Troy Denning: The Sentinel

Gingrid actually cringed, then shifted her gaze back to Malik. “I meant no offense.” She dropped her eyes and said, “With your permission.”

“Very well.” Malik glanced at Arietta with an expression that was half astonishment and half reassessment, then added, “You are forgiven.”

Gingrid hesitated-perhaps offended by being offered a forgiveness she had not even requested-but she glanced back to Arietta and quickly came to the barracks doorway. Keeping a nervous eye on Kleef, she took Malik’s hand and leaned over to smell it.

She was only halfway down when she abruptly stopped. “It’s true!” She looked up at Malik, then dropped to her knee. “I–I thought I was the only one who still worshiped the Lord of Bones. But you-you have actually walked with him!”

“You could say that, yes,” Malik replied. He motioned her to her feet. “Now, let us attend to the matter at-”

“Not yet,” Kleef interrupted. His gaze was fixed on a shadowy alcove about ten paces down the corridor, where the passage took a sharp bend and started toward the crypt at the far end of the castle. “I think we’ve found what we’re looking for.”

Malik frowned. “We have?” he asked, clearly not grasping the true meaning of what Kleef was saying. “How can you know-”

“Because Kleef has Helm’s Sight, Doomlord.” Arietta addressed Malik by a title once used by Myrkul’s most feared servants. “He can often see things that elude even you.”

“Of course … Helm’s Sight,” Malik said, finally seeming to catch on. “And what is it Kleef sees?”

“The entrance, I’m sure.” As Arietta spoke, she caught Kleef’s eye, then tipped her head toward the barracks. When he nodded, she nudged Malik forward. “In there.”

Malik balked at the door. “Are you certain?” he asked, eyeing the roomful of undead. “I would hate to disturb Gingrid’s work for nothing.”

“This is the place,” Joelle said, no doubt recognizing the same advantage as had Kleef and Arietta. “Bring out the Eye. This will be quick.”

Malik sighed. “Let us hope.”

He motioned for Gingrid to lead the way, then stepped across the threshold behind her. Arietta and the others followed close on his heels, still holding the hem of his robe to protect them from the undead. As they walked, Gingrid glanced back at Arietta and the others, her brow furrowed and her gaze on the three sets of hands clinging to the hem of Malik’s robe.

“It mustn’t touch the floor by accident,” Joelle said, speaking in the hushed tone of a confidence being shared. “It’s how the doomlord spreads his decay.”

The suspicion vanished from Gingrid’s eyes, then she nodded sagely and turned back to Malik.

“Whatever your servant sees in here, it isn’t Grumbar’s Temple,” she said, leaning close. “That would be beneath Grandfather’s-”

“Perhaps you can tell us later,” Arietta interrupted, worried about the location being overheard. “At the moment, I’m sure the doomlord is more interested in showing you the Eye of Fate.”

She poked Malik in the back, prodding him to bring out the Eye as Joelle had suggested. If Kleef’s plan was to work, they needed to press the Shadovar into making their move now-before Malik managed to disaffect his new disciple.

“Yes, of course,” Malik said. “All of the Reaper’s priests must look upon the Eye of Fate.”

Malik made a great show of traveling to the center of the room, where they would be away from dark corners and surrounded by Gingrid’s hideous assistants. The stench here was even worse than in the rest of the castle, for the zombies’ flesh reeked of fresh decay and the ghouls’ breath stank from meals better left unimagined, but the creatures remained oblivious to the companions’ presence-even when Kleef had to shoulder a zombie aside to make room for them all.

Malik reached into his robe and withdrew the Eye of Gruumsh. Arietta felt a shiver of revulsion as its savage hunger filled the room, but Gingrid gasped in awe and seemed unable to look away from its pulsing veins.

“It’s beautiful … and terrifying.” She stepped so close her torso was almost pressed to the thing, then raised her hands as though to grasp it by its sides. “What happens if I touch it?”

Her response came in the form of Kleef yelling, “Move!”

Arietta felt his arm slam into her back, pushing the entire group down onto the floor.

“Shades!”

They landed as a group, then Arietta heard the cold sizzle of shadow balls descending from all sides of the room. She rolled onto her back and saw a volley of the dark spheres converging on the spot where the group had just been standing, ripping holes through ghouls and zombies alike. Several of the orbs missed and simply drilled down through the stone floor deep into the dirt beneath.

Behind the orbs came the shades, a half-dozen warriors dropping down from the gloomy corners of the room. Joelle felled one instantly, hitting him with a trio of magic darts that lodged themselves in a neat line from the pit of his throat to the center of his brow. The wallbound killed a second warrior, catching him in a tangle of stone arms and pulling him back to die a screaming death beneath their gnashing teeth.

The other four landed intact, scattering bones and skulls in every direction as they drew their glossy swords and charged toward the center of the room.

Kleef was already on his feet, dodging ghouls and shouldering zombies aside as he rushed to meet Yder. Arietta rolled to a knee, drawing her own sword-and using the flat of the blade to slap aside the lashing claw of a nearby ghoul.

“Malik, not us!” she cried. “Turn them on the shades!”

Joelle came up beside her, simultaneously kicking a zombie back and sending a fresh trio of darts flying toward a charging shade. This time, the warrior was prepared to counter, raising a shield of shadowstuff to absorb the first two darts, then simply twisting away from the third … straight into the claws of a hungry ghoul.

The shade went rigid as the first claw raked across his neck, then stood wide-eyed and helpless as the ghoul’s poison did its work. The thing opened its mouth and twisted its head around to bite at the warrior’s throat, and Arietta turned her attention to more immediate threats.

Buoyed by his resurrected faith-and the spark of divine magic he now carried as one of Helm’s Chosen-Kleef had Yder well in hand. He whirled Watcher through a dizzying blur of attacks, driving the prince toward a tangle of wallbound at the far end of the barracks. The shade was counterattacking with everything he had, dodging in close to slash at Kleef’s legs, flinging shadow tentacles high and low, spinning into head-high power chops, hurling disks of shadowstuff left and right.

Each time, Kleef was ready. When Yder slashed low, Kleef pivoted and opened a slash across the Shadovar’s shoulder. When Yder hurled his shadow magic, Kleef leaped in to attack, dodging and deflecting as he drove the prince back. When Yder tried to spin away, Kleef lashed out with a snap kick and cut off his escape.

Finding no immediate threats on that side of the group, Arietta turned to find a trio of ghouls watching her from a bone pile two paces away, their yellow eyes locked on her throat. Unsure of their intentions, she put the point of her sword between her and the middle one’s eyes.

“Malik,” she said, glancing over. “About those undead …”

It was Gingrid who called them off. “Not her,” she said. “The dark ones.”

The ghouls lingered long enough for the middle one to bare its fangs at her, then all three bounded off to join the mass of undead swarming the last of the shades. Arietta breathed a sigh of relief, then joined Joelle next to Malik and Gingrid.