Richard Byers - Prophet of the Dead

Then, praying he wouldn’t slam into a wall or trip over something, he ran at the spot where, he believed, the entrance to the side passage containing his torch ought to be. He seemed to take too many strides and had nearly decided he’d somehow gone wrong when he plunged through Dai Shan’s conjured curtain of shadow. Although the wavering amber light was guttering, the brand was still burning.

All right. Grab it and … then what?

Vandar thought he had two advantages that might, if the spirits favored him, allow him to make it back to the Fortress of the Half-Demon alive. He was a fast runner and, after days of exploration, knew this part of the maze well. But he’d never shake pursuers off his tail if he carried a light to draw them after him.

Yet if he couldn’t see, his plight would be even more hopeless. With a curse and a pang of bitterness not far short of despair, he stooped and reached for the torch. But just before he could grasp it, his awareness fixed on the sword he carried in his other hand.

The fey weapons never spoke to him with language. But from time to time, they communicated in their own fashion, and now, prompted, he realized, by the blade, he remembered how they’d sometimes sensed things he didn’t and shared that awareness with him.

The sword conveyed that it could do so again, only in a more constant and detailed way. It could serve as his eyes in the darkness if he permitted it.

Yes, he thought, I permit it, and the grotesque stonework of the maze flowed into view around him.

And as his bond with the red sword deepened, new thoughts sprang into his head. Now that he could see, he didn’t even need to flee. He could go back, slaughter the filthy things that were coming after him, and win the greatest victory of his or any Rashemi’s life. The desire to do so was entirely consonant with the swaggering pride and contempt for danger that defined being a berserker.

But did they really? Vandar remembered wise old Raumevik urging him not to throw his life away when he still had his lodge brothers to avenge. He remembered too, how the need to be deemed a great warrior worthy of the wild griffons had led him to ignore Cera’s cries.

Curse it, no! he thought. I’m not going to go berserk, fight a fight I can’t win, and die for nothing! I’m the master of my rage and, sword, the master of you too!

A feeling of insistence inside his head abated. He felt free to run if that was what he truly wanted. But plainly, he couldn’t leave a weapon as precious as the spear behind. He turned and started back toward Jergal.

Then he heard the telltale clinking of armor as the creatures wearing it trotted forward. The rest of the undead were now so close that he likely couldn’t go back for the spear without coming face-to-face with them.

Still, without consciously willing it, he advanced another step.

I’ll drop you, he silently promised the sword. I’ll take my chances with the torch, and nobody will ever use you to fight anything ever again. You’ll lie here alone in the dark forever!

His mind truly cleared, or at least he thought so. He had a sense of the sword yielding like a stubborn and misbehaving dog finally cowering in the face of its master’s anger.

Hoping the blade hadn’t taken too long to capitulate, Vandar whirled and ran.

By thought alone, Aoth released the power pent in one of his tattoos, and as a result, he fell slowly, meanwhile rattling off an incantation.

Many of the Raumathari automatons were still either frozen or doing pointless things such as rolling over and over or trying to walk through walls, although probably not for much longer. And the majority of the constructs and undead that did constitute potential threats were too busy assailing their chosen targets on the ledges to notice Aoth drifting toward the floor. Still, three shriveled spearmen with foxfire eyes and flaking skin rushed at him, and a phantom in the form of crucified little girl floated in their wake. The cross and nails were absent, but the apparition had holes in her outstretched hands and crossed feet, and although her translucent face was a mask of uncomprehending anguish, her giggling echoed in Aoth’s head.

Until, just as his boots touched the floor, he finished his incantation and jabbed with his spear. Then spinning blades of blue light whirled into being to chop the zombies into chunks of rot and bone and her into wisps of phosphorescence.

Weaving his way past a frozen iron boar with textured bristles, a bronze squidlike thing with twitching tentacles, and even a gaudily painted wooden jester slumped like a marionette with cut strings, Aoth headed for Pearl-eye. Then he glimpsed motion at the periphery of his vision.

He spun to find a pair of shadows lunging at him straight through the body of an oversized bronze jackal. He met one with a thrust of his spear and positioned his targe to block the other’s outstretched hands.

The spear pierced the first, and it dissolved. The other splashed into shapelessness against the shield, its insubstantial form held back not by the steel but by the enchantments bound inside it.

At once, the apparition sent a dozen wispy lengths of itself curling around the rim of the targe like jellyfish tendrils. One brushed Aoth’s elbow, and a jolt of cold pain sent the muscles on either side into spasms.

He charged the point of his spear with chaotic power and simply slapped it against the shadow’s back. The undead vanished, and metal clanked when the weapon struck the shield.

He pushed on and came up behind a vampire wizard casting fire at some of the Old Ones. He killed the new blood drinker as he had the previous one, only by surprise, and as conjured daylight ate the undead from within, Aoth saw that the thing’s wand looked a lot like Pearl-eye’s. He grabbed the implement, tossed it up at the nearest ledge, and kept moving without waiting to see if any of the Rashemi caught it.

A metal manticore abruptly lurched into motion, and Aoth aimed his spear at it. But, maybe still not entirely free of the waning effect of the Old Ones’ snares, the leonine, bat-winged automaton simply paced across his path without seeming to perceive him.

When it moved on by, however, with its spike-tipped tail curled up off the floor, it became clear that at some point, Pearl-eye had become aware that Aoth was stalking her. At the moment when the manticore’s progress had hidden her from view, she’d appeared intent on reactivating golems and striking at the men on the ledges, but now the wand in her gray, outstretched hand pointed at him, and pale light seethed at the tip.

He dodged right, the same direction the manticore was going, and then a serpent made of sizzling lightning leaped from the end of the wand. Its strike missed, but not by much, and in the instant before it blinked out of existence, its mere proximity made his muscles burn and clench.

Fortunately, the restorative power of a tattoo quelled the pain, and then, once again, he had the manticore between him and the ghoul. Now what? It had to be a move she wasn’t expecting to offer any hope of ending the duel quickly.

Still moving with the manticore, using it for cover, he discarded his shield so he’d have at least one hand free. Then he ran at the golem, jumped, and tried to scramble over its hindquarters.

The automaton’s back stood as tall as he was. The surface was rounded and smooth, and just as he was clambering up, the razor-edged wings gave a clattering flap. He had to snatch his head sideways to keep one wing from slicing his face to the bone.

Then he had his balance, his feet under him, and he could tell Pearl-eye hadn’t spotted him. She was watching for him to reappear at one end of the manticore or the other, not over the top of it.