Flight of the Dying Sun (Heirs of Ash book 2

by Rich Wulf

  “Remorhaz,” Gerith said, hunching low in his glidewing’s harness. “Just back away, Tristam. This is his territory now.”

  “What if there are survivors?” Tristam asked, watching the beast warily.

  “There won’t be,” Gerith whispered. “They’re very territorial. He has plenty of food, so he won’t want to fight unless we threaten him. Let’s just get out of here.”

  “For once I agree with the halfling,” Zed said. “Let’s not start this fight.”

  Tristam nodded, backing away. His foot met something slick and the ground slid under him. He fell onto one of the half-eaten corpses, landing heavily on his side with a sickly smack. The remorhaz’s eyes narrowed into slits. The fins on its back extended, pulsing a bright, angry red. Its hideous mouth folded open and released a terrifying screech. It lumbered forward to defend its food.

  “Khyber,” Tristam swore.

  The artificer pointed his wand, desperately releasing a bolt of white lightning at the creature. The blast seared its flesh and shattered two of its forelegs, but it kept advancing, heedless of the pain. Omax leapt into its path, clasping his metal fists together and delivering a powerful blow to the creature’s chest. The creature shrieked in pain and snatched Omax in its forelegs, clutching the warforged against its body with the sizzling smell of burning wood and melting metal. Omax grunted in pain and seized one of the creature’s lower antennae, pulling its head down. Zed charged at the opening Omax had offered, swinging his sword in a broad cleave and slashing the monster across the face.

  It shrieked and recoiled as Zed’s blade shattered its carapace, skittering backward and dropping Omax in the snow. Gerith loosed a crossbow bolt, lodging the missile in the creature’s left eye. Blood-red steam boiled from the creature’s wounds as it danced away. It began scrabbling at the ground with its legs, tearing through ice and stone. In moments, it had rent a hole in the icy crust and slid into the tunnel, the wispy tendrils of its tail waving in the air for a moment before it vanished. The creature’s mad, pained shrieking could be heard descending into the earth.

  Tristam ran toward the tunnel, drawing a clay flask from his coat. He twisted the cork, forcing a plume of gray steam and yellow sparks to erupt from the bottle before he hurled it into the hole. There were several moments of silence, followed by a reverberating thud and a tremble in the earth. Oily smoke belched out of the remorhaz’s tunnel, and the creature was heard no more.

  “Omax,” Zed said, pointing at the collapsed warforged.

  Tristam quickly ran to his friend’s side. The intense heat of the remorhaz’s body had seared Omax’s armored skin. The adamantine covering his left arm was now a twisted, melted mess. One side of his face was now misshapen, like a melting wax statue. But what concerned Tristam more were the jagged injuries in his friend’s chest.

  “I thought the Canniths had repaired you, Omax,” he whispered. Tristam spoke a quick infusion and his hands glowed briefly. Omax’s face straightened. Much of the metal and wood in his chest bent back toward its intended arrangement.

  “I am … fine,” Omax said, his voice a pained growl.

  Tristam sighed. “Gerith, go back to the ship and tell Pherris to come to us,” he said. “Omax can’t walk like this.” He looked down at the warforged angrily. “Why did you ignore your injuries?” he asked. “That was foolish.”

  The warforged said nothing, and could not meet Tristam’s gaze.

  “You’d best hurry, Gerith,” Zed said. “As scary as that was, that creature didn’t do any of this.”

  “What?” Tristam said, looking at Zed in surprise.

  “That remorhaz couldn’t have thrown the bodies so far, or dragged that ship out of the water,” he said. “Even if it had, the corpses would have been burned from touching its skin. They’re not. A few of them are frozen solid, in fact. That monster didn’t kill the crew … it just came along to feed after whatever did this left the corpses behind.”

  “So what did this?” Tristam asked.

  “I don’t know,” Zed said, his eyes scanning the crash site intently, looking for any clues. “Something big. Something that didn’t care to feed on the dead, or that was too concerned with something else.”

  “Like what?” Tristam asked.

  Zed pulled his scarf down over his chin. A slow grin spread across his unshaven face. He pointed with his sword, past the wrecked ship. A rowboat lay overturned in the snow and, beyond it, a pair of footprints tracked off into the icy wastes. “Why don’t we find whoever left that trail,” he said, “and ask them?”

  “Good luck, gentlemen,” Gerith said, climbing onto his glidewing. “I’ll try to catch up to you as soon as I can.”

  “Yeah,” Zed said. “We’ll need your expertise, Snowshale.”

  Gerith paused for a moment. “Really?” he said. “Are you serious?”

  Zed looked at the halfling blankly. “This place may be new to us, but you’re still the best scout on Karia Naille,” he said. “We’re a little more suited to cities and laboratories.”

  The halfling’s tiny chest puffed out with pride. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he announced.

  Zed nodded, giving a tiny salute as the glidewing leapt into the air.

  “Should have known better than to tell Snowshale he was useful,” Zed said ruefully. “We won’t hear the end of his bragging for a week.”

  “You think he’ll finish that soon?” Tristam said, still studying Omax’s injuries.

  “I’m an optimist,” Zed said.

  Tristam laughed, drawing another annoyed look from the inquisitive. “Omax, will you be all right here until the ship arrives?” Tristam asked.

  The warforged groaned. “I am fine to come with you, Tristam,” he said. “These injuries are as nothing.”

  “You can barely stand, Omax,” Tristam said, irritated. “You have to stay here so that you can be taken back on board.”

  “I do not wish to stand by idly when we are so close to something this important,” Omax said.

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t hide your injuries like a fool,” Tristam said, angry now.

  Omax’s mouth closed with a metal click. Tristam looked away, his face darkening with frustration. Zed pointedly studied the tracks, ignoring the outburst.

  “Tristam, I am sorry,” the warforged said.

  “Don’t,” Tristam whispered. “Don’t be sorry. Just … just do as I say. Please. You’re in no shape to help me.”

  Omax nodded silently. Tristam rose and moved to follow Zed. The two of them marched off through the snow. Zed glanced back at the solitary warforged. He still sat on the snowy earth, clutching his injured arm. The light in his eyes shone as he watched Tristam go. The artificer did not look back.

  “You did the right thing,” Zed said, sheathing his sword over his back. “Seen his type before. Old soldiers get weighed down by what they’ve seen, stop caring about themselves, fight on for everyone else while they fall apart. Omax is a little older than most, and falling apart is somewhat literal in his case, but it still holds.”

  “It’s my fault,” Tristam said. “A warforged doesn’t heal. He must be repaired. I know how stubborn he is. I know how badly hurt he is, but I’ve spent so much time trying to figure out what to do next … It’s my fault he’s so badly hurt.”

  “It’s not your fault he didn’t let the Canniths fix him when Dalan told him to,” Zed said.

  “Why were you called away from Thaliost?” Tristam asked, changing the subject.

  “This again?” Zed said. “Don’t get into this. I’ll talk about my past when I choose to, but I don’t appreciate being grilled about it.”

  “I just never knew you used to be an instructor,” Tristam said.

  “Add that to the heap of things you don’t know about me,” Zed said. “I guarantee it’s pretty substantial. Suffice it to say there are only a handful of things that will throw you to the top of the list for reassignment in Thrane. The Silver Flame is one of them.”

&nbs
p; “The Flame?” Tristam said. “You were called by the gods?”

  “I was called by a god, not the gods,” Zed said. “A meddling, unforgiving, and judgmental god.” He glared at Tristam bleakly. “Like I said, let’s not get into it.”

  “Right,” Tristam said, pulling his cloak more tightly around his body as the wind kicked up.

  “So what do you know about Norra Cais?” Zed asked. “Did you ever meet her while you were studying with Ashrem?”

  “We met a few times,” Tristam said, scowling uncomfortably.

  “Doesn’t sound like you remember her very fondly,” Zed said.

  Tristam looked up in surprise. “I didn’t think I was that obvious.”

  “Give me a little credit. I’m an inquisitive, and you’re a terrible liar.”

  Tristam sighed.

  “I’ll get to the point,” Zed said. “Is she crazy like Overwood is? I don’t know if I have the patience to pry another piece of this puzzle out of the brain of a lunatic.”

  “No, she’s very sane,” Tristam said. “Brilliant, in fact. I guess I was always jealous of her. She was about my age, but Ashrem always treated her as an equal. She was a prodigy, trained as a sage and artificer by the Zil’argo masters. Back during the war, she worked as a traveling correspondent for the Korranberg Chronicle. I suppose that’s how she came into contact with Ashrem. Both of them moved around a lot and traveled in the same circles.”

  “What kind of person was she?” Zed asked. “I know she’s supposedly not on Marth’s side, but would she try to use the Legacy for herself? Or stop us from getting it?”

  “I’m not sure,” Tristam answered. “She was always a little arrogant and dismissive. Never had much time to talk to me. I remember that much. She seemed pretty dedicated to Ashrem’s quest for peace, though. I never really got much of a chance to know her. She served mostly on Dying Sun.”

  “While you were on Seventh Moon,” Zed said.

  “Mostly,” Tristam answered. “Ashrem and I stayed on the Moon a lot, but he moved us around from time to time, using the other ships for certain missions. Sometimes he took me along.”

  “Makes sense,” Zed said.

  “What does?” Tristam asked.

  “Splitting his time among the three ships,” Zed answered. “Keeping all three crews in the dark about the Legacy so that none of them knew everything. That’s probably why he didn’t tell you anything, Tristam. You were the only one he took with him from ship to ship.”

  “No,” Tristam said with a laugh. “That’s Dalan’s way. Ashrem wouldn’t do something so duplicitous.”

  “Or maybe Dalan just gets caught more often than Ashrem did,” Zed said with a wry grin.

  Tristam gave the inquisitive a dark look, and he let the matter drop. They kept following the trail as it crested into a wide valley. The sight below caused both men to stop dead in their tracks. Neither spoke for a full minute as they struggled to take in what they saw. Beneath them spread a vast valley of sheer ice. In the heart of the valley rose a pair of jagged glaciers. Between them, rising from the icy surface of the earth, yawned an impossibly enormous skull. It was unclear whether the structure was carved from ice or stone or was truly the remnants of some ancient and colossal humanoid. The eyes and mouth shone with some supernatural fire. Deep within the skull, something stirred, a shadowy flicker of movement.

  “By the Host,” Gerith said from between them, making both men jump.

  Zed sheathed his sword, which had been half-drawn before he stopped himself. “Damn you, Snowshale,” he said, catching his breath. “I’m still not convinced I shouldn’t have killed you for scaring me.”

  “Sorry,” Gerith said, climbing down off his glidewing as he stared down into the valley.

  “Good timing, though,” Zed admitted. “I was starting to have trouble following the trail.”

  “I can track it, no problem,” Gerith said casually. He nodded at the enormous skull. “Is that Zul’nadn?”

  “It had better be,” Zed growled. “Xain, please tell me we’re looking at Zul’nadn, because if something that weird has nothing to do with us being here, I’m going back to the ship.”

  “No,” Tristam said, his eyes wide. “That’s Zul’nadn, though I’m as surprised to see it as you are. Overwood’s journals described it as ‘the resting place of giants.’ I didn’t expect that definition to be so literal.” He blinked several times, taking in the view. “Or so … giant.”

  “I’ve seen a few giants,” Gerith said. “They aren’t really that big.”

  “Well it looks like whoever survived that wreck was headed that way,” Zed said. “Let’s keep following.”

  They descended into the valley. The smooth terrain gave way to jagged rocks and spires of broken glacier, like a forest of ice and stone that cast the valley into deep and unmoving shadows. Gerith remained on foot as he studied the trail, his glidewing hopping along behind him. The winds grew more intense toward the base of the valley. They cut through the yawning skull on the horizon, producing a bizarre, blaring noise like a bagpipe being mashed at random. The cold grew more intense as well, drawing more muttered complaints and unique epithets from Zed. Halfway to the yawning skull, Gerith stopped. His tiny face creased in an expression of puzzlement.

  “What’s wrong, Gerith?” Tristam asked. The chill of the valley was intense here, and the winds had taken on a strange, wailing edge. He hugged himself for warmth, but found none.

  “There are more trails here,” Gerith said, kneeling on the ground and studying the earth. “Fresh ones. About a dozen of them. They look like humanoids, but they’re not wearing any shoes.” He squinted. “It looks like they have claws.”

  “Shifters?” Zed asked. “Maybe kobolds?”

  “Too big for kobolds,” Gerith said, “and I think even shifters would wear shoes on this ice.” The halfling stiffened, looking quickly at the glidewing beside him. The creature’s body was tense, its wings half open, as if it were prepared to take to the air. It peered slowly from side to side, its black eyes alert and fierce.

  “Now?” Zed asked quietly.

  Gerith nodded very slowly as he reached for his crossbow. He quickly lifted the weapon and fired at the peak of a nearby spire. A surprised screech erupted from above. A gangly figure fell from the shadows above, collapsing on the ground with a crossbow bolt in its neck. It lay still for several moments before rising again. It looked like it had been a dwarf at one time. Its flesh was pale, hairless blue and striated with purple veins. Its eyes were hollow and rotten, leaving nothing but burning yellow pinpoints. Its lips had been torn away, revealing a mouth filled with sharp, uneven yellow teeth. It hunched onto its hands and feet like an ape, staring at them with a fearless, hungry glare. One arm had been shattered by the fall, but it did not appear to care.

  One clawed hand roamed to the bolt in its throat and tore it away. A chunk of skin and muscle came free with the missile. The creature looked at the tip for several seconds before deliberately plucking its flesh from the tip and tucking it between its teeth, chewing rapidly, eagerly, like a rodent. Its teeth made a sickly, rattling sound that was immediately echoed from the stones all around them. A second pair of glowing eyes appeared in the shadows, followed by a third, then a fourth. A gurgling, growling sound rose around them.

  “Ghouls,” Gerith said.

  Zed drew his sword. “Don’t let them touch you,” he warned.

  “Poison?” Tristam asked, his voice worried.

  “Worse,” Zed said. “They paralyze a target with their touch. Then the whole pack springs to eat you.”

  Tristam frowned and tucked his wand back into his coat, drawing out the new one. The first ghoul scuttled toward them and rose up on its hind legs, leering at them with a twisted, lipless grin and beating its chest with a screech. The other ghouls circled in a frenzied dance, echoing their pack leader’s cry with an arrhythmic chatter. Zed held his sword ready but kept a safe distance away from the creature’s reach. Tristam poin
ted his wand at the ghoul and spoke a word of magic. A roaring burst of golden lightning seared from its tip and consumed the creature, leaving its silhouette painted in ash upon the ice. The other three ghouls immediately ceased their chattering, peering at one another in bewilderment. Tristam looked stunned as well.

  “Upgrade?” Zed asked, impressed.

  Tristam nodded, unable to speak, surprised at the results.

  “Tristam,” Zed said in an extremely calm voice, watching the ghouls as they circled. “Can you please do that three more times?”

  The other three undead overcame their shock and rushed forward, charging at Tristam. Tristam unleashed another blast, searing through a second ghoul’s torso and sending it flying back across the ice. Zed slashed another of the creatures from shoulder to hip, cleaving it in two pieces. The third lunged onto Tristam, claws grasping at his throat and bearing him to the ground. Gerith shouted, and his glidewing leaped into the air, diving over the ghoul, raking his claws across its back and pulling it off Tristam. It rolled several times and fell into a low hunch just as Zed swung his blade again, taking off the creature’s head. The inquisitive turned quickly, gray eyes scanning the area for any more enemies.

  “Tristam!” Gerith shouted, leaping off his steed and running to the fallen artificer’s side.

  Tristam was doubled over in pain, hands clenched into shivering fists. His wand lay discarded on the snow. Gerith quickly picked it up and tucked it back into Tristam’s pocket.

  “Try not to bite your tongue and you’ll be fine,” Zed said, kneeling by Tristam’s side and sheathing his sword. “Shouldn’t do any real harm, but it’ll take a few minutes to pass. We’d better keep moving before more come along.”