Scream of Stone

36

5 Eleasias, the Yearof Rogue Dragons (1373 DR) First Quarter, Innarlith

Wenefir didn’t know the names of either of the two black firedrakes. They looked so much alike they might have been twins. Both had black hair and dusky skin, with eyes blacker than any human’s. They wore thick black leather ring mail vests, and even their boots were of the same design and materials. The only thing that was different about the two was the way they stood: One of them set all his weight on his left foot. The other leaned on the thick haft of his longaxe. There was something about the way they smelled that Wenefir found unpleasant.

The night breeze brought the stench of sulfur from the Lake of Steam, and Wenefir couldn’t smell the firedrakes anymore. He blinked in the darkness and gazed down the length of the long pier. The ship that was tied therea sturdy cog out of Calimportbumped the piling with a hollow thud, and a wave broke, sending a few drops of water into Wenefir’s face. The priest blinked the acidic water from his eyes. He didn’t want to take even one hand from the haft of his mace to wipe the water away.

He glanced down at the platinum-inlaid mithral of the weapon’s fierce head and smiled. His hands tightened around the polished wooden haft. The weapon felt good in his hands.

A clatter of wood on wood made him jump, and a cool sweat broke out on his forehead. He blinked again and watched the zombie work gang unload the cog while the Calishite crew drank away their meager earnings in some quayside tavern. The zombies weren’t careful, and they were slowso slow it was difficult for someone like Wenefir to watch them without feeling frustrated, even though he couldn’t possibly care less whether or not the Calishite ship was unloaded in a timely fashion.

Wenefir sniffed the air. The sulfur from the water, and a hint of the black firedrake’s acidic musk assaulted his nostrils, but the priest couldn’t detect even a trace of rotting flesh. By the look of the half dozen animated corpses a few yards away from him, the stench of rotting flesh should have been unbearable.

“What do you smell?” one of the black firedrakes whispered.

Wenefir shook his head.

“Master Rymiit made them that way,” the firedrake said. Wenefir couldn’t place his accent. “The sailors and captains were complaining.”

Wenefir shrugged and silenced the firedrake with the hint of a smile.

The three of them watched the zombies work, and as they watched, they listened. One of the firedrakes tipped his head up and sniffed at the warm summer breeze.

“I smell it, too,” the other black firedrake whispered. “They’re here.”

Wenefir nodded and brought the mace up in front of his chest. He kept his eyes on the zombies and heard footsteps on the pier before he saw anyone. They came from the end of the pier, as though they’d come from the open water. The black firedrakes fanned out to either side of them. Wenefir couldn’t hear themnot a creak of leather or the tap of a boot heel on the planks.

The women stepped into the meager light from the one lantern the cog’s captain had left burning for the zombie work gang. Wenefir recognized them both immediately. He brought a prayer to mind, and when he was ready, he made eye contact with one of the black firedrakes. They stepped out of the shadows together, but the second firedrake remained cloaked in the shadows of the night-dark pier.

Wenefir coughed out the harsh words to the prayer and felt Cyric’s temperamental grace well up within him. The older of the two women heard him first. She gasped, reached out to grab the younger woman’s forearm, and took a step back. A zombie carrying a crate passed between them, oblivious to the presence of the women, the Cyricist, and the black firedrake.

The force of the prayer swept out from Wenefir’s hands. He could feel it drape itself over the two women. The black firedrake didn’t wait to see if it had any effect. He stepped forward with his longaxe high over his head. Stepping nimbly around one of the slowly-shambling zombies, the firedrake brought his axe down in a blow that would have split the older woman in two if she hadn’t slipped out of the way with reflexes so sharp and precise they had to be magicalor spiritualin nature.

The younger woman shivered and opened her mouth as if to scream, but made no sound. She was frozen in place, unable to move.

The black firedrake growled and spun, reversing his longaxe to try to take the older woman’s head off, but she waved her hand in front of her and the heavy, razor-sharp blade pinged off a wide metal bracer on her forearm, sending a shower of blue-white sparks arcing in the night airmore magic.

The black firedrake answered by vomiting in her faceor so it appeared to Wenefir. A spray of thin black fluid missed her head and only a little bit of it spattered against her shoulder as she once more dodged with superhuman speed.

She clutched a holy symbol that hung from a cord around her neckthe hated device of Chaunteaand began a staccato obeisance of her own.

“Cahlo,” Wenefir said, and the mace glowed with an eerie blue light. He stepped forward to face the priestess and said, “These zombies belong to the ransar.”

A flash of yellow light blazed, so bright and so sudden Wenefir had to look away. He brought the mace up instinctively to block it, but it didn’t do much good. He had to blink spots from his eyes and hope he had the few heartbeats he needed to clear his vision. The black firedrake that had spit acid at the priestess cursed in a language Wenefir didn’t understandbut curses are unmistakable in any language.

Yellow light shone from the firedrake’s eyes. The priestess had placed the spell expertly, so that its illumination covered the black firedrake’s eyes, doing more than simply blinding him. He clawed at his face and staggered backward, his longaxe lying on the pier at his feet.

“This abomination has gone on long enough,” the Chauntean priestess announced. “In the name of the”

Her oath came to a stop with the sound of a butcher’s blade cutting meat. She staggered forward, gasping for air, and the black firedrake behind her passed into the light. The feral, animal look in his eyes gave even Wenefir pause. He glanced at the younger woman, still glued to the same spot a few steps away. The look of sheer terror on her face made the Cyricist smile.

The older woman began another prayer, but her words gurgled in her own blood. The black firedrake opened its mouth and coughed out a cloud of black mist that enveloped her head. The sound of the priestess’s scream as her head dissolved would stay with Wenefir for the rest of his life. When the headless body dropped to the planks one of the zombies tripped over it and went sprawling facefirst at the younger woman’s feet.

The undead stevedore struggled to its feet and continued on its way to the gangplank and back into the cog’s hold for another crate. Wenefir watched it go then turned to the girl, who was still stuck in place, and stepped close to her.

She looked him in the eye with a look of stern defiance startlingly at odds with the utter terror he’d seen in her eyes scant moments before.

Wenefir looked down at the mace in his hands, glowing with its cold blue light. He held it to her face and when it was close enough to really light her features, the unnatural cold radiating from it made frost spread across her cheek. One of her eyes started to close as her skin tightened, and pain made a tear well up in the other one.

“I’m sorry, Halina,” Wenefir said. “Is that cold?”

She showed him her teeth in a sneer of contempt and said, “Have you stopped toadying around for Pristoleph now, Wenefir? Did my uncle buy you from him?”

Wenefir laughed in her face and said, “Inflae.”

The cold was gone in the blink of an eye and the mace burst into flames. Halina whimpered and, try as she might to back away from the searing heat, she still couldn’t move. A blister began to rise on her already frost-burned cheek.

“You’ve been a bad, bad girl,” Wenefir said. “Your uncle is very disappointed in you.”

Wenefir dropped his hand just a little and touched the flaming mace to the girl’s robes. They caught easily enough and she screamed when the fire touched her soft skin.

“Too bad, really,” Wenefir said, backing away.

“I escaped him!” Halina screamed. “I did more than you!”

Wenefir smiled at that, then stepped out of the way to let a zombie carrying a crate pass by him.

“Yes,” he said to the burning girl, “I suppose you have.”

They waited for her to die before putting her out with water from the Lake of Steam, so as not to burn down the pier. When she’d cooled sufficiently to touch, they pushed her and the older priestess off the end of the pier and into the black water.