Alex Irvine - The seal of Karga Kul

In the moment when it was extended, its sword too far out and its cut throat fountaining blood onto the forest floor, Remy struck off its head. He turned and headed for the river’s edge, where the rest of the group were standing knee-deep and boarding the boat. Lucan’s arrows helped to hold the death knights back, but some of them waded straight in, and Remy could see another emerging from the water below the tree. “Lucan!” he shouted, pointing-but too late. It severed the boat’s mooring rope before three arrows punched down into it. Looking up, the death knight drew a throwing knife. A fourth arrow appeared to sprout from its armor, a perfect shot just to the left of the breastbone.

Its life force draining away, the death knight raised both hands and clapped them together. As it sank beneath the surface, the tree, and Lucan in it, burst into unholy flames.

Lucan screamed and leaped from the branch into the water, trailing the awful radiance of the unholy flames behind him. The tree burned as if it had been dead and seasoning for two winters, flames roaring up from it to cast flickering shadows on the combat at the shore. “Lucan’s in the water!” Remy shouted. Over the roar of the burning tree, no one could hear him. He dropped his sword, got a running start past the leaning trunk, and dived out over the boat into the black water beyond.

It was cold and his armor was heavy, dragging him down so fast that he could see the bottom, dimly illuminated by the burning tree. Lucan was close enough to touch; the unholy flames were still dying on his body and his eyes were wide with shock. Remy caught him and kicked hard for the surface, pitting his strength against the weight of the armor. It was a struggle he would only win for a few seconds. The hull of the boat above was a leaf-shaped blackness against the infernal orange of the flames. Remy reached, and kicked, and did not know he had thrust one arm out of the water until strong hands grabbed it and pulled him the rest of the way up. “Remy!” Keverel cried. He held Remy’s arm while Obek and Paelias pulled Lucan into the boat.

“Row!” Vokoun ordered. The boat was drifting, far enough out into the water that the death knights could not reach it-or reach up to it from the riverbottom. Remy could see seven of them still, grouped on the shore watching the boat.

Keverel began ministering to Lucan as Obek helped Remy out of the water. “Brave stuff there,” the tiefling said.

“And stupid. Who jumps into water wearing a mail shirt and boots?” Vokoun shook his head. “Now that might be a story worth telling. If we live to tell any stories at all.”

Two of the halflings were dead, and the necrotic magic of the death knights’ weapons was working in every wound. Remy could see the flesh beginning to die even around the small nick across the back of his knuckles. Most of the others, cut much more deeply, were groaning and sick with the death rot. “Lucan’s going to die soonest,” Keverel said. “I have to see to him first. Anyone with a healing draught, what are you saving it for?”

Remy had one and gave it to Obek, who was wounded deeply in the side. There were three others for Paelias, Biri-Daar, and Keverel, whose head wound had exposed the bone of his skull just above the ear. The two remaining oarsmen were struggling against the current, which quickened as the river grew narrower and poured through a chute into another spot of flat water between sheer stone walls. “I need more oars,” Vokoun said. Remy sat down at one of the benches and picked up an oar. Obek took another. Paelias joined Keverel at the prostrate Lucan, who was muttering and gasping in a burn fugue.

“If he catches a chill, he’ll die,” Obek said. “Elf or not.”

One of the halfling oarsmen shrugged and said, “One less elf.”

Remy looked at him. “You don’t like elves?”

“He doesn’t have to like elves,” Obek said.

“I don’t have to like him.”

“Oarsmen!” Vokoun called out. “Shut up and row!”

“Whatever you want to call him,” the halfling said, “if he catches a chill he’s going to die.”

Keverel knew that too, and kept Lucan under two heavy blankets while he brought all of the power of his healing arts to bear. Lucan’s hair was mostly gone, his hands and face were badly burned and his chest and stomach were scorched where metal buckles had touched his skin as his clothing burned. Lucan shivered and muttered under the blankets, and Keverel muttered Erathian prayers and blessings back. Eventually Lucan subsided into an uneasy sleep. “Will he live?” Biri-Daar asked.

“I think so,” Keverel said. “I’ll keep doing everything I can.” The cleric looked exhausted. Yet he went from person to person on the boat, making sure that the necrotic effects of the death knights’ blades were arrested and that natural healing could begin. He spent extra time with Obek, who had been hurt more seriously than anyone knew. When he had made a round of the boat, Biri-Daar commanded him to get some rest. Keverel was asleep almost at once.

The banks of the river were lower around them, hilly and dark under the light of a gibbous moon that picked out occasional brighter rock features. “We shouldn’t tie up again,” Biri-Daar said. “In this wilderness, the only thing we’re likely to see is more of Philomen’s minions.”

Remy watched the banks slide by, his oar across his knees, waiting for Vokoun’s next order. Lucan would live, probably. And Remy had saved him from the two death knights, who would surely have killed him in the tree. I put an end to Gouvou as well, Remy thought. He was proud of himself even though he knew that he had done only what was expected of a warrior. He was proving himself worthy. Biri-Daar would accept him.

Another thought occurred to him. What need had he of Biri-Daar’s acceptance? She had saved his life, yes, but he had long since repaid that obligation, and was now with them of his own free will. He had the chisel, and his personal errand was to make sure that it was never used… and also to make sure that Philomen received the death he had earned.

“Do you think the devil you saw in Sigil marked you out to carry the chisel?” Obek asked quietly.

Remy thought about it. “Perhaps. How would I know?”

His brief sojourn in the Crossroads of the Planes had happened shortly before Remy had come to the vizier’s attention. That much was true. Whether one thing had caused the other… that was a question Remy could not answer.

“What else might devils have marked you for, Remy?” Obek was looking at the water, but Remy could tell he was tense and alert.

“It makes no difference,” Remy said. “I am done being marked out for anything. I make my own marks now.”

“I hope so,” Obek said.

Paelias came back to sit with them. “Lo, star elf,” one of the halflings said. “Your friend here is marked out by devils. Strange company.”

Obek turned and stared at the halfling until he looked away. When he turned back, Paelias said, “Biri-Daar doesn’t think it’s safe to tie up anywhere.”

“Didn’t Vokoun say something about rapids?” Remy asked.

“I did. There are rapids. If we cannot tie up, then we will have to run the rapids at night,” Vokoun said. Remy looked up to see the halfling pilot looking right at him, amused at Remy’s surprise. “You do know I can hear anything anyone says on this boat? No matter how quiet. On my boat, all words come to me.”

“Can we run the rapids at night?” Biri-Daar asked.

“Only if we don’t mind drowning or being dashed to death on the rocks,” Vokoun said. “If we want to live, we should find some place to haul the rafts out and walk them around. There are portages in this canyon.” He listened and Remy grew conscious of an approaching roar. “Hear that? It’s tricky in the daylight. At night? Madness.”