'This one should do, to begin the Unbinding,' Vangerdahast said slowly, stopping at a panel. As the Knights gathered around him, Islif couldn't help but look back the way they'd come, and Jhessail and the priests spun around to face outward, faces tight with fear.
The smell was following them. A faint, sickly rotting scent, overlaid by mildew, that was wafting from the six or so liches now shuffling after them.
Gods, if just one of them decided to hurl a spell…
'Florin?' the Royal Magician asked gravely.
The ranger nodded, drew in a deep breath, and swung the mace he'd borrowed from Doust.
The panel shattered under his solid swing, its magical disguise of stained and polished wood disintegrating in brief little puffs and swirls of blue-green radiance.
Vangerdahast told them, 'Look up and down this passage, everyone! Quickly!'
'There!' Pennae said, right on the heels of his words, pointing.
'Hasten,' the Royal Magician said, shouldering through the Knights in the direction of the distant glowing panel. 'Hurry! We must mark the right one!'
He strode straight toward the liches, snapping over his shoulder, 'Come! They won't hurt you. They want to be freed, to find rest at last!'
A gruesome gallery of undead was still gathering, appearing out of dark side passages and through doorways, but they parted and gave way even before the empry air glowed blue-green around Vangerdahast and forced the liches back.
The Knights hurried in his wake, trying not to look too closely at the shuffling crowd that was now watching them-and that closed in behind them to follow down the passage.
The liches were in many states of decay, from floating, glowing disembodied skulls wearing crowns to rotting women who'd lost limbs, in ragged wisps of crumbling gowns. Some were even carrying their heads under their arms.
The blue-green wardings seemed to hold back liches in one direction and quell real terror in the other, but none of the Knights was really calm. On three sides, as they walked, the silently drifting and shuffling crowd was almost close enough to touch, and the liches looked so macabre that it was like walking through a nightmare that wouldn't end.
'I think I have to relieve myself,' Semoor said.
Behind him, Jhessail winced. 'I wish you hadn't said that.'
'I-wait! Don't kill me!' Lord Crownsilver babbled, backing away. 'I'm rich! I can pay you well! Rubies, gold, even king's tears! I-'
'Talk too much,' the Highknight told him, a certain fire in her eyes. 'I don't want gold, puling little man.'
'Land, then! Land-a little keep, all your own? Or a tallhouse in Suzail-two tallhouses!'
Step by step, the nobleman was giving ground, and step by step, Targrael was stalking him, leisurely, stretching like a cat. 'Oooh, a little castle,' she drawled. 'Now you tempt me, Maniol.'
'I do?' Lord Crownsilverbrightened, gabbling wildly. 'Th-that's good, isn't it? Wha-wha-what can I do to tempt you more?'
'Die,' the Highknight told him calmly and stretched out to her full sleek length. Her lunge sent her blade through Maniol Crownsilver's hand and into his throat.
'Almost leisurely,' she said. 'Not the hardest noble death I've dealt down the years, to be sure.'
He stared at her, jaw open in disbelief, blood welling up in his mouth, so Targrael blew him a kiss and said with a sneer, 'The gods be with you, little failure of a man. Fare you well in the Hells.'
By the last word, he was probably beyond hearing, his stare now fixed. Targrael straightened, pulling her sword back, and let him fall.
He fell heavily, as wet and solid as an oversized pumpkin dropped on a cobbled street-and as messily. Blood splashed long fingers in all directions. Targrael took a swift step back, eyes narrowing as she saw golden, glowing smoke rise from that gore-for all the Realms as if the man's blood were a flow of molten fire in a forge.
Then she retreated farther, casting swift glances behind herself and bringing her sword up to slash the air in a menacing circle around her.
Liches were drifting and striding toward those flames from all directions, their eyes glowing the same golden hue.
'Keep back,' she warned them, paling as they gave her gap-toothed grins and closed in.
'I am the Highknight Lady Ismra Targrael. In the name of the Dragon Throne I serve, I command, you begone!'
The Highknight brandished the warding token she'd plucked from one of the Sembians she'd slain, but bony hands struck it aside as many other bony hands tightened like chillingly cold claws around her arms.
She hadn't even time to struggle ere bony fingers throttled her. Almost leisurely.
Bellowing wordless rage into the Princess Alusair's face to make her shrink back out of his way, the Royal Magician of Cormyr rushed out of his armory and along the passage, seeking the nearest spellcasting chamber.
Dalonder Ree was right behind him. 'If I find Dauntless, I'll send him back to you!' he said to the princess as he raced past.
Laspeera, trailing belts and wand sheaths and a sculpted hand festooned with glowing rings, panted behind them both. Some six running strides down the passage, she slowed, whirled, and told Alusair, 'Get Tathanter Doarmund or Alaphondar to assemble all Wizards of War they swiftly can to teleporr a dozen Dragons to me. They know how to key on me!'
'Purple Dragons?' Alusair cried. 'Not more war wizards?'
Laspeera was already running on down the passage. Without turning her head she called back, 'We'll be needing someone with common sense!'
The third panel spilled the familiar blue-green radiance as it shattered.
'There!' Pennae cried as she espied the next panel.
Doust staggered, almost falling. His stagger took him into Jhessail and almost bore her to the ground. She struggled to keep them both upright, planting herself until Islif reached out a long arm, took the priest by the shoulder, and hauled him upright.
He reeled, knees briefly as limp as greens steaming in a kitchen. 'Numbed me, that one did,' he muttered. Looking at Jhessail, he added, 'Keep back from the panels. I think doing this'll kill any mage outright.' He gave Vangerdahast's back a suspicious glare, then clung to Islif for support as all of the Knights hurried down rhe passage to the fourrh panel.
'How many of these panels will we have to break?' Islif called to the Royal Magician.
Ahead, they saw his shoulders lift in a shrug. 'I know not. More than a dozen. We tried to trace the magics once, and I saw ten-and-three nodes before the trying overwhelmed me.'
Pennae lifted an eyebrow. 'Overwhelmed you?'
'Struck me senseless,' Vangey replied curtly, giving Florin a nod.
The ranger set his teeth, swung the mace, and dashed another panel to glowing ruin.
'A glow!' Semoor called from behind them. 'Through that doorway!'
They all turned to see his pointing arm, and Florin reeled just as Doust had done.
'Help him, someone!' Vangerdahast snapped, heading for the glowing door. 'Pennae, run ahead. We need to see which panel in yon room is the right one, before it fades!'
As they hastened, the Royal Magician muttered some sort of incantation.
'That's the second time you've done that, right after Florin struck a panel,' Islif said suspiciously. 'Just what magic are you working?'
'I'm garhering the wardings before they collapse, to shield us all with them. Against the liches and against any wild magics breaking a node might release.'
'What wardings?' Semoor asked, as they entered the room, finding it cold and bare.
'The ancient spells that protect the walls, floors, ceilings, and all against magic unleashed by the liches
