Prophet of the Dead: Forgotten Realms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Vandar suspected that keeping the exorcism going and so restoring the daylight was even more important than slaying Lod. Still, the sword insisted that any warrior who battled to protect Yhelbruna, Cera, and the other women would simply be one of many. It was champions who bested terrible foes in single combat—or at worst, with the aid of a comrade or two—who won glory.

  But Vandar didn’t deserve glory. Not after all his selfishness and disastrous miscalculations. He ordered the sword to be silent and started fighting his way toward the golden glow.

  At first, it proved fairly easy to cut down foes who were pushing in the same direction. Then, however, he glimpsed a hulking form from the corner of his eye.

  When he turned and took his first close look at Uramar, he felt like a fool for ever mistaking the zombie counterfeit he’d slain under the Fortress of the Half-Demon for the true blaspheme. The genuine patchwork man was even more thick-built, scarred, and misshapen, with eyes of two different colors set at different heights.

  Something had ripped away Uramar’s breastplate and shredded the flesh beneath, exposing and breaking ribs in several spots. Yet despite his ill-made body and gaping wounds, his two-handed blade struck constantly and to murderous effect. Essentially, he and Vandar were doing the same thing: cutting down foes who were likewise struggling closer to the sunlady and hathrans. But everyone the greatsword even nicked withered and rotted even as he fell.

  Someone needed to stop Uramar before he got anywhere close to Yhelbruna, Cera, and their helpers. Vandar rushed the huge undead.

  As he approached, chill bit into him. But his anger and the red sword buttressed him against it.

  Meanwhile, Uramar didn’t appear to notice the danger racing in on his left. But when Vandar had nearly closed to striking distance, the blaspheme pivoted and swung the greatsword at his middle.

  Vandar parried, and the two blades clanged together. The impact jolted Vandar, but his defense kept Uramar’s sword from cutting him.

  Still running, Vandar slashed at the massive open wound that was Uramar’s chest. The undead parried, and the blades rang again.

  Vandar plunged on past and now had his back to his opponent. Sliding in the snow, he wrenched himself around barely in time to see Uramar’s next cut leaping at his neck. He ducked underneath the stroke, then hurled himself forward to cut at the spot where a living man carried his heart.

  With astonishing quickness for such a limping brute, and one already hideously wounded at that, Uramar retreated on the diagonal, and the footwork gave him time to parry. He took another retreat, and that put him back at the proper distance to take advantage of his longer arms and blade.

  Vandar advanced with lowered guard, inviting an attack, then swayed back when it came. The greatsword whizzed past his chest with no more than half a finger’s length to spare. He lunged with the red blade poised for a chest cut.

  Uramar shifted the greatsword to parry and once again protect that shredded, unarmored, vulnerable spot. Vandar instantly pivoted and cut at the blaspheme’s left wrist.

  The red sword sheared flesh and splintered bone, and, though it didn’t quite sever Uramar’s hand, rendered it useless. The undead stumbled backward with his enormous weapon wobbling in what was now an inadequate grip.

  Vandar started after him. Then, with a silent cry, the red sword alerted him to danger at his back.

  He spun, and the war club that might otherwise have smashed his skull struck it a glancing blow instead. Still, that was enough to blank out the whole world.

  The next he knew, his head was ringing, he lay on his back in the snow, and the zombie that had struck him had the war club raised for another blow. Vandar floundered backward, but the weapon still caught him in the knee. Bone snapped, and he gasped at the flash of pain.

  Anger welled up inside him to mask what would otherwise be agony. As the dead man lifted the war club for a third strike, Vandar heaved himself up onto his off hand, cut its leg out from under it, and split its head when it fell down. The creature stopped moving.

  Vandar wrenched himself around to face Uramar. The blaspheme had discarded the greatsword for a curved short sword glimmering with its own no-doubt lethal enchantments. Scowling, his half-severed hand dangling and spittering dark blood in the snow, the patchwork man limped forward.

  Then the ambient gloom brightened a little more. A shaft of sunlight fell through the leafless canopy overhead, transfixing a pair of phantoms that shredded away to nothing.

  Uramar turned and resumed pushing his way toward the women working to banish the darkness.

  Vandar struggled to his feet to pursue. Or rather, to his foot, for another stab of pain made it immediately apparent that his injured leg wouldn’t bear his weight.

  He hopped through the snow and bent down to retrieve the zombie’s fallen war club to use as a crutch. Before he could straighten up, a dark fey like a hound with a half-human face sprang at him. He killed it with a thrust between the eyes but lost his balance and fell in the process. By the time he managed to stand up, he could no longer even see Uramar past all the other combatants in the way.

  It was absurd to think he could catch up, but he had to try. He started hobbling, and jagged fangs bared, a ghoul advanced to intercept him. He poised his sword for a head cut.

  Then the golden griffon plunged down atop the ghoul. The impact likely smashed the life—or what passed for it—out of the creature, but the telthor made sure of its destruction by ripping the body to pieces with his claws.

  The gold turned his head to regard Vandar with fierce blue eyes. The beast seemed to be waiting for something, and the berserker hoped he understood what.

  He hobbled forward, tucked the red sword under his crutch arm, and reached out to scratch in the feathers behind the griffon’s beak. He’d seen Aoth and Cera pet Jet that way, and the gold permitted it as well. But he also gave an impatient-sounding rasp as though to remind the idiot human they were in the midst of battle.

  The gold then pivoted, presenting his side, and lowered himself onto his belly. Vandar dropped his makeshift crutch and clambered onto the griffon’s back.

  At once, the griffon ran a couple steps, sprang, and, wings beating, soared into the air. Vandar didn’t know how to ride a griffon, didn’t have a saddle, and his throbbing, broken-kneed leg couldn’t clamp against his steed’s side with any strength. Still, bending down and wrapping his arms around the telthor’s neck, he managed to stay on the creature’s back, or maybe the gold contrived to keep him from tumbling off.

  The telthor weaved through an aerial melee that, with griffons, winged telthors and fey, and ghosts swooping, wheeling, and tearing at each other, and blasts of magic raining down from the skyship above the trees, was every bit as savage as the struggle on the ground. Still, the gold appeared to be scrutinizing the combatants down in the gory snow.

  Vandar was too, but he didn’t spot Uramar until an instant after the griffon dived at him. The blaspheme had almost worked his way to Yhelbruna, Cera, and the other spellcasters. Already, the hathrans’ protectors were faltering as the leading edge of Uramar’s cloud of cold washed over them, and meanwhile, other undead were scrambling to aid the patchwork swordsman as he finished carving his way to his objective.

  The golden griffon slammed down in the midst of those would-be helpers, crushing some and striking at the rest with snapping beak and snatching talons. The spiritual power of a telthor made such attacks devastating to even an insubstantial entity such as a specter.

  Still, that small part of Vandar that could consider such things despite the fury was surprised at the gold’s choice of target. He’d expected the griffon to plunge down on Uramar. But evidently the creature expected his rider to finish what he’d started while he made sure that this time, no other foes meddled in the duel.

  Well, so be it. Vandar gripped argent feathers and the hide beneath to anchor himself and gave every bit of himself over to the rage. Sound faded, and the world slowed.

  T
he gold spun to continue striking at the remaining foes he’d chosen for himself. Uramar circled too, and Vandar realized the blaspheme was maneuvering to attack the telthor, not him. He meant to strike the griffon down from behind.

  Vandar pulled his handful of feathers as if they were reins, and somehow the golden griffon understood he meant for it to turn, and in what direction. It jerked around just far enough for Vandar to catch Uramar’s cut with a parry.

  Steel clanged. Bellowing, the patchwork man sprang and cut at Vandar’s head.

  Vandar leaned sideways and slashed at the same time. Uramar’s sword whistled past him while his blade sheared into the blaspheme’s neck.

  Uramar floundered forward, even though that made the fey sword slice deeper. He threw both arms around Vandar in a crushing bear hug.

  Finally too bitter for any mortal human being to withstand, chill plunged into Vandar like icicle daggers. He jerked and lost his grip on his sword hilt, and then the cold was even worse. All he could do was shudder as the blade in the blaspheme’s good hand hitched around to aim at his face.

  But then Uramar groaned and slumped, and the sword thrust never came. The golden griffon wrenched himself around in a manner that further loosened the undead’s embrace, and with a convulsive effort, Vandar shoved him away. The patchwork man toppled backward to sprawl motionless between the bodies of a fey with spindly limbs and enormous hands and feet and a witch with her bronze mask and the head behind it smashed out of shape. Still shaking, Vandar couldn’t tell if she’d been a hathran or a durthan.

  * * * * *

  Spinning blades of blue light chopped Lod’s tail. Unfortunately, that didn’t keep the bone naga from throwing a magical attack right back. He whipped his lower body clear of Aoth’s creations and stretched out his skeletal hand simultaneously.

  Streaks of darkness painted themselves on the air, defining a cube with Aoth and Jet at the center. Lashing his wings, the griffon hurled himself forward and through the murky stripes in front of him. Cold seared him and his rider too, but they broke out before the magical structure could quite coalesce into a solid cage.

  Aoth hurled a glimmering, silvery sphere of force from his spear. Lod flicked his hand to the side, and the attack flew off course to smash bark and wood from a tree trunk.

  Your magic isn’t getting the job done, Jet snarled, and unfortunately, that was so.

  Aoth had thrown sunlight, thunderbolts, acid, focused noise, and eventually fire—he’d apologize to the hathrans later if anyone complained—and found them all ineffective. Pure force, generally the most difficult energy for a spellcaster to shield against, had done a little more damage, but so far, not enough to slow Lod down. And Aoth had already exhausted his ability to cast his most potent attacks.

  As he with his spellscarred eyes had observed early on, the problem was protective runes graven on the inside of Lod’s human rib cage. Coupled with the defensive spells the bone naga could cast at will, they rendered him largely impervious to combat magic.

  Still, Aoth had to defeat him. Although since the start of the duel he’d perforce kept his attention on his adversary, he nonetheless inferred from the increasing brightness that his allies were winning the larger battle. But given the chance, Lod, who, as he’d gradually discovered, might even be as powerful as the dracolich Alasklerbanbastos, could still turn things around.

  Let’s tear him apart! Jet continued, swooping to dodge a burst of freezing shadow.

  Set me down, and I’ll tear him. You fetch Jhesrhi.

  Do you think I can’t handle him? I’m as strong as I ever was!

  I know that. But look in my head and you’ll see what I have in mind.

  Aoth’s sense of connection pulsed stronger as Jet examined his thoughts. Then the griffon spun around Lod and over the heads of the nearest combatants, warriors and creatures that had likely come rushing to aid either Aoth or his foe but ended up fighting one another.

  Jet plunged down behind the bone naga. Aoth scrambled off the familiar’s back and roused the magic of tattoos that augmented his strength, agility, and hardiness. At once, aquiline talons and leonine hind paws throwing up snow, Jet ran three strides with the uneven gait of his species, beat his wings, and sprang back into the air.

  By then, Lod was twisting atop his serpentine coils to orient on Aoth. His fleshless jaw worked, surely whispering an incantation, and then streamers of snow leaped up from the ground. As they stretched and twisted, they darkened into something so infused with malevolence that their mere proximity made Aoth’s head throb.

  He charged his spear with destructive force and whirled. The preternaturally sharp edges of the head slashed three of the shadowy snakelike things to nothingness. The fourth had time to strike at him, but he simultaneously blocked the attack with his shield and annihilated the attacker with a thrust.

  He pivoted back toward Lod and, with a short incantation and a jab, hurled glowing blue darts of force from his spear. Apparently they stung, for when they struck just below the point where bare bone gave way to scaly flesh, the undead naga flinched and hissed. In that instant, Aoth dashed a couple of steps closer.

  Then Lod swayed from side to side, and something about that sinuous motion wormed its way into Aoth’s head and snarled his thoughts into confusion. No longer sure why he was running, he stumbled to a halt.

  His bewilderment lasted only a heartbeat. Then, by trained reflex, he pictured a sigil of psychic defense, and his thoughts snapped back into focus. By that time, though, a wave of smoking liquid was sweeping toward him like a breaker rushing toward the shore.

  He threw himself flat in the snow, burrowing in it, and covered his head with his shield. Even so, as it washed over him, Lod’s conjured acid seared him at various points along his back and legs. But evidently not badly, for he was able to leap back onto his feet, and the magic of another tattoo sufficed to mask the lingering pain.

  He charged onward. Until Lod vanished, leaving nothing behind but the long, twisting rut where his enormous tail had dragged through the snow.

  Lod hadn’t simply turned invisible. Aoth’s fire-touched eyes would still see him if he had. The bone naga must have translated himself through space, and Aoth spun to locate him.

  Just as he did, maggots, or something like them, rained down on him from the empty air. He scrambled aside, but some landed on him anyway, clung, and gnawed. One wriggled onto his bare neck, and its bite burned like vitriol.

  He slapped the conjured grub away, then, trusting his armor to protect against the rest, charged Lod once again. Come on, he thought, you’re bigger than I am! Just fight me hand to hand!

  Lod, however, wouldn’t oblige. Slithering to maintain his distance, he whirled his hands through an intricate pattern as he cast another spell.

  The vista before Aoth shattered into senselessness as if he were viewing it through a wall built of warped and cloudy lenses. At the same instant, something pulled at every part of him at once. Though he’d never encountered a spell exactly like it before, he surmised that this time, Lod was attempting to shift him through space, and that different bits of him would end up in different places.

  He bellowed a word of dispelling and found the strength to sprint even faster. The painful tugging lost its grip on him when he plunged free of the spot where the unseen framework of existence itself was churning.

  Then, finally, instead of retreating and evading, Lod crawled to meet him. Maybe the creature had grown tired of throwing spell after spell to minimal effect. Aoth certainly had.

  The bone naga reared over him, raised his fleshless hands, and boiling shadow flowed over them, sheathing them in ghostly clawed gauntlets. Halting, Aoth came on guard, his spear and shield poised to meet the attack when Lod’s upper body whipped down at him.

  For the next instant, though, it didn’t, and Aoth abruptly remembered his experiences fighting dragons in Chessenta, and how an attack might come from any direction. He risked a glance backward and discovered the end of Lod�
�s tail sweeping down at him like a falling tree.

  He dodged, and the tail smashed down in the snow. Lod’s skeletal upper body hurtled down at him.

  Aoth shifted his targe to block. Raking shadow claws screeched on enchanted steel, snagged in it, and yanked, jerking Aoth off balance before they popped free.

  The loss of equilibrium kept him from thrusting with the spear as he’d intended. And before he could recover, the end of Lod’s tail flicked sideways, slammed his legs out from underneath him, and dumped him in the snow.

  The undead naga struck down at him, and he just managed to interpose the shield. Lod grabbed it by the edges and tried to rip it away.

  Aoth could feel it was useless to resist. Even with tattoo magic enhancing it, his strength was inferior to Lod’s.

  So he didn’t resist. He let Lod’s pulling hoist him back onto his feet, then yanked his arm out of the straps on the inner face of the targe.

  And finally, a move seemed to catch Lod by surprise. Swaying atop his coils, the bone naga hesitated, holding the shield as if uncertain what to do with it.

  Gripping his spear with both hands, Aoth spoke a word that brought all the power still stored in the weapon surging into the point to set it aglow. He fed the blue light with much of his own remaining innate magic, and it blazed brighter still.

  Lod cast the targe aside and struck. Aoth met him with a spear thrust that drove cleanly between two ribs. With a dazzling flash, force exploded from the weapon to tear apart the naga’s rib cage from the inside, where the graven symbols didn’t protect it.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t finish the bone naga. Lod hissed a word of chastisement, and Aoth cried out with sudden pain, weakness, and dizziness that dropped him to his knees.

  Lod tore the spear out of his grasp and opened the fanged jaws of a skull that was abruptly far less human and more reptilian than before. The pieces of rib Aoth had blasted away floated through the air toward their former positions.

  But then wind screamed, flung snow across the battlefield, and tossed Aoth onto his side. It caught the rib fragments too and swept them away despite the force animating them.