“Wights,” said Dria, “about a dozen of them.”
The half-golems retreated back into the temple, their arm-blades weaving a web of steel in front of them. They blocked many of the wights’ attacks, but their armor was battered here and there, and blood oozed from cuts in their exposed flesh. At a command from Adalrik, one of the constructs fell back as its two fellows blocked the doorway.
Brey was the first to act, sending an arrow between the half-golems and into the lead wight. It hissed in pain as the arrow penetrated its shrunken flesh, cracking the vial bound to the shaft and sending holy water deep into the wound. Tarrel and Mordan both flung flasks of holy water over the constructs’ heads, shattering them against the ceiling of the passage and showering the undead beneath.
Haldin sent a crossbow bolt after Brey’s arrow. It struck the wight directly between the eyes, exploding in a ripple of silver-white light; when their vision cleared, the companions saw that the creature had fallen to the floor, its head split almost in half. Another leaped forward to take its place.
Tarrel moved around behind the half-golems, aiming his wand carefully. A bead of red light shot from the wand, streaking toward the back of the pack of wights—until a wight fighting in the front rank inadvertently moved into its way. The bead exploded, shooting fire back into the temple and scorching the two half-golems as well as Tarrel himself. Beating out several small fires on his clothes, the Brelander stood back with an apologetic shrug.
Slowly, the wights forced the half-golems back through the doorway. Mordan stood ready, running one of the things through the body as it came into the temple; he noticed that it wore the armor and insignia of the Vedykar Lancers, like its comrades. With grim determination, he redoubled his strokes, placing lightning-fast thrusts wherever an opening appeared in the half-golems’ weaving defense.
The wights fought their way clear of the doorway and started to spread out in the room, and Brey unlimbered her bow again. Adalrik sent the third of the half-golems into the fray. Haldin prayed, holding up his blue dragon symbol, but the wights did not waver in their assault.
When the last of the wights had cleared the doorway, Dravuliel appeared behind them. A crackling aura of black energy surrounded him. In one hand he held a massive scythe with a jagged blade of black iron; in the other, a leather-bound tome, from which he read aloud. In response to his words, the wights redoubled their attacks, as if infused with hellish fury.
Brey loosed an arrow at him, but it glanced off his robe as though the garment was made of adamantine. With a cruel smile, he put down the book and uncorked a flask of filthy-looking water. Throwing it in the air, he intoned another spell—and a driving rain of foul, fetid water began to fall inside the temple, almost hiding him from sight. Haldin yelped as the unclean rain struck him, bringing up red welts on his exposed skin as if it were boiling water. Brey loosed another arrow, but the lashing rain spoiled her aim and it flew wide of the mark.
As the gnome struggled to protect himself. Dravuliel held up a hand, and the floor of the room began to shake. Like something from a nightmare, a section of the rocky floor shot into the air, folding itself around the gnome and sealing him inside. It looked like nothing so much as a sarcophagus.
One of the half-golems fell before the slicing blades of the armored wights. Adalrik and Dria dragged it back out of the battle and knelt over it, their lips moving and their hands working frantically. Mordan and Tarrel battled on, though the Brelander was barely holding his own against the creatures. He fought hard with his short sword, but could not back off far enough to use his wand.
One of the wights struck Tarrel a vicious blow to the head, knocking him back like a felled tree. Mordan, who was fighting two of the creatures at once, could do nothing to help as the wight straddled Tarrel’s body and prepared to deliver a killing blow. With a cry, Brey dropped her bow and rushed forward, tackling the creature before it could strike. The momentum of her charge drove the wight backward, and they sprawled at the necromancer’s feet.
The elf smiled a smile of pure malice and reached down as if to touch her lightly on the back. From inside his sleeve appeared a wooden stake, shod in silver, and her head snapped back in a scream as he drove it through her body. Then, the great scythe swept down, severing her head from her body and cutting the wight beneath her in two. The head rolled a couple of feet, red hair plastered to the scalp and the stone floor by the vile rain, red blood oozing from the neck. Wide with shock, Brey’s eyes turned glassy, and then her head and body began to crumble like sand washed away by the tide. In a matter of moments, only her clothing and armor were left.
“No!” Mordan flung himself aside as the seed of the fireball shot past his shoulder. Tarrel was standing, his feet braced and the wand in both hands, his mouth open and his face a snarling mask of hate. The explosion toppled three of the remaining wights and one of the half-golems, but the necromancer stood his ground.
Adalrik ripped at the magical sarcophagus with his iron hand. After a few blows, cracks started to appear in the stone box; when they widened enough, he thrust his metal fingers into the widest crack and pulled with all his strength. The lid came free with a jolt and fell to the ground. Haldin’s eyes took in the scene quickly, and he held his sapphire dragon aloft.
A silver light sparked in the depths of the faceted stone, and as it had in the courtyard of Fort Zombie, a burst of light swept out in all directions. The wights fell like corn before the scythe, leaving Dravuliel to face his intended victims alone. The filthy rain stopped.
Dria barked a command, and the repaired half-golem leaped at the elf, its arm-blades weaving a pattern of death. Mordan leaped forward as well, his eyes blazing and his rapier seeking the necromancer’s heart. With a strength that belied his thin frame, Dravuliel swung the great scythe in a figure eight, deflecting the rapier with its iron-shod butt and slicing an arm off the construct as he stepped back into the passage.
Holding the weapon in front of him, he screamed a string of syllables, and the air in the temple thrummed with power. Then a wall of liquid darkness filled the passage, and he was lost to sight.
The wall rippled like the surface of a lake, and a low moaning came from it. In its dark substance, faces came and went, like those of the drowned trying to regain the surface. Adalrik tried to push through it with his metal hand, but shrank back with a yelp of pain.
“Quickly!” Haldin was running toward the exit of the temple, gesturing for the others to follow. Tarrel was staring down at Brey’s empty clothes, and Mordan dragged him out by one arm. The two artificers followed, with their constructs bringing up the rear. Before they could reach the exit, however, something appeared, hanging in the air between them and the archway. It was so horrific that they stopped in their tracks and stared.
It was somewhat reminiscent of a newborn baby, but it was as tall as a half-orc, with a distended belly and shriveled, distorted limbs. Half its head appeared to be missing, and it gazed at the mortals with one unblinking, fathomless eye. Blood vessels were visible beneath its sickly-pale skin, pulsing grayly as it turned slowly in the air.
The temple had become cold—not the normal cold of a deep winter, but the bone-chilling, strength-draining cold of death.
“Dol Arrah!” yelled Mordan, “what is that?” Its eye lighted on him, apparently drawn by the sound of his voice, and the coldness intensified a hundredfold. As it had at Fort Zombie, the halfling charm-bag around his neck began to flood his body with warmth—but then it crumbled, falling to the floor.
“Don’t let it look at you!” yelled Haldin, ducking behind the remains of his sarcophagus. A blast of frigid air struck the stone a split-second later, riming it in ice and widening the cracks that Adalrik’s fist had made.