James Ward: The Paladins

"Idiot," Trandon muttered to himself. "The slightest slip and those monsters'll break free of their bond, and he'll be the first thing they kill."

Down a side street, he found a zombie limping along on the stump of its ankle, carrying its own foot. Trandon reached into a pouch that lay between his chest and his leather breastplate and drew forth a prickly pair of burrs. He let the zombie walk past him, then caught its broken limb and whispered a few words while pressing the burrs against the ragged end of the leg. Quickly he snatched the foot away from the creature and pressed it against the stump, uttering a last syllable. With a flash of reddish light, the foot adhered to the leg. Trandon released the zombie and watched it walk away, only slightly more graceful.

Trandon carefully looked from side to side, spying for onlookers-most especially other members of his party. It would be supremely difficult to resist using magic during this mission, but no one must know he was a wizard. He must maintain his cover at all costs.

Satisfied that no one had seen him, he stood up and made his way back to the boat.

Jacob skulked along the pier. It would be easy to find a zombie loading or unloading a ship somewhere nearby. He was in a hurry to finish the unpleasant business and get back to the boat, yet he couldn't help but exalt in the thrill of the adventure. There was nothing more exciting than questing for the glory of Tyr.

Several ships down, Jacob found what he had been looking for. Three wide gangplanks stretched from the dock to a barge, and a crew of zombies, alone and in pairs, offloaded wooden crates of various size. The lowly undead moved mechanically up and down from the cargo hold, hauling heavy boxes across the planks to deposit them on the dock. Apparently their handlers had set them to work and then wandered into a dive tavern across the way, for nothing sentient monitored their progress.

Jacob charged up the gangplank and crossed the deck, checking to each side for live crewmen. He bounded down the hole in the ship's main deck, into the cargo hold, and paused while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. No one had left a lantern, as the zombies needed no light. After a few moments, he made out a pair of walking dead close by, lifting a crate together. Jacob pushed one of them aside, tripping it over his foot. It tumbled to the ground and he stamped on its neck, crushing the bones with his boot. The zombie shuddered under his weight and fell still.

"Here, allow me to help," he whispered in a cracked voice.

Along with the other monster, the man lifted the crate. He squinted through the darkness, across the crate's upper side, at the decayed face of his co-worker, which stared back at him without recognition. Pity filled his heart, and Jacob thought that if he were a paladin, he could put this poor creature and all of its fellows to rest. Perhaps, when this quest was completed, he would receive an invitation from the Knights of Holy Judgment, or better yet, the Knights of the Holy Sword! That latter group of Tyr's paladins wielded blades, just like him. He and the zombie began to move together, toward the steps, but the undead sailor came to a stop at the base, and wouldn't begin its climb.

"Come on!" urged Jacob. "It's time for me to go!"

At that moment, he realized he was not alone among the dead.

With a jerk, he twisted his head to the right and peered into the deep darkness, where seven decrepit zombies rippled and transformed into gray-skinned humanoids-dopplegangers! Jacob opened his mouth to shout, at the same time releasing his side of the box so he could reach for his sword. The closest doppleganger shoved its hand into his mouth, cutting off his air. The others tackled him, dragging him to the floor. Their hands reformed into spike-lined stocks that screwed themselves into the deck, attempting to pin the fighter down. The first assailant's hand liquefied in Jacob's mouth and oozed down his throat. He seized that one and began to tug at its arm, gagging against the intrusion. If he could only roll on top of them, he might be able to reach his sword…

"I ran into a bit of trouble," Jacob admitted when he joined the party, back at the boat. "But no one noticed and I handled it quickly."

"How did you help your zombie?" Kern lightly asked Aleena as they cast off and headed back into the bay.

"I opened a door for one."

"That's good enough?"

"That was good enough for me."

"These creatures understand law," observed Miltiades, "but they know nothing of its spirit."

They rowed to the mouth of the cave that led upstream along the Sargauth, and as the grand cavern of Skullport curved down to meet them, the skulls once against boiled up from the deep. "Hast thou performed thy service as commanded?" they whispered. "We shall know if thou lie'st."

"Oh, we helped them, all right," answered Kern.

Aleena seized his arm and squeezed hard, silencing him. "We have done as thou ordered, Watchers," she declared solemnly.

Silence closed over them. The gentle lapping of water against the boat filled the air. Then pass," whispered the voices, and the skull sank into the depths once more.

The paladins dug in deep with paddles and began to force their way against the Sargauth's deep, slow current. Behind, the dim light of Skullport faded completely, as Aleena pulled a magically lit beacon from her pack and placed it at the bow.

"Don't they even want to know what we did for their precious zombies?" asked Kern, looking back.

"No!" snapped the wizardess, "and neither do I!"

Somewhere deep in the void beyond, a crazed voice erupted into fits of laughter. The hilarity escalated to hysterics and then faded away.

"Who was that, Aleena?" asked Noph, unnerved.

"Halaster, the mad mage. This is his territory." She sighed dejectedly. "I really hate Undermountain."

Interlude 3

Don't worry about your debts if you've got friends, because a friend in need deserves what he gets!

"This is it!" thought Shaakat to his fiendish accomplice. "This is the gate! The scent of its magic is the same as the gate in the city of the bloodforge."

The vrocks stood at the base of a short, pyramid-shaped platform, upon which two massive ivory tusks of some prime creature sprouted and curved together, forming an arch. The uprights were deeply grooved along their lengths and inlaid with some magical metal shimmering and changing color like liquid chaos.

"Thank hideous Juiblex!" spat Rejik as he squatted down to rest upon the lowest of the glossy, crimson stone steps leading up to the gate. "This cage is a horrible death trap! I don't think we even scratched the surface of this-this Undermountain, but we've already killed a slithermorph, six ibrandlin, those two illithids with the nasty staves, a score of undead, three groups of heavily armed primes, and a sodding herd of beholders, not to mention those ill-tempered reflections of us, that came out of that mirror back there!"

"Yes, we must develop a place like this on the Abyss," agreed Shaakat.

"Let's go home and tell General Raachaak we've found the way into the city of the bloodforge!"

"Or-perhaps we should take the bloodforge for our own," returned Shaakat.

Rejik's beady eyes narrowed. "You would suffer Mor-baat's fate, addle-cove?"

"Raachaak isn't here, stinkfeathers. Besides, if we capture the bloodforge, we can destroy him and ascend."

"We?" sneered Rejik.

"We… for now," growled Shaakat.

Rejik squinted up at the gate and clicked his beak pensively. "If we fail, we'll be turned into lowly larvae and left for the chasme on the Plane of Infinite Portals."

"We are true tanar'ri!" howled Shaakat. "Or I am, at least! You disgust me, baatezu's bastard!"

Rejik stood up and thrust his narrow face toward the other fiend. Tm tired from all the killing, today, but I still have the energy to throttle you, berk. But go! Go through the gate and see if you can find the bloodforge before I return to General Raachaak and make my report. We'll see who ascends and who wriggles under a chasme's stinger."