Netheril - Dangerous Games Part 20

"How did you-what was-"

"Feather fall," Sunbright answered. "I thought of goose down and applied its magic to you, and the spell took. I don't know how I did it."

Standing, leaning on his arm, Knucklebones noticed something odd. This was the real man, returned alive and well, but his face, eyes, skin, and fingernails all glowed with a bright green tinge. It reminded her of the first blush of leaves in the emperor's park. He looked like a paper lantern lit from the inside, bright as any campfire.

"What's this glow?"

"Nature magic," he said simply. "I'm infused with it. I don't think the effect will last, but it should keep us alive. Watch out!"

Wulgreth's tribe, exhausted by their debauchery and night of torture, had crawled from their huts and grabbed up crude stone and iron weapons. They ran to the edge of the fire circle, then stopped and stared. One man pointed a seven-fingered hand at Sunbright and grunted. Children hid behind their parent's legs.

The man they'd tortured to death had returned as an avenging angel.

Only the magic-user was not awed. Wulgreth let out a bellow, s.n.a.t.c.hed Knucklebones's black knife from his belt, and charged.

Several things happened at once, too fast for the thief to follow.

The black knife disappeared from Wulgreth's hand and appeared in Knucklebones's. Blinked there, obviously, by the will of Sunbright. At the same time, the barbarian drew his sword, and Harvester of Blood had never shone more brilliantly. Light flashed from the blade like a sunrise. Suddenly empty- handed, Wulgreth s.n.a.t.c.hed up a log as thick as a man's leg from the fire pit, but that limb too was spelled. As Wulgreth swung it overhand to crush Sunbright's skull, the barbarian stroked his hand in the air, aiming for the log. Wulgreth lost his grip as the log aged a hundred years in seconds, snapped, crumbled to punk, and rained down as splinters and dust.

Waving empty hands, Wulgreth charged with brute strength and blind fury. Brus.h.i.+ng Knucklebones gently aside, Sunbright reached over his head, then skipped back.

Immediately there came a snap and creak, then a groan as dirt and roots ripped and popped as if caught in a hurricane. A long shape loomed over Knucklebones's head, then a crash jarred her to her knees. Dust and cinders whirled around, stinging her eyes, tickling her nose and making her snort.

Sunbright carefully lifted and propped her up, and made an idle swipe with Harvester. A giant branch hung over their heads to trap them in a leafy prison, but the keen sword lopped it off so they could pa.s.s.

Knucklebones rubbed her eyes and stared. "Wh-What-" she stammered. "What happened?"

"I pulled down a tree," Sunbright said simply. "It was diseased, and can return to the soil faster this way."

She stared. Smack across the center of the camp lay a tree that been leaning to one side. Sunbright had merely gestured, and brought the thing toppling like a dying forest G.o.d.

Now he waggled Harvester so the gleaming blade bobbed in the air. He was calm as an oak tree himself, despite the fact that they were surrounded by enemies. Knucklebones wondered at his calm air of certainty and lack of fear.

She breathed, "You've changed!"

"Yes." he agreed. "I'm a shaman." He smiled, and even his teeth radiated light, so she was reminded again of a paper lantern. "Finally."

Thrown off-balance, stunned by the magical attack, and trapped by the intervening tree, Wulgreth howled in rage and indignation, leaped into the air to crash down on packed dirt, beat his chest like an ape, and hollered his fury. His great hooked hands flexed as he ripped his lizard skin costume from his breast. Sunbright waited, unmoved and unafraid. Knucklebones clutched her familiar knife and crouched behind the newly-risen shaman.

Sense overcoming fury, Wulgreth saw that his antics didn't frighten his opponent, and quit. Instead, he stooped and latched onto a great rock with his craggy hands, grunted, and hoisted it high over his head.

Knucklebones shrieked, but Sunbright only snapped his fingertips together. The boulder burst into dust, like the tree limb, aged eons in less than a second. It spattered into dust around Wulgreth's head.

The lich lord stood stunned, blinking grit from his stone dead eyes. His followers oohed and aahed at the display, marveling that Sunbright could so oppose their invincible leader.

Knucklebones trembled. "We should flee," she told him. "If you can use magic, you could s.h.i.+ft us far away, can't you?"

"No." Sunbright didn't look at her as he spoke, but watched his opponent. "I owe the land here for my salvation. I must repay her, make repairs as I can." He cast about at the dark woods, as if they were more important than a mere battle.

Talk of repaying the land sounded like mystic mumbo-jumbo to the thief, the vague mutterings of a priest cadging offerings. But she said nothing, only waited to see what he-and Wulgreth-would do.

The lich lord spread his feet wide, arched his back, tilted his head, and screamed. A long, keening undead screech that went on and on, setting Knucklebone's teeth on edge and making her spine crawl.

Her fear increased as, sprouting from the ground like horrific mushrooms or dropping from the branches or shambling from the dark, crept a handful of monsters awful to look at, painful to behold, for all were dead like him. Dead and deadly.

From the ground oozed a long skeleton, nothing but spine and ribs and a tiny human head with glittering black eye sockets. Cutting its way free of the earth was a small, dumpy man, but with four arms thin as sticks, blind white eyes, and mandibles clicking in his mouth. From the dark floated a pair of bulbous bags like ruby balloons, though with stinging tails that lashed as if eager to poison the living. Humping from the shadows came a short, stinking zombie lacking legs so it hobbled on hands and stumps. Dropping from the trees came a ball of arms and legs and tentacles and branches that grasped and writhed but had no body to speak of. And from the sundered campfire rose a wisp of smoke no wider than a shadow, a tall gangly thing that changed shape constantly as if unsure what it mimicked, though its hands were always long, scythe-like knives.

Knucklebones's teeth chattered as the undead things cl.u.s.tered around, weaving and bobbing, awaiting their chance. She'd seen horrors, but never anything to compare with these. More than ever she wished she were back in Karsus's sewers.

But Sunbright was undaunted, even laconic. In an even voice, he told Wulgreth, "These threats will avail you naught. This forest has suffered enough. Banish your fiends and yourself, get hence and begone. This is an abode for the living, not the dead."

Beside himself with anger, Wulgreth leveled his arm and screamed, "Attack!"

Chapter 18.

"Candy! Candy!"

Candlemas stumbled down a landing ramp, bruised, b.l.o.o.d.y, singed, and thoroughly rattled. Who was calling him that silly name? He didn't know anyone-then a warm bundle bounced into his chest.

Soft arms were flung around his neck, his sweaty, sooty face was smothered in plump and delicious kisses. Struggling to stay on his feet, he wrapped his arms around the woman's broad back and hung on. When she paused for breath, he saw who it was.

"Sita! Aquesita?"

"Oh, Candy, I was so worried, I had to come see you!" she sobbed. Tears of joy and relief spilled down her cheeks. "When Karry told me he'd sent you into battle, I couldn't believe it. But it was true!

Oh, I'm so proud of you, my darling. So glad you've come back to me unhurt."

"I'm not quite unhurt," his words were mushy, his mouth sore. "I bit my tongue when the s.h.i.+p crashed."

"Crashed?" The word brought on a new flurry of tears, kisses, and hugs. "Oh, my poor, brave soul!"

Stunned, and not just from knocks in the head, Candlemas hung onto his ladylove and basked in her praise and attention. Her broad back was comforting, her modest bosom, pressed to his dirty uniform, exciting. Awkwardly he kissed her hair, stroking it with smudged hands, murmuring what sweet nothings he could conjure.

This made no sense; his brain whirled. For days, Aquesita refused him an audience, returned his letters and flowers. Now she ran to his arms because he'd been in danger. Was this love madness, woman contrariness, or male thickness? He couldn't begin to guess, so he just gave into it and let himself be pampered.

The coddling included a ride in Aquesita's long carriage, plain white but painted with vibrant, intertwined roses and vines. Lolling on red cus.h.i.+ons, Candlemas sipped wine that stung his swollen tongue and watched the hustle and bustle of the city pa.s.s his window. He'd done his share. War wasn't so bad, he reflected, if these were its rewards.

He s.h.i.+fted idly, seeking a muscle that didn't ache. Moving sent a faint whiff to his nostrils: the stink of burned flesh. Rocking forward, he gagged on his wine, spraying it on the floor and the hem of Aquesita's blue gown. With the smell came the memory of screams as men and women burned to death, hair and flesh igniting. Suddenly his hands trembled so badly the winegla.s.s stem snapped and cut his fingers. That could have been him, crippled and unable to flee the heat ray. He could be ashes fertilizing a forest right now.

Slowly, head down, he breathed deeply while Aquesita cooed and stroked his back. Best to not think about the raid, the disaster. Hollowly, he said, "I'll be all right. I just need a minute. And a ...

bath. What's-" He stopped himself. No, better not ask about her just yet. Their separation might be a sore point. "What's the latest gossip?"

"Gossip?" Aquesita laughed uneasily. "You know I don't follow gossip, dear Candy. I've no interest in who sleeps with whom, or who's gambled away his or her fortune, or who's lashed whom to ribbons. There are finer things in life to consider, and n.o.bler pursuits. No, there's-wait! There was one unpleasantness that's newsworthy. Certainly it's a scandal. Did you ever meet a silver-haired woman named Polaris?"

"Lady Polaris?" Candlemas snapped upright so fast it made him dizzy. Cradling his aching skull, he said, "I know her-knew her. Worked for her once, long ago. She's a cold thing, a heart of ice, single- mindedly dedicated to her personal pursuits, with no concern for anyone else. She could be empress some day." If she lays off the food, he added mentally.

He kept thinking of the slim, calculating Polaris of old, not the bloated, preening, self-deluded pig he'd met in this time.

"She'll never be empress," Aquesita said. "She was a.s.sa.s.sinated last night."

"A-a.s.sa.s.sin-a.s.sa.s.sinated?" Candlemas sputtered as a fresh stab of pain shot through his head.

"Dead? Polaris?"

The plump hand caressed his shoulder. "I'm afraid so," she cooed. "I never knew you worked for her. Yes, she died in a new and peculiar way. Someone devised a spell that injects a sliver of heavy magic into fruit without a trace. The magic turns the sugars into a.r.s.enic, or cyanide, I forget which. It was candied dates did her in. How unfortunate. It'll throw the empire into a tizzy, everyone fretting over new methods of a.s.sa.s.sination ..."

Her pleasant voice droned on, but Candlemas didn't hear. He couldn't fathom the concept. Lady Polaris, once the most beautiful woman in the empire, and perhaps the most powerful-she'd bailed him and Sunbright out of h.e.l.l with two fingers-dead, snuffed out, fit only for worms. It didn't seem possible.

And Candlemas was partly responsible. The "splinter of heavy magic poison" idea came from Karsus's new experimentation with super heavy magic, which in a way, Candlemas enabled by uncovering the fallen star. Of course he wasn't totally responsible, perhaps not at all. He was a victim of the new magic as much as she.

But he felt sorry and unhappy, though he'd never have believed it... and worried, and fretful. The empire, this war, Karsus's mad manipulations that brought certain disaster, it had to stop. Or else Candlemas had to leave it behind.

Sunbright was right, he realized suddenly. He, they, should return to their own time. It was the only sensible choice. There was no place for him here, no future, not with the empire hurling itself to destruction. He owned nothing, owed nothing, had nothing to hold him.

Except Aquesita.

Sensing his unease, the woman leaned close, her soft bosom pressing his arm, sending a tingle through him. "Dear?" she almost whispered. "Is something wrong? Shall I stop the carriage, or take you to a healer?"

"No, no, I'm fine. Better, anyway."

He sat up straight, though the weight of the world seemed to press his shoulders.

"Aquesita, do you ... would you ... is there . .."

Patiently she waited, eyebrows arched, red mouth parted invitingly. Her eyes sparkled, and for a moment Candlemas imagined she thought he was asking to marry her. That couldn't be, could it?

"Yes, dear?" she waited.

But Candlemas didn't know what to say, so only enfolded her tightly, and hung on to her softness, inhaled the perfume of her hair, and wept like a lost child.

She patted his back, murmuring, "There, there, love. It's all right..."

Knucklebones was s.n.a.t.c.hed off her feet by a bronzed hand and plunked in a crotch of the fallen oak. Sunbright's speed made her dizzy, and he moved faster all the time.

A flash lit the night as moonlight, starlight, and firelight all reflected off the blade of Harvester of Blood. The wide, nose heavy, hooked blade had never burned brighter, the steel polished to a fine l.u.s.ter, the whole glowing with the eerie green-tinged nature magic Sunbright had embraced. Like a winter moon descended from the sky, like white fire, the blade swept after the encroaching snake skeleton. One smash sent brittle bone fragments sailing in all directions so they rained like pointed hail. The blade flashed again, and the floating balloon things were punctured, sheared through. Red smears on the blade were quickly wicked off, leaving only a whiff of marsh gas and stingers that flopped to the ground and writhed like lizard tails.

Wulgreth was hollering, screaming, ranting. Knucklebones didn't know if he shouted encouragement, orders, or just noise. He thrashed against the fallen oak, furiously splintering branches in his craggy hands, climbing, pointing, and shrieking at the same time. The small thief clutched her elven blade close and waited for an opportunity to strike, but these undead menaces were beyond her capabilities. In Karsus, she'd have run ten blocks by now. And Sunbright held the center of the battle, and nothing could get near him for his whirling blade.

The dumpy manling with mandibles plied short knives in all four hands. He slashed the air and keened like a seagull, distracting Sunbright until others could strike. The shadeling slithered under the tree to circle behind, and the amputee zombie dragged itself up close to strike with a rusty cleaver it wore on a thong down its back. Sunbright watched them all, still calm, but singing the battle anthem of his people.

As she watched and waited, stunned, Knucklebones felt a thrill in her breast, an admiration for this man who possessed not only strength and intelligence, but gentleness and the will to win, to learn, to delve into magic and make it his own. Too, she felt a sudden and surprising yearning to hold him close, a rush that made her belly tingle. Mighty queer feelings for a disastrous battle in a darksome, haunted forest.

The attack coalesced when the knitting yarn tangle of arms and tentacles dropped from a tree onto Sunbright's head. Immediately limbs began to wrap around his eyes and mouth, to blind and smother him while the other fiends rushed in for the kill.

But Sunbright took it all in stride. Still watching his enemies, he squirmed his left hand up along his neck and cheek, halting the tangled thing's cruel embrace. Biting through a ropy arm, then wrenching, he ripped the thing off his head. His skin was torn and rasped, for the tentacles were as abrasive as a squid's. Sunbright wore a mask of his own blood, but as the thing coiled around his bicep, he smashed down hard to grind it against his ribs, crus.h.i.+ng it in his armpit.

The four-armed manling scissored pipe stem arms wide, slid them between Sunbright's legs, and sliced to hamstring and cripple him. But the barbarian snapped his free hand on the juncture of two of the manling's arms, flicked his wrist, and broke both arms so they dangled and flapped uselessly.

The cleaver-wielding zombie scuttled like a crippled crab to hack at Sunbright's backside and spine, and here Knucklebones got her chance. Hopping up and skipping along a branch, she might get behind the thing and yet be out of reach of Sunbright's long, flas.h.i.+ng sword, or so she hoped.

Crouching, she latched onto the zombie's tattered robe to jerk it backward and pierce its throat.

The rotten cloth only tore in her grip. Grunting, the zombie spun faster than she would have imagined and the pitted, nicked cleaver came at her. The undead thing grunted, and Knucklebones saw with horror that its tongue was missing, cut out long ago. Up close the fiend was unspeakably repulsive. It stank of the grave and had only patches of skin to cover its yellowed skull, yet a deadly unlife glittered like moths in its eye sockets. Knucklebones wanted to shriek, but that would only get her killed, so she put her energy into striking instead. A short stab with her dagger, and the blade sank to the hilt in the zombie's neck. With a lurch and wrench, she jerked the blade toward herself and down to sever windpipe and vein. The blade tore free, the dead skin tearing like old, gray leather.

The hideous wound did exactly nothing to the zombie, despite the fact that its head was half severed. The glittering moth eyes only bored deeper into Knucklebones as the cleaver whipped at her head. Still crouched, she stumbled backward, hooked her swollen foot on a branch, and fell. That left her legs exposed to the zombie's chop. She'd be as legless as it was in a second.

Sunbright still had the tangle ball pinned in his armpit, for he hadn't the necessary second to rip it loose. The thing's arms and tentacles slapped, rasped, and sucked frantically at his arm and side and neck and thighs. The bitten off limb flailed, spraying black blood like octopus ink, and the limbs seemed to be growing, thinning and elongating. Two sucker-covered limbs wrapped around the barbarian's knee and yanked upward to trip him. Sunbright ground his arm tighter against his ribs, making the thing squirm, and tried to ignore it. The dumpy manling with two broken arms was hot for revenge.

All this took place by the eerie light of the barbarian himself, for the green-white glow still surrounded him. Too, in the east and high up, dawn sent rose-yellow tendrils of light onto a low overcast slit as if with a knife.

Knucklebones glimpsed all this as she flopped. The zombie made to chop at her leg, but she whipped it free before the cleaver struck. It cleft instead the branch she'd tripped on, the dull steel chipping through bark to white wood. Its stinking evil had first terrified Knucklebones, but now infuriated her. This zombie had been a b.a.s.t.a.r.d in life, too, she would bet. Scrambling on her b.u.t.t and hands like a crab, she kicked hard at its brow, avoiding the mouth of broken teeth. The st.u.r.dy blow rocked the thing, but it didn't tumble. It was heavier than she'd guessed, as if the flesh had taken on the denseness of its tomb. Another quick kick glanced off its skull, shearing away rotten flesh and exposing fresh bone. For a moment, Knucklebones thought she'd vomit. Instead, she crabbed away from it.

Sunbright grappled with the yarn ball that flapped and flailed like a mad octopus. s.n.a.t.c.hing another limb with his free hand, he put it to his mouth and bit through that also. He spat, lips black with blood. The dumpy manling chittered at him with a high, rabbitlike keen. Sunbright had no desire to kill it, for it was obviously under the thrall of Wulgreth. But the yarn ball was becoming a problem, raking his skin raw where it touched. Sunbright feinted at the manling, a quick jab to make it fall back.

The manling did scuttle back, cradling its broken arms across its chest. With two good arms it slashed the air viciously, but long as those pipe stem limbs were, they couldn't reach past Harvester without taking damage. Another swipe of the glowing blade made it hop back on short, stumpy legs and bare feet.

That step landed it on the stingers severed from the gas bags.

The manling yelped as if it had stepped on hot coals, then yelped again as the barbed stingers jammed into its dirty yellow feet. Screeching, it caught the saw-toothed barbs and ripped so blood flowed. But now its tiny, skinny hand was poisoned.

Sunbright grabbed another handful of arms and tentacles and branches to bite again, but the yarn ball creature was learning, and its pseudopods coiled around his hand like a bullwhip. When the tentacles retracted the barbarian's arm was jerked back tight to his own shoulder, and more coils trussed him. So it was stalemate, Sunbright thought. He had the thing pinned, and it had him half trussed. Cursing, he whirled to see how Knucklebones fared, and where Wulgreth had gotten to.

The upshot was not good. As Knucklebones scrambled to her feet, knife in hand, and backed from the truncated zombie, Wulgreth clambered over the trunk to s.n.a.t.c.h her from the rear. She'd be a hostage, Sunbright saw. He made to shout a warning, but a coil slapped around his mouth from chin to cheek, tightening too fast for him to bite. He cast a quick glance to his left, saw the four-armed manling had toppled, screeching and rubbing its feet with dirt. No enemies behind. But hadn't there been- The shadeling struck.

All this time the smoky being had skulked close and low, biding its time. Now it leaped, like a shadow cast by a candle on a wall, and landed on Sunbright's back.

The barbarian caught the flicker of it, but at first felt nothing. It had no weight, no substance.

He felt the attack in his mind.

Suddenly his head seemed empty and echoing. His thoughts were a jumble, spinning as if a tornado had infiltrated his skull. The shadeling sifted his thoughts so it could know him, intimately, down to the last squib of his life. Because-he saw the threat now-it intended to suck his mind dry, take his place, and kill him.

To Knucklebones it looked as if Sunbright had grown another head, one rasped and b.l.o.o.d.y, one clean and fresh. Behind him clung something like a shadow, initially black and dim, but now taking on color and thickness and a life of its own. The thin ma.s.s adhered to the barbarian's back, and yet was separating from him, so that behind his bright blond horsetail, another head and neck and set of shoulders took form. The eyes of this shadow mimic were not Sunbright's, but hard and glaring and cruel, single-minded of purpose, dedicated to death. The barbarian struggled with the yarn ball even as the shadow being gained strength. The thief could have wailed. How to defeat an insidious foe like that, especially when she had her own stump zombie to fight?

Knucklebones watched as the zombie scuttled after her. Her knife couldn't hurt it, so she needed something else. Sunbright would say to use whatever was handy. She jumped and pounced on the branch chopped by the cleaver. Wrenching it loose, she circled back to the tree trunk. The branch was long and leafy as a giant broom, and thrusting it into the brute's face fl.u.s.tered it. If she reversed it quickly, perhaps she could slam the point through its chest. A stake through the heart killed vampires, legends said....

A strong, cold pair of hands clamped around her throat and lifted her, throttling, into the air.

Knucklebones kicked, clawed at the hands, and raked her elven blade across the cables in the back of both hands. The razor sharp knife creased the skin but would not cut, as if she sawed on hardwood.