by William King
The changeling slowed his breathing and his heartbeat, braced his muscles and settled down to wait. Not long now.
Kormak trudged down the slope into the interior of the temple. His left side felt numb, and his skin tingled. He prayed to the Holy Sun that he was through the worst. If the poison was going to kill him, it surely would have by now.
He glanced to his left. Rhiana was there, her light-giving pearl held in one hand. Her blade in the other. Ahead of them was a glimmer of moonlight. The tunnel ended in an open space.
Shahad held his sword in one hand and glared around with surly bloodshot eyes. Behind them came the former prisoner. He still clutched his broken wine jar as if he could do damage with it. Zamara had his blade out and looked ready to use it.
Kormak stepped forward through the arch and into the arena. Something moved above him. He looked up.
The changeling heaved. The rock plunged down towards the Guardian’s head. Right on target.
The man’s reflexes were uncanny. Even slowed by poison, Kormak threw himself to one side, so fast that the missile merely clipped him on the shoulder and sent his blade spinning to the ground. He sprawled in the dirt. Time to finish him off.
The changeling leapt down and landed lightly on the ground. Frantically the Guardian scrambled for his sword, but his movements were slow. The changeling heard a roar from behind him and a booming voice shouted, “You! You are the one who killed my wife! Now you are going to pay.”
A massive form sprang towards him. The changeling extended his blade in a stop thrust. With surprising skill, the huge man parried, knocked the blade aside and lashed out with one meaty fist. The changeling moved his head and caught it on his cheek. The force of the blow sent stars dancing in front of his eyes. The merwoman circled to his left and the prisoner Anders to his right, clutching a broken wine bottle. Behind him Admiral Zamara waited, his blade held competently in his hand.
It occurred to the changeling that he had perhaps been overconfident. He was badly outnumbered.
He had one last trick to play. He allowed his facial features to bloat and twist and discolour into something corpse-like and monstrous. He expanded his chest and arms taking on the appearance of monstrous, ogreish strength. Seeing the transformation, the humans backed away. The changeling smiled, revealing a tongue like a monstrous maggot. To his pursuers, it must have looked as if one of the Old Ones had indeed returned.
Shouts emerged from the darkness around him. Cowled figures moved through the Temple’s other entrance and raced towards them. Count Balthazar and his men were here at last. It looked like salvation had finally arrived.
With a howl of rage, the big man attacked.
“Monster! You’ll pay for killing Khiyana,” he bellowed. This must be Shahad, the changeling realised. Lady Khiyana’s husband.
The changeling parried the big man’s blow and then launched a counter. His sword slithered past his foe’s defence and pinked him in the bicep. Normally the changeling would have been perfectly happy with that. In a long duel, it would have guaranteed him victory. He was not sure he had that kind of time.
His foe was a far better swordsman than his appearance suggested. He was quick as a cat and strong as an ape, and he had been trained by masters. But so had the changeling. Under normal circumstances, he was quite sure he could kill his enemy given time, but these were not normal circumstances.
He feinted, left what appeared to be the slightest chink in his defences. When Shahad stepped in to take advantage of it, the changeling knocked his blade aside and stabbed Shahad through the chest.
“You walked into that,” the changeling said.
Shahad smiled as blood bubbled from his lips. “No. You walked into this.”
He toppled forward, the weight of his body pulling the blade from the changeling’s hands. His huge hands grasped the shapeshifter’s neck. He twisted. Vertebrae ground. The last thing the changeling felt was the stab of agony, and then he fell forward into darkness.
Kormak fought to keep from groaning. He cursed the poison that had slowed his reflexes and kept him unaware of his foe’s attack until it was almost too late.
He rolled over to his blade, grasped it with fumbling fingers and fought to rise to his feet. Then he saw the group of armed men moving towards them. There must be at least twenty of them. He recognised Balthazar. The tall man wore a skull mask. A green light glowed within his eyes; a green nimbus played around his wavy bladed sacrificial dagger. One of the cultists knelt before him, head down. The knife descended, and Balthazar screamed the name of Xothak.
The elder sign on Kormak’s chest began to heat up. The stones shook. A strange wailing emerged from the mouth of the dying cultist. Blood flooded from his neck, staining the ground, drunk by the shadows cast by the flickering greenish glow. It congealed into something dark and deadly. An arch formed in the air in front of Count Balthazar. Inside it, tendrils of light swirled and glowing mist billowed forth.
Another cultist threw himself at Kormak, blade whistling through the night air.
Chapter Eighteen
Anders ignored the chanting that echoed through the inside of the temple. He ignored the strange flickering light. He could not afford the distraction. He cursed himself. He could have run off into the night and taken no part of this. He could have been free outside the city now. But no. He had to come to this damned place on a mad quest for vengeance.
Look what it had got him: fighting some shapeshifting monster, surrounded by a bunch of masked cultists and the sorcerer who led them. Who knew what hellish new monstrosity the man was summoning? And the only weapon he had was a broken bottle. There was not even anything to drink in the bloody thing.
He would say one thing for the Guardian—the man could fight. One foe was already down, and the others were keeping a wary distance.
One foe was down! That meant there was a blade. Anders saw where the cultist had dropped it and scrambled towards it on all fours, keeping below the level of whirling swords until he could get one in his hand.
One of the robed men noticed him from the corner of his eye and aimed a blow. Anders rolled forward and grabbed the blade as his enemy’s sword passed through the space where he had been.
The cultist struck again. This time, Anders parried. He rose to his knee and was almost driven to the ground again by the force of the next cut. He braced himself for another but then he noticed his foe toppling forward. The Guardian had slashed through his spine when the cultist’s back was turned.
Anders threw himself into the melee. Fury drove his blade. He caught one man through the throat and then stabbed another in the leg, severing an artery. The Guardian and the woman took advantage of the distraction to down several more. The Admiral chopped down another.
In half a dozen heartbeats they put down as many foes, then they turned to face the remainder. The cultists fled towards their leader. Then Anders noticed what was happening. Mist flowed from the glowing gate. Tendrils of light weaved all around him, skittering across the ground, flowing towards the battle. Something told Anders that it would be a very bad idea to let one of those touch him.
He threw himself behind the Guardian, knowing that the man would be protected against magic. The runes on Kormak’s blade glowed as they neutralised some of the energy of the spell. It flowed around him, avoiding him and the woman and the people still fighting. Anders let out a sigh of relief. Nothing had happened. He felt like hurling a taunt at the wizard. “You useless bastard,” he shouted.
The wizard redoubled his chanting. A hand clutched at Anders’ ankle. Looking down, he saw that it belonged to one of the corpses.
The dead rose. Kormak chopped down at the hand grasping Anders’ ankle. Flesh sizzled as his dwarf-forged blade bit home. Rhiana threw herself to one side, dancing away from the grasp of another reanimated corpse.
Necromancy. He had faced it before in a dozen places and a dozen times. He did not fear the walking dead. They would be strong but slow. They felt no
pain, but that did not matter. His blade would end them.
Taking heart, the remaining cultists charged back into the fray. They were more dangerous than the animated dead, faster and stronger. Slowed by the poison and the wound to his shoulder, Kormak needed to kill them first on his way to the sorcerer.
He raced forward; blade held ready to strike. The air grew colder as the power of the spell took hold. Mist billowed around him. His sword clanged against the first of the cultists’. His blow was slower than it should have been. The man parried, and his comrade struck. Kormak stepped to one side and let his enemy’s blade slide by. The sudden turn sent a surge of agony through his hurt shoulder.
He lashed out with a boot, catching the man in his shin. The man yelped and hopped back off balance. A moment later Kormak broke his nose with the pommel of the dwarf-forged sword.
He stepped back to defend himself against a flurry of blows from the first attacker. Up ahead Balthazar continued to chant. Kormak’s elder sign grew hotter against his chest. Potent magic swirled through the temple, amplified by its geomantic structure. The sorcerer was tapping into it, drawing on far more power than would be needed to animate a few slow-moving corpses.
“Rise, Servant of Xothak,” Balthazar shouted in the Old Tongue. Instinct warned Kormak even as Rhiana shrieked a warning. He stepped back, half turning so he could see what was happening behind him.
The changeling had risen once more, flesh ballooning as it took on a monstrous skull-faced shape. All of the shadows flowed into it. The flesh from Shahad’s corpse turned grey as shadowy energy suffused it. It rippled up towards the changeling and fused with it, creating an even more massive form, large as an ogre and more muscular. Eerie laughter bubbled from its mouth. Bloody froth flowed from its nostrils.
The cultist attacking Kormak halted, eyes bright with religious awe. Kormak stabbed him through the throat. Through the gathering mist, his gaze sought Balthazar. Killing the sorcerer would break the spell. He hoped.
The air shimmered and the mist swirled in a cyclonic pattern. A connection was forming between this place and the Outer Dark, the Nether Realm of Shadow. If it was completed, it would remain open for hours, perhaps days, a wound in the fabric of the world. Gigantic things lurked beyond it, waiting to enter this place.
The Servant of Xothak picked up a sword in each hand. It thundered towards him, far faster than any animated corpse. Whatever possessed it was using the ambient magical energy to enhance its strength and speed. It covered the ground between them with eye-blurring swiftness and Kormak found himself on the defensive against its twin blades.
He cursed his hurt shoulder and the poison that slowed him. His opponent would have been a deadly foe even if he was entirely healthy. Now he could barely keep himself alive. A sword smashed down. Kormak parried. The force of the blow numbed his arm. The second blade swept in. He leant to one side, and it sliced his skin.
He needed to launch an attack, but it was all he could do to keep himself alive. Rhiana and the others called out in the gathering mist. Judging from their cries, Kormak knew that more corpses were moving. Behind him, the chanting continued as the ritual reached its peak.
Blows hammered down on him. He cleared his mind as he had been taught and focused only on the fight. His movements took on new precision. His parries became faster. He tried a counter, and his blade touched magic-suffused flesh. Skin blistered where it touched, but he could not drive the point home. The creature bounded away too fast. It threw one of its blades at him. The sword moved with incredible speed, whirling through the air. Kormak ducked, and it went over his head and vanished into the mist. The ground trembled again.
It felt as if the ritual was coming to its climax.
Anders fought down the urge to run screaming into the night. He had not felt so afraid since the night they had fled Xanadar with the coffin. In some ways, this was worse. The terror was happening here in the heart of Maial. He could still feel the clammy grip of the corpse on his leg. He looked at the merwoman and the man in the tricorne hat of an Admiral. They glanced out into the mist, looking for the source of the sounds of conflict.
Their gazes, like his, were drawn to the greenish magical glow. What was going on here? Anders wondered. He had seen the demon the mage had summoned. Had heard the name Xothak chanted again and again. Was the former master of this city returning? The thought of a demonic Old One stalking the streets of Maial was not a reassuring one. Perhaps he should try and run while the running was good.
No. He was not going to do that. He owed these bastards for kidnapping him and killing Gregor. And he very much doubted that running would do him much good anyway. He had used up his full complement of luck getting out of Xanadar.
There had to be something he could do. He moved through the mist and gloom, towards the evil glow and the sound of chanting.
Kormak strode towards the glowing portal. Behind it stood Balthazar, arms outstretched, head thrown back, lips twisted as he chanted. An evil radiance emerged from the man’s eyes. As their gazes met, Kormak felt as if he was looking into the eyes of a being from somewhere else. Something dark and strange and deadly inspected him.
The Servant emerged once more from the mist, moving almost too fast for him to parry. It was making use of the changeling’s body, but it was getting its energy from somewhere else, doubtless from the thing that waited beyond that opening portal.
The mist around it shimmered in places. At first, Kormak had thought it was merely the reflected light of the portal, caught in the vapour, but now he saw that it was something more. Faint lines of ectoplasm ran from the gate out. Some of them touched the Servant; others led to the mobile corpses. Still more touched Balthazar as he chanted.
These were the points of contact between the thing from Beyond and its servants. These were the strings that the puppeteer in the Outer Dark used to control its minions. Kormak slashed at the Servant, deliberately missing it, and slicing through one of the ectoplasmic tendrils. Was the thing’s response a fraction slower, a trifle less strong?
He rolled to one side, avoiding its cut, and tried to place himself between the monster and the portal. As he did so, he cut more of the tendrils. No doubt about it—the creature was slower. One side of its body had frozen as if the strings animating it had been cut. It reeled drunkenly, whirled, trying to bring the still strong side of its body to bear. Kormak drove his blade into its flesh. There was a sizzling sound and the smell of corrupted flesh burning. The taint of blight hung in the air.
The creature lashed out at him. Poison and pain slowed his response. The Servant’s fist caught him and sent him reeling away, leaving his blade embedded in its flesh. The tendrils of light connecting the monster to the portal brightened, flickering like lightning bolts as if whatever controlled the creature was trying to deal with his blade’s interference by throwing more and more power into the link.
It was not the way to deal with a dwarf-forged blade. The runes along its length glowed brighter as it reacted to the surge of power. The sizzling sound increased. The smell intensified. The Servant danced randomly, like a puppet whose strings were being shaken.
Balthazar howled as if he felt the same pain the monster felt. Perhaps the connection flowed into both of them. Kormak pulled himself upright. Bodies moved through the mist towards him. Rhiana, Zamara and the former prisoner, he guessed. They looked as if they were prepared to fight the monster.
“No! Stay back,” Kormak shouted. “There is nothing you can do to it.”
Great cables of power connected the servant to the portal. All of the other animated corpses had frozen as if their master was concentrating all of his efforts onto the one thing. Balthazar had stopped screaming and began another chant. Kormak recognised it as an effort to dispel the original summoning. Balthazar’s mastery was impressive; he was managing to cast the spell even though he must be in agony.
Kormak limped towards him. If he had to, he would kill the wizard with his bare hands. Balthazar shrieke
d and spread his hands wide. The gateway crashed shut as a final surge of energy spurted from it. The force of the blast tossed Kormak backwards, and the others along with him.
His amulets grew hot as they absorbed the magical energy. He picked his battered body upright and began to stagger forward. The Servant crashed to the ground. His blade stood up from the middle of a fast putrefying mass of flesh. A cloud of blackness rolled away from the spot where the sorcerer had stood, the same type of spell he had used to cover his escape back in his mansion.
When it faded, there was no sign of Balthazar. Kormak was glad. He did not have the strength for another fight at this moment in time.
“The bastard sorcerer got away,” Anders said. The few surviving cultists had fled into the night. Shahad’s skeletal remains lay on the ground.
“What just happened here?” Zamara demanded.
“Count Balthazar summoned a demon from the Outer Dark,” Kormak said. “I think he intended to do more, perhaps bring an army of them in, and take over the city.”
He imagined those tendrils spreading from the centre of the temple, touching corpses and reanimating them, spreading more and more with each new death. It had been a close run thing.
Anders swallowed. “Then it’s over and done with. Your doppelganger is dead and gone, and I am free to go.”
The Guardian shook his head. “I just worked out who you are and why the changeling wanted you and your friend. You are going to have to come with me. I need to know about the sarcophagus you found.”
Briefly, Anders considered resisting, but he knew that against this man and his companions it would be suicidal. At least he was still alive. Which was a lot more than could be said for many of the people around him. The Death God had eaten well on the last night of his feast.