The Living Dead

21

"Sorry I didn't do that earlier," Zalyn said apologetically, sounding like her young gnomish self. "It's been a long time since I've cast that spell, I had to study it this morning. And you have to admit this is more dramatic. Gunnivan would have liked it."

Diir/Soveliss's brow raised even higher as his eyes bugged at Zalyn. "I have a family!" he whispered.

"Yes," Zalyn said, inclining her head to Clayn.

"Shocked, shocked, I am," Devis said, and rubbed the knot on the back of his head. "They're nothing-ow-alike."

"Ellyra," Soveliss hissed lividly after a few tortured seconds, "She's, she's not here. And the children. Where are they, elder?"

Mialee was stunned. The familiar, peculiar Silatham accent was there, but a new man inhabited the elf's skin. The ranger-for he could be nothing else, Mialee thought-made an angry move toward the elder cleric.

Zalyn closed her eyes and bowed her head, and Clayn moved to put himself between his apparent ancestor and the little elf.

"They do not walk with the wightlings," Clayn said, placing a hand on Soveliss's shoulder and looking him in the eye. "They all died over a hundred years ago, in the woods north of Silatham." The ranger grimaced. "Wolf attack. Nothing supernatural about it, maybe that's why we didn't expect it." Clayn's gaze narrowed at Zalyn, and it held a hint of the same fire that Soveliss barely held in check. "I was only ten."

"He was the only survivor," Zalyn said sadly. "But it was not a random attack. I fear it was something more. It is tied to the reason our enemy proves nearly indestructible."

"Excuse me, your eldership," Hound-Eye growled, "I've 'destroyed' an elf or two. It don't take a magic elf-sticker. You people bleed like anyone."

Every elf in the room-along with the one bird-frowned at the scruffy little man in bloody furs, even Devis, who had heard all about the halfling's elf-fighting exploits. Clayn actually let his swords clear a full inch of their scabbards.

"Well, I have. You ain't all just about life and goodness, are you? I killed elf bandits what tried to kill me and mine. Any of you'd done the same," Hound-Eye retorted. "And anyway, this feller isn't an elf anymore, is he? He's a bloody wight of some kind. I've killed wights, too." He opened his palms outward. "No magic."

"Hound-Eye, please accept my apologies. The rangers were forced to take action against those who would disturb the Buried One, and your people-"

"Apology, hell! You bloodless sons of kobolds killed any halfling you found more'n a mile outside Tent City," Hound-Eye barked.

Mialee thought he might actually draw his pick, but he simply clenched his fists.

Zalyn darkened and locked her gaze at the little man's good eye with a scowl wholly out of place. "You exaggerate, Hound-Eye. Your people-and many others, I'll grant you-were trying to burrow into the mountain for a cache of riches that never existed," she snapped, jamming her finger in the halfling's face. "We gave up trying to warn your people away hundreds of years ago, and resigned ourselves to killing any who were found before they could become Cavadrec's servants. The loss of every one of those lives wounded me as deeply as the Buried One wounded Ehlonna. I am sorry for your loss. Either do me the courtesy of sparing me your self-pity or restrain yourself. If you cannot do so out of respect for those you claim to have held so dear, you're welcome to take the matter up with the dead of my village."

Hound-Eye blinked and backed down.

Zalyn relented. "You are not to blame for the death of Tent City, halfling, but neither are we. Nor do I blame you for the deaths of any rangers, and I think the others accept that as well. We have all been pawns of circumstance." Hound-Eye reddened, and turned from the rest of them as he began to shake. Zalyn placed a hand on the little man's fur-covered shoulder, whispered a soft prayer, and magically calmed the halfling. As he turned to crouch on the floor, however, Mialee saw that his face was covered in wet tears, though his jaw was clenched. The halfling loudly blew his nose on his sleeve.

"Hound-Eye has a very good point, friends, and is wise," Zalyn continued. "No, most elves do not require magical power to pass into the beyond. Wights are vile horrors created from luckless innocents, but not close to the threat posed by the Buried One.

"Those who choose to follow the divine callings of the clergy usually focus our studies in two or three specific fields of specialty. This ideology varies from believer to believer, but is as common as it is pragmatic. I'm not saying I have laurels from the 'school of Good' or a 'doctorate of herbology.' I specialize, as does the Buried One.

"His first calling is obvious," said Zalyn.

"Death," said Devis.

"Needlepoint," said Mialee. She meant to say "Necromancy."

"Of course. But more perniciously, he uses and even inhabits animals," Zalyn said. "He's obsessed with taking all of Ehlonna's children away from her, and knows that for every creature he corrupts with the living death, the more difficulty Ehlonna has regaining her strength. He still is a blight on her soul."

"We noticed," Hound-Eye said. They'd all become intimately familiar with undead fauna.

"Surprised he hasn't made zombie trees," Devis cracked.

"Before he fell under Nerull's sway, animals and their ways were Cava's primary focus, not trees, mercifully. He mastered methods of moving his consciousness from animal body to elf body and back again. He can split himself into a group of individuals, act as a collective organism or a group of independents, yet retain a powerful, fully conscious presence within a primary body. He turned that power against us, and it made him all the more difficult to destroy. In fact, the body he wore when we confined him beneath Morsilath was the seventh elf-form he had stolen, that we knew of.

"He knew of the existence of the Mor-Hakar, learned of it from his foul spies, but did not reckon your peculiar situation, Soveliss. The attack on your family was part of Cavadrec's effort to capture the weapon before it could be used against him.

"Favrid and I managed to retrieve little Clayn's body before the wolves could, er, consume it," Zalyn gulped, "and I was able to bring him back from the beyond. Not quite as I did with you, Mialee. I have learned much in the intervening years. The boy was weak, but he survived, and has grown to into a strong ranger." Clayn looked at the floor.

"Favrid always believed in redundant protection," Zalyn added with a smirk, "and Cavadrec believed in the permanence and inevitable power of death. Favrid and I underestimated the Buried One, and we must hope he underestimates us as well."

Pell, the elf whose home this was, spoke for the first time. The man’s voice was strident and inflected with something that told the elf woman he would welcome death himself if not for the presence of his family.

"Animals. That's what happened to us. The village was overrun with rats, a swarm of them. They came out all at once. Everyone they bit became a…I don't know what." Pell's soulless lack of emotion reminded Mialee of a clay golem. "I've seen wights, we all have. The rats, they didn't make people into wights. They're worse, they're rotten corpses. They eat anything, including each other. It's something slow. A wight kills you, you become a wight. This . . . you watch someone rot before your eyes. They just leave, and you're left with…you're left.. ."The robed man trailed off and he pulled his thirimin and remaining child close. It was apparent what happened to those bitten by the undead rodents, and equally apparent Pell had seen it happen to his own progeny.

Zalyn frowned. "His creations have certain powers of both wight and zombie-semi-intelligent 'wightlings,' if you will. It's what Favrid called them," Zalyn said. "Like wights, the Buried One's minions can convert a living being into creatures like themselves, but wights must completely kill the living thing to do so. Cavadrec concocted a necromantic technique that causes eventual conversion from a single bite. The victim need not die. However, the effect does take time. Minutes in the worst cases, hours in others."

"The rats went for the Rangers first, while they slept," Clayn said. "They took the barracks completely by surprise. My men and I, and maybe three or four other units, were in the field on patrol or we would have been caught, too. As it is, I am the last ranger in Silatham that I know of." He glanced at Soveliss. "Until now."

Devis turned back to Zalyn, puzzled. "You said you buried this guy, Cadavrink or whoever, in an elf body. But that was no elf we fought on the road. It was a wight. At least, it looked like a wight, but it was far more powerful than any other I've heard of."

"Yes, it is something we feared, but never believed Cavadrec would be mad enough to try. I know not how, but he inhabits a wight body. This is unexpected, and complicates matters even more. Favrid, I think, somehow held out a small belief that when the Buried One finally saw his destruction staring him in the face, our old friend Cava would return to us. But Cava, it appears, is completely gone, having joined the ranks of the undead. I believe he means never to breathe air again. That is why my thirimin is captive now."

Mialee scribbled and handed a note to Devis. "He expected to find either a living elfin a fresh body or an old elfin an old body," the bard read, and added on his own, "but he got jumped by a Cavadnik in a wight body."

Responding to some distant sound only he heard, Clayn turned and pressed his eyes to the slit in the boarded window.

"Elder, I think-"

That was all he managed to say before a fat, oily, hollow-eyed rat wriggled through the crack and scrambled atop the man's golden helm.

Then rats were streaming into the room from every conceivable crevice. Little Nialma, Pell's daughter, screamed. Smoking wightling rodents wriggled around the open flames in the fireplace, forcing Pell's terrified family to stumble to the center of the room. His wife Delia nearly collided with Clayn, who flung the helm off with his left hand and brandished a long sword in the other. Soveliss had both swords out even faster, and he skewered the rat and Clayn's helmet with the Mor-Hakar. Devis scrambled to his feet, knocking his lute to the floor with an atonal clamor of strings as he struggled to free his sword. Hound-Eye nailed a rat to the floor with his pick. Mialee plucked the wand from her belt in a heartbeat. She dared not risk speaking a spell, but she could mentally invoke the missiles in the wand. With her right hand, she drew her rapier and batted at another chittering rodent. Zalyn, as near as Mialee could tell, was doing absolutely nothing but standing like a statue.

Slow, insistent thuds resounded through the little room's weird acoustics. Mialee thought it sounded like a dozen drunks trying to open a tavern after closing time. Several of the boards nailed haphazardly over the round windows snapped, and gray, ragged, half-rotten arms clawed the air inside their sanctuary.

Mialee gritted her teeth, kicking a hollow-eyed rat off her boot with a snarl. The last living people in Silatham tensed for the inevitable intrusion of the walking dead. She held the wand overhead and sent a small missile blast into an unseen body at the end of one of the grasping hands. A scream and flash of flame outside the window testified that she hit her mark.

Zalyn finally moved. The little elf, her back to Mialee, raised the golden symbol of Ehlonna overhead. "Ehlonna hinue, mormhaor shan!" the tiny cleric bellowed in a booming, supernatural voice.

Metallic, gold-flecked, green energy shot in every direction from the holy icon. Mialee felt gentle coolness spread through her body in the hot, confined space.

Every rat in the room burst with a splatter of orange fire and hot gore. They flamed into cinders within seconds, leaving smoldering guts all over the room. An unholy chorus of hideous, rasping shrieks erupted around the tiny little house, and the mangled talons flailing into the room jerked back as one. Many of them, Mialee noted with disgust, left dripping strips of flesh hanging from jagged boards. Even a few clawed hands dropped to the floor and twitched momentarily before flaming out like the rats.

Zalyn turned and faced the wizard. She looked suddenly drawn and frail, and her breathing was heavy and erratic. Still, her eyes twinkled as she spoke.

"I've given you all a lot to take in. There is more, but the night has already gone on far too long. Ehlonna will give us her protection for a few more days. We all need rest. Tomorrow, we can discuss plans."

Mialee retrieved her charcoal and paper, which had fallen to the floor. She scribbled.

"Favrid?" Zalyn asked, and looked like her heart would break. "He knows the Buried One dare not kill him for a few more days. As I said, he has grown very stubborn in his old age. As long as Darji remains, I will know he lives. And as long as Favrid lives, there is hope. Think on that, child. One thing, though."

Mialee nodded.

Zalyn pointed to Mialee's pack, resting under the table. "I'd recommend you meditate, then take time to study and prepare yourself. We will rest, and soon, you will recover you words. You must."

A sober hush fell over their little band of survivors. The only sounds that reached Mialee's ears were of the crackling fire, the bawling of the terrified little girl, the distantly screaming zombies, and the reverberating thuds of Clayn and Soveliss pounding the barricade back into place with the butts of their swords.