Richard Byers - Prophet of the Dead

Aoth had no idea how big they might grow and didn’t want to find out. Nor did he care to spar with them while the ghoul sorceress stood back and cast spells at him. He set the whole length of his spear aglow with power and kept right on charging.

A scorpion the size of a dog scuttled at him, and he thrust the spear through its head. A cat-sized one arched its stinger to drive it into his leg, and he slammed the butt of his weapon down on its back and smashed it. Grown large as a donkey, pincers scissoring, a third rushed in on his flank, and triggering one of the spells stored in the spear, he blasted it apart with a flare of lightning.

He raced on toward his true foe over a glinting carpet of the scorpions that were still tiny. Then pains like stabs from red-hot needles assailed his legs, and staggering, he belatedly realized the little golems might well be more dangerous than the big ones.

A moment after the pain came a wave of dizziness and weakness. He thumped his chest, rousing a tattoo that warded him against poison. That helped him catch his balance, but now the relentless fiery jabbing was torturing his torso as well as his legs.

The ghoul snarled an incantation, pointed her wand at him, and the desperation in his mind threatened to balloon into utter panic. She threw a fear spell! he told himself, and understanding what was happening inside his head helped him cling to the ability to think.

Despite the ongoing torment, he managed to gasp out a spell of his own, and a halo of whispering yellow flame cloaked him from head to toe. It didn’t hurt him-he only felt a pleasant warmth-or his gear and clothing either. But the stabbing stopped as the blaze destroyed the tiny automatons that had been skittering under his garments like fleas.

He still hadn’t entirely shaken off the effect of the venom but knew he couldn’t let that slow him down. He rushed on toward Pearl-eye.

She still had the wand aimed, and tatters of darkness leaped from the tip to lash at him. He wrenched himself to the side, and they missed.

Then, finally, the ghoul was in reach of his spear. Still luminous with power, the weapon punched deep into her midsection.

She screeched and convulsed. He used the spear to heave her down on her back, then spoke the first of the words that would make sunlight shine from the head of the weapon to burn her guts. She was tough-otherwise, the first spear thrust would have finished her-but even so, a trick that could destroy a vampire would likely dispose of her as well.

And he wanted to. But then the war leader part of him-the part he’d trained always to deliberate and make the results of its deliberations heard no matter how the anger and fear that combat engendered distracted him-suggested that bringing her wand to Shaugar would take precious time, and then the Rashemi would need more to figure out how to use it. It might well be more time than the defenders had left.

But Pearl-eye was right here at Aoth’s feet, and she already knew how to employ the wand.

He spoke the next word of the daylight spell and sensed the magic accumulating and eager for release. The ghoul plainly felt it too, and clenched herself against the flare of agony to come.

“Do you want to go on existing?” asked Aoth.

Surprised, she peered up at him, then asked, “What do I have to do?”

“Turn all the golems inert.”

“Without them, the rest of my band will die!”

“It’s them or you. Choose. Now.”

She shuddered. With anger, he sensed, not pain or fear. “Curse you. I need to be within sight of the devices.”

“Then get up.”

“Your spear is still in my belly!”

“Where it will stay. We’ll sidle along like crabs.”

Jet watched Aoth chase down a ghoul through the midst of a larger battle and yearned to help. But he seemed to be paralyzed like many of the automatons caught in the glowing pentacles. Or perhaps he was some sort of ghost, bodiless, capable of perception but nothing more.

Ultimately, he saw with relief-albeit relief tinged with an underlying bitterness-that his master didn’t need his help. He captured the ghoul with the pearl in her eye socket and forced her to deactivate all the golems. After that, the masked men on the ledges made short work of the rest of the undead attackers, and their victorious cheers echoed through the caverns.

The shouting woke Jet, or so it seemed, woke him to the ache of his wounds and the winter sunlight shining down on the section of the wall-walk he’d chosen for his nap. Then he realized the dream had been a bit muddled but essentially true, a vision of Aoth’s recent struggle slipping across their psychic bond.

He prepared to reach out with his thoughts, make absolutely sure Aoth was all right, and ask what the war mage meant to do next. Then a shout rang up from the courtyard. This, he realized, was the noise that had actually woken him.

He peered down. Red sword in hand, Vandar was running toward the steps that ran up to his location. Something was manifestly wrong, but for another moment, Jet couldn’t tell what it was.

Then undead erupted from the doorway into the central keep. Some were loping ghouls and running skeletons. Others were entities unlike any Jet had ever seen, animate suits of half plate floating through the air. All were in pursuit of the berserker.

What had the idiot human done ? How had he managed to go looking for Jhesrhi and Cera and come back with dozens of angry phantoms and living corpses chasing after him?

Shaking off his astonishment, Jet realized that at the moment, how didn’t matter. What did matter was that there were too many foes for him and Vandar to fight by themselves, and no refuge in the ruined castle that, even if they could reach it, would keep the creatures out for long.

That left only one recourse. Straining because his injuries had made him stiff and the angle was awkward, Jet clawed and bit at his splint and the bindings holding it in place.

Dai Shan had said that despite a month of recuperation, his wing wasn’t ready. If so, would trying to use it prematurely cripple it for all time?

No, no need to worry about that , because if Jet couldn’t use it now either the undead or a second fall would kill him, and by all the winds that blew, if that happened, so be it. At least the waiting and fretting would be over!

Using his beak, he ripped away the last strip of cloth and shook his wing out. It throbbed and stank too. Pus seeped from raw spots where feathers had yet to grow back. But at least he could move it.

Panting and soaked in sweat, Vandar scrambled onto the wall-walk, whirled, and slashed the fey broadsword in a horizontal arc. The ghoul that had been about to cut him down from behind toppled off the steps and out of sight with its mold-spotted head half severed.

“Get on my back!” Jet rasped.

Vandar glanced around. “You’re sure?”

“Do you have a better plan? Move!”

The Rashemi ran to him and clambered on. Even the paltry weight of a human being produced a fresh pang of pain.

But Jet didn’t let that slow him down. He lunged at the parapet, leaped atop a crenel, and bounded on out into space.

And his outstretched pinions transformed what would otherwise have been a plummet into a level glide. He lashed them and began to climb.

Every wing beat hurt, and flight was a labored, awkward progress. But he was flying, and he rejoiced.

He wheeled and beheld a couple of the animate suits of half-plate floating after him. Uselessly. Despite his weakened condition, they weren’t flying fast enough to catch him.

Still, he wheeled, lashed his wings, and hurled himself at the closest. It attempted to swing a broadsword at him, and he caught its weapon arm in one set of talons and its helmet head in the other.