by John Grover
“That’s impressive.”
“And you?”
“Me? Well, a warrior never brags.”
“Ha! That’s very evasive, now isn’t it?”
“Let’s just say I’ve killed a few of those Neshing mages, and managed to live to tell the tale. I think my actions speak for themselves.”
“All I hear are words, but I see no action. The only action I’ve seen is you struggling to escape a Gnoll’s ambush.”
Tolan laughed, his chest shaking with delight. “They were having a good day.”
“I’m sure they were.”
“Okay, fine, words are not going to settle this.” Tolan put his arm up on a tree stump beside them.
Shannara grinned and slipped her hand around Tolan’s slowly. She looked into his eyes. They locked hands and matched strength for strength, gritting their teeth, smirking all the while. There was a gleam in Tolan’s eye, but in a moment of distraction and allurement, Shannara forced his hand down on the stump, and claimed victory.
“Nice try,” she said.
“By Thet, you are strong.” Tolan grunted, then laughed. He took a swig of water.
Shannara leaned in, the fire nearly obscuring some of her features: “You haven’t seen the half of it.”
Tolan was nose to nose with her. “I can hardly wait.” He leaned in to kiss her, but she halted him with her hand.
“I’m not sure I can handle this distraction right now,” she said. “There are grave times ahead, and a quest like none thart any of us have undertaken.”
“Aye,” he said. “We need our reflexes and concentration to be focused and single-minded. Times will not always be filled with turmoil. I look forward to our rematch.”
“As do I, warrior. But for now, I must patrol the perimeter.” She stood and drew her dagblades.
Tolan could not take his eyes off of her.
Pim could not take his eyes off of Tolan. He seethed. His heart burned. How dare he? He’s not the only one here! I’m putting myself in danger, too. I left my family, my home, I watched my friends die. I deserve her attention more than him! I’ll show her how brave I am. I must stay with them. I owe it to her, and to Drith’s guardian. It would be shameful for me to give up now.
He crawled back to his bed and yanked his blanket over himself. His breathing slowed, his heart calmed, and the nightmares were forgotten.
###
Pim’s body ached, and his eyes burned, but he managed to drag himself from the tent and step out into the morning sun.
Tolan fed the horses on the other side of camp. Drith broke down his tent and began packing it.
Pim stretched and checked to make sure his sword was in its sheath. He walked over to his horse and patted it.
“A fine morning,” Tolan said to him. “Not too hot. It will make for good travel weather.”
Pim nodded, but said nothing. He heard rustling in Shannara’s tent. Both he and Tolan turned at the same time to see Shannara and both seers emerge from the tent.
Strange. Pim thought. Why would all three share the same tent? Her warriors have their own. I don’t understand.
He watched Shannara and her people gather together and start on the road. Pim mounted his steed. Tolan, Drith, and the last Cardoon soldier did the same. All headed on the road following the D’Elkyrie.
As the hours passed, Pim found that they’d entered a land filled with rivers. A pleasant scent hung in the air. The sun still shined here, and the river they followed was clean, and bluer than any water back home.
Gossamer-winged insects buzzed by his head. Tall reeds whistled in a gentle breeze. Trees curled with thick, ancient trunks, hinted at nests of jade birds and woodland coons.
Such beauty, Pim noted to himself, but ahead, he could see the shadowy haze and the dense thicket of the swamplands.
It wouldn’t be long now.
The swamplands seemed a world unto itself, a surreal area secluded in natural walls of weeping trees and fungus-choked bogs.
The path in vanished into carpets of spider grass and briar patches. The ground grew soft and sponge-like. Day became night as the thick overgrowth barred the sunlight, only allowing the weakest shafts of light to peek through.
Some of the ponds bubbled, others reeked of decay. A lazy fog hung in some of the taller trees.
Seas of spotted mushrooms and crabgrass stretched to all corners. Deadfalls grew new skin in the form of emerald-colored moss and spider web tapestries.
Hemlock and nightshade painted a vivid but deadly canvas as smolder boulders were hosts to many varieties of lichen.
Pim twitched at the sight of snakes slithering into stagnant water. Shannara and her warriors were unmoved by the deep, all-encompassing swamps, but he could tell the horses were starting to get spooked.
The only sound Pim detected was the croaking of bloated frogs, and the sloshing of their own steps.
“This is it,” Tolan said. He halted his horse, and the others followed suit. “The animals can travel no more; the land grows treacherous. They are in danger of getting stuck. We will secure them here.”
“Nothing beats the legs Thet gave us,” Shannara said.
Pim and Tolan smiled at her at the same time. The Wivering eyed the warrior and rolled his eyes, focusing his attention back on his horse.
“Be wary of sink holes and pits,” Tolan said to everyone. “They will pull you under in the blink of an eye.”
“The adventure just keeps getting better,” Drith said through gritted teeth.
Instinct kicked in, and Pim drew his sword. His action led the rest of the group, and blades clinked among the croaking frogs.
They crept carefully, boots sinking, then yanking out of mud, hands swatting at biting insects, and eyes locked on the deep ahead.
“Where is this Mort A’ghas?” Pim asked to no one in particular.
“It is believed to be in the center of the swamplands,” Shannara answered. “But that is only rumor. It is said no living being has ever set foot in it.”
“No living thing?” Pim’s mind tried to reason out that question. He swallowed air, then let it out. It tasted strange. A foul smell scratched at his nose. “Then who goes there?”
“The dead.”
“The Lich Lord…” Pim stuttered. “Is he one of the dead?”
“The oldest of all the dead. The most powerful of them all. He either chooses not to ascend, or cannot. A dark magic surges inside of him, fusing his spirit to a corpse long forgotten. He is one of his kind, from an unknown race of mage. He uses spirit magic, and the dead still on Athora serve him. We can only pray that he will tell us what he knows.”
“If he has been on Athora as long as you say,” Pim continued, “Then he must know of the stone’s existence, and what became of it.”
“Aye, he would have gained the knowledge from the dead that came thousands of years before we were even formed.”
“And if he doesn’t tell us?” Tolan asked.
“We’ll just have to persuade him,” Shannara said.
The swamps grew even darker, and the ground beneath them, wetter. Filthy water seeped into their boots.
Pim had never seen a land that blocked out the sun the way the swamps did. He’d never seen something that was both beautiful and frightening at the same time. The marsh was both secretive and seductive. He felt its call, but heeded its repulsion.
He carried on, steadying his constitution, balancing fear with wonder, until a scream almost shattered him. He whirled around to see a sword plunge through a D’Elkyrie warrior. She coughed and slipped into the muck.
Behind her limp body, a dead knight appeared, rusted armor clinging to gobs of ravaged flesh, a rib cage exposed in a hollowed chest. It opened its mouth with a moan, and swamp water poured out.
Shannara belted out a war cry and raced toward her fallen comrade.
Pim stood, trembling, his sword wavering in his hand. Behind him, he heard the clop of footsteps in the mud.
###
<
br /> The sound of drums filled the distance. Sooth-Malesh ran to the edge of the rampart, and saw them at last.
The first to appear were the standard bearers, waving their tattered black standards defiantly. In the center of the flags, he finally saw their symbol. He was stunned to see it was an image of the Grimstone itself, in its whole form. All three pieces were together, and a rune symbol decorated the center of it.
“Their mages know what it looks like,” Sooth-Malesh muttered to himself. “They know what the three pieces make, and they will find them.”
Around the bearer, a row of Neshing appeared with long spikes. To the crimson mage’s horror, the tops were fitted with the severed heads of his people.
Not just his people, but those of the North, of the Lake Lands,and even of the painted, leering faces of those in the South.
A message sent loud and clear, the Neshing planted the spikes in the ground for all of Cardoon to see.
Then Sooth-Malesh saw it: the first volley, the first attack. The sky lit up with yellow-green fireballs and boulders studded with spikes.
Chapter Twelve
Shannara splashed across the swamp and swung her blades, gutting the undead knight, and spilling snakes, frogs, and other vermin into the muck. She swung higher and severed its head. The body lurched around before falling over.
Pim wanted to run, but found his feet stuck in the mud. Behind him, something sloshed.
“Pim, duck!” Tolan yelled.
He did as the warrior commanded, and a mace swung over his head. Tolan jumped in front of him and bashed the undead attacker to the ground. Its entire body stumbled, falling face first, and squirming on the ground.
Tolan pulled Pim out of the mud and to higher ground. Pim watched dozens of dead emerge all around them.
Drith kicked a shuffling undead across the chest, and swept another’s legs out from under it.
The D’Elkyrie seers retreated into the shadows as their women leaped into action, slicing their deadly blades through rotting limbs and waterlogged bodies. Shannara ducked as an undead archer launched an arrow at her.
The arrow found its mark in another of her warriors, sending her down. Shannara cursed and fought harder, but the dead kept coming.
Dead men and creatures flooded the swamps, their battered armor cluttered with exposed bones, their gouged flesh seeped, and their stiff legs dragged through mush and marsh. Old weapons brandished dangerously close to the living as the lost ones closed in on them.
“There’s too many!” Tolan called as he, Pim, and the Cardoon soldier backed into a cluster of trees.
“We cannot give up now! We are so close!” Shannara said.
Drith clashed against two undead; they swung at him and missed. One let out a baleful moan, and lunged. Drith scurried up a tree, and the dead ceased their attack. He watched as they continued through the swamp, ignoring everything around them.
“Get out of their way!” Drith called to the others. “Let them pass! Stop fighting, and let them pass. We are in their way.”
Tolan and Pim wound around and kept the trees at their backs. The Cardoon soldier lowered his sword, and followed their lead.
Shannara dug her blades into the nearest tree and climbed the trunk. Her warriors did the same, leaping onto each other’s shoulders and climbing out of the undead’s way. The women reached down to help the seers off the ground.
The undead fighters stopped their attack and walked on, single-minded, a purpose in their steps. They filed together and made a path through the swamps.
As the last of them passed through the area, Tolan looked to the others. “Follow them, they’ll lead us to Mort A’ghas.”
Drith, Shannara, and the others dropped to the ground. When the undead were at a safe distance, the group tracked them.
“They were only trying to get to Mort A’ghas?” Pim asked.
“We were in their way. They must have thought we were trying to stop them,” Tolan said.
“Our ignorance cost me the lives of my people,” Shannara said.
“How were we to know?” said Pim.
Shannara remained silent as they followed the distressed souls.
###
At last, it came into view: a structure composed of darkness and shadows, of altered perception, and perceived reality. Stone met wood at odd angles, foundation burrowed beneath charred ground, while two black steeples rose into the misty trees. Eerie red light flickered inside its hollows, and etched windows. The abode curled at some sides, while narrowing at others. Its entirety could not be completely determined as it toyed with the senses and threatened the sanity of those who looked upon it. One moment it was there, another it was but a hazy dream or nightmare. This was Mort A’ghas, the Church of the Dead.
Mort A’ghas stood on a small island in the center of a swamp with black waters. The dead walked one by one into the waters and submerged. They rose out of the water on the other side, and stepped onto the island, filing through the open doors.
“I cannot swim,” Drith said. “I will not be going to that damnable place.”
“I’m not sure any of us can cross those waters,” Tolan said. “The depths are unknown, the water is black… it maybe deadly to the living.”
“If I but had my wings now,” Shannara said. “There must be some way to cross. The Lich Lord must grant us an audience.”
She walked around the edges of the water, knelt, and cursed. Then she stood and sheathed her blades, looking around at the trees. “We must get across. There are some vines in these trees.”
Tolan stepped over to her. “Do not be foolish. You would never make it. The vines are not long enough, and the trees don’t even reach over the water.”
Moans echoed through the swamp as more undead rose from the water and entered Mort A’ghas.
Pim looked down into the swamp. He watched it ripple from the undead’s wake. The water was slick and reflected ethereal light from the stirring sky above.
“I can cross it,” he said to them.
Both turned with wide eyes.
“Pim?” Tolan started.
“My fleet. My fleet will carry me across.”
“Wivering can cross water?”
“This Wivering can.” He turned away from Tolan. You’ve done it once, fool. Once. This might not even work. What if I fall in? Then what?
Tolan took him by the arm. “Are you sure, my friend?”
Pim looked up at him and cracked a half smile. “No. But I have to try.”
“Understand that you will be alone over there. No one will be able to protect you should the undead come for you. The Lich Lord, himself, might see it fit to…to…”
Pim swallowed. “As Shannara said, he must grant us an audience. Perhaps, because I will be alone, I will not be seen as a threat. He is our only hope. I have no choice but to do this. This is why we are all here, isn’t it? I have the fleet, and it’s my duty to use it.”
He moved away from the others. “Clear me a path.” They did as he asked, and stepped away from the water. Tolan looked on with concern.
Pim backed up as far as he could, and removed his boots. The mud seemed to slither around his toes. You can do this. You can do this. He breathed in and out, regulating it. He felt his heart beginning to beat faster. His palms grew damp.
He focused all of his concentration on the water. His heart pounded, now. His feet twitched. He took a deep breath, and his eyes tingled.
“Your eyes…” Shannara gasped with surprise.
Pim grinned. His entire body felt alive. It burned with purpose, with a new fire. He leaned forward, pressed all of his weight onto one leg, and ran. He unleashed his fleet, shooting past the group in the blink of an eye. The ground couldn’t hold him back. The mud scattered at his power.
Pim struck the water. He felt icy fingers scrape over his feet, but he ran, and he ran on top of the water. Mort A’ghas came up fast; the open doors gaped, and the windows leered at him. Pim felt exhilarated, his entire body su
rged. Both his face and his feet tingled.
The doorway flashed before him, and he stopped, slamming onto solid ground. Pim gasped as all the air left his body. Trembling, he knew he’d succeeded. He stood on the edge of the island, the doors before him. Everyone on the other side of the water cheered for him. Shannara’s bright smile and glinting eyes moved him. Joy filled his heart, only to be chased away a second later.
He turned to Mort A’ghas and crossed the threshold. The Wivering drew his sword, listening to the strange whispers all around him. Scratching sounds rose from the stone floor.
The interior was shrouded in shadows that moved across the walls and past the narrow windows, windows that seemed like eyes following Pim as he moved about. Stone pillars with serpents carved into them stretched to a pitched roof. A blood-red mosaic spread across the floor, etched with the images of frogs, birds, snakes, and other creatures of the swamplands. Pungent fumes billowed from brass urns, and the corners of the room glowed with candles mounted in tall candelabra.
The walls were fashioned with a variety of wet stones, jagged, protruding in spots, and caked with mud. Mud also laced the floor; Pim’s bare feet dragged through it as the stench of decay filled his nostrils. The air was cold, and it nipped at his flesh like teeth. A shiver shot through him, and movement, again, caught his attention.
A figure crossed to his left: he’d spotted it in his peripheral vision. He turned with his sword in both hands, and watched an undead warrior shuffle to the back of the room to what looked like a massive altar.
The warrior bowed to the altar, and then walked into an ornate circle on the floor. The circle glinted faintly in the shallow candlelight. Pim was just barely able to see some runes inside the circle. The warrior got onto his knees and bowed his head again.
Pim thought he heard weeping, but he wasn’t quite sure. There were many of these circles around the altar, and more undead found their way to them.
Pim felt something else stirring around him. The air changed, growing thick and colder. He felt eyes on him. He turned again, but nothing was there.
A shift; something close, almost touching him. Pim swung around, his sword trembling in his hands. Nothing.