even harder, to keep Talon moving through the left-hand tunnel in a restrained hover that matched the speed of his jog through the right-hand side. When it finally happened, when four eyes looked together down both corridors at once, it all became clearer. When he turned left, just as Talon turned right at the T-junction, they met in the middle, and the forested passages shimmered away. The trees were replaced by a long torch-lit hallway. At the end of the featureless passage, was a single door.
Beyond the door there was an empty room. As before, when Hyden closed the door behind him, the room shifted. The door vanished, and he found himself somewhere, that was as beautiful, as it was terrifying. Talon, who was holding a steady hover, over and just behind his head, cooed out a sigh of relief at seeing the open sky overhead.
They were standing on a slow, rolling plain of fertile green, an emerald sea of turf, which stretched as far as the eye, or eyes, in this case, could see. Right behind where he stood, was a single, monstrous old oak. Ten men might not have been able to put their outstretched arms together to form a ring around it. Littered among the leaves and deadfall at its base, were the bones of a score or more men. Some were scattered about, some were in neat little piles. Others were still connected at the joints, and sitting there, in half rotted clothes, with packs and pouches strapped to their bodies. A few empty water skins, a handful of books, and even a sword or two, lay among them in various degrees of weathered decay.
Suddenly, movement caught his eye. A huge, dark knothole in the tree trunk had shifted, he was sure of it. Cautiously, he took a few steps back. Talon landed on a shoulder, and sunk his claws firmly, and reassuringly, into Hyden’s muscle. A breeze cooled his skin, and the leaves rustled about him.
It was warm, probably hot, beyond the shade the tree provided. He was about to send Talon off to explore the lay of the land, when the knothole moved again. There was no mistaking it this time. The knot closed, and puckered, like a mouth, and then in a voice as deep as the ancient tree’s roots, it spoke. The rhyming riddle came out slowly and rhythmically.
“A guide will come, if your heart’s been true, and lead you to a door of mine.
Ponder this, while you wait, if you want to go inside;
A pyramid, a patterned knock, made up of only ten.
You must start from the bottom; if you do I’ll let you in.”
After the voice stopped, Hyden spoke the words to himself, over and over again. It was hard to do, considering the shock, and bewilderment he was feeling after being spoken to by a tree. He didn’t dare forget the words though. They made little sense to him now, but he would think about the meaning later. At the moment, all he wanted to do was commit the riddle to memory. By the look of the others waiting, he figured he might have plenty of time to sort it out.
He grimaced at his morbid sense of humor. His faith that the White Goddess of his clan would send him a guide hadn’t wavered, at least not yet. He was certain that she wouldn’t let him whither and rot, like these others had.
Only after he was sure that he had gotten the rhyme memorized, he tried to communicate with the tree. It didn’t respond to anything he asked, or commanded. Nor did the tree do more than rustle its leaves at him, when he pleaded. After a while, he gave up, and sat back against the tree trunk among the remains of the others, and began going over the riddle in his mind.
“A pyramid, a patterned knock, made up of only ten.
You must start from the bottom; if you do I’ll let you in.”
He had no idea what the answer was, and after saying the thing a few times out loud, he found he had grown sleepy. It was only a matter of moments before slumber took him to a deep, dark place, where not even dreams dared to go.
Vaegon, having no other weapon at hand, and cursing his lack of foresight for not bringing one, drew Ironspike from its sheath. Dugak raised his walking stick as if it were a club. For a moment, the undead soldiers hesitated. The sword had scared them. Vaegon knew this only because of what the ghost had told him earlier. He also knew that they were slowly starting to realize that he wasn’t Mikahl, and that Ironspike’s power wasn’t unleashed.
“Run for it, Dugak,” Vaegon yelled.
He shook the sword at the undead nearest him, and spoke some strange words in the elven tongue. The dwarf started away on his short stumpy legs. The rotting soldiers cringed back, as if the sword might suddenly flare to life and waste them where they stood. The ruse didn’t last long, and soon, Vaegon was turning to run after Dugak. The undead were swiftly in pursuit.
On his own, Vaegon could have easily outpaced the soldiers. They ran on atrophied muscle, moved by decayed tendons that were covered with putrid skin. The armor they had worn proudly as a second skin in life, now encumbered their failing bodies, making them slow and clumsy. Dugak, however, was churning his little legs madly, and was still falling behind. Finally, after gaining the top of a small hill, the dwarf stopped.
“You know the way! Go on!” Dugak said, between huffing breaths. “I’ll lead them astray. I’m only slowing you down.”
“I won’t leave you, dwarf,” Vaegon said sternly. “So save your breath.”
With that, he turned, ran out into the path of the leading soldier, and swung Ironspike with all he had in him. The silvery steel blade bit into the mushy flesh and bone at the shoulder and the undead soldier’s arm fell away. The thing toppled forward, and Vaegon had to kick it away from him with a booted foot. The stench was so strong that the elf’s keen senses revolted. He could almost taste the rot on his tongue, and he doubled over to vomit.
A rock, twice the size of Vaegon’s skull, went sailing over him, at the approaching knot of undead soldiers. Dugak’s strong arms had thrown it as if it were a child’s toy. It impacted with a thumping smack, which sounded both wet, and bone crunching. Two of the attackers fell from the blow. The others hesitated then. The next rock caved in the side of one of their heads and splattered the others, with grayish yellow goo.
Vaegon stood, raised the sword, and charged towards them a few steps. There were four of them left. Two of those turned, and loped away, as if the encounter had never happened. One of the others moved forward to meet the elf’s charge. The last one just stood there, as if it had been suddenly frozen in place.
Vaegon cut down the soldier before him with one vicious swing of Mikahl’s blade. The remaining undead stayed stock still. It just stood there as motionless as a statue. Not so far away though, mumbles and grunts could be heard. There were more of them out there in the hills.
Neither Vaegon nor Dugak cared to know why the thing had just stopped. They were too busy running towards the little passage that was hidden in the rocky foothills, almost a mile away. If they could get to it, it would lead them back into the relative safety of Xwarda’s walls.
Chapter 54
Mikahl’s dream about his half brother, Glendar, wasn’t far off the mark.
The ship that the young King of Westland’s undead body was on was drifting aimlessly at sea. The bodies that were being thrown overboard, however, were not willing to stay dead. Nor were the ones doing the throwing. The other two ships had abandoned the King’s plague-stricken vessel. They had gone so far as to pull down most of its rigging with a half dozen well placed harpoon shots, and even made an attempt to set the craft on fire, by hurling clay pots, full of flammable oil at it. No one wanted to chance the King surviving his ordeal, making shore, and then calling them out as mutineers or deserters.
Just as Mikahl had seen him standing at the prow of the doomed ship, Glendar, or Inkling, or some measure of them both, stood in the wind at the front of the craft. He was calling out desperately to Pael.
Pael was a thousand miles away, and too busy to notice the pleas. Even if he could have heard them, he was too preoccupied to care anymore about the fool, Glendar, and his bond with Inkling had fizzled to insignificance.
Glendar had gained a bit of control over the undead men by sheer force of will, but that meant that he could only keep them from attacking him. He couldn’t stop them from attacking each other. The tainted hellcat meat that Pael had let them eat, had left its bit of evil inside them, and chaos prevailed onboard the ship. Soon, it was all out battle for everybody just to stay out of the sea.
