'Ren!' The name choked in Shal's throat as she saw her friend, prostrate before the gruesome creature of Tarl's nightmares. Even from where she and Tarl stood at the opposite end of the room, they could tell that Ren's clothing and armor were in tatters and that his blood was spilling on the ground.
'Welcoooome, huuumans,' said the vampire, and then he laughed the sick, uncontrolled cackle of a maniac amused by his own unthinkable deeds. An uncountable number of bony fingers suddenly began prodding Tarl and Shal, nudging and pushing them forward. Tarl fought the gut-wrenching sensation that there was no way out of this pit now that they were inside. He tried desperately to concentrate on the sacred hammer, tried to visualize how and when he could snatch it from the hands of the blasphemous creature at the front of the room.
When more skeletal fingers touched Shal, she incanted the words to a spell and began touching every bony hand, wrist, or arm with which she could make contact. Electricity surged from her hands, splintering and shattering every skeletal arm she grabbed, and she charged forward, trying to reach Ren. Before the skeletons could regroup, she cast another spell, and frigid wind blasted through the room as sheet upon sheet of sleet showered down on almost half of the room. The undead caught in the storm were blinded by it, and Shal could hear the age-old elbows and hips of countless skeletons shattering as they lost their footing and slipped on the ice-coated limestone. Zombies and wraiths shrieked and swore as well, as they, too, slipped and fell on the treacherous coating of ice.
Shal plunged forward through a break in the bodies and was almost to Ren when dozens more undead stepped over their fallen counterparts and pressed closer to her and to Tarl, who had followed close behind. The skeletons were no longer prodding and poking gently. Now swords and other weapons glimmered in the dull light.
Tarl lashed out with his hammer, slamming at every creature within his reach, trying to create an opening so he and Shal could get through. When he managed to find some room to spare, he raised his holy symbol. 'Leave us, undead vermin!' he shouted. 'In the name of Tyr, leave us!' A blue light flashed. Creatures that looked at it dropped to the ground, screaming.
Shal lifted her hands and began the incantation to another spell.
'Enough!' The vampire's devil voice echoed in the room. 'I will have no more of this!'
Shal extended her fingers in his direction and cast a Lightning Bolt spell. A brilliant bolt of electricity X-rayed the room, blinding many of the undead and forcing even the vampire to raise one arm over his eyes as a shield from the awful light. But the bolt never reached its target, the vampire's chest. Instead, the energy of the lightning bolt was deflected by the subverted hammer. Shal never knew what hit her. In the same fraction of a second it took for the bolt to reach the hammer, it also returned and caught her solid. Her body jolted into the air like a tossed sack of flour and came down with the same sick
'No!' Tarl screamed. 'No!' He was horrified. He would gladly have died ten times to save Shal.
The vampire roared in delight. 'It's just you and me now,
Tarl could barely see. Tears of rage, fear, and pain burned in his eyes. He ripped his holy symbol from his neck and held it up while he charged toward the vampire like a man possessed. The medallion's blue light shimmered rich and strong-until Tarl flashed it at the vampire. Then, with one turn of the defiled Hammer of Tyr, the light from the holy symbol was extinguished, absorbed by the black light of the hammer. The vampire drew his icy lips in a pucker, as if to spit, and puffed one noxious breath of air from the putrid depths of his lungs.
Tarl was forced to stagger backward.
'Now, now. There is noooo reasonnnnnn to be soooo testy. Deny that foooolish god of yours. Jooooin my army, and I'll see that your friends are given safe passage oooout of here.'
'So they can be living vegetables like Anton? No way, devil spawn!' Tarl took a precious few seconds to collect his thoughts so he could attempt to turn the undead vampire. He spoke a hurried prayer, calling for the force of Tyr to rise up against the creature. But Tarl's effort was strangled, stifled by the hammer, just as the light from the medallion had been.
The vampire tipped his head back and laughed, a grating, wicked laugh. 'Fooool! I grow tired of these games. Jooooin my army,
'Never!' shouted Tarl.
'Kill… him!' The vampire said the two words separately, distinctly, and each reverberated the length, breadth, and height of the cavern.
Before Tarl could lift his holy symbol or cast another spell, a dozen wraiths and twice that many specters circled him. Just one touched him, and he felt his body freeze up as though he'd spent hours naked on the great glacier. He tried desperately to lash out with his hammer, to run, to move, anything, but his body had lost its ability to react. All around him, the wraiths' deadly nonmaterial fingers were reaching toward him. If he could force himself to move, he could stop one, two, maybe more before they killed him, but he could never hope to stop them all.
The vampire's laughter rang out again, and Tarl did the only thing he could do. In one stiff movement, he dropped to his knees and called on the full power of Tyr. In less than the time required for a simple prayer, he had to accomplish what had taken him hours at the temple- a complete cleansing and baring of his innermost self to his god, the purging of all fear in exchange for total confidence. In one mental picture, he had to devote his entire being to selfless concern for Shal, Anton, Ren, and the Hammer of Tyr.
On bended knee, Tarl did not even see the workings of his faith. The Hammer of Tyr erupted with the light of the sun. One horrible, bloodcurdling scream escaped the blue lips of the vampire before he and his light-hating minions turned to dust. And then the brilliant light from the hammer bathed the room, shedding the pure, healing power of Tyr on Tarl, Ren, and Shal.
12
'Incompetent clods!' Cadorna shouted. 'What does the city pay you for?'
The fifteen assembled soldiers of the Black Watch stood mute before Cadorna in the council chambers.
'Didn't any of you at least see where they went?'
Finally one of the men responded. 'I did. Eight of our soldiers pursued them in a small schooner. I was the only one to make it to shore after the wizard-woman sank our boat in a maelstrom-'
'Congratulations, soldier,' said Cadorna, his tone dripping with sarcasm. 'So you live! I'd expect that from a child. But what exactly do you
'They didn't go straight south into the Moonsea. They skirted the mouth of the Barren River and made their way along the shoreline beyond the eastern edge of the city.'
'How far beyond? Where exactly did they get off?'
'I didn't see, sir.'
Cadorna threw up his hands, then turned to where Gensor stood beside him. 'What do you think, Gensor? Do we have any way of tracking them?'
'Not that I know of,' answered the mage, shaking his head. Then he lowered his voice and whispered, for Cadorna's ears alone, 'Dismiss the others. Have them wait out in the hallway. We need to talk.'
Cadorna looked at Gensor curiously for a moment, then did as the mage suggested.
When the two men were alone in the council chambers, Gensor began to speak, enunciating slowly and deliberately for emphasis. 'You have no way of knowing where the three are-or where they are going.'
'Correct.' Cadorna's eyes widened and his voice raised agitatedly as he spoke. 'And who knows what Yarash may have told them? It's absolutely imperative to catch all three of them. But how? You yourself said that there's no way to track them.'
'Councilman, I hate to be so blunt, but you're missing the point. It's not what they know that you need to worry about. It's what the Lord of the Ruins might get from them. Think about it… Remember your plan to get their two stones and complete the figure of power yourself? If the Lord of the Ruins should catch up to those three and get the two ioun stones they carry, you will lose your chance to usurp power. You will never have the
