Thieves of Blood

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The undead hobgoblins opened their eyes, revealing empty sockets-no, not empty, rather filled with pulsating shadow. Arms that were little more than bone covered by dried parchment-like skin lifted swords, spears, halberds, and war hammers, dark magic supplying the strength their withered muscles couldn’t provide. The goblinoid warriors stepped forth from the stone alcoves where they had stood throughout the long years waiting with the patience that only the dead can know. Leathery lips parted for the first time in centuries as the living corpses let out silent battle cries.

Erdis Cai laughed. “You’ve failed, priest!”

The vampire lord turned his back on them, and still holding onto his sacrificial blade, he stepped closer to the dais where Makala lay staring at him with wide, fear-filled eyes and shaking her head in denial. As if it were an afterthought, he said, “Slay the intruders, my warriors, while I tend to more… pleasant matters.” His teeth drew back from his fangs in a hideous parody of a smile and Makala screamed.

Diran turned to Ghaji.

“Tresslar and I will deal with the goblins,” Ghaji said. “Go save Makala.”

Diran nodded, drew the last wooden dagger from his cloak, and ran for the walkway that crossed over to the dais. Behind him, he heard Tresslar said, “What do you mean we?”

“Be quiet and put that dragon-stick of yours to work, old man!” Ghaji shouted, then Diran heard the sound of clashing metal and he knew the battle had been joined.

“Old?” Tresslar sounded quite affronted, then there came the crackle of released mystic energy as the artificer did as Ghaji advised.

Trusting his companions to take care of the resurrected hobgoblins, which were now striding forth from their alcoves by the dozens, Diran ran across the walkway toward the dais. Erdis Cai leaned over Makala, clearly intending to sink his teeth into her neck and infect her with his vampiric contagion. Though she looked terrified, Makala remained motionless as the vampire lord bent down over her. Diran guessed that Erdis Cai must have placed her in some sort of paralytic state, for such simple bonds as those encircling her wrists and ankles would never have prevented her from fighting otherwise. Diran held his wooden dagger in a tight grip, but Erdis Cai was standing at an angle to him, depriving Diran of a clear shot at the opening in his breastplate. He heard Emon Gorsedd’s voice then.

If you can’t take your best shot, take your second-best.

Diran hurled the wooden dagger at Erdis Cai’s unprotected neck. The blade severed the vampire’s artery as it pierced his undead flesh, and black slime spurted from the wound. Erdis Cai spun around, eyes aflame, fangs bared in a feral snarl. He made no move to withdraw the dagger jutting out of his neck as Diran approached. Instead he raised his own knife, the one formed from the unholy Mark of Vol, and lunged forward to meet Diran’s advance.

Diran stopped and raised his right hand. It was empty at first, but then a glimmer of silvery light appeared. The glimmer burst into brilliant radiance and Diran Bastiaan held the power of the living Silver Flame in his hand.

Erdis Cai broke off his attack and raised an arm to shield his eyes, dropping the sacrificial blade as he did so. The weapon fell into the roiling blood pool, which was slowly draining, its thick crimson liquid flowing up the sides of the pit and into the runnels as it continued to restore life to the hobgoblin army.

“It’s over, Cai!” Diran said. Energy blazed through every fiber of the priest’s being, but there was no pain, only a sensation of strength and Tightness as the Silver Flame did its holy work through him. He was the weapon, and the Silver Flame, which was the power of Life itself, was the hand wielding him. Some called Diran the Blade of the Flame, and that title was never more appropriate than at this very moment. “Surrender, and I promise your destruction will be swift and merciful!”

Erdis Cai cringed from the intense illumination radiating from Diran’s hand, and the priest stepped closer, reaching back into his cloak for a dagger-any dagger-that might end the vampire’s foul existence, but before Diran could locate a suitable blade, Erdis Cai turned and clamped his gauntleted fingers around Makala’s throat.

“Extinguish your light, priest, or I’ll close my hand and pop off her head like the bloom of a dandelion!”

“Don’t-” Makala started to say, but the vampire lord tightened his grip, choking off her voice.

Diran knew what his former lover had intended to say, for he would’ve said the same in her place. Don’t worry about me-kill him! Diran also knew that as a priest of the Silver Flame, it was his sworn duty to destroy creatures like Erdis Cai, regardless of the personal consequences. Diran knew then what he had to do., He closed his fingers around the silver flame burning in his hand, extinguishing it in his fist.

The blinding holy light gone, Erdis Cai released his grip on Makala’s throat and whirled around to face Diran once more. His armored hand lashed out and fastened around Diran’s neck. The priest felt a jolt of freezing cold as the metal came in contact with his skin, and a numbing sensation became to spread outward from his neck into the rest of his body. He felt weary, listless, drained of energy, then he understood what was happening. Erdis Cai’s obsidian armor was enchanted, and the vampire lord was using it to absorb Diran’s lifeforce.

Erdis Cai’s inhuman gaze bored into Diran’s eyes. “You put up a good fight, priest, I’ll give you that much. In fact, it was the most fun I’ve had since I became immortal, but the game’s finished and I’m the victor. Go to your death knowing that your strength will be added to my own, and your woman will join me in the dark glory of undeath. Farewell, Diran Bastiaan.”

Diran caught a flash of orange-red out of the corner of his eye, and Erdis Cai’s head snapped back as Ghaji’s fire axe bit into his skull. The vampire lord screamed as his head burst into flame, and he loosened his grip on Diran’s throat-not much, perhaps, but enough. Diran felt the transference of his lifeforce cease, and he opened his hand to reveal a still-glimmering flicker of the Silver Flame. The flicker grew and lengthened until to became a dagger of pure energy, and then Diran rammed the blade of silver fire through the opening in Erdis Cai’s breastplate.

The vampire lord opened his burning mouth to scream anew, but all that emerged from within was a shaft of bright silvery light. Other shafts burst forth from his eyes, ears, and even his nostrils, the light spreading, merging, until it covered Erdis Cai’s entire body. Diran pulled his empty hand free of the vampire lord’s chest. The silver light dimmed and the flame surrounding Erdis Cai’s head slowly died away as Ghaji’s fire axe deactivated. All that remained of the undead explorer was a suit of armor and an ash-flecked skull with an axe embedded in it. For an instant, the skeletal remains continued standing, as if held upright by the obsidian armor encasing them, then Erdis Cai’s remains collapsed to the walkway, his armor striking the ground with a loud crash.

Diran felt like collapsing himself, but Ghaji shouted, “Do you mind tossing my axe back to me? I could really use it right about now!”

Diran turned to see that Ghaji and Tresslar stood on the walkway, battling the undead warriors as they came one and two and a time. Ghaji was forced to make do with his old axe, hacking off desiccated arms and legs, while Tresslar’s dragonwand had conjured what appeared to be a gaseous reptilian claw from its tip. The claw was solid enough, though, for it gouged out large chunks of undead flesh from one hobgoblin after another. The destruction of Erdis Cai appeared to have had no effect on the undead goblinoids. They continued to fight, and though Ghaji and Tresslar had taken out a number of the creatures, more were being resurrected by the moment.

“Forget the axe!” Tresslar said. “Throw Onkar’s arm into the pool!”

Diran recalled how his poison-coated daggers had affected the Mire, and he thought he knew what the artificer had in mind.

“Do it, Ghaji!” he shouted.

The half-orc dispatched another hobgoblin then raced across the walkway, weaving between more of the undead warriors. He reached Onkar’s severed arm with its bloody, ragged stump and kicked it into the pool. Immediately, the blood remaining in the giant basin turned black, and the ebon color rapidly spread along the upward flowing streams of liquid and down the twenty-five runnels and back into the alcoves where the rest of the hobgoblins waited to be restored to life. A rank stench of rotting meat and sewage wafted from the openings, and a flood of brackish liquid gushed out, flowing back into the basin and filling it almost to the brim once more. Skeletal fragments bobbed in the horrid soup, but they quickly dissolved and were gone.

Diran smiled grimly. Onkar’s arm had poisoned the blood his master had harvested over the course of four decades, destroying those warriors that had yet to be resurrected. Unfortunately, it hadn’t done anything to stop those hobgoblins that had already been reanimated, but at least no more would be replenishing their ranks.

Diran pried Ghaji’s axe out of Erdis Cai’s skull and tossed the weapon to his friend. The half-orc caught the axe easily, and the metal burst into flame once more. Ghaji then returned to doing what he did best-hacking things to pieces. Diran turned, stepped over Erdis Cai’s armor, and went to Makala’s side. With the vampire lord dead, her paralysis had been lifted and she sat up.

“I’d say it was good to see you, but that would a monumental understatement.”

Diran smiled and leaned forward to kiss her. When they parted, Ghaji said, “If you two are finished, Tresslar and I could use a little help over here! Too many remain for us to deal with alone!”

Diran bent down and picked up the wooden dagger that had been embedded in Erdis Cai’s neck. He cut the ropes binding Makala’s wrists and ankles, then offered her the blade.

“No thanks,” she said. “There are plenty of weapons lying around.” This was true; the chamber was littered with mutilated hobgoblin corpses and the weapons they’d wielded. “Nothing personal, but I’d rather use something a bit more substantial than a dagger.”

“Suit yourself,” Diran said. “Ready?”

Makala grinned. “Try and stop me.”

Together they ran down the walkway.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’ve killed enough undead monsters to last me for a while,” Ghaji said.

Ghaji, Diran, Makala, and Tresslar walked through the domed goblinoid city on their way to the dock. They moved cautiously, for while they’d escaped the sacrificial chamber, a number of the undead warriors yet survived and might still prove a threat. So far, it seemed as if the ancient hobgoblins had no intention of leaving the chamber, but they kept careful watch just the same.

“Where is everyone?” Makala asked.

“Hiding,” Diran said, “or perhaps with their master gone, they’ve abandoned Grimwall.”

“There are several passages that lead to the surface,” Tresslar said.

“I take it you don’t want to hunt them down,” Makala said.

“Erdis Cai, Onkar, and Jarlain are dead. The prisoners are free-assuming things went well for Yvka and Hinto-and the Black Fleet is no more,” Diran said. “I think that’s enough for one night, don’t you? I doubt the others will return to Grimwall, and perhaps knowing their master has been defeated will convince them of the folly of worshipping Vol. Perhaps some of them will even cross over to the side of Light.”

“I think you’re being overly optimistic,” Tresslar said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Makala countered. “I can think of a time or two that it’s happened before.”

Diran smiled at Makala and reached out to take her hand, but before their fingers touched, a quartet of naked figures came rushing out of one of the domed buildings in front of them.

“Ghouls!” Ghaji shouted.

The undead cannibals come running toward them, eyes burning with hunger, tongues lolling out of their mouths. Ghaji, Diran, and Tresslar stepped forward to deal with the creatures, Makala still had the sword she’d taken from one of the dead hobgoblin warriors. She reached for it now, intending to help slay the ghouls, but she froze as a horribly distorted voice whispered in her ear.

“Hello.”

A handless forearm pressed against her mouth, and Makala struggled as Onkar pulled her back through the open doorway of another domed building. There, in the darkness, she felt charred lips press against her throat and sharp fangs sink into her neck.