to the rocky beach.
'So what now?' Shal pulled off her soaked leather boots and stood in a sandy section of the boulder-strewn beach. 'We got out of the city, but the captain was right. The Black Watch will be after us again. And you can be sure they'll let Cadorna know we're alive. We're not accomplishing anything sitting on this beach.'
'You're right. We need to get away from the beach,' said Ren. 'We'll go north and west, toward the graveyard. We'll rest for the night, and then we'll help Tarl get his hammer back.'
'No,' said Tarl softly.
'I understand,' said Ren. 'If you aren't ready, I have my own sights set on Valjevo Castle and that gutless monster that sends out assassins to murder women.' Ren wiped his salt-caked lips on his sleeve.
'No,' Tarl said again. 'I'm ready. What I mean is that you won't go with me. I'm the one who lost the hammer, and I'm the one who's going to go get it.'
'Be realistic, Tarl,' Shal protested. 'Just because you're a cleric doesn't mean you have to be a martyr!'
Ren walked around in front of Tarl, put his big hands on his friend's shoulders, and gently pushed him back until he could sit him down on one of the boulders on the beach. 'Shal's right. Anyhow, we've been through all this before.'
The three argued heatedly until finally Tarl agreed to let Ren and Shal go with him. Since none of them wanted to sit in wet clothes with dusk setting in, waiting for soldiers to follow, they hiked inland, wide of the river, until they were a short distance from the graveyard, in a place with sufficient brush and cover to set up camp. Shal made a smokeless, arcane fire, but unfortunately it was heatless, too.
Ren volunteered to collect some wood. As he saw it, nobody from Phlan would attempt to come this way before morning, if at all. The creatures they had to worry about would more likely be repelled by a fire than drawn to it.
Alone together as they laid out their bedding and prepared a meager meal of dried fruits and meat, Shal and Tarl shared a brief few minutes of awkward silence.
Tarl cleared his throat and spoke hesitantly. 'Shal, I really don't know how to say this. I–I know you care for Ren-'
'It's not the same,' Shal said softly.
Tarl looked straight into Shal's green eyes.'Meaning?'
Shal held out her hands for Tarl's. She had been so unsure of herself when they first met on the docks of Phlan that she was aware only of his tremendous kindness. Ren's attraction to her had seemed justified somehow by her resemblance to Tempest, but Tarl's she had not fully accepted. Even after he healed her in the temple, she'd felt he might simply be caught in the overwhelming emotion of the moment. But right now, as he grasped her hands and pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, she knew that Tarl's affection was both strong and genuine. 'Meaning I love you, Tarl.'
As warm and wonderful as she had felt every time Tarl had healed her, she felt twice as good now. A special electricity, an uncanny awareness of his touch, coursed through her as she felt his fingertips ever so gentle on her neck and back, his soft kiss on her forehead, and then the warmth of his breath in her ear as he whispered, 'I love you, too, Shal.'
There was a considerable thrashing in the brush nearby, and the two pulled apart instantly and drew their weapons just in time to see Ren returning to their makeshift campsite.
'You're not very graceful for a ranger!' Shal jested, fighting her own embarrassment.
'Every bit as graceful as I want to be,' said Ren, smiling wistfully.
Tarl rushed over to help prepare the fire.
'There's no sign that there's been anything more fierce than skunks or snakes traveling through this stretch of woods any time recently,' said Ren. 'I think we can sleep without worrying tod much.'
Tarl still kept a late-night vigil, watching and listening for signs of anything, living or undead, nearby. It was as Ren said, quiet and still except for the lively dancing of shadows from their flickering fire. Tarl sat beside Shal and watched her as she slept, the red cascades of her hair aglow in the firelight. When all remained quiet, he silently pulled his bedroll next to hers and lay down. While the stars rose and fell in the sky, he prayed and communed with his god until he fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
Ren feigned sleep the entire time Tarl kept watch. His mind was churning with thoughts of the morning. Tarl and Shal had both proved themselves as fighters, but Ren was convinced that neither would make it through the graveyard tomorrow. It was too easy to wake the undead, to make a move that would bring them springing up by the dozens as had happened at Sokol Keep. And the undead of Valhingen Graveyard weren't former Tyrian clerics. His mind made up, he allowed himself a brief, restless sleep.
When Tarl and Shal awoke, Ren was gone. Stud's first thought was that he somehow felt alienated because of what he had seen when he returned with the firewood, but Tarl shook his head firmly. 'No. He's told me more than once that I didn't stand a chance of getting the hammer back. He believes that, with his rangering and thieving skills, he can get it. I think he went into the graveyard alone.'
Shal felt a chill was over her. She had heard Ren say as much yesterday-how the key to passing through a place filled with undead was stealth, and that Tarl's presence, his aura, his medallion, everything about him offended the undead because he was a servant of a benevolent god.
They wasted no time and broke camp quickly. The sun wasn't even completely over the horizon when they reached the gate to the cemetery. A huge lump caught in Tarl's throat when Shal called for Cerulean, remembering the deaths of his brothers' horses. Shal seemed to sense his thoughts and raised a hand to remind him that Cerulean was no ordinary horse.
Looking at the fence now, Tarl wondered how he and the others could ever have thought it was part of the city fortress. 'We were country clerics from Vaasa,' he whispered. 'Just a dozen country clerics from Vaasa.'
Shal looked at him questioningly, but Tarl didn't explain. Instead, he squeezed her hand once and then lifted his hammer and shield high before they walked tentatively through the gate. His hammer glowed, and he could feel his holy symbol heavy and cool against his chest as they entered. To look at Valhingen Graveyard today, it could be a park. Asters and black-eyed Susans waved their brightly colored blooms above the tall grasses that grew untended over the gravestones. Purple bougainvillea and other less showy vines covered the handful of mausoleums interspersed here and there within the confines of the walls. Though less than three weeks had passed since Tarl had last stood on these grounds, he saw no sign of his brothers. He said a silent prayer for each of them, hoping that their spirits had managed to escape this place before their bodies were savaged by crude flesh-eaters.
Ren was nowhere in sight, but Shal and Tarl didn't have to go far before they realized that Ren's stealth did not get him across the graveyard unnoticed. Through a swath of parted grasses, they could see scattered skeleton bones forming a veritable pathway along the fence-line of the graveyard.
They followed the fragments, each hoping secretly that Ren had dealt successfully with all the skeletal warriors remaining in that portion of the graveyard. The path of bones was replaced at one point by a path of decayed body parts, the gruesome fragments of several zombies. The pall over the place was palpable, and despite their silent mantras and meditations, both Tarl and Shal were strung taut as catgut on a fiddle, waiting for something to happen.
Tarl took each step as though it meant his life, striving for silence even though he was sure his medallion and magical hammer couldn't go unnoticed in this place of death Shal followed suit, her Wand of Wonder raised before her. Cerulean was equally tense, stepping with the fluid, silent movements of a cat.
Tarl couldn't help but think the vampire was taunting him with his silence, luring him and Shal ever closer to the heart of the graveyard before he unleashed every miserable creature under his control. One more step, he was sure, and the place would be alive with zombies, wraiths, and specters. The joke would be on him. He could picture the naked vampire, his bloodless skin draped over his emaciated frame. He could hear his skin-prickling voice, coaxing him closer. His sick, hateful laughter pounded against Tarl's ears. No! Tarl raised one hand for Shal and Cerulean to stop. He could not let his fears or the silent persuasion of his foe get to him. He needed to pause a moment before going forward. Inhale the power of Tyr. Exhale the fear of Valhingen Graveyard. Inhale. Exhale. He touched his holy symbol and took another silent step, then another.
The tension shattered as a mutilated zombie bolted from the grass, sending clods of sod flying toward them. Instantly, responding completely on instinct, Tarl whipped his hammer hand forward with the full tension of a
