The Shield of Weeping Ghosts c-3

by James P. Davis

  Bastun backstepped, spreading his arms wide. With one hand he deflected the prince's blade and with the other waved over the dropped blades and weapons of his fallen countrymen. Magic drifted from his fingertips, and he reversed his spin, thrusting with his axe and battering at Serevan's sword. A moment's hesitation and a nicked wrist revealed the first sign of a sluggishness infecting the bleakborn nobleman's movements. With a final thrust Bastun stepped away, backing up and kneeling on the stone floor.

  Eyes closed, he concentrated on the magic seeded in the items around him. Only the smallest of the blades responded. Hard-tipped short swords and daggers rattled as they rose on their points and spun into the air. He stood quickly and raised his axe, catching the prince's sword at the last moment. Tiny fractions of his focus floated in the small blades and he growled as he pushed back against Serevan's unnatural strength. Twisting to his right, he kicked at the prince's leg, setting Serevan off balance.

  Bastun exhaled and released the swarm of blades. They flew unerringly at their target, a few parried and sent spinning to the ground before the others struck home. A look of shock crossed the bleakborn's face, lasting only a moment as his chest, legs, and arms were stabbed by the flying arsenal. The blades tore through the illusion of life which tried to replace itself with each new wound. Daggers clattered to the floor, pushed out by renewing flesh that looked less alive and more scarred each time. As the last shortsword slipped from his stomach, the prince seemed more the walking corpse he was than the man he thought himself to be.

  Serevan's step faltered, and his head shook in denial. A thin whisper of a voice tried to speak past a shriveled tongue and a lipless skull's grin. Bastun knew he could not truly slay the prince. The Shield would keep its tormented conqueror alive night after night, but the vremyonni only needed to make it through one night, slay the Nar prince this once, for Duras. Taking the advantage he raised his axe high and brought it down with all the strength he could muster.

  The blade found only a thin sword awaiting it. The weapons shook violently, the force of the blow reverberating down the length of Bastun's arms as he stared into the maddened face of the undead prince. Serevan hissed, his nose now little more than a bit of tissue on the emerging skull beneath. Hunger drove the prince's furious attack, slashing and clawing such that the vremyonni was forced backward, trying to keep up with each blow.

  Catching an opening he returned the assault, venting his anger and matching the bleakborn's madness. His blood burned, the pain of his wounds and his aching muscles long forgotten and ignored. Arcane speed made their battle a blur of flashing metal, a cacophony of unintelligible curses and chanting.

  Blue light sparked from Bastun's hands, arcing through Serevan and spinning outward as it illuminated the spectral bodies of the wraiths. Shrill screams echoed throughout the tower, but despite the hole blasted through his stomach the prince fought on.

  His sword hooked beneath Bastun's axe and tore it from his hands. It clanged against a wall obscured by shadows, and Serevan lunged. Bastun deflected the blade. The prince stared with dawning recognition at the wavy-bladed long sword wielded against him.

  With heaving breaths, Bastun slashed Serevan back, having drawn the Breath on instinct and now finding himself fully locked in Athumrani's mindless battle for revenge. He gave the Magewarden his due and pressed upon Serevan with the vengeance of two men.

  To him, the Breath now seemed the coldest object he had ever touched. It numbed his hand, froze his fingers in a vice around the leather-wrapped handle. Its blade served him as a weapon, but its purpose sent chills through his soul.

  Serevan fell back, mesmerized by the artifact he had long sought but never truly seen in so many centuries. Only the ghost of the blade had been wielded by Athumrani. Only the memory of its ultimate use had washed over Serevan at the end of each long night. Absently he dropped his own sword and stared at his withered hands, a raspy breath of fear escaping him at the sight of his own death. Bastun swung the Breath wildly, scraping its tip across the bleakborn's breastplate.

  They had neared the others. Bastun could see the silhouettes of Thaena and Syrolf through the haze of wraiths. Serevan noticed as well, sensing the warmth of the living and drawn to it. He dived through his undead servants to reach the Rashemi, leaving Bastun to the spirits.

  Filmy garments of the dead clouded his vision as he stabbed and slashed through the fallen Creel. Cold claws reached through his robes, tearing at his spirit, but he shrugged them away. A whispered spell created a nimbus of gray light to surround him, the arcane aura shielding him against the hungry wraiths. The miasma of insubstantial bodies parted, and he found Serevan but a few strides away. Thaena had been knocked aside and she shivered, struggling to stand. Syrolf was bent on one knee, locked in a deadly embrace with the bleakborn who turned and smiled as his strength returned.

  Bastun charged, tackling the prince from the side and sending them both rolling to the ground. Syrolf was knocked free, and Bastun tumbled with Serevan, followed by wraiths seeking to protect their prince.

  He punched and kicked at the icy skin of the bleakborn, his knuckles bleeding from the effort. Darkness shrouded his eyes as wraiths tore at his robes and pulled at his hair. Though their claws scraped uselessly at the magic that protected his flesh, he was afforded no such protection against Serevan. Cold hands held him down, scratched at his mask, and pried at the fingers wrapped around the Breath. Bastun's strength could not hold. He felt his grasp loosen even as the prince's fist tightened around his neck. The sword fell away from his grip, thundering as it struck the floor.

  They both scrambled for the weapon. Through the darkness, tiny white sparks filled Bastun's eyes as his lungs burned. Useful spells flitted elusively through his mind, his thoughts now scattered in a void once filled by Athumrani.

  Steel skittered across stone, and he felt the weight of the prince lifted from his chest. He coughed and hacked as the wraiths fled. Syrolf stood over him, sword flashing in the torchlight as he cut down yet another of the ebony spirits.

  Several feet away, Serevan lurched awkwardly toward the Breath on legs of bone and withered flesh. Bastun grasped upon the magic trapped in his mind. The Weave responded as he chanted, voice reed-thin and the words painful to speak. Whispering the name of the final rune, a tiny white mote of light appeared in the air and drifted toward the prince. Blue flames gathered around the light as it careened and swirled like a snowflake. Landing at the bleakborn's feet, it exploded upward, an azure bonfire of wintry chill.

  Consumed by the cold lire, the prince collapsed, curling onto the floor as his last vestiges of warmth were burned away in the freezing flame. Bereft of their prince, the undead Creel moaned and howled, the vigor of their attack renewed.

  Thaena summoned bright spheres of sparkling energy that danced and darted around them. Dragged by Syrolf to the wall, Bastun pushed himself up, still shaking the cobwebs from his mind, but aware enough that the sharp edge of steel on stone caught his attention.

  Through the blackness of tattered garments and incorporeal shapes he could see her. She stood unharmed among the spirits, ignored by them as they screamed and clashed with the handful of Rashemi. At her feet lay the twitching, desiccated corpse of Serevan. For a moment he wondered at the image, thinking her a ghost. Despite the darkness and howling dead that separated them, he knew he looked into the durthans eyes-and he knew she was smiling. In Anilya's hand, its point resting on the floor, was the Breath.

  With a casual grace she turned and left, stepping out into the winter night with all that he feared in her grasp.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Newfallen snow crunched beneath Anilya's boots. The dead lay scattered around the wall-acceptable and well-planned losses in exchange for what she sought. Even the Nar had performed their duties well, buying into her tale of the risen prince and a newfound Narfell. Only the Creel had such ambition, and she had approached them fully confidant that they would believe her tale. They had followed her ac
ross plain and Cold Road to the gates of Shandaular, fearless zealots in search of destiny.

  "Pity the entire tribe wasn't as foolish," she muttered and recalled the destruction of the wychlaren wards, how well it had reminded the unwitting hathrans of the true nature of the city they had chosen to entrap themselves within. As Rashemi magic failed, the Shield resumed its nightly course with a vengeance through once protected halls. Outnumbered and unprepared for the curse within the walls, all had gone mostly as expected. Except for Ohriman. She sighed, missing the tiefling's company with a passing fondness. The Breath flashed pulses of cold up her arm as she neared the entrance to the northwest tower, making her forget the fallen assassin completely.

  Howls and cries still reached her from within the guard tower-the actual battle unseen for the raving wraiths' dark forms. The vremyonni, exile or not, had resisted her far more than she had expected, but his presence, and the company that it had brought, had proven a boon beyond measure. Her foray into Rashemen, posing as a traveling hathran to infiltrate the Running Rocks, had yielded more than she had hoped for and yet far less than what she needed. Finding the Breath without one of the hathrans' pet wizards was not a task she had looked forward to, but then Bastun had appeared and performed admirably.

  His voice and that of Thaena's could be heard above the din behind her, hurling spells at the restless dead. The Rashemi fervor for battle was curious to her in light of their inaction against the enemies that surrounded them. Only when faced by the threats they feared did they do something other than watch and wait for the next invasion of their precious homeland. Shaking her head, she ignored the end of her convenient allies and looked instead to the task at hand.

  She studied the blade of the Breath, marveling at the intricate patterns entwined along its length. Ilythiiri runes dominated much of the pattern, the long-forgotten elves' brand of magic as of yet unfamiliar to her, but its effects on the history of the world unmistakable. By magic and ambition their nation was thrown into ruin, forced into the deep of the Underdark. The origins of the drow echoed in some small part of the blade she carried and no doubt thundered through the folly of King Arkaius in the sealed chamber above.

  A hoarse whispering caught her attention, and she paused on the threshold of the tower. With a wave and a word she struck the vibrating chords of the Weave and felt magic sing through the air around her. Snowflakes pulled together, gathering in clumps, compressing themselves into shards of ice that hovered and waited by her command. At a single nod she hurled them through the doorway and heard them shatter and crack.

  A sharp smell of death on a winter wind wafted from within and spoke of the silence and relative peace that awaited her. Satisfied that she would remain unmolested by any remaining

  Creel or the self-important shamans that led them, she entered the tower and instantly felt a charge in the air. Gooseflesh rose on her skin, and the Breath tugged at her wrist like an excited child. The first steps of a frost-shrouded stairway on her left led upward into a forbidding dark. The sword begged to be taken to its place, to the lock upon the door to which it alone was the key. Peering intently at the crossguard, she sensed a sentience inside the weapon, hidden thoughts slipping beyond her scrutiny.

  Giving the sword its lead, she followed, holding on to its cold as she took the first step and breathed in a scent of power.

  Bastun could number them now, counting as he did through the sweat and pain, desperately seeking the energy to keep moving. A dagger in his hand glowed a dull red as it slashed through the twisting face of a diving wraith. It felt solid only for a moment, like stabbing into loose sand being washed away by a strong tide.

  "Six," he muttered, then, "Five."

  Syrolf took another, his blade trailing shreds of shadow as shrieks faded to whistling on the wind. The remaining Rashemi numbered five as well, a handful of berserkers panting and heaving with each weary swing. Their famed bloodlust was cut short by the cold touch of the howling spirits. Bastun staggered along the wall, intent on following the durthan. The wraiths moved to stop his escape, the fighting Rashemi in their wake.

  He slumped against the stone, catching his breath and reaching within for the strength to cast another spell. More bodies littered the floor, now visible as the wraiths' ranks dwindled. From across the chamber, heart-wrenching sobs reached his ears and he tried not to see her falling over the prone form.

  Thaena had found her guardian and had broken. Her mask flung to the ground, her tears fell over Duras's face, streaming down his cheeks. The sorrow in her eyes bordered on madness. She paid no mind to the wraiths or her fallen fang. She had not seen the return and escape of the durthan. Nothing mattered to her save the love lost and all that had lain unresolved between them.

  Bastun saw himself, saw the body of Keffrass, and felt the grief of that passing. He imagined his own body lying in the several places he should have died in his long path to this stretch of wall. There were no tears to pave his way into the afterlife. The empty well within him, the void he felt himself becoming, surged with something as he felt himself disgusted with the mere notion of self-pity.

  He pushed away from the wall, slashing and cutting at spirits that flew too near, his other hand tracing intricate symbols in quick graceful movements as he chanted.

  Four, he thought as a wraith was spitted on the blade of a berserker.

  The young man's face was yet another familiar stranger, his name a mystery, though Bastun was sure he'd heard it spoken once or twice. It was a trait that he loathed finding in himself, but he did not dwell on the shortcoming.

  His pulled a fistful of dust from within his robes. Scattering it on the ground in a rough circle he willed the words of his spell into each particle. Dust became a brown mist, darkening to a deep umber and rising with a crackling noise. The spinning storm of magic lashed out at the wraiths, pulling them in and tearing at their forms. It grew and spread, hiding them all within its folds. The Rashemi watched suspiciously, backing away from the thundering magic.

  As it consumed the undead and tore them apart, Bastun heard a quiet scratching at the floor. One warrior, one of the first to fall when darkness had claimed the chamber, lay pale and drained nearby. The vremyonni watched in horror as the body's fingers twitched and splayed. He felt sick as a similar noise arose behind him and then again far to his left.

  The dying breath of a fallen warrior nearby hissed away slowly, steaming in the cold air for a moment before ceasing. Within an arm's length of the dead man, ice shattered and popped as the ancient prince of Narfell clenched a clawed fist.

  Bile rose in Bastun's throat and he swayed away from the thinning cloud, its shrieking burden destroyed and leaving only the scent of decay. His eyes rolled as he turned from one corpse to the next, noting signs of movement or growing shadow.

  "The dead are defeated," he mumbled, recalling passages from the notes of Keffrass concerning the Shield's peculiar curse. Only now did the obscure ideas and discoveries he had studied fully make sense as he added, "And long live the dead."

  He met the blank stare of Thaena from across the room. The light of her eyes was gone, and for a moment he feared that she too had joined the ranks of the walking dead. Faint puffs of steam still escaped her parted lips. Duras lay cradled in her arms, thankfully peaceful for the quiet death that ordinary steel had given him.

  Finding his balance, Bastun shook his head and picked up a discarded sword.

  A groan rang in the air. Dark translucent hands peeled away from one of the bodies followed by a thin arm and the wispy trappings of a desecrated soul. Movement forced stale air from the lungs of another wraith still trapped in flesh, its horrid wail of grisly birth echoing through the short-lived silence. As newborn wraiths crawled from Rashemi corpses, Bastun realized not all of their previous adversaries had been of the Creel-some had likely been of the Rashemi, of those fallen far below in the entrance hall and left to rot.

  Familiar strangers, the faces without names, shuffled off the coils of
death to haunt him anew. The point of his sword raised slowly, ready to end himself for fallen friends and with acquaintances never made. A hand pushed against the center of his chest, and he started as Syrolf appeared in front of him, looking over his shoulder.

  "Go," the warrior said, his grumbling voice now even more so. "Stop the durthan."

  "It doesn't matter," he replied. "It's too late, I-"

  "It's only too late if you've decided to quit," Syrolf said. "I don't know what she's planning, but I'd rather not die knowing she succeeded."

  Bastun took a step backward, staring at the rising dead, at the weary warriors that hacked at writhing bodies and insubstantial spirits. Their ethran stirred slowly, her attention torn between Duras and her duty. She took up her discarded mask loosely in her hand and stared at it as if betrayed. The bones beneath Serevan's white armor cracked as he tried to rise, straining at the ice that had frozen him to the stone.

  The vremyonni's boot crunched on snow. Flakes fell on his shoulders and hair. He realized that despite all, he was leaving. Logic drifted to the surface of his thoughts, and reluctantly he latched himself to it, filling his willpower with what must be done. He would leave his comrades to die and commit himself to the duty of a vremyonni.

  As he turned away, the image of Anilya, gripping the Breath and walking toward the northwest tower, burned itself into his mind.

  Each step upward felt like a step backward. Anilya almost glanced over her shoulder, imagining reflections of herself walking away, staring up, her own eyes fixed on her back. Though she progressed forward, time seemed to move in reverse. The ice grew thicker, each stair more dangerous and misshapen than the last. Man-made walls disappeared beneath a frozen facade, a wintry cavern likely un-tread by the living since its creation. Blurry faces rested just beneath the surface, their mouths open in quiet screams, their weapons dropped in pursuit of escape and caught before hitting the stone. Soldiers of old Narfell, perhaps trusted officers or supporters of Serevan's ambition, had been the first to realize their mistake.