The Haunted Lands: Book III - Unholy Page 8

  Malark warily complied, then stepped backward. His twin remained calm. Rubbing one of the ruddy handprints on his neck, the simulacrum said, “I’m truly sorry. But being born is a painful, disorienting thing. All those babies would lash out too if they had the strength.”

  Malark smiled. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  “And you have to admit, from a certain perspective, this is a setback. For centuries, my dearest wish has been that there be none of me. Instead, the number has doubled.”

  “Only temporarily, and in the best of causes.”

  “Oh, I know. I know everything you do, including your plan. I go west to foil the invasion while you stay here, hide, and set a trap.”

  A patch of azure flame danced on the muddy, sluggishly flowing water, seemingly without having any fuel to burn. Evidently the Umber Marshes contained a tiny pocket or two of plagueland—territory where the residue of the Spellplague still festered—and Gaedynn had wandered into one of them.

  He studied the blue fire with wary interest. Though he’d occasionally visited plagueland, he’d never actually seen the stuff before.

  He would have been just as glad to skip the spectacle now. He fancied he’d feel at home in any true forest across the length and breadth of Faerûn, but this rust-colored swamp was a different matter. He hated the way the soft ground tried to suck the boots off his feet and especially hated the clouds of biting, blood-sucking insects. Back in the Yuirwood, the elves had taught him a cantrip to keep such vermin away, but it didn’t seem to work on these mindlessly persistent pests.

  Yes, if there ever was a patch of land that ought to be scouted on griffonback, this was it—except that the thick, tangled canopy of the trees made it impossible to survey the ground from on high. So somebody had to do it the hard way.

  He skulked onward, glancing back at the azure flames periodically, making sure they were staying put. So far, so good, but in Aoth’s stories they’d raced across the land in great curtains, destroying everything they engulfed.

  Gaedynn faced forward again to see a troll charging him, its long, spindly legs with their knobby knees eating up the distance. The man-eating creature was half again as tall as a human being, with a nose like a spike and eyes that were round, black pits. It had clawed fingers and a mouth full of fangs, and its hide was a mottled red-brown instead of the usual green, possibly to help it blend in with the oddly colored foliage of the marshes.

  Perhaps that was why Gaedynn hadn’t detected it sooner, expert woodsman though he was. Or perhaps the distractions of the blue fire and stinging insects were to blame. Either way, it was a lapse that could easily cost him his life. He snatched an arrow from his quiver, laid it on his bow, and then the troll was right on top of him.

  On top and then past. It ran by without paying him any heed, soon vanishing between two mossy oaks.

  Gaedynn exhaled. From one perspective, he’d had a narrow escape, but he didn’t feel lucky just yet, because it had certainly appeared that the troll was running away from something. If so, what had put such a fearsome brute to flight?

  Whatever it was, it could easily pose a threat to Gaedynn and his fellow scouts as well. He whistled a birdcall. Somewhere off to the left, invisible among the trees and thickets, an archer answered in kind. On his right, however, sounded only the tap-tap-tap of a drilling woodpecker and the plop of something jumping or dropping in water. He whistled a second time and still couldn’t raise a response.

  As Gaedynn paused to consider how to proceed, the scout on his left yelped. Gaedynn waited a moment, then whistled the signal, but this time, nobody answered.

  Keeping low, trying to move fast but stealthily too, Gaedynn headed in the direction of the yelp. Listening intently, eyes constantly moving, he promised himself that nothing else would surprise him.

  And nothing did, but it was close. Scuttling beside one of the ubiquitous channels, he glimpsed motion from the corner of his eye, pivoted, and found a red mass rearing over him like a wave about to break. The thing was big as a cottage, but its shapeless, essentially liquid nature had enabled it to ooze along under the surface of the murky water undetected.

  Gaedynn retreated and shot the arrow he’d initially intended for the troll. It stuck in the middle of his attacker—which gave off the coppery smell of blood—but didn’t even slow it down. The creature heaved and flowed after him.

  Some of the special shafts Jhesrhi grudgingly enchanted for him might hurt the thing more, but it seemed a poor idea to stand too close while he tried them. He sprinted away from it.

  Something tall as the troll but broader, its inconstant shape vaguely human but composed of filthy water, made a splashing leap from an algae-covered pool on his left and half ran, half flowed to intercept him. It reached with enormous hands—the left one had the fingers fused together, as though it wore a mitten—and he felt the cold, poisonous wrongness festering inside them. It was the same sick sensation he sometimes had when obliged to spend time around Mirror, only more intense.

  He could only recoil from the new threat, even though it took him back toward the pursuing blood-thing. Meanwhile, the mud and dark, stagnant water vomited up other horrors, each made of liquid or muck. Glancing around, he realized he was surrounded.

  Regretting the necessity, he pulled his one arrow of sending from its place and used the bodkin point to prick the back of his own hand. The world seemed to shatter and reassemble itself in an instant, and he found himself some distance to the west, where a squad of Khouryn’s spearmen flailed their hands at mosquitoes while slogging and slipping their way along.

  Sitting on a rotten stump, Aoth bit off a mouthful of biscuit. In truth, he was only a little hungry, but since the vanguard had to halt while its officers palavered, it made sense to eat. At least the bread was still relatively fresh. Like any veteran campaigner, he’d all too often been reduced to gnawing bread hard as stone and full of bugs.

  “Can you guess,” he asked, chewing, “exactly what you ran into?”

  Gaedynn swallowed a mouthful of apple and tossed the core away. “Some of the creatures looked like water and earth elementals, but they had the feel of undead about them.”

  “They’re both,” Bareris said. Unlike his living comrades, he and Mirror hadn’t bothered to sit or squat but rather stood just outside the circle. “In Thay, they call them necromentals. And the red thing was a blood amniote. It will drain your blood faster than a vampire, if it catches you.”

  Aoth snorted. “I see that even with Xingax slain and Szass Tam busy with greater matters, the necromancers are still making new toys.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Mirror said. At the moment, he looked like a warped, dingy reflection of Khouryn. Aoth could tell it irritated the dwarf, though he was hiding his displeasure as best he could.

  “Do you know how many there are?” asked Aoth.

  Gaedynn shook his head. “I was a little too busy to make an accurate count.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be a scout,” Jhesrhi said in one of her rare attempts at humor. She lacked the knack for it, and as usual, nobody laughed.

  “I wonder,” said Aoth, “if these creatures simply escaped from their keepers and wandered into the swamp. The Thay I remember was already infested with such horrors, and since then, the necromancers have had a century of peace and supremacy to perform any crazy experiment that came to mind.” He scowled. “But no. In all honesty, I doubt this is pure bad luck. Somehow, Szass Tam knows we’re coming and has sent some of his servants to slow our progress.”

  “I can see them doing a good job of it,” Khouryn said. He slapped his neck and squashed the insect that had landed there, just above his hauberk. The blow smacked flesh and made the links of mail clink. “They can dog us while hiding in water or mud. Pop out, kill a man or two, and disappear again.”

  “Do we have to keep going in this direction?” Jhesrhi asked.

  “Yes,” Bareris said. “The rebels who smuggle arms into Thay taught me
that, unpleasant as it seems, this is one of the few ‘good’ paths across the marshes. We’d have to backtrack a long way to pick up another.”

  He didn’t have to explain any further. They all knew that even under the best of circumstances, it would be an onerous chore getting an army on the march to suddenly reverse direction. Here in the bogs, with the thick vegetation inhibiting communication and the soldiers all but walking single file along the narrow trails, it would be a nightmare.

  “The delay,” said Aoth, “might actually give Szass Tam time to place forces all along the edge of the swamp to catch us coming out. And who knows, if we did shift to a different route, we might find these necromentals and whatnot guarding it as well.”

  Gaedynn scratched at the bump of an old insect bite on his cheek. His nail tore the scab, and a drop of blood oozed out. “So you’re saying, we fight.”

  “Yes,” Aoth replied.

  Khouryn frowned. “The men will have a difficult time of it on this ground.”

  “Or contending with elementals,” said Aoth, “if they don’t command any form of magic, or at the very least, carry enchanted weapons. In addition to which, it’s not certain Szass Tam’s creatures would show themselves to an entire company obviously formed up for battle. So I propose that we—those of us in this circle and a few others—go forward, let the brutes accost us, and kill them ourselves.”

  Gaedynn grinned. “Sounds like a nice, suicidal way to spend an afternoon.”

  Jhesrhi Coldcreek lifted her staffhigh, murmured, and magic sent a colorless shimmer through the air. Then she cocked her head and squinted at the rust-colored poplars, mud, and channel of water before her. Bareris inferred that she’d cast a charm to sharpen her sight.

  “See anything?” he asked.

  “No.” Judging from her clipped, cold response, she didn’t much like it that, as the company proceeded forward, each member repeatedly swinging right or left to avoid water, mossy tree trunks, thick tangles of brush, and the more obvious patches of soft, treacherous ground, the two of them had ended up in proximity to one another.

  “Neither do I,” Bareris said. “Perhaps Aoth or one of the Burning Braziers can do better.” The former could see all sorts of things with his spellscarred eyes, and the latter, successors to the warrior priests of Kossuth, god of fire, who’d accompanied the zulkirs into exile, knew spells specifically designed to reveal the presence of lurking undead.

  Jhesrhi pushed a low-hanging branch out of her way. “I want you to know something. If this is all a trick, I’ll destroy you.”

  Bareris frowned. “You mean, if Mirror and I are actually working for Szass Tam. If my mad tale about his wanting to end the world is really an elaborate ruse to lure his enemies back within his reach, because he feels the time has come to settle old scores.”

  The wizard’s amber eyes narrowed. “You didn’t have any trouble inferring the precise nature of my suspicions.”

  “Not because they’re true; because they’re obvious. I’d wonder the same thing in your place, particularly now that the necromentals have turned up on our route, almost as if someone told Szass Tam where to station them. But your captain vouches for Mirror and me. Trust his judgment, or, if you can’t manage that, trust the vision that came to him while he was flying over Veltalar.”

  “I do trust Aoth Fezim. But I also know you’re a bard. You can make people feel, think, and perhaps even see and remember whatever you want them to.”

  “I did do something like that to Aoth, once, a century ago.” He remembered the guilt he’d subsequently felt for that betrayal, the pain of broken friendship, and his gratitude when the warmage eventually forgave him. “But it was a mistake, and I wouldn’t do it again, even to strike a blow against Szass Tam. It’s probably the only thing I wouldn’t do.”

  She brushed gnats away from her face. “You don’t have to convince me. I’m here. I’m following orders and doing my part. I just need for you to understand—”

  “They’re here!” called Aoth.

  Bareris peered around and failed to spot whatever had alerted his friend. But a heartbeat later, the first of Szass Tam’s creatures exploded up like geysers from muck and muddy water.

  A Burning Brazier hurled a gout of holy fire at an undead earth elemental. It reeled backward, and Jet, who’d insisted on accompanying his master into battle, pounced on it. His aquiline talons and leonine claws tore away chunks of dirt as if he were a dog digging a hole. Aoth leveled his spear and pierced the necromental with darts of green light.

  A second hulking creature made of mud swung an oversized fist at Mirror, who still resembled a shadowy parody of Khouryn. The ghost sidestepped and struck back with his weapon, which looked like Khouryn’s urgrosh at the beginning of the stroke but turned into a sword before the end.

  After that, Bareris couldn’t watch any more, because what at first glance looked like a wall of dirty water erupted from a sluggish stream on his right and surged at him and Jhesrhi. He could make out the suggestion of heads and limbs amid the churning, surging liquid but couldn’t tell just how many necromentals were actually rushing to attack, only that he and the wizard had drawn more than their fair share.

  Infusing his voice with magic, he shouted. The sound blasted one necromental into a mist of sparkling droplets and blew away some of the liquid substance of another. Meanwhile, Jhesrhi chanted and pointed her staff. A flare of silvery power leaped from it and froze another pair of water creatures into ice. Off balance, one toppled forward onto its face.

  Now that he and his ally had thinned the pack, Bareris saw there were two necromentals remaining, the one he’d wounded and another. And they were about to close the distance. He sprang forward to intercept them and keep them away from Jhesrhi, so she could cast her spells without interference.

  He cut into a necromental’s leg. It was hard to tell how badly he was hurting a creature made of water, but his blade, plundered from one of Szass Tam’s fallen champions, bore potent enchantments, so it was presumably doing something. A huge open hand swung down at him. He dodged, and the extremity splashed apart against the ground. The droplets and spatters instantly leaped back together, reforming the hand.

  Bareris dodged a blow from the other undead elemental, landed a second cut, and then something big and heavy—an attack he hadn’t seen coming—smashed down on him, drenching him and slamming him to his knees. Water forced its way into his nostrils and mouth and down his throat like a worm boring into an apple.

  The attack would have killed a living man. But while Bareris hated what his contact with the dream vestige had made of him, it had given him certain advantages. He was more resilient than a mortal warrior. Since he didn’t need to breathe, he couldn’t drown. And the poison touch of a fellow undead was innocuous to him.

  He jumped back up, conceivably surprising the necromentals, and cut the one his shout had injured, distinguishable from the other because the magical assault had left it a head shorter. Retching water to relieve a painful pressure in his chest, and, more importantly, to recover the use of his voice, he whirled and dodged, thrust and cut.

  The smaller necromental abruptly lost cohesion, its shattered form pouring to the ground like beer from an overturned tankard. That left him free to focus on the other.

  As was Jhesrhi. She struck it with a blaze of fire that turned much of it into steam. Bareris snarled and commanded himself not to flinch or falter as the vapor scalded his face and hands. He supposed he should be glad that the mage had at least aimed high enough to avoid hitting him with the flame itself.

  He whirled his sword in a horizontal cut through the necromental’s belly. Jhesrhi chanted rhyming words with a sharp, fierce sound and rapid cadence. The undead water spirit started to boil, bubbles rising inside it. Bareris leaped back before the heat could burn him a second time.

  The necromental stumbled around, pawing at itself, then broke apart like its fellow. Jhesrhi cried out.

  For an instant, Bareris, still looki
ng at the spot where the steaming remains of the necromental soaked the ground, imagined the wizard had crowed in triumph. Then he recognized the distress in her voice and pivoted.

  Jhesrhi was reeling around in the midst of a dark, droning cloud, on first inspection no different from the swarms of mosquitoes that had tormented the living all the way through the swamp. But Bareris assumed the tiny creatures were actually another necromantic creation, capable of inflicting considerable harm.

  It was a threat he couldn’t dispatch with a sword, nor pulverize with a shout without battering the woman trapped in the midst of the cloud as well. As Jhesrhi fell to one knee, he coughed the last of the water out of his lungs and throat, sang a charm, and ran to her.

  He’d cloaked himself in an enchantment designed to repel vermin, and as he’d learned over the years, it was never certain the magic would work on things the necromancers had made using bugs and the like for raw materials. This time, it did. Buzzing furiously, the mosquitoes flew away from him and Jhesrhi, and he shouted, a thunderous roar that obliterated the insects and blasted bark and dead branches from the oaks behind them.

  He kneeled beside Jhesrhi. She seemed dazed though not unconscious, and she had little beads and smears of blood all over her body where the undead swarm had bitten her. He took her hand and sang a song of healing.

  Her eyes shifted, focused on his face, and then she jerked her fingers out of his grasp. “Don’t touch me!” she snarled.

  “I don’t need to anymore.” He rose and lifted his sword. “You’ve done your part. Why don’t you stay out of the rest of it?”

  “No. I can fight.” With the aid of her staff, moving like an arthritic old granny, she clambered to her feet, then peered around. “Oh, no!”

  Bareris looked where she was looking, at Khouryn and Gaedynn. Apparently the two had fought in tandem, the dwarf wielding his urgrosh to engage any foe that ventured into range while the archer kept his distance and loosed arrows. Judging from the vaguely man-shaped piles of earth littering the ground around them, it had been an effective strategy. Until now.