Bastion of Darkness

by R. A. Salvatore

  Bryan started for his sword, but stopped as the brute charged right in. The half-elf brought his bow out horizontally above his head, hooking it under the blade of the axe as the talon chopped for his head. A twist and thrust of his hands sent the axe flying out to the side, and he punched out—left, right, left—slapping alternate ends of his bow against the talon’s face, forcing the creature back, but doing no substantial damage.

  The talon shook its head and started right back in, axe whipping across, the brute apparently determined that the half-elf would not get any opportunity to draw out that crafted sword. The ugly creature skidded to a halt, though, as a wall of flames appeared suddenly in front of it.

  Rhiannon, still recovering from her trick with the arrow, couldn’t hold the magic for more than a split second, but that was long enough, for when the wall came down, and the talon stubbornly came on, it found the half-elf ready, sword in hand.

  Across whipped the axe, and Bryan easily hopped back out of its reach, then stepped ahead and poked his sword, nicking the talon. Outraged, the brute roared and came in hard, a second sidelong swipe, this time over-extending its reach to catch up with the retreating half-elf.

  Expecting that, Bryan didn’t retreat, but came straight ahead instead, sword leading. He accepted the hit of the axe handle against his hip; the enchanted chain mail handled the blow easily enough. The talon’s armor was not so fine, though, and did little to stop the progress of Bryan’s sword as it burrowed through.

  Bryan hooked the arms of the dying beast and held them tight so that the talon, in its last spasms, couldn’t begin another attack. They held the pose for a long second, and then the talon slid backward off the blade, dead. Bryan spun about, pulling the curtain aside once more, so that he could see into the chamber; and he nodded with satisfaction, for all seven of the talons lay still in a deepening puddle of blood. The half-elf wasn’t as pleased when he retrieved his bow, though, to find that the fine wood had cracked, either in blocking the axe or against the talon’s hard head.

  Rhiannon took it from him and bade him to lead on with all speed.

  “They’re knowing about us now,” she commented. “Or soon to be, and we’ve no’ the time to fight with Thalasi’s minions.”

  They hadn’t gone fifty feet when they heard the howls of discovery behind them, cries of warning that soon echoed throughout Talas-dun, that soon enough fell to the ears of the Black Warlock.

  Bellerian pointed to a large rock set about halfway down the rocky arm of Kored-dul. Even from this high vantage point, the rangers could see the forms moving about the area, the armies coming together, the battle about to begin.

  “There’s the wraith, so said DelGiudice,” Bellerian explained. “Guiding his wicked minions. We can get down there.”

  “No,” Belexus replied. “I alone can get down there, and swiftly, on Calamus.”

  Bellerian wanted to argue, but he knew that Belexus would not be deterred. “Fare well, me son,” he mumbled, even as the eager ranger climbed back onto Calamus’ back and lifted into the air.

  Turning his attention back to the larger conflict, Bellerian and his rangers noted some talon archers moving into position to shower arrows upon King Benador’s closing force.

  “Our first place to be,” Bellerian decided, and they were off, silent as death.

  Belexus saw the archers, too, and he wondered if he wasn’t overstepping his role in this battle. Wouldn’t all the forces be better off if he guided them from the back of Calamus, if he used his high vantage point to all their benefit?

  “No,” the ranger said aloud. His place was against Mitchell, fulfilling the vow of vengeance he had sworn on the day of Andovar’s murder. He had traveled half the world to find a weapon with which to deal with the wraith, and he would not be turned from his course now; his father and kin, and perhaps Ardaz and DelGiudice—wherever the ghost might have gone off to—would see to signaling the forces, and both the elves and the Calvans were commanded by determined and wise leaders. If Belexus could deal with Mitchell quickly and definitively, then the morale of all the men and all the elves would be bolstered.

  That thought in mind, the ranger cut a fast, and somewhat risky, course toward the appointed rock. Down lower, he saw the zombies and skeletons trying vainly to shadow his movements, like a dark field of tall, swaying wheat. He saw the talon archers and spearmen rise up from their holes to launch missiles his way.

  Calamus was too fast for the initial attacks, but the excitement was beginning to precede the ranger’s flight, and he feared that he would be struck down before he ever got near to the wraith.

  But then he saw the hated Mitchell, climbing up onto the rock as if he, too, had awaited this moment all along. The wraith called out to those around him to stand down, to let the ranger in. “Belexus is mine to kill,” Mitchell proclaimed, loudly enough so that the ranger heard every word.

  And savored every word. Belexus held no illusions—the talons would attack him from every angle if he defeated the wraith, and likely would kill him before he ever got the chance to fly away on Calamus—but he hardly cared. He would willingly give his life in return for destroying the wretched undead monster.

  Calamus, as true in heart as the ranger, glided down to land lightly on the wide rock, skipping to a halt some score of feet from the black specter of the horrid wraith.

  “Ye’re knowing why I’ve come,” Belexus said firmly, sliding from the pegasus’ side.

  “To die,” the wraith replied casually. Mitchell lifted his mace, the strange and awful-looking weapon fashioned of a leg bone and skull of a horse, and started forward, a wild grin stamped upon his gray and bloated face.

  Belexus didn’t flinch in the least, took any fear within him and slammed it against the memory of Andovar’s death, buried it in a cascade of sheer hatred. “Come on then, Mitchell,” he growled, drawing Pouilla Camby.

  An arrow skipped off the stone behind him, skimming the ground right between Calamus’ legs.

  “Take flight!” the ranger cried, and the pegasus was already moving, three running strides off the side of the rock, then up into the air amidst a hail of arrows.

  “Is all yer life to be treachery?” the ranger asked.

  “I never demanded that the pegasus was mine to kill,” Mitchell answered. “Just you, ranger. Just you.”

  A glance back satisfied Belexus that Calamus had risen above the range of the talons without taking any serious hits, so he turned his attention fully back to Mitchell. He was trapped now, with no way out, but that thought, too, ran up against a wall of sheer hatred and was buried.

  “All the world will be mine,” Mitchell taunted. “All your kin and all the elves, and the witch, too.”

  “I know not what outcome this dark day will see,” the ranger answered calmly, refusing to be caught in the trap of despair. “But whatever’s coming, then know that ye’ll not be seeing it!” And on Belexus came, Pouilla Camby flashing mightily, trailing white light from her diamond insets.

  The two men crept cautiously along the darkened corridor of the partially rebuilt White Tower, sensing that something was very wrong. Istaahl had gone into the dungeons of his crumbled home leaving instructions that he was not to be disturbed, but he had also commanded that these two men, his most trusted aides, could come and “collect” him in a week.

  What that cryptic instruction might mean, the two did not dare openly speculate, but they were not overly surprised when, hearing no answer to their knock on the door to the wizard’s private chamber, they entered the room to find Istaahl slumped over his desk.

  “He dead?” the more timid of the pair asked as his companion went over and bent low, putting his face near the wizard’s lips.

  “Don’t think so,” the other answered. He gave Istaahl several shoves, but the mage stirred not at all. “I know not,” the man corrected. “Some affliction has come over him.”

  The two men gathered up the comatose wizard, and he did not stir in the least. Th
ey dragged him up the stairs and out of the tower, then through the streets of Pallendara to the house of an old woman known for the art of healing. But she, too, could get no response, could only note that some affliction had come over the wizard.

  It was true enough: an affliction that Istaahl had put over himself. The wizard was no longer in his body, had dismissed that limiting form altogether and literally thrown himself out from his mortal coil.

  Indeed, the life force, the spiritual entity that was Istaahl the White, was far out at sea, diving to the depths, arousing the power.

  Chapter 23

  The Last Battle

  “I AM NO enemy,” the ghost said, trying hard to let his sincerity shine through. But he was distracted—so overwhelmed!—at the sight of the pair standing cautiously in the corridor before him, at the sight of his daughter.

  Rhiannon and Bryan held their defensive posture, the half-elf standing with sword drawn, tip tilted toward Del.

  “Rhiannon,” the spirit said softly, letting the name roll off his tongue like sweet music. “Rhiannon.”

  She looked at him without understanding.

  “Do you not know me?” the ghost asked. “Can you not look into your heart and see the truth?”

  “Enough wasted time!” Bryan growled and advanced.

  “Hold,” Rhiannon bade him, grabbing his shoulder. Then to the ghost, she said, “State it plainly, for me friend speaks the truth. We’ve not the time for wasting, and’re not about to fall for any o’ Thalasi’s tricks.”

  “DelGiudice,” Del said immediately. “I am … I was … Jeffrey DelGiudice. I am your father.”

  “What foolishness is this?” Bryan began, but Rhiannon’s gasp and the way she clutched his shoulder made him pause and glance back at her. Her expression, the blood drained from her fair face, told him that she harbored more than a little doubt.

  “You know,” Del said, “though you cannot admit it, cannot take such a risk when your friend’s safety is also at stake. So hold your thoughts and questions, accept your doubts and let them keep you on your guard, until we are out of this hellish place and somewhere safe.”

  “We must move along,” Bryan said to the young witch.

  “The courtyard is guarded by talons,” Del offered. “And so are the passages along the way you are headed. Better that, I suppose, than what stalks the chambers that way,” he added, pointing down a side passage to the left.

  “You know the place well for one who claims to be no friend to Morgan Thalasi,” Bryan said suspiciously.

  “I have been searching for you,” Del explained. “I can move quite fast, and through most walls. I’ve seen nearly all of this level of the fortress, and most of the next higher level. Except down there and up,” he added, pointing again to the left. “Morgan Thalasi is up there, I believe, and so are many of his dead minions.”

  Bryan and Rhiannon looked to each other anxiously.

  “Rhiannon?” the half-elf asked.

  “I’m trusting him,” she answered. “I’m thinking he’s who he’s saying he is, or at least, that he’s no friend o’ Thalasi’s. I see no evil upon him, and that’s a mark the Black Warlock could’no’ hide.”

  “He said that Thalasi was there,” Bryan remarked.

  “That’s where we’re going, then,” Rhiannon said flatly.

  “I came … he came … we came … to get you out,” the spirit of DelGiudice protested, his eyes wide with surprise.

  “When I’m done and not before,” Rhiannon answered, and started away, down the passage to the ghost’s left. She eyed Del curiously as she passed close by him, the first obvious sign that she found the mystery of his identity intriguing. But again, with the determination and stoicism that had marked the last months of her previously carefree life, the young witch would not be deterred in the least, and on she went, boldly.

  Bryan scrambled to catch up; the ghost, with a mere thought, zipped in front of both of them. “You cannot do this,” Del said determinedly.

  Rhiannon moved right to him, thinking to push past, and of course, only slipped right through the insubstantial spirit, drawing a gasp from Bryan. Still, the young witch shook the unsettling experience away and continued on.

  And again, the spirit appeared before her. “How can I let you?” Del asked.

  “How can ye stop me?” Rhiannon’s curt answer came.

  And there it was, plain and simple, the truth of it all that only added to Del’s frustration. Once again, it seemed to him as if he could do little to protect his daughter, and now, of all the horrors, it seemed as if he had steered her right toward the one above all others he wanted her to avoid!

  And she was right, for there was nothing he could do to stop her, even to slow her.

  “I will stay ahead of you,” Del offered. “And guide your path.”

  Bryan and Rhiannon didn’t know whether or not to trust the spirit; it occurred to both of them yet again that Del might be no more than a manifestation created by Thalasi to lure them into some trap. Still, they could not ignore the benefits of having so mobile and secretive a spy to lead their way. If it came to a pitched battle within this stronghold, the pair, for all Bryan’s skill and all Rhiannon’s powers, would have little chance of ever finding the Black Warlock. Rhiannon’s heart decided the matter, for the young witch, deep inside, found that she believed the tale of the ghost. She remembered the tales her mother had told her of her father; Brielle’s description of the man, both physical and in demeanor, seemed to fit the ghost.

  On they went, and it didn’t take long for Bryan and Rhiannon to realize the benefits of having Del along. They passed by several zombie-filled chambers, slipped through other empty rooms, took a roundabout course through seemingly off-direction corridors, and even crawled through one window in a wall, designed for passing food trays from cook to waiter. The course meandered, but following the ghost’s instructions, the pair wound up at a set of wide, decorated stairs without a single fight.

  “I can find no other way up,” the ghost explained, returning to them as they began their ascent. “These stairs pause at a landing around the bend, and there are a few undead talons standing ready in there, I’m afraid. You’ll have to fight them.”

  That thought didn’t seem to bother either of the companions, Bryan even picking up his pace to get a couple of strides ahead of Rhiannon. As the ghost had said, they went around a bend to a landing, wherein stood four animated talon corpses. Following Thalasi’s instructions, the zombies moved to block the stairs in a shoulder-to-shoulder line.

  Bryan charged ahead, but not before Rhiannon managed to pull a couple of arrows out of the quiver on his back. She lifted one to her lips, kissed it and whispered words of encouragement, then threw it at the zombies.

  The arrow, gaining speed with every passing inch, split into two, then into four, and blasted, two bolts each, through the two zombies holding the left of the defensive line. Bryan’s sword took out the next in line, a clean slash that severed the creature’s head, so by the time the remaining zombie even moved to the attack, it fought all alone.

  And the lumbering, unthinking thing proved no match for Bryan of Corning. The half-elf’s sword slashed across and back, taking fingers from the zombie’s reaching hands, then again, nearly severing one bloated arm at the elbow. In rushed Bryan, sword thrusting at an up angle, catching the monster under the chin and splitting wide its face. Still the zombie fought on, getting one filthy hand on Bryan’s shield, but the half-elf pushed that gruesome appendage away and slashed again.

  A second zombie head fell to the floor.

  “Not much of a defense,” the half-elf muttered.

  “Slow to react,” the ghost of Del agreed. “They are not independent-thinking things, but mere animations, tools for Thalasi.”

  “Talons would serve as better guards,” the half-elf remarked.

  “Most people—and most talons—would more likely be frightened off by the zombies,” Del explained.

  It to
ok Bryan a few seconds to understand that as a compliment.

  A few seconds that he didn’t have, for he and Rhiannon set off at once, past the landing and up the next set of stairs. The ghost, soaring ahead of them with ease, came back to them before they were halfway up, informing them that these stairs ended at a solid oaken door.

  “You’ll be fighting again when you go though,” Del explained. “Just a pair of zombies this time. And then you’ll see a corridor lined on both sides by three doors, and with one door at the end.”

  “And that’s where we’ll find Thalasi,” Rhiannon reasoned.

  “I don’t know,” the ghost admitted, seeming shaken for the first time. “He has something, or there is something, warding the place,” he stammered. “I cannot approach!”

  Rhiannon and Bryan exchanged glances. “Not the time for a mix-up,” the witch said to Del.

  “On the right,” the ghost tried to explain. “There is something through the first door on the right which I cannot approach, nor did I dare even try to pass it by. Something powerful, something wicked.”

  Bryan’s face screwed up with anger and confusion, and he started to berate the ghost, but Rhiannon, who had witnessed the awful specter of the Staff of Death, understood—and understood, too, that Del should not go anywhere near that vile weapon.

  “Ye stay here,” she instructed the spirit. “Yer job’s done now.”

  “I cannot let you—” the ghost started to protest.

  “Ye cannot stop me,” Rhiannon interrupted. “Nor can ye help. I seen Thalasi’s staff, seen the Black Warlock use it to control Mitchell, a thinking spirit, like yerself. We’re not needing ye to turn against us.”

  “I would never!”