11
Valhingen Graveyard
The trip back, without the mare, was slow, in places arduous. Even with Cerulean carrying all their equipment, it was taking the three nearly twice as long to return to the city as it had to travel to the sorcerer's island. No one was complaining, though. In fact, all three of the companions were lost in thoughts of their own.
Ren was thoroughly enjoying what was proving to be a quiet return journey. He realized that the victory against Yarash had been Shal's, but as he watched the Stojanow's waters begin to wash away the black poison from the sorcerer's pyramid, he felt an unrivaled sense of achievement. He looked at the brown riverbanks and imagined what they would look like in another year, with healthy new grasses spreading across the now-barren earth and the first saplings poking their leaves above the ground. The recovery would be far from instantaneous, and the gray stumps would remain for years, ugly reminders of one man's gross abuse against nature, but the healing growth would be a signature of hope.
Ren realized that an entire lifetime of thieving in the city wouldn't give him half the sense of purpose he'd felt on the missions to Thorn Island and the gnoll stronghold, and contributing to the purge of the Stojanow had done more for his spirit than any loo t he had ever stolen as a thief.
Ren was as ready as he would ever be to accompany Shal as she sought Cadorna's punishment for the slaying of her mentor, and he had already made up his mind to ignore Tarl's insistence that the young cleric face the vampire alone. But most of all, Ren was ready to face the Lord of the Ruins himself, whoever he was-the real murderer of Tempest.
In this quiet interlude as the cleric and his companions hiked the length of the rejuvenating Stojanow, Tarl meditated on the messages he had received from his god when he met him in the innermost sanctuary of the temple. In the same moment in which he comprehended that his healing powers would be greatly enhanced by the ioun stone, Tarl had also learned that Anton could not possibly recover until the master of the word embedded in his forehead was banished from this plane. The tremendous joy he'd felt when he healed Shal was nearly overshadowed by the fact that, try as he might, he could not heal Anton. Neither would Tarl recover the Hammer of Tyr and avenge the deaths of his brothers until he saw the destruction of the beast that ruled over the graveyard.
Tarl's faith had carried him through Sokol Keep, and it had driven him through the gnoll encampment. He wanted very much to believe that Tyr would see fit to aid him against the vampire, but the memories of the sounds-the soul-rending shrieks of the horses and the agonized screams of his dying brothers-challenged his faith over and over again. Tarl had never known such fear, and as much as he wanted to destroy the vampire and its minions, he was also terrified of facing them.
Shal was still thinking about her confrontation with Yarash. The terror she had felt initially at confronting the powerful sorcerer had turned to exhilaration as her mastery of the weather challenged his and she was able to match him spell for spell in magical combat. She understood now that she had failed at her Weather spells earlier simply because it had not been important enough for her to succeed. She had learned the invaluable lesson that a spell's intensity could be magnified many times over by the attitude of the caster. It had not been until she was able to channel her own raw fear and use it against Yarash that her power over the cyclone had become complete and she was able to cast spell after spell in rapid succession.
The fact that the Staff of Power was gone was just beginning to sink in. Without the staff for protection, Shal could no longer think of spell memorization as routine or idle. If she had faced Yarash without the staff, she would have been forced to cast a Lightning Bolt spell of her own. Her life and the lives of her friends would have depended on the spell's success. She could never again afford to look at her magical studies as mere academic exercises. Every time she committed a new spell to memory, it would be in preparation-preparation to do whatever necessary to see to the conviction of Porphyrys Cadorna, preparation to aid Tarl in his quest at Valhingen Graveyard, and preparation to help Ren as he sought the beast responsible for the murder of Tempest.
They waited near the mouth of the Stojanow for a full day before the ferry finally arrived. All three of them felt relief when, two hours later, the small sailing vessel finally approached the docks of Phlan. Though Shal, Ren, and Tarl each called another place home, Civilized Phlan had become a home between homes for all of them, and the sight of the sturdy walls surrounding the civilized city was comforting. None of the three particularly sought fame or recognition, but they knew that they would soon receive the accolades of the city and the town council for their success in halting the pollution of the Stojanow River. The proof of their deed would be evident within a matter of days as fresh, untainted water would wash the last of the sorcerer's black sludge into the Moonsea, where it would be diluted millions of times over, and finally come to rest deep in the great body of water.
As the ship's captain maneuvered his vessel closer to the docks, Ren nudged Tarl and Shal and pointed toward the shore. A row of soldiers stood at ten-pace intervals the length of the shoreline and the docks. All were identically outfitted in black, with chain mail vests depicting an archetypal demon's eye on a red crest. "The Black Watch," observed Ren. "Cadorna must've convinced the council to replace the town guards with them."
"Why such heavy protection along the docks?" asked Shal.
Ren shrugged. "There's probably been quite an influx of riffraff since word got around that two new sections of Civilized Phlan have been opened up recently."
The captain, who also served as crew, hurried back and forth as he first prepared the moorings on the port bow and stern, then expertly guided the ferry in toward the longest of the harbor's piers. The four soldiers closest to the ferry approached hurriedly and made motions as if to help with the moorings, but just as the small ferry eased in alongside the dock, one of the four heavily armed soldiers shouted, "By order of Porphyrys Cadorna, First Councilman of the City of Phlan, prepare to boarded!"
Shal looked wide-eyed at Ren and Tarl. "First Councilman?"
Ren's reaction was instant. "We've got to get this ship turned around."
"But we have evidence against Cadorna," argued Tarl in a low voice. "When we present it to the rest of the council, they'll-"
Tarl stopped in midsentence as he saw Shal and Ren both shaking their heads. They knew there would be no council meeting, no hearing that would result in Cadorna's conviction. In fact, with Cadorna now in the First Councilman's seat, they knew that the only conviction would be their own. "Didn't you read the sorcerer's notes?" Ren hissed. "Cadorna knows about the ioun stones. He's behind all of this!"
Ren didn't wait for Tarl to agree. Quickly he turned away from Shal and Tarl, hurried to where the captain stood at the stern, and placed a knife tight against the man's neck. "I don't want any trouble. I don't want to hurt you." Ren spoke softly and smoothly. "I just want you to turn this boat around. Now!"
Tarl needed no more convincing. He loped to the bow and grabbed for the mooring rope the captain had tossed out. One of the soldiers of the Black Watch had hold of it, and the other three were approaching to help him haul it in. A fifth had joined the original four and was reaching for a gangplank.
"Ahoy on shore!" Shal shouted, facing the mercenaries and waving her arms in a circle to draw their attention. As soon as they all looked up, she tossed a handful of dust and hurriedly incanted the words of a Sleep spell.
The closest man was overcome immediately. He blinked, nodded, swayed forward and back, dropped his hold on the rope, and slumped forward off the pier and into the water. Two nearby mercenaries shouted an alarm to shore, and one of them bellyflopped onto the dock to grab for the mooring rope, which had been pulled into the water. The rope was still barely within reach, but just as he caught hold of it, he too was overcome by sleep. His eyes fluttered for a moment, and then his head drooped over the side of the pier.
Tarl continued to haul in th
e line, but the boat hadn't turned yet. The captain wasn't cooperating with Ren. Instead, the feisty sailor jerked his head down and away from the knife, jabbed his elbow hard into Ren's ribs, and staggered forward. Ren lunged to gain a fresh hold on him, but as quick as a flash, the captain pulled a dagger from his belt. Ren quickly drew his own knives and was beginning to circle cautiously, when suddenly the captain spun and hurled his dagger toward the front of the boat.
Ren turned and watched the blade's rapid flight. Poised on the end of the dock, a mercenary stood with a knife upraised, about to launch it at Ren. The captain's blade lodged itself deep in his chest. Desperately he dropped his own knife and yanked the dagger from his chest. Blood gushed from the wound with each beat of his punctured heart, and he clutched his chest in a futile attempt to quell the flow of blood.
"You're-you're with us?" Ren asked wide-eyed.
"Aye. And if ye'd stopped to ask, ye'd have known a good deal sooner. Now get outta my way and keep those devils offa my ship so I can turn her around."
Ren reached Tarl's side at the bow just as the fourth and fifth soldiers began to charge up the gangplank. "Hold it right there!" Tarl shouted threateningly, his hammer raised.
But the soldiers ignored the warning. When they reached the end of the gangplank, they vaulted over Ren and Tarl, then pivoted immediately to face their adversaries. One wielded two short swords, as Ren did, and he and the ranger immediately faced off against each other, one mirroring the movements of the other. The other soldier faced Tarl. In his left hand, he wielded a dagger. In his right, he brandished a vicious-looking whip. Quickly he cracked the whip at Tarl. It smacked with the sharpness of close thunder a mere hairbreadth from Tarl's shoulder, and Tarl instinctively jumped back. Once again the whip snaked out, this time at Shal, who was busy incanting a spell. She never finished it. She tried to dodge, but she wasn't nearly as fast as the uncoiling weapon. The black leather cord of the whip whisked round and round her wrist. Its metal-tipped ends bit cruelly into the flesh of her hand. With one hard jerk, the mercenary yanked Shal off balance. She staggered to one side, and before she could recover, he retracted the whip and brought it down again. It ripped through the chimera leather of her sleeve, and the tips flayed the flesh of her shoulder.
At Shal's cry of pain, Cerulean burst onto the deck, his nostrils flared wide, his ears pressed back flat against his head. The mercenary turned quickly to face the new threat and snapped his whip viciously at the big animal. But Cerulean was oblivious to the danger. He pawed the air with his great, sharp hooves. His muscles rippled as he reared to an awesome height above the man, and his hooves came down like hammers on the mercenary's shoulders.
The man slashed up at the horse with his dagger, even as he toppled backward. His eyes bulged as he saw the huge horse rise up above him once more, and he scrambled and crab-crawled backward, terrified, searching desperately for any nook or cranny that would offer safety from the pummeling hooves. Again the horse's hooves came down, this time on the man's bent legs. They buckled under him, and he rolled to get away.
"Enough!" shouted Tarl, and he braved Cerulean's wrath to try to help the soldier to his feet.
"Don't… need… your… help!" The man's eyes flared in rage as he screamed each word, slashing wildly with his knife. Tarl leaped back out of reach.
Cerulean reared and stomped on the soldier again, but his hooves did not stop the slashing motion of the soldier's hand, and the big horse took a wicked cut that stretched from his cannon to his fetlock.
Before Cerulean could rear again, Tarl darted in once more. He slammed the knife from the man's hands with one swing of his hammer, then cracked the man's skull with his next swing.
Tarl glanced up to see six more soldiers storming the gangplank, headed straight for Shal, who had scrambled to her feet to face them. Tarl reached her side just as the first leaped toward her. The warrior-cleric released his hammer with a snap, and it slammed into the soldier's forehead with explosive force that drove his head and neck backward. At exactly the same moment, Shal completed a Phantasmal Force spell, and the soldier and his companions were driven back as if by a tremendous gale. Two landed in the water, while the other four fell to the dock. At the same time, the captain was finally able to bring the ship around hard to starboard to catch the wind he needed to pull the vessel away from the pier.
Ren was within handshaking distance of his adversary, with sword pressed against sword. Suddenly the soldier gained the advantage, forcing Ren back against the cargo hold. Now the mercenary's swords flashed with the speed of adders' heads-in and out, in and out-jab, thrust, parry. It was all Ren could do to fend them off. At that moment, Cerulean, head down, with all the fury of the pain he shared with his mistress, charged. The horse thudded into the soldier's side with enough force to send him staggering sideways, and Tarl hit him from the other side with his shield. Ren finished him off with a hard thrust through the ribs.
Tarl, Ren, and Cerulean stood still for a moment, and then they heard Shal, hissing the rapid breaths of a mantra for pain control. Sitting awkwardly, she was pressing a rag to the gashes on her shoulder, but blood was seeping through. Her wrist was already purpling where the tips of the whip had wrapped tight around it. Ren and Tarl rushed to her aid. Cerulean limped to her side, whinnying plaintively, blood welling the length of the slash on his lower leg.
"Look!" shouted Ren, pointing back at the pier. "More soldiers are coming!"
The captain had gotten the small ferry scudding along at a fair clip in the brisk breeze, but a small group of the Black Watch had commandeered a small schooner, and they were preparing to cast off the line.
"Can you outrun them?" Tarl hollered back to the captain. "I need time to heal these two!"
"I can try!" the captain shouted back. "How far are ye goin?"
"The other side of the river," Ren called back quickly.
Tarl looked to Ren for some sort of explanation.
"No matter where we go, they're going to come after us, but they'll think twice about following us into the graveyard." Ren paused. "That's where we were planning to go next, isn't it?"
For a moment, Tarl didn't say anything. Then he nodded quickly and said, "Go help the captain. I'll take care of Shal." Tarl felt trapped. He was fleeing a boatload of pursuing soldiers to return to a place where he knew he would have to face an army of undead. He did his best to quell thoughts of Valhingen Graveyard and focus on what he must do right this minute for Shal.
He started to work on her shoulder first, cleansing her wounds with a wet cloth. Shal sucked in air through clenched teeth each time he dabbed at the stinging wounds. When he had cleansed her wounds, Tarl put his hands on her shoulder. The lacerations were inflamed and painful-looking, but they weren't especially deep. The energy that flowed through Tarl's fingertips was strong, and he could feel the skin beginning to heal at his touch. Then suddenly the smooth tingle of the healing force was interrupted. Tarl realized that one of the whip's tips had bared an earlier wound of Shal's. Tarl remembered it well: Sokol Keep… the axe wound. Tarl's faith had not been so strong at that time, and neither were his skills. He had given his best effort, but he realized now that the wound had not healed completely.
Tarl withdrew his hands from Shal's shoulder for a moment as he called for special power from Tyr. Then he placed his hands on her shoulder once more and held tight. Tingling energy surged between him and her as he focused on the deeper, older wound. He could feel the energy purging, expunging the decay, and then he could sense the mending, that wonderful warmth of regenerating tissue. As always, he felt a very special exchange of spirit with Shal. When he was done, the only sign of either the old wound or the new one was the rent leather of her tunic. He said a silent thank-you to Tyr for granting him the ability to heal Shal.
Because of the swelling and bruises, Shal's hand and wrist looked bad, but the cuts appeared to be shallow, abrasions really. It was not until Tarl squatted beside Shal and clasped her wrist in his hand
s to heal it that he realized that the tails of the whip had buried grime and dirt beneath the skin for the length of the cuts. He said nothing to Shal. She smiled up at him as he worked. Tarl felt the exhilaration of healing one more time, but he also felt a slight drain from using his clerical powers twice in rapid succession.
What about me? Cerulean's question jogged Shal's awareness.
"Tarl, look!" Aghast, Shal pointed at the horse's leg. A pool of blood had formed beside one hoof, and blood was matted the length of Cerulean's foreleg. "Can you help him?" She stood up and put one arm around the big stallion's neck, marveling at the speed and totality of her own recovery.
Without hesitation, Tarl cleansed the gash in the horse's leg. Blood that had started to clot freed up, and fresh blood pulsed down the foreleg, adding to the puddle by Cerulean's foot. Tarl pressed his hands over as much of the wound as he could. As healing energy left him for the third time, Tarl started to sway, and as the wound began to close over, he had to catch his balance with one hand to keep himself from slumping down onto the deck in a faint.
"Tarl!" Shal scrambled to his side. "What's-what's wrong?" she asked, anxiously steadying him with her strong arms before he swooned.
"Just… tired" he said in a puff of breath. "Need rest… no time…"
"Shhhh." Shal pulled Tarl close and whispered the words of a cantrip that would double the intensity of Tarl's rest. Then she turned back to the horse. Are you okay? she probed.
It still hurts. He didn't quite finish, but it's stopped bleeding-
"The schooner's getting closer!" Ren's shout carried from the other end of the boat. "Tarl! Shal! Can you help with that sail?"
"In a minute!" Shal shouted back. She laid Tarl down gently on the deck and removed her own healing potion from the Cloth of Many Pockets. Quickly she applied a drop to each of his temples in hopes that its powers extended to rejuvenation as well as physical healing.
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