“Well,” said Brey, “if you put it that way….”
“Whatever we do,” said Mordan, “let’s do it. I don’t want to be still standing here when Dravuliel comes back with reinforcements.”
“You’ve got my vote,” said Tarrel. “Nice logic, by the way.”
Haldin smiled. “When you are small of stature,” he said modestly, “you learn to calculate the odds with great care. Shall we proceed?”
With Brey in the lead, the five headed into the workshops.
Chapter 23
Another Reunion
A short passage led to the area that Dria’s homunculus had scouted. As she had said, it looked like a workshop—it was filled with tables and workbenches, like the workshop Mordan, Brey, and Tarrel had discovered in the Mournland, but the tools were far different.
Here and there, a corpse lay on a table. Laid out on other surfaces were jointed metal limbs and plates, looking like pieces of armor. A few of the corpses had metal limbs attached, while others had apparently been subjected to amputations. The stout leather straps securing them to the tables, and the expressions of agony frozen on their dead faces, suggested that the operations had been carried out on living subjects.
Dria examined them as the other four scoured the room for threats.
“Let me guess,” said Tarrel. “He’s trying to make undead warforged.”
“I fear his plan is more subtle than that,” said Haldin, looking at a vat full of a dull brown liquid. “Theoretically, undead warforged would be little different from armored zombies, and as we have seen, Dravuliel’s research has moved far beyond that level. I suspect that his aim is to produce a creature that blends the undead with the construct, combining the strengths of each.”
“You are correct!”
They looked around for the source of the voice but saw no one. Tarrel gestured at a closed door, and both Brey and Mordan moved toward it.
“Who is there?” asked Haldin, in a conversational tone. “Would you be so kind as to show yourself?”
“As long as you don’t try to kill me,” the voice replied. Haldin waved the others back from the door, and they joined him reluctantly.
“Am I correct in supposing,” continued the gnome, “that I am addressing …” He looked at Dria.
“Adalrik d’Cannith,” she finished the question for him.
The door opened slowly, and a tall man stepped out. At least, he was mostly a man; his right hand and arm were sheathed in metal, and a steel mask covered half his face. Dria let out a gasp.
“No!” she breathed. “They didn’t tell me …”
“… that I was a renegade?” Adalrik d’Cannith smiled with the uncovered half of his face. Brey nocked an arrow, and Tarrel raised his wand, though neither moved to attack the newcomer.
“Don’t worry,” said Adalrik, stepping forward and displaying his empty hands. “I have no intention of attacking you.” He turned to Dria and bowed. “I assume you were sent to rescue me?” Dria, nodded silently, unable to take her eyes from the metal sheathing her cousin’s body.
“We met once,” the said quietly, “more than ten years ago. At Morcar and Alina’s wedding. I don’t expect you’d remember me. My name is Dria.” Adalrik’s one mobile eyebrow shot up in surprise.
“Dria?” he said. “Fintar’s daughter?” He took half a step back, and looked her up and down. “You’ve grown.”
“As touching as this is,” said Brey, “let’s not forget that there’s a very unfriendly necromancer somewhere around here, who’s liable to come back with reinforcements at any minute.”
“If I bring you back,” said Dria, in a small voice, “do you know what they’ll do to you?”
“I can imagine,” her cousin replied, “but your archer is right.”
“I’m not her archer,” said Brey.
“My apologies,” said Adalrik. “Still, I agree that we should deal with the immediate threat first, and worry about the future—once we know we have one.” He looked back at Dria.
“I put a few things together,” he said, “when I realized the place was under attack. I managed to make some real breakthroughs recently.” Turning to the door, he whistled softly, and was answered by the sound of heavy metallic footsteps.
The others tensed as a squat, bulky shape edged itself through the doorway, but Adalrik held up a hand to still them. It stumped over to Adalrik’s side, looking like nothing so much as a metal barrel with legs and arms.
“This isn’t a combat model,” he said, “just a menial. I have some papers and materials stored in its body.” The construct stood a couple of yards behind its master.
“These, on the other hand”—he whistled again, twice, and three more figures sprang lithely into the room—“are intended for combat. I hope they will help us get out of here alive.”
The companions stood and stared at the creatures for a long moment. They were humanoid, and patches of dead-white flesh could be seen here and there between the steel plates that covered their bodies like a lobster’s carapace. The arms of each one terminated in a pair of bright, curved blades.
Tarrel groaned. “Undead warforged.”
Adalrik half-smiled. “Not quite,” he said. “As you correctly deduced, my purpose here was to combine the most desirable qualities of the undead and the construct in a single creature. These are but a step in that direction. They are half-golems—partially flesh, but entirely constructs.”
“So,” he said, with an expectant look on the visible half of his face, “what’s the plan?”
“The plan is this,” said Brey, standing behind Dria, “while it’s heartwarming to help out with your family reunion, we came here to kill Dravuliel and destroy all his undead friends. There’s a temple nearby, and my guess is he’s beyond it somewhere, getting ready to wipe us out.”
“Or take us alive,” put in Mordan. “At least, that’s what he told his iron zombies. I’m guessing that would be worse.” Brey nodded.
“Then let’s go,” said Adalrik. He gestured, and his three half-golems loped out down the passage.
The temple was larger than they had expected. It also bore no signs of the Blood of Vol cult. Among the unfamiliar symbols carved into the pale stone altar and painted on the walls were a scythe and many skulls. Prominently placed on the wall behind the altar was the skull of a dragon.
“I don’t recognize these,” said Brey.
Haldin examined the dragon skull. “I do,” he said. “I take it you have heard of the Dark Six?” Brey nodded.
“Unless I am very much mistaken,” Haldin continued, “this temple is dedicated to one of them—a stealer of souls known as The Keeper.”
“So he changed sides?” asked Tarrel. “The temple we found in the Mournland was definitely Blood of Vol.”
“It would seem so,” replied the gnome, reaching into one of his equipment pouches.
Mordan saw Brey examining the altar. “Don’t touch that,” he said. “Remember last time?” Before she could respond, Haldin backed into her. He was sprinkling silver dust in a circle around the temple, humming to himself as he did so. Then he opened a flask of holy water, sprinkling it on top of the silver filings. Brey gasped suddenly, and put a hand to her head.
“My apologies, Captain,” said the gnome. “I am just ensuring that our opponent has no advantage here. The positive energies I am raising may be inconvenient for you, but they should not be harmful.” Brey grimaced.
The two Cannith heirs had taken the half-golems forward to explore the area beyond the temple. A sudden sound of clashing steel made the others look around just as Adalrik and Dria hurried back into the room.