Sure could use one of the Midwife’s men right now, Tallis thought, eyeing the walls. Every inch could be trapped, and Charoth was a damned wizard-magical traps were so much the harder.
Their exploration ended when they found a closed, iron-bound door at the end of an otherwise empty corridor. Between the imperfect cracks of the door, they could see light. Tallis handed his sunrod to Aegis. “Hold this behind you to keep the light away from the door. Wait here, both of you.”
Tallis crept up to the door and listened close, even as he examined the doorknob in what little light he was afforded. An expression of total disgust came over his face, and he looked back at Soneste.
He made his way slowly back. “It stinks of rot by that door,” he whispered. “Servitors of the Cult.”
Soneste felt a sourness settle into her stomach. “Any voices?” she asked.
“Some. There are some living agents here. Charoth’s men.”
“We should go through that door-fast,” Aegis suggested, and both Soneste and Tallis winced at the volume of his “whispering” voice. “Surprise will help. I will force it down.”
Tallis nodded. “I agree, but I have a better method. Safer. Are we ready?”
Soneste willed the glowing light of her watch lamp to dissipate. She grasped her rapier in one hand, the Riedran crysteel dagger in the other. Aegis tucked the sunrod under his arm, glowing tip pointed behind him, and he held Haedrun’s sword ready.
“Yes,” the warforged answered for both of them.
The Karrn grasped his hammer in two hands, angled his right fist so the dragon-headed ring he wore was pointed at the door, and spoke the word “Telchanak.”
A transparent image took form even as it sped down the hall. Solidifying into the shape of a dragon’s head with spiraling ram-horns, it vanished the moment it impacted with the door. Wood splintered and hinges shattered, echoing loudly through the corridor. Large chunks of door struck someone standing on the other side, dropping him with a shout.
“I so rarely get to do that,” Tallis said with a humorless smile.
Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT
Wir, the 11th of Sypheros, 998 YK
Striding past the wreckage of the door, Tallis found himself in a moderately-sized dungeon chamber that reeked of moldering bones. Seven hostile figures turned to face him, standing on opposite sides of the circular pit that marked the center of the room. There was a dark shape in one corner of the room and a door in the center of the far wall. A single, wall-mounted wisplight was insufficient to illuminate the whole chamber.
The three leather-clad men on the left-Charoth’s toughs, without a doubt-dropped the game of chance they’d been playing at and reached for their weapons. Either they were inured to the smell or had some means of blocking it out. One of their fellows already lay beneath the broken remains of the entry door, unmoving. The four enemies on the right wore plate armor, but where the metal did not cover their bodies Tallis saw only clean white bones. Inscrutable skulls swiveled his way, and the skeletons drew out their own blades.
Good, Tallis thought with an upsurge of anger. Here was something he could understand and deal with on his level.
“Kill them now!” one of the men shouted, leading his fellows in a charge. As all seven enemies made their way around the charnel pit, Tallis noticed a stirring in the shadows in the far corner.
“A little help here?” Tallis asked his companions, raising his hammer to meet one of the living men.
Weapons clashed. The sunrod he’d given Aegis flew end over end through the air-tossing sinister shadows as it went-to land on the far side of the pit. The warforged barreled past him, throwing his weight into the first skeletal warrior and keeping all four-for the time being-away from Tallis. The heavy buckler on Aegis’s arm led the way, blasting the undead off its feet. Only the tangled bones of its torso, encased in armor, remained.
Tallis met the eyes of the man before him, stepping near the pit’s edge as he did.
“Dolurrh invites, friend,” Tallis promised.
Soneste appeared on his left, using her rapier to keep the next man at bay. The third remained behind the other two, turning the winch of a heavy crossbow.
Tallis feinted twice with his hammer, drawing out his foe’s attacks as wide as possible. He lunged in at last, connecting the adamantine hammer hard against the man’s chest. The thick leather parted like paper, and Tallis heard the crack of a breastbone. The man’s eyes widened in disbelief, then he gasped in an attempt to draw breath. Tallis saved him the trouble, burying the mithral pick of his weapon in the man’s neck. He shoved hard, launching his victim into the charnel pit.
One of the skeleton warriors broke away from Aegis and circled the long way around the pit. Tallis fixed his eyes on it, feeling the twinge of the rage he reserved for such creatures. He raised his arm, gauged the distance, and threw. The hooked hammer spun end over, and crashing into the skeleton’s breastplate, dropped the creature to the floor.
With Soneste still engaged, Tallis turned his attention to the crossbowman. He stepped away from the pit to present himself as an obvious target. The man took the bait, loosing a heavy bolt. Tallis spun away from the missile just in time-feeling the wind of its passage-and let his body drop to all fours, pitching forward in exaggerated overbalance. As he did, the jeweled sword at his back slipped from its sheath, clattering to the stone floor and sliding near the crossbowman’s feet.
“Blunted!” Tallis swore loudly.
The man looked at the fallen sword, its blade glowing with a dazzling green light.
Soneste traded swing for swing with her opponent, both of them stepping dangerously close to the lip of the pit. Tallis would have to trust her to defeat the man and Aegis to hold its own against the skeleton warriors for a few moments longer. He looked up to see his own opponent drop the empty crossbow and take the glowing sword in hand. Its baleful light flickered in the man’s eyes.
“Khyber!” Tallis said, eyes flashing left and right for some kind of defense.
“I’ve heard of you,” the tough said with an edge of triumph. “Major Tallis, former soldier of Rekkenmark. Who’s too clever to die, they say. Where is your cleverness now, Major?”
“Listen,” Tallis replied, noting with a glance that Soneste’s man was tiring and only two skeletons remained across the room. “Maybe we can work something out. You know, between thieves?”
“I think not.” The man stepped almost within reach, smiling as he tested the perfect balance of the Ferine Blade. A savage gleam lit his eyes. “I’m going to be the man who ended you!”
Tallis deliberately backed himself into the wall. He clenched his fists, as if resigned to unarmed combat. The desperate look on his face prompted the man to strike at last. The Ferine Blade trailed green fire as it arched through the air, then leveled out, coming in straight for Tallis’s gut.
Soneste saw his predicament, calling out at alarm.
Tallis flinched as he always did-what if it didn’t work this time, that ever-gnawing doubt-but he opened his eyes just in time to see the blade vanish from the sword’s hilt …
Only to emerge from the man’s own stomach as though he’d been stabbed from behind by the same blade. The green fire flared, hissing as it boiled and dissolved the streams of blood that tried to escape the mortal wound. Screaming, the man pitched to the ground, thrashing in his final, agonized moments.
“Still works,” Tallis said.
Soneste and her opponent gaped with shock, but the Brelish recovered her wits first and slashed her blade into the man’s knee. As he clutched at the wound, her boot came up, catching him on the jaw and setting him off balance. A second kick dropped him, screaming, into the pit.