Undead hl-2

by Richard Lee Byers

  The devil was an advespa, a black wasp the size of a bear, with a hideous travesty of a woman's face and scarlet striations on its lower body. Beating so fast they were only a blur, its wings droned, and even the other zulkirs recoiled in their chairs. Its body cast a smear of reflection in the polished surface below it as the thing shot down the length of the long red table.

  But Dimon didn't cringe. Rather, the pale priest with the twisting blue veins vivid in his shaven crown laughed and stretched out the hand wearing the black gauntlet.

  It seemed a useless gesture, an attack easily evaded by a creature as nimble as an advespa on the wing. But Dimon somehow contrived to seize the devil at the point where its head fused with its thorax, and to hold on to it.

  The advespa's raking, gouging claws ripped his face, vestments, and the flesh beneath. Its abdomen rocked back and forth like a pendulum, repeatedly driving its stinger into the cleric's chest.

  Dimon kept on laughing and squeezing the juncture of his attacker's head and body, sinking his fingers deeper and deeper. Until the creature convulsed, he jerked his arm back, and the advespa's head with its antennae, mandibles, and harpy face ripped away from the rest of it. The carcass thumped down on the tabletop in a splash of steaming ichor.

  Dimon's reedy Mulan frame became bulkier, and flowing darkness stained him. In other circumstances, Nevron might have assumed it was the effect of the poison the wasp devil had injected. But the blackness tinged tattered clothing as well as torn flesh, and even if it hadn't, all the bound spirits Nevron kept ready to hand were clamoring, some terrified, some transported by demented ecstasy.

  In another few moments, Dimon was virtually all shadow, although Nevron could make out a glint of eyes, the gleam of the jewels now encrusting the gauntlet, and the static curves of clothing turned to plate. "Do you know me?" the tharchion asked, and though his voice was soft and mellow, something about it lanced pain into a listener's ears.

  Nevron took a breath. "You're Bane, Lord of Darkness." He rose, but resisted the craven urge to bow or kneel, prudent as it might have been. He'd decided long ago that a true archmage must never abase himself before anyone or anything, self-proclaimed deities included. Much as he hated Szass Tam, it was the one point on which they'd always agreed.

  "Yes, I am," said Bane. "You mages have done a fair job of sealing your citadel against spiritual entities you don't summon yourselves, but you can't lock out a god, and the bond I share with my faithful servant provided a convenient way in." He stroked his temple-Dimon's temple-rather like a man petting a dog.

  "To what do we owe the honor of your presence?" Nevron asked.

  "I'm tired of your sad little war," the Black Hand said. "It drags on battle after battle, year after year, ruining a realm we gods of shadow raised up to dominate the east."

  Lauzoril rose from his seat. When it splashed, the advespa's inky gore had spattered his scarlet robes. "Great Lord, we're doing our best to bring the conflict to a conclusion."

  "Then your best is pathetic," said Bane. "Seven archmages against one, seven orders of wizardry against one, the rich and populous south against the poor and empty north, and still, Szass Tam holds you in check for a decade."

  "It isn't that simple," Lauzoril said. "At the moment, we don't have a zulkir of Divination, and over time, wizards of every order have defected…" His voice trailed off as he realized that it might not be an ideal moment for his usual practice of fussy, argumentative nitpicking.

  Dmitra rose. "Great One, we accept your rebuke. Will you instruct us how we might do better?"

  Bane smiled. Nevron couldn't see the expression, but he could feel it, and although it conveyed no threat in any immediate sense, something about it was disquieting even to a man accustomed to trafficking with the most hideous denizens of the higher worlds.

  "You already know the answer," said the god, "for you proposed it yourself. Fight Szass Tam when he descends from High Thay, and that will settle the war. All the northern tharchs will lay down their arms if you slay their overlord."

  Nevron felt a strange mix of disgust and hope. Ever since Dmitra's ascension to the rank of zulkir, he'd chafed under her pretensions to leadership. The revelation of Malark Springhill's treason had called her judgment into question, and he'd exploited the situation to pull her off her pedestal and claim the chieftain's role for himself.

  But only for a tantalizing moment, because this meddling god had lifted her up again. Nevron could see it in the expressions of the other zulkirs. Arrogant though they were, when a deity invaded their council chamber to recommend they reverse a decision, it made an impression.

  And there was no point swimming against the tide, especially if it would carry them all to victory. "Lord Bane," Nevron said, "I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we'll do as you direct. We pray you'll give us your blessing and your aid."

  "Wherever men shed one another's blood," and Bane, "there will you find me."

  The darkness suffusing the Black Hand's form drained away, and then he was merely Dimon once again. The wounds the advespa had given him hadn't bled while he was possessed, but they gushed blood now, and he pitched forward. His head cracked against the edge of the table, then he crumpled to the floor.

  Her black and white ornaments clinking, Zola Sethrakt shifted her chair to take a better look at the fallen priest. "He's dead," she said, and Nevron supposed that, worthless as she often proved to be, she was necromancer enough to be right about that, anyway.

  After scouting throughout the morning, surveying the way ahead for the troops on the ground, Aoth, Bareris, and Mirror lit on a floating island to rest. The griffon riders dismounted, and Aoth peered over the edge of the floating chunk of soil and rock at a landscape of chasms, ridges, and twisting, leaning spires of stone stretched out far below. The earthbound portion of the council's legions struggled over the difficult terrain like a column of ants. Even with his fire-touched eyes, he couldn't see anything else moving.

  He'd imagined that over the course of the past decade, he'd seen his homeland reduced to a wasteland, but he'd been mistaken. This was a wasteland, viewed through a lens of nightmare.

  "It looks as if we already fought the war to a bitter end," he murmured, "or the gods waged a final, world-killing war of their own. Like we're an army of ghosts, damned to march through an empty land forever."

  Strands of his blond hair stirring in the wind, Bareris smiled. "You should leave morbid flights of fancy to us bards."

  Aoth grunted. "I'm just getting over being insane. I'm entitled to be a little moody."

  "Fair enough. Still, the war isn't over, but it soon will be. According to you, Bane said so himself."

  "That's right, but he never came right out and promised we were going to win it, or that he was going to do anything out of the ordinary to help us. What he did was let his own priest drop dead when he was through wearing him like a festival mask. I felt awe when he manifested among us-how could you not? But even so, I don't know that I trust him."

  Bareris shook his head. "I wish I'd seen him. I'm sure it would have given me inspiration for a dozen songs. But if you don't trust the Black Hand, put your faith in Kossuth, or our own prowess."

  "Because we're so mighty? That army marching down there is big, but not as big as it was last summer."

  "If we're mightier than Szass Tam's legions, that's all that matters. And despite your grumbling, I guess we both believe the south can win, because otherwise, why stay and risk our necks? You've considered running, and I confess, now that I have Tammith back, I have, too."

  "Since I recovered my sight, I've thought of many reasons to stay, but I'm not sure that any of them make sense, or is the real reason. Maybe I'm still here simply because it's my fate."

  "Or perhaps those magical eyes of yours peeked into the future and saw Aoth the tharchion, lounging on a golden couch with concubines feeding him apricots."

  Aoth's lips twitched into a smile. "Maybe." It seemed unlikely, but he appreciated his
friend attempting to brighten his mood.

  And he supposed Bareris truly was his friend. He'd agreed to allow him to remain in the Griffon Legion to stop everyone blathering at him, but he hadn't believed he could ever feel as easy with the bard as he had before. Yet it hadn't taken him long to slip back into old habits of camaraderie.

  Perhaps it was because, since Tammith's return, Bareris truly seemed a changed man. Or maybe Aoth simply lacked the knack for clinging to old hatreds and grudges, because he hadn't come to resent serving under Nymia, either. He didn't actually trust her, but then, he never had.

  He chuckled. "Maybe it's true, what folk have told me all my life. Maybe I'm really not much of a Mulan. I'm definitely not made of the same stuff as Nevron or Lallara."

  Bareris cocked his head. "What are you talking about?"

  "It's not important. Ready to go?"

  They flew onward. A line of blue fire glimmered far to the east.

  Bareris woke from the foulest of nightmares, the one in which, as he had in real life, he beheaded Tammith and hacked her skull to pieces.

  For a moment, he was the man he'd been until recently, anguished and bereft. Then he remembered that Tammith was back. He stopped gasping, his heartbeat slowed, and he rolled over in bed to face her.

  She was gone.

  The army had reached Tyraturos at midday. Part of the city lay in ruins, its once-teeming barracoons, markets, and caravanserais largely empty. Hunger and disease marked the faces of the people in the streets. But even so, it had been a relief just to see that the place was still here. No tide of blue flame had melted it away, nor had any earthquake knocked it flat.

  Bareris had secured lodging at an inn, where the proprietor's obsequious desire to please masked a dogged determination to sell travelers every conceivable amenity at inflated prices. Since that was just as it would have been in better times, Bareris found it heartening as well. As he drifted off to sleep, he decided he'd told Aoth the truth: Their homeland was wounded but still lived. They could still save it.

  But no such comforting reflections came to him now. Rather, Tammith's absence filled him with foreboding.

  He told himself his anxiety was absurd. Tammith was a nocturnal creature. It made sense that she'd grow restless simply lying next to him after he fell asleep.

  Still, his instincts told him to find her. He pulled on his clothes, buckled on his weapons, and plucked a tuft of bloodhound fur from one of the pockets sewn into his sword belt. He swept it through an arcane pass, sang a charm, then turned in a circle.

  The magic gave him a sort of painless twinge when he was facing southwest. If she was in that direction, it meant she'd left the inn. He did likewise, striding through the rows of legionnaires snoring in the common room.

  Selыne had already forsaken the sky, clouds masked the stars, and the streets were all but lightless. Bareris crooned a second spell to give himself owl eyes. Yet even so, at first all he saw was a man in ragged clothing, a beggar, most likely, sprinting. Then a shadow pounced on the fellow from above, dashing him to the ground. When the dark figure lifted its head and its black tresses parted to reveal its alabaster face, Bareris saw that it was Tammith. At once she skittered back up the side of a building like a spider. The beggar peered wildly around, but failed to spot her, and, judging by appearances, he had only the vaguest idea of what was happening to him. Shaking, whimpering, he climbed to his feet and ran again. Tammith crawled above him, keeping pace.

  "Stop!" Bareris shouted. "Leave him alone!"

  Tammith leaped down on the beggar and grappled him from behind. He tried to tear himself free, and she dug her slim white fingers into him until the pain paralyzed him. She peered at Bareris over her captive's shoulder. "What's wrong?" she asked.

  "You shouldn't hurt him," Bareris said. "He's a subject of the zulkirs, not one of Szass Tam's rebels."

  "He's a Rashemi pauper, and I'm a captain in the council's legions. I can do anything I want to him, and no one will care."

  He knew she was right, but it was ghastly to see her this way. "You started out as a Rashemi pauper, and you've endured mistreatment in your time."

  She laughed, exposing her extended fangs. "All the more reason to make sure that from now on, I'm the snake and not the rabbit."

  He gazed into her dark yet chatoyant eyes. "Please. As a kindness to me, let the poor man go."

  She glared, then shoved the man away. He staggered, caught his balance, and bolted.

  "Thank you." Bareris walked toward her. "If you need blood, you're welcome to more of mine." His throat tingled in anticipation.

  "No. It wouldn't be safe. In fact, you shouldn't come any closer or touch me."

  He kept walking. "You won't hurt me. But if you don't want to drink from me, use one of the prisoners."

  She shook her head. "You don't understand. It's not that I'm thirsty. I want to hunt."

  Apparently, he thought, that involved playing with her prey like a cat with a mouse, and murdering the unfortunate wretch at the end of it, but he kept the observation to himself. He didn't want to reproach her and feed the shame he sensed seething inside her. "We'll be fighting soon. Then you'll have plenty of people to kill."

  "The problem is that I want to kill."

  "It's not a problem for me. We acknowledged that we've both changed, but we also agreed we can still love one another."

  "You believe that because you don't truly comprehend. You imagine that at bottom, I'm still the same girl you loved when we were young. The bloodthirst is like a fever that recurs from time to time, and can be managed when it does. But the vampire is my true self. Everything that reminds you of times past, everything human, is just a surface, like glaze on a pot. That's why, when Aoth was in danger, I couldn't find it in myself to care, even though he's your friend. I need to go away before I hurt you."

  "No." He took her hand. She shuddered, but didn't jerk it away. "The fact that you don't want to harm me shows who you really are."

  "What I really am is dead. We so-called undead feel the weight of that truth every moment of our existence, no matter how much blood we drink or how frantically we mimic the passions and ambitions of the living to convince ourselves otherwise."

  "Not dead-merely changed, and after the war, we'll scour all Faerыn to find a way to change you back. For all we know, the answer is waiting for us in one of Szass Tam's grimoires. Anyway, no matter how long it takes, I'll stay with you and help you govern your urges, and you won't ever turn on me. We'll be together and we'll be happy."

  She sobbed and threw her arms around him. "I'm going to be the death of you."

  He stroked her hair. "I know better."

  Murmuring words of power, Dmitra formed a huge griffon, its fur scarlet and its feathers a gleaming copper, out of magic and imagination. It was a compliment to the riders who would escort her aloft, and no one could deny they deserved it. The Griffon Legion had fought valiantly for ten years, as the depletion of its ranks and the lean, haggard faces of the survivors attested.

  Because wizardry had grown fickle, the spell began to warp. The transparent, partially materialized griffon grew deformed, one leg and one wing shortening to stubs, a fecal stink filled the air, and Dmitra felt the sudden imbalance of forces like the throb of a toothache.

  She chanted more vehemently, demanding that the cosmos bow to her will. The red griffon flowed back into the shape she intended, became opaque, and started moving. It shook out its wings and the feathers rustled.

  Dmitra swung herself onto its back and it sprang into the air. Her bodyguard followed her skyward.

  For a pleasant change, the heavens were mostly blue and the sun was shining. The Third Escarpment towered to the west, with the gray walls and turrets of Thralgard Keep guarding the summit and the road switchbacking its way down the crags. Some of Szass Tam's troops-living orcs and zombies, most likely, creatures that could bear daylight even if they disliked it-had begun the lengthy descent.

  To the south, the force f
rom the Keep of Sorrows stood in its battle lines. The council had arranged its infantry in what amounted to a three-sided box, with one side facing the bottom of the zigzagging road, one opposing the enemy on the plain, and the third placed to prevent the warriors from the keep from flanking them. Reserves-horsemen, mostly-waited inside the box to rush where they were needed.

  Dmitra looked over at Aoth Fezim. Employing a petty charm that would enable them to talk without strain despite the space separating them, she asked, "What do you think?"

  Aoth hesitated. "Well, Your Omnipotence, we can be glad of a couple things. We reached the bottom of the road and got ourselves in formation before the necromancers actually did come down, and before the troops from the Keep of Sorrows got here to claim the ground ahead of us. Also, it's still a decent field for fighting. No blue fire has washed through to carve it into ridges and chasms."

  "What are you not glad about?" she asked.

  "Ideally, you never want the foe coming at you from two directions at once." Aoth stroked the feathers on his griffon's neck. "Also, as the warriors from High Thay come down the road, they'll be like men on the battlements of a castle. They'll have the advantage of height, and rain arrows and magic down on us."

  Dmitra smiled. "So remind me again why it's a cunning scheme for us to make a stand here."

  "Because you said so, Your Omnipotence, and then a god appeared to second your opinion."

  "True. But do you see any additional reasons for optimism?"

  "Yes. We outnumber the enemy, and Szass Tam won't have many bowmen on the slopes. Undead archers do exist, but the necromancers design most of their creations for close combat. And since they'll most likely attack at night, so they can use all their troops, the darkness will spoil the aim of even a dread warrior or an ore beyond a certain distance.

  "Also," Aoth continued, "we're going to harry them as they come down. We griffon riders will handle part of it. The bastards won't have the advantage of height on us. And I'm told you Red Wizards will make the descent as hellish as possible. You'll conjure hail and wind, and send demons to tear the ghouls apart as they creep along."