pleasant enough, and he wished he knew what they were saying. They had been hungry, devouring an entire sack of fruit that Wynter had purchased for them. Brenna had tried speaking to them in several languages, hoping the dwarves would understand something. She told Wynter she wasn't sure if the slaves spoke only Dwarvish or if they were playing ignorant.
'It doesn't matter,' Wynter said. 'They'll be free soon… as soon as it seems safe to let them go. I just wish I could tell them that.'
Brenna smiled and decided the least she could do was help clean up the dwarves. She uncorked her waterskin and padded toward them. Suddenly she heard a commotion coming from the direction of the gate. Turning, she saw the guards on the gate lining up across the barbicon, drawing their longbows.
Screams from the merchants nearby filled the air, and in the gathering darkness, the enchantress saw a grotesque flying creature diving toward the center of the tent town.
'Galvin!' she shouted as Wynter galloped past her toward the attacking beast. The centaur had his staff held out before him like a lance, and merchants jumped out of his way as he charged through.
The druid sprang to his feet in time to see a dozen guards on the barbicon loose arrows at the winged creature. The beast screamed terribly and plummeted into the mass of tent town residents. Galvin and Brenna rushed toward where they had seen the thing fall, elbowing their way through the growing crowd.
The druid soon found himself at the forefront of the assembled merchants, and like the other onlookers, he stared slack-jawed at the creature. Four arrows were lodged deeply in the grotesque beast's underside. Obviously dying, it flapped its monstrous wings weakly, raising a small cloud of dust.
A child screamed as the creature's skin began to bubble and pop, boiling away like water. The wings quivered and beat faster as they shriveled and were drawn into the rapidly diminishing form of the beast. The crowd backed up, yet none turned away, engrossed with the vile tableau.
Finally the creature's leathery skin began to recede, revealing the silky, blood-soaked fur of a large weasel. The animal lifted its head, a stream of blood trickling out of its mouth, then it twitched once more and died. The crowd lingered, each lost in his own thoughts, wondering precisely what it was he had seen. At last the guards from the barbicon made their way into the tent town to disperse the throng.
One guard stooped over, picked up the body of the weasel, and turned to carry it inside the city. The guards ignored the shouted questions from the crowd. Disgruntled that they would get no information from the guards, the crowd began to break up and return to their tents.
Galvin found Wynter and Brenna near the gate. 'I–I saw it, Galvin,' the sorceress said evenly. 'Before it hit the ground, I saw it. It was like the thing that attacked us in Aglarond. Do you think someone knows we're here?' Brenna glanced about nervously.
'I don't think so,' Galvin whispered, noting that a few of the merchants who had returned to their camps next to the gate were staring at the trio. The druid strolled toward their own makeshift camp. Brenna and Wynter followed. 'I think it would have gone straight after us if it was meant for us.'
'That makes sense,' Wynter agreed. 'We were on the edge of the tent town and would have made easy targets.'
'I hope you're right,' Brenna said. She shivered, more from fear than the cool night air, and continued to glance behind her occasionally toward the gate.
The druid paused to wrap his cloak around her shoulders. As he did, he noticed that the tent town had resumed its former appearance, just as if nothing had happened. He shrugged and continued striding toward their camp. Galvin wondered if attacks such as this were commonplace here. It could explain the merchants' nonchalant bearing in the aftermath of the attack.
'The dwarves!' Wynter shouted suddenly, trotting to the edge of the tent town. 'They're gone!'
The former slaves had left their ropes behind and left the Harpers' possessions untouched. The druid knelt on the ground beside a footprint left by one of the dwarves, then glanced to the north.
'They went toward those trees,' the druid observed.
'Thay's not a safe place to be at night,' Wynter said nervously.
'Nothing's safe for those dwarves,' Galvin concluded. 'We were going to free them anyway.' The druid rose and brushed the dirt off his knees. Before he had taken a handful of steps toward his belongings, a cry pierced the night air.
'Jujus!' a woman screamed. 'Juju zombies! Szass Tam's undead will kill us all!'
Once again the tent town leapt to life as the cry of 'stiff-walkers' passed like a crashing wave from the outer rim of tents to the city gates. The Harpers determined from the people's cries that Szass Tam was behind the attack and that the 'stiff-walkers,' or undead, were the shadowy creatures they could make out shuffling toward the tent town.
The people on the outer edge of the tent town, including Brenna, Wynter, and Galvin, were the first to react. The night-cloaked figures had already come upon some of the campers there, silently lifting their blankets and awkwardly prodding through their tents and lean-tos. It was obvious the undead were looking for something-or someone.
The merchants grabbed their torches and lanterns, hoping the light would keep the undead creatures at bay. The women gathered their children and ran toward the gates. As the campers pushed closer to Amruthar's walls, the ragged-clothed corpses shambled through the canvas and discarded belongings, the stench of their decaying bodies wafting across the tent town. There were ten of the things that had long ago been living creatures. They had hollow eye sockets and skeletal frames, and despite their degree of decomposition, they still had vaguely human shapes. The undead regrouped at the edge of the tent town, then, as one, they glanced up with their empty sockets straight toward Brenna and the Harpers.
The trio hadn't moved far in this time, waiting to see what the zombies would do. After several long moments, the undead began to advance, with their broken, yellowed teeth bared and claws outstretched.
Brenna screamed in terror. 'They're here for us!'
'Get your back to mine and Wynter's,' Galvin commanded. 'We'll stand our ground till the peddlers are safe inside the gate.' Galvin motioned for Wynter to form a small ring. In the back of his mind, he wished they had decided to stay inside Amruthar's walls.
The druid was genuinely frightened that the sorceress might have hit the mark-the zombies did seem to be after them. Glancing around, he saw no fatalities among the peddlers, just toppled tents and disturbed bedrolls, so the undead weren't mindlessly killing everything that lay in their path. If they truly were after the three heroes, they would continue on like thoughtless automatons until they had captured their victims or until their intended victims had dispatched them. The zombies had the advantage, Galvin knew, even though there were only ten of them. Undead beings didn't tire, and they never had to sleep.
Brenna dug about in her satchel for her spell components while she desperately called for the retreating merchants to band together to fight the creatures. She knew that the sheer number of Thayvian peddlers could overwhelm the undead attackers, and she was unnerved that Galvin seemed to want the campers to run. Her pleas for their help brought a scowl from Galvin and fell on deaf ears. Already screams of terror were filling the night sky as the merchants continued to flee, blotting out all other sounds. The enchantress wondered if Amruthar's guards would open the gates and let the tent people inside or leave them to be slaughtered.
Galvin's eyes flashed in the starlight, and he began to transform, not caring if anyone saw him. He needed a body that would catch the zombies off guard, yet could fight viciously. He fell to all fours as thick, coarse orange and black hair sprouted from his face and hands and spread like melting butter to obscure his clothing. Sharp white teeth emerged from his swelling feline snout, and long white whiskers pushed outward through the fur around his nose. His ears stretched until they became pointed. At the same time, the druid's body grew, its torso elongating, its frame becoming heavier and more powerful, its legs more muscular. His hands and feet became wider, grew thick pads, and sprouted razor-edged claws where human nails had been. From his rump, an orange tail striped with black sprang forth and grew until it was nearly four feet long.
The tiger twitched its tail back and forth as it bared its fangs and growled deeply at the approaching zombies. The great cat, its saucerlike, emerald green eyes sparkling in the moonlight, leapt forward, displaying a patch of white fur on its chest in the shape of a crescent moon. The tiger's claws raked the abdomen of the nearest zombie and knocked it to the ground.
Wynter brought his staff down hard on the shoulder of another. The centaur saw more shapes moving in from the darkness, a second wave of undead.
