Jazhara nodded. “They can be destroyed by magic or fire, or by cutting them up.”
“Which they usually object to, I’ll wager,” said James dryly.
“They came from the woodcutter’s shack!” said Lyle. “The woodcutter and his wife had lived there just a few months before they vanished. Six good men went to look in on that poor family. Whatever was up there killed four of’em, and scared Nathan and poor Malcolm out of their wits.”
“What happened to Malcolm?” asked James.
“Dead. Dead at the hands of those monsters. Malcolm always knew they’d come for him once he and Nathan got away, so he tried to get them first. He thought he could hide and watch for them, the old fool. He knew they came from the woodcutter’s shack, but once he told me they’d desecrated our graveyard, too. He got a couple of them, first, though. Poor old sod.”
“How’d he get them?” asked James.
“He found one in a grave, asleep during the daylight. He doused it with some oil we use to clear the fields, and set fire to it. Went up like a torch, he said. The other was just waking up at sundown; he cut its head off with his old sword from his duty during the Riftwar. Threw the head in the river and watched it wash away. Went back to the grave the next day and said the body had turned to dust. But there were just too many of them. They caught him out last night, old fool.”
Solon, who had remained silent so far, could contain himself no longer. “Vampires, you say? Man, are you sure? They’re the stuff of legend, things to scare small children on dark nights.”
Jazhara nodded agreement. “I always thought they were mythical.”
“But after what we’ve seen so far . . . ?” James asked.
Lyle said, “Nay, good sir and lady, they’re real. Nathan says they come for him every night! That’s why he locks himself in. He’s got no fear of dying, but if those creatures get him, he says they’ll keep his soul and he’ll never take his turn on Lims-Kragma’s Wheel of Life again!”
“Tis a foul blasphemy, indeed, if true,” agreed Solon.
James stood up. “Well, it seems this Nathan is the only one here in Haldon Head who has seen these creatures. I suspect we’d best go talk to him.”
“I’d be cautious,” Lyle said. “It’s almost sundown and once the sun sets, Toddy locks the door and nothing you say will get you back inside.”
“How far is it to Nathan’s place?” asked Solon.
“Open the door,” replied Lyle, “and you’re looking straight at the road leading to it. Can’t miss it. You’ll pass two shops, and the first house on the left is Nathan’s shack.”
“We have time,” James said, “if we hurry.”
They collected Kendaric and hurried to the door. As they made to leave, Mayor Toddhunter shouted out, “Be back before the sun sets, or you’ll spend the night outside!”
After they left the inn, Kendaric said, “Why are we doing this? I heard every word. Blood-drinkers! Are you mad?”
James said, “Do you think there might be another reason why your spell didn’t work?”
“I have no idea why it didn’t work,” admitted Kendaric. “But vampires? They can’t be real!”
“I hope you’re right,” said Solon. “Holy writ is clear on the living dead. Specifically, they are an abomination to Lims-Kragma, and to Ishap, for they defy the natural order of the world.”
“Not to mention they’ll almost certainly try to kill us,” added James.
Kendaric glanced at the setting sun and said, “We have maybe a half-hour, Squire.”
“Then we’d better hurry,” said James.
They reached Nathan’s house in five minutes, and even if Lyle hadn’t told them where to look, it would have been easy to find. The small house, little more than a shack, was boarded up. All the windows had stout planks nailed across them; the door, obviously the only point of entry, was shut tight; nail points protruding from its perimeter indicated that it was similarly covered from within. In the red light of sunset, it looked almost deserted, though James saw a glint of flame escaping through a crack in the boards, no doubt coming from a lantern or fire pot.
“Hello, the house!” Kendaric shouted from the front stoop, a wooden platform in need of some repair. “We’d like to speak with you!”
From inside the house came a reply. “Go away, foul beasts! You’ll never get me to quit my house!”
“Hello,” said James. “I’m Squire James, from the Prince’s court in Krondor.”
“Leave me in peace, you bloody demons! I can see through your evil tricks.”
James looked at Jazhara and shrugged.
Jazhara said, “Sir, I am the court magician to the Prince. We need some information about these creatures that trouble you. We may be able to help!”
“Ah, very clever, very clever indeed,” came the reply. “Go away, you soul-sucking fiends!”
James shook his head in defeat. “What’s it going to take to convince you, friend?”
“Go away! ”
James turned to Jazhara. “Maybe you can do better?”
Solon said, “Let me try.” He stepped up to the boarded door and shouted, “In the name of Mighty Ishap, the One Above All, I bid you let us enter!”
There was a long moment of silence and then Nathan said, “That’s good. I didn’t know you blood-stealers could invoke the name of the gods! Almost had me for a moment there, with that bad dwarven accent!”
Solon’s face flushed with anger. “Tis not a bad dwarven accent, ya gibbering loon. I grew up near Dorgin!”
James turned to Jazhara and said, “It does get more pronounced when he gets upset, did you notice?”
Jazhara said, “Let me try again.” Speaking up, she said, “Sir, I am a magician and could enter your house at will, but would not violate the sanctity of your home. If you won’t let us enter, at least tell us what you know about the evil that besets this town. Perhaps we can help. We have our own reasons for wanting to see it banished.”
There was another long silence, then Nathan said through the boards, “Almost got me with that one, you monster!” He laughed madly. “Trying to find out how much I know so you can plot against me! Well, I’m not falling for it.”
Kendaric said, “James - ”
James waved him to silence. “Look, Nathan, if you don’t want to come out, you don’t have to, but we need to find the cause of all this trouble in the area. We have, as my friend said, our own reasons for wanting to see it come to an end. If these Vampires,‘ as you call them, are real, they may be causing us our problem and we’ll deal with them.”
“You’ll get your chance soon enough!” shouted Nathan.
“James - ” Kendaric repeated.
James again waved his hand and said, “Just a minute!”
As he was about to speak again, James felt his arm gripped by Kendaric, who swung him around to face down the path to the house. “James!” shouted the wrecker. “It looks like we get our chance now.”
As the sun was dropping below the horizon, dark shadows seemed to coalesce in the air at the edge of the nearby woods. In the darkness other shapes could be seen moving, and suddenly human forms appeared where there had been empty air a moment before.
James slowly drew his sword and said, “Solon, Jazhara, any advice would be greatly appreciated.”
A half-dozen figures advanced from the nearby woods. They appeared human, save for their deathly pale white skin color, and eyes that seemed to glow with a reddish light. Several of them showed gaping wounds on their necks and they shambled with an awkward gait.
The one in the front spoke. “Nathan . . . Come to us . . . We miss you so . . .”
From behind it others called, “You should have stayed with us, Nathan. There’s no need to fear us, Nathan.”
With rising revulsion, James saw that one of the figures was a child, a little girl of no more than seven years of age.
Solon said, “There’s but one piece of advice I can give, laddie. Destroy them all.”
He raised his warhammer and advanced on the first figure.
TWELVE
Dark Magic
James charged after Solon.
Jazhara shouted, “Be wary, you must destroy them by fire or cut their heads from their bodies!”
Kendaric hung behind the magician, holding his short sword, but appearing ready to bolt if the opportunity presented itself. Jazhara began an incantation and lowered her staff, pointing it toward the group of oncoming creatures. A ball of green flame erupted from the tip of her staff and shot across the space between them, engulfing four of the creatures in mystic flame. They howled and writhed, and stumbled forward, staggering for a few paces before falling face-down onto the ground.
Solon reached out with a gauntlet-covered hand and seized the child-creature, hurling the small form backward, into the green flame. The tiny creature shrieked and thrashed, then lay still.
“May Ishap bring you peace, child,” shouted the monk. He swung his huge warhammer at an adult-sized creature, smashing the thing’s shoulder, but still it lunged at him, its one remaining arm outstretched, the fingers bent like talons trying to rend and tear.
Solon lashed back the other way, and his hammer caved in the creature’s skull. It fell to the ground and lay writhing, but despite having half its head pulped, it still tried to rise. Jazhara ran up to the monk and shouted, “Stand back!” He retreated and she lowered her staff. In a moment, the creature was aflame.
James was having difficulty with a particularly powerful man - or creature, rather, he corrected himself. The thing had obviously been the woodcutter Lyle had first told them of. He had been a big, broad-shouldered man, and his arms were long and meaty. He tried to grapple with James, who dodged aside. But the damage inflicted on the creature by James’s rapier did little to slow it.
“Kendaric!” James shouted. “I could use some help!”
The wrecker stood with his back to Nathan’s doorway, his sword clutched in his hand. “Doing what?” he shouted back.
“My blade isn’t exactly a meat cleaver.”
Kendaric waved his short sword and said, “And this is?”
James ducked under a huge hand swinging through the air, and shouted, “It’s a better blade for hacking than what I’ve got!”
“I’m not going to loan it to you!” cried Kendaric, watching as other creatures came into sight. “I’ve got problems of my own.”
Suddenly Jazhara was at Kendaric’s side and she wrenched the blade from his hand. “Yes, a decided attack of cowardice,” she said with contempt. Throwing the sword so that it sailed through the air, she shouted, “James, catch!”
With a speed bordering on the supernatural, James lashed out with his rapier, cutting the shambling creature across the back of the leg. Then he leapt into the air, catching the short sword with his left hand. He tossed his rapier and the short sword in a juggle, ending up with the rapier in his left hand and the short sword in his right. The thing that had been a woodcutter stumbled onto one knee, and James lashed down with the sword, cleanly severing the creature’s neck, so that the head came rolling free.
James threw the short sword back to Kendaric, and shouted, “Better lend a hand here, unless you’re anxious to end up like them!”
More creatures were emerging from the woods and Jazhara unleashed several bolts of her mystic flame. She shouted, “James, I can’t keep this up! I’m almost exhausted.”
“We have to get to someplace defensible!” said Brother Solon, as he slammed his hammer into yet another creature, knocking it backward a half-dozen feet.
James hurried to the door of Nathan’s house and pounded on it as he cried, “By the gods, man, let us in!”
“No, it’s a trick and I won’t be fooled!” came a shout from inside.
“Let us in, or I’ll burn this place down around your ears,” said James. “Jazhara, do you have one shot of that fire left?”
“I can manage,” said the magician.
Loudly, but in measured, calm tones, James said, “Open this door or you’re going to get very warm. Which will it be?”
After a moment of silence, they heard the creak of nails being pulled and a series of thumps as heavy boards hit the floor. Finally the door-bolt slid free, and the door cracked open a bit. A pinched-faced man peered out at James and said, “You don’t look like a vampire.”
James nodded. “I’m glad you finally recognize the obvious. Clear the way while I go help my friends. We’ll be right back. We’ll hammer the boards back into place once we’re all inside.”
James didn’t wait to see the man’s nod, but turned and hurried to intercept a particularly nasty-looking creature heading straight for Kendaric. The wrecker waved his sword ineffectually in the direction of the creature, which paused to consider the potential for injury.
That pause gave James just the opening he needed to circle behind the creature and hamstring it with his rapier. “It won’t kill him,” shouted the squire, “but it’ll slow him down! Try to cut his head off.”
Kendaric’s expression left no room for doubt as to how he felt about that suggestion. He backed away, putting distance between himself and the creature.
“Kendaric, you useless bag of pig-swill,” shouted Solon. He ran over and used his warhammer to break the creature’s spine.
Kendaric proffered his sword. “Ybw cut its head off!”
“Ya gibbering jackass! Holy orders prevent me from cutting flesh with a blade. If I do, I lose my sanctity and must be cleansed for a year by holy rite, fasting, and meditation! I donna ha‘ a year to waste on such foolishness! We ha’ work to do.”
Jazhara said to James, “You’re right, the accent does get thicker when he’s upset.”
James shouted, “Open the door!” More creatures were coming into sight, and James had no doubt they would soon be overwhelmed.
Kendaric was at the door, and pounded on the planks. Nathan swung the door wide with one hand, as he brandished a hunting knife in the other. “Get inside!” shouted the villager. Kendaric entered the cottage as the others began to rush toward the house. Suddenly James wheeled at the sound of a footstep behind him, slashing out with his blade, and slicing through the throat of what had once been a young woman. She didn’t fall, but faltered long enough for him to turn and run. Solon smashed another in the face and also ran.
Jazhara hurried through the door, Solon and James on her heels.
Nathan slammed the door shut behind them and threw the bolt. He then picked up one of planks he had just removed and cried, “Start boarding this up!”
Solon picked up another piece of wood and used his warhammer to drive heavy nails back into the doorframe. “This will not hold if they get determined,” said the monk.
“It’ll hold,” said the townsman. “They’re persistent but stupid and don’t work well as a group. If they did, I’d have been dead four nights back.”
James sheathed his rapier and sat down on a small trunk next to the fireplace. He glanced around. The building was a single room with a small kitchen off to one side. A feather bed, a table, a chest of drawers and the trunk upon which he sat were the sole contents of the room.
Their host was a wiry man of middle years, his dark hair and beard shot through with gray. He had the weather-beaten look of a farmer: once-broken fingers and heavy calluses betrayed the hands of a man who had worked all his life.
Letting out a slow breath, James said, “Just what is going on?”
“So, then we started hearing about others vanishing, from farms outlying the village. There’s the odd homestead up in the hills, and some nice meadows that folks use to graze herds or grow summer wheat. Some of those creatures that attacked earlier tonight were the poor souls who lived up there. Not townspeople, but folks we knew from when they’d come in to buy provisions or sell their wares.” He shook his head as if he still had trouble believing what he was describing.
James and the others had been listening to the farmer for over an hour. The narrative
had been rambling and disjointed at times, but a pattern had emerged.
“Let me sum up,” said James. “Someone or something has come to the area. It has infected your community with a horrible curse that is turning ordinary people into blood-drinkers. Is that right?”
The farmer nodded. “Yes.”
James continued. “These creatures are feeding on others, thereby turning them into blood-drinkers, too.”
“Vampires,” said Jazhara. “The stories about them are full of superstition.”
“But these are real enough,” said Kendaric.
“Yes,” agreed Solon. “But Jazhara is right. There are legends about these creatures that have nothing to do with truth, flights of fancy and tales told to frighten naughty children.”
“I must be a naughty child, then,” said Kendaric with an angry edge to his voice, “because I for one am very frightened.”
James said, “So the woodcutter and his family were the first around here to be turned into these creatures?”
Nathan said, “Yes. Six of us went to investigate. Only two of us survived. We found a dozen or so of those creatures waiting there. A few of them were the folks from the nearby farms I spoke of; a couple were unknown to me.”
“Then who was the first?” asked James.
Nathan looked around blankly. “I don’t know,” he said in a weary voice.
“Is that important?” asked Kendaric.
“Yes,” said Jazhara, “because as James said, someone or something had to bring this plague here.”
Solon said, “This sort of magic is evil beyond description.”
James sat on the floor with his back against the wall. “But to what end? Why plague this little village of all places?”
Kendaric said, “Because they can?”
James looked at the wrecker and said, “What do you mean?”
Kendaric shrugged and said, “They have to start somewhere. If they get enough people around here to . . . become like them, they can send some of their number to other locations and . . . well, it’s like you said, a plague.”
“Which means we’ll have to stamp out this infection here,” said Solon.
Krondor Tear of the Gods Page 22