Death Mark

by Robert J. Schwalb

  The halfling’s fighting guards embraced each other, their blades punching into each other’s bowels. The spell holding them broke. They dropped to the floor, squirming as they died.

  Watari held Talara by the arm. She fought him, grabbing the bars and kicking at his face. He slashed at her feet and legs. He couldn’t land a solid blow.

  Pakka used his distraction to rush him. She moved far faster than her short legs and ruined body should allow. The halfling realized the danger at the last moment. He lashed out. The blade punched into their rescuer’s shoulder. It was about as effective as tapping her with a finger. She grabbed his head in both hands. The color in his face vanished at once. His skin turned blue-white, his lips blackened. He thrashed. She held on. His hair turned stark white, and still he fought. Pakka applied more pressure. A thin wail slipped through his chattering teeth, just before his skull collapsed with a wet clap.

  Thaxos Vordon hesitated. His mind raced. He was so close.

  “We’re at an impasse, it seems,” said the templar.

  “Indeed,” he said.

  “What will it be? Will you push on in this mad crusade and let the city die with you? Or have we had enough of Vordon’s ambitions?”

  “We push on, of course,” said Thaxos.

  Korvak’s eye widened in shock. “You heard what your messenger said. The city is under attack. Even if you defeat Tithian, it’ll cost you your army. You can’t hold the throne against them.”

  Thaxos growled, “I am committed.”

  “To annihilation? Look, if we combine forces, your soldiers and Tithian’s guard, we have a chance. It’s the one we have,” said Korvak. “The only one.”

  The ground shook from another explosion in the streets. Dust and stones fell from the sagging roof.

  “And then, once the battle’s done, I’ll be ruined,” said Thaxos. He lowered his sword a few inches.

  Korvak tapped his chin with a finger, considering. “Maybe. Maybe not. Tithian is in the same situation. While he’s bottled up here, he can’t do anything either. I am certain you can come to an arrangement once this is done.”

  The templar was right. The undead horde had taken Thaxos by surprise. He had hoped to take the Golden City after an hour at most. Where had the other army come from? Who did they fight for? Had he been able to take Tithian, he could have used his army to shore up Tyr’s defenders. He felt as if he had lost before he had even begun.

  He could slip away. He had holdings in other cities still. He could start again. But the shame would be unbearable. To be driven out from his city, the city he would have ruled … He would rather see Tyr in ruins than face such shame.

  Screams sounded from outside. Thaxos imagined it was some spell, some sorcery hurled by the king. It firmed his resolve to win. He stepped forward, sword ready to skewer the templar.

  Korvak stumbled back, hands raised.

  “There will be time enough to deal with this new enemy once I have secured my throne,” he said, and he raised the blade to strike.

  The ghouls were behind them still. Melech could hear their shrieks and laughter as they barreled down the Warrens’ tight streets. He and Kep had been joined by the district’s wretched denizens, forming into a mob of the maimed, starved, and afflicted, all running for their lives from the things hunting them.

  Kep took the next turn. He angled toward the fires raging in eastern fringes. Melech and the rest followed the halfling’s lead. They stumbled to a stop, piling up behind the halfling.

  Four people stood in a line across the street. In the center stood a pudgy, balding man dressed in a simple tunic and breeches, the only concession to ornamentation being the copper armband he wore on each arm. Next to him was a beautiful half-elf woman in a long flowing dress. She gripped a staff in two hands. The other two were small gaunt humans. The man was haggard, and the woman crouched on the balls of her feet.

  Melech had no idea who the people were. They weren’t templars. They weren’t nobles. And they were not warriors.

  The bald man in the center shouted, “Stand aside!”

  The ghouls appeared at the mouth of the street behind Melech. They howled and raced forward, claws extended, fangs bared.

  Melech, Kep, and most of the refugees ran. A few were not fast enough and went down in a flurry of cloth, blood, and guts, their attackers rending their bodies with tooth and claw.

  The four newcomers in the street, however, didn’t hesitate. They raised hands, orbs, staff, and wand and unleashed a magical torrent against the undead. The bald man cut down two ghouls with a radiant beam. The woman loosed green fire from her staff, while the others hurled glowing white dart after glowing white dart into the attackers.

  The undead screeched and writhed. They lost their courage and turned to run. The magic cut them down. Yet even as the ghouls died, the walking dead who followed caught up. Their sightless, idiotic expressions and their grasping fingers told Melech they would not stop until destroyed.

  The fat man in the center stepped forward and drew back his arms. He then thrust them forward, sending another wave of dreadful magical energy, a bow of golden radiance drifting toward the undead host. It seemed as though it would do nothing aside from a pretty show, but when it fell on the zombies, they exploded one by one with quiet pops, showering the street with their putrid meat.

  At last, the undead were destroyed, and the survivors stared at each other in shock.

  “Well, that was interesting,” said Melech.

  The stone plug blocking the far end of Caravan Way blew away like a scrap of burning paper and tumbled through a row of buildings in a terrific crash before it vanished beneath the wreckage of a collapsed building. “Go, Loren. Give me my city,” said Temmnya.

  She was awful and terrible and beautiful all at once. She shone with malign power, a corona of energy flickering around long black hair writhing in a supernatural wind. The skeletal beast she rode fell back on two legs and clawed the air. Aeris hung on as best he could. He was small and pale, a wisp of the man he once was.

  Loren hated her but he was helpless to refuse her. So he ran down the tunnel, leading Kutok and the others, a tiny crowd of doomed men and women with the slave tribe on their heels. Behind them, undead hordes shuffled. Temmnya rose above them, her laughter bouncing around the dark passage.

  On the other side, Loren found living foes waiting for him, a motley assortment of caravan guards, mercenaries, and adventurers with a smattering of templars. Many more were common folk, laborers and tradesmen armed with whatever they could find. They were few. Too few. But they were determined. It was their city, and they would not surrender it to the invaders.

  Loren sought out the biggest enemy and found a hulking half-giant armed with a great stone held in its fists. Loren charged him. He leaped at the last moment to swing his blade across his opponent’s face. His blade took the brute’s nose and one eye. He fell back, spurting blood and fluid. Loren landed at the half-giant’s side, reversed his grip, and drove the blade into his remaining eye.

  The battle surged around him. The cannibals carved through the defender’s ranks. The dead boiled out from the tunnel, crushing each other as they did. Temmnya rode in, untroubled by the press, and from her outstretched hands, pale gray rays flew. Where they fell, people died. She attacked without concern, destroying the living and the dead, friend and foe, anyone in her path. “Kill them! Kill them all!”

  Loren paid for his distraction when a hideous tarek smashed him to the ground. A spear had run the savage all the way through, but still he fought. He smashed the ground with his club, aiming at Loren’s head but missing, thanks to Loren’s quick reflexes. The club snapped. Loren grabbed the spear sticking out from his opponent to pull himself up to his feet. The tarek’s eyes rolled with pain. Loren cut his opponent’s throat with a swift slash, and before the tarek hit the ground, Loren was searching for his next victim.

  A scream drew Korvak away from the mad merchant. A young messenger racing toward the buil
ding fell to the ground when a naked, clawed monstrosity landed on her back. It sank fangs into the back of her neck and tore flesh, muscle, and bone free.

  “Souls of my ancestors!” gasped Thaxos. “What is that?”

  Shouts and panicked cries rose up from outside on the street. “I’d say our real enemy!” snarled Korvak.

  He moved to the gap in the wall and peered out into the street, where he saw Vordon’s soldiers in battle with more ghouls and walking dead.

  Thaxos joined him, all color draining from his face.

  “You want the city, Thaxos? You’ll have to save it first,” spit Korvak. He had little magic left. He went out to face the monsters all the same, blasting them with red lightning and screaming a challenge.

  More ghouls poured out from buildings. Scores of shuffling corpses followed on their heels. The attackers made no distinction between friend or foe. They killed anything they could, and when they dragged a victim down, they ate, tearing and ripping until the flopping limbs stopped.

  Loren staggered back. Temmnya was a few feet away. She had lost her mount at some point. Kutok and three members of the slave tribe came forward to form a living wall around the witch against the living and the dead.

  The ghouls’ ferocity drove back Tyr’s defenders, and they gave ground, retreating down side streets and ceding the opening to the invaders. With living victims out of reach, the ghouls swung horrid heads toward Temmnya’s force. She raised a hand, filthy magic holding many back. A few resisted and sprang forward to feast. Loren, Kutok, and the others cut them down. One got past them and bowled over Temmnya.

  She fell hard to the ground. She was stunned. Her magical hold over Loren broke, and so did her control over the undead.

  Ghouls, zombies, and worse turned toward their mistress and began to close in around them.

  Kutok cursed. A few of the savages howled. Aeris cried out in fear.

  Loren saw new horrors in the undead host. Slithering piles of meat crawled and flowed between the ranks. Tattered scraps of flesh bounced and skittered between feet. Dark things fluttered in the air. It seemed Temmnya’s spell had escaped her, had broken free, and more and more unnatural things joined the fight.

  As Kutok and the other warriors tightened ranks and started hacking and stabbing at the closing undead, Loren stepped away and turned to the woman on the ground. For the first time in days, he could think.

  “What have you done?” Loren shouted at Temmnya.

  “My children, my children, my sweet children.” She laughed and pushed herself up to her hands. She shook her head. Blood fell from her nostril.

  Greasy ashes swirled in the air.

  Horrors slithered and scuttled forward. The undead fell along with the living as more and more terrible creatures joined the fight. The undead pressed in on them from all directions.

  The slave tribe warriors howled battle cries and threw themselves at the undead in a wild, futile assault. The undead caught them and dragged them down to die. In moments, the slain rose to join their ranks, and thus did their numbers grow.

  Loren searched for Aeris and found him sitting on the ground. The black shard he had carried was cupped in his hands. It was enormous, as big as a man’s head, a pulsing mass of darkness. Aeris stared into the stone, and his eyes turned as black as the rock he held.

  Fire, smoke, and screaming greeted Alaeda when she limped out from the Vordon Emporium. She gripped her sword, plucked from a dead guard, and peered up the road. Through the haze, she saw a battle raging at the gate, Tyr’s people fought for their king, their city, their very lives against an appalling force. Some broke and ran. Many were cut down, hacked to pieces by the invading warriors or torn limb from limb by ravenous ghouls. Most held their positions, giving ground one foot at a time, but refusing to surrender. Alaeda understood. They had something to fight for. They fought for their freedom. They fought against the tyrant who led the hellish force to plunder their homes and bind them in shackles as tight as any Kalak had used.

  Talara reached to her side. Coldness followed. Pakka drifted up and out from the dark.

  “We have to help,” said Talara. “We must!”

  Alaeda nodded. How? She could barely walk. There was no place left to run, no place she could hide.

  Pakka flowed around them. “No,” she said. “I will not permit it. I failed you once, Talara, and I will not do it again by letting you die. You must flee this city. Run. Only then will you be safe.”

  Talara regarded the dwarf with cool eyes. “Pakka, I never asked for your protection. I … I don’t know what happened to you; I feel as though I am to blame. I cannot thank you enough for saving us. But I must fight. I’m sorry, Pakka.”

  The dwarf moaned, “Lady, I am bound to you. I cannot rest until you are secure.”

  “I will never be secure, Pakka. I can never be as safe as you wish me to be. Pakka, you are free. I release you.”

  Pakka wailed, a high-pitched, keening noise. She twitched and shook.

  “Come on!” said Alaeda. She pulled Talara, leaving the undead dwarf behind.

  Alaeda and Talara hobbled up the street. Alaeda’s injured leg slowed them. In the end, her pain saved their lives, for they were still hundreds of feet away when a new horror erupted from the street and roared a new challenge to the gathered warriors.

  As long as eight mekillots in a row, it looked like a massive green grub. Slime sloughed from its segmented body, and rows of tiny, black eyes rolled around in their sockets. Long, whiplike tentacles flailed around its head, and each creature they struck fell dead, torn to pieces and dissolving in moments. The ponderous beast swung toward Alaeda and Talara and opened its cavernous maw. From the darkness came a rush of foul-smelling fluid, and floating in the mess were twitching skeletons carried by the filthy wave. The living touched by the flood melted down to the bones but did not die. They joined the other skeletons and turned against their friends, ripping and tearing with dripping claws.

  The pudgy man who had saved them slumped. The woman with the staff supported him. The others, also fatigued, moved off, heading toward the city gates. The other survivors scattered like roaches in sudden light, scurrying for shelter where they could find it.

  Kep dusted himself off.

  “Quite the rescue, Kep. What with those things and all. How’d you know they’d be there?” Melech asked in a rush.

  The halfling shrugged. “I didn’t. It wasn’t a rescue.”

  “What was that ‘trust me’ business, then?” snapped Melech.

  “We couldn’t kill you at the Nest. Too many eyes. Too many questions. Torston wanted the templar dead.”

  “You were going to kill me?” asked Melech.

  The halfling shrugged again.

  “You little bastard,” Melech snarled and bunched his hands into fists.

  “If you two are done?” said the woman.

  Melech tore his gaze from the halfling.

  She stood there, eyes narrowed to slits. “The city?”

  “What about it?” said Melech and Kep together.

  It was the man who spoke. “There’s dark magic afoot, and it’s coming from a source near the city gates. We must destroy it before it destroys us all.”

  “Hey, I appreciate the help and all, but you are far better equipped for the whole hero business,” said Melech.

  “I’ll go,” said the halfling.

  “What?” asked Melech.

  The halfling stepped forward to join the other two.

  “You had better come along too. The undead are gaining numbers. And we won’t be here to protect you.”

  Melech reflected a moment. She was right. Better to stick with the wizards. “Fine. Anyone have a weapon?”

  The new horror reared back after disgorging the skeletons and launched its head at Kutok. The battered warrior rolled out of the way and swung his axe in a wide arc, severing two tentacles and sending them writhing to the ground.

  Then another massive worm burst up from below to j
oin the first.

  The second fiend’s sudden arrival threw Kutok off balance, and his axe almost slipped from his fingers. Before he could right himself, the demon he had struck dived down again and swallowed Kutok whole.

  Loren screamed in grief and rage. He left Temmnya and Aeris to cut a path through the milling zombies. It might be too late to save his friend, but he could still kill the beast.

  Loren raced toward the horror. Before he could strike it, a tendril lashed his back and latched on to him. He roared. The ground fell away below him as the second worm monster lifted him into the air. Although he swung about, he could see Aeris far from the front lines, struggling to control the darkness in his hands.

  Aeris looked up, shouted something, and death stalked the courtyard, defiling people, plants, and anything else in a wave of death rolling out from the pulsing black sphere. With the power he gathered, he hurled a sphere of glowing force at the monster. It struck the beast’s head and exploded. Chunks of burning meat flew in all directions. Loren tumbled free and crashed into the zombies below, which broke his fall.

  Struggling to his feet, he swung around to find Aeris. Some distance away, he saw Temmnya wheel on Aeris. More ashes filled the air, and some magical force flung Aeris against the wall. He slid down and did not move. The growing black ball rolled free from his hands.

  Korvak’s mad assault had proven a sufficient distraction, and Vordon’s forces, well trained as they were, struck together. They laid into the monsters with swords, axes, and spears. The ghouls killed dozens, but they were too few, and in moments they were dead.

  Shouting above the monstrous squealing, Korvak said, “If you would save this city, if you have any courage and any honor, follow me!”

  He ran for the ruined gate out from the Golden City. He did not know if any followed, and he didn’t care. They’d all be dead by dawn anyway.