“So how do we get down there?” asked Mordan. “I’m not sure I could climb down a rope one-handed.”
Haldin smiled. “That will not be necessary,” he said. In response to his gesture, one of the crew stepped forward, holding a wooden hoop about three feet across and as thick as a man’s arm. It was equipped with four hand-holds, and a thin string ran across the center.
“One hand should be sufficient to hold onto a life ring,” he said. “Are we ready?”
“Not quite.” said Tarrel. Reaching into his coat, he brought out a wand of transparent glassy crystal. “Better if they don’t see us coming,” he said.
Something unseen disturbed the branches of the trees on the valley side. There was the sound of three bodies landing softly on the ground, and after a few seconds Tarrel dropped the magical invisibility that had covered the three of them.
They made their way along the valley side to within a few hundred yards of the cave mouth. Looking up through the trees, they could see the airship moving to attack; fire arrows flew up from the cave while missiles rained down on from the side of the ship.
Haldin pulled a small piece of bone from a pouch on his bandolier. Holding it up, he muttered an incantation, and as his two companions watched in surprise, a milky glaze formed over his eyes. He looked around for a moment and then trotted off between the trees. After a few minutes, he seemed to have found what he was looking for. Keeping his milk-white eyes fixed on the ground, he motioned the others to follow him.
“Something undead has come this way,” he said softly. “Hopefully, we can follow its trail and find a way into this place.”
His intuition proved to be correct. Within a few minutes, they found themselves standing at the edge of a steep slope that was littered with dead flesh. Bones stuck out of the debris, and here and there a limb or head was visible. The rest was like a pile of slaughterhouse waste. Flies circled lazily above the rotting detritus, and here and there other creatures rustled and skittered among the carnage. The stink of corruption floated over the scene, stronger even than the smell of Fort Zombie. At the top of the slope, a small cave-mouth was visible in the cliff side.
“This is what I was looking for,” whispered Haldin. “They dispose of their waste this way.” Tarrel grimaced.
“Messy business, this necromancy.” he said.
Carefully, they picked their way around the edge of the refuse. The daylight was fading fast, and Mordan lost his footing more than once in the growing gloom. As he dragged himself to his feet for the third time, Tarrel put a hand on his shoulder.
“You can’t see a thing, can you?” he asked.
“Not much,” Mordan answered, “but they’ll see us coming if I light a torch.”
“Hold still,” said the half-elf. He pulled a scroll from his case and read from it in a soft voice, keeping his hand on the Karrn’s shoulder. Mordan blinked in surprise as the scene leaped into clear vision. There was no color, but apart from that he could see as well as in full daylight.
“That should help,” said Tarrel, putting the scroll away. “Let me know if it wears off.”
Haldin had gone ahead to investigate the cave mouth they had found. He came back just as Tarrel completed the spell.
“It’s guarded,” he whispered, “but we should be able to get in without raising the alarm.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” The sound of Brey’s voice made them all jump. She was standing behind them, with a shortbow in her hand, three quivers of arrows slung over one shoulder, and a backpack on the other. Beneath her cloak, she wore a breastplate of blackened steel, and on her head was a helmet of the same material.
“Welcome, Captain,” said Haldin, with a gallant bow. “Your company was the only thing we were lacking. Tarrel, I trust that you have a silence spell among your collection of scrolls?”
Chapter 21
Death’s Cold Embrace
Something struck Mordan on the back, wrapping its arms and legs around his body and pinning his arms to his sides. Despite its light weight, it squeezed him with incredible force, driving the breath from his body. As he struggled, he saw more pale, shapeless blurs flying at his companions.
Brey wrestled with the thing on her back, grasping one of its boneless wrists in each hand and pulling its arms off her. As she stretched the thing out, it looked like the flayed skin of a human being; its arms were like the sleeves of a garment, and its chest was slack and empty. Its head flapped like a deflated balloon, with nothing inside its empty mouth and eye sockets. She tore the thing to pieces.
Haldin had been less fortunate. He was much smaller than the thing that attacked him, and it was able to envelop him completely. Nothing could be seen of the gnome himself, just a thrashing mass covered by dead flesh, struggling like a man in a collapsed tent.
Tarrel was farthest from the things when they attacked, and had some warning from the others’ cries of surprise and pain; turning swiftly, he launched a fireball from his wand, throwing his attacker backward and setting it ablaze.
Mordan was able to free his right arm from the skin-creature’s grasp and draw his rapier. Carefully, he eased the enchanted blade between the thing’s arms and his own chest, and began sawing at the empty limbs to try to free himself. The thing shrank from the blade but kept its hold on him, as though it knew it would be vulnerable if it let go.
Having shredded her own assailant. Brey leaped to Haldin’s side and tore the thing off him. He gasped for air as his head reappeared but was unable to help himself. Tarrel launched a second fireball, reducing his attacker to a flaming mass that flopped on the ground amid the stench of burning meat. By the time Mordan had freed himself, the gnome was sitting on the ground coughing painfully and Brey was tossing the pieces of the other horrors into the fire started by Tarrel’s wand.
“What were those things? More of Dravuliel’s experiments?”
Haldin shook his head, his breathing still labored. “I’m not sure,” he replied, wheezing a little more than usual. “Perhaps they somehow arose spontaneously in that heap of offal, or maybe they came to feed on it. They would seem to be independent, since no alarm has been raised.”
“None that we heard,” observed Tarrel. He looked quickly at Brey, who listened for a moment and then shook her head.
Mordan kept his back to the others, watching for any further signs of life—or unlife—among the bloody refuse.
“As I was saying,” Haldin continued, having recovered his breath, “there is a small cave entrance close to the top of this accumulation of refuse. It would seem that waste materials from Dravuliel’s necromantic work are thrown out of it periodically, and have built up over time into what we see here. We require a silence spell for our next step, because stationed inside the entrance is a creature that can make a very loud and unpleasant noise indeed.” He looked at the half-elf, who brought out his scroll-case and pressed a wooden button on the side.
“Silence,” he said softly, and within a few moments a scroll wound itself out of a long slit down the side of the case.
Brey unslung the bow on her back and checked the arrows in her quiver, pulling each one out to inspect it. Directly behind the head of each arrow was a small vial of clear liquid, molded around the shaft. None seemed to have been broken by the skin-creatures.
“I didn’t know you could use a bow,” said Mordan.
“I commanded a troop of rangers behind enemy lines for almost a year,” she replied. “Of course I can use a bow.”
With Tarrel in the lead, the four scrambled up the edge of the charnel slope, keeping their eyes fixed on the entrance. As they got closer, they could see that just inside the cave mouth stood something that looked like a huge mushroom, almost as tall as a man. Haldin tapped Tarrel’s shoulder and pointed to the thing. With a nod, he raised his scroll and began to read.