Jean Rabe - The Silver Stair

The gnoll's feet pounded across the ground behind Gair, as he swung the sword again and again, slicing through Camilla's cloak and biting into Gair's back. The elf cried out just as Darkhunter's fingers grabbed him and pulled him aloft. Orvago crouched and leapt, the magical blade swinging in a wide arc that sliced off a piece of the wraith.

Darkhunter's eyes burned hotly red as he pulled Gair higher and out of sight.

Goldmoon was in the midst of the settlers gathered at the base of the Silver Stair. Iryl and Skydancer were keeping everyone close. Dozens of voices were asking what was going on, was that really Gair, what are the black creatures?

She ignored their questions and edged through the press of bodies, finally reaching the stair and starting up it. The cold wind unmercifully teased her face and hands as she climbed. Below her, she heard Iryl.

"I don't understand. What's Goldmoon doing?" the elf asked.

"Perhaps she is trying to survey the battle," the Que-Nal chieftain replied, "a battle I must join, Iryl Songbrook, now that you and the others are safely away."

The elf protested, but clearly lost. Skydancer selected a few of his strongest warriors and separated them from the crowd. The Que-Nal hoisted their spears and ran toward the construction site.

The aging healer thrust the voices to the back of her mind and continued up. She was practically crawling, using her hands to help support her. She was tired from her efforts healing the injured and from trying to push Gair out of her thoughts.

But that will never happen, she heard inside her head. You and I are linked. Now-and when you die.

Goldmoon climbed higher, feeling cracks in the steps beneath her fingers where Gair had pulled energy from the mystical site. More than three dozen feet above the earth, she gingerly sat, wrapping her fingers around the edge of a step. "May Mishakal, wherever she is, forgive me," the healer breathed.

She concentrated on the feel of the energy pulsing against the palms of her hands and tickling her fingers. She urged it to flow into her, just as if she were injured and were receiving the mystical strength of a healer. She had done something similar before, by accident, pulling energy from the enchanted medallion about her neck to assist in powering a spell to save a dying man. She had not repeated the incident, fearful that stealing energy might destroy her precious medallion, a symbol of her goddess Mishakal.

"It can't be helped," she said to herself, as she felt the energy of the Silver Stair flow up her arms and down her chest, centering on her heart, which was at the same time nurturing the mystical spark she used to heal others.

The stair did not crack beneath her fingers.

What are you doing? Gair was inside her head.

She did not bother to answer, only concentrated harder on the energy. She felt invigorated almost instantly, her fatigue a memory and her heart beating so strongly. The stair remained strong, too, and the healer sensed she was not harming it, since her intentions were pure.

I had intended to fight Camilla and her knights first. But you're forcing my hand, Goldmoon.

The energy chased away all traces of the winter cold, making her feel almost feverish. She focused on the heat and on Gair, focused on shutting off the link that they somehow shared.

Goldmoon, no!

Then his voice was gone, and all she heard was the pounding of her heart. Faintly, from the base of the stairs, she heard the voices of the settlers, questions about what was transpiring, speculations about the battle the knights and soldiers and Sky dancer's Que-Nal were fighting. There was a cry of surprise in the mix, turned to a cry of terror.

"The black ghosts!" Goldmoon heard someone shout. "Run!"

Feet were pounding across the snow-packed ground, and Goldmoon knew that the people were running in terror-but not everyone. She heard the fishermen and the Solace twins. They were standing their ground. She heard the gruff voice of a dwarf-Redstone?-and she heard the throaty growl of the gnoll.

The healer pushed all these noises to the back of her mind, then directed her thoughts to her heartbeat and to the stair and to a doorway she was picturing inside her mind.

At the construction site, several wraiths feasted on the dead and dying forms of soldiers and renegade Que-Nal whom Goldmoon's followers had not been able to pull back. A handful of Solamnic knights had succumbed to the icy touch of the undead creatures. Camilla had sent several of the wraiths back to their graves in response.

Redstone left her side only when the knight ordered her to follow the black cloud that rose above the construction site and headed across the camp. Orvago was following them, too, howling and leaping, trying to slice at the whisperers.

"Willum!" Camilla cried, when she caught sight of the lieutenant out of the corner of her eye. "I was worried about you!"

There were other Solamnic knights marching out of step behind him, all of them coming from the east.

"Hurry," she cried to him. "I need your help."

It didn't initially register to the Solamnic commander that the knight's plate mail was coated with dried blood, that Willum was lacking a sword and a leg plate. She didn't notice until the knights were practically upon her that one of them held his head at a strange angle, and that he was missing a hand.

"Willum?"

The Solamnic lieutenant stared at her with sightless eyes, chest unmoving.

"Willum!" Startled and horrified, Camilla hesitated. In that instant, a wraith darted in, his icy hand reaching through her breastplate and into the flesh beneath. The undead squeezed her heart, and she screamed.

Pain coursing through her, Camilla fought to stay conscious. She swept her sword up, piercing the form of the wraith. It exploded in a burst of black rain. She clamped hard on her lower lip and swung the blade again, this time at Willum.

The enchanted sword struck the plate mail and cut through it, shattering the corpse's ribs. Willum staggered from the blow, and from a series of blows striking his legs. Jasper had moved up behind the dead knight and was pummeling him.

"Hammer doesn't work against them black things," he huffed, "but it seems to work against these." Willum fell to the dwarf's repeated strikes; then Jasper turned to face another corpse.

Camilla glanced at her fallen lieutenant and fought the tears that welled up in her eyes. She turned her attention back to the wraiths.

The black cloud that continued to float away from the construction site was dotted with bright red specks that glimmered like bits of flame-twelve pairs of eyes. There had been thirteen, but Orvago had slain one of the low-flying creatures. They floated through the tops of tents, some of which still burned, slowing the dwarf and the gnoll, who had to go around the obstacles. As the cloud neared the base of the Silver Stair, they dived on the people gathered there, scattering most of them like dry leaves tossed by the wind.

A few of the wraiths toyed with the handful of men and women defiantly remaining, feigning pain when swords and clubs passed through their insubstantial forms, but most of them glided up the staircase, circling it, heading toward Goldmoon.

Redstone shouldered Goldmoon's staff, swung back, and soundly struck a particularly large wraith just as it felled one of the Schallsea fishermen. Orvago cleaved another wraith in two as he pushed by the Solace twins and reached the bottom step of the Silver Stair.

The hair rose in a ridge from the top of Orvago's head and down his back. The steps glimmered like captured starlight. He growled softly, glanced up at Goldmoon, and took a step up when he saw the wraiths close on her. The gnoll continued to growl as he advanced, his paws shaking from fright of the magical construct.