City of the Dead

by Rosemary Jones

  “Well done!” Gustin shouted.

  The confused and now headless skeleton spun about, blindly waving its crooked sword, which nicely hooked into the spear of the skeleton standing next to it. Both creatures went tumbling in a tangled clatter of bones and plate armor.

  But there were still three more standing between Sophraea and the stone.

  Gustin’s brick cracked the ribs of one skeleton, sending it reeling away. Feeler and Fish managed to jostle their skeleton targets with bricks to the shoulder blade and the hipbone respectively.

  The skeleton soldiers spun as though trying to determine the origin of the attack. The empty eye holes in their skulls stared unseeing.

  Sophraea darted forward, with Gustin and the rest just a pace behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the wizard scoop up the crooked sword dropped by the skeleton.

  He swung the blade in a wide circle, its rusted edge clicking against bone as he forced dead warriors back.

  Feeler and Fish grabbed the nearest skeleton, and, like her brothers with a wishbone, they snapped the creature in two. Feeler used the legs to beat back the others. Fish lobbed the head, the clavicle, and other parts at various attackers.

  Sophraea kneeled and curled her fingers around the rock. The niche hadn’t been opened in years. Passing feet had shoved it tightly into its hole.

  Feeler shouted, “Hurry!”

  The rest of the skeleton army was starting to stir, turning reluctantly away from the door to face the foes that had beaten down their fellows.

  Sophraea scrambled at the rock, looking wildly around for something to lever it out of its niche. She spotted a rusted bit of armor within reach. She had no idea what it was. It was flat and had a sharp corner and that’s what mattered. Scooting on hands and knees between falling skeletons, she touched its edge, lurched, and managed to grab it.

  Bones dropped around her from disintegrating skeletons. A severed hand bounced off her shoulder. She saw it, bit back a shriek and scooted backward.

  Holding the metal piece in both hands, she wedged it under the rock’s edge and dug between the paving stones. The gray rock tipped up.

  Nestled into a carved crevice was the silver whistle. She quickly pried it loose and set it to her lips.

  Sophraea blew with all her might, a blast of shrill sound.

  In the shadows above the basement door, the watcher stirred. It stretched its wings slowly, scraping against the ceiling as it leaned forward out of its niche. It tilted its horned head and yawned, revealing its back molars as well as the curving tusks at the front. The flexible front paws clenched a little tighter on the stone ledge where it sat, crumbling the edge into gravel that showered down on the skeletons assembled below.

  “Protect the door!” Sophraea yelled to it. “Keep out anything dead!”

  The watcher gave a ponderous nod at her simple commands and launched itself from its niche with a powerful kick of the heavy back legs. It sailed a few feet on its basalt wings before landing with a thud in the center of the skeletons. The gem dust that coated its skin glittered in the pale light of the tunnel. The big wings snapped out, knocking four skeletons down.

  The rest of the skeletons turned toward this new attacker, rushing forward to grapple with the guardgoyle.

  “It’s alive,” Gustin breathed, “but it is stone too. And responding to commands. That’s beautiful magic!”

  The wizard seemed transfixed by the guardgoyle’s sweeps of its horned head. Each jab drove back another skeleton.

  Sophraea dropped the silver whistle into her apron pocket. She’d replace it in its hiding place another day. She grabbed her basket with one hand and Gustin’s arm with the other because the wizard still stood motionless, watching the guardgoyle.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what it was?” Gustin complained as she dragged him away. “How old is it? Who cast the spell? Does your family have a copy of the spell in their ledger? Or even a note about when it was done?”

  “We can look later,” Sophraea promised as she propelled him toward the door. “Gustin, come on!”

  Two skeletons broke off from the fight with the guardgoyle to try to block their escape. Sophraea swung her basket and Gustin stuck out one long leg. The spear carrier ducked the basket only to be tripped up by Gustin and fall heavily against the sword bearer. Both went down in a clatter of bones. The rib cage of one became entangled in the leg bones of the other. They thrashed and rolled across the floor.

  Hand-in-hand, Sophraea and Gustin hopped over the skeletons.

  Feeler stepped in front, pulling out the iron key for the Dead End door. With a quick snap, he unlocked the door and shoved it open.

  “We best go before the watcher starts screaming,” Feeler said, pushing Gustin and Sophraea forward. Gustin stretched his neck, still trying to get the best possible view of the guardgoyle’s movements.

  Nipping in behind them, Fish nodded vigorously, already clapping his hands over his ear holes.

  Still fighting in the middle of a knot of skeletons, the guardgoyle opened its big mouth in preparation for a scream.

  Fish slammed the Dead End door shut as quickly as possible. Although the heavy wood door muffled the worst of the guardgoyle’s shriek, everyone winced at the burst of sound.

  “I wonder if skeletons can be deafened,” Sophraea said, rubbing her smarting ears.

  Feeler gave a sympathetic shrug. His tentacles were wrapped tightly around his head, effectively creating earplugs for both ears.

  “I do not think the dead will be able to pass it,” he said.

  “There were so many following us in the tunnels,” Sophraea worried. The dead that she’d seen in the tunnels seemed much more substantial and dangerous than the ones who had been dancing through the upper gate in the last few days. She had a feeling that these corpses wouldn’t be content with just knocking at Rampage Stunk’s windows.

  “But the guardgoyle is very strong and all the corpses that we saw moving in the tunnels were very old and quite rotted. I do not think that they will be able to overcome it,” Feeler stated. “But Fish and I will stay here. If the door is in danger of being breached, we will retreat to the higher levels, barring the gates and locking other doors behind us.”

  “Thank you,” said Sophraea with a quick hug for both of her old friends. “But don’t take any chances. Come up to the kitchen if there is any danger at all!”

  “Is that where we are going?” asked Gustin, following her up the stairs past the lower defenses of Dead End House.

  “Myemaw will know that I roused the watcher,” Sophraea explained breathlessly over her shoulder. “And she’ll call the family in. That’s the drill in case of a serious attack.”

  “Your family has a drill for attacks?” Gustin leaped up the stairs behind her.

  “All the old trade families in Waterdeep do.” Sophraea twisted around a bend in the stairs and saw the welcome outline of the parlor door above her. “There’re tales of the old battles in the streets. So we’re always taught to be prepared. Bolt down and stay put, that’s the safest way to avoid harm.”

  But even as they emerged into the front parlor, Sophraea could hear the sounds of fighting coming from the courtyard. She rushed to the window and saw Stunk’s bullies trying to force their way into the yard from the public gate. Bentnor, Cadriffle, and their brothers were holding them off with hammers, tongs, and some long lengths of boards intended for coffins.

  From the huge grin that split Bentnor’s face below his bloody nose, Sophraea judged that he was having a wonderful time bashing the redheaded goon in front of him. Bentnor’s wide shoulders, where his heavy leather work apron didn’t protect him, dripped blood from a mass of scratches. Nothing serious yet, Sophraea decided, because the injuries weren’t slowing him at all. One of Stunk’s fatter guards screeched as Bentnor rammed a board into his midriff.

  “That’s not good,” said Gustin, pointing over her shoulder in the other direction.

  Sophraea spun to peer
through the window toward the Carver’s former gate into the City of the Dead. The newly mortared bricks were starting to bow forward. Sophraea’s father and her uncles rushed to the bricked over gate with lumber to shore it up.

  A brick plopped out of the wall and a ghastly hand reached through. It pulled at the next brick. Sophraea’s father Astute crashed his mallet down on the grasping fingers. The corpse on the other side obviously felt no pain. It continued to worry at the bricks blocking its way.

  Sophraea’s mother swept into the courtyard, leading the Carver aunts and other wives. The women all carried pots, pans, brooms, and buckets of steaming hot water as well as some wicked carving knives. With a curt wave of her free hand to the left and right, Reye directed the women to split into two groups, one to reinforce the defenders of the street-side gate and the other to help the men trying to hold back the deceased nobility intent on breaking in from the graveyard.

  Even Sophraea’s old grandmother was in the yard. Myemaw threw her black ball of yarn toward Stunk’s bullies. The yarn wound up the legs of the thin man who was always complaining, entangling him from ankles to hips. He tipped forward and crashed to the ground, yelping as he fell.

  With a quick click of her knitting needles, Sophraea’s grandmother summoned back the yarn and redirected it toward another thug.

  “It will be night soon. Everything is getting worse,” said Sophraea, spinning away from the window and heading toward the center staircase. “We need some real help.”

  “Where are you going?” said Gustin, pelting up the stairs after her.

  “To Volponia!” Sophraea shouted back, praying as she went that the former pirate queen would know what to do!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Realizing her family’s tactics would only delay the invasion of Dead End House, Sophraea flew up the stairs to Volponia’s room.

  Gustin was hard on her heels.

  When they reached the landing just outside Volponia’s door, the wizard grabbed her hands. “Look,” he said.

  From the tower window, Sophraea clearly saw that Rampage Stunk’s men were well into the courtyard. Behind them strode the fat man. From his gestures, it appeared that he was instructing his men to herd the Carvers into the center of the yard.

  Bentnor, Cadriffle, and the rest of the younger Carver males were not giving up, despite equally urgent gestures from Reye and Myemaw, who were trying to pull the family back toward the house. From this angle, Sophraea could not see the City of the Dead or the graveyard gate. But the worried glances in that direction from all the women suggested that the graveyard gate was being breached by the dead.

  “I’m going to die,” said Gustin, peering down into the yard. “Look at the size of Stunk’s men. Look at the size of your family. I’m going to go down there and try to stop them from killing each other and end up being crushed between them. Or be overrun by corpses bent on revenge against Stunk.”

  He gave a huge sigh, but there was that peculiar undercurrent of joy in his voice, that bubbling excitement he always exuded in the worst situations. Just being near him made the extremely worried Sophraea feel a little more confident.

  “We don’t have time to stand around talking,” Sophraea said as she hurried up the stairs.

  “When I was small,” he responded with a laugh, “I dreamed about this. Fighting a great battle in Waterdeep. Just like my guidebook promised!”

  “Nobody has to die,” Sophraea retorted as she reached back to grab him and drag him after her. “We will stop this somehow.”

  Although, at that moment, she had absolutely no idea how she could save her family.

  “No,” said Gustin, shaking his head just as firmly as Sophraea so often shook her head at him. “I’m going to die this afternoon and there is nothing that your huge collection of male relatives can do to me after that.”

  “What were you nattering about? We don’t have time for this!”

  “Yes we do!” announced Gustin. He grasped Sophraea’s shoulders and turned her to face him. His eyes were burning a brilliant green and the hum of a small spell slipped through his smiling lips.

  Sophraea felt her feet leaving the floor. Gustin’s smile broadened. She floated upward until her mouth was level with Gustin’s smile.

  “Gustin!”

  He pulled her to him. She could see nothing but the emerald sparkle of his eyes gleaming under those absurdly long lashes.

  “Gustin!” she squeaked again. “What were you doing?”

  “This,” he answered. And he kissed her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Flustered and flushed from Gustin’s kiss, Sophraea wriggled free of his grasp. The minute her hands left his shoulders, which felt harder and broader than she had expected, her feet thumped back onto the floor.

  Although she would have given almost anything to have examined his face for a moment longer, she dashed toward Volponia’s room.

  Timing, Sophraea moaned to herself, timing is everything and she just didn’t have any time left. Or she would have stayed still longer and maybe kissed him back.

  She burst through the door into Volponia’s room. Still, despite that recent distraction, she suddenly knew exactly what to do and who could help them. She rushed to Volponia’s bed and bent over the old woman sleeping under her silken quilt.

  “We need to fetch Lord Adarbrent here,” Sophraea said, shaking awake her dozing great-aunt. “Immediately. He started this and he must stop it!”

  “Don’t ruffle my ruffles so,” scolded Volponia as the former pirate queen pulled herself up higher on her feather-stuffed pillows. That day, the gilded headboard of her bed was carved in the shape of a rearing dragon.

  “What is happening?” Volponia asked the agitated Sophraea dancing from foot to impatient foot at the end of her bed.

  “We don’t have any time left,” panted Sophraea. “Stunk’s bullies are in the yard, the dead are breaking through the wall. The family is all downstairs fighting but they can never stop them all. We need Lord Adarbrent and his spellbook.”

  Fully awake now, Volponia’s eyes narrowed as she listened to Sophraea’s tale. Spotting Gustin in the doorway, she pointed at the young man.

  “Is that your wizard?” she asked.

  “Yes … no,” Sophraea stuttered to a halt and then started again. “We can never get to Manycats Alley in time, but you can fetch Lord Adarbrent here. The way that you bring everything to your room.”

  A faint frown drew down the corners of Volponia’s lips.

  “Fetching a cup of this or a bite of that is one thing,” she said. “A living man is quite another.”

  “But you did it to Myemaw once,” said Sophraea, “when you wanted her for something and she was too slow on the stairs. Rang your bell and fetched her up here.”

  “And she was cross about it for days.” Volponia’s expression lightened. “Lord Adarbrent may not want to be snatched from whatever he is doing either.”

  “I don’t care!” declared Sophraea with a stamp of her foot that sent her straight back into childhood. In a slightly more reasonable tone, she added, “We never asked for him to send the dead through our gate. Now Stunk’s here and he’s going to punish the Carvers for something that Lord Adarbrent did. And that’s not fair!”

  “But will he care about fair?” asked Gustin. He moved forward into the room with the gingerly step of a tall man surrounded by a multitude of china ornaments and other gewgaws, all eminently breakable and all wobbling on the top of spindly little tables.

  “Actually,” responded Volponia. “He might care. For the one thing that I would be willing to swear about Dorgar Adarbrent is that he is an honorable man. Besides, if he allows the Carvers to be driven away, who will bury him in the manner that he expects?”

  Patting the chiffon ruffles swathed around her throat into order, Volponia reached for her crystal bell. She rang it once, a single high sweet note sounded through the room.

  “I want to see Dorgar Adarbrent and I want to see
him now!” Volponia stated in the same clear voice that once rallied frightened men to their posts on a storm-tossed ship.

  A flash of light and Lord Adarbrent appeared between the slightly tippy three-legged table and a six-drawer trunk. As always, he was dressed from head to toe in rusty black, and had evidently been about to go outside, for his hat was in one hand and his sword cane was in the other.

  The ancient noble of Waterdeep blinked to find himself in a room so fussy and filled with antique furniture swathed in billows of lace that it could only be the bedchamber of a lady of a certain age.

  “Madam,” he said, correctly identifying Volponia propped up on her feather pillows as the owner of the room and his probable summoner, “how dare you bring me here in such a fashion?”

  “Don’t complain. I saved your old legs a long climb up some very steep stairs,” snapped Volponia.

  “Impertinent woman, you have snatched me from important business.”

  “Grave mischief, you mean. It must stop, Dorgar.”

  The nobleman blinked at the familiar use of his name and then leaned closer to peer at the occupant of the bed.

  “Captain Volponia,” Lord Adarbrent said, and he gave a deep bow, the deepest that Sophraea had ever seen. “I should have remembered your family connections and your complete lack of respect for the nobility of Waterdeep.”

  “Yes, you should have remembered my family,” snapped Volponia, but she returned his bow with a courteous nod. “And also what the nobility of Waterdeep, most especially your family, still owes me for the return of Syllia’s Star.”

  Gustin turned to Sophraea, a question framed on his lips, but she just shrugged. She’d never heard this story. The old lady rarely doled out complete tales of her long and apparently colorful past.

  “As I recall,” Lord Adarbrent said, “you were well paid for the ship’s rescue and no questions were raised about your other, hmm, shall we say ‘maritime activities’ when you decided to retire. And forty years, Captain Volponia, is a very long time to wait to claim a favor. I doubt any that sailed on the Star are still alive today.”