25 THE IMPERIAL PALACE, IN THE RUINED CITY OF NERA, NIGHT
Kalaban wedged his armor-encased left arm in the carrion crawler’s maw, hoping that the plate mail would withstand the sharp teeth and crushing pressure the creature was bringing to bear long enough for the knight-commander to determine his next move. Obviously, he had to retrieve his weapon. But first he had to get out from under the giant worm before it found something meaty to chew on.
The giant scavenger seemed slightly confused about why Kalaban was still putting up a fight. It had raked him repeatedly with its poisonous tendrils, and the creature expected its prey to start slowing down or even stop moving altogether at this point in the battle. The knight-commander, however, wasn’t the beast’s normal fare. Kalaban was no longer truly alive. He was undead, and his immortal state offered him a number of benefits that most living creatures didn’t possess.
Including immunity to poison.
He wasn’t sorry to disappoint the carrion crawler. In fact, he was about to make its day even more miserable.
As the crawler continued to gnaw on Kalaban’s left arm, crushing the metal and tearing at the leather straps, the knight-commander reached for the dagger hanging on his belt. The beast undulated as it bit at him, so he had a bit of room to maneuver between the motions of the creature. He gripped the dagger, drew it free, and then plunged it upward to meet the crawler’s next downward motion.
Even in his weakened state, Kalaban’s aim was true and the dagger struck deep. The beast wailed in pain. It was a strange, disturbing sound that Kalaban never wanted to hear again. The touch of the dagger was only the first wound he planned to visit on the creature, however. As the crawler reared up, trying to escape the stinging blade, Kalaban rolled away and scurried to his feet. He picked up his sword, feeling the familiar energy of the weapon fill him as he gripped the handle. His was a soulsword, bound to him just as he was dependent on it. It was a part of his undead existence, and he was relieved to feel its heft in his hand. With it, he felt complete.
With sword in hand, the knight-commander spun to face the crawler, feeling the strength and vitality returning to him. “You should have looked elsewhere for a meal,” he snarled, dropping into a combat stance as the crawler slithered toward him.
Kalaban waited, biding his time, gauging the power and determination of his foe. The carrion crawler reared up, fixing the orbs on the end of its eyestalks on him as its tentacles lashed at him like living whips. He caught the attacks on his left arm, letting most of the tentacles whip harmlessly across the plate armor that was dented and slick with crawler spit but otherwise intact. He grabbed two of the writhing tentacles in his mailed glove and pulled them toward him. Then he slashed with his sword, cutting through the taut tendrils and soliciting another inhuman scream from the creature.
The knight-commander stood facing the beast, still holding the pair of severed tentacles in his left hand. “Are we done here?” he asked in a low voice, not willing to kill the creature if he didn’t have to.
The carrion crawler regarded Kalaban for a long moment, breathing hard and grunting with the pain of its three wounds. Then, without further hesitation, the crawler slithered out of the chamber and disappeared into the darkness beyond the open doorway.
Kalaban watched for a few seconds, listening to the sounds of the departing scavenger. “May your next hunt be more fortuitous,” he said, slipping his soulsword back into its sheath and tossing away the dripping tendrils.
“Are you done playing, Kalaban?” Magroth asked, emerging from the hidden passage. “My workshop is still here, though it has been used by others since last we visited the palace. The sword of Nerath isn’t here, damn the luck, but I found something else that will be of service to our cause.”
A large figure emerged from the secret door. It was so tall and so broad that it barely managed to squeeze out of the passage. It was a giant carved from blue-gray stone, standing nearly eight feet tall and easily twice as wide or more than Kalaban was, and Kalaban was not small by anyone’s definition. It was humanoid in shape, standing on two solid legs of stone, but it was all chiseled lines and faceted contours. Its head was like a helmet, with no distinct features except for a visorlike slit where its eyes should be.
“A golem,” Magroth cackled with glee, sounding like a child who had discovered an unexpected present beneath his bed. “It’s one of the stoneguard, the golems specifically enchanted to protect the royal blood of Nerath and obey their commands.”
“I remember,” Kalaban said. “A powerful weapon.”
“Yes,” Magroth agreed. “Now we can face this creature, Sareth, and complete the next of my tasks.”
26 KALTON MANOR, NIGHT
Nu Alin stood completely still, forcing the anger and frustration to calm from a raging storm of massive waves and biting wind to a choppy sea. The Voidharrow was within his reach, and then it wasn’t. Another wizard, undead this time, had used a magic circle of some sort to vacate this ruined place before Nu Alin could take possession of that which he so desperately needed to find.
He slowed the vessel’s breathing, tried to quiet its beating heart. So fragile, these bodies of flesh and blood, so easy to break. Nu Alin had had little trouble with the animated suits of armor, but his vessel had paid dearly for the effort he had exerted. The flesh cracked and split with every blow he had delivered against the animated armor. Bones shattered. Blood oozed. And more than blood. Nu Alin’s own substance, his true form, spilled from the open wounds along with the halfling’s blood. He would need to replace this form, and he would have to do it sooner than he had originally planned.
With his destructive impulses more or less in check, Nu Alin bent to study the circle inscribed on the stone floor of the ruined chamber. It was actually two circles, one inscribed within another, the lines perfectly etched into the cold, stone tiles that covered the floor. Framed between the two circles, runes that Nu Alin could not interpret were written into the hard stone as though it had been soft sand, circumventing the entire inner edge of the larger circle. He could feel the lingering tingle of arcane magic floating above the circle, but he was no closer to figuring out how to make the magic work than he was when he first approached the area. He had missed his opportunity by mere moments as he finished dealing with the animated suits of armor.
The anger threatened to cloud over him again, and part of him wanted to give in to the urge to rip the ruined building apart stone by stone. But that wouldn’t solve his current problem. He had lost the trail, and the Voidharrow that he had sought to retrieve could be anywhere in this strange, soft world. Anywhere! The thought made him want to bash the body he wore into the hard wall over and over again until he spilled from it and took up his natural form. However, he knew he couldn’t survive very long outside a vessel. Not yet, in any event.
And Nu Alin had to survive. He needed to find the Voidharrow. He needed to set it free.
Nu Alin stood there in the near-darkness, thinking, trying to control his anger in order to come up with a plan that would salvage the events of the past few hours, when he heard sounds approaching from the north. The same direction he had come from.
He moved to the half-finished wall at the front of the keep and peered out into the night. He saw them just as they were emerging from the river, riding a pair of horses up on the dry land. The small band was led by a large, armored figure atop a massive black horse. Nu Alin searched the memories of his host and pulled what he needed from the halfling’s tattered mind. A dragonborn, that one was called, and it appeared to be a warrior of some sort. A second horse followed, smaller and of a lighter color than the first. It carried two figures on its back. The one controlling the beast was a female in riding leathers, and by the horns jutting from her head he determined that she was a tiefling. Seated behind her, holding a staff in one hand while his other grasped the tiefling’s waist for support, was an eladrin in robes. A wizard! Perhaps Nu Alin could still grasp victory this night.
“The murderer,” the last member of the small band said, looking straight into the ruined building where Nu Alin was hiding, “the murderer is close.” The creature wasn’t like the other members of the band. It was tiny, carried aloft by delicate wings. Nu Alin remembered the creature. It had been in the wizard’s tower, trying hard not to be noticed while he and the wizard had battled.
Pain suddenly wracked Nu Alin, radiating through his host form and reaching deep into his own substance. His true body oozed in and out of the many wounds that covered the vessel, some inflicted by the animated suits of armor but many more created as Nu Alin used the body to destroy the guardian constructs. Nu Alin would need to find a new host soon. Perhaps the dragonborn would suffice. He seemed large and powerfully built, hearty. The pain was making it hard for Nu Alin to concentrate, to think about what he needed to do.
The small band approached the ruins, pausing just outside the half-finished wall. Nu Alin scampered back into the shadows, moving deeper into the chamber with the circle inscribed on the floor.
The tiny winged creature landed on the eladrin’s shoulder and crawled down so that only its head was peaking up from behind. “It killed the mighty and great wizard, Moorin,” the tiny creature squeaked. “No offense, but what chance do the three of you have against it?”
The dragonborn, tiefling, and eladrin slowly made their way into the ruined keep. The eladrin wizard called forth light from the top of his staff, and Nu Alin drew farther back into the chamber. A new idea formed amid the pain that was threatening to set off his rage and his anger. This idea was good, but it required patience and diplomacy, not wanton destruction.
The tiefling stepped toward the inscribed circle, bending to examine it.
“A teleportation circle,” she said, her hand outstretched above the engraved runes. “It’s been used, and not very long ago.”
“Maybe the thing we’ve been chasing got away,” the dragonborn said, lowering its sword as though hoping for Nu Alin’s absence was the same as Nu Alin being gone.
“No,” the tiny winged creature warned, “the murderer is still here.”
Nu Alin sprang out of the shadows, leaping the distance in a massive bound that brought his vessel within arm’s reach of the tiefling. Before any of them could react, Nu Alin grabbed the tiefling and dug the female halfling’s clawlike fingers into the tiefling’s neck. He fixed the eladrin wizard with a steely gaze, looking through the failing eyes of his halfling vessel.
“Make the circle work,” Nu Alin said through the halfling’s cracked and bloody lips. “Make the circle work, or this one dies.”
27 LAKE NEN, NIGHT
How are you feeling?” Falon asked as he handed the mug of tea to Darrum.
“Like a volcano about to erupt,” the dwarf grumbled, taking a single sip of the hot liquid and then setting it aside. “I hate the sea and everything about it.”
“Technically, we’re traveling across a lake, not the sea.”
“Technically, I might forget that you’re under my protection and shove one of my hammers up your.…”
“Excuse me,” one of the dwarf crew interrupted, “but the captain asked me to let you know that we’re entering a bit of choppy water known as the Graveyard. A number of ships sank here during the Bloodspear orc uprising, and this stretch of the lake has always had some strange currents.”
“Thanks for the information,” Falon said.
“Yeah, now I have another reason for why my head is spinning and my guts are rolling,” Darrum complained.
As the crew member departed, Falon decided to try to get the dwarf’s mind on to other topics. “Darrum, if you don’t mind me asking, where were you when the empire collapsed?”
The dwarf fixed his one good eye on Falon, studying him with a critical gaze. For a long moment, Falon assumed that Darrum wasn’t going to answer him. Then the dwarf slumped back against the bench and sighed.
“I was an Imperial Shield, one of the elite knights charged with protecting the royal family,” Darrum began, hesitant at first, but then he let the tale unfold. “My place was usually with the emperor’s daughter, a young lass who was every bit as stubborn and determined as her father. But the emperor sent me away that day. I don’t know what was going through his head, or what he had been hearing, but he called for me. We met alone, in his private chambers. He gave me a sealed letter and said that it had to reach the Baron of Therund immediately. Of course I agreed. I departed from the capital city within the hour, and I never saw my emperor or any of the royal family again.”
“Until yesterday,” Darrum finished, giving Falon a knowing glance.
“You weren’t in Nera when the disaster struck?”
Darrum shook his head. “I’m not even really sure what happened that day. I’ve heard all of the stories, conflicting though they may be. Perhaps all of them are true. Perhaps none of them. But whether it was a natural earthquake or a powerful spell, marauding gnolls or assassins sent by the emperor’s own brother, whatever happened that day, the royal family died and the empire fell apart. I was far away and on my own, and there was nothing I could do.”
Falon was quiet for a time, thinking about the various stories he had heard growing up in Nenlast. “Did you deliver the letter?” he finally asked.
“Enough about those dark days,” Darrum said, waving the question away. “Tell me, young Falon, why did you decide to take up the cleric’s oath?”
“It wasn’t so much a decision,” Falon admitted, “as much as it was a calling. I always felt a connection to Erathis and the teachings of law and civilization. Erathis wants to bring light to the wilderness, and there’s so much darkness in the land. I want to be part of the light.”
Darrum studied Falon, searching his face for something he expected to find there. “You sound just like him,” the old dwarf said. “Just like my emperor.”
A commotion at the front of the ship caught the attention of Falon and Darrum. “By Moradin’s flaming beard!” one of the crew members exclaimed.
“Moradin doesn’t have a flaming beard, you oaf!” someone else shouted.
“You can take it up with the good man when you meet him,” the ship’s captain bellowed. “Now get to your stations, every one of you!”
Falon and Darrum moved to the ship’s prow, approaching the captain. Captain Stonehome was a steady, reliable dwarf with a quiet demeanor until the situation warranted a more blusterous response. Then he could bellow and shout with the best of them. He was solid, commanding, and with a level head that made Falon feel good about having him at the helm. Right now, he was barking orders in a strange shorthand that Falon couldn’t quite comprehend, even though the crew members seemed to understand him perfectly well.
“Captain,” Darrum asked, his hands never far from the handles of his twin warhammers, “what has your ship in such an uproar?”
“Take a look, sir,” Captain Stonehome said, pointing toward the dark waters of the lake ahead of them, “and tell me how you think we should behave in the face of this.”
The merchant ship was sailing directly into a churning whirlpool. Wind whipped off the lake to blow fiercely across the deck of the vessel, and the churning water became more violent with each passing moment. As the crew struggled to keep the ship from entering the raging water, Darrum gripped the rail so that he could get a better look.
“We’re not in the open ocean,” Falon said, shouting to be heard above the rising wind. “How can the water be doing that?”
“Now do you see why I hate to travel over water? Anyway, there’s nothing natural about this storm.”
“Really? What was your first clue?”
Falon stared into the churning lake water. The storm or whatever it was wasn’t like any weather he had ever experienced. For all the wind and whirling water, the night sky was crystal clear, and the moon and stars above shed pale light over the ship and the lake around them. Falon thought he had seen something in the water. Debris? Some kind of animal? Then he saw t
hem, clearly illuminated by the light of the moon.
“Darrum, do you see?”
“I see them,” the dwarf replied, drawing his twin warhammers from the harness around his waist.
Falon might not have believed it if he hadn’t fought similar creatures just two nights before. Now he was watching as skeletal forms rose from beneath the churning water of Lake Nen. They were crawling up the sides of the ship, dressed in wet tatters that might once have been noble finery or the rags of a common servant. The skeletons climbed toward the deck of the ship, some carrying rusted swords and daggers, others unarmed but no less menacing. The first of the walking dead were stepping over the rail, cold lake water running down their exposed bones to puddle on the deck.
“Hold them off,” Falon ordered Darrum, shouting over the biting wind. “Maybe I can drive them away.”
Falon ran back to their bench and reached for the oilcloth-wrapped sword. He quickly pulled Arande free, letting its soft glow warm him against the unnatural wind. Falon began to pray, even as he kept one eye on Darrum and the dwarf crew members, many of whom were now engaged in battle against the skeleton boarding party.
Darrum waded in to attack the first skeletons climbing on to the deck at the ship’s prow. He twirled his twin warhammers with amazing speed, shattering bone and scattering the initial boarders with relative ease. The golden warhammer’s head was blunt on one side and beveled into a wedge on the other. The dark gray warhammer, meanwhile, was blunt on both ends, so dark as to be almost black in the pale light cast by the moon and the few lanterns blazing on the deck.
“Erathis, let your light fill the darkness and drive off this evil,” Falon prayed, even as he noticed that the fractured bones of the skeletons that Darrum had dispatched were knitting back together.
“I’m slowing them down, nothing more,” Darrum called back. “If you have something else, now would be a good time to use it!”
The Mark of Nerath: A Dungeons & Dragons Novel Page 11