The Ghost King t-3

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  Hanaleisa looked across the storehouse. The brave townsfolk had regained a measure of calm and were moving swiftly and orderly out onto the docks.

  The heat grew quickly. A beam fell from the roof, dropping a line of fire across the floor.

  “Hana!” Rorick cried from the back of the storehouse.

  “Get out!” she screamed at him. “Uncle Pikel, come along!”

  The dwarf charged toward her and hopped the fallen beam alongside her, both heading fast for the door.

  More fiery debris tumbled from the ceiling, and the whiskey-soaked side wall began to burn furiously. The flames spread up the walls behind them.

  But the undead hadn’t broken through, Hanaleisa realized when she reached the exit. “Go!” she ordered Pikel, and pushed him through the door. To the dwarf’s horror, to the horror of her brothers, and to the horror of everyone watching, Hanaleisa turned and sprinted back into the burning building.

  Smoke filled her nostrils and stung her eyes. She could barely see, but she knew her way. She leaped the beam burning in the middle of the floor, then ducked and rolled under another that tumbled down from above.

  She neared the front door, and just as she leaped for it, a nearby keg burst in a ball of fire, causing another to explode beside it. Hanaleisa kicked out at the heavy bar sealing the door, all her focus and strength behind the blow. She heard the wood crack beneath her foot, and a good thing that was, for she had no time to follow the move. At that moment, the fires reached the whiskey she and Pikel had poured out, and Hanaleisa had to sprint away to avoid immolation.

  But the door was open, and the undead streamed in hungrily, stupidly.

  More kegs exploded and half the roof caved in beside her, but Hanaleisa maintained her focus and kept her legs moving. She could hardly see in the heavy smoke, and tripped over a burning beam, painfully smashing her toes in the process.

  She scrambled along, quickly regaining her footing.

  More kegs exploded, and fiery debris flew all around her. The smoke grew so thick that she couldn’t get her bearings. She couldn’t see the doorway. Hanaleisa skidded to a halt, but she couldn’t afford to stop. She sprinted ahead once more, crashing into some piled crates and overturning them.

  She couldn’t see, she couldn’t breathe, she had no idea which way was out, and she knew that any other direction led to certain death.

  She spun left and right, started one way, then fell back in dismay. She called out, but her voice was lost in the roar of the flames.

  In that moment, horror turned to resignation. She knew she was doomed, that her daring stunt had succeeded at the cost of her life.

  So be it.

  The young woman dropped down onto all fours and thought of her brothers. She hoped she had bought them the time they needed to escape. Uncle Pikel would lead them to safety, she told herself, and she nodded her acceptance.

  * * * * *

  To his credit, Bruenor didn’t say anything. But it was hard for Thibbledorf Pwent and Drizzt not to notice his continual and obviously uncomfortable glances to either side, where Jarlaxle and Athrogate weaved in and out of the trees on their magical mounts.

  “He’s the makings of a Gutbuster,” remarked Pwent, who sat beside Bruenor on the wagon’s jockey box, while Drizzt walked along beside them. The Gutbuster nodded his hairy chin toward Athrogate. “Bit too clean, me’s thinkin’, but I’m likin’ that pig o’ his. And them morningstars!”

  “Gutbusters play with drow, do they?” Bruenor replied, but before the sting of that remark could sink in to Pwent, Drizzt beat him to the reply with, “Sometimes.”

  “Bah, elf, ye ain’t no drow, and ain’t been one, ever,” Bruenor protested. “Ye know what I’m meaning.”

  “I do,” Drizzt admitted. “No offense intended, so no offense taken. But neither do I believe that Jarlaxle is what you’ve come to expect from my people.”

  “Bah, but he ain’t no Drizzt.”

  “Nor was Zaknafein, in the manner you imply,” Drizzt responded. “But King Bruenor would have welcomed my father into Mithral Hall. Of that, I’m sure.”

  “And this strange one’s akin to yer father, is he?”

  Drizzt looked through the trees to see Jarlaxle guiding his hellish steed along, and he shrugged, honestly at a loss. “They were friends, I’ve been told.”

  Bruenor paused for a bit and similarly considered the strange creature that was Jarlaxle, with his outrageously plumed hat. Everything about Jarlaxle seemed unfamiliar to the parochial Bruenor, everything spoke of the proverbial “other” to the dwarf.

  “I just ain’t sure o’ that one,” the dwarf king muttered. “Me girl’s in trouble here, and ye’re asking me to trust the likes o’ Jarlaxle and his pet dwarf.”

  “True enough,” Drizzt admitted. “And I don’t deny that I have concerns of my own.” Drizzt hopped up and grabbed the rail behind the seat so he could ride along for a bit. He looked directly at Bruenor, demanding the dwarf’s complete attention. “But I also know that if Jarlaxle had wanted us dead, we would likely already be walking the Fugue Plain. Regis and I would not have gotten out of Luskan without his help. Catti-brie and I would not have been able to escape his many warriors outside of Menzoberranzan those years ago, had he not allowed it. I have no doubt that there’s more to his offer to help us than his concern for us, or for Catti-brie.”

  “He’s got some trouble o’ his own,” said Bruenor, “or I’m a bearded gnome! And bigger trouble than that tale he telled about needing to make sure the Crystal Shard was gone.”

  Drizzt nodded. “That may well be. But even if that is true, I like our chances better with Jarlaxle beside us. We wouldn’t even have turned toward Spirit Soaring and Cadderly, had not Jarlaxle sent his dwarf companion to Mithral Hall to suggest it.”

  “To lure us out!” Bruenor snapped back, rather loudly.

  Drizzt patted one hand in the air to calm the dwarf. “Again, my friend, if that was only to make us vulnerable, Jarlaxle would have ambushed us on the road right outside your door, and there we would remain, pecked by the crows.”

  “Unless he’s looking for something from ye,” Bruenor argued. “Might still be a pretty ransom on Drizzt Do’Urden’s head, thanks to the matron mothers of Menzoberranzan.”

  That was possible, Drizzt had to admit to himself, and he glanced over his shoulder at Jarlaxle once more, but eventually shook his head. If Jarlaxle had wanted anything like that, he would have hit the wagon with overwhelming force outside of Mithral Hall, and easily enough captured all four, or whichever of them might have proven valuable to his nefarious schemes. Even beyond that simple logic, however, there was within Drizzt something else: an understanding of Jarlaxle and his motives that surprised Drizzt every time he paused to consider it.

  “I do not believe that,” Drizzt replied to Bruenor. “Not any of it.”

  “Bah!” Bruenor snorted, hardly seeming convinced, and he snapped the reins to coax the team along more swiftly, though they had already put more than fifty miles behind them that day, with half-a-day’s riding yet before them. The wagon bounced along comfortably, the dwarven craftsmanship more than equal to the task of the long rides. “So ye’re thinking he’s just wanting us for a proper introduction to Cadderly? Ye’re buying his tale, are ye? Bah!”

  It was hard to find a proper response to one of Bruenor’s “bahs,” let alone two. But before Drizzt could even try, a scream from the back of the wagon ended the discussion.

  The three turned to see Catti-brie floating in the air, her eyes rolled back to show only white. She hadn’t risen high enough to escape the tailgate of the wagon, and was being towed along in her weightless state. One of her arms rose to the side, floating in the air as if in water, as they had seen before during her fits, but her other arm was forward, her hand turned and grasping as if she were presenting a sword before her.

  Bruenor pulled hard on the reins and flipped them to Pwent, heading over the back of the seat before the Gutbuster even ca
ught them. Drizzt beat the dwarf to the wagon bed, the agile drow leaping over the side in a rush to grab Catti-brie’s left arm before she slipped over the back of the rail. The drow raised his other hand toward Bruenor to stop him, and stared intently at Catti-brie as she played out what she saw in her mind’s eye.

  Her eyes rolled back to show their deep blue once more.

  Her right arm twitched, and she winced. Her focus seemed to be straight ahead, though given her distant stare, it was hard to be certain. Her extended hand slowly turned, as if her imaginary sword was being forced into a downward angle. Then it popped back up a bit, as if someone or something had slid off the end of the blade. Catti-brie’s breath came in short gasps. A single tear rolled down one cheek, and she quietly mouthed, “I killed her.”

  “What’s she about, then?” Bruenor asked.

  Drizzt held his hand up to silence the dwarf, letting it play out. Catti-brie’s chin tipped down, as if she were looking at the ground, then lifted again as she raised her imaginary sword.

  “Suren she’s looking at the blood,” Bruenor whispered. He heard Jarlaxle’s mount galloping to the side, and Athrogate’s as well, but he didn’t take his eyes off his beloved daughter.

  Catti-brie sniffled hard and tried to catch her breath as more tears streamed down her face.

  “Is she looking into the future, or the past?” Jarlaxle asked.

  Drizzt shook his head, uncertain, but in truth, he was pretty sure he recognized the scene playing out before him.

  “But she’s floated up and almost o’er the aft. I ain’t for sayin’, but that one’s daft,” said Athrogate.

  Bruenor did turn to the side then, throwing a hateful look at the dwarf.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, good King Bruenor,” Athrogate apologized. “But that’s what I’m thinking.”

  Catti-brie began to sob and shake violently. Drizzt had seen enough. He pulled the woman close, hugging her and whispering into her ear.

  And the world darkened for the drow. For just an instant, he saw Catti-brie’s victim, a woman wearing the robes of the Hosttower of the Arcane, a mage named Sydney, he knew, and he knew then without doubt the incident his beloved had just replayed.

  Before he could fully understand that he saw the body of the first real kill Catti-brie had ever known, the first time she had felt her victim’s blood splash on her own skin, the image faded from his mind and he moved deeper, as if through the realm of death and into …

  Drizzt did not know. He glanced around in alarm, looking not at the wagon and Bruenor, but at a strange plain of dim light and dark shadows, and dark gray—almost black—fog wafting on unfelt breezes.

  They came at him there, in that other place, dark, fleshy beasts like legless, misshapen trolls, pulling themselves along with gangly, sinewy arms, snarling through long, pointed teeth.

  Drizzt turned fast to put his back to Catti-brie and went for his scimitars as the first of the beasts reached out to claw at him. Even the glow of Twinkle seemed dark to his eyes as he brought the blade slashing down. But it did its work, taking the thing’s arm at the elbow. Drizzt slipped forward behind the cut, driving Icingdeath into the torso of the wretched creature.

  He came back fast the other way and spun around. To his horror, Catti-brie was not there. He sprinted out, bumping hard into someone, then tripped and went rolling forward. Or he tried to roll, but discovered that the ground was several feet lower than he’d anticipated, and he landed hard on his lower back and rump, rattling his teeth.

  Drizzt stabbed and slashed furiously as the dark beasts swarmed over him. He managed to get his feet under him and came up with a high leap, simply trying to avoid the many slashing clawed hands.

  He landed in a flurry and a fury, blades rolling over each other with powerful and devastating strokes and stabs, and wild slashes that sent the beasts falling away with terrible shrieks and screeches, three at a time.

  “Catti-brie!” he cried, for he could not see her, and he knew that they had taken her!

  He tried to go forward, but heard a call from his right, and just as he spun, something hit him hard, as if one of the beasts had leaped up and slammed him with incredible force.

  He lost a scimitar as he flew backward a dozen feet and more, and came down hard against some solid object, a tree perhaps, where he found himself stuck fast—completely stuck, as if the fleshy beast or whatever it was that had hit him had just turned to goo as it had engulfed him. He could move only one hand and couldn’t see, could hardly breathe.

  Drizzt tried to struggle free, thinking of Catti-brie, and he knew the fleshy black beasts were closing in on him.

  CHAPTER 9

  A TIME FOR HEROES

  A light appeared, a bright beacon cutting through the smoke, beckoning her. Hanaleisa felt its inviting warmth, so different from the bite of the fire’s heat. It called to her, almost as if it were enchanted. When she at last burst out the door, past the thick smoke, rolling out onto the wharves, Hanaleisa was not surprised to see a grinning Uncle Pikel standing there, holding aloft his brilliantly glowing shillelagh. She tried to thank him, but coughed and gagged on the smoke. Nearly overcome, she managed to reach Pikel and wrap him in a great hug, her brothers coming in to flank her, patting her back to help her dislodge the persistent smoke.

  After a long while, Hanaleisa finally managed to stop coughing and stand straight. Pikel quickly ushered them all away from the storehouse, as more explosions wracked it, kegs of Carradden whiskey still left to explode.

  “Why did you go in there?” Rorick scolded her once the immediate danger was past. “That was foolish!”

  “Tut tut,” Pikel said to him, waggling a finger in the air to silence him. A portion of the roof caved in with a great roar, taking down part of the wall with it. Through the hole, the four saw the continuing onslaught of the undead, the unthinking monsters willingly walking in the door after Hanaleisa had opened it. They were fast falling, consumed by the flames.

  “She invited them in,” Temberle said to his little brother. “Hana bought us the time we’ll need.”

  “What are they doing?” Hanaleisa asked, looking past her brothers toward the wharves, her question punctuated by coughs. The question was more of surprise than to elicit a response, for the answer was obvious. People swarmed aboard the two small fishing vessels docked nearby.

  “They mean to ferry us across the lake to the north, to Byernadine,” Temberle explained, referring to the lakeside hamlet nearest to Carradoon.

  “We haven’t the time,” Hanaleisa replied.

  “We haven’t a choice,” Temberle said. “They have good crews here. They’ll get more boats in fast.”

  Shouting erupted on the docks. It escalated into pushing and fighting as desperate townsfolk scrambled to get aboard the first two boats.

  “Sailors only!” a man shouted above the rest, for the plan had been to fill those two boats with experienced fishermen, who could then retrieve the rest of the fleet.

  But the operation wasn’t going as planned.

  “Cast her off!” many people aboard one of the boats shouted, while others still tried to jump on board.

  “Too many,” Hanaleisa whispered to her companions, for indeed the small fishing vessel, barely twenty feet long, had not near the capacity to carry the throng that had packed aboard her. Still, they threw out the lines and pushed her away from the wharf. Several people went into the water as she drifted off, swimming hard to catch her and clinging desperately to her rail, which was barely above the cold waters of Impresk Lake.

  The second boat went out as well, not quite as laden, and the square sails soon opened as they drifted out from shore. So packed was the first boat that the crewmen aboard couldn’t even reach the rigging, let alone raise sail. Listing badly, weaving erratically, her movements made all on shore gasp and whisper nervously, while the shouting and arguing on the boat only increased in desperation.

  Already, many were shaking their heads in dismay and expecting
catastrophe when the situation fast deteriorated. The people in the water suddenly began to scream and thrash about. Skeletal fish knifed up to stab hard into them like thrown knives.

  The fishing boat rocked as the many hangers-on let go, and people shrieked as the waters churned and turned red with blood.

  Then came the undead sailors, rising up to some unseen command. Bony hands gripped the rails of both low-riding ships, and people aboard and on shore cried out in horror as the skeletons of long-dead fishermen began to pull themselves up from the dark waters.

  The panic on the first boat sent several people splashing overboard. The boat rocked and veered with the shifting weight, turning uncontrollably—and disastrously. Similarly panicked, the sailors on the second boat couldn’t react quickly enough as the first boat turned toward her. They crashed together with the crackle of splintering wood and the screams of scores of townsfolk realizing their doom. Many went into the water, and as the skeletons scrambled aboard, many others had no choice but to leap into Impresk Lake and try to swim to shore.

  Long had men plied the waters of Impresk Lake. Its depths had known a thousand thousand turns of the circle of life. Her deep bed churned with the rising dead, and her waters roiled as more skeletal fish swarmed the splashing Carradden.

  And those on the wharves, Hanaleisa, her bothers, and Uncle Pikel as well, could only watch in horror, for not one of the eighty-some people who had boarded those two boats made it back to shore alive.

  “Now what?” Rorick cried, his face streaked with tears, his words escaping through such profound gasps that he could hardly get them out.

  Indeed, everyone on the wharves shared that horrible question. Then the storehouse collapsed with a great fiery roar. Many of the undead horde were destroyed in that conflagration, thanks to the daring of Hanaleisa, but many, many more remained. And the townsfolk were trapped with their backs to the water, a lake they dared not enter.