“What’s the matter?” he asked after a moment. Brey was still shaking a little.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “There’s something about this room. I feel good being here. Too good. Does that make any sense?”
“Like when you’ve just … eaten?” With a worried expression, Brey nodded.
“It’s probably negative energy,” he said. “If this chapel’s been dedicated to Vol with the right spells, it will be flooded with negative energy. That makes necromancy more powerful, and undead stronger.”
Brey’s head sagged a little, and she closed her eyes.
“That makes sense,” she said. “It feels—I feel—stronger, but not so much in control. Like the monster is trying to take over.”
Mordan looked up in alarm. He had seen Brey in a blood-frenzy before.
“Listen,” he said, “if you’d rather step outside …”
Brey shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’ve been fighting this ever since—ever since I got my will back. I can handle it. Besides, I have to see this. Know the enemy, like Tarrel says.”
After a moment, she asked, “Are you finished with the altar?” Tarrel glanced at her uncertainly, but nodded.
“Good,” she said grimly. Striding forward, she swept the bone candle-holders aside and gripped the carved stone at each end, hoisting it above her head with a massive effort.
“Get out of the way!” she screamed, her face distorting and her fangs beginning to show. Mordan and Tarrel flattened themselves against the wall as she hurled the altar with all her might. It shattered against the far wall of the chapel as if thrown by a giant; the two mortals ducked and covered their faces as shards of stone ricocheted around the room.
“That felt good,” Brey snarled, looking down at the wreckage. A small crack had opened in the rock where the altar had struck the wall. With a soft grating noise, it began to widen, spreading rapidly. At the same time, the ground began to vibrate—slightly at first, and then more violently.
“What did you do?” yelled Mordan above the rising noise. Dust and small chips of stone were beginning to fall from the ceiling. Without another word, the three turned and fled.
Brey took the lead as they entered the necromantic workroom, hurling the heavy wooden tables to aside as she ran to clear a path for the others. Larger fragments of the ceiling had started to fall; in the main temple she hit Mordan with a flying tackle, knocking him aside as a piece of stone the size of a horse missed them by a hair’s breadth. Rolling to her feet, she shoved him through the doorway into the main passage. The floor was rolling like a ship’s deck in a storm as they zigzagged their way along it.
By a miracle, the staircase was still largely intact. They scrambled up it and out into the ruins of the fort, beneath the gray light of the Mournland. The rubble-choked grass of the fort’s interior was heaving; concentric ripples spread across the hilltop like the surface of a lake disturbed by a falling rock, or by the motions of some huge creature barely submerged. Then a hole opened up, widening rapidly. The remains of the fort toppled into the expanding void. The whole interior of the hill was caving in.
“Run!” screamed Brey, close behind her two companions. She had slowed her pace to match theirs, determined not to leave them behind. An earth-ripple as tall as a man swept beneath their feet partway down the hill, sending them tumbling and rolling to the bottom in a shower of dirt and stones.
A cloud of dust enveloped them as they reached the bottom of the hill, mingled with dirt and debris. They could no longer see the top—or even tell if it was still there. Coughing and cursing, they struggled through the dust—and found themselves staring at an immense pair of metal legs.
Chapter 14
The Assassin
The cadaver collector towered over the three of them, peering down with small, luminous green-white eyes. Then it looked up at the top of the hill—or rather, at the place where the top of the hill had been. Finally, it looked down at them again.
“Run!” screamed Brey.
Mordan hurled himself aside as an immense clawed hand reached for him, but he was a fraction too slow. The metal claws struck him a glancing blow, sending him cartwheeling across the ground. A beam of light stabbed out from Tarrel’s wand, striking the monstrosity directly in the face—and bouncing back to hit Tarrel himself, knocking him off his feet. Ignoring the fallen half-elf, the construct lumbered over to Mordan, picking him up in its massive fist. As he writhed in its grasp, it lifted him over its head, directly above the blood-encrusted spikes on its back.
“No!” With a cry, Brey leaped onto the creature’s back, swinging from spike to spike like an acrobat. Bracing her feet against the metal carapace, she reached out for its wrist—a column of metal and stone as thick as a tree-trunk—and pushed upward with all her strength. For a moment, she held the limb back, but a long, jagged spike was only inches away from Mordan’s body. He struggled in the thing’s iron grasp but could not free himself.
Tarrel struggled to his feet, smoke rising from a charred hole in the front of his coat. He clutched his chest, his face distorted in agony, and staggered a few paces toward the great construct. He stared at the impasse between construct and vampire, as if dazed and unsure of what he was seeing.
Brey had begun to shake with the strain of resisting the thing’s titanic strength. Its other arm was reaching over its back, trying to find her, but she was protected for the moment by the spines and corpses around her. Mordan’s struggles were becoming weaker as the metal fingers slowly crushed his chest. Brey’s lips drew back in a snarl of determination as she fought to hold the huge arm, but Mordan’s body was inching closer to the tip of the spike, a hair’s-breadth at a time.
Tarrel heard the sound first—or rather, he felt it before he heard it. It began out of the tremors of the collapsing hill, and rose in pitch until it became a rumbling, grinding sound like a rockslide. Then it struck.
The ground at the huge construct’s feet heaved and split, and a rushing column of debris vomited up from the earth, slamming into the cadaver collector with the force of an avalanche. The metal beast swayed backward and was forced to lower its arms to steady itself. Its fingers opened, dropping Mordan to the ground. Brey flung herself from the creature’s back and scooped up the wounded Karrn as the two huge beasts squared off.
The earth had taken a rough form: two stubby legs supported a thick body with no discernible head. It flailed at the construct with massive arms made of earth, stone, and bone. Pieces of the work-tables from the underground laboratory stuck out of its hide, along with stonework and even fragments of the dead bodies they had found there.
Brey and Tarrel backed away as the two titanic beasts flung themselves at each other. The earth shook with the fury of their battle; neither gave ground as they traded massive blows. The corpses on the construct’s back were quickly reduced to pulp, and the spikes upon which they had been impaled were bent or broken. Still the metal giant fought, ignoring the dents in its carapace from its opponent’s rocky fists. With every crashing blow of its metal claws, it rent a little more material from the fabric of the earth-creature’s body, but that did nothing to lessen the force of its attack.
Tarrel looked over Mordan’s battered and unconscious body, telling Brey with a nod that he was still alive. She slung the Karrn over one shoulder and pointed questioningly at the Brelander’s injured leg. Speech was impossible above the din of the battle. Tarrel limped a couple of paces, and evidently Brey did not think that he was going quickly enough, for she unceremoniously flung him over her other shoulder and set off at a run, away from the ruined hill and the fighting monstrosities.