Prophet of the Dead

so often encouraged him to do what he was naturally inclined to do anyway.

Still, he thought, scowling, he had to keep his head, because he already had reason to regret succumbing to the sword and spear’s urgings. Not that he was sure good would have come of responding to Cera’s cry for help on the day they stormed the fortress. Indeed, it seemed more likely that he would simply have failed to find any trace of her. Yet it was possible everything could have been different. She, Jhesrhi, and even Aoth might have been present to help when the Storm of Vengeance attacked. The brothers of the Griffon Lodge might still be alive.

Dai Shan interrupted Vandar’s self-reproach by peering into the narrow space between two tombs, into which the Rashemi had wedged himself. “It’s a pair of zombies approaching,” the outlander said, “or possibly ghouls. Some sort of corporeal undead anyway.”

Vandar felt his pulse quicken. The warm tingle of excitement in his weapons quickened too. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Surely, survivors of the force your lodge and the Stag King’s retainers destroyed in the fortress.”

Vandar frowned. “They might know something about what became of Cera and Jhesrhi, and we might be able to make them tell us.”

“Indeed,” Dai Shan murmured, “ ‘make’ being the critical term in the mighty warrior’s formulation.”

“If it’s just a couple of walking corpses,” Vandar said, “you and I have bested worse since we started roaming around in here. We can take them by surprise when they reach the statue of Jergal.” He scowled. “No, curse it, the torchlight will still give me away.”

Dai Shan took a moment to think, then answered, “I can share my knack for seeing in the dark with you. Please close your eyes.”

With a twinge of reluctance, Vandar obeyed. Dai Shan whispered words that, although the berserker had no idea what they meant, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. On the final syllable, the Shou touched a fingertip to each of his eyelids.

When that light pressure ended, Vandar opened his eyes and glanced around. “Nothing looks different.”

“It will when you leave the torch behind. Come. We should take our positions.”

Dai Shan turned out to be correct. The curtain of shadow the Shou had conjured blocked the firelight, and after the wavering yellow glow disappeared, Vandar could still see. In fact, he could see a little farther than before, although he’d lost every trace of color, with even his crimson weapons turning gray. The change made the maze’s riotous jumble of morbid carvings look even ghostlier, if such a thing was possible.

Bending low, Dai Shan scurried around Jergal’s statue. Presumably, he took up a position at the mouth of the passage on the other side, although, with the sculpture in the way, Vandar couldn’t actually see him anymore. The Rashemi occupied the corresponding position on his own side and peeked around the corner.

Swaying, lurching figures were now visible, although Vandar still couldn’t make out exactly what manner of creature he was about to ambush. Maybe Dai Shan’s magic granted a keener form of dark sight to a shadow adept than to an ordinary person. But whatever the approaching beings were, the fey weapons were eager to assail them. The sword hilt and the shaft of the spear seemed to shiver in his hands.

Although the undead moved quietly, the moment came when Vandar heard their footsteps scuffing on the floor. Then two withered corpses with foxfire in their sunken eyes shuffled into view.

Vandar stepped and thrust with the spear. The weapon punched through the knee of the nearer undead. The creature toppled, but it had a naked scimitar in its clawlike hand and slashed at its attacker at the same time. Vandar parried with the fey sword, spun the parry into a bind, and tore the blade from his opponent’s grip. The scimitar flew through the air to clank down on Jergal’s desktop.

There. That was one dread warrior crippled and disarmed for questioning. Letting go of the spear, Vandar turned to see if Dai Shan needed help dealing with the other and only then perceived the long-hafted war hammer sweeping down at his head.

The second zombie had had no difficulty rushing in on his flank because Dai Shan had never engaged it. In fact, Vandar still didn’t see the Shou trader at all.

Vandar leaped backward and, as the hammer stroke fell short, saw more shapes rushing up the passage. The undead he’d so confidently attacked had been forerunners scouting ahead of a larger band, and just as he was simultaneously comprehending that and cutting at the hammer-wielding zombie’s neck, Dai Shan called out from somewhere behind him.

“Noble undead, the barbarian is Vandar Cherlinka, a champion of Rashemen and your enemy! I’ll help you kill him!” The Shou rattled off an incantation.

The red sword tore the hammer zombie’s rotting head tumbling from its shoulders, and then the world went black. As Vandar realized Dai Shan had ripped away the gift of dark sight he’d bestowed previously, something clamped around his ankle.

Booms and crashes echoed through the caverns. So did crackling, thunderclaps, and screams.

Old Ones looked in the direction of the noises. On the other side of the foundry, one masked Rashemi jerked around and spoke to another. Aoth couldn’t catch the fellow’s words, but he didn’t need to.

“Hold your positions!” he called, not just to that particular mage but to everyone. “I know how all the commotion sounds, but I guarantee you, only a few of the enemy have come in the other way. Orgurth and our other friends can handle it. Most of the creatures will break in this way, and we need to be here to handle them.”

Standing beside Aoth, Shaugar called, “Captain Fezim knows what he’s talking about!” Then, in a voice so low that only the man next to him could hear, he added, “I hope.”

Aoth’s troops did stay where they were, although their restlessness grew increasingly apparent, and why wouldn’t it? Every reverberating cry could be a friend dying, a comrade reinforcements might have saved, and although the enchanters claimed they knew how to fight, they surely hadn’t learned to accept the occasional necessity of such losses as sellswords did. When the second gate finally crashed and clattered to rubble, Aoth felt a surge of relief that it had happened before his own plan could fall apart.

He slapped his arms and chest, activating the magic in his tattoos to enhance his strength, quickness, and endurance. Then, like huge living toys of hinged metal and stone, the first constructs charged into the foundry.

The layout of the caves was such that, having breached the gate they did, the enemy had to pass through this chamber, and in Aoth’s professional judgment, the space ought to serve for a killing box. Ledges partway up the walls afforded the defenders the advantage of height, and the carved stairs that ran up to them were steep, narrow, and thus easily defended.

At first, the scuttling golems, and then the undead rushing in behind them, didn’t even appear to notice the men crouching behind the improvised and uncompleted battlements. And despite their edginess, the Old Ones, the Pure Flame warm them, didn’t lash out as soon as the first foes came into view. As instructed, they awaited Aoth’s signal.

When the floor below was teeming with foes, Aoth leaped up, pointed his spear, and snarled a word of power. A red spark shot from the point down at the pale, robed figure of an undead wizard, and, if Tymora was smiling, one of the Raumvirans skilled at managing constructs. With a boom, the streaking point of light exploded into a flash of flame that tore the creature limb from limb. It half ripped the head from an articulated bronze panther too, and the golem froze. But other constructs engulfed by the blast weathered it unscathed.

Rising from behind the makeshift parapets to the extent necessary, Old Ones called words of command and lashed wands, staves, and orbs through mystic passes. The blue and argent figures they’d created previously glowed to life atop or just inside the floor.

A steel minotaur and a ceramic preying mantis lurched into immobility. A thick-bodied giant of stone with golden eyes pivoted ponderously and slammed its fist down on top of a skeleton, shattering the undead from the top of its skull all the way down to its pelvis. Yellow light flickered over a two-headed iron mastiff, and then its metal body burst into flame.

So, despite the frantic haste and improvisation with which the Rashemi had completed them, the snares were working, but not on every automaton. Some of the ones on the floor simply seemed impervious, while none of the flyers were falling out of the air. All the golems still capable of purposeful action turned to assail the ledges, and their undead masters were right behind them.

Aoth looked over his section of battlement and saw a man-sized, eight-legged contraption like a mix of rat