Eyeing the grisly offerings, the wary veteran looked for anything he himself might still consider edible. Exceptional hunters the tusked beasts might be, but their handling left much to be desired.
The other three imps returned within moments, each bearing their own prizes. One, a tattered-looking lizard, Norrec immediately dismissed. The others, a pair of rabbits, he finally chose in preference to what had been first given to him.
As he reached for them, his left hand again rebelled. The gauntlet passed over the rabbits and as it did, incredible heat threatened to sear Norrec’s fingers.
“Damn you!” He managed to stumble back a step. The heat faded quickly again, but his hand still throbbed from the near burning. From where they gathered, the imps chattered, this time sounding quite amused at his discomfort. However, a quick and furious glance silenced them.
His hand nearly normal again, Norrec returned his attention to the rabbits—and found them completely cooked. The scent that arose from them even smelled of certain spices, all enticing.
“So . . . don’t think I’m going to thank you for this,” he muttered to no one in particular.
Hunger overtaking his good sense, the graying warrior tore into the surprisingly well-prepared meat. He devoured not only one, but both rabbits with great ease. Large, they eventually silenced the cry in his stomach, leaving him to ponder what to do with the rest. Norrec waited, expecting the suit to make the decision for him, but nothing happened.
The pack still watched him, but their gazes often slipped to the meat, finally giving Norrec his own answer. He raised his hand, indicated the goat and the other slaughtered creatures, and waved toward the imps.
They needed no further invitation. With a manic glee that made the seasoned veteran push away, the tiny horde fell upon the meat. They tore into the flesh, sending gobbets and blood flying everywhere. Norrec’s own meal grew queasy in his stomach as he watched the demons strip the bones of anything they could devour. He imagined those same claws and teeth on him . . .
“Verash!” So disturbed by the sight before him, Norrec barely reacted to the harsh word bursting from his mouth.
The imps recoiled as if struck. Cowed, they seized what remained of the goat’s carcass and dragged it toward the fissure. With some effort, the grotesque creatures deposited the remains in the crevice, then, one by one, followed after it.
The last gave the human a quick and highly curious glance, then vanished into the bowels of the earth.
Before Norrec’s wondering eyes, the crevice sealed itself, leaving no trace of its existence.
Walking dead. Haunted armor. Demons from the underworld. Norrec had witnessed magic in the past, even heard tales of dark creatures, but nothing could have ever prepared him for all that had happened since he had first entered that cave. He wished that he could go back and change events, make the decision to leave the tomb before the guardians had risen to slay his band, but Norrec knew he could no more do that than peel the cursed suit from his body.
He needed rest. The trek had been an arduous one and with food in his stomach the desire to go on had faded, at least for the time being. Better to sleep, then continue on refreshed. Perhaps his thoughts would also clear, enable him to better think how to extricate himself from this terrifying situation.
Norrec leaned back, stretching out. After so many years on the battlefield, any spot served as good as another when it came to finding a bed. The armor would make matters uncomfortable, but the tired soldier had suffered worse in that respect.
“What in—?”
His arms and legs pushed him back up to a standing position. Norrec tried to sit down, but no part of his body beneath his neck obeyed.
His arms dropped, swinging from the shoulders as if every muscle had been cut. Norrec’s left foot stepped forward; his right followed after.
“I can’t go on, damn you! I need some rest!”
The suit cared not a whit, picking up the pace. Left. Right. Left. Right.
“An hour! Two at the most! That’s all I need!”
His words echoed uselessly through the mountains and hills. Left. Right. Whether the hapless veteran liked it or not, he would continue his arduous journey.
But to where?
This should never have happened, Kara nervously thought. By the will of Rathma, this should never have happened!
The emerald sphere that she had conjured earlier in order to see gave the entire tableau an even more unsettling appearance. Her face, already pale in color, paled further. Kara pulled her lengthy black cloak about her, taking some comfort from its warmth. Under thick lashes, silver, almond-shaped eyes surveyed a scene that her masters surely could never have envisioned. The tomb is forever safe, they had always insisted. Where Vizjerei elemental sorcery falters, our own trusted skills will make the difference.
But now both the more materialistic Vizjerei and the pragmatic followers of Rathma had apparently failed in their trust. That which they had sought to forever bury from the sight of men had not only been discovered, but had actually been stolen.
Or was there more to it? How powerful could the intruders have been to not only eliminate the undead guardians, but also shatter the unbreakable wards?
Not so powerful that two of them had not died in very violent fashion. Moving with such grace that she seemed almost to glide, the black-clad woman went to the nearest of the corpses. Kara leaned down and, after pushing back several tresses of lengthy, raven-colored hair, inspected the remains.
A wiry man, a battle-scarred war veteran. From one of the distant western lands. Not a pleasant-looking man, even before someone had completely twisted his head around and nearly torn off his arm. The dagger in his chest, surely an exercise in excess, looked to be his own. Which had killed him, even the necromancer could not say—not yet. The gaping wound had bled well, but not as much as it normally should have. Yet, why cut the victim open after snapping his neck?
As silent as death, the slim but curvaceous young woman made her way to the other body. This one she immediately recognized as a Vizjerei, which did not surprise her in the least. Always meddling, always seeking methods by which to gain advantage over one another, the Vizjerei made untrustworthy allies at best. If not for them, this entire situation would never have occurred. Bartuc and his brother had followed the early teachings of the Vizjerei, especially their reckless use of demons for more powerful spells of sorcery. Bartuc had especially excelled in that respect, but his constant interactions with the dark ones had twisted his own thinking, making him believe that demons were his allies. They, in turn, had fed off his growing evil, kindred spirits from both the mortal and infernal planes.
And although Horazon and his fellow mages had slain Bartuc and defeated his demon host, they had found it impossible to destroy the warlord’s very corpse. The armor, known to bear several sinister enchantments, had continued to try to serve its function, protecting its master even in death. Only the fact that Bartuc had failed to cover his throat properly had even allowed his foes to decapitate the villain in the first place.
Left with a head and torso that they could not readily burn, the Vizjerei had come to Kara’s own people, searching the dense jungles for the reclusive practitioners of a sorcery that balanced life and death, a sorcery that caused their wielders to be branded necromancer . Together the two diverse orders worked hard to make certain that Bartuc’s remains forever vanished from the face of the world, hopefully even the warlord’s enchantments fading to nothing with time.
Kara touched the crimson-soaked throat of the dead sorcerer, noting how most of it had been ripped away with a savageness beyond that of most animals. Unlike the fighter, the mage had died very quickly if still brutally. His eyes stared up at her, the horror of what had happened to him still evident. His expression remained a mix of shock and disbelief, almost . . . almost as if he could not believe who his murderer had been.
Yet, how could some force slay a Vizjerei and still fail to stop the other thieves? Had they just been
fortunate, barely escaping? Kara frowned; with the undead guardians gone and the wards shattered, what had remained that could have hunted the intruders? What?
She wished the others had come with her, but that had not been possible. They had been needed elsewhere— everywhere, it seemed. Ageneral ground swelling of forces so very dark had been sensed not only throughout Kehjistan, but also Scosglen. The faithful of Rathma had been spread thinner than in any other period of their existence.
And that left only her, one of the youngest and lesstested of her faith. True, like most of those who followed the path of Rathma, she had been trained to be independent almost from birth, but now Kara felt she entered territory for which no amount of teaching or experience could have prepared her.
Perhaps . . . perhaps though, this Vizjerei could still teach her something about what she now faced.
From her belt, Kara removed a delicate-looking but highly resilient dagger, the blade of which had been fashioned in a back-and-forth serpentine manner. Both the blade and the handle had been carved from purest ivory, but there again appearances deceived. Kara would have willingly pitted her own knife against any other, knowing full well that the enchantments placed on it made it stronger and more accurate than most normal weapons.
With neither distaste nor eagerness, the necromancer touched the point to one of the bloodiest areas on the dead Vizjerei’s ravaged throat. She turned the blade over and over until the tip had been completely covered. Then, holding the dagger hilt down, Kara muttered her spell.
The deep red splotches on the tip flared bright. She muttered a few more words, concentrating.
The splotches began to change, to grow. They moved as if alive—or remembering life.
Kara, called Nightshadow by her teachers, flipped the dagger over, then thrust the point into the floor.
The blade sank in halfway, not at all impeded by the hard rock surface. Stepping back quickly, Kara watched as the ivory dagger became engulfed by the swelling splotches, which then melded together, creating a vaguely human form little taller than the weapon.
Drawing patterns in the air, the necromancer uttered the second and final part of her incantation.
In a blaze of red light, a full-sized figure materialized where the ivory dagger had stood. Completely crimson from head to toe, skin to garments, he stared at her with vacant eyes. He wore the clothes of a Vizjerei sorcerer, the same clothes, in fact, that the corpse on the floor behind him wore.
Kara eagerly beheld the phantasm bearing the likeness of the dead mage. She had done this only once before and under conditions much more favorable. What stood before her most mortals would have called a ghost, a spirit—but in doing so they would have been only partially correct. Drawn forth from the life’s blood of the victim, it indeed bore some traces of the dead’s spirit, but to fully summon a true specter would have taken more time and trouble and Kara had to act in haste now. This phantasm would surely serve to answer her questions.
“Name yourself!” she demanded.
The mouth moved but no sound came from it. Nonetheless, an answer formed in her mind.
Fauztin . . .
“What happened here?”
The phantasm stared, but did not answer. Kara cursed herself for a fool, realizing that it could only answer questions in a simple way. Taking a breath, she asked, “Did you destroy the undead?”
Some . . .
“Who destroyed the rest?”
Hesitation, then . . . Norrec.
Norrec? The name meant nothing to her. “A Vizjerei? A sorcerer?”
To her surprise, the spectral form shook his crimson head ever so slightly. Norrec . . . Vizharan . . .
The name again. The last part, Vizharan, meant servant of the Vizjerei in the old tongue, but that information helped Kara little. This path led her nowhere. She turned to a different and far more important subject. “Did this Norrec take the armor from the dais?”
And again the phantasm shook his head ever so slightly. Kara frowned, recalling nothing in her teachings mentioning this. Perhaps Vizjerei made for more unusual summonings. She pondered her next question with care. With the limitations of the phantasm, the necromancer realized that she could spend all day and night asking and yet still receive no knowledge of value to her mission. Kara would have to—
A sound came from the passage behind her.
The young enchantress whirled about. For just the briefest of moments, she thought she saw a slight bluish light deep within, but it vanished so quickly that Kara had to wonder if she had imagined it. It could have simply been a glow bug or some other insect, but . . .
Cautiously approaching the tunnel, Kara warily peered into the darkness. Had she been too hasty in heading directly to the main chamber? Could this Norrec have been hiding outside, waiting for someone to come?
Absurd, but Kara had heard a noise. Of that she felt certain.
And at that moment, she heard it again, this time much farther into the passage.
Muttering a spell, Kara formed a second emerald sphere, which she immediately sent fluttering down the rocky corridor. As it darted along, the dark-haired woman followed after for a few steps, trying to make out what she could.
Still no sign of another intruder, but Kara could not take a chance. Anyone who could so readily slay a Vizjerei certainly offered deadly threat. She could not simply ignore the possibility. Taking a deep breath, the necromancer started down the rocky passage—
—and froze a moment later, swearing at herself for her carelessness. Kara had left her prized dagger behind, and she dared not face a possible foe without it. Not only did it provide her with protection both in the mundane and magical senses, but by leaving it behind, the dark mage even risked possibly losing it to whomever might be stalking the tomb.
She quickly stepped back into the chamber, already preparing in her mind the spell to dismiss the phantasm, only to find that the crimson figure had already vanished.
Kara managed but one more step before a further realization struck her just as hard. With the phantasm had vanished her precious dagger, yet that alone did not leave her now wide-eyed and unable to even speak.
Both the body of the sorcerer Fauztin and his slighter companion had also disappeared.
Four
The sand snake wound swiftly along the shifting desert, its constant undulations keeping the heat of the ground from burning it underneath. Hunting had been poor today but with the sun rising higher, the time had come, like it or not, for the snake to temporarily seek shelter. When the sun had descended some it could come out again, this time hopefully to snag a mouse or beetle. One could not go long in the desert without food, where hunting had always been a difficult business. Pushing itself hard, the snake traveled up the latest dune, aware that only minutes separated it from shade. Once over this one impediment, it would be home free.
The sand beneath the snake suddenly erupted.
Mandibles more than a foot in length snapped tight around the midsection of the serpent. The snake flailed desperately, trying to slither out. A monstrous head burst through the sand, followed by the first pair of needlelike legs.
Still struggling, the snake struck at its attacker, hissing and trying to use its venom. The fangs, however, could not penetrate the chitinous exoskeleton of the huge arthropod.
One leg pinned down the rear half of the snake. The beetlelike head of the massive predator twisted sharply, at the same time the mandibles squeezing tight.
Flailing, the bloody front half of the serpent dropped to the ground, the head still hissing.
The black and red arthropod emerged completely from its hiding place, turning now to the process of dragging its meal to where it could eat in leisure. With its front appendages, the nearly seven-foot long predator began prodding the back half of the serpent.
A shadow suddenly loomed over the hideous creature. Immediately it turned its bulky head and spat at the new intruder.
The corrosive poison splattered against the
somewhat ragged silk robe of a bearded and rather wild-eyed elderly man. From above a long, almost beaklike nose, he gazed down briefly at the sizzling mess, then waved one gnarled hand over it. As he did this, the acidic poison and the damage it had already caused completely vanished.
Watery blue eyes focused on the savage insect.
Plumes of smoke arose from the exoskeleton. The beetlelike creature let out a high-pitched squeal, its spindly legs teetering. It tried to flee, but its body seemed no longer to work. The legs buckled and the body crumpled. Parts of the monstrous insect began to drip away, as if the creature was no longer made of shell and flesh, but rather runny wax now melting in the hot sun.
The squealing arthropod collapsed in a molten heap. The mandibles, so deadly to the snake, dissolved into a pool of black liquid that readily sank into the sand. The cries of the dying creature finally cut off and, as the ragged figure watched, what remained of the oncesavage predator utterly vanished, draining away like the few drops of rain that annually sought to soothe this parched land.
“Sand maggot. Too many of them about now. So much evil about everywhere,” the white-haired patriarch muttered to himself. “So much evil even out here. I must be careful, must be very careful.”
He walked past the savaged snake and its just as unfortunate pursuer, heading to another dune just a short distance away. As the bearded hermit neared, the dune suddenly swelled, growing higher and higher, finally forming a doorway within that seemed to lead directly into the underworld itself.
Watery blue eyes turned to survey the oppressive landscape. A momentary shiver ran through the elderly man.
“So much evil . . . I must definitely be careful.”
He descended into the dune. The sand immediately began to pull inward the moment he passed through the entrance, filling the passage behind in rapid fashion until no sign remained at all of any opening.
And as the dune settled to normal again, the desert winds continued their shifting of the rest of the landscape, the snake and the sand maggot already joining countless other hapless denizens in a dusty, forgotten burial.
Diablo #1: Legacy of Blood Page 5