The Living Dead

26

The cart bumped across a rough section of track, and they all tumbled into a pile in the rear of the iron box. Mialee pushed Devis off her with a grunt.

"Devis," Mialee said, her aphasia gone at last. "Stay where you are, I'm going to stand on your back."

"Wait, I can just-" Devis began, but Mialee was already climbing off the floor of the accelerating cart.

She nearly fell over backward as the cart picked up speed, but she caught the very lip of the top and heaved herself up to the edge.

A bowshot behind them, a shouting, cursing elf was coming to rest on the ground. Mialee could tell that he was shouting something at the bird fluttering around his head, but the grinding of the iron wheels drowned out the words. Darji spiraled around the elf then flew like a shot back in Mialee's direction.

She heard three grunts of exertion from her left and watched as Soveliss kicked and vaulted up from the floor of the rocking, bounding cart to land on his feet next to her. The man’s balance was uncanny.

"Terrible view," Soveliss muttered, then shouted down the tunnel at the man who was his last, tenuous link to the past. "Clayn! Stay there, we'll come back for you!"

Clayn cupped a hand to his mouth to reply, but immediately flung the hand out as a fat, oily rat, which Mialee could see clearly even at this distance, floated down and settled on his shoulder.

"Soveliss! Go! I'll hold them off as long as I can!" the ranger's voice boomed back at them as more and more furry wightling rodents setlled around him.

Mialee gasped involuntarily when she saw wightling elves, groaning and smoldering, float down behind the rats.

Soveliss looked as if he wanted to jump from the cart and run back to aid his imperiled kin. Darji cawed as she reached the cart.

"No, Soveliss! You must go ahead!"

Soveliss threw a salute down the hall.

Clayn, hacking into a pair of descending gray legs, caught the salute and returned it. More and more burning, writhing creatures fell slowly down, and he chopped them all to bits as they came. As the cart rolled on, Mialee saw that many of the squirming pieces were still on fire. Clayn chopped into a vaguely man-shaped mass of flame and one landed atop the stacked kegs of blasting powder.

Fire. Blasting powder.

"Oh, no," Mialee whispered.

"And I've got another thing to say, Cava," Favrid said from his shackled, spread-eagled place on the stone wall. "You never did find the secret of the tomb. I did. You're a coward." He laughed bitterly. "The Buried One. That name's too good for you. We should have called you the Incompetent One."

The elf-turned-wight leaped from his rough-hewn deknae throne and hissed into the old man's bruised, bleeding face.

"Don't ever call me by that name, deceiver!" the wight snarled viciously, jabbing his hooked finger into the old man's eye.

Favrid screamed pitiably, and Cavadrec heard something pop. A thin line of green ooze drooled down his chin. He had not tasted his favorite treat in days. He opened one finger and carefully hooked the ruined orb with one razor-sharp claw, expertly severing the optic nerve without damaging the brain. Well, not too much. The old wizard only had to be alive. Nothing in the incantations required an intelligent, or even lucid, sacrifice, only that it must be blood that was spilled on the battlefield of Morkeryth, or the spell would fail.

In a very short time, Favrid's blood would fill the unholy chalice now resting on Cavadrec's trophy shelf. It would blend with a specially prepared mixture of arcane and divine magical components. Cavadrec would drink deeply of the concoction, and the dead would rise at his command.

He had never thirsted so, but timing was crucial. It would happen soon.

He pulled his morsel from the old wizard's eye socket with a pop, and was rewarded with another delectable scream. The wight popped the treat into his mouth and thrust his face in front of the old man's jaw. The empty socket bled profusely, but supernatural senses told Cavadrec his old enemy still had plenty of the stuff left inside him. And he was so hungry. The blood-covered eye was an excellent appetizer for the main course.

Two pinpricks of red light flashed in Cavadrec's empty sockets. He cocked his head to one side like a cat examining an insect it knows cannot escape, and stared into Favrid's remaining eye. The old man stared back, defiantly, but whimpered with agony.

Cavadrec extended the clawed pinky of his left hand and popped it into the soft jelly. The old fool screamed again. It was dinner music to the wight's wrinkled, pointed ears.v

Mialee landed in Devis's lap.

Her eyes were wide. "Blasting powder! Fire! Duck!" She covered her head, and they all did the same.

Devis felt and heard the boom in equal portions. A searing shock wave struck the back of the cart and pushed it even faster down the tunnel

Mialee pressed her forehead against his chest, but Devis realized she wasn't just looking for a shoulder to cry on. Flaming debris was thundering down the tunnel behind them. He put one arm around Mialee's shoulder and covered his head with his free arm just moments before the flames washed overhead. The heat was incredible, and cinders and small pieces of burning powder rained around them. Devis patted his hair, and Mialee's wild strands, putting out tiny sparks.

A hissing, clattering noise grabbed his attention.

"The treasure!" the bard shouted, a mix of warning and grief.

He pulled Mialee down even further, curling her into a corner and smashing his own body atop hers. He hoped the others were doing the same, because there was no time to do anything else.

Molten metal-the treasure that would never make Devis rich-spattered in softened, ingot-sized chunks all around them. Hound-Eye screamed, and Soveliss snarled in pain. Devis stifled a cry as two thumb-sized points of searing pain struck his back. He wriggled, trying to shake the piece free, but dared not pull off the smoldering vest because it was his only protection. And he was Mialee's only protection. Sizzling metal would pass right through the open latticework of her athelwood armor. Devis dared not move much, even when a third chunk of metal seared into the heel of his boot.

The bard did not have the power to shield them all, but he could ensure that he and Mialee, at least, had a little extra protection. He dragged a tune from his frantic brain and felt the song-spell wrap their bodies in a coat of magical armor. The molten shrapnel on his back and heel stopped sizzling, but the pain of the burns remained. He gritted his teeth and for the first time in his life, said a prayer to Fharlanghn that was completely and utterly sincere.