The Shield of Weeping Ghosts c-3

by James P. Davis

  At the base of the steps, Thaena called a halt, ordering two groups of warriors to scout east and west along the walls. Half the fang broke off to follow the command with several of the durthans sellswords joining them. They disappeared into the mist, their footsteps through the snow muffled and then gone altogether.

  "Do you think this wise, Thaena?" Duras whispered to the ethran. Bastun turned, trying to appear casual as he eavesdropped. "We face too many unknowns here."

  "I think we have few choices," she answered, pacing away from the other warriors. "If we turn back, we leave the Shield to the Nar and the hathran to their mercies. Beyond that, we have the durthans presence to consider as well. She cannot be left here."

  "The durthan we can deal with," Duras replied. "But you're right. We must see to the hathran first, though I must admit I-"

  "I know," Thaena said, cutting him off. "A timely rescue seems less and less likely."

  With that she turned, motioned for the others to follow, and began ascending the stairs.

  Bastun waited several breaths for the scouts to return, though the size of the outer wall might keep them away for some time. Staring after Thaena, he took a deep breath and took to the steps, slick with a thin coat of snow-covered ice.

  At the stairs' highest point, twin towers stood sentinel at the end of a large enclosure before the main doors, the gates between them long fallen to dust. Long walls bore ice-encrusted arrow slits angled downward. Bastun eyed those slits closely, imagining the slaughter that might have taken place had an army come to the Shield's doors unprepared. Unfortunately, only one army had ever been this close-and they had been well prepared.

  The berserkers grumbled and glared at the high walls, one of which had crumbled halfway down its length. The Rashemi did not care for such stonework and enclosed spaces, preferring the wilds of their homeland and simple lodgings close to the ground.

  Their footsteps across the flagstones echoed dully as they neared the large double doors of the citadel. Thaena gestured for Anilya to guard the enclosure's entrance with her sellswords. Judging by Syrolf's glare at Ohriman, it was yet another rare moment where he and the vremyonni agreed-Bastun did not care to have the durthan and her tiefling at his back.

  The wind picked up slightly, whistling across the tops of the walls and spilling snow over the sides. Drifts had piled in front of the doors. As Thaena approached the entrance, the fang spread out with weapons drawn, each with an eye on their surroundings, the durthan, and Bastun. Turning away and narrowing his eyes, Bastun focused on his location, withdrawing into the curiosity of a scholar's mind that had served as an escape for so many years.

  "What do you see, vremyonni?" Startled, he found Anilya studying the stonework of the nearby wall over his shoulder. "When you look at this place and all the time written into its stones, what do you see?"

  She leaned forward, resting a hand on his arm as she examined the smooth contours of what might have once been a decorative carving, now worn to an indiscernible shape by centuries of exposure. Short, dark hair curled from beneath the edges of her mask, and he caught the scent ofwildflowers as she stood back. Suspicious, he remained silent and wasn't sure she even expected an answer to her strange question.

  "Bastun."

  He turned to see Thaena motioning for him to join her at the entrance. Anilya's hand fell away as she continued to observe the ancient walls with the casual grace of an experienced conspirator. Thankful for the interruption, Bastun quickly took his leave of the durthan and her cloying perfume.

  "The doors," Thaena said. "I detect no wards upon them, but I sense something here that eludes my magic. Can you examine them as well?"

  "Of course," he said. He glanced once again at the durthan who had wandered back to stand with her men. Shaking his head slightly at what to him seemed the greater mystery-the durthan-he studied the doors for signs of disturbance. The wood was new, fashioned in Rashemen and set with large iron bracers, simple and unadorned.

  A spell came to mind and he stepped into the drift before the doors in order to reach them. Before he could cast, his boot struck something solid in the snow. Cautiously, he prodded the drift with his staff, causing it to tumble away in clumps from the hidden object. His eyes widened as he pushed away more and more snow.

  Glistening white hands and arms reached from the snow, preserved in the pose of their horrible final moments. Faces appeared as he brushed away the snow, each frozen in a screaming rictus, as if pleading with whatever had felled them to either spare them or let them die. Thaena stared at the bodies piled against the doors, then knelt to reach for a dropped necklace of bear claws and teeth. Each of the corpses bore a similar talisman, the trappings and clothing of Rashemi berserkers on each one.

  "Bear Lodge," Duras whispered, though his voice thundered in the silence of the grisly scene.

  "The hathran's fang," Thaena added, turning the necklace over her wrist.

  "No surprise that," said Ohriman, the tiefling approaching nearby and observing the bodies with a disgusted sneer. "Setting up camp in a place like this, bound to find it a bit colder sooner or later."

  "Hold your tongue, outlander," Duras growled, "or I'll hand it to you."

  "These were Rashemi," Thaena said sternly, though her eyes never left the bodies. "They certainly did not freeze to death."

  "I didn't mean to imply that they did, Lady Witch," Ohriman replied with a mocking bow, then added as he straightened, "Just that there's a reason most folk avoid Shandaular."

  A dark patch on the eastern wall drew Bastun closer, sparking a memory. Kneeling, he avoided looking at the icy body of a young berserker, a man barely old enough to join the fang.

  Brushing some snow away from the stone, Bastun found a darker substance mixed beneath it. Pulling his hand back, the familiar scent of brimstone filled him with alarm as he uncovered another sigil of ash, just like the ones that marred the wychlaren's path. A bone-numbing cold stole his voice and he doubled over in pain, rolling away from the wall and struggling to breathe. Once-sightless eyes blinked at him and rolled in their sockets, bits of ice falling away from a furrowing white brow as the dead man's jaw opened to issue a weak murmur of hunger.

  The others backed away quickly, frost forming on their weapons as more of the bodies began to break the ice that surrounded them. Pale flesh cracked, gaping jaws closed, and waves of freezing cold reached out for the warmth of the living.

  Thaena stumbled into Duras, breath steaming from behind her mask. Bastun scrambled backward on his hands as the dead pushed away from the wall and tried to rise.

  "Bleakborn," he croaked, his throat raw and aching with cold. There were stories of outlanders lost to Rashemen's harsh winters, cursed to rise again by circumstance or vengeful spirit-or, he realized, by dying at the hands of another bleakborn.

  He tried to call out, to warn the others, but his voice came as barely more than a whisper.

  "No… flame," he managed though none could hear him. Some among the fang dropped weapons and cursed the growing frost on gloves and sword hilts. Thaena's voice rose above the others, chanting the beginnings of a spell that filled him with dread. "No… flame!"

  He rushed to stop her but slipped and fell to his hands and knees. The ethran's forearms glowed with heat, fire leaping from her palms. Several of the bleakborn were engulfed, writhing in the flames. The nearness of warmth was a blessing before it was sucked away.

  The flames died, swallowed by flesh that blushed and plumped as the frozen blood within thawed and began to flow. Rashemi faces, restored to a horrific semblance of life, twisted into horrified grimaces as if some dim memory of death had sparked in their minds. They stared at hands that were no longer icy claws. The effect was brief, holding for a heartbeat before the patches of white spread, a pallor of death reclaiming their cursed flesh. They whined as the heat bled from them, raising their arms, hungry for more as they advanced on the living.

  The fang moved to defend their ethran. Wide-eyed as he surveyed
the closing circle of undead, Bastun summoned his axe blade. Anilya's voice rose in casting and she spun as her sellswords formed their own semi-circle. Battle cries, blades, and cracking ice echoed within the enclosure. Raising his axe, Bastun searched for his place in the circle, turning as he listened to the chaotic rhythms-and detected an inconsistency.

  A bleakborn shattered as the durthan completed her spell. Thaena grunted as she took another off its feet, muttering arcane phrases to keep it down. A clang of steel on his right, a dying sellsword gasping for breath on his left. From above he caught whispering and a rustle of robes.

  The dark figure on the eastern wall moved before Bastun could get a better look, but its voice continued to whisper words of magic. Bastun charged forward, sidestepping a stumbling berserker, the man's arms coated with thin ice. A bleakborn hissed as it knelt to finish its grisly feeding. Horrified, Bastun slashed at its skull, using the strike to slip past the combatants. The blade split through flesh and bone as he turned with the swing.

  Bolts of flame arced from above and he dived forward, the edges of his robes singed and steaming in the snow. The figure above disappeared again, but its aim had been true. The nearly beheaded bleakborn rose, its flesh healed, and reached toward the vremyonni. He cursed as the undead's freezing aura gripped him. Pushing himself up along the ruined wall, Bastun struggled to summon a spell through the cold.

  Ohriman appeared, kicking the bleakborn down and slashing at its grasping fingers. Blood spilled and became a black ichor as it hit the ground. Not waiting to thank the tiefling, Bastun turned to the wall and began to climb, finding easy hand- and footholds in the crumbling stonework.

  Wind and snow greeted him atop the wall as he stood and peered through the mist for the figure on the tower. Stalking forward, he glanced once at the battle below, his allies barely visible through the haze. Only Anilya stood out, her arms raised as she chanted a dark language over the bodies of several fallen sellswords. Bastun shuddered and ignored the durthan, focusing on the tower.

  The figure appeared, dressed in long robes and a furred cloak with a brace of amulets around his neck and braided into his long, unkempt hair-the look of a Nar shaman. Even across the distance that separated them, Bastun could see a spark of madness glinting in the Creel's eye. Spying Bastun, the shaman snarled, baring his teeth as Bastun approached.

  "What do you want with the Shield?" Bastun asked as he adjusted the angle of his axe, edging forward and determined to discover if he faced a simple barbarian or something more sinister. "Why have you come?"

  The Creel's answer was a string of arcane syllables, summoning a smoky darkness that enveloped his hand. Bastun charged, muttering a curse. With a quick spell he might have killed the shaman, but he needed answers. He dodged left, skirting the edge of the wall as a ribbon of darkness shot past him. It grazed his arm, searing as it passed through robes and flesh. Growling through the pain, he darted forward, ducking beneath another bolt of shadow, and shoved the Creel backward.

  A dagger flashed in the shaman's hand, but it proved no match for Bastun's axe. Wincing at the pain in his arm, he separated the Creel from the dagger, taking several fingers in the process. Reversing his swing, he cracked the butt of his staff into the screaming man's jaw.

  The shaman, his pain-filled screams cut short, toppled back to the tower's edge, but Bastun caught the front of his robes. Dazed, hanging over the long drop, the Creel's head rolled back, smeared with blood and spitting teeth.

  "Why have you come here?" Bastun yelled, shaking the man and threatening with his axe. His injured arm burned with the weight, but he managed to hold on as the dangling man coughed and laughed weakly.

  "You are… fool… witch-wizard," he replied in a broken Common, blinking and trying to focus on his ruined hand.

  "Why? Why am I a fool?" Bastun asked, his arm aching with strain.

  "Old blood… is come here." The shaman's eyes cleared, madness shining in them as he glared in fury. "He put… house back in order… his Breath… to end you!"

  Bastun felt his heart skip a beat, the Creel's words turning his concerns into grim reality.

  "The Breath," he whispered, "Where? Do you-?"

  His shoulder popped and he cried out as the Creel slipped away. Bastun stumbled backward, his shoulder limp and arm dangling. In pain, he dimly heard the shaman hit the stones below, a fleeting comfort as he contemplated the man's last words.

  "No time," he muttered. "No time now."

  Kneeling, he retrieved his axe, pinned his hand under the shaft with his boot, and gripped the dislocated shoulder. Taking a deep breath, he pushed.

  The white-hot pain of his shoulder snapping into place brought stars to his eyes. Awkwardly he stood and leaned on the edge of the tower. A rousing cry erupted among the berserkers as the scouts returned and joined the battle. Sighing in relief, Bastun slumped and crawled back to the ruined end of the wall, edging his way down carefully.

  The warriors' blades made little more than writhing parts of the bleakborn. They kicked the pieces away from one another, spitting in disgust while at the same time muttering prayers of peace for their cursed brethren.

  As Bastun rested, he noticed a change in the eyes of the fang. They gathered and made signs of warding. A handful of the sellswords stood at the edge of the enclosure, staring blankly into a distant nowhere. Bastun recalled hearing the durthans dark spell and looked upon the mindless dead she had made of her own men.

  "Abominations!" Thaena shouted.

  "Perhaps," Anilya countered. "But abominations that tipped the odds in our favor." Several of the bleakborn lay smashed at the zombies' feet.

  "This is not our way," said Thaena. "To win at any cost, inviting evil such as this to darken our doorstep!"

  "And our alliance?" Anilya replied, crossing her arms. "Is one cost more acceptable than another?"

  "We will make allowances for the living as need dictates," the ethran said, "but we will not resort to fouling the laws of nature. Shandaular bears curse enough without your help."

  The ethran turned back to the fang, pointing at the Shield's doors.

  "Get those open," she ordered, then faced Anilya again, gesturing at the undead. "Burn them."

  Their masks, night and day, displayed a conflict far beyond the mere use of necromancy. Anilya broke the stare, glancing sidelong at her creations.

  "Fine," she said calmly, then added before turning away, "But in the future you might do well to consider the costs of defeat."

  Ohriman followed the durthan, lighting a torch and descending to the courtyard behind the walking dead.

  Looking west Bastun searched through the fog, now growing lighter as dawn neared. High above in the northwest tower he spotted a faint pinpoint of flickering light, like an earthbound star dying and choking in Shandaular's misty cloak.

  "Old blood," he muttered, recalling the shaman's words. The Creel had indeed come with some knowledge of the Shield's secrets. Briefly Bastun wondered if it had been they who had invaded the Running Rocks, stolen the scrolls, and slain old Keffrass. Even with the scrolls, the Breath's location was a mystery, known only to a select few among the wychlaren and vremyonni, but his sense of urgency was nonetheless jolted by the thought. He started as the doors creaked open behind him.

  The smell of smoke drew his gaze to the durthan on the steps below, the dead standing at mute attention as they were set aflame. They did not move, feeling no pain as their cold flesh charred and fell away, slowly revealing skull-grins and emptied sockets before falling one by one to the ground. He caught the durthans eye, her mask aglow in the flames' light.

  Troubled by the connection in that stare, he turned toward the opening doors, away from the smell of burning flesh and the flashing eyes of Anilya.

  Burning cinders floated through the air around Anilya, but she paid them no mind. The vremyonni was a far more intriguing subject than the wasteful destruction of perfectly good bodies. He turned away from her and she smiled, wondering how the prese
nce of this exile could be used to her advantage.

  Steam hissed from the snow as Ohriman tossed the torch away.

  "This ethran is a fool, Anilya," he said. "The zombies would have made excellent shields if the Creel choose to attack again."

  "True enough," she answered, "but they were a mistake. A useful one to be sure, but not one I shall repeat."

  "This alliance you've forged for us is teetering on a very precarious edge. We should have gone on without the Rashemi or killed them when we had the chance."

  "No, Ohriman." She turned to face him. "The Rashemi may be dangerous, but they are loyal to the wychlaren above all else. They will prove useful in time."

  "What of these swords-for-hire?" he asked, glancing toward the men at the top of the stairs. "How can we be sure they'll follow through with this? Mere coin cannot buy that kind of loyalty."

  "Their rations and wine are drugged," she said. "A derivative of Theskian thrallwine. It will keep them under control and, fortunately, not very bright."

  "And the vremyonni? He knows something, I can taste it in his scent."

  Anilya did not answer right away, though she was concerned about Bastun's knowledge as well. Looking back up the stairs she could see the tops of the Shield's doors opening. She could imagine what they might find inside. Dealing with the wychlaren was a nuisance. She despised their xenophobic views of the outside world. Rashemen was a land of power and the wychlaren merely caretakers until someone with more lust for battle came along to take it from them.

  A shower of sparks and steam rose as another of the zombies collapsed into the snow to smolder and pop.

  "Perhaps you are right," she said at length, looking at the flickering window in the northwest tower. "Keep a close watch on the exile. Do not let him out of your sight."

  "You think he knows?"

  "He is vremyonni," she said. "Musty old tomes and ancient knowledge are their lives."

  "Pity for them," he replied. "No wonder he's leaving."

  "People abandon their homes for many reasons, Ohriman," she said quietly, more to herself than the tiefling, as she studied the high walls and towers of the Shield. "Not the least of which is the idea of returning… to make it stronger than it was before."