Scream of Stone

16

15 Ches, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR) The Palace of Many Spires, Innarlith

Pristoleph had lost count of the number of gold trade bars he’d had delivered to the Thayan Enclave in the year he spent holding the Palace of Many Spires hard under siege. The streets around the palace were lined with barricades. Shops and inns had been closed for so long the smarter and wealthier of the owners had since relocated to the edges of the Second Quarter and the less foresighted and more under-funded had simply wandered off, leaving everything behind.

The wemics, surprisingly enough, hadn’t participated in any of the looting. That seemed an entirely human affair. Pristoleph, watching from a commandeered building across the street, a high-class brothel he’d made his command center, sent a daily missive by magical sending to Ransar Salatis, who remained holed up in his palace first for days, then tendays, then months, but the only return he ever got was a single prayer to some god Pristoleph had never heard of followed by a very rude suggestion as to where he should store his ambitions. The note had made Pristoleph laugh.

“It is an abomination,” the wemic, Second Chief Gahrzig, growled. “We cannot be compelled to war at its side.”

The wemic’s clawed feet scratched the marble of the grand foyer of the Palace of Many Spires as he circled Pristoleph, his one good eye never leaving the hooded undead thing Marek Rymiit had lent himfree of charge, no lessfor the final assault on the palace. The wemic’s left eye had been replaced with a smooth, polished gray stone that gave the leonine creature the appearance of a fanciful statue brought almost entirely to life.

“Patience, Second Chief,” Pristoleph cautioned, purposefully not looking at the shambling corpse. “Our goal is at hand. Keep your eye on that.”

Pristoleph wincedhoping it didn’t showat that slip of the tongue, but the wemic didn’t seem to notice.

The undead thing stared out of the single eye hole cut into its black leather hood in what could only have been the Thayan’s attempt at a joke. It saw the world through its left eye, while the wemic that despised it had only his right. The clothes it “wore” were tattered, filthy rags that had been tied around it in places to more resemble bandages than garments. Pristoleph imagined that if even a few of the knots were undone, the thing might unravel entirely. He managed to ignore the smell, but that was more difficult for the wemics.

“Follow me,” Pristoleph said to Gahrzig, then glanced at the undead thing and strode across the wide foyer.

He didn’t wait to be sure anyone followed him, and he didn’t look back, but he could hear the tap of wemic claws on the marble, and the uneven sliding gait of the animated corpse, behind him.

When he was only a few yards from the wide doors at the other end of the cavernous foyer, the heavy oak panels flew open to reveal a line of archers, kneeling in the doorway, arrows nocked. The men looked bademaciated and dirty, afraid and exhausted.

Pristoleph stopped walking, put up a hand, and said, “Wait! I-“

But that was as far as he got before the men in the doorway loosed their arrows. The shafts came at him like a cloud of angry hornets, hissing as they made their way to him and the mercenaries behind him.

One of the arrows would have sunk into his chest-perhaps even his hearthad the magical shield that Marek

Rymiit provided for him not pulled his left arm up, almost against his will, to take the impact. The arrow shattered when it hit the gold-inlaid steel of the shield, falling to the marble tiles in splinters.

Most of the arrows missed their targets, but one sank into the right thigh of the undead man. Goosef lesh rose on the undersides of Pristoleph’s arms when he saw the utter lack of response from the dead thing. It stood statue-still, Pristoleph’s “Wait,” being the last command it had heard.

The wemics were entirely less forgiving.

One took an arrow in his broad chest and struggled to stay on his feet, his black lips curled up over yellow fangs, a low, steady growl rolling from his pain-tightened throat. The wemic next to that one threw a spear, which arced through the air so fast Pristoleph’s eyes couldn’t follow it. It hit one of the archers in the face. There was an unexpected flash of orange light and in what must have been the barest fraction of an instant, both the spear and the archer’s head were simply gone.

The archer next to his headless, twitching companion screameda high-pitched, desperate wail that echoed in the lofty chamberand dropped his bow to run. When he turned, he turned in front of the archer on his other side, who, though shaking and obviously reluctant to hold his ground as the wemics began to charge, loosed his arrow. It passed right through the man’s chest, and from the amount of blood that followed it, Pristoleph knew the gurgling, jerking archer would die fast.

“Stop this!” Pristoleph called out.

The wemics were in full charge by then, though, and Pristoleph’s order was overwhelmed by their harsh growls and roars, the battle cries of the great cats given voice by creatures with the hands and minds of men. The one who had thrown his spear passed by Pristoleph’s shield arm, and the senator saw that the barbarian had his weapon back in his hand, as though he’d never thrown it. Pristoleph remembered paying the Thayan well for that spear.

Two more arrows found their targets and a pair of wemics stumbled, but only one went down. When the first of the lion-men smashed into the line of archers, he killed two with an axe so sharp it tore through armor and bone as easily as it did flesh. There were only three archers left and they all turned to run, tangling with the guards who had stepped up behind them.

Pristoleph set his jaw and made a fist of his right hand. He had to settle himself before he could speak, and while he did, one of the guards fell to a wemic’s halberd and a wemic was wounded in the shoulder by one of the guards’ long swords.

“This is a waste!” he shouted. “These men who protect that door serve Innarlith. Stop and let them recognize their new ransar. They are beaten.”

But no one heard him. The wemics appeared mad with bloodlust, but Pristoleph knew better. They had engaged their enemy, and they would fight to the death. Blood flew, men screamed, wemics roared, and the massacre seemed to go on for days, though only moments passed. Pristoleph didn’t order the undead thing into combat, and it remained content to stand there, the arrow still protruding from its thigh.

“Senator Pristoleph?” Gahrzig said from the doorway when the last of the guards were dead.

Pristoleph nodded, not bothering to chastise the barbarian for doing what he’d been paid to do, but neither did Pristoleph praise their skill at arms. They had lost two of their number and killed eight times that many Innarlans, but to Pristoleph it felt like a defeat.

He stepped through the doorway and into the ransar’s grand audience chamber, stepping over the fallen guards to do so. The men were skeletal, as though they hadn’t eaten in a tenday, as likely they hadn’t.

“We did a good job of starving them out, didn’t we?” he asked himself as he saw a line of corpses wrapped in what looked like draperies from one of the palace’s many parlors. More than three times the number of men the wemics killed had perished before the gates were forced openstarved, likely, or fallen to the fevers that inevitably infest a closed space full of desperate, fearful men. “I will spend a long time apologizing for this.”

“Or a short time paying for it,” the second chief grumbled under his breath.

Pristoleph stopped and looked at Gahrzig, who met his gaze and held it.

“Have I made you so cynical, Gahrzig?” Pristoleph asked. “Have I infected you with that most human of maladies?”

The wemic’s brows furrowed and he couldn’t help but show a little fang. It was plain the second chief didn’t like the implication, but Pristoleph turned away before anything further could be said.

“These are all house guards,” Pristoleph said, not happy about changing the subject, but there was a certain time pressure involved. “There are no black firedrakes.”

“He’s saving them for his private chambers, no doubt,” Gahrzig suggested.

“You,” Pristoleph said to the undead thing, which gave no indication it knew it was being addressed in any way. “Come with me.”

Regardless of the Red Wizard’s caution to keep the undead thing away from the black firedrakes, Pristoleph made the decision right then that the first to fall to the strange creaturesmonsters that could take the form of men, or men who could take the form of monstersthat comprised Salatis’s private guard would be the thing that was already dead.

The wemics drew back as it shuffled past them, then fell into step a few paces behind for the long, tense walk through the palace. As they passed through the wide corridors, the household staff, who had been locked in with Salatis when the siege began, threw themselves at Pristoleph’s feetdirty, starving, and relieved that, even if they were killed for their loyalty to the outgoing ransar, at least it would be overthen they just as quickly scurried away, cowering under the fierce stares of the wemics.

By the time they’d climbed the many flights of stairs to the upper reaches of the palace, Pristoleph felt as though he was walking in a dream. Everywhere they should have met resistance, they found nothing. No arrows, crossbow bolts, or gouts of magical flame came from any of the well-concealed murder holes, and no acid-spitting black firedrakes manned the various blind spots in curving stairways designed for just such an ambush. They arrived at the doors to the ransar’s bedchamber entirely unmolested.

Pristoleph stood before the doors with the undead creature on his left side and Gahrzig on his right. He looked at the wemic, who only shrugged. Neither of them were entirely sure how to proceed, though Pristoleph had envisioned that moment for months, if not years.

Not sure why he was doing it even as his hand came up, Pristoleph knocked on the door.

“Enter, Ransar,” came a voice from within. The voice was deep, and seemed to rumble from the space beyond the carved mahogany door like thunder. It was not Salatis’s voice.

Pristoleph opened the door and the wemics all tensed.

The large room was filled with men in armor as black as their hair. They looked so much alike they could have all been brothers. They were armed, but their swords were sheathed, and their spears were held point-down. When Pristoleph stepped into the room they went down on one knee in such perfect unison the genasi thought they must have practiced it for daysand maybe they had.

One of them didn’t kneel, though. He stepped forward.

“I am Captain Olin,” the black firedrake said, and Pristo-lepli recognized his voice as the man who’d bid him enter.

“Captain Olin,” Pristoleph said, “are you prepared to surrender?”

The black firedrake smiled in the way parents smile at children who ask where babies come from. He stepped aside and motioned to the floor. The rest of the black-haired, dusky-skinned men parted to reveal the twisted wreckage of a man lying on the scorched wood floor. Only then did the stench of burned flesh assault his nostrils. The wemics behind him grunted and backed away a step, but Pristoleph stepped forward.

Salatis lay on the floor, melted from the neck down, his head left unscathed by acid so that he could be recognized. A little orange light played around the edges of what was either flesh or some leather strap across the dead man’s chest. Pristoleph bent over the corpse, the black firedrakes stepping farther back to give him room. He played a fingertip across the smoldering line and drew away a lick of fire the size of a candle flame. He let it burn from the tip of his finger, and thrilled at the subtle warmth of it. He held it up so that the black-armored guards could see it burn but cause no injury to his half-elemental flesh.

“I claim the palace,” he said. “I claim the title Ransar of Innarlith.”

The black firedrakes, still kneeling, bowed their heads, and Captain Olin took a knee.

“We serve the ransar,” the captain said.

The wemics let up a warbling ululation, but the black firedrakes stayed on one knee until Ransar Pristoleph told them to stand.

“You,” he told the hooded undead, “take this back to your master”he indicated the liquefied corpse of Salatis”and give him my thanks.”

The undead creature shuffled forward and did as it was told.