The Magehound

by Elaine Cunningham

  The archer’s aim was true, and the arrow tore through the gossamer wings and sank deep into the insect’s body. The dragonfly screamed, an unexpected and chilling sound that broke off abruptly as the creature reached the end of its tether and jerked to a stop.

  Down went the giant insect, but it didn’t relax its hold on Salvidio. They slammed into the water. The dragonfly’s wings continued to beat as furiously in the water as they had in the air.

  All six men began to drag in the rope, working hand over hand as they pulled the struggling insect into the shallows. The creature’s movements began to slow, and the water went still as the dragonfly and its prey sank out of sight. Andris waded in as deep as he dared, then pulled his dagger and waited.

  A round, furry head suddenly exploded from the water. Andris found himself staring into the insect’s eyes. Each was a bulging orb containing a thousand smaller eyes, all as green as moss and filled with malevolence. A pair of dripping antennae quirked into a posture of unmistakable menace. The creature’s mouth, a strange hooked beak, opened wide as the head reared back to attack.

  Andris drew the dagger overhead and stabbed straight into the open maw. The dragonfly screamed again, a horrible, strangled sound. Hot blood gushed from the beak, and the wild light began to fade from the dragonfly’s multiple eyes.

  The jordain wrenched his blade free, took a deep breath, and dived under the water. Though the creature was dead, it hadn’t let go its prey. Salvidio’s eyes were bulging, and rifts of bubbles spilled from his lips. Andris used his knife to pry the talons from Salvidio’s shoulders. He saw at once that he couldn’t finish the task in time and quickly rose to the surface.

  “You three! With me!” he shouted, pointing toward a nearby trio.

  He dived again. With two men working on each side, they soon had the talons pried free. Andris dragged Salvidio’s limp form to the surface. The man sputtered and coughed, then staggered off to retch up swamp water.

  Andris took a small bottle from his bag, an ointment that would seal the wounds and keep the insects away. Even the smallest scratch could turn deadly in a swamp. He quickly applied ointment and bandages to Salvidio’s shoulder, ignoring the injured man’s hisses of impatience over the delay. They continued on their way as soon as Salvidio could walk. With each step, the danger increased, for they neared the site of a lost city and its undead inhabitants.

  Around highsun they paused briefly, perching on half-submerged logs by the shore as they took some of the rations of the food and water they’d carried in. Wolther, a yellow-haired northerner with odd tastes in food, collected a handful of mussels from the shallows, pried them open with his knife, and ate them raw. Before Andris could chide him about the wisdom of eating anything that lived in these swampy waters, Wolther turned a plump snail shell over and probed about inside with the tip of his knife. The man’s face took on an expression of puzzlement that turned quickly to horror. He dropped the shell into the water as if it burned him.

  “Look at the snails,” he whispered.

  Andris noted that several swirled shells inched along the driftwood-smooth bark. He picked up one of the snails, noting the tug of resistance and the single, fleshy foot of the creature within. He shrugged, then picked up another of the moving shells. This time there was no grip, and there was no creature within.

  For some reason, this small uncanny fact seemed more ominous than the appearance of a rotting ghoul. The swamp was filled with undead creatures; they all knew that. Animated death held absolute sway in the depths of the swamp. But Andris’s mind grew dizzy as he contemplated a power so large that it would spill over into so small a creature. He could fight a zombie or a skeleton, but could they overcome a power that permeated the entire swamp?

  He carefully set down the haunted shell and eased back into the shallows, motioning for the men to follow. The ruins of the lost city must be close by.

  The first sign they came to was a watery field of standing stones. Draped with moss and broken into jagged shards, they thrust up out of the swamp like the graves of drowned men. Andris eased his daggers from their sheaths and heard the soft chorus of metallic hisses behind him as the men did likewise.

  Several forms burst from the water, leering at them with skeletal grins and making strange, jerky gestures with their bony fingers. Weeds hung about the skulls in place of hair, sodden tatters of once-fine robes draped over bony frames, and tarnished medallions dangled over empty chests.

  Andris and Iago stepped forward to meet the first attack. It was possible that these creatures, once wizards, had managed the transformation from men to liches. A lich could cast all the magic the wizard had ever learned, and it remained a deadly foe from the day of death until the day it moldered to dust. None of the men with Andris possessed magic, but only the jordaini had much resistance to it.

  But no spells erupted from the jerky skeletal hands. The undead men were merely repeating gestures they had learned in life. But Andris’s keen senses felt a curious sucking sensation in the air about him, an invisible and intangible vortex. He suspected that if any of the men with him had possessed magic, something in Kilmaruu would steal it away.

  Not liches, then, but something different, some creation of the swamp itself.

  He led the attack with a sudden rush that sent swamp water spraying and surging. The two forces, the living and the undead, slammed together. Andris chose his target, and his daggers drove for the tattered remains of sinew that connected the animated bones. His men grappled with the skeletal fighters, hacking and tearing at them and flinging anything that came loose into the deepest tangle of reeds or underbrush that they could reach.

  But these creatures didn’t accept death easily. Beheaded skulls rolled and spun in the water, jaws clacking furiously. An arm slithered toward them, looking eerily like a thin white crocodile.

  Suddenly Wolther started shrieking in his barbarian tongue. He stamped frantically and repeatedly, then gave that up and began to stab the water with his sword.

  Andris sloshed over to give aid and swore softly at the sight before him. A dismembered hand had crawled over to Wolther. Bony fingers dug through boot leather and into the flesh beneath.

  “Your sword!” Andris demanded, closing his hand around the hilt.

  Wolther hesitated, then he gave a quick nod and relinquished the sword. “Get it off!” he screamed, babbling with barely constrained hysteria. “Cut it off at the knee if that’s what it takes.”

  The jordain carefully slid the sword between the boot and the bony palm, digging the blade in as deep into the swamp bed as he could. He braced one foot against Wolther’s leg and began to pry the bony fingers away. The task was distressing like pulling nails from a wooden plank, but in a few moments the skeletal hand was out. Bony fingers wrapped around the sword and began to inch their way toward the hilt. Andris whipped the sword forward and sent the hand spinning toward the fern-choked banks.

  He turned to Wolther and noted with relief that no blood gushed forth and that the injured leg could still support the man’s weight. None of the major veins or sinews had been breached. Wolther might always walk with a limp, but if the wound didn’t turn septic, he would survive.

  By the time he was finished with Wolther, his men had finished dismembering the undead wizards. Andris glanced up at the sun and was surprised to note that only a short time had passed.

  “Let’s keep moving,” he said softly. “This promises to be a very long day.”

  The ground underfoot grew firmer, and the terrain began to slope gently upward. Soon they were walking on dry ground. Andris knew from his studies that in times long past, this had been a rain forest set on gently rolling hills. It was said that a trio of wizards had diverted a river just to see if it could be done. As it happened, it could, and the result was the Kilmaruu Swamp. But this deed had left a city stranded, and its furious citizens determined to reclaim their drowned lands.

  The land dipped suddenly, forming what appeared to be the ruins
of an ancient moat. Fortunately an ancient tree had fallen over the water, providing a natural bridge. Clumps of ferns and colorful twisted fungi grew in the rotting wood, but it looked sound enough to hold their weight

  “Prepare the saltpowder,” Andris said softly.

  Each man quickly took two objects from his packs: a weapon that resembled a tiny catapult mounted on a crossbow and a small bottle filled with what appeared to be finely ground greenish crystals. They cranked back the mechanism on the bow and then poured the saltpowder into the tiny shot buckets on the catapults. Once the strange weapons had been readied, the men resumed walking, their weapons held level and their fingers lightly worrying the triggers.

  The log was broad enough for them to cross in pairs. Andris looped Wolther’s arm across his shoulder to help him across. They moved quickly, and the log held firm. The jordain nodded to Iago, holding up six fingers to indicate that they should cross in small groups rather than all at once. All went well until the last group began passage.

  The assault came suddenly as scores of creatures burst from the stagnant waters. Hideous forms, as pale as beached fish and bloated to thrice their living size, reached out with swollen hands. Incredible stench rolled off the creatures in waves; several of the fighters bent over, retching. Those who could still stand took aim. The air was suddenly filled with the snaps and whumping sounds of the miniature catapults and the sparkling flight of the strange ammunition.

  The saltpowder crystals pelted the drowned creatures. Fetid steam rose from the bloated forms as the minerals seared through cheesy flesh and warred with the trapped gases beneath.

  “Down!” commanded Andris. He dropped flat and threw his arms over his head.

  The explosion shook the ground and sent unspeakable goo splattering over the warriors. The log shuddered and shifted, creaking as it threatened to fall into the water. Andris rose and began shouting and gesturing to the men who lay flat on the log. They struggled to their feet and hurried across.

  Suddenly two enormous, skeletal forepaws slammed down on the log bridge. The massive knuckles flexed and water surged as an enormous skull broke free. Nimble as a gigantic squirrel, the undead monstrosity clambered onto the bridge.

  Never had Andris seen such a creature, alive or dead. A pair of long pointed horns thrust forward out of its ridged skull, and a beaklike maw was filled with teeth that resembled those of a titanic vampire. Incisors the length and sheen of daggers flashed as the creature darted at the last man on the bridge.

  The man turned, alerted by his comrades’ screams, just as the massive jaws clamped down on him. As horrid as it was to see a comrade disappear into a monster’s maw, it was more terrible still to see the rent pieces fall through the skeleton form to stain the log bridge and the water below.

  Horror gripped the men, lending frantic speed as they ripped through the foliage and up the hill. In perhaps an hour, they stood panting at the crumbling, vine-colored gates of the city itself.

  Andris stared in awe at the remains of what had once been a wondrous town, with buildings even more fanciful than those of Halruaa’s cities. Remnants of leaping towers rose into the trees, some of them almost entirely obscured by vines. None of them had been constructed with stone; indeed, they had been grown, not built. Piles of multicolored crystal lay in heaps, looking like the mounds of a dragon’s hoard. A small waterfall spilled over one such ruin, and the passage of water coaxed high, ghostly notes from some of the crystal shards.

  To his astonishment, Andris recognized the ruined structures as elven. The history books claimed that the town was a rough outpost inhabited by rogues and bandits. He had never heard of early civilizations of elves in this part of Halruaa.

  The city was eerily silent as they worked their way through the ruined streets. The only sound was the thud of their machetes as they cut through the foliage clogging the area.

  Quon Lee worked his way over to Andris’s side. “There should be undead here,” he said softly. “Why haven’t they attacked?”

  “There will be undead,” Andris murmured. “I don’t know why they’re waiting. Perhaps they’re standing guard over something that seemed important in life.”

  “So if we leave now without despoiling this unknown treasure, they will let us withdraw in peace?”

  Andris shot an ironic smile in the scout’s direction. “What do you think?”

  Quon Lee merely shrugged and lifted his machete again.

  Suddenly they were clear and standing in an enormous courtyard. The buildings here were nearly intact, and the fountain on the huge pool in the center still bubbled. Andris noted that the scent of the swamp was heavy in the water.

  He took a vial of powder and a torch from his bag, first lighting the torch and then using his teeth to pull out the vial’s cork. The other fighters followed his lead.

  “What now?” whispered Iago.

  “We wait,” Andris replied simply.

  They didn’t have long to wait. A sudden clatter of bone and the reek of rotting meat announced the attack. Skeletal and near-skeletal forms rattled out of the buildings that surrounded the courtyard, brandishing priceless elven weapons in their bony fists. Andris noted that none of the undead creatures appeared to be elves. All were human. The bones of some were extremely dry and brittle, while others had obviously not been dead for long. This, then, was the resting place of the adventurers who sought to despoil the city’s treasure. But what of the elves?

  There was no time to ponder this question. The men tossed their open vials into the pool, followed by the torches. And then they turned and ran for the exit.

  They dived back into the thick foliage, rolling as far away as they could and clamping their hands to their ears.

  A tremendous roar rolled through the vine-clogged streets like the scream of a dragon taking flight. A second blast followed, a cloud of terrible heat and choking black smoke.

  After a few minutes, they ventured back into the courtyard. A few charred bones still twitched, but most of the undead had been utterly destroyed by the blast. Wisps of foul steam and black smoke rose from the pool. The crystal buildings still stood, but several of the doors had been blasted inward by the force of the explosion.

  Andris caught sight of a faint, greenish glow through one of those doors. He cautiously eased through the opening and found himself in a ruined temple. On the altar was a small globe, perhaps half the size of a man’s head, faintly pulsating with light and power. Andris could feel the pull of it, a powerful yearning that felt more like sadness than hunger.

  “What the Nine bloody Hells is that thing?” demanded Wolther, raking his straw-colored hair away from his face as he stared at the glowing sphere.

  “I don’t know for certain,” Andris replied hesitantly, “but I think this could be what empowers the undead. Notice how they gather here. This globe is hungry for magic, and the undead creatures gathered around it like bees feeding nectar to a queen.”

  He carefully lifted the crystal and slipped it into his pack.

  The northerner’s sky-colored eyes narrowed. “So you’re taking that with us? It’ll draw every undead thing within calling range!”

  “The return trip will not lack excitement,” Andris said dryly. “But it is the only way to complete our task. The Kilmaruu will never be utterly free of undead—what swamp in any land can make that boast?—but those creatures that remain need not forage for magic.”

  The big northerner folded his arms. “Seems to me you’re moving a problem, not solving one.”

  “Surely Halruaa has one wizard who can negate or contain this force,” Andris retorted. “We are here to remove the thing that causes the undead to feed upon magic. Only by doing so can we eliminate the danger to outlying farms and the nearby waters. Only then will you be free to return to your homeland,” he added for good measure.

  Wolther shrugged. “Best be going, then.”

  Andris noted that none of the men suggested staying to explore and pillage the elven city. Al
l of them were far too eager to leave Kilmaruu behind.

  Very late that night, the weary survivors staggered into the compound where they had trained. Kiva and her wemic captain awaited them. The magehound took Andris’s report with great satisfaction, and her amber eyes lit with sudden ardent flame when he handed her the green sphere.

  A suspicion stirred in Andris’s mind. Somehow he doubted that the magehound’s stated mission—destroying the threat offered by the undead—was her true goal.

  Kiva dismissed the other men to rest, but she took Andris to her private chambers and plied him with wine and questions. Every detail of the battle fascinated her. She presented other possible situations, similar to that which they had faced, and asked how he would address them.

  Andris did not mind, despite his exhaustion. Not since his days at the Jordain College and his long discussions and arguments with Matteo had he encountered anyone who shared his passion for tactics and strategy.

  But doubt, once planted, grows quickly and dies hard. He studied the softly glowing globe, which Kiva kept with her, cradling in her lap like a beloved cat

  “You seem to take scant interest in this victory. What is your true purpose? What comes next?”

  She smiled at him. “You are quick, Andris. I suppose I need not tell you that Kilmaruu was little more than a test.”

  The weary jordain let out a small, dry chuckle. “Next you’ll be telling me that fighting a red dragon is nothing but battle training. I may regret asking, but for what did Kilmaruu prepare us?”

  Kiva poured more wine into his cup before answering. “What do you know of the Swamp of Akhlaur?”

  The jordain choked on his sip of wine. He coughed and put the goblet down with a sharp thunk. “It is an ancient swamp with a relatively new name. Known in ages past as the Swamp of Ghalagar, it was renamed for Akhlaur, an infamous necromancer who reputedly built a tower there. The swamp grows slowly, advancing some hundred feet or so each year. No one seems to know why, and the wizards who venture into the swamp to seek answers do not return.”