The first volley was nearly fifty crossbow bolts and the dragon instinctively knew it was vulnerable on its left side where the wizard’s electrical attack had hit it. It turned that way and took the blunt of the aerial attack on its still armored right side. Several bolts pierced its right wing and the dragon roared in pain. Then something screeched loudly from high above and the dragon ran north, flapping furiously until it took flight and soared over the mountain’s ridges on the Kesh side. Wheeling once it headed west, disappearing from view.
“Nicely done, Master,” Hermes said, admiring the man’s work.
Hork rode over the magic-users and added, “That was a skillful shot, Master.”
Zorcross continued to look at the sky above the pass as if waiting to see if the dragon’s flight was a ruse and that it would return. Not seeing or hearing anything, the man responded, “Coming from you, Commander Hork, I will take that as a compliment. Can you make a more orderly approach with us to the pass so we can secure it and assess what danger still lurks on the Ulathan side?”
“Of course, Master,” Hork said, turning his mount to face his lieutenants, “Form up. Proceed forward in attack formation.”
The army mobilized and marched forward behind the wizards and Kesh commanders. The most dangerous part was in cresting the ridge line as the dragon and Ulathan rebels could be there waiting in ambush, but they would have to face a half-thousand warriors along with two wizards. When they reached the summit they met with no resistance.
“I think I see something down there,” Hermes shielded his eyes from the overhead sun that was slightly to their west. “Near the forest ridgeline due west.”
“I do not see anything,” Zorcross looked, also using a hand to shield his eyes.
It took a moment before Hork noted, “I think I see him. Look about three trees south of that great rock, Master.”
Seeing where Hork was pointing, Zorcross squinted and then found what the others had seen already. A statue of a man stood at the forest’s edge. It had a brown robe and a wooden staff that seemed more like a very tall walking stick. The man’s grey body blended in too well with the granite rocky outcropping amidst the grass and dirt and the color of the man’s wardrobe were all earth tones making him hard to see. He was not alone.
Behind him, barely visible, were the rebels they were facing. Two women and two men. One man dressed in all too familiar black, leather armor. The group was facing them and peering intently, though they were in the afternoon shadow of the trees while the Kesh were in full sunlight giving a visual acuity advantage to the Ulathan group. The dragon was no where to be seen, but all knew it couldn’t have gone far.
After securing the pass the two groups looked at one another for a few moments longer before the statue moved, and a booming voice came from it. “Welcome back. Do feel free to visit me in my abode this winter. I look forward to seeing you.”
Then the group, statue and all, disappeared into the tree line while a gale of wind came from the northwest. Unseen until now, the massive storm system was about to deposit a large amount of snow on the ground, especially the mountains and the pass. Turning to his master, Hermes asked. “Do we follow?”
Zorcross was much wiser and replied, “Not today, my apprentice. Not today. We build a new wall and towers here now. This time of brick.”
“Order the wagon train forward, Master?” Hork asked. The last brigade of foot soldiers along with the second brigade of crossbowmen had halted a ways back awaiting orders. The two brigades were guarding their supply train this time.
“Yes, Commander Hork,” Zorcross said. “See to it that a temporary defensive position is set up here at the pass against both those Ulathan rebels and the undead coming from their realm.”
“Then what?” Hermes asked.
“Then,” Zorcross replied, looking at his apprentice. “you go north and fulfil your duty.”
The wind began to howl, and snow fell at an alarming rate. Brad and Malik continued to run until they found a group of large trees including one that had died a year or two before. They made camp and decided a fire would be necessary in order to survive the night. This was no ordinary storm. The decision was a simple one when weather was involved. Within the hour it would threaten anything exposed in its path. Fire was the prudent choice.
“Are you sure we’re on track still?” Malik asked Brad as they settled into their makeshift camp for the night. The men had actually done a bit more than usual using dead sticks and branches to prop up makeshift tents which were nothing more than a large blanket stretched out and secured over their head at sitting level. They had their backs to the trees and faced south allowing the northern storm to hit the trees and tents first.
Brad nodded, “As far as I can tell. The pull isn’t as specific as you think it is.”
“I don’t care how specific it is or isn’t. I just want to know that we’re heading in the right direction. We have covered a lot of ground and you are scarce in providing information on how close we may be getting to your wife.”
“I have nothing to hide,” Bran said. “The pull is there and she’s somewhere west of us, perhaps a tad north. I will tell you if anything changes.”
“I somehow wonder about that.” Malik grabbed a couple of logs and put them on the fire.
“You may want to measure them out, make the fire last longer,” Bran said.
Malik nodded, “Let me worry about the fire. I saw a large log behind the evergreen threes twenty paces north of us. I’ll fetch that when this runs out. This storm will be a big one.”
“How big?”
“May very well shut us down for a few days.”
Brad scoffed, “It can’t be that bad, can it?”
“That’s because you city folk never paid attention to the big storms. You just smashed the snow down and melted in within the city walls, but out here, it can collect and reach your waist in short order.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
“I am,” Malik said. “The last big blizzard hit us four years ago and stopped all movement even to Fornz, if you remember?”
“Aye,” Brad said, collecting his tin cup from next to the fire pit where he had melted some snow and added herbs to make a type of tea. Gingerly testing it for heat, he put it to his lips and sipped before cupping both ungloved hands around the metal. “Kept us indoors for a week as I recall.”
“That pales in comparison to the storms of the north,” Malik said, chewing on beef jerky and looking overhead at the clouds that blotted out the stars. “Have you ever been north before?”
“Yeah,” Brad said. Looking into the fire, which was roaring now, and he thought maybe he didn’t need his hot tea at the moment. “Well, how far north exactly?”
“The Dragonlands,” Malik responded.
“Those lands,” Brad nodded, keeping his gaze on the hypnotic flames. “Do you remember the nobleman and his family who had that hunting estate near Glacial Lake?”
“Snobbish fellow. Trader if I remember correctly,” Malik said. “Plinkertons?”
“Yes, that’s them,” Brad said. “The Plinkton family.”
“Go on.”
“Well,” Brad began. “The man was well connected to our Lord Korwell and during the festivities of the Twin Sisters, a thief took something rather valuable from the man and his family. I was a newly commissioned officer in the king’s service and tasked with my first mission outside the realm.
The thief fled north past the old Bloodstone Pass that was all but impassable. How we managed to track him, much less follow him, was almost a mystery to me. In the end, we managed, and we found ourselves on the northern slopes of the mountains in terrain I had never seen before.”
Malik chimed in, “You had sergeant Winters, didn’t you, as your scout?”
Bran chuckled and set his cup down near the fire and pulled his gloves back on. “Yes, a most appropriate name for what we are facing now. Anyway, he was much younger back then too,
no grey and he had lots of time outside the realm. I was fortunate to have been allowed to take him.”
“He usually wasn’t in Korwell,” Malik noted the disconnect.
“Correct,” Brad explained, “but he was there for the festival, otherwise I may not be alive today.”
“So what happened?”
Brad looked into the fire and brought out memories from a time long ago. “The thief seemed intent to go north and then we chased him east. Winters felt he wanted to travel past something called Blood Rock and pass into Kesh lands from one of their northern roads.”
“I’ve seen the place.” Malik pulled his cloak about him as the snow began to fall in soft flakes. Those that hit the fire sizzled and evaporated in mid-air.
“Then you know the trail we took. We followed him for three straight days and nights. The thief never took the road, always running cross country much like we’ve done this past year. Up and down, down and up. My legs burned from the forced march and I was lucky that Winters insisted that I ditch my army at the northern garrison, otherwise we would have never caught up to him.”
There was a long silence as the Ulathan officer looked into the burning flames, recalling an epic chase that occurred in his youth. Malik was not so patient and asked, “So you got him?”
“No.” Brad said, his face began to grimace, and he gripped his hands tightly together. Malik thought it was fortunate the officer had laid his tin cup to the side otherwise it would have been crushed by the man’s reaction.
Almost if by an insatiable curiosity, Malik prompted, “Then what happened to him?”
There was another long pause and without taking his eyes of the flames of their campfire, Brad replied, “The barbarians got to him first.”
“You mean the Northmen?”
“No,” Brad came out of his hyper-focus and turned to look at his travelling companion. “I mean the barbarians. The Northmen have honor.”
Malik shook his head as the Ulathan officer made no sense. The terms were used interchangeably dependent upon the person and prejudices that were within each speaker. “Why barbarians?”
Brad didn’t blink, “We found the thief in pieces. Each pinned to trees at various locations throughout the area around a central, well rounded rock. They had made this rock a sort of new, miniature version of the Blood Rock that we had passed.”
“They sacrificed him on the rock?” Malik said without emotion.
“If you want to call it that,” Brad said, picking his cup up and drinking from it.
“The stolen item?”
“Never found.”
“You returned safely?”
“I’m here now,” Brad said. “The other members of our party weren’t so lucky.”
“How many made it back?” Malik asked. The snow now began to fall quicker and in heavier flakes that now stuck to their makeshift tents and clothing.
Brad sighed. “Winters and I.”
Malik thought to himself for a moment and then asked, needing to know. “How many in your party?”
“Twenty-two.”
Malik nodded and kept silent. He looked at the snow falling and said, “May as well get comfortable. It looks like we’ll be here for quite some time.”
“Aye,” Bran responded. Malik stood and walked away, and Bran called out to him. “Where are you going?”
Malik didn’t look back, but his words were still heard above the din of the wind. “To gather that wood I told you about. It will be a very long night.”
For the first time in several thousand years, the ancient capital city of Ulatha had no living inhabitants. The undead numbered in the low thousands. They would be several thousand if not for the Black Queen, thought Azor the Lich.
His critir floated in front of him and he had no reason to leave his vantage point atop the tallest Ulathan tower. No need for food, rest, sleep, social needs or calls of nature for that matter. He could stand in one place unmoving and lose himself in his thoughts. Now they were focused on the darkness surrounding the Ulathan group that was trying to evade detection. He could not see them, but he knew about her. He knew about the ghost because he knew who made her.
Rualf, the old arch mage who worked his deceit and lies right here in Utandra ensured the Lady Gemma Vandersot would endure an eternity of pain and suffering. A priest of the death cult, an Akun cleric, worked his trade in secret and the rest of the Vandersot would not be forthcoming anytime soon. Not till now, perhaps?
The idea that the Ulathans would go there was not obvious even to his superior intellect. Now that they did, he understood. They could only be after one thing. In order to confirm his suspicions, he needed his servants to either succeed in their quest, or for them to move on so the darkness that his critir could not penetrate would be lifted from him and he could see and watch for himself.
Speaking of critirs, his began to glow again and the lich would have sighed if he had working lungs. The coalescing shape was the only one he expected anymore, and it was only a moment before his suspicion was confirmed. “You are persistent if anything.”
Am-Tor gazed at the undead lich and replied, “You should not dismiss me so quickly, nor should you disrespect me when I summon you.”
“You summon me?” Azor asked.
“Yes, you are dead, and I am alive. I am the High Mage. You will need to learn your place in our order if ever you are to be a part of Kesh society again.”
“You are most astute in your observations of who is living and who is dead. You are, however, a fool when it comes to the recognition of power and in dealing with those who have it and those who do not. Besides, looking upon your grotesque countenance, it would be difficult for one to ascertain if you are alive or dead.”
“You are impertinent and the fool here.” Am-Tor shot back; his face visually angry.
Azor was not amused. “You seem to have ignored my warning. I am coming for the seat of high power and will take the Onyx Tower in due time. My claim goes back a thousand years while yours can be measured in decades only.”
“I sit here now, and you forget what I have,” Am-Tor said, allowing the tip of his staff to come into view within the Chamber of Seeing.
Azor the lich scoffed. “It is only your little relic of an ancient era and nemesis that allows you to sit there at all. In due time that little skull of yours will be no match for the greater powers that I will bring to bear. You may number your current reign in weeks at the most if not days.”
“You have no power even in Kesh,” Am-Tor said, and the lich knew it to be true. “The dead here stay dead. Where is your power over them, eh?”
“In due time.”
“You have little of that enough left. Now stop your meddling and allow Kesh to assert its proper place among the lesser realms of Agon. Your undead are a nuisance and can only work against both of us.”
“That is where we differ,” Azor said, his voice going cold. “You have seen only a fraction of what is coming. Small scouting raids to test your resolve. Rest assured that in due time you will feel the full might and power of a true arch mage. One that is worthy of the title of High Mage.”
“You dare—”
Azor the lich cut him off with a wave of his hand and not for the first nor last time it would seem. The former Kesh arch mage was livid, and it took a lot to anger him after such a long time in purgatory practicing patience to a scale not really imaginable in the living. Time, he had now come to reckon with, was measured in years, decades and centuries while mere mortals counted minutes, hours, days and months.
He needed the Scepter of Death. With that artifact, he could amplify his power and take most, if not all, of the dark queen’s minions. He could call for the dead to his service at a much greater range including Kesh and beyond. It was tantamount to unlimited power for the creature who was once a man. Much as the wizards sought the Staff of Alore, he needed something darker and more potent to fight off not only the living, but the draconus as well.
He didn’t
care about the living anymore. He cared only for pure, unadulterated power to enable his primary goal in his undead existence — revenge. He would kill those who had killed him… permanent death it would be this time, and he would show Kesh what it had not known for a thousand years. He would show them what real power looked like. He would make them feel the power and they would submit or die.
Chapter 14
Secret Passages
“How do you kill something, or someone, that’s been dead already for a thousand years?” Cedric asked out loud.
“I don’t think it’s entirely possible if you use those words,” Salina said looking at Khan for guidance.
The Kesh wizard nodded, and they had allowed him to resume sitting on the floor with his back against the west wall. Salina and Targon had picked Will up and laid him next to Khan so that they could guard both men while they dealt with what appeared to be a specter, the ghost of the man they were looking for.
Andrew Vandersot, or the corpse that would have gone by that name had it been alive, still stood as if at attention, towering above them due to the man’s remains being tall and its booted feet were firmly planted within the coffin that rested at waist level for them. Despite its appearance and the circumstance behind their meeting, they seemed less fearful and more curious as if dealing with an actual man and not a phantasm.
“So what now?” Targon asked. “I don’t think I can stand here for days in some sort of draw with a creature that has been here for years.”
“You may use my name if it will help you.”
“I’m not comfortable calling you Andrew,” Targon pressed.
“Lord Vandersot was my title when I was alive,” the voice said. “I believe I have made my decision.”
Cursed Cleric Page 17