impact. The two ships struck the docks, reducing the piers to splinters, ripping through the pilings and shoving docks that weren't torn to pieces at once back into the shoreside warehouses. The groaning, shearing, crumbling carnage filled the harbor with deafening noise. Other ships lying at anchor against the docks caught fire as well when flaming debris from the two zombie ships flew onto their decks and into their rigging. In the space of a drawn breath, a dozen ships had caught fire and a conflagration began that looked as though it might well burn the harbor down. Haarn fought to maintain his position at Broadfoot's side. The stained glass windows of the tall buildings overlooking the harbor caught the red and orange glow of the burning ships. Borran Kiosk's ships came apart. Zombies tumbled and were thrown onto the ground when the vessels rammed into the land behind the piers and finally stopped. Not much was left of either of them. The shipwrecks put Haarn in the mind of anthills the way the zombies boiled from their holds. Borran Kiosk must have stacked them on top of each other like sacks of grain in a merchant's wagon. The zombies stumbled from the wrecks and from the sea, coming into the shore like a tidal wave of dead flesh. Warriors stood their ground where they could. The battle, thought a certain victory by the living army of warriors and druids only moments before, swiftly became a bloodbath. Haarn watched in helpless frustration as the front line of Alagh?n's defenders went down under the hands and fangs of Borran Kiosk's undead forces. 'Where is Borran Kiosk?' Ettrian demanded, yelling to be heard above the sounds of the one-sided battle. 'I don't know!' Haarn shouted back. 'I lost sight of him when the ships struck the docks.' He urged Broadfoot up and forward. The bear was more than equal to the task, shoving aside the warriors who didn't move readily enough for him. When news of Borran Kiosk's impending return had spread throughout Alagh?n, most of the populace had been of a mind to pack up and leave. Some of them had, but there were a number of others who rallied to the cause. The volunteer army had swiftly grown beyond the ability of the Assembly of Stars to control. When the flaming ships hit the docks, that volunteer army was the first, and least orderly, to beat a hasty retreat. 'A line is forming in front!' Ettrian cried over the roaring chaos. 'I see them!' Haarn shouted back. His senses whirled, confused by the press of people around him, by the alien landscape of the city, and by sight of the zombies crawling out of the harbor and starting toward the city. A ragged line of warriors made up of members of the Alagh?n city watch and the Emerald Enclave formed at the retreating backs of the last of the volunteers to escape the approaching zombies. Haarn's heart swelled with pride as he watched the druids attack their undead foes. In the face of overwhelming odds, the druids stood their ground. Broadfoot burst through the final ranks of the retreating would-be city champions and rose to his hind legs. Towering over the zombies, the bear laid waste to them. Massive blows from his front paws scattered the zombies in broken heaps of bone and torn flesh. Haarn clutched his scimitar tightly and cut at a zombie to his left. The heavy blade connected and the zombie's head leaped from its shoulders. Broadfoot roared again, dropping to all fours for an instant to regain his balance, then he surged up once more like a flesh and blood mountain and knocked a dozen zombies backward into each other. The first few were only bags of bones that were never going to be able to move again. Magic shimmered through the air. Great tentacles formed from thin air, and multi-colored rays touched zombies and reduced them to dust. Haarn grabbed the hand of another zombie as he drew the scimitar back, unable to get it into play quickly. Yanking on the zombie's hand, he pulled the foul thing off-balance then chopped the scimitar across its back, ripping through dead flesh and biting through its spine. Black seawater boiled from the zombie's guts as its stomach opened and small crabs scuttled out. Fighting revulsion, Haarn drew back his scimitar and cleaved the skull of another zombie. The creature continued to stare at the druid with hatred in its dead eyes, and it reached for him. Haarn slapped the creature's hand away with his free arm then stepped forward and to the side. He stamped and shattered the zombie's knee, driving it to the tilted wooden pier. Only a short distance away, Druz Talimsir fought for her life. Her sword flew, gleaming as it reflected the flames that still burned in the ships, and zombie body parts dropped to the ground around her. Blood spattered her face and arms, and since the zombies didn't bleed, Haarn knew it was hers, though there were dead humans and elves at her feet as well. A female druid came sprawling back out of the melee ahead of Haarn. He caught her and barely blocked a knife thrust in time that would have opened his throat for him. 'Sorry,' she said then lunged back into the fray. By the time she reached the line of undead staggering out of the water, she'd shifted into the form of a leopard. Her claws and fangs flicked into the zombies, slicing them to ribbons. Haarn raced to aid Druz, getting there just in time to watch the mercenary skewer the last zombie in front of her with her long sword, then rip its throat out with her knife, decapitating it. She whirled on him, bringing her weapons to the ready. 'Are you all right?' Haarn asked. Druz wiped the blood from her face. Only a few scratches showed and none of them looked serious. 'I'm fine,' she said as she sheathed her dagger and leaned down, scooping up a round shield from a dead soldier. Another lurch of zombies drew Haarn's attention back to survival. He fought with every trick and skill he knew. Anything mortal would have fallen before his blades a long time before. He thanked Silvanus that the zombies were so slow. He was tiring, but he was still faster than they were. A whirlwind took shape near the water's edge, and Haarn knew that one of the elder druids had summoned it. The shrieking column of air danced through the zombies, picking them up and shooting them high into the air. The undead things fell back down onto the burning wrecks. Farther out beyond the water's edge, four water elementals surged up from the roiling surface. They rose from the sea like storm-tossed waves, each with two deep green orbs that served as eyes. When the elementals encountered zombies, they wrapped their watery arms around them and dragged them under the sea. The water churned, then zombie pieces-no longer in any shape to be animated-floated to the top. Broadfoot continued fighting, snapping off hands, arms, and the occasional leg as chance permitted. His huge basso growls flooded the air, but the noise didn't bother the advancing zombies. 'Have you seen Borran Kiosk?' someone shouted above the din. 'Not since the shipwreck,' someone else answered. Haarn cut the legs from under a zombie and looked out to sea. The water elementals continued attacking the zombies coming out of the ocean, but they worked between floating pools of burning oil. 'Eldath preserve us!' a cleric wearing the Quiet One's colors on a blood-spattered robe said from only a short distance away. 'There are more of them!' Haarn watched in disbelief as the flickering lights of the burning ships and the flaming oil pools revealed the secret that Borran Kiosk had kept even after the attack. Zombies marched from the harbor pulling huge fishing nets that were filled with even more zombies. As Haarn battled, trying desperately to get to the nets and slay the zombies that pulled them to shore, the zombies inside the net began to stir. They opened their jaws and chewed at the nets. The ones that had teeth parted the strands and began crawling out. 'Fall back! Fall back!' a watch officer yelled. 'We can't hold this position against the reinforcements. We'll hold them at the second line of defense!' Haarn grabbed Broadfoot's fur and yanked the bear backward. Growling and snapping his fangs, Broadfoot dropped to all fours and grudgingly gave ground. 'Haarn!' Druz called. 'Look out!' Spinning, Haarn tried to focus in the direction she'd indicated. He lifted his scimitar, but it was too late. A zombie hit him with a fist and the black talons opened a cut along the top of his shoulder. Blood covered his arm. Reeling from the impact, hardly aware of the pain, the druid stumbled back and tried to get his knife up to defend himself. The zombie drew its fist back again, focusing its dead gaze on Haarn. The druid knew he would never get the knife up in time and watched helplessly as the zombie's fist came crashing down.
Hip-deep in Alagh?n's harbor, surrounded by fire and the screams of dying men, Borran Kiosk marched under the shattered remnants of the docks, praying to Malar that the sewer drains yet remained intact after the ships had torn the docks apart. Allis splashed along after him, still in half-spider form. 'Where are we going?' she asked in her sibilant voice. 'To win the battle,' Borran Kiosk replied. 'We've gathered the zombies and loosed them on the city. They are winning the battle,' Allis protested. 'They need a leader with them.' 'They need a leader who has possession of Taraketh's Hive,' Borran Kiosk argued, 'not someone who would be destroyed with them. Don't forget that they are merely things. They are nothing like me.' He glanced under the sagging timbers of the pier, looking for an opening on the inclined land beneath the docks. Giving up, he seized an oil-soaked piece of timber that floated on top of the water and still maintained a flickering flame. When he lifted the timber from the water, the flame caught hold more strongly. The flame also attracted the attention of one of the water elementals busy destroying the zombies he'd brought in from the Whamite Isles. Great green orbs turned in Borran Kiosk's direction. Without hesitation, the water elemental started for the mohrg. Harnessing the power of Malar's Glove, Borran Kiosk spoke a spell to dismiss the elemental. He pointed at the creature and a bright orange light pulsed from his hand. When the light struck the elemental, the creature froze in place then became transparent, showing the burning ship only a short distance behind it. The elemental fought the power of the spell, roaring in rage and sounding like a crashing wave, but Borran Kiosk, aided by the magic in Malar's Glove, was too strong. In the next moment, the elemental was completely gone. Borran Kiosk turned and retreated under the pilings again. Deep under the wreckage that remained of the pier, Borran Kiosk paused and closed his eyes. The power he'd placed within each of
