right. We need to get away from the beach,” said Ren. “We’ll go north and west, toward the graveyard. We’ll rest for the night, and then we’ll help Tarl get his hammer back.”
“No,” said Tarl softly.
“I understand,” said Ren. “If you aren’t ready, I have my own sights set on Valjevo Castle and that gutless monster that sends out assassins to murder women.” Ren wiped his salt-caked lips on his sleeve.
“No,” Tarl said again. “I’m ready. What I mean is that you won’t go with me. I’m the one who lost the hammer, and I’m the one who’s going to go get it.”
“Be realistic, Tarl,” Shal protested. “Just because you’re a cleric doesn’t mean you have to be a martyr!”
Ren walked around in front of Tarl, put his big hands on his friend’s shoulders, and gently pushed him back until he could sit him down on one of the boulders on the beach. “Shal’s right. Anyhow, we’ve been through all this before.”
The three argued heatedly until finally Tarl agreed to let Ren and Shal go with him. Since none of them wanted to sit in wet clothes with dusk setting in, waiting for soldiers to follow, they hiked inland, wide of the river, until they were a short distance from the graveyard, in a place with sufficient brush and cover to set up camp. Shal made a smokeless, arcane fire, but unfortunately it was heatless, too.
Ren volunteered to collect some wood. As he saw it, nobody from Phlan would attempt to come this way before morning, if at all. The creatures they had to worry about would more likely be repelled by a fire than drawn to it.
Alone together as they laid out their bedding and prepared a meager meal of dried fruits and meat, Shal and Tarl shared a brief few minutes of awkward silence.
Tarl cleared his throat and spoke hesitantly. “Shal, I really don’t know how to say this. I—I know you care for Ren—”
“It’s not the same,” Shal said softly.
Tarl looked straight into Shal’s green eyes. “Meaning?”
Shal held out her hands for Tarl’s. She had been so unsure of herself when they first met on the docks of Phlan that she was aware only of his tremendous kindness. Ren’s attraction to her had seemed justified somehow by her resemblance to Tempest, but Tarl’s she had not fully accepted. Even after he healed her in the temple, she’d felt he might simply be caught in the overwhelming emotion of the moment. But right now, as he grasped her hands and pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, she knew that Tarl’s affection was both strong and genuine. “Meaning I love you, Tarl.”
As warm and wonderful as she had felt every time Tarl had healed her, she felt twice as good now. A special electricity, an uncanny awareness of his touch, coursed through her as she felt his fingertips ever so gentle on her neck and back, his soft kiss on her forehead, and then the warmth of his breath in her ear as he whispered, “I love you, too, Shal.”
There was a considerable thrashing in the brush nearby, and the two pulled apart instantly and drew their weapons just in time to see Ren returning to their makeshift campsite.
“You’re not very graceful for a ranger!” Shal jested, fighting her own embarrassment.
“Every bit as graceful as I want to be,” said Ren, smiling wistfully.
Tarl rushed over to help prepare the fire.
“There’s no sign that there’s been anything more fierce than skunks or snakes traveling through this stretch of woods any time recently,” said Ren. “I think we can sleep without worrying too much.”
Tarl still kept a late-night vigil, watching and listening for signs of anything, living or undead, nearby. It was as Ren said, quiet and still except for the lively dancing of shadows from their flickering fire. Tarl sat beside Shal and watched her as she slept, the red cascades of her hair aglow in the firelight. When all remained quiet, he silently pulled his bedroll next to hers and lay down. While the stars rose and fell in the sky, he prayed and communed with his god until he fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
Ren feigned sleep the entire time Tarl kept watch. His mind was churning with thoughts of the morning. Tarl and Shal had both proved themselves as fighters, but Ren was convinced that neither would make it through the graveyard tomorrow. It was too easy to wake the undead, to make a move that would bring them springing up by the dozens as had happened at Sokol Keep. And the undead of Valhingen Graveyard weren’t former Tyrian clerics. His mind made up, he allowed himself a brief, restless sleep.
When Tarl and Shal awoke, Ren was gone. Shal’s first thought was that he somehow felt alienated because of what he had seen when he returned with the firewood, but Tarl shook his head firmly. “No. He’s told me more than once that I didn’t stand a chance of getting the hammer back. He believes that, with his rangering and thieving skills, he can get it. I think he went into the graveyard alone.”
Shal felt a chill was over her. She had heard Ren say as much yesterday—how the key to passing through a place filled with undead was stealth, and that Tarl’s presence, his aura, his medallion, everything about him offended the undead because he was a servant of a benevolent god.
They wasted no time and broke camp quickly. The sun wasn’t even completely over the horizon when they reached the gate to the cemetery. A huge lump caught in Tarl’s throat when Shal called for Cerulean, remembering the deaths of his brothers’ horses. Shal seemed to sense his thoughts and raised a hand to remind him that Cerulean was no ordinary horse.
Looking at the fence now, Tarl wondered how he and the others could ever have thought it was part of the city fortress. “We were country clerics from Vaasa,” he whispered. “Just a dozen country clerics from Vaasa.”
Shal looked at him questioningly, but Tarl didn’t explain. Instead, he squeezed her hand once and then lifted his hammer and shield high before they walked tentatively through the gate. His hammer glowed, and he could feel his holy symbol heavy and cool against his chest as they entered. To look at Valhingen Graveyard today, it could be a park. Asters and black-eyed Susans waved their brightly colored blooms above the tall grasses that grew untended over the gravestones. Purple bougainvillea and other less showy vines covered the handful of mausoleums interspersed here and there within the confines of the walls. Though less than three weeks had passed since Tarl had last stood on these grounds, he saw no sign of his brothers. He said a silent prayer for each of them, hoping that their spirits had managed to escape this place before their bodies were savaged by crude flesh-eaters.
Ren was nowhere in sight, but Shal and Tarl didn’t have to go far before they realized that Ren’s stealth did not get him across the graveyard unnoticed. Through a swath of parted grasses, they could see scattered skeleton bones forming a veritable pathway along the fence-line of the graveyard.
They followed the fragments, each hoping secretly that Ren had dealt successfully with all the skeletal warriors remaining in that portion of the graveyard. The path of bones was replaced at one point by a path of decayed body parts, the gruesome fragments of several zombies. The pall over the place was palpable, and despite their silent mantras and meditations, both Tarl and Shal were strung taut as catgut on a fiddle, waiting for something to happen.
Tarl took each step as though it meant his life, striving for silence even though he was sure his medallion and magical hammer couldn’t go unnoticed in this place of death. Shal followed suit, her Wand of Wonder raised before her. Cerulean was equally tense, stepping with the f
luid, silent movements of a cat.
Tarl couldn’t help but think the vampire was taunting him with his silence, luring him and Shal ever closer to the heart of the graveyard before he unleashed every miserable creature under his control. One more step, he was sure, and the place would be alive with zombies, wraiths, and specters. The joke would be on him. He could picture the naked vampire, his bloodless skin draped over his emaciated frame. He could hear his skin-prickling voice, coaxing him closer. His sick, hateful laughter pounded against Tarl’s ears. No! Tarl raised one hand for Shal and Cerulean to stop. He could not let his fears or the silent persuasion of his foe get to him. He needed to pause a moment before going forward. Inhale the power of Tyr. Exhale the fear of Valhingen Graveyard. Inhale. Exhale. He touched his holy symbol and took another silent step, then another.
The tension shattered as a mutilated zombie bolted from the grass, sending clods of sod flying toward them. Instantly, responding completely on instinct, Tarl whipped his hammer hand forward with the full tension of a tightly wound spring packed behind it, decapitating the pitiful creature with the sheer force of his swing. A faint squeak came from Shal as she started at the sudden movement, and Cerulean’s entire coat jiggled for an instant as a jolt of fear charged through his body.
All three hesitated for a moment before going on. Tarl was once again caught up in the sensation that the horrors of the graveyard were being held back, stored up until he, Shal, Cerulean, and Ren, wherever he was, reached the point of no return—literally. Tarl prayed once more to Tyr and pushed ahead as before, moving with painstaking caution. Tarl approached the remnants of a wall that had long since turned to rubble. There were no more bones and no more dismembered body parts to follow. He could only assume that Ren had kept going in the same direction. He stepped gingerly onto the rubble and climbed over the wall as deftly and as quietly as he was able.
Shal and Cerulean were right behind him. It’ll be difficult for me to do this without slipping. Cerulean warned. Shal reached back to lead the big horse across, but it was she who slipped on the loose limestone fragments, sliding from the top of the rubble pile to the bottom, where her foot collided with the side of a granite mausoleum. Immediately the wooden door was flung open, slamming against the wall, and three horrible apparitions burst from the doorway.
“Wights!” yelled Tarl, charging forward to come to Shal’s defense.
Shal had never seen such creatures. Their long hair bristled with filth. Their faces were wild, like men turned beasts, with gaping canine mouths and glaring nocturnal eyes. Their arms were elongated, like an ape’s, and their gnarled hands bore claws long enough to inflict lethal damage. The wights separated right away, forcing Tarl and Shal and Cerulean to fight them one on one.
Tarl raised his shield against the wight nearest him. Talonlike claws flailed over and under his shield, and he found it all but impossible to get in a clean swing with his hammer. As fast as he was able to, he returned his hammer to his belt, smashed ahead with his shield, and did his best to splash holy water over the creature. It shrieked in pain and backed away, its flesh burning, but Tarl had not managed to hit any vital area, and much of the precious water went to waste. The creature charged again, and Tarl hurriedly uttered the words of a spell to raise the dead, the only thing he knew of that would stop a wight.
Shal backed up hurriedly, trying to keep enough distance between herself and the nearest wight so that she could utter an arcane command to activate the Wand of Wonder. As awkward as the creature appeared to be in the daylight, its big nocturnal eyes obviously pained by the sunlight, it charged forward, snarling and slavering and lashing out constantly with its yellow-taloned hands.
Just as the wight came near striking distance, Shal finished the incantation for the wand. Instantly flowers sprouted where the wight’s claws had been—clean, white daisies with buttery yellow centers.
The wight swiped at Shal with its hands, fully expecting to rake her eyes from her face with one stroke and her bowels from her abdomen with the next. Instead daisies lightly brushed Shal’s face and stomach, and the creature recoiled in horror. Shal might actually have laughed if it were not for the wight’s furious response. Without wasting another second, it rushed at Shal with its great maw open like a mad dog. Shal couldn’t move out of its way fast enough. She just barely had time to blurt a command to activate the Wand of Wonder again. Immediately, so fast that Shal didn’t even see it happen, the wight’s flesh vanished, and its skeleton crashed against her body. The impact sent her sprawling backward, and she scrambled frantically to get out from under the pile of bones, but the skeleton wasn’t animated; the wight was no longer.
Cerulean was glowing purple with fury and magic. Three times he reared and stomped on the grotesque creature in front of him, and three times it managed to claw the flesh of his forelegs as his hooves came down. The magical nature of his attack protected Cerulean from the wight’s life-sapping force but not from the pain of the wounds.
Each time the wight’s claws combed Cerulean’s flesh, blood ran freely, and at the same time, brilliant violet sparks flew, singeing the wight and causing it to cry out in a ghastly screech. It wasn’t until Cerulean reared for the fourth time that he caught the wight square on the head and smashed the creature’s brains into the ground.
Tarl’s spell worked instantly. The spirit of the dead, trapped in the wight, burst from the creature’s chest like a great puff of steam. The spirit was free at last, and the wight’s hideous body crumpled in front of Tarl like a discarded shirt.
The three would have preferred to take a minute or two to recover. Tarl might even have had the opportunity to notice the blood trickling down Cerulean’s legs and do something about it. But the moment of silence following their small victory was broken by the muffled sound of shouts and chants. The voices were eerie, distant, and inhuman, painful and chilling to listen to. They also seemed to have no source. There were no people, no humanoids, no undead visible. Cerulean’s ears pricked up, and the horse whinnied and stepped forward past the vault that had concealed the wights. He stopped in front of a small wooden stake that marked a fairly large open area, when his coat began to glow again, this time a soft amethyst.
A trapdoor, Cerulean advised Shal, marked by Ren’s blood. I can smell it.
“No!” Shal gasped the word.
It’s fresh, Cerulean assured her. Very fresh. He may yet be alive.
“What is it?” whispered Tarl.
Shal could see the blood herself as she got closer, and she pointed it out to Tarl. “Ren’s down there, underground.”
There was no more to say. Carefully they removed the sod and canvas, which hid a narrow wooden stairway. The stairs were steep, almost ladderlike, and they led down into darkness. With no coaxing from Shal, Cerulean entered the Cloth of Many Pockets. Tarl clasped his holy symbol and started down the stairs. He whispered a prayer as he descended, a selfish wish that the bottom of the stairs would be unguarded. He met no guards. Yet, even had any been present, he wouldn’t have been able to see them, for he was in total darkness. He reached up to help Shal through the entry, and then they stood together in the blackness. Shal didn’t want to reveal their presence by using her light wand if she didn’t have to, so they waited for their eyes to adjust and find some source of light, however small.
They were guided only by the sound of voices, the same strange chanting and shouting they had heard from above, but it was much closer now. A door, the only one they came upon in the dark, opened to a huge underground cavern. There seemed to be precious little light there, as well, but Tarl and Shal could make out figures—scores of them—in the dim, blue, twilightlike rays of light that barely illuminated the room.
The rays were fractured as they were blocked by zombies, absorbed by the blackness of the wraiths, captured and held in the eerie cloudlike presences of the specters, or fragmented by the bones of skeletons. The effect was the surreal look of a nightmare of the kind in which the haunted dreamer
runs and runs through bluish mists and suddenly plummets to terrified wakefulness. Smells of mildew, dust, decay, and death made the dank underground air almost unbreathable, and the devilish chanting of the scores of undead set Shal’s and Tarl’s teeth on edge.
Suddenly a murmur started rippling from the back of the room, quickly spreading to the front. Creatures began to stir and then turned around in waves, causing the bizarre cold, blue light to fracture in new directions, revealing the undead in the cavern in even more horrible detail. Nausea clutched Tarl’s stomach, and he was overwhelmed by unadulterated terror. He knew that Shal’s presence, let alone his own, could not be a secret to these creatures.
Suddenly the light shifted again as the roomful of graveyard horrors shifted and parted, leaving an aisle between the two human intruders and the front of the room. At the far end of the aisle stood the vampire. Tarl sensed as much as saw him. “Very goooood,” Tarl heard the creature say, and its spooky, condescending voice made his flesh crawl. The vampire lifted the source of the blue light high into the air. Tarl knew before he ever saw it that it was the holy Hammer of Tyr, but its power and its light had been subverted. Half the hammer radiated blackness, while the blue light that remained was barely a reminder of what it once had been. Tarl shuddered as another wave of nausea and fear passed through his body.
The vampire turned toward Tarl and Shal but didn’t acknowledge them in any way. He merely twisted the hammer so its dim light shone on the space directly in front of himself. Shal’s gut twisted with the hammer when she saw the figure illuminated by the light.
“Ren!” The name choked in Shal’s throat as she saw her friend, prostrate before the gruesome creature of Tarl’s nightmares. Even from where she and Tarl stood at the opposite end of the room, they could tell that Ren’s clothing and armor were in tatters and that his blood was spilling on the ground.
“Welcoooome, huuumans,” said the vampire, and then he laughed the sick, uncontrolled cackle of a maniac amused by his own unthinkable deeds. An uncountable number of bony fingers suddenly began prodding Tarl and Shal, nudging and pushing them forward. Tarl fought the gut-wrenching sensation that there was no way out of this pit now that they were inside. He tried desperately to concentrate on the sacred hammer, tried to visualize how and when he could snatch it from the hands of the blasphemous creature at the front of the room.
Pool of Radiance Page 27