Quickly Geran dashed up the stairs to the family’s bedchambers, throwing open each door as he passed. He found no one on the second floor, and in a growing panic he ran up to the third floor and began to search the rooms there as well. “They’re not here!” he cried.
“They might’ve fled already,” Hamil said. “Where would they go, Geran?”
“The postern gate?” he guessed. It was far below them now, but passages below the trophy room led to deeper armories and Griffonwatch’s small, well-protected side gate. He shook his head and checked the rooms again. Then he hurried back down the steps to the great room. It was possible that no one remained alive in the castle other than the four of them, but he could still make out the occasional distant scream echoing through the halls, so at least some of the guards or servants were still fighting for their lives. “Let me check the library first, the harmach’s often there.”
He rushed back out into the courtyard. Ghostly forms flitted through the shadows; he reached out and grasped Mirya’s hand. “Stay close,” he warned. He started along the side of the court, heading for the castle’s library. But Mirya suddenly stopped and pulled back.
“Geran, look!” she whispered. “The chapel!”
Geran halted and looked around. Across the upper courtyard, the castle’s disused chapel was surrounded by a dozen of Aesperus’s minions. The spirits were forming ranks before the door leading to the shrine. As each wraith took its place alongside its fellows, all of the spirits gathered there grew sharper, clearer, and more substantial. More of the spirits were streaming up to join their fellows. “Of course,” he murmured. Holy ground often deterred evil spirits, and Grigor certainly would have known that.
“I think the wraiths are gathering for an assault,” Hamil said in a low voice.
“Can they get in?” Mirya asked.
“I don’t know,” Geran replied. He looked over to Sarth. “Can they?”
The tiefling’s eyes glowed faintly red in the dark courtyard. He studied the scene and shook his head. “Not yet, but the old spells and blessings on the chapel do not seem very strong to me. They will not last long. And even if they can keep out the wraiths, there may be more powerful undead nearby. Should Aesperus himself come here, nothing will impede him.”
One of the wraiths reached out with its spectral hand and tested the door, which trembled a little at the ghost’s touch. Inside a child screamed in panic. Without another moment’s thought, Geran ran across the courtyard, brandishing his glowing sword, and darted into the middle of the assembled wraiths, swinging wildly. The blade left swaths of sparkling white light in its path like a wake of tiny stars. The wraiths shrieked in their cold, terrible voices and recoiled from its touch. Sarth joined in then, hurling blasts of fire that singed the wraiths’ shadowstuff and drove them back. “Hold on!” Geran shouted. “We’re coming!”
He fought his way to the door amid a swirl of phantom blades and leering dead faces. One icy cold blade kissed the nape of his neck, and another seared his left hip, but he cleared the ghostly warriors away. Mirya and Hamil darted into the doorway and fumbled at the door. Geran put his back to them and wove a web of brilliant elven steel in the icy night, keeping the wraiths at bay. “Hamil, the door!”
I’m working on it! Hamil answered. He worked frantically with the point of one dagger, trying to get it beneath the bar on the far side. There! The bar clattered to the floor, and Hamil threw open the door.
Inside the chapel the Hulmasters stood clustered close by the altar of Tyr. Harmach Grigor held a magic wand in one hand and stood a little in front of his daughter-in-law, Erna, and his grandchildren, Natali and Kirr. The children sobbed quietly, both frightened terribly but doing their best to be brave. Geran’s Aunt Terena-sister of the harmach, Kara’s mother, and Sergen’s stepmother-knelt on the flagstone floor, tending a Shieldsworn armsman who had collapsed from white wounds.
“Thank Tymora,” Geran breathed in relief. “You’re all alive.”
“Yes, though five Shieldsworn died to see us into this refuge,” Harmach Grigor said with a bitter tone. “I was of little help. I’m afraid that I’m not much of a wizard.” The old lord looked at Geran and frowned. “I feared that you would be killed in your cell, Geran. How did you survive? And who is that with you?”
“I escaped to warn you of this attack-too late, it seems,” Geran answered. “This is Sarth Khul Riizar, who helped Hamil and Mirya get me out of the cell. I hope you’ll forgive them, Uncle, but I had to try to warn you: Sergen means to kill us all. He summoned the wraiths to Griffonwatch.”
“Sergen is behind this?” Grigor demanded.
Geran’s Aunt Terena looked up from the man she tended. The wraith’s attack had caught her in her bed, and she wore only her dressing gown and a cloak thrown over her shoulders. She strongly resembled her daughter, Kara. She was a fit woman of sixty years, strongly built, with long gray-white hair. Terena paled and put her hand to her throat. “So he’s finally chosen to follow in his father’s footsteps,” she said. “Ah, Grigor, I’m so sorry. I never imagined he had so much hate in him. He wasn’t always what he’s become.”
“Excuse me, but all that can wait for later,” Hamil said sharply. He stood by the chapel’s door, looking out into the courtyard. “The wraiths are returning, Geran. We’ve got to leave now or fight here.”
Geran looked at his uncle. “We should flee,” he said. “I don’t know if we can hold off many more of the wraiths. The postern’s our best chance to get the children out of the castle.”
Grigor nodded. “Agreed. Lead the way, Geran.”
“Shut the door, Hamil,” Geran said. He hurried across the chapel to a small door that led outside to the tiny courtyard where he had practiced a few times. With luck, the wraiths would be gathering by the chapel’s front door, massing their might to overcome the old, weak blessings that deterred them for the moment. It took him a moment to get the side door open-this one was rarely used, and he had to put his shoulder to it to push it open through the leaf-mold that had accumulated on the other side. But no wraiths waited in the small cloister beyond.
“This way, quickly,” he said to the others. He hurried across to the door leading back into the Harmach’s Tower on the far side of the small courtyard. Mirya and Hamil helped the injured Shieldsworn to his feet, and Erna grasped Natali and Kirr firmly by their hands and followed.
Geran led them into the Harmach’s Tower and found the stairs that led down to the hallway by the trophy room. They encountered no more corpses here nor any wraiths. It was normally a lightly traveled part of the castle, and he began to hope that he might actually get his uncle and the rest of the family out of Griffonwatch safely. He turned into one of the passageways cut through the hill’s heartrock and came to a barred iron door. Geran threw the bar aside and pushed it open to reveal a staircase spiraling down into the gloom. “This way,” he said. “Be careful of the steps, it’s a long stair.”
“Are the ghosts going to follow us down there?” Kirr asked.
“I hope not, Kirr. We’re trying to stay a step ahead of them,” Geran answered. “Down you go!”
The stairs spiraled down forty feet or more, lit by dimly glowing light-globes the Shieldsworn refreshed every few months with minor magic. The stairwell was cramped, cold, and dark, but Geran could still see enough to lead the way down. Below the staircase stood a large hall with a low, barrel-vaulted ceiling. This chamber was designed to house scores of warriors in full kit, since the postern gate-the castle’s small back entrance, from which a force inside could sally in strength to attack besiegers from an unexpected direction-was close by. Geran halted at the foot of the stairs and guided the others into the room as they appeared. “Over there,” he said.
The harmach limped badly when he reached the bottom step. He grimaced in pain. “Stairs pain me,” he explained. “You shouldn’t wait on me, Geran.”
The sorcerer Sarth brought up the rear, watching carefully behind him with his rod at the ready. “We must keep moving,” the tiefling said. “They are not far behind us.”
Geran did not pause. He hurried back across the hall and ducked into the short passage leading to the postern. Normally the door was securely locked and barred, since the Shieldsworn didn’t keep any guards there, but when he turned the corner he found the postern standing open. It seemed that he wasn’t the only person in Griffonwatch to think of the side gate. He started forward, but Hamil reached out and caught his sleeve.
Something seems awry here, the halfling said silently. Douse the nearest lights, and wait here a moment. I’ll take a look.
“Go ahead,” Geran said softly.
He retreated a few steps and covered the light-globes gleaming in the postern passage. Hamil glided into the shadows and slipped out the heavy iron door; even though Geran knew the halfling was there, he couldn’t see or hear him. He motioned for the rest of the small company to hold still and wait.
Thirty heartbeats later, Hamil returned. “It’s an ambush,” he said quietly. “Several of the castle folk lie dead just outside. There are a dozen Veruna armsmen outside, ready for someone to blunder out the door.”
