Bruce Cordell - Lady of Poison

Around noon, Marrec judged, Gunggari led them to the edge of a clearing. The Oslander held up his hand signaling everyone to stop.

All saw the lone structure. It had an unsavory quality to it, like something one might find in a cemetery.

“Is it the Talontyr’s Close?” whispered Marrec. “I thought it would be larger.”

“No, you’ll know the Close when you see it, if the Rotting Man has truly taken up his seat where the Nentyarch once ruled,” said Elowen. “A great ring of mighty trees surrounds the Close, if the Rotting Man didn’t fell them.”

Gunggari signaled again, with some annoyance. He wanted quiet. Marrec nodded to his friend. Gunggari must have noticed something. The cleric sidled up and raised an eyebrow in question.

The Oslander moved his head close to Marrec’s ear and explained, “The trail goes into that structure. Wait here; I’ll check the borders. If I am unable find an exit track, we may have caught our quarry.”

Marrec nodded. Gunggari went.

The cleric kept his eyes riveted to the structure, waiting. He told Elowen and Ususi about Gunggari’s postulate when they sidled up with questions.

Finally, the tattooed soldier returned from the opposite side of the clearing. He said, “We have them.”

“Lurue is kind,” muttered Marrec. Then, “Gunny, why don’t you slip up to the entrance first; you’re the quietest. Elowen and I will follow once you’re in place. Ususi, stay back here and provide spell support.”

“As if I’d do something different,” sniffed Ususi. She was still mad. That woman could hold a grudge with the best of them, Marrec mused.

Gunggari flitted forward, running low but quietly, his dizheri grasped in one hand, his other out for balance. Marrec stood ready to cast Justlance, but his friend made it to the wall next to the darkened entrance without stirring notice.

Next he and Elowen moved forward. He couldn’t help it; his chain mail clinked a little as he moved, but he hoped that the sound wasn’t loud enough to penetrate the building. Elowen was quieter. Both reached the entrance, spread out on the side wall opposite Gunggari, without anyone inside reacting to their approach.

All seemed quiet within, save for the subtle hum of what Marrec supposed to be forest insects.

Marrec turned his head and saw Ususi’s silhouette still back at the edge of the clearing. He saw the wizard’s head nod. He asked, “Everyone ready?”

Elowen drew her blade. Something unexpected happened then.

When the light of the sun above hit the dulled blade, the wood began to thrum, producing an earthy tone that

Marrec somehow equated to the sound of growing things. The veins on the blade, which had shrunk to near invisibility, began to pulse and swell, as if sucking the light in directly. Tiny flickers of emerald light played up and down the blade, and the intensity of the sunlight seemed stronger, more lush, around both elf and blade. The elfs eyes were wide with astonishment.

Elowen blurted out, “Oh. The Nentyarch’s blade… it wanted the sun. Look, the xylem and phloem…” The elf ceased to speak as she gazed at her scintillating blade.

Marrec tried to shush the elf, but Elowen realized her own lapse, clapping one hand over her mouth. She looked at Marrec, an apology in her eyes, but not without a matching gladness that had been absent earlier. Marrec wasn’t familiar with the strange druidic terms Elowen used, but he hoped that their quarry within hadn’t heard her wax so eloquent.

Marrec communicated his hope to Gunggari across the span of the open entrance with two raised eyebrows. The Oslander knew what the cleric’s questioning stance meant, so he cupped an ear against the building and listened.

A few moments later he disengaged, his face diffident. He pointed into the entrance and silently mouthed, “They know.”

Blast. There went the element of surprise. Instead of a raid, they’d be rushing into an ambush. Better to rethink the plan. Why not ambush them instead?

Marrec called loudly, “Hello in there. Why don’t you come out? Fallon, we know you’re here. Come out, Ash unharmed, and we may not extract the full measure of vengeance that you deserve.”

He heard a voice speaking, inside, very quietly. It sounded like a woman’s voice, but he couldn’t make out her individual words.

Then Fallon’s unmistakable baritone responded, “I don’t think so. We, uhm, I prefer it in here where it’s cooler.”

Marrec responded, “Who is this ‘we’ you speak of? Don’t try to hide it; we tracked more than just you and Ash into this ruin.”

“No one you want to meet. Leave here. We’re not coming out.”

Marrec paused, then looked back toward Ususi, who still remained at the edge of the clearing. He yelled to her, “Wizardwhy don’t you see about flushing our friends out where we can see them? Be careful, though; we don’t want to hurt Ash.”

He saw Ususi rise and step forward. She looked at him, shrugged, and shook her head no. Marrec wondered if, based on the kind of magic he’d seen her throw around in the past, she was unable to whip up a spell quite so discerning. Then the wizard raised one finger, cocking her head. Marrec read that gesture as ‘But…’

Next, she brought two fingers to her face, one to each eye, then extended her hand to point to the side of the structure where Marrec and Elowen crouched. Marrec looked to where she pointed. Solid wall.

Finally, Ususi incanted a spell. When she finished, she pointed to the wall again, a section of which ghosted into empty space. Marrec realized she had created a second entrance. Their element of surprise was back.

“Go,” he hissed to Elowen.

He and the elf rushed into the new opening. Gunggari, ever the bravest of them, dashed in through the main entrance.

It was utterly dark, except for the flickering magical light still clinging to Justlance’s tip; the glow around Dymondheart was too dim to provide light.

Two figures crouched on either side of the main entrance. One was nearly a giant, corpse-white, save for obscene tattoos crawling across his body. He was poised and ready with a great hammer. The other was a thin woman in form-fitting black armor, so tight and articulated that it looked as if it could be a second skin. An aura of tiny, biting insects surrounded her. Mosquitoes? Though not as tall as the man, Marrec somehow knew she was the more potent of the two.

Further back in the shadows stood three more figures. Ash. And that bastard traitor Fallon, holding Ash’s hand in a death grip. Near him stood a bone-slender woman in an obsidian cape. Tomes, scrolls, and wands spilled from her belt. Close cropped hair the color of dying flowers grew on her head.

Everyone in the chamber turned to look at him, caught by surprise by his and Elowen’s self-made access.

Then Gunggari charged in through the main entrance, his dizheri spinning in his hand like a mill wheel. One edge caught the big man, who hissed, falling back a pace. Marrec’s eyes caught the glint of two overly developed canines. The big man was a vampire. He prayed Gunggari could handle one vampire, while he confronted the woman in articulated armor.

Elowen raced across the intervening ground toward the purple-haired caster. Good, keep that one occupied, he silently encouraged the hunter. He and Gunggari had enough on their plates without having to worry about spells from the periphery.

The woman’s armor caught Justlance’s first thrust. She grinned.

Oh, oh, Marrec thought. Two more canines.

“They’re all vampires!” yelled Marrec.

“Great Ones preserve me,” murmured Gunggari. Marrec knew his friend hated night walkers more than anything else, a hate that bordered on fear.

The woman, still chuckling, said, “That’s the least of your worries. I am Damandathe right hand of the Rotting Man.” Marrec knew what that meantin addition to being vampiric, she was also a blightlord. This fight was going to be a lot tougher than he’d anticipated.